Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
This is version two of the blog, which currently contains 133 published posts. To some extent, this blog represents the creative excesses of a design enthusiast who is somewhere in the process of applying to grad school, working at a law firm and resides in the Financial District of New York City.
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The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, recently released a report depicting the luxurious lives of our nation’s poor — not surprising, considering the current debate over welfare programs and the national debt.
The general gist of the report is that while 1 in 7 households are considered poor (e.g. living on under $11,161 for a single person or $21,954 for a family of four), the poor in America don’t have it so bad — they often have “luxuries” such as refrigerators or cars. Furthermore, other media outlets reporting on the data have thought fit to compare these statistics to global statistics on poverty which make our poor seem almost wealthy in comparison.
There is no question that the welfare system in America is far from perfect. Without a doubt, there are abuses of the system, people who still fall through the cracks, etc. etc. — but just as we don’t simply abolish laws that are imperfect or we don’t scrap tax provisions that don’t entirely accurately capture their goals, the answer should in no case be to get rid of or cripple these programs that so many people depend upon. From John Henry Newman: “A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault. ”
For starters, crippling welfare programs is extremely short sighted. The problem for many of these people is that they have no safety net. For almost anyone I know, there were times when they have to borrow a few hundred or a few thousand dollars from mom and dad to help get them to a better place or to ward off an emergency which would leave them much worse off. By taking away the measly safety net that the poor have would be to introduce more people to disease, death and crime. Furthermore, the lives that the poor live tend to be extremely precarious. For someone who is employed at minimum wage and with a cheap apartment and a car, for example, an emergency leads to losing your car, leads to not going to work, leads to unemployment and by the time you get another job you’ve missed three paychecks so now you’re evicted and you end up finding a place to sleep with a voucher except the place is (almost always) unsafe so now your stuff is stolen and the problems accumulate even more from there.
Even for those that don’t end up running into emergencies, having a refrigerator and microwave is a necessity when eating out is not an option. Having a car is a necessity in order to have a job when you have to take whatever job you can get and you need to find a way to get to that job so you don’t get fired — especially when many cities and residents of those cities insist upon finding ways to separate low-income housing into the far reaches of the city so that it’s far away from where they work and live, even though they need the services of the people who can only afford that type of housing. Having a cell phone is a necessity nowadays given that there are no pay phones and if you don’t have stable housing it makes more sense than trying to set up a land line, and many things such as applying to jobs or to welfare programs or anything else really have people who need to be able to reach you somehow. Why do we want to wait until people don’t have the basic necessities to be fit to hold jobs in order to qualify them as being poor and in need of welfare? Isn’t it socially beneficial to assist them before they hit that point so they don’t simply become solely a drain on society and more likely turn to crime?
Furthermore, simply having a few non-essential possessions does not mean that their lives are not extremely difficult. For many, they’ve had ups and downs and, again, the problem is that they don’t have a safety net to catch them when they are down. So, to the extent that they have accumulated something that is non-essential (news reports go on and on about how some percentage have Xboxes — what is that worth, like $5-20?) does not mean that when they hit a low that they don’t need help, and furthermore it does not mean that it wouldn’t be socially ideal to provide welfare assistance.
For those that are unemployed, judging them is unfair. I know plenty of people with college degrees and no jobs; can’t even imagine how tough it could be if you have no degree, haven’t graduated from high school or have a criminal record of any sort. Even with a college degree and work experience, last year I spent some time applying to retail jobs (long story) and came up empty. The main thing that separates the unemployed on welfare from the unemployed with a fancy car and LV bag is the safety net that your parents and family provide.
Embracing the idea that not all our poor are homeless and living in rags means that they are not poor enough to bother with is simply a bad idea — we should be glad that we have been able to ward off abject poverty that would be even more draining on society and lead to more crime. Preventing problems is almost always less expensive than fixing problems that have already happened. Insurance companies know this which is why preventative care is almost always covered at a higher rate than other types of care — so why would we not apply basic business principles to our economy? It’s a common problem with any type of programs with a preventative component that critics will use any successes — however small — to attack the existence of the program. Environmental protection laws, rules regarding vaccines, and so on and so forth all are met with these criticisms. Still, it’s shocking that even as homelessness and unemployment rises steadily that people have the gall to depict poverty as being less of a problem.
I should also add that the comparison with global poverty is disingenuous. It costs more to live in America, duh. To the extent that our poor have “luxuries” such as clean water, it certainly does not mean that they are living it up nor does it mean that our welfare programs are generous beyond a point that is socially ideal.
Mostly, I just think it’s one thing to believe that it’s okay to live the best life you can even when others have it worse off and A WHOLE OTHER THING to live that type of life and then point to people who are so much worse off than you and make assumptions about how luxurious their life must be.
I had no problem with Professor Todd Henderson’s argument earlier this year that it should not be assumed that a household making over $400,000 a year would not have to make cuts if they were taxed at a higher rate. While the way he made the argument made a lot of people angry (e.g. making it personal), I thought it was worth introducing into the debate on taxes, even if I don’t think it should be determinative. In other words, I think it’s a legitimate concerns, but there are other legitimate concerns that may be and are likely greater.
I also had no problem with people in my classes making arguments about how “fairness” shouldn’t matter and that distributive justice should play no part in policy discussions — I only had a problem when those same people created a big fuss later about how it was “unfair” that they did not get free sandwiches at lunch and when they decried the free-food-giving mechanisms of the law school that resulted in their not being one of the 50 or so people to get free Jamba Juice. You would think that “unfairness” of that situation would make them realize why it is problematic that people born into a low socio-economic status or are discriminated against have disadvantages that we might want to correct, but I guess not.
Anyway, things are going well in general, but sometimes I read things and they make me sad.
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As always, I’m not able to discuss my internship. Surprisingly, the place I’m at now has even stricter rules about this sort of thing than the law firm I was working at before. Go figure. But it’s good, the work is good, the people are good. And we’ll leave it at that.
Instead, I’ll talk about Los Angeles in general. The weather is so perfect it almost makes me wish I’d chosen another law school. Almost. Also, I had a celebrity sighting the first weekend I was here — it was Paul Dano at Katsuya in Studio City. It was actually Harry and his friend who recognized him; I had no clue but whatever. Oh, and I live a street away from a Jamba Juice, which is one of my favorite things. Yay.
Mostly, I’ve been reading a lot now that all law school stuff is completely done. I first read some fluffy stuff such as Mini-Shopaholic and some mysteries, but now that my brain feels rested again I’m reading Robert Graves’ I, Claudius, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and I’m almost done with The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I was recommended Thirteenth by a roommate of mine four years ago and haven’t had a chance to get to it until now. So far I like it a lot. It’s definitely a book for book lovers.
Oh, one of the head honchos in my office mentioned to everyone that he really excited to go see Neil Gaiman talk — the co-author of Good Omens, which is in my top 5 of books and is the book I recommend to people the most — and I really wanted to commiserate with him about how awesome the book is since it’s not often I find people who have read it, but couldn’t without sounding like a total suck-up to everyone else. That crushed my spirit a little.
Still, all in all, things are good. The biggest gripe I have about my life here thus far is that I don’t have internet at my place since it’s still getting fixed and it sucks and is making my life difficult.
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Being friends with Ali may very well be one of the best things that has ever happened to my life given that I now have access both to the Google Music beta and, more importantly, the Google+ beta.
My first thought about Google Plus is that I like the privacy options more than Facebook. Facebook is sort of inscrutable in that you’re never quite sure if your privacy is going to appear the way you want it to unless you do a lot of checking — I actually have an extra account I use specifically to check to make sure my privacy settings are the way that I want them to be, which really shouldn’t be necessary — and Google+ does a better job of giving you options at the right places and telling you upfront who’s able to view what. No surprises about privacy and what’s being shown to whom is definitely the way to go.
Secondly, I like the interface more than I thought it would. It runs smoother and is easier to navigate than Facebook. It’s very user friendly, and dragging and dropping existing contacts into your circles is fun. Given that no one uses it yet (it was given a limited outside release just today), I’ll have to hold off on commenting on some of the functionality since I haven’t really fully seen it in action yet. I’m hesitant to post anything such as photos or whatnot since they make very clear that the beta is susceptible to hiccups, and especially given how searchable anything associated with Google is, I’m not looking to have my random photos strewn across the internet.
Other random thoughts — so far the Sparks functionality does nothing for me (info about subjects you’re interested in) since it’s too general as is to want to get that info from there. I really like their incorporation of the +1 thing however (similar to “liking” on Facebook except I like that it all appears in one “tab” as opposed to being incorporated into your profile) and I’m interested to see what they end up doing with it.
One minus for the service may end up being that it doesn’t require reciprocal adding of people. Meaning that I can add you to my circle of people and you can just ignore me. I’m not sure if the friend count is going to appear somewhere at some point, but if it’s anything like how twitter has played out, it seems to indicate there’s going to be a lot of people that become very preoccupied with having a good following to followers ratio (good meaning that a lower ratio is better). This could potentially lead people to want to stick to Facebook for their social media needs.
I think part of the reason Facebook has grown so rapidly is precisely because “friending” people is mutually beneficial to both parties — e.g. both have more “friends” and more access to information and a bigger network. To the extent that you give people incentives not to friend people, it’s probably a bad thing with regards to growth of the product. While this is offset by the fact that most people are already in the Google network, I still think if I have two options and in one of them I have more limited access to people and information, I’d be inclined to use the larger network more. I also think finding out you have mutual friends with someone — even if it’s just an acquaintance — is one of the best parts of Facebook, and a smaller network would serve to lessen that benefit.
I think the biggest plus for Google+ is that I have a lot of faith in their programming abilities and in their ability to grow Google+ more effectively than Facebook has done. Google is much better at providing options and functionality than Facebook, I think. There’s some obvious things that would make a transition easier such as importing your account from Facebook (I hope Facebook doesn’t de-activate the option that lets you download your information in response) which I assume will eventually be incorporated. Anyway, these are my thoughts. I’ll update as it goes along.
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So, in their latest advertising for the new version of the nook, Barnes & Noble is employing a David and Goliath reference wherein they are David and Amazon’s Kindle is supposedly Goliath — really, guys?? David and Goliath? Considering the number of times they’ve put small, independent bookstores out of business, this smacks of some pretty cold, hard irony.
Personally, I like Barnes & Noble and have no moral qualms with large companies so long as their business practices do not edge on outright coercion or unfairly anti-competitive behaviors. That being said, I really do think Barnes & Noble is one of the last companies that should be using such allusions. I mean, I get that it’s also about the size of the devices, but it just sounds silly.
Anyway, I’ll chalk this up to an advertising fail. But I just had to point this out because seeing the ad first thing this morning literally made me laugh and get water all over the place.
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It occurs to me that my last few posts have largely consisted of me criticizing things, which is unpleasant, which is why I should note that despite it being the final stretch and despite being ridiculously stressed out and busy and studying in 8-to-12-hour stretches, I still love my law school and my 1L class, which says a lot about UChicago, I think.
The students in my class, despite also being stressed and busy, are still supportive and even fun to be around. We had a great first exec board meeting for the Intellectual Property Law Society where we discussed all the events we wanted to plan for next year. My 1L section this year easily had the best Bigelow fellow (a couple other sections claim the same thing, but unlike me they’re wrong). And while I may be biased, I do think that UChicago’s general way of teaching law is almost precisely the right balance of theory and practicality. I had an amazing group lunch with Professor Nussbaum, a woman who was a pioneer in her field, earlier this week. And Professors Strahilevitz and Levmore — I am definitely looking forward to taking more classes with them.
On our last day, Strahilevitz told us that if he had billions of dollars he would still teach 1L property which was just about the cutest thing ever and it made me feel all sniffly (I then imagined him teaching our class with a pimp hat, fur coat and gold chains, so that helped). I really don’t think you’ll find a class of kids who are fonder of their professors than us, even as these same people are in the process of crushing our souls and depriving us of our ability to function properly, thanks to finals. And I’m not saying this just because I’m some great mood. Let me be clear about this: finals blow. I’m subsisting on popsicle sticks, gum, granola bars and weird combinations of whatever is left in my refrigerator, as in: eggs + mustard + a hot-dog bun? I’ll take it!
But in all seriousness, I think the main thing I like about the professors and students is that the common view I hold about people is that I don’t agree with all their views, but I like hearing what they have to say. In fact, I’ve found that I have some fundamental points of dissension in different capacities with everyone, but I still love talking to them and it has easily made this experience worthwhile. I mean, having a job at graduation would also be key, but I’ll worry about that when the time comes closer.
It’s been a stressful year, for sure. And I’ve definitely had my fair share of set-backs and frustrations. But a lot of the stuff that guidebooks and stuff mention when you’re looking at schools — e.g. worrying about the quarter system, transportation, amenities — really are trivial when you like and are learning from the people around you. I think if I could give prospective students one piece of advice in choosing between similar school is that you should just try to get a feel for if you like the people and trust your gut. (I say similar schools because rankings/grants/job opportunities matter, unfortunately.) I spent a lot of time debating and making extensive excel spread sheets to compare schools, but I think I always knew I’d end up here because I liked the people I’d met from UChicago, and I liked the ideas the school embodied.
Speaking of the quarter system, it means that we finish later than almost everyone and reading these “I’m done!!!” posts on facebook for the past few weeks has been brutal. I wish I could filter them because they are killing me. I am happy for you, but I’d be happier if we were both done.
Oh, one final “also”, I hoped the ABA would just do something, but as a backup then it’s probably good that someone finally sued one of the many law schools that give false or intentionally misleading employment statistics. I wish you all the best, and I will think of your class action as I outline Rule 23 tomorrow. Back to work.
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I’m taking a break from finals studying because of this crock of you-know-what from Shira Ovide of the Wall Street Journal. Ovide contends that Linkedin’s valuation is crazy because if Apple had a similar price-to-revenue ratio, it would be worth 3 trillion. While this isn’t factually false, it’s just a dumb comparison to make. Either Ovide is a little bit stupid or is engaging in intellectually dishonest journalism in order to be able to write flashy headlines.
My favorite comment in this story is the one where someone says “i could probably write a better article if i was drunk and high.” Yup.
Why is this ratio (P/R) a silly comparison? After all, P/E is one of the most-used ratios to look at in valuating companies and P/R is similar. Basically, the idea is that a company’s valuation (our P) should reflect current and future earnings, which is what the price is derived from. As such, the current revenue (that’s the R) and especially current earnings (E) should not be completely divorced from it. So, Finance 101 tells us that overly-high ratios means a company is “over-valued” and over-low ratios means a company is “under-valued.” But this is too simplistic.
(Side note: Also, the general practice is definitely and for good reason to look at P/E – price to earnings, not P/R, but I think the P/E ratio is so high at this point that I think she even realized that using words like “quatrillion” in headlines sounds like some sort of joke.)
Apple and Linkedin are companies at very different stages of their growth. Linkedin is tiny and immature — they literally just started turning a profit this year. If managed correctly, it will grow much more. It made a little over 15 million last year, which is practically negligible. Apple, on the other hand, is a huge company that is basically at maturization. To compare their P/R ratios is like having a precocious 14-year-old science fair winner and a NASA scientist take a test on astrophysics and then using their scores to determine their future academic potential (without taking into consideration age or experience). It’s just silly.
Linkedin, at it’s current price, reflects a $8 billion valuation. To compare, Apple is currently valued at $300 billion. So, despite Ovides’ silly headlines, the market does realize that Linkedin is a much smaller, much riskier company. Making the argument that a $8 billion valuation still is on the higher side is understandable and probably even right, but flashing around numbers like “3 trillion” and making it sound like it’s being valued higher than Apple or the GDP of the United States is incredibly intellectually dishonest.
In short, if you were going to look at ratios, earnings is more important than revenue. But even apart from that, focusing on either the P/E and P/R is not a great idea. The revenues of Linkedin as a point of comparison just have no meaning at this point because it’s not really a good reflection of it’s potential value. Only when the company has had a little time to mature does it mean anything. Going even further and comparing Linkedin’s ratios with a very large, mature company is idiotic.
The reason I’m calling this bad journalism is because if you know anything about finance, what I just detailed out here is really not very high level and is plainly obvious to anyone with a basic finance education. They for sure should know better. The Wall Street Journal is betraying the public’s trust in publishing this bullshit. But Ovides knows that Linkedin’s IPO is the big news of the moment and the Journal wants to have the catchiest headline — so, who cares about journalistic integrity, right?
Of course, maybe I’m being too harsh. They might all just be idiots.
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In a rather appalling turn, students peacefully protesting the treatment and compensation of the campus food service workers were arrested last night during a sit-in on the campus quad. The students were calling upon campus administrators to end Emory’s contract with Sodexo, contractor for Emory’s food services — a company that “has been identified by several independent human rights organizations as systematically violating the rights of its workers” (according to the Wheel). This decision to brute force the students into compliance is upsetting, but sadly unsurprising.
 I graduated from Emory’s undergraduate business school in 2008. During my time there, I was actively involved in numerous student organizations including the campus newspaper, student government, APO (a service fraternity), the choral program and other groups. Despite giving my all and pouring everything I could into that school, I found at each turn Emory’s administration to be caustic and resistant to any contrary opinions. (A important exception would be the largely separate business school which has an amazing and supportive administration.)
Emory is a school with great financial resources, touting a lofty mission of dedication to “service to humanity” — that is tragically run by small-minded people, cowering in their mediocrity. They’re people who were designed for middle-management, and they’re breeding a student body that will only succeed in spite of their efforts. For all the lip-service that public service gets, in the end, Emory caters to pragmatism, nepotism and complacency. They pander to improving the rankings instead of the school itself, a short-sighted and ultimately doomed endeavor.
I walked into the offices of our school newspaper during my sophomore year one morning to discover that the school’s administration had forced the General Manager of our school newspaper to resign because of internal disagreements, and she was no longer allowed on campus. As someone who was personally close to Eileen and had been both inspired and mentored by her, I found it to be an extremely disturbing and demoralizing event. Similar, though less dramatic events, littered my various experiences at Emory. Small-scale corruption breeds large-scale disenchantment. I entered Emory as an idealist, lost it, and have struggling to regain my idealism ever since.
The problem is, everyone knows. The apathy in the student body is palpable. School spirit is non-existent. Deep down, students want college to be an idealistic and inspiring experience. Instead, they find a school that is more concerned with public image than the true pursuit of knowledge or a serious dedication to service. But kids shrug it off, and drink away their college years instead, or they resign to play the game, learning the lesson that mediocrity — supported by connections and financial resources — can get you far enough with minimal effort.
 I’m not surprised in the least that Emory, once ranked #9 in its hey-day has now fallen and is struggling to stay #20. What Emory doesn’t understand is that you can only dress up a turd for so long before people start to notice its stench. If you want people to think you value knowledge and dedication to service, YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO DO IT. Until Emory truly commits to these ideas in a substantive way, it will never be the great university it so desperately, desperately wants to be. The students who are great, who will someday be great, are searching for inspiration and encouragement of their potential. They’ll pass up Emory’s pretty facade for a school that speaks to their ideas and values in an honest way. Instead, we’ll continue to attract more and more pragmatic, small, over-privileged students who will never bring Emory the national recognition it clearly craves and needs in order to attract other potentially great students.
Crushing the spirit of your student body will not breed courageous students who will inspire others. You’ll get more self-centered children, living off trust funds and getting plush, but ultimately unimportant jobs through connections. Administrators that spend all their time fighting their students will push away and demoralize those who might have been catalyzed to achieve more.
I recall a casual lunch towards the end of my junior year with the Director of Student Activities where I brought up a hypothetical scenario of the newspaper becoming independent from the school, like many collegiate newspapers (Yale Daily News, Stanford Daily, etc.) — where I was brusquely informed that the university would not tolerate “renegade” organizations and would take legal action were we to use Emory’s name.
I’m not going to engage in an assessment of whether or not administrators were legally in the right in arresting the students. Even as a law school student, I would still tell you that the law can only take you so far. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I learned this in second grade.
Until Emory begins to embody the ideas it parrots, Emory will never get a cent from me, and I would never allow my children to attend. Today and many days, I’m ashamed to call Emory my alma mater.
The AJC article on the arrests is here.
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