Kruse Kronicle

Female entrepreneurs and the 'lifestyle business'

Christian Science Monitor: Female entrepreneurs and the 'lifestyle business'

Across the country, women now make up more than 40 percent of all entrepreneurs as well.

While the number of women choosing an entrepreneurial career path is approaching that of their male counterparts, the factors that motivate or drive female entrepreneurs are often quite different.

Erin Albert, who is both an entrepreneur and a teacher of entrepreneurs, explores the question of what motivates female entrepreneurs in her newly published book, Single. Women. Entrepreneurs.

"Women, especially Generations X and Y, want to make their business and personal lives and aspirations work more in harmony," Albert said. Because of this, they choose to limit the size of their businesses and not pursue outside funding from investors or loans to fuel more growth.

This approach to entrepreneurship is referred to as pursuing "a lifestyle business." ...

Is There Real Competition Between Universities?

David Leonhardt writes:

...If someone asked your grandparents 50 years ago to name the country’s best colleges, they would have come up with a list that looks very much like the list you’d come up with today. Can you think of any other industry in which that’s the case?

Or go back only to 1983, the year the U.S. News college rankings began, and compare the stability in that ranking with the turnover in the Fortune 500 since then. The top of the 1983 Fortune 500 is filled with companies that don’t exist today (Texaco, Nabisco, Beatrice) or that have been humbled (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Xerox). See Tyler Cowen for more on this point.

It’s hard to look at this picture and conclude that higher education is a bastion of intense competition. ...

Interesting point.

China Catches Up to1878 U.S.

From Carpe Diem

Are Prepaid Debit Cards Bad for Teens?

US News Money: Are Prepaid Debit Cards Bad for Teens?

With two teenagers in the house, my wife and I spend a considerable amount of time discussing family finances. And for this reason, a recent article by Sheryl Nance-Nash caught my attention. In the article she argues that prepaid debit cards are a bad idea for teenagers. Our children do not carry a prepaid card, but it’s something I’ve given a lot of thought.

So we put together a list of factors to consider if you are thinking about a prepaid card for your teenager. ...

Interesting advice.

Unions and Catholic Social Teaching

Acton PowerBlog: Unions and Catholic Social Teaching

... Baird articulates that unions are fully endorsed by Catholic social teaching and are justified on the grounds of freedom of association.  ...

... However, while the right to unionization is supported by freedom of association, there are parameters under Catholic social teaching that unions should follow.

Baird further explains papal views concerning unions and how those have designed the current viewpoint regarding unions.  According to Baird, Libertas, and encyclical written by Leo XIII on the nature of human liberty in the Catholic thought, expresses that:

…liberty requires being free to choose and this freedom of making choices is the essence of free will.  This implies, for example, that in the market for representation services, workers should have alternatives from which to choose, including self-representation.

Later in Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII declares that workers must have the freedom to choose not to associate with unions whose actions are not consistent with the Catholic teaching, and, based on the freedom of association and the principle of voluntary exchange, compulsory unionism is forbidden by the Church. ...

Missional is the “coin of the realm” but we don’t all agree on its “value.” (PCUSA)

It Takes a Church: Missional is the “coin of the realm” but we don’t all agree on its “value.”  Tod Bolsinger

... And in essence I want to ask:  Can we agree on these two points so that we may begin to move on to others that are in need of further consideration?

•    Mission determines structure.
•    The congregation is both primary to and insufficient for mission.

In one sense these points should be easy to agree upon.  They are from our New Form of Government and both express thoughts from the current Form of Government.  But before assuming that we are all in agreement (the Nfog is, of course, up for debate), I’d like to ask:

First, do we agree that MISSION, specifically, the Mission of the Triune God expressed for the whole world determines the forms and structures of the church? It’s first God’s mission, not ours.  It’s first God’s mission, not the church’s, not the denomination, not even the individual Christian.  The Mission of God revealed in Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to redeem and renew all of creation determines our structure.  Can we agree on that?  Do we also agree that when the MGB Commission considers “models” from Middle Governing bodies, the primary consideration should be whether the proposed structures further the Mission of the Triune God in the world today and not any political, personal, institutional, traditional, historical, organizational, economic or societal aim?  Can we stipulate this?

Second, do we agree that the congregation IS the basic form of mission, and thereby the basic form of church?  Do we agree that the congregation in its particular contexts is the foundational and primary place where the MISSION of GOD engages the need of the world?  The congregation (and not the denomination nor the individual) is the foundational, first line engagement of God to the world. 

Third, do we also agree at the very same time, that the congregation in and of itself is NOT sufficient as the church?  That in order to fulfill the mission of God, we need more than congregations?  We need forms and structures of SOME kind beyond the congregation. We need them to witness to the unity of the church, to engage in mission in ways that are beyond the scope or ability of a local congregation, for discernment, for learning, for leadership development and calling and perhaps a few other things that support and strengthen the mission of the congregation. ...

Bless you Tod Bolsinger for the fine work you are doing in moderating the MGB Commission. Here are Tod's two previous installments from "the observation deck."

Observation #1: For Presbyterians, the Process IS the Product.
Observation #2:  Almost everybody agrees that something has to change.

Collective Bargaining is a Power not a Right

Econolog: Collective Bargaining is a Power not a Right

... Almost everyone on both sides of the debate uses the term "collective bargaining rights" to mean the right of a union to bargain with an employer who must, by law, bargain in good faith. It also includes the right of a union to negotiate even for employees who don't want to be members of the union and don't want to pay dues to the union. So "collective bargaining rights" really mean the power to force others--to pay the dues and/or to join the union and/or to give up their power to negotiate with an employer. So the alleged right is really the "right" to monopolize the supply of labor to an employer. That's a phony right, not a real right. It's really a power.

Interestingly, even many economists who defend union monopoly power, recognize that it is monopoly power. Harvard economists and union defenders Richard Freeman and James Medoff, for instance, wrote, "Most, if not all, unions have monopoly power, which they can use to raise wages above competitive levels." ...

Ecellent point. Unions keep wages high by excluding people from being able to compete for jobs union members hold. That may be great for union members but not so hot for those who are beyond the quota of workers unions will allow. The fact is, however, that protesting the loss of your "human monoploy powers" just doesn't have the same punch as protesting a loss of "human rights." ;-)

Agnostics for Pacifism

Econolog: Agnostics for Pacifism

A striking observation from my childhood friend Ghassan Bridi:

Had we never invaded Iraq, we may have seen the people of Iraq today take to the streets and topple a despotic dictator in the second most populous Arab country on this planet... and not one American life would have been lost, no where near 1 million Iraqi lives lost, not one dollar spent, and AT LEAST a fourth of our national debt would have been non-existent. ...

Are they right to claim credit?  I don't know - and neither do they.  The hard truth is that predicting the effects of war is extremely difficult. ...

... By itself, I freely admit, extreme uncertainty is a double-edged sword.  The consequences of war might be worse than you thought; they might be even better.  But as I've argued in my common-sense case for pacifism, pacifists just need to add the weak moral premise that "before you kill innocent people, you should be reasonably sure that your action will have very good consequences."  This plausible premise, combined with the uncertainty of foreign affairs, creates an almost insurmountable presumption against war. ...

Agnosticism and humilty in the face of extreme uncertainty applies not only to war and nation building. It also applies to a host of other things, like directing national economies or managing climate change. In cases with considerable risk and uncertainty, prudence is frequently preferable to either inaction or radical change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comparing Chinese provinces with countries

Economist: All the parities in China

Which countries match the GDP, population and exports of Chinese provinces?

(Go to the website to see the interactive version of this map.)

Young People Say Sex, Paychecks Come in Second to Self-Esteem

Ohio State Research: Young People Say Sex, Paychecks Come in Second to Self-Esteem

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Young people may crave boosts to their self-esteem a little too much, new research suggests.

Researchers found that college students valued boosts to their self-esteem more than any other pleasant activity they were asked about, including sex, favorite foods, drinking alcohol, seeing a best friend or receiving a paycheck.

“It is somewhat surprising how this desire to feel worthy and valuable trumps almost any other pleasant activity you can imagine,” said Brad Bushman, lead author of the research and professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University. ...

... “American society seems to believe that self-esteem is the cure all for every social ill, from bad grades to teen pregnancies to violence,” he said.  “But there has been no evidence that boosting self-esteem actually helps with these problems.  We may be too focused on increasing self-esteem.”

Study co-author Crocker added, “The problem isn’t with having high self-esteem; it’s how much people are driven to boost their self-esteem.  When people highly value self-esteem, they may avoid doing things such as acknowledging a wrong they did. Admitting you were wrong may be uncomfortable for self-esteem at the moment, but ultimately it could lead to better learning, relationships, growth, and even future self-esteem.”

 

What is Ministry?

Ministry (diakonia) is service. Who determines what is service? The one being served. God calls, we serve. ANYTHING done in service to God is ministry. Here is how I see it.

Human Vocation – In Genesis 1 and 2, we find a call to exercise dominion, a call that is reiterated in various ways throughout Scripture, to function as God’s stewards, to bring the earth to its fullness. That includes our individual initiatives as well the social structures we create to accomplish this mission.

Christian Vocation – We are baptized into the Kingdom of God. We are called at baptism to carry on the redemptive work Christ initiated with his earthly ministry: telling the good news, caring for poor, healing the sick, seeking justice, generally pursuing shalom, inviting others into the Kingdom.

Personal Vocation – Human vocation and Christian vocation shaped by my particular set of abilities, experiences, and passion. (Distinct from an occupation, which I’d say is a particular application of personal vocation to our particular context for economic survival. Personal vocation is more encompassing than an occupation.)

The church tends to collapse “ministry” into activities that correspond directly with Christian vocation. Some will say they left the corporate world to enter “full-time ministry.” Acts of preaching and evangelism (Evangelical world) and acts of social justice (Mainline world) are seen as “ministry.” Daily life is merely a platform for executing acts of “ministry” as directed by ecclesial professionals. Daily work unrelated to these ends has no intrinsic value (though they may have a derivative value in providing incomes that generate offerings that allow for the continuation of “ministry.”)

To be clear here, we ARE all called to redemptive works of evangelism and justice. But the work in our daily lives is ministry every bit as much as redemptive work is. I’m rejecting a dichotomy in favor of an inextricable intertwining. Ministry is ANY work done in response to God’s call.

Who does the ministry?

Jesus Creed: Who does the ministry?

Two contacts in less than twenty-four hours pressed me to write this post. One the post yesterday by RJS and the other a tweet by Frank Viola. Both of these contacts led my mind back to 1973, near Brussels. I was at a monastery for a week or so with Greater Europe Mission missionaries and other “Eurocorps” college students. It was my first trip to Europe and it was also notable for me because for one week I listened to Ray Stedman, and if I remember aright he did lectures on his famous book, Body Life, as well as on his book Authentic Christianity. That week was a life-changer for me.

The foundational insight of Ray Stedman’s Body Life dealt with the questions “Who does the ministry?” Is “ministry” done by the pastor or is it done by the “laity”? (For the moment we can dispense with the whole clergy/laity discussion because in one way or another Stedman deconstructed the distinction.) I want now to offer how I have absorbed his teaching and to suggest that his vision can again become ours, but it shifts what pastors see themselves doing.

What is the primary model of what a pastor does in your church?

The major problem is this: ...

Should be a good discussion over at Jesus Creed today.

Alarms Ring as Wedding Bells Do Not

World Future Society: Alarms Ring as Wedding Bells Do Not

Trends in postponed marriages and births spark debate on economy’s role.

Americans are waiting longer to marry, and household size declined between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Marriage is also declining among young people, the Bureau reports. The media have been quick to point to the 2008 recession as the key cause.

“The United States crossed an important marital threshold in 2009, with the number of young adults who have never married surpassing, for the first time in more than a century, the number who were married,” Erik Eckholm of The New York Times reported. “A long-term decline in marriage accelerated during the severe recession, according to new data from the Census Bureau, with more couples postponing marriage and often choosing to cohabit without tying the knot,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Center for Health Statistics has reported a 2.7% drop in fertility from 2008 to 2009, leading Marilynn Marchione of the Associated Press to comment, “The U.S. birth rate has dropped for the second year in a row, and experts think the wrenching recession led many people to put off having children. The 2009 birth rate also set a record: lowest in a century.” ...

... Pew points to what researchers call a clear “marriage gap” along economic lines. “Those in this less-advantaged group are as likely as others to want to marry, but they place a higher premium on economic security as a condition for marriage.”

In sum, data from the last 10 years shows more Americans now waiting to marry, compared with a few years ago, but fewer college-educated Americans waiting than non-college educated. A drop-off in fertility occurred in 2008–2009 and was more pronounced among non-college educated women than for women with advanced degrees.

The state of the U.S. economy may have been a factor in the drop-off in fertility, and an income-based “marriage gap” may be emerging. However, these trends could turn out to be a blip. A longer-term decline in marriage is seen in decades-old trends of fewer weddings among twenty-somethings and rising cohabitation arrangements in lieu of tying the knot.

Spanish nun expelled from order over Facebook usage

The Telegraph: Spanish nun expelled from order over Facebook usage

A Spanish nun has been kicked out of the religious order where she lived the last 35 years in seclusion after spending too much time on the social networking site Facebook.

María Jesús Galán, dubbed "Sister Internet" by her fellow nuns, announced on her Facebook page that she had been asked to leave the convent after disagreements over her online activities.

The 54-year old, who lists her hobbies as "reading, music, art, and making friends" had almost 600 Facebook "friends"at the time of her eviction and now has fan pages with thousands of supporters from around the globe calling for her to be allowed back into the order.

A computer was first brought onto the premises of the 14th century Santo Domingo el Real convent in Toledo, central Spain 10 years ago after the Mother Superior was persuaded it would lessen the need for nuns to enter the outside world.

"It enabled us do things such as banking online and saved us having to make trips into the city," explained Sister Maria, who entered as a novice at the age of 21.

However, the nun quickly saw the possibilities and soon began digitising the archives contained within the convent's ancient walls and making them accessible to the world.

In 2008, she won a local government prize for her painstaking work scanning the pages of precious texts held in the convent's library.

The award made headlines and she soon had scores of friends worldwide connecting through her Facebook page.

But despite admitting that her dedication to her vocation was as strong as ever she said she was driven from the convent by her fellow nuns who disapproved of her cyber activity and "made life impossible". ...

Sounds like a nun who jsut fell into a bad habit. (Sorry. It was just to easy.)

Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter

New York Times: Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter

... Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation.

The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.

Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family. ...

Wilderness to brothels to Apple store: the History of Development in one block

Aid Watch: Wilderness to brothels to Apple store: the History of Development in one block  William Easterly

We usually analyze Development at the national level. Why not other levels? At the other extreme, here is a short and surprising illustrated history of one city block. ...

He concludes:

... Its history had been a series of unexpected events involving many actors, from Nicholas Bayard to the yellow fever mosquito to Anthony Arnoux to James Bogardus to Jane Jacobs to George Maciunas, few or none of whom could have anticipated the outcomes of their actions. Like many other examples, Soho illustrates that a lot of economic development is a surprise.

Read the post. It's a very interesting piece ... and there are pictures! :-)

Where Have The Good Men Gone?

Wall Street Journal: Where Have The Good Men Gone?

Kay S. Hymowitz argues that too many men in their 20s are living in a new kind of extended adolescence.

Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This "pre-adulthood" has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it's time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn't bring out the best in men. ...

... But for all its familiarity, pre-adulthood represents a momentous sociological development. It's no exaggeration to say that having large numbers of single young men and women living independently, while also having enough disposable income to avoid ever messing up their kitchens, is something entirely new in human experience. Yes, at other points in Western history young people have waited well into their 20s to marry, and yes, office girls and bachelor lawyers have been working and finding amusement in cities for more than a century. But their numbers and their money supply were always relatively small. Today's pre-adults are a different matter. They are a major demographic event.

What also makes pre-adulthood something new is its radical reversal of the sexual hierarchy. Among pre-adults, women are the first sex. They graduate from college in greater numbers (among Americans ages 25 to 34, 34% of women now have a bachelor's degree but just 27% of men), and they have higher GPAs. As most professors tell it, they also have more confidence and drive. These strengths carry women through their 20s, when they are more likely than men to be in grad school and making strides in the workplace. In a number of cities, they are even out-earning their brothers and boyfriends. ...

... What explains this puerile shallowness? I see it as an expression of our cultural uncertainty about the social role of men. It's been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.

Today's pre-adult male is like an actor in a drama in which he only knows what he shouldn't say. He has to compete in a fierce job market, but he can't act too bossy or self-confident. He should be sensitive but not paternalistic, smart but not cocky. To deepen his predicament, because he is single, his advisers and confidants are generally undomesticated guys just like him.

Single men have never been civilization's most responsible actors; they continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers. So we can be disgusted if some of them continue to live in rooms decorated with "Star Wars" posters and crushed beer cans and to treat women like disposable estrogen toys, but we shouldn't be surprised. ...

Here is an interesting graphic:

How Group Dynamics May Be Killing Innovation

Knowledge @ Wharton: How Group Dynamics May Be Killing Innovation

In a paper titled, "Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea (PDF)," Wharton operations and information management professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich argue that group dynamics are the enemy of businesses trying to develop one-of-a-kind new products, unique ways to save money or distinctive marketing strategies. ...

... "Manufacturers prefer 10 machines with good output over one very good machine and nine really defective ones. You would rather have 10 good salesmen than nine poor salesmen and one superstar. In those areas, what matters is the total cumulative output, the total picture," Terwiesch points out. "When it comes to innovation, however, what really matters is not getting many good ideas, but getting one or two exceptional ideas. That's really what innovation is all about." ...

Can microinsurance protect the poor?

Guardian: Can microinsurance protect the poor?

Low-cost insurance that covers the lives, health and property of the poor could provide protection against natural disasters.

... Microinsurance, low-cost insurance policies that cover the lives, health, crops and property of the most vulnerable, are being seen as a central way of providing social protection to the increasing numbers of people affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes, flooding and drought.

A recent report by the German insurance giant Munich Re calculated that 2010 was the second worst year for disasters since 1980. It reported that 950 global catastrophes had amounted to overall losses of around $130bn. Of this, only around $37bn was insured. For example, only 1% of the $14bn of property damage caused by Haiti's massive earthquake was covered by insurance.

At the Bonn climate change talks in 2008, microinsurance was touted as a central component of climate change adaptation measures in Africa, Asia and Latin America. ...

... Yet despite the buzz surrounding microinsurance, the industry's reach is still limited. The 150 million people currently holding policies represent only a small fraction (around 5%) of a potential market of up to 3 billion.

Unlike microfinance programmes that provide people with instant cash, the insurance industry has so far struggled to overcome the simple problem of trying to ask poor people to pay for something they might never use.

Richard Leftley, the chief executive of UK-based MicroEnsure, one of the leading microinsurance companies, says that it has all but scraped the idea of trying to sell policies direct. He says turning up in towns and villages and asking poor families to buy insurance simply doesn't work. "Trying to explain to someone with no prior experience of insurance that if you pay even just a little bit every month then someone will pay you back if your crops failed or your child is hospitalised is often met with a perfectly understandable 'yeah right' response," he says.

Instead, the industry is evolving, with many policies now being sold as add-ons to products and brands that people already use and trust. For example, MicroEnsure says it is now conducting most of its business in Africa through partnerships with mobile phone companies.

Phone companies trying to get people to stop using multiple sim cards and stay loyal to one air-time provider are offering life or health and disaster insurance as an incentive. People who buy credit for one month get a month's worth of insurance at no extra cost. ...

Surprise (Daniel Kirk on Jesus and Adam)

Storied Theology: Surprise   Daniel Kirk

Jesus was an unlikely Messiah. ...

... But it’s not just that Jesus was crucified. Surprising as that was, the more incomprehensible idea was that this crucifixion would somehow be, not the denial of his messiahship, but the quintessential embodiment of it. What it means to be Messiah is, somehow, inseparably tied to the cross. When the sign above his head reads, “The King of the Jews,” we know that the words are true though to Rome the cross was the way of showing that this pretender would have no rule.

If cruciform coronation was a surprise, it was topped only by Jesus’ resurrection-enthronement. Yes, the kings of old had been “enthroned at God’s right hand,” but what was figuratively true of them is now literally true of Jesus.

As in Jesus’ earthly ministry, so too with the resurrection, the categories of Adamic and Davidic kingship are affirmed–and at the same time exploded. Jesus is more. Jesus does more. What they idealized, Jesus realized. Full defeat of God’s enemies? Yes–but enemies more cosmic and powerful than any earthly king. Sin is undone. And death is defeated.

Humanity is ruling the world again. As it was in the beginning it is now once again. All the glory of Adam has been restored.

And then, the greatest surprise of all. As the story unfolds, it seems all along that the first is Adam. He is the model. He is the firstborn of all creation. He is the ruler of the earth. It is for his sake that all things are made. He rules all things for God. Here is the type to which all future kings must conform. Here is the glory to be restored by the Messiah.

So it seems.

But ...

Go to Kirk's post for the surprise ending.

 

 

A theory of liberal churches

Marginal Revolution: A theory of liberal churches

From Michael Makowsky:

There is a counterintuitive gap in the club theory of religion. While it elegantly accounts for the success of strict sectarian religious groups in recruiting members and maintaining commitment, it is less satisfactory when attempting to account for groups requiring neither extreme nor zero sacrifice. Moderate groups are always a suboptimal choice for rational, utility maximizing agents within the original representative agent model. The corner solutions of zero and absolute sacrifice, however, are rarely observed empirically compared to the moderate intermediate. In this paper, we extend the original model to operate within an agent-based computational context, with a distribution of heterogeneous agents occupying coordinates in a two dimensional lattice, making repeated decisions over time. Our model offers the possibility of successful moderate groups, including outcomes wherein the population is dominated by moderate groups. The viability of moderate groups is dependent on extending the model to accommodate agent heterogeneity, not just within the population of agents drawn from, but heterogeneity within groups. Moderate sacrifice rates mitigate member free riding and serve as a weak screening device that permits a range of agent types into the group. Within-group heterogeneity allows agents to benefit from the differing comparative advantages of their fellow members.

Holy cow! I don't know who is worse when it comes to writing this stuff ... scoiologists or economists.

My interpretation is that moderate sacrafice (as opposed to extreme or zero sacrifice) by members of the group creates loyalty and solidarity, while simulatneously weeding out freeloaders. Diversity makes the group stronger through competative advantage.

I think this also links to Robert Putnam's observations about diversity. He has concluded that diversity for diversity's sake is destructive of community. But diversity among people committed to a common vision or goal is very healthy for a community.

In Part-Time Jobs, Women Out-Earn Men

New York Times: In Part-Time Jobs, Women Out-Earn Men

This article is several months old but I thought it offered some fascinating data.

The article notes:

... Additionally, men and women are not equally distributed amongst these different workweek lengths. Women are much more likely to be in part-time jobs than men. In fact, in 2009, 66.6 percent (about two-thirds) of American workers logging fewer than 35 hours in the typical workweek were women. By comparison, just 45.1 percent of workers logging more than 35 hours a week were women.

In other words,the “typical” workweek length for men versus women is very different. Men who work part-time are deviating from the “male” workweek norm, a fact that may say something about their quality, ambition or priorities, or at the very least how employers view their quality, ambition or priorities. Likewise with women who deviate from the “female” norm and work full-time.

We frequently hear that women earn 75-80% of what a man earns when we compare salaries in the aggregate. But when we look at hours worked in the aggreate women work 40 hours for every 44 hours men work. That accounts for big chunk of the pay difference. Other studies show that single women in their twenties and early thirties make more than their male counterparts.

Men and women, in the aggreate, do seem to use different critieria for work decisions over their working lives. It can be argued that there are some unhealthy gender expectations that lead to those decisions. But I doubt that much of the pay differences stem from discrimination.

Why Are Food Prices Going Crazy?

NPR: Why Are Food Prices Going Crazy?

... I recently put these questions to Abdolreza Abbassian, a food economist at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. Here's what he told me.

Skyrocketing Prices

Abbassian attributed the price rise to several factors — some familiar to me (and probably to you), some less familiar.

1. The rise of biofuels, like ethanol made from corn. This market, driven largely by government subsidies, has created demand that is what economists call "price inelastic" — demand stays strong even as prices rise.

2. More demand from the developing world, particularly for meat. Livestock eat grain, so increasing demand for meat means increasing demand for grain. This source of demand has also been price inelastic, Abbassian said.

3. Disappearing stockpiles.

Because of WTO rules, the U.S. and Europe have been moving away from subsidies that led to vast reserves of wheat and corn.

Subsidies still exist in the U.S. and Europe, but they've taken a different form. Governments used to buy and stockpile surplus food from farmers. Now it's more common for governments to give farmers subsidy payments without actually buying any of the food they produce, Abbassian told me.

This sounds super wonky, but it has a huge impact on the price of food.

Big stockpiles mean that the supply of food remains relatively constant, even when there are disasters like the vast fires that destroyed last summer's Russian wheat crop.

But in the absence of stockpiles, unexpected shocks like those fires in Russia last summer have a huge impact on supply. That, in turn, contributes to huge price spikes.

"What you get is a world market that is increasingly tight, without much of a buffer," Abbassian told me. "Without a buffer, you have volatility. It's as simple as that."

4. Speculation

The volatility created by declining stocks is in turn compounded by speculation — traders betting on the rise or fall of prices.

Abbassian argued that bringing more transparency to commodities futures markets might mitigate this issue.

"If we know who is buying it and what are they buying it for, that may get those who are just there to gamble to be more cautious about their positions," he said.

Who is going to go hungry?

At any given moment, there are about a billion people in the world who don't have enough food to eat. When food prices go up, more people do go hungry — but the increase isn't as dramatic as you might think.

That's partly because many of the world's poorest people simply have no money and no access to food. Many live in countries where wars and other crises make it hard to get food to people. They would be hungry even if the price of food had not spiked.

What's more, in many poor countries, the local harvest is a more important factor than the price of global commodities. And many countries in Africa have had strong harvests of staples such as white corn and cassava.

One often overlooked region likely to be hit hard by the price increases is Central Asia, Abbassian said. This recent FAO report has lots of region-by-region detail. ...

Census estimates show more US blacks moving South

Dallas News: Census estimates show more US blacks moving South

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's blacks are leaving big cities in the Northeast and Midwest at the highest levels in decades, returning to fast-growing states in the once-segregated South in search of better job opportunities and quality of life.

The Southern U.S. region — primarily metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami and Charlotte, N.C. — accounted for roughly 75 percent of the population gains among blacks since 2000, up from 65 percent in the 1990s, according to the latest census estimates. The gains came primarily at the expense of Northern metro areas such as New York and Chicago, which posted their first declines in black population since at least 1980.

The findings are based on 2009 census population estimates, with official 2010 results released Tuesday for Illinois reflecting much of that change. Illinois had a 1.3 percent drop in the number of African-Americans since 2000, the first decade-long decline in the state's history. ...

... Historically, the South was home to roughly 90 percent of the nation's blacks from 1790 until 1910, when African-Americans began to migrate northward to escape racism and seek jobs in industrial centers such as Detroit, New York and Chicago during World War I. After the decades-long Great Migration, the share of blacks in the South hit a low of about 53 percent in the 1970s, before civil rights legislation and the passage of time began to improve the social climate in the region.

The current 57 percent share of blacks now living in the South is the highest level since 1960.

The latest estimates show that the Atlanta metropolitan area added more than half a million blacks over the last decade, making it the metro area with the second largest black population. Despite losing blacks, the New York metro area continued to be home to the largest black population, at roughly 3.2 million.

The Chicago metropolitan area, which previously was ranked No. 2 in black population, slipped to No. 3.

Broken down by state, Georgia was tops in the total number of African-Americans, edging out New York state. It was followed by Texas, Florida and California. California in recent decades has seen its black population slip or remain largely unchanged. ...

 

My Puny Human Brain

Slate: My Puny Human Brain  Ken Jennings

Jeopardy! genius Ken Jennings on what it's like to play against a supercomputer.

... But there's no shame in losing to silicon, I thought to myself as I greeted the (suddenly friendlier) team of IBM engineers after the match. After all, I don't have 2,880 processor cores and 15 terabytes of reference works at my disposal—nor can I buzz in with perfect timing whenever I know an answer. My puny human brain, just a few bucks worth of water, salts, and proteins, hung in there just fine against a jillion-dollar supercomputer.

"Watching you on Jeopardy! is what inspired the whole project," one IBM engineer told me, consolingly. "And we looked at your games over and over, your style of play. There's a lot of you in Watson." I understood then why the engineers wanted to beat me so badly: To them, I wasn't the good guy, playing for the human race. That was Watson's role, as a symbol and product of human innovation and ingenuity. So my defeat at the hands of a machine has a happy ending, after all. At least until the whole system becomes sentient and figures out the nuclear launch codes. But I figure that's years away.

Interesting reflection by Jennings. But what I really want to know is if anyone can tell me why the image below just become the wallpaper on my computer, my cellphone, and my cable TV.

Urban Economic Development and Walmart

The video was produced by Walmart Community so you are hardly getting an objective presentation. However, this story reminds me of an urban redevelopment project I learned about firsthand while studying at Eastern University back in the '80s. Deliverance Evangelistic Center, a large African-American Church in North Philadelphia, an area deviod of a fullservice supermarkets, had acquired the land where Connie Mack Stadium once stood. They wanted to develop the land into a strip mall with a supermarket anchor. I got to hear the story straight from a women who was instrumental in developing what became Hope Plaza, a tale complete with coalition building, political manuevering, and lots of prayer. The short of it is that they finally got a Thriftway store as an anchor.

Outsiders thought Thriftway was nuts. Yet within two years the store become the number one grossing Thriftway in the northeast. McDonald's opened on one corner. Burger King moved in across the street. There are now 95 businesses at that location.

Thriftway brought name brands, lower prices, and more jobs to the neighborhood (and also killed off some neighborhood shops.) The spillover affect of attracting even more businesses added even more ameneties at lower prices with more jobs. Walmart does this on steroids

As I've noted before, Walmart has an impact on the economy that disporportiately helps the poor. Food, clothing, and the basic staples of life are a much larger percentage of the household budget for the poor. These are the goods that Walmart succeeds in keeping so low. Economist Jason Furman, one of Obama's economic advisors, wrote that Walmart and big box stores have had a profound impact on improving the standard of living for the poor:

The single most careful economic study, co-authored by the well-respected MIT economist Jerry Hausman, found that grocery sales by Wal-Mart and other big-box stores made consumers better off to the tune of 25 percent of food consumption. That doesn't mean much for those of us in the top fifth of the income distribution—we spend only about 3.5 percent of our income on food at home and, at least in my case, most of that shopping is done at high-priced supermarkets like Whole Foods. But that's a huge savings for households in the bottom quintile, which, on average, spend 26 percent of their income on food. In fact, it is equivalent to a 6.5 percent boost in household income—unless the family lives in New York City or one of the other places that have successfully kept Wal-Mart and its ilk away.

I'm not ready to nominate Walmart for sainthood but I think many would do well to re-examine their knee-jerk opposition to Walmart and big box stores.

Size Matters in Business, Congregations, and Economics

Why Do Many Small Businesses not Sell? Lea Bailes, an attorney and business owner, explored this question at his blog yesterday. The dynamics of being a small business are part of the problem. He writes:

“Because of the personal goodwill attributed to the owner of the business, many owner-operated small businesses are not marketable.  Generally, the goodwill in a fence company is personal goodwill versus enterprise goodwill.  As we looked previously at the factors that contribute to personal goodwill (relationships, skill, knowledge, and reputation), many small businesses have a strong presence of these factors.”

He goes on to not that the small business owner is also likely the one who has a personal relationship with suppliers and customers. He is the most skilled and knowledgeable employee. His reputation is what carries the business. But Lea writes:

“All of the above traits and skills of an owner are both well earned and admirable.  Unfortunately, the very factors that helped the owner start and build a successful business end up being the exact factors that decrease the marketability and value of the business.  Owners must take their business to a new and different level in order to solve the problem.”

What strikes me about this is how similar it is to problems congregations face. When the size of a human enterprise expands, the nature of relationships and modes of action must change. While you may have a familial connection with fifty or sixty of your best friends, you can’t have it with five hundred of your “best friends.” Personal relationships and knowledge about all other members isn’t possible for any one person.

This also goes to one of the most persistent errors I see when people ponder economic issues. They reason from the circumstances of face-to-face communities to ethics for mass (or commercial) society. Face-to-face communities, like family, permit us to make judgments about need and justice based on our personal knowledge of others. But we can’t treat economic questions in commercial society as though we are talking about family writ large. The personal knowledge simply isn’t there.

Some sociological dynamics are unavoidable. It is interesting to me how this size dynamic is so readily overlooked as people contemplate human institutions.

The World's Biggest Companies

Forbes: The World's Biggest Companies

One world; one gigantic marketplace. This year, 60 countries have global 2000 entries vs. 51 in our inaugural list in 2004. The Forbes global 2000 are public companies with the top composite scores based on their rankings for sales, profits, assets and market value. Our justification for using a composite ranking is simple: One metric alone can give a false impression about corporate size.

In total, the global 2000 companies now account for $30 trillion in revenues, $2.4 trillion in profits, $119 trillion in assets and $39 trillion in market value. Around the world, 72 million people work for these companies.

The U.S. still dominates this list of global giants, but with 61 fewer entries than last year and 153 fewer than in 2004, as many U.S. companies failed to keep pace with global competitors. In contrast, China, India and Brazil are rapidly adding companies to the list. India, for example, has 48 companies this year vs. 27 in 2004.

Measured by number of companies, 315, the banking industry has the biggest presence on the global 2000. Banking also dominates in assets, with total assets of $58.3 trillion, and profits, $398 billion. The 123 companies in oil and gas operations lead all industries in aggregate revenues, of $3.76 trillion, and take second place in total profits, of $386 billion. ...

Lots of interesting links and maps.

'Social Justice' is a complex concept

Detnews.com: 'Social Justice' is a complex concept

A column by Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo, a Catholic writer for the Washington Post, makes the claim that "Catholic social justice demands a redistribution of wealth." He went on to say that "there can be no disagreement" that unions, the government and private charities should all have a role in fighting a trend that has "concentrated" money into the hands of the few. In this conjecture Stevens-Arroyo confused the ends with potential means.

What Stevens-Arroyo is promoting is an attenuated and truncated vision of "social justice" that has fostered a great deal of injustice throughout the world. This path, he should know, has been decisively repudiated by the Church.

He also betrays a strange split in thinking common to those on the religious left, who are quick to denounce the profit motive and commercialism. Yet, they seem to think that the key to happiness is giving people more stuff — by enlisting the coercive power of government. This perverse way of thinking holds that "social justice" demands that we take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have less of it. That's not social justice; that's materialism.

A friend and colleague, Arthur Brooks, a social researcher who is now president of the American Enterprise Institute, has shown that what makes people truly happy is a system that "facilitates earned success among its citizens and does not create disincentives to achieve or squash ambition." That's the market economy.

The incredible growth of economies in places like China and India isn't happening because wealth was being shifted around, but because wealth is being created....

His point about the implicit materialism of the left, and many religionists, is important. While condemning consumerism they say that justice is poorer people being able to buy more stuff. Human beings are not so many cattle to be fed and sheltered. People were made for stewardship, for being participants in an interdependent community of production, trade, and generosity.

God at the Grammys: The Chosen Ones

Wall Street Journal: God at the Grammys: The Chosen Ones

... When this year's Grammy winners accept their awards on Sunday night, God is likely to be thanked and praised more than a few times. It's a longstanding showbiz tradition, after all, prevalent at the Oscars, the Emmys and even the AVN Awards for adult movies. Until I began interviewing many of the winners of these awards two decades ago, I thought this was a sign of humility and gratitude (or at least an affectation of them). But the truth is more interesting than that.

Before they were famous, many of the biggest pop stars in the world believed that God wanted them to be famous, that this was his plan for them, just as it was his plan for the rest of us not to be famous. Conversely, many equally talented but slightly less famous musicians I've interviewed felt their success was accidental or undeserved—and soon after fell out of the limelight.

As I compiled and analyzed these interviews for my new book, I reached a surprising conclusion: Believing that God wants you to be famous actually improves your chances of being famous. Of course, from the standpoint of traditional theology, even in the Calvinistic world of predestination, God is much more concerned with the fate of an individual's soul than his or her secular success, and one's destiny is unknowable. So what's helping these stars is not so much religion as belief—specifically, the belief that God favors their own personal, temporal success over that of almost everyone else. ...

... This hardly proves that there is a God guiding the destiny of these stars. But it does suggest that unshakable confidence and a powerful sense of purpose are good predictors of success. Look at Justin Bieber, who released a single two months ago titled "Pray" and seemed untouched when getting booed recently by fans at a New York Knicks game. Or consider the derision heaped on Ms. Aguilera for botching the national anthem at the Super Bowl. If an unknown singer had made the same mistake, most people would have felt sorry for her.

But the more successful you get, the faster, louder and more savage the criticism becomes. To deal with the psychological burden of becoming a household name and the attacks that come with it, it helps to be thick-skinned. It helps even more to have a sense of divine mission and to feel that, when everyone else seems to be against you, God is walking at your side. Most stars who feel even a sliver of doubt about being in the spotlight will buckle under the constant pressure. Fearing criticism or failure, they become risk-averse and pass up opportunities.

The hip-hop mogul Diddy, for example, has been in and out of courtrooms over the years, facing charges for assault, gun possession and bribery—yet he continually bounces back with a new name and a new career. When I asked him if he ever felt fear, he replied, "My faith is in God. Like, look who I'm rolling with. Look who my gang really is. My gang is God. Come on, now, I don't have fear."

The meek may indeed inherit the Earth, but until then, stars who are presumptuous enough to see themselves as God's chosen ones are likely to dominate the pop charts, award shows and sports championships. Talent counts for a lot, but so too does the motivating power of divine conviction.

Trends continue in church membership growth or decline, reports 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches

National Council of Churches: Trends continue in church membership growth or decline, reports 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches

New York, February 14,  2011 -- Growing churches continue to grow and declining churches continue to decline, according to the National Council of Churches' 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches.

"The direction of membership (growth or decline) remains very stable," writes the Yearbook's editor, the Rev. Dr. Eileen Lindner, in the newest edition released this week. "That is, churches which have been increasing in membership in recent years continue to grow and likewise, those churches which have been declining in recent years continue to decline."

However, Lindner points out, "the rates of both growth and decline have generally slowed in comparison to recent years." ...

... Total church membership reported in the 2011 Yearbook is 145,838,339 members, down 1.05 percent over 2010.

The top 25 churches reported in the 2010 Yearbook are in order of size:

1. The Catholic Church, 68,503,456 members, up .57 percent. 

2. Southern Baptist Convention,16,160,088 members, down.42 percent. 

3. The United Methodist Church, 7,774,931 members, down1.01 percent. 

4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6,058,907 members, up 1.42 percent. 

5. The Church of God in Christ, 5,499,875 members, no membership updates reported.

6. National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc, 5,000,000  members, no membership updates reported.

7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 4,542,868 members, down1.96 percent. 

8. National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., 3,500,000 members, no membership updates reported. 

9. Assemblies of God, 2,914,669 members, up .52 percent. 

10. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2,770,730 members, down 2.61 percent. 

11. African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2,500,000 members, no membership updates reported. 

11. National  Missionary Baptist Convention of America,  2,500,000 members, no membership updates reported. 

13. The Lutheran Church-- Missouri Synod (LCMS), 2,312,111 members, down 1.08 percent.

14. The Episcopal Church, 2,006,343 members, down 2.48 percent.

15. Churches of Christ, 1,639,495 members, no membership updates reported.

16. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 1,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.

17. Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc., 1,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.

18. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 1,400,000 members, members, no membership updates reported.

19. American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., 1,310,505  members, down 1.55 percent.

20. Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1,162,686 members, up 4.37 percent.

21. United Church of Christ, 1,080,199 members, down 2.83 percent.

22. Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), 1,076,254 members, up .38 percent.

23. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ , 1,071,616 members, no membership updates reported.

24. Seventh-Day Adventist Church. 1,043,606 members, up 4.31 percent.

25. Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. 1,010,000 members, down 59.60 percent (due in part to a new methodology of counting members).

Churches, charities not in competition for dollars

RNS: Churches, charities not in competition for dollars

(RNS) Houses of worship and other charities often aren't in competition for dollars but instead tend to reap donations from similar donors, a new study shows.

Slightly more than 50 percent of people who financially supported congregations also gave to at least one charitable organization in the last year, according to a study conducted by Phoenix-based Grey Matter Research Consulting.

Researchers also found that the more Americans give to a house of worship, the more they donate to other groups. And the trend continues with the generosity of the donor.

For example, donors who gave less than $100 to a house of worship also donated an average of $208 to other charities. Those who gave between $100 and $499 to a congregation gave an average of $376 to others. Donors of between $500 and $999 to places of worship gave an average of $916 to others.

"Americans who give to their church or place of worship are more likely to give, period -- including to charitable organizations," said Ron Sellers, president of the Phoenix-based research firm, formerly known as Ellison Research "Rather than be in competition for the donor dollar, it seems that giving fosters giving."

The study, which was commissioned by the nonprofit fundraising firm Russ Reid Co. of Pasadena, Calif., was conducted last May by telephone and online among a nationally representative sample of 2,005 American adults. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

On gay rights, keep fighting or adapt?

USA Today: On gay rights, keep fighting or adapt?

... It appears increasingly obvious that social acceptance of gay men and lesbians and insistence on their equal rights are inexorable. If the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" weren't enough to signal the turning point, or the classification of several gay-resisting Christian right organizations as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, there came news that Exodus International was ending its involvement in the anti-homosexuality "Day of Truth" in U.S. high schools. "We need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace," Exodus President Alan Chambers explained, "while treating their neighbors as they'd like to be treated, whether we agree with them or not." ...

... In explaining its withdrawal from the "Day of Truth," Exodus International outlines a smart way forward for conservative Christian groups — one that does not require that they sacrifice their core beliefs. Note that Alan Chambers did not announce a change in his organization's philosophy that people can be saved from homosexuality through faith in Christ. What he did signal, though, was a change in tone and emphasis, and in doing so he invoked a foundational Christian principle: Treat others as you wish to be treated. ...

... Conservative Christian leaders ought to be very careful about their rhetoric going forward — careful not to continue giving the impression that being Christian is in large measure about opposing gay rights, and careful not to let the public expression of their faith become primarily associated with something that looks, sounds and feels like hate to growing segments of the population.

Fighting to the end might sound gallant, but it's not a road to glory so much as a ticket to infamy — an infamy akin to that borne by the likes of Bull Connor, George Wallace and other villains of civil rights history. Is that any hill for Christians to die on?

New pastors, small churches (PCUSA)

Faith & Leadership: New pastors, small churches

A PC(USA) program called For Such a Time as This matches new seminary graduates with small churches. For some pastors it means moving from Seattle or Los Angeles to the Dakotas. For the congregations, it means welcoming a leader -- often for the first time in years.

February 15, 2011 | The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), like many denominations, has two challenges: thousands of small churches in need of pastors and hundreds of new seminary graduates in need of a first call.

The solution seems simple: Connect the graduates with churches. And that indeed is the aim of the denomination’s new pastoral residency program designed to serve small congregations and develop missional pastors. ...

... The need is great in the PC(USA). Half of the denomination’s more than 10,000 congregations have 100 or fewer members. ...

... The PC(USA) faces the same dilemma as other mainline denominations: Most seminarians come from suburban and urban settings, grew up in larger churches and expect that they will serve in a similar church.

This is a nationwide trend. The National Congregations Study found that the median congregation has only 75 regularly participating people and an annual budget of approximately $90,000. Ninety percent of all congregations have 350 or fewer people. But even though there are relatively few large churches, they contain most of the churchgoers. So the average person is in a congregation with 400 people and a budget of $280,000.

But larger churches want experienced ministers, leaving many graduates with student-loan debt unable to find work in a church that can afford to pay them an adequate salary. A recent survey of PC (USA) ministry vacancies, for example, found 128 churches that would accept people new to the ministry, while there were 385 graduates seeking their first call.

Meanwhile, small churches in rural areas often lack both the appeal and the funds to attract ministers at any level of experience. ...

... Marilyn Johns, coordinator of For Such a Time as This, said the commitment by the new ministers -- they agree to serve a minimum of two years -- and the challenge to small congregations to meet a minimum salary create a mutual bond.

“It really is a step in faith for everybody,” she said. “The church is investing a lot of money and the pastors are investing their life for the next two years.” ...

... The mutual risk also underscores a defining element of the program. It’s not about charity. It’s about opportunity. New pastors get a chance to acquire experience. Small churches get a chance to see if they have the resolve to be viable and then perhaps vibrant centers of faith.

“Because we’re not giving [the churches] a ton of money, we’re not really saving anybody,” Johns said. “We’re giving them a chance for two years.” If it doesn’t work out, she added, “then churches will face some hard decisions.” ...

... Smith said the project didn’t discover a way to end the struggles of small churches, but he said the young ministers who participated found their vocations strengthened by the experience.

“We didn’t come up with an answer,” Smith said, “but one of the things the young clergy said of the First Parish Project was that it saved their ministry.”

For Myers, For Such a Time as This offers a similar invigorating effect by putting ministers in a new environment.

“A lot of people raised in large churches haven’t experienced these kinds of communities, and once they do, they find they fall in love with it. We think that pattern will follow. We’re hoping some of these people will settle into rural ministry,” she said. ...

 

Introducing How-To Economics: Living in a Material World

PBS: Introducing How-To Economics: Living in a Material World

Today, we inaugurate a new feature here on Making Sen$e: How-to Economics: Living in a Material World. And to explain the good works we're up to, I talked to Duke's Dan Ariely, who'll be one of our prime contributors.

 

China Replaced Japan in 2010 as No. 2 Economy

New York Times: China Replaced Japan in 2010 as No. 2 Economy

TOKYO — Japan’s economy contracted in the fourth quarter when compared with the previous three months, though analysts are optimistic about the country’s prospects for the rest of the year.

Japan’s gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent in the October-December quarter as the end of generous government incentives on environmentally friendly cars resulted in a temporary decline in spending. At an annualized rate, Japan’s economy shrank 1.1 percent from the previous quarter.

The contraction, the first in five quarters, brought Japan’s economy for 2010 to $5.47 trillion, the Japanese Cabinet Office said. That compared with a $5.88 trillion economy for fast-growing China. The latest numbers were further evidence of China’s rapid ascent as an economic superpower, as China surpassed Japan last summer after the half-year gross domestic product numbers were released. Just five years ago, China’s gross domestic product was around $2.3 trillion, about half Japan’s.

Japan’s economy has stagnated over the last two decades, reflecting its continued decline in economic and political clout.

The country had the world’s second-largest economy after the United States for much of the last four decades. In the 1980s, its rapid growth even led to talk of the Japanese economy’s overtaking that of the United States. ...

Emerging Markets as Partners, Not Rivals

New York Times: Emerging Markets as Partners, Not Rivals  Greg Mankiw

IN his State of the Union address last month, President Obama set the stage for a coming policy debate and his re-election bid with a catch phrase. Six times, he called on Americans to “win the future.” And he used the variant “winning the future” three other times. But is this really a good way to frame the economic challenges we face? ...

... More troublesome to me as an economist, though, is that calling on Americans to “win the future” misleads us about the nature of the policy choices ahead. Achieving economic prosperity is not like winning a game, and guiding an economy is not like managing a sports team. ...

... The gains from trade would be much the same if your neighbor were manufacturing a good — knitting you a scarf, for example — rather than performing a service. And it would be much the same if, instead of living next door, he was several thousand miles away, say, in Shanghai.

Listening to the president, you might think that competition from China and other rapidly growing nations was one of the larger threats facing the United States. But the essence of economic exchange belies that description. Other nations are best viewed not as our competitors but as our trading partners. Partners are to be welcomed, not feared. As a general matter, their prosperity does not come at our expense. ...

...The president is right that we should encourage a greater number of highly educated foreigners to migrate here. Because skilled workers pay more in taxes than they receive in government benefits, increasing their supply would reduce the fiscal burden on the rest of us. But if these foreign students decide to return home, as many do, we shouldn’t worry that they are competing against us.

Instead, we should view higher education in the United States as one of our most successful export industries. The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population but most of the best universities. Is it any wonder that students from many nations flock here to learn? And as they do so, they create opportunities for Americans — from the professors who teach the classes to the grounds crews who maintain the campuses.

When the foreign students head home, they take the human capital acquired here to become productive members of their own communities. They spread up-to-date knowledge, so it can foster prosperity everywhere. Some of this knowledge is technological. Some of it concerns business, legal and medical practices. And some is even more fundamental, such as the values of democracy and individual liberty. Nothing could be better for the United States than these thousands of American-trained ambassadors who have seen at first hand the benefits of a free and open society.

As we confront the many hard policy choices ahead, let’s prepare for the future. Let’s invest for the future. Let’s be willing to make hard sacrifices for a more prosperous future. But let’s not presume that the future is a game requiring winners and losers.

Adam, OT, & Judaism

Storied Theology: Adam, OT, & Judaism  Daniel Kirk

It seems that I am ever hearing about the relative unimportance of Adam as a determining figure in non-Christian Judaism: Adam is only mentioned outside of Genesis 1-4 in genealogies; there is no “fall” per se in the Hebrew Bible; Christians make a lot of Adam because of Paul, etc.

Ok, I get all that.

But perhaps it’s better to say that Adam influences the OT and non-Christian Judaism differently from how he influences the NT and Christianity, rather than to say that the influence is altogether absent.

When we read God telling Noah or Abraham or Jacob that he will make them fruitful and multiply them, what is this if not an echo of the creation narrative and an indication that what was supposed to be the fate of all humanity is now being focused on Israel?

When God promises Abraham that God will make Abraham fruitful, make nations and kings will come from him, what is this if not an echo of the creation blessing of not only fruitfulness and multiplication but also of the dominion over the earth. ...

He concludes

... The story of Israel in Genesis is told so as to communicate that the purpose for which God created humanity is being fulfilled within the people of Israel. The beginning continues to be the paradigm for God will do in the future–not only multiplying Abraham’s seed, but also reestablishing a holy humanity to represent God’s reign upon the earth and thereby drawing all creation back to its rightful subjection to God.

Good stuff!

Doing God's Work—At the Office

Wall Street Journal: Doing God's Work—At the Office

We are called to be co-creators of a flourishing life on Earth.

Christian business professionals have long had an uneasy relationship with the church. Not only does the church tend to privilege church and missionary service over business, but it often condemns business practices and implies the guilt of any participants. Yet there are signs that this dynamic is changing—not least because churches rely on the donations of business professionals.

Many pastors now visit their congregants at work to better understand their professional lives. Justin Buzzard, pastor of the Garden City Church in San Jose, Calif., wrote last year about ministering to professionals in his congregation. "It shows them that I care about their callings, how they spend 50-plus hours of their week."

Organizations such as Corporate Chaplains of America and Marketplace Ministries have sprung up in the last 20 years to offer chaplaincy services and Bible studies to offices. And among a younger generation of Christians in business, working as financial analysts and engineers is itself Christian service.

Their mindset is captured by Dave Evans, co-founder of the videogame giant Electronic Arts and a design professor at Stanford. Mr. Evans talks more like a theologian than a former Apple engineer. He points out that Genesis says that humans were created in the image of God, so all of our work—not just church work—is holy. We are called to be co-creators, with God, of a flourishing life on Earth. "It is really a profound act of engaging the kingdom of God," says Mr. Evans. ...

PCUSA: Fewer members = smaller congregations

PCUSA Research Services: Fewer members = smaller congregations

Jack Marcum writes:

The key difference in these trends is not direction but magnitude. The numbers of both congregations and members have fallen steadily since 1983, but members have dropped at almost four times the rate of congregations.

As a result, the typical congregation’s size has dropped dramatically, from an average of 268 members and a median of 195 in 1983 to 152 and 97, respectively, in 2009. Over the same period, the share of congregations with 100 or fewer members increased from 36 percent to 51 percent.

Several consequences have ensued. Many congregations have larger facilities than they need and fewer resources for upkeep. Others can no longer afford a pastoral leader. More congregations in 2009 had no pastoral leadership of any sort (2,231) than was true just four years before (2,050).

Even so, when net membership losses began in the 1960s, no one set out to use this trend to reduce the size of most congregations. It just happened—the result of efforts, presbytery by presbytery and congregation by congregation, to keep the doors open.

The unintentional shift to smaller congregations requires an intentional response. The use of commissioned lay pastors is a major step already in place. More programs and resources tailored to the circumstances—and budgets—of smaller congregations would be another. After all, as the trend line of membership shows, there will likely be more rather than fewer such congregations in the near future.

Some see a tea party brewing in Japan’s hinterland

The Economist: Maverick as hell

... The national media dismisses the election results as a provincial fuss, saying that voters were simply fed up with Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), along with its main rival, and will back any alternative, however quirky. Yet the vote bodes ill for Mr Kan ahead of April elections for 13 governors, 44 prefectural assemblies and umpteen mayorships and municipal assemblies.

The media may be missing a trick. Nagoya citizens not only gave Mr Kawamura three times the votes of his DPJ rival. Nearly three-quarters of them supported a referendum to dissolve the current Nagoya assembly, an unprecedented revolt.

Should Messrs Kawamura and Omura manage to stuff the new assemblies with their supporters in the spring elections, they could help unleash forces of decentralisation in Japan. Both intend to merge the city and prefectural governments, to create a regional block to draw investment and jobs away from Tokyo and help reshape government to cope with an ageing society. They plan to cut local taxes by 10%, slash salaries for elected officials, and shed overlapping public services. ...

The state of the world's forests

The Economist: The state of the world's forests

THE Food & Agriculture Organisation, a UN body, estimates that the world's forests covered 4.03 billion hectares in 2010. Although the world as a whole continues to lose forests, the annual rate of deforestation in the past decade has fallen to 5.2m hectares, compared with 8.3m hectares a year between 1990 and 2000. Some large countries, including China and India, increased their forest cover between 2000 and 2010. China’s increased at an average annual rate of 1.6%, while India’s went up by 0.5% a year. Norway and Sweden have also added forests over the past decade. With forests covering nearly 70% of its area in 2010, Sweden is one of the world’s most sylvan countries. Nigeria, by contrast, has been chopping its forests down at a rate of 3.7% a year. By last year only one-tenth of its land remained forested.

Innovation: Group dynamics can stifle a great idea

Financial Post: Innovation: Group dynamics can stifle a great idea

For most companies, conventional wisdom says that collaborative teams offer the best path to generating compelling innovation.  Behind this notion is that high-performance and diverse groups are best suited to cope with technology complexity, commercialization challenges and  as well as stick handle through management gates such as securing buy-in and resources.  In fact, I have argued this point in my blog on a number of occasions.  A recent Wharton research paper suggests that other innovation strategies could be more effective.

Professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich contend that common group dynamics are anathema to developing breakthrough products, unique ways to save money or revolutionary business models. Instead, they believe the next Facebook, Twitter or iPad could best be germinated by an inspired innovator with plenty of time to ponder and experiment.  If this approach sounds familiar, it has been the modus operandi for some of the most famous inventors including Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and Steve Jobs.

The researchers undertook a series of experiments to understand which of two different innovation processes – the conventional team-centred model and a hybrid individual/team approach — delivered the greatest number of high quality new product ideas. In the traditional model, peers were encouraged to collaborate to produce new ideas. With the hybrid approach, individuals were first encouraged to brainstorm and refine new ideas by themselves and then to present them to a group for vetting and elevation.

The study concluded that the hybrid process resulted in three times more ideas than the team-based process.  More importantly, the findings also showed that the hybrid approach generated (on average) significantly better quality ideas, including the most preferred idea in the experiment. These findings run counter to current innovation best practice which stresses team-focused models.

A hybrid process is more successful because it can mitigate the harmful effects of group dynamics and catalyze more “out of the box” thinking. ...

Muslims and Christians Protest as One

IPS: Muslims and Christians Protest as One

CAIRO, Feb 9, 2011 (IPS) - Over recent years, Egypt has witnessed mounting tension between its Muslim majority and its sizeable Coptic Christian minority. But in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the site of ongoing mass protests against the ruling regime, members of both faiths chant in unison: "Muslim, Christian, doesn't matter; We're all in this boat together!"

Since Jan. 25, Egyptians countrywide have hit the streets in the hundreds of thousands - even millions - to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and his 30-year-old regime. The first week of demonstrations was marked by almost daily clashes between police and protesters, in which hundreds were killed and thousands injured.

The demonstrations were initially organized by online activist groups of no particular religious affiliation, such as the 6 April protest movement and the Youth Movement for Freedom and Justice. Nevertheless, some commentators have attempted to paint the uprising as a would-be "Iran-style" Islamic revolution.

In statements that would later be parroted by much of the western media, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Jan. 31: "Our real fear is of a situation that could develop and which has already developed in several countries including Iran itself - repressive regimes of radical Islam."

But according to protesters arrayed in Tahrir Square, which on Tuesday was home to hundreds of thousands of protesters, Muslim-Christian unity remains a central feature of the almost daily rallies. ...

 

Full-Time Vocational Ministry is Not The Pinnacle of Faithfulness

Vanguard Church: Full-Time Vocational Ministry is Not The Pinnacle of Faithfulness

... What if we really believed that the main thing was something else besides the institutional church? What if it’s not about me (as the pastoral leader) or about our church (our building, our worship service, our programs), or about recruiting people to the high call of overseas missions (since this is seen as the pinnacle of “God’s work”). What if all these things are good things, but are meant to serve a greater thing, that is, the Kingdom of God?

What if God wants to rise up men and women who will yield their entire lives to the Lordship of Jesus and the purposes of His Kingdom? What if these men and women were to see all aspects of their lives as ways to contribute to bringing God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven? What if the pinnacle of doing Kingdom work is being faithful in the callings that ordinary humans are meant to have: Artists, engineers, nurses, educators, designers, homemakers, dads, moms, politicians, lawyers, carpenters, machinists, musicians, software writers, etc.? ...

You go, Bob! (Although, I think artists, engineers, nurses, etc., ... are doing vocational ministry. It just isn't ecclesial vocation. But the main point is exactly write.)

Amazon Kindle gets real page numbers

Christian Science Monitor: Amazon Kindle gets real page numbers

Amazon Kindle e-books currently use location numbers. But real page numbers are on the way, Amazon said today.

Amazon Kindle users will soon be able to navigate their e-books by way of old-fashioned page numbers, Amazon announced today in a blog post.

Kindle format e-books currently employ "location numbers," which correspond to a specific block of text, and not the actual page numbers of the hardbound book. Obviously, this makes it tricky for those situations where multiple folks are reading from the same e-book, but at different font sizes. (In a book club, for instance, or in the classroom.)

"Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class," Amazon reps wrote. "Rather than add page numbers that don’t correspond to print books, which is how page numbers have been added to e-books in the past, we’re adding real page numbers that correspond directly to a book’s print edition."  ...

Yee haw! (That's Missourian for "Totally awesome, dude.") I'm now ready to buy a Kindle.

 

'A religious revolution'

Charlotte Observer: 'A religious revolution'

Leading scholar says Christianity is overtaking the globe, led by spectacular, ongoing growth in Africa and Asia

These times we live in have been called a lot of things. But perhaps the most surprising description came Sunday from one of the country's leading religion scholars.

"The most exciting time in Christianity ... since the 1st century."

Yes, even more thrilling than the Protestant Reformation, Philip Jenkins told about 75 people at Charlotte's Westminster Presbyterian Church.

The reason: The staggering growth in the number of Christians in Asia, Latin America and especially Africa - a phenomenon he called "a global religious revolution" and one that "reverses a trend that people had been used to for several hundred years."

To back up his claim, Jenkins - the author of a host of influential books, including "The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity" - offered a series of eye-popping statistics and projections.

Among them:

In 1900, Europe and North America accounted for about 85 percent of the world's Christians. By 2050, that number will have shrunk to about 25 percent.

During the same period, he said the number of Christians in Africa have, well, skyrocketed seems too tame a word. In 1900, there were 10 million; in 2000, 363 million. By 2015, Jenkins expects 500 million. And, by 2050, he predicted that Africa would become the first continent to have 1 billion Christians. Put another way: One of every three Christians in the world will be African - and that's not counting the Africans who will have moved to the United States or Europe.

In the 20th century, about half of the people on the African continent moved from a tribal or pagan religion to either Christianity or Islam. And, Jenkins added, "Christians outpaced Muslims considerably" - by a margin of about 4 to 1. ...

American Exceptionalism Reconsidered, Pt. 3: Inequality

Pileus: American Exceptionalism Reconsidered, Pt. 3: Inequality

... The problem with the claim is simple: comparing the U.S. to Europe on inequality is inappropriate because Europe never imported a large number of slaves into their territory. When you compare the U.S. to other countries with a history of slavery, U.S. inequality is actually remarkably low.

To show this, I use Frederick Solt’s Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID). The SWIID is the most up-to-date, cross-nationally comparable dataset on income inequality. It reports the Gini coefficient, which is a summary indicator of income inequality in which higher values represent greater inequality. The Gini coefficient can be measured for both pre-tax and post-tax income, and the SWIID provides both. To get at the core of the American exceptionalism issue, it is probably best to look at post-tax inequality, which takes into account both the level of inequality in market incomes and the extent to which taxes and transfers alleviate those inequalities. ...

... The U.S. has the least inequality, by a fair margin, of these countries. Of course, the U.S. also has a smaller combined percentage of blacks and Amerindians than all of these other countries except Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. But that’s precisely the point – the overriding factor determining inequality in New World countries is the white or mestizo percentage of the population. When you control for that, the U.S. actually has very low inequality.

If the U.S. is exceptional at all, it is exceptional for its high GDP per capita and low income inequality, relative to similarly situated countries.

Made in the USA

Boston.com: Made in the USA

US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

... A recent Heartland Monitor survey finds “clear anxiety about the decades-long employment shift away from manufacturing to service jobs,’’ National Journal’s Ron Brownstein reported in December. The “decline of US manufacturing’’ is giving Americans a “sense of economic precariousness’’ — only one in five believe that the United States has the world’s strongest economy, versus nearly half who think China is in the lead. “Near the root of the unease for many of those polled is the worry that the United States no longer makes enough stuff.’’ When asked why US manufacturing jobs have declined, 58 percent cite off-shoring by American companies to take advantage of lower labor costs.

There’s just one problem with all the gloom and doom about American manufacturing. It’s wrong.

Americans make more “stuff’’ than any other nation on earth, and by a wide margin. According to the United Nations’ comprehensive database of international economic data, America’s manufacturing output in 2009 (expressed in constant 2005 dollars) was $2.15 trillion. That surpassed China’s output of $1.48 trillion by nearly 46 percent. China’s industries may be booming, but the United States still accounted for 20 percent of the world’s manufacturing output in 2009 — only a hair below its 1990 share of 21 percent. ...

... So why do so many Americans fear that the Chinese are eating our lunch?

Part of the reason is that fewer Americans work in factories. Millions of industrial jobs have vanished in recent decades, and there is no denying the hardship and stress that has meant for many families. But factory employment has declined because factory productivity has so dramatically skyrocketed: Revolutions in technology enable an American worker today to produce far more than his counterpart did a generation ago. Consequently, even as America’s manufacturing sector out-produces every other country on earth, millions of young Americans can aspire to become not factory hands or assembly workers, but doctors and lawyers, architects and engineers.

Perceptions also feed the gloom and doom. In its story on Americans’ economic anxiety, National Journal quotes a Florida teacher who says, “It seems like everything I pick up says ‘Made in China’ on it.’’ To someone shopping for toys, shoes, or sporting equipment, it often can seem that way. But that’s because Chinese factories tend to specialize in low-tech, labor-intensive goods — items that typically don’t require the more advanced and sophisticated manufacturing capabilities of modern American plants.

A vast amount of “stuff’’ is still made in the USA, albeit not the inexpensive consumer goods that fill the shelves in Target or Walgreens. American factories make fighter jets and air conditioners, automobiles and pharmaceuticals, industrial lathes and semiconductors. Not the sort of things on your weekly shopping list? Maybe not. But that doesn’t change economic reality. They may have “clos[ed] down the textile mill across the railroad tracks.’’ But America’s manufacturing glory is far from a thing of the past.

Social Scientist Sees Bias Within

New York Times: Social Scientist Sees Bias Within

SAN ANTONIO — Some of the world’s pre-eminent experts on bias discovered an unexpected form of it at their annual meeting.

Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s conference, where psychologists discuss their research on racial prejudice, homophobia, sexism, stereotype threat and unconscious bias against minorities. But the most talked-about speech at this year’s meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new “outgroup.”

It was identified by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the intuitive foundations of morality and ideology. He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

“This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity,” Dr. Haidt concluded, noting polls showing that 40 percent of Americans are conservative and 20 percent are liberal. In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a “tribal-moral community” united by “sacred values” that hinder research and damage their credibility — and blind them to the hostile climate they’ve created for non-liberals.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.” ...