Kruse Kronicle

Pink makes women donate less to breast-cancer causes: study

The Globe and Mail: Pink makes women donate less to breast-cancer causes: study

When professor Stefano Puntoni set out to study the marketing power of pink, he and his fellow researchers expected to prove the rosy colour makes campaigns against women’s diseases, such as breast and ovarian cancer, more effective. After all, pink is often used to signify femininity, and what rallies unity and support more than reminding women of the plight of their fellow females?

Instead, the researchers were surprised to find the opposite: Women are put off by the colour pink.

In an interview with Harvard Business Review, Prof. Puntoni, of the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University, reveals that women who were shown advertisements dominated with the colour pink and prompted with gender cues were less likely to believe they would get breast cancer, and far less likely to donate to cancer research.

Rather than eliciting support for the cause, all those pink ribbons that are passed around to promote breast-cancer awareness may actually be counterproductive, Prof. Puntoni says.

He suggests that pink and the associated gender cues elicit a defensive response from women, and set off denial mechanisms. In other words, when linked with something as scary as cancer, pink repels women precisely because it reminds them of being women and the risks they may face. ...

 

Raise The Debt Ceiling Rap

Who Holds the Federal Debt?

CQ.com: Who Holds the Federal Debt

As of the end of March, the federal government owed $14.27 trillion to a wide variety of holders of U.S. Treasury securities. This graphic depicts who those creditors are and the amount they have bought in treasuries. Click on the arrows next to a category to expand its subcategories.

Check out the graph at the link above.

Need a Light Bulb? Uncle Sam Gets to Choose

Bloomberg: Need a Light Bulb? Uncle Sam Gets to Choose

... No Polished Wonkery

Though anti-populist in the extreme, the bulb ban in fact evinces none of the polished wonkery you’d expect from sophisticated technocrats. For starters, it’s not clear what the point is. Why should the government try to make consumers use less electricity? There’s no foreign policy reason. Electricity comes mostly from coal, natural gas and nuclear plants, all domestic sources. So presumably the reason has something to do with air pollution or carbon-dioxide emissions.

But banning light bulbs is one of the least efficient ways imaginable to attack those problems. A lamp using power from a clean source is treated the same as a lamp using power from a dirty source. A ban gives electricity producers no incentive to reduce emissions.

Nor does it allow households to make choices about how best to conserve electricity. A well-designed policy would allow different people to make different tradeoffs among different uses to produce the most happiness (“utility” in econ-speak) for a given amount of power. Maybe I want to burn a lot of incandescent bulbs but dry my clothes outdoors and keep the air conditioner off. Maybe I want to read by warm golden light instead of watching a giant plasma TV.

Only Use Matters

What matters, from a public policy perspective, isn’t any given choice but the total amount of electricity I use (which is itself only a proxy for the total emissions caused by generating that electricity). If they’re really interested in environmental quality, policy makers shouldn’t care how households get to that total. They should just raise the price of electricity, through taxes or higher rates, to discourage using it.

Instead, the law raises the price of light bulbs, but not the price of using them. In fact, its supporters loudly proclaim that the new bulbs will cost less to use. If true, the savings could encourage people to keep the lights on longer.

Even if you care nothing about individual freedom or aesthetic pleasure, this ham-handed approach wouldn’t pass muster in a classroom at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. As pollution control, it’s horribly inefficient.

The bulb ban makes sense only one of two ways: either as an expression of cultural sanctimony, with a little technophilia thrown in for added glamour, or as a roundabout way to transfer wealth from the general public to the few businesses with the know-how to produce the light bulbs consumers don’t really want to buy.

Or, of course, as both.

So where are the cries of crony capitalism when it comes to lightbulb manufacturing? ;-)

How to Build a Bird

Has Mission Become Our Idol?

Out of UR: Has Mission Become Our Idol? by Sky Jethani

The church and its leaders desperately need a vision of a life with God and not just for him.

... Is impact everything?

The students I meet with often worry about what awaits them after graduation. This is a reasonable concern for any young adult, but for many of them the worry extends far beyond finding a job with benefits. They fixate, and some obsess, about “making a difference in the world.” They fear living lives of insignificance. They worry about not achieving the right things, or not enough of the right things. Behind all of this is the belief that their value is determined by what they achieve. I’ve learned that when a student asks me, “What should I do with my life?” what he or she really wants to know is, “How can I prove that I am valuable?”

When we come believe that our faith is primarily about what we can do for God in the world, it is like throwing gasoline on our fear of insignificance. The resulting fire may be presented to others as a godly ambition, a holy desire to see God’s mission advance--the kind of drive evident in the Apostle Paul’s life. But when these flames are fueled by fear they reveal none of the peace, joy, or love displayed by Paul and rooted in the Spirit. Instead the relentless drive to prove our worth can quickly become destructive.

Sometimes the people who fear insignificance the most are driven to accomplish the greatest things. As a result they are highly praised within Christian communities for their good works. This temporarily soothes their fear until the next goal can be achieved. But there is a dark side to this drivenness. Gordon MacDonald calls it “missionalism.” It is “the belief that the worth of one’s life is determined by the achievement of a grand objective.” He continues:

Missionalism starts slowly and gains a foothold in the leader's attitude. Before long the mission controls almost everything: time, relationships, health, spiritual depth, ethics, and convictions. In advanced stages, missionalism means doing whatever it takes to solve the problem. In its worst iteration, the end always justifies the means. The family goes; health is sacrificed; integrity is jeopardized; God-connection is limited.

What I have witnessed in the lives of many college students is the early symptoms of missionalism. The virus had been introduced to them in childhood and incubated by well-intentioned churches, ministries, schools, and the wider evangelical subculture. And with graduation looming the students were feeling the pressure. It was after all their first opportunity to actually prove their worth through achievement.

When meeting with or counseling a struggling church leader, one of the questions I’ll ask to diagnose whether missionalism is present is this: “Assuming you’re not engaged in some kind of disqualifying sin, why not?” The answer I often hear, the answer most pastors have been conditioned to say, is: “I wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize my ministry.” That response often reveals where a leader’s true devotion is. Sadly I rarely hear a pastor say, “I wouldn’t want anything to disrupt my communion with God.” So few of us have been given a vision of a life with Christ, and instead we seek to fill the void with a vision for ministry--a vision of a life for Christ. ...

Missionalism is exactly right. I think Jethani is on to something here.

Christian Vocation Sunday, 2011, rescources. Commissioning for Occupations.

Last month I wrote a post about my initial draft of a commissioning service for occupations. (Click here.) Through the transformative skills of Martha Miller in the Office of Vocation for the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., my ramblings have been formatted into a resource for Christian Vocation Sunday, September 4, 2011. The resource contains a bulletin insert, worship notes, and a model service for commissioning people to their occupations. The pdf can be found at the Office of Vocation website or you can go directly to the pdf here:

Christian Vocation Sunday, September 4, 2011

Thank you, Martha, for inviting me into this process and for your editoral improvements.

New Book: "Upside: The Suprising Good News About the State of Our World" by Brad Wright

Bradley Wright's Weblog: My new book, Upside, is now available

My second book has been released. It’s entitled Upside: Surprising Good News about the State of Our World, and it’s available on Amazon, Christian bookstores, and various other places… if there are any left ;-)

The guiding question for this book is whether the world is getting better or worse. Now, I realize that you’re probably thinking right now that that’s too narrow of a topic, but bear with me, it’s a question worth asking. ...

... My book develops two paradoxes. One, many, many things in the world are getting better, but most people are convinced that things are getting worse. Two, most people think that their lives are getting better, but their community and nation is getting worse. In my book I explore the reasons for these paradoxes.

After that—since I’m a data-driven guy—I present information about what’s happening in the world. I cover areas that most people take as important, such as income and poverty, health, education, happiness, crime, freedom, faith, marriage, families, and the environment.

In each of these areas, I present the best available data about how things are changing. The data come from sources such as the US Census Bureau, the World Bank, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, and various sociological surveys.

I finish with examining various explanations for why so many things are getting better, and what we should do in response. ...

I can't wait to read this book! As long time Kronicle readers know, I've visited this topic over and over again at my blog. I did a World Social Indicators - 2008 series that details some of these issues. The incredible amount of pessimism in the face of the greatest expansion of global prosperity and physical well-being in the history of the world is just astounding.

 

Interactive Map: The Growth of Newspapers Across the U.S.: 1690-2011

Stanford University: The Growth of Newspapers Across the U.S.: 1690-2011

Go to the link above. Shows newspapers as the emerge and disappear over time. You can also drill down to specific locations by using the zoom feature.

The Standup Economist on Politics and the Federal Budget

The Mexican-American Boom: Births Overtake Immigration

Pew Research Center: The Mexican-American Boom: Births Overtake Immigration

Births have overtaken immigration as the main driver of the dynamic growth in the U.S. Hispanic population. This new trend is especially evident among the largest of all Hispanic groups -- Mexican-Americans,¹ according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

In the decade from 2000 to 2010, the Mexican-American population grew by 7.2 million as a result of births and 4.2 million as a result of new immigrant arrivals. This is a change from the previous two decades when the number of new immigrants either matched or exceeded the number of births.

The current surge in births among Mexican-Americans is largely attributable to the immigration wave that has brought more than 10 million immigrants to the United States from Mexico since 1970. Between 2006 and 2010 alone, more than half (53%) of all Mexican-American births were to Mexican immigrant parents. As a group, these immigrants are more likely than U.S.-born Americans to be in their prime child-bearing years. They also have much higher fertility.

Meanwhile, the number of new immigrant arrivals from Mexico has fallen off steeply in recent years. ...

How Sanitation Can Save the World

Who Says You Can't Make Money Writing About Economics

Check out this book at Amazon:

Banking Theory 1870-1930 (History of Banking and Finance)

Sorry Amazon, but if I buy this book it will be delievered by a Brinks truck and not USPS.

"The Magic Lever" - David Brooks

New York Times: The Magic Lever

... These three groups — bankers, Democratic Keynesians and staunch Republicans — have one thing in common: They all believe they have identified the magic lever. They believe they can control their economic fate.

Some of us do not believe there is a magic lever. Deficit spending stimulates growth, but not by that much. Tax increases are bad, but they are not disastrous. We believe that there are a thousand factors that go into economic growth, and no single one is dispositive.

We look at the tax cuts of 2001 and do not see tremendous gains. We look at the tax increase of 1982 and do not see a ruinous disaster. We look at high deficit eras and low deficit eras and do not see an easy correlation between deficit spending and growth. On the contrary, if you look around the world there’s a slight negative correlation between government size and prosperity.

We believe that if you rest everything on a single lever (Increase deficits! Cut taxes!), you give people a permission slip to be self-indulgent. They will spend or cut to their hearts’ content and soon you’ll be facing national bankruptcy. We believe that even if you are theoretically right, your policies will be distorted by human frailties and special interests.

The people in my group (you might call us conservatives) are more likely to embrace a low and steady approach to fiscal policy. Control debt. Control entitlements. Keep tax levels reasonable and the tax code simple. Work on the economic fundamentals: human capital, productivity, labor market flexibility, open trade, saving and investment. Don’t believe you can use magic levers to manipulate growth month to month. ...

That is pretty much my view, though I do think cutting spending is the top priority at the moment.

How 28 poor countries escaped the poverty trap

Poverty Matters Blog: How 28 poor countries escaped the poverty trap

Zambia and Ghana are the 27th and 28th countries the World Bank has reclassified as middle-income since the year 2000.

... The World Bank did its annual assessment of poor countries last week. Low-income countries are those with average gross national incomes (GNIs) of less than $1,005 per person per year.

And there are only 35 of them remaining out of the countries and economies that the World Bank tracks. That's down from 63 in 2000.

New middle-income countries this year include Ghana and Zambia. Lower middle-income countries are those with per capita GNIs of between $1,006 and $3,975 per year; while upper middle-income countries are those with per capita GNIs between $3,976 and $12,275.

The remaining 35 low-income countries have a combined population of about 800 million. Tanzania, Burma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Bangladesh account for about half of that total, and there are about 350 million people living on under $1.25 a day in the remaining low-income countries. ...

... What shall we take from this? Three things. First, consider the good news that there are fewer poor countries around. Not least, it suggests that public and private investment (including aid) can help even the poorest countries get rich(er). This is one more reason why optimism should come back into fashion.

Second, the World Bank country classifications - which are used to help determine types and levels of support provided by many aid agencies - may need a rethink. ...

... Third, as countries develop their own resources, fighting poverty becomes increasingly about domestic politics. Not surprisingly, this means inequality is rising up the agenda. New research shows that the emerging middle classes may have a big role to play. Who they side with - the poorest or the economic elite - will determine what kind of development emerges in the new middle income countries.

In short, even the poorest countries can get richer – and that's a good news story.

Government Versus the Market for Technological Innovation

Source: World of Technology

And this helps illustrate my skepticism with trusting government programs to innovate better solutions to our problems in terms of things like renewable energy and healthcare.

Job Satisfaction and Biblical Literalism

Econolog: Job Satisfaction and Biblical Literalism

... People who believe in the Bible's literal truth (BIBLE=1) are much more satisfied with their jobs than people who believe it's just a book of fables (BIBLE=3).  Remember that higher numbers mean lower satisfaction. ...

... Relatively speaking, this is a huge effect. But what's going on?  It's not just a disguised left-right effect; Biblical literalism crushes self-identified ideology in a multiple regression.  And it's not a disguised social support effect; Biblical literalism crushes church attendance, too.  Marxists will no doubt claim vindication for their view that religion is the opium of the people.  But you could just as easily conclude that traditional religion successfully teaches gratitude.

Pew study says Facebook friends are real friends

Kansas City Star: Pew study says Facebook friends are real friends

Social media denizens, a common criticism goes, are cocooned in silos of homogeneous individuals, cut off from real-world relationships and apathetic about real-world concerns such as voting. But a new study of adult social-media users found just the opposite.

Results of the survey, released in June, show Facebook users are more trusting, have more close friends, get more support from those friends and are more politically engaged than people who do not use the social network, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project said.

...FRIEND BREAKDOWN

The average Facebook user has 229 Facebook friends:

•22 percent people from high school

•12 percent extended family

•10 percent co-workers

•9 percent college friends

•8 percent immediate family

•7 percent people from voluntary groups

•2 percent neighbors

Source: Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

Technology and Inequality

Project Syndicate: Technology and Inequality

... There is no doubt that income inequality is the single biggest threat to social stability around the world, whether it is in the United States, the European periphery, or China. Yet it is easy to forget that market forces, if allowed to play out, might eventually exert a stabilizing role. Simply put, the greater the premium for highly skilled workers, the greater the incentive to find ways to economize on employing their talents. ...

... As skilled labor becomes increasingly expensive relative to unskilled labor, firms and businesses have a greater incentive to find ways to “cheat” by using substitutes for high-price inputs. The shift might take many decades, but it also might come much faster as artificial intelligence fuels the next wave of innovation.

Perhaps skilled workers will try to band together to get governments to pass laws and regulations making it more difficult for firms to make their jobs obsolete. But if the global trading system remains open to competition, skilled workers’ ability to forestall labor-saving technology indefinitely should prove little more successful than such attempts by unskilled workers in the past.

The next generation of technological advances could also promote greater income equality by leveling the playing field in education. Currently, educational resources – particularly tertiary educational resources (university) – in many poorer countries are severely limited relative to wealthy countries, and, so far, the Internet and computers have exacerbated the differences.

But it does not have to be that way. Surely, higher education will eventually be hit by the same kind of sweeping wave of technology that has flattened the automobile and media industries, among others. If the commoditization of education eventually extends to at least lower-level college courses, the impact on income inequality could be profound.

Many commentators seem to believe that the growing gap between rich and poor is an inevitable byproduct of increasing globalization and technology. In their view, governments will need to intervene radically in markets to restore social balance.

I disagree. Yes, we need genuinely progressive tax systems, respect for workers’ rights, and generous aid policies on the part of rich countries. But the past is not necessarily prologue: given the remarkable flexibility of market forces, it would be foolish, if not dangerous, to infer rising inequality in relative incomes in the coming decades by extrapolating from recent trends.

Census Update: What the World Will Look like in 2050

Time: Census Update: What the World Will Look like in 2050

Here is the world in 2050, as imagined by the U.S. Census Bureau: India will be the most populous nation, surpassing China sometime around 2025. The U.S. will remain exactly where it is now: in third place, with a population of 423 million (up from 308 million in 2010). And declining birth rates in two of the world's most economically and politically influential countries, Japan and Russia, will cause them to fall from their current positions as the 9th and 10th most populous nations, respectively, to 16th and 17th.

The findings are the result of population estimates and projections of 228 countries compiled by the Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB). They offer a revealing look into the future. "One of the biggest changes we've seen has been the decline in fertility in some developed countries, such as China," says Loraine West, an IDB project manager, "while others are experiencing a slight increase." In other words, China's population boom is finally slowing down, while Western Europe's long-declining birth rate is — in some places, at least — once again rising. Spain and Italy are "on an uptick," says West, "but how high will [the birth rate] rise? Or will it simply fluctuate up and down on some long-term level? We'll have to see." According to Italy's National Institute of Statistics, the country's recent population increase can be largely attributed to its immigrant population.

The two countries on track to make the biggest population gains are Nigeria and Ethiopia. Nigeria currently boasts 166 million people, but by 2050 its population is expected to jump to 402 million. Ethiopia's population will likely triple, from 91 million to 278 million, making the East African nation one of the top 10 most populous countries in the world for the first time. In fact, according to the U.N. Population Division, although only 18% of the world's population lives in so-called high-fertility countries (places where women have more than 1.5 daughters on average), most of those countries are in Africa; the continent is expected to experience significant population growth in the coming decades, which could compound the already-dire food-supply issues in some African nations....

Neema. The Newest PCUSA Congregation in Kansas City.

How a Bible Study of 6-8 people started in 2003 becomes the first Swahili-English speaking chartered church/congregration in Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). (Source)

Do the Amish use Facebook?

Modeled Behavior: Do the Amish use Facebook?

The relationship between the Amish and technology is not so absolutist as most probably imagine. A recent article on the use of Facebook among Amish teens illustrates the complex, varied, and surprising ways in which the so-called Plain People interact with technology:

There are no statistics to show how many Amish are on Facebook, the social networking site used by an estimated 500 million people worldwide. But some, in a community that shuns electricity in their homes, won’t buy cars and maintains traditional garb, say the number of Plain kids using Facebook — often logging on via their cellphones — appears to be increasing….

For now, the reaction to Facebook in Amish communities ranges from preaching against it directly to being completely unaware of it:

The Amishwoman at the stand near Gap said one local minister actually did preach against Facebook in recent weeks. Others, she said, are vaguely worried, aware that it’s happening but unsure how many are involved. And they’re also hampered by the fact that many older Amishmen and women simply don’t know what Facebook is.