Economic Upswing and What These Things Mean - CC

So they -- "they" in this case being those folks over at the Commerce Department -- tell us that the economy is looking good for the first quarter, 3.5% "good," in fact. But what exactly does that mean, and what is 3.5% referring to?

I decided to take this otherwise only moderately interesting news piece and ask my friend Mike about it -- get him to sort of break it down for me -- to make it more meaningful for me. And, because I'm such a nice guy, I'm posting it for you to read. Mike has an interest in economics beyond that of anyone else I know.

I'll fill in parts that aren't clear in [brackets].

Me: The article says that the economy has grown by 3.5% in the first quarter. What is your initial reaction to that?

Mike: We're talking about GDP, right?

Me: Yes.

Mike: Well for our economy, that's very good growth. Inflation plays a large part in [just how good], but 3.5 to 4% is where you want to be. If that continues as a constant growth, it shows the economy is moving farther ahead, out of recession.

Me: Stuart Hoffman, the Chief Economist at FNC Financial Services Group said that the growth rate is "right on the economy's speed limit," and if it were much higher, we would have an "inflationary accident."

Mike: That exactly right. I've seen other countries do fine at 4.5%, but if you go too fast, inflation will kick in to bring everything back down to earth.

Me: The story cites "more brisk spending on housing projects" as one reason for the pick-up.

Mike: They're probably talking about urban development, but even if they're referring to low-budget [such as Section 8] housing projects, they're using tax money or taking loans and putting it into development. That's putting money into the economy. Look at it like war, they say war is good for the economy. You get everybody working, the same as with housing projects. People buy material and start working to build houses. The capital that the company got goes into materials and labor, and that money feeds back into the economy. [It's] increasing the “velocity” of money [like energizing the flow of currency to boost trade and employment].

Me: How is the growth estimate derived?

Mike: The total revenue for a company... is their growth factor. You have Nominal GDP and Real GDP. Nominal GDP is the whole economy's [value] (all companies' goods and services, with a few exceptions, like gasoline). Real GDP is [the Nominal GDP] with inflation included.
They take Nominal GDP and they divide it by inflation. Let's use a loaf of bread. A loaf of bread maybe costs $2 today. Ten years ago, it might have only cost $1. The inflation rate could be described as 10 cents per year.
[The Nominal GDP, or the country's revenue, is adjusted for the inflation rate, yielding the Real GDP. That rate is then compared with the rate from a respective time frame, such as quarters or years. Hence, our current rate shows 3.5% growth from the previous quarter.]

Me: What can we expect in terms of job growth?

Mike: It should be good. Job growth is usually 5-6% the unemployment rate. With 3.5% GDP, you expect unemployment to decrease. If you're running a company and you know what you're doing, the 3.5% gives you confidence. If a company feels secure, they’ll generally increase production or growth. They expand either [by increasing] their capital (machinery, computers) or hiring more people [as in] (construction).

Me: The article suggests that this growth is good news for Bush as he promotes his new Social Security plan, which will have people investing in the stock market.

Mike: It should back him up, but the problem with that is that ... you see the market drop 100 points every day for a couple weeks, and then bounce back up. That's very volatile. But with the GDP at 3.5%, we’re still doing good as an end result. For people investing in the market, seeing the stock market drop is scary. A volatile market is scary, but Bush can argue it in his favor [as in], "Over the long run you’ll do good in your returns."

....

We got into a discussion about oil prices at this point.

I have a better understanding of the article after my Economics 101 discussion with Mike, and I hope the economy continues to grow at its current rate. I was born well after the cutoff birth-year for those hoping to collect Social Security benefits... I'm going to have to pick Mike's brain so I have something to retire on!

Could all the player-shuffling bring on a Superbowl Shuffle for the Bears? - CC

The one and only Superbowl the Chicago Bears ever won (as faithful Chicago fans begrudgingly admit) was back in 1985. That was Superbowl XX.

In preparation for the 2005 season, a good deal of player shuffling has been going on. This season will be bring Superbowl XXXX, and I'm wondering if all the trading and player movement will make a difference. Or maybe the Bears could just get lucky after 20 years.

The last decade has been disappointing for Bears fans as the team has managed to win only about 1/3 of their regular season games. Yet the total payroll and median salary for the team has been steadily increasing for at least the last five years. John Tait ranked 7th for salary in the NFL last year at just over $13 million. And Brian Urlacher was the top paid in '03 breaching the $15 million mark. The Bears ranked 10th and 8th in '04 and '03 for overall salaries in the NFL in the neighborhood of $85 million.

For all the expense and reorganization, I'm hoping for a stronger season than we've seen in the last ten years. The last Division Championship was in 2001, and that was after a 10-year drought. Hoping the team brings a surprise win at the Superbowl (or even makes it there) may be asking too much, but I'm going to hold out for a more successful season than fellow fans and I have suffered through lately!

Stem Cells Still Have a Chance at Life, Barely - CC

After a quiet period, another article about embryonic stem cell legislation has popped up again.

And I have been very interested to see the progress(?) of the debate as it develops.

On one side, there are doctors and scientists making incredible claims based on their current studies dealing with the cells, and they rave about the vast range of possible health benefits that could come from the research.

On the other hand, it is not hard to find one of any number of thoughtful arguments in stout opposition to using embryonic stem cells for research, as opposed to adult cells which would not require the destruction of a living embryo.

A quick Google search for "stem cells" or "embryonic stem cell research," or any variation thereof generates hundreds of thousands of hits in a quarter second. And while these viewpoints and studies are readily available, the heated debate has seen very slow progress.

I think one of the reasons I find this issue of particular interest is that fifty years from now, a piece of butcher paper may be the only thing separating my bare ass from the cold surface of a doctor's table as I sit and wonder whether someone's embryonic cells could be the only thing to save me from the debilitating effects of advanced Parkinson's disease.

I might think a little differently about it at that point than I do right now. I have not, as yet, made up my mind. But for others like me -- early- to mid-twenty-somethings in college -- the current debate over stem cells will very likely become the topic of conversation in the old-folks' home as we play checkers and discuss what might have been. After all, the current political climate towards using tax-payers' money to fund embryonic stem cell research is luke-warm at best.

But that's only in this country. In Europe and probably Asia as well, such restrictions on embryonic stem cell research do not exist. Overseas, the research has carried on unabated while Americans wring their hands over what-to-do.... what-to-do!?

The truth is that the general population cannot possibly make an informed decision on the matter, and neither can the governmental bodies arguing over the whole mess. After all is said and done, the debate is being waged under the umbrella of ideological points of view. And we know for how long THOSE debates have been carrying on.

No matter how much proof exists on the pro-research side of the debate, those on the pro-life side will cling faithfully to their ideals, never giving in to the suggestion that barely-developed human lives should be used to improve or save the lives of countless others. (If I were a fetus, would I give my life to save countless others? Or would I want a shot at my own life and take my chances against Alzheimer's Disease?)

The answer, I think, is possibly more simple than people would like to consider, and -- in my "infitine" wisdom -- the answer is this:
1. A HUGE number of people have BIG problems with using embryos for stem cell research.
2. NO ONE is going to convince most of them otherwise.
3. People have been dying for as long as there have been people being born.
4. There's no need to push for embryonic stem cells when new data shows we can use adult cells, even if it's much harder to do.

After all, just because 8-year-old kids can make a heck of a lot of tennis shoes in sweat shops doesn't mean it should be done. What I'm saying is, even though embryonic stem cells might be MUCH easier to work with doesn't mean we should use them, especially since so many people are diametrically opposed to the idea.

If I knew that even 1/3 of the people in this country were against a particular kind of therapy, but the therapy was legal due to the required 2/3 vote needed to override the veto, I don't know I'd feel very proud using the therapy. But that is a question that my social peers must contend with, because in fifty or sixty years, make no mistake about it --- cancer, brain diseases, and any number of the other maladies that afflict the old-aged will have most, if not all, of our wrinkled withered butts on the line. And with the Grim Reaper on the doorstep, we just might be rethinking or regretting our youthful decisions.

Promise One Hundred Thousand plus One -- Growth

It must be -- or else I wouldn't be here right now -- the 100,001st time I've said "I really should write that down" to myself. Let this be the first of many blogs to come that represent a product of spontaneous inspired thought.... We shall see how "inspired" these thoughts sound in retrospect. But that's later... I'm here now.

A number of years ago my friend recommended to me a book called Reality Isn't What It Used To Be by Walter Truett Anderson (thanks Chris). I finally bought it, and since I have things that I need to be doing besides reading a book, I decided this would be the perfect time to read a few pages.

It turns out that I got all the way to the second page of the preface before my mind began tying ideas together and producing what I now blithely call "inspired" thought.

The book, to provide a little perspective, is subtitled "Theatrical Politics, Ready-to-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World." You know.... a light read. Anyway, a snippet, "...human reality -- all our history and science and systems of belief -- and the objective reality of the cosmos," got me thinking a bit.

(Note that without the vast [self-directed sarcasm] context of the first two pages, you might not get the impact of the snippet.) The text from the preceding paragraphs dealt with the way humans experience our experience (truly inspired!) admist an ocean of symbols: words. The author compared this experience to a sea otter's existence floating along in a sea of turbulent currents slothing to and fro.

The idea that humans exist in an intangible and invisible sea of symbols, containers to which humans assign meaning (words) which quite literally at times can drown us in scientific, political, idealogical, reglious, and social customs and obligation, is at once staggering and hard to grasp. Further, this experience is in cold contrast to hard reality of the cosmos.

The text that I cited inserted a visualization into my mind's eye where I am viewing the world, our Earth, from a distance so that I am just outside the reach of our atmosphere. From just another couple cosmic steps backward, the world appears as a body with a mind all its own belonging collectively to humans as we dictate meaning onto objects -- literally objectifying our entire world -- and explicitly create our World (capital W).

Scaling down to the individual person's perspective, this gives new meaning -- or, rather, highlights the ACTUAL meaning -- of the phrase "living in your own World."

I have often thought about (stay with me here) how the individual behaves much the way a family behaves much the way a community behaves much the way a society behaves much the way humans, on a macroscopic scale, behave. On the individual level, we have conflicting drives, emotions, and desires that we must seek to balance.

In this way, we humans as a species of like-minded entities are composed of groups and cultures who reflect the same conflicting desires and ways of life. As communication enables global interaction, the conflicts we have with neighboring cultures is very representative of the rifts we as individuals often have within ourselves, our psyches, until we grow into who we decide we want to be as individuals.

Likewise, as the different ideologies and belief systems clash and blend in a globalized world, human life on our planet as an entity all its own is quite literally growing up, or is essentially going through the stages an individual goes through as he or she traverses the turbulent tides of adolesence into adulthood.

And from my vantage point in space looking down at our Earth, just as retrospect is a looking-glass into one's past, I reflect upon the way mistakes are repeated in our global life, how lessons are learned slowly and through resolve to do better, and that while bad choices are made by certain facets of one's personality, on the whole most of it is good.

From an elevated perspective, the triflings and greediness become minimized in the scheme of all experience but remains significant as we as individuals provide it the energy to perpetuate. Some of our shameful history becomes laughable in the greater scheme, but none of the events in our individual or macroscopic life is without purpose in that each situation we experience -- individually and as a whole -- becomes part of who we are.

If "intelligent" life exists elsewhere in the cosmos, I wonder into what class of individual the Earth falls. Is Earth an upstanding citizen, a selfish child, or somewhere in between? How then, as the scientific community gives more credence to the possibility of a cosmic community, would we behave amongst others? More importantly, what would we think of ourselves if we could hold up a giant mirror and look ourselves in the eye? Are we proud of who we are, and if not, what as a species could we do better?

Is this not how we as individuals initiate growth?