Sunday, June 27, 2010

How Many Calories In School Lunch

The New Anti-Capitalist Party? More utilitarian, you die!



Sometimes I look at Canal Plus in my spare time, more out of nostalgia for the blessed period 80 years where there were interesting things about this chain. Besides, we were not so many to look at the time, and in those 80's I still thought that I would later become the master Tanguy and did not think the economy other than the yawning chronic tedious jean-marc Sylvester, watch this channel was the mark of those "trendy" ...

[ What I do not hear you think, reader, that the modest author of this blog is more than Laverdure Tanguy. Anyway, I always prefer to Buck Danny Tanguy and Laverdure. Anyway, hard to the time for a small Burgundian to identify with a driver at Uncle Sam, while the squadron is based in Dijon storks. ]

.. Digression aside, then, at the Grand Journal de Canal Plus I happen to follow, I discovered the horse factor in French politics (we will see that this bold metaphor is not totally free), Olivier Besancenot, to who are asked to give its opinion on the recent cases of pay for various political figures on missions whose interest is not obvious a priori.

[ Do not count me say, reader, it is the mission paid handsomely Christine Boutin on the challenges of globalization ]
Here, this brave Oliver throws all go to the front of the camera one of NPA's main proposals: the remuneration of elected officers must be fixed according to the average income of the French population., currently 1800 euros.

[ I heard him say it live, but have not managed to find this proposal on the website of the NPA, particularly leafy must say. But I found there . If, reader, you find a more direct source and more explicit let me know! This will allow me at least to illustrate my lectures on the theory of social choice ... ]

I found this amusing proposal personally, if we adopt again the spectacle of the economist, and frankly in the end quite inconsistent with the political end that seems to be that of NPA to for which I have any kind of animosity I might add. However, as Audiard said, "must not take the children of god for wild ducks."
Indeed, what can match this proposal from a economic standpoint? Beyond the basic idea that politicians are like everyone else and should be paid like everyone else, make such a proposal certainly implies, among other things, we think that politicians have somehow an obligation of result. Indeed, if they do not improve the material situation of the population, their situation will not improve. You tell me that I read the proposal of the NPA in a manner that does not happen to be, and can be is this the case, but I have to be pragmatic and push the mind of a such as these to evaluate their ultimate consequences consequences.

Base changes in the level of elected officials on the welfare of the average population is a very specific vision of what economists call the social welfare function. In fact, without going further in larger theoretical debates or ethical be based on the average income is rather curious point of view of a party with a principle I think is equal situations or equal Opportunities at the very least, any person who has minimal bases of statistics can understand it without any problem. In fact, I guess I have two individuals and one has an income of 0 € and the other from 4000 €, while average income is 2,000 euros, assuming that the two individuals have the same weight in the social welfare point of view of the election. He then personally earns 2000 euros. If a tax of some kind (such as "niche"), it increased the income of the richest to 5000 euros a month, while his own salary increases to 500 euros, since the average income is 2500 euros. Basically, he has no particular incentive to increase the income of the poorest people in society.

Keynes said in the general theory that "The are men of action who think themselves perfectly freed from doctrinal influences are usually the slaves of some past economist, "and the current position of the NPA is a brilliant demonstration. The scheme proposes that remuneration of elected amounts de facto to give elected officials, the policy maker generally , a social welfare function that has a very specific form. This concept of social welfare function, given there are over 70 years by Bergson in 1938 and elaborated by Samuelson in 1947, must obey certain principles basic, in fact quite intuitifs.La social welfare function tells how a decision maker concerned public interest General takes into account the personal position of all individuals in society, that is to say how he relies on the individual utilities to determine the level of social welfare. (See this wikipedia article pretty much done) Many different designs of this function are possible (see this very good post here ), and this post only scratches a theoretical debate that is still being fed.

In particular, the social welfare function is called utilitarian or utilitarian or Benthamite (named Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher of the second half of the 18th century who founded the utilitarian doctrine that an individual "Always act so that it results in the greatest amount of happiness") if it takes the specific form given by the same Bentham, namely:

"The interest Then Of The community is - what? The Sum of The Interest Of The Who SEVERAL members composed it. " (Cited by Mueller (2003), Public Choice.

Clearly, social welfare is the sum of well-being of individuals in society. Obviously, with constant population, sum and average are indeed different concepts but the same results. The average income is the sum of earnings divided by a value n that it will be assumed constant, which represents the size of the population, that we increase the income of 1000 euros to the richest in my example above above means that we increase the total income of 1000 euros and it is good for society. From the standpoint of fairness, this way of thinking is rather special, since it implies a state of wealth distribution in which Robinson has everything and has nothing Friday is equivalent for the policy maker to a state of wealth distribution in which they are distributed equally to Friday and Robinson. In the chart below shows an indifference curve (that is to say a constant level of social utility for all possible levels of the usefulness of the two individuals in the society) for the decision maker public as part of this conception of social welfare:




It is quite surprising as a way of seeing things from the NPA. I rather naively expected that, even being revolutionaries, they suggest that elected officials are paid based on the minimum income of individuals in French society, a function given by the philosopher John Rawls Theory of Justice in 1974:


In this conception of social welfare, the level of well being is defined by the minimum utilities of all individuals in society, as Rawls justifies the famous "veil ignorance ", and not by any vision extremely charitable distribution income. Or aware of the difficulty of such a program, the NPA activists could offer a vision of social welfare at the Bernoulli-Nash social utility is e product of individual utilities:

The potential value of such a design is that, if Friday is not (its value is zero), then social welfare is zero, even if Robinson is infinitely rich. In addition, over the utilities of individuals are, the more the product is high.

I confess that I burst out laughing at the idea that Olivier Besancenot, probably without ie, invokes Jeremy Bentham as a companion to a hypothetical grand march toward a society in which capitalism would be a distant memory. From my perspective, it's like if Schwarzenegger justified his choice of career in film evoking the work of Eric Rohmer ...

Sunday, June 13, 2010

How To Track Volume License

"Yes Man" or the temptation of commitment

It seems that in blogging, it is fashionable to talk, at least a little. So, yes, reader, I confess, I am a hopeless fan of Jim Carrey ... Sorry, reader, if I disappoint you, but I want an authentic comic genius, without hesitation to the height of Jerry Lewis.
Being a fan of his performance in Saturday Night Live, or his imitation of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park to the Oscar ceremony in the presence of Steven Spielberg - memorable scene well-known, but almost all his films (yes, even "Dumb and Dumber" and "Ace Ventura" ...) ...

[ At that point, outraged readers think this is too much - No! Still, not Ace Ventura! - and zap on the blog much classier Olivier Bouba-Olga and friends of Mafeco ]
... I was saying before being interrupted by the thread of my own thoughts, that, being a fan of most of its films, I discovered with delight one of his latest opus, which in my humble opinion One of the best long, "Yes Man."
The pitch in two sentences. Jim is in this film, a sorry fellow who has no taste for life. Whenever any proposal is made for him out of his chronic boredom, he responds negatively, inventing excuses any more deceptive than each other .. So, abandoning his friends and he slowly sinks into chronic depression. He meets then a guru who preaches the gospel, the key to happiness is for him to say "yes" to life, that is to say to agree with all the opportunities that fate offers. To witness by the guru, embodied mischievously by the great Terence Stamp, Jim then agrees to become a "yes man" before the entire community of visionaries who follow this rule of life. Of course, while the spring comedy film comes from the consequences of the multiple proposals that Jim receives and to which he responds eternally "yes".
In fact, it's an interesting movie to illustrate the issue of free will and personal commitment. What got me interested in another time is that, from the standpoint of economic rationality standard (outside of any social preference), once again, the remarks do not hold a second. It is indeed absurd to renounce the possibility to select and optimize for each choice situation. Is it as ridiculous as that?

[ A reader like me already pointed out that most comedies would like to situations or choices that are aberrant, and therefore it is a priori easy to tap into the cinema, to speak of irrationality in conduct, I challenge you: Is there a comedy that relies entirely on the consequences of rational behavior obsequiously in the sense economists? Personally, I do not see, but there may be something to dig for writers in search of inspiration. ]

One interpretation that I'm the film is that, faced with the temptation that Jim has always said no to all proposals, which is the easiest solution for him in the short term, he forced by the moral contract to help do anything but to accept. Again, we are in a problem of procrastination I have frequently mentioned in this blog. We are all aware of the strategies we use to avoid procrastination. One thing to be aware, it is one thing to observe in the laboratory. And then, the empirical evidences are scarce. To my knowledge, apart from the study of Ariely & Wertenbroch in 2001 and that of Trope & Fisbach, there was not much. Furthermore, their studies were not laboratory experiments, which does not diminish their interest, but leads to questions about the degree of control variables involved in the quasi-experimental situations they implement. Regarding the quasi-experiment by Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch they indeed explain to students that require a duty to succeed in their review they have the opportunity to enter a date of record, knowing that 'They should have made anyway duty before a certain deadline (which corresponds to the end of the academic year). The principle is that if the student chooses a date rendering itself, it is contractual, that is to say that if he does not need to date it has committed, no consideration. On purely rational person should commit to a date prior to rendering the final official date, and all students should reach their effort as late as possible to make their duty simply to record the date of the later.

To their surprise, a large proportion of students committed on dates earlier than the date maximum possible, which, again, is absurd if one assumes that the individual is a rational agent. Trope & Fischbach observe basically the same thing. Subjects which have to perform a medical examination involving unpleasant but abstinence in terms absorption of glucose, is a concession with respect to a prior commitment can take a number of days resulting in a monetary cost of their choosing. A significant proportion of subjects required when significant monetary penalties.

Number of theoretical constructs have been proposed to explain and "rationalize" these phenomena, O'Donogue and Rabin in 1993, Benabou & Tirole 2000, or Gul & Pesendorefer in 2001 and more recently Fudenberg & ; Levine in 2006. In the latter case, the personality of the agent is dual (hence the name dual self model), the agent who somehow two rationales, one short-term that drives him to yield to the temptation, the other long-term enjoins respect a certain intertemporal optimization level. Most of these models, apart from that of Gul & Pesendorfer, imply time inconsistency of choice, which is unfortunate from the standpoint of rationality assumed in economics, which usually raises more comprehensive welfare (mentioned briefly in this previous post).

From the perspective of experience laboratory, this type of observation is rather difficult to achieve. Experience typically lasting at most a couple of hours, how to put participants in situations where any temptation prevents them from maximizing their choice and to accumulate the greatest possible gain? It is this difficulty that I managed to circumvent by Houser, Schunk, Xiaoli & Winter, 2010 " temptation and Commitment in the Lab " in a very recent study . Subjects must perform tasks rather tiresome, these tasks allowing them to accumulate earnings and are being offered the ability to stop to go surfing as they wish on the Internet. The fact of giving in to temptation and go surfing, however, is irrevocable, the participant is not able to return earn points (and therefore dollars) in a repeat of tasks. The subjects can then embark on a number of tasks to be performed, this possibility being no imposed. Failure to carry out their commitment is costly in the experiment, the failure to comply with the resulting negative points that reduces the gain resulting from the accumulation of tasks. A

of the most surprising is that approximately 20% of the subjects committed while the cost of the undertaking is positive. In a recent study that Bonein Aurélie and I have just begun, we get more or less the same conclusion, very surprising from my point of view. 20 to 30% of participants committed to achieve a given number of tasks, some being ready to sacrifice all of their earnings in the event of non compliance with their commitment, and by adopting this contract far from easy to achieve. The main justification for returning most often in the writings of subjects is that they wanted to win and get motivated the most money. I admit that the arms are literally fell me when we found it!

[ player, one thing is to think and speculate that something is possible in terms of behavior, this thing is not rational, but quite another to observe live in a lab, I can tell you that this record quite a adrenaline rush! ]

Therefore, the apparently ludicrous behavior of the "yes man" played by Jim Carrey, this behavior is based on the premise of the film as highly unlikely a priori, very expensive, is far to be a marginal behavior. We are all more or less ready to commit ourselves to control our visceral influences that make us deviate from the path we traced ourselves.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Best Hd Camcorder Action

Create an SCI

In 2005, almost 6,500 civil societies have been established in Paris. The real estate companies (SCI) became a common mode of wealth management: they can hold several real estate and manage flexibly. But beware, they are not suitable to all situations.

SCI (1), real estate company, is a company comprised of two partners at a minimum, which aims to manage a property portfolio. By creating an SCI, each partner receives shares in return for his contribution. SCI can not have a commercial purpose: you can not buy goods to resell immediately for profit. As such, an SCI can "rent furnished" as the benefits of apartment rentals are regarded as business profits tax. To be a

SCI, there is no criterion of social capital minimum. Nevertheless, the issue of share capital must be asked: low or high, the amount varies depending on specific situations and goals.

To create an SCI, it simply:

- write the articles by private deed or by deed, then the sign
- register the statutes of the SCI to the tax
- publish the constitution society in a legal gazette
- make the registration of the company.

Benefits SCI

It is customary to say that buying a property under the SCI allows more flexible management of heritage in ownership. This is mitigated by changing the legal regime of joint ownership, in effect since January 1, 2007; unanimous undivided no longer routinely required (2). In SCI, freedom of contract can adapt the articles for the intended purpose. The SCI is particularly well suited when many people decide to buy a whole property to rent.

An SCI can be created to protect a spouse upon death. The articles may contain terms favorable to the survivor, to guarantee him the enjoyment of the family property until his own death. This option retains its interest, even if the surviving spouse, since a recent reform, a life interest in the family home, unless otherwise agreed by the deceased.

The SCI is also interesting in regard to transmission of property assets. Parents may, for example, send a free portion of their shares during their lifetimes (in the limit of 50,000 euros per parent per child every 6 years). They can also reduce the amount of inheritance tax to pay for their children their death. How? By dismembering the shares of the SCI. Thus, a property can be "dismembered" (3) or split into two entities: on one hand the "bare ownership" and the other the "usufruct". Parents give the bare ownership of their shares to their children and retain the usufruct. Children will pay so that donations of human on the bare ownership. The bare property tax value will be determined by age of donor (parental age at the time of donation). Upon the death of parents, usufruct off and the children become full owners without formality or fees.

Disadvantages of SCI

SCI involves a cumbersome management for individuals: we must respect legal obligations, accounting and tax like any company.

Another disadvantage of the SCI: the partners are jointly liable for partnership debts in proportion to their contribution. For example, if an SCI decides to hire the work done by a big company it can not afford to pay, the company can turn against each partner indefinitely until their share of debt is mopped.

In case of purchase of the residence through the SCI, it should be noted that the shareholders can not use their PEL, and may not use the zero-interest loans and other loans contracted. SCI will not benefit from tax cuts for big jobs.

Do not forget that the shares of an SCI are more difficult to sell a home or a building ...

(1) Is addressed in this article that the SCI wealth management, including object is the leasing or managing one or more buildings. There are other forms of SCI, the different legal regime, such as allocating or SCI-building sale.

(2) Acts of Conservation (acts designed to evade the undivided property to an imminent and that does not compromise the rights of other joint) can be performed by a single undivided. Some actions require a two thirds majority. The sale of the building requires it, the agreement of all members of the ownership.

(3) For a definition of these terms, see our fact sheet:
http://www.fnaim.fr/infos/guide-immobilier/usufruit/demembrement.aspx

Fiscal transparency?

The SCI is, by default, except for tax transparent option for the corporate tax. Tax transparency means that each partner is taxed on profits made by SCI in proportion to its shareholding in the company. The benefits of SCI therefore appear on the statement of income for shareholders as property income.