Tag Archive | "economics"
Begging in India and How to Actually Help the Poor
If you want to help Indian children, please don't give to child beggars. Of all of the advice I might give to individuals traveling to India - or most of the developing world - the most important one would be Don't give to beggars I realize this sounds cruel and callous. It feels cruel and callous to me, even when I know it's the best choice - especially when I'm sitting in an air-conditioned car in India, idling at a red light, and people who are clearly poor, clearly in need come to the window begging for a small handout. Just a few rupees, which, to an American or other Western traveler, is next to nothing. Change I probably wouldn't bother to pickup off the ground if I saw it. Can you ignore such clear need without guilt creeping up on you? I can't. I feel guilty for my Western extravagance when I see the numerous beggars in India. Very guilty. But I still don't give them any money. The reason is because I know - from a few simple economic principles - that giving to beggars is not a particularly noble deed. In fact, I'd say that giving to beggars in a poor, developing country - like India - is a bad act. It certainly doesn't seem that way - and I don't think givers give with bad intentions - but it's still a problem. Let me explain...
Continue reading...Intertwined Utility Functions – the Economics of Relationships
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The study of economics screws up your brain. Or, at least, that's what people outside the field who haven't drunk the econ kool-aid tell me. (Like most potentially insane people, I, of course, wouldn't know if I were in fact insane. That's the fun of it!) Anyway, I'm informed that most people don't think about romantic relationships in terms of intertwined, interdependent utility functions. But I do. And I think you should consider the idea too. Think of it as practice in learning how a subculture (a geeky, mathematically-inclined subculture) thinks about love and romance.
Continue reading...Change Happens: Updates From Our Cross-Cultural Household
Monday, June 2, 2008
Gori Girl (the blog) isn't meant to be just a personal site - while I talk about my life and marriage a fair amount here, the point isn't to just blab to the interweb about my life (not that I don't enjoy blogs that do) , but instead to add something of value to yours. However, there's been a few shakeups in Aditya's and my lives recently - some of which has & will affect this blog - so I thought I'd just write a short update post, as well as write about a couple new features coming up in the sidebars. So consider this a metablog post, if you will.
Continue reading...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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