Bricolage

"If you don't have the right equipment for the job, you just have to make it yourself."

–MacGyver

Well, this might be the most difficult blog post for me to write yet.  My office-mate from graduate school and one of my closest friends, Dave Conz, died last week.  When something like that happens you end up thinking a lot about the person's life and what it meant, to you and to others.  Dave offered so much to this world.  He had a doctorate in sociology, a master's degree in humanities, and a bachelor's degree in aerospace studies.  He was a pilot, a motorcycle mechanic, a hobby farmer, a dancer, a welder, a drummer, a skateboarder.  He spoke German.  He made biodiesel and beer from scratch.  And so much more.  Perhaps his biggest contribution intellectually was identifying the constraints and opportunities in modern society to combine a bunch of random ideas and things together to create something extraordinary (per the MacGyver quote above- one of Dave's favorites).  In a lot of ways this is what we are trying to do with the Applied Social Science program- getting students to the point where they combine all the random things they learn in a meaningful and consequential way.  Sociologists (and others) call this "bricolage", and while there is considerable scholarship on this topic I want to take some time ruminating on it in my own way.

Debt, Growth, and the great Excel debacle of '13

Today news broke about an influential economic study being "de-bunked" on several levels, both due to some selective data decisions and also the sexier headline of a mistaken Excel code. (note, the de-bunked link above is to a more readable summary ... for economists or others in the audience that want to read the original critique, that can be found here)

The particular study in question is about a very important topic, particularly in recent policy debates:  the importance of the U.S. debt levels to the overall economy.  We have been locked into an endless cycle of debt ceiling debates, in part fueled by the conclusions of this study and so any suggestion that these findings are questionable could (and should) have major implications for how we think about debt and austerity moving forward. The original authors Reinhart and Rogoff (paper here) essentially found (or claimed to find) that countries with high levels of debt (specifically, a debt-to-GDP ratio of 90% or more) suffered from lower economic growth rates.  These findings have been widely cited by Paul Ryan and others as evidence that austerity plans to reduce the debt are vitally necessary for the health of the economy.  Such claims are now being shown to have been based on some shaky economic foundations.

Why pick on gender studies?

In another post, my colleague Chris Ferguson made excellent points about the value of higher education that goes beyond very narrow job training while still keeping in mind that education is an investment in the future (but an investment of a particular kind).  In that post, he quoted Governor Pat McCrory’s comments about his desire to use public money to fund education that trains people for jobs:

“If you want to take gender studies that’s fine, go to a private school and take it. But I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job.”

Chris pointed to the fact that gender studies is singled out but then left it aside hoping that someone would tackle it.  So, here is my two cents on that issue.

Rethinking the cost of higher education

I am late getting around to posting this, but if you follow higher education policy at all, quite a bit of attention has paid recently to the latest governor to weigh in on education reform.  North Carolina's Gov. Pat McCrory (am I the only one that has trouble pronouncing that name?) has caused quite a stir with his comments regarding the value of liberal education.

One thing you should know about citizens of North Carolina is that they take a lot of pride in their excellent universities and colleges (I'm a proud Wake Forest Alumnus, but I would also grudgingly admit that Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, Davidson, Elon, NC State, etc are, if not quite as good as Wake, also top notch institutions) and so any remarks disparaging these colleges (or their basketball teams) are likely to draw backlash in the state.

Gender, Names, and Fraud Charges

Today in my Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective class we were discussing a classic article about gender-based naming practices among some segments of Chinese society.  The basic point of the article is that names provide important clues to ideas of personhood which are profoundly gendered.  Men gain and choose for themselves a series of names throughout their life that continue to mark them as individuals, celebrate milestones and accomplishments, and demonstrate their ability to use the nuances of their language in interesting and cleaver ways.  Women, in contrast, are given names that connect them to hopes for the larger family, that mark them as wives or mothers, or that reference something from the time they were born.  Women have a tendency to lose individualized names as they age, being referred to sometimes even simply as “old woman.”  Our class discussion was very interesting and we were able to point out some continuity with practices like taking on a husband’s name at marriage along with the more obvious differences.

Then, one student mentioned a news story that I had somehow missed about a man in Florida who had his driver’s license revoked because, the state said, he had committed fraud in obtaining it.  The fraud? He had changed his last name to his wife’s when they were married.  

Open for Business

When Governor Walker was elected a few years ago, one of the first things he did (even before some of the more, shall we say, controversial moves) was to commit to supporting business growth in Wisconsin.  The slogan "Open for Business" was a key part of the governor's new platform to create 250,000 new jobs.  Personally, I'll admit I found it tacky to slap the bumper-sticker like slogan on our beautiful state welcome signs [the best in the Union!], however if we can put that aside for the moment, this sentiment of promoting business growth is typically one of the top responsibilities of any political leader.  The question is, how do we best go about doing it?

The utility of the coin flip?

Recently Freakonomics guru Steven Levitt announced a new research project of his on strategic decision making.  He argues that when we really cannot make a definitive decision between two things then the only logical choice is to flip a coin.  With that he launched a new website that is dedicated to Freakonomics Experiments.  You send in your decision that you cannot make, flip a coin, let them know your outcome, and then they check in with you a couple of times in the future to find out how that decision turned out for you.  I am really curious what they find out.  I think this is fascinating, but perhaps not for the reason Levitt does.  I believe it's fascinating because it disregards the role of emotion in that decision, which reflects a problem with the role of emotion for decision making in modern society.

Monetizing Trolling?

It seems that Facebook is experimenting with a new business model ... they are quietly rolling out a pilot that will allow you to send a direct message to someone for a fee, whether you are friends with them or not.  The extreme version seems to be $100 bucks to email Mark Zuckerberg.  However, they also seem to be experimenting with a $1 charge to message "regular people."  This is a really interesting economic experiment of the type I get really fascinated by ... how do we put a price on weird stuff?  And what are the consequences of doing it?

Getting into (Blue) Heaven ... 20% at a time

There has been a proliferation of "Tipping" stories in the news in the last few months, and I thought I'd weigh in on the topic as it's one of those fascinating questions that economists (and social scientists in general) puzzle over that force us to think more carefully about our models of human behavior.  That, and because one of my favorite under-rated movies of all time provides this kernel of wisdom from Steve Martin, aka Vincent Antonelli, aka 'Todd Wilkinson' ...

"It's not tipping I believe in - it's OVER tipping!"

Words to live by.

Trillion Dollar Coin

It seems that the country (or at least the portion of the country that follows wonky economic policy issues) is getting more and more interested in the possibility of using a "Trillion Dollar Coin" to avert the debt ceiling showdown - an idea first proposed by the Simpsons as a method of WWII recovery aid.  Yes, that's the world we're living in now - perhaps we can use Spider-pig to solve our crime problems for us as well.   For those not following along at all, here are some of the key highlights and a bit of an FAQ on the trillion dollar coin solution: