Skip to main content

Gasoline memories and realities...

I remember a time, when I was about 8 or 9 years old, my mother was painting one of the rooms in our house and needed something to clean her paint brush. She handed me a quarter and a gallon jug and told me to go to the store on the corner and buy a gallon of gasoline. Back then, it was more economical to use gas to clean a paint brush than it was to go buy a can of paint thinner. What a concept!

The other day my son Peter earned a trip to the movie of his choice. He wanted to see Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D. The movie was playing at three theaters. The theatre closest to our house was charging $9/person admission, and the other two were charging only $7/person. Our first impulse was to go to the more distant, but cheaper theater. But then we started thinking about how much the gas would cost to drive our Dodge van. When we did the math, it worked out that it was less expensive to go to the closer theatre and pay the higher admission price.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Agregate Demand and the US Savings Rate

In my last post, I touched on the differences between the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes and Ludwig von Mises. Immediately aftward, I was directed to this story in the New York Times. It seems that americans are saving more instead of spending the their money on consumer goods. Up until this downturn, about 70% of the US Economy was consumer spending, and in 2005, the US Savings rate was negative 2.7%. The "stimulus" is supposed to stimulate spending to get money moving again. But it isn't happening as planned. Folks are saving for down payments because they don't expect to get zero down home mortgages; they're saving to replenish their decimated retirement and college funds. The austrians believe that the best way to "fix" the economy is to allow the "malinvestment" created by the false signals in the economy (from the open market ops and deficit spending) to be liquidated and the resources repurposed into better investments. It...

Adoption Bibliography

Eventually, I will post the rest of my paper, but I think it appropriate to post the Bibliography, and I have some use for having it available online. This represents only the sources used in my paper, not the full extent of sources considered. “Adoption is the Best Option” http://adoptionisthebestoption.yolasite.com/ (a really good example of misleading appeals to emotion.) Alternate Religions Educational Network. Alternate Religions Educational Network (AREN) http://www.aren.org/ . accessed Nov 26, 2009. Babb, L. Anne. Ethics In American Adoption. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey 1999. Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services (BCHFS) http://www.bchfs.com . Accessed Sept 9, 2009. Barrett, William P. “Americas Most (and least) Efficient Charities.” Forbes Nov 2004 Bender, Karen E., & Nina de Gramont, eds.. Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, & Adoption. San Francisco, CA: MacAdam-Cage 2007 Berne, Emma Carlso...

Once in an eclipsed blue moon with Mercury in retrograde, etc

For any of you that may be interested in astrology or astronomy, this is quite the New Years... Today at 12:13 pm Mountain Standard Time, the moon was at it's fullest, and all the way around the world in the darkness of night, it was eclipsed over much of Europe, Africa and Asia. Of course, today is also New Year's Eve, and the occurrence of a full moon on New Year's Eve hasn't happened since 1990. According to Spaceweather.com , an eclipsed Blue Moon on New Year's happens only once every 91 years! So this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence! So to recap, we have Mercury (and Mars) in Retrograde right now, adding to the energies of the Full Moon, which is falling on the global holiday of New Year's Eve, which is wrapping up the '00 decade, and then all of those factors are being amplified by the power of an extremely rare eclipse. Wow! We know that Mercury is Retrograde in Capricorn, and this full moon is in its natural home of Cancer. The sign of Can...