You Can't Multitask, But You Can Divide Your Attention

One thing I've noticed as I simultaneously entered the world of smart phones and texting is the impossibility of multitasking. Something else I've noticed is the possibility of dividing your attention. There is a difference. Multitasking implies the ability to do more than one thing at a time as well as you would do it by itself. This has been shown to be not possible. When ever you do a task, your brain puts a certain percentage of it's effort towards it. For example, let's say normal driving requires 75% of your brain and texting requires 50%. That means when you do both, you are really doing neither very well. Oprah agrees.

However, I believe it is possible to divide your attention. That is, to do two tasks that require very little percentage of your brain. For example bad TV, which I estimate to require about 35% of your attention, and playing Pocket Tanks on my iPhone, which requires about 25%. I can easily do both of these tasks, even counting for the deadweight loss percentage probably required to switch between the two. So be careful not to overload your brain, but also because not to waste those valuable percentage points.

Legalizing Marijuana Leads to Less Traffic Deaths

I've given my argument (in facts, stories, and loser drug dealers) for the legalization (and decriminalization) of drugs. Here's another about another of my favorite topics, driving:

To date, 16 states have passed medical marijuana laws, yet very little is known about their effects. Using state-level data, we examine the relationship between medical marijuana laws and a variety of outcomes. Legalization of medical marijuana is associated with increased use of marijuana among adults, but not among minors. In addition, legalization is associated with a nearly 9 percent decrease in traffic fatalities, most likely to due to its impact on alcohol consumption. Our estimates provide strong evidence that marijuana and alcohol are substitutes.

Emptying the Bottle: Mid-November '11 Links

Google recently canceled their sharing format, so I've switched to posting them on Twitter. So as usual, here is a list of the worthwhile links I've found recently:

• There's a billion-bug highway above you that you can't see [video] (earlier).
• Story of how modern day science can protect us emotionally [audio].
• Tear jerking marriage interview to inspire us all [audio].
• Why sandwiches taste better when someone else makes them.
• Blackberry outages cut Abu Dhabi traffic accidents by 40%.
• I am the 59%. Find out your number (earlier).
• Freakonomics on football momentum and icing the kicker [videos].
• Famous boos throughout history.
• Follow The Fake PewResearch Center on Twitter.
• A "Life Isn't Fair" Hallmark greeting card [photo].
• Siri meets Furby [video].

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

Enterprise Car Rental, A Personal Story

It takes a lot to convince me that business is the problem, but it happens. It happened again.

In September I got rear ended on the highway. The road was slick, the car in front of me slammed on their breaks and I did the same. The poor fellow behind me didn't stand much of a chance. He hit me so hard I slid into the car in front of me. Thankfully no one was hurt, everyone was polite, and the officer didn't fine me for a expired licence plate (how do you get a new tag when you don't technically don't have a home address?).

Then came the aftermath. My car was badly damaged but somehow still driveable. I was notified by the other driver's insurance company that I would have to take the car to them to get the damage estimated and to get a car rental voucher. Soon I'd dropped my car off at the body shop and was picked up at Enterpise Rent-A-Car. Here's what they gave me:

If there was ever hope for American car dealers, this vehicle killed it. It's a Chevrolet HHR. Luckily they also left me with a fourth-a-tank of gas. After a week I got a call from Enterprise saying that my last day with the car will be coming up and that I will need to return it. I then called the body shop who informed me that it would be several weeks before they would be done. I informed Enterprise that the voucher should be good for as long as my car was in the shop. They told me I have to contact the insurance company.

Every week I would have to do this dance. Enterprise calls me. I call the body shop. Body shop confirms the time frame they originally gave me. I'd call the other driver's insurance company. They'd call Enterprise. And each week I got gas I couldn't fill up because I was never sure when I would need to return the car to it's original 1/4 tank. After a few weeks I insisted Enterprise just call the insurance company and stopped answering their calls. They continued to call.

After a $37 charge popped up on my card, for what I haven't figured out yet, I called, assured them the voucher was still good and asked them to remove the fee. Which they did after two more reminders. Last week, to top off the great service I'd received, my American-made-PT Cruiser-wanna be broke down. I called the Enterprise office who then told me to call their roadside assistance. After over an hour of waiting they sent someone to jump the battery. It didn't work.

The mechanic leaves and tells me to call Enterprise again. They tell me to wait there for another hour for a tow truck. I tell them the keys will be in the seat and get my brother-in-law to drive me to dinner and a basketball game, then to the Enterprise office to get another car. On the way I call them to confirm I'm coming and they tell me my car has not been towed yet (which I know it has) and can't give me a car.

I show up anyways and explain to them that I have no vehicle because the one they gave me broke down and was towed. I beg them to call the roadside assistance. They do. After 20 minutes on hold they find someone who can confirm my other car has been towed. After giving me a minivan (nicer than my old one granted) then informed me that I should return the car tomorrow to their Wade Hampton branch and that my car will be fixed.

Apparently Wade Hampton is a really long road. Apparently Wade Hampton has an east and west side where the numbers change. Apparently an hour and a half is not long enough to allocate to get somewhere that closes when you apparently don't know where you're going. So I dropped the car off at the body shop, and said good riddance to bad rentals.

Enterprise, they'll pick you up, then let you down.

Economic History of Gas Prices

Here's some much needed context:

But in constant 2010 dollars, that 1919 price of gas was $3.14. True, at the moment we’re paying a bit more—about $3.96. However, keep in mind that in 1919 there were 7.58 million motor vehicles on America’s roads. Today, Americans own about 254 million vehicles. That means that gas prices have risen 26 percent since 1919, while US vehicle ownership has risen 3,250 percent. And those vehicles are being driven more intensively than their 1919 counterparts. We now drive 6,800 percent more miles per year than in 1919, while gas prices have stayed pretty much stable.

Regret, Frustration, and Traffic

The Freakonomics blog recently posted a study done showing that people will give up something to prevent the possibility of regret. In the experiment participants were asked to pick a lottery ticket at random and then were offered a bonus to exchange the ticket for a different one. Because the first choice was random, there's no reason not to accept the free gift, but most do not. This is an irrationality I see often. I think it comes from a misunderstanding of sunk costs. There are certain things that are out of our control, for example the lottery, so they shouldn't effect our decision making.

I use this idea regularly on my long commute to work. It's well known that commuting, along with being  a terrible use of time, is very mentally taxing. One of the more frustrating parts of driving to work in the morning with a late bell looming over your shoulder, is getting behind a slow moving vehicle. That is, until I realized that most of my drive is a sunk cost. There is very little I can do on a road with one lane and very few places to pass. So when I drive, I don't try to go as fast as possible without getting a ticket, I try to limit the space between me and the car in front of me. As long as I'm right behind them, there's nothing else I can do. No regrets, no frustrations.

Cities Are Greener

From the most recent Freakonomics podcast:

if you love nature, stay away from it. We're much more likely to harm nature, as Thoreau did surrounded by the woods than if we lived in tall urban apartments by ourselves. There's a statistical partner to that, which is together with Matthew Kahn, I've assembled data on carbon emissions associated with living in different parts of the country. And there are two facts which I think are important to come out of that: one of which is that people who live in cities do tend to emit significantly less carbon than people who live in countries. And this is controlling for income controlling for family size. That's coming mainly from driving, from the fact there's just a lot fewer carbon emissions associated with dense living. It's not just the move to public transportation, it's also that for drivers within cities, they're just driving much shorter distances. And then of course, it's because of smaller homes. The higher price of urban space means that people are living in smaller homes even with the same family size. And that leads to lower electricity usage, lower home heating usage, and those are the facts that make cities seem, at least to my eyes, significantly greener.

So if, as the author also claims, that cities are the engines of economic and social growth without the environmental destruction, why don't we all live in big cities? The government:

I think that at the federal level there are three issues, one of which is the home mortgage interest deduction. The home mortgage interest deduction essentially acts as a push away from urban apartments into suburban homes. [...]

Second policy that's problematic, and we're still doing this, and this I actually give President Obama much less credit for—we've been huge on building infrastructure in this country for a long time. [...]

But I worry about a renewed push towards building new transportation infrastructure in this country. The work of Nathaniel Baum-Snow finds that every new highway that cut into a major city in the post war period reduced that city's population by eighteen percent because of suburbanization. Transportation is sort of the opposite of urban clustering. You're sort of subsidizing people to spread out.

And the third thing, which is not really a federal issue, but it's huge is our local system of schooling. Certainly for anyone who's a parent like myself, the suburban school districts offer huge enticement to leave cities.

If you're not subscribed to this podcast yet, I highly reccomend it (and others).

Worthwhile Sentences on Waste

From The Independent: "air conditioning guzzles 15 per cent of total American energy consumption"

From Stephen Dubner: "If you don’t miss a plane now and then you’re spending too much time in airports."

From Twitter: "i've found smartphones increase the opportunity cost of driving, tilt toward public trans."

From The Economist: "The list of innovations achieved by the pharaohs is as thin as the list of innovations achieved by British Rail or the US Postal Service.”

From historian Louis Menand: “War is specially terrible not because it destroys human beings, who can be destroyed in plenty of other ways, but because it turns human beings into destroyers."

From previous worthwhile sentences.

Emptying the Bottle: Late-June '10 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• Honest discussion about resilience in a woman's divorce.
• Most terrorists aren't evil geniuses, they are dumb perverts.
• From me: Unlikely Twitter Connection from the Mister Diplomat blog.
• Deficit spending to improve the economy makes citizens feel less secure. 
• BP spills coffee [video].
• In Russia,  audiences give wrong answers intentionally for the ''Ask the Audience'.
• A tax on gas reduces drunk driving (earlier and earlier).
• Trade, The Great Prosperity Machine [video].
• Abolish the Department of Education.
• Fathers are less important to child rearing than previously believed.

To follow live and to see comments, subscribe via Google Reader.

Economics of Vehicle Safety

With all the news of Toyota's safety concerns, Washington has decided to step in, even to the point of demanding the president of the company appear before Congress. Not surprisingly the meeting looked less like concern for public safety and more like a political circus. The Chicago Tribune recently published a great article on how the federal government's response ignores customer response:

Then there was the reaction from customers, the very people whose lives and safety are at stake every time they get in a car. In the first four months of this year, Toyota's U.S. sales did not fall, as you might expect. They rose by 12 percent.

and previous private sector success:

"automakers have developed many of today's significant safety innovations without a government mandate, including anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, adaptive headlights, side airbags and curtains, front passenger safety belt reminder systems and advanced collision avoidance features like lane departure warning, blind spot monitors and adaptive cruise control."

Those improvements are among the reasons that last year, the number of traffic deaths was the lowest since 1954 — even though there are twice as many drivers, traveling four times as many miles, as there were back then.

and possible public sector failure:

What they are inclined to forget is that mandatory vehicle improvements don't come free. Those black boxes, for example, could cost hundreds or thousands of dollars apiece.

New cars have more safety features than older ones, so someone who trades in an old vehicle is likely to increase her life expectancy. Regulations that raise the price of a new car shut some buyers out of the market. So tougher federal rules may have the perverse effect of leading to more traffic fatalities.

If so, don't expect Congress to hold a hearing.

Cost of Commuting

In a world with many choices, I admit sometimes we don't make the right ones. What I have a harder time understanding is repeated bad decisions. However I am not exempt from these seemingly irrational choices. I mentioned before how much I drive, but Jonah Lehrer suggests I don't:

According to the calculations of Frey and Stutzer, a person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office.

Why is it so bad?

One reason is that it's a painful ritual we never get used to - the flow of traffic is inherently unpredictable. As a result, we don't habituate to the suffering of rush hour. (Ironically, if traffic was always bad, and not just usually bad, it would be easier to deal with. So the commutes that really kill us are those rare days when the highways are clear.) As the Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert notes, "Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day."

So why do 3.5 million Americans drive over three hours to and from work?

Consider two housing options: a three bedroom apartment that is located in the middle of a city, with a ten minute commute time, or a five bedroom McMansion on the urban outskirts, with a forty-five minute commute. "People will think about this trade-off for a long time," Dijksterhuis says. "And most them will eventually choose the large house. After all, a third bathroom or extra bedroom is very important for when grandma and grandpa come over for Christmas, whereas driving two hours each day is really not that bad." What's interesting, Dijksterhuis says, is that the more time people spend deliberating, the more important that extra space becomes. They'll imagine all sorts of scenarios (a big birthday party, Thanksgiving dinner, another child) that will turn the suburban house into an absolute necessity. The pain of a lengthy commute, meanwhile, will seem less and less significant, at least when compared to the allure of an extra bathroom. But, as Dijksterhuis points out, that reasoning process is exactly backwards: "The additional bathroom is a completely superfluous asset for at least 362 or 363 days each year, whereas a long commute does become a burden after a while."

I've been thinking about my commute for a long time. I'm right in the middle of my church, work, and improv theater, so for now it's definitely worth it. At least I have the benefits of renting and the flexibility to move in the cost minimizing direction.

Transportation that Caused a Pollution Crisis

And it's not the automobile:

The horse was no newcomer on the urban scene. But by the late 1800s, the problem of horse pollution had reached unprecedented heights. The growth in the horse population was outstripping even the rapid rise in the number of human city dwellers. American cities were drowning in horse manure as well as other unpleasant byproducts of the era’s predominant mode of transportation: urine, flies, congestion, carcasses, and traffic accidents.Widespread cruelty to horses was a form of environmental degradation as well. The situation seemed dire. In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure.

Now what will we use to replace the new pollution problem?

Thankful For Health Improvements

The Wall Street Journal recently 20 recent health advances, here are the highlights:

• Fewer Americans died in traffic fatalities in 2008 than in any year since 1961 (whew)
• Life expectancy in the U.S. reached an all-time high of 77.9
• Death rates dropped significantly for many leading causes of death: cancer, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, accidents, diabetes, homicides and pneumonia
• The proportion of undernourished children world-wide under five declined to 20% in 2005 from 27% in 1990.
• The U.S. divorce rate dropped by one-third from 1981 to 2008, and is at its lowest level since 1970 (though this may be because people are marrying less).

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I'm Not a Special Interest

I take it back, I'm not one to lobby government to help me out at the expense of other citizens. Since I bought my car last year, I've put 30,000 miles on it. That's 82 miles a day, or about an hour and a half of driving. Despite my long commutes to work (45 mintes), theater (25 minutes) and church (20 minutes), I not only denounce consumer price bullying, but support a gas tax. Here's why:

After adjusting for inflation, Americans now spend some 35 cents less per gallon of gasoline than they did in 1950.

Don't worry there's more:

Increased gasoline prices would have spurred more rapid development of fuel-efficient automobiles and alternatively fueled vehicles such as electric cars.

and more:

Air pollution would have been reduced significantly

and it's not just for hippies:

The Federal treasury would have received more than $250 billion over the past 12 years [with a 30 cent tax]. These funds could have been used to reduce the deficit or to address other critical needs, such as rebuilding America's transportation infrastructure.

There also the reasons I've mentioned before of less behavior distortion and reduced traffic deaths.

Most Dangerous Activity

What is your most dangerous activity? For most of us it's either eat fast food or drive a car. Since I'm not really looking to eat much healthier, at least at this age, l'll focus on driving. Although automobile deaths are actually decreasing (probably due to safer cars), there were still 42,636 people killed in 2005. That's twice the population of the town I grew up in. It is the number one reason for death in people ages 1-34. That includes me, so let's take a look at the details:

Nationwide, 49% of fatal crashes happen at night, with a fatality rate per mile of travel about three times as high as daytime hours.

Probably a combination of fatigue and alcohol. The fewest deaths

happened early in the morning, between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Those hours see significantly less traffic--only 9% of the average amount during peak hours.

Mid-week days like Tuesday and Wednesday also pose the lowest number of fatalities, both averaging fewer drivers

Surprisingly:

fatalities actually drop across the nation during days with high amounts of snow, both because more people stay at home and because they tend to drive slower under inclement weather

I guess the best time to get groceries is at 4am on a Tuesday during a snow storm.

Debunking Cash for Clunkers

At first I didn't see this issue worth discussing, but then the government appropriated another $2 billion. First off, the idea of destroying useful products as means to make a nation wealthier is pure nonsense. It didn't work for agriculture in the 1930's and it won't work now. It's also not much of an improvement for the environment. BusinessWeek estimates that there is only a "reduction of only 0.04%" of gallons used (not counting an expected increase in miles driven due to better gas mileage or even fun new car). It's also not accounting for the energy used to junk the old cars and make the new ones.

Forget about the dangers of increased driving and increased consumer debt, what frustrates me most is that there is a simpler, more efficient solution. Even though I commute 1 hour and 1/2 a day to work, I support increasing the gas tax a way to improve emissions, traffic and safety. It is more efficient (demand for gas is fairly inelastic), more equitable, and it's simpler (compared to a 4 month program that ran out of money in a week).

This programs exists not because politicians are irrational, but because voters are. As a teacher, I think voter education is the solution. Too bad my AP Econ class got cut in the slimming budget.

Does John Stossel Read My Blog?

I wish. But apparently we have similar complaints about America. Last Friday on 20/20 Stossel, along with another favorite news source Reason Magazine, had a special entitled "Bailouts and Bull." Coincidentally, he talks about a lot things I've discussed here:

Part I: How the government is greatly mismanaging this panic (from me)

Part II: Possible solutions to traffic congestion (from me)

Part III: The deplorable arrest and conviction of Charlie Lynch (from me)

Part IV: Problems with Universal Preschool
Part V: The worthless wall on our Southern border
Part VI: The fallacy of the struggling middle class (from me)

Solutions to Traffic

This Sunday my 3 hour trip home from Thanksgiving turned into a 6 1/2 hour crawl. While sitting in standstill traffic on the highway I began to wonder what the problem was. Well clearly more people want to travel over Thanksgiving and Sunday is the most popular day to come back home. But consider this, 20 percent of all turkeys consumed in 2007 were consumed at Thanksgiving, but if you want a turkey during the holidays you can get one quickly and cheaply. Why then do I have to wait in line to drive home? The solution is to allow the market (that is prices) to allocate the scare resources of the road. Here are some practical ways to do so:

1) Raise the gas tax. The United States has one of the lowest gas taxes in the industrialized world. Of all the taxes we pay, the gas tax is one of the most efficient. For one it makes drivers feel the cost of their driving on others (in traffic, pollution, road wear).

2) Use giant screens to keep rubberneckers from wasting our time.

3) Turn our freeways into fareways. Like Six Flags, let people pay extra to cut in line. Have a special toll lane and use that money to subsidize other government projects.

4) The final and best way is to use congestive pricing. This is charging drivers more to drive in times of heavy use. The fareway tag could be used for this too.

5) Wait until everyone has a GPS with traffic conditions. Or as this fantastically named blog suggests, maybe electronic signs can give us the information.

High Hopes for High Gas Prices

“Painful though it is, this oil shock will eventually spur huge change. Beware the hunt for scapegoats” – The Economist

This quote pretty much sums up what I think about high gas prices. With gas prices most likely reaching a $4.00 national average by June 30th and the general election getting underway the politicization of gasoline prices is only going to increase.

The only reason I can confidently say why prices are increasing is because extra people want the gas, but no extra people are producing it. The low prices of the 90’s are partially responsible for very little future investment in oil production. The other reason why we are lacking oil supplies is that governments, like our own, restrict who, where, and when companies can drill. So what are the solutions?

As a blanket statement, I can assure you that the gas tax holiday is not a good idea. There is a reason that Hillary could not find an Economist to support her idea. Even though Hillary is out of the race, McCain has also supported the idea. So I think it's worth explaining why removing the gas tax is a bad idea:

1.) By removing the gas tax, you will only encourage more driving, putting more pressure on the already limited supply, thereby increasing the real price of gas.
2.) This increase in oil purchasing will send the tax reduction money to the oil companies, not individuals.
3.) Gas prices are a fairly efficient tax to pay for road construction and maintenance. It semi-accurately charges customers based on their use. The more you drive, the more wear and tear you inflict on the roads.
4.) As usual, this is a tax reduction without a spending reduction. The money that once went to pay for the roads will be gone. Clinton’s proposal to make up for the missing money was to tax windfall profits of oil companies. I cannot think of anything worse to keep the industry from innovating.
5.) The United States already has one of the lowest gas taxes in the world.In fact, the only reason I can see to support this idea is that it may be the better of two evils. Bryan Caplan suggests that in the grand scheme of bad political policy, costing the tax payers 18 cents may not be a bad trade off. With talks of nationalizing the industry, which sounds scarily like something from Cesar Chavez's playbook, I’d be willing to pay 18 cents to keep the industry out of the hands of politicians. Hopefully it will never come to that.

There is even evidence in the private sector that the gas price crisis may not actually be. Chrysler is offering gas at $2.99 with all qualifying 2008 and 2009 models. It seems they are banking that people are blowing the costs of increased gas prices out of proportion.

So are we just supposed to take these prices lying down? Well, maybe. As for the short run, there aren’t any quick fixes. Asking Congress to fix the price at a certain level is like asking them to disconnect your thermostat. It is still going to be expensive. If you hold the price at lower than market, you will simply pay for it in less efficient ways, like waiting in line (or worse through political favors).

But there is good news. As prices change, people respond to them. Whether it ditching your tractor for a mule, switching to smart cars, or having American’s drive 11 billion miles less this March as compared to last March, the price system is working and people are responding. It’s even helping the environment. In fact, my hope is that this will lead to earth friendly innovation in how we produce our energy.

This is by no means and exhaustive review, as always, comments and critiques are always welcome. To end on a light note, here is Stephen Colbert’s solution: