Managerial Accounting

One of the things we keep discussing in Managerial Accounting is how you should think of cost distribution in a company as a tax. For example, when you allocate overhead by headcount (one way of distributing against labor) you give your employees incentive to reduce headcount. This will cause managers to pursue less employees (so hopefully they are very skilled) rather than more employees (who may have less skill but may be cheaper labor). The point of this is NOT to say that it is a bad thing, just to be aware (as a manager) what motivations your subordinates will have when looking at their budget. This really also delves into basic economics and externalities (who gets the gains and who pays for something) as well, but many of our classes overlap. It is better that way. You have to learn something more than once before it sticks.

This got me thinking about food in this country and around the world. In the US, food is often not taxed or taxed less than other items. With the government paying for people’s health care, people are not given incentive to concern themselves with their health, people are not properly weighing out the cost benefit of their health because others bear some of the costs, and thus overeating. Perhaps we should tax food more so that people quit eating so much.

Wheel of Fortune

http://lgo.mit.edu/blog/drewhill/?p=1109

LFM 09 vs LGO 10 Softball

As we did with hockey, the intramural team of each LGO class met for the final game of the season. The score, 33 (09s) to 11 (10s), pretty much tells it all. We got creamed!

The force was not with us

It was fun though either way and up until the third inning it was closer than the final score indicates. The 09s scored 15 runs in the last inning (with 2-3 out of the park home runs and 2 in the park) and we did not score. I could try to say that it was not fair because the 09s did not have any girls on their team but that would not be fair to girls of 10 who played. They were some of our best players (as well as our captain, go Amy!).

I think we’re going to try to play a soccer game later this week but I’m not sure if that will happen. We did not have enough to make a team for each class so we have one LGO team between us. In case you were wondering, we do play intramural with mixed classes as well (for example, volleyball and soccer) so it is not always a rivalry between the classes.

No Causality Implied - Post 1

I’m starting a new reoccurring post called No Causality Implied. I got the idea from a funny picture I saw a week or so ago when everyone was talking about the Somalian pirates.

The picture implies that the decline in the number of pirates is somehow related to change in the global temperature. Awesome. As everyone who has taken a statistics class learns, this is a common mistake when looking at data and can lead to (accidentally or deliberately) improperly interpreted data.

What better way to kick this off than by quoting the greatest TV show ever, The Simpsons. I won’t bore you with the details, but in one episode someone says “have you ever noticed the correlation between the decline in Spirograph and the rise in gang violence?” I was able to find data about the number of gangs in Los Angeles going back to the late 60’s (Spirograph was created in 1965 and release in the US in 1966). Then I went to ebay and counted the number of Spirograph pieces available from 1967 to the present (a toy produced in 1967 was counted as 1 for 1967 and a toy produced in 1996 was counted as 1 for 1996) and then I grouped the data to match the years I had for gang data. Amazingly, you can see the correlation between the decline in Spirograph and the rise in gang violence. I promise that I did not manipulate this data.

Manufacturing versus the Environment

While I think the following article is a bit US biased, Click Me, I did enjoy the point they make about reducing green house emissions by purchasing products made in more “climate sensitive” countries.

A large number (read this to mean all) of products purchased in America are made in China and China, with their incredibly growing coal based power, is much less energy efficient compared to the US (and much less willing to do something about it in the future).

Can't I at least pretend like we are more energy efficient than China?

I also agree with the point that if we are going to further limit the allowable carbon output of this country we need to be aware of the economic implications these limitations will have on us. Sometimes I wish everyone in the US could take the class I took this past fall (10.579, mentioned in this previous blog). The class was a great overview of different energy technologies, the no-nonsense status of each technology, and the political issues surrounding each technology. Fantastic class.

Playoff Hockey Baby!

It is playoff hockey time! Woooooooooooo!!!!

The first week of playoff hockey is the best time of the year. At least two games a night and usually three games on the weekend. Awesome! I don’t plan to leave my TV this week.

The Philadelphia Flyers (my team) managed to draw the Pittsburgh Penguins so they are in for quite a difficult series.

click on the image to see a youtube video of Kate Smith singing God Bless America in the Spectrum

Between her live performances and the recordings the Flyers have used since she died, Kate Smith has a record of 76-20-4.

Now that we have heard Kate sing, I feel really good about the Flyers and their chances this year. As has been the case since Hextall left, the question will be goaltending. I actually thought Biron (the Flyers goaltender) had a great playoff series last year so hopefully he can play well again this year. Like the other 15 teams out there we are only 16 wins away from hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup.

For those of you who do not know much about hockey, the playoffs are 16 teams (8 from the western conference and 8 from the eastern conference) playing best of seven series to determine who will advance to the next round.

Here is this year's bracket...but not really. They reseed the teams after each round so the highest eastern team plays the lowest eastern team

In the end, only one team has the privilege of hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup high above their head.

The Stanley Cup is the greatest trophy in all of sports

I wont say that this is the most prestigious trophy or hardest to win trophy in the world, but I challenge you to find a trophy with more history, more tradition, and a more iconic image. One of my favorite traditions with the Cup is that hockey players will NOT touch the Cup until they have won it. That is how much they respect it. Some other fun facts about the Cup from GreatestHockeyLegends.com are:

• Teams drink champagne (as well as other choice beverages) out of the punch bowl top


• It is the only trophy in professional sports that has the name of the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff engraved on it


• The cup has been lost a couple times
  
  
  
  • In 1907, the Montreal Wanderers left the Cup at the home of a photographer they hired to immortalize their victory. The photographer’s mother turned it into a flower pot for the next several months.
  
  
  • In 1905, drunken members of the Ottawa Silver Seven thought it would a good celebratory idea to punt the Cup into the Rideau Canal. No one rescued out of the chilly waters until the next day.
  
  
  • In 1924, Montreal Canadiens players were on their way to a victory party at owner Leo Dandurand’s house. The players had set the Cup on the sidewalk snowbank while they changed a flat tire. When arrived at Dandurand’s house, they realized they had left the Cup on the sidewalk. They hurriedly drove back, and were relieved to see the silver bowl sitting right where they left it, completely untouched.
  
  
  
  

• And stolen a couple times
  
  
  
  • In 1962 as the Montreal Canadiens were playing the defending champion Blackhawks in Chicago. The Hawks had the Cup, much to the dislike of 25 year old pianist Kenneth Kilander, a seriously devoted Habs fan who made the trip to the Windy City. During the game Kilander picked the lock and simply headed out the doors, bribing a security guard with $250 and reportedly telling him “I’m taking it back to Montreal where it belongs.”
  
  
  
  

As I have mentioned before one of my priorities every playoff (after the Flyers winning of course) is that the Cup be won by an American team. It pisses Canadians off to no end that they have not won a Cup since 92-93. It was a good regular season this year and only 3 Candian teams made the playoffs: the Vancover Canucks, the Calgary Flames, and the Montreal Candiens.

Financial Aid in the Summer

My blog got the flu and about 10 posts were lost.



Sorry for the inconvienence.  If by some crazy chance you have a copy of my missing blogs (like an RSS feed) please send me a copy so I can reupload it.  I would be very appreciative.  Thanks

The death of LFM and the birth of LGO

My blog got the flu and about 10 posts were lost.



Sorry for the inconvienence.  If by some crazy chance you have a copy of my missing blogs (like an RSS feed) please send me a copy so I can reupload it.  I would be very appreciative.  Thanks