I like fat people

Ok, so thinking before you speak is an art that I am still very much in the process of learning. Thinking before I type is a little bit easier. So believe me when I say that I mean every word of this statement: I like fat people.

If I reflect back on the most quality people I have known in the past, the heavier set ones are consistently up there. (I have stopped trying to make this blog sound politically correct- let’s face it, there\s nothing PC about it). Think about your life… Who have made the best friends? Who are the ones that have been gracious and welcoming? It’s the fat ones, isn’t it?

And I think it’s an easy to understand albeit controversial: Some people in this world are at disadvantages purely because of the way that they look. It makes me sick to my core that we live in a society where this is true, but it’s fact. Unfortunately. Things come easier to some people and often the reason they come easier is simply the result of genetics and nothing more.

Then the stark reality leads me down a logical pathway. Genetically disadvantaged people (For the record- I don’t believe that anyone can be genetically disadvantaged as such- asides from disease and disability- but we live in a culture where certain attributes and features are advantageous and others aren’t.) have to work harder on other things to make them attractive to the world. They have to become nice on the inside otherwise they really would have nothing to attract people to them.

I remember once having this friend. Well, half friend. She was by most accounts a social outcast. Looking back I can’t figure out why she was a social outcast except for the fact that she was chubby. She was lovely. She tried so hard with people and there was little reciprocation. I remember keeping her at ‘half friend’ status. I was 12 years old by the way. (Carl reveals his age at this point hoping to gain a little sympathy for his stupid, childish attitude…) Everyone kept her at bay. She was the brunt of many a joke. She was the humorous part of many a conversation. Just ‘cause she was fat.

So she worked harder and became tolerant of rejection. I have no doubt that today she is a marvellous young lady with many things I do not have. I feel sick for being in a crowd that was cruel and possibly caused many of her tears. Gosh, if teasing the skinny kid were the order of the day I would have been the one crying.

And so I’m led to feel the following:
The compensation that society gives people for favourable attributes is perhaps the most yearned for reward hoped for by most people and yet it may well be the most crippling illusion as we chase the acceptance of people.

Book Review- A Short History of Nearly Everything

OK, so here is one of those books that we have all seen on the shelves at exclusive books and wondered about... i can imagine many have read it too.

I started reading it in march and it is now june so it took me a good 3 months to get through it. This is mainly because i kept it as a bedtime book (mistake) and so i made progress at about 2 pages a night. The book requires concentration and an alert mind- all the things i do not have at bed time. Anyways, im going to divide this short review into a couple of good points and a couple of bad about the book 'cos at the end of the review im going to tell you that you should read it anyway... so this way you know whats coming your way.

Positives
1. It is the best common thinkers guide to the development of science that you will find that is understandable and accurate (i presume this of course).
2. It is well written and Mr. Bryson does well to try and make science sound interesting and eve funny at time. This is a grand achievement.
3. The book covers so many interesting subjects... my favourites were the chapters on space, inventions that made scientific progress possible, and a look at the development of man.
4. You dont have to read the whole book. The book is in sectioned format and so it is quite easy for one to isolate only things that interest you and read about them.

Negatives
1. It feels more like a textbook than a normal book 80% of the time. I guess it had to be this way for the book to be factual and accurate but sometimes i found it a bit much. I would have preferred a less factual read with more stories cos then i would have maybe remembered what i have just read. As it stands now, i remember very little.
2. Some chapters are just plain boring. I guess it comes down to personal preference but i must say that at times i was just simply bored. I tried to remain interested but sometimes it just wasn't happening. I blame the book.
3. It provides a historical account for the development of man but suggests no theories to go along with the facts. Facts alone are so empty partly because there are so many of them and so many possible angles to look at it.. I was left with a lot of knowledge and even though i wanted this knowledge to show me something, it was never going to. And so now im blaming the book for now being textbookish enough. The book suggested no framework for coherent thinking once we know the facts. and i sort of wanted something like that.

I guess it is hard to have done what Bill Bryson has done... At the end of the read I am more knowledgeable and my perspectives have become more in tune with irrefutable reality and for that reason i think all people should read it. Just not at bed time.

not my quote

"the atheist is to be pitied more than all men because he has no-one to thank"

the second thing that economists do

and so here it is... i did not forget. and seeing as im exactly half way through my degree now, i have hopefully picked up some points of value along the way!

to recap, the first thing economists do is that they analyse relationships ceteris parabus. if you want to know more about that, take a read of a previous post: ''the first thing economists do"...

The second thing
Moving on to more urgent matters, the second thing that economists do is to analyse situations in two different time frames: short run and long run. Short run analysis allows the economist to evaluate shifts and changes in economic conditions and their immidiate impact on the state of the economy. This is useful as in the short run things don't change much and so you can evaluate them easier.

BUT then there is the LONG RUN... and that's what im so taken with. I'm not going to be too long in trying to explain this- so you either get this or you don't, but try and picture the following...
One of the goals of economic policy is to keep a balance of payments account that is reasonable. The balance of payments account, for the purposes of this analysis, can be described as the amount of rands flowing into SA as a result of exports minus the amount of rands being spent abroad in order to purchase all those cheap CD players and other electronic rubbish from China, Taiwan and Japan. (and other imports too).... In SA, this account is constantly in deficit because we import more than we export. Isn't it nice to be living in a 3rd world country? Anyways, there is a problem when the economy of a country starts to do well because then people start to earn more and then they start to want to consume more which means that the demand for imports increases, which means that imports increase and resultantly the balance of payments account goes into further deficit. oh dear. Therefore, in the SHORT TERM we sit with a deficit which means that something needs to be done... like government could increase taxes in order to reduce people's disposable incomes and then imports would decline etc....

BUT! and this is where the budding economist in me starts to get excited... in the LONG RUN, something else happens... the economy ADAPTS. Think about the following logically... it's not rocket science (i know this cos im not a rocket scientist)...
1. When people's income is up there is an oversupply of money in the economy. This causes interest rates to go up which in turn causes overall spending to decline. When spending declines we have LESS IMPORTS> therefore BoP (Balance of Payments) deficit reduces.
2. When we import lots of junk then there is an oversupply of Rands in the global economy. When supply is up then demand is down (a building block of economic theory) and this means that the price of rands goes down. This means that the cost of foreign goods increases for south africans and therefore LESS IMPORTS> therefore the deficit reduces even more!
BEAUTIFUL STUFF... long run analysis is great because i realise that over and over there seems to be balance... there seems to be adjustment... continuously. This is not true in some instances of course but i find the amount of times it does occur to be uncanny.

And it get me thinking you know. Long run = adjustment. I start to think about life in general and the need for adjustment. Take a divorce for example. In the short run it sucks. It's hopeless. There is despair. There is hurt. And no one can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But then it works out. People adjust. They are forced to. I have recently broken up with my girlfriend of 2 years... i don't know if i will ever know another girl quite like her. I want her. I cant have her now. It's tough. She's in my mind, dreams etc.... And so what must i do? What other option is there? I adjust.... Life without her still works.

Then my brain takes another tangent and i think about evolution and darwin's theory on natural selection. The fittest survive. The weak one perishes and the LONG run favours those who learn how to survive in challenging conditions and those that adapt.

In fact the long run speaks of little else besides adaptation.

And that is what they do, these economists. Clever bunch they are.