Green Apron Monkey

california courts make themselves a nuisance in my life

2008-03-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

No doubt you've heard about the ruling against Starbucks in the CA tip-pooling case. The Girl is a supervisor there, and is in line for about $1.50 pay cut until some equitable solution is found.

Like many supervisors, being cut off from the tip pool would bring her pay to roughly an equal level with the baristas she supervises. She is, of course, considering asking for a demotion.

I'm no expert on California labor law, but on it's face the ruling seems kind of goofy. The relevant section of labor code and it's definition of agents who could not be given tips:

"...(d) "Agent" means every person other than the employer having the
authority to hire or discharge any employee or supervise, direct, or control the
acts of employees.

Supervisors at Starbucks can not hire or fire employees. They supervise, obviously, but when I check somebody's code or give them advice on how to make their Excel equation work properly, that doesn't make me management. Supervisors direct and control baristas, but so do other baristas. Maybe no one should be given tips.

Truth be told, Supervisor don't have much in the way of official power at Starbucks. They can't even formally punish anyone without written approval of the manager (who does not get tips). Roughly 90% of the job is the exact same as well-respected barista. They're paid hourly and make up 1/2 to 1/4 of those serving customers at any given time.

I do not think this judge was showing good Posnerian pragmatism. Here we have situation where the customers, supervisors, baristas and company had settled on a method of compensation that worked reasonably well for all parties. Then along comes one nuisance lawsuit, and now everyone has to find a new equilibrium. Was there an overiding interest in disrupting this agreement? Any good reason to redistribute money from supervisors to baristas? Is it even in the spirit of the law?

The answer to all three seems to me to be "no." The law looks to me like an attempt to keep the companies and businesses from taking tips from hourly employees, not an attempt to pick and choose which hourly employees get tips. But again, not an expert on labor law (though I'm pretty okay on the affirmative-action side by now).

But even given that the legal matters, it seems like a silly argument for our state to be butting into. With all the problems that California has, we need to be disrupting already functioning agreements, too?

Seems silly, that's all.

we do have a better press corps (Michael Spector edition)

2008-02-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read it already, Michael Spector's article on the carbon footprint in the New Yorker is excellent. It details what we've learned since people have started attempting to measure exactly how much carbon is associated with each product.

I really hope that carbon labelling catches on. Though article makes clear its obstacles, labelling could really help us to understand what is and what isn't a major source of carbon emissions. Trying to do so without effective and clear measurement could be counter-productive.

The other thing that that I like about this article is it's sceptical take on the "Eat Local" movement. I've always thought there were two bad reasons and one good reason to eat local.

Local food has less "food miles" on it.
Eating local helps the money stay in our economy.
Local food is fresher, and has been bred for taste rather than durability of transportation.

I don't think food miles are a good way to measure carbon emissions, for the reasons Spector describes. "Our Economy" ought to include our whole country, at the very least. Foreigners and people from Missouri need and deserve our dollars as much as anybody else.

#3 is hard to dispute, as anyone who has experience the difference between farmer's market heirloom tomatoes and the indestructibly bland grocery store variety can attest. However it does pt us foodies into a bit of corner. It could well be that it's more carbon friendly to only eat mass-produced mass-shipped food. Then what would be do? Choose between my planet and my dinner? Makes me want to cry.

virtue of necessity

2008-02-21T20:33:00.000-08:00

Well, I just sent off two of what I like to think of as "Nuisance Ex-Student" letters.

These are letters begging for references from professors that I haven't seen in 6 years from whom I was one student in a class of 30-40. The only thing I've got going for me in the memorability department is A) I'm more opinionated than your typical Davis economics student B) I had a certain fondness for using strange metaphors, forced analogies and odd puns (see Otisms) in my academic writing.

In regard to A) Davis had a lot skinny, geeky shy types in the econ classes. The rest of your typical class was filled out a fair share of befuddled jocklings and confused International Relations majors who had to take the development and international courses. My International Macro TA told me that on days that I didn't come to section he could hear the fluorescent lights buzzing. In regard to B) I'm not saying it's a good way to write, but it certainly isn't normal.

Anyway, Sac state is more a choice of convenience for me as far as Masters programs go. It seems like a good department and certainly a good enough department. So I spent part of the day looking through what electives I might take to fill out my 30 units, and found some stuff that I'm actually downright excited about.

ECON 251. Urban Problems, Economics and Public Policy. Historical development, economics and possible policy solutions of the most pressing problems facing central cities and urban areas in the U.S. are presented. Problems discussed include poverty, crime, urban abandonment/suburban sprawl, edge cities, deteriorating infrastructures, and fiscal stress. Cross-listed: PPA 251; only one may be counted for credit. Graded: Graded Student. Units: 3

ECON 181. Economics of Racism. Economic analysis of the origins and development
of racism, focusing mainly on its impact in the U.S. Differing theoretical
explanations surrounding racism will be compared and evaluated. Graded: Graded
Student. Units: 3.0.

Good stuff, and helpful both for the career and in general as a guy who likes to argue with people.

Moxie: get there early

2008-02-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

On saturday, the girl and I finally got around to trying Moxie.

Moxie has a reputation, and a good one. Next to Biba's, it's probably the most well known temple of high-class foodstuffs.

And I like me some food. Fancy food, exotic food and plain food. I'm slightly more fussy than a garbage disposal, but I will pay for the good stuff. But we're not wealthy people, so we've had to wait quite a while to take a taste of Moxie.

So yeah, the food is good. Moxie does not dissappoint. I still prefer The Mustard Seed over in Davis. The Ahi was particularly delicious, and the mashed potatoes easily take the prize for the best mashed potatoes in Sacramento.

The service there goes by the philosophy that, the most important thing is that the experience be memorable. Our dinner started after 8, and our waiter seemed to be quite drunk. His exploits were impressive enough to warrant a bulleted list.

He mixed up our order of ahi spring rolls with fried calamari.
We ordered our entrees, but asked for a second to settle on our wine. After a moment, he came back with two glasses of someone else's wine, then asked what we would like to eat.
He forgot we were there when it came to the bill, then asked me if had got it yet. When I said no, he asked if I would like another bill. Everyone was confused.

We were having a good time, and he was a friendly guy, so none of it was a big deal. Fact is, we were more entertained with every new blunder.

Plus, he gave us extra mashed potatoes.

leave burrito guy alone!

2008-02-19T22:01:00.001-08:00

Sigh . . .

I live in the wrong country. Sacramento City Council, having triumphantly solved all of the other problems in our fair city, is now going to go after mobile street vendors.

While, of course, some of the food proffered at these "roach coaches" is downright awful. But some of the best food I've ever had was gotten from some guy cooking on the side of the road. The best burrito in Sacramento can be gotten from that one guy on I Street.

Street vendors are often inexpensive and delicious. Cutting them a break can offer residents plenty cheap tastiness. You can even encourage them, like Singapore does (yes, that's the only time I'll say those three words).

Hopefully the city council will spend their time on more obvious ways to improve the quality of life for its constituents.

that's MY hobo urine!

2008-02-18T20:19:00.000-08:00

Yet another round in the amusing fight between Moe Mohanna and city hall over the uriniest piece of real estate in all of Sacramento.

Hat tip to Central City Op.

Caplan opens up his analysis

2008-02-18T19:29:00.000-08:00

A semi-confirmation of my intuition, according to Caplan's model , African-Americans earn less than Whites with comparable educations up to 15 years, and thereafter get more.

The model is certainly off the cuff. There's no checks for collinearity (that Caplan mentions) or robustness, and Caplan admits as much. The comments section has some alternate data sources.

otism of the day

2008-02-15T20:10:00.000-08:00

"Almost everything that goes wrong in life is either the fault of an engineer or his manager."

it hurts, but it might not be the truth

2008-02-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

I would like to get in an argument with Bryan Caplan.

However, Caplan is a smart guy, so to really come after him, you better bring the data. Bringing the data takes time, and time for blogging is currently limited to the time that it takes my SPSS syntax to compile. And even that is time I should be using to get my grad school applications in order. So I'll voice my worry, rather than undertake the data project it would take to dispute Caplan's argument.

Caplan is criticizing Tim Hartford's latest book, The Logic of Life, on the issue of statistical discrimination. I haven't read Mr. Hartford's book (for reasons mentioned above), so I have no intention of rescuing any specific point of his.

The part that I do want to take issue with is Caplan's claim that there is a sizable return on education for blacks. While I'm sure that this broad claim is accurate, I think there may be something to the distribution of this return that undermines Caplan's point. (I must admit I'm not entirely sure what his larger point is, he seems to be tiptoeing around something politically incorrect).

What gives me pause? I haven't been delving into compensation practices of various companies for an incredibly long time, but those companies that I have looked into have had some interesting features. If you divide job titles into quintiles based on their average salary and then look at what races make up what share of the resulting quintiles you get something like the chart below.

While blacks are well represented at the top most quintile, they are less well represented in the middle three. Now, a chart that looks like this is certainly not evidence of discrimination in a company, but it does tell us if there is discrimination, where to look for it. The place to look would be in those middle salary brackets, not the top.

What's that got to do with education? Well, jobs at the top part of the income distribution take a lot of education (MBAs, Masters, PHDs) and pay a lot too. But those middle three quintile jobs are of the kind that usually just take a four year-degree or experience. If my hunch is right, there is little payoff for blacks at medium levels of education, the kind attainable by most middle and lower middle class Americans. If you were told when you started school as an undergrad that it probably wouldn't pay off unless you stayed in school for at least six years, don't you think that would effect your decision to continue your education?

Now for all I know, Caplan has already thought of this and used a nonlinear model to do his regression. But he doesn't say so. If he wants to convince me, (and as an EEO professional I think I'm exactly who he should want to convince) then Caplan should look at this return to education at different levels of income.

fjm and the office

2008-02-06T19:52:00.000-08:00

I always thought that fire joe morgan was far too clever for a sports website.

To understand why this is, you must first click here, then click here.

case against the proposition system, #864

2008-02-06T19:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, 2.7 million Californians voted for proposition 91. In the "Argument For" section of the voter handbook, the proposition's two authors pleaded to voters not to vote yes on prop 91, as it had been made irrlelevant by previous legislation.

Cue Kent Brockman: "I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy just doesn't work."

tagged by the logic

2008-02-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by johnnylogic.

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)

Find Page 123.Find the first 5 sentences.

Post the next 3 sentences.

Tag 5 people.

Well, I'm currently using one book as a mouse pad (a long, uninteresting story). My mousepad is photography book and has little in the way of text. The next runner up would be the book situation on the coffee table, which would be Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor. That book is sitting on my favorite VBA for Excel reference, so there's some ambiguity there. But lets use the more fun one, shall we?

Few store owners claim that demand is sufficient enough to create a steady, reliable business climate. Only the (Korean and Middle Eastern) managers of the
two respective liquor stores suggest they are not overly concerned about the
general loss of demand. As one said, "We're busy day and night. Our problem is
not enough people but too many people [sic]. Look at all these people in here
not buying anything, just hanging around."

Not the best moment, in an otherwise exceptional book. Venkatesh has enough interesting stories and general insight into human behavior to fuel two or three seasons of The Wire.

I tag Alliya, Josh, Elizabeth, Thalisha and megs.

addendum one

2008-02-04T20:10:00.000-08:00

Did I forget to say that Obama's favorite show is The Wire?

Not a convincing reason to vote for someone?

Well, it's cool anyway.

coveted monkey endorsement

2008-02-04T19:41:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, almost forgot that part.

Endorsing candidates has gotten tough for me. I take policy very seriously in many areas, and my particular political vision of the world seems to be shared by no one. So I can't get too wrapped up in the policy scorecard when choosing a candidate, particularly when politicians are what they are.

For example, I thought John McCain to be relatively sound on immigration, until he realized that he was a Republican and that wouldn't do.

But I'm pretty far from standard Democrat voter on policy as well. So, I've become something of a character voter. Specifically I look for a politician who at least shows some signs of grasping the issues and then articulates a vision similar to the kind of place that I want live. Then the candidate must get votesand still maintain the impression that they aren't a horrible person.

Now, tomorrow is the Democratic Primary and I plan on voting in it. To be honest neither Hilary nor Obama have failed my tests. I ruled out Richardson because he didn't seem to grasp any issues. John Edwards is intelligent but was quite eager to appeal to xenophobic impulses (I expect this kind of crap from Republicans, but I really can't abide it in my own party). Dennis Kucinich articulated a vision of an America populated by Socialist elves, and that's just not a vision I share.

So then there is the strategic element. I think that the Republicans hate Hilary enough that they will come out of the woodwork to vote against her. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it will happen. Meanwhile Obama, has a campaign that could win crossover votes, and lacks the sheer number of weakness for his oppenents to do the attacking.

There are a lot of Democrats who believe, largely based on their health care proposals, that Obama is "not progressive enough." I believe this to be largely a matter of labeling, and something only important to in-party politics. While I find fault with Obama's health plan as well, it does at least show that he's thought about the troubles with mandating that people buy insurence that they can't necessarily afford. His solution needs some more work, but it does acknowledge that particular problem with mandate driven health care. Getting obsessed over the labelling is just embarassing.

But the important part is that we are just electing the head bureaucrat. Yes it is important to elect someone who's intelligient , but the only candidate left standing that I would like to see the SAT scores of is Mike Huckabee (with his hilarious Fair Tax). Policy details are inevitably going to have to be worked by by wonkish people employed by the president. The best thing a president can do is to have a powerful, articulate and honest vision of the American government and get people to work towards that on his behalf.

So I'm voting for Obama tomorrow.

Cheers, and goodnight to you.

deft political operative

2008-02-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I think we can safely cross "political canvasser" off the list of things I'm any good at.

I spent the weekend lamely and apologetically knocking on doors of Democratic and undeclared Sacramentans asking them who they want to vote for and if, maybe they would probably like to vote for Obama, or not.

Blech. Never again. Certain things are best left to other people, and I have discovered another of them.

Now, I did do one useful thing, which was to inform a number of unaffiliated voters that they can vote in the democratic primary. Quite a few did not know this, and at least one was and Obama supporter.

So there ya go. My vote counts double this year.

conversation about MLK day

2008-01-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

EE1: We have MLK day off?
EE2: Yes we do. We're an EEO* company, so we should.
EE1: Martin Luther King was a great man. Civil rights and a paid day off.
EE3: We didn't used to.
EE1: Really?
EE3: Yep.
EE2: Why not?
EE3: Dunno.
EE1 [voiceover voice]: Because racism doesn't take a day off!

*Equal Employment Opportunity, aka Affirmative Action

assortment

2008-01-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

Today I started a new pandora station with They Might Be Giants as the starting band. Three songs in, with no other feedback than a thumbs up to Fountains of Wayne, it played Fall-Out Boy.

Pandora, your methods are unsound.

xkcd is pretty awesome, but I ahve to read it with wikipedia open in another tab.

bunny slippers, and Coase

2008-01-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

A very good summary of a very tough subject, the Coase Theorem.

Goose Gossage's mustache inducted into Hall of Fame

2008-01-09T19:08:00.001-08:00

Justice at last! Goose Gossage's mustache has finally been inducted into the mustache hall of fame! Many analysts have agreed that it was a travesty for Gossage's stache to be left out after Bruce Sutter's beard was voted in last year. Previous recipients include this mustache:

And this one: (clearly bizarre facial hair greatly increases a reliever's effectiveness)

And let's not forget everyone's favorite sleeper inductee, columnist Larry Samuelson's mustache!

a good vintage

2008-01-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

2007 was very good to me.

I got married in June (the photos are days away from being ready!). My parents did the most incredible job of preparing and all the help and support made me feel that I have a lot of very good, very dependable friends. Since then, I have had six wonderful months of marriage to my beautiful wife.

In February, I started a new job as a data analyst for an EEO-consulting firm, which has been challenging, added a lot of new lines to the ol resume and added a little bit of money to the bank account as well.

I saw my sister graduate with her Master's and start down the path towards teaching ESL in Taiwan, something I couldn't be more proud of her for.

In years to come, I will look back fondly on 2007.

quick immigration page

2007-12-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

Centers, papers

Some immigration numbers and analysis from Center for Immigration Studies.
Pew Hispanic Center. Including immigration's effect on employment of the native born.

People

George Borjas, labor economist.
TV's Lou Dobbs, prominent blowhard.
Tom Tancredo, neo-nazi subhuman fuckhead, presidential candidate.

Pieces

The trickiest part about the data presented in much of this debate is that legal and illegal immigrants tend to be aggregated or disaggregated without consistency or comment. Observers could be forgiven for thinking that this debate takes place in a magical world where six co-impossible things come true before breakfast.

statistical anomalies: 2007 Diamondbacks

2007-11-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

The 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks deserve special recognition. Generally regarded as a good baseball team, the Diamondbacks were not exceptional at pitching; they probably had the 11th best pitching staff in baseball, with the second best bullpen. The Diamondbacks were certainly not exceptional at hitting; they scored 712 runs, the fifth lowest total in the majors and only ahead of teams which can be described as the summer school remedial art class of baseball.

In fact, the 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks were not particularly good at any aspect of the game except for relief pitching, a notoriously fickle and small sample size driven area of the game. And therein lies the exceptional nature of the Arizona Diamondbacks, this very unexceptional team won 90 games, yet somehow allowed 20 more runs than they scored.

This may not sound impressive, but it runs afoul of one of the most regular statistical regularities in the universe. Devised by stathead godling, Bill James, the Pythagorean expectation shows the number of wins that a team can expect from it's run differential. Indeed, the difference between a team's expected record and actual one is normally distributed, with a mean of -.042.

The exceptionally lucky and unexceptionally talented Diamondbacks outperformed their Pythagorean expectation by 11.097 wins. This places them 9th on the list of all time over performing teams. There's no postseason hardware for defining the left most tail of the normal distribution, but I think we should thank the Diamondbacks for having lucked themselves into an intellectually interesting record.

Most teams that outperform their Pythagorean expectation come back down to earth in their next season, though over and under performance do have some persistence into the next season. If one were given to making predictions, predicting that the 2008 Diamondbacks would win fewer than 90 games would seem to be a gimme.

Unfortunately for would-be prophets the Diamondbacks have a feature that may serve to confound the simple predictive powers of Pythagoras. Their abysmal lineup featured a number of very young hitters, and young hitters can be expected to improve until their late twenties.

I feel the foolish urge to make predictions, so here we go. The Diamondbacks will improve their runs scored and run differential, but their record will get worse. Now, I don't have particularly good reasons to predict this (like most prognosticators). The Diamondback bullpen will probably be much worse than it was in 2007, but the starters could go either way or be subject to attrition and turnover. I just think it would be appropos.

the worm turns

2007-11-30T19:55:00.000-08:00

We're thinking of taking a vacation in China next year, so once again I am compelled to pay attention to the Yuan-Dollar exchange rate. Suffice it to say I'm thinking that maybe it's a good idea to buy some Yuan now, because it seems like the chances that the peg will be intact six months from now are a coin flip.

Fixed exchange rates are a real pain in the arse. They save up all the day-to-day risks of floating rates and focus them within a short period of time. That's the exact opposite of what most people want.

They also encourage governments to complain about each other a lot. Last year our congress was bitching to China about it's undervalued currency, this year they do the same to us. Last year it's their currency and our problem, this year vice-versa. Either way, it's a bitch fest.

income inequality and nobody cares

2007-11-27T22:25:00.000-08:00

Quick, think of what you want from the country you live in.

Things rattle into your head, probably remarkably similar for left or right politics.
Environmental security, a large middle class, good inexpensive health care for all that need it, equal opportunity for all races and sexes, and a shiny donkey for every family.

One thing that does not pop into your head, safe to say is: a gini-coefficient under .35. And this is a problem.

Well, it's not really a problem. But it is a problem for Paul Krugman and anyone who likes to bang on-and-on about income inequality.

Herbert Gintis makes this point in his rather testy review of Krugman's latest (thank you, Marginal Revolution).

Ginits touches on something that has always bugged me. There's nothing directly bad about inequality itself. What I truly care about is poverty, and poverty as a result of denial of opportunity more than anything. I always get weirded out by dragging inequality into it. As if taking money away from rich people all on its own was going to do something about poverty and its attendent horrors and nuisances.

Personally, I think the Democratic party should concentrate on more immediate problems, such as Health care, (something else Professor Krugman cares about, at least). The only people who care about income inequality are economists and we don't think it's rational to vote, anyway.

now that's tourism!

2007-11-25T22:48:00.000-08:00

Click on the link only if you really want to know.