Oprah's Giveaway's Have More Meaning This Year...

We've all seen the shows where Oprah seems to be the Santa of real life. She surprises her viewers, as well as guests with outrageous gifts with no expectation of returned favor. The most popular of these episodes was titled, "Oprah's Favorite Things". However, instead of just giving away gifts this year, Oprah presented her audience with $1,000 debit cards in a "Pay It Forward" and explained their assignment to spend the money on whatever charity they wished.
"I can honestly say that every gift I've ever given has brought at least as much happiness to me as it has to the person I've given it to," she said. "Thats the feeling I want to pass on to you."
Oprah's idea triggered ideas for holiday shoppers which put specific products/items on demand as well.
The goal is for audience members to give to others, and they were rewarded with a Sony DVD Handycam to record their charitable activites.
"You're going to open your hearts, you're going to be really creative, and you're going to spend it al at once on the one stranger or spend a dollar on every person. Imagine the love and kindness you can spread with $1,000." Oprah encouraged.
In my opinion, this is the best idea Oprah has had in some time. Many people have been debating as to whether her information/coverage was getting just a little bland. I think this is just enough to add a little excitement. Plus, the audience interaction, is quite the "feel good" activity, and I think that it is a great alteration made to her possibly most popular program aired from year to year.

Invisibility a Posibility??

An invisibility cloak that works in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum has been unveiled by researchers in the US. The cloak works by steering microwave light around an object, making it appear to an observer as if it were not there at all. Earlier in 2006, John Pendry, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College London, UK, and colleagues showed how such an invisibility cloak could, in theory, be made. Now David Smith and colleagues at Duke University in North Carolina, US, have proved the idea works. The device only works under one type of wavelength and only in two dimensions. It has been shown to make copper rings simply disappear but hasn't quite gotten the shadow of the rings to disappear with it. Scientists working on this project are hoping to cloak 3d objects soon. What problems could arise from the creation of the invisibility? Do you think the creation of something such as an invisibility cloak would be helpful to society?

Holidays = More Faked Sick Days

Although roughly one-third of workers calls in sick when they are not really sick during the course of a year, the number spikes during the holiday season. This increase is likely due to people spending time with family, shopping, preparing for the holidays, and taking sick days because they ran out of their annual allowance of vacation days. A survey shows that 32% of workers called in sick when they were not at least once in the last year, while 10% did so three or more times. Additionally, men were found to be less likely to take fake sick days than women (26% compared to 37%).

How much of an impact do you think employees taking fake sick days has on society in the form of external costs?

Airline Instability

Last month, there were attempted hostile takeovers of major airlines by smaller competitors. This signals that the airline market may become even more unstable in the near future. The consolidation of Delta Airlines with AirTran will cause a shortage of air travel, and also an increase of air fare from destination to destination. This same thing has happened in the past with the dissolution of TWA and Pan-Am, two airlines that people thought would be unstoppable. We could see a Pigovian governmental intervention, in order to protect the aviation industry and try to keep it affordable for the consumers.

This will be an interesting news story to watch, with many real world applications of the various economic principles we have covered in micro economics.

PlayStation 3 even scarcer than predicted

The new Playstation 3 was supposed to ship 400,000 systems to The United States, however for some reason there were only 125,000 too 175,000 shipped to the US. Sony says its pleased with the launch in the US so far, but don't have any explanation as to why the number of PS3's have been launched in the US. Why do you think there have been less than half the estimated PS3's in the United States released this year?

Steriods in Sports

There have been many cases were pro athlites are being accused of and caught for using steriods. Me personally believe that this is a big problem and is discracing the game. Early in sports where most of the records were set people didnt know what steriods were and still set high records which some still hold today. Yes I would always like records to be broken but not in illegal ways. i believe that if you can't break a record naturally than you shouldn't be able to break it at all. If you are caught using steriods then you should have all of your records if any cleared and not be able to be in the hall of fame. This may seem like a harsh punishment but if you don't believe in yourself enough to do the things you do naturally then you shouldn't be on the feild because you are making the game not fair. What are your thoughts with steriods in sports.

Gun Control In USA

I belive that this has become a big issue in the US today. The government is trying to make it where the people are not allowed to own guns in there homes. I believe that if they plan to do this then they should change the second admendment which says "the people have the right to bear arms". They have already chose to banned assualt weapons to reduce crime which of now it has not helped any. Many people are even still getting caught with these types of weopons. So this should tell the government that no matter what they do people will still be able to find guns. To all of the hunters what do they want us to do, not hunt, which then would result in deer population grow dramatically then there would be more accidents caused by deer. What is your thoughts on the government wanting to take guns out of our homes and live us with no high powered protection.

abstinence education

A new study reveals that abstinence only programs can be effective in reducing teen sex and in delaying their first sexual experience without discouraging the use of condoms during future encounters. This caught my attention because when I went through middle school health and high school health classes, teachers always seemed to urge the importance of using a condom first and preaching abstinence second. It was like they almost gave up on us not waiting until we were married to have sex so they might as well teach us to be safe instead. I think this abstinence only education is a good way to go when teaching teens about sex. Does anybody think that this method would not work and you would do it anyway?

Jay-Z tops charts

The previously retired rapper, Jay-Z has come out with a new album entitled "Kingdom Come". The album has already skyrocketed in terms of sales, tallying over 680,000 copies already sold. What I am wondering is that with all of the music piracy that goes on in our country, how much of an impact does it really have on record sales. I feel that album sales would be considerably higher than they are now because people would not just wait for the album to come out and download it off the internet illegaly. They would actually have to make the purchase. What are everybody's thoughts?

60's Are The New Middle Age

These days with many possible plastic surgery procedures, plus the fact that American's are starting to live longer and longer, we are now sliding the scale of middle age. 60 percent of Americans surveyed believe their 60's are the new middle age and globally, three out of five consumers surveyed believed the 40's are the new 30's. With these new statistics, people are showing that age is nothing but a number. Age is more about how you feel these days then what your birth certificate says is your DOB. There is a surgical procedure to fix or alter almost all of the body's imperfections, to keep us looking younger and younger. Because of factors like this, American's are starting to refer to older ages as middle aged.

Microsoft Vista For Sale

Microsoft Vista went on sale Thursday 11/30 for businesses only; it was the first time in five years that Microsoft had released a new system for their personal computers. Beginning January 30 consumers will be able to purchase the new system. Microsoft believes that Vista will make PC's more secure, powerful and graphically dynamic. Also new back-end server software for businesses, as well as Office 2007, will be released the same day for consumers to purchase. PC makers say Vista will enable computers to do things that previously were difficult or costly. Lenovo Group believes that Microsoft Vista will greatly enhance data-backup tools that it builds into its machines. So go out there and get your Microsoft Vista as well.

Texts When Love is Close

"Match-making companies are creating new services that allow people to post their dating profile online and then automatically receive a text message on a GPS-enabled phone when a match is nearby, say, at a coffee shop around the corner." As the article opens up by saying, online dating has evolved again. As if resorting to finding a date online wasn't bad enough, now there are mobile phone alerts for when a romantic match is physically close by you. I think that this sort of technology will open up many doors for misuse and even abuse. For me personally, I think it would make me uncomfortable to know that someone knows that im their potential romantic match, and im sitting at Starbucks around the corner from them. To me, this would seem to be a sort of invasion of privacy!

Reckless Driver Caught on YouTube

The police have so many resources to catch crime now a days. The lastest in their arsenal is via the internet. Police in Norway got ahold of a video on YouTube of a reckless driver speeding nearly up 150 miles per hour. This young Norwegian posted a video called "Driving in Norway on the most popular video-sharing site called YouTube. He was driving on a public highway near Oslo. After making national news, the website took his video off the internet. Now what the police did was they followed an electronic trail he left online. This makes you question the privacy the internet provides you. Is it fair that this young guy got caught and will have to pay $1300 when he was not caught in the act? He did speed and he did endanger other drives on that particular highway. I feel that YouTube should censor more of what they provide so this does not happen anymore. At least no one got hurt in the filming of this video joy ride. I find it ridiculous that people mess around when they are in fast moving vehicles. Do they really need to speed? Is it the thrill they get out of it or is it the danger they seek?

The Hidden Dangers of Seatbelts

My mom has always told me to wear my seatbelt in the car, ever since I was old enough to hear it. Even the family doctor asks me if I always wear my seatbelt when i ride in cars. Obviously there are many beneficial pluses to wearing a seatbelt. There also seems to information on how seat belts can be potentialy damaging as well. In this case we have to weigh the gains and losses and continue to wear seat belts. " [A] driver will also be adjusting his behavior in response to what he perceives are changes in risks. If he is wearing a seat belt and his car has front and side air bags and anti-skid brakes to boot, he may in turn drive a bit more daringly. " This is the point that the article is making. Seatbelts give people a false sense of security that they should not take for granted.

What Hurricane Season?

After the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina last summer, I'm sure every one in the United States was more than relieved to end the slated "hurricane season" of 2006. After a devastating hurricane season in both 2004 and 2005, this year there was not a single hurricane to hit the shores of the United States. "Only three tropical storms made landfall, a welcome relief from the previous two years, when nearly a dozen hurricanes battered the country." I think that tensions were high in the south this year because of the forecasted amounts of hurricanes for 2006, and because of the unthinkable fury of Hurricane Katrina. Katrina was an almost unthinkable phenomenon that utterly destroyed the heart of Louisiana and the south. New Orleans was thrown into complete shambles and the government was completely unprepared. FEMA was tested in a way it had never been tested before, and proved to be a failure to most of the victims of Katrina. Not only did Katrina hit Louisiana hard, but it also smacked the government in the face as well. The government was exposed, and the common citizen realized that we are not as prepared for disaster as the government would like us to believe.

On another note, I spent my spring break in Houma, Louisiana last year helping to repair and rebuild the community from hurricane Katrina. I spent two weeks cleaning houses, painting houses, and even filing paper work for the sommunity relief center. Since we were staying on a modern indian reservation of the Houma Indians, we helped run and stock the relief center for the community. It was amazing to see the outpouring of donations that came into the center. From donated clothes, to diapers, to backpacks, to canned goods; it was all stocked in that relief center. The amazing part was, that all of the patrons of the center were rationed a certain amount of goods per visit, and paid nothing for them. As long as they brought their tribal card to the relief center, they were provided with free food for the week, from a government grant post-Katrina. It was amazing to me to see the unthinkable destruction that Hurricane Katrina left even many, many months after the initial impact. It was an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life, and i realized that it will take many many years to rebuild and recover from the disaster of last year.

A Decline in Toy Sales?! Around Christmas time?!

According to MSNBC.com, even though factories have produced a life size pony, a laughing Elmo, and a digital camera for three year olds, it will not be enough to pull the industry out of a slump. This year, through October, the industry has been able to ring up $12.7 billion in sales there, but it is down by 2% from last year. That in return, puts November and December in the "hotseat" to pull in a whopping $9.1 billion in sales if the industry even atleast hopes to match last years $21.8 billion. This could be stretch considering those two months only generate 33-37% of total sales, not the 42% the industry needs. The reason the revenue is lower than past years it due in part to retailers such a Walmart and Target. Because they are able to sell the toys so much cheaper, it pushes more pressure on the toy companies to raise prices. Also, video games and systems were launches right before Thanksgiving which actually took money away from the more traditional toy stores. It seems that children are losing interest in the traditional toys and turning towards video games, dvds, IPods, websurfing, MySpace, and AOL as a way of entertainment. The traditional toy industry has been in a slump in 2002 and video games will be permanent competitive pressure.

So what do you think? Do you feel that the traditional toys should be made more electronical? Or maybe the electronic stores should buy out the traditional toy stores and monopolize? That sounds crazy enough, but it could happen at this rate.