Issue 23, Fall 2002

William A. McEachern, Editor

Odds and Ends

Students have difficulty appreciating the awesome power of compound interest. Now there's a Web site that breathes some life into the math. The premise of www.timetravelfund.com/ is that time travel may one day be possible. It could be prohibitively expensive at first, but, as with other new technologies, the cost could eventually come down. This Web site establishes a fund to be tapped centuries from now to finance trips in time. A small contribution from you could buy your ticket to the future. The Fund requires a $10 contribution, but the site notes that even $1, if compounded annually at 5% interest, would in 500 years grow to $39.3 billion. Centuries from now, time travelers will be paid from that fund to retrieve you and bring you back to the future. You could be brought to the future just before death, and could thus benefit from future medical technology. (The site ignores the risk of destabilizing upheaval and the effects of inflation. A real rate of return of, say, 2% would compound a one-time contribution of $1 to about $20,000 in 500 years.)

Someone in the audience at a recent Allied Social Sciences session claimed that students at his college seemed to study a total of only seven or eight hours a week for all their courses combined, and this iron law appeared invariant with assignments. If students operate with such a study-time constraint, then any move one instructor makes to save students' time (say, by putting lecture notes on the Web), will prompt students to subtract study time from that course and apply it elsewhere in the curriculum.

Two influential lawmakers and former economics professors have decided not to seek reelection to Congress this fall. Phil Gramm is retiring from the Senate and Dick Armey from the House. After three terms in the House, Gramm won his Senate seat in 1984; before that, he taught 11 years at Texas A&M. Armey was first elected in 1984, after teaching 13 years at North Texas State. Both are considered conservative, though each took a different path. According to New York Times columnist Bill Keller (1/12/02), Gramm has run against government spending in general, but built a pipeline of federal spending to Texas. Gramm once boasted, "I'm carrying so much pork, I'm beginning to get trichinosis." In contrast, Armey fought government spending even when it would benefit his own district, such as with his votes against farm aid and for closing an unneeded military base in his home district.

"If you say 'economics' to the average person, it's pretty true that their eyelids get heavy, but if you say 'money,' their eyes open up and their nostrils flare."
-Louis Rukeyser

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
-Leon Tolstoy

"Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble."
-Frank Tyger

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