Just as tacos and spaghetti add flavor to menu options outside Mexico and Italy, foreign holidays and customs can introduce the world's children to interesting new activities.
Unfortunately, in January, 2020, the Chinese New Year introduced the world to COVID-19. Millions of people traveling for the lunar new year began carrying the new virus around the world.
With what the Chinese call the Year of the Pig about to give way to the beginning of the Chinese New Year of the Metal Rat on January 25, 2020, children could have been urging adults to try making some Feng Shui modifications said to attract good luck. But by opening doors and windows for 10 minutes on the eve of the Chinese New Year, this year they let the old year out and a new virus in.
Since the Chinese associate rats with storing up food, some customs in the Year of the Rat involve saving money. Placing a glass or ceramic bowl at the front door serves as a reminder to deposit and save all loose change there every time anyone enters all year. On the other hand, all are cautioned; lending anyone money on New Year's Eve can cause a loss of money all year long.
To start the new year with abundance, the Chinese prepare a tray with eight kinds of snacks, including round fruits like grapes that symbolize prosperity, orange slices for gold, olives, pecans, almonds and various round candies and cookies. To foster optimism and energy, the Chinese start the new year wearing the warm colors of red, orange, and yellow.
You'll also want to clean your home before the new year begins, because using brooms, brushes, and dust rags might clear away good fortune. Also, avoid using knives and scissors that can cut off good luck.
Instead of trying to keep New Year's resolutions, everyone might try the Chinese method of writing nine new year's wishes on rectangular pieces of paper and hanging them on a tree where the wind can blow them into the sky for fast fulfillment.
New Yorkers counted down the beginning of 2020 while watching a crystal ball drop in Times Square and blowing horns. Instead, some Chinese will ring in the new year with a Tibetan bell.
Children born in the Year of the Metal Rat are expected to be able to turn unlucky events into fortunes. All children around the world will be able to begin the Chinese New Year with a small fortune, if adults adopt the Chinese custom of giving them coins in red envelopes.
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Friday, August 24, 2018
Cryptocurrency for Kids (and adults)
Strip away its digital aspect, and cryptocurrency transactions are monetized barter exchanges between two people. Or, you can think of cryptocurrency exchanges as one person deciding how much of a new kind of money he or she has and is willing to pay for an item or service. No paperwork is involved in what is essentially a secret transaction between two people.
In a regular barter trade, a young person might try to find a student willing to trade a Pikachu card for one or more Pokemon cards. But in a cryptocurrency-like system, a young person offers to buy the Pikachu card with, let's say, some Monopoly money (or money students themselves design and distribute). A student is willing to sell the Pikachu card for a certain amount of Monopoly money, because she or he needs that amount of Monopoly money to buy a bag of chips from a student willing to accept that amount of Monopoly money. A student could, for example, use created currency to make a major trade, or a number of smaller trades, to receive items that could be sold, maybe at a yard sale, for a lot of real, government-issued money.
Unless all Monopoly money is going to disappear from all Monopoly games, families, students, and classrooms need to begin designing their own currency and agreeing how much each person receives in his and her accounts. It can be lots of fun to begin listing the items that can be sold: candy and cookies; unusual pens and pencils; socks; hair accessories; little stuffed animals; friendship bracelets and key chains. Services also can be exchanged for new currencies. Students can be paid to teach others to make different types of paper airplanes, braid hair in a certain way, throw a football or Frisbee, solve a math problem, or fold an Origami crane. Around the home, parents and children might sell services for new currencies to buy privileges. Of course, it is unlikely that services, purchased with created currency, could be resold for real money.
A do-it-yourself cryptocurrency system exposes some of the problems associated with cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, in the real world. You have to find another person who has what you want; who is willing to accept your particular kind of cryptocurrency (There is more than Bitcoin); who is willing to create no paper trail of the transaction; who will accept no changes, such as merchandise returns; and who wants to keep the transaction secret. Basing a subscription service on cryptocurrency is unlikely. Who would be wiling to hand over currency to receive a cupcake every moth or a weekly classroom newspaper, if they received no receipt showing they were entitled to the cupcakes or newspapers? Then, there is the problem of someone stealing your currency. In real life, cryptocurrency systems based on digital transactions currency has been known to disappear with the click of a key before a transaction is confirmed. Unlike savings held in a bank and protected by a government agency, cryptocurrency funds enjoy no such guarantee.
Bitcoin cryptocurrency uses the SHA256 algorithm to confirm each transaction as part of a blockchain, to notify all participants in its network of each transaction, and to enable participants to keep track of the balances in each other's accounts. But, before a transaction is confirmed, it can be altered.
In a regular barter trade, a young person might try to find a student willing to trade a Pikachu card for one or more Pokemon cards. But in a cryptocurrency-like system, a young person offers to buy the Pikachu card with, let's say, some Monopoly money (or money students themselves design and distribute). A student is willing to sell the Pikachu card for a certain amount of Monopoly money, because she or he needs that amount of Monopoly money to buy a bag of chips from a student willing to accept that amount of Monopoly money. A student could, for example, use created currency to make a major trade, or a number of smaller trades, to receive items that could be sold, maybe at a yard sale, for a lot of real, government-issued money.
Unless all Monopoly money is going to disappear from all Monopoly games, families, students, and classrooms need to begin designing their own currency and agreeing how much each person receives in his and her accounts. It can be lots of fun to begin listing the items that can be sold: candy and cookies; unusual pens and pencils; socks; hair accessories; little stuffed animals; friendship bracelets and key chains. Services also can be exchanged for new currencies. Students can be paid to teach others to make different types of paper airplanes, braid hair in a certain way, throw a football or Frisbee, solve a math problem, or fold an Origami crane. Around the home, parents and children might sell services for new currencies to buy privileges. Of course, it is unlikely that services, purchased with created currency, could be resold for real money.
A do-it-yourself cryptocurrency system exposes some of the problems associated with cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, in the real world. You have to find another person who has what you want; who is willing to accept your particular kind of cryptocurrency (There is more than Bitcoin); who is willing to create no paper trail of the transaction; who will accept no changes, such as merchandise returns; and who wants to keep the transaction secret. Basing a subscription service on cryptocurrency is unlikely. Who would be wiling to hand over currency to receive a cupcake every moth or a weekly classroom newspaper, if they received no receipt showing they were entitled to the cupcakes or newspapers? Then, there is the problem of someone stealing your currency. In real life, cryptocurrency systems based on digital transactions currency has been known to disappear with the click of a key before a transaction is confirmed. Unlike savings held in a bank and protected by a government agency, cryptocurrency funds enjoy no such guarantee.
Bitcoin cryptocurrency uses the SHA256 algorithm to confirm each transaction as part of a blockchain, to notify all participants in its network of each transaction, and to enable participants to keep track of the balances in each other's accounts. But, before a transaction is confirmed, it can be altered.
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Fools Aren't the Only Ones Who Soon Part with Their Money
Money is part of our lives from morning to night and, if we are earning interest, even while we sleep, writes John Hope Bryant in his book, The Memo: Five Rules for Your Economic Liberation. All the things and services in our lives cost money, and we don't have any control over the prices charged for everything we need and use.
But, you say, we do control what things and services we choose to buy. After examining human behavior, Nobel-prize-winning economist Richard H. Thaler challenges that idea. What Thaler has to say in Nudge, the book he co-authored with Cass R. Sunstein, expands on the financial literacy both he and Bryant see as a valuable foundation for happiness in every child, woman, and man in the world.
Financial literacy, like literacy itself, can begin at an early age, when a child learns it's dumb to take two quarters for one dollar. Thaler also used a Halloween trick-or-treater example to show how the investment choices people are given can affect their decisions. If children were to visit two adjacent homes that both offered Three Musketeer and Milky Way candy bars on Halloween, each child might select a different bar at each home. In another situation, if these children could visit only one home that offered the same two different bars and were allowed to each select two bars, they might choose two of the kind they liked best. What would happen if investors were given a choice of putting their retirement money in a fund composed of all stocks and one composed of all, more conservative and less risky, bonds? Most would split their funds half and half, just like the children visiting two homes. Another group of investors could put their money in an all-stock fund and a "balanced" fund that was invested half in stocks and half in bonds. Although they split their money half and half, their retirement depended on the performance of 3/4 stocks, more like the result of the children who took two of the same kind of candy bars.
Thaler cautions everyone about human failings. He cites a distinction between rapid, instinctive automatic thinking and reflective, rational thinking and presents a problem to demonstrate.
A bat and ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Cost of ball = x
Cost of bat = $1.00 + x
Cost of ball and bat = $1.10
x + $1.00 + x = $1.10
2x = $1.10 - $1.00
2x = .10
x = .05 NOT .10
In Nudge, Thaler suggests the world could design slight nudges that, like a friend, could help our automatic thoughts make better choices and avoid the bad ones. Students would see the fruit and yogurt before the cookies and ice cream in the school lunch line. Best choices would be the default options offered by manufacturers, insurers, sales people, mortgage brokers, and credit card companies. But Thaler knows our best interests are not everyone's objectives. Reflective, rational thinking really needs to come into play, when there are many options and/or humans have little experience, poor information, and delayed or infrequent feedback about mistakes or success. Firms have a great incentive to cater to irrational beliefs. Suggesting everyone is doing something, like paying for a warranty on a small appliance, can provide a kind of peer pressure. The financial aid staff at colleges and doctors, for example, may be receiving gifts to recommend certain private lenders and expensive new drugs.
Humans tend to cling to the status quo, the monetary decisions they have made in the past, such as buying a new bathing suit every year even if they rarely go swimming. If we choose the TV show we want to watch on NBC at 7 pm, we'll be watching NBC shows until we go to bed. If our first vote for President was a Republican candidate, we may never change political parties. Thaler suggests, "Sometimes it's good to learn what people unlike us like....If you're a Democrat,...you might want to see what Republicans think; no party can possibly have a monopoly on wisdom." He also recommends diversifying investment portfolios.
But, you say, we do control what things and services we choose to buy. After examining human behavior, Nobel-prize-winning economist Richard H. Thaler challenges that idea. What Thaler has to say in Nudge, the book he co-authored with Cass R. Sunstein, expands on the financial literacy both he and Bryant see as a valuable foundation for happiness in every child, woman, and man in the world.
Financial literacy, like literacy itself, can begin at an early age, when a child learns it's dumb to take two quarters for one dollar. Thaler also used a Halloween trick-or-treater example to show how the investment choices people are given can affect their decisions. If children were to visit two adjacent homes that both offered Three Musketeer and Milky Way candy bars on Halloween, each child might select a different bar at each home. In another situation, if these children could visit only one home that offered the same two different bars and were allowed to each select two bars, they might choose two of the kind they liked best. What would happen if investors were given a choice of putting their retirement money in a fund composed of all stocks and one composed of all, more conservative and less risky, bonds? Most would split their funds half and half, just like the children visiting two homes. Another group of investors could put their money in an all-stock fund and a "balanced" fund that was invested half in stocks and half in bonds. Although they split their money half and half, their retirement depended on the performance of 3/4 stocks, more like the result of the children who took two of the same kind of candy bars.
Thaler cautions everyone about human failings. He cites a distinction between rapid, instinctive automatic thinking and reflective, rational thinking and presents a problem to demonstrate.
A bat and ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Cost of ball = x
Cost of bat = $1.00 + x
Cost of ball and bat = $1.10
x + $1.00 + x = $1.10
2x = $1.10 - $1.00
2x = .10
x = .05 NOT .10
In Nudge, Thaler suggests the world could design slight nudges that, like a friend, could help our automatic thoughts make better choices and avoid the bad ones. Students would see the fruit and yogurt before the cookies and ice cream in the school lunch line. Best choices would be the default options offered by manufacturers, insurers, sales people, mortgage brokers, and credit card companies. But Thaler knows our best interests are not everyone's objectives. Reflective, rational thinking really needs to come into play, when there are many options and/or humans have little experience, poor information, and delayed or infrequent feedback about mistakes or success. Firms have a great incentive to cater to irrational beliefs. Suggesting everyone is doing something, like paying for a warranty on a small appliance, can provide a kind of peer pressure. The financial aid staff at colleges and doctors, for example, may be receiving gifts to recommend certain private lenders and expensive new drugs.
Humans tend to cling to the status quo, the monetary decisions they have made in the past, such as buying a new bathing suit every year even if they rarely go swimming. If we choose the TV show we want to watch on NBC at 7 pm, we'll be watching NBC shows until we go to bed. If our first vote for President was a Republican candidate, we may never change political parties. Thaler suggests, "Sometimes it's good to learn what people unlike us like....If you're a Democrat,...you might want to see what Republicans think; no party can possibly have a monopoly on wisdom." He also recommends diversifying investment portfolios.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
How to Recruit a Spy
It's no secret. Recruiting a spy is as easy as M.I.C.E. Michael V. Hayden, former head of the CIA, wrote in his book, Playing to the Edge, spies are recruited through Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego.
Prime targets are those:
Prime targets are those:
- who need money because they can't pay their gambling or other debts,
- who believe their country's system of government relies on a bankrupt ideology,
- who can be blackmailed (compromised) because they harbor sexuality, stealing, or other secrets they want to hide,
- who have bruised egos because they feel they have been unfairly fired, passed over for a promotion, or ignored even though they are smarter than everyone else.
Monday, November 24, 2014
An Example Helps Understand the World Economy
For dairy farmers in the United States, 2014 is an excellent year. Revenue from good prices for milk and milk products is up, and feed costs are down. Farmers can pay off debts and buy new equipment. Profits in 2015 are not expected to be as good. Why? Not because milk prices are expected to go down, and feed costs up, but because exports of cheese, whey, milk powder, and other dairy products are expected to decline.The U.S. dollar is strengthening in relation to foreign currencies. You can check the value of the dollar against the Japanese yen, Russian ruble, and other foreign money at finance.yahoo.com/currency. On October 31, 2014, for example, one U.S. dollar only bought 109.21
Japanese yen or 41.01 Russian rubles. Today, a dollar can purchase 118.32 Japanese yen or 44.97 Russian rubles.
How does the greater purchasing power of the dollar affect U.S. exports? People in foreign countries need to buy U.S. dollars before they can buy U.S. goods, such as cheese and whey. When their money can buy less expensive foreign currencies, they will buy less expensive products from U.S. competitors, and U.S. dairy product and other exports will decline.
On the other hand, if a U.S. farm family always wanted to visit a foreign country, 2015 might be a good time to plan a trip. It could take fewer U.S. dollars to pay for foreign hotel rooms, food, and souvenirs, if foreign currencies are weaker in relation to U.S. dollars. (Learn more about foreign currencies at the earlier blog post, "When to Buy/Sell in the World Market.")
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