Mild Super Power

When you have a working knowledge of economics, it’s like having a mild super power. For example, I use my knowledge of economics to avoid speeding tickets. I assume the local law enforcement agencies have limited funding and can’t be everywhere at the same time. That tells me, fairly reliably, when I can speed without detection and when I can’t.

For example, if I get up before the crack of dawn to go to the airport, I can speed all I want. No police force is going to pay an employee to sit on a road at 5 AM with virtually no traffic and a low accident rate and wait for a speeder. That would be bad economics.

You also never see speed traps on the freeway during rush hour. One reason is probably because it’s more dangerous to pull over people in that much traffic. But the bigger factor is that it would slow traffic during rush hour. That’s a huge economic impact on society for not much return in the way of making society safer. All it would do is make the police less popular, and make people think the police don’t need the funding they already have.

Around here, the police have little portable trailers with radar and a display sign. They leave it unattended on side streets. The radar tracks your car and the display tells you how fast you are going. They’ve discovered that motorists slow down when they realize the device is tracking their speed. This doesn’t work on me. When I see that trailer, I speed up because I know the police won’t put both the trailer and a real policeman in the same neighborhood. It would be a waste of money to have both, since the trailer with the radar slows down everyone but economists.

You can also speed on the Fourth of July if you are nowhere near the celebration areas. All the police will be where the crowds are. No other arrangement would make economic sense. That tip is my little gift to you, until you run over someone because you were speeding.

If you plan to speed, it also pays to be a middle-aged male. For years I have been observing who the police pull over for speeding and who they don’t. A police officer (usually male) has lots of choices for who to ticket for speeding. If he is heterosexual, and stops a heterosexual male, he has no chance of getting sex, and a non-zero chance of getting killed. If he stops a female, he has some chance of being offered sex (or at least some flirting) to get out of the ticket, and not much risk of violence. Cops are rational and make the correct economic decision most of the time. Where I live, about 80% of all motorists who are stopped for speeding are women, and it has been that way since I can remember. Economics tells me it will stay that way, at least as long as the opportunity for getting head is more valuable than the opportunity of getting punched in the head. (If it’s different where you live, your cops are either gay or irrational.)

I was reminded again of the power of economics when reading responses to my post yesterday on the future of newspapers. One of the more common dissenting opinions was that as long as grandpa is alive, there will be newspapers, because he will always want one. Readers who have the super power of economics training recognized that newspapers have high fixed costs and could become unviable if only a portion of younger readers cancel subscriptions. Grandpa is somewhat irrelevant to the future of newspapers, especially since advertisers don’t care much about him. To advertisers, one subscriber who is thirty-something is worth about seven grandpas.

My reason for majoring in economics in college was to understand how the world works, so I would be more equipped to navigate in it. I think it was a good choice. Has your college major given you any mild super powers?

Comments

[Julie D.]

I studied architecture, so my mild-superpower is being able to determine exactly the lenght of something. Also it ables me to pack a car truck or a box with more things than anybody a know. Very handy for vacations!

[Bob]

Economics is only applicable when you don't apply it to the economy....prisoner's dilemma my ass.

[Jagadeesh Venugopal]

Scott now what if the policeman took economics as an undergrad?

The 5 AM route to the airport may not have too many cars, but each one will be an easy pick... just like shooting fish in a barrel.

[Jay]

I took Introduction to Logic as a philosophy requirement. This course has protected me from most lawyer's, salesmen's, and politician's crap that they spew. The section on logical fallacies alone was worth the class.

[adora]

I majored in Architecture, minored in Theater Arts. My mild super power is gaydar.

[Stomper]

No, Random, you are not addressing my point. I'm not talking about the danger from ONE speeder overtaking another driver. I am talking about the dangerous condition created when one driver is bottlenecking all the surrounding traffic, as multiple drivers try to go around him.

Are you arguing that technical compliance with the law is more important than the safety of you, your passenger(s), and the surrounding drivers? If so, then I am glad you are not a traffic engineer, or a defense lawyer.

--Stomper

[esteban]

You'd be surprised, i was once given a ticket for speeding to an airport at 4 am...

[Fair Witness]

Speaking of economics, a little class called Engineering Economic Analysis changed my life considerably. You would be surprised how a little concept like the relationship between money and time can escape some people. Yet it can make the difference between a comfortable life and dying in a gutter somewhere. Sure, E=MCsquared can help you make a bomb, but FV=PV(1+i)(power of n) can help you retire at 48! And then you can sit around commenting on people's blogs.

[Fair Witness]

I also like to think engineering taught me how to quickly get to the root of a problem. After much reflection, I realize I was probably born with that ability, and the engineering training helped me understand how things work, which enhanced the skill. That is, unless humans are involved... then it all goes out the window.

[Fair Witness]

My engineering degree gave me a very accurate BS detector. That particular superpower can protect you from a lot of harm, and can help you protect others from harm if they will listen to you. But it is frustrating that being able to generate crafty BS is just as powerful, if not more powerful, than detecting it. There are so many people out there who feed on it. There are more riches to be had by wallowing in the absurd than by leading people away from it. Curse this foul world!

[Janos]

Scott,

Sometimes you are so self-depreciatory that I don't even understand how you get out of bed in the morning, or your preferred time of day. However, in this article, you have such a big head that it would only fit in most doors sideways (another Hungarianism, I hope it translates).
Make up your mind, darnit! And keep drawing Dilbert in the meantime, please.

[jc]

I sometimes have the bad habit of overanalyzing things when I shouldn't. For example, I might see a movie and accept the fact that a cop can survive multiple close-range explosions, but am totally incredulous about how big his NYC apartment is. So, I should probably hold my tongue and accept this post as entertainment, but...

What kind of bizarre porno-fantasy world do you live in where cops have any imaginable chance of getting sex during a traffic pull-over? Or where even a small fraction of the females they pull over would even be desirable, assuming willingness was not an issue?

And where I live, the white trailers/vans can have cameras to snap a photo of you and your license plate so you get a ticket in the mail (a few years back I got a nice picture of my wife, with a cell phone to her ear to boot). Despite the fact that some say these won't hold up if you go to court, which is less trouble for the super-economist - slowing down a bit or having a court date?

[it's me]

In college I learned how to pretend you're awake in class.

1. Sit behind someone taller than you.
2. Pull the brim of your hat down low
3. Hold a pencil in one hand and rest your chin on your other hand.
If your angles are correct it looks like you're concentrating really hard on your paper. You can do somthing similar at work if your back is to the aisle, just pull up a spreadsheet and "study" it very carefully.

[Di]

Sorry - I worked it out. The line comes between the comment and the author not in the same section! Dah.

[Di]

ok - how did you do it. My post (Di - about traffic in Johannesburg) is listed as being posted by "latsot". The next post a Di (I assume me) isn't mine.

Do you know how hard it is to get a computer to separate information across multiple records?

I also don't remember writing the real post nearly so well as what is displayed. Thank you.

[Tom Gao]

You people must have real shitty expectations.
Where I come from, Knowledge + Experience ≠ Superpower (albeit a mild one).

If you're rich then you can probably do and get away with practically anything one can imagine. But even that's not in the same league as "superpower" cos I can just run over you with my ride-on mower. Wanna feel special? Get some head. Just don't lament on what could never be by trying to make something trivial seem more than what it really is in substance.

On the topic of newspaper circulations, I believe that newspaper popularity will remain stable. Hell, I'm willing to bet that it could even rise a pointer or two. Two reasons come to mind immediately:
1. A broadsheet is easier to look at than the full glare of a radioactive LCD screen frying up your retina and
2. What would be the first thing one reaches for when the beloved dog/cat/pet defecates on your favourite Persian rug?

I rest my ass

[Mark]

My mild super power is the ability to get people to do things they wouldn't normally do. I went to West Point and the training I got there sharpened this skill. This skill works best with cow-workers. I don't have trouble at work because I can deal with problem people before they become a problem by getting them to be nice or at least wary of me.

[mattlee]

I work as a salesman selling advertising, and on the side I am a magician. Essentially I am a professional liar and a con-artist. My lie, bullshit and misdirection detectors are all extremely sensitive.

My training is as a computer engineer and all that gives me is the ability to count from zero in binary.

[mattlee]

I work as a salesman selling advertising, and on the side I am a magician. Essentially I am a professional liar and a con-artist. My lie, bullshit and misdirection detectors are all extremely sensitive.

My training is as a computer engineer and all that gives me is the ability to count from zero in binary.

[random]

Re Stomper and people driving at speed limit causing the danger. Its only an issue when an idiot speeder tries to overtake them at a dangerous location and given that they shouldn't be overtaking someone who is already doing the speed LIMIT, it is the overtaker who is to blame and causing the danger. Your argument of 'well its okay to break the law if everyone else is breaking the law' is not a good one. You might be able to get away with in that case but you are still breaking the law. If everyone around you started looting a shop would you join in because you know you would probably get away with it?

[water_moon]

I majored in economics becasue unlike philosophy or English it made common sense. Can't really say it's helped all that much.

[Frans]

"You also never see speed traps on the freeway during rush hour"
I envy you beyond measure for living in a place where a speedtrap on the freeway during rush hour would have even the smallest chance of measuring anyone doing more than 20% of the official speed limit.

I trained as a Chartered Accountant, and my mild superpower is to actually know how much money I have, and not spend more than that (something which seems fairly obvious to me, but from what I can discern from people around me . . . . . it probably qualifies as a mild superpower)

[Kirk]

I did English Lit, and it gave me the mild superpower of knowing where to put apostrophes. The downside is that the superpower makes me unstable when i see apostrophes in the wrong place, and i get RAGE. The rage only stops when I have belittled the person who put the apostrophe in the wrong place.

Posted by: Bob
------

Bob, you are not alone. My Hubby has to restrain my red pen on cafe menus and market traders' stalls and drag me away from them muttering.

[Stomper]

Speed limits are useful guidelines, but people who worship them as absolutes are misguided.

Faster speeds always impose a greater risk of serious harm. A speed limit is therefore a policy statement about the government's preferred balance between (i) risk of harm and (ii) the need for efficiency in getting people from one place to another.

These policy statements are based in large part on statistics and physics, but that does not mean they are scientifically precise. In fact, good traffic engineering requires that speed limits be adjusted as conditions change.

Governmental bodies will sometimes increase a speed limit when studies show that most drivers on a particular stretch of road are exceeding that limit. The limit is therefore misleading and could actually CONTRIBUTE to accidents.

The most dangerous driver on the road is the one who varies substantially from the general flow of traffic, whether that means going much faster or much slower than the general flow. If you insist on driving below the speed limit when everyone around you is trying to drive 5-10 mph faster, then YOU are creating a hazardous condition.

--Stomper

[Aaron]

My music major helps me make sense and create structure out of another system that seems to have no rhyme or reason - insurance.