So I was writing a paper about misusing evo-psych stuff to reinforce gender stereotypes.

Then I thought about what I’m wearing today. Black leggings, knee high boots, a sweater dress and a black velvet topcoat.

Everything I am wearing today (except for the sweater dress) would have been considered men’s clothes 200 years ago. I doubt you’d get many straight guys rocking the look now though, unless they had a pirate fetish.

Arghhhhhhhh!

No surprise- Bush vetoed the SCHIP funding that would have funded and expanded the program giving health insurance to poor kids.

First- I’m sure Jesus is keeping records of Bush’s compassionate conservatism. That alone should terrify Georgie boy.

Second- y’all know the reason he vetoed it is not because it’s an inefficient program but because it is WAY more efficient at providing health care economically to a large segment of the population. In other words- he vetoed it so the we ‘Mericuns wouldn’t start thinking the socialized medicine actually works better than *Gasp- The Private Sector.

Not long though kids- a little more than a year to go. Just keep saying to yourself over and over “November 08, November 08”.

UPDATE: My own governor is joining in a lawsuit to sue the feds for not funding SCHIP. Have I mentioned the WA state produces some fierce and fiery women politicians? We do. Thanks Gov. Gregoire!

I have this friend. She’s successful, very well educated, independent, smart, kind, etc. She is 39 and single.

Yesterday we had a long (and frustrating) conversation about poverty, specifically about poor mothers (which- I am, though I think a certain set of people forget this when they talk to me- I don’t fit their stereotype of a welfare mom- and I’ve never met anyone who does and I know a lot of poor mothers).

She was pissed about “all these drug addicted women having more babies than they can afford”. She was pissed because she wants children but hasn’t had them yet, almost as if some poor single mother giving birth depletes her ability to have her own children. She was pissed because she pays a high tax rate and has no deductions, no house, no kids.

I’ve had similar conversations with her before. She has the money (she makes at least 10 times what I do- and I manage to raise a kid ok), she has a fairly flexible job. What she doesn’t have is a husband, and when pushed just a little, she will tell you that’s why she’s not having kids.

Personally, the only thing that really sucks about being a single parent (and I really mean the ONLY thing) is money. When I was receiving child support on a monthly basis our standard of living was drastically improved, but at best it doubled my very meager income (For the record, I am owed about $40,000 in back child support from the last 12 years) My friend is still financially much better off. With a child her standard of living would change but she would be nowhere near poverty.

I know there is this idea that children are better off with 2 parents. Maybe, but not in our case. I think children are better off with a lot of people around them to love them whether or not they are parents. Relatives, family friends, neighbors and really good child care providers make a world of difference. I am fortunate that we have almost always had a strong support system of friends. There was one period of a year or so when that was not true, and it was the single most difficult time in my life, and not so easy on the Kid either.

So when my friend says that she has to have a husband to have a kid, I wonder why. I wonder if what she is really mad at us poor single mothers for is because we don’t care about the one thing that is preventing her from doing what she wants- having a husband. And it’s not just poor moms. Lots of women are having children without being married. Some are in long term partnerships who don’t want the burdens that marriage imposes, some are lesbians who can’t legally marry in most places, and some of us just don’t see husband/children as a package deal.

I don’t know if I made any sort of impression on her yesterday, but I do wish she would stop blaming people like me who break with social traditions because she doesn’t want to break them.

This little blog has changed substantially since I first started it. I started out with me and a bunch of wonky boys. Then Wonder showed up (yay- more estrogen).But life gets in the way of blog time and it’s only been me writing with occasional Wonder hits for awhile.

Since it has become the “all about me” blog- I changed the name. It makes more sense and gives me an excuse to use one of my favorite nicknames.

Welcome to Elizabitchez.

At some point I may move to a new blog home where the URL will match the new title, but for now thewhitepapers.blogspot.com will remain.

Hello China

This is the US calling. Have you heard about what’s going on in Burma?

You have? Then why aren’t you doing anything? Rumor has it that if the Burmese, I mean Myanmar generals were going to listen to anyone, it would be you.

Oh, you don’t want to cause problems with you exports. We understand. But you know who you export a lot of cheap crap to? Us, and we’ve been having problems with you sending us poisoned pet food, toothpaste and lead painted toys.

Yeah, so we were thinking of putting some massive tariffs in place to pay for all the safety inspections we’re about to perform on all the goods you send here.

Oh I know that Walmart would be pissed if we did that, but right now our people are pretty pissed off about their dead pets and about dead monks in Burma- I think they’d be cool with the tariffs.

So you’re gonna talk to the Burmese generals and your going to institute your own safety inspections. Nice. Yeah, I think you can do the inspections more cheaply there than here. That way you don’t have to pay for shipping twice when we send contaminated crap back.

Let me know how it goes with the Burma call.

(And that is how diplomacy works- not that our president would know).

A good friend once said to me “Economics is the math of self-fulfilling prophecies”. Since she can’t remember saying it (blames red wine) I am stealing it for myself.

Maybe a better way of explaining it is that economics is all about assuming that all actors start from a completely equal place and that all actors follow all the rules all the time.

Tell me, where in history have people ever actually acted like that? Can you? No, because people don’t act like that and people don’t start from the same equal playing field. There is no “law of gravity” when it comes to people’s behavior.

In economics when exceptions start pilling up to disprove a theory (like “trade benefits everyone”) instead of rethinking the theory economists will say “they weren’t following the rules”. But not following the rules is exactly what happens when power is concentrated. Look at any human system- be it politics, education, sex and relationships, employment, sports- anything where there is section of people with enough power (financial, physical, whatever) to alter the rules to their benefit- they will. Women live under the daily fear of rape from all men(when statistically is a small number of men who do most of the raping), employees (who massively outnumber employers) have little ability to alter their pay or benefits on their own, politicians are much more easy influenced by powerful lobbies than individual constituents, sports stars get away with rapes and murders- etc (but not with dog fighting- cause dogs have so much more social capital than women these days).

So a better way of saying “trade benefits everyone” is saying “trade benefits the more powerful actors in a situation”. That is decidedly different from everyone.

I’ll give you an example using corn- my favorite to pick on subsidized crop. We subsidize the hell out of corn, that’s why in America everything is sweetened with corn syrup instead of sugar cane and why ethanol additives in gasoline are from corn products instead of some other plant. Under NAFTA we were going to start shipping out super subsidized (and therefore super cheap) corn to Mexico. Now Mexico is not a corn-free country. You might have had these things called corn tortillas- they come from Mexico, and tamales, also Mexico. For a good chunk of the population, corn is a staple food and a staple crop. But it is not subsidized by the Mexican government. Corn farmers in Mexico do not have a giant agri-business lobby. They are mostly small family farms, the kind we romanticize, but filled with brown people who speak Spanish instead of white people in Iowa.

So the Mexican government agreed to import the subsidized corn as long as the US agreed to pay tariffs on the corn for several years so that corn farmers in Mexico would have a chance to transition to some other form of employment. That’s nice, a little band-aid for the family farms.

But that’s not what happened. Instead Mexican ranchers that wanted cheap feed, tortilla factories and businesses that wanted to switch from locally produced, unsubsidized sugar cane to cheap corn sweeteners got the Mexican government to ignore the tariffs as soon as NAFTA went into effect. Mexican corn farmers were reduced to subsistence farming.

Now an economist would say- they weren’t following the rules (either by subsidizing the corn in the first place or by ignoring the transition tariffs) except that is how most international trade agreements end up. Rules that are meant to protect those with less power are ignored while those with more power benefit. Actually, that phrase right there sums up our entire social structure.

There is an old joke about a chemist, an engineer and an economist stranded on a dessert island with one can of food. The chemist creates a solution that will open the metal of the can. The engineer builds a contraption open the can. The economist says “Assume there is a can opener”.

By making assumptions of a perfect world in order to study economics, we are trying to open a can with an imaginary can opener. There are too many exceptions to economic rules. That is why “math of self-fulfilling prophecies” is so fitting. In math or any other branch of science, if your results didn’t match up to your theories, a new theory would have to be created. In economics, when you results don’t match up to your theories, you can simply discard the parts that don’t fit by claiming they didn’t follow the rules. Therefore all your theories will match your findings regardless of the actual outcome.

UPDATE: After thinking about it some more I really think it should be “Economics is the science of self-fulfilling prophecies” since economics is a social science and is supposed to follow the scientific method (you know, until you start throwing everything out because it didn’t follow the rules).

Whenever I have computer problems (which is frequent- see below posting on Macs vs Pcs) and I complain about them to friends, you know, in the way that we complain about things that bug us, I ALWAYS get the same response “I have a boyfriend, husband, brother, son, other penis gifted person who can help you with that”.

To which I answer “Do you know what I do for a living?”

On those occasions when I do actually need help fixing the frankenputer- I ask a tiny Japanese lesbian friend. (Hi Rain!)

So this cartoon just made me giggle

SHOCKING- I know! Girls use the internet! Girls understand technology! OMG they like high tech gadgets that do more than buzz when you turn them on. (Not to disparage the buzzy toys- I like those too). And they don’t want to be harassed or condescended to. Who could have thunk it?