Why not? Because it's freaking me out! + some Downtonomics

Sooo, I just wanted to share a quick film clip that I enjoyed. Brings back lovely memories of my modern geometry course...

And here is a link to the economics of Downton Abbey.

Ranking on harmful drugs

Surfing on the "Economist" I stumbled across an article concerning the classification of how harmful drugs are. The ranking shows that alcohol is seen as the most harmful drug in the UK followed by heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine. It is a graph that I have seen before and is also been used in arguments concerning legalization and drug classification.

The article mentioned that the ranking is done by "drug harm experts". And this is something that made me look more critically at the ranking First of all, who are these "drug harm experts" and secondly, in what way have they ranked these drugs? I went to the source of the article, which is the Lancet and the article can be found here. (I had to sign up to be able to view the whole article). 

I found out that the group of "drug harm experts" were members of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs and two invited specialists with knowledge in legal highs. I could not find how many people were in this group.

The analysis was done in a 1 day session where everyone discussed and ranked 20 drugs in accordance to 16 different criteria that had been decided upon earlier. Below are the 16 different criteria that is taken from the Lancet article.

Panel 1

Evaluation criteria and their definitions

Drug-specific mortality

Intrinsic lethality of the drug expressed as ratio of lethal dose and standard dose (for adults)

Drug-related mortality

The extent to which life is shortened by the use of the drug (excludes drug-specific mortality)—eg, road traffic accidents, lung cancers, HIV, suicide

Drug-specific damage

Drug-specific damage to physical health—eg, cirrhosis, seizures, strokes, cardiomyopathy, stomach ulcers

Drug-related damage

Drug-related damage to physical health, including consequences of, for example, sexual unwanted activities and self-harm, blood-borne viruses, emphysema, and damage from cutting agents

Dependence

The extent to which a drug creates a propensity or urge to continue to use despite adverse consequences (ICD 10 or DSM IV)

Drug-specific impairment of mental functioning

Drug-specific impairment of mental functioning—eg, amfetamine-induced psychosis, ketamine intoxication

Drug-related impairment of mental functioning

Drug-related impairment of mental functioning—eg, mood disorders secondary to drug-user's lifestyle or drug use

Loss of tangibles

Extent of loss of tangible things (eg, income, housing, job, educational achievements, criminal record, imprisonment)

Loss of relationships

Extent of loss of relationship with family and friends

Injury

Extent to which the use of a drug increases the chance of injuries to others both directly and indirectly—eg, violence (including domestic violence), traffic accident, fetal harm, drug waste, secondary transmission of blood-borne viruses

Crime

Extent to which the use of a drug involves or leads to an increase in volume of acquisitive crime (beyond the use-of-drug act) directly or indirectly (at the population level, not the individual level)

Environmental damage

Extent to which the use and production of a drug causes environmental damage locally—eg, toxic waste from amfetamine factories, discarded needles

Family adversities

Extent to which the use of a drug causes family adversities—eg, family breakdown, economic wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, future prospects of children, child neglect

International damage

Extent to which the use of a drug in the UK contributes to damage internationally—eg, deforestation, destabilisation of countries, international crime, new markets

Economic cost

Extent to which the use of a drug causes direct costs to the country (eg, health care, police, prisons, social services, customs, insurance, crime) and indirect costs (eg, loss of productivity, absenteeism)

Community

Extent to which the use of a drug creates decline in social cohesion and decline in the reputation of the community

ICD 10=International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision. DSM IV=Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth revision.

I am sure that these experts all have great knowledge of drugs and have read a lot of the different effects drugs have on people. But I am sceptical that they have all the numbers memorised to be able to make correct assesments within one day. What I wonder is, is it really possible to do enough research and discussion in one day to rank 20 drugs on one criteria, let alone 16?

Wedding Anniversary and Travel optimization

Today is our one-year wedding anniversary and we will be celebrating it by putting together a wardrobe for our bedroom and going out to eat. Nothing brings two people closer like putting together IKEA furniture...

Anywho, in other news; Matte and I were discussing the pay-off of traveling when considering changing modes of transport and total time spent travelling in public transport.

Let's assume that all distances have no monetary cost difference. That is to say travelling by one mode of transport from A to B costs exactly the same as changing mode of transport several times and traveling from A to C to D etc to B. This is the case when travelling with a monthly boarding pass within the city boundaries. Let us also assume people don't enjoy travelling and nor do the enjoy changing modes of transport. What aspects would once have to consider to create a good goal function?

In layman terms, will a person choose to travel a certain route from A to B if the total travel time is longer but there are less changes of mode of transport? Which aspects will effect the person's decision?

Some of the thoughts Matte and I had that would effect the decision was:

Risk
How long time is there between the changes?
Is there a chance of missing one of the changes?
How often do the transport come if you do miss a step of the way? Is it every half hour or every 5 minutes?

Regularity
Is it a one-off trip or one that is done regularly? Will a one-off trip be more sensitive to changes or not?

Total time
Is the total trip time short or long? Will a 5 minute increase in the time be weighted more on the 15 minute trip than the 1 hour trip?

Number of changes
Is each increase in the number of changes weighted the same? Is an increase from 0 to 1 weighted more than from 1 to 2?

I'm itching to create some optimization functions now...Anyone else have ideas of what could effect the decisions?

Lastly is a short video of 2 people zorbing. I couldn't get anyone to film us when we rolled down so this video will have to do. As you can hardly see the people in the ball, you can imagine it is Matte and I :)

Bank negotiations

Matte and I are right in the middle of bank negotiations for the loan for our apartment. I find this process very interesting as it is so different compared to any other purchases. Sweden is not a country in which you haggle in and suddenly when you take a loan, that is the exact skills that are required to get the wanted rate.

I have my excel-sheet filled with loan amounts, interest rates, repayment rates, ratios between floating rates and fixed rates, ration between first and second mortgage and I thank my lucky stars that I understand the numbers floating before my eyes.

We have now talked with 6 different banks, received 3 quotes and are awaiting two more and a final decision whether they will offer or not from the sixth. We will then choose the three we will carry on with and then give them the opportunity of offering a better rate or value-added services.

I have really received a lot of help from my colleagues in this process. As it is a hot subject at my work and being the youngest one there I am lavished with tips, do's and don't, their own experiences and thoughts. All this information is processed and ends up, in one way or another, on my Excel-file. The only tip I can give is...take your time. It's a process that has taken us 2 months and we are still not done yet.

Stereotypes and Leadership

The PewGlobal recently published an article about a poll conducted in several countries and where they have concentrated on the European Union. Now I love statistics, and although I have little trust in surveys, preferring cold hard facts, I love the graphs that can be generated from the answers. My favourites in this article, are one concerning Leadership role and Stereotypes.

The graph above concerns what people think about whether their own leader has done a good job in dealing with the economic crisis. In all the countries excepting Germany, the percentage is below 40 making it visible that there is little trust from the citizens in how they believe their own leaders has handled the situation. Whether that is the case is, of course, not possible to determine as this is as survey that measures what people think. What people think is not always the same as what is the fact. 

Now what I like is the next graph that takes the though one step further in the leadership role. People are not only asked whether their own leader does a good job with handling the crisis, they are asked if Merkel, Hollande and Cameron have done a good job with handling the crisis.

In all countries except Greece, they give Merkel a higher mark then their own leader, and both Hollande and Cameron has had a positive trend where only 2 countries have given their own leaders a higher score.

The graph below is my absolute favourite. It concerns what people think about each other which is always of interest to me. I will leave the graph to speak for itself as I believe most people will love to delve in to the different meanings it could have.

I will also post last years survey about the Stereotypes, The headings are different but are still fun to compare with.:

I did a quick search to see if I could find anything about Sweden's stereotypes but could not find anything. If anyone has any information on where I could get hold of that, you are very welcome to contact me.

The story behind my economic interest

When I was at my first year at high school I had already completed the basic level of Maths and most of the required level of English. After one term I was studying grade D Maths and had completed all the required English. This left me with a lot of spare time that I tried filling with other courses that the school could offer. The courses I chose were German (which I failed) Programming (which I loved because of the teacher) and Accounting. This was a pivotal course for me. Not because it was something I enjoyed (accounting is not something to be enjoyed) but because it brought another level of knowledge and it effected so many of my future decisions.

After one year at high school, my parents and I were realising that that the high school couldn't offer the right type of stimulation for me. We got recommended the IB-Programme and once the new school year had started I was signed up at at IB and was taking the train everyday to the town that was 40km away.

For those who don't know what the IB-Programme is, you can find an explanation here.

To complete the IB-programme it is required to study at least one social subject. This was not really to my liking as I had often felt social subjects were a hazy area that would not lead to anything The ones I had to choose from was History, Psychology or Economics. Psychology was a straight no, I have always had a cautious approach towards this branch of science and, truth be told, I had not had a positive experience of psychologists which made me want to keep my distance from this subject. With my limited experience I assumed economics was equivalent to accounting, and as I had found the subject, if not fun, at least useful, Economics became my choice.  It was probably the best wrongly based decision I have ever made.

My first lesson began with me receiving a 768 page thick book with the title "Economics - In Terms of The Good, The Bad and The Economist"

I opened it and from that moment I had no memory of what the teacher or my classmates were doing the rest of the course. I sat every lesson with my nose buried in the book, reading articles in the daily newspapers or The Economist and drawing graphs to explain the phenomenons that the articles so blatantly ignored. The book covered microeconomics, macroeconomics, international economics and development economics. I got to understand the reasoning behind micro-loans and what bilateral aid is and how it is used as leverage between companies. I could analyze how decisions effected the flow of money, the class division in a country and how the country's trade would look like. Suddenly every article I read had 5 different diagrams and 7 different analysis , all of them correct.

Since then, economics has been an subject that I will gladly discuss with anyone who is interested. And for those of you who cannot find the charm in economics, I recommend reading "Freakanomics"