Job Advice, Saving Money, and the Planet

Jon Brooks gets a job! And this is how he did it. Job seeking advice is abundant this time of business cycle.

Also, remember that you need to save money for retirement. After you find a job, that's something you need to think about. That way, you can become the richest man in the world.

I can't say that I agree, but a couple of ecologists are worried about how our current economic model interacts with the world. I can't say I agree, but it's worth thinking about, certainly. Change isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Development, savings rates, and billions of dollars

Charles Kenny, via William Easterly, on the successes of development. If you're down on development issues, this is a very worthwhile read.

Speaking of development, check out Intel's Small Things Challenge. It's kind of like the free rice site, except Intel donates money to a couple of charities, and if they get enough clicks, then they donate $300,000.

On an unrelated note, the personal savings rate was at a 15 year high this past quarter. It's still nowhere near where it used to be from the 60s to the 80s. I haven't looked at much international data, but it looks like a lot of countries are pretty low.

Here's a visualization of the billions of dollars that are spent on a variety of things.

CPI, developing nations, marriage, and Wolfram Alpha

Matt Nolan tells us not to confuse CPI growth with inflation. CPI is a bad indicator of the magnitude of inflation--besides, they measure different things.

Here's a vox article on trade advice for developing nations during a recession. Avoid protectionist policies. Um, I think they need more help than that.

Spendthrifts tend to marry tightwads, which contributes to marital conflict. Does this mean that, on average, couples make pretty good savings decisions? And, with less variance than single people?

Wolfram Alpha provides a new way to search for information. This looks like a really neat system, actually. It gets released this month, so check back to see it in action!