Category Frances Woolley
The fantasy world of retirement planning
For complicated historical reasons, I hold $13,000 in a locked-in RRSP with Great West Life. A few days ago, I received a "Year-End Retirement Illustration", shown over the fold. I read it and thought "That's so bad, it's bloggable."
Collegiality as a positive externality
Yesterday my contact at the Globe asked me to write something about Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to scrap the company's teleworking policy. The final product is here.
Can evolution save the elephant?
For centuries, elephants with large tusks have been targetted by hunters and poachers. The "unnatural selection" in favour of smaller-tusked elephants has resulted in a dramatic decrease in average tusk sizes right across Africa. Smaller tusks increase an individual elephant's probability of survival, by making him or her a less attractive target for poachers. But […]
Financial Literacy Quiz
Today I'm trying to do some work with the Canadian Financial Capability Survey. This survey contains a test of financial literacy/knowledge, which I have reproduced below the fold:
Men: Nature’s Second Sex
Pity the poor male springbok. As soon as he reaches sexual maturity, he is pushed out of the herd by the dominant male. Alone on the plains, he is easy picking for lions, leopards and cheetahs. The best survival strategy is to team up with other young males and form a bachelor herd. It's safer, […]
Labour supply, lions and elephants
For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they […]
Do Japanese emission controls contribute to global warming?
Japan has one of, if not the, strictest emission control regimes in the world. Upon purchase, when a car is three years old, and every two years after that, each car must undergo a rigorous and sometimes costly Sha-ken inspection. These ensure that it meets tough emission standards and is in sound mechanical condition. Sha-ken makes […]
Aspiring to asbestos
On the way back from the Zambezi river crossing, the driver told me of his life's ambitions: he wanted to be middle class, to give his children a good start in life, and to have an asbestos roof. In this country, he told me, there are two types of roofs: metal and asbestos. Asbestos is […]
Can government intervention ever be sufficiently sensitive?
In South Africa the signs of AIDS are subtle, but ever present. Dispensers with free condoms in every university washroom. A red AIDS ribbon painted on the wall of the Knysna hospital. Another on the entrance to the Muizenberg cemetery, where wooden crosses and flowers in plastic bottles mark the resting places of those who […]
Baboons’ deathly rational calculus
Baboon checking out the buffet at Storms River Mouth restaurant Baboons are rational. They minimize the effort required to attain a given number of calories or, alternatively, maximize the amount of calories obtained from a given amount of effort. Given a choice between spending hours searching for fruit and seeds, or scarfing some left […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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