turtlepapers: thank-you notes

personalized whimsy flat notecards (custom set of 20 with envelopes)


congratulations notecards (set of 6 with envelopes)

delicate and froufilly satisfying (yes, that is now a word) -- these are girly-notes done right. my sister has been looking for good thank-you notecards, and these even come custom-personalized with your new initial/old initial/preferred letter of choice. lovely! comes in a set of 20, or you can order larger quantities as well. if the listing has sold, you can send a note with your request. (see also the bundle of 6 assorted bird thank-yous, supercute.)

the congratulations set works great for those (like me) whose friends are either marrying or having babies (6 in the last 2 months!) in multiples. (for another great set, see the darling happy elephants).

seattle-based turtlepapers also makes gocco screenprints, adorable tees, and pretty, pretty cards. more at turtlepapers.etsy.com

happy holiday weekend, friends!

The Preppy NYC Winter Wedding

Hi guys. I am so ready for this long weekend - are you?

So ready indeed that I have no time to explain this lovely storyboard for a preppy NYC Winter 07 bride. I promise to get to the details on Tuesday.

For now, enjoy your weekend. I know I will !!!

UPDATE: Well, it's Wednesday, so here goes ...

My reader wanted a preppy/chic/winter 2007 NYC wedding. The NYC Palace Hotel was her favorite and after looking at it - there was just so much1920's pomp & circumstance charm, that I thought this wedding lent itself to black tie sophistication.

This reader also was looking for a dress much like Resse Witherspoon's in Sweet Home Alabama (as an aside - love this movie!!). This Carolina Herrera number is expensive, but so worth it. It also looks more wintery and has some golden tones, which led me to a gold inspired wedding. Take these Jenny Yoo floorlength silk bridesmaids dresses. And I love these invites from Bella Figura, I mean they look like they are written by hand.

To carry forth the black tie/night/winter/golden theme, let's do a few things. How about making sure gold is carried through the menu/table set up and the ceremony decor. I think ignore the idea of using Christmasy things, it can make the whole set up too cliche.

To make things more intimate, let's turn down the lights and add lots of candlelight and some inspired event lighting (this is the actual venue). This ensures an intimacy and almost starry night feel.

To add some fun, how about a late night grown-up smores bar (think dark chocolate and homemade marshmallows after the four course meal) with hot toddies? Leave your guests with an invitation for Sunday Brunch & Skating at Rockefeller Center.

The Baker-Samwick Proposal

Economists Dean Baker and Andrew Samwick have a suggestion for how to deal with the rise in foreclosures:

There is a simple way to allow troubled homeowners to stay in their homes without also bailing out the mortgage issuers and speculators. Congress can pass legislation granting current homeowners the right to stay in their homes as long as they like, simply by paying the fair-market rent. In other words, no one gets tossed out on the street, as long as they can pay the rental value of their house. The fair rent would be determined by an independent appraiser.

Among the policy interventions I have heard floated in the current environment, this is one of the better ones.

Update: For a truly terrible idea, click here. Also, here is Arnold Kling's proposal for a new agency to fix the problem, wonderfully named Bailie Mae.

NEW YORK - union pool, williamsburg + on the street, soho & lower east side, 08/30/07

Number Crunching

Yale's Ian Ayres has assembled links to a variety of fun prediction tools. For example:

• Predict How Long You'll Live
• Predict Your Child's Due Date
• Predict the Market Value of Your Home
• Predict Your Child's Adult Height
• Predict Justice Kennedy's Vote

Ian emails me to ask for more suggestions. If you know of any similar prediction tools, post them in the comments section.

You can also read the first chapter of Ian's new book Supercrunchers.

Inequality Up, Mobility the Same

Tyler Cowen points us to the latest research on the American Dream:

This paper uses Social Security Administration longitudinal earnings micro data since 1937 to analyze the evolution of inequality and mobility in the United States. Earnings inequality follows a U-shape pattern, decreasing sharply up to 1953 and increasing steadily afterwards. We find that short-term and long-term (rank based) mobility among all workers has been quite stable since 1950 (after a temporary surge during World War II).

Here is a free link to the paper.

Advice for the College Bound

For those readers who are now, or will soon be, starting college, here are some words of wisdom from Conan O'Brien.

pamelatang: modern quilts

modern silk quilt in bordeaux red with rust brown


quilted silk journal

with all respect to dear mrs. freda, these are not your gramma's quilts. an australian designer working out of singapore, pamelatang makes stunning handcrafted limited edition quilts (both full-size and nugget-size), runners, table linens, journals, cushions and fabric artwork. unusual color combinations and attention to detail -- slight variations in design, asymmetrical piecework -- achieve a succinct mission: to reinterpret the traditional patchwork quilt with a stripped-down, eastern simplicity.

not everyone will love the 'shininess' of dupioni silk -- it has a certain formal elegance i don't necessarily want to cozy up to (although this runner would look smashing over a crisp white duvet)...

sage green and lime silk bedrunner

...but i admit i aspire to the sort of "monastic elegance" (my friend jeanne's term) of a simple, lovely, zen-like respite rather than the vortex of jewelry-making chaos that is currently my bedroom. time to class it up, perhaps!

shipping from singapore seems fairly straightforward, and these would make sterling and original (even one-of-a-kind) gifts for that impossible-to-shop-for couple. or register for your very own (myregistry.com), instead of the same-old pottery barn choices. very well may be quilt nirvana: pamelatang.etsy.com

Clark on Africa

In this op-ed, Gregory Clark, author of the widely talked about book A Farewell to Alms, discusses "How to Save Africa."

NEW YORK - on the street, lower east side, east village, soho, nolita & williamsburg + orchard bar, 08/29/07

A Subsidy for Country Clubbers

I am not exactly a redistributionist zealot, but this tax break for the rich had me slapping my forehead:

Charles River Country Club in Newton -- with its rolling fairways and carefully manicured putting greens -- received a $381,000 tax break last year under a state law that exempts private country clubs from paying 75 percent of their property taxes.

From the Boston Globe.

Surprise of the Day

Amazon's list of the most popular items in economics puts The Communist Manifesto well ahead of The Wealth of Nations and Capitalism and Freedom.

The Clinton Rally

I was not following politics closely while vacationing on Nantucket. So, to catch up on developments upon my return, I did what comes naturally to an economist: I checked market prices. According to intrade, the probability that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee is now better than two out of three.

Update: A reader emails an intriguing hypothesis to explain the rally:

Hello Dr Mankiw,

The last 5-10% of this move might be attributed to Intrade changing margin requirements on August 13th, which forced some large short Clinton /long Obama traders, already suffering losses, to liquidate. After the margin change, over-margined traders were extended a grace period of approximately one week, and from the 20th-22nd you can see the Obama contract drop sharply from 22 to a low of 15 on heavy volume and no real news. Given this, I think Obama is a buy here for a bounce back into the 20s.

Best,
Jason Ruspini

The relative price of a professor

A very interesting post from Brad DeLong on the compensation of college professors. It starts as follows:

In 1905 "G.H.M.", an anonymous college professor, wrote a four-page article for the Atlantic Monthly in which he pleaded for more money for college professor salaries, and claimed to be vastly underpaid. The first thing to note is the relative level of professorial salaries back then: he claimed that the "average college professor�s salary"--the salary that he saw as clearly inadequate and unfairly low--"is about $2,000." Stan Lebergott's estimates in the Historical Statistics of the United States are that the average annual earnings of an employee in America in 1905 were $490 dollars if employed for the entire year--or $451 taking account of the hazards of unemployment. What G.H.M. says is the average college professor's salary is more than four times annual average earnings of the time.

Today's professors don't make such large relative salaries (except in business, law, and medical schools). In order to match turn-of-the-century college professors in terms of income relative to the national average, a professor today would have to make an academic salary of roughly $250,000--a height far above any professorial average, and one attained only by academic celebrities.

I think Brad somewhat overstates how much things have changed. The average salary for full professors at private, doctoral universities is now $136,689. (Source.) To compute total compensation, you should include the value of employer-provided health insurance, contributions to retirement accounts, and other fringes. You might then get to around $160,000. (I am guessing that the 1905 prof did not get these fringes; there was no income tax to avoid.) I don't know what modern data are comparable to the Lebergott data, but average hourly earnings are now about $17, suggesting annual earnings about $34,000 for a full-time worker, with compensation (including fringes) a bit higher than that. The relative price of professors still seems to be about four.

Update: The comments raise a couple of fair points. First, with a more comprehensive group of professors, the average compensation would be lower, and the relative price today might be closer to three than four. Still, a professor need not be an "academic celebrity" to make four times as much as the average worker: Being a typical full professor at a private, doctoral university will do. Second, with the average American more educated today than a century ago, one would expect this relative price to have fallen, as it may have done to some extent.

NEW YORK - six six sick, happy ending + bar 205, 08/28/07

NEW YORK - on the street, soho, nolita & garment district, 08/28/07

lemonlovespaper: happy homemakers!

happy homemaking helps ACEO*


vintage cookware mini journal

what is it about registering that brings out the "happy homemaker" in otherwise non-domestic sorts? my sister steadfastly refused all entreaties to yuppify her registry, which consists primarily of towels and power tools at sears.com. sadly, the realization dawned that while i'd never thought of myself as molly cooktop, suddenly she *NEEDED* an artisan stand kitchenaid mixer, and an oxo goodgrips pizza cutter, and a 12-cup coffeemaker (for when i visit, since she doesn't drink coffee for the love) and a ridiculous list of things to outfit the kitchen. not just bridesmaidzilla but the registry nazi. at least she cooks!

happily have returned to my pre-wedding anti-registry state, so the top ACEO* card isn't practical, but it made me laugh. something about that acid green color with the happy homemakers -- combine it with a happy vintage cookware mini journal and you've got yourself a cheeky gift.

or, even better for the bride-to-be:

blueprint mini journal

when planning, i found myself overwhelmed by scraps of paper with vital bits of info, by the dozen, and they all wanted to be in my purse at the same time. here's a pocket-sized mobile info center for all those notes to self. your blueprint for success, if you will.

no more bad puns. fun paper goods at lemonlovespaper.etsy.com, or check out megan's other store, lemonade.etsy.com, for more lovelies!

*Art Cards, Editions, and Originals -- essentially artist trading cards :)

The Preppy Halloween Party

OK, so I know it is early for Halloween, but you gotta see the new Halloween collection at Martha Stewart Crafts. Too Cute. Anyone up for planning a party?

The magic number 49

US News ranks Harvard as the second best national university, after my alma mater Princeton.

Looking at the new rankings reminded me of a conversation I had with a teacher at a mid-ranked university a few years. He told me that all classes of introductory econ at his school were, without exception, capped at 49 students. Why such an odd number?, I asked. He explained that the US News ranking penalizes schools based on the percentage of classes with 50 or more students. Deans, like all people, respond to incentives.

NEW YORK - on the street, soho, west village & lower east side, 08/27/07

My Last Beach Read of the Summer

I recently read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. A friend called the novel to my attention because, on page 449, my favorite economics textbook makes a brief appearance. One of the characters, an economics professor, assigns the text in his introductory microeconomics course at the fictional Sterling College.

Picoult's book is about the events surrounding a school shooting, and it is most definitely a page turner. But I don't think the novelist quite manages to get inside the head of an economist. Here is a line from the book (page 130) about the econ prof:

Reaching for some chalk, Lewis began to print across the board, a long and lovely stream of numbers that calmed him inside.

She seems to think we are even nerdier than we are.

Preppy Wedding Inspiration Mondays

Guess it is that time again - are you ready for some inspiration?

These photos come from Susan Stripling.

I love the look of these two in adirondack chairs. Much like the theme of Mrs. All That's Pink and Green and In Between's wedding.


And what a cute idea for bringing in the groom's taste (and or hobbies) once the wedding celebration has kicked into high gear. Have your caterer send send out the trays about an hour before the wedding ends.

Another great idea - stuff the cigar style service full of your favors, your favorite food (french fries come to mind), or even themed shots to keep the party going!

These pics are from Meg Baisden.

I've included this shot because of the bridesmaids footwear. Stephen Bonannos anyone? Love this look for a beach wedding.

And I know I've referenced dessert bars in the past, but take a look at this chocolate themed bar. Does this not make you want to go and grab a Hersheys bar? And you know I love the monogrammed runner.
And I love this family tree idea for a reception or a shower. It's a super cute way to display those great family photos.

Both of these photographers are based in Florida. So make sure you Florida brides-to-be take a look at other entries on their blogs.

I hope everyone has a happy Monday. I am already looking forward to next weekend!