The Game Theory of Dating?

It's very nice to take advantage of nice weather in DC! After golf Saturday morning, Arthur and I went to finish the American History Museum while Mike and Dee were at TedTalks. To our great surprise, the museum had just opened a new section on American enterprise. The fantastic exhibit went through the origin of money, the impact and process of globalization, and entrepreneurship. As an economics major, it was certainly interesting to see how the museum portrayed such information. We then finished the exhibit on the American wars. While I did not learn much from this exhibit, which takes one through the major wars in American history, it was very interesting and Arthur seemed to have learned more than he can comprehend. Sunday, I finally got to go to the zoo! I had greatly anticipated going to the zoo in the fall as the trees have changed colors and the animals are supposed

A little Texas feel in the DC Zoo!

to be out in full force. Unfortunately, we arrived at 3:00 only to find that the zoo closed at 4:00 because of a Halloween special that evening. In addition, the panda exhibit was closed! (Dang it! If there are no pandas, does the rest really matter?) We do plan to go finish the zoo before the fall colors disappear!

            Cato this week was slightly different than prior weeks. I did do research to prepare my scholar, Michael Tanner, to live-tweet the Republican debate Wednesday, such as readying his articles to be quickly linked through his Twitter. In addition, I talked to Columbia economists about their forthcoming study examining the wage gap, which was pretty darn cool. However, in a change of pace, I spent a majority of my week looking through criticisms of capitalism and how some believe it to cause poverty. While this sounds counterintuitive to the mission of Cato, it was actually very important to my intense poverty study. By reading criticisms by people such as Marx, my scholar and I are better able to understand the entire scope of responses to the poverty problem. Through this understanding, I have a better comprehension of all sides of poverty and, thus, have the potential to adequately respond when challenged with such an argument. Finally, one of our lectures this week was by Jeff Miron on economic policy. While the talk itself was very interesting, hearing from Dr. Miron, who is the director of economic studies at Cato, an esteemed Harvard economist, and the director for undergraduate studies at Harvard, was the highlight.

Story of the Week: Tuesday evening, we had an event at Cato called “The Economics of Dating: How Game Theory and Demographics Explain Dating in D.C.” for which I bartended. First off, the title alone attracted enormous attention (we had 770 RSVP on Facebook, and over 300 attend). Because I was bartending, I did not get to attend the discussion; however, I do know that the gist of the event was that college-educated women who seek college-educated men are likely to be disappointed because of a gender gap in education: many more women gain or are on track for college degrees than men. While the women left the event feeling slightly depressed and the men left with their heads held high, having gained a newfound confidence on dating, I was the true winner. Indeed, much of my research into gender inequality had to do with the inequality of educational attainment between men and women, and the potential effects it could have going forward. As it turns out, all the dating advice one needs can be found in an intern’s poverty research!

Reaching the Heart of an Intern

Monday, I passed halfway through my semester as an intern! It’s crazy how quickly it has gone! I managed to finally get to one of DC’s “must sees”: Arlington National Cemetery.

The classic Arlington snapshot

I had never imagined how monstrous it really is! Because of this, we used the hop-on, hop-off bus tour so we could use our time efficiently (and find the important things). Seeing the Kennedy grave is certainly a solemn experience, especially after seeing the site in Dallas where he was shot. After the Kennedy grave, we rode the bus all the way around to the Amphitheater and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The Amphitheater is very gorgeous, with the distinctive Greek feel that so many buildings have in DC. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is, without question, all it is cracked up to be. The consistency of the guard is remarkable (seriously, I sat there and timed him to see if he was consistent- he was within a second every time). The changing of the guard is also fantastic, and something everyone should see. After the Cemetery, we went down to the Pentagon. There isn’t a lot to see at the

Can you see the different colors?

Pentagon besides a massive fortress. However, the memorial for the September 11 attacks was very cool. As roughly 120 people died at the Pentagon, they were able to make a small part of the memorial specifically for each person, which was very cool. It was also very cool to look toward the side that was hit by the plane, as the new stone is a different color than the rest of the building. Sunday I spent in the apartment with a nasty cold (don’t feel sorry for me yet). As a result of my cold, I planned to watch football all day, but the only game on early was the Redskins game! (okay, now you can feel sorry for me). After that intense psychological and emotional torture was over, I did get to see some good football!

            The week at my internship was yet another good one! As part of the theme of poverty (fitting for an intern), this week I looked into the role of the retreat from marriage in poverty. Knowing the poverty rate for single-parent households is exponentially higher than those with two parents, it seemed obvious to me that a decrease in marriage would have an effect on poverty. However, seeing the difference in long-run poverty between domestic partnerships and marriages made the idea more interesting (hint: there is a very large difference). It was certainly an interesting point of view to poverty and a consequence of the retreat from marriage that is not often considered.

Story of the Week: As part of the examination on marriage’s role on poverty, I went to an event at the American Enterprise Institute, another think tank in DC. While the event was very interesting, the true beauty of the event was how it reached the heart of an intern: there was free food. Seeking out and devouring free food largely dominate intern life. However, not only was it free food, AEI has an in-house gourmet chef that cooks all of their free food. While I am not a big breakfast food fan and had already eaten breakfast, I still made sure to take full advantage of free, gourmet food! (and I mean full advantage!)

The Weekend That Never Sleeps

Warning: High amounts of fun in this post. Proceed with caution.

So I went to New York last weekend! Arthur, Dee, and I took HolaBus (apparently it is a real company) from Chinatown at 3:30 Saturday morning; Mike's mom was in town, so he had other things to do. After dropping our things at Dee’s cousin’s apartment in Queens, we headed to the One World Trade Center. It was certainly amazing to see the One WTC, especially considering last time I

was in New York it was a mere 3 stories tall (its now 94 stories tall). In addition, we got to see the amazing memorials for the fallen towers. After the WTC, we went south on Broadway to Wall Street. It was really great to see the Financial District this time, as last time the Occupy Wall Street kept us from seeing everything. We then proceeded to the Staten Island ferry, which passes the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, but is also free. We spent dusk walking from Central Park to Grand Central Station down 5^th Avenue. We finished the day eating New York style pizza in Times Square. It was certainly a busy day, but nonetheless fun as it was Dee’s first time in New York.

Sunday morning, we walked from Times Square through Central Park. We actually spent more time in Central Park than originally planned, almost walking all the way through it before going to lunch. Fortunately, lunch was at Gray’s Papya (my favorite hot dog in the world). It was certainly worth the wait! After lunch, I got to check something off of my bucket list: I got to see the bar that inspired How I Met Your Mother! It’s

Legen- wait for it- dary!

called McGee’s; it’s on W 55^th, south of Central Park. It was really cool! It doesn’t look particularly like MacLaren’s, especially from the outside, but there is no question that it’s the bar (the walls are lined with pictures of the stars in the bar, and the theme is the same). After McGee’s, we went to lower Manhattan to see the apartment building from Friends. It was certainly cool for Dee, who is a die-hard Friends fan. One wouldn’t know it was the building if it weren’t for the “I <3 Joey” written on the side in chalk. Then, I got to check one

Could this *be* any more like Friends?

more thing off of my bucket list: I got to see Yankee Stadium! It has been a dream of mine for years to see The Stadium (though I would have loved some postseason baseball to have been played there too). Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go inside because it was late on a Sunday afternoon (plus, the Yankees had been eliminated). We finished our trip to New York with a burger at Harlem Shake (nope, we didn’t do the Harlem Shake while we were there). The burger was quite good, but it was topped by the astounding culture in Harlem. We left

The Stadium

New York at 10:30 that night, not reaching our apartment until 4:00 Monday morning.

Getting back so late would not have been an issue as Monday was Columbus Day, but I had work. I was extremely tired Monday morning (I had gotten 6 hours of sleep for the whole weekend), but

After a long discussion with a former ambassador

Cato's TTIP event, as well as meeting former ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, made going to work worth it.  Meeting Mr. Gutman was very interesting, as we stood outside the auditorium for a solid 20 minutes talking about everything from cultural division in Belgium to trade policy. The research this week consisted of more poverty research, specifically focusing on gender inequality (especially the often misunderstood 77 cents statistic). It’s certainly amazing to have to deal with an issue as complex as poverty, thinking deeply about it and trying to find answers.

Story of the Week: See entire 2 paragraphs about New York (New York was awesome!)

Cultural Celebration and Connections to Home

Fall is beginning to settle in here in DC! The weather last weekend wasn’t great, so Saturday consisted mostly of staying inside,

Hanging with Dr. Patty and Mr. Mack

watching football, and drinking hot chocolate (sounds like fall, eh?). Sunday, we went to Lubbock Christian’s reception for alumni in DC (and, you know, me) at the Renaissance Hotel. It was very nice to get to spend time with some former LCU students, as well as some great professors. (The free crab cakes and sliders weren’t half bad either). As a matter of fact, there was leftover food for me to take home, which is always a great thing for an intern! After returning from the reception, we sat around watched the cartoon Hercules like little kids! (Definitely made me re-live some great childhood memories) Monday night was the long-anticipated TWC Gala in the National Building Museum (unbelievable building). As far as galas go, this one was certainly fantastic (considering it was black-tie, I was a bit out of my element). Getting to spend time and converse with the other TWC interns in such a formal setting was lots of fun, as was getting to be around Lubbock Christian alumni and staff again. However, as you would expect me to say, the food was the true highlight. A crab cake appetizer followed by a pomegranate filet mignon for the main course, all wrapped up with an apple pie-like treat for dessert (seriously though, I’ve eaten more crab cakes this week than I had in my previous 20 years, which is certainly not a complaint).

            The week at my internship was very similar to last week. As we are doing an in-depth look at poverty, it appears this will be a theme throughout the semester. Thus, as one would expect, I read a plethora of articles, ranging from MIT economists to Pew Research, and wrote my share of reports. It is still very interesting, as any discussion on such a large and important issue would be. However, I did get to spend some time on some short-term projects. I worked with presidential candidates tax proposals, as well as spending changes in response to such tax changes. We did, however, have quite a few lectures this week. Mainly, they covered the theme of liberty in the French Revolution, as well as George Orwell (an interesting reading). Perhaps the most interesting discussion we had this week was over free-market environmentalism and climate change, which wrapped up with a discussion over the role policy should/should not play in climate change.

Story of the Week: Friday, we had the Global Festival at TWC. In this, people from different countries set up booths, made presentations, and danced/sang to exemplify their culture. For this, Dee and some of the other Indians danced to famous Bollywood songs (they won best performance, and, as a result, we’ve taken to calling it Dee-Day). As it was so good, I thought I’d share some of it:

The Land of Waldo

Another week has gone speeding past. Saturday, we finally got to go to a baseball game!

Nats-Phillies!

The Nationals played the Phillies in what turned out to be a pitchers’ duel (the pitchers’ duel was not great for the inexperienced baseball fans, as they could not understand what could possibly be interesting about teams not scoring). Nonetheless, from explaining the many intricacies of baseball to a Nationals walk-off in extra innings, it was certainly a great experience! After the game, many of us went for dinner in Chinatown. Chinatown was extremely cool! I had expected it to be a slight ghetto because of my prior experiences with other Chinatowns, but it was a very nice part of town where good Chinese food could be found for a good price. I have noticed that I have not mentioned any golf, but never fear! There is a golf course about a mile and a half from my apartment where I have been going on weekend mornings when I can. When I went on Sunday, the weather made for a perfect time. On a cloudy and mild day with very little wind, golf in DC is very fun! Sunday evening we watched the blood moon eclipse from our balcony. I say “watched,” but I mean we looked up, saw about 2 glimpses of the blood moon, but mostly saw the beloved cloud eclipse.

The week at my internship was extremely interesting. Lately, we’ve been doing an in-depth look at poverty, specifically structural poverty. It was very interesting to read many academic papers examining the potential causes for poverty, specifically racial inequality. I actually convinced my scholar to look into the work of Roland Fryer, a Harvard economist who specializes in the racial aspect of social economics. The weather has been very not-Texan of late. The sun hasn’t come out since Tuesday, and we’ve gotten 4-5 inches of rain. In addition, it has been quite brisk, with the temperature in the 50s for a couple of days now. Nevertheless, the sun and warmth are both supposed to return early next week. (Darn Joaquin, we wanted a day off because of a hurricane!). Finally, Thursday, we had movie night. We watched what was rumored to be the American version of a great international movie: The Loft. Well, it was not a classic; it was the strangest movie I’ve ever seen (seriously, look up the plot synopsis). For two hours after the movie, the Americans among us had not moved, still trying to comprehend what had just happened. Here’s to hoping we watch The Pursuit of Happyness next time.

Story of the Week: So, Belgium is divided into two parts: the Dutch-speaking north (Flanders) and the French-speaking south (Wallonia). I’ve known this for a long time (I have no clue why I know it). Anyway, I was talking with some of the Belgians, who are from the Dutch-speaking Flanders. I asked one of them about how a nationalist feeling must be different with two extremely culturally different regions. However, when I referenced the south, I mistakenly called it Waldonia. All of the Belgians have found this extremely funny, as apparently Waldonia translates to “Land of Waldo.” Needless to say, it’s a mistake I will never make again, as it is apparently the funniest, most American thing they’ve ever heard. As expected, they have bothered me about it endlessly since.