So a few months back, I mentioned some of my favorite examples of outrageous extravagance described as everyday living in the New York Times. I made the mistake of flipping through the Grey Lady today, and, well…”Adding to the spending spree is a rash of young hedge fund analysts, first big bonus checks in hand, scooping up the $2 million to $3 million starter apartments…” Starter apartments?

Or how about “As more blacks move up the economic ladder, one fixture — some would say necessity — of the upper-middle-class income bracket often eludes them.” What could they be? A safe neighborhood? Access to healthy food? No - Personal nannies. Damn, man. I grew up middle class, and going to daycare instead of waiting at home alone was what we considered good living.

Merry Christmas! And remember, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Incidentally, a Polish Catholic told me that the Eye referred to a low gate in Jerusalem and not to a literal needle. In either case…)

So Christmas is coming up, and I think I did pretty well for travel this year. Counting actual travel (not just visiting friends and family), I had 2 days in Toronto, 2 in Montreal, 11 in Africa, 13 in SE Asia and 30 driving across the US, for 58 total. Better than one in seven days on the road - not too bad! Last year, I only managed 28. Now that I’m doing the workaday, though, I don’t think I’ll come close this year. If I don’t take any days off except for vacations and Christmas week, I’ll sneak in 28. What can ya do? Ni modo.

No worries, though; 19 more months of work and I get some time for a real trip.

(Does it make me a geography geek that I got 35/50 on this geography quiz in the SF Gate this weekend? What’s worse is that I found two mistakes! Bahrain is also connected by a bridge to Asia, and Montenegro is the newest UN member. Hey, I used to read the atlas growing up, not Tolstoy.)

Before I go, here’s an interesting econ puzzle. A guy is selling his company; he knows what he values it at, but you only know that his value is drawn from (0,100), uniformly distributed. You value the company 50% more than he does. How much do you offer?

75 seems reasonable, because the expected value of the company for the seller is 50, and 50 + 50(.5) = 75. The answer, though, is zero. Once you make an offer, he either rejects (signaling that his value was higher than your offer) or accepts (signalling that his value is lower than your offer). If he accepts your offer of $b, you now know he values the company at some x drawn from a uniform distribution (0, b). Therefore, the expected value of the company is b/2, and your value of the company is b/2 + (.5)(b/2) = 3b/4. Since your value for the company is 3b/4 and the company is costing you b, your profit from the deal is 3b/4-b = -b/4, which is negative, and thus you should offer b=$0.

This is a mindblowing result, isn’t it? (Well, perhaps mindblowing for the 1% of people who really like math, finance or econ, but the rest of you will have to trust me). You can think that, owning the company, you will make 50% more profit that the current owners, but nonetheless you won’t offer to buy the company. Private information is a bitch. This example is directly applicable to real life as well - convert the scenario above to buying a used car…

So it’s good to know people in high places.

This summer, Brian and I were talking about ways to improve Google during our road trip.  One of the things we discussed was that Google Maps should have multipoint directions - i.e., what’s the best way to A to C via B.  Brian put in a word with the people upstairs at Big G.  Check out Google next week when that feature goes live.

Better than that is when the other half is local.  A coworker is roommates with the daughters of a Fortune 500 CEO.  They planned a “Prom Party” - more fancy suits than Michael Bolton - and the CEO Dad let us have the party at his hacienda.  This place was ridiculous: 9000+ square feet, at least 4 fireplaces, koi pond, circular driveway with fountain, multiple plasmas, humidity-controlled wine cellar, media room, billiards room.  They even have their own in-house bar and in-house bartender!

I’m still hoping for the 15 million (and a silver spoon) to arrive, but I’m sure the Fate Delivery Man is just late.  You know how winter weather is.

It’s late at night and I’m a bit caught up thinking of ethics.

You were hoping for better? What can I say. It’s just a fact that one does one’s best thinking while laying in bed and while walking. It’s a bit odd, isn’t it? The walking triggering thoughts doesn’t so much surprise me, given the “white noise” sensory cues you get from ambient sound, changing sights and smells, etc. Laying is bed is almost the opposite, isn’t it? Darkness. Quiet.

In any case, morality. Some people define humanity by our ability to use tools, but they’re missing the forest for the trees. Humanity is defined by the ability to overcome instinct with rationality; it’s the ability to move beyond our genetic program when confronted with an event. This allows us to create and use tools, yes, but more importantly it allows us to make moral choices consistent with a predetermined, rationally-considered moral system. The second clause is, to my mind, far more indicative of humanity than the first.

That ability to move beyond instinct, natural or God-given or however you want to define it, is not something to take lightly, is it? Yet often people purposefully move back from rationality to instinct, yet don’t see why this is immoral. By that, I mean allowing your reasoning to be clouded by some internal (say, a hot temper, or lust, or jealousy, which is a potent vice indeed) or external (through the use of drugs including alcohol, for example) cause. The actions taken once one has moved from rationality to instinct may be moral or immoral, but regardless the act of removing one’s ability to adjudicate the morality of an action is immoral in and of itself, isn’t it?

Beyond personal decision-making, I’ve also been thinking a bit about a broader societal question. Sometimes you’ll hear an argument like, “How can you spend money on X when there are people starving in the world?” I used to think this was patently ridiculous, but not so much anymore. While I don’t necessarily think there’s a moral obligation to live an ascetic life as long as anyone lives in poverty, I do think that there’s an obligation not to waste one’s resources whilst someone lives in poverty. A good definition of waste might be purchasing something that goes unused or is only consumed conspicuously. That is, I don’t think it’s implausible to say that buying a closet full of unused suits, or an empty second home, is borderline immoral. I think this is true under any moral system that you choose.

Let me hit you with one more before I go. Morality, regardless of moral system, is a skill. It can’t be learned without practice, and I certainly claim no special proficiency. The easiest morality is (almost tautologically) doing the right thing when it is easy to do, meaning that the cost of doing the right thing that you bear is small. This is the please and thank you morality. I get upset when I see people talking on their cell while in a checkout line, or tailgaiting, or neglecting to thank a waiter, because it seems clear that if such easy morality is too much of a burden, there’s no way that person will do the right thing when it really matters. The hard morality, then, is doing the right thing when it’s hard to do, or when the personal cost is great.

The hardest morality of all, as far as I’m concerned, is doing the right thing when your counterparty acts immorally. I’m 22 years old, and I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve known who act in a moral way whether they’re dealing with saints or bandits. To be honest, I don’t know if I have it in me to ever reach this standard. I defined morality as a break with the animal world, a higher order of evolution. Often, temptation, avarice, hatred and the other vices are described as human vices, inherent in the human condition; I think we ought to keep in mind that they are our most base and least human component of all.