Matt Nolan

Review: Mass Effect 2

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Taking a brief break from discussing economics I thought I should mention a new Xbox game called Mass Effect 2 (reviews).

Why am I mentioning this.  Two reasons:  I don’t have time to put any thought into a post as I am extremely busy (which rules out most economics 😉 ), and it is the best game I’ve every played.  It is like a good movie, with entertaining action and a strong story.  I figure this is a blog, so I can really write about anything anyway as long as I’m not breaking the law 😉

Experiences during the game are strongly based on what you did in the prior game – quite a breakthrough for games.

I haven’t wanted to replay a game this much since Knights of the Old Republic 2, and I haven’t appreciated the story and the tie in of characters this much in a game since Ultima 7.  As a result, I’ve immediately lent my copy of the game to a friend so I can’t play it anymore and can get some work done.

My one qualm is that Bioware seems to find a way of making the sex scenes in their games more and more uncomfortable with each game they release.  I don’t know what it is, it just feels like other emotions/interactions in the game are treated with such depth (and awesome amounts of moral ambiguity), whereas the “love/sex” chains feel more contrived.

Note:  I seriously recommend playing through Mass Effect 1 and then importing your save game for Mass Effect 2, it just adds that little bit to the experience.

Matt Nolan

Tyranny of the majority

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Any policy to ban smoking, on the basis of this, would count as “tyranny of the majority” in my opinion.

This reminds me of my favourite rule of thumb for policy:

Any regulation should be based on the idea of avoiding coercion either from the private or the public sector

On the flip side, any regulation that increases coercion (as banning tobacco seems to) is likely to be bad policy.

Matt Nolan

Dovish Jan for the Bank

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Reserve Bank statement is out for January.  They seem more negative on the world and feel inflation is more “comfortably” in the band.

If we want to know when they are going to move rates we have to keep an eye on:

  1. Monetary aggregates (for household debt accumulation),
  2. Labour market,
  3. Global growth.

Rates Blog also comments here.  Personally I’m more positive on both the world and near term New Zealand economic activity – and if the data shows this I would expect the Bank to move more quickly.

And also, what the hell – the 90 day bill rate is around 2.8%, inflation is around 2%, we are talking a real rate of 0.8% with expected real growth of say 2.5%.  We are in very very stimulatory territory here.

Matt Nolan

Burgeoning government bureaucracy? Links

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There is some suggestion that the size and scope of governments around the world has become excessive.  Two recent examples of this are:

The Standard has suggested that similar comparison in NZ could be a little out of whack, and in the most part I agree with them.  After all, Labour was elected to a third term on the promise of larger government, National was re-elected to keep it at that level, as a result I think society is suggesting that they want government to continue spending a quarter of our income.

However, I do disagree with them with regards to the idea that government spending didn’t markedly rise as a proportion of GDP in Labour’s third term – to me the GDP Statistics seem to suggest this was the big mover (with the recent increase solely the result of a recession, and “automatic stabilisers”):

The Hand

3D = Anti piracy?

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As recently reported, Avatar now holds the title of highest grossing film of all time.

Furthermore, the film has grossed over $800 million more than Hollywood’s previous blockbuster, 2008’s The Dark Knight.

Given that the themes and story quality of both films was equally awful, the only explanation (in my opinion at least) is that the piracy level of Avatar must be significantly lower than that of The Dark Night. The explanation for this I believe lies in that fact that one film was presented in 3D, while the other was not.

Thus, as the lay pirater is without 3D technology, has Hollywood inadvertently found a (short-term) solution to it’s declining revenue problem: making films in 3D?

Matt Nolan

Comic: Game theory and living arrangements

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Source SMBC

I am sure that anyone with a history of flatting can relate to this comic.