Power Consumption of TVs

In May 2011, the government is mandating that TVs have stickers on them displaying the cost to power it for a year. It is estimated that currently, TVs and related electronics such as cable boxes and sound systems account for 10-25% of the power consumption in a household. Yet, while laundry machines and refrigerators are being marketed for the energy efficiency, TVs are not. Households have an average of three TVs and they are turned on approximately eight hours per day.

(If those number are true, a more energy efficient TV could have a drastic effect on the power consumption in a household. This would draw a lot of customers, I believe. I also wonder how much research has been done on making TVs more energy efficient. It seems that all the innovation so far has been towards better picture quality.)

Bureaucratic government, venture capital style

Gist: X prize, Google, and Department of Education suddenly have working style in common. Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the book and host of the podcast of Freakonomics Radio, has shown the common of these three. The X prize Foundation is willing to give people who can solve the problem a large amount of money as reward. Google allows its engineers to have 20% of their working time to practice their creative idea. DOE has launched the program “Race to the top ”, which is trying to give states a lot of money on their efforts on the ways to innovate. This acting is kind of like venture capital firm. Try to get as many ideas as they can and most of them are failed. The last one survived rises to the top, and get the rich reward. If this acting could also be used on their work efficiency, it would be another surprising thing.

Bring the deficits down

Gist: Politicians want to cut spending, but they don't say which spending. They want fundamental tax reform, but they don't explain how that will bring down the deficit. There are four policies that people should choose one of them when they go against deficit. One, cuts to Medicare. Two, cuts to Social Security. Three, military cuts. Four, tax increases. Clamp down the spending on Medicare that does not make people healthier. Raise the retirement age for social security. Reduce wasteful spending on military budget. Increase tax rate. These options may bring the deficit down.