Can’t wait for next Tuesday. I want all the election commercials to be over. They are mostly lies and misinterpretations and sometimes outright silly, childish and stupid. Whereas the election season helps the the mass media and several local economies in the battleground states, the scale of it (about a billion dollars for presidential election alone) is repulsive. I don’t see this improving. In other words, I don’t see this election bubble bursting any point soon. I will be watching the results on Tuesday night and catching a 5:30 AM flight to Denver to attend the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. Depending on how close the election is, I may or may not get any sleep Tuesday night. I wonder if any economist has bothered to calculate the productivity loss during the presidential election year.

On the other hand, we know that a ballpark estimate for the cost of Hurricane, SuperStorm or FrankenStorm Sandy (The picture on the left is from: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2012/h2012_Sandy.html) is $20-$60 Billion. It was amazing to watch it unfold on TV. Here is a case where the science is really making a difference – well, up to a point. Knowing about it ahead of time, modeling its path etc. have come a long way and predictions about Sandy were extremely good. This of course helped with the evacuations, cancellations of NY City Subway etc. etc. However, there was nothing anyone could do to reduce or stop the devastation that Sandy caused. The sheer power of nature unfolded right before our eyes and ears and even the politicians took a pause. In NJ, at least for a short moment, it appeared that the NJ Governor, a Republican, and the President came together. Of course, the skeptics see some hidden agenda here.

(more…)