Things that are possibly of interest only to me

The economics of change
Last week I was in Mompiche, a little town on the coast of Ecuador. Beyond it being cloudy, one of the things that cause me to leave was the complete lack of change and the nightmare of buying anything. I came to town with about $5 in coins, a couple of non-coin dollar bills, a five and a bunch of twenties (Ecuador uses the US dollar after they switched over, trying to curb rampant inflation). I figured this would be enough money, especially after I had no problem breaking twenties in Canoa, a town somewhat similar to Mompiche. It turned out to be plenty of money, it was just the act of spending it that was a nightmare.

It seemed no one in town had any change. I got a $.20 discount on a milkshake because I only had $.30 in change and a two ones, and the vendor couldn´t give me $.50 in change, so accepted $1.30. A pizza place me and a couple friends ate at couldn´t give us the $10 change for a $20, even after we had spent over $10 there the day before. Numerous places couldn´t break a five for charges in the range of two to three dollars. I was reduced to giving places larger bills, and just keeping running tabs with them so I could buy things. The final annoyance was when my hotel didin´t have five bucks to give me change for $60 on a $55 dollar bill. The frantically scrambled around for 20 minutes trying to find someone with change, almost causing me to miss my bus.

Thinking about this, I coudn´t figure out why on earth a town with a decent amount of tourist dollars coming into town would be so short of spare change. I´d experienced the no-change phenomenon in other parts of the country, but never on the level I encountered in Mompiche. Granted, it is a fairly isolated place, and I have no idea how far away the nearest bank is. At least an hour I´d assume.

Initially, I thought that the influx of tourists dollars would be a boon for getting change - more money in circulation, hence more change. This obviously wasn´t the case. Thinking about it further, I decided that tourist money must be the problem - take me for example. I spent about $120 in the town total. Upon arrival I carried about $12 in non-twenties. Despite adding the aforementioned $120 to the town´s economy, little of that was in bills that helped the change problem. In fact, my $120 actually compounded the problem, putting into circulation money that wasn´t very useful for most purchases you could make in the town.

I did a little looking into academic research on change, and couldn´t find anything on it. I wonder if any economists have looked at this problem?

Political advertising
During the Mundial (World Cup in Spanish) broadcasts in Ecuador about one in two commercials are ones the Ecuadorian government pays to air. There is one that consists of four people talking about how the opponents of the government are variously trying to: return to the rule of the powerful, treat people´s rights like a business, and steal all the countries wealth. They do these stupid hand movements to represent each different thing and then wraps up with a guy saying don´t fall for it and an old lady saying "we already have a free country, to victory always!". I tried to find this commercial on youtube but it´s not there.

I´m not sure exactly how the add is funded (it seems to be paid directly from government funds) and its pretty aggressive. One of the hand motions this girl makes is a gun. I was trying to figure out parallels in US political advertising, and couldn´t think of any real examples with maybe LBJ´s famous "Daisy" ad against Goldwater being an exception.

Being hammered over the head multiple times during each game broadcast with this ad got me thinking about Ecuador´s political future. The President, Rafael Correa, seems to be taking the country in a more and more authoritarian direction - jailing journalists, trying to set up local committees to report on "counter-revolutionary" activities and demonizing his political allies as a bunch of plutocrats looking to loot the country. Though considering Ecuadorian history that last one isn´t exactly crazy.

Yet Correa maintains his approval ratings, which last I saw were at about 60%. I can only imagine that the country is going to look more and more like Venezuela in the coming years. But what do you expect when you elect a guy who openly admires Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro? And now I´m going to get deported as foreigners are not allowed to engage in any political activities while here...

Mystifying decision
I am a big fan in general of SI.com´s soccer reporting. Grant Wahl is very good, and the rest of the crew is solid as well. Yet the editors there decided to send their inane and mystifyingly popular football reporter Peter King (who's reporting consists of penning loving tributes to Brett Favre and bragging about all the players and coaches who reply to his texts) to the Cup. Did I mention he knows next to nothing about real football? His opening column consisted of talking to Tim Howard while Wayne Rooney walked by and then making some stupid American football analogies. Crazy. I would have loved to be at the editorial meeting where this was considered a smart move.