Transcript Document

A Few Innovations
Kolachana Sri Ram Aditya
The Sub-prime crisis
• Buyer does not have enough money for
down payment
• Illegal for undocumented transactions to
take place between buyer and seller
• Seller increases price of house and gives
cash back to buyer
• Loan giver caught holding lower value
assets
Enforcement of Hand-Washing
• Viennese maternity hospital
• 44000 to 98000 deaths an year in USA
due to hospital caused infections
• No. of wash basins, signs etc, increased
• Squad went around swabbing physicians
hands and putting up cultures formed as
screen savers
• Compliance shot up to near 100%
Astrology and football players
• Half of the elite football players born in Jan, Feb
or March
• Other half spread over other nine months
• Reason?
– Astrology?
– Winter born babies have higher oxygen capacities
and hence more stamina?
– Soccer mad parents more likely to conceive during
spring (soccer season)?
– None of the above?
Increasing tax revenues
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Pervasive tax evasion in the US in 1980s
Self employed persons most guilty
Reason – abysmal audit rate of 0.19% by IRS
Congress demanding greater revenues
Tax payers receiving major rebates for
dependants
• Simple innovation – mandatory mention of
Social Security number of dependants
• 7 million dependants disappeared and $3 billion
in increased revenues
Innovation in voting
• Current system – person with max votes
win
• However many times, this leads to second
most popular candidate winning
• Instant Run off voting
• Problem with IRV – Monotonicity
• Latest innovation – Range voting