I recently rediscovered Yahoo Pipes and found that it can interact with Twitter in a way that does not require any coding on my part and does not require that the application be served on my own website.

The result is TweetEcon, an experimental retweeting economics Twitterbot.  Here is a sample of the tweets TweetEcon has retweeted:

How to build your own retweeting Twitterbot

1.  Get a Yahoo Pipes account and create a new pipe.

2.  Get the tweets to be retweeted.  Under Sources, grab Fetch Feed.  Go to Twitter Search and enter a search term, such as economics.  On the results page, click the link that says Feed for this query.  This will take you to the RSS feed.  Notice that there are a lot of worthless tweets that use the word economics.  That is why the next step is necessary.

3. Filter the tweets retrieved.  Under Operators, grab Filter.

First, filter out any retweets.  This serves two purposes: (a) it prevents retweet looping in which the pipe retweets its own tweets, and (b) most retweets are editorial rather than informative.  The swear words are blocked for obvious reasons.  Also, a huge portion of economics tweets say something like “My boyfriend’s cousin just lost his job at Best Buy. This economy sucks!”  Also another huge portion of tweets are from economics students griping about having to wake up at 9:00 a.m. so they can make it to their 10:15 a.m. class, which is why school related terms are blocked.

Unfortunately, tweets with #hashtags have a massive noise-to-signal ratio.  Here is one example:

RINO Marco Rubio speech demanding amnesty for illegals http://youtu.be/3xIgN51XxD4 #teaparty #economy @gopleader #gop #tcot

See, no economics in the tweet, but this twit decided to use the #economy hashtag.

The most important filter is the filter that keeps only those tweets that have a link in it.  Tweets without links tend to provide observations or opinions, rather than useful information.  I decided that I will only retweet posts that have a link.

The filter is probably where most of the future tweaking will be.

4. Form the retweet.  Under Operators, grab Loop.  The first field puts the author’s Twitter user name at the beginning of what will be my retweet.  The second field is a single space.  The third field is the tweet that is being retweeted.

5.  Form the retweet, part 2.  Under Operators, grab Regex. This step replaces the Twitter username URL (e.g., http://twitter.com/ericfruits) with the username used by Twitter (e.g. @ericfruits) and adds “RT” in front.  Note, that the “RT @username” must go at the beginning of the tweet.  Otherwise, the tweet may be too long and cut off the RT.  If that happens, you run the risk of getting into a retweet loop.

6.  (Optional) Sort the retweets from most recent to oldest. Under Operators, grab Sort.

7.  Test the pipe.  You may get some error messages (especially those that end in “420″).  Do not worry.  That means that Twitter and Yahoo Pipes are having a temporary spat.  Wait a few minutes and try again.  If it still does not work, save the pipe, go back to the My Pipes page, then click on the pipe and/or click on the RSS feed for the pipe.  This step will drive you crazy because you will not know if you have done something wrong.

8.  Tweet the pipe’s results.  Go to My Pipes, click on the pipe, then click on Get as RSS.  Now that you have the RSS, you can use Twitterfeed and/or Feedburner to convert the RSS output to tweets.  Twitterfeed is fairly self-explanatory.  To have Feedburner tweet the RSS, click on Publicize, then click on Socialize and follow the steps.

I use both Twitterfeed and Feedburner.  Because of the time and tweeting limits of both services, there is no real overlap of tweets.  For example, my pipe retrieves approximately 50 tweets an hour.  Twitterfeed will send out a maximum of 10 tweets an hour and Feedburner sends out a maximum of 16 tweets an hour (maybe).  So far, Twitterfeed is a much more reliable tweeter than Feedburner.

Happy pipe-tweeting!

The following is the written testimony submitted by Eric Fruits regarding the costs of Oregon SB 80.

In September 2008, I co-authored a comprehensive analysis of the economic and fiscal impacts on Oregon of meeting the ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals outlined in the proposed amendments to SB 80. In February 2009, I submitted testimony on the economic and fiscal impacts associated with the cap-and-trade scheme introduced in SB 80. I have attached my past testimony and the report I co-authored.

This letter summarizes my earlier testimony and presents new evidence of the substantial costs associated with trying to meet Oregon’s aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.

• Oregon’s economic output would be $48.3 billion lower; 90,000 fewer people would be employed; and state and local government revenues would be $4.4 billion lower (Pozdena & Fruits, 2008).
• Subsequent independent research supports our findings: a 1 percent decline in carbon dioxide emissions is associated with a 0.74 percent decline in GDP (Annicchiarico, et al., 2009).
• Recent research calculates that for every “green” job created via subsidies and tax breaks, 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy are destroyed (Álvarez, 2009).

There is no avoiding the substantial costs of SB 80. Households, businesses, and the public sector will have steeper power bills and will pay more to engage in nearly every activity.

Today, businesses are shrinking, closing shop, or exiting the state. Oregon now has its highest unemployment in 25 years and one of the worst unemployment rates in the country. Higher energy prices under SB 80 will worsen an already dire economic situation.

It is now evident that hopes of creating new “green” jobs funded with tax credits and subsidies paid by existing Oregon businesses and consumers is a losing proposition where more jobs are lost than created. Projections of increased employment under SB 80 are built on unrealistic assumptions and flawed models that produce counterintuitive results that have been refuted by real world observations.

Sources cited:

Álvarez, G. C. (2009). Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources. King Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain.

Annicchiarico, B., Bennato, A. R., and Costa, A. (2009). Economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions in Italy, 1861-2003. MPRA Paper No. 12817.

Fruits, E. and Pozdena, R. J. (2008). Oregon Greenhouse Gas Reduction Policies: The Economic and Fiscal Impact Challenges. Cascade Policy Institute. Portland, OR.

Tweet aggregator:

• Tweeting Economist: @TweetEcon
  A Twitterbot that collects economics related tweets from many different sources and retweets the most relevant messages.

Economists:

• Tyler Cowen: @tylercowen
• Brad DeLong: @delong
• Patrick Emerson: @OregonEconomics
• Richard Florida: @Richard_Florida
• Eric Fruits: @ericfruits
• Paul Krugman: @nytimeskrugman
• Wayne Marr: @WayneMarr
• Nouriel Roubini: @Nouriel
• John Rutledge: @johnrutledge
• Arnav Sheth @arnavsheth
• Mark Thoma: @MarkThoma
• Jamie Woods: @woodsjam

Think tanks:

• Brookings: @BrookingsEcon
• Cato Institute: @CatoInstitute
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: @CenterOnBudget
• The Hayek Center: @FriedrichHayek
• Heritage Foundation: @Heritage
• Hoover Institution: @HooverInst
• Ludwig von Mises Institute: @mises
• Milken Institute: @MilkenInstitute
• National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA): @NCPA
• National Taxpayers Union: @NTU
• Tax Policy Center: @TaxPolicyCenter

Some news sources focusing on economics:

• Financial Times: @financialtimes
• Financial Times – U.S. Economy: @ftuseconomy
• Financial Times – Economists Forum: @economistsforum
• Economics Webpartner: @economicsnews
• The Economist: @theeconomist
• Wall Street Journal: @WSJ_Econ
• Wall Street Journal – Economics: @WSJ_Econ

Please send a Twitter DM to @ericfruits if you have any more to add.

One of Sony’s big gambles is including Blu Ray high definition DVD technology. The rival technology is called HD. Manufacturers have not settled on a high definition standard and studios currently produce content in both formats.

Sony’s release of a Blu Ray DVD players landed with a thud earlier this year. At the time some analysts speculated (or hoped) that the consumers were waiting for the PS 3. Why pay for for Blu Ray DVD player when the PS 3 can play Blu Ray and provide a gaming platform? If the PS 3 does not sufficiently penetrate the market, the supporters of Blu Ray will will have to work fast to save the technology.

On the other hand, if PS 3 and/or Blu Ray fail, it’ll be a long time before we’ll know whether its because of consumer tastes, burdensome technology, or failed logistics.

Now is not a good time to be a Sony shareholder …