The New York Times produced a calculator that aims to help you decide if you should buy your next house or rent it. Some of its feature include:

• It takes into account the opportunity cost of the lost earnings from choosing not to invest the money that you used to purchase a house.
• It systematically takes into account all taxes that you are likely to incur as a result of purchasing/renting.
• It will tell you how long you’d have to stay in the home to make buying more cost effective than renting.

To try it out for yourself click here.

Source: The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal recently did an analysis of census data to find how rates of unemployment and earnings varied by major. The six majors with a 0% unemployment rate are:

• Actuarial Science
• Pharmacology
• Educational Administration and Supervision
• School Student Counselling
• Geological and Geophysical Engineering
• Astronomy and Astrophysics

Clinical Psychology, at an unemployment rate of close to 20%, seemed to be the worst major for a college student to pick. To find out how your major compares to others in both earnings and unemployment %s click here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: Marginal Revolution

Salon recently provided an overview of several theories about the effect that the recession has had on sex. Key points of the article include:

• The popularity of sex related items has gone up since the start of the recession.
• Some have suggested that this is because sex is a cheap form of entertainment in difficult times.
• Evolutionary psychology on the other hand suggests that it is because during a recession individuals feel that there is a greater likelihood of death and so people are programmed to try to pass on their genes as soon as possible.
• Others argue that the rise in popularity for items such as condoms is primarily due to the fact that couples do not want to have children in times of economic uncertainty.

To find out Salon’s answer to the question of whether or not infidelity and sex increase during a recession click here.

Rupert Cornwell at The Independent recently took a look at the different ways that the United States and Europe handle their sporting systems. Some of the highlights from the article include:

• America and Europe’s management of sports run contrary to national stereotype. Capitalist America has a franchise system that that encourages cartel and depresses the law of the free market by instituting things like caps on player salaries. Welfare Socialist Europe has a free market system that allows tycoons to bid obscene amounts for players.
• The reason for this paradox is the dual role of sports. In the United States the emphasis is on sports’ ability to make money for its owners. In Europe the emphasis is on sports’ ability to provide entertainment.
• The US system of regulations has done a better job of ensuring that no one team dominates in a sport.

To see a table that clearly lists out the pros and cons of both systems, as well as to see some of the hard numbers involved click here.

Source: The independent

Via: Ariff Kamarudin

• The $120 billion that tourists spent in 2010 represented 8% of the United States’ exports
• Between 2000 and 2009 tourism dropped 39%
• The stringent tourist visa requirements that leave no room for exceptions – even for children – have been discouraging individuals from visiting the United States
• The travel promotion act of 2009 created a Federal Agency that is dedicated to promoting tourism

To see more hard numbers, and to find out some of the steps that the government is taking to increase tourism while continuing to maintain security click here.

Source: Slate

With the prevalence of Occupy Wall Street these days, many people are talking not only about the issue brought up by the protesters, but also about what elements of the protest were all about. This article looks at youth in the occupy movement; who are they and why are they there? What is the relation to previous youth protest? It’s a brief article that will give you the basics. Click here.

The issue of HIV/AIDS is very important to a plethora of people around the world. As developed countries cut their funding for research, the Copenhagen Consensus Center and the Rush Foundation instituted a project called RethinkHIV. The goal of this project was to find the most efficient use of money in AIDS research in order to benefit society as a whole as much as possible. Here are the five key areas noted by economists:

• Find an HIV vaccine
• Spend more on prevention of mother to child transmission
• Make blood transfusions safer
• Increased use of male circumcision
• Direct funds to the most infectious

To read more on slate.com, click here.

Anyone who has ever been in a relationship during the reign of Facebook knows how sensitive and troublesome “relationship statuses” can be. Relationships are of course complicated, but a new dimension is added when Facebook comes into the mix. Not only are you dealing with your significant other (or not), but you have to contend with the implications of everyone you have ever known (plus some) interpreting your action or inaction. This has led to an array of:

• new etiquette on and off the site
• amplified competition post-break up
• broken hearts

Check out the rest of the story on Time here.

With all the recent clamouring over sovereign debt and credit ratings for government issued bonds around the world, Centives thought it prudent to let you know more about one aspect to the debate. The rating downgrade for US treasury bonds and other countries shook many investors and though it happened a while ago, it is important to understand what all the jargon behind the ratings means as well as how Standard and Poors categorizes countries. Succinct articles of this sort are quite helpful, check it out.

Today, Centives decided to enlighten all you Star Wars fans, addicts, or curious folk who have like many of us wondered: How in the (world) do lightsabers work? The answer is, well, complicated. Centives has yet to find a credible account of the existence of a lightsaber which resembles those used in the Star Wars movies. Even so, howstuffworks.com has made the complicated physics and applicability of lightsabers available to all. From its physical characteristics, various uses, and internal workings, this article has it all; it makes you wonder if they had some access the rest of us don’t. Read the full article here.