Physics GRE Discussion Forums

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Theoretischer wrote:It financial packages I have seen they guarantee funding for a certain amount for so many years. With the passing of the stimulus yesterday, should we be worried that despite rampant inflation we are at a fixed wage for the next 5-6 years?

I would not call that rampant inflation in 2008. 3.6% is just slightly higher than before in the 2000s. In 1970s we had up to 10% inflation in your year... now that is rampant. The more pressing problem is that the US is facing deflation. The prices are predicted to go down because the government is pumping so much money into it, etc.

You get more as progress in experience and from position to position. For example, on the madison website it says that you will get 13k for an unexperienced half-time TA, but your RA was 20 to 22k. dlenmn, i think, mentioned that they were fighting for a general raise. UT Astro is "$22,000 to 28,000 to first year students and up to a possible $30,000 after the third year."

Theoretischer wrote:should we be worried that despite rampant inflation we are at a fixed wage for the next 5-6 years?

Remember, you study physics, not economics. Inflation is presently anything but rampant. In fact, there are real fears of deflation occurring (which is probably a worse fate).

BLS wrote:For the 12 month period ending December 2008, the CPI-U [a standard measure of inflation] rose 0.1 percent. This was the smallest calendar year increase since a 0.7 percent decline in 1954 and compares with a 4.1 percent increase for the 12 months ended December 2007. Consumer prices declined at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 12.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.

source

If the stimulus bill increases inflation to a few percent, that'll be a Good Thing. The normal rate of inflation will have little effect on you unless you plan to spend 20 years in grad school. Moreover, you generally get raises as you go along, so it really doesn't matter.

dlenmn wrote:

BLS wrote:For the 12 month period ending December 2008, the CPI-U rose 0.1 percent. This was the smallest calendar year increase since a 0.7 percent decline in 1954 and compares with a 4.1 percent increase for the 12 months ended December 2007. Consumer prices declined at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 12.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.

source

If the stimulus bill increases inflation to a few percent, that'll be a Good Thing. The normal rate of inflation will have little effect on you unless you plan to spend 20 years in grad school. Moreover, you generally get raises as you go along, so it really doesn't matter.

Dlenmn, it seems you have some interest in Economics? I want to do HEP Theory, but, Economics is a really interesting area as well.

naseermk wrote:Dlenmn, it seems you have some interest in Economics? I want to do HEP Theory, but, Economics is a really interesting area as well.

I was almost an econ major, but I was annoyed that the classes didn't use more rigorous math, and there were too many econ majors already.

There's actually a surprising amount of common ground between physics and econ, so it's a shame the classes weren't better. Have you taken any classes?

dlenmn wrote:I was almost an econ major, but I was annoyed that the classes didn't use more rigorous math, and there were too many econ majors already.

Same here, I couldn't sit through the damn lectures in intro econ as a freshman. Didn't help that my professor was the worst teacher I had ever seen, and got fired mid-semester for partying with undergrads at a local bar, sexually harassing at least one girl, and driving home drunk.

That switched me from econ-math to physics-math.

dlenmn wrote: There's actually a surprising amount of common ground between physics and econ, so it's a shame the classes weren't better. Have you taken any classes?

I always wanted to (Micro/Macro) but couldn't fit it into my schedule.
Nice link that you posted. Hoping to keep an eye on Economics as I progress through grad school.

Only Physics is more interesting than Economics though!

That sounds like quite a prof!

I liked my econ profs a lot, but econ was the most popular major, and it had become so quickly, so the department was overenrolled (rightly or wrongly, I felt many of the majors were studying econ because they thought it would help them make money, not because they particularly liked the subject. Maybe that has changed). That meant having they only had enough profs for one level of the intro sequence -- an oversimplified one. Oh well.

naseermk: You can probably fit in an econ class or two during grad school. The intro ones don't take much time. I liked micro a lot, but macro can get too hand-wavy, although a lot of the stuff is still useful for understanding (a little of) what's going on in the world (like understand what inflation is...) I never got a chance to take econometrics (forms the core along with micro and macro).

dlenmn wrote:That sounds like quite a prof!

I liked my econ profs a lot, but econ was the most popular major, and it had become so quickly, so the department was overenrolled (rightly or wrongly, I felt many of the majors were studying econ because they thought it would help them make money, not because they particularly liked the subject. Maybe that has changed). That meant having they only had enough profs for one level of the intro sequence -- an oversimplified one. Oh well.

Actually it hasn't. At schools without an undergrad business major, the econ department takes the brunt force of all the people that want to do econ. The problem is that all the things they tell you in the first 4 years (aka undergrad) are all wrong. anyway, i could have squeezed in the econ major, but with my schools stupid requirements for double majors (we want to see people double major my ass) i had to switch the mathematical economics and cannot take some interesting classes.