xenologer | Entries tagged with economy

I just want to note, if only for the record, that in a saner country, the fact that Sarah Palin wants us to teach our children lies rather than biology, and doesn't believe in man-made global warming, should be enough to cost the Republicans the election. The other way of stating those two position is that part of her platform is telling schools to misinform kids and telling the government to ignore a preventable ecological catastrophe that could cost countless lives. But for whatever reason, those positions are considered totally acceptable in American political debate, but god forbid someone comes out for single payer health care or a gun ban. Now that would be crazy.

At first I didn't mind her too much, but the more I learn about her the more astonished I become. Evidently it turns out I can't credit her for her state's fairly respectable record on providing contraceptive access, since Palin herself only supports abstinence-only sex ed. Evidently her scorn for research (AKA reality?) also extends to evolution in addition to sex ed, and the human impact on the Earth's climate.

Does she trust experts on anything? Or is this philosophy over fact all over again?

Do we really want another administration that thinks evolutionary biologists don't understand biology? That thinks that the CDC and everyone else studying teen pregnancy and STD rates don't understand teen pregnancy or STD rates? That thinks ecologists don't understand ecology?

We've already seen McCain's willingness to ignore economists with his little gas tax holiday (and his offshore drilling plan), since evidently economists don't understand the economy either.

I'm sick of this. Really, I am. Is it just the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge (or skill) tend to think they know more (or have more skill) than they do, while others who have much more knowledge tend to think that they know less. Dunning and Kruger were awarded a 2000 Ig Nobel prize for their work.

The phenomenon was demonstrated in a series of experiments performed by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, both of Cornell University. Their results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999.[2]

Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" (as Charles Darwin put it). They hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,
1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

I hope so. Disgusting as it is, at least it's an explanation. It also explains why so many people in America truly believe that the Judicial Branch should have no power. The legislative branch is elected by the people. That makes them qualified to have legislative power and the power of the judicial branch. Why do people believe this? Because they mistrust expertise. Experts are scary, holding dark and arcane knowledge that makes them dangerous. The fewer experts we have involved in government the better! Apparently.

Even if you don't believe it, those of you who plan to vote McCain had better get really comfortable with this really fast. Because this is the trend you're playing into. There are people out there who believe that truth is a matter of consensus, not of... well, truth. These are the people who want local governments to vote on whether to teach their children science or religion in science classes, as if by voting they could determine the truth. These are the people who want local governments to vote on whether to teach children sex ed that works, or sex ed that sounds good to parents who're afraid their kids may one day grow up. These are the people who want the majority to determine the rights of the minority, as if justice were also merely a matter of majority rule.

These are the people who mistrust experts because experts erode the notion that one person's vote of confidence in a complicated matter is as good as any others. They claim to know more than you do. Those assholes. Who do they think they are, anyway? Elitist bastards. We don't need them. We don't need science at all. We'll just put everything to a vote and decide on whatever sounds best... not necessarily what those nasty elitist experts and their "research" indicates.

There are fewer of them anyway, how much can they possibly know? We're the people. Vox populi, vox dei. If we vote that something is so, damn the facts. We voted.

A vote for McCain-Palin is a vote for the disrespect of education and the disrespect of truth. And do you know why?

"Mediocrity know nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius."
-Sherlock Holmes

McCain and Palin are mediocre representatives of a mediocre party that elevates mediocrity itself above expertise. Do they represent you?

So I read someone complaining about the reason so many people in the US are out of a job is that Mexicans have stolen them.

Now, the obvious first point is that many of these people supposedly believe in the free market above all else. For them to cry "wait that's not fair!" when they lose out to competition that's willing to work more for less... it's just a little disingenuous.

That's not what got me thinking, though. What got me thinking was the similarity between these claims and claims by various ethnic groups that they have to compete with other ethnic groups for marriage. I remember hearing men in my family complain when I was a child that lots of women want to date black men because they have bigger cocks. Really. That's the only reason. "That's just not fair, them comin' in with them huge cocks! They stealin' our wimminz!"

Even in Europe where they're supposedly so much more comfortable with other cultures than America is... there's a long history of warring ethnic groups putting out propaganda explicitly aimed at convincing like to marry like. "Our girls marry our girls. Your girls marry your girls." Yes, this is about ethnic and cultural purity, but it wouldn't be a problem if men in each culture weren't so afraid they would prove unable to "measure up" against (read: "compete with") the foreigners.

I have no sympathy for this. Women aren't refusing to date these white guys because their dicks aren't big enough. Women are probably refusing to date them because (like my father) they're narrow-minded blockheaded assholes. In short: they aren't succeeding in the market because they themselves aren't competitive, not because someone else has an unfair advantage. The solution is for these men to adjust to the market demands for guys who aren't assholes, not to bitch about how the ones who're succeeding don't really deserve it. When someone else offers something that makes them more competitive (whatever it may be), the rules of the free market state that they're not cheating. They're competing.

So to all those people bitching about how Mexicans are stealing your jobs (just like Irish people used to steal our jobs and Italians used to steal our jobs and Chinese people used to steal our jobs) ask yourself how badly you want that strawberry-picking job. Badly enough to compete for it as vigorously as the Mexicans? Badly enough to work for almost nothing with no job security and no benefits with an employer who will likely abuse you physically or sexually?

Do you really want that job you just lost to a Mexican?

No?

Then it's not their fault you don't have a job, is it? It's yours, for not being willing to flow with the market. No wonder you got left behind, eh?

Granted, this only applies to people who can simultaneously believe that A) the free market will solve all problems, but B) that they've somehow been slighted by the introduction of competition for jobs.

You guys. You wouldn't even be worried about this shit if we didn't have unions that pushed decades ago for things like minimum wage and job benefits. If this were the Industrial Revolution, you'd be willing to compete on an equal ground with the Mexicans because you'd be used to working the way they work: in unsafe conditions and for a pittance.

These people just annoy me because it doesn't seem like they're thinking very carefully about all these things they're claiming simultaneously. I want several things from them. If you're going to cry foul every time competition doesn't work out in your favor, maybe you could also adjust your own demands to make yourselves more competitive. Or, and here's a thought, you should re-evaluate how strong your faith in the free market really is now that you're the one losing out.

I don't care which you do. Just start making sense, please.

So... if you had to choose between doing something that kept with your principles and doing something that had a better chance of achieving the end you're looking for, which would you choose?

Classic example, sex ed as a way to reduce teen pregnancy, STDs, etc. If you're a conservative Christian, you're faced with a choice. Will you advocate for your values as they were given to you (meaning, teach only abstinence)? Or will you compromise your values to do what the facts indicate will actually achieve the end you desire (teaching about contraceptives and even abortion)?

To me this highlights a common conflict between liberals and conservatives. In keeping with the sex ed example, conservative Christians are ostensibly trying to protect families and children. Since they believe that premarital sex is wrong, they would rather discourage that than compromise on their hardline stand to achieve the result they claim they care about most.

And this means one thing: to conservative Christians, the means are more important than the ends... to the point that they completely disconnect from the reality of the situation. This is why showing statistics about teen pregnancy and STDs and high school dropout rates to conservative Christians will not convince them that children should learn anything but "abstinence good, sex bad." It won't convince them because the end isn't the point. The result isn't the point. They don't care nearly as much about the actual fates of children as they do about their moral high ground.

This is why you see liberals advocating for practical sex education, even if it means allowing for the possibility that young people will have premarital sex. Sure, it'd be nice if they weren't, but if our end is really to reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates... we've gotta do what we've gotta do.

That practicality is completely lost on many conservatives. Even if they support their arguments with facts and predictions of results, in the end the results are secondary.

You've heard this before.

"Teaching teens about contraceptives may reduce the rates of teen pregnancy and accompanying dropout rates (which would result in economic and social benefits for those teens who would otherwise have dropped out), but it's wrong! Teaching them how to have responsible sex is... well, it's teaching them to have sex!" Link.

"Some wealth redistribution may reduce our deficit and reduce the tax burden on poor and middle-class families to fund our whole economy. Sure. But it's wrong! Did you know Hitler was a socialist?!" Link.

"Sure, entering peace talks with countries hostile to us might help us handle global challenges. But damn it, we're America! We'll handle global problems ourselves, our way, and you'd better either help us or get the heck out of our way." Link.

So at this point you have to ask yourself. How dedicated are you to the principles behind your goals? Are you dedicated enough to the principle to sacrifice the goal?

This is one of the sticking points for me when talking to my very conservative friends (and yes, I do have them). It seems most of the time like they'll uphold all these great and noble goals, but they have little interest in achieving them or actually working toward them. They feel teen pregnancy is a tragedy, but they reject any practical means of reducing it. They moan about the economy, but cling to Bush's "principled" stance that there's nothing more important than protecting the wealth of the wealthy. They sigh that America's always having to pick up other people's messes and finish other people's fights, but they don't want to admit that we don't have all the answers, that other nations may have something to bring to the table.

At this rate, there is nothing I can do to convince them. I can't offer facts or expert opinions, because those are merely result-based. My "reality-based thinking" has no impact because we're not really talking about the same thing. This is why every discussion with conservatives I've ever had has become a philosophical debate and not a practical one.

Most conservatives I've spoken with (particularly conservative Christians) truly are interested in philosophy first and results second. If I can't somehow argue that my solution doesn't just work but also fits into a philosophical model of America as God's Chosen Blessed Land of Opportunity, they don't care. The fact that a plan could work for the goal we agree upon doesn't matter if it requires a shift away from a comfortable philosophical model.

I don't know if this helps anyone reading this, but here's my summary.

To conservatives: If you're talking to a liberal, be honest when you're upholding principle most highly, and when you're upholding results. It will muddle the discussion much less if you make your priorities clear.

To liberals: Conservatives are listening, honest. Odds are you're just not talking about what's really on their minds. When they reply to studies or statistics by reasserting their philosophy, they're trying to reiterate what matters to them in the debate. They may not intentionally be shifting the goalpost onto philosophical terrain; odds are that to some conservatives that's where it's been the whole time.

Check out this Op-Ed Column from the NYT.

What we have learned this summer is this: McCain’s trigger-happy temperament and reactionary policies offer worse than no change. He is an unstable bridge back not just to Bush policies but to an increasingly distant 20th-century America that is still fighting Red China in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in the cold war. As the country tries to navigate the fast-moving changes of the 21st century, McCain would put America on hold.
What Obama also should have learned by now is that the press is not his friend. Of course, he gets more ink and airtime than McCain; he’s sexier news. But as George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs documented in its study of six weeks of TV news reports this summer, Obama’s coverage was 28 percent positive, 72 percent negative. (For McCain, the split was 43/57.) Even McCain’s most blatant confusions, memory lapses and outright lies still barely cause a ripple, whether he’s railing against a piece of pork he in fact voted for, as he did at the Saddleback Church pseudodebate last weekend, or falsifying crucial details of his marital history in his memoirs, as The Los Angeles Times uncovered in court records last month.
What should Obama do now? As premature panic floods through certain liberal precincts, there’s no shortage of advice: more meat to his economic plan, more passion in his stump delivery, less defensiveness in response to attacks and, as is now happening, sharper darts at a McCain lifestyle so extravagant that we are only beginning to learn where all the beer bullion is buried.
But Obama is never going to be a John Edwards-style populist barnburner. (Edwards wasn’t persuasive either, by the way.) Nor will wonkish laundry lists of policy details work any better for him than they did for Al Gore or Hillary Clinton. Obama has those details to spare, in any case, while McCain, who didn’t even include an education policy on his Web site during primary season, is still winging it. As David Leonhardt observes in his New York Times Magazine cover article on “Obamanomics” today, Obama’s real problem is not a lack of detail but his inability to sell policy with “an effective story.”
(snip)
The Bush White House is now poised to alight with the Iraqi government on a withdrawal timetable far closer to Obama’s 16 months than McCain’s vague promise of a 2013 endgame. As Gen. David Petraeus returns home, McCain increasingly resembles those mad Japanese soldiers who remained at war on remote Pacific islands years after Hiroshima.

You know me. I love citing huge passages from entries that have too much good stuff for me to just quote a little.

This one... I can't chop any of it out. Mainly because it's a lot of beautiful simple little charts, and there's no way to paraphrase charts that clear.

So just go look at the rundown.

You may not do politics, and you may think the economy is this big difficult obnoxious thing. I know plenty of people who think they're not smart enough to understand what's going on, and I'm telling you right now that's just what the McCain camp is banking on. They are counting on you being dumber than you are, and they're counting on you believing it, too.

You're not stupid. You can understand this. Go look at the charts and tell me this isn't obvious.

McCain’s attacks get more reckless, less responsible

McCain insisted that Obama’s “voting record … is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.” When reporter Dave Helling asked if McCain believes Obama is a socialist, McCain said, “Oh I don’t know,” as if it were a distinct possibility.
And that, oddly enough, was just the tip of the iceberg.

McCain, bordering on delusion, then accused Obama of reversing course on comprehensive immigration reform, which is hysterical, given that McCain reversed course on comprehensive immigration reform and Obama didn’t. But more importantly, it led to this fascinating exchange:
Q: But you flip-flop a little bit too.
McCain: No, I didn’t.
Q: You flip-flop on drilling, on tax cuts…
McCain: Actually, I didn’t. Actually, on the drilling issue, when gasoline reached $4 a gallon, we’ve got to do things that we otherwise haven’t done in the past. I have not changed my mind on any other issue. On immigration, I said we need comprehensive immigration reform, it failed twice, so we’ve got to do what’s going to succeed.
Q: But you were against the tax cuts, now you’re talking about making them permanent. Isn’t there flip-flopping on both sides?
McCain: Actually, no.
Now, if McCain wants to justify his reversals, that’s fine. He can explain why he changed his mind on various policies, and hope that voters understand. But McCain has instead decided to pretend that he’s never flip-flopped at all. Reality just didn’t happen in McCain’s odd worldview.
“I have not changed my mind on any other issue.” Senator, I’ve counted all of your flip-flops — and at last count, there are 64. At least try to stick to reality here.
McCain relies on the bogus National Journal rankings, after they’ve already been debunked. McCain says he hasn’t flip-flopped on anything, after we’ve already found several dozen examples to the contrary. McCain says Obama hasn’t “reached across the aisle,” after we’ve found plenty of instances of Obama doing just that. McCain just keeps lying, over and over again.
But that “socialist” line is pretty extraordinary. McCain, no matter how wrong he was on a given issue, used to conduct himself with a little more class. Even when one disagreed with him, it was easier to at least respect him as a senator.
But Candidate McCain has become reckless, and frankly, kind of an embarrassment to himself.
Two related thoughts. First, McCain worked for many years to develop a solid reputation in the political establishment, as a credible guy who took policy matters seriously. It’s a shame to see him throw this reputation away as part of a win-at-all-costs crusade for the presidency.
And second, I wonder what the media reaction would be if Obama attacked McCain with this kind of ferocity. Imagine if someone asked Obama if McCain were a fascist, and Obama said, “Oh, I don’t know.” Consider the response from news outlets if Obama called McCain an “extremist,” and began making things up.
We’d hear, I suspect, an endless barrage about Obama “cracking under pressure,” and “losing his cool.” McCain’s attacks yesterday, though, will almost certainly go by unnoticed by anyone except bloggers and blog readers.

Straight Talking (Now With Added Socialism!)
( Click here for an excerpt. You can handle it, I promise! )

Here's what I think is weird, and anyone who's got evidence to the contrary should let me know. Republicans don't seem to be excited about McCain and in fact I hear almost nothing but bitching about him from Republicans I know. If you don't believe me, check sites like this.

To me this would suggest that you shouldn't vote for McCain. You don't agree with him on the issues, you don't think he's a real Conservative, you think he's a sleazy politician who's going senile to boot. So why in the hell do you want to put him in charge?

The answer is that it doesn't matter what Republicans want or what Republicans like. Sure, there are people who genuinely consider the candidates each election year, but by and large it doesn't matter if McCain makes his "base" happy. They'll vote for him because he's the Republican, and Republicans vote Republican. Once he secured the nomination, I saw very little he could do to lose the votes of the Right, including losing their support.

My opinion on this hasn't changed. If I could collect some small unit of currency for every Republican who hates McCain, but will vote against their own interests to get him elected... I'd still be depressed but at least I'd be depressed and wealthy. And then maybe Republicans would start looking out for me for a change!

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Entries tagged with economy

Mediocrity

Damn Mexicans!

Damn Mexicans!

Damn Mexicans!

Philosophy and Fact

"Worse than no change"

McCain and Obama's Economic Plans

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