RoR: Forum

Thanks for the cool feedback, Fred.

I didn't go to an Ivy League school, but I'm quite 'edu-ma-cated' all the same. I know what it is like to deal with the guild socialism inside of a major university, as well as the nervous search for authenticity. I remember that the major players in the university did not want to make decisions. Instead, they wanted focus groups. One super-high-up-the-chain guy asked rhetorically (argument from intimidation): How do we know when someone is an expert? He didn't stop me. Also, when I had a new idea -- eventually very successful and quite lucrative for the university (though I was only paid a meager "graduate research assistant" salary) -- instead of signing on to it, my advisor got everybody-and-their-brother to sign onto it first:

Me:
Do you like my idea?

Major player at the university:
Let's find out what the head of the so-and-so department thinks, and then the head of the such-and-such department, too.

Me:
Okay, they liked it. Does that mean I have the go-ahead?

Major player at the university:
Let's organize a focus group.

Me:
Okay, the focus group liked it. Does that mean I have the go-ahead?

Major player at the university:
Let's see if we can't get even more people to sign-on to it, first.

Me:
[What the ^&%$*?!]

:-)

Aaaaaaaaagh! Those mangy, no-risk-taking, second-hander, Peter-Keating-charactered, communitarianized academicians!

Ed

Post 41

Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 8:26am

Fred: you have a way with words. LOL :-) LOL :-) LOL :-) LOL :-)

Sam

Post 42

Monday, September 3, 2012 - 12:22pm

Bad Science coming out of the Netherlands

BACKGROUND: 'Low-carb' diets have been suggested to be effective in body weight (BW) management. However, these diets are relatively high in protein as well.

OJECTIVE: To unravel whether body-weight loss and weight-maintenance depends on the high-protein or the 'low-carb' component of the diet.

...

CONCLUSION: Body-weight loss and weight-maintenance depends on the high-protein, but not on the 'low-carb' component of the diet, while it is unrelated to the concomitant fat-content of the diet.

Source:
Relatively high-protein or 'low-carb' energy-restricted diets for body weight loss and body weight maintenance?

These Dutch researchers claim that the reason 'low-carb' diets work is because they are higher in protein than other diets -- and specifically not because they are lower in carbohydrates than other diets. But, in order to show that that is the case, they put everyone on a very low-calorie diet (67% deficient in calories for 3 months; followed by 33% deficient in calories for 9 months).

In doing so, they inadvertently put everyone on a 'low-carb' diet -- because all very low-calorie diets are low in carbs (as well as being low in protein; as well as being low in fat). Also inadvertently, no one was on a high-protein diet. The amount of protein consumed by these dieters (1.1 g/kg) did not reach the average level of protein consumed by dieters following low-carb diets, such as the Atkins Diet, for example. Yet they still say they discovered something?

To show that weight loss "depends on the high-protein, but not on the 'low-carb' component of the diet" they didn't even offer anyone a high-protein diet, and they didn't offer anyone a high-carb diet! In other words, there was no meaningful dose of contrast in the independent (researcher-altered) variable. That's like checking to see if heat causes water to boil:

=====================
Researchers put some water in a pot and leave it at room temperature (~72 degrees Fahrenheit).

It doesn't boil.

They say: "Let's check to see if heat makes the water boil. Hey, lab assistant, bring the temperature up to ... 73 degrees Fahrenheit!"

It doesn't boil.

They say: "Oh my gosh! We've discovered that heat is not responsible for making water boil -- because we turned up the heat ... and nothing happened! Let's publish our research!"
=====================

What these researchers failed to do is integrate the usual amounts of macronutrients that people consume when dieting. By severing their research from how normal dieting plays out (by restricting themselves to a very narrow, largely-irrelevant context), they were able to come up with a conclusion -- like the conclusion that heat doesn't cause water to boil -- which cannot be generalized to real life circumstances.

In reality, both the carbohydrate and the protein content of diets matter. If you restrict calories to dangerous levels -- i.e., very low-calorie diets that require medical supervision (like the one used in the study above) -- then the severely-limited variance in carbohydrate levels that still exist won't matter, but that is because everyone is following a diet low in carbs in the first place. If you want to see a difference in metabolic outcomes stemming from a difference in carbohydrate level, then you need to vary the carbohydrate level enough to see a difference. The minimum difference before outcomes change may be as large as 100 grams of carbohydrate or more. In real life, that'd look like this:

One group eats 200 grams of carbohydrate and the other group eats 100 grams (for a 100-gram difference).
One group eats 150 grams of carbohydrate and the other group eats 50 grams (for a 100-gram difference).
One group eats 250 grams of carbohydrate and the other group eats 150 grams (for a 100-gram difference).

On a very low-calorie diet, it is almost impossible to get these kinds of differences -- differences that would obviously matter -- in one's carbohydrate intake. That's because a gram of carbohydrate is worth 4 calories, and a very low-calorie diet is about 800 calories or more. There is not even enough room to fit 250 grams (1000 calories) of carbohydrate into a very low calorie diet (because that would already be worth over 800 calories).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 9/03, 10:00pm)

Post 43

Monday, September 3, 2012 - 2:54pm

Bad Science in the journal, Clinical Medicine

Here is the abstract:

Many governments in Europe, either of their own volition or at the behest of the international financial institutions, have adopted stringent austerity policies in response to the financial crisis. By contrast, the USA launched a financial stimulus. The results of these experiments are now clear: the American economy is growing and those European countries adopting austerity, including the UK, Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain, are stagnating and struggling to repay rising debts. An initial recovery in the UK was halted once austerity measures hit. However, austerity has been not only an economic failure, but also a health failure, with increasing numbers of suicides and, where cuts in health budgets are being imposed, increasing numbers of people being unable to access care. Yet their stories remain largely untold. Here, we argue that there is an alternative to austerity, but that ideology is triumphing over evidence. Our paper was written to contribute to discussions among health policy leaders in Europe that will take place at the 15th European Health Forum at Gastein in October 2012, as its theme 'Crisis and Opportunity - Health in an Age of Austerity'.

Source:
Austerity: a failed experiment on the people of Europe.

What these researchers claim is actually 4-fold:

1) that the USA launched a financial stimulus -- but that the UK, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and Spain did not launch any kind of a financial stimulus
2) that the result of this difference -- when you look at 2 factors: economic growth and rising debt -- is clear
3) that the American economy is growing -- and the others are not
4) that due to lack of an ability to pay, debts are rising in the other countries -- by much more than they are rising in the US (which is what it would take for a clear difference between the results)

Taking point #3 -- made implicitly, if not explicitly, in the quote above -- let's check to see if you can tell that the economy, roughly measured as GDP per capita, in the US is growing more rapidly than it is in the other countries. Here are 5 years of data on "GDP per capita" from the World Bank website:

Greece
2007 = $27,241
2008 = $30,363
2009 = $28,521 (austerity implemented?)
2010 = $26,433 (austerity implemented?)
2011 = $26,427 (austerity implemented?)

Ireland
2007 = $59,665
2008 = $59,574
2009 = $50,034 (austerity implemented?)
2010 = $46,873 (austerity implemented?)
2011 = $48,423

Portugal
2007 = $21,845
2008 = $23,716
2009 = $22,016
2010 = $21,358 (austerity implemented?)
2011 = $22,330

Spain
2007 = $32,118
2008 = $34,976
2009 = $31,707
2010 = $30,026 (austerity implemented?)
2011 = $32,244

UK
2007 = $46,123
2008 = $42,935
2009 = $35,129 (austerity implemented?)
2010 = $36,186
2011 = $38,818

USA
2007 = $46,349
2008 = $46,760
2009 = $45,192 (financial stimulus?)
2010 = $46,702 (financial stimulus?)
2011 = $48,442 (financial stimulus?)

The last 2 years are what count the most, because that is the time-frame where the results from the economic measures taken by the USA should most radically differ from the results of the economic measures adopted by all of the 5 other countries (under the principle that policies take some time to be fully felt). The relevant question is: In those 2 years, did the USA economy outgrow the other countries?

Well, in Greece, the economy was 100% stagnant (0% growth). In Ireland, the economy grew by 3.3%. In Portugal, the economy grew by 4.6%. In Spain, the economy grew by 7.4%. In the UK, the economy grew by 7.3%. Averaged together, that equals an economic growth rate of 4.5%. The question then becomes: Did the US economy, between 2010 and 2011, grow by more than 4.5%? If it did, then we can say what it is that the authors implied (that the US economy is outgrowing the economies of the other 5 countries mentioned).

The answer is: No. The US economy grew by 3.7% between 2010 and 2011 -- and 3.7% is not more than 4.5%.

Also, taking point #4 -- made implicitly, if not explicitly, in the quote above -- let's check to see if the debt in these 5 countries is really so overwhelming by much more than it is in the US. From the National Debt Clocks [ http://www.nationaldebtclocks.com/unitedstates.htm ] website:

Greece's debt per citizen is 31,589 euros
Ireland's debt per citizen is 27,410 euros
Portugal's debt per citizen is 14,627 euros
Spain's debt per citizen is 16,175 euros
UK's debt per citizen is 19,546 pounds

And, using Exchange rates from the US Dept. of Treasury [ http://www.fms.treas.gov/intn.html#rates ] website -- where $1 buys you 0.81 euro, or 0.65 pounds -- we can convert these into dollars of debt per citizen:

Greece's debt per citizen is $38,999
Ireland's debt per citizen is $33,840
Portugal's debt per citizen is $18,058
Spain's debt per citizen is $19,969
UK's debt per citizen is $30,070

The 5-nation average debt being $28,187 per citizen. So, now the question can be asked: Is that amount of debt-per-citizen much more than the debt-per-citizen found in the US?

The answer is: No. The US debt per citizen is $51,040 -- much more than any of the debt that is found in any of these other countries. In fact, even if this debt is scaled to GDP-per-capita -- so that it becomes a measure of convertible or transferable "economic pain" (equalizing out economic differences found among the countries) -- only Greece has a worse ratio of:

Debt-per-capital
_______________

GDP-per-capita

In the other 4 countries, the GDP-per-capita is higher than the debt-per-capita -- but this is not true of Greece nor of the US. These researchers just couldn't get the facts straight. They are what Thomas Sowell, in his book: Intellectuals and Society, refers to as "dangerously mistaken" (because their mistake, if acted upon, could lead to a dramatic increase in the pain and suffering in the world).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 9/03, 9:42pm)

Post 44

Tuesday, August 27, 2013 - 7:47pm

These 3 authors write beautifully, and are in possession of so much intellect* that it is coming out of their ears, but they rigged a game so that the only objective justice possible -- the only time when property rights were communally protected -- was when participants committed themselves to socialism/communism. That kind of intellectual dishonesty might fool some of the people some of the time ...

Competition over Personal Resources Favors Contribution to Shared Resources in Human Groups

Ed

*intellect = intelligence after all wisdom has been removed

Post 45

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 7:03am

Ed:

Good eye, Ed.

The economic model is truly rigged.

I've spent the last 30 years immersed in mathematical models of all kinds.

Consider the following truly simplistic linear equation. which is the basis for their assertions:

wsuby = (v-y) + (1/n) k* (y + (n-1) y*)

"In this basic model, each individual has a total available effort of value v"

Really? In what lost episode of Star Trek is that?

" and selfishly invests v-y into producing a private resource kept for herself."

No hint at all in the grammer where this is going.

"Investing effort in the group resource produces collective benefit: all contributions to producing the group resource are summed and multiplied by k, and the resulting resources are split equally among the n members of the group."

I call magic k the "we all know socialism is superior" factor. It is a known constant of the Universe, like, the gravitational constant.

This bit of mathematical hucksterism can't really be called hucksterism, because the perps are telling us all exactly what they are doing. But even at that, lets look at the assumptions inherent in their statement of their model equation.

Rewritten:

wsuby = (v-y) + (1/n) k* (C1*y + (n-1)* C2*y*)

Where did the C1 and C2 come from? They were actually in the original equation, but since the authors assumed their value as constant=1.0, they were ommitted.

That ommission is a political assertion-- that, the efficacy of effort made for your own benefit/risk is the same as the efficacy of effort made for the benefit of unseen others.

The USSR ran an expensive field experiment for us; there is plenty of empiracle evidence that indicates that not only are C1 and C2 not consants=1.0, but not constants across the domain of time, context, and persons.

The model is gibberish, and indeed, totally rigged as to outcome.

But the perps are totally safe, confident in one of the most reliable facts possible: the sad math illiteracy of the population at large, who at most will glaze their eyes over the mathematical model and nod along with its mathematicall proven conclusions.

(The required level of math literacy, in this case, is taught in Jr. High school curriculums-- and already it is safely above the national norm.)

We see the exact same thing with the economic 'mathematical definition' of GDP:

GDP = P + G + Inv + (Ex-Im)

Where P = sum of all private spending and G = sum of all public government spending, Inv = sum of all private investment, and (Ex-Im) = net of exports over imports, and GDP purports to be a measure of 'growth' of something called 'the economy.'

The same equation written more honestly:

GDP = C1*P + C2*G + C3*Inv + C4*(Ex-Im)

The assumption C1=C2=C3=C4=constant=1.0 is a political assertion-- at the very least, that $1 of government public debt fueled public spending is equivalent to (can be added without a factor in the orignal equation as apples and apples) to $1 of private debt fueled private spending.

I declare bullshit on that political assertion. I don't think C1 and C2 even have the same signs.

Good eye, Ed.

regards,
Fred

Post 46

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 7:25am

Ed:

Also, look at the following:

wsuby = (v-y) + (1/n) k* (y + (n-1) y*)

They have assumed that when someone with value 'v' chooses to contribute y to the tribal pile, that they will get he benefit of (n-1) others each who have contributed y*...

... so in this magic tribe, everyone has the same 'v' to divide up, and everyone else choosed to contribute the same y* to the tribal pot, while a 'focal individual' chooses to contribute y.

k>N? Huh? Is k even > 1.0, much less 'N'? That is some magic multiplier effect. Of course it is <1.0... see the USSR. They ran this exact experiment, it isn't even close.

It can't even be made to work with Magic k factors exceeding 'N'...

It is illustrative of how insane that model is; in a nation of 330,000,000 people, the factor 'k' would need to exceed 330000000.0.... and there is no evidence that it even exceeds 1.0

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 8/28, 7:29am)

Post 47

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 7:44am

Ed:

Their conclusions state that only if k>N is socialism the most efficient solution...before adding the element of force/crime.

"We determine that when k>n, y* = v (individuals maximize their fitness by contributing all of their effort towards producing group resources, and obtain a payoff wy = kv), but when k
We live in a nation of 330,000,000... is k>330000000.0?

That 'result' was so overwhelmingly unfavorable to socialism that they had to add the following:

"We now consider the case where any personal resource in which an individual has invested may be taken by other group members."

Crime. Thuggery. Force. Violence.

"An individual invests effort x in attempting to defend her personal resources from others, and z in trying to take others' personal resources;"

And so, we equate tribal criminal action with economic activity...

And look at how that influenced their 'model' assumption:

Now, k only needs to be greater than 1.0.. and all that was necessary was to add "or else we will just take it from you" to the model.

From "k>330000000.0" to "k>1.0" ... judt add forceful taking, and voila!

It is illustrative mainly in exposing socialism for what it truly is: naked tribal agression, justified only by force.

This model is exactly why socialism -- especially, national socialism -- needs to be fought at every opportunity, as the freedom eating social disease it truly is.

regards,
Fred

Post 48

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 8:54am

The most damning indictment of socialism in America.

Since FDR's New Deal and even before, for now a hundred years, America has been at least a 'mixed economy', complete with redistributive tax code.

As well, since at least the 60s and Johnson's Great Society, America is governed by the two instruments of legislation:

Civil Rights Act '64: "Racial discriminatiion is illegal."
Affirmative Action: "Racial discrimination is mandatory."

The former was an act of legislation and laudable...the latter was a Johnson Executive Order and contradicts the former, well meaining or not.

And, there is the rub; well meaning or not, what have been the actual results of AMerica's foray into socialism? It's time to assign a grade. 50 years plus is plenty. So, how are we doing?

After all these decades of pushing the model in that paper, what has been the factual outcome?

The authors of the paper want to claim that the problem is not with their model assumptions, but that America hasn't pushed these ideas 'enough.'

Really? How much does America need to bleed from its ass before we finally stop considering these often tried and always failed bad ideas? Is a hundred years not enough? Is the steady decline in American economic prosperity since the 60s insufficient evidence that the nation is lurching in the wrong direction?

Is the fact -- the undeniable fact -- that every single example of 'big government' successes -- Land Grant Teachers Colleges, Panama Canal, WWI, TVA, Hoover Dam, WWII, Korea, Interstates, Civil Rights Acts, Mercury/Gemini/Apollo Moon program -- every single example imaginable -- all came about prior to or contemporarily wit JFK and his $100B of federal spending overhead, over half of which was for defense at the peak of the Cold War-- insufficient to make American's today question why we need to support $3800B/yr in federal overbloat, when none of us can name a single thing this federal government is doing that will be remembered in five months, much less, five generations?

This nation has been on a Big Government Solves Everything By Doing Nothing tear for 50 years, ever since JFK was assasinated, that corresponds exactly to America's economic decline.

Where we going? What is the score? Because if this is what 100 years of constructivist redistributive social justice and class warfare looks like, well, I know who is winning.

When are folks ever going to wake the Hell up and stop begging to be beaten down?

regards,
Fred

Post 49

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 7:29pm

Fred,

I've spent the last 30 years immersed in mathematical models of all kinds.

Holy shit. I had no idea. So ... when I came out, guns blazing, and bragged to you on this forum that I was:

... going to create an agent-based evolutionary model that will blow your friggin' mind

[or something like that]

And then you didn't answer back ... then ... were you just sitting there thinking to yourself: "Is that a fact? Hah! You are just a rookie, Ed! I've forgotten more about mathematical modeling than you may ever learn!" And, uh ... if you were, then I will understand (and actually say thanks for just staying quiet, instead of smacking me in the head for getting too cocky!). I feel a little like a guy trying to sell his services as a golf instructor who accidentally walked up to Tiger Woods without recognizing him -- and telling him how he could really improve his "game" by taking the 3-week golf instruction class.**

:-)

You were just going to sit there quietly and let me dig a hole for myself, weren't you? Disclosure: I am guilty of doing this very thing with a recent site visitor who had the cock-sured-ness to boldly happen upon the scene and proceed to stake out a claim that he was going to tell me a thing or two about Objectivism! Really? You are going to educate me on the matter? Well, this ought to be interesting! Taking my experience with him as a lesson against my bragging to you, I would like to take the opportunity, right here and now, to retract my earlier prediction that I would be able to create a model that would literally make your head spin and knock you off of your chair.

Is it too late for me to do that?

:-)

Ed

**This happened to me once before on this site, when I accidentally challenged a participant to a game of tennis -- only to find out that he was semi-pro, and that he would have made a fool out of me if he had accepted my challenge (letting me think that I could beat him). In a post-hoc defense of somewhat-brazen behavior (i.e., admittedly a shameless rationalization), you never truly know your limits until you test them.

Post 50

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 7:57pm

Fred,

Now, k only needs to be greater than 1.0.. and all that was necessary was to add "or else we will just take it from you" to the model.

From "k>330000000.0" to "k>1.0" ... just add forceful taking, and voila!

LOL! OMG! WT ...!

Dammit, Fred. I do NOT like to use capital letters, or these crazy, colloquial, cyberspace shorthands like l-o-l and o-m-g (though I DO like "emoticons", for some reason) but you made me use them anyway. Each time I read this damn quote, I laugh again! Ohhhh, mannn. Oh, jeez. Okay, get a hold of yourself. Breathe deeply. Think of mundane thoughts.

It sort of feels like being Alice inside of Wonderland and then having some kind of a Hatter -- let's call him, for lack of alternative, a mad kind of Hatter -- and this guy is a real hoot. What he is telling you is that it is 6pm forever, and what he is asking you to do is to forget about all this silly nonsense about the passage of time. He may be very eloquent with words, but only in the way that a magician is eloquent with manipulating one's focus.

Professional scientists in this new millennium are so very often philosophically deficient (if not bankrupt). Ted Keer once said here that before you study any philosophy, you should study science (for 10 years, or something like that). I would say it is the other way 'round (though you may only require a single semester of philosophy in order to get your head on straight). Science without good philosophy is not just wrong, but dangerous.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 8/28, 8:11pm)

Post 51

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 8:35pm

Fred,

Re: Post 48

I know what you are saying. Even the purchasing power of the minimum wage has gone down (while nominally increasing over time). One guy on NPR today said that the minimum wage desired in 1963 would be equivalent to over $15 an hour today. It is because we were so much more rich back then. The richest year was either 1970 or 1971 or 1972 or 1973 (I forget which), where American citizens had more buying power than they ever had -- either before or since.

But, like you said, egalitarian social engineering of The Great Society changed things for the worse. Maybe we should have called it The Greek Society (because that is where we are headed). I heard on the radio that some nihilist wrote a 10-page article for The New Yorker magazine telling us all that it is right and good to live meagerly, like when Jimmy Carter told us to put on sweaters in the winter (rather than turning up the heat). I am working on a rebuttal to such thinking, defending a natural kind of a law regarding human production.

Natural economic growth for humans is really pretty high (it is double digit growth, when annualized), as can be evidenced by the 15-to-1 return on investment (energy output minus energy input) of something so simple as a vegetable garden -- an enterprise with a 2-3 month time horizon. Whenever and wherever you do not see double digit economic growth in human societies, then you know that there is political power asymmetry and that it is being abused -- often in the service of a utopian pipe dream (if not merely from outright plunder).

Ed

Post 52

Thursday, August 29, 2013 - 8:26am

Ed:

Those dry models put most normal folks to sleep. People with lives to live. The occasional can't-help-themselves nerd stumbles across a model like that, and just looks at it-- looks at exactly what it is asserting, using Jr. high math (seriously.. it is simple linear equation with only a few well defined terms)... and the truly amazing fact, the thing I just can't wrap my head around completely, is that the authors of models/papers like that are brazenly fully confident that they can publish something like that, with the assertions it makes, and never fear for an instant that folks in the world will broadly call them out on the details.

I swear, the process is literally like this: Krugman is a master of the political art:

1] Throw up some vaguely math looking nonsense.

2] Explain -exactly- in painstaking detail what the model assumptions are. (The more painful, the better; will scare folks off from looking too closely.)

3] In a pinch, use the phrase 'partial derivative' to scare away 99.99% of America.

4] Rig the model, because nobody will notice. "We assume a pure endowment economy where no savings or investment is possible..."

5] In this specific case, ignore the whacky rigged model results and claim 180 degree opposite results applied to the world we actually live in. "In a Mad Max World, socialism in the Thunderdome is our only choice."

6] Pay grad students at some university peanuts to play the pre-rigged game and then publish the scholarly 'results', calling it a day on the local battleground of bad ideas running amok with math and science and logic, because face it, who is going to check the math in -this- world, as it is? Certainly not the targeted victims being shepherded into the barn.

regards,
Fred

Post 53

Thursday, August 29, 2013 - 9:40am

Ed:

The $15 must also take into consideration the payroll tax (3%/3%=6% then, 15%+ today). Krugman likes to cherry pick only the highest marginal rate from JFK's America -- the rate paid by 6 rich guys who happen to have had lousy accountants. He also ignores the total federal overburden on the nation -- JFK's $100B vs today's $3800B. (Population then: 180M. Today: 330M = factor of 330/180, not even x 2.0. Inflation: when I first started this riff, was x 7.5, now about x 7.66. Using those numbers, JFK's 100B take corresponds to an overburden of 100 x 330/180 x 7.66 = 1404B today. I've been generous and calling that $1500B. After all, JFK's era was three years before IBM introduced the 029 keypunch, while we have the benefit of modern computer power. Don't ask me why that means the per capita efficiency of government should have gotten worse, but it clearly has...)

$1500B... $3800B. We stimulated by that yet? That isn't a little... its a whopping 2.3Trillion a year over and above JFK's America, fully adjusted and then some.

When you look at this nonsense that has been going on for decades, we try to dress it up and call it politics, but it really isn't that complicated. It is simple envy, coveting what others in the tribe have, what we want, for free, without the need to offer value or effort in return, as a right. The bottom half asserts its agression, the top half defends itself. That is politics, it isn't any deeper than that.

On average, we are average. No repealing that. There is a more capable half and a less capable half. I didn't say 'incapable'... I said less capable. They are all peers living in freedom... but they are not all peers in capability. That is just a simple damn fact.

The less capable half would like to define success as happenstance, accident of birth, a consequence of being under the right tree when the fruit fell, whatever. Behavior and beliefs must have nothing at all to do with outcomes.

Nonsense. Upward mobility at every level is exactly what used to define America. Americans largely start out young and relatively poor and end up old and relatively wealthy, with every year climbing the hill on average, over the long haul, better than the year before. That used to define America prosperity, and fairness; shared access to the opportunity to succeed by climbing hills. That effort to climb is what used to drive American economies and prosperity. We've slowly supplanted that effort to climb with a political game of Chutes and Ladders.

What screwed the American deal is many things, but one of those things is exactly the element of constructivist force, of the guns of government playing selective chutes and ladders with this process. Well meaning or not, the paternalistic politico thumbs on the scales of social justice (based on quintiles, for chrissakes)have been a complete failure.

There is a fundamental, can't be avoided reason for this failure: clumsy forks aimed at the tribes most capable by or on behalf of the tribes least capable suffer from the unavoidable fact that they are aimed at the tribe's most capable. After decades of these clumsy New Deal redistributive forks deliberately aimed at taking, not asking, the score is clear.

No human likes to be told and not asked. As well, those dependent on others to realize their desired outcomes don't like asking; they want to paint that shortcut up life's hills as a right, and other's obligation. Not a single human in that paradigm likes the need to ask, not a single human likes being told. Even the most saintly and benevolent among the tribe, much less, your average mildly clever rat bastard. So on average, you can imagine how a tribal policy which has pushed away the old paradigm of 'asking' -- of relying on charity and benevolence of the most capable in the tribe -- and turning it into a tribal demand -- has had predictable lousy results. Because this paradigm is not symmetric, neither in aggression, nor in capability to wage the struggle. And the more frantic the clumsy forks are aimed, the more justified the reaction of the intended targets in avoiding them -- and this is the key, the reason this tribal politics fails and falls squarely on those it is intended to subsidize -- those who are targeted are the most capable not only at producing that which the tribe wants to take, but at avoiding clumsy forks as well-- to the point that the most unscrupulous of all among the inevitable collection of naked sweaty apes have turned those now unfettered tribal guns of government around and are sticking it to the fork wielders.

In the meantime, politically, the mere illusion of chutes is enough to sate the tolerance for the selective government ladders.

Since JFK was assassinated, this hasn't been the same nation. It has become a circular firing squad, with everyone pointing their middle finger at each other, and deservedly so. But the scoreboard is clear, and the surprising face of 'social justice' looks nothing like the ads going in.

America done with this yet? No? Because those raping, pillaging, and burning via the unfettered state are saying 'take all the time you need to figure this one out...'

Facebook. Biggest IPO excitement in recent history. Capital on Wall STreet thrown at it like confetti at Neil Armstrong. Facebook employs maybe 3400. Beth STeel at its peak employed over 330,000. It would take over 100 FB IPOs to equal one Beth Steel... assuming any of those 3400 jobs are anything like the jobs once offered by a Beth Steel. The American Left and its union mentality is waging a war from 100 years ago. Unfortunately, it is 2013, not 1913.

regards,
Fred

Post 54

Thursday, August 29, 2013 - 12:20pm

3] In a pinch, use the phrase 'partial derivative' to scare away 99.99% of America.

LOL. Link.

Post 55

Thursday, August 29, 2013 - 7:02pm

Great (informative) ranting, Fred!

It might help to see stuff side-by-side. People usually think of things like "socialism" or "capitalism" as some far-off euphemisms rather than being something that is tied to concrete reality and how actual living standards can rise and fall. I haven't read the fatalist article in the New Yorker yet, but I heard the guy thinks America's pre-JFK success was an accident, rather than being something that necessarily follows from the logic of applying capitalism (respect for freedom; the banning of coercion, whether organized or unorganized) to a nation. Here' my first draft approximation of such a feat:

-----------------
.............................................. Full* Socialism ......................... Welfare Statism ............................ Full Capitalism

Income tax: ...................... progressive; ~100% ............... progressive; mean = 33-67% ................... flat; 1-5%

Inflation: ............................... 3% or more ................................. 3% or more ................................... -1 to 1%

Public spending
(% of GDP) ............................. 100+% ..................................... 36-100+% ........................................ 1-5%

Real GDP growth ............ ["negative" growth] ................ -20 to 2% (in cycles) ............... [persistent double-digit growth**]

Real Yield on
10-Year T-Note ........................ N/A ..................................... -40 to 1% ............................................ 6+%***

-----------------
*Right before money "disappears" as a medium of exchange

**Apparently, before 1857, you could earn 25% interest per year (without inflation = 25% increase in purchasing power each year) just with a simple savings account. See entry for econ textbook from William Ellis and Richard Dawes here [Lessons on the Phenomenon of Industrial Life]. In the absence of inflation (and, to my knowledge, there was no inflation before 1857) what that means is that anyone and everyone -- rich and poor alike -- could increase their personal purchasing power by 25% per year every year.

***Before Welfare Statism and monetary inflation took hold of this country, the government sold something called a "seven-thirty" (a 7.3% Treasury note which, in the absence of inflation, had a real yield of 7.3%). What that meant is that anyone and everyone -- rich and poor alike -- could increase their personal purchasing power by 7.3% per year every year (or maybe only by 0.73% per year every year, it's late and I'm too tired to conceptualize the financial dynamics of a Treasury Note).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 8/29, 7:23pm)

Post 56

Friday, August 30, 2013 - 6:56am

Ed:

And, here is a side by comparison of public debt vs. private debt

--------------------------:Private------:Public
Limitations---------------:limited------:boundless
Creates incentives--------:yes----------:no
Investment in future------:yes----------:no
Deinvestment in future----:no-----------:yes
Perverts current economies:no[*]--------:yes

[*]not when balanced by current private savings and investment. There is no such balance in the mechanism of creating public debt. It is projected totally onto future generations, with no generation of current incentives to paydown, a complete de-investment in the future.

Eventually the future arrives; after decades of pushing the public debt limit without limit, that future is here.

But...the government could say to its debt holders, we are just not going to payback those bonds. Well, with foreign debt holders, it could do that twice(the first time would also be the last time, so using government accounting principles, we would count that twice.) And with the number one debt holder -- the SS Trust Fund -- it could do it as many times as the electorate falls for it and doesn't see what just happened-- a massive, one time intergenerational stealing of wealth.

...

Meanwhile, Obama shot his mouth off about red lines, and now we have to decide if we are going to back Al Qaeda in Syria, Hesbollah, or the Muslim Brotherhood in overthrowing the Ba'ath Socialist party leader, Assad.

The real solution? Send them all chemical weapons and let them take out their own trash.

Of course we can't do anything like that; the vast majority of JPF(Just Plain Folks)in Syria got nothing to do with this shitfight, and that is who will bear the brunt of the shitfight(including whatever we hurl safely from far far over the horizon), not the shitfighters. But at some point, JPF -- the moderates in all these festering shitholes -- need to bear some responsibility for not cleaning out their own swamps -- for letting these shitfights fester, and spill across borders and regions and eventually, the world.

The old Muslim theocratic nutworld is in a death throes existential fight to re-assert itself in the face of modernity. As a culture, they are so backwards and technologically inept(the entire Muslim world, although it might be a quarter of the world, publishes fewer scientific papers than 'Spain')that it has decades to even take their jihad seriously. In the Wold Wars of the last century, these were nomads on horseback with swords in the desert, romanticized in Lawrence of Arabia...robbing trains in the desert.

But folks who can barely light a fuse in their own damn sneaker and/or diaper have got America standing in long lines at airports and listening to phone calls.

If I were emperor of the USA, I'd pullback all the troops and have a non-aggressive policy based on 100:1 retaliation. I'd include not only Israel in a mutual defense pact, but all nations. It would be a simple policy: launch so much as a single missile at another nation, or CBN anywhere, and the USA will turn your entire country to radioactive glass, as a monument to world peace. Please volunteer to be 'that country' by not cleaning out your own damn swamps. Try us; we will only ever have to do this once. Sooner the better. What relic from the dark ages is going to volunteer by asking the USA to fulfill their nutbag theocratic prophecies? Modernity has a party to throw and is anxious to get on with it, so please, won't some dark ages nutbag please step up and volunteer to host the glowing monument?

A US President could once credibly make that statement. Not any more. We have squandered so much credibility that we can't even convince 'Syria' for chrissakes into behaving itself.

regards,
Fred

Post 57

Friday, August 30, 2013 - 7:02am

PS:

I can safely say all that because I will never be anywhere near 'Emperor of the US' and actually have to make such a godawful decision.

But it's clear...decision makers are scarce, even as politicians are plentiful.

regards,
Fred

Post 58

Friday, August 30, 2013 - 8:09am

Fred,

Delightful post!

The old Muslim theocratic nutworld is in a death throes existential fight to re-assert itself in the face of modernity.

And the scary thing is these hateful, backward nutcases with nothing positive to offer, are winning. Now that's a real stunning indictment of Middle-Eastern culture in general... to say nothing of the ineptitude of Western Culture to protect itself. If things continue as they have, they will rule over a Caliphate that circles the globe in less than a decade. It seems almost unimaginable, like trying to seriously picture cockroaches rising up and ruling country after country.

Post 59

Friday, August 30, 2013 - 7:33pm