That's just survival

Megan McArdle says:

What Ron Schiller said wasn't good for NPR's bottom line. Whether or not it's permissible to believe that a large segment of the country are racist troglodytes, when someone expresses that view during the performance of his official duties, then you can see how said racist troglodytes might not want to give that organization any more of their money--whether that's as customers, donors, or taxpayers. The normal organizational imperative is to fire that person, and this doesn't strike me as outrageous. That's how organizations communicate an important message in situations like this: this person's views are not ours, and we reject them.

The real problem is a quirk of timing: the video came out just as Schiller had left NPR for the Aspen Institute. Thus, NPR couldn't fire him. So they had to look for someone else to fire, and unfortunately, that was Vivian Schiller, the CEO, whose only crime was being in charge of the organization when this happened.

I think the scapegoating is problematic (though given the circumstances, I'm not sure I'd have done differently--many NPR affiliates feel that they're very much in danger of extinction). But I don't think it's a problem that companies fire people for expressing nasty views that can threaten their bottom line. That's just survival--and I think that NPR is too valuable to lose.

Funny how neutrality doesn't come up at times like this. All of a sudden, Sarah Palin doesn't seem to be so bad.

Photo link here.

Chart of the day: Unionized private sector workers by state

Source here.

Top 10 billionaire investors

1. Carlos Slim Helu $74b
2. Bill Gates $56b
3. Warren Buffett $50b
26. Prince Alwaleed $19.6b
39. John Paulson $16b
46. George Soros $14.5b
57. Paul Allen $13b
61. Carl Icahn $12.5b
74. Jim Simons $10.6b
114. Steven Cohen $8b

Via market folly. The number ranking is from Forbes' list of billionaires.  Photo link here.

Quotes of the day

You can’t schedule quality time anymore than you can schedule, “fall in love time.” When you’re dating someone, you never say, “Hey let’s go to a movie, and then on the way out to the car, at about 8:15, I’ll look at you and realize ‘this is the person I’m going to be with for the rest of my life.’ We’ll have some ‘fall in love time.’ Does next Tuesday work for you?” Love and life don’t work that way. Quantity time creates quality time. Putting time into the proverbial “bucket” that so many counselors and authors have talked about over the years is what leads to quality time.--Jon Acuff

It’s not like this other crap system of seeking glory is any better.--Don Miller

... [European banks] could benefit from regulatory arbitrage opportunities and gain market shares [from US firms, thanks to elements of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law].--JPMorgan Cazenove

Dodd-Frank is a job killer. And its going to be killing high-taxpaying jobs. Raising income and wealth tax rates cannot offset government spending, if the government destroys income and wealth to begin with.--Cav

But so much of this [Wall Street] business is about relationships. When we recruit, we call it “fit,” which basically means, “Do I get along with this person?” And a lot of the time, if you have common friends or went to the same private school as somebody, it makes it much easier to get along. ... It’s not really about bringing women in. Once banks bring people in, they need to make an environment that people want to stay in. And banks have a reputation for not creating a very good environment for women or minorities. So they can pass the buck down, but then colleges can pass the buck down to high schools. I don’t see the point in doing that. ... Put half of what you’d put in your bathroom in your desk. Toothbrush, extra change of clothes, shoes. Man, it sounds so pathetic now.--Nina Godiwalla

[Raj Rajaratnam] exploited a corrupt network of people.--Federal prosecutor

[Galleon] hired professional research consultants [and its traders] questioned executives from companies themselves. They would analyze company’s published statements and regulatory filings [as part of] exhaustive research. The evidence will show that Raj did not cheat.--John Dowd, Rajaratnam defense attorney

About eighteen of the twenty [NYMEX] board members on the trip, according the staffer, wanted to go to the local [Dubai] brothels.--Leah McGrath Goodman

Photo link here.

Is 7 out of 14 passing? Is it above average?

I'm thinking I did poorly.  A monkey should be able to score 5 out of 14.

Of course, I am talking about my results from playing ‘Sheen, Beck, or Qaddafi?’.

Quotes of the day

Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.--John Melloy

[Social Security] accounting that would be illegal for a private company is pretty hard to defend.--Eric Falkenstein

... in percentage terms of the change in total employment level from 2006 to 2010, jobs affected by the federal minimum wage hikes of 2007, 2008 and 2009 account for 42.5% of the total reduction in jobs seen since 2006.--Ironman

Last summer, Barack Obama promised a new education program that would produce 8 million more college graduates by 2020. Few people at the time raised the obvious question: do we really need an additional 8 million college graduates? Where’s the evidence for a coming shortage of college educated workers? The short answer is that the evidence doesn’t exist.--John Carney

President Barack Obama lifted a two-year freeze on new military trials at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and suggested on Monday Congress was hurting national security by blocking his attempts to move some trials into U.S. civilian courts. In an apparent acknowledgment that the Guantanamo detention camp won't be shut down any time soon, Obama also outlined procedures for reviews to be held at least every four years for prisoners held indefinitely without charge or trial.--Patricia Zengerle

While we're at it, we're going to close Guantanamo. And we're going to restore habeas corpus. ... We're going to lead by example _ by not just word but by deed. That's our vision for the future.--Barack Obama, 2007

[SEC chairwoman Mary Schapiro] is coming under Congressional fire for hiring as the S.E.C.’s general counsel someone with a Madoff financial interest — David M. Becker, who participated in matters involving how the scheme’s victims would be compensated. The revelations about Mr. Becker’s role have raised fresh questions about ethical standards and practices at the agency, where Mary L. Schapiro was brought in as chairwoman two years ago with a mandate to strengthen its enforcement unit. Ms. Schapiro will appear before Congress on Thursday to discuss the matter. Questions about Mr. Becker arose last month after Irving H. Picard, the trustee overseeing the Madoff case, sued him and two of his brothers to recover $1.5 million of the $2 million they had inherited in 2004 from a Madoff investment by their late mother. Mr. Becker’s financial ties to Madoff had not been publicly disclosed until that suit. Mr. Becker said that he advised Ms. Schapiro and the chief ethics officer of his financial interest in a Madoff investment account, “either shortly before or after” joining the agency in February 2009. ... Lawmakers have also asked Ms. Schapiro for details of her discussions with Mr. Becker about his Madoff account when she hired him in 2009. Ms. Schapiro missed a deadline on Monday for those responses. An S.E.C. spokesman said Ms. Schapiro declined to comment on Tuesday.--LOUISE STORY and GRETCHEN MORGENSON

But since Dodd-Frank passed, Congress’s noble attempt to protect investors from misconduct by ratings agencies has been thwarted by, of all things, the Securities & Exchange Commission. The S.E.C., which calls itself “the investor’s advocate,” is quietly allowing the raters to escape this accountability.--Gretchen Morgenson

Not a single juror [out of a pool of 40] had heard of Blankfein, who testified before Congress last year about his firm’s role in the 2008 financial crisis.--David Glovin, Bob Van Voris and Patricia Hurtad

Better to read things that annoy you, and respond when you are outraged, than to be oblivious to the best arguments against your worldview. The best liberal bloggers are those who don’t stay in their echo chamber, but rather are willing to also read blogs that annoy them.--Scott Sumner

But the real test of your concern comes when you have to give up things you really like, such dependable electricity. As you know, we shouldn’t build nuclear power plants, because they’re scary, and Karen Silkwood died for our sins. Besides, if we get power from our friend the Atom, it will mean there’s no incentive for clean “green” methods like bird-mincing wind turbines, or solar power, which could provide us with limitless power. (Unless the solar farm impinges upon the habitat of the Arizona Squeakrat, in which case, forget it.) Green-enengy enthusiasts believe we can get sufficient energy from wind and solar some day, so we don’t need to get more gas or drill for oil now.--James Lileks

There’s sex that’s actually pre-marital, in the sense that it involves monogamous couples on a path that might lead to matrimony one day. Then there’s sex that’s casual and promiscuous, or just premature and ill considered. This distinction is crucial to understanding what’s changed in American life since the sexual revolution. Yes, in 1950 as in 2011, most people didn’t go virgins to their marriage beds. But earlier generations of Americans waited longer to have sex, took fewer sexual partners across their lifetimes, and were more likely to see sleeping together as a way station on the road to wedlock. And they may have been happier for it. That’s the conclusion suggested by two sociologists, Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, in their recent book, “Premarital Sex in America.” Their research, which looks at sexual behavior among contemporary young adults, finds a significant correlation between sexual restraint and emotional well-being, between monogamy and happiness — and between promiscuity and depression. This correlation is much stronger for women than for men. Female emotional well-being seems to be tightly bound to sexual stability — which may help explain why overall female happiness has actually drifted downward since the sexual revolution. Among the young people Regnerus and Uecker studied, the happiest women were those with a current sexual partner and only one or two partners in their lifetime. Virgins were almost as happy, though not quite, and then a young woman’s likelihood of depression rose steadily as her number of partners climbed and the present stability of her sex life diminished.--Ross Douthat

I suppose we all of us have shadowed places in our lives, places where reside only the ill-formed shapes of what might have been, never clear and untouchable and framed only by their absence of light. But we have what has yielded those shadows as well, or at least the memories of them.--Tony Woodlief

Because you and I stopped buying CDs, the music industry has shrunk, according to revenues and GDP. But we're not listening to less music. There's more music consumed than before. On paper, the way GDP is calculated, the music industry is disappearing, but in reality it's not disappearing. It is disappearing in revenue. It is not disappearing in terms of what you should care about, which is music.--Erik Brynjolfsson

If, in order to hear some music, a man has to wait for six months and then walk twenty miles, it is easy to tell whether the words, 'I should like to hear some music,' mean what they appear to mean, or merely, 'At this moment I should like to forget myself.' When all he has to do is press a switch, it is more difficult. He may easily come to believe that wishes can come true.--W.H. Auden

Inage link here.

Libya's Gaddafi 'Gone in 2011' contract fading from over 90% to under 80%

Source here.

UPDATE: This was seared, seared into my memory just now.

Bikini statistics: Simpson's Paradox edition

Statistics are like a bikini. What they present is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.--Aaron Levenstein

Paul Krugman seemingly makes a great point, that Wisconsin students perform better than Texas students, so maybe collective bargaining is a great thing, since Texas doesn't have it. Iowahawk discovers that something is amiss. It turns out that Texas achieves far better educational outcomes. Excerpts and links below, via Eric Falkenstein.

While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level. And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average. While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level. And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average--Paul Krugman

..., I believe the test gap between minority students and white students can be attributed to differences in socioeconomic status. And poverty. And yes, racism. And yes, family structure. Whatever combination of reasons, the gap exists, and it's mathematical sophistry to compare the combined average test scores in a state like Wisconsin (4% black, 4% Hispanic) with a state like Texas (12% black, 30% Hispanic). So how to compare educational achievement between two states with such dissimilar populations? In data analysis this is usually done by treating ethnicity as a "covariate." A very simple way to do this is by comparing educational achievement between states within the same ethnic group. In other words, do black students perform better in Wisconsin than Texas? Do Hispanic students perform better in Wisconsin or Texas? White students? If Wisconsin's kids consistently beat their Texas counterparts, after controlling for ethnicity, then there's a strong case that maybe Texas schools ought to become a union shop. ... white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. Further, Texas students exceeded the national average for their ethnic cohort in all 18 comparisons; Wisconsinites were below the national average in 8, above average in 8. Perhaps the most striking thing in these numbers is the within-state gap between white and minority students. Not only did white Texas students outperform white Wisconsin students, the gap between white students and minority students in Texas was much less than the gap between white and minority students in Wisconsin. In other words, students are better off in Texas schools than in Wisconsin schools - especially minority students. Conclusion: instead of chanting slogans in Madison, maybe it's time for Wisconsin teachers to take refresher lessons from their non-union counterparts in the Lone Star State.--Iowahawk

Previous BS installment here.  Photo link here. Elsewhere, Eric throws up his hands:

That an economist like Krugman would see such monopolies as a good thing highlights the fact that economics does not constrain or guide one's thinking, merely provides another way to frame arguments. That the inefficiency of union monopolies is still disputed is one reason I don't take economics so seriously anymore. You can always find some convoluted reason why some partial equilibrium result generalizes, and so basic economic insights like the inefficiency of monopolies, trade restrictions, or taxes that favor debt over equity. It makes me think, what's the point of economics if these easy issues are still debatable?

UPDATE: Steve Landsburg, too:

So to encourage innovation, you want to strengthen the unions? To encourage innovation, you want to reduce the relative reward to innovation, by insuring that everyone gets the same health care regardless of their social contributions?

Now, you might suppose that Krugman was thinking something along the following lines: Large swaths of American workers are being rendered unproductive by computers. Somehow or another, we have to support those people even though they’re not producing much. Unions and universal health care will keep them afloat.

But that can’t be what Krugman was thinking. I’m sure of this, because I happen to know that Krugman has a Ph.D. in economics. Therefore he must surely be aware that you can’t divorce incomes from productivity. Sure, you can redistribute, but you can’t redistribute more than what gets produced. If the problem is that our old skills are no longer productive, then our incomes must fall unless and until we acquire different — and less computer-replaceable — skills.

UPDATE: Scott Sumner, too:

No need to read Marginal Revolution, Becker/Posner, Econlog, John Taylor, Greg Mankiw, Robin Hanson, Steven Landsburg, etc, etc. Nothing of interest, just move right along folks. I’m always amazed when someone so brilliant can be so clueless about life. How someone can reach middle age and still live in a kindergartener’s world of good guys and bad guys.

Perhaps if Krugman would get out a bit more he might make fewer embarrassing errors, like this one, where he forgot the fallacy of composition, something taught in EC101. I guess none of his liberal friends have the nerve to point out these sorts of silly errors. So it’s still there, uncorrected after two weeks. A monument to his pride at being ignorant of the views of those with whom he disagrees.

You might ask whether I’m being a bit harsh calling him “ignorant.” Actually, he’s the one who proudly flaunts his ignorance of conservative thought.

Quotes of the day

This was not a simple and singular lapse of judgment, but an egregious breach of trust, a fraud, pure and simple, by a person who had no moral compass.--Judge Richard Howell, Raj Rajaratnam's judge, in sentencing convicted insider-trader Eugene Plotkin to 57 months of jail

Much [government stimulus] intervention turns out to hobble markets rather than enhancing them, ... unpredictable discretionary government intervention scrambles the prospective underlying supply–demand balance. ... The recent pervasive macro-stimulus programs exhibit the practical shortfalls of massive intervention.--Alan Greenspan

I expect that we won't be that impressed with the productivity of some of the government employees [on tonight's Undercover Boss]. If the mayor [of Cincinnati] wants to show empathy, I predict that he will not do it with his own bank account or even his mayor's expense account.--David Henderson, March 6

... even though the mayor had fooled the meter maid, who had had her suspicions about his real identity, he told her who he was before they went out on the afternoon shift. He didn't wait, the way the past private-sector employers did, for the days-later meeting. Why? I think it was because he found her story about her son's illness moving and he wanted to tell her ASAP that he would do something for her. This is the desire for instant gratification that we see so often in politicians. I think he wanted the immediate credit for being a good guy. Another interesting thing is that with most of the private-sector jobs, the undercover boss was actually put to work on top of the work that the supervisor was doing. In this one, that didn't happen as much. While working with Danny to pick up dead animals, he mainly drove around with Danny as his companion. He didn't add much, if any, productivity. While working with Karen in the rec center for kids, we saw him play volleyball with the kids and maybe help a little with hotdogs, but that was about it. With the meter maid, he accompanied her but they did parking tickets together: there was no additional productivity. ... Notice the irony of giving $10,000 to the motorcycle repair mechanic. As commenter Pandaomoni pointed out, what does he do with it? Retire early. ... It's a tribute to my model of government vs. private incentives that some of them did come true and that other things, that I didn't predict, are things that the model would predict. As I often tell my students, "I'm not brilliant; my model is brilliant."--David Henderson, March 7

Freddie and Fannie played a relatively constructive role when they were in the business of securitizing mortgages with 20 percent down payments (or 10 percent, but with private mortgage insurance added). That was their core business, and they should go back to that core business immediately. They should be forbidden from participating in the market for loans with low down payments. They also should be forbidden from participating in any loan other than for purchase of a home by people intending to live there. That means no loans for investment properties, no home equity loans, no second mortgages. I also think that it would be best to limit Freddie and Fannie to 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate products. All of these limitations should be put in place ASAP. Longer term, the question is whether or not to keep Freddie and Fannie at all.--Arnold Kling

Welcome to Japan, where the poor get poorer—and the rich get poorer, too. ... Perhaps this is how the world ends, with people grown too isolated from each other to even meet and procreate. Ruin/nation, meet alien/nation, where so many sing—and eat and sleep and live and die—alone.--Spike

I had imagined graduate school as a shining city on a hill, but it turned out to be more like an extended visit with a bear in a cave.--Errol Morris

It pays to be bad, and slightly nutty as well.--Matthew Lynn

Photo link here.

Quotes of the day

... if large oil producers did become much more democratic, the effects on their oil production is unclear. Would they encourage production and refinery of oil by international companies with much expertise at these activities, or would they, as in democratic Mexico and Brazil, reserve oil production and refinery for less efficient government-owned companies? Their oil production might well decline if government enterprises ran the oil industry. Democratic regimes might have a longer time horizon than the replaced autocratic regimes, especially if the latter governments feared being overthrown. Such governments tend to pump out oil (and other natural resources) at a faster pace since they would not expect to collect the oil revenues in the more distant future.--Gary Becker

The participation rate is the comparison of the "labor force," those looking for work or employed, and everyone else. That ratio is currently 64.2 percent seasonally adjusted, and 63.9 percent non-seasonally adjusted, the same level as last month. Both of those percentages are currently running at 27-year lows, meaning the percentage of Americans not working or even trying to join the work force is at a near three-decade high. The last time the participation rate was above 66 percent — the 10-year average — was in August 2008.--Rick Santelli

Republicans argue that President Obama’s original budget is a nonsensical baseline from which to begin since it was never enacted. What you have to do, Republicans say, is start from the current level of spending as represented in the original Continuing Resolution. This is why, House Republicans say, they only claimed to have cut spending by $61 billion, not $100 billion. They say to do otherwise is taking credit for $44 billion in cuts the White House never actually agreed to in any serious negotiation.--Jake Tapper

Our industry has a terrible, terrible reputation. I don’t care how many PR firms we hire. I don’t care how many lobbyists we hire. The only way we’re going to be able to change that is through our philanthropy.--Anthony Scaramucci

... no, I have not yet seen Inside Job. Nor has that film's anointing as the best documentary of the year by the Great and Good of that most rigorous, nonpartisan, and perceptive academy of sociological criticism—known as the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—encouraged me to correct my ignorance. I tend to find exercises led by the Smug and Self-righteous in persuading the Already Convinced and Credulous of something they already believe to be tiresome, tendentious, and not worth my time.--Epicurean Dealmaker

... it is an encouraging sign to finally see NFL players all standing on one side of the line with the owners on the other. Brady, Brees and Manning do not need the union. The union needs them.--Tony Massarroti

I’m one of the few people who went to Washington to get out of politics.--Larry Summers

You’re tweets do not complete me, they completely overwhelm me.--Jon Acuff

Photo link here.

Cartoon of the day

Source here.

Quotes of the day

The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.--W.H. Auden

Michael Barrier complains that Pixar films are too emotionally manipulative, which apparently undermines them as Serious Art; some folks in comments on other sites said hell yeah, I was hoping Wall-E would stay dead at the end. Because REAL ART IS DARK AND CHARACTERS STAY DEAD. Also, the toys in TS3 should have gone into the furnace. In real serious non-manipulative art, Frodo gets knifed in a bar on the second day of his quest, I guess. Also “Up” was manipulative because we didn’t know anything about the characters at the beginning, but were forced to cry because they looked at clouds while Randy Newman music played, and then she died. Doesn’t seem to occur to the writer that the film’s ability to bond the audience to the story and the characters without dialogue or explication was something you can only do in the CGI or animation medium; a live-action version of “Up” would be risable. The first ten minutes of the movie anchored everything that came afterwards. The end of Wall-E wasn’t just about providing a rote happy ending, it was about investing hope and humanity in EVE. Wall-E is a simpleton, and doesn’t change; it’s EVE who’s really on the journey AND YES I AM TALKING ABOUT CARTOON ROBOTS. I know that. But I love these films, and I love this medium, and I wish everyone would just relax.--James Lileks

... recall that the Constitution calls for maintaining a navy, but raising an Army only as required--Christopher Preble

The Christian needs to be generous, but generous charity is not the answer to the world’s most pressing problems of hunger, inadequate medical care, and grinding poverty. Wealth is created in places where the rule of law is upheld, property rights are secured, people are free to be entrepreneurs, and there is sufficient social capital to encourage risk-taking. We can and should do good with our giving. But we must not lead people to believe that most of human suffering would be alleviated if we simply gave more.--Kevin DeYoung

In a newly released report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that, in fiscal year 2010, $48 billion in taxpayer money was squandered on fraudulent or improper Medicare claims. Meanwhile, the nation’s ten largest health insurance companies made combined profits of $12.7 billion in 2010 (according to Fortune 500). In other words, for every $1 made by the nation’s ten largest insurers, Medicare lost nearly $4.--Jeffrey Anderson

after being down 24 just minutes earlier, Orlando built up a seven-point lead. At that point, I figured James or Wade would take over. But … no. Wade made two free throws in the fourth quarter. James didn’t score at all.  With eight seconds left, Miami needed a three-pointer to tie. Chris Bosh ended up taking that three, which might tell you something right there. After a flurry and a rebound by Mike Miller, the ball was kicked out to LeBron James who was wide open for a three. He missed. And Orlando beat the Heat, who at that moment had lost three times in four games. This led to much speculation about how LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are getting along on the court. This has led to much speculation about the coaching situation. Ah, the joys of South Beach talents.  Friday night, Miami played San Antonio, and I watched excitedly again. This game offered a different kind of fun. San Antonio outclassed Miami. It was mind boggling and wonderful. The Spurs embarrassed the Heat in the first quarter and led 36-12. The Heat made a reasonable second half comeback and trailed by only 12 at the break leading the announcers to suggest that Miami was still in the game. Miami was not in the game. The Heat’s halftime adjustment appeared to be: “Stop guarding them.” By the middle of the fourth quarter, San Antonio led by 31, and the camera kept cutting to Miami coach Erik Spoelstra because, let’s be blunt, he’s going to get fired really soon unless things get better pretty fast. The old line has never been more true: You can’t fire the players.--Joe Posnanski

Photo link here.

Quotes of the day

A light bulb sits on a store shelf for several weeks, is bought, taken home, and put in the cabinet for months and months. Alone and in the dark, in a way, it could feel that life, alone and in the dark, is a stupid, futile, pointless exercise. When, however, it is taken out of the cabinet and plugged in to the socket, all of a sudden it becomes useful; it serves a purpose, and all of the parts and pieces work together harmoniously to serve as a conduit for light. It is now doing what it was designed for, it is performing the job it was built for. This might be the same as what can happen with human beings. If this is the case, then the whole aspect of "creating" meaning does not work. It would be like the lightbulb taking up yoga or canvas painting in an effort to "create" meaning. While this might work for a little while as a temporary distraction and amusement, the light bulb would not experience permanent relief until it became plugged into the socket, or performed the exact function it was built for.--LiveReal

Psychologists at Boston University paired paintings by famous abstract expressionists with paintings by a child, monkey, chimpanzee, gorilla, and elephant. They presented the images side by side and asked students to judge which painting was of higher quality. One-third of the time, the art students chose the work of children and animals.--Maureen O'Connor

The NBA is a star-driven game unlike any other in American sports. Teams have won Super Bowls with Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer at quarterback. Teams have won World Series with Jose Rijo as a No. 1 starter, and with Jorge Orta hitting cleanup. But to build a championship NBA team, with almost no exception, you must have an all-time great player. It’s not ENOUGH to have an all-time great player — Utah didn’t win a title with John Stockton and Karl Malone; Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller did not win one; Dirk Nowitzki is a great player who so far has been unable to take his team to a title — but an all-time great player is the admission price.--Joe Posnanski

Women want independence but we are all hard-wired into wanting to be into relationships. The paradox of the post-feminist position is how we create a social system in which both independence and interdependency can flourish.--Roger Dobson and Maurice Chittenden

A chap with a high IQ is going to get a demanding job that is going to take up a lot of his energy and time. In many ways he wants a woman who is an old-fashioned wife and looks after the home, a copy of his mum in a way. “The bright girl, on the other hand, remembers that old saying that at first she sinks into his arms only to spend the rest of her life with her arms in his sink.--Clare Rayner

Intelligent men are able to increase their chances of marriage because they are willing to date outside of their IQ cohort. Intelligent women, it appears, are either unwilling to date and marry outside of their IQ cohort or are unable to do so. ... when a publication like TheGloss asks “why smart men date dumb women,” it is asking the wrong question. It should be asking why smart women refuse to reciprocate. --John Carney

More intelligent American boys are more likely to grow up to value sexual exclusivity in early adulthood than less intelligent boys. So the unwillingness of women to date less intelligent men is rational if they are seeking a mate who values monogamy and sexual exclusivity. But if intelligence and sexual exclusivity go hand in hand, why are men willing to date less intelligent women? Well, it turns out Santoshi's study proved something very interesting: for women, there is no statistically significant correlation between intelligence and valuing monogamy. Smarter women are no more likely to value sexual exclusivity than less intelligent women. Or, to flip it around, less intelligent women do not place a lower value on monogamy than more intelligent women. In other words, when women date less intelligent men they pay a cost: a diminished interest in sexual fidelity. Men don't pay this cost, making dating across the intelligence curve easier.--John Carney

... the U.S. effective corporate tax rate on new investment was 34.6 percent in 2010, which was the highest rate in the OECD and the fifth-highest rate among 83 countries. The average OECD rate was 18.6 percent, and the average rate for 83 countries was 17.7 percent.--Duanjie Chen and Jack Mintz

Within a decade after the Community Reinvestment Act was enacted, many banks created separate "community reinvestment" divisions that were often staffed by liberal individuals who sympathiszed with the aims of the community reeinventment movement. Indeed, some of these individuals had themselves been cummunity activitists who were recruited by banks to serve as liaisons with community groups. Activists pressured banks to invest more money in specific urban neighborhoods. Banks forged partnerships with community development corporations. See an Urban Studies professor's fawning praise for this result back in 2003 when it seemed like the model of good governmental activism. The result was a disaster. Not that this was a sufficient condition, but it surely contributed to the debacle in a bad way. The lesson is yet another example of the law of unintended consequences. Trying to do good via indirect methods is very dangerous because the economy is a complex system, and when bad things happen as they often do, there's no accountability, no one in the political system got booted out of office for championing NINJA loans, while investors took it on the chin.--Eric Falkenstein

Social Security must be addressed over the long term

I believe the reason why the tea partiers are afraid to cut it significantly in the short term is that it would really hurt the elderly. Neil King Jr. and Scott Greenberg report:

Less than a quarter of Americans support making significant cuts to Social Security or Medicare to tackle the country's mounting deficit, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, illustrating the challenge facing lawmakers who want voter buy-in to alter entitlement programs. In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was "unacceptable'' to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security "unacceptable." At the same time, a majority supported two specific measures that lawmakers might employ to shore up the shaky finances of the main entitlement programs. More than 60% of poll respondents supported reducing Social Security and Medicare payments to wealthier Americans. And more than half favored bumping the retirement age to 69 by 2075. The age to receive full benefits is 66 now and is scheduled to rise to 67 in 2027.

I'd agree to means testing for Social Security in the short term. But here is my long term fix, which does not disrupt in the short term, and can also be applied to healthcare entitlements.  I think it's a better idea.

Quotes of the day

For humans, context matters more than content. A computer does not have existential angst. It does not hold grudges or have its reactions shaped by its childhood experience. It does not respond to a remark based on the previous conversations and how that colors the sense of the other person's interests and emotions. These dimensions of human interaction are flattened as we sink into the texting, twittering world.--Rick Brookstaber

Staid maintenance of the status quo may not be a sign of life; it may even be a sign of death.--Don Carson

A few weeks back I got push-back from commenters who seemed to think I was naive in arguing that politicians shouldn’t favor the special interest groups that got them elected. Politics is about doing deals (they argued)—I help your special interest, you help mine. But if it was so easy to do Pareto-improving deals, then why are the economies of corrupt countries so messed up? I’m afraid that altruism is our only hope. Without at least somewhat idealistic politicians, there is no hope, no safety net to stop us from falling into into a gangster state. And we won’t have civic-minded politicians without a civic-minded public. All over the world (except Denmark) moms are inculcating dictator values into their cute little babies—raising the next generation of Putins and Berlusconis.--Scott Sumner

Health care, I finally found out how expensive it is, especially when you have a family.--All-Pro, first round draft pick linebacker Jerod Mayo who signed a 5-year $19 million contract

If you think that the cuts will cause a direct loss of 650,000 government jobs, as many bloggers seem to, you're saying that cutting Federal spending by 1.6% is somehow going to cause the federal government to shed more than 20% of its workforce. Alternatively, if we're talking about all government jobs, we're saying that a 1% drop in all government spending will cause government at all levels to lay off 3% of their workforce--even though government employment is, as we've seen, pretty hard to cut. Using these "standard multipliers", if we cut government spending by 1/3, then government at all levels would employ no one at all.--Megan McArdle

McKinsey, the global consulting firm, has created dubious strategies for all manners of companies ranging from Enron to General Electric. Indeed, where ever there has been a financial disaster in the world, if you look around, somewhere in the background, McKinsey & Co. is nearby.--Barry Ritholtz

McKinsey believe that intellectual brawn is more important than practical experience McKinsey prefers to hire new consultants straight out of places like Harvard Business School rather than from industry itself. A McKinsey partner once told Forbes Magazine: "We don't learn from clients, their standards aren't high enough. We learn from other McKinsey partners." ... Even by McKinsey standards, [Enron's President Jeff] Skilling was phenomenally successful, rising through the extremely competitive ranks with startling speed. It normally took a successful McKinsey consultant seven years to become a partner and twelve to become a director. Skilling made partner in five years and director in ten. He is still proud of the fact that only a handful of people (including Lou Gerstner) rose through the ranks faster than he did. McKinsey perfectly suited his strengths, but also played to his weaknesses. Working there only heightened his natural arrogance. [Skilling] embraced the firm's ruthlessness, and was never much of a team player. Other McKinsey partners described Skilling as "sometimes wrong, but never in doubt." Ultimately, McKinsey was the formative experience of Skilling's business life. Though McKinsey has since sought to distance itself from Enron, much of what he brought to Enron--not only ideas about how to reshape the natural gas industry but ideas about what a company should value and how it should be run--came out of his experience as McKinsey.--Jeff Kosty

I can't sympathize with a union that fights to keep exactly as many jobs at exactly the same pay forever, even after the owners offer to pension off the displaced current workers at full pay. If unions had been doing this sort of thing in 1810, we'd all still be working in cotton mills and dying at 45.--Megan McArdle

Several commenters have pointed out that the conflict in Wisconsin is not (directly) about wages, benefits or working conditions, but rather about collective bargaining. This seems to me to be a distinction without a difference; nobody would care about collective bargaining unless they expected it to affect wages, benefits, and/or working conditions. The point stands that workers who are very upset about losing their collective bargaining rights must expect to use those rights to achieve above-market compensation.--Steve Landsburg

Voters are not merely ignorant; their beliefs about policy-relevant subjects are often systematically biased. Voters systematically overestimate the fraction of the federal budget spent on foreign aid and welfare, and underestimate the fraction spent on Social Security and health.--Bryan Caplan, Eric Crampton, Wayne Grove, Ilya Somin

In 1999, I co-authored a book called "Dow 36,000" that became, in some circles, a notorious symbol for bullishness about the stock market. While the book had a provocative title, its fundamental message was mainstream: Long-term investors should load up on U.S. stocks. ... I was wrong.--James Glassman

Glassman’s … conclusion is exactly the opposite of the truth. He explains that “stocks appreciate faster than real estate; they always have and they always will. The reason is that a share of stock is a piece of a company in which minds are producing value. Real estate just sits there.” The truth is that stocks appreciate faster than houses precisely because a house does not just sit there; it provides shelter, warmth, and closet space every single day that you own it. Stocks need to appreciate faster to compensate for the fact that they don’t provide any comparable stream of services. If stocks and real estate appreciated at the same rate (counting the dividends as part of the appreciation, as Glassman does), nobody would own stocks.--Steve Landsburg

My guess is that if you want to improve health outcomes in the United States, ignore health insurance and focus on literacy. Even if it has nothing to do with whether or not they can follow a doctor's written instructions, my guess is that better literacy has a positive impact on health outcomes. The question is whether educators know enough about how to improve literacy to be able to do so effectively.--Arnold Kling

You seem to make better decisions when you have a full bladder.--Mirjam Tuk

Quotes of the day

Goldman knows, even though it's a mighty company, it survives at the sufferance of the U.S. government.--Steve Forbes

Thanks for the sh…ty service, negative tip – you owe me 25 cents.--Bill Gross, to a waitress

Police Chief Jack Harris said he will not be stepping down amid controversy over his department’s reported kidnapping statistics for 2008. ... The controversy stems from allegations that the Phoenix Police Department misrepresented the number of kidnappings in the city. The department received $1.7 million in federal grant money to deal with the problem.--Catherine Holland

There’s no way you can run the kind of deficits we’re running—and this is true around the world—without it being enormously inflationary. No politician is going to come out and say we’re really going to solve this by making our money worth less. It would be suicide to do this (but) that’s the practical effect of the policies that are being followed now.--Warren Buffett

Massachusetts, "Romney Care" is nothing but ObamaCare in that state. If the federal government was not bailing out Massachusetts then it would have failed in that state I believe. It was just disastrous. We need to stop it.--Representative Paul Broun

Earlier this week, I wrote a short post at my personal blog drawing a parallel between the American left's new-found, pro-union, placard-waving enthusiasm and the tea-party movement. Reading the comments, the comparison seems to have pleased no one. But I'm especially interested in the reaction from the left. The tea-party movement, you see, is an "astroturf" movement, financed by billionaire puppetmasters, fueled by hatred, agitating for rank injustice. The labour movement, on the other hand, is the real deal: a bottom-up coalition of working Americans courageously standing up against the thuggery of bought-and-paid-for Republicans and their shamelessly insatiable plutocrat bosses. This zanily Manichean way of characterising the situation I think rather confirms my suspicion that the equivalence I drew is sound.--Will Wilkinson

I love the performance of a craft, whether it is modest or mean-spirited, yet I walk away when discussions of it begin - as if one should ask a gravedigger what brand of shovel he uses or whether he prefers to work at noon or in moonlight. I am interested only in the care taken, and those secret rehearsals behind it. Even if I do not understand fully what is taking place.—-Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero

The rewards for the dumb staying in school or working long hours are considerably smaller, so they rationally choose more leisure time. What’s more, with the economy geared in ways that limit their opportunities, attaching themselves to a smart mate is one of the few tactics for economic advancement. So dumb chicks have both greater opportunities and greater incentives to try harder to date smart men than smart women do.--John Carney

Cartoon of the day

Source here.

Government Bimbo of the Day

is the Environmental Protection Agency's Chief of air programs.

Decided not to post a picture. You are welcome.

Quotes of the day

... President Barack Obama’s aides often steer meetings with lobbyists to a complex just off the White House grounds — and several of the lobbyists involved say they believe the choice of venue is no accident. It allows the Obama administration to keep these lobbyist meetings shielded from public view — and out of Secret Service logs kept on visitors to the White House and later released to the public.--Chris Frates

... if we are serious about having real change in this country, then we have to start putting America’s interests ahead of the special interests. We have to break the stranglehold that the lobbyists and special interests have on our democracy. That’s why I have offered the most far-reaching ethics and lobbying reform plan of any candidate in this race. It’s a set of proposals that I will begin enacting on my very first day as President – a plan to make the White House the people’s house and send the Washington lobbyists back to K Street. Now I know you’ve heard politicians make these promises before. And then they get to Washington and nothing happens. So it’s easy to be cynical. But this isn’t just the rhetoric of a campaign for me, this has been the cause of my life. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.--Barack Obama, in 2007

Quotes of the day

The high unemployment we are experiencing now is due to low private investment rather than low government spending. By reducing some uncertainty and the threats of exploding debt, the House spending proposal will encourage private investment.--John Taylor

It's rather amazing that so much money can disappear like that, but given the Department of Education spends $60B and the CIA spends $28B on nothing I am aware of, I guess one should never underestimate the ability of a bureaucracy to spend.--Eric Falkenstein

The whole government is a Ponzi scheme.--Bernie Madoff

Today's taxpayers contribute money that is funneled to today's Social Security recipients, and hope that tomorrow's taxpayers will put in enough money to fund their retirements. Something similar is true of government finance in general: Those who buy Treasury securities and municipal bonds do so on the assumption that future taxpayers (and bond investors) will keep pouring in enough money to allow governments to make good on their commitments.--Justin Fox, in 2008

Money will always flow toward opportunity, and there is an abundance of that in America. Commentators today often talk of “great uncertainty.” But think back, for example, to December 6, 1941, October 18, 1987 and September 10, 2001. No matter how serene today may be, tomorrow is always uncertain. Don’t let that reality spook you. Throughout my lifetime, politicians and pundits have constantly moaned about terrifying problems facing America. Yet our citizens now live an astonishing six times better than when I was born. The prophets of doom have overlooked the all-important factor that is certain: Human potential is far from exhausted, and the American system for unleashing that potential–a system that has worked wonders for over two centuries despite frequent interruptions for recessions and even a Civil War–remains alive and effective. We are not natively smarter than we were when our country was founded nor do we work harder. But look around you and see a world beyond the dreams of any colonial citizen. Now, as in 1776, 1861, 1932 and 1941, America’s best days lie ahead.--Warren Buffett

Our country’s social goal should not be to put families into the house of their dreams, but rather to put them into a house they can afford. ... The fundamental principle of auto racing is that to finish first, you must first finish. That dictum is equally applicable to business and guides our every action at Berkshire. Unquestionably, some people have become very rich through the use of borrowed money. However, that’s also been a way to get very poor. When leverage works, it magnifies your gains. Your spouse thinks you’re clever, and your neighbors get envious. But leverage is addictive. Once having profited from its wonders, very few people retreat to more conservative practices. And as we all learned in third grade – and some relearned in 2008 – any series of positive numbers, however impressive the numbers may be, evaporates when multiplied by a single zero. History tells us that leverage all too often produces zeroes, even when it is employed by very smart people--Warren Buffett

... attending a college with higher SAT scores clearly lowered the wages of women 17-26 years after starting college (in 1976) — a school with a 100-point higher average SAT score reduced earnings by about 6-7%! The two estimates there are significant at ~0.01% level! (The other three, for other periods after starting college, are significant at the 5% level.) One obvious explanation is that women at more elite colleges married richer classmate men, and so felt less need to earn money themselves. Why don’t the study’s authors want us to hear about that?--Robin Hanson

The benefit-cost evaluation of any suggested widespread [medical] screening would depend on the net effect of the factors I discussed. First of all, benefits depend on the size of the gain in treatment from early detection of a disease or other medical problems. This gain has to be adjusted for the probability of finding a serious problem since the lower that probability, the less the expected gain from extensive screening. Costs start with the cost of the methods used to screen, including the value of the time and inconvenience of individuals being screened. The likelihood of various side effects from these methods also must be weighed. The fear engendered by false positives can be important, although that has to be balanced against the peace of mind that comes from getting (true) negative results. Preventive care is often considered the gold standard of good medical practice. It is easy to get both doctors and patients to agree when either the government (i.e., taxpayers) or insurance companies (i.e., others who are insured) pay the vast majority of the costs. A rethinking of this standard is warranted, and such a rethinking would be encouraged if individuals paid a much larger fraction of their out of pocket medical expenses.--Gary Becker

The world is filled up to groaning with untruths. They hook themselves into our flesh and hearts, tugging us in wrong directions, distorting us. We learn hunger for what does not fill, thirst for what does not slake, longing for what brings no comfort. We are taught that none of us is beautiful. We come to feel we do not belong. We come to believe that home is a house, and love a feeling. The world overflows with untruth, and our children are tempted to drink from this arid fountain every day.--Tony Woodlief

Intrade Oscar prediction roundup

Back in December, I posted a snapshot of Academy Awards predictions. At the time, I couldn't find a comparable prediction site, and while I meant to look some more in January, I was just too busy with other priorities. These results aren't nearly as interesting unless benchmarked or in competition with another popular source.

The Intrade futures pricing back in December predicted the winners of the Best Actor and Best Actress awards. While they missed on Best Picture and Best Director, February prices for The King's Speech were quite predictive, trading above 80% all month.

Intrade traders missed Tom Hooper's win, as his February prices traded above 50% before dipping back into the 30s, while David Fincher (director of The Social Network) traded in the 40s before popping back up around 60%.

Heading out of town with the family

Will resume blogging at the end of February.

Quotes of the day

So tightening legal gun ownership will do little to reduce the number of guns in the hands of criminals and unstable individuals. Indeed, it could increase the number held by would-be or actual criminals since the supply of guns available in the illegal market would increase, at least initially, as some of the guns that are pushed out of the legal market by more stringent controls would migrate to the illegal sector. While some criminals may decide they no longer need guns since victims would be less likely to have them, others who would not have used guns before might now decide that guns would give them a greater advantage in attempted robberies. The most effective way to reduce the number of guns in the hands of criminals without reducing the number of guns legally owned is to punish persons who own guns illegally and those who use guns when committing crimes. Many jurisdictions already punish more heavily individuals who use guns while committing crimes, but it may be necessary to make that additional punishment more severe. The expectation that punishments will be severe to apprehended criminals who had used guns in their crimes will induce some criminals either to use less lethal weapons, or to go out of the criminal business entirely.--Gary Becker

The lethal blow that the Internet has helped to deliver to the Mubarak regime is likely to push fellow tyrants to catch up on the latest developments in Silicon Valley and learn the ropes of online propaganda. Take the Khaled Said incident. Although the two police officers suspected of beating up Mr. Said were eventually arrested, the Egyptian government ignored the anger of their netizens for far too long. That anger subsided, but it never went away; the turn of events in Tunisia helped to reinvigorate it. Compare Egypt's experience to a similar case in China, where in 2009 Li Qiaoming, a 24-year-old peasant detained for illegal logging, was soon reported dead. The police told Mr. Li's parents, implausibly, that he had hit his head on a wall while playing a game of hide-and-seek with fellow inmates. The incident quickly generated almost 100,000 comments on just one popular Chinese blogging site, and the authorities reacted quickly. Instead of trying to suppress online conversation, they reached out to the outraged netizens, inviting them to apply to become members of a commission to investigate the circumstances of Mr. Li's death. The resulting commission wasn't really allowed to investigate anything, of course, but by then the social unrest was quelled. ... The most urgent Internet question facing many dictators today is what to do about American social networking sites like Facebook. Many are bound to follow the lead of Russia and China, which have championed homegrown competitors. An online group calling for the overthrow of the Russian government wouldn't survive for long on Vkontakte, Russia's alternative to Facebook.--EVGENY MOROZOV

Chart of the day: President Obama's budget leadership

Via Keith Hennessey.

UPDATE:  Megan McArdle helpfully analyzes the tie between President Obama and Wisconsin.

Quotes of the day

Believe it or not, the Securities and Exchange Act does not apply to members of Congress, according to Craig Holman, legislative representative at government watchdog group Public Citizen.--Justin Rohrlich

In the ’90s, it was the dumb leading the dumb: smooth-talking MBAs were raising money from hapless LPs and investing it in startups run by other smooth-talking MBAs. Now it’s Yuri Milner investing in a company run by Mark Zuckerberg.--Paul Graham

The simple reality is that the interpretation of forensic evidence is not always based on scientific studies.--National Academy of Sciences

Apparently pigeons are better at forecasting than humans are.--Catherine Rampell

European explorers had been aware for a long time that the irregular rhythms of African drums were carrying mysterious messages through the jungle. Explorers would arrive at villages where no European had been before and find that the village elders were already prepared to meet them. ... Kele is a tonal language with two sharply distinct tones. Each syllable is either low or high. The drum language is spoken by a pair of drums with the same two tones. Each Kele word is spoken by the drums as a sequence of low and high beats. In passing from human Kele to drum language, all the information contained in vowels and consonants is lost. In a European language, the consonants and vowels contain all the information, and if this information were dropped there would be nothing left. But in a tonal language like Kele, some information is carried in the tones and survives the transition from human speaker to drums. The fraction of information that survives in a drum word is small, and the words spoken by the drums are correspondingly ambiguous. A single sequence of tones may have hundreds of meanings depending on the missing vowels and consonants. The drum language must resolve the ambiguity of the individual words by adding more words. When enough redundant words are added, the meaning of the message becomes unique.--Freeman Dyson

As [Hannah] Arendt pointed out in her classic study The Origins of Totalitarianism, the inability of these ruling elites in France, Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the Slavic states to retain their legitimacy in the face of waves of nationalist convulsions ignited by “the people”—the opening chapter being the uprisings of 1848—led to the collapse of the post-Napoleonic European order that had been negotiated in the Congress of Vienna. This created the conditions for the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian empires and resulted in decades of tyranny and bloodshed. A direct line connects the “Spring of Nations” and the wars of the last century. From that perspective, the protests in Egypt may not mark the beginning of a peaceful transition to liberal democracy along the lines of what happened in the former Soviet bloc in 1989. Instead, the insurgencies in the Middle East look more like the revolts of 1848, the start of a long and chaotic era that will not necessarily bring about political and economic progress. The narrative that romances the revolution could be replaced with a much more complex story, one with no happy ending.--Leon Hadar

Relative to a status quo of no or limited international trade, permitting full free trade across borders will leave in its wake some immediate losers, but citizens who gain from such trade gain much more than the losers lose. On a net basis, therefore, each nation gains over all from such trade.--Uwe Reinhardt

... liberals that like to argue that the US should be more like Canada or Denmark should know that the Heritage Foundation agrees.--Mutual Information

Once fundamental measurement problems were solved -- involving time, distance, weights, and power, among others -- it became possible to cheaply measure worker performance, input and output quality, and the role of nature, in areas of life that were unheard of before. This ability to cheaply measure ushered in the world of modern institutions.--Douglas Allen

Quotes of the day

By the time Shakespeare turned to writing, these “cultural paywalls” were abundant in London: workers holding moneyboxes (bearing the distinctive knobs found by the archaeologists) stood at the entrances of a growing number of outdoor playhouses, collecting a penny for admission. At day’s end, actors and theater owners smashed open the earthenware moneyboxes and divided the daily take. From those proceeds dramatists were paid to write new plays. For the first time ever, it was possible to earn a living writing for the public. Money changed everything. Almost overnight, a wave of brilliant dramatists emerged, including Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. These talents and many comparable and lesser lights had found the opportunity, the conditions and the money to pursue their craft. The stark findings of this experiment? As with much else, literary talent often remains undeveloped unless markets reward it.--SCOTT TUROW, PAUL AIKEN and JAMES SHAPIRO

I envisioned myself as the Great Carbon-Based Hope against a new generation of thinking machines—which, if Hollywood is to believed, will inevitably run amok, build unstoppable robot shells, and destroy us all. But at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Lab, an Eero Saarinen-designed fortress in the snowy wilds of New York's Westchester County, where the shows taped last month, I wasn't the hero at all. I was the villain.--Ken Jennings

I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.--Ken Jennings

A bettor playing Gulfstream Park's races last month cashed a ticket that was almost unprecedented in U. S. parimutuel wagering. He collected $221,677 for a winning combination that cost 10 cents. The wager, dubbed the Rainbow Six, represents an innovation sweeping the sport: the microbet. Whereas the $2 bet once was the industry's standard, and most exotic wagers have been sold in $1 units, many tracks have begun to offer smaller bets.--Andrew Beyer

Work on your impulse control. ... Just try and think things through a little bit before you do them.--Charlie Sheen's advice to Lindsay Lohan

Did I just quote Ben Franklin and Whitney Houston while thinking about the Bible? I am the worst parent ever.--Jon Acuff

I hereby dissent from the dissent from the dissent. My dissent is different from all those other dissents, which is why I am dissenting.--Michael Lewis

The mortgage people didn’t see any problems because there’d never been a default, except for one manufactured housing (mobile home) deal in the early 1990’s in California.--John Paulson

The reason I find this so striking is that this is the same sort of thing we’re now hearing about muni-bonds. The “muni people” are pretty much united in the view that munis are safe, that talk of large losses is irresponsible and the product of novice minds looking at a market they don’t understand. After all, investment grade munis never default. I’m worried that the same kind of tunnel vision that blinded so many of the smartest minds on Wall Street to the fragility of the mortgage market may be operating in munis.--John Carney

A homeowner has begun foreclosure proceedings on a local Wells Fargo Office in Pennsylvania.--Ash Bennington

In a small flat in the German town of Erlangen in February 2003, an out-of-work Iraqi sat down with his wife to watch one of the world's most powerful men deliver the speech of his career on live TV. As US secretary of state, Colin Powell gathered his notes in front of the United Nations security council, the man watching — Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, known to the west's intelligence services as "Curveball" — had more than an inkling of what was to come. He was, after all, Powell's main source, a man his German handlers had feted as a new "Deep throat" — an agent so pivotal that he could bring down a government. As Curveball watched Powell make the US case to invade Iraq, he was hiding an admission that he has not made until now: that nearly every word he had told his interrogators from Germany's secret service, the BND, was a lie.--Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd

The revolution in Egypt has reopened a long-simmering debate about the “freedom agenda” that animated George W. Bush’s presidency. Was he right after all, as his supporters have argued? Are they claiming credit he does not deserve? And has President Obama picked up the mantle of democracy and made it his own?--Peter Baker

Usually, I have stronger visceral reactions to things I read, not so much videos

Today was different: here is Felix Salmon being interviewed by Aaron Ross Sorkin.

Here is my incredulous comment:

I think that Felix is going to make stocks less accessible to the general public by eliminating high frequency trading. Decimalization, electronic trading, and now HFT have provided incredible liquidity. A stock trade now costs $2 (in 2011 dollars) not $200 (in 1971 dollars). And this is because of moving from eighths to decimals, and because of moving from specialists, $2 brokers, and block desks.

Which crash was worse and took longer to recover from? 1987 or the Flash Crash? HFT is estimated to take $2 billion in profits out of the market, but I wouldn't be surprised $20 billion has been returned to retail investors by financial disintermediation, if it is on the order of the reduction in commissions retail investors pay. [Note: I should have also commented "not to mention crossing a spread of 1 or 2 pennies instead of 12.5 to 25 cents"].

And if regulation makes public corporations more expensive to run, of course there will be fewer, larger corporations because of economies to scale.

Of course publics will be taken private and left that way, if listing and reporting requirements are significantly less of a burden. This is just natural incentives. Regulation ain't free, as much as anyone wants to wave it away. Before the Internet, I used to have to go to the DMV and stand in long queues. If I could have avoided that with a cheaper alternative (like I have now), I would have chosen the process today. That is the choice I see companies making.

The market capitalization of the NYSE in 1950 was about $100 billion. Now it's about $15 trillion. So yes, the number of listed stocks has halved from 8,000 to 4,000. So instead of holding 50 stocks in a portfolio, hold 25! What is the right number of listings? I'm not sure how much difference there would be between 5- and 10,000.

Salmon and Sorkin are great writers, but this was a puff piece.

Quotes of the day

Know someone. Or know someone who knows someone. If you’re a guy, bring attractive women—ideally younger women in designer clothes. Don’t go with other dudes. And doormen are well versed in trendiness, so wear Coach, Prada, Gucci—but don’t show up in a nice suit with DSW shoes. ... Bouncers are status judges who make hundreds of status decisions every night. They do it by having hundreds of patrons line up and on the basis of very little information, they size up who will be an esteemed customer.--Sociologist Lauren Rivera

... take an item from years past and ask what we could afford to buy today with the same number of labor hours. So take the $400 TV from 1973. At the 2009 wage of $18.72, the 97.1 hours of labor it took to earn that $400 in 1973 would net you $1817.71. So with the same work that would have purchased what, by our standards, was a pretty crappy color TV in 1973, we could today buy a darn-near top of the line very large flat-screen with 3D. Or alternatively, we could go to Walmart and get a relatively cheap LCD TV that would still be a way better product than the 1973 TV and tack onto it a surround sound system, a blu-ray player, and then for giggles maybe a cheap laptop and a small iPod and maybe even a digital camera and still have change left for some DVDs and software. And all of this ignores the increased variety and higher quality of the artistic creations one can enjoy on all of those toys. Looked at this way, it's just a no-brainer. When you tack on the fact that crime rates are down from the 1970s and the advances in medical care (even if their second derivative is negative, which is questionable) and the cleaner air and water, why exactly would anyone think it was better back then? And presented this way, one could make a reasonable case that the second derivative isn't negative either. Despite what the aggregates show, it's possible that what our time can buy us is growing at a steady, if not increasing, rate.--Steven Horwitz

... let's remember that by their own admission Keynesians believe that Keynesian politics also failed during the Great Depression.--Alex Tabarrok

I notice that Paul Krugman is now saying fiscal stimulus was never tried. That’s right; America didn’t do any fiscal stimulus. Funny, I seem to recall he argued that fiscal stimulus was responsible for the relatively fast RGDP growth of 2009:Q4. ... Keynesians like to act like there is some sort of rigorously scientific model behind their calls for the government to waste hundreds of billions of dollars. Now we find that two of the top Keynesian commentators don’t even agree on whether tax cuts count as stimulus. If they don’t, Thoma’s point is flat out wrong. If they do, Krugman’s post is completely inaccurate. ... Krugman’s new argument makes it extremely likely that the $1.3 billion stimulus package that he preferred, that the Keynesian models suggested was needed, would also have been a giant flop. --Scott Sumner

There is no such thing as “shovel ready.” In my view we learned that from the 1970s stimulus packages, and indeed it is part of the reason that many of us teach in elementary economics that such discretionary stimulus packages are ineffective. There were also two missing chairs on the witness panel, which reminded me of an op-ed I wrote for the Washington Post several years ago called “The Empty Chair at the Iraq Hearings.” The name plate on the desk in front of one of the missing chairs said “Dr. Christina Romer” and the other said “Dr. Jared Bernstein.” Of course, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein were the authors of the influential economic white paper on the stimulus package back in January 2009. They were invited to testify and give their views as the authors of that paper, but they declined. So the Committee decided to set up empty chairs, making a point similar to my earlier op-ed though on a different topic. To be sure, a broader discussion would be welcome.--John Taylor

Indeed if tax regimes really didn’t matter, it would be pretty difficult to explain why New Hampshire’s population has grown much faster than any of the other New England states.--Scott Sumner

Map of the day: Moderation a growth factor?

Source here, via Derek Thompson.

I was a crafty liar, but you should have known I was lying!

That B.M. is a real piece of work.

Markets save lives, governments snuff them out

Via Greg Mankiw.

Scott Sumner's Wheel of Politics

Some context:

I should explain what I mean by “corrupt.” I don’t mean politicians taking bribes that violate existing laws. I mean Republicans who support various special interest groups like doctors and seniors (Medicare), farmers, energy producers, car dealers, bankers, and the rich, even if it goes against their supposed “small government” ideology. And the same would be true about Democrats who support various special interest groups like teachers unions, trial lawyers, government workers, etc, for non-utilitarian/non-egalitarian reasons.

I should add that most people I know do not fit neatly into any of the six categories I listed, but rather are a composite of two or more categories. Also, the reason there are four right wing and only two left wing categories is because US politics is dominated by the right. The missing categories are non-utilitarian leftists, such as Maoists who hate the rich, or radical environmentalists who care more about “The Earth” than human welfare.

Read the whole thing.

Chart of the day: Marginal expenditures across the globe

Source here, via Abnormal Returns.