Animal Matrix

Scott Adams view at a non-violent, non-shameful, and celibate future:

Long term, I think science will come up with a drug that keeps men chemically castrated for as long as they are on it. It sounds bad, but I suspect that if a man loses his urge for sex, he also doesn’t miss it. Men and women would also need a second drug that increases oxytocin levels in couples who want to bond. Copulation will become extinct. Men who want to reproduce will stop taking the castration drug for a week, fill a few jars with sperm for artificial insemination, and go back on the castration pill.

That might sound to you like a horrible world. But the oxytocin would make us a society of huggers, and no one would be treated as a sex object. You’d have no rape, fewer divorces, stronger friendships, and a lot of other advantages. I think that’s where we’re headed in a few generations.

Photo link here.

The Earth ... is actually headed into a mini Ice Age

... heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity.

UPDATE: The indefatigable Steve McIntyre makes another point (for science):

Returning now to the original lead to the IPCC Press Release on renewables:

Close to 80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies a new report shows.

The basis for this claim is a Greenpeace scenario. The Lead Author of the IPCC assessment of the Greenpeace scenario was the same Greenpeace employee who had prepared the Greenpeace scenarios, the introduction to which was written by IPCC chair Pachauri.

The public and policy-makers are starving for independent and authoritative analysis of precisely how much weight can be placed on renewables in the energy future. It expects more from IPCC WG3 than a karaoke version of Greenpeace scenario.

Photo link here.

Surgery may become a thing of the past

but not in the way we'd like.

This was shockingly bad journalism

Methinks the Washington Post is going the way of the New York Times:

1. The most important thing about the ethanol subsidy is that it is bad policy, as the Post editorial page and even previous supporters acknowledge.
2. The next most important thing about the ethanol subsidy is that it is a classic case of rent-seeking. The beneficiaries are relatively few but relatively well organized. It is in the interest of politicians to vote to keep it, even though it is against the interest of most of their constituents.
3. Finally, if you still think that the important issue in the vote concerns what it says about your willingness to raise taxes, then certainly the Democrats are being hypocritical by voting as a bloc to keep the subsidy. Why is it the alleged Republican hypocrisy that gets all of the focus?
4. In explaining the defeat of the Republican attempt to end the subsidy, the article focuses on the actions of Grover Norquist. However, Norquist's influence is presumably on Republicans. But most of those who voted to keep the subsidy were Democrats, and the story offers no insight into how they were persuaded.

Photo link here.

UPDATE:  Steve Landsburg has some good thoughts, too:

Here is Senator John Thune (R-SD), speaking on the floor of the United States Senate:

Ethanol producers have been ripping us off for a long time, and they’ve come to rely on that for a source of income. So it’s only fair to let them rip us off a little longer.

I’m quoting from memory, so I might have the wording slightly off, but that was the gist of it. Oh, wait, here’s the exact quote:

We have a lot of folks who made investments, you have people across the country whose livelihoods depend upon this. I think it makes sense, when we put policy in place and we say it is going to be in place for a certain period of time, that it be honored.

As you can see, my parapharase was accurate.

Senator Thune speaks in the great tradition of his institution. Back in 1848, senators by the score made exactly the same argument for preserving slavery. A lot of folks had invested in slaves, you know. And their livelihoods depended on it.

Chart of the day: Technology traffic

Source here, via Abraham Piper.

Cartoon of the day: teaching our kids to be good little citizens

Source here.

Map of the day: Water is freer than land

Source here.

Good, freer speech

JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF report:

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

I can't help think that these will some day be used against the U.S. Government, sort of like some of the weapons we sell abroad. That, too, is generally good.

Chart of the day: The Facebook Factor

Source here, via Tyler Cowen.  Claire Cain Miller reports:

Some question whether the surge in interest is a passing fad fueled by frenzy over iPhone apps and LinkedIn’s soaring initial public offering, just as enrollment in computer science spiked during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

But educators say this time is different.

“What we’re seeing now is a better-motivated upsurge,” said Ed Lazowska, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, “students who understand that they really need to know this material.”

And the movie can’t hurt, he said, because at least it has transformed the image of a programmer. Computer scientists are finally getting the treatment that doctors got with “Grey’s Anatomy” and reporters with “All the President’s Men.”

“We’ve been saying for 15 years, ‘If we could just get a show like the lawyer and doctor shows that make being a software person sexy,’ ” Mr. Lazowska said.

I was foolish enough to stumble through several computer science classes. I'm beginning to suspect now that I was a Manchurian candidate.

Is it me, or is this more Eminem than Vanilla Ice

As Darth Vader might say: the circle is now complete.

Quotes of the day

We have the best government that money can buy.--Mark Twain

... the financial system only gets tested in times of crisis — at which point regulation comes too late.--Andrew Ross Sorkin

Currently there are about 246 drugs that are in short supply, a record high. These shortages are not just a result of accident, error or unusual circumstance, the number of drugs in short supply has risen steadily since 2006. The shortages arise from a combination of systematic factors, among them the policies of the FDA. The FDA has inadvertently caused drugs long-used in the United States to be withdrawn from the market and it’s “Good Manufacturing Practice” rules have gummed up the drug production process and raised costs.--Alex Tabarrok

... how far can disorder extend? We have a tendency to think that the intrinsic state of a protein is a more or less orderly one, which we just refer to (if we do at all) as "folded". (You can divide that into two further classes - "properly folded" when the protein does what we want it to do, and "improperly folded" when it doesn't. There are a number of less polite synonyms for that latter state as well). Are all proteins so well folded, though? It's becoming increasingly clear that the answer is no, they aren't.--Derek Lowe

Mitt Romney and (gulp) Michelle Bachmann gave the strongest performances. That's not a good sign for the GOP, since I don't see a realistic path for either of them in the general election. Romney is going to have a hard time running against "Obomneycare" and Bachmann will frighten off anyone to the left of her tea party supporters, which includes the whole country.--Megan McArdle

I love von Mises [like "Human Action" and "Bureaucracy].  When I go on vacation and I lay on the beach, I bring von Mises.--Michelle Bachman

Not all government spending is created equal, for Keynesian purposes or otherwise.  There is plenty of spending we could cut without creating a Keynesian disaster, even if you accept the Keynesian framework straight up.--Tyler Cowen

I thought I was looking at a Saturday Night Live script [reading Larry Summers' FT column]. Who was in charge the past two years?--Steven Schwarzman

One Democratic financier invited to this month’s dinner, who asked for anonymity because he did not want to anger the White House, said it was ironic that the same president who once criticized bankers as “fat cats” would now invite them to dine at Daniel, where the six-course tasting menu runs to $195 a person. The donor declined the invitation.--NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

When a lot of hedge fund guys looked at Obama in 2007 and 2008, they saw themselves. He was a guy coming out of nowhere, rising quickly to the top. He was obviously smart. He embodied a promise of bringing America to a place beyond partisanship, beyond the stale politics of race and class. Hope. Change. Fire it up! When Obama seemed to turn against them, he broke this illusion. Suddenly, he was labeling the financial sector as “the other.” This betrayal was taken as a sign that Obama either was never as smart as he seemed—or that he had been corrupted by partisan politics.--John Carney

I've been lucky enough at various times to be associated with the White House and Harvard and all sorts of august institutions, and I always thought: I'm going to find Mozart at one of these places. It turns out, in my career, I've never found a Mozart. The Mozart of economics or of politics or of writing theatrical works. What I find is we've got a lot of Salieris out there trying to pluck out a reasonable tune. And that's probably good enough.--Todd Buchholz

If you were to ask these visitors, they would tell you that they came here only to admire the beauty of the town. And, to be fair, this is a beautiful town. Why shouldn’t it be? It is like a harlot who never soils her hands with useful work, and whose only occupation, outside of harlotry, is to preen and primp—at the expense of her admirers. Washington is, and ought to be, the most beautiful city in the country; it is also the most useless.--Frank Chodorov

Today, according to the statistics people look at, even with California’s bountiful resources, the most equitable climate in the entire continent, and with every blessing that God could bestow upon a land, people are finding a better place to live and work and raise their families out in the desolation of the Arizona and Nevada deserts. No conceivable act of God could ever wreak such devastation upon our state. It takes a government to do that. And it has.--Tom McClintock

I realize, now, the enormous special obstacles put in my path by my supposed colleagues, obstacles that over the years made earning a living or a quiet pursuit of my trade so unusually onerous, were not a matter of political difference; they were a declaration of my unworthiness to be one of them. The rejection was not of my ideas, but of my person. ... The next is my immediate community: Until now, the Hollywood culture kept mean-spirited and odious persecution carefully discussed out-of-earshot of we lepers; now, however, there appears to be no problem in openly admitting to cheap and easy prejudice. Few cancers are more lethal to a civil society than ideological bigotry. And no one can spread disease better than our industry.--Lionel Chetwynd

Wolfers has a disconcerting habit of publicly correcting others. If I had an unlimited budget, I'd hire Wolfers to preview everything I write to spare me potential embarrassment. ... If you simply want to predict fertility in a country that's modernizing - experiencing simultaneous increases in income, education, secularization, etc. - Wolfers' evidence is quite relevant. But if you want to predict families' fertility in response to an exogenous income shock - like a sudden inheritance or lottery win - my admittedly simple regressions are more informative. This brings us back to my original disagreement with Betsey Stevenson. My claim: When people discover needlessly laborious and painful forms of parenting, they enjoy an exogenous income shock. Consider a parent who discovers the Ferber method, gaining years of extra sleep. In a sense, he's suddenly richer. But who on earth would see this sharp reduction of sleep deprivation as a reason to have fewer kids?--Bryan Caplan

Maybe you think there is no moral obligation to keep your promises. Try it in the context of your personal life: it's okay for my boss to stiff me out of that raise they promised, because I can always quit. It's okay for my wife to cheat on me, because I can always get a divorce. It's okay for my roommate to neglect to pay her half of the rent on the first of the month, as long as she's willing to move out. It's perfectly fine for my son to default on that car I cosigned, because the lender has the option to sue me for the balance . . . hey, wait a minute! Suddenly it turns out that you think promises create a moral obligation--as long as those promises are made to you.--Megan McArdle

Rosemary Hunt Todd sang the alma mater and the school fight song and was greeted by a standing ovation from four returning reunion classes at Cornell University. And why not. Soon to be 102, Todd represented the Class of 1931 at Cornell's first 80th class reunion on Thursday evening, and she was struck by the adulation.--JOHN KEKIS

Photo links here, here, here, here and here.

Odious is the word

Tim Harford has a future in comedy.  I'd pay double the price for a hardback.  For the first time in a long time, I actually feel like my college education is adding value, because I can laugh at Tim's brilliance.

Chart of the day: Cycles

Source here.

Quotes of the day

It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.--Conan O'Brien

There is also smoke when someone puts water on the fire.--Dick Bove

... cash held by foreign banks jumps from $308 billion on November 3, or the official start of QE2, to $940 billion as of June 1: an almost dollar for dollar increase with the increase in Fed reserve balances. In other words, while the Fed did nothing to rescue foreign banks in the aftermath of the first Greek crisis, aside from opening up FX swap lines, one can argue that the whole point of QE2 was not so much to spike equity markets, or the proverbial "third mandate" of Ben Bernanke, but solely to rescue European banks!--Zero Hedge

Confidence. It does not prevent crisis, only delays it.--Eric Falkenstein

While I agree that many meat eaters can be obnoxious, inconsiderate and self-righteous in celebration of their carnivorousness, there is an equally pernicious sentiment among vegetarians that needs to be called out: the false notion that a vegetarian or vegan diet is actually good for you. Like the meat eater who needs to acknowledge the harm they're meting out as a consequence of their dietary choices, the vegetarian needs to acknowledge the fact that their diet is far from ideal.--George Dvorsky

It’s a common and questionable practice pursued by recent presidents, Republican and Democratic: Fly somewhere to raise money, throw in an official event, and have the taxpayers pick up the dime for some of the travel since a portion of the work is government business. Now, it appears, the first lady is and will be and active participant in this seedy practice, at an extra cost to taxpayers. Mrs. Obama will be in California today and tomorrow, visiting Los Angeles, Pasadena, Oakland and San Francisco. She will hold two official “first lady” events and be the star attraction at FOUR fundraisers. Whether she would have attended the official events if she wasn’t going to troll for money is anyone’s guess. But what seems likely is the cost of flying Michelle out to the West Coast so she can soak the legions of wealthy Californian Democrats for cash is being mitigated by having the official appearances on the schedule.--Keith Koffler

The company that owns Chicago's two largest futures exchanges is thinking about moving operations out of state to flee oppressive business taxes. Worried about climate change? How about the business climate?--IBD Editorial Board

Put construction workers back to work. More than two million construction workers don't have work. Every city in America has commercial buildings that can be made more energy efficient. Both the private and public sectors can step up to create good jobs and save energy.--JEFF IMMELT AND KEN CHENAULT

What a waste of time and money. We have a surplus of construction workers today, like we had a surplus of factory workers a generation ago, a surplus of farmers before that, and a surplus of blacksmiths before that. These two financial CEOs do not know much about economics, or else they are playing dumb. But I guess that was a prerequisite to work for the White House.--Cav

Our moment of low long-term rates is a golden opportunity to issue long-term debt, not to buy it back. QE2 was a small step in the wrong direction. Moreover, QE2 distracts us from the real microeconomic, tax, and regulatory barriers to growth. Unemployment isn't high because the maturity structure of U.S. government debt is a bit too long, nor from any lack of “liquidity” in a banking system with $1.5 trillion extra reserves. Mostly, it is dangerous for the Fed to claim immense power, and for us to trust that power, when it is basically helpless. If Bernanke had admitted to Congress, “there’s nothing the Fed can do. You’d better clean this mess up fast,” he might have had a much more salutary effect.--John Cochrane

Even though the Keynesian creed of stagnationism “has petered out with the situation that had made it convincing” – the Great Depression having given way to unprecedented prosperity – most economists had remained so enthralled with Keynesian technique that they seemed “bound to drift into one of those positions of which it is hard to say whether they involve renunciation, reinterpretation, or misunderstanding of the original message.” And in taking this tack, as Schumpeter had said many times before, most economists had lost sight of the heart of the capitalist process, which in its endless dynamism was the opposite of Keynesian stagnationism.--Thomas McCraw

You can see how the types of pro-growth policies in the Pawlenty plan would work toward the goal by reducing spending growth enough to balance the budget without tax increases and thereby remove threats of a debt crisis; by lowering marginal tax rates to spur hiring and job growth; by scaling back unnecessary new regulations which impede private investment and higher productivity, and by restoring sound monetary policy to remove uncertainty about inflation or another financial crisis.--John Taylor

Like most airline passengers, you probably have serious doubts about those pre-flight announcements asking you to turn off your cellphones, blackberries, iPods and anything else electronic. The announcements are flat-out ignored by many frequent fliers, who are skeptical that so-called "personal electronic devices" pose any safety threat to airplane. Some passengers openly rebel, like New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who cursed out one flight attendant who demanded he turn off his cellphone. But a confidential industry study obtained by ABC News indicates there really could be serious safety issues related to cellphones and other PEDs. A report by the International Air Transport Association, a trade group representing more 230 passenger and cargo airlines worldwide, documents 75 separate incidents of possible electronic interference that airline pilots and other crew members believed were linked to mobile phones and other electronic devices. The report covers the years 2003 to 2009 and is based on survey responses from 125 airlines that account for a quarter of the world's air traffic.--Brian Ross

... even if CalPERS problems are a more of a molehill than a mountain, CalPERS still needs to get the molehill out of its eye before it next complains about an alleged mountain in some board of directors' eye.--Steve Bainbridge

The spirit of the First Amendment is being violated every day in Hollywood. Liberal faux-cognoscenti discriminate against conservatives, forcing them into the proverbial closet. They do it socially by refusing to invite them to the parties where business happens; they do it professionally by refusing to work with them; they do it unconsciously by shying away from anyone with a differing opinion, assuming that conservatives are incapable of empathetic writing, producing, or acting. So where are all those liberals who opposed McCarthyism now, when the evidence of such discrimination is out in the open?--Ben Shapiro

If MI6 can break into a Yemeni website run by Anwar al-Awlaki and infect it with home-baking favorites from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, I don’t doubt that the same spooks could easily hack into Anthony Weiner’s computer and tweet his cupcake to that poor college girl in Seattle. But Congressman Weiner then retreated from the sinister hacking line, and protested that all this fuss about a mere “prank” involving a “randy photo” (his words) was an “unfortunate distraction” from real issues like raising the debt ceiling. Like Bill Clinton in the Nineties, Rep Weiner needs to “get back to work for the American people.” It’s the political class doing all this relentless “work for the American people” that’s turned this country into the brokest nation in the history of the planet, killed the American Dream, and left the American people headed for a future poised somewhere between the Weimar Republic and Mad Max. So, if it’s a choice between politicians getting back to work for the American people or tweeting their privates round the planet, I say, tweet on, MacDuff. Tough on our young college ladies. But, as Queen Victoria advised her daughter on her wedding night, lie back and think of England. Download and think of America.  ... Confronted by his Twitpic, one is tempted to channel Mae West: Is that a debt-ceiling increase in your Fruit of the Looms or are you just pleased to see me? Alas for America, it’s both.--Mark Steyn

I'm taking my talents to South Beach.--LeBron James

All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. ... they got to get back to the real world at some point.--LeBron James

Yeah LeBron. I did wake up to my middle class existence, not having a fraction of the wealth as you. Nor do I have to wake up, then spend endless days and nights knowing what a choke I am, and how millions of people, because I am a schmuck, really want to see me fail. I can live with that LeBron. Can you?--whittierte

No one made him predict even one championship, he did it. No one made him move to Miami, he did it. No one made him make fun of Nowitzki, he did it. And so on. Wonder if there is a no-trade clause in that contract.--genmil1

This is a win for team basketball.--Dirk Nowtizki

... LeBron James Appreciation Day: Everyone gets to take off 12 minutes early.--@asigseth

And Lebron James refused to even catch the ball much less take on the moment ... And the Heat faded away ... In a weird way, that fading away kind of tempered my joy. It even made me a little sad. Oh, sure, I'm glad Dallas won. I'm glad Miami lost. I'm glad Dirk Nowitzki won a championship -- he's one of the great players in NBA history. And I'm glad that The Decision Season did not end with LeBron James holding a trophy above his head. That would have been a tough one to take. But, the way it ended made me feel like the whole season of rooting against Miami was kind of pointless. Sure, the Heat came close. Sure, the Heat overwhelmed teams at times. Sure the Heat got to the brink of the most brazen championship in recent memory. But, then it got too hard. After the game, Chris Bosh offered that most cliche of concessions: "They wanted it more than we did." But in this case, those words carried with them a little shock value. Really? They wanted it more? As a friend says: "Then what was the point of any of this?" The way it ended make me feel like this Miami Heat team, with LeBron James playing the lead, wasn't really good enough to be worth my disdain.--Joe Posnanski

WHEREAS, the Dallas Mavericks displayed the loyalty, integrity, and teamwork essential to victory before the entire country, affirming these admirable traits are as crucial as talent and athleticism; and WHEREAS, NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Dirk Nowitzki chose to re-sign with the Dallas Mavericks in the summer of 2010, forgoing free agency and keeping his talents in Dallas, thus remaining loyal to the team, city and fans for whom he played his entire career ... NOW, THEREFORE I, John R. Kasich, Governor of the state of Ohio, do hereby name the DALLAS MAVERICKS organization friends, family, and fans as honoray Ohioans ...

I'm a huge classical music fan, but I'm grateful my parents didn't push me to learn an instrument, because I think I'd hate music if they had.--Bryan Caplan

That shows you can't win as a parent, because my husband wishes he had been pushed.--Amy Chua, a.k.a. Tiger Mom

While a lady friend has explained to me that women dress for each other and undress for men (thank you, ladies), we men are at the very least unintended or secondary members of your audience if not, on occasion, your primary intended victims.--Epicurean Dealmaker

Photo links here, here, here, here and here.

An economically disastrous example of the capture theory

is provided by the disgraceful regulation of the two mortgages housing behemoths, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, before and leading up to the financial crisis. In their fascinating recent book, Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner explore in great detail how Fannie Mae used political connections and intimidation of anyone who stood in their way to gain a highly dominant position in the residential mortgage market. The authors’ show that various government officials, including congressmen and presidential cabinet members, closed their eyes to what these two government-supported enterprises (GSE) were doing. They allowed them to take on enormous risks, while publicly defending their behavior as not being highly risky.

Fannie Mae was created in 1938 as a government enterprise that purchased mortgages from banks that loaned money to homebuyers. It eventually became a private investment company regulated by the government, where investors expected that the government would help out if these companies got into trouble. By the beginning of the crisis in 2008, Fannie and Freddie held or guaranteed about half of the United States’ $12 trillion of assets in the residential mortgage market. In September 2008, both Fannie and Freddie were taken over by the federal government when they became insolvent. The loss to taxpayers is likely to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars because many of the mortgages are subprime and of little value.

Reckless Endangerment shows how the chief executive officers of Fannie Mae furthered the reach and reduced the regulatory control over their company by assiduously courting congressmen, Fed officials, the Congressional Budget Office, high-level officials of the U.S. Treasury, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and major economists. The prominent and well informed congressman, Barney Frank, gets especially sharp criticism for his continual support of Fannie and Freddie while he was initially a member, and later chairman, of the House Financial Services Committee, the powerful committee charged with oversight of the housing and financial sectors. Barney Frank remained an unwavering supporter of Fannie and Freddie until 2010, when he admitted that they should have been more closely regulated. In a bit of irony, he is a principal author of the 2010 Dodd-Frank act that attempts to reform the financial sector mainly by giving even greater discretion to the regulators.

That's Gary Becker.  Read the whole thing.

Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it

Source here.

Quotes of the day

I assumed Bruins fans and Canucks fans would be bonded by their histories of heartbreak (a little like the Cardinals and Red Sox in 2004, actually). That hasn't happened. And it hasn't happened because the Canucks revealed themselves to be flopping wusses who (a) bite the fingers of opposing players, (b) use a 15th-string defenseman to knock the other team's best forward unconscious when he's not looking, then dedicate the next game to that defenseman as if nothing ever happened, and (c) don't back any of this crap up. If this were a movie, the Bruins would be Will Hunting and the Canucks would be the condescending ponytailed guy from Harvard who won't go outside.  For a city weaned on the Big Bad Bruins of the 1970s, Vancouver's flopping/biting routine went over about as well as a Roger Clemens statue.--Bill Simmons

You mean they were Russians? We thought they were Americans. Of course you can have them.--The Taliban

If election were held today, I think Obama would win the WH, we'd lose the Senate, and win back the House.--Howard Dean

I'd bet a lot of dough that Dean will be correct on at least one of those 3 predictions.--Cav

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.--Mark Twain

Illinois gained nationwide notoriety in January when Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a 67% hike in the personal income tax rate while lifting the corporate tax rate to 9.5%, the fourth highest in the nation. How is that working out? The good news is that corporate tax receipts in Springfield are up by about $300 million amid the economic recovery—though the state comptroller's office announced in April that the state still faces $8 billion in unpaid bills. The bad news is that, according to the state's Department of Commerce, Illinois has already shelled out some $230 million in corporate subsidies to keep more than two dozen companies from fleeing the state. And more are on the way.--WSJ Editorial Board

In our view, markets will find a way to load risk on to any government guarantor. Eventually, regulatory controls get gamed. The regulatory mechanism steers financial firms toward a common risk factor. When failure comes, it is catastrophic. ... I have been saying for quite some time that the goal of government should be to aim for a financial system that is easier to fix rather than one that is harder to break. I also believe that a large financial sector that provides a lot of "safe" assets (safe only because of a government guarantee) is not obviously better than a financial sector that is only as large as it can be using the tools of diversification and skill at managing risk.--Arnold Kling

The Liberal government under former prime minister Jean Chrétien and finance minister Paul Martin began a concerted effort to balance the budget in 1995. Between 1995 and 1998, the government cut spending by a whopping 14%. As the report’s authors note, “if the U.S. government were to cut real spending by 14% over the next three years, the budget in FY [fiscal year] 2013 would be US$473-billion (in 2010 dollars) less than the FY 2010 budget.” Most importantly, the Chrétien-era Liberals were able to balance the budget, “not with large tax increases, but with substantial cuts in government spending.” Federal spending as a percentage of GDP went from 18% in 1993 to 13% in 2009. And the Canadian economy prospered because of it. During this period, the unemployment rate fell from a high of 11.4% in 1993 to 6% in 2007, according to Statistics Canada. Moreover, as the government cut spending, more resources were freed up for the private sector. As a result, Canada experienced high growth rates of 4-5% between 1997 and 2000.--Jesse Kline

Photo links here and here.

Chart of the day: Fertility by selected nations since 1960

Source here.

Image of the day: Wiener process

Link here.

As opposed to a Weiner process:

UPDATE: Scott Adams has proposed a more robust and unifying Weiner Process.

Intrade prediction market says Rick Perry is jumping into the 2012 presidential race

The chaos in Newt Gingrich's camp seems to be the catalyst, as staffers could be ditching him for Perry.  Via Justin Wolfers.  Image link here.

I'm still trying to figure out

if David [Ortiz] got hit for something I did or if it was something ESPN stirred up.--Josh Beckett

Photo link here.

I smell a release

sooner rather than later.

Quotes of the day

Tell [Tim] Wakefield he’s got my vote [for the Hall of Fame]--Robinson Cano

Sometimes we say thank God we don't have oil. We have to use our brains instead.--Armenia's Prime Minister, Tigran Sargsyan

The United Kingdom's experiment in a strategy of 'light-touch' regulation to attract business to London from New York and Frankfurt ended tragically.--Tim Geithner

Clearly [Timothy Geithner] wasn’t referring to derivatives regulation because as far as I can recollect there wasn’t any in America at the time.--Alexander Justham

Eleven months later, in December of 2007, the recession officially began. Dimon saw it coming. The Fed didn't.--John Carney

Academics want to have it both ways, and sometimes do. They want, that is, to work in an organization and enjoy its benefits and at the same time be their own bosses. The way they rationalize this condition of privilege (who wouldn’t want to enjoy it?) is to say that they work for no one or for everyone: they work for the common good.--Stanley Fish

Of the 44 U.S. presidents, all but a handful have been affiliated with a relatively narrow list of traditional Protestant denominations. Eleven were Episcopalians (12 if you count Thomas Jefferson, whose adult beliefs are a subject of debate), eight were Presbyterians, four were Methodists and four were Baptists. Others included Congregationalists, Dutch Reformed and Disciples of Christ. President Obama attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a congregation with traditional Protestant roots despite its untraditional pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In Washington, Obama has attended services at mostly black Protestant churches. The only chief executive whose roots were clearly outside that mainstream tradition was John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic. But among the leading candidates for this year's Republican presidential nomination, not one is a member of the Protestant denominations that for so long have dominated American political culture. Two of the potential candidates are Mormons (former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.); one is a member of an interdenominational evangelical church (former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty); two others are Catholics (former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum). Rep. Michele Bachmann, who says she's considering the race, worships at an evangelical Lutheran church; if elected, she'd be the first Lutheran president. But no matter who wins from this list, it won't be an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian or a Methodist.--Doyle McManus

Well, you can call yourself a Baptist and not be born again
A Presbyterian or a Methodist and still die in your sin
You can even be Charismatic shout and dance and jump a few
But if you hate your brother you wont be one of The Chosen Few.
Cause it won't be a Baptist that's sitting on The Throne
A Presbyterian or a Methodist that's calling us Home
And it won't be a Charismatic that plays that trumpet tune.--Imperials

Traditional economics would argue that illegal or immoral behavior should be most attractive to people who have little to lose. And yet successful people who have very high opportunity costs are still engaging in royally dumb activities. In fact, some researchers have argued that people with more to lose may be more likely to engage in risky, socially unacceptable and self-destructive behavior.--Catherine Rampell

... it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.--Immanuel

Photo links here, here and here.

Quotes of the Dodd-Frank Era

Now we're told there are going to be even higher capital requirements, and we know there are 300 rules coming, has anyone bothered to study the cumulative effect of these things? And do you have a fea—like I do—that when we look back and look at them all, that they will be the reason that it took so long for our banks, our credit, our businesses, and most importantly, our job creation, to start going again? Is this holding us back at this point?--Jamie Dimon, to Ben Bernanke

Nobody has looked at it in all detail ...  Has anybody done a comprehensive analysis of the impact on credit? i can’t pretend that anybody really has. You know, it’s just too complicated. We don’t really have the quantitative tools to do that.--Ben Bernanke

Sounds like a 'I have no clue' to me.--Cav

CNBC video here.

Photo links here and here.

Quotes of the day

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.—Jane Austen, Emma

This is why I like reading about science and epistemology in general because it's all well and good to say science is all about the evidence and people being 'reality based', and only idiots or bigots are prejudiced. Everyone only sees what they believe, and beliefs are not easily moved by contrary data: observations are theory-laden.--Eric Falkenstein

There is no way around phenomenology one way or the other; it is the necessary connection between theory and experiment.--Sabine Hossenfelder

Google’s frame is the browser window. Apple’s frame is the screen. That’s what we’ll remember about [yesterday's Steve Jobs] keynote ten years from now.--John Gruber

... under the likely scenario that healthcare spending keeps rising faster than GDP, the Center for American Progress would give government the power to prohibit people from buying expensive health plans with their own money. That is not my idea of progress.--Greg Mankiw

I have concluded at my late age that, sadly enough, women are no better than men. Different, to be sure, but no better. Men, consider your opinion of what men are like. A sobering reflection. Then consider that that's what women are as good as too. Appalling, but there it is. Many men are creeps and many women like those creeps. Look at the garden of Eden. Eve was talked into eating the apple by a snake, so she was stupid enough to believe a snake. But then Adam was stupid enough to believe Eve. What if Eve had not been there? I'm no theologian, but I believe Adam would have tried to have sex with the snake. It's that bad. The only innocent in this whole mess is that poor housekeeper in Manhattan who fled to New York from whatever African hellhole it was, not any, please observe, primitive paradise, only to be attacked by Le Scumbaguette, the very pinnacle of French Civilization. The Calvinists have this doctrine called total depravity which avers that well, we're all just totally depraved, unless saved (I think). As a Catholic, I do not subscribe to this doctrine but I admit they have the makings of a pretty strong case.--Tom Smith

Paul Ryan's proposed "premium support" structure is in some ways similar to the plan put in place under President Obama's healthcare reform law. In both cases, an individual would shop among competing private insurers, on an exchange overseen by the government regulators. In both cases, the government would provide financial support for the "needy" (low-income households in the case of Obamacare, the elderly in the case of Ryancare). Why don't we see this parallel pointed out more often? The left wants to demonize Ryan, and the right wants to demonize Obama. Pointing out the similarities of their plans might make each of them seem, well, reasonable.--Greg Mankiw

The long-standing myth of a wildly activist, reactionary Supreme Court imposing a grossly unpopular laissez-faire ideology on the American people on behalf of large corporate interests—with little concern for precedent, constitutional text, or individual or minority rights—is far removed from historical reality. The academics who invented the prevalent mythology likely sought, consciously or not, to justify their preferred political outcomes.--David Bernstein

George Orwell wrote that to control the past was to control the present, and the future. The false narrative of Lochner has controlled the past for decades, but Bernstein’s clear and incisive work may wrest that control away and move us back to the truth. And if readers recognize that much of what they have been told about Lochner is wrong, perhaps they will employ an informed skepticism toward many other things in constitutional law that “everyone knows.” Such skepticism, it seems, is entirely warranted.--Glenn Reynolds

But while some Democrats are touting the ethics probe as a bold and significant step, one Republican source calls it "hollow." The GOP source said it is noteworthy that Pelosi called for an investigation but did not demand Weiner step down -- as happened with former Rep. Chris Lee. The married Republican from western New York resigned in February, following a report that he had tried to meet a woman on Craigslist.--CNN Wire Staff

Unlike Maddow, many journalists, including the politically liberal, were not surprised at all. They had gradually become skeptical of Weiner’s innocence as the days passed because they could recognize the fluttering of a politician in trouble. It was Weiner’s bizarre response that led them to suspect the truth. When the moment of confession came it did not come as total shock to everyone except the true believers. Those journalists were cumulating the facts. Whatever their political inclinations were, these had not yet completely overwhelmed their logical faculties. Whether they were willing to admit it or not, they knew which way the story was tending. The one person who had more facts than anyone else except Weiner — was Andrew Breitbart — and he used it to great advantage. He selectively timed the release of information in his possession in order to force his opponent into terrible dilemmas. His Big Government site provided a Chinese water torture of gradual disclosure, each more tantalizing than the last. The problem Weiner’s defenders faced was simple: how much did Breitbart ultimately know? When it became clear that Breitbart knew enough to show that the tweets had been sent by Weiner, then the confession was forced to create a stop line. Weiner held a defense line until it was obvious that Breitbart could flank him. Then he fell back to the next position. The trouble is, Breitbart may not yet be done. But that’s for Andrew to know and for Anthony to find out.--Richard Fernandez

Maybe taking full responsibility is, in the end, about making amends. While Weiner's constituents were certainly ill-served by all this, what amends can be made to them? Never lie again? Does choosing not to lie when you weren't supposed to do it in the first place constitute making amends? For Weiner, full responsibility seemed to mean apologizing profusely, declining to qualify his regret or explain away his behavior, and answering the same questions until the press finally began to tire of asking them. But really being fully responsible is difficult. It's not as if Weiner can redirect the consequences to himself, like a criminal who takes the fall so the innocent man can go free. Responsibility and consequences are severed here: His wife, his family, and his staff have no responsibility at all, but there are consequences for all of them anyway. This won't change that. Maybe "I take full responsibility" is ultimately something that's said simply because it must be said. Maybe it's an incantation. Maybe it's a vow to do better. Maybe it just means: I'm sorry, and when I say I'm sorry, I don't mean I'm sorry if you were offended. I don't mean I'm sorry but someone drove me to it. I don't mean I'm sorry but I was in pain, but I was drunk, but I was angry, but I was taken out of context. Maybe "I take full responsibility for my actions" is an add-on we only need because of the poor-quality apologies we so often get in public that have transformed the concept of contrition into something that can be used to subtly deflect attention away from yourself. Maybe if public apologizers were better at just being sorry, we wouldn't need "I take full responsibility for my actions" in the first place.--Linda Holmes

If there is one thing that confuses me the most about scandal coverage, it’s how the media pretend that there are only like three sins in the world and the chief one is hypocrisy. Come on, people.--Mollie Hemingway

According to The Washington Post article on the Bush loan, the incoming president called Bush’s action a “necessary step . . . to help avoid a collapse of our auto industry that would have had devastating consequences for our economy and our workers.” Under the administration’s math, the U.S. government will receive $11.2 billion back from Chrysler, far more than the $8.5 billion Obama extended. Through this sleight-of-hand accounting, the White House can conveniently ignore Bush’s loan, but even the Treasury Department admits that U.S. taxpayers will not recoup about $1.3 billion of the entire $12.5 billion investment when all is said and done. The White House justifies not counting the Bush money because, it says, that money was completely spent when Obama was making a tough political decision on whether to extend another loan. In other words, a decision to do nothing at the time would have resulted in the immediate loss of the $4 billion that Bush had extended. This is chicanery. Under the president’s math, Chrysler paid back 100 percent of Obama’s loan and less than 70 percent of Bush’s loan. A more honest presentation would combine the two figures to say U.S. taxpayers got back 90 percent of what they invested. In fact, that is how the Treasury and other administration officials frequently portray it; it is just when Obama speaks that the numbers get so squishy.--Glenn Kessler

Image links here, here and here.

Cube of the day: Physical theories

Source here.

Chart of the day: Career success vs. number of films

Source here, via Catherine Rampell.

More evidence that programmers might not be great risk managers

Source here.

Quotes of the scandal: Anthony Weiner edition

You do the questions, I do the answers and this jackass interrupts me?--Anthony Weiner

I was the victim of a prank.--Anthony Weiner

I did not send that tweet. My system was hacked. I was pranked. It's a fairly common one. People make fun of my name all the time. When you're named 'Weiner', you kind of get that. I've asked firms to take a look at this. They're hiring an Internet security operation. We want to make sure it doesn't happen again. We're also asking for their advice about what, if any, agency should be called in on this. ... It was a hoax ... I am a victim of this ...--Anthony Weiner

Weiner's camp is now seeking legal action to investigate who hacked the account.--NBC New York

In real life, my memory is this cat had a lot more Anthony and a lot less weiner.--Jon Stewart

Weiner was framed.--The Daily Kos

And to be honest he’s never been a crusader on social issues so you can’t argue he’s been a hypocrite here, you know a morality hypocrite.--Jessica Yellin

I am well aware of Andrew Breitbart, his chasing around with microphones in my face, his distortions [of] ACORN and Shirley Sherrod ... he has in my view no credibility whatsoever. I have no belief that there's anything going on with Anthony Weiner, who also happens to be a happy, pretty lucky newlywed.--Rep. Jan Schakowsky

Meanwhile over the last couple of days, while everyone in the media had their hair on fire about this story, the talented and very smart people who live in the world of the Internets--they were trying to figure out what happened. How it could have happened. If the congressman was hacked like he said he was, if he was pranked, how would that work? How could a person do that? What would that look like? How would you even begin to get away with something like that? Here are a few of those theories.--Rachel Maddow

Congressman Weiner was stalked and set up by a Christian Infowar Militia cell based largely in Oklahoma City.--Daily Kos

It all adds up. If you have any ability to follow a moderately technical argument, only one conclusion is possible. We know that Congressman Weiner was framed, and we know the name of the framer. The framer did not hack into Weiner's account. There was no need for hacking. The framer used a much simpler, more ingenious scheme, involving a design flaw in the architecture of the application.--Joseph Cannon

... the behavior of much of the media toward Weiner is inexcusable. ... Weiner has declared himself a victim of Twitter invasion, and certainly, he’s a victim of an outrageous invasion of privacy. If someone (His wife? An old girlfriend? Himself?) took a photo of him in his skivvies, that’s his private business. And if a woman had been violated in such a way, her underwear photo sent to a Twitter follower, she would rightly be afforded sympathy, accompanied by outrage for the person who humiliated her. Weiner deserves the same consideration.--Susan Milligan

As Rep. Anthony Weiner’s alleged crotch-shot dominates the news, information on possible motives to deface Weiner’s credibility are surfacing under the radar. And as it appears, Weinergate just might be a smear campaign executed by  conservative activists looking to defend Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.--Johan Thomas

[several, several tweets]--Eric Boehlert

Andrew Brietbart’s status as the Right’s Fraudster-in-Chief is a result of what is becoming an encyclopedia of modern right-wing hoaxs that make Nixon’s Watergate burglaries look like dilettantes. Breitbart was at the center of the fake ACORN scandal, the phony Planned Parenthood videos from Lila Rose, the Shirley Sherrod smears, his sites regularly featured birther conspiracies, Breitbart was part of the gang of right-wing Republicans who created the campaign to smear Department of Education staffer Kevin Jennings and also claimed some White House conspiracy in a dust-up between a couple of participants at one of those crazy health care reform town hall meetings. This is the guy we’re all supposed to believe in what appears to be a manufactured scandal over an apparently doctored picture and without a shred of proof that Congressman Weiner was involved.--the long goodbye

Photo links here, here and here.

Quotes of the day

We are a democracy, and as such do not generally elect our best people to office. How could we? They weren’t running.--David Mamet

... we get both more, and less out of a work than the author intended, and we are never actually getting the author themselves. They are always hiding some piece of themselves from us, the piece they can't bear for us to know. Trying to judge a book by an author, or an author by their book, is like trying to judge a glass of milk by looking at the cow. ... But there's another reason I do not think that we should reject books because their authors have terrible opinions, which is that virtually all authors have some terrible opinions. Maybe you don't know about them, or maybe you share their terrible opinions, but you cannot improve your library by purging all the authors with terrible ideas; you can only empty it. ... if you wanted to pick a group of people to model your life on, it's hard to think of a less likely group than successful writers. ... Writers, especially, spend the bulk of their workday not interacting with other people. They are people who have in large part dealt with the hardest human question--how do I live with all these difficult people around me?--by escaping into a world where the people are puppets. Why would we expect that they have some sort of special insight into how to be just and good?--Megan McArdle

I often joke that my main qualification for cancer research is that I am unencumbered by any prior knowledge of the subject.--Paul Davies, physicist

Difference between reporting on business and politics: if I get an interview scheduled with a businessman, he keeps the appointment.--Megan McArdle

[Bill] Simmons is what you might call the Peter Pan of sports fandom. He still has good days when his teams win and rough ones when they lose. He wouldn’t go to the old Yankee Stadium — “just too many bad memories there” — and he doesn’t travel on football Sundays, when he spends 12 hours in the Neverland of his four-flat-screen “man cave.” As a cultural phenomenon, Simmons is a member of the new class of man-boys, defined most famously by Judd Apatow and Todd Phillips, who make movies about men who can’t or won’t grow up. They got rich staying true to their 17-year-old selves and, along the way, helped make losers sort of cool. Simmons knows that the only people his age who obsess about sports the way he does are geeks — in his columns, he refers to his fantasy-baseball league as “the League of Dorks” — and he recognizes the quasi-pathetic nature of a grown man living and dying for his teams. But at the same time he’s unapologetic about it. “I always thought that by the time I turned 40 I wouldn’t care about sports so much,” Simmons told me. “I’d seen it happen to so many other people. But it hasn’t happened to me.” Simmons is not a literary sportswriter. You can’t capture his resonance with lyrical quotes from his oeuvre, because they don’t really exist.--Jonathan Mahler

... the truth is that when they are both right, Federer cannot beat Nadal. It has been talked about time and again: Federer is the greatest player of all time. And he's not the greatest player of his own time. ... Federer's game is scissors. Nadal's game is stone.--Joe Posnanski

Photo links here, here and here.

Chart of the day: Unemployment duration at an all time high

Source here.