Infinite Monkey Theorems

Things worth reading…   

or at least pondering and forgetting quickly… 

So… how good is China’s new stealth fighter?  Not sure, but I’d start by asking this guy(here via MSNBC): 

HONOLULU — A former B-2 stealth bomber engineer was sentenced to 32 years in prison Monday for selling military secrets to China in the latest of several high-profile cases of Chinese espionage in the U.S.

US economics…

Businesses have not yet started hiring as UE claims are up.  Some of it is due to delays due to weather were people who would’ve claimed last week didn’t, but still not a good sign (here via BizTimes.com):

New applications for U.S. jobless benefits jumped by 51,000 to 454,000 last week, the U.S. Labor Department reported today, up from 403,000 during the previous week….

The four-week average of new claims, climbed 15,750 to 428,750, the highest level in two months, the Labor Department said. 

Additionally, the CBO reported this week, what all politicians have known for decades, but have consistently ignored…. social security is a looming and ever-growing problem (here via EpochTimes): 

In its Budget and Economic Outlook report for fiscal years 2011 to 2021, the CBO anticipates that the Social Security program will run a $45 billion deficit for 2011, and will be in the red for at least the next ten years. 

And…

According to the Associated Press, if present Social Security spending and funding levels are sustained and adjusted for the coming influx of Baby Boomers applying for and collecting Social Security checks, the program’s trust fund could be emptied by about 2037.

President Obama’s thoughts about this re: State of the union speech… no problems at all… full remarks here:

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.  (Applause.)  Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected.

Not “affected’?  I guess that doesn’t discount it from affecting us…. but why worry about that when we can spend more money on things we don’t need (speech cont’d):

Next, we can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow.  From the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete.  There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.

Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act.

That’s some vision there; to ignore the looming crisis and instead deflect to a new boondoggle.  & not just a boondoggle, but it seems this is the answer to so many of life’s troubles… the environment, traffic congestion, sprawl…. yes, this magical elixir that is so incredibly great, that it can’t possibly survive without federal government to operate.

But wait… it will create jobs!  (speech cont’d):

There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services, and information. 

Of course if it’s a “jobs’ program” and not a new transportation program (look over here – shiny stuff)… well, let’s let Milton Friedman discuss jobs’ programs (here):

Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: ‘You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.’ To which Milton replied: ‘Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.’

Either way, here is a good response to the State of the Union from Cato.

Lastly, more great stuff from the Economist.  This time an Ideas Arena

As business leaders, politicians and journalists meet at the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in Davos to discuss the year ahead, The Economist will be inviting readers and guests to participate in a series of online debates questioning the future of global leadership. From now until February 18th, we’ll be examining the rapid emergence of a single global elite whose decisions, and opinions, affect us all.

Call the it the little hypothesis which thinks is can, or at least, the little hypothesis which because people thinks it should, must be.

From Mother Jones discussing income inequality between the rich and the poor, decides that those, in this case Matt Yglesias noting that when America sees economic growth, all income groups fair better, are completely wrong [emphasis added] (here):

This is a surprisingly hardy myth, and I’d like to help it die the grisly death it deserves and I’d like to help it die the grisly death it deserves. Here’s a chart showing real per capita GDP growth in the United States over the past century. I’ve helpfully added a straight red line for the period from 1950 to the present day:

US Per Capita Increase in GDP

The past 30 years simply haven’t been a low-growth period. In fact, economic growth has been about the same as it was in the 30 years before that. Our problem isn’t growth, our problem is that the returns to growth have increasingly been skewed in favor of the very rich.

& that’s it.  The article continues about how modern liberalism needs to fix this, yet they offer no proof that it’s actually happening other than a single statement.  In fact, the only thing in the article which might be used as evidence for something, the graph is about GDP trends, per capita.

So if you, like me, have been staying up late nights wondering just how much fame you might get in by answering the unsolvable question: how has the US economy fared over the past 100 years, I must say I’m sorry.  We lost.  MotherJones has beat us to it.  So if asked in the future, you can now safely say, the US economy has increased over the past 100 years.

If however you were searching for actual evidence to their assertion about income inequality, none is found, none is offered.

Which by itself might seem trivial, if you skip the tens of thousands of people who read MotherJones daily.  But even worse, respected economist Robert Shiller when discussing books pushes the MotherJone’s version of things too (article here):

….the politics that lead to rising inequality. That’s been a trend in recent years in most nations of the world. Inequality has been getting worse, particularly in the US, but also in Europe and Asia and many other places.

He even mentions the idea of having the government setup a “choice architectural” because of evidence demonstrating too many irrational decisions made on behalf individuals.  Which of course assumes the government and smart economists could ever replace the collective knowledge of the market, even with irrational actors, with their own ideas or some perfect formula.

But I digress.  The main issue is  they give no reason to believe their assertion is true, yet act like it.  Even with easily found research, with real numbers and everything, from a very reputable source, which as you likely guessed by now,  states otherwise (here via NBER):

Changes in labor’s share of income play no role in rising inequality of labor income: by one measure, labor’s income share was almost the same in 2007 as in 1950.

They go on to discuss reasons inequality exists and discuss things like life expectancy, the difference between the rich and the super rich (say high level executives versus CEOs), but of course when one is looking, it’s not hard to find other evidence MotherJone’s is wrong & they have a nice little graph too (here via Wiki):

US Income by Given Percentile from 1947 to 2007

Doesn’t seem all that “increasingly skewed” to me, but I have been told I see things differently before…

& certainly some may see this distribution as unfair even if it hasn’t been increasingly skewed recently, but they will fail in their attempts to solve this problem for the same reason Mr. Shiller’s belief in the idea of a “choice architecture” will fail.  They simply don’t have the knowledge required, regardless of intellect or brilliance, to supplant an answer supplied by countless independent actions taken freely (mostly) by countless individuals.  It’s simple arrogance.

As Hayek stated so brilliantly:

To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.

In 1998 idiots everywhere, especially those in MO, with full bipartisan support, clamored for one thing.  To see Mark McGwire’s baseball accomplishment of 70 homes run in one year be immortalized in the best way they know how; renaming public works projects, specifically a stretch of I70 in St. Louis.

Yep, it takes a good grasp on reality, a complete understanding of the consistency with which humans fail to properly analyze people, and above all an understanding in the valuelessness of most fads (read: 99%) to have pushed this silly idea in the first place.

But with this firm grasp on reality, and several opinion articles throughout the sports world, MO legislators just couldn’t let the voice of the people go unanswered.  So without much hesitation, they eagerly followed the blind and move quickly; utilizing the power of the state to honor one Mark McGwire.

An Ode to Steroids: Mark McGuire Highway Signage

No worries that when the highway was built in the 1950s, it was named after the venerable and brilliant writer Mark Twain.  Meh, twas but a worn down speed bump on the lemming run to honor greatness, as evidenced by this facts strange absence in most press accounts… but there’s more.

No worries either that the steroid stories were just getting started, though clearly gaining momentum.

No worries, because time has this way about it.  It has that thing… that quality which is always lurking, the quality of a teacher.  Whether we humans like it or not, time has an infinite ability to show us the error of our ways.  It constantly proves to us that silly actions directed quickly towards cultural fads just don’t have the same end results as deliberate and thoughtful actions directed towards the long term.

& in 2008 time won this battle once again.  While 10 years too late, the MO legislators saw in their infinite wisdom to reverse course and rename Mark McGwire Highway back to Mark Twain Highway (here).

I wonder what Mark Twain would’ve thought about all this back and forth of naming a highway?  It’s pure speculation, but he likely wouldn’t have cared all that much.  If asked, you can almost sense his answer, the short quip, spoken in his long drawl, “Well, at least now it’s named after someone deserving of such acclaim.”

But the problem with idiots is that they have to be constantly challenged.    Left to their own devices, the Paris Hilton & Lindsay Lohan interchange isn’t far behind.

Which is a funny thought and unlikely, but idiots given too much free reign can actually make society poorer overall.

Enter Censorship

Really, the last refuse of the despot and idiot alike.  This time thankfully it’s not despots we fear, but only idiots as they take aim at Mark Twain… again.

Apparently, unbound by rational thought, educators have been pushing for years and have finally succeeded in getting a publisher to censor Mark Twain.

(more…)

It’s a truism of real leaders since the dawn of time; they find themselves, not from true success and stable times, but rather from adversity and chaos. When faced with those seemingly insurmountable odds, it’s the strongest who remain calm, read the landscape, and discover new answers from which they can seek out continued success.

Though under great stress, we humans tend towards the flight or flight response. True leaders however, can use these difficulties against themselves to provide both motivation and a sense of urgency to gain the ingenuity required for such challenges.

This is understood well in society. Like business leaders who understand innovation can be helped significantly by design constraints (here):

Great designers understand this. Charles Eames says design is all about innovating around constraints. And it’s the constraints – the scarcity – that fires the designer’s creativity. Smart business people “get it” too. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos embraces self-imposed scarcity saying, “One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”

They understand that principle of economic scarcity. As do military leaders. Sun Tzu notes in the Art of War:

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

For President Obama, the Tea Party & the Republicans taking back control of the House of Representatives could give him the opportunity to display true deft.

Assuming it does happen as predicted (here via the Philly Inquirer) however, the President is accorded a tough task ahead.

He would now have the body responsible for appropriations bills (all spending bills much start in the House & they are very important. For instance, they can kill health care by simply not funding it….) mainly in place due to running against him. Secondarily, while they don’t wish to be seen as obstructers, their willingness to work with Obama will be small even without their election strategy. Because any bill passed, regardless of how/why, if it turns out to be a good or well liked idea, Obama will naturally take credit to further his chances for re-election in 2012.

& the Democrats know that neither the President nor health care is a selling point for this election, even if they are communicating differently. The facts are that se hasn’t really made many direct candidate speeches, just backyard BBQs in key districts in key states. They are essentially, and correctly, playing against their weakness – his popularity.

Not a bad strategy in the short term, but I think people have heard him speak enough and any celebrity (yes, while the President is certainly more important and more powerful than any normal celebrity, s/he is still a celebrity) runs the risk of over saturation.

Irregardless, with Obama, the question is can he live inside those constraints?

What we know is given a new landscape, the answer for tomorrow’s question will not be the same answer as today’s. I think if he can push himself with a sense of urgency, surveys the landscape to see what he has and what he can accomplish with what he has. Then uses both the sense of urgency and strategic thinking by changing his game plan when the field of battle changes…. well, then we’ll see a real leader who may live up to his Nobel Peace Prize (here).

Or said more succinctly, it’s a crappy state of affairs you might find yourself in Mr. President, but challenges is how leaders prove themselves.

Honestly, I don’t think he’ll be able to do it. I think he’s too insecure (here) about himself and his handlers seem to know little more than an approval ratings drop equals time for Obama to give more speeches. & I don’t honestly think that’s likely to change…. but predictions are better left to Ms. Cleo.

What is likely however is the people around him understand exactly this point.  They do know it. The question is whether their emotions towards their beliefs (see: Confirmation Bias here & here) combined with the difficulty of telling a President who gives great speeches to shut up. Not to mention game theory predicts leaders to surround themselves with “yes men”.

All of that makes significant and required change seem unlikely, but I’d never count out someone who made it to the Presidency, nor, the team that helped him get there.

So Mr. President, here’s your chance.

As most know, late last week, smaller health insurance companies sent out press releases detailing a simple fact – when mandates increase, so will premiums (via WSJ here):

…Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators….

To most, this might seem an obvious consequence of the legislation.  The economics and logic of these required rate increases are undeniable.  If someone, in this case the government through force of law, tells a private business that they must increase their spending, under force of law, some, if not all, of those new expenditures will be passed on to consumers (WSJ continues):

…Weeks before the election, insurance companies began telling state regulators it is those very provisions that are forcing them to increase their rates….

…Aetna, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, said the extra benefits forced it to seek rate increases for new individual plans of 5.4% to 7.4% in California and 5.5% to 6.8% in Nevada…

…Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon said the cost of providing additional benefits under the health law will account on average for 3.4 percentage points of a 17.1% premium rise for a small-employer health plan…

…In Wisconsin and North Carolina, Celtic Insurance Co. says half of the 18% increase it is seeking comes from complying with health-law mandates….

Not only should this seem obvious, but in a free country, any company should be able to set their rates for their services.

This of course assumes you don’t work for the government – then the news is shocking (WSJ continues):

…The White House says insurers are using the law as an excuse to raise rates and predicts that state regulators will block some of the large increases.

“I would have real deep concerns that the kinds of rate increases that you’re quoting… are justified,” said Nancy-Ann DeParle, the White House’s top health official. She said that for insurers, raising rates was “already their modus operandi before the bill” passed. “We believe consumers will see through this,” she said….

Not only shocking – but so wrong that even more force is needed.

Enter the Department of Health and Human Services threatening private business, for making private decisions, solely because those decisions disagree with the government’s predictions (via HHS website – bold added):

It has come to my attention that several health insurer carriers are sending letters to their enrollees falsely blaming premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act.  I urge you to inform your members that there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases….

…We estimate that that the effect will be no more than one to two percent….

…Given the importance of the new protections and the facts about their impact on costs, I ask for your help in stopping misinformation and scare tactics about the Affordable Care Act.  Moreover, I want AHIP’s members to be put on notice: the Administration, in partnership with states, will not tolerate unjustified rate hikes in the name of consumer protections….

Think carefully about some of  these words/phrases used by government officials against private businesses in a free country: zero tolerance, misinformation, not tolerate, unjustified….all for raising theirs rates at a greater rate than the government assumed.

Maybe it’s just me, but when the government threatens people for fishy emails, then moves forward to threaten private business for deciding what to charge for their services…. well, it certainly doesn’t appear to be a free society.

As Thomas Jefferson stated so many years ago:

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

One of the more frustrating things I find when engaging others in political discussions, is that some people seemingly have either an unwillingness or inability to contemplate how too much of a good thing can still be bad.

I say frustrating, because it’s intuitive to understand this.  As Paracelsus was quoted saying centuries ago:

“Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.”

But even without that thought, it seems as if examples are around us daily.  The easiest one to spot is the current tax code.  Looking at individual deductions, it’s easy to see why most exist.  Deductions for raising children or owning a home or small business tax cuts for those hiring or charitable deductions…..etc, etc, etc – They all seem innocuous by themselves.  Even if you disagree with some specifics, the arguments seem valid.

Yet you transition from this basic idea of rewarding people for certain actions through the tax code, to today and you end up with (here):

…the current tax code is 60K pages of government sponsored corruption where the normal citizen or even the IRS agent has little idea exactly what all 60K pages means together, but special interests, nonprofits, businesses, and others all work to make the code a little better for themselves. (Freedomworks – Top Ten Reasons to Scrape the Code here)….

The criminal & regulatory codes are no better.  Their infinite complexity and shear volume, promotes the same corrupt, rent seeking behavior (ever wonder why health care reform is 1600 pages?).

This complexity inherent in all these laws and regulations creates not only rent seeking behavior, but also makes it easier for those in power who wish to abuse others through the system to be able to do so.  You see, once the system has become so complex, then even the average citizen runs the very real risk of unintentionally being on the other side of the law.  When enough people are on the other side of the law, then you get selective enforcement.

But when you’re a Senator and there are potential political points to score…. the trees are just too pretty to worry about that whole forest thingy, so you add more to it by introducing legislation to ban a specific crib because of 32 infant deaths since 2000.

Even on the merits, this law isn’t needed as the 32 deaths weren’t all by the same failure in the drop-down crib (via government’s own report) and no one has yet made any claim that the design itself is the reason for the deaths:

…CPSC has also received reports of 20 other drop side incidents, 12 of which involved the drop side detaching in a corner of the crib. In two of these incidents, a child became entrapped. One child suffered bruising from the entrapment. There are five reports of children falling out of the cribs due to drop side detachment. One child suffered a broken arm as a result of the fall.

In addition, CPSC has received 8 reports of mattress support detachment in these cribs. Due to the space created by the detachment, three children became entrapped between the crib frame and the sagging mattress and four children crawled out of the crib. There was one report of cuts and bruises….

What they found was this was actually the products from one single manufacturer which  is now out of business.  The report goes further to note:

…Due to the fact that Generation 2 went out of business in 2005, CPSC has limited information about the cribs. Although CPSC does not know the total number of units distributed or the years of production, it is believed that there were more than 500,000 of these cribs sold to consumers…..

Which means, that even out of the number of products sold by this one company, the government doesn’t have any real information on such things as failure rates.  32 out of 500K is a small failure rate (assuming all failures can be attributed to product failure versus other causes like improper installation).  Combine that with the knowledge that these numbers are guesses and only include one single company, our Senator should think of herself as being on shaky ground.

The calculus for any potential opponents however is obvious:  lots of potential downside when being labeled as pro-infant death and very little upside as few people seem to care.

So for now, while the trees might know the forest exists and vice versa, until voters are able and willing to contemplate the difference, we will simply continue to lose sight of one in favor of the other.

Being reported @ Politico, there’s once again some new polling data out that is both semi-understandable and interminably frustrating (here):

…The Quinnipiac polls, conducted in three states across the past month, all find likely voters to have complex and contradictory views on these repeal lawsuits as well as health care reform itself.

By a slight majority, likely voters tend to oppose the health care reform law. But they also tend to oppose the repeal lawsuits as a “bad idea” that would, for a sizeable portion of voters, make them “less likely” to support a given candidate….

Which seems roughly equivalent to wanting to win the football game, but not really wanting to deal with scoring points…. or as Politico reports:

…In short, voters simultaneously don’t want to [sic] health care reform but don’t want to challenge it either…

There is a scientific explanation for this called cognitive dissonance (DA posts here).  There’s also some logical evidence that helps explain why we as humans seek to reduce anything seen as contentious by the rest of society.

It’s frustrating because time and time again it seems the majority does understand that government is not some Utopian solution.  For instance, they seem to understand that the current tax code is 60K pages of government sponsored corruption where the normal citizen or even the IRS agent has little idea exactly what all 60K pages means together, but special interests, nonprofits, businesses, and others all work to make the code a little better for themselves. (Freedomworks – Top Ten Reasons to Scrape the Code here).

Yet polls showing voter disgust, such as the dismally low congressional approval ratings, only show feelings.  The reality is even with rates of congressional approval as low as 16%, the rate for the election of incumbents is well over 90%.

There’s a Japanese Proverb that begins with “Vision without action is daydream.”  Well, here we are, proving, that some truths are universal.  Proving that believing in something strongly or knowing something real well is meaningless if never acted upon.

Use a simple analogy to prove this true – what good is the best doctor in the world without patients or students?  What good would have come out of Newton’s genius, or Salk’s genius, if their abilities were followed up by only inaction?

The only good thing that can really be said about genius without action, is that it doesn’t directly harm anyone.  You can make a moral argument that Salk had some level of obligation to help since he could, but inactive genius shouldn’t be the main concern as the real problems will come from people acting without understanding.

& there’s where the second 1/2 of the proverb comes “Action without vision is nightmare. ”

Too bad we’re seemingly in a society today where both are true depending only upon the group in question.

I have long been of the belief that our President is not stupid.  He’s always seemed very smart, especially with respect to Constitutional law.

For instance, in 2001, he stated correctly, that the Constitution is a charter which guarantees negative liberties.  For some this might seem obvious, but I doubt most of our current politicians understand what he meant and what is meant by the statement itself.

Now Mr. Obama’s policies belie the notion that he agrees the Constitution should be a defender of only negative liberties, but I think it was an instructive quote on his understanding of the fundamental principles which made America what it is.

Irregardless, over the time of his presidency, I’ve seen more clues to insecurity and lack of basic focus through the administration’s constant attempts to attack various news outlets and pundits directly, as well as the President’s comments without teleprompters.

& Last week was little exception.  @ Newsweek Blogs, Mr. Obama, when being asked about the new SCOTUS nominee stated (here):

“I don’t have litmus tests around any of these issues, but I will say that I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women’s rights, and that is going to be something that is very important to me.”

With all due respect to the President and anyone who agrees with this statement, but logically individual rights are mutually exclusive to “women’s” rights.

By definition, an individual right would be one that can be held and exercised by any individual, whereas any collective right, such as women’s rights, is the exact opposite; a right held by that group.

Maybe this is overly pedantic, but words have meanings & regardless of what “ism” might or might not be practiced by this administration, collectivist thought is the enemy as it serves as the basis for most of the world’s failed political philosophies.

As Calvin Coolidge stated:

“Liberty  is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.”