Hating economics

The New Neo Posted on by

The article “Why Americans Hate Economics” caught my eye, for obvious reasons.

Here’s a quote:

Christina Romer, the University of California at Berkeley economics professor and President Obama’s first chief economist, once relayed the old joke that “there are two kinds of students: those who hate economics and those who really hate economics.” She doesn’t believe that, but it’s true. I’m surprised how many students tell me economics is their least favorite subject. Why? Because too often economic theories defy common sense. Alas, the policies of this administration haven’t boosted the profession’s reputation.

The problem is manifold. Much of what economists say is indeed counter-intuitive—especially if we use our own most familiar circumstances, managing a household’s finances, as a guide. For instance, stimulus spending by the government is going to help the economy? Doesn’t seem quite right. Raising taxes might not always yield more revenue? Why not?

The explanations—and there are always many—somewhat suffice. But then there are the counterarguments, and they are seemingly endless as well. The math (which economists say constitutes the proof of the pudding) is so arcane that most people can’t do it or understand it. Nor are we sure the math matters, as we’ve learned from the financial quants, who assured us that the derivatives trade was a-okay and housing could never fall and all that jazz.

And even if 75% of economists agree on something, there’s always that other 25% (or even 10%, or 5%) who just might turn out to be correct. We’ve seen people be wrong, wrong, wrong before, and suffered for it. Prognostications? Don’t make me laugh; the track record is just not good, nor is it consistent.

That isn’t to say I disrespect economics. I don’t (some of my best friends…). Most of them work very hard at a task fraught with inherent difficulties: analyzing what went wrong in the complex system known as our economy, and what might be done to make it right.

If you want to make your head spin, just take a look at the arguments over the Great Depression, and whether FDR’s policies helped it or prolonged it, and what finally got us out of it. If the past is that hard to understand and that controversial, how much more so is the present and the future? And yet so much is riding on being correct.

Perry’s cuts caused the achievement of Texas students to fall

The New Neo Posted on by

Or did they?

One would certainly think so from these quotes from US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan:

Duncan told Bloomberg Television that Texas schools have struggled under Perry, saying he feels “very badly” for children who attend them.

“Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college,” Duncan said. “I feel very, very badly for the children there.”

But before I start to weep for the children of Texas, where per-pupil spending and teachers’ salaries have been cut, I’d like to know how much the actual education of pupils there has suffered since the austerity measures were instituted. And funny thing, although I read the article several times and also did some supplementary Googling on the subject, the answer was nowhere to be found.

Perhaps when the entire Arne Burbank interview airs on Bloomberg TV, those figures will be provided. Perhaps they will substantiate his claims. But perhaps not.

Texas was not in the forefront of education even before the Perry cuts, although teacher/student ratios are above average there, and students tend to score around average on National Assessment of Education Progress tests. But the reasons Texas has not generally been a leader in education may have something to do with demography: “The state has more poor children than most, with one in four children living in poverty, compared to the one-in-five national average.”

And—okay, I’ll ask the question, because the article doesn’t—how many Texas schoolchildren are illegal immigrants? No one knows, but as of December 2010 the answer appeared to be “somewhere between 3% and 8%” of the total. It is logical to assume that this affects the entire Texas educational system in various ways that are not necessarily positive, including the need to wrestle with the language problem.

Oh, and by the way, speaking of language problems—here’s a message for Arne Duncan, educator-in-chief: it’s not “I feel very badly,” it’s “I feel very bad.” Unless, of course, there’s something wrong with the nerves in the tips of your fingers and your tactile receptors have gone awry, or your emotional makeup is off-kilter. If so, I feel very bad for you.

Economic arrogance on the left

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve noticed a few articles and posts lately from people on the left containing the meme “we know exactly what to do to fix the economy, and the mean and destructive politicians just won’t do it.”

Here’s a good example from Kevin Drum:

Watching the world slide slowly back into recession without a fight, even though we know perfectly well how to prevent it, is just depressing beyond words. Our descendents will view the grasping politicians and cowardly bankers responsible for this about as uncomprehendingly as we now view the world leaders who cavalierly allowed World War I to unfold even though they could have stopped it at any time.

For the moment, let’s suspend the argument on who’s right about the best way to try to jump-start the economy and enhance confidence. Let’s forget about the fact that this is a worldwide problem, and the latest downturn seems to be more about events in Europe than in this country. Forget the argument about whether WWI could have been prevented, or whether even the omniscient Kevin Drum, had he been alive back then and Master of the World, could have foreseen the nature of the war that was to follow and known the exact steps to take to avoid it.

Just focus on that phrase “we know perfectly well how to prevent it.” The mind-boggling, toe-curling arrogance it expresses, the unbounded faith in the human understanding of exceedingly complex systems and human ability to intervene effectively, and the idea that failure to do so is a combination of failure of will and the evil impulse, is unapologetic and monumental arrogance of the classic leftist variety. The Vision of the Anointed in its purest form.

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

A reasonable spambot query:

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Well, why ever not?

The market drops again…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but the good news is: mortgage rates are mega-low! Time to buy a home!

That is, if you’ve got any money left, or a job.

Here are some possible reasons why the market is tanking today.

And only 26% of respondents in a recent Gallup poll approve of Obama’s handling of the economy, down 11% since mid-May. The poll didn’t ask how many people blame Bush. But we know who/what Obama now blames: bad luck.

Obama the blame duck.

On the stimulus

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s Krauthammer on the stimulus:

“[Obama] did a huge Keynesian gamble, and it failed.”

But super-Keynesians such as Krugman say it failed because it wasn’t nearly super enough. It should have been bigger.

And Obama says if he hadn’t done it, things would have been much worse.

The beauty of it is that you can’t absolutely prove these statements untrue. You never can. The road not taken stubbornly remains untaken.

Logic would seem to dictate that if a large dose of something doesn’t work, more of the same won’t help. But believers argue that the dose didn’t reach the therapeutic threshold. And with economic interventions—as with all interventions that involve complex systems—it is stunningly difficult to tease out the effects of a single variable.

And so the argument continueth…

Irving Kristol and the Turnings: do we ever learn?

The New Neo Posted on by

A reader alerts me to this essay about one of the early neoconservatives, Irving Kristol. I especially liked this part:

For those of us who had lived through the tumults and frustrations of the seventies, a heyday of ineffective governance and economic torpor, such a litany of top-down, command-economy measures seemed like a return of the repressed, as if all the vital lessons of those dreadful years were being cast aside in favor of a mindless embrace of hoary statist delusions that had already amply proven their inadequacy. How, I wondered, did Irving feel about this development? Were we in fact going backward? Would we have to relearn the same lessons all over again?

“Of course we will!” he exclaimed without hesitation, smiling as ever, eyes flashing. “The younger generation never learns much from the past.” A pause, and then a more direct gaze. “But you hope it learns eventually.” And it struck me both then and now how perfectly these simple words distilled his outlook on life: skeptical, realistic, historically aware, unillusioned, and yet, despite it all, hopeful. I heard no hint of condemnation in his words, since he was speaking of all younger generations, very much including his own. He was stating a fact about the human condition, not hurling moral thunderbolts of disdain or prophetic admonition, and he spoke with a rueful smile, not a bitter snarl or sighing resignation or””least of all””anything remotely resembling despair.

This reminds me of the theory of the repetitive Four Turnings of history, described here:

The First Turning is a High, an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays. Old Prophets disappear, Nomads enter elderhood, Heroes enter midlife, Artists enter young adulthood, and a new generation of Prophets is born.

The Second Turning is an Awakening, a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime. Old Nomads disappear, Heroes enter elderhood, Artists enter midlife, Prophets enter young adulthood, and a new generation of child Nomads is born.

The Third Turning is an Unraveling, a downcast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civic order decays and the new values regime implants. Old Heroes disappear, Artists enter elderhood, Prophets enter midlife, Nomads enter young adulthood, and a new generation of child Heroes is born.

The Fourth Turning is a Crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one. Old Artists disappear, Prophets enter elderhood, Nomads enter midlife, Heroes enter young adulthood, and a new generation of child Artists is born.

It may well be that we are still in the midst of a Third Turning. Or do you think we’ve entered a Fourth?

The ominous Obamabus

The New Neo Posted on by

If Darth Vader traveled by bus, this is undoubtedly the one he’d choose:

But it would seem an odd choice for President Obama (I’m hardly the only one who’s used the Vader comparison). The bus has also been likened to an enormous hearse. And of course there have been the inevitable jokes about what and whom to throw under Obama’s bus.

To top it all off, the expensive vehicle was made in Canada.

One can’t help but think Obama was motivated by a desire to outdo Sarah Palin, but that conclusion would appear to be wrong: the million-dollar-plus bus was ordered by the Secret Service in July of 2010, a year ago.

So, was Obama planning this tour way back then? Or was it instead a Secret Service decision independent of Obama? Perhaps the latter, or some combination of the two:

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan emphasized that the bus wasn’t purchased solely for the president and would be used for other dignitaries in the future. He said the agency has not previously had buses in its fleet and was overdue to get some since it’s had to protect politicians traveling by bus for decades.

In the past, the service has had to lease buses and retrofit them for that purpose.

If that’s true, the plain design is because the bus will be used for other candidates and officeholders, too. But if I were Obama, I’d at least be putting some decorative stickers on it. And I probably wouldn’t be using it at all; the visuals are, quite simply, terrible.

Ed Schultz, propagandist, issues the most tepid and misleading of corrections

The New Neo Posted on by

Ed Schultz of MSNBC knows that the Big Bold Lie sometimes works, even in this day of internet checking. But sometimes, alas, it doesn’t, and then in certain high profile cases you have to issue a correction.

Not an apology, of course. That’s not necessary. Besides, why should you apologize when you’re fighting for the Forces of Good against Evil, even if you don’t play fair?

And don’t explain what you really did. Just say enough to acknowledge that you somehow—no doubt inadvertently, unknowingly, and accidentally—made a regrettable error when you were actually unabashedly and deliberately lying though your “journalist” teeth:

My guess is that Ed’s job at MSNBC remains quite secure. What do you think?

More on the Norway massacre—but no surprises

The New Neo Posted on by

Is any of this surprising? It shouldn’t be:

Among the other details now surfacing about the Utoya spree was the confirmation from police that Breivik, 32, called police several times over the course of the massacre to surrender. According to Norwegian media reports, the police did not at first take him seriously.

I have already written about the remarkable ineptitude the Norwegian police showed during the incident. Shocking though this new fact is, it is consistent with the rest. Previously, the police could not even envision an attack of this type (except, perhaps, in cowboy America) and were almost completely unequipped to handle it when it occurred.

I had thought that it was possible and perhaps even likely that, as we learned more about the massacre, additional details would come out that would indicate that some of Breivik’s unarmed victims tried to stop him—although unfortunately, in the confusion and speed of the attack, such efforts were probably uncoordinated, and were certainly ( and tragically) unsuccessful. So it is also unsurprising that it now appears that there was at least one such effort—and that it was made by two teenagers who had grown up in a very different environment than the relative peace of pre-Breivik Norway:

…[T]wo Chechen teenagers attending the Utoya camp managed to help several others survive the shooting spree by taking shelter in a cave. Prior to those rescue efforts, the two teens had tried, without success, to knock Breivik out by pelting him with stones.

Moysar Zyamaev, 17, and Rustam Daudov, 16, first thought it was a joke when they “saw a shouting man who was running after a group of youths,” Russia Today reported. “But after they witnessed the man shooting three people dead, including one of their friends, they retreated to the woods.”

Zyamaev and Daudov later hung back as Breivik, dressed in a police uniform, called over several young people who he then shot when they approached.

Zyamaev telephoned his father, “who instructed his son to stay calm, help others and try to stop the killer somehow,” Russia Today wrote.

After trying to hit Breivik with stones, Zyamaev and Daudov gathered 23 people “into a sort of cave they discovered near the shoreline,” Russia Today wrote. They also pulled three people from the water.

Coming from Chechnya is probably much better preparation for that sort of thing. And what a cool-headed father, to be able to give such helpful advice in the midst of what must have been the most horrific phone call he’d ever received.

Perry delenda est!

The New Neo Posted on by

The left must be very, very afraid of Rick Perry, because the attacks on him have come with almost unprecedented speed. There’s something about Perry that seems to make people think he may be the only really credible threat Obama has right now. Therefore, Perry delenda est.

He’s a Christian jihadi, or illuminati, or something like that! He’s a turncoat! He mustn’t take credit for the Texas economy! He’s a horrifying loose cannon! He’s pro-Muslim! He’s a crony capitalist (unlike Obama)! He’s sexist! He’s whatever people think will discredit him.

There’s no question that Perry is not everybody’s cup of tea. He’s one of the more conservative candidates in the field, for example, and he’s got that Texas swagger that makes a goodly part of America say oh no, not again!

But the trolls are out in full force. You can see it very clearly in the comments to this thread. Some of them are concern trolls from the left, pretending to be on the right. And some of them really are on the right, mostly disgruntled (are there any other kind?) Ron Paul supporters.

And then there’s the inimitable Bill Clinton, who calls Perry a “good-looking rascal.” Takes one to know one.