22 September 2024
Christian Nationalists - People Who Would Like You To Think They Understand Christianity More Than Christ and Government More Than the Founding Fathers
19 September 2024
How Trump Uses Nonsense to Distract From His Nonsense
The number of children living in poverty doubled from 5 million to 10 million between 2021 and 2023. Why? Because the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) expired at the end of 2021.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has 800 billionaires. This morning the five richest Americans are worth a combined one trillion dollars.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-fictional-stories/index.html
15 September 2024
2 Reckless but Potentially Valuable Forecasts for This Week
03 August 2024
2 Ways to Define Conservative and Liberal and How R&D Spending Predicts How Communities Vote
Similarly, "liberal" covers both people who distrust wealth and corporations, and progressives who want society to evolve and improve, prioritizing quality of life and individual freedom over tradition.
New data on R&D spending as a percentage of state GDP supports the idea that conservatives resist novelty while progressives embrace it. States investing more in R&D, aiming to change the world, voted overwhelmingly for Biden in 2020. Conversely, states spending less on R&D favored Trump. The contrast is striking: the 10 states with the highest R&D spending voted for Biden by an average margin of 19 points, while the 10 states with the lowest R&D spending backed Trump by 18 points.
Data on the 10 states with the most and least R&D spending below.
16 July 2024
Trump of McCain - I Like People Who Weren't Captured. McCain of Trump - I Like People Who Weren't Shot
09 July 2024
Kamala Harris, Immigration, Progress and Trump's Internment Camps
Prior to LBJ, immigration was essentially proportionate to countries already represented in the US. Lots of Americans of British and German descent, for instance, was matched by lots of immigrants from Britain and Germany. LBJ changed that, making immigration increasingly dependent on academic achievement or potential, understanding the importance of knowledge workers and diversity in the information economy.
Kamala Harris's parents met at grad school at UC Berkeley - he from Jamaica and her from India. Once they graduated they became part of the academic and research professionals who define the leading edge of progress in developed nations. Her father taught economics at Stanford. Her mother was a cancer researcher at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Bay Area where they worked and Kamala lived before moving east for work has an immigration rate that is nearly triple that of the US as a whole. (And, of course, plenty of children of immigrants as well.)
Quite a few Americans were thrown by the fact that these immigrants were less likely to look like the folks who'd previously immigrated here from places like Northern Europe. LBJ's new immigration policy also resulted in immigrants who are generally more productive, innovative, and entrepreneurial.
The Bay Area, for example, has levels of entrepreneurship that has led to the creation of more wealth than anywhere else in the world - a rate of entrepreneurship enhanced by the portion of immigrants it has. The 12 most valuable companies in the Bay Area alone have a combined value that is 6X the value of Germany's entire stock market, 4X the value of France or the UK's entire stock market, and 2X the value of Japan's. There is no place or time in history that has even come close to the Bay Area's ability to create wealth, an ability enhanced by its diversity.
Of course most Americans are far more interested in taking power from women over their own bodies and lowering the portion of immigrants in their communities than they are in creating wealth and prosperity.
And the American leading in the polls for president thinks that state legislatures rather than individual women should have control over women's bodies, and actually thought that the country's first African-American president was literally from Africa ... and because of that won the affection of nearly half of Americans for whom such a claim seemed sensible and brave. In the eyes of some, Kamala Harris is a wonderful success story: in the eyes of most Americans she is alarming.
Biden - and presumably Harris - will win the Bay Area by a 4 to 1 vote but will lose rural Mississippi and quite possibly Ohio, Georgia and other states that value "tradition" more than progress, places that find immigrants alarming.
How alarming? Trump is leading in the polls, a majority of Americans delighted with his promise to deport about 15 to 20 million immigrants. To put the scale of this roundup, internment and deportation in context, only 4 states have populations greater than 15 million. Trump has expressed a willingness to to create internment camps to hold these immigrants. We could have a total internment camp population greater than the population of all but 36 states. And Americans who got angry about wearing face masks are very excited by the prospect of armed immigration officers busting into homes and businesses across the US to roundup people without proper documentation. (And of course this will mean millions of children born here, with citizenship, who presumably have a choice between orphanages or being deported from a country in which they have citizenship, causing the numbers who will be rounded up to swell.)
Hitler's was the last administration in the West to attempt internments at this scale.
But Joe Biden is old so we'll have to go with the much younger (by more than 2 years) Donald who promises us chaos and violence that will dwarf his last presidency. (How violent was his last presidency? His own VP had his life threatened on January 6 and now refuses to endorse the president he served with. Only one other time in all of American history has a VP turned against the president he served under. In 1832 - nearly a century ago - Calhoun resigned as Jackson's VP.)
It is doubtful that we'll have Harris as VP next year - and certainly won't have a minority woman as president. Not in a country where nearly half of Americans are convinced that if only history gave some nation a second chance at internment camps they could get it right. We have millions of angry Americans because, you know, egg prices went up last year. Polls now suggest that most Americans prefer the prospect of immigrant roundups and internment camps with populations greater than Ohio's to a president who stutters. It's a curious set of values we have.
Americans. We're not interested in creating wealth or in progress. We just don't want to be around people who look different.
06 July 2024
The Transformation in Trade Has Made Tariffs More Terrible Since the Time of David Ricardo in the Early 1800s
Today, trade is much more complex. Products like cars, computers, smartphones, and TVs involve hundreds of parts and multiple production steps across different countries.
In Ricardo's time, tariffs would typically be applied once to a simple finished product, like a bottle of wine. Today, with global supply chains, each part of a product might cross several borders before the final product is assembled. Each crossing could incur a tariff, leading to multiple tariffs on a single product.
With multiple border crossings for complex products like TVs, cars, and smartphones, a world with tariffs could mean prices 10 to 100 percent higher. In Ricardo's world, a tariff would impact a single product once. In our world, tariffs can affect each component multiple times, significantly increasing costs. This makes modern tariffs a much more expensive proposition, as they add up with each border crossing.
High tariffs in such a world are a curious proposal from a party that has incessantly complained about inflation that is now about 2 to 3 percent and quickly falling.
01 July 2024
AI Writes About My Book The Fourth Economy and The Transformation of Church, State, Bank and Corporation
Transformation: The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century fundamentally altered the religious landscape of Europe.
Outcome: It challenged the authority of the Catholic Church, leading to religious freedom and pluralism. The church's role shifted from a monolithic authority to a tool that individuals could use to explore their faith.
Impact: This laid the groundwork for individual rights and freedom of conscience, influencing modern concepts of religious liberty.
Transformation: The democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries (e.g., the American Revolution, the French Revolution) redefined the role of the state.
Outcome: These revolutions established democracy, transforming the state from a sovereign entity into a mechanism of governance that serves the people.
Impact: This shift empowered individuals with political agency and rights, institutionalizing concepts of citizenship and representative government.
Transformation: The notion of the American Dream in the 20th century democratized finance and credit.
Outcome: Access to credit and investment opportunities expanded, allowing a broader segment of the population to participate in economic growth and wealth creation.
Impact: This economic democratization contributed to a burgeoning middle class and widespread prosperity, emphasizing the individual's potential for upward mobility.
The Fourth Economy:
Prediction: The book predicts that the next major transformation will involve the corporation, shifting it to become a tool for individuals who work within it.
Rationale: This prediction is based on emerging trends where employees seek more autonomy, purpose, and a stake in their organizations.
Possible Outcomes:
Employee Empowerment: Corporations could evolve to offer more democratic work environments, profit-sharing, and collaborative decision-making processes.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): A greater emphasis on CSR could align corporate goals with the broader interests of society and the environment.
Innovation and Flexibility: Empowering employees could lead to greater innovation and adaptability, essential in the rapidly changing global economy.
Evaluation:
Historical Continuity: The notion aligns with historical trends where transformative periods redefined major institutions to better serve individual needs and rights.
Current Trends: There is evidence supporting this prediction. For instance, the rise of employee-owned companies, the gig economy, and increased focus on workplace culture and values suggest a shift towards more inclusive and employee-centric corporate models.
Challenges: The transition may face resistance from entrenched corporate interests and require substantial changes in corporate governance, legal frameworks, and cultural attitudes towards work and employment.
Conclusion:
The Fourth Economy’s notion is a compelling framework for understanding societal transformations. By drawing parallels with historical shifts, it provides a coherent narrative for the potential future evolution of corporations. If corporations do transform as predicted, the change could herald a new era where businesses not only drive economic growth but also enhance individual well-being and societal progress.
Is the Fourth Economy Still Valid? - What Chat GPT Has to Say About My First Book, the Fourth Economy (Part One)
"Is the Fourth economy still valid?"
The validity of the "Fourth Economy" theory can be evaluated based on its relevance to current economic trends, technological advancements, and societal impacts. Here’s an analysis of its ongoing relevance:
- *Still Relevant:* The theory's emphasis on technology as a key driver of economic change remains valid, particularly with the rise of AI, machine learning, blockchain, and other cutting-edge technologies.
- *Current Examples:* AI is transforming industries, enhancing productivity, and creating new markets, consistent with the Fourth Economy's focus on innovation.
- *Still Relevant:* The importance of fostering innovation and entrepreneurship continues to be a cornerstone of modern economies.
- *Current Examples:* Startups, especially in tech, continue to disrupt traditional industries, and innovation hubs like Silicon Valley remain vital economic engines.
- *Still Relevant:* The interconnectedness and competition on a global scale, as highlighted in the Fourth Economy, are more pronounced than ever.
- *Current Examples:* Global supply chains, international trade, and multinational corporations thrive, driven by technological advancements and digital platforms.
- *Still Relevant:* The shift in skill requirements, job displacement, and creation of new roles align with current trends.
- *Current Examples:* The need for digital literacy, AI expertise, and continuous learning are evident in today’s job market.
- *Still Relevant:* The trend towards remote work and gig economy jobs predicted by the Fourth Economy has accelerated.
- *Current Examples:* The COVID-19 pandemic has further entrenched remote work and freelance opportunities, supported by digital tools.
- *Still Relevant:* The call for changes in education systems to prepare for a rapidly evolving job market remains pertinent.
- *Current Examples:* Increasing emphasis on STEM education, coding boot camps, and lifelong learning programs.
- *Still Relevant:* The growth of tech hubs and the transformation of urban and rural areas continue.
- *Current Examples:* Smart cities, tech parks, and digital infrastructure projects are expanding globally.
- *Still Relevant:* Addressing potential income inequality remains a critical issue.
- *Current Examples:* The disparity between high-skilled tech jobs and low-skilled jobs is growing, necessitating inclusive policies.
- *Still Relevant:* The focus on sustainable and inclusive growth is increasingly important.
- *Current Examples:* Growing emphasis on green technologies, corporate social responsibility, and inclusive economic policies.
- *Still Relevant:* The need for proactive measures by governments, businesses, and individuals to navigate economic changes remains crucial.
- *Current Examples:* Regulatory frameworks for AI, public-private partnerships, and individual reskilling initiatives.
The "Fourth Economy" theory remains a valid and insightful framework for understanding contemporary economic trends and preparing for future challenges. Its emphasis on technology, innovation, globalization, workforce transformation, and proactive measures continues to resonate with the current and evolving economic landscape.
29 June 2024
2024 Lost Perspective in Politics
One candidate had tried to violently overthrow democracy when he lost his last election, shrugged his shoulders at the mob's attempt to assassinate his VP, was found guilty of 32 felony counts, told NATO allies he would do nothing to stop Putin from invading their countries and proposed tariff policies that would cause inflation to surge, and only gained an endorsement from 4 of the 44 cabinet members from his presidency.
24 June 2024
Mellon's $50 Million MAGA Donation Sets New Record for Single Donation to a Political Campaign
In 1936, amidst the scrutiny, Mellon announced his plan to donate his collection to the nation, and he provided funds for a national gallery. This donation led to the establishment of the National Gallery of Art, which opened on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1941. Mellon's collection formed a significant part of the museum's initial holdings.
18 June 2024
Parenting, Politics, and Stages of Development
13 June 2024
Income Tax and The Contrast Between the Republican Party's First President (Lincoln) and Last President (Trump)
Lincoln grew up poor - born in a one-room log cabin (not a one-bedroom but one-room) and had only one year of formal education. He strongly believed that government should invest to improve the lives of everyone - particularly children born in poverty.
06 June 2024
No D-Day with the Donald
In his radio address to the nation on the evening of June 6, 1944 - 80 years ago today on D-Day - Roosevelt led the nation in prayer. Here’s an excerpt from that address about American soldiers and our allies:
"They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home."
"No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them [Putin and the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want."
04 June 2024
Women Will Decide the 2024 Election
31 May 2024
America's Great Institutional Recession
Gallup tracks the nation’s trust in some of America’s most defining institutions - churches, banks, the Supreme Court, the military, public schools, newspapers, Congress, organized labor, and big business. To varying degrees, Americans have lost confidence in all of them. In 1979, nearly half of the population had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in these institutions. Now just 26% do.
We are not in an economic recession. Labor and capital markets are thriving. Last month continued the longest streak of unemployment under 4% in half a century. The NASDAQ is up 12% so far this year – up 35% from a year ago. Inflation at 3.4% is still higher than its 21st century average of 2.6% but it continues to fall. In most periods of American history these numbers would be feeding talk about an economic boom.
We are in an institutional recession. That’s scarier. Why? We know how to deal with an economic recession but haven’t even begun the discussion about how to confront an institutional recession. Save for the dwindling handful of nerds who stand up to argue for the importance of church, universities, big-tech, or government bureaucracies, you’re more likely to hear loud criticism of institutions than any defense of them.
And that’s dangerous because our quality of life depends on institutions. We depend on thousands – millions - of people we don’t even know to grow, ship, and prepare our food, to make our clothes, to update our apps, and operate the seemingly invisible systems with thousands of parts that regulate our supply of goods, water, electricity, and information. And through "tasks" like work, worship, and learning, these institutions even create meaning.
These strangers create value for us through a vast web of institutions: schools that educate workers, law enforcement and courts that regulate, and corporations that make, ship, and deliver goods and services. Our small network of family and friends would collapse under the weight of the complexity our quality of life depends on. The decline in quality of life from where we are now to what we could sustain with the small groups our tribal impulses draw us toward would be precipitous. While we can afford to be unhappy with the myriad institutions that define our lives, we cannot afford to discard them or follow our worst impulses into a world of Hatfield and McCoy-style alliances. Our modern world depends on millions of strangers working through and within hundreds of thousands of institutions. We need them to function.
It is difficult to understand Trump's allure without recognizing the deep disenchantment Americans feel toward their institutions. When people anywhere grow frustrated with their institutions, they often turn to strong men who promise to blowup or marginalize institutions.
There is a big problem with this. Strong men never deliver. The modern world is simply too complex to be run by dictate.
It's true that Putin literally kills political opponents. More prosaically, 20% of Russians do not have indoor plumbing. While the US has never defaulted on its bonds, Russia has al always defaulted on its 30-year bonds. Putin doesn’t deliver.
North and South Korea have been divided by a border since 1948. The stark contrast between the two countries cannot be attributed to differences in race, deep history, or language. One nation has been ruled by dictators, while the other has been led by democratic leaders who have generally respected South Korea’s institutions. The difference between strong men and strong institutions is striking. A South Korean generates as much GDP in seven days as a North Korean does in an entire year. South Korea’s per capita GDP exceeds $33,000, compared to just $900 per year in North Korea. Strong men capture attention and create great lives for themselves but deliver dismal results for their people.
We are living through a dramatic institutional recession that has been largely ignored and yet explains so much about America’s current mood and politics. The first step to addressing it is to appreciate how vital institutions are, how much they define us. The second step is to begin a conversation about how to redefine the institutions that define us. These steps could mark the beginning of the end of our institutional recession.
14 May 2024
Are You Better Off Than You Were 4 Years Ago? Maybe if You Were in a Coma and Blissfully Unaware
In May, the BLS announced that 20 million jobs had been lost in April, shattering all previous records for jobs lost in a year, much less one month.
During the period from late May to June 2020, it is estimated that between 15 million and 26 million Americans participated in the Black Lives Matter protests. These demonstrations were sparked by the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and quickly spread across the United States, becoming the largest protest movement in American history.
The anti-fascist (Antifa) and anti-Trump protests also saw significant activity during this time. Protests against President Donald Trump's policies and rhetoric were frequent throughout his presidency, but they intensified in the summer of 2020, particularly in response to his handling of the protests and the federal government's aggressive tactics against demonstrators. These protests often coincided with the BLM demonstrations, adding to the overall atmosphere of civil unrest across the country.
4 years ago Americans
were dying,
protesting, and
losing jobs
at the fastest rate in American history.
13 May 2024
Entering a Global Pandemic With a President Who Had Unprotected Sex with a Porn Star - High On the List of Poor Decisions Made by Americans
03 May 2024
The Longest Streak of Unemployment Rate at or Below 4% That You Can Remember
Only in the 1950s and 1960s did the US economy have a longer stretch of unemployment rate under 4%. It's now 30 months in a row of unemployment at 4% or lower. Hard to believe that the Fed will hit its target rate of inflation of 2.something without bringing unemployment above 4%, suggesting that this streak could end within a month or two, falling just short of the streak from the early 1950s. You remember that streak, right? [Second spoiler alert in a single post: no. No you don't. The last streak longer than this was from before you can remember.]
18 April 2024
Even Deep History is Not That Far Away
If we go back 150 lifetimes - assuming 40 year life expectancies - we go back 6,000 years, which takes us to around 4000 BC.
4000 BC corresponds roughly to the early Bronze Age, a time when human societies were increasingly using metalworking, developing urban centers, and establishing complex social structures in various parts of the world.
How far back is that?
Well, Mesopotamia was just in the Copper Age, leading into the Early Bronze Age. Mesopotamia, particularly in the region of modern-day Iraq, was seeing the rise of complex societies. These groups would eventually develop into the Sumerian civilization, one of the world's first known civilizations, which arose in the later parts of the 4th millennium BCE. No dynasties had yet emerged in what would become ancient Egypt, China, or the Indus Valley.
The people you know represent enough lifetimes to take us back to pre-history.
What do I take from that? Even deep history is not that far away - fewer generations than the number of people we know.
05 April 2024
Time to Move Beyond Blase to Bedazzled at Biden's Policies and the Biden Economy
The Biden presidency is setting a bar for economic performance that has never before been hit and is unlikely to be matched again. This is not by chance.
A few things to remember about Biden.
1. Obama gave him responsibility for leading the 2008 Great Recession recovery efforts. Obama was opposed at every step of his presidency and in the economic recovery, with unemployment persistently and depressingly high, his recovery plan was one more defined by austerity than stimulus. The unemployment rate in his first term averaged 9%. That was an extraordinarily painful period for Americans that - unsurprisingly - created extremists on both side of the political divide, from the Occupy Wall Street crowd who denounced markets and banks to the Tea Party folks who denounced government and regulation. Biden clearly learned that cautious recoveries are of little benefit to communities, families, or government budgets. Austerity in the face of a recession is a ridiculous way to recover.
2. Biden has been around forever and this is an asset. Biden knows the personalities and weaknesses of world leaders you've heard of and policy makers and staffers who you've never heard of. Biden knows which sharp policy wonks have ideas for stimulating investments, create jobs, and lower carbon emissions. He knows how to get people from across the aisle to vote for his infrastructure spending. Put more simply, Biden knows policies, policy makers and politicians - American and foreign. This makes him incredibly effective.
3. Biden's policy wonks are at work on programs that will never get properly covered because they're largely too ... well, wonky to appeal to the average reader who just wants to hear why they should be offended at Trump today or get confirmation that this week - sure enough - Biden is another week older. Someday some of his policy makers will write fascinating books about the causes and consequences of this economy and a few of us weird people who delight in things like that will delight in that; most people will remain blissfully unaware.
4. Biden consciously incurred a big fiscal deficit in his first year knowing that the best way to reduce long-term debt is to stimulate an economy to its full potential. He realized that the first priority was to put Americans back to work and then household and government budgets will strengthen. But his policy was not a one year, one trick policy. He's stimulating investments in local communities that result in new infrastructure, new factories, and new training programs. And the result is dramatic: projections of long-term deficits have halved since Biden has taken office. link
Biden's policies are stimulating the economy from a number of directions. He's ignited a variety of infrastructure projects. The interstate highway bill Eisenhower signed into law stimulated GDP growth by roughly 0.5% per year for decades. (And when average GDP growth is close to 2%, 0.5% extra is extraordinary.) The interstate highway bill stimulated the economy during highway construction. That won't surprise you. And then it stimulated the economy as people used it, stimulating travel, trade, and inter-city and interstate exchange as chains like McDonalds and Hilton Hotels emerged. Biden is not just stimulating the economy with various infrastructure projects and subsidies to alternative energy projects and manufacturing, he's setting us up for years of extra economic activity as these new bridges continue to stimulate trade and travel and these new factories continue to support jobs and productivity.
The most extraordinary outcome of Biden's policies is the incredible rate of job growth. One of the elements behind that that is rarely reported? The extraordinary rate of new business formation. This statistic gets hardly any coverage and yet seems to me the most important of all economic statistics - speaking as it does to the levels of optimism and long-term implications for the creation of new jobs, new products, new services, new markets, and new wealth. New business formation in the decade of the 2020s is running at TWICE the level it did in the decade of the 2000s. Double. 2X. So, so much more. And the ripple effect of that is one reason that in the first quarter of 2024 - now in the fourth year of the recovery from the worst of COVID - job creation is running at an even higher rate than it did last year.
The phenomenal rates of business formation and job creation are not the product of chance. They are the result of policy choices from a politician who delights in politics and policy in a time when it is so very stylish to hold politicians, politics and policy in contempt. Fortunately, Joe Biden still thinks that politics and policy matter, and rather than blow things up the way his predecessor did, he's building an economy that creates jobs and businesses at the fastest rate in your lifetime.
04 April 2024
Lincoln's 44 Days Without War
March 4, Lincoln was inaugurated for his 1st term as president
April 12, Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, officially beginning the Civil War.
Lincoln had 39 days of peace in his first term.
In 1865,
March 4, Lincoln was inaugurated for 2nd term
April 9 - Sunday - Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox
April 14 - Good Friday, Lincoln was shot
April 15 - Saturday morning - Lincoln died
Lincoln had 5 days of peace in his second term.
In the 1,504 days of his presidency, Lincoln had only 44 days without war.
"There have been 16,000 books and articles published on Lincoln—125 on the assassination alone—more than any other American."
02 April 2024
Regret in the UK - Post-BREXIT GDP Slowdown and the Case for Globalization
How much of a slog? Look at the graph below. Real GDP growth in the UK in the 6 years before BREXIT was 13.0%. In the 6 years after it has been only 7.7% - a drop in growth rate of about 40%. (By contrast, US GDP grew by 12% in the 6 years before and by 13.1% in the 6 years after.)
This isn't complicated. Communities that become part of the larger world prosper.
Reversing globalization is fear-based politics that is bad for the economy. It's exciting to attack globalists but they're right about the benefits of being connected to the world outside your borders.
Communities that Least Understand the Economy Are Most Likely to Find Trump Persuasive
Nationwide, Trump got 47% of the vote.
In the 10 counties with the highest average wages, Biden got nearly 4X as many votes as Trump.
In the 10 counties with the lowest average wages, Biden got only 0.8 votes for each vote Trump got.
What is the difference in wages in the 10 highest and 10 lowest paid counties? The highest make 2.7X as much on average.
Here is the latest data (3Q 2023) on the 10 highest and 10 lowest paying counties.
Average Annual Wages
US: $69,368
Bottom Ten Counties: $46,160
Top Ten Counties: $123,415
29 March 2024
The Land Battle for States Gives Way to the Cultural Battle for Nations - the Modern World as a Lava Lamp
In the 20th century, people fought with tanks and planes over those map lines, trying to say, "This land is mine." But now, the big battles are more about who we are and what we believe in, like sustainability, equality, rules, and investments. These fights aren't about grabbing a piece of land; they're about shaping the world with our ideas. And of course these battles don't end with a flag in the ground. They keep going, evolving, just like the ever-changing swirls in a lava lamp.
28 March 2024
The Religious Right's Pyrrhic Victory (Or, The Cost of Using Trump As A Representative)
The religious right may think they are selling bibles. Others may simply see it as selling out.
27 March 2024
Kahneman On Substituting Easy Questions for Uesful Questions
Here is a blog post from 2011 that I wrote about one of his key ideas – our tendency to substitute trivial questions for hard questions.
One of the great mysteries of life is how we get sucked into political arguments of no consequence. Can you burn a flag? Can he wear a dress? Can she say that?
Which questions, by contrast, have real consequence? Questions like Will this economic policy make more people rich? Will that economic policy make fewer people poor? Will this political policy give more people rights? Will this policy extend or shorten life expectancies?
I think I found the answer to why we waste so much time trying to sound smart talking about such stupid issues in Daniel Kahneman’s new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.
One concept Kahneman shares has to do with our tendency to substitute easy questions for hard ones. For me, this explains why so much airtime in politics is taken up with questions of little consequence.
Kahneman gives an example of an analyst who bought stock in Ford. Asked why, the analyst replied that he'd just been to a car show and left convinced that Ford "sure can make great cars." As Kahneman points out, the real question when buying stock is whether or not the stock is undervalued. But the analyst substituted that difficult question for the simpler question of whether Ford was making good cars. All of us, when faced with a difficult question, tend to substitute a simpler - albeit irrelevant - one.
It seems to me that the big question in politics should be, How do we improve quality of life for more people? That’s a big question and answering it is one that isn’t easy. It is a challenge to feel confident about one's ability to answer it.
By contrast, the little and largely irrelevant questions – silly questions best characterized by whether or not we should be able to burn the flag or use a bathroom that says Woman or Man – are ones for which we have clear answers as long as we have strong opinions. We don't need data. We don't need studies. Answering these questions leaves us feeling confident in our own judgment. Answering the big questions, by contrast, makes us feel uncertain. For most of us, we prefer feeling confident to feeling ignorant. The result? We choose questions because of how they make us feel rather than what their answers will do to improve the world.
And that’s a pity. Just think what we could do with all the attention paid to politics if it were focused on real, albeit difficult, questions. Questions that have the potential to make us more humble and the world better - rather than make us more smug and make the world no better.
25 March 2024
Benjamin Franklin's Power over Power
23 March 2024
Money Saving Tip - Hacking into Advertising
Here's a money-saving tip. Next time you see an ad for an enticing product, just re-enact the ad. Skip the product altogether and go straight for the joy the product delivers.
"Should we go shopping?"
"No. Just smile more."
It Is No Coincidence - How the Loss of Aspiring Novelists Has Undermined the Power and Purpose of the Daily Newspaper
One of the reasons that the world feels more chaotic now is that the folks reporting it to us don't understand fiction, don't understand stories. There's always been chaos. News - to make any sense at all - has to construct a narrative. The aspiring novelist - who saw daily events as part of a bigger narrative - were better at that important task.
It's no coincidence that we're increasingly divided as newspapers drift into obsolescence and we lose the narrative glue that binds together imagined communities like nation-states.
20 March 2024
The Whimsy and Magic of Physico-theology
"In Germany, physico-theology gave rise to a large number of specialisms praising different aspects of creation, such as ichthyotheology (fish), petinotheology (birds), testaceotheology (snails), melittotheology (bees), chortotheology (grass), brontotheology (thunder) and sismotheology (earthquakes), each of which had at least one book devoted to it. The Netherlands produced also theologies of snow, lightning and grasshoppers."
19 March 2024
Trump Threatens a Bloodbath
Here's a little reminder that every time we have Republican presidents in office - every time - the number of manufacturing jobs goes down. As it did with Trump. And by contrast, every time a Democrat is in the White House the number of manufacturing jobs goes up. As it has with Biden. Republican policies haven't created manufacturing jobs in a century.
So, he might be threatening violent mobs if he loses, Or he might be lying about how another Biden term will destroy manufacturing jobs. If the first, he's assuming that Americans are cowards; if the second, he's assuming Americans are stupid. Me? I'm assuming that in either case he's just projecting.
18 March 2024
California - land of the most successful capitalists in the history of the world
- the US: 89% ($24.8 trillion)
- the West Coast: 64% ($17.7 trillion)
- California: 44% ($12.3 trillion)
- California's Bay Area: 43% ($11.9 trillion)
15 March 2024
The Stark and Persistent Labor Market Difference Between Democratic and Republican Presidencies
What is bad? A positive number. It shows that the unemployment rate rose during that presidency.
Blue bars indicate a Democratic presidency.
13 March 2024
4 Year Anniversary of COVID in the USA - and how deadly it was to be an American during the pandemic
So, to repeat, per million death rate from COVID
Japan - 156
Canada - 919
US - 2,750
Which is to say, Americans died from COVID at 3X the rate as Canadians and at 18X the rate as the Japanese. It was pretty deadly to be an American during the pandemic.
06 March 2024
Trump Refers to the US as a Third-World Country - Unclear if That's a Campaign Promise or Threat
Republicans get all excited by that sort of talk - still recovering as they are from the trauma of the "great doubling of egg prices in 2023."
04 March 2024
One Reason a Nation Might Turn to a Tyrant
People who don't know any history might actually fall for that offer and think that trading sclerotic bureaucracies for an unchecked despot is a good trade. It never is.
01 March 2024
Another Sign the Job Market is Cooling: Wage Hike for Job Switching Has Dropped From Its All-Time High
28 February 2024
Real GDP Growth Highest in 18 years
The three years with highest real GDP growth in the last 19 years:
2021: 5.8%
2005: 3.5%
2023: 3.1%
In simpler terms, GDP growth over the last few years - adjusted for inflation - is the best it's been in decades.
data:
23 February 2024
26 US Counties with Highest Wages - Silicon Valley Continues to Dominate
Raw data:
21 February 2024
A Market Economy - Or What It Will Be Like When the Price of Lunch Bounces Around Like Stock Prices - Wendy's Adopts Dynamic Pricing
"What? For a dollar an hour?"