Saturday, June 28, 2014

Ann Coulter on Soccer

Hysteria from pundits of all political stripes has ensued from Ann Coulter's column criticizing soccer in America.  Conservatives and liberals both have claimed this as a sign that Tea Party types are out of touch and conspiratorial.

Let me defend Ann to my vast reading audience.

This column is another classic Coulter style of mixing satire with serious thought.  Too bad she didn't really supply any statistics, but one has to wonder how much demography really does have to do with interest in the World Cup.

For instance, I was in Canada a couple of weeks ago.  Half of the citizens of Toronto were born outside Canada.  There was a much greater zeal for the World Cup in Canada than in America.  It's just more popular overseas.

Is that necessarily a character defect? Maybe not.  I am very critical of the mob-like escapism that professional sports provides, but I don't see how following soccer is any different than American football or hockey.  I will posit that the shift in popularity from baseball to football is likely a symptom of our growing attention deficit.

Regardless of the reasons that soccer may be growing in popularity, the liberal backlash against this column is disgusting.  Coulter does not seek legislation to ban soccer.  She does not use inappropriate language to criticize them.  She doesn't even compare anyone to Hitler!

When schools are banning cupcakes at birthday parties, the wrath over this column is really misplaced.


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

RNC Cleveland?

Cleveland has made it to the final round in the 2016 GOP Convention.
As usual, the Republican National Committee has given us options that make no sense.

The two finalist cities couldn't be further apart.  Dallas is booming, conservative and Southern.  Cleveland is stagnating, liberal and Northeastern Rust Belt.  This is not a conservative-friendly town.

While I appreciate the GOP is making a better attempt to influence the swing state of Ohio, this would have been much better accomplished with a Cincinnati or Columbus bit.  The infrastructure, economy and conservative base of these cities are much more realistic for a GOP Convention.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Mergers

With the economy stagnant and companies sitting on ever-increasing piles of cash, mergers and acquisitions are building to pre-recession levels.  This story goes into the corporate psychology that would compel executives to do this.

But the average investor, employee, and customer should not follow along.

In an economy where a simple handheld app can upend industries to the point where worldwide strikes ensue (a la Uber), what is the benefit of assembling a bureaucratic organization?  The information-driven economy has never been better for smaller start-ups and entrepreneurs to take on new markets quickly, without needing vast infrastructure.

Large conglomerates worked when the economy was based on lowering the marginal cost of producing widgets.  Now that the marginal cost of sharing information is essentially zero, this strategy is not going to work.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

All data subject to change

My posts have been less frequent these days.  There's been a lot going on at work and otherwise lately.

Rather than my usual news-item commentary, I am going to write about something I've learned from data modelling and visualization.

The biggest expense for many employers is salaries & wages.  This can be a tricky expense to model and visualize, because there is a lot of seasonality in the way payroll expenses are paid.  I will give one example of a visualization that looked great until June or so -- then started failing.

Why?  

My graphs were focused on showing the trend of different pay types (overtime, maternity leave, etc.) month-over-month.  What special kind of payroll would peak in summer?  Vacation!

A full year of data would have showed that vacation time dwarfs most other pay types.  The comparisons were much harder to see with this huge gap drowning out the scale.  I needed to consider a better visualization to account for the abnormal build in vacation time versus other pay types.

Moral of the story?  Think about where your data is going.  Think about seasonality and what might come next before you get too confident in your visualization.  Do a lot of backtesting, or fitting old data into your model or visualization.

McCarthy's election

Unsurprisingly, Kevin McCarthy has been named House majority leader.

While I am somewhat disappointed in this decision, I am proud that some level of indirect representation still exists in this country.  One of my college professors at Hillsdale proudly sported the bumper sticker, "Repeal the 17th!"  For those of you who didn't go to Hillsdale, this is the amendment allowing the direct election of senators.

The Senate was loosely based of Britain's House of Lords, which back then was largely seated with inherited delegates.  Our Senators were sent by state legislators.  This was meant to restrain the whims of the voting populace from sending radical candidates to the Senate.  The electoral college method of choosing a president was also meant to lend temperance to the process.

Today, Senators are elected directly, and there is a huge push to abolish the electoral college.  The House was designed to be the federal body most engaged with the people, but there are still some indirectly appointed positions.  At least the voting of the Speaker, Majority Leader, etc., are still handled by the legislature itself.  I did not feel any less engaged than had I voted myself.  With so many other ways to make one's voice heard, voting is not the sole means of political expression anymore.  

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Pelletier goes home

Here's some good news  for a change.

Justina Pelletier has been allowed to return home after a battle with Boston Children's which should give anyone concern about this venerable institution.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Belly up to the student loan bubble

The cumulative outstanding balance on federal direct student loans has jumped 517.4 percent under Obama's watch.

With easy credit and fewer jobs available, students are piling onto debt like fried chicken at a Golden Corral.  The aftermath of such behavior is never good.  To make matters worse, student loan burdens are being made less strenuous for those who choose "public sector" jobs.  All-you-can-eat benefits.


Can the taxpayer even afford enough Tums to justify this behavior?  

Monday, June 16, 2014

Hoover and the Great Depression

The parallels between the Great Depression and our Great Recession are uncanny.



A Democrat comes into office on the heels of a milquetoast Republican, blaming the economy on a free-market straw man while in reality continuing on the same economic policies.



I always wondered how on earth an economic downturn could have lasted 10 whole years.  That's eons in the business world!  In the Bush-Obama period, I'm starting to see how it is possible.



Here's to hoping that this economic malaise won't be overshadowed by a major war....

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Father's Day

In honor of Father's Day, here is a post from Dennis Prager, explaining the commandment to honor our mother and father.

Happy Father's Day to all those men living and departed who serve as role models for us to live the Judeo-Christian values.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Entrepreneurs vs. thugs

These remarks from Thom Hartmann are truly idiotic.

You "don't have to deal" with the Koch Brothers?  Are you kidding me?  So men that made their fortune the old-fashioned way and are contributing to advance liberty and cure cancer are favorable to a cabal of thugs?

I'll take even the slickest of shysters on the free market over a shyster with the power to seize my property.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

UberCab Demo

Uber is all over the news, including this blog.  It's exciting.

Below is a demonstration from this app on how Uber actually works.



Wednesday, June 11, 2014

10 years behind the conservatives?

It's often said that American policy is basically just Europe's, but 10 years behind.  This implied that progressive ideas made their way here, they just faced a little more resistance.

It starts to seem like America is again behind the times -- but this time it's because we are slow to embrace conservative policies.  Just as Britain hits the brink of an immigration crisis and Canada relaxes its energy policies, Obama has us going straight to these same tired policies.

We can only hope that this is our future.  And with an economics professor handily defeating a tired old Republican, maybe we will get there.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Steps of Pittsburgh

We at this blog are fans of all things Rust Belt.  The WSJ had a great human interest story on the stairs of Pittsburgh.

Like most Midwestern cities, Pittsburgh's industrial days have left behind an expensive infrastructure.  In this case, many stairs were constructed to accommodate immigrant working-class housing.  The city can barely chart all these staircases, let alone maintain them.

It would be a shame for the city to just destruct these.  How about privatizing them?  Like the article says, many of these stairs lead to residences that cannot easily be found from the street.  Private companies would do a much better job cataloging their own property.

In a city that is leading the Rust Belt's recovery, this urban, pedestrian-friendly feature of the city should be capitalized on.  Privatization of the city's stairs would be a great way to explode the myth that infrastructure can only be maintained by the government.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Perverse Incentives U

In a move completely against the principles of economic incentives, President Obama used that famous pen to sign an executive order which would cap student loan payment to 10% of a student's monthly income.

Really?

As a hardworking recent graduate who (along with my parents) has made a lot of sacrifices to pay off my student loans the old-fashioned way, I am honestly too exasperated to elaborate.  So take it away, Peter Schiff.

This is going to be the student loan bubble's equivalent of the Community Reinvestment Act.

#Perverseincentives


Uber's valuation

The citizen-for-hire taxi service Uber raised $1.2 billion dollars that put it at a $17 billion valuation.

This should remind us that in the connection economy, value is waiting to be unlocked in the simplest of everyday activities.  What used to just be a journal or small 'zine can now easily become a million-dollar blog.  Stars are born overnight for posting rather spartan YouTube videos.

This extends beyond the creative arts.  There's a market now for your passenger seat or a place at your table.

The mundane now has a market.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Central Asia, the next Gulf?

One of the more amusing -- and predictive -- economic indicators is the "skyscraper index."  Rapidly constructed skylines tend to signal a credit bubble.  The best example of this is the Persian Gulf states, where places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai raced one another to get the highest skyscrapers.  The bubble finally burst in the Gulf, and many of the edifices sit unoccupied.

This same race to blow the bubble is on display in Central Asia.

Bloomberg is reporting on Azerbaijan's new fortunes as an oil country. What caught my attention the most is the story of Tajikistan's one-upsmanship in building a bigger flagpole than Azerbaijan.  This isn't quite the destructive use of capital as a 100-story skyscraper, but it's in the same spirit.

With Russia looking to control the flow of oil into Europe, oil-rich places in Central Asia like Azerbaijan will benefit.  But without a change in the underlying institutions or attitudes toward capitalism, this will be a fleeting moment.  Eventually, the inflow of interest payments will not be able to get repaid, and that flagpole may not be such a symbol of pride.

Friday, June 6, 2014

#DDay70

There have been a lot of anniversaries lately, namely Reagan’s death and D-Day.  Along with commemorating the event, these anniversaries have showed us how much the world’s technology has changed.  Even ten years ago, there was no Twitter when Reagan passed.  It makes the D-Day assaults almost impossible to fathom.  How was the largest military operation in history accomplished without the Internet?  Think of all the calculations and communications that had to be coordinated for the storming of Normandy. 

While there was no Microsoft Office in the 1940s, there were great leaders.  We can have all the technology at our disposal, but without the right man at the helm, they become idle Tweets. 


Think of Reagan 30 years ago (even then, no Internet) and Obama today.  Even with all of today’s technological advances, is Obama a better commander-in-chief? 

Recycle Smarter than a Third Grader! | Learn Liberty

PERC ought to be much better-known.  Unlike most think-tanks, they are not located in DC.  This is greatly to their credit.  It baffles me to think that a think tank advocating a lesser federal government would locate their offices in the federal capital!  I thought DC was supposed to be a seasonal city?



Anyway, PERC tears down the false dichotomy between environmentalism and market economics.  Just think markets when you're recycling!










Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Prager's Commencement Address

Dennis Prager hits another home run in this Prager U video.  

The wisest point of them all I believe was his first.  This summarizes the liberal versus conservative viewpoint so well.  Is man's primary conflict man vs. society or man vs. himself?  This is a driving theme of Western philosophy and literature.  Thanks to people like Marx and Rousseau, most graduates believe that society is the cause of all their problems.  They do not wish to look inward for flaws.

Although I have some problems with Gandhi, one of the wisest quotes of the twentieth century is certainly: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."



Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Big Data and disperse knowledge

Economists are frequently turning to Twitter, Google and other online data sources to analyze the markets.

In an economy less focused on manufacturing and more on information and connections, it only makes sense to use internet-created data in economic modelling.  Just as car sales were tantamount to analyzing the Rust Belt economy of the past, Google and Twitter are means of generating value in the information economy.
 
What’s really exciting about these changes is the possibility of exploring disperse data.  In the past, industrial surveys focused mostly on managers and their plants.  How many people did you hire?  What is your inventory?  If the individual was surveyed, it was only among a set list of questions.  Then it would take a few weeks to compile this data among classical statistical assumptions (You need the right sample size…and what is your margin of error?)

No more waiting weeks for top-down approaches.  Now anyone can log onto the web real-time and research what individuals share.  What a great way to gather disperse information and develop trends. 

 

Piketty on CNBC

And he's got the accent to boot!

Thomas Piketty was on CNBC to talk economics.  From the video, he doesn't seem to understand the duelling forces of liberty and equality. 

But when it comes to the Fed, we can all conclude that the Federal Reserve *does* promote inequality.  Credit expansion does not spread evenly to the economy.  It tends to concentrate among those who are already the most protected -- bankers and other establishment types.  The Fed's credit creation has been a bad deal for the rest of us.  I'm glad Piketty got something right!

Sunday, June 1, 2014

The Bubble in Higher Education

It's always frustrating when an article delves into an interesting point and a decent conclusion, but gets there through incorrect thinking.

This MarketWatch story is a perfect example.  The author insists that college just *has* to get cheaper.  It's inevitable!  At a certain point, things well level out.  He concludes that for people who would be in college in 20 years (.i.e. those being born today), college will be affordable.

The author doesn't go into the mechanics of why the rising cost of college won't last forever.  It's a classic bubble.  The government has incentivized loads of young people to take on piles of debt in exchange for a college degree.  Once creditors have a hard enough time getting their money back on these poor loans, they will have to stop lending.  Unfortunately, this lender is mainly the federal government.  Government's overbearing role in the higher education system has led to some serious overinvestment in education, and at some point this will be corrected.

It's not that there is just some mystical economic law that predicts all overbuying must end.  In this case, we have a bubble.

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