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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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?