Letters to the Editor
PaulBC
Published Letters: 239 Editor's Choice: 24
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Mitt, you mean the Adam Smith who wrote:
[Read the article: Why the Republicans don't like their candidates]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation.
I got this from the Wikipedia entry, but I have read the first half of Wealth of Nations and it isn't what many of Smith's supporters or detractors seem to think it is. It's a remarkably lucid exposition of how markets work, largely unfettered by ideological baggage. While Smith does insist (I would say correctly) that markets are generally more effective at allocating resources than fiat, he is far from claiming that they never fail or that the best state of existence is an anarchic every man for himself. He's sometimes witty too. Another famous quote (already alluded to and from the same Wikipedia article):
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.
This might have been a good point to bring up during Dick Cheney's secret energy meetings.
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Aaaaaaaaaagh! Run away!
[Read the article: Airbrushing the baby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They turned her into Bride of Chucky... or if there's ever a big-budget CG remake, it'll be something like that. Scary!
I thought the "before" was a little overdone, to be honest. But my ideal of a cute toddler photo generally involves a smashed banana.
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not an unflattering photo
[Read the article: Cheerful boos for Hillary]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Actually, I thought it was sort of a cute photo, and definitely humanizing. She does look as if she's genuinely gleeful. It might be a worthwhile exercise for people to attempt to drop their politics and just imagine it's a picture of some older friend or relative. Then ask if they would consider it a good candid shot.
I don't guarantee any particular results. I mean, honestly, I cannot see a photo of Bush without thinking "dimwit" or a photo of Cheney without thinking "There's a guy who gets to sleep at night by grinding his teeth and revising his enemies list." So those driven to madness by the mere mention of "Hillary" are unlikely to concur with me on this photo.
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definitely not unprecedented
[Read the article: Postpone the rise of the machines]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This sounds remarkably similar to all the hysteria over "program trading" in the early 1990s. There may be a slight difference in that program trading does not necessarily imply that computers make the decision to buy or sell, but that they automate the process, allowing a trader to execute orders for complex portfolios rather than individual stocks. But if my memory serves, the suspicion at the time was that computers were making the decisions and that this was creating volatility.
I wasn't very financially savvy at the time, but I do remember a friend in grad school relating his trader friend's self-description of his job as "picking up pennies in front of a steam-roller." I.e., there are plenty of small gains to pick up, but you do so at a cost of increased risk.
Widely-used computational techniques are never going to predict the stock market for the simple reason that not everyone can get rich by playing the market. There could conceivably (though I doubt it) be mathematical model that predicted today's stock market accurately enough to make consistent gains. But if you knew of one, then better not tell anybody else. Because computer models, unlike human expertise, are easily replicated. Once the model was widely disseminated, the nature of the market itself would change and the model would cease to work. This follows from a simple reductio ad absurdum, since the alternative would be that everyone would somehow become rich without any additional economic productivity (the market provides some economic value in the form of setting fair prices, but not enough to make everyone rich).
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just sticking to the script
[Read the article: The enduring myth of Americans' dislike of investigations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As soon as it became likely that Democrats might actually take Congress in 2006, the script was written that they would become unpopular by acting too strident and partisan. Reality almost always takes a back seat to the script. There are limits, of course. It would be difficult to maintain the fiction that the GOP is still in control of congress or that Bush is a very popular president (boy do they try though).
Consider. When Bush and company postponed the "product release date" for the Iraq war to avoid the August 2002 doldrums, they had a script: Saddam had WMDs and would refuse to allow UN weapons inspectors to enter, forcing us reluctantly to go to war after all other options had been explored. Of course, nothing of the sort happened, but the script was followed so doggedly among pundits that Bush can repeatedly state that Saddam refused to allow inspections, and not a peep is heard out of anybody this side of Paul Krugman.
The script is a difficult thing to overcome. According to script, the Democrats are going to blow it this time around by putting their "Bush-hating" ahead of the interests of the American people. They may blow it anyway--more likely by trying too hard to prove the script wrong by insisting that Bush is right about everything after all.