The Ambrosini Critique

Best Post of the Month in the Economics Category?

Popperian falsification is just a special case of the Bayesian view: if the likelihood P(data|model) is zero (indicating that the data is impossible given the model), P(model|data) is zero, regardless of the prior. But the Bayesian approach offers some sort of a weighted preference among all the models that haven’t been refuted yet, balancing the Ockhamist preference for simplicity through the prior and the desire for accuracy through the likelihood.

Can you believe this guy? Someone please tell me that steroids rots your brain… at least then, he’d have an excuse. Jezus H. Chriminy.

President Bush vetoes this bill, gets on TV and announces an initiative to increase the earned income tax credit .

(Why?)

The reaction in parliament to Bush’s speech:

Despite being concerned about security developments, the people were very interested in learning about the new strategy of president Bush but since the speech was aired at 5 am in Baghdad, the morning has seen a rush to radio and TV to find out what the president had said.

A few hours later a flood of comments from Iraqi politicians filled the media here and maybe the earliest and most interesting argument was the one that took place between Abdul Kareem Al-Inizi of the UIA (from a branch of the Dawa party that split from the original Dawa of Jafari and Maliki) and Mithal al-Alusi during yesterday’s session of the parliament.

Al-Inizi said “Iraq is not an American state and Bush must consult with us before making such decisions about sending troops…” to which al-Alusi responded by saying “We have an elected prime minister and he was consulted…you and others like yourself wouldn’t be sitting here had America not helped us. They are trying to protect this democracy and they possess what they can offer to help us with the security situation, but what do you have?? Cut the nonsense, ok? Do you think the parliament wants to vote about this? Fine, let’s ask everybody if they want such voting…”

There was only silence in the hall after this and no one said another word about voting.

Iraq the Model is great for the inside view of things in Iraq. The writers there are generally pro-America/government/optimists, but I wouldn’t call them stooges. If you’re looking for other points of view inside Iraq, here’s a post at another great site that links to various Iraqi reactions to Saddam’s execution.

To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.

– Bush

Best. Idea. Evar!

Most of the time I wonder why I read Prof. Delong’s weblog. His political commentary is just bad and I suspect he writes heated rhetoric just to encourage the passions of a generally unthinking and sycophantic commentaria (I’m sure there’s a word for those people that comment on particular blogs but why use existing words when you can invent your own). I just don’t understand why anyone would want to be an economist’s groupie.

And then, every so often, there’s a great economics post or turns of phrases like these:

So no, reasonable people could not argue that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression.

The furthest I will go is to agree that reasonable people can argue over whether reasonable people could argue that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression.

Damn you Prof. Delong! I’ll take my finger off the unsubscribe button… for now.

A footnote in this good discussion of discounting:

Similarly, discounting for opportunity costs is also inappropriate if one is comparing outcomes that cannot be invested. For example, although money can be invested and (perhaps) be used to save future lives, a life itself cannot be “invested” to offset or negate lives lost in the future. Consider the following thought experiment: Two asteroids are threatening to collide with earth. The smaller asteroid is projected to collide with earth in 10 years, killing a few hundred people. The larger asteroid is projected to collide with earth in 1000 years, killing a few billion people. NASA can blow up one of the asteroids, but not both. If future deaths were discounted at the market interest rate, blowing up the small asteroid may be judged to be more worthwhile. However, defending that choice with an opportunity cost argument requires an account of how the people who are saved from the smaller asteroid can be “invested” to compensate for the much larger loss of life that will later occur when the larger asteroid collides. It is difficult to understand how that would work. (The people who are saved by preventing the impact of the small asteroid could, through reproduction, create more people, but it would be strange to interpret this as compensation for the later loss of life.)

(I’m not sure why the interpretation in the ending parenthetical is strange. Comparing the lives of actual living people to hypothetical not-yet living people isn’t strange.)

Wouldn’t the technology that NASA invents in order to blow up the first asteroid be used to build better technology to blow up the second asteroid? “Blowing up an asteroid” isn’t consumption and I don’t see why there’s any problem with time preference for technology.

Rhetorical note: if the hippies (I kid!) want me to care about this whole save my great grand kids from the CO2 monster thing, they should engage my inner geek. They shouldn’t be asking for “reductions in consumption” (boring!) they should be asking for “investments in crazy mind blowing biosphere-engineering gadgets.” If they mention robots and drilling holes to the planet’s core, I’m so in.

The industrial-military complex folks got us geeks behind the cold war by, literally, promising the moon. And look, now we have Teflon to show for it.

Other causes for patella femoral syndrome include weak quadriceps muscles, injury to the knee, obesity and overuse. Initial treatment involves reducing inflammation and re-establishing the proper alignment between the knee cap and its groove. Rest is used for the painful swollen knee until symptoms improve. Stair climbing and squatting are avoided. Ice and anti-inflammatory medications are also used to decrease inflammation. Treatment is directed at strengthening the thigh muscles of the inside of the knee and stretching of the tight muscles and connective tissues of the outside of the knee. Malalignments of the flat feet are corrected with shoes with good medial arch support or through the use of orthotics. Hip rotation is improved through stretching exercises.

— Yale med

The doctor told me I should also try core strengthening exercises… maybe join a palates class. And there are these exercises to strengthen the inner thigh.

Government power is not necessarily abused more often than personal power, but when the abuse does come, it’s a lulu. At work, power over the whole supply cabinet is concentrated in the person of the office manager. In government, power over the entire mi litary is concentrated in the person of the commander-in-chief. You steal felt tip pens. Hitler invades Poland.

— P.J. O’Rourke

I believe in democracy because I distrust the elites. I distrust the elites because I believe that self-deception is widespread, and the elites are particularly skilled at it. Accordingly, I believe that it is important for those in power to have the humility of knowing that they may be voted out of office.

– Arnold Kling