QoD from Ed at G&T

I mean, modern American politics is basically the Democrats mumbling something quasi-logical while the Republicans scream something that makes no sense whatsoever. What am I supposed to say, "OK class, today we're going to debate de-funding the National Science Foundation. This group will be the 'pro' side…." We'd get more accomplished if we played Candyland. Defending ridiculous viewpoints is going to teach them one of two things. They will learn to make nonsensical arguments unabashedly, or they will learn how to say a bunch of bullshit that sounds like a persuasive argument but isn't. The former is Sean Hannity, the latter, George Will.
                                                         ---- Ed

This is relevant because of a FB conversation I got into yesterday with a stranger commenting on a mutual friend's post. Her approach was to change the subject, move the goal posts, engage in hyperbole, present demonstrable nonsense as fact, and reject facts when presented. This is what you get into with regressives all the time. It's no accident that they don't know how to engage in rational discourse. Down that path lies truth, and truth does not comport with their pre-packaged view of the world.

It's so much more comfortable and convenient to wallow in ideologically approved talking points. It saves all that tedious mucking around with critical thinking, facts and logic.

Bumper Sticker of the Day

Seen on Washington St. downtown Royal oak, MI.

$10,000 Reward

Schrödinger's cat

Wanted Dead or Alive

Logic Boat

XKCD:

Answer to question in panel 4:

Because you are a Stark.

Oh - and by the way, Winter is coming.

Quotes of the Day, With a Dash of WTH?!?

A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.
-- G. K. Chesterton

Quoted by John Holbo, at CT, where (in comment #13) Jim Harrison adds:

 Rhetoric, after all, has always been about making the worse case defeat the better.

But (of course) I wholly misunderstand (you remember my definition of misunderstand) rhetoric.

NFL Postseason

The championship games have resulted in the worst possible outcome.

Of course, so did last week's playoff games.

I don't have much feeling one way or the other for the Giants.  I do have some faint positives for the 49ers.  Don't ask me why.  But I loath the Patriots, and I especially loath Tom Brady.  It is particularly disappointing to see them win when he had a pretty bad day.  I did so much want him to be the goat.

Whether I will even watch the Super Bowl is at this point an open question.

As an aside, it seems that neither Joe Flacco nor Alex Smith is above the mediocre level as a QB, despite Smith's heroics last week.

What the Hell?!? Friday - Spin(?)

Spin -- Illusion or Reality  .  .  .   Does it matter?




Mark puts this optical oddity into a real world context.  Check it out at his place.

Busy

I will posting very little - if at all - for the next week or so.  This is the busiest week of the year for me.

What the Hell?!? Friday - Things You Really Gotta Have (Or Maybe Not) Edition

Beer mugs, pi, swimwear, chair leg socks, games, toys, travel, magnetism, demented fairy art work (?) eviler cupcakes, and a few touches of Eeewww!!!

Map of Westeros

This one is quite good.

Most of the action of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE takes place here.

What the Hell ?!? Friday / Quote of the Day, with a (possible) hoppy sip of neoliberalism

Perhaps there is some Bierstalinismus Fraktion out there, which believes that the proletariat will never be fully realized as a class-in-itself until it learns to appreciate hoppy microbrews, but which has reached an accommodation with neo-liberalism in which these joys are reserved for the revolutionary vanguard.

Also sprach Henry Farrell at CT.  He also supplies links and context, lest this heady kerfuffle be totally inscrutable.

In case anyone is wondering, I really do appreciate hoppy microbrews, and will seek them out, when it is not terribly inconvenient.
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On Playing Monopoly

I have done it wrong all my life.

You have done it wrong all your life.

By "wrong" I mean not in accordance with the rules.

"Oh - of course," you say, "everybody does that."

But not in the way you imagine.  I'm not talking about house rules.  I'm talking about ignorance.  You have always played it wrong because you don't know how to play it right.

H/T to Johnathon Bernstein. (Pt 7 at the link.)
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Pix of the Day - with a moment of Disney

I lifted this off somebody's Facebook page.

Truth might be stranger, but fiction is cuter (for the most part.)

Economics is Bunk

In this interview with the New Yorker, Eugene Fama laughs a lot and admits he doesn't know anything, while insisting that there is no credit crisis and that markets are efficient.   I could not make this up.

Yes. It is exactly how you would expect the market to work.

I can tell a story very easily in which the financial markets were a casualty of the recession, not a cause of it.

I wonder how many economists would argue that the world wasn’t made a much better place by the financial development that occurred from 1980 onwards. The expansion of worldwide wealth—in developed countries, in emerging countries—all of that was facilitated, in my view, to a large extent, by the development of international markets and the way they allow saving to flow to investments, in its most productive uses.

Holy shit!  All of them? Fama thinks the Great Stagnation was/is an improvement on the previous decades!?!.  Even Scott Sumner wouldn't go that far.  (I hope.)  "Most productive uses" is particularly stunning when what we have seen is the misallocation of resources an an absolutely astounding scale.

Krugman wants to be the czar of the world. There are no economists that he likes. (Laughs)

NY:So you still think that the market is highly efficient at the overall level too?

Fama: Yes. And if it isn’t, it’s going to be impossible to tell.

WTF?!?   That sure makes your pet theory safe.

(Laughs) My attitude is this: if you are getting attacked by Krugman, you must be doing something right.

There really could not be a better concluding sentence to this interview.

Update:  I just read the comments following the interview.  19 of 20 think Fama has his head up his ass.
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Monstrosity

Does this remind anybody else of the Loch Ness Monster?

The Best Economic Blogs

According to Alen Mattich at the Wall Street Journal.  (With a H/T to James Hamilton.)

Alen is evidently a very serious person, since he placed Marginal Revolution at the top of the list, and Megan McCardle, who "is excellent" (gag) near the bottom.  No, I will not link to her.  I really don't feel like hugging a squid tonight.

You can certainly see why MR made it to the coveted apex.  Who but Tyler Cowan could read this story, and see in it a lesson about monopsony?

There are actually a number of good choices on his list - as evidenced by the fact that I link to them in my right-hand panel.

It includes - almost as afterthoughts - Delong and even Krugman, "albeit with the caveat that his ad hominem attacks detract from his analysis."  WTH?!?  I guess that is a reminder, lest we forget, that we're dealing with Rupert's Wall Street Urinal, so the connection with reality is going to be erratic. 

There are blogs listed that I've never checked out, so there is some future fodder, mayhaps.  But I'm genuinely baffled that he missed Modeled Behavior.  That site is mostly interesting and thoughtful, often erudite, and always promotes a staunchly free-market, libertarian-leaning conservative viewpoint.   And Karl, at least, will sometimes engage me.

Then again, Mattich thinks Megan McCardle, who, with her "bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Chicago" is no more an economist than I am,  is an "excellent" economic blogger.

If I were to say that explains a lot, would I be making an ad hominem attack that detracts from my analysis?
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Thoughts on QE II

The stated goal of QE II is to raise inflation expectations. ('cuz wishing will make it so.)

Markets respond to higher inflation by raising interest rates. But these are nominal rates. The real interest rate is the nominal rate minus the rate of inflation.

The apparent paradox is that higher nominal rates are (within reason), in fact lower real rates. At, or ,the zero-bound, real rates are HIGHER than nominal rates. In actual deflation, they are much higher. I've seen the real rate during the Great Depression estimated at north of 11%, when long T-bond nominal rates were negative.

The idea behind QE II is that increasing the monetary base will lead to increased expectations and inflation.   Menzie Chinn examines the real world historical effect of this approach, and finds it wanting.

In comments there, Barkley Rosser points out "that monetary base is not the same thing as money. So, indeed, it can be formulated as a problem of the multiplier, that in this recessionary state, the multiplier has collapsed, arguably a variant of the old "pushing on a string" argument."

 Oh, yeah.  The multiplier.  It died two years ago.

Here's how I connect the dots:  It's GD II, things are going to get far, far worse.  Employment will not recover unless and until something drastic happens.  God only knows what that may be; perhaps a 2nd amendment solution.  But who has the guns?  I am eskeered!
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Serious Candidate for Best/Worst Joke of All Time

I'll leave that decision to you.

Joke posted at Swerve Left.
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Illiterate Clown Politics

The only thing I can say about this is that at least Christine O'Donnell can read.

We aren't the only only ones who are screwed, I guess.

Update:  It turns out she's not even descended from a real Bozo.  He was only a fill-in Bozo.

So -- are we screwed, or what?

What the Hell? Friday -- Employment -- UP! Unemployment -- UP?!?

Read all about it.

Here at AB - with Graphs.

Here at Econospeak, with brief commentary.

Here at Plain Blog with political analysis.

Here at Washington Monthly, with the best Bush to Obama comparison - in Color!

How can both numbers rise at the same time?  More people entering (or re-entering) the work force results in a bigger pie, so both slices can grow at the same time.  

Mmmmmmm -- pie!

Open Thread

Political - or any other opinions and innuendo - are welcome in the comment section.


Try not to be too gratuitously offensive, and please - whatever your point of view - make some kind of sense.

I'll start with some random thoughts about Tea Baggers.

The first obvious fact is they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

The Obama hatred has no basis in reality.

Hatred is their source of energy.  Hatred of the "other:" Obama, immigrants, gays.  This is the human manifestation of the vestigial reptile brain.

Rush Limbaugh is in large measure responsible.  He has been fomenting and channeling otherwise amorphous right-wing populist anger for 20 years with his lies, misrepresentations and distortions.  It is hard to imagine a more loathsome person, other than Dick Cheney.

The antidote is knowledge.  But there is so much disinformation clogging the airwaves and print media that truth and knowledge are swamped.

Understanding - by which I mean comprehension - is difficult.  It takes real mental effort.  It's far easier to simply wallow in spoon-fed, industrial strength, pre-fabricated right-wing talking points.

Baggers carp about taxation - which is at a historical low.  Just yesterday Sarah Palin told the Boston crowd at the Tea Party express that 100 days of earnings go to the government.  What she didn't say is that it's down under Obama, from 105.

Birthers, 12thers, and their ilk must be motivated by racial disgust at that darkie in the white house. If I'm wrong, please provide an alternate explanation.

Cheers!
JzB

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