Reasonable Rant

Taking A Break

Reasonable Ranter — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:39:00 GMT

So I've been writing this blog almost daily for about a year now. It has been interesting, time-consuming, thought-provoking, and sometimes cathartic. One of the interesting things about writing in this way, is that you're often forced to take more definitive positions on issues than you otherwise would be. It's not that I ever felt the need to choose an ideological "side", but I did feel the pressure to give my opinion on why I thought certain pieces of an issue were important and why others were not. What I thought might work and what might not work - and why I thought so.

I began in April of last year with this post. I had no idea what I'd write about at the time, but very quickly it became clear that politics and economics were my primary topics. I learned that I felt most comfortable writing about economics - but I also learned that it's almost impossible to speak about anything of importance in economics without also addressing the political and public policy landscape. I learned about my new-found hatred of arrogant certainty and ignorant certainty. I think I've always been the skeptical type, but I've become much more comfortable with the concept of doubt. I've come to believe that doubt helps me get much closer to the truth than blind faith or some sort of faux confidence. And sometimes, doubt is actually the terminal point of an argument. And that's OK. Doubt doesn't make the argument itself worthless, quite the contrary.

While I will continue to write here periodically, I will not be posting almost-daily as I have for the past year. If you'd like to be notified when I do post something, you can enter your email and subscribe to this blog on the right-hand side of the page. We'll see how it works out - who knows - maybe I'll be back posting daily after a few months of withdraw. Take care.

Cars And Banks

Reasonable Ranter — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:34:00 GMT

So everyone was outraged when the government bailed out General Motors. Now everyone (OK, maybe a slightly different set of people) seems to be outraged that it looks like General Motors may go into bankruptcy. I guess someone will always be unhappy. The fact is that a viable General Motors won't happen without a lot of pain - and I think a bankruptcy might be the only thing that can save them. They need a fundamentally different business model to succeed in the future, and I believe only bankruptcy can allow them to get there.

If you're wondering what the difference is between the automobile industry and the banks, read this post from James Surowiecki.

Freudian Slips

Reasonable Ranter — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:20:00 GMT

Top ten list of Freudian slips. Stupid for sure, but hard not to laugh at most of these. Enjoy.

Fun With Typos

Reasonable Ranter — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:12:00 GMT

For some reason, i enjoy finding egregious typos in newspapers, magazines, and books. Maybe it makes me feel better knowing that even the professionals screw up periodically. Here's a good one from the LA Times.

Swimming Like A Dolphin

Reasonable Ranter — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:18:00 GMT

Anyone who has swam with fins knows what a difference they make. They allow you to almost effortlessly navigate through the water. When you take them off, your legs and feet feel like cue sticks helplessly flailing in the water. Well now we have the Lunocet, which puts regular fins to shame.

Certainty v. Being Right

Reasonable Ranter — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:24:00 GMT

As it turns out, certainty is much more profitable and gets better ratings than being right. From Nicholas Kristoff today:

Talent bookers for television shows and reporters tended to call up experts who provided strong, coherent points of view, who saw things in blacks and whites. People who shouted — like, yes, Jim Cramer!
Mr. Tetlock called experts such as these the “hedgehogs,” after a famous distinction by the late Sir Isaiah Berlin (my favorite philosopher) between hedgehogs and foxes. Hedgehogs tend to have a focused worldview, an ideological leaning, strong convictions; foxes are more cautious, more centrist, more likely to adjust their views, more pragmatic, more prone to self-doubt, more inclined to see complexity and nuance. And it turns out that while foxes don’t give great sound-bites, they are far more likely to get things right.

To some extent, I think this is what President Obama and Tim Geithner are dealing with right now. No one knows the perfect solution to getting the economy back on track, but everyone expects a simple, coherent plan, which will produce a few, simple soundbites. Such a plan doesn't exist. And such soundbites wouldn't do anything but give the cable news shows something else to yap about for another 24 hours.

My right wing friends will say I'm merely making excuses for Obama and Geithner's lack of experience, their indecisiveness, and their overall inability to do the job. I've watched and read enough about both of them to believe otherwise. I think they have both have a strong understanding of the problems at hand - and I would much prefer boring, thoughtful, pragmatic leaders dealing with this crisis, then brash, overly-certain ones. There is nothing wrong with being uncertain about how to solve a difficult problem, as long as you're making concrete steps to get to the right answer, constantly weighing how things could work better as new information becomes available.

The AIG Bonuses

Reasonable Ranter — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:21:00 GMT

Can we please stop talking about these damn bonuses? No, I don't think they should have received the bonuses - considering they would've received nothing without the bailout. And yes, I understand there's some symbolism involved - the government can't let it be perceived that taxpayer money is going to waste. On the other hand, temporary 90% taxes are a scary proposition. But either way, can everyone please take a step back from the populist anger and get some perspective?

The AIG bonuses were $165 million. Our GDP is about $14 Trillion and the Federal government's expected outlays this year are about $3.9 Trillion. This makes the $165M equal to about .001% of GDP and .004% of outlays. Even with this tiny amount of money, the President, his administration, congress, and the press have spent many days now dealing with this so-called important situation.

To put these numbers into perspective. This is akin to a $250M company having the CEO and much of the management team working on a $3,000 - $10,000 issue for a couple weeks. It is a complete waste of time and misallocation of resources.

Where Was The Editor?

Reasonable Ranter — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:04:00 GMT

From today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Rice also said she believes the NFL could have mass appeal in places such as Britain, Germany and Australia at some point in the future. She suggested that the league not expand to places where they also play cricket."

This makes no sense. Because it's not a direct quote, I'm not sure if it's Rice or Bob Brookover who got it wrong - but cricket was basically invented in England and the first test cricket match was played by England and Australia. I know the Inquirer is struggling financially, but this is just careless. Either careless because of their own error, or careless because of the error of omission in not pointing out the problem with Rice's statement.

The President Speaks To Iran

Reasonable Ranter — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:40:00 GMT

Check out this video from President Obama to the government and people of Iran. The differences between former President Bush and President Obama are so striking, I'm beginning to forget the diplomatic disaster that was 2001-08.

Rush and Hannity will despise this message, because to them America must always talk tough. What they don't understand (or don't want to understand) is that speaking with respect and reaching out to find common ground actually makes us stronger.

The Perfect Bracket

Reasonable Ranter — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:20:00 GMT

This post from the Numbers Guy is an oldie, but a goodie. Carl Bialik writes about how difficult it is to pick a perfect bracket. Because the probability of each team winning is highly variable, evaluating the odds of a perfect bracket is not an exact science. That said, some mathematicians calculate that it's much easier to win the Powerball Lottery than it is to pick a perfect bracket. Much easier.

Augmented Reality

Reasonable Ranter — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:26:00 GMT

Amazing stuff. If you have a webcam and a printer, you can try it for yourself right here.

via the daily what

Foreign Policy Changes Not Easily Accepted

Reasonable Ranter — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:40:00 GMT

Fareed Zakaria has a smart piece on the how difficult it is to go against the foreign policy establishment.

An excerpt:

The problem with American foreign policy goes beyond George Bush. It includes a Washington establishment that has gotten comfortable with the exercise of American hegemony and treats compromise as treason and negotiations as appeasement. Other countries can have no legitimate interests of their own—Russian demands are by definition unacceptable. The only way to deal with countries is by issuing a series of maximalist demands. This is not foreign policy; it's imperial policy. And it isn't likely to work in today's world.

Pics Around Manhattan

Reasonable Ranter — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:15:00 GMT

I'm a big fan of these patched-together pictures of the streets of Manhattan.

Spellcheck

Reasonable Ranter — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:36:00 GMT

I often forget how reliant I am on spellcheck. I did not do well on this difficult spelling quiz.

People See Things They Want To See

Reasonable Ranter — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:52:00 GMT

And local news organizations know their viewers like stories showing that "god is everywhere" - so they give people these kinds of stories.

The funny thing is that you could find just as many pieces of food or oil spills that look like the devil - but people don't want to see the devil, so they don't. Many Cheetos look like dead animals, but people don't want to see dead animals in their Cheetos, so they don't.

Cramer v. Stewart Conclusion

Reasonable Ranter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:25:00 GMT

I give credit to Cramer for facing the music, but it doesn't make his antics any more palatable to me.

Here is the unedited interview, which I think is a bit better than the version that made it on TV.

part 1
part 2
part 3

Ron Paul's Pork

Reasonable Ranter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:53:00 GMT

Check out this interview of Ron Paul discussing earmarks. An outspoken critic of most forms of federal spending, Ron Paul was fine with taking home tens of millions in earmarks for his district.

I fully take his point that transparency is the real issue. But I do think it's a bit disingenuous to claim to be against almost all forms of federal spending, but then pull in as much as possible for your district. Simply voting against the bill does not give him some sort of immunity.

I am certainly no expert in the federal government appropriations process - but it seems to me that Mr. Paul knows he can't change the game, so he just plays it the best he can. In the end, almost everyone agrees the earmark process needs reform, but the actual dollar amounts involved are so small that it's almost a waste of time given the other priorities of the federal government right now. The real dollars are in entitlement spending. The future Medicare liability is many, many orders of magnitude larger than the so-called earmarked pork.

You Are Here To Be Happy

Reasonable Ranter — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:32:00 GMT

Good advice often comes from strange places. In this case, it's an ad from Coca-Cola.

Stewart v. CNBC, Cramer, And Now Scarborough

Reasonable Ranter — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:42:00 GMT

This whole "war" is pretty comical I think. If you'd like to catch up, the videos are pretty entertaining.

John Stewart exposes CNBC. Watch here.

Stewart then follows up after Cramer says he's been taken out of context. Watch here.

Cramer does a mini-press run, tries to defend himself and Scarborough jumps into the mix. Watch here.

I think Cramer has it right when he says Jon Stewart is a comedian. These are businessmen, politicians, and journalists who can't stand it that someone picks apart what they say. Scarborough is just yapping away without a care for reality. You can bash Stewart all you want, but you can't say he doesn't make his show easily available to the public. The Daily Show has one of the deepest vaults of videos on the internet.

To me, this is all about the horrendous predictions Cramer and countless pundits on CNBC have made. These kinds of networks thrive on the volume of predictions, not on the accuracy of those predictions. ESPN does the same thing with sports. I guess I don't mind when some predictions are wrong, as much as I mind the arrogant certainty with which the predictions are made. It's unfortunate, but true, that being arrogant and certain generates better ratings than being thoughtful, cautious, and soft spoken - so I think arrogant certainty is here to stay.

A Tragedy in Brazil, The Vatican, and Extremism

Reasonable Ranter — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:24:00 GMT

So a man brutally molests and rapes his 9 year old step-daughter. Doctors tell the mother that her daughter's life is in danger if she carries the baby to term due to her slim frame. The mother saves her daughter's life and gets her an abortion. In response to this, the Brazilian church excommunicates the Mother and the doctors. Days later, the Vatican approves.

In other news, the rapist stepfather is not excommunicated because the "crime he committed, although deplorable, was not as bad as ending a fetus' life."

And this is one of the many, many, many reasons why the Catholic Church has been rapidly decreasing in numbers over the past 40 years. Apparently there is no room for common sense when dogma gets in the way. I don't care what your views on abortion are - this is nothing but illogical stubbornness and extremism. This was a medical procedure to save a young girl's life. But the church sees it as "sticking to their convictions" because in their world, everything is black and white.