RTL-Day Minus 13: Um....Why?

To follow our lead (lede?) story....Samoa plans to switch from driving on the right, to driving on the left, just 13 days from now.



KPC readers want to know: WTF?

Some arguments for the switch--
1. The main reason for Samoa's switch is that two of its biggest neighbors, Australia and New Zealand, drive on the left-hand side, whereas Samoa currently drives on the right, as in the U.S. By aligning with Australia and New Zealand, the prime minister says, it will be easier for poor Samoans to get cheap hand-me-down cars from the 170,000 or so Samoans who live in those two countries. It could also help more people escape tsunamis, says [Prime Minister] Tuilaepa.

2. In a TV address about the road change last week, the prime minister warned that "the only thing to fear is fear itself." [Ed: Now, THAT is a good one. Unfortunately, the PM also appears to think that people should fear tsunamis (see #1, above). So, the only things we have to fear are fear itself, and tsunamis....and sharks. Amongst our fears are....]

3. [The prime minister] listed a series of other steps, including declaring Sept. 7 and 8 national holidays. The government has also set up a "training area" near a sports stadium where drivers can practice the fine art of driving on the left side of the road.

Tomorrow: The other side speaks out, with arguments against.

(The view from Oz....Can anyone find a web site for "People Against Switching Sides", or PASS?)

Education: yer doin' it wrong

In Peru, the government recently delivered a boatload of laptop computers to over 2,000 school kids in indigenous communities. There's just one big problem. In 50 of the 73 communities where the computers were sent, there is no electricity to keep them running (these are not self cranking types).

As it turns out though, this is actually a big improvement over the last program like this. In that case, the computers were set up in English (!!!!) and the batteries were defective.

Plus, not to worry because the government is pledging to soon deliver 2 solar panels to each of the communities that got laptops but don't have electricity!

No word on how these panels would be utilized or how an electric grid for a village could run on two panels (maybe they are VERY BIG panels?).

Here is the full story (in Spanish). Hat tip to the inimitable Otto.

Breaking news! Bernanke to be re-appointed

Story here

The Devil went down to .....Lima?

looking for a pageant to win.

One thing I really enjoy about Latin America is the intense national rivalries and even hatreds between the component countries. Which, to Mrs. Angus's dismay, I love to stir up. When in rural Peru, I'd ask "I had this great drink in Chile called Pisco, do you guys have that here?" and sit back and enjoy the show (works just as good in Chile, by the way).

Well, Bolivia and Peru are at it about who own the intellectual and historical property rights over a giant female devil costume:

A diplomatic storm is brewing between Peru and Bolivia. Bolivia's president has accused Peru of thievery. Peru's Congress issued a bristling denial. Bolivian diplomats are threatening to take the dispute to an international tribunal at The Hague.

The two Andean neighbors are tussling over a costume in the Miss Universe pageant.

Last week, in the event's national-costume competition, Peru's candidate, Karen Schwarz, wore an elaborately embroidered outfit with a massive horned headpiece. It was inspired by practitioners of a timeless Andean ritual known as La Diablada, the Devil's Dance.

Bolivia's Culture Minister Pablo Groux said what's really fiendish about the costume is that it's a rip-off of Bolivian culture. He maintains La Diablada originated in the 12,000-foot-high Bolivian city of Oruro and that Peru's imitation is threatening the national brand -- and the tourist industry. Bolivia formally protested to Peru's government and says it has protested to the Miss Universe pageant. 

Perhaps the best part of the whole story is the name of the Peruvian candidate: Karen Schwartz??? Are you kidding me??

The second best part of the article is that a Peruvian newspaper researched the issued and found that Chile first used the costume in a Miss Universe contest in 1983.

Chile!! That most hated of countries to a Bolivian. Took their coastline and took their costume.

(of course, all this was a tempest in a teapot because Miss Venezuela won the contest for the second year in a row and the 6th time overall)

Tiger: Good, or Makes You Choke?

Is Tiger Woods Loss Averse? Persistent Bias in the Face of Experience,
Competition, and High Stakes

Devin Pope & Maurice Schweitzer
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, June 2009

Abstract:
Although experimental studies have documented systematic decision errors, many leading scholars believe that experience, competition, and large stakes will reliably extinguish biases. We test for the presence of a fundamental bias, loss aversion, in a high-stakes context: professional golfers’ performance on the PGA TOUR. Golf provides a natural setting to test for loss aversion because golfers are rewarded for the total number of strokes they take during a tournament, yet each individual hole has a salient reference point, par. We analyze over 1.6 million putts using precise laser measurements and find evidence that even the best golfers - including Tiger Woods - show evidence of loss aversion. On average, this bias costs the best golfers over $1.2 million in tournament winnings per year.

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Dominance, Intimidation, and 'Choking' on the PGA Tour

Robert Connolly & Richard Rendleman
Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, May 2009

Abstract:
Extending the work of Connolly and Rendleman (2008), we document the dominance of Tiger Woods during the 1998-2001 PGA Tour seasons. We show that by playing 'average,' Woods could have won some tournaments and placed no worse than fourth in the tournaments in which he participated in the year 2000, his best on the PGA Tour. No other PGA Tour player in our sample could have come close to such a feat. We also are able to quantify the intimidation factor associated with playing with Woods. On average, players who were paired with Woods during the 1998-2001 period scored 0.462 strokes per round worse than normal. Although we find that Woods' presence in a
tourname nt may have had a small, but statistically significant adverse impact on the entire field, this effect was swamped by the apparent intimidation factor associated with having to play with Tiger side-by-side. We also demonstrate that Phil Mickelson's performance in major golf championships over the 1998-2001 period was not nearly as bad as was frequently mentioned in the golf press. Although Mickelson won no majors during this period, he played sufficiently well to have won one or two majors under normal circumstances. Moreover, his overall performance in
majors, relative to his estimated skill level, was comparable to that of Tiger Woods, who won five of 16 major golf championships during our four-year sample period. Thus, the general characterization of Woods as golf's dominant player over the 1998-2001 period was accurate, but the frequent characterization of Phil Mickelson choking in majors was not.

(Nod to Kevin L, who never chokes)

RTL-Day minus 14: Please Sir, Can I Have Samoa?

(...and a one, two, one two three four)

So....just 14 days from now, Samoa will be the most recent nation to change sides of the road for driving. Interesting article, in WSJ.

And, as always when a nation decides to do something ridiculous, we at KPC will be reporting the progress, or the giant cluster firetruck, every day.

Right to Left Day - 14: Here is a chart of those nations that have made the change in the recent, and not even that recent, past.... (Credit: Same WSJ article)

KPC: Your source for going the wrong way, worldwide....

Skip and Larry Go For a Bike Ride, And It Makes CNN

My sympathies are for my ex-Duke colleague Skip G., and for often times Duke visitor Larry Bobo. What are they supposed to say? And why did CNN pick it up? And why am I blogging about it?

(nod to RL)

I need some Horsepower!

Saturday at MOMA with the hordes. Van Gogh's Starry Night playing the role of the Mona Lisa (i.e. people lined up 12 deep surrounding it). Luckily most of the special exhibits were relatively open. There was one that I didn't even want to look at called "Designed for the Stage", drawings by artists for operas, plays, etc. But there I found gold!

Diego Rivera took a commission to do a set design for a play called Horsepower in the early 1930s.

Really!!

Here is a drawing, which is now my favorite piece by Rivera ever.

Thank you hordes for driving me out of the main galleries and into the nooks and crannies of MOMA!!

I Think This is a Problem

Chateau sends this link, to a story headlined:

Time for Term Limits? Let the Voters Decide!

I'm pretty sure there is a problem with that. Voters actually get to decide at the time of elections.

(Full disclosure: we have written about term limits before....And, we have noted the sort of person who opposes term limits, including Hugo Chavez)

New Wife Writes to Tech Support

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.3 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly before. The difference is especially noticeable after I had such good performance after Boyfriend 5.2 crashed and I upgraded to Boyfriend 5.3. (Boyfriend 5.2 and Boyfriend 5.2a were buggy and annoying, but after I ran the U&UrHand2Nite 6.1 add-on then Boyfriend 5.3 was apologetic, attentive, and obedient).

Even worse, installing Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs that had been working well. These included Romance 9.5, Conversation 31.6, and Personal Attention 6.5. Further, and worst of all, Husband 1.0 came bundled with a bunch of undesirable shareware, including WEATHER 5.0, MONEY 3.0, COMPUTER PORN 2.0, and SPORTSCENTER 24.7.

The truth is that WeNeedToTalk 8.0 no longer runs at all, PickUpYourWetTowel 31.6 just hangs, and Housecleaning 2.6 totally crashes the system to a bluescreen.

Please note that I have tried running NAGON 5.3, and DenySex 6.9 (which comes as freeware with WIFE 1.0) to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do? Now that Husband 1.0 has been opened, the Best Buy says I can't return it. And I can't the operating manual anywhere.

Signed, New Wife

Sweet Nothings? Obama Sells Us Out, Again

On sugar corruption, two interesting articles....

article the first


article the second

Some people will actually try to make a "national defense" argument on sugar. GMAFB.

R U Vivid? Social Science on the Court

Sub-Perfect Game: Profitable Biases of NBA Referees

Joseph Price, Marc Remer & Daniel Stone, BYU Working Paper, June 2009

Abstract: This paper empirically investigates three hypotheses of inconsistent rule enforcement by National Basketball Association (NBA) referees. Using a sample of 28,388 quarter-level observations from six seasons, we find that NBA referees make calls that favor home teams, teams losing during games, and teams losing in playoff series. All of these biases are likely profitable to the league. We identify these effects as caused by referee bias, as opposed to player behavior, by using play-by-play data that allow us to analyze turnovers referees have relatively high and low discretion over separately. We also find that the biases do not increase in situations where their direct financial benefit to the league would be greater, and conclude that the biases are likely of an implicit nature.

----------------------

Money and fame: Vividness effects in the National Basketball Association

Long Wang, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, January 2009, Pages 20-44

Abstract:
In his widely reprinted paper On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B, Kerr argued that vividness was one of the major reasons for distortedrewards. Using both archival and survey data, the present paper directly tests Kerr's proposal by investigating whether, how, and why highly visible behaviors are over-rewarded and less visible, but similarly (or more) important behaviors are under-rewarded. The National Basketball Association (NBA) was chosen as the domain of this study because scoring is particularly vivid, even though both non-scoring and scoring performances are critical for winning games. Findings from four studies demonstrated that the scoring performance of NBA players was weighed more heavily than their non-scoring performance. Scorers were rewarded with higher salaries and received more support in the NBA All-Star balloting than defenders, even though they might not necessarily make more contribution than their teammates. This pattern of findings suggests that the vividness effect may lead to pronounced differences in people's judgments, especially when they face abundant real-world information with similar validity.

----------------------

A test of the widespread-point-shaving theory

Richard Borghesi & William Dare, Finance Research Letters, forthcoming

Abstract: We test whether corruption is widespread in NCAA basketball by examining scoring patterns in games involving suspected point shavers. If conspiracy occurs frequently, then we should find that strong favorites score fewer points and/or allow more points than expected. However, findings reveal that strong favorites, previously believed to be the most likely candidates to engage in point shaving, may instead be the least likely. We propose that a shift in coaching strategy late in blowout games explains the anomalous bet outcome distribution patterns previously identified in the NCAA basketball betting market.

(Nod to Kevin L, who is definitely vivid)

Waterslide Video: BETTER than real

(It's not real, but it is real cool). How it was done....


(Nod to SdM)

Best Debt Clock

This is the best debt clock I've seen. Lots of details.

On the other hand, the details are pretty grisly.

New Jersey RULES!

Before Mrs. Angus and I lived in Mexico, we lived in New Orleans. When Mexican people would say how different things were in Mexico vs. the US (trying to warn or scare us I guess) we would laugh and tell them how we had a bumper sticker that said "Louisiana: 3rd World and Proud of it", and how living in NOLA was excellent practice for living in Mexico (bribes work, the cops are not necessarily your friends, right away means never).

Now, though, I think I would recommend a year in New Jersey as a good primer for living in Mexico (though that is probably an insult to Mexico). Where else can you get politicians habitually on the take, Rabbis brokering body partz and now, the anti-corruption cops are getting busted for corruption there!!

Hey, isn't Tyler from New Jersey?

 

Common Law Environmental Regulation

Two Theories of Environmental Regulation

John Hasnas, Social Philosophy and Policy, July 2009, Pages 95-129

Abstract: The over-exploitation of commonly-held resources is typically analyzed as an instance of market failure that calls for legislation to internalize the social costs that private activities impose on the environment. In this article, I argue that to the extent that this analysis ignores the regulatory effect of the common law, it is unsound. In The Tragedy of the Commons, Garret Hardin points out that there are two solutions to the tragedy: privatize the resource or restrict access to it. Environmental legislation is a means restricting access to the commons. The evolutionary development of common law is a means of privatizing the commons. These
represent alternative methods of environmental regulation. Proper public policy analysis requires a comparative assessment of the efficacy of these methods for resolving any particular environmental problem. In many, if not most cases, such an assessment will show common law regulation to be superior to environmental legislation.

(nod to Kevin L)

Res Ipsa Loquitur, part deux

Res Ipsa Loquitur

Hard Times for the Kirchners

We have posted in the past about how Argentina has been fudging their macro data (see here and here) by systematically under-reporting inflation, which is a very convenient thing to do when you have issued inflation-indexed bonds!

However, it seemed like the Kirchner governments were more or less getting away with it. Now, after a humbling electoral defeat, anti-corruption prosecutors are actually going after them for the funny numbers!

"BUENOS AIRES -- Workers at the government's National Institute of Statistics call it crass manipulation: Their agency, under pressure from above, altered socioeconomic data to reflect numbers palatable to the presidency. Inflation and poverty miraculously dropped, they said in interviews, and the economy boomed.

At least officially.

"They just erased the real numbers," said Luciano Belforte, an 18-year veteran at the institute. "Reality did not matter."

The alleged manipulation, which is under investigation by anti-corruption prosecutors, has angered Argentines. But in a globalized world, where a pensioner in Italy might be as likely to invest in Argentina as in Fiat, the suspected modifications are being felt far beyond this city.

In fact, an association of community college professors in New Jersey, a cattleman in Colorado and a Latino business group in California say they too are being shortchanged because they hold Argentine bonds. By underreporting inflation figures, economists say, Argentina is cheating investors of proper compensation on nearly $50 billion in debt benchmarked to inflation.

Economists say the official inflation rate of 8.5 percent in 2007 was really about 25 percent. In the 12 months ended this June, the INDEC put the rate at 5.3 percent, but economists say it might be three times higher. Argentina's vaunted economic growth this decade might have been exaggerated, too. Credit Suisse said the 7 percent expansion the government reported last year is likely 2 to 3 percent lower. "

The fact that this is being investigated shows just how far the Kirchners' star has fallen. Maybe Uncle Hugo can send an army of Guido Wilsons with suitcases over to help them out!

Gordon Tullock Uber Alles

Gelman, Silver and Edlin pay homage to the man:

"One of the motivations for voting is that one vote can make a difference. In a presidential election, the probability that your vote is decisive is equal to the probability that your state is necessary for an electoral college win, times the probability the vote in your state is tied in that event. We computed these probabilities a week before the 2008 presidential election, using state-by-state election forecasts based on the latest polls. The states where a single vote was most likely to matter are New Mexico, Virginia, New Hampshire, and Colorado, where your vote had an approximate 1 in 10 million chance of determining the national election outcome. On average, a voter in America had a 1 in 60 million chance of being decisive in the presidential election. "

Gee, I hope there are some other motivations for y'all.

Mad Men Yourself

I made an avatar at "Mad Men Yourself." It looks disturbingly like me, actually.

Dancing With the Felons

Tom Delay is going to be on "Dancing with the Stars." No, really.

Excerpt from the "Post" story, describing Delay's previous relation to the show:

Back in the fall of 2006, shortly before "Dancing" debuted its new season, DeLay had sent out a blast e-mail asking people to vote for country crooner Sara Evans, who was going to be competing against [Jerry] Springer, among others.

Evans had been a strong supporter of the Republican party and, more importantly, her husband was a GOP fundraiser who had run unsuccessfully for political office in Oregon four years earlier and whose resume included chairman of Craig PAC, a national political action committee dedicated to electing Republicans at the federal and state level; her husband, Craig Schelske, also had been executive director of the conservative organization American Destiny Inc.

In his e-mail to "Dancing" fans, DeLay said that Evans "represents good American values in the media" while "ultra liberal talk show host Jerry Springer" did not.

"We need to send a message to Hollywood and the media that smut has no place on television," DeLay said. By "smut" he meant "Springer."

Embarrassingly for DeLay, Evans made "Dancing" history when she became the franchise's very first competitor to abruptly quit the show, because, she said, she needed to be at home with her little children while she filed for divorce, having just discovered Schelske, had cheated on her, had at least 100 nude photos of himself with his little colonel fully erect on the family computer at home, had watched porn on the family computer and had made requests online for sex with multiple partners on Craigslist.

It was a high point in the "Dancing" franchise.

Literally.

"His little colonel"? Wow.

Industrial Organization

Question. Is this an illustration of economies of scale or of scope?

Maybe the "Know Nothings" Were Better Citizens?

Two friends of mine here at Duke published an interesting paper....

Public information and electoral bias

Curtis Taylor & Huseyin Yildirim
Games and Economic Behavior, forthcoming

Abstract:
We present a theory of voting that predicts that elections are more likely to be close, and voter turnout is more likely to be high when citizens possess better public information about the composition of the electorate. These findings suggest that providing more information to potential voters about aggregate political preferences (e.g., through pre-election polls or expert forecasts) may undermine the democratic process. Our analysis reveals that if the distribution of political preferences is common knowledge, then the unique type-symmetric equilibrium leads to a stark neutrality result in which each alternative is equally likely to win the election. By contrast, when citizens are ignorant about the preference distribution, the majority is more likely to win the election and expected voter turnout is lower. Welfare is, therefore, unambiguously higher when citizens possess less information about the preference distribution.

(Nod to Kevin L)

ICK

From the Norman Transcript:

Lake turns green
Taste, odor issues being addressed

By Tom Blakey

Although it's not yet time for Lake Thunderbird to "turn over," the warm, sunny days are causing the lake to turn green from a proliferation of alga, affecting the water's taste and odor, officials said.

"We're getting a bunch of algae in the raw water lines, before it's treated. so we're adding carbon before we filter it and adding additional chemicals," said Norman Utilities Director Ken Komiske. "A lot of tastes and odors are sneaking through, though.

"For the time being we're having to put up with that," he said. "We're constantly testing it and it's perfectly safe."

Komiske said water treatment plant workers are "treating the water more at this time for taste and odor issues."

I cannot even begin to describe how bad the tap water in Norman usually tastes, let alone how it tastes right now. Mrs. Angus and I have a home distiller and we use that to make our drinking water, but this weekend we went to a local eatery and were served a glassful of liquid ass.

Shut Up!!

In his awesome yam-colored shoes, Usain Bolt ran the 100 meters in 9.58 seconds. He is the world's greatest athlete (or as we say in the Big 12, ath-a-lete)

monkey see monkey do

This is my "mad men" avatar. Mrs. A and I are only about 1/2 way through season II on DVD.

Betting on Policy

Using Markets to Inform Policy: The Case of the Iraq War

Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz
Economica, April 2009, Pages 225-250

Abstract:
Financial market-based analysis of the expected effects of policy changes has traditionally been exclusively retrospective. In this paper, we demonstrate by example how prediction markets make it possible to use markets to prospectively estimate policy effects. We exploit data from a market trading in contracts tied to the ouster of Saddam Hussein as leader of Iraq to learn about financial market participants' expectations of the consequences of the 2003 Iraq war. We conducted an ex-ante analysis, which we disseminated before the war, finding that a 10% increase in the probability of war was accompanied by a $1 increase in spot oil prices that futures markets suggested was expected to dissipate quickly. Equity price movements implied that the same shock led to a 1.5% decline in the S&P 500. Further, the existence of widely-traded equity index options allows us to back out the entire distribution of market expectations of the war's near-term effects, finding that these large effects reflected a negatively skewed distribution, with a substantial probability of an extremely adverse outcome. The flow of war-related news through our sample explains a large proportion of daily oil and equity price movements. Subsequent analysis suggests that these relationships continued to hold out of sample. Our analysis also allows us to characterize which industries and countries were most sensitive to war news and when the immediate consequences of the war were better than ex-ante expectations, these sectors recovered, confirming these cross- sectional implications. We highlight the features of this case study that make it particularly amenable to this style of policy analysis and discuss some of the issues in applying this method to other policy contexts.

(Nod to Kevin L)

BDM: The New Nostradamus

Video:
Print....(NYT Mag)

(Nod to Kevin L, who knew in advance that this was going to happen)

If you have to ask, you are probably doing it wrongs

This is the actual largest headline on Sunday's OKC newspaper of record (we don't get this paper, but I saw like 40 copies walking Pluto this morning):

Oklahoma financial advisers ask: What would Jesus do?

People, I am not making this up!!

FaithShares Trust... will offer shares of exchange traded funds based on indexes that track recommendations of organizations representing Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and nondenominational Christian groups. The funds will include large-cap stocks, excluding those that conflict with core beliefs of the various denominations...the index designed for Baptists will invest no money in companies that produce alcohol of any kind, Phillips said. For Catholics, companies that make beer and wine are allowed, but not those that produce distilled alcohol, he said. The Methodist fund will not invest in any company that produces more than 10 percent of its revenue through alcohol production....

Stevens said it makes sense that the FaithShares concept would originate from the Bible Belt.

"We think that being from Oklahoma City gives us added credibility with the faith-based community,” Stevens said. "We’re not a giant firm trying to make money off people. We believe this stuff with our hearts.”

 "We want people to know our hearts are in the right place. This isn’t some scheme. We really are trying to do the right thing.”

 Rarely have I heard a more convincing profession of religiousity than "we believe this stuff with all our hearts"!!!

And, if they really wanted to know WWJD, maybe they could try looking at the second chapter of the Gospel of John, esp verses 13-16 or so.

 

Careful with that club, St. Francis

Apparently, Australian police now arrest people for having steering wheel locks. It is true that "the club" looks like a gun, if you are an idiot. (PHOTO: Liam Kidston, Courier Mail)
It really is delightful, when you think about it. The reason people have steering wheel locks is that the police are completely incapable of protecting our property, and have no real interest in doing so. But when we try to protect ourselves, WE get arrested. The police spend more time trying to regulate guns of the law-abiding than the theft of criminals. I guess the law-abiding are easier to find, because we have addresses so we can have state-required IDs. Another story about the arrest and harrasment of the poor kid. Here is an excerpt:

When two senior police arrived in an unmarked vehicle the situation was quickly resolved and the handcuffs removed from Mr Hastings.

"As the officer walked away he said 'get a new steering wheel lock, it looks like a bloody gun'," he said.

"I was absolutely gobsmacked. I said 'are you serious? All that for a steering lock?'," he said.

Mr Hastings said the officer then replied he was "a lucky boy".

"He told me 'any other cop would have had you at gunpoint'."

The cop could be right, in fact. The kid was lucky he was only handcuffed. He should have been beaten, I suppose. It is more convenient for the police if you let people steal your car.

Which brings me to my main story. I saw this really cute wooden carved statue of St. Francis of Assisi, in Santa Fe. Now, notice that St. Francis is carrying a cross. EXCEPT that it is broken. So now it looks like a steering wheel lock. Which apparently looks like a gun, if you are a cop.

My prediction: St. Francis is going to be told that he, too, is lucky for only getting handcuffed and roughed up. An Australian policeman would have him at gun point.

The Whitest Man on Earth

I spent most of the last week in Santa Fe, NM. It is as fine a place, especially in August (a good time NOT to be in OK or NC) as there is. Got to see the oldest church in the U.S. (San Miguel, 1610. That's old).Could see the state capitol building out of my balcony, at the hotel.
Plus, the hotel had a nice crisp NYTimes and coffee every morning, right outside my door. Mornings were quite cool, in the desert, 50 or 55 F.

I also got to see a very fine fellow. In fact, he is the whitest guy in the world. I don't mean that he has light skin, though that is true. It's the whole package: the skin, the accent, the 6 foot 4 inch height and 6 foot 5 inch vertical reach, the wannabe "game worn" Rhodes College basketball shorts. I give you the product of Wonderbread and Hellman's: Art Carden.

Wir haben mehr zu bieten: Political Cleavage in Germany

So, we have Putin showing off his pecs, and now Merkel showing off hers.

I don't think Americans understand what European politics is really about. In the video, I like the part where the elderly woman says she doesn't like the cleavage show. Not because it is undignified, but because the women are too old.

(The title, "Wir haben mehr zu bieten", means "We have more to offer.")

Nod to RL, who has a lot to offer.

Presidents say the darndest things

While no one will ever match the Shrub's endless flow of unintentional comedy (at least I hope not), our current president can break out with some accidental comedy gold as well.

I can't believe I missed this when it first happened. Earlier this week President O refuted that the public option in health insurance would crowd out private plans BY CITING THE POST OFFICE!

Thank you for that Mr. President.

"He (Obama) also disputed the notion that adding a government-run insurance plan into a menu of options from which people could pick would drive private insurers out of business, in effect making the system single-payer by default.

As long as they have a good product and the government plan has to sustain itself through premiums and other non-tax revenue, private insurers should be able to compete with the government plan, Obama said.

"They do it all the time," he said. "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. ... It's the Post Office that's always having problems.""

Of course, UPS and FedEx have crushed the post office in the areas where they are allowed to compete (I think FedEx planes even help deliver a big chunk of the USPS's overnight mail) and the Post Office hemorrhages money while operating as a first class mail monopolist subject to Congressional oversight.

If private insurance companies were allowed the flexibility that UPS and FedEx have to produce and price products and sell them across state lines and the public option had to stand on its own two feet I would predict exactly the same outcome in health insurance. But I am not going to hold my breath waiting for that type of playing field to emerge anytime soon.

Make the punishment fit the crime

Over at University Diaries, Margaret Soltan gives some great headlines for the Rick Pitino story:


SEX AT A TABLE, FUTURE UNSTABLE

SEX AT A DIVE, WILL HE SURVIVE?

SEX ON A PLATE, PITINOGATE

SEX AND GRUB, THERE’S THE RUB

SEX IN TRATTORIA, SIC TRANSIT GLORIA

Awesome!!

KPC announces its first commercial product

While other bloggers have written books, we have found a much more lucrative way to cash in:

Pags nails it

Camille Paglia writing in Salon nails the whole health care debacle:

"But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.

You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.

As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves."

Amen, Sister

Nachas

I have described "nachas" (NACK-hass) before. (And thanks to Craig Newmark, Russ Roberts, and Barry Weingast for explaining nuances of meaning).

Got some more nachas last Thursday night. YYM Brian pitching, semifinals of Raleigh city championship. We are 4 seed, playing might #1 seed.

He pitches very well: 6 innings, 2 runs, 1 earned run, 8 K, 4 BB, 1 HBP. Given the time limit, that is a complete game. Nachas.

But the real nachas come in the first inning. We face a touch pitcher, and have had trouble scoring runs. Brian bats third. The first two runners get on, so 1st and 2nd, no outs. Brian hits a line drive that short hops the 360 sign in left center. Both runs score. We win, 5-2.

He hits another long one, a triple, in the fifth inning.

Now, we lost the city finals, the following Monday. But I was in Santa Fe by then, and missed it. And that is the last baseball game Brian is likely ever to play, since his high school doesn't have a team, and he has aged out of city league play. (You have to be 17 on April 30. Brian will be 18 on April 13. So close.)

Still...Nachas to go, to last forever.

Financial Development uber alles?

In my 2007 JDE paper with Mrs. Angus, we documented that the only variables we could find who's temporal evolution was consistent with that of the world income distribution were measures of financial development and of research and development.

In a current project, my co-authors and I are finding that financial development is at least as important as any traditional factor of production in determining the production structure of an economy (no link yet due to picky co-authors! 8^) ).

And, in a current NBER working paper (ungated version here), Arellano, Bai and Zhang argue that financial development can explain a large amout of the variation in performances between firm of different sizes across countries. Here's their abstract:

"This paper studies the impact of cross-country variation in financial market development on firms' financing choices and growth rates using comprehensive firm-level datasets. We document that in less financially developed economies, small firms grow faster and have lower debt to asset ratios than large firms. We then develop a quantitative model where financial frictions drive firm growth and debt financing through the availability of credit and default risk. We parameterize the model to the firms' financial structure in the data and show that financial restrictions can account for the majority of the difference in growth rates between firms of different sizes across countries."

We are all Ross Levinians now!

The Grand Game

Another episode of "The Grand Game." That's where we at KPC post an article, and invite our readers to suggest explanations.

Here is the article: (Lisa MacLeod's web site)

Excerpt: Lisa MacLeod is a young female politician who commutes to her job as a Progressive Conservative Member of the Provincial Parliament at Queen's Park from Ottawa and leaves her husband, Joe, and four-year-old daughter, Victoria, at home. Mr. Justice Douglas Cunningham of Ontario Superior Court said this is a big distraction for the 34-year-old woman and as a result he felt he could not accept her evidence as corroboration of the Crown's key witness in the recent high-profile, influence-peddling trial of Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien.

NOw, then, what is the explanation? I'll take a shot, because I have a number of ideas.

a) ALL politicians cannot be trusted. Ms. McLeod, being an element of the set "all politicians," cannot be trusted. (actually, this may be a valid argument, now that I think of it).
b) Mandatory retirement for troglodyte judges may be a good thing.
c) Canadians who criticize the US for falling short of its ideals? You might want to think about the whole "glass houses" problem.
d) Ontario is like New Jersey, except in Ontario the judges don't need to be paid off. They enable corruption just because they are idiots.
e) Universal health care does not mean everyone is mentally healthy.
f) __________(your entry here! Just comment! It's FUN!)_________________

And here is Ms. MacLeod. Notice the little kid. This implies that Ms. MacLeod is not a reliable witness, because she has been seen with known childrn.

(Nod to RL)

Fail, thy name is Heagerty

Norman hits the big time!

One of our grad students found out about this and for some reason immediately thought of me.

NORMAN, Okla. -- "A statue that depicts a nude, breastfeeding Angelina Jolie will soon make its debut in Oklahoma."The statue is a bronze statue of a nude Angelina Jolie in a sitting position, breastfeeding two babies in a football hold," said project coordinator Cory Allen.The statue was created by artist Daniel Edwards to mark World Breastfeeding Week. It's set to go on display at Norman's Mainsite Contemporary Art on Sept. 11."

Holy Crap!

This is just so awesome! Breastfeeding two babies in a football hold? What does that even mean? Well folks, I for one intend to find out.

Hey Daniel Edwards, what will you do for an encore?

"Edwards is working on an additional project with an Edmond artist to build a house they plan to call The Brangelina."

Ahhh!

PS: extra bonus info. Apparently Brad Pitt is from Oklahoma. Wow!!


Hat tip to Bea!

Good Quote, Bad Quote

First the good. Lebron, describing Sicily, writes, "The young people look like they're from Rome, the old people look like they're from New Jersey."  

Now for the bad. Alex, describing charter cities writes, "we shouldn't think of what happened in 1997 as China taking over Hong Kong but rather as the final element of Hong Kong taking over China."

An open and shut case of from the sublime to the ridiculous.

El Tritanicos

Y'all might not know this, but soccer is pretty popular in Mexico. The national team is called El Tri, which is short for Tricolores (from the three colors of the Mexican flag) and the title of this post is a mocking pun used in Mexico City to describe them when they are not doing well.

Which is now.

Qualifying is going on now for the 2010 World Cup. The top three teams from North and Central America will automatically qualify. The US is in second, Mexico is fourth having already lost to the US, El Salvador, and Honduras.

Wednesday, El Tri plays the US at home in the giant Azteca stadium. The US has never beaten Mexico in Mexico.

I guess it's fair to say this is a pretty big game. A fun article in the NY Times breaks down the Mexican psyche in these trying times.

I am going to predict a US victory!

We just need a sugar daddy!

The most often made point I hear in the health care debate is the comparison with Western Europe. I find this point intriguing because, if you stop to think about it, the US really helped immensely to finance public health care in Europe.

For example, national health care started in France right after World War II. At that time and over the next 50 years, the US both helped to finance France's economy (via the Marshall plan), and provide a huge subsidy to France (and Germany and the UK) via our military umbrella.

Ironically, instead of using US taxpayer money to help finance universal health care in the US, our Government used US taxpayer money to help finance universal health care in Western Europe, by paying so much $$ for the defense of the region!

Nowadays we need to find us a sugar daddy to help finance our social programs, but the cupboard is looking mighty thin.

Maybe Venezuela??

Peak Nukes?

An issue you may not have heard of.

Currently there is a growing world wide shortage medical isotopes. The shortage is starting to have an impact on patient care. What is needed is more U.S. based nuclear
reactors that can be used for producing radioisotopes for nuclear medicine
imaging.

There is also great need for research grants to develop new radioisotope production technologies that use low enriched uranium (LEU) rather than highly enriched uranium (HEU). Use of LEU would help decrease the potential for diversion of these nuclear materials for use by terrorists or rogue governments.

More story

Record of the year so far

People, it's gotta be "Bitte Orca" by the Dirty Projectors. So so so good. If I were to play the "sounds like" game, I'd say a mash up of The Blow, The Books, LCD Soundsystem and Led Zeppelin! Only the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

While to me this record is easy to listen too and truly beautiful, it has its fair share of fractured rhythms and dissonance. It is, I think, a very ambitious recording.  The writer (David Longstreth)  is clearly swinging for the fences and to me, consistently hitting it out. The only song of the 9 on the album that doesn't fully float my boat is "Two Doves". This is an essential recording.

If you get a chance, try listening to it on something other than computer speakers or an Ipod. The recording is pristine. On a decent home stereo, it throws out a huge soundstage and is crisp and clean with a wide dynamic range. Kudos!

    

Finally, if all this isn't enough to convince you, it has an image of Nietzsche on the back!

   

Pie in the sky

Recycling is generally Mungowitz's department, but I found this NY Times editorial bizzare enough to take a shot.

Before I start in, let me say that I am not in favor of poverty. I have seen a bit of how garbage pickers live in developing countries and would very much like them to have a better life.

However, their advocate in the Times, Bharati Chaturvedi, seems a bit clueless.

He begins by pointing out that in a lot of places, trash pickers provide the only recycling services and that they "recycle waste much more cheaply and efficiently than governments or corporations can".

He then says they have been hurt badly by falling scrap prices in the global recession and proposes the following:

"A more efficient temporary solution would be for governments to buoy the buying price of scrap. To do this, they’d have to pay a small subsidy to waste dealers so they could purchase scrap from trash pickers at about 20 percent above the current price. This increase, if well advertised and broadly utilized, would bring recyclers back from the brink.

In the long run, though, these invisible workers will remain especially vulnerable to economic slowdowns unless they are integrated into the formal business sector, where they can have insurance and reliable wages.

This is not hard to accomplish. Informal junk shops should have to apply for licenses, and governments should create or expand doorstep waste collection programs to employ trash pickers. Instead of sorting through haphazard trash heaps and landfills, the pickers would have access to the cleaner scrap that comes straight from households and often brings a higher price. Employing the trash pickers at this step would ensure that recyclables wouldn’t have to be lugged to landfills in the first place.

Experienced trash pickers, once incorporated into the formal economy, would recycle as efficiently as they always have, but they’d gain access to information on global scrap prices and would be better able to bargain for fair compensation. Governments should charge households a service fee, which would also supplement the trash pickers’ income, and provide them with an extra measure of insurance against future crises."

In other words, poor country governments should create formal recycling programs and hire the current trash pickers, using a combination of subsidies and service fees to make sure they make a decent living.

Sounds great, no?

Well, maybe but, it's probably useful to recognize that this is something that just flat out isn't going to happen. Trash pickers don't have much political clout.

Secondly, India has hundreds of millions of desperately poor people, all of which do something to survive and all of which have been hurt by the global recession. By the same logic, governments should subsidize their activities in the short run and create a government program to employ them in the long run at a decent standard of living. People, I am pretty sure that this is impossible.

Wouldn't the best long run solution here from a public policy perspective (i.e. assuming that the government indeed should do something) be to expand educational opportunities for these, and indeed all, poor families with programs along the lines of Mexico's "Oportunidades" program, where poor mother's are paid for their children's school attendance?

If one was convince of the need for government action, wouldn't that make more sense than subsidizing and bureaucratizing a fairly unpleasant occupation, in an way locking these people into it?

International economics book bleg

I teach a survey of international economics class to a group of international studies masters students who are not required to have any economics background. Mostly we read and discuss a lot of popular books, like Mallaby on the World Bank and Blustein on the IMF and the Argentine Crisis. I am looking for newer or better books like that, and also books on trade, the international financial system, and maybe even one on "globalization".

They need to be paperbacks, understandable to the target audience (not textbooks), well written, and contain a high ratio of stuff worth knowing or discussing to crap.

TIA for your suggestions.

In your face, Barack Obama

While our wimpy "leader of the free world" wears mom jeans and drinks Bud Light, Pootie does this:



And this:



Holy Crapski!

From the department of unnecessary advice

This just in: Russian soccer fans urged to drink hard liquor!

Russian soccer fans have been told to drink whisky on their trip to Wales for next month's World Cup qualifier to ward off the H1N1 swine flu virus, the head of the country's supporter association (VOB) said on Monday.

"We urge our fans to drink a lot of Welsh whisky as a form of disinfection," VOB head Alexander Shprygin told Reuters.

"That should cure all symptoms of the disease."

Russia's Health Ministry has issued a public warning against travelling to Britain because of the spread of the H1N1 virus but Shprygin said he expected at least several hundred fans would go to Wales for the September 9 qualifier in Cardiff.

"Health officials say this virus is very dangerous but being a fan myself I can tell you that for a real fan nothing is more important than the well-being of the team," said Shprygin, who also sits on the executive board of the Russian FA.

"Russian fans don't fear anything or anybody so this virus will not stand in our way of supporting our team."

In other swine flu news, German heavy metal music fans are advised not to touch each other.

Bill sticks it to Hill (again)

So hot on the heels of the North Koreans calling out his wife, Bill Clinton heads over there to rescue two American journalists who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the country. There were photo ops and North Korean press releases/propaganda. Pretty much a good time was had by all.

But I don't get it. We are on the outs with North Korea right? Hillary said we shouldn't give them any attention. But yet we did. I am happy for the two women and their families, but I have to say, if I were President I wouldn't have done this.

The White House says Bill went completely as a private citizen, the Northies say he carried a message from Obama. Either way, there is no way he went without the approval of the White House.

What about them firing missiles? What about the sanctions? Why are we giving the Dear Leader a global stage upon which to prance? Because conditions in North Korean jails are too harsh?

Even if the journalists didn't actually enter North Korea as they were alleged to have done, I believe that this circus is too high a price to pay for their release.

I wonder what we will have to do to "win" the release of the next group?

Heaven Knows, Anything Goes

In a very cool paper (ungated version here), Opp, Sonnenschein & Tombazos show that in the textbook Hecksher-Olin world (two goods, two factors of production, and two countries) it is possible to produce a "reverse Rybczynski" effect, simply by assuming that consumers in each country have a preference for the exportable good.

By "reverse Rybczynski", they mean a situation where increases in the supply of the factor of production used intensively in the production of a good produce a decline in the output of that good.

Or as they put it, "immizerizing factor growth".

After reading the piece I was left with two questions.

1. Is there any important proposition in Trade theory that can be proven in general?

2. What does this result mean for work based on the Rajan-Zingales index? Their classic piece and a host of follow up papers all assume that variations in output elasticities across industries are perfectly correlated with variations in input intensities across industries.

I was wrong.....

Okay, so I was pretty much wrong. For anyone familiar with my predictive powers, this is hardly a surprise.

But I fussed about the German "euros for junkers" program, the Abwrackprämie.

This program, as often reader (and Berliner) Florian pointed out, was singled out as being pretty impressive, as these programs go.

And, I have to admit that they are right. The Abwrackprämie is relatively inexpensive, it is NOT protectionist, and quite a few folks bought cars. I would stand by my claim that its environmental claims were exaggerated, and in fact simply false. But, as they programs go, it was only mildly nuts, not completely insane.

For completely insane, you have to go to the US program.

My favorite part: The House "leadership" is saying, "What? We ran out of money already?" I think we are going to be hearing that a LOT in the next few years.

Pretty good interview with Mike Pence.

The Culture that is Germany IX

Or, "Nutbush City Limits". This one could almost be an FML, "Today I was fired from my job as a garbage collector for collecting garbage. FML"

I'm serious people:

On Thursday, a labor court in the southwestern German city of Mannheim ruled that a garbage collector who took a child's travel bed home after finding it in the trash was unlawfully fired. He must now be reinstated. The court found that his dismissal without notice was unwarranted, despite the fact that he did not follow company policy on objects found in the garbage.

In its decision, the court found that: "In objective terms, taking the child's bed away did qualify as theft and, as such, provided ... a valid reason for the firing." But the court ultimately voted in favor of the plaintiff in the belief that the punishment did not fit the crime.

So you may think, well, that's not too bad, he did get his job back after all. Why are you calling Germany "Nutbush"? Well how  'bout this next case then folks?

It was national news in Germany this week when the Federal labour court announced it would revisit the case of Barbara E, known to the public as “Emmely”. For several months her story has had the tabloids and talk shows in an uproar. Last year, after 31 years as a supermarket cashier in Berlin, Emmely was fired by her employer, Kaiser’s, for allegedly taking €1.30 ($1.83, £1.11) worth of bottle-return coupons that a customer had lost, and cashing them for herself. There is a long line of cases in German law involving Bagatelldiebstahl – employees fired for stealing such items as fish sandwiches and pieces of cheesecake. A company is permitted to terminate an employment contract whenever the “relationship of trust” is broken. Airtight evidence is not necessary; credible suspicion of theft, no matter how small, will suffice. In February, the Berlin labour court upheld Emmely’s dismissal.

So stealing garbage is "technically" a valid cause for firing but the firing was reversed in one court, while allegedly cashing in $1.83 in lost bottle refunds is grounds for firing that is upheld in multiple courts.

You better watch out for the (labor) police, when you're workin' down in Nutbush!

The best video I've seen this year

Holy Crap!

Bearding the lions

I am a big fan of smack talk in sports (in anything really), and we've had some good efforts lately.

The first case is from women's tennis.  Marion Bartoli, when asked who she preferred to play in an upcoming match opted for former #1 in the world Jelena Jankovic because "I always beat her". At that point in timer Bartoli had a 4-3 advantage over JJ head to head. Needless to say, JJ didn't like it:

he talks like she’s just Serena Williams. Everybody had a right to say what she wants. I’m not really focused on Bartoli. She’s not like my biggest rival or someone I look up to or I’m scared of. She’s just one of the players on tour, not a big name, or someone who is making the big results or headlines in the game.

"Bartoli is going to get it tomorrow," Jankovic added with a smile.

Umm, Not so fast there JJ, In point of fact, Bartoli did indeed beat Jankovic the next day to move on.

Example 2 is from swimming and it involves another Serb, Miloford Cavic. This is the guy who lost to Phelps in the disputed 100 butterfly Olympic final. Cavic really let Phelps have it for allegedly complaining that his (Phelp's) Speedo suit was below the technological frontier:

"Speedo allowed its athletes to switch to another suit if they thought it would improve their chances in Rome. But Phelps, who has been sponsored by Speedo since he was a teenager and earns millions from the company, decided to stick with the LZR."

"If Mike wants an Arena, he just has to say it," Cavic said. "If he wants a Jaked and they don't want to give it to him free, I'll buy it for him. He has options. I think in the media it's been portrayed that he has no option, he has to swim for (Speedo). It's a complete lie."

Well, then they hit the pool and Phelps pretty much smoked him, and then:

"Phelps hopped on the rope that had separated him from Cavic - eyes searing, jaw jutting out. He pulled at both sides of his skintight LZR Racer swimsuit, letting his rival know that he heard about his offer to get Phelps one of those faster polyurethane suits so he wouldn't have any excuses if he lost in a Speedo."

I guess its back to smack-talk school for the Serbians.

of the Vienna woofenpoops

The current picture below the KPC baby is the Angus family pet, Pluto. We kind of dote on him, so he has a lot of nicknames, but Mrs. Angus just came up with his latest and greatest one: Baron Pluto Von Woofenpoop!

Pluto is 10.5 years old, we got him the day we moved to Norman. He was the first dog we saw at the shelter and we snagged him forthwith.

East meets West

Some people shouldn't travel and some people shouldn't have guests:

"It is the sort of offer that most tourists would jump at: an all-expenses paid return visit to a dream destination, as amends for a sleight by an unscrupulous host.

But not Yasuyuki Yamada, who yesterday turned down an offer of a free holiday in Italy as guests of the country's government after he and his fiancee were presented with an enormous bill at a restaurant in Rome earlier this month.

Yamada, 35, thanked Italy's tourism minister, Michela Brambilla, for the offer but said the trip would be a "useless way to spend Italian taxpayers' money," according to the Ansa news agency.

The couple complained to the police after they were charged €700 – including €207 for a pasta dish and a €115 service charge – for lunch at Il Passetto, a 150-year-old restaurant that counts Grace Kelly, Leonardo DiCaprio and Harrison Ford among its regulars, according to Ansa.

The restaurant attempted to blame the couple, saying they had ordered the priciest items on the menu, including oysters and lobster.

Speaking from his home in Tsukuba, near Tokyo, Yamada said: "I offer my thanks, but I have no intention of accepting it, even if a formal invitation arrives."

The restaurant debacle aside, he said he and his fiancee had enjoyed a terrific holiday and planned to return to Italy, but at their own expense.

A few weeks earlier another Japanese couple had complained about Il Passetto after being given a bill for €352 for a modest meal that included a shared main course.

Health inspectors ordered the restaurant to close after Yamada's complaint but it is expected to reopen soon.

Italian authorities were stung into action amid evidence that their country is falling out of favour among Japan's free-spending tourists.

Many have been put off by reports of poor service and inflated prices. About 1 million Japanese are expected to visit Italy this year, less than half the 2.17 million recorded in 1997.In an open letter published last week, Brambilla apologised for the incidents and urged Japanese tourists to give her country a second chance."

Man oh man. What kind of A-hole charges hapless foreigners 700 euro for lunch? And then when caught blames the victim and leaves it to his government to try and make amends?

But at the same time, what kind of simpering sap PAYS the 700 euro lunch bill? Are you kidding me?

I couldn't decide if this was a "culture that is Italy" or "culture that is Japan" post so I simplified the title.

Hat tip to E.F. Hutton