Buttigieg Gets His Own House Elf at Wikipedia, But I Can't Get a Fact Correction

One of my pet peeves is that "my" Wikipedia page is absurdly incorrect and out of date. When I contacted them, they said that "All the facts have links." Yes, but the linked URLs are wrong. Anyone can put up a link, and then link to it. That doesn't make it a fact. And I am not allowed to edit my own page, even though presumably I am an expert on what I think (for example, the page says, "He opposes the North Carolina Education Lottery and would make income taxes more progressive while cutting regressive taxes."

That's absolutely fabricated. Not true. Hogwash. And so on. But (say the coven of Wikins), it has a cite! The citation is an Independent Weekly article that NO LONGER EVEN EXISTS. And it was wrong from the gitgo. When I asked that the false information, which remember are about MY BELIEFS, the Satanic Wikins declined to allow me to serve as an authority, preferring to continue to rely on a nonexistent newspaper story about my beliefs.
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At Right: Artist's rendering of Streeling, Mayor Pete's House Elf at Wikipedia

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That would be okay, because it would mean that Wikipedia is a bad source of information, but that's not always true. Even about political candidates and their beliefs, that's not true. If you have a sympathetic, sycophantish editor that loves you, you get to use the Wikipedia as your own free advertising page, with daily updates.

That's what is going on with the Buttigieg campaign, as described here.  A quote from the story:

Luckily for Buttigieg, there is at least one person carefully looking out for his needs on Wikipedia—someone who has followed his political career from its very beginning, and whose interests and connections track his own with eerie sympathy.

A caveat: I have a friend who is reasonably highly placed in the Mayor Pete campaign, and I personally admire Mayor Pete, at least among the set of Dems now caterwauling on debate stages. Further, if you have a national "news" organization that wants to give you free campaign ads, in a setting where you are in a big fight for the nomination, I don't blame Mayor Pete's folks for at least tacitly cooperating with "Streeling" at Wikipedia.

But I do have a problem with Wikipedia, refusing to update or correct absurd and unfounded claims on some politician's pages, and having a house elf providing free campaign ads for other people, simply based on the personal preferences and biases of the inner circle of Wikins.

Diaspora

The Donkey Diaspora is beginning.  Apparently this truck pulled up to the Russell Senate Office Building, and then just hauled ass.

Click for an even more departing image.

People Want Compromise, But Not on Actual Issues

As always, what people mean by "compromise" is "do what I want."

Because, after all, each of us thinks s/he is reasonable, and is the "center" of the universe, and hence of the electorate.

Soft Ball

Proprioception and Person Perception: Politicians and Professors

Michael Slepian, Nicholas Rule & Nalini Ambady
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming

Abstract: Social-categorical knowledge is partially grounded in proprioception. In Study 1, participants describing "hard" and "soft" politicians, and "hard" and "soft" scientists used different "hard" and "soft" traits for the two groups, suggesting that the meaning of these traits is context specific. Studies 2 to 4 showed that both meanings were supported by hard and soft proprioception. Consistent with political stereotypes, perceivers viewing faces while handling a hard ball were more likely to categorize them as Republicans rather than as Democrats, compared to perceivers viewing the same faces while handling a soft ball (Study 2). Similarly, consistent with stereotypes of "hard" and "soft" academic disciplines, perceivers were more likely to categorize photographs of professors as physicists than historians when handling a hard versus soft ball (Study 3). Finally, thinking about Republicans and Democrats led participants to perceive a ball as harder or softer, respectively, suggesting that simulating proprioception might aid social-categorical thinking (Study 4).

With thanks to Kevin Lewis.

For some reason, that article reminds me of "The Caine Mutiny"....  (after the jump)

Plosser!

Great speech by Charles Plosser. It starts with a nice concise history of the evolution of mainstream macro  which leads into a set of suggestions for research on monetary policy.

Well worth reading in its entirety, but here is the money quote:


Fourth, and related, macroeconomists need to consider how to integrate the institutional design of central banks into our macroeconomic models. Different designs permit different degrees of discretion for a central bank. For example, responsibility for setting monetary policy is often delegated by an elected legislature to an independent central bank. However, the mandates given to central banks differ across countries. The Fed is often said to have a dual mandate; some banks have a hierarchal mandate; and others have a single mandate. Yet economists endow their New Keynesian DSGE models with strikingly uniform Taylor-type rules, always assuming complete credibility. Policy analysis might be improved by considering the institutional design of central banks and how it relates to the ability to commit and the specification of the Taylor-type rules that go into New Keynesian models. Central banks with different levels of discretion will respond differently to the same set of shocks.


 Let me offer a slightly different take on this issue. Policymakers are not Ramsey social planners. They are individuals who respond to incentives like every other actor in the economy. Those incentives are often shaped by the nature of the institutions in which they operate. Yet the models we use often ignore both the institutional environment and the rational behavior of policymakers. The models often ask policymakers to undertake actions that run counter to the incentives they face. How should economists then think about the policy advice their models offer and the outcomes they should expect? How should we think about the design of our institutions? This is not an unexplored arena, but if we are to take the policy guidance from our models seriously, we must think harder about such issues in the context of our models.

Shout it from the rooftops!