Robert knows best

Robert Frank's latest NY Times piece is amazing in its incredibly low ratio of facts to opinion.

When do low tax rates hurt the rich? When Bob Frank says so, buddy.

Let's break down some of the questionable and unsubstantiated claims.

First is the axiom that money buys national political outcomes. That rich donors have bought low tax rates and deregulation. Frank cannot conceive of the idea that low tax rates and deregulation might actually be popular policies with a wide swath of the population! Nor does he present any evidence that money buys outcomes. Perhaps that's because there is little to no evidence that it does.

Next is the bizarre idea that budget deficits reduce the "quantity and quality of public services". Actually, given a level of revenue, budget deficits INCREASE the quantity of public services above what could be purchased without the deficit.  Budget deficits are the buffer that keep government purchases from falling one to one with declines in revenue.

Now consider Frank's notion that taxes on the wealthy are currently so low that we cannot have paved roads and safe bridges. In FY 2012, we spent $287 billion on transportation (Federal State and Local combined). Total government spending is running over $5.6 trillion dollars in 2012.  There is plenty of money for basic public services and infrastructure. At current tax levels, the rich can have their Bentleys and paved roads to drive them on. It's hard to believe that the rich are both so powerful they can dictate their tax rates but so un-powerful that they can't influence where the money is spent.

There's much more, but I'll leave that for you people.

David Stern is a TERRIBLE GM

"The way it looks now, the Hornets will have traded their franchise point guard (Chris Paul) for a player who’s leaving (Kaman), a guard who’s played only two games and also could leave in the summer (Eric Gordon), underachieving forward Al-Farouq Aminu and a 2012 first-round pick that might not end up in the lottery.


Imagine how different it would be if NBA commissioner David Stern hadn’t vetoed a trade that would have given the Hornets guard Kevin Martin, forward Luis Scola, forward Lamar Odom and guard Goran Dragic."

~Marc Spears

It's all in the (sow) genes

Idaho pig farmer (and James Carville look-alike) Lindy Hinkelman has won over $300,000 in the last 3 years playing fantasy baseball.

Lindy says pig-farming is good training for baseball management:

"Raising pigs and this baseball thing really go together," he told the Times. "There are certain things in farming -- keeping track of productivity, indexes for your sows, the genetic lines there."

Time for an Angus breakdown:

This is just one of many reasons why the internet is so great. Isolated, useless, genius can emerge and be rewarded.

I think pig farming would help real world baseball executives by getting them accustomed to how players behave.

The accomplishment seems remarkable, but given the innumerable number of fantasy leagues and players, wouldn't we expect something like this to happen at some point? Is it really pig-inspired baseball genius or is it more like a guy winning the lottery twice in a row (see Kahneman on the illusion of skill)?