Headline Meme?

So, I do often post about my favorite kind of story, one where after reading the headline you don't really need to read the story itself.

The question is, is this one such story?

Wyoming Man Found with 30 Eyeballs in His Anal Cavity

I mean....maybe you don't need to read more.  Because you have the basic facts.  On the other hand, I think that most people would at that point want more information. 

Or less.  Thanks to JB for the find...

Write Every Day...

I am an annoying person, I accept that.  One of the reasons I am annoying is that I claim that people who succeed in academics may succeed for all sorts of reasons, but almost ALL of those who fail, fail because they didn't try, and keep trying, to write every day.  Every. Day.

So, you folks are going to find this study annoying, too.

People underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance 

Brian Lucas & Loran Nordgren  
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
 August 2015, Pages 232-243 

Abstract: Across 7 studies, we investigated the prediction that people underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance. Across a range of creative tasks, people consistently underestimated how productive they would be while persisting (Studies 1–3). Study 3 found that the subjectively experienced difficulty, or disfluency, of creative thought accounted for persistence undervaluation. Alternative explanations based on idea quality (Studies 1–2B) and goal setting (Study 4) were considered and ruled out and domain knowledge was explored as a boundary condition (Study 5). In Study 6, the disfluency of creative thought reduced people’s willingness to invest in an opportunity to persist, resulting in lower financial performance. This research demonstrates that persistence is a critical determinant of creative performance and that people may undervalue and underutilize persistence in everyday creative problem solving. 

Nod to Kevin Lewis

 Note:  I am certainly not saying that people who fail in academics are lazy.  Nor am I saying that people should want to succeed in academics, because there are many other things that are more important for society and more satisfying for the individual.

What I'm saying is that if you want to succeed, it's a simple business.  As Jim Buchanan put it, "Keep your ass in the chair."  And then write.  Every day.  So, if you want to succeed, and you fail...well, it was unnecessary.

I had lunch with a friend while I was in England recently. (We went to Nando's Peri-Peri.  I liked it; it was cheeky).  And we chortled to each other.  There are SO MANY people who are clearly smarter than we are.  I don't just mean people who THINK they are smarter; I mean people who are actually smarter.

The reason we chortled is that they eat their livers every day, because to them our (relative) success is inexplicable.  But it's actually pretty simple.

What did you write today?

Democracy is Destiny, or Vice Versa?

Destined for Democracy? Labour Markets and Political Change in Colonial British America


Elena Nikolova
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming

Abstract: In this article a new explanation for the emergence of democratic institutions is proposed: elites may extend the right to vote to the masses in order to attract migrant workers. It is argued that representative assemblies serve as a commitment device for any promises made to labourers by those in power, and the argument is tested on a new political and economic dataset from the thirteen British American colonies. The results suggest that colonies that relied on white migrant labour, rather than slaves, had better representative institutions. These findings are not driven by alternative factors identified in the literature, such as inequality or initial conditions, and survive a battery of validity checks.

Nod to Kevin Lewis

No wonder I'm rich

From the Annals of Endogeneity comes an interesting headline:

Disobedient Children Make More Money as Adults


People if this was a linear relationship Warren Buffett would be washing my car. Bill Gates would be vacuuming my pool.

Suffice it to say I was a  very naughty boy. Glad to know that I am reaping the rewards.

Here's the causal chain (may be familiar to fans of the underpants gnomes):

1. Be disobedient
2. ??????????
3. PROFITS

John McCain

I have never understood why people love, or even tolerate, John McCain.  That's not to say that Trump's thuggish attacks are justified.  But on the merits, why think John McCain is good at anything?

I have a suspicion that a group of Dem "dirty tricks" folks posed as Repubs, and tried to get McCain the nomination as a joke. And they are still laughing that it worked.

There is really no other plausible explanation. You can just hear the meeting, after lots of beers:

"Okay, seriously, what idiot can we try to get them to nominate?"

"Jeb Bush?" "No, Bush name is toxic now in 2007. No way they'll go for it."

"I've got it! No, really, I'VE GOT IT! John.....McCain!" (Everybody in room breaks up laughing). "No....the Repubs are stupid, but they aren't THAT stupid."

"Seriously, it's genius. He calls himself a 'war hero,' and nobody in that country club bunch would have the balls to challenge him on his actual policy views. And all the other candidates will split the vote of the conservative voters. It's perfect."

(And so they agreed, and McCain was the nominee). I bet it happened just that way.

Why Mr. Overwater Invented the Internet....

...so we can watch a guy inside a giant water balloon that explodes in slow motion.  The balloon, not the guy.

Follow up on the Nerdy Rant

When I posted my nerdy rant about the importance of going for efficiency, I mentioned my research with my friend Rodolfo Cermeno on GARCH in panels. However in the published version, Badi made us cut all the simulation exercises.

Just this morning though, I found a draft of the paper with the simulations contained.

We first compared OLS to our MLE panel garch estimator where the conditional variance was correctly specified and we found that,


"when comparing the OLS and MLE estimators (for the mean equation), we find that the MLE outperforms the OLS estimator in terms of bias, precision and mean squared error. In every sample, the MLE estimator has a MSE smaller than the OLS estimator by at least a factor of 4 when ρ =.25 and at least a factor of 5 when ρ = .5"


ρ is the arch(1) coefficient.

We then compared OLS to a mis-specified panel garch estimator and found that for the conditional mean coefficients, the MSE was lower with the misspecified garch estimator by at least a factor of 2.5.

Those are pretty big MSE improvements!


When the variance reductions are big and the bias induced in the conditional mean from a mis-specified conditional variance model is small, OLS with asymptotically correct standard errors is kind of a dumb way to conduct research.

KPC Guide to the 2016 Prez Race: Elect-ageddon!

Rather than give actual information about candidates, which would violate our basic tenet ("Don't vote, it just encourages the bastards!"), I want to propose a fieldwork version of the "Grand Game."

The Grand Game is where you read a linked article, or piece in the media, and compete to find the most absurd quote, or compete to ask the most devastating question.  It's...well...Grand!

So, readers, go out into the world and observe the behavior (mating and otherwise) of the wild creatures called candidates, and report back.  My email is mcmunger (at) gmail [dot] com.  Just send in your entries.

And here is the judging criteria, from the incomparable H.L. Mencken.  Find the words and actions of candidates that best embody the wisdom of this quote:

The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods. (Notes on Democracy, 1926).

 It was "men" in his time, of course, but Ms. Pelosi and Ms. Clinton are better men--in the above sense--than most men in Mencken's time.

Of course, Mencken also said that "Democracy....is the worship of jackals by jack asses."  That'll get 'er done, too.

Go forth, readers, and report back!  I'll post everything you find for the next 15 months, until "Elect-ageddon 2016!"

(Lagniappe:  Hilariously, Sheldon had the same "voter guide" thought, and used the same Mencken quote.  It's a MOVEMENT, people!)

Phone Performance Art

You may recall this incident.  It was obviously pretty extreme.

But my own experience just now cancelling my Wall Street Journal subscription wasn't much different.  I called to cancel, and of course it's a bad sign that you have to call.  It would be easier and faster, and cheaper for them, actually, if you could cancel on the web site.  So the only possible explanation is that they think that they can harass and intimidate you into not cancelling.  The people on the phone are hired thugs.

Knowing this, I was ready. Still, it took a little more than 21 minutes to get the job done.  I won't go through the entire conversation, but it went like this (several times):
________________________________________
WSJ Thug:  "Can you tell my why you want to cancel your subscription?"

Me:  "Absolutely not."

WSJT:  ... (clearly has been trained that silence is power)

Me:  ...(has known for a long time silence is power)

WSJT:  "But we want to make sure we provide the best service we can to our customers.  We want to know how we could do better."

Me:  "That makes sense.  Tell you what, give me your fax number.  I have a contract [rattle piece of paper near phone, audibly] for consumer service consulting.  $175 per hour, four hour minimum, payable in advance.  As soon as I get your check or money order, I'll be happy to answer your questions for up to 4 hours."

WSJT: ...(not sure what to do, because this is not on his script).

Me:  "Or you can let me talk to your supervisor, right now.  Just forward this call to your supervisor."

WSJT: ....

Me:  "Or, you can cancel my subscription."

WSJT:  "I can't cancel your subscription.  I need to ask why you want to cancel."

Me:  "And I'm happy to answer that question.  But I told you I need a check for $700 first."

WSJT:  "Why would we pay you?"

Me:  "Why would I provide your free customer service consulting?  Do YOU work for free, pumpkin?"

WSJT: ...


[We went through this exchange, almost verbatim, just repeating things word for word, three times. Finally...]

WSJT:  "Okay, I'll cancel the subscription.  But what if I offer you the lowest rate, $16.00 per month?"

Me:  "Are you going to cancel my subscription?"

WSJT:  "That's up to you, sir.  I'm offering you the lowest rate!"

Me:  "No, it's not up to me.  I asked you to cancel the subscription 20 minutes ago, and you have been harrassing me and refusing to do what I want.  So, it's clearly up to you, not me."

WSJT: ...

Me:  "Tell  you what.  I'll offer you a discount.  Just $150 per hour, three hour minimum.  So you can send me a check for $450, and I'll answer your questions.  Otherwise, please put me through to your supervisor."

WSJT: "Well, the reason we aren't going to send you a check isn't the cost.  We don't want to do that at all."

Me:  "And that's exactly how I feel about your newspaper.  Why would a discount change my mind?  Would you please cancel my subscription?"

__________________________________________

He finally did.  Remarkable.  I wish I had thought to record it.  The aggressive thuggery is really out of place at a newspaper that presents itself as professional.  I will certainly never subscribe to any WSJ products again.

Political Science: The Best & Brightest

Look at who is the latest political science major:

Yes people, that's  Anders Breivik, newly matriculated at the University of Oslo to major in......

.....Political Science!!!

The future of the discipline is in good hands.

*****Bonus Snark********

Do you know what Norway gave him for killing 77 people?

21 years.

That's a little over  3 months per victim.