Author: VD

This public distribution of largesse strikes me as weirdly akin to the powerful local noble riding out with the king and scattering coins amidst the peasantry:

A $200 back-to-school giveaway for needy kids sparked a mad rush for money on the streets of New York on Tuesday.

“It’s free money!” said Alecia Rumph, 26, who waited in a Morris Park, Bronx, line 300 people deep for the cash to buy uniforms and book bags for her two kids.

“Thank God for Obama. He’s looking out for us.”

Thousands of people lined up at banks and check-cashing shops to withdraw the cash that magically appeared on their electronic benefit cards.

Electronic benefit cards are so easily lost or stolen, though. Perhaps if we could just make them implantable… and mandatory?

The average California foreclosure is 45-percent underwater. Also, don’t put much credence in the housing “uptick”. 72 percent of foreclosures aren’t being put on the market since lenders are waiting to see how much additional loan modification assistance will be provided by the federal government:

The average California foreclosure has a total loan balance of $425,134 on a home that is now worth $236,739

It’s worth noting that this underwater ratio suggests a decline in prices in excess of anything presently being reported in the various housing price indices.

Another large study demonstrates that homeschooling is far superior to public schooling… and the performance gap appears to be rising along with the number of homeschoolers :

Drawing from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics included 11,739 homeschooled students from all 50 states who took three well-known tests—California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test for the 2007–08 academic year. The Progress Report is the most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed.

Overall the study showed significant advances in homeschool academic achievement as well as revealing that issues such as student gender, parents, education level, and family income had little bearing on the results of homeschooled students.

The biggest difference was in reading, where homeschoolers outperformed their public school counterparts by a 39-point margin. Overall, the difference in average scores was 86 to 50. Now, there’s almost surely an amount of self-selection that gives the homeschooled an advantage but that can’t explain away the huge size of the performance gap, especially given the way it shows up even when the parents are poor and uneducated.

Technology has drastically changed numerous occupations, and we are clearly fast approaching the time that it will eradicate the outdated nineteenth-century agragrian concept of “teaching” large groups of children when they’re not needed in the fields.

There is no excuse for the despicable behavior of psychotic feminist brownshirts, but I nevertheless find it very difficult to have any sympathy in this situation:

I have been attacked by internet stalkers from places like Whitewashed Feminists. We have recently had to contact a lawyer because they terrorized my daughter, who is homeschooling, by posting pictures of her children on immitation blogs. She had removed the pictures a full year ago. When they discovered they were gone, just last week, they found pictures in their own cache and posted them.

They have been “punishing” us for removing posts. It reminds me of a spoiled toddler. Sometimes a toddler goes through a stage where they will not tolerate any changes. They fuss and scream if you remove their plate from the table or cover them better with a blanket. Then when you put it back, they fuss and scream because they don’t like that, either.

These cyber terrorists have several impersonation blogs about me and have stolen many copyrighted photographs. We finally had to contact a lawyer. Do you have any ideas for us on how we may actually put a stop to this? Many of our friends have had to remove their blogs,but these terrorists attack even worse if you do remove your blog.

Other than cease-and-desist orders, followed up by legal action if they refuse to comply, there’s not much that one can do. The object lesson is the same one that’s been obvious since 1998: don’t put anything on the Internet that you’re not comfortable handing to your worst enemy.

Never, ever, put pictures of children up on the Internet. Not on Facebook, not on invitation-only Live Journals, and certainly not on public blogs. It’s not only reprehensibly stupid, it is completely disrespectful of a child’s right to make his own decisions about his public profile in the future. True, sometimes this is unavoidable, such as when a child happens to be in the news for one reason or another. But barring that, no responsible parent should ever upload a picture of a child to the Internet, no matter how proud one might happen to be.

Finally, there is no such thing as a “cyber-terrorist”. It’s a silly metaphor; impersonation blogs are hardly the online equivalent of hijacking airlines and shooting hostages dead on the tarmac. Like it or not, there’s no space for crying on the Internet.

In which BN and I engage in a brief discourse regarding his questions about the moral propriety of accepting government stimulus incentives:

It is my contention that it is wrong (as in objectively wrong in the ‘objective morality is derived from that whole sola scriptura concept’ sense) for individuals to participate in a program like Cash for Clunkers (and take it as obvious that it is wrong for the government to be offering it in the first place). I’m having a hard time getting feedback from folks in my non-web circle (mostly church folks whose opinions on morality I actually have any use for) so thought I’d come to a place where A) I’ll respect the opinions, or at least the worldviews of the people giving the opinions and B) there will be no lack of arguments, either in opposition or support. This topic has been bouncing around in my head for awhile, and was rekindled this morning when I read about your speculation of a potential Cash for Casas or Dollars for Debt down the road. So, in short, is it immoral for an individual to participate in a program like Cash for Clunkers?

No, I don’t think so. Most people don’t have a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of economics to grasp the issues involved. It is, however, very stupid to participate in it if you were not actively planning to buy a new car anyhow, though.

So then, are you saying that if a person does have sufficient understanding of the economics involved than it would be immoral? It mostly became interesting to me because I don’t seem to have a problem being all self righteous and following through on the principle in the case of Cash for Clunkers because it’s just a car… but when I read your Dollars for Debt notion, I caught myself thinking… “Hmm… I might just be able to set the principle aside in this case.”

I think in that case it would at least be possible to make the case for its immorality. I don’t have a strong position on it, not having ever thought the matter through. I think I’ll post it on the blog, and we’ll see what folks think.

Paul Krugman endorses Ben Bernanke’s reappointment to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors:

Ben S. Bernanke deserves another term as Federal Reserve Chairman based on his success in battling the financial crisis, said Princeton University Economist Paul Krugman, a winner of the Nobel Prize.

“He’s earned the right to a second term,” Krugman, 56, said yesterday in an interview in Kuala Lumpur. “He turned the Fed into the financial intermediary of last resort. When the banking system failed to deliver capital where it was needed, he put the Fed into the markets.”

Debate over the fate of Bernanke, 55, is intensifying as he nears the end of his four-year term as chairman on Jan. 31. While Krugman and economist Nouriel Roubini have voiced support for the former Princeton economist, others including Anna Schwartz have said a lack of transparency exacerbated the financial crisis.

“I think Bernanke has done a really good job,” Krugman said. “He failed to see this coming and he was behind the curve in early phases. But he’s been really very good in the sense that it’s really very hard to see how anyone could have done more to stem this crisis.”

Krugman’s logic is, as usual, hopelessly hapless. One suggests that it would have been fairly easy to do more to stem this crisis, beginning with seeing it coming and not getting behind the curve in the early phases. And, of course, that’s not even beginning to get into the insane attempt to prevent home loan defaults by giving billions to the holders of mortgage-backed securities. Or cutting interest rates when raising them was required. Or driving total credit market debt to nearly 4x GDP. Or refusing to turn over the hidden records of more than 12.8 trillion in grants and loans given out by the Fed and funded by the public. Undsoweiter….

And on a related note, read this and cringe in terror:

What most readers probably don’t know is the reason Krugman became an economist in the first place. “I went into economics,” he wrote in an e-mail message, “because I read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, in which social scientists save galactic civilization, and that’s what I wanted to be.”

As an Austrian who has read Foundation several times and therefore fully grasps the implications of what drives Krugman’s emotional attachment to Keynesianism, one thought leaps immediately to mind: Sweet St. Darwin of the Galapagos, prega per noi condannati!

UPDATE- Some words were simply made for eating:

So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all. What saved us? The answer, basically, is Big Government.
– Paul Krugman, August 9, 2009

Krugman’s article is not only likely to blow up in his face over time, it’s simply wrong. “The point is that this time, unlike in the 1930s, the government didn’t take a hands-off attitude while much of the banking system collapsed.” This is hugely misleading. Bank failures as a percentage of total bank deposits in 2008 and 2009 are running at a rate double that of the bank failures of 1930 and 1931. In August, with at least three very large bank failures known to be in the works but not yet counted, it’s already 3.75% in 2008-09 vs 1.99% in 1930-31

In addition to yesterday’s post, I also sent the following email to PZ Myers:

My dear Dr. Myers, since you were previously afraid of a radio debate with me on the evidence for the existence of gods, perhaps you’ll be more willing to engage in a written debate on the scientific evidence for evolution. After all, if the issue is so comprehensively settled in evolution’s favor, it should be no trouble whatsoever to make your case to everyone’s satisfaction, however initially dubious they may have been. And since you have now asserted that there are no Worthy Opponents to be found on this issue, you no longer have any need to hide behind your stated belief in my supposed crackpottery to avoid debate.

If you don’t mind, I suggest that you may wish to explain to some of your more reading-challenged fans that the context in which you were posting about engaging Worthy and Non-worthy Opponents tends to preclude peer-reviewed publication in scientific journals. In any case, I look forward to hearing from you anon.

He responded via email, curt but civil. I did not obtain permission to post his missive, so to summarize, it simply stated that I am not a Worthy Opponent as he errantly believed I assume myself to be, and informed me that I am not merely a crackpot, but a superlative example of the species. I replied thusly:

Yes, I understood that is your contention. It was rather obvious, especially considering that you stated outright: “There is no one in the green box.” Unlike many of your readers, my reading comprehension is in good working order. Of course, the entire point of your post was that because there are no Worthy Opponents, it is therefore necessary to engage Unworthy Opponents lest you lose the public. Which is quite true, and is also why it makes sense for you to engage in debate with various Opponents you deem Unworthy, such as myself. Even so, there’s nothing preventing you from running away again… and that’s clearly what most of the readers at both Vox Popoli and Pharyngula expect. I must confess that my favorite of the various excuses your readers prepared for you was the one related to peer-reviewed science. Great stuff!

Last time, your excuse was the potentially hostile environment and fears of a Gish Gallop. I’m sure we’re all interested in knowing what it will be this time.

It’s too soon to say for certain, but I’m afraid it appears as if the intrepid cracker-killer is on the verge of once more beating a very brave retreat. But, let’s not forget that Myers has surprised us before. I, for one, never dreamed he’d have the steel to carry through with the threatened cracker-killing.

Obama and the ‘B’ Ark Economy

The remarkable thing about the “wildly popular” scheme to encourage American consumers to purchase more automobiles is not, as a few conservative commentators have wryly remarked, that the mainstream media finds it surprising that people enjoy federal largesse. It is, rather, that so many commentators have recognized that the program is merely designed to encourage tomorrow’s consumption today. This is remarkable because most of them had not hitherto been able to recognize a similar pattern that has been at work in the American economy since 1983.

From a May paper entitled “U.S. Household Deleveraging and Future Consumption Growth” by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco:

Since the start of the U.S. recession in December 2007, household leverage has declined. It currently stands at about 130% of disposable income…. The Japanese stock market bubble burst in late 1989, followed soon after by the bursting of the real estate bubble in early 1991. Nearly 20 years later, stock and commercial real estate prices remain more than 70% below their peaks, while residential land prices
are more than 40% below their peak. In both countries, leverage ratios rose rapidly in the years before the peak. After Japan’s bubbles burst, private nonfinancial firms undertook a massive deleveraging, reducing their collective debt-to-GDP ratio from 125% in 1991 to 95% in 2001. By reducing spending on investment, the firms changed from being net borrowers to net savers. If U.S. households were to undertake a similar deleveraging, their collective debt-to-income ratio would need to drop to around 100% by year-end
2018, returning to the level that prevailed in 2002.

This has very, very bad implications for the most important component of GDP, Personal Consumption Expenditures, which hit a historic high of 71.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Translation: the stock market is no better an indicator of future economic growth now than it was when it was hitting historic nominal highs in 2008.

On the basis of their deleveraging calculations, the FRBSF calculates a US savings rate of 10% by the end of 2018. One has to presume Paul Krugman hasn’t read this paper or he would have stroked out already.

I wonder what excuse PZ will produce for ducking this challenge? Or is it possible that he might surprise us all and actually put his reputation where his mouth is?

Non-crackpot arguments are more challenging and require more thought, and are ultimately more satisfying. However, there is a problem when the focus is on an issue rather than an individual. Some issues, and I would put evolution in this category, don’t match this model well. While the issue is real and red-hot in the culture, the Green Zone of Worthy Opponents is unfortunately rather underpopulated. There is no one in the green box. So what should we do? Simply ignore the mobs of people populating the red box?

I posted the following at his blog: “Well, my dear Dr. Myers, since you were previously afraid of a radio debate with me on the evidence for the existence of gods, perhaps you’ll be more willing to engage in a written debate on the scientific evidence for evolution. After all, if the issue is so comprehensively settled in evolution’s favor, it should be no trouble whatsoever to make your case to everyone’s satisfaction, however initially dubious they may have been. And since you have now asserted that there are no Worthy Opponents, you no longer have any need to hide behind your stated belief in my supposed crackpottery.”

So, will PZ dare to enter the Red Box? Given that this is the area of his scientific and academic expertise and I am, according to him, “a pathetic little twerp with delusions of grandeur”, there’s absolutely no reason he should not… unless, of course, he’s afraid he can’t present a sufficiently convincing case for Darwin’s dangerous idea.

UPDATE: Wow, the Pharyngulans are already hurling metaphorical feces, providing excuses for PZ to run away, and trying to change the subject to religion. I find their lack of faith… amusing.