Author: VD

I almost forgot… I’ll be on the Jerry Hughes show at 2 PM Eastern today. Click here if you want to listen live. I think we’ll be taking calls if you’ve got any questions or whatever; the call-in number is 866-222-2368.

There’s no chance it will work. I’m not even sure it’s intended to, as it could merely be intended to pave the way for eventual nationalization. But Michael Barone offers what is perhaps the most succinct explanation of its inherent inconsistency:

I have noticed what I think is a paradox in the Geithner plan. He is asking the most unregulated parts of the financial system—hedge funds, private equity firms—to bail out the most regulated part of the financial system—the banks…. Democrats like Barack Obama and Barney Frank, at least on the campaign trail or in sound bites, have portrayed the financial crisis as the product of deregulation. The solution, they say, is more regulation. In that vein Frank, one of the brainiest members of Congress, is proposing that the Federal Reserve become a regulator of systemic risk, with the power to regulate firms that because of their size or strategic position are of systemic importance.

My American Enterprise colleague Peter Wallison has argued powerfully that this is a bad idea. Neither the Federal Reserve or other regulators identified the systemic risk which caused this crisis. Neither did most financial institutions or investors.

And yet, this systemic risk was obvious back in 2002! Of course, it wasn’t exactly difficult to know that any system which relies upon a combination of leverage and permanently rising home prices was going to blow up sooner or later.

“[T]here can be little doubt that the implosion of the equity markets will soon be followed by the pricking of the credit and real estate bubbles. As great financial houses such as Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase teeter on the edge of bankruptcy, it is well within the realm of possibility that the triple whammy of the equity, credit and real estate implosions will lead to the collapse of the entire global financial system.”

Except in Orac’s case, it should apparently read as follows: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupid. Like most individuals who are more intelligent than the norm, Orac simply doesn’t know what to do when he’s in over his head and doesn’t understand something, so he throws his usual hissy fit and declares that everything is stupid because he isn’t capable of grasping it.

Amusingly, he’s still hung up on the erroneous notion that if one merely REFERENCES National Socialist Germany’s undisputed TRANSPORTATION of millions of people, this is somehow synonymous with ADVOCATING the MURDER of millions of people. It’s certainly true that WND did edit the phrase out – although I have never and will never retract what was a simple statement of historical fact – but they only did so because they didn’t wish to waste their time dealing with the misplaced hysterics of logically handicapable individuals such as Orac and Michael Medved. Now there’s a pair of towering intellects for you!

Orac responds to my recent post on his reference of a recent scientific scandal in exactly the same overwrought and dishonest manner we’ve come to expect of him. He ignores the central points and instead tries to nibble away at the edges in an attempt to justify an ad hominem dismissal of my arguments. Consider, for example, his attempt to evade the fact that scientists are less trusted than one would expect given their ability to appeal to the supposedly unbiased and objective method of science. Orac weirdly asserts: “We scientists do not claim to rely on a “completely objective system.” Well, that’s certainly a surprise to anyone who has spent more than five minutes reading practically anything on scienceblogs. And It would seem strange, too, that as far back as 1983, Nature published a report called “Just how objective is science”. Of course, Orac is merely playing word games by saying that while the system isn’t “completely” objective, it just “tries very hard to minimize human biases as much as possible”. Ah, well, that completely eviscerates the point that scientists aren’t considered significantly more credible than a number of other professions despite their bias-minimizing method, doesn’t it… nothing like the old adverbial distraction.

The usual pattern applies throughout the post. Orac is quite willing to say whatever will permit him to falsely impute stupidity to someone else regardless of any basis in fact; does anyone seriously believe he’s likely to accept an argument based upon the inherent subjectivity and bias of science when he’s arguing about vaccines or religion?

That’s how Orac rolls. His arguments are almost always dependent upon assigning a false interpretation to something I’ve written, then attacking that false interpretation while avoiding what is actually there. He writes: “Vox is also full of crap when he claims that scientists rely on arguments from authority–as if that’s all we rely on.”

Of course, I neither wrote nor implied that. Scientists present a wide variety of arguments based on a various foundations, and I was specifically pointing out that when scientists SUBSTITUTE appeals to scientific authority, or peer review, or democratic consensus, or statistical review, for actual science, they jeopardize their credibility. Since appeal to authority was only one of three things I mentioned in that very sentence, it’s quite clear that the only one full of crap here is, again, Orac.

I don’t demand that anyone respect my authority, nor do I make arguments that rely upon this fictional authority. And I certainly have no need or desire for Orac’s respect. My reliable track record vis-a-vis the experts merely serves as a powerful basis with which to combat illogical appeals to various legitimate authorities. Orac is flat-out wrong when he writes: “arguments from authority are not in and of themselves a logical fallacy if the authority is legitimate. It’s arguments from dubious or false authority that are logical fallacies.” The inherent logical fallacy has nothing to do with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the authority.

Just yesterday, in fact, the new housing report had the median price at $165,400, which tends to fit the “175k or below” zone I predicted a year ago rather better than “flat at 218,100 in 2008 and increasing in 2009 as the housing experts had it. Man is a pattern recognition machine and I just happen to be a particularly good one. Science, like every other human endeavor, is subject to discernible patterns and foolish scientists ignore that, not only to their detriment, but to science’s as well. Still, to his credit, Orac admits that the scientific method is not hard to understand, which refutes approximately 45 percent of all arguments ever made by a Pharyngulan. However, he doesn’t grasp that it really is not necessary – although it could certainly be helpful – to know the background behind the scientific work in order to detect a familiar pattern of deception, unreliable assumption, or simple error. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize familiar patterns at work among the scientists who subscribe to various beliefs in ideas such as TENS, AGW, or the inherent safety of vaccines. I’ve seen it before in the adherents of the Labor Theory of Value and we’re seeing it again in the second coming of the Keynesians.

As for extended blather about ethics and the Helsinki Declaration, obviously I’m aware of the issue or I wouldn’t have been able to correctly predict that vaccine defenders will hide behind it in order to justify their refusal to further examine the issue. Personally, I think a non-blind study would be better than nothing and there are obviously no shortage of parents quite willing to forgo vaccinating their children, but then, as others here have pointed out, there would be more room to explain away any indication one way or the other. In the meantime, I see no reason why researchers can’t shoot up infant chimpanzees with the full U.S. vaccine schedule and see if it harms them at all. Perhaps this has already been done; if so, I haven’t heard about it.

Orac never gets around to addressing the main point, which is that scientists are losing the public opinion battle and more chest-thumping about how wonderful science and scientists are is not going to serve the vaccine defenders’ objectives in the slightest. The public doesn’t depend on science or scientists, science and scientists depend on the public. If scientists wish to continue arrogantly flouting public opinion, lampooning very real parental fears, and advocating idiotic ideologies that insult both the intelligence and the experience of the observant public, they’ll richly deserve the reduced funding priority that will likely be their eventual reward in a globally contracting economy.

In closing, I note that there’s a beautiful comment from one of Orac’s readers that serves as a perfectly apt summary of the relationship, such as it is, between critics like Orac and me. The usual pattern is this: an individual with an above-average intelligence and a reasonably expensive education sees something from outside their knowledge base that doesn’t fit their assumptions, fail to understand what I am saying, and therefore conclude that because they don’t get it, I must be incorrect and/or stupid.

“VD’s blog title “Vox Popoli” shows that he can’t even quote properly a well known Latin phrase: it’s “Vox populi”, with one “o” and one “u”.”

While it’s true that “populi” is Latin, it is also true that “popoli” is Italian. “Vox Popoli” is a mix of two languages rather like, well, “Vox Day”.

UPDATE – It occurs to me that I forgot to mention that the poll Orac cites, in which scientists were asked if they had committed
scientific fraud or not, is not exactly the most convincing evidence that scientists are not committing fraud. In related news, a similar poll found that 100 percent of the convicted felons questioned anonymously in Stillwater State Prison did not commit the crimes for which they are presently serving time.

A Democrat seeks to salvage the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party:

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks….

A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs. Cardin’s Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies. Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Yeah, because it’s the endorsements that are the problem… prohibiting the op/ed sections would be more credible. I have no doubt whatsoever that the media is EXTREMELY interested in this bill, as it’s one of the few things they’d actually like better than a public-funded sports stadium. Of course, journalists are far too short-sighted to understand that the passage of this act would cause half the country to go from merely holding them in contempt to full-blown, outright hatred.

Although I suppose that the national media has been little more than the federal government’s PR agency for the last three decades, so at least this would put it all right out in the open for everyone.

While I am a peaceful gentleman, I have been known to wax wroth on occasion when sufficiently provoked. As longtime readers know, I am largely impervious to words, but I am rather less inclined to suffer physical assaults with equanimity. And I have been subjected to more than most over the years, largely as a result of my speed and my position on the soccer team.

For an individual who spent most of his life playing soccer, I am an exceptionally unskilled individual. What I do possess – or rather, did possess – was exceptional speed. Since the number of people in the state capable of beating me could be counted on one hand, there was never a defender on the soccer field who could hope to keep up with me. Their one hope of staying with me was to foul every time I started to move, so at times the sport seemed more like wrestling than anything else, and one can understand if the idea that soccer was supposed to be a non-contact sport never made much sense to me.

Since I was always perceived as the most dangerous attacker – which was actually seldom true – I was inevitably man-marked and often double-teamed. Over the years, I eventually developed a catalog of various tricks and maneuvers designed to keep defenders away from me, ranging from adroitly timed elbows to smacking their locked elbow with my forearm when they grabbed my jersey. When intentionally tripped, I would get up and blatantly kick both feet out from under them as the ref followed the action upfield… this led to more than a few yellow cards for the other team when defenders would get enraged at my doing openly what they were doing surreptitiously. Most seasons, I collected nearly as many red and yellow cards as I scored goals.

When I returned to the soccer field after spending four years at college and six years doing martial arts, I had forty pounds more muscle and a much larger arsenal of tricks at my disposal. Suddenly, I discovered that defenders were unable to force me off the ball, which was a pleasant surprise. I became a more effective striker and managed to average a goal per game the last year I played in the States. Playing in Europe was a very different experience, however, as the skill level of the players was so much higher that I felt like a chimpanzee trying to play chess with Russian programmers. While the defenders still clutched and grabbed, the level of general violence was much lower, with one very notable exception.

Most teams in the elite veterans league with which I played had a lot of very good players. There were a number of retired professionals, and one team even boasted a former national team member, which was rather intimidating although I did have what turned out to be my best game ever against them. But there was one team that was easily the dirtiest collection of cheating, nasty, sour-tempered losers I have ever encountered, and I’ve played everywhere from the US to Europe and Japan. The year we took the championship and won promotion, we were beating them three-nothing, which seemed to enrage their keeper and their sweeper. The two of them started trying to commit fouls every time one of our strikers got near them. It was getting increasingly chippy, and after I nearly scored a fourth goal, the sweeper sidled up to me, grabbed my testicles, and squeezed as hard as he could.

Now, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I very seldom feel any pain when my adrenaline is up. So, it didn’t hurt in the slightest. In fact, the only thing I thought was “uppercut”, as with his left hand down doing the dirty work, I had a perfectly clear shot to his chin. But then I thought, is it really worth it? On the one hand, if I power the uppercut with a hip twist I can definitely break his jaw and quite possibly knock him out as he eminently deserves. On the other hand, what purpose is that actually going to solve? Is it really right to seriously injure him when, despite his best efforts, he’s not actually hurting me? He looked a little confused when I didn’t react by doubling over, but merely forced him to release his grip by shoving him away and breaking out wide to receive a pass from our left midfielder. Then, not five minutes later, there was an open ball in front of goal, the goalie went after my knee instead of the ball, and ripped it open with the toe of his shoe. Again, I didn’t feel anything thanks to the adrenaline rush, but a few minutes later, one of my teammates brought it to my attention that a flap of skin was hanging out over my knee and I was bleeding like a well-stuck pig. I thought about confronting the goalie over what was clearly malice aforethought, but again, decided to let things slide and tried not to bleed on the interior of my friend’s Maserati as he thoughtfully drove me to the hospital to get stitched up.

When we played them again about two months later, I was wondering how I should repay the two ill-mannered brutes for their indelicate assaults. But, as it turned out, any action on my part was rendered moot before I even got into the game. Not five minutes after the game started, there was an open ball in the goal area for which the dirty defender was fighting our best striker. The dirty goalie came out, and as we’d learned was his wont, went for our striker’s leg rather than the ball. However, the defender chose just that moment to foul our striker by pushing him out of the way with both hands, and for his efforts he received a full-force kick to the side of his head that knocked him out instantly. It was absolutely brutal and I almost laughed myself sick at the horrified expression on the idiot keeper’s face. It was just PERFECT! After waking up, the defender had to be helped off the field and taken to the hospital; I have little doubt that he received a nice little concussion.

The referee and the opposing coach were a little offended at the enthusiasm with which my team applauded the incident, until our coach pointed to my knee, which still looked ghastly, and explained that justice had been swiftly served from on high. It was a beautifully satisfactory result, although my coach did tell me at the end of the season: “Next time, just go ahead and hit them. I will do the explaining.”

The OC emails yet another confirmation that I am more highly evolved than the sad evolutionary relics so amusingly known as homo sapiens. It seems my instinctive skepticism of expert advice is actually the result of a favorable neurological mutation:

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a study to determine the neural mechanisms involved in financial decision-making under risk when a financial expert gives advice. Study findings show that expert advice suppresses areas of the brain responsible for making value judgments. Conversely, those regions of the brain show activity when outside advice is not involved in the decision-making process.

At least, I assume that’s the conclusion the OC was drawing. I’m not actually sure, as it’s somewhat difficult for Internet Superintelligences to cycle down to the pedestrian level of the literary genius.

Jim Manzi does yeoman’s work in pointing out that the demand-deficiency model upon which the fiscal and financial authorities are relying has failed before:

I decided to go back through the now-public Fed minutes from the 1970s methodically to try to see the decision process they went through with the information available to them at the time that they had to make decisions. It didn’t take long to hit pay dirt. In the August 1970 Fed meeting discussion notes, you see this statement that is eerily similar to the CBO’s current report:

“Moreover, the upturn would be starting from a point where there is substantial underutilization of resources, as evidenced by a 5 percent unemployment rate and an operating rate in manufacturing at well under 80 per cent of capacity. In these circumstances, there is virtually no risk that economic recovery over the year ahead would add to the inflationary problem through the stimulation of excessive or even robust demand in product or labor markets.

Inflation turned out to be a huge problem, of course, but hindsight is 20/20. People weren’t stupid in 1970. We don’t have some “new science” of economics available to us now that they didn’t then; presumably those who were pretty arrogant about how we can’t repeat the mistakes of earlier policy-makers because we’re so much smarter now are a little more humble after the past 12 months.

So, “no risk” of inflation in 1970. How did that one work out for you, again, Keynesians?

Mary Kathryn Gallagher Lopez is a poster girl for what happens when you send a woman to do William F. Buckley’s job:

I appreciate the kids’ wanting Rihanna to take some responsibility for her situation. She’s an adult, after all, as is Brown. And if she gets beaten, she should get the heck away from the person responsible. And as a best-selling artist, she has the financial freedom to extricate herself from her trouble. But where’s the outrage over what Brown is accused of doing? There’s something off when so many people blame the victim, not the aggressor.

Or, perhaps, you know, they’re blaming the actual aggressor for the situation, you clueless twit! I pay far less attention to American celebrity nonsense than the NRO gang does, and even I know that it’s been in the news for weeks that the black girl singer probably hit the black guy singer first. It’s only the entire basis of the guy’s legal defense, after all. It was fairly obvious from the start anyhow, since the most logical reason that Brown would have bitten Rihanna’s fingers was that his hands weren’t free when she went after his face. If – if – she was going for his eyes, that also might explain what otherwise looks like an extreme reaction.

“Sources say Rihanna was the first one to strike — slapping and striking Brown “numerous times” while he was driving, after seeing the text message from another woman. Supposedly, this version of events is reflected in the official police report.”

While I never had the need to use more than a single backhand to deal with a violent woman even before I became a Christian, I have no problem whatsoever with a man beating the absolute hell out of a woman who attacked him first. In like manner, I also have no problem with a bigger man beating the absolute hell out of a little man who attacks him. It’s simply not that hard to refrain from physically attacking another individual, the vast majority of men and women throughout history have demonstrated that humans beings are perfectly capable of living their entire lives without initiating violence. And from the materialistic perspective, removing violence-initiators from the gene pool should be regarded as a positive action on behalf of human evolution in a positive direction, regardless of the sex of the evolutionary dead-ender.

It’s really not that difficult. Either women are children and should be treated accordingly, or they are adults and should be treated accordingly. There is no reasonable middle ground here. While one may elect not to retaliate for Christian reasons – and I can testify that I have seen God claiming the vengeance that is His in a vastly amusing manner – there is no legal, moral, or social rationale for granting women carte blanche to initiate violence. If you choose to attack an individual who is more physically capable than you and get the smack beaten out of you, you’re not a victim. You’re just stupid.

Even the Keynesians are abandoning the sinking ship of the Obama administration now. As well they should:

The common element to the Paulson and Geithner plans is the insistence that the bad assets on banks’ books are really worth much, much more than anyone is currently willing to pay for them. In fact, their true value is so high that if they were properly priced, banks wouldn’t be in trouble.

And so the plan is to use taxpayer funds to drive the prices of bad assets up to “fair” levels. Mr. Paulson proposed having the government buy the assets directly. Mr. Geithner instead proposes a complicated scheme in which the government lends money to private investors, who then use the money to buy the stuff. The idea, says Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, is to use “the expertise of the market” to set the value of toxic assets.

But the Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt. So this isn’t really about letting markets work. It’s just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets.

All bad economics are rooted in a single concept: objective value. This was most obvious in the Marxist form of assigning an input factor, but it’s also implicit in the Monetarist notion of government-backed paper currencies. Since there is no such thing as objective value – subjective value is the heart of Austrian theory, which states that all values are intrinsically dependent upon the moment and the acting man – any political action or economic theory based upon it is bound to fail.

In the case of the Paulson/Geithner plan, they are substituting “true value” for objective value, but it doesn’t matter what it’s called, the relevant point is that it diverges from what anyone is actually willing to pay for it at this moment in time.

No bonuses, no bailouts
I am not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican. In fact, I have never voted for either a Democrat or a Republican in any of the past presidential elections for which I was eligible to vote. Ronald Reagan and Ron Paul are the only two Republicans for whom I would have been willing to vote; I was too young to vote for the former, and the Republican Party prevented me from having the opportunity to vote for the latter.

Needless to say, nominating John McCain looks just as foolish in retrospect as it did at the time. It seems he wasn’t quite as electable as his media champions repeatedly insisted he was….