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WND column

This is No Double Dip

One reason I prefer economics to finance is that timing has never been my strongpoint. I thought the tech bubble was going to pop in 1998. I wrote a column in 2002 that commented on the expansion of the housing bubble and noted that this was likely to have a negative effect on the global financial system, but never imagined that the bubble could go on as long as it did or that real-estate prices would rise to such elevated levels. So, given this track record of prematurity, it should be no surprise that it has taken longer for the economic consensus to recognize that the global economy is caught up in a very large economic contraction than I anticipated.

But it is coming, nevertheless. Consider the following two headlines from last week:

“‘WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF A GREAT, GREAT DEPRESSION'”
– Drudge Report, June 1, 2011

“U.S. house price fall ‘beats Great Depression slide'”
– The Independent, June 1, 2011

The lady postures too much

Naomi Wolf explains that she likes herself better and is actually more attractive now that she’s in her late 40s and no one wants to have sex with her. Unsurprisingly, now that she’s gotten older, she has concluded that age, like beauty, is also a myth:

Recently, I was at a party, and a man who, like myself, was in his late 40s, arrived with a woman 20 years younger. It took only a few moments of conversation before the rest of the group realized that the two had very little in common. And yet I did not feel the frisson of envy among the men present, nor did I see a bristle of jealousy from any of the stylish, accomplished women in their 40s. In fact, the mood of both genders was tender, almost pitying. The man may have imagined that he was showing off the youth of his date the way he might show off a new Maserati; but parading her around like an acquisition seemed only to make his friends feel sorry for him….

There are many other delightful surprises about being at this stage on the journey. I don’t miss the brutal sexual harassment that young women receive from men — and I love the far gentler flirtation or civil compliments from cab drivers and park chess players my own age or older. On the street, young women are told: Give me some. Older women hear: I love your eyes.

It is certainly amusing to see a woman whose entire literary career was based on her attractive-by-New-York-writer standards try to rationalize away the fact that she is past her sell-by date. It’s also remarkable that she managed to write about the changes in women’s attitudes and bodies over the last two decades without once seeing fit to mention the enfattening of America; Naomi has clearly packed on more than a few pounds herself.

Any time you see a woman describe “magnetic and dynamic women my own age” you know perfectly well she is referring to childless women fast approaching menopause who are filled with boundless hate for the young women their male peers are dating. Wolf’s attempt at a bemused zen-like pose is about as convincing as unemployed female college graduates babbling about how “strong and independent” they are as they move home to spend a year deciding what graduate schools Daddy is going to pay for.

The punchline which reveals the entire point of the article is this pathetic attempt at a neg: “[I]n my own circles, at least, it is considered more macho for a man to have an accomplished woman his own age on his arm. His ego, it is understood, can take it.”

Right, because men pursue beautiful young women in order to be macho. It’s not sex and beauty that interests them, but female approval. This woman clearly doesn’t know the first thing about men. One of these days, someone is going to have to inform women that their endless shaming tactics only work on other women and gamma males they don’t want to have sex with in the first place.

Film the police

Florida police demonstrate their stalwart respect for the law they are supposedly enforcing:

Miami Beach police did their best to destroy a citizen video that shows them shooting a man to death in a hail of bullets Memorial Day. First, police pointed their guns at the man who shot the video, according to a Miami Herald interview with the videographer. Then they ordered the man and his girlfriend out the car and threw them down to the ground, yelling “you want to be fucking paparazzi?”

Then they snatched the cell phone from his hand and slammed it to the ground before stomping on it. Then they placed the smashed phone in the videographer’s back pocket as he was laying down on the ground. And finally, they took him to a mobile command center where they snapped his photo and demanded the phone again, then took him to police headquarters where they conducted a recorded interview with him before releasing him.

But what they didn’t know was that Narces Benoit had removed the SIM card and hid it in his mouth, which means the video survived.

People are going to have to get proactive with the police and force them to get used to the idea that all of their actions, legal and illegal, are going to be recorded. What everyone should start doing as a matter of course is pulling out their phone or camera and film, or even just pretend to film, every police officer they encounter no matter what he is doing. It is absurd that public employees should think they can assert that their official duties, which take place in public and are funded by the public, merit any sort of privacy.

And any policeman who seizes and destroys private property in the manner described should be charged with a misdemeanor for a first offense, a felony for a second.

The unreliable history of vaccines

One of the most effective arguments for vaccines is that they have significantly reduced the death rate from the various diseases against which they are supposed to protect. And while there is little question that things have improved, there is unfortunately real cause to doubt that they have improved anywhere nearly as dramatically as nearly everyone on both sides of the issue assumes:

The National Vaccine establishment, supported by Government grants, issued periodical Reports, which were printed by order of the House of Commons, and in successive years we find the following statements:

In 1812, and again in 1818, it is stated that “previous to the discovery of vaccination the average number of deaths by small-pox within the (London) Bills of Mortality was 2,000 annually; whereas in the last year only 751 persons have died of the disease, although the increase of population within the last ten years has been 133,139.”

The number 2,000 is about the average smallpox deaths of the whole eignteenth century, but those of the last two decades before the publication of Jenner’s Inquiry, were 1,751 and 1,786, showing a decided fall. This, however, may pass. But when we come to the Report for 1826 we find the following: “But when we reflect that before the introduction of vaccination the average number of deaths from small-pox within the Bills of Mortality was annually about 4,000, no stronger argument can reasonably be demanded in favour of the value of this important discovery.”

This monstrous figure was repeated in 1834, apparently quite forgetting the correct figure for the whole century given in 1818, and also the fact that the small-pox deaths recorded in the London Bills of Mortality in any year of the century never reached 4,000. But worse is to come; for in 1836 we have the following statement: “The annual loss of life by small-pox in the Metropolis, and within the Bills of Mortality only, before vaccination was established, exceeded 5,000, whereas in the course of last year only 300 died of the distemper.” And in the Report for 1838 this gross error is repeated; while in the next year (1839) the conclusion is drawn “that 4,000 lives are saved every year in London since vaccination so largely superseded variolation (3).”

The Board of the National Vaccine Establishment consisted of the President and four Censors of the Royal College of Physicians, and the Master and two senior Wardens of the College of Surgeons. We cannot possibly suppose that they knew or believed that they were publishing untruths and grossly deceiving the public. We must, therefore, fall back upon the supposition that they were careless to such an extent as not to find out that they were authorizing successive statements of the same quantity as inconsistent with each other as 2,000 and 5000.

The next example is given by Dr. Lettsom, who, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee in 1802, calculated the small-pox deaths of Great Britain and Ireland before vaccination at 36,000 annually; by taking 3,000 as the annual mortality in London and multiplying by twelve, because the population was estimated to be twelve times as large. He first takes a number which is much too high, and then assumes that the mortality in the town, village, and country populations was the same as in overcrowded, filthy London! Smallpox was always present in London, while Sir Gilbert Blane tells us that in many parts of the country it was quite unknown for periods of twenty, thirty, or forty years. In 1782 Mr. Connah, a surgeon at Seaford, in Sussex, only knew of one small-pox death in eleven years among a population of 700. Cross, the historian of the Norwich epidemic in 1819, states that previous to 1805 small-pox was little known in this city of 40,000 inhabitants, and was for a time almost extinct; and yet this gross error of computing the small-pox mortality of the whole country from that of London (and computing it from wrong data) was not only accepted at the time, but has been repeated again and again down to the present day as an ascertained fact!

In a speech in Parliament in defence of .vaccination., Sir Lyon Playfair gave 4,000 per million as the average London death-rate by small-pox before vaccination—a number nearly double that of the last twenty years of the century, which alone affords a fair comparison. But far more amazing is the statement by the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter, in a letter to the Spectator of April, 1881, that “a hundred years ago the small-pox mortality of London alone, with its then population of under a million, was often greater in a six months’ epidemic than that of the twenty millions of England & Wales now is in any whole Year.” The facts, well known to every enquirer, are: that the very highest small-pox mortality in the last century in a year was 3,992 in 1772, while in 1871 it was 7,912 in. London, or more than double; and in the same year, in England and Wales, it was 23,000. This amazing and almost incredible misstatement was pointed out and acknowledged privately, but never withdrawn publicly!

The late Mr. Ernest Hart, a medical man., editor of the British Medical Journal, and a great authority on sanitation, in his work entitled The Truth about Vaccination, surpasses even Dr. Carpenter in the monstrosity of his errors. At page 35 of the first edition (1880), he states that in. the forty years 1728—57 and 1771—80, the average annual small-pox mortality of London was about 18,000 per million living. The actual average mortality, from the tables given in the Second Report of the Royal Commission, page 290, was a little over 2,000, the worst periods having been chosen; and taking the lowest estimates of the population at the time, the mortality per million would have been under 3,000. This great authority, therefore, has multiplied the real number by six! In a later edition this statement is omitted, but in the first edition it was no mere misprint, for it was triumphantly dwelt upon over a whole page and compared with modern rates of mortality.

Now, a very good argument in favor of the smallpox vaccine is that the disease has largely been eradicated, even in nations where the hygiene and sanitation does not rise to the level of nineteenth century London. But it does no one any good, and the pro-vaccine cause no service, to resort to citing fictional numbers in order to claim that public health has dramatically improved as a result of certain vaccines.

An economic conundrum

Given the following factors:

1. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the statistical measure for the size of the national economy.
2. The formula for calculating GDP is C+I+G+(x-m).
3. In the most recent BEA report, current dollar GDP was 15,010 billion. Exports (x) were 2,020 billion and imports (m) were 2,591 billion.
4. In Q1-11, international trade reduced the size of the US economy by $571 billion. Without any international trade at all, GDP in Q1-11 would have been 15,581 billion, representing a healthy rate of 4.8 percent annual growth from the 14,871 billion of the previous quarter instead of the 0.9 percent reported.

This is the challenge: justify the continuation of international free trade utilizing reason, logic, and conventional macroeconomic theory in light of these figures. This means no resorting to Austrian-based skepticism concerning the validity of economic statistics or ideological objections to government intervention. For the purposes of this exercise, we are assuming that the Samuelsonian metrics are valid, relevant, and a legitimate foundation for national policy.

The dream prison

To be honest, I can think of worse fates:

As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells. Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for “illegally petitioning” the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do.

Brutal workouts during the day followed by playing games all night… throw in some alcohol and three hours at a downtown night club on the weekends and that pretty much describes my twenties.

R.I.P. Joel Rosenberg

Some bad news this morning. Joel Rosenberg, the SF/F author, Second Amendment advocate, and a friend of mine, died of a heart attack last night. He was 57. The OC has more information at the Friday Challenge.

If you haven’t read his books before, I highly recommend beginning with Not for Glory. It contains one of my favorite short stories, about the dangerous relationship between the treacherous general Shimon Bar-El and his nephew Tetsuo.

Statistical shenanigans: U3

You may recall that my prediction that the U3 unemployment would exceed 11 percent in 2010 was “incorrect”. The BLS reported U3 at only 9.8 percent even though fewer people were working due to a concomitant increase in the number of people who had mysteriously decided to exit the labor force in the midst of the “recovery” That’s why I revised my 2011 prediction as follows: “U-3 unemployment will climb above 10 percent. The real unemployment rate will be much higher, but it will be masked by a decline in the Labor Force Participation rate below 64 percent. The employment-population ratio will fall below 58 percent for the first time since 1984.

Needless to say, I didn’t find it quite as inexplicable as some economists have to see that the current employment trend is defying “the rules of a normal economic recovery.”:

The labor force — those who have a job or are looking for one — is getting smaller, even though the economy is growing and steadily adding jobs. That trend defies the rules of a normal economic recovery…. The percentage of adults in the labor force is a figure that economists call the participation rate. It is 64.2 percent, the smallest since 1984. And that’s become a mystery to economists. Normally after a recession, an improving economy lures job seekers back into the labor market. This time, many are staying on the sidelines.

Their decision not to seek work means the drop in unemployment from 9.8 percent in November to 9 percent in April isn’t as good as it looks. If the 529,000 missing workers had been out scavenging for a job without success, the unemployment rate would have been 9.3 percent in April, not the reported rate of 9 percent. And if the participation rate were as high as it was when the recession began, 66 percent, in December 2007, the unemployment rate could have been as high as 11.5 percent.

Translation: the real U3 unemployment rate has been over 11 percent since 2010, as I originally predicted. However, the BLS has concealed this very high rate of unemployment by the simple tactic of reducing the size of the labor force despite the growing population of the country. This is only one of the many reasons that Mises was correct to condemn the use of statistical empiricism in economics; the statistics are neither reliable nor represent a consistent metric.

There is no mystery and it is not true that “nobody is sure why it’s happening.” The reason it is happening is completely obvious: there is no economic recovery. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is playing games, just like the Federal Reserve and most of the other Federal agencies, to conceal the observable fact that the Great Depression 2.0 has been underway for 30 months already. And their ability to hide it is gradually crumbling.

UPDATE: BLS report today: U3=9.1%, LFP=64.2%, E/PR=58.4%.

This is how you do it, Republicans

I’ve never heard of Ray Junior before, but this is most definitely the correct way to treat a reptilian politician who is attempting to falsely pass himself off as a fiscally conservative republican:

Junior: The question is simple: You’re a Senator today. The Ryan plan comes across your desk. Are you voting yes or no?

Haridopolos: Again, Ray Junior, I’m not getting into that today because it’s not the vote that I’m dealing with

Junior: But you’re on my show. This is the question I’m asking. We’re trying to figure out whether we want to vote for you to become a U.S. Senator. Are you voting for the Ryan plan or not? This is not about what you want to talk about. This is what I want to talk about. I want to know: Do you vote for this bill or not?

Haridopolos: What I’d like to talk about is simple – what did I do in the state Legislature…

Junior: I’m not interested in what you want to talk about, Mike. I’m mention what the voters want to talk about. The voters want to talk about the budget. And I’m interested in what I want to talk about — my show. Tell me: You voting for the Ryan plan, yes or no?

Haridopolos: Again, I don’t have all the information to make that decision yet.

Junior: How could you possibly not have all that information, you’re running for Senate?

Haridopolos: Ray, I thought you wanted to talk about what we had accomplished, not about a hypothetical.

Junior: Your guy that asked for you to be on the show said “Hey, I’d like to get him on the show.’ I said ‘fine. Let’s bring him on the show.’ So I’m asking you that question. The only reason people avoid questions like this, Mike, is because they don’t want to be tied in — when they don’t want to actually have people see how they would do things. There’s no reason to avoid this question. How could you possibly be running for U.S. Senate and not know what’s in the Ryan bill?

Haridopolos: I know what’s in the Ryan bill, but again, what you’re asking me is a fair question. What I’m telling you is…

Junior: Ok, I’d like a fair answer…

Haridopolos:…A lot of people are talking about hypotheticals — if they run, if they win. Let’s talk about what I actually accomplished

Junior: Laughter… no, no, no. You’re not doing that, Mike. Every single thing a person talks about when they’re on the campaign trail is a hypothetical. A hundred percent of it. There’s nothing that’s not hypothetical. The only way we know whether it’s going to be true or not is when they get into office is if they follow through on the things they said they would do. That’s why I’m asking you: Would you vote yes or no on Ryan?

Haridopolos: Exactly what I’m bringing up. My point as well. I made a promise to balance the budget, not raise taxes, not raise fees..

Junior: Ok, does the Ryan plan do that? Does the Ryan plan do that?

Haridopolos: Look, the Ryan plan is what’s in Washington

Junior: Ok, get him off my phone. I don’t want anything to do with this guy. Get rid of him.

What a pity that the big boys are all more interested in exchanging back rubs and foot massages with the likes of Newt Gingrich and Captain Underoos than they are in pinning down Republican would-be leaders on the big issues and holding them accountable. If you can’t answer a simple and straightforward yes or no question concerning your position on one of the central issues of the day, you should get the hell out of politics.

Don’t worry, you’re not too pretty for science

A female scientist desperately wants you to know that someone told her she was pretty, the bastard, and now she can’t wait to tell you about ithow angry that makes her!

I’m ticked off and venting via dashed-off blog rant…. I know Mr. Salesguy was trying to be nice and probably thought he was flattering me, but fer chrissakes, that is NOT the way to go about it. Women in science already frequently feel like “The Other,” that we’re “too XX” to be good at what we do, that our possession of breasts surely must mean that we’re too much of a fragile flower to be able to handle the “man’s work” involved in science and academia, and that we need to go above and beyond what our male colleagues do just to feel the same level of acceptance and appreciation. I’m sure Mr. Salesguy has never thought about the plight of women in science before tonight (and I doubt that my conversation really made him think about it for more than a few fleeting seconds), but it really dragged down what had otherwise been a very nice few days of unadulterated sciencey goodness.

This is a beautiful example of what is one of my favorite female faux outrage poses. Certain women, usually those of average appearance, love to pretend to be furious because someone complimented them, which they believe gives them an excuse to talk to everyone they can get their hands on about the fact that someone thinks they are pretty or whatever. You’ll notice you never see any genuinely gorgeous girl getting her thong in a twist over someone happening to recognize the obvious; she knows she’s hot and it’s no big deal.

And the idea that one can be somehow damaged by one’s looks defying the expectations of one’s occupation is a ridiculous attempt to justify the “look at me, look at me” behavior. At my second book signing, which was a large Barnes & Noble event at which there were some 10 or 12 other much bigger-name SF/F authors, including Gordon R. Dickson, there must have been at least 10 people who told me I didn’t look like a SF writer. I didn’t take any offense, of course, or agonize about how this made it terribly difficult to be taken seriously as a writer. It was not exactly hard to ascertain what they meant by the comment given that in addition to being the youngest one there by a decade or more, I was also the only weightlifter in the bunch. SF/F writers are often fascinating conversationalists and I quite enjoy spending time with them, but as a general rule they tend not to make for the most physically imposing specimens of humanity.

So, Ms Dr Smith needn’t worry. As an expert observer of the opposite sex, I don’t think she’s too pretty for science. I don’t think she’s pretty at all. I’m confident she can rest assured that most men who aren’t of low sexual market value, like the scientists and atheists by whom she is customarily surrounded, will not take any notice of her unless she happens to perform some spectacular feats of science. Which is probably unlikely, since she’s such a transparently superficial twit that she’ll find it hard to pull her narcissistic nose out of her navel long enough to observe anything scientific.