The Poor and Stupid Fund

Max Sawicky links to a brilliant post by The Cunning Realist

NEW YORK (CNNfn) -- MetaMarkets.com[snip] 's board of trustees approved the liquidation of the $9.9 million OpenFund and the $1.4 million IPO & New Era Fund
[snip] Donald Luskin, the chief executive of MetaMarkets [snip]

The OpenFund, launched in August 1999, has fallen 26 percent so far this year after dropping 42 percent in 2000, according to fund tracker Morningstar Inc. The IPO & New Era portfolio has fallen 57 percent since its September 2000 inception, according to data on the company's Web site.

It is always fun, and easy, to criticize Daniel Luskin, "the case of the rapidly disappearing campaign fund of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn). Judging by the staggering losses Senator Frist's fund has incurred in its stock market investments, one might think he had the misfortune of investing in Don Luskin's funds." is more important. I guess the one remaining rule of comity in the Senate is that Senators do not mention other senators campaign funds.

Still, someone has to bring this up if the bill reaches the stage of filibuster (they might just drop it) and Frist becomes a central public figure.

Do Dead Parrots Read ?

I should have known that the answer is no. I might even have guessed that, were a dead parrot to blog, the dead parrot would repeat things without thinking. Now I know.


Victor , an actuary in Arkansas, stubbornly insists on misconstruing this post of mine. His version of my claim is clearly inconsistent with what I wrote. This has been pointed out very clearly both by me and by PGL, another commenter.

I should point out that I wrote this angry post, in part, because I thought that Victor had repeated his silly claim in a new post at 01:27 PM on Mar 8 about what I claimed, after his error had been pointed out by me at 05:14 PM on Mar 8 and another commenter. PGL at 03:43 PM on Mar 9. After careful checking I note that 01:27 PM Mar 8 comes before and not after
05:14 PM Mar 8 and 03:43 PM Mar 9. Still Victor has not retracted his mistaken claim.

Now, I admit, that I overlooked the same error apparently briefly made by PGL at Angry bear (who, as noted above, has since corrected Victor and, perhaps, himself) . But I mean, really, if you had to choose between challenging a dead parrot and challenging an angry bear, what would you do ?

Victor's version

DeLong also refers to this post by Robert Waldmann that papers over the important distinction between stocks and flows.

In sum, Waldmann's argument is that the interest rate is the inverse of the price of tomorrow's consumption; as with any price change, there is the possibility that there will be offsetting income and substitution effects. Therefore, if privatization boosts the rate of return on your wealth, tomorrow's consumption is now cheaper.

A sentence in my original post

In the case of social security reform, there is no substitution effect.

Now I think it is clear to anyone who can read that "there will be offsetting income and substitution effects. " is not consistent with "there is no substitution effect."

Once the error is pointed out, there is no need for discussion. I think a correction is in order.

I wrote an over long comment on Victor's post which began
"

Robert Waldmann writes ...

You clearly did not read my post. I did not say that the effects of personal accounts is ambiguous because of income and substitution effects. I said the effect is an unambiguous reduction in national savings.

I quote myself [OK here I am quoting myself quoting myself clearly falling into a metadox]

"In the case of social security reform, there is no substitution effect. The proposal is to replace one form of forced savings with another. Contributions are FICA which is fixed by law and not voluntary. However if, as claimed by Bush and the Cs, private accounts are a better deal, then there should be an income effect causing increased consumption."

See isn't that simple. I did not write that the sign was ambiguous. I did not write that the income effect *might* be larger than the substitution effect. I argued that, in this case, the substitution effect is exactly zero. I actually thought the point was too obvious to labor." [long snip]
Posted by Robert Waldmann at 05:14 PM Mar 8

PGL put it better

pgl writes ...

Victor - Robert repeats NO substitution effect. And where did Barro and Becker say people will delude themselves? They did not. What they said is that people's opportunity sets do not change at all. Same thing Robert said. And a FAR cry from what you are suggesting. Please READ more carefully.

Posted by pgl at 03:43 PM Mar 9




In a later post Victor writes at some length about me, but does not correct his totally incorrect summary of my post.

"

To clarify: my position is that there isn't any expected benefit vis a vis future consumption. That's what I said in my original post on this subject, although we can hope for better. Waldmann, however, WAS arguing that there would be an improved rate of return (indeed, without a change in the rate of return, there is no income/substitution effect to analyze). I therefore challenged Waldmann's argument on his own turf, and this apparently confused PGL. Therefore, PGL should be criticizing Waldmann, not me.

Sometimes when you see a bad argument (Waldmann's), there are a lot of ways to break it down. Maybe I should have tried PGL's defense (that Waldmann's premise was misguided), but instead I showed that he was either (a) arguing in favor of privatization or (b) arguing for a virtual impossibility. My approach was more robust to optimism with private accounts, PGL's was more succinct."

PGL's in an intellectual box on this issue, since he had previously sourced that exact same Waldmann argument with apparent approval.

In fact this later post adds another gross error. In my original post, I did not say that private accounts would provide better returns than guaranteec benefits. This is why PGL did not recognise any inconsistency between my position and his. To quote my post below

"Now I think that Brad may be right that private accounts are likely to be a wash as far as national savings go, but you should point out that you only think that because you assume that Bush, the Cato institute and the CEA are full of it.

They all claim that private savings accounts are a better deal than traditional social security. They even claim that young people will be better off with the reform in spite of price indexing and the 3% offset rate. That is, they claim that the reform will reduce national savings."

Notice the pronoun "They". I wrote that "they" make this claim. I did not make that claim. Third person plural not first person singular. Victor uses the name "Waldmann" to refer to the entity that made a claim. I used the phrase "Bush, the Cato institute and the CEA". They are not equivalent.

Still quoting myself

"This is simple. If the reform means that people are better off, then the reform should make people consume more and save less. [snip] However if, as claimed by Bush and the Cs, private accounts are a better deal, then there should be an income effect causing increased consumption.

[paragraph on other components of national savings deleted]

To argue that social security reform will increase national savings one must argue that it will make participants poorer or will make the accumulation of national debt more terrifying. The President is effectively saying -- trust me don't worry, I'm obviously lying."

The references to higher returns are both proceded by the word "if". I did not claim that there would be higher returns, I discussed what would happen if there were. The qualification "as claimed by Bush and the Cs" makes it clear to any functionally literate person that I do not consider the claim my own.

Notice that Victor has neglected the obvious fact that I was very careful not to claim that private accounts would offer better returns when writing "a bad argument (Waldmann's)," and claiming that PGL had misunderstood me when PGL gave the impression that he and I agree (as we clearly do).

Still I find some of Victor's prose good enough to steal in a manner which I freely concede is not a quotation, summary or accurate paraphrase

"Sometimes when you see a bad argument" (Victor's), "there are a lot of ways to break it down. Maybe I should have tried PGL's defense" My approach was boring "PGL's was more succinct."

I still love the Dead Parrot's Society Slogan

"four out of six of us agree:a mighty slogan will go up here"

Update: I have found a more incoherant summary of my post here. Hat to to the General.

My daughter Kathy updating her web page

My brother in law Johnny Carrera has a nice web page
He has a link to this blog, so I thought that I would reciprocate.

Sweet Wine from Sour Grapes
(might have to change the title of that blog if this keeps up)

In his opinion, Judge Floyd sharply criticized the administration's use of the enemy combatant designation in Mr. Padilla's case.

"The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold petitioner as an enemy combatant," Judge Floyd wrote.... "To do otherwise would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition,... but it would also be a betrayal of this nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and individual liberties."

Blogbyte of the Day from Marshall

"the young tend to have a difficult time really getting their heads around the idea that they too will one day grow old and die. That doesn't mean we're moving toward an immortality society; it means they're young."

From the same post "The one question for which the Times has regular data going back to 1981 was: "Do you think the Social Security system will have the money available to provide the benefits you expect for your retirement?"

Last month it was 34% yes and 49% no. In 1981 it was 30% yes and 54%."

I wonder if the Times also asked "are you capable of holding two contradictory opinions at the same time" 68 % yes 40 % no 20 % don't know (yes I know it doesn't add up but I assume that 28% of my fellow citizens would answer both yes and no).

That is, I wonder if the Times tried asking ""Do you [expect that] the Social Security system will have the money available to provide the benefits you [think you will get when you retire].

I mean how do people manage to expect to get one thing and think they will get another ?

I don't think that I can do that (although I expect to read comments pointing out that I do it all the time)

I mentioned someone I know who "has no respect for anything but natural sciences and maybe maybe economics."


My little sister Carol Waldmann MD replied "That hurts the cause of science in a way b/c you loose your audience. I mean I believe in science, but I dont think its an excuse to do nothing about the things where we "dont have good data" as a doctor you have to try to help ease suffering even when there is no science that can help."

good point sis.

fistful of excuses

OK some people are coming here from a fist full of euros which, by the way, is the very best blog title in Europe. I promised these three somewhat irritated physicists that I would explain here how I wasn't totally clueless when I posted about spin. Now it might not be clear that I have done so, but look below. Two posts on the gaggle. If that's not spin what is ? I mean take Scott Mclellan, rotate something he says 360 degrees and it turns into the opposite of itself. What a fermion.

Update: I repaid fistfulofeuros for hosting me as a guest blogger by missspeling fistful. Sorry

metadox

is a much needed word. We have orthodox and paradox so why not metadox ? An orthodox statement is a statement that is pointless, because everyone has heard it a million times and most people believed it too. A paradox is a statement which is pointless, because it contradicts itself.
A metadox statement is pointless because it is all about meta issues and it references self referential references. For example, I blogged about a blog, blogging about blogging the gaggle as part of blogging Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert/Joe Gonzo/Jerimiad Gay/Journalist Guy. The post immediately below was metadoxical.

Blogger penetrates White House

I don't know what's the big deal. The minions of the MSM have been talking about the importance of the nut Graff for years. Now people are saying "finally a blogger that counts". Personally I think that Graff will go over like a led Zeppelin. By the way, why the hel do people have to put double leters in their names. Does it make us refer to ourselves with the royal wee. Anyway, it makes it harder to pun.

But the really important thing here is that I found out about this funny article at the obscure site www.nytimes.com reading the fafblog post on the MSM's sacred cows and, when my computer crashed, I went back to Fafblog to find it again.

Omigod I disagree not only with Josh Marshall but also with Atrios and Max Sawicky.

Never expected that to happen. Atrios writes "Doing something like increasing the income cap may be a good idea if we assume we're in a universe with responsible lawmakers. But, since we're not[,] increasing the income cap just increases the amount of tax revenue being paid by not-very-upper-middle classish people and helps relieve pressure to roll back tax cuts on the very rich."

Now I am wildly enthusiastic about increasing the income cap, even if I have to disagree with Marshall. I have been for years as I wrote here, here, here, and here and given how shamelessly I self link I mention semi relevant posts here and here too. More to the point, most Americans are enthusiastic too and the question "why not just eliminate the cap"drives privateers to tie themselves into especially contorted verbal knots.

Finally just Bush's mentioning of a possibility of maybe raising the cap caused a major spat within the Republican party and within the conservative movement.

I definitely think the Democrats should present one of two plans. I think it would be excellent policy and excellent politics to propose, as the only change, the elimination of the cap . This should make the social security trust fund solvent for the forecasted future. Republicans like congressman Chocula can argue that the trust fund is untrustworthy because you can't trust *them* not to raid it. My guess is voters might decide to vote for congresspeople who at least don't openly declare their intention to welsh.

I think it would be even better policy and even better politics to propose replacing FICA with a flat payroll tax at a slightly reduced rate, thereby obtaining solvency while cutting the taxes of everyone who makes less than $90,000.

Obviously I am not advocating an effort to find a compromise. I think the absolute fraudulence of the Republicans' claim that they are trying to strengthen social security leaves them wide open to a counter proposal to, well, strengthen social security. Obviously the trust fund will not be safe so long as they are in power. However, I think the best way to get them out of power is to have Republicans running around screaming class war, while Democrats explain to the vast majority of Americans how painless (or pleasant) the solution to the shortfall could be for them.

To be actually a bit critical, Atrios, seems to have adopted the Republicans fiscal Leninism. Choose your poison. The deficit is bad and the worse it is the better it is, because then people will raise taxes on the super rich(cut government spending). He also seems to have accepted the idea that people who make over $90,000 are middle class.

I think that it is not enough to hold the keep. It is time for a sortie.

"Ride out with me"
"For death and Glory?"
"No for Rohan's social welfare system"

Brad DeLong and a Dead Parrot debate the effects of private accounts on national savings.


Now I think that Brad may be right that private accounts are likely to be a wash as far as national savings go, but you should point out that you only think that because you assume that Bush, the Cato institute and the CEA are full of it.

They all claim that private savings accounts are a better deal than traditional social security. They even claim that young people will be better off with the reform in spite of price indexing and the 3% offset rate. That is, they claim that the reform will reduce national savings.

This is simple. If the reform means that people are better off, then the reform should make people consume more and save less. Under standard assumptions that means national savings decline. I will explain what I mean by "standard assumptions" below. Now conservatives like to go on and on about how offering a better return on savings will cause increased savings due to the substitution effect. They have noticed that no one has noticed that there is also an income effect so the sign of the total effect is ambiguous. In the case of social security reform, there is no substitution effect. The proposal is to replace one form of forced savings with another. Contributions are FICA which is fixed by law and not voluntary. However if, as claimed by Bush and the Cs, private accounts are a better deal, then there should be an income effect causing increased consumption.

The identity is national savings = GNP - C -G. When discussing the effect of private accounts it is normal to assume that government consumption stays the same. One might hope that private accounts will, in some way, scare the state into spending less because the huge deficits involved will scare people. Oh but wait, the pres. the CEA etc say those deficits aren't deficits, and are nothing to be scared about (not to mention that they don't seem ever to have been scared about deficits, and why should we listen to their ideas about how to starve the beast, they are the beast). In any case, when evaluating the effects of a policy change, one does not normally assume that there will be another policy change (not part of the legislative package) which will undo the damage. So I assume that G is fixed. For any fiscal policy expected GNP is the GNP corresponding to the natural rate of unemployment (usually called full employment GNP but that is silly). That is, in standard analysis of national savings, Keynesian effects are assumed to be temporary and to have unconditional expected value zero. End of story. Give social security participants a better deal and national savings should decline. No pain = no gain. Pleasure = loss.

To argue that social security reform will increase national savings one must argue that it will make participants poorer or will make the accumulation of national debt more terrifying. The President is effectively saying -- trust me don't worry, I'm obviously lying.

Update: I think I understated my case in the post above. I think private accounts will cause reduced national saving even if Bush is totally wrong about returns on private accounts. I slipped into assuming that people have rational expectations (occupational hazard) here


"If the reform means that people are better off, then the reform should make people consume more and save less."

I should have written

"If the reform means that people *think they* are better off, then the reform should make people consume more and save less."

Now price indexing will make people feel poorer and save more. However, at first, private accounts will definitely make some people feel better off and make none feel worse off. That is because they will be volutary. People who think the guaranteed benefit is a better deal will stick with the guaranteed benefit. People who switch to private accounts will think that they have made a sharp move and that they can consume more. Even if private accounts were a terrible deal, the suckers who fall for them will act like they just won a prize in the lottery.

More choice in investment of forced savings means more consumption (in the short run) whether or not a rational person would take advantage of the new option.

Now if the private accounts are a terrible deal, the suckers would eventually notice that they have been had and will consume less. At that point Bush could boast that he has increased private savings. I don't think he would be eager to take credit for having slyly impoverished his fellow citizens, but after 4 years I wouldn't put it past him.

Am I Obtuse and Abstruse ?

When someone searched for obtuse and abstruse with yahoo.com, he or she was sent here.

The courtesy of no reply is requested.

fistfulofeuros.net

just finished hosting me a guest blogger (thanks thanks and more thanks). Oddly some people have continued to visit this blog as I have been blogging over there. This generally means they have been using the wrong search engine as in they guy who wanted to know about South Dakota people Sue makes of Paxil. Don't ask me, I'm clueless.

Anyway, I guess I should like to my posts at fistfulofeuros.
toilets, fermions, Budapest, Vienna, the value of learning a second language, fact and value, truth and knowledge, my mom and dad and a list of other people I admire, Italian TV news, cultural relativism, Trotsky and Macaulay, the hepatitis potato, Levi Strauss and Bororo marriage, Roberto Frimigoni, and myself.

Death Wish

This time death penalty wish. I am very glad that the supreme court has finally ruled that killing people for crimes committed when they were children is unconstitutional. In the article in the New York time reporting this (redundant link) I read something which suprised me into saying "come on. Your totally full of ... error"

Professor Blecker said that analysis was based on faulty premises.

"The problem is that when you look at the opposition of other nations," he said, "they're looking at governments and not people. Every European government which abolished the death penalty did it in the face of overwhelming political support."

I knew of only two relevant number 50% the fraction of Italians advocating death for Mafia bosses in a poll taken immediately after the murder of Paolo Borsellino (2nd investigating magistrate blown up in a month). The conclusion drawn by all Italian journalists is that polls taken immediately after dramatic events are unreliable because, of course, they know Italians are against the death penalty because they and all of their friends are opposed. the other is 48% support in Tuscany, which is one of the most left wing parts of Italy not to mention the region with the most catholic communists (who are definitely opposed for each reason). Also, of course, I know support for killing people is very high in the UK.

I assumed, however, that Blecker's claim was so wrong that a bit of google would show it to be nonsense. Well I know it is hard to look up what people thought when the death penalty was being abolished (1946 in Italy) but I am going to interpret it as making a claim about then now and all time in between (otherwise it would be technically true but deliberately misleading).
I still think that claims including "every" are likely to be false, but my googling amazed me.

I got "Up to 77 percent of Britons support the reintroduction of capital punishment, and close to 50 percent think the same way in France and Italy. Even in peace-loving Sweden, a 1997 poll found that 49 percent of Swedes wanted the return of capital punishment"

(ok AEI is reliable like I work for Columbia University but hey).

I have long believed that, at least for Italy, the huge difference is that US democracy is more majoritarian, I mean not just populist but effectively democratic, and that the air of intellectual and moral superiority typical of Italians talking about the death penalty in the USA is a result of comparing the Italian elite to regular people in the USA.

But I mean Sweden ?!? you have got to be kidding me right ?

update: Morten (last name withheld on his request) explains in an e-mail

"Yes, in a way they are kidding.

That poll (as I remember it) was formulated as "do you believe there are some crime that should be punished by capital punishment" or something to that effect. That means if you go "hm, well I wouldn´t condem executing Hitler" you should answer "yes". As well as a debate on capital punishment it also caused a debate on polling-phraseology, and I think the tabloid (or was it a radio station?) that ordered the polling apologized.

If you mention this on your blog (which btw looks nice and I found it via fistfulofeuros) please withhold my last name and emailadress. Thanks."

I am sure the responses would have been different if the question was more abstract "do you support capital punishment". To me one's answer to the briefer question should logically be yes if one's answer to the actual question is yes, but I'm sure that many many people would answer yes to the actual question and no to the briefer question. Also one can ask a specific question as in "do you think that someone who killed 12 strangers should be put to death if convicted in a fair trial" or "do you think a hitman who kills for pay should be put to death if convicted in a fair trial". by the way, I think there are very very few countries left who use death as the normal punishment for murder or even for pre meditated murder (U.S. certainly not among them). In any case, it is not clear how many Swedes support capital punishment for crimes other than genocide, but it is certainly less than 49%

As in the Italian case mentioned in my original post, I suspect that the focus on polling methodology reflects a gap between elite Swedish opinion and popular Swedish opinion.

Hepatitis potato not ready for prime time

I have some thoughts which belong at this 20 hits a day blog (maybe) but not a the 800 hits a day fistfulofeuros where I am guest blogging.

First the issue is edible vaccines. There is some hope that eating proteins which are found on viruses will give some immunity to the viruses. Since plants can be engineered to produce the desired proteins, it would be possible to make self reproducing edible vaccines.

A hint of the potential of this approach is provided by the hepatitis potato. A potato which produces a hepatitis B surface antigen. Some of the people who ate this potato showed some increase in immunity to hepatitis B.

Now this is one case of the general problem that we digest proteins. Lots of otherwise wonderful proteins are of limited medical use because they have to be injected. I have some vague and unreliable recollections of special mechanisms used so that proteins in mother's milk are absorbed before they are digested.

My current understanding is that the protein in question is IgG, an antibody. It is useful because mom loans her immunity to the kid. Sad to say, I don't know if this works with humans. I know it works with rats. I will now attempt a major contribution to rat health which might or might not be relevant to human health.

This mechanism is active in the very young breast feeding pup (or maybe infant). This means that it is likely to be useful mostly for vaccines. Now a serious problem is that the body does not make an immune reaction to an antigen that already has IgG stuck to it. This is a fact and it makes sense, since it would normally imply that the immune system is already fighting away.

So it would be nice to make a plant that produces an antigen and produces a IgG antibody which sticks to that antigen such that the IgG falls off once the complex is absorbed. I just thought of a way to do that.

The idea is to make a hybrid protein which consists of the target antigen fused with a normal human protein -- say albumin (incidentally there is also an mechanism to bring albumin from the gut to the blood stream so maybe this is enough right there). Then (maybe) make the plant make IgG which sticks to albumin. The hope is that pulling in this antibody, the system will pull in the attached antigen albumin hybrid. Then in the blood there is lots of human albumin which will compete with the antigen albumin hybrid for the antibody causing the antibody to fall off. Then the antigen albumin hybrid will be recognised as a foreign protein which is unknown to the immune system -- that is as a vaccine.

Sure Can Pick em

In the February 23 Times JOHN F. BURNS and DEXTER FILKINS report that Ahmed Chalabi is no longer aiming to be Prime Minister. Now I find reflecting on the choice between Ibrahim al-Jaafari, an Islamist who wants family law for Moslem couples to be based on Sharia or Ahmed Chalabi who is Ahmed Chalabi is as pleasant as reflecting on the choice of Bush or Berlusconi. Still given the alliance between the secular Chalabi and Moqtada al Sadr, I am relieved.

However, not everyone is convinced that the endorsement of an alliance with 51% of the seats ends the matter. Now Ayad Allawi, who follo0wed Chalabi as the Bush administration's favorite Iraqi, is following Chalabi in questioning whether a mere election can over rule such an annointment. Recall his party came in 3rd with 14% of the vote. One might imagine that this would settle the matter, but Allawi is still trying to form a government.

Dr. Allawi predicted that settling the issue of who would lead the new government could take weeks, and hinted that the battle could be bitter. He said he had heard rumors that the alliance leaders had consulted with Iran's ruling ayatollahs, and had been told that Dr. Allawi, a secular Shiite with close ties to the United States that go back at least 15 years, would not be acceptable to Iran as prime minister in the new transitional government. "I have heard that they don't want me," he said. "Why, God knows."

The brazenness is impressive. This guy's party just won 14% of the vote and he claims that that is no problem, but that the problem is Iranian interference in the will of the Iraqi people as expressed through George W. Bush. Why would alliance leaders have asked Iranians if they could step aside and make a political rival who they just crushed in an election prime minister ? At least the 45 minutes claim (also due to Allawi) was plausible.

Why would Allawi say such a crazy thing ? JOHN F. BURNS and DEXTER FILKINS
violate the play dumb rule of objective journalism to explain

Any suggestion that Iran has played a role in the alliance's choice of prime minister would be politically explosive in Iraq, particularly among the Sunni minority population that was Iraq's traditional ruling group for decades until the overthrow of Mr. Hussein. That, in turn, could re-energize the Sunni-led insurgency that has paralyzed much of the country in the 23 months since the American-led invasion, blighting hopes that key Sunni groups with links to the insurgents - including tribal leaders who have met secretly with Dr. Allawi in recent months - might agree to help curb the insurgency and join the political process.

That is, they suggest that Allawi's claim to power is that, if he isn't given at least a share of power, he will make sure that the Sunni insurgency is very bloody.

This is two out of two. The first Iraqi chosen by the Bush administration clearly is motivated only by personal ambition to the extent that he is now allied with the murderous Moqtada al Sadr, one of America's worst enemies in Iraq and one of the blights on the Iraqi people. The second Iraqi chosen by the Bush administration appears to be threatening to form an alliance with the rest of America's worst enemies in Iraq. Again what is bad for the USA is bad for Iraq too.

I can only conclude that the most dangerous threat to the USA and Iraq is George Bush.

D to the 4th


The Dsquared DeLong Debate

Brad DeLong writes "For those who have difficulty learning to speak the language that is mathematics like a native, how to teach them science in a world where it is a fact that the underlying bones of reality are profoundly mathematical--for that is the conclusion Eugen Wigner's "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" leads us to? Call this the "Friends of Wigner" problem."

"Dsquared" comments "Ach. Mathematics isn't a language and provides you with surprisingly little insight into anything other than mathematics. Once someone can divide up a restaurant bill, diminishing returns has set in with a vengeance;"

I wonder if "Dsquared" is Daniel Davies. Doesn't matter. I think Dsquared missed the key phrase "*Natural* Sciences." The fact that Brad is an economist and the examples chosen by Dsquared seem to suggest that Dsquared is thinking of attempts to use mathematics in *Social* sciences, especially in economics. Stipulate that mathematics has only been a distraction for economists. This tells nothing to someone who wants to teach physics, chemistry, astrophysics, meteorology, population biology or ecology. Try to explain physics without using mathematics (Blogger *does* allow comments). Sometimes mathematics is show and obfuscation. Sometimes it is a necessary tool. That something has been misused does not mean it is useless. A hammer and chisel was used to deface Michelangelo's Pieta, but, on the whole chisels have made a useful contribution to sculpture.

Note I didn't mention cellular and molecular biology. If you glance at Science and Nature you will notice that these fields of natural science have taken over most of it (for a simple economic reasons which can be explained with 3 letters and a word NIH grants). Many people can not grasp how little math is involved. Let me just say Michelangelo used more.

enormous potential for blackmail.

Sidney Blumenthal writes here and here about Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert

"dozens of photographs of "Gannon" in dramatic naked poses. One of the sites was still active this week.

Thus ... [Gannon] was unmasked not only as a hireling and fraud but as a gay prostitute, with enormous potential for blackmail."

That euphemism is new to me. Am I going to start getting Spam advertizing guaranteed herbal "potential for blackmail" enlargement pills ?

An ad Homonym attack on Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias is a genius, a national treasure and a guy who can't avoid typos which are homonyms. When I was six I decided that English spellling was sily so I wouldn't lern it. Sad to say I ran into spell checkers which screen out all errors which are not homonyms.

Yglesias argues that this is his problem. He claims that he learned to write after spell checkers and before grammer checkers (I personally am still writing before grammer checkers because they get on my nerves). Also he notes that his blog does not have an editor.

However American Prospect Online should have an editor and that editor (if any) missed this boo-boo in Yglesias' absolutely brilliant demolition of social security privatisation (sorry personalisation) and the Cato institute.

"The debt, however, won't ever go away unless some huge some of money is found elsewhere"

Oh a bit of substance. Yglesias' though experiment cheats a little in a way similar to the Bush administration's cheats (boy that was harsh). He considers partial privatization based on a simple opt out. The Bush non plan clearly involves a 3% (real) offset. That is, in exchange for paying one third less in payroll taxes to the SSA one gets a two thirds reduction of the guaranteed benefit. That extra third penalty is the huge sum of money to be found in the pockets of suckers who, demographers say, are born every minute.

The reason that this is just slightly cheating is that much of the 3%-2% = sucker tax will go to financial services corporations not the SSA.