Monday, August 28, 2017

Comment on: "The Biggest Misconception About Today’s College Students"

The Biggest Misconception About Today’s College Students

by Gail O. Mellow AUG. 28, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/opinion/community-college-misconception.html?comments#permid=23903548

The US is missing the boat (again!) compared to basic European policies regarding what areas should be supported by public funds. A well educated populace is a huge long term benefit to any society and free college and apprenticeship education is the most cost effective way of preventing the formation of an un- or under-educated subclass, which will cost society dearly downstream.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Comment on" "What if Steve Bannon Is Right?" by Timothy Egan

What if Steve Bannon Is Right?

by Timothy Egan, Aug. 25, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/opinion/bannon-trump-polls-republican.html?comments#permid=23863730:23869941

The Democrats under Bill Clinton in the US were not the only ones who switched course to a more business friendly policy position.

At about the same time the Social Democrats were in power in Germany, a time during which Germany was described as "the sick man of Europe", with a sluggish economy and high unemployment. Under the leadership of the SPD the unemployment/social service/job protection schemes in Germany were radically altered in favor of business interests. One can fairly argue that this contributed to the dramatic economic up-turn in Germany, turning it from the "sick man in Europe" to "the economic power of Europe".

The difference, however, is that even the Conservative CDU/CSU in Germany is probably more "progressive" than the Democrats in the US. The primary "loosening" in Germany was around job protection, with the introduction of temporary (rather than permanent) work contracts, and of "Leiharbeit", essentially domestic outsourcing. However, the basic social safety nets (universal healthcare, meaningful unemployment/social benefits, strong unions, free college, apprenticeship programs, etc.) are still in place, and under the principals of the "social market economy" even the Conservatives would never consider reducing these.

These are the kind of programs the Democrats should fight for.


Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Comment on: Angry Trump Grilled His Generals About Troop Increase, Then Gave In

Angry Trump Grilled His Generals About Troop Increase, Then Gave In

By MARK LANDLER and MAGGIE HABERMAN AUG. 21, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/world/asia/trump-afghanistan.html?comments#permid=23825103

We should all be worried that there are now a significant number of Generals in lead positions of our (civilian?) government. One of the few sensible campaign promises Trump made was to remove us from the insane involvement in the war in Afghanistan (and Iraq).

Our Generals have a disastrous track record with their recommendation in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet Americans, very unfortunately and very dangerously, have the notion that "patriotism" requires supporting military leaders suggestions. ALL the predictions by "the Generals" in these wars have been wrong. The notion that another 4500 soldiers (or whatever the "secret number turns out to be) can accomplish what 100,000 soldiers could not is pure stupidity. The notion that Afghanistan is a terrorist training ground which directly endangers America's homeland is absolute nonsense - none of the terrorist attacks in recent years have had anything to do with Afghanistan - even 9/11, although planned by Bin Laden, who was holed up in Afghanistan, was almost exclusively carried out by Saudis, radicalized by the Saudi brand of Islam - yet Saudi Arabia is still one of our "trusted allies".

The whole effort in Afghanistan was originally justified by our then "Clown in Chief" with the notion that we had to "get bin Laden", which would somehow solve all the terrorism problems. Well, "we got bin Laden", and absolutely nothing has changed.

Get out of Afghanistan NOW!


Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Debunking Neo-Classical Economics

Debunking Neo-Classical Economics

"Modern capitalism" is based on the “science” of "neo-classical" economics. I use “science” in quotes, because, as  I will elaborate, in my view neo-classical economics is a zombie science, even though this “dismal science” is taught in most colleges.

It is dismal as a science because it is based entirely on the largely false assumption of "rational choice", evaluating all options, based on full knowledge, in order to maximize ones "utility". This assumption may have been "reasonable" in the time of Adam Smith, when the view of humans, both mind and body, was very mechanistic, but today there is overwhelming evidence, from behavioral fields and evolutionary studies of brain function, which shows that humans predominantly make decisions on emotional, non-rational and instinctive grounds, and only a small subset of such decisions are made on anything approaching a rational basis.

It is only with the false "rational choice" axiom in place that the nice smooth demand curves can be derived, not through observation, but through what economists like to refer to as “thought experiments. There is little to no experimental evidence for smoothly declining demand curves. Only when one accepts this hypothesis of smooth demand curves, and combines them with the (also assumed) smoothly increasing supply curves, can one arrive at the “law” that "market economies", left to their own devices, are optimizing and self-correcting. That, in turn, leads to the completely false dogma that "government is the problem". 

"Free markets" in general are a complete fiction, because only with governmental authority, rules and regulations can “markets” function. Without government there would be no "market economy"; government ensures the basic rules which allow for markets to function. Furthermore ”Economics" as a discipline makes the self-serving and false assumption that economic activity can be "understood" in isolation. However, the interaction between economic activity, political and social activity, and even ethics are very tight and pervasive, so that “economics” can only be “understood”, in terms of making useful policy predictions, if the tight linkages to sociology and politics are included.

Unfortunately I am not equipped, educationally or intellectually, to join the chorus of other economists who claim to have devised “the unifying theory of economics”, still enamored with the advances in physics, where a unified theory is actually much closer to reality. I have to content myself with a critique of the major, most influential strain of economics, “neoclassical economics”, in the hope that once young people entering the field are no longer brainwashed with the false notion that “we know how the economy works”, and enables them to focus their intellectual energy towards coming up with better theories and models, ones which can actually be verified with experimental, observed data.

Rational Decision-Making and Utility Maximization

Rational Decision-Making and Utility Maximization are “axiomatic” theories, where the investigator puts forth a set of “axioms” - self-evident truths, which cannot be proven - and then proceeds to build a set of models. Mathematics is also an axiomatic discipline, but none of the axioms underlying mathematics have been sown to be untrue, nor is there any observable evidence to cast doubt on these axioms.

Economics is a social science, i.e it deals with the behavior, alone or in a social context, of human beings. It is often useful in social science, where experimental observations are not clear cut, as they are in the physical sciences, to build theories and models on the basis of axioms. But it then is the responsibility of the investigators, researchers and academics who espouse such an axiomatic theory or model, to continually test their axioms against current observable evidence, and results from other social sciences. Intellectual honesty and academic integrity would then demand, that if new evidence casts doubts on the validity of the underlying axioms, these theories or models be modified, or in ultimate consequence, discarded.

The conflict in economics between axiomatic theories and evidence based simulation is certainly not new. See for example https://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/millennium.pdf.

Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations (1776), was a pioneer of the notion of rational self-interest as a motivating factor in economic decision making. This notion is akin to the view espoused by Thomas Hobbes and his followers, best expressed by Julien Offray de La Mettrie in his “Man a Machine” (1748), which argues that everything about human beings can be completely explained in mechanical terms. 

Social Science today generally agrees, that human behavior is not deterministic, i.e. given a set of stimuli, a human being does not react in a deterministic, uniform way, but rather the reactions, or behavior, is distributed in a more or less normal distribution. Thus, for example, on an axis defined by “fully rational” on one end, and “non-rational/emotional/instinctual” on the other end, human decision making would exhibit a frequency distribution with a mean or average somewhere between the two extremes (red).



In this view of human behavior, one would need to see evidence that in economic decision making the distribution of human responses shifts dramatically towards the “rational/full information” end of the axis (green). However, there is very little, if any experimental, observable evidence that would justify such a dramatic shift in the distribution of human behavior towards the “rational/full information” end of the axis, which is required to make the axiomatic underpinning of neoclassical economics believable, or “self-evident”.

There is, however, increasing evidence that the distribution of human responses on a “rational/full-information” to “non-rational/emotional/instinctual” continuum might shift significantly towards the latter end (blue). This evidence comes from behavioral economics, evolutionary brain structure studies, and marketing research.

One example of this research described by Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, which describes results of decades of research leading to the realization, that there are (at least) two modes of thought. One is fast, instinctive and emotional, the other slower, more deliberative, and more logical, with the first mode occurring much more frequently. This would strongly support the shift of the distribution of decision making modes described above towards the “non-rational/emotional/instinctive” end of the scale.

Another path of research looks at the imperatives of evolution and how it affected the development of the human brain (see https://paidpost.nytimes.com/oppenheimerfunds/does-the-body-reveal-secrets-about-our-decisions.html). This suggests that the bulk of decisions made are fast and instinctive, mandated by the need to survive, and that only a small number of decisions involve and invoke the more deliberative pathways of the brain. This research again points towards a shift of the distribution of the decision-making process towards the “non-rational/emotional/instinctual” end of the scale (blue), further invalidating the axiomatic foundation of neoclassical economics, and its reliance on the axiom of rational, fact-based, utility optimizing decision making.

Finally, Marketing research identifies and very successfully uses the susceptibility of humans to be influenced by non-factual, emotional, non-rational stimuli to influence their economic decisions. Just consciously paying attention to the typical and pervasive ads on TV (and in print media) demonstrates that these do the opposite of encouraging or enabling rational, fully informed purchasing decisions. This demonstrates the third strong force pushing the distribution of human decision making towards the “non-rational/emotional/instinctual” end of the scale.

So what? you may ask. Why is a non-economist, with perhaps three to four economics classes to his credit in college, sounding off about this? There are, to be sure, many people much more qualified to present these kinds of competing and conflicting theories in the broader field of Economics. However, I feel very strongly that the “junk science” of the dominant strain of economic thought, embodied in neoclassical economics, must be debunked, because it is causing real harm to our political, social and, yes, economic environment.

The majority of colleges and universities base their economics curriculum on neoclassical economics. Legions of students, including those who study economics as a “minor” subject, some of whom go on to become business leaders and politicians, are indoctrinated, even brain-washed, with the completely false notion that “we” actually know, as in understand, how the economy works, that there are “laws” (“the law of supply and demand”) and “rules” which guide economic behavior (as in “the invisible hand”) to be self-correcting, equilibrium-seeking and optimizing, and worst of all, implicitly and sometimes explicitly stating that government intervention in the “free markets” is detrimental. The full idiocy of this indoctrination was perhaps most vividly on display when arguably one of the most powerful people controlling and guiding economic development, Alan Greenspan, responded to the financial meltdown of 2007/8 with "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

The Future - Where do we go with “Economics”

I’m certainly not well qualified to provide a roadmap on where “Economics” as a discipline should go. But having argued for a dismantling of the current dominant form of academic economics, I feel some responsibility to at least make some suggestions.

First, using my background in “Systems Analysis” - the original meaning, before Computer Science co-opted that term for itself - one rule for defining the “system” one wishes to model is that most of the significant interactions should be “internal” and as few as possible of the significant interactions should cross the boundary of the “system”. In my view the interactions between politics, social phenomena  and the psychology of decision making, on the one hand, and “economics” are so tight and important that any attempt to model “economics” in isolation, and expect those models to be useful for meaningful real-world predictions, are bound to fail. So my first suggestion would be to expand the boundaries of “economics” to include the very direct and tight interactions with politics (e.g. changing tax rates) and social phenomena (e.g. differing attitudes towards savings vs. spending in different societies, different attitudes towards “freedom” vs “shared responsibility”).

Second, I believe we have to accept that, contrary to economists claiming that “we know how the economy works”, we really know very little about that. Economists may be able to model very limited steady-state, equilibrium phenomena, but they have been unable to make meaningful and consistent policy input to predicting, for example, effects of tax reduction/increases, or predicting and preventing such major economic phenomena as  the financial meltdown in 2008. The Greenspan quote cited above seems to be an acknowledgment of the inability of economists to “understand” the larger scale economic phenomena beyond the very short term steady-state, equilibrium phenomena.

Some academic economists have likened their axiomatic models to the continuing search for a “unifying theory of physics”. But one has to keep in mind that models in physics are for the most part based on observable data, or, where they developed from axiomatic theories (E=mc2), physicists are continually testing the predictions of such models against observable data.

If we compare the state of knowledge in economics versus in physics, I would liken it, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, to Newton sitting under the apple tree, observing apples fall to the ground, and speculating about what causes the apples to accelerate as they fall. We have to date no confirmed cause-effect relationships in economics; there are many statistically relevant correlations, but none can be specified as cause-effect relationships, very different from Newton’s theorem regarding gravitational attraction.

Thus, I believe, that we need to enter a phase of intensive collection of data on how decisions are actually made by the various actors in the social/political/economic continuum, both on the demand and the supply side, in order to escape the “deadly embrace” of the false axiom that these decisions are made rationally, with full information and with a “utility optimizing” goal.

In today’s hyper-connected (internet) and hyper-monitored (Facebook, Google, Amazon et.al. monitor your every click) world it seems to me quite feasible to define large samples of real people and collect data on how they actually make decisions, both as consumers and as suppliers. To be useful, such data cannot just be passively collected, like the Nielsen Ratings of the past, but must include active participation by the sample members. For example, it is not sufficient to passively monitor that sample member “12345” purchased an automobile brand a, model X, but rather, the sample member would have to supply (as accurately as possible) the decision process gone through in making that purchase.

Similarly, on the supply side, managers/decision-makers who are part of the sample would be asked to specify in as much subjective and objective detail as possible why/how certain decisions were made. For example, was a merger made because objective data showed it would benefit “the company”, or because the bonus structure of the managers made such a move profitable for the managers; or, did a company decide to expand and hire because of some new tax regulation, or because of some observed or perceived new demand.

Such data collection would have to continue over many years, and new samples of participants would have to be defined regularly (to avoid systematic bias). It is quite possible that such data collection would become an accepted part of our social order for the foreseeable future, as the motivating factors and mechanisms of decision-making are likely the change over time.


The datasets collected in this way would, by necessity, be huge, with many, many dimensions, such as socioeconomic data, detailed data about the transaction or “decision”, much of it possibly un-structured and not well categorizable, and even subjective. But we have today the data storage (“Big Data”) and computational capabilities to store and analyze such huge data sets. Much of the analysis would again result in “statistical correlations”, like much of the empirical research going on today. But the wealth of data thus available would also be a rich source for discovering possible bona-fide cause-effect relationships. Short of that, the wealth of data available would also lend itself to building “simulation models” (as opposed to axiomatic models) which could go a long way to providing tools for real policy making. Today economists seem to be at sea when asked to predict the effect of, for example, a tax cut or rise, or a minimum wage law. But with long-term time-series data sets available, simulation models may become quite good at making such policy assessments. Furthermore, such simulation models, based on massive long-term data sets, might become useful at predicting (and avoiding) such catastrophic “market failures” as we experienced during the financial meltdown of 2008.

Monday, August 14, 2017

Comment on: "Single Payer or Bust"

Single Payer or Bust?

By MICHAEL TOMASKY      AUG. 14, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/opinion/single-payer-or-bust.html?comments#permid=23714009

I agree that "single payer" is not the only, and not necessarily the best system. As the author states, there are many models in the rest of the world to choose from. But the one thing ALL of these other systems have in common is, that EVERYONE MUST BE COVERED for a baseline of health care services. Only by spreading the risk over the entire population can the cost be brought down. The next most expensive per capita healthcare costs are in Switzerland, and that per capita cost is HALF of that in the US. The Swiss allow private, for profit insurance companies to provide the coverage, but under strict rules by the government. Because private, for profit insurance is involved in providing BASIC coverage is the reason they have the second highest per-capita cost, after the US - after all these companies are allowed to make a PROFIT.

In Germany, on the other hand, basic coverage is provided ONLY by non-profit companies, who get reimbursed from the "National Healthcare Fund", which is collected, based on income, half from employer, half from employee. Their reimbursements also take account of the differing risk pools, which is determined by analyzing their claim histories annually. The required contributions are reset (I think every other year), again based on claim histories. Rates have been fairly stable, indeed in some years actually go down. Private insurance companies can sell policies for coverage above and beyond the defined base line. Bottom line -- UNIVERSAL is the key!!

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Comment on: "Google’s War Over the Sexes", by Ross Douthat

See:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/opinion/google-women-memo.html?comments&_r=0#permid=23634653

As so often, Douthat misses his own point. Of course there are differences between the sexes. Societies, however, are changing such that in many, if not most, areas "female" qualities have advantages. We no longer live in a world where male physical strength and aggressiveness are needed for survival. Already an increasing number of "households" are supported primarily by females; including single-mother households, they probably dominate. There are already more female college graduates than male, and women now often have the better earning potential.

As a society we need to acknowledge the differences and encourage lifestyles and policies which allow both sexes to make optimal contributions to the rapidly changing needs of society in general. Men are largely fighting a rear-guard battle, trying to protect as much of their historical prerogatives. Just look at the arrogance with which male members of Congress treat their female colleagues, while at the same time the only two GOP Senators who showed guts and consistency during the Health Care debate were women, while the men proved to be cowering cowards, afraid to stand up to the super-bully McConnell.

The disadvantages women have are mostly due to the irresponsibility of men, in family planning/birth control, child care, household chores. So, since men will not share equally in these responsibilities, society needs to give women the tools to compensate for the male irresponsibilities - examples: Family Planning, guaranteed child care.

Monday, August 7, 2017

Comment on "Germany Joins the Resistance"

Ref.: "Germany Joins the Resistance" by Anna Sauerbrey

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/opinion/german-politicians-cool-merkel.html?comments#permid=23601960



As someone who immigrated to the US from Germany many many years ago, and has lived and worked in Germany in the interim, I generally enjoy Ms. Sauerbrey's columns for their German/European perspective.

This column, however, seems like a disjointed mishmash, intent on saying something "cool". I follow German news fairly closely, reading two to three of their daily papers every day, and watching "Heute" on ZDF more or less every day. And while there is quite a bit of coverage of Trump - who can blame them, the coverage here in the US on Cable is literally all day, with almost nothing else - the news in Germany does focus on issues relevant to Germany.

"Cool" is not something one would ever associate with Germany, especially not with German politicians, and to suggest that Merkel and Schultz are trying to be "cool" is just silly. Lindner is a different story, his Party, the FDP is fighting for relevance after disappearing from national politics for several years, and he will try anything.

Ms Merkel, in her very un-cool way, was absolutely right in warning that Europe and "The West" could not relay on Donald Trump, and that Europeans must concentrate on being masters of their own fate. That is not gratuitous Trump bashing, that is the unfortunate reality of a crazy person in the US White House. When Trump is gone, hopefully sooner than later, Europe/Germany and the US, and Germans and American will find back to their mutual trust and respect.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Review of: Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle

This review is from: Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle (Hardcover)
To me, the title is an oxymoron. I can fully endorse Mr. Flake's introductory definition of "conservatism", but of course the devil is in the details. There is indeed a valid discussion to be had about the appropriate role of government vis-a-vis allowing "market forces" to determine what is and is not done in a society. The trust of conservatives in "free market forces" is often blinded by dogmatic ignorance. Take health care, which even most economist describe as a classic example of "market failure". Or take the conservatives railing against "income transfer" (from high to low), when in fact evidence shows that for decades now "income transfer" has been flowing dramatically from poor to rich.

But all that aside, the inherent incongruence between "conservative" and "conscience" can be most dramatically seen in the actions of our current Congress. Here we have a Senate which proposes a Bill which virtually no one in the Senate wants to see become law (the Skinny Repeal), in the completely unjustifiable hope that a "reconciliation" between the House and Senate will come up with a doable bill, when each house separately could not do so. This is truly unconscionable, and all but three GOP Senators voted for this FARCE; only TWO of those Senators can be given credit to have acted consistently and honorably, with a conscience, and both were women. John McCain's role was anything but consistent (with his own words), and a little dubious in his self-serving grandstanding.

But back to Mr Flake. In comparing his words with his actions, one can only come to the conclusion, that he is a complete flake (sorry, I just can't help myself). Only someone whose actions are reasonably in line with his words can be said to have a conscience and act honorably. Mr. Flake, however, has voted consistently with the GOP leadership and rank-and-file, which he himself criticizes vociferously. So, yes, Flake is a complete flake.

All that aside, I still felt the book was a worthwhile read, because, I believe, his tracing of the history of the degeneration of the conservative movement, embodied in the current GOP, is right on target.