If the world doesn’t act like its described by Freshwater Models then all the elegance in the world can’t save you. If the only explanation anyone can think of that fits the data is that a Giant Purple Elephant did it. Then Giant Purple Elephants it is.Karl Smith, talking about neo-classical ("freshwater") economists vs. neo-Keynesian economists (the giant purple elephant people).
-- Badtux the Snarky Economics Penguin
The Belleville Outfit. Texas swing, bay-bee! You want to know the roots of all those great Texas singer-songwriters you've heard of like Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and so forth, well, here you go. These kids are doing a fine rendition of what you coulda heard at many a honkey-tonk in Texas forty years ago.
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
Left: The Free Market Fairy scowls. Apparently the Free Market Fairy (who looks suspiciously like Milton Friedman in drag) hates healthcare, and if we get the same right to health care that workers in every other industrialized nation gets, the Free Market Fairy will quit waving her (his?) magic wand around and making the economy go and stuff, and then we'll all be sorry. Or something like that.
Hey, it doesn't have to make sense, because the person who said this was MSNBC tool and teabagger extraordinaire Jim Cramer. Yes, that Jim Cramer, the dude who was shouting "Buy! Buy! Buy!" about housing just as it was all going to hell in a handbasket, a.k.a. the world's dumbest "financial advisor". So on the one hand markets always find the right price for everything and are perfectly efficient and rational, and on the other hand, they're so irrational that getting the same right to health care that every other nation has will destroy the markets? Dude. Just looking at that Free Market Fairy, I somehow don't think she (he?) is that fragile...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
"Hayek came to Cambridge in January 1931 to give a one-lecture version of his theory to the Marshall Society before starting on his LSE lectures. His exposition was greeted with complete silence. Keynes was in London, but Richard Kahn, who was in the audience, felt he had to break the ice. 'Is it your view', he asked hayek, 'that if I went out tomorrow and bought a new overcoat, that would increase unemployment?' 'Yes,' replied Hayek, turning to a blackboard full of triangles, 'but it would take a very long mathematical argument to explain why.'So the fact that a long chain of people all the way to the sheep farmers who raised and sheered the sheep for the wool in the overcoat got paid by this transaction, and thereby got their employment, is going to raise unemployment... how? I'm sure Hayek could find a mathematical argument which would suggest such an outcome, but it would not be a mathematical argument that corresponded to any reality recognizable as this world. Maybe it's that Star Trek universe where Spock has a beard and is evil, or somethin' like that, but in this universe, if you spend money, somebody got paid to be employed with that money.- Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour, 1994, p. 456. [Quoted from Kahn, The Making of Keynes's General Theory, p. 182.]
One of the things I learned getting my mathematics and computer science degree was that mathematics is a model. Whether any particular system of mathematics corresponds to any particular problem in our universe is one that can be determined only via testing whether observations match your model, because a model is not reality -- a model is, well, a model. Consider one of those plastic models of an F-15 fighter jet. This model isn't real. It's a simplified version of the real thing. It doesn't actually fly. You can't open it up and see the internal components of the turbines, or the circuit boards for its radars, or anything like that. On the other hand, you can use this model to demonstrate to students what an F-15 fighter jet looks like and how it is used in combat. But the moment you start confusing your model with, well, reality, you've jumped the shark into outright delusion -- which apparently has happened to far too many economists.
-- Badtux the Demand-side Penguin
“Remember this distinction: The Donner Party was on track. They were not on schedule." -- Wired Danger Room, talking about the long-delayed F-35 fighter jet.
-- Badtux the Amused Penguin
Republican State Senator Roy Ashburn says, "I'm Gay." He defends his anti-gay votes in the past by saying he was simply representing the wishes of his constituents, though many of his gay-bashing comments seemed to go well beyond simply representing his constituents.
Still, my best wishes to Senator Ashburn. Unlike Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, etc., he manned up and admitted reality, bluntly and without trying to hide what was by now blatantly obvious. Roy is now on a new journey in life (he's term-limited out of his Senate seat this year), and hopefully he will be able to find peace in his heart now that his "terrible dark secret" is out -- and maybe even find happiness. And Great Penguin knows there's not enough of that in the world...
-- Badtux the Unsnarky Penguin
A variety of blogs and economists have noted that it appears now that Europe has entered into a game of competitive deflation, where each European economy attempts to slash its wages in order to produce cheaper exports to bring in Euros to pay its debts. There's just one problem with this: As Irving Fisher noted in *1931*, yes, almost EIGHTY YEARS AGO, the biggest problem with deflation is that it raises real interest rates and causes people to be unable to pay their debts, resulting in further financial instability.
So the solution of the Europeans is to... raise (real) interest rates by entering into a deflationary spiral, and somehow that will cure all their problems? And how, exactly, is that supposed to work -- magic sparkle pony dust erupts from stripper volcanos across the land and all is rainbows or something? Well, it is nice to know that American politicians aren't the only ones who are morons in the thrall of neo-Austrian claptrap when it comes to economics... but discouraging. It's as if stupidity is contagious, and Europe has caught the Andrew Mellon Flu.
-- Badtux the Economics Penguin
Another sad song by the scuzziest-looking man in indie music. Matt Houck (Phosphorescent) looks like he ought to be performing in an episode of Cops as "wife beater dude", not making heartbroken music beloved of emo kids. That's one of the reasons why nobody has ever heard of him... we are such a shallow, superficial people. Siiiiiigh!
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
Andrew Sullivan over at The Dish claims that all men worship something, and that spiritual worship, like his worship of "God", is preferable to other kinds of worship because other kinds of worship will eat you up. Really? Does worshipping freedom, justice, and liberty eat you up? Does worshipping truth eat you up?
Andrew is trying to justify his Catholic faith despite the fact that his religion hates him for being gay, but it is clear that he has not thought this through. There are far better things to worship than some vague "spirituality". Truth, justice, freedom, lots of things can give your life meaning and purpose besides the false dichotomy of "materialism" and "spiritualism" that Andrew sets up. The notion that one must worship some invisible guy in the sky in order to not worship the Almighty Dollar is ludicrous. Indeed, far too many who claim to worship some invisible guy in the sky seem to worship the Almighty Dollar even more...
-- Badtux the Not-binary Penguin
I haven't been writing up much on what I do to (or with) my Jeep lately. So from last month... Gimme Heat. Heater heat, that is.
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin
World Nut Daily has its tighty righty whities all in a dither about the notion that gays might get the names and addresses of people who donate or sign petitions in support of right-wing anti-gay causes and... and... stwike them very wuffly.
Right wingers. Scared of gays being mean to them. Talk about some folks with manliness issues... uhm, aren't these the same dudes who brag about how they pack iron and would shoot any suspiciously dusky brown person who looked at them threateningly? And they're scared of gays? Is that lame or what, yo?
-- Badtux the Gay Agenda Penguin
If you want to see the actual WND article, go to wnd.com and search for "Vote for marriage? You're on a hit list". I have a policy of not linking to hate sites. Warning: If you go there, your IQ is guaranteed to drop at least 10 IQ points, probably more...
This is one of the few songs by Garbage that I could find on YouTube that allowed embedding. Those ratbastards at the big record labels have disabled embedding on most of Garbage's videos. Now how, exactly, is that helping sales of Garbage's songs? Those stupid asshole motherfuckers wouldn't know effective marketing if it snuck up on them and bit their ass off. But that's okay, what they lack in brains, those morons make up in shear venality -- heard about how they've fucked artists out of millions of dollars in royalties due to them?
Of course, their stupidity and greed is nothing unusual in modern business. Take Wall Street. Please. And throw in a complete U.S. Congress while you're at it, bah humbug!
-- Badtux the Grumpy Music Penguin
Care to guess which half? I'll give you a hint:
Any questions?
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Well, I guess it seemed like a good idea to see whether you could put a cat into a dog-washing machine and get him all clean and all. Save money on blood transfusions and stitches, anyhow. But the reality seems to me to be far more traumatic for the poor kitteh than huddled in the tight grip of Daddy in the bathtub with the glass sliding shower doors closed and the shower wand used to gently rinse poor kitteh. So I'll stick to the traditional method, however traumatizing it is for Daddy (hey, those stitches *hurt*!).
-- Badtux the (clean) Cat owned Penguin
The way to end the current economic crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, is painfully clear by just looking at the graph of government stimulus spending vs. jobs vs. GDP during the Great Depression. The more stimulus spending, the more jobs and more GDP growth. And we have an easy way to do this, as I've repeatedly pointed out, because we lost $4 trillion in asset values due to the real estate crash and are now at 0% inflation and can print at least $4 trillion before we make the inflation rate go up even 1%. What we need now is a real stimulus program -- a BIG one.
First, however, we have to free the President of that neo-Austrian claptrap that surrounds him in the Washington bubble. We can look at the data from the Great Depression and see the economy go up and down with the amount of fiscal stimulus that FDR provided, more stimulus meaning more economic output and more jobs, drawing back and trying to balance the budget meaning less economic output and less jobs… it’s obvious as the nose on your face… but the neo-Austrian lunatics still continue to insist that the way to end a depression is to reduce government spending, despite the fact that what ended the Great Depression was the biggest fiscal stimulus program of all — World War II.
There seems to be two classes of people out there, those of us who live in the real world where a gigantic fiscal stimulus program ended the Great Depression, and those who live in some neo-Austrian fantasy world where unicorns are pink, cotton candy grows on trees, and the Great Depression ended because of… well, they never quite answer that question with anything other than hand-waving and silly walks and an insistence that the parrot isn’t dead, merely sleeping. And unfortunately some of those people appear to be Presidential advisors. Siiiiiiiigh!
-- Badtux the Economics Penguin
Or perhaps it is. Sinead O'Connor, "This is a Rebel Song". Somehow I doubt it got much airtime in England. Of course, none of Sinead's late 90's songs got any airtime *anywhere*, American pop had moved on to prefab acts and post-grunge alterna-pop, and the UK, ah, well. Not exactly in love with Sinead at the time, wot?
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
I thought I was buying a computer, but apparently what I instead bought was a $1,400 catloaf warmer.
Dayum, The Mighty Fang is fuggin' *huge*. I don't think about how big he is until I see photos like this, where his butt is a good four inches off the ass end of a laptop that's at least fourteen inches wide...
-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
Due to the concerted freakout of extremists from both left and right over what is a moderate tweak to the current system of providing health insurance, Congressman Boehner's Terror Alert Skin Set To Orange. All paper lunch bags will be searched at the entrance to all government buildings, and blown up if it is found that someone wrapped their croissant in tin foil rather than wax paper (can't trust those French, y'know? Besides, what if they turned the tin foil into a beanie to stop the government mind control rays?!). Moderation will resume at some point in the next two years after the left wing and right wing extremists see the new health care program does not actually render Grannie into cat food and Junior into puppy chow, unless they find some other issue to be stupid about.
This has been a terror alert from the Penguin Broadcasting Network. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. Beware of left-wing extremists and right-wing extremists trading shots with each other over misreadings of proposed legislation, and maintain your Shields of Skepticism at full power, for the enemies of moderation have their phasers set on kill, not on stun.
That is all.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Yeppers, that mighty supervillain, The Gay Agenda, done shot another Republican with his gay ray of gayness:
Roy Ashburn, anti-gay Republican from Southern California and regular at gay bar.
I propose Badtux's Rule: If he's a Republican, and he says he's anti-gay... HE IS GAY. Like, gayer than the gay mayor of gaytown, yo. I mean, c'mon. Aren't we getting the picture now?!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Cracker, "Low", off their 1993 album Kerosene Hat. Just your average early 90's grunge... one reason why I say the 90's were the last gasp of the music industry as we knew it, what we came to know in the '00s was something much smaller and less diverse... well, until you get to the really small indie labels. At which point you realize that there's still a whole lot of music out there worth listening to.
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
Anne Laurie over at Balloon Juice points out a major penis substitute fail at Balloon Juice: Gun nuts, rather than exercising their legal right to open carry in Virginia to go into biker bars and redneck icehouses or take a stroll through the worst parts of Richmond, the parts where drug deals go down on street corners, decide they're going to demonstrate their manliness by walking into... Starbucks.
Yes, Starbucks. Home of latte'-sippin' elitists, pencil-neck geeks with laptops, and other such obviously threatening people. And they walk in, six-irons on their hips, to order... what? A black coffee with a shot of whiskey? Nope. A banana Frappuccino with a cinnamon bun. How... manly, bwahahaha!
I guess open carrying into McDonalds was too threatening for them. Why, one of the mommies watching their tykes at the kiddie play area might have seen them come in, surmised that an armed robbery was going down, pulled out her concealed weapon, and blown them away -- or worse yet, said mean words to them and sent them home crying to Mommy. Alrighty, then!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Sonic Youth in 2002, doing "Kool Thing". Not as much noise as SY is supposed to put out, but I guess they mellowed out with age...
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
For some definition of brave that includes standing up to a terror threat that is... err... light, flaky and buttery.
Yes, the terror threat that caused the St. Petersburg (Florida) courthouse to be evacuated was... a croissant. In a paper bag. Because, you know, all those French are nothing but trouble.
Says Bryan at Why Now::
I think people would like to believe that this is a rare occurrence, but, alas, the US spends a hell of a lot of money every year blowing up people’s lunches. Not that long ago cops could be depended on to eat found lunches, not detonate a blob of C4 near them. [There are rumors that the Air Force EOD guys do eat the lunches, but blow up the bag because they like excuses to blow things up.]I think Fixer at Alternate Brain can verify the validity of that last sentence ;).
Ah, America the Brave. For some definition of "brave" that includes cringing in fear of killer croissants. Siiiiiiigh!
-- Badtux the "Reality is snarkier than penguin snark" Penguin
WIllie Murphy, Rockin' the Boat. Has a 60's R&B / funk feel to it with funky guitars and horns. Probably because Willie was around back then and remembers how it went.
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
Around 8:30PM I was heading down the road approaching an intersection, I had the green light, and a Buick LaSabre coming from the opposite direction turned directly in front of me to turn into the cross street. I hit him broadside despite immediately jamming on my brakes when I saw him entering the intersection, there was just no way to miss him.
I'm okay. My Jeep is not, it broke the pitman arm off the steering box and did who knows what other damage to the Jeep. But the Jeep can be fixed or replaced. Luckily I had slowed drastically from the 45-50mph that I'd been going (the speed limit on that street is 50mph), I think the three men in the other car will be okay too, but one of them had to be extracted from the vehicle with the Jaws of Life and carried off in an ambulance. There were three fire trucks, a couple of tow trucks, an ambulance, and at least three police cars on the scene at the peak of the action. And yes, the car behind him witnessed him running the red light and I have her name and phone number and she spoke to the cops about what she saw.
So tomorrow I get to call my insurance company and rent a car and find someone to fix my Jeep. For the moment, though, I'm just going to lie in bed and think soothing thoughts.
-- Badtux the Shook-up Penguin
I so chortle when companies that jerked me around five or six years ago go under... sorry. Just looking at industry bankruptcy notices. One company that jerked me around for months before finally telling me that they thought I wasn't "qualified" (like WTF? Dudes, either make a decision or not, but don't jerk me around!) had $120M of investor money invested in it, and their assets were recently acquired from the bankruptcy auction for $2M. I love it! Hopefully the asshats who were in charge are now sweeping floors in the back of a McDonalds or something...
-- Badtux the Vindictive Penguin
One complaint I hear about the current health care bill is, "nobody does health care this way!" i.e. with mandates and private insurance companies. Problem is, that's not true. Switzerland, for example, has an individual mandate -- you must buy private health insurance that meets minimum requirements. In Germany, you pay payroll tax to the state insurance fund and are either assigned an insurer by your employer or choose one yourself, and the State has an insurance fund for those who aren't employed. In the Netherlands, long-term major medical is provided by the government, but for all other care people are mandated to buy private health insurance. So yes, there's folks out there doing health insurance this way.
Do I like the current health care proposal? Not really. I'd prefer simply extending Medicare eligibility to 0 years of age and raising payroll taxes by the 5% needed to pay for that, it'd be much cheaper and we wouldn't have to put a new program into place, we already have Medicare and know how it works. But I like the alternative -- no health care because I'm entering a time of life where I'm going to have to work contract due to "grey hair syndrome" which renders me unemployable as a full-time employee in the computer industry and ineligible for private health insurance due to pre-existing conditions -- even less. In the end, it's a choice between mediocre and horrific. I choose mediocre, thank you.
-- Badtux the Pragmatic Penguin
Wonkette reports that Republicans have been sighted once again making crappy attempts at "rap" music and accomplishing only the task of being really, really bad. So bad that I won't even embed the YouTube video here for fear that it will make my blog explode into flames or somethin'. Yeah, that bad.
Let's face it -- there ain't a helluva lot of musical talent on the Republican bench. There's Ted Nugent and there's... uhm... Ted Nugent. So pretty much any attempt at "Republican music" ends up in disaster like this (unlike songs from the other point of view). But what else can you expect from folks whose core religion is the almighty dollar, and whose prevailing emotion is hatred of anybody who isn't like them?
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Slowdive, "Catch the Breeze", off of their first album, Just For A Day. Just some dreamy dream pop to relax to as you begin your day...
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
It is well known that one reason our health care costs are so high is because of poor people using the emergency room as their family doctor. But is that true? I did some research and found that in 1996 dollars, the marginal cost of non-urgent emergency room visits was computed at $26. I doubt it's significantly more today, which would put it at around $38 in today's dollars. So, can we save significant amounts of money by having the poor go to free clinics for non-urgent care rather than to the emergency room? Not really.
Wait, you say. So why are emergency room bills something ridiculous like $2,000 to tell you that you have a common cold? Well, that's simple. There's all this infrastructure needed to have an emergency room. You need ER doctors and nurses, you need a waiting area, you need sufficient examination rooms to handle a nearby industrial accident or bus rollover or similar major incident. And all of that needs to be paid for. Hospitals would still have those expenses if not for the people coming in for non-critical care, they'd just be dividing it over fewer people and the ER bill for those people who came in for critical care would be stupendously higher. In short, by charging Medicaid far more than $38 for the unreimbursed care of poor people requiring non-urgent care who walk in unable to pay, hospitals are subsidizing the urgent care provided by their emergency rooms.
So... why are emergency rooms closing left and right because they're losing money? It's not because of the $38 per patient that they're losing on the non-urgent care (which they bill Medicaid for, and receive a much larger number than $38). It's because of the people ambulances are scraping off the pavement who come in with a heart attack or other life-threatening illness who have to be hospitalized. Those people are taking up beds that could be used by paying patients (most hospitals run very tight bed counts now, we have fewer hospital beds today than we had in 1973, despite the population being 1/3rd larger), use up critical surgery and ICU resources getting them stabilized to the point where they can be transferred to the local public hospital, and otherwise are a financial black hole. Kick all the non-urgent patients out of the ER and tell'em to go to the local free clinic, and you're still stuck with this financial black hole... you just have emptier emergency rooms. Which might be desirable, but it isn't going to save us any money as a nation -- indeed, it will actually *cost* us money, because free clinics aren't truly "free", they have fixed costs too just like the ER, so you're basically replicating what the ER already has. The free clinic might look cheaper to Medicaid because they get charged less than the ER charges, but insofar as overall health care spending goes, we're talking about a wash at best.
So is non-urgent patients going to the ER a problem? Well... yes. But not because of cost. It's because they're cluttering up the ER to the point where it's difficult for the ER to handle patients who do have urgent needs. Simply mandating insurance, as current health care reform proposals do, will not eliminate this problem entirely, because some patients go to the ER simply because that's the only health care option open to them during the hours they can actually go to the doctor (poor people work the hours their employer tells them to work, and get paid only if they work -- they don't get sick time to go to the doctor). Clearly some other option needs to be available other than the ER after normal working hours... but finding someone willing to pay for this doesn't seem to be happening.
-- Badtux the Healthcare Economics Penguin
Okay, who is this crazy lady babbling nonsense into a microphone while playing creepy guitar music punctuated by random drums and the occasional shredding incident, and why do I like it? The former question I can answer -- this is Scout Niblett, playing "Lullaby for Scout in 10 Years". The latter question... well, I have no idea, but I do.
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
I have pointed out previously that unemployment in a recession is primarily a demand issue. The demand for goods and services has declined, thus since employers are not charities and are in business to make as much profit as possible, employers lay off workers no longer needed to meet demand. What has confused some people, such as economist Bob Murphy, is this: How can demand decline when GDP is relatively stable compared to prior recessions? That is, why are we getting a doubling of unemployment in this recession, but not in prior post-WW2 recessions?
I think I may have a clue. One thing which economists have been shying away from like cats from a water sprinkler is the question of income distribution. You can literally hear the yowls of terror as you start leading them anywhere towards that question, because the reality that we have two classes of Americans -- the consumer class and the investor class -- is a truth that None Dare Speak Its Name. The investor class profited greatly during the past ten years, to the point where the top 10% of taxpayers make 50% of the income and the top 1% own 70% of all financial assets of America. This inflation of the income of the investor class has resulted in a large overhang of investment money that was malinvested in a bubble (see, the Austrians aren't wrong about *everything* ;-). The consumer class, on the other hand, had their incomes actually *decline* over the past 10 years, thereby drastically impacting their ability to consume -- a decline that was masked by overleveraging for eight of those years, but then it all came crashing down. Any solution that will actually increase consumption and thereby cause an increase in demand that will lead to businesses hiring again will by necessity require placing more money into the hands of the consumer class -- which current quantitative easing programs have *not* done, instead placing yet more money into the hands of an investor class which already has more money than it knows how to profitably invest, thereby driving the interest rates on short-term Treasuries to 0%.
In short, to get demand -- and thus employment -- back on track, we need to either transfer wealth from the investor class to the consumer class, or we need to otherwise put more money into the hands of the consumer class. Current quantitative easing programs do neither. But if we do think quantitative easing could solve unemployment in this recession, perhaps we should go wake up the ghost of Milton Friedman and create a new $1,000 bill, print up a few thousand bales of the things, and drop the loose bills from helicopters over working class neighborhoods in major cities. Hey, it couldn't work any worse than the current quantitative easing program, could it? ;-).
-- Badtux the Economics Penguin
"Straight Lines" by Dawn Landes from her album "Dawn's Music". Sort of a folky pop. Not sure that I like it, going to have to view a few more of her videos, hmm...
-- Badtux the Music Penguin