Robert's Stochastic thoughts: 11/1/16

Thursday, November 17, 2016

God

I am an atheist, but I try to be open minded. Also, I am drunk out of my mind. So I am going to discuss what I think God Migh Conceivably Be if He/She or It Existed.

I do not claim that the evidence supports atheism. It is a faith, just as religions are faiths. Those with no faith are agnostics.

Howeever, I think it is proven beyond all doubt that there is no God who is Benevolent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient. The world is not ideal. St Augustine says there must be evil because there must be free will, because agents without free will lack something or other. I don't believe we have free will. But in any case, Hurricane Katrina sure didn't have free will. Things which clearly don't have free will act in a way which is morally wrong. Any God that might exist has no excuse for earthquakes and such.

For decades, I have lived off the fact that some behavioral economist put my name on 4 of their articles, so I must focus on this omniscience business. Could God be benevolent and omnipotent but ignorant and confused ? Give me a break. I don't believe in rational expectations any more than I believe in God, but the most idiotic and irrational deity has to understand that earthquakes hurt living things and that rocks don't enjoy the relief of their tension.

OK so we have to look at benevolence and omnipotence. Oddly, I actually believe in a benevolent God. I call him The moral Law (his friend call him morla). This is the embodiment of all that is good. Unfortunately, the moral law is not omnipotent or indeed potent at all. It tries to tell us what we should do, but can't get the words out because it (sadly) has no tongue (or lips or teeth or lungs or voice box).It sreams things which should be obvious (such as don't vote for Trump you moron) but its screams are silent.

Sometimes (such as on the morning of November 9 2016) I wonder if their might be two deities. The totally utterlessly powerless moral law and the Omipotent Nasty Bastard Who is Just Fucking with us. Now I must admit that This Divine Asshole has a Sense of Humor. If I wanted to Humiliate the USA, I wouldn't havde done such a Bang Up Fucking Impressive Job.

This means, that, if I had a religion, I would be Manichaen.

Their view as I understand it from Gibbon and just making it the fuck up is that there are two extemely powerful beings Ohrmazad (who forgives spelling errors) and Ahriman (who is gonna get me even if I spell His Name Right cause he got no clue about incentives).

Ohrmizad is very good. The Other Guy is a bad Guy Who created this vale of tears while Ohrmizad wasn't looking. This theology reconciles the idea that there is a benevolent deity with the plain fact that shit fucked up and bullshit.

In my view, the Creator of the Universe (who might be the One God if we are unlucky) has a Sick and Twisted Sense of Humor. I think that He created us to find the ultimate abyss of idiocy. Our purpose is to become so idiotic that it is not conceivable (even for an Omniscient but Really Nasty God) to think of anything more idiotic.

I fear that once we have achieved utter idiocy, the Universew will have serve His Purpose and cease to exist. So to those who ask me if I am worried about having a hangover tomorrow, I say, what makes you think there will be a tomorrow. Can you describe a possible idiocy which hasn't occurred some time since November 7 2016 ? If you can, I'll plan for the future. But I can't, so I will have another drink.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Marking My Beliefs To Market

One of the many admireable things which Brad DeLong does is to mark his beliefs to market. I decided to do a bit of that. I realize that one very hard step is to find the markable beliefs. I decided to google [prediction site:rjwaldmann.blogspot.com] and got a few (including that Kerry would win in 2004).

Usually I use the word to refuse to make a prediction (especially after 2004) but I found a few.

1) UK violent crime

Kevin Drum has written a lot about the lead causes crime hypothesis. I believe it was proposed by someone at the EPA in the 1990s a very few years after the peak of the US murder rate. I consider myself an early supporter (about as early as Drum even if much less industrious).

In April 2008, I predicted that the UK violent crime rate would peak some time around 2008 http://rjwaldmann.blogspot.it/2008/04/get-lead-out-in-freakiest-bit-of.html

I just googled and found that it peaked in around 2006 or 2007

I'd say the prediction worked out pretty well.

2) TARP cost

Again and again, I predicted that the CBO forecast cost of TARP was higher than the expected cost of TARP and that the forecast would be reduced. I think the first time I did this was September 18 2010

Again and again I was right. The books were (roughly) closed with a reported non cost of over $15 billion of profit.

This predition worked out pretty well too.

3) PPIP cost

On a much more minor issue, I predicted that the Public Private investment Partnerships wouldn't coast the US government, and in particular the FDIC, much money. This is interesting mainly because I challenged Joe Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and (I just learn) Jeff Sachs. The books have been closed. The Treasury made a positive return of $ 3.9 billion. The rate of return was vastly greater than the rate the Treasury pays. Even assuming the 3.9 was earned all at the end the return would be 3.9/18.6 after 5.5 years so an annual rate of 3.5% compared to the Treasury 5 year rate of oh around zero.

4) Hmm turns out I predicted that Marco Rubio would not be the GOP nominee.

5) Huh it seems I predicted that George Bush would offer to nominate Patrick Fitzgerald to the Supreme Court and that he did in fact do so. Either or both of my prediction and this alleged Fitzgerald e-mail might be jokes.

à 6) Effectiveness of Quantitative Easing. This is tricky, because while I actually became a tiny bit known as a skeptic (I was actually interviewed by a journalist once) I flinched and said Abenomics had worked. Also I tended to argue that QE based on purchases of risky assets would work better than QE based on purchases of long term bonds. I think my first foray into QE skepticism was this on February 26 2011 . See also this. But I tend to claim some success. I am pretty sure I was relatively skeptical of QE. There were critics who thought it would work too well and cause hyperinflation, but I am fairly sure I was fairly far out towards the most extreme position of saying it wouldn't have much effect. This not really stuck to prediction is working out rather well.

Marking My Beliefs To Market

Usually I use the word to refuse to make a prediction (especially after 2004) but I found a few.

1) UK violent crime

In April 2008, I predicted that the UK violent crime rate would peak some time around 2008 http://rjwaldmann.blogspot.it/2008/04/get-lead-out-in-freakiest-bit-of.html

I just googled and found that it peaked in around 2006 or 2007

I'd say the prediction worked out pretty well.

2) TARP cost

Again and again I was right. The books were (roughly) closed with a reported non cost of over $15 billion of profit.

This predition worked out pretty well too.

3) PPIP cost

4) Hmm turns out I predicted that Marco Rubio would not be the GOP nominee.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Podhoretz

John Podhoretz who wrote

"What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?"[7]

John Podhoretz (July 25, 2006). "Too Nice to Win? Israel's Dilemma". New York Post. Retrieved April 7, 2007 http://nypost.com/2006/07/25/too-nice-to-win-israels-dilemma/

Just tweeted "@robertwaldmann @jbarro I think you assume I'm a jerk, which basically means you're a jerk." https://twitter.com/jpodhoretz/status/797620322468065280

To assert is not necessarily to assume. I assert that someone who lamented the surviaval of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 is a jerk. I don't think this assertion is a mere assumption. I don't think that my assertion that John Podhoretz is a jerk is evidence that I am a jerk.

I favor civility and oppose genocide, but, having been forced to choose between those two values by genocide advocate John Podhoretz, I sacrifice civility.

In any case aside from the fact that it is too kind to call an advocate of genocide a jerk, the original point was that J Barro tweeted the following @ "@jpodhoretz I don't think it's at all clear that Dems have settled on obstruct-and-deligitimize. "

My allegedly jerkish claim was that J Podhoretz responded to the election of Barack Obama by attempting to deligitimize Obama and by advocating obstruction.

Friday, November 11, 2016

The Washington Post's Brilliant (and Ruthless) Editorial Choice

Today the Washington Post opinion section demonstrated that The Wall Street Journal has employed a complete total idiot.

"Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and a co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement. She can be found on Twitter at @AsraNomani."

Ms Nomani's explanation of why she voted for Trump begins

"I am a single mother who can’t afford health insurance under Obamacare. The president’s mortgage-loan modification program, “HOPE NOW,” didn’t help me."

Ms Nomani is a Muslim immigrant, Donald Trump refused to answer a question about whether Muslim non citizens should be allowed to enter the USA.

It is very clear that she voted against Clinton and didn't think much at all about the candidate whom she and tens of millions of others elected. I had thought that the Wall Street Journal news pages if not the opinion pages is excellent. But now I understand that they hired a reporter wh is totally incapable of practical rational thought.

I guess I will stick with the Washington Post and New York Times. So Fred Hiatt scored bigly.