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Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 06:26 AM | Comments (14)
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Have you ever wondered what economists talk about in email conversations?

Now you know. Seriously, though, this guy's modeling seems to match up pretty well with what the CBO was saying.

The stimulus has a big effect in 2010, but by 2012 the economy is roughly back to baseline (except for variables like the federal government debt).

...So there is short run gain from the stimulus bill, mostly in 2010, but the potential long run costs do not seem trivial. If the stimulus bill is passed and the bailout continues, it may be that large tax increases will be needed starting in late 2011 or 2012.

Oh, and let's not forget the trade war.

Enjoy next year's bender while it lasts, folks. The hangover is going to be epic.

Posted by: Slublog at 05:40 AM | Comments (62)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:11 AM | Comments (48)
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”Economy Crashes, Cupid Hardest Hit.”

CNN didnÂ’t do the proper due diligence tonight regarding things we donÂ’t give a fuck about that are affected by the recession depression Apocalypse. But MSNBC has picked up the slack and brings us the following tale of woe.

” For Valentine’s Day two years ago, Jason Jones gave his fiancée a necklace from Tiffany & Co.”

“This year, the couple is going to the park with their 2-year-old daughter, and renting a movie on the way home. It may not be the Valentine’s Day of their dreams, but faced with a steep drop in income it’s the one the couple feels they can afford.”

Graphic image below the fold. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:06 PM | Comments (84)
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I was wondering. I see and hear people playing with it but have no idea what the point is.

Now it's so clear.

Describing a pattern of manipulation and deception using the social networking site Facebook, the Waukesha County district attorney today announced sexual assault charges against a New Berlin Eisenhower student who authorities say coerced male students into sexual encounters.

Anthony R. Stancl, 18, posing as a female on Facebook, persuaded at least 31 boys to send him naked pictures and then blackmailed some of the boys into performing sex acts under the threat that the pictures would be released to the rest of the high school, authorities say.

All 31 boys attend New Berlin Eisenhower High School.

The sexual assaults occurred in the high school bathroom, the high school parking lot, the public library restroom, Valley View Park, Malone Park and at some of the victims' homes, authorities say.

At least seven boys were forced into performing sex acts. The 31 males range in age 13 to 19. The youngest sexual assault victim is 15.

It gets worse:

I'm really surprised that so many were blackmailed into this. Seems to me... um, the blackmailees have an awful lot of goods on the blackmailer, too. More, in fact.

Why not go to the cops? Would they turn down the chance to bust down on a pedophile blackmailer? Honestly, people are very odd sometimes.

Odd? Oh wait, it's spelled "stupid."

Thanks to CITC.

Posted by: Ace at 08:34 PM | Comments (74)
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I've mentioned before how much it tickles me when judges, especially circuit court judges who should know better, go after each other in decisions. Chief Judge Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit (who is as funny in person as he is in writing) was in fine form today with this dissent from a "preposterous" opinion by Judge Reinhardt:

Worse still, after huffing and puffing for 11 hefty paragraphs and 12 chubby footnotes trying to explain why the district court erred at all, the majority concludes in a single opaque sentence that the error is “plain.” Just how plain can this error be when the majority has to struggle so long and hard to find any error at all? After complaining bitterly about pointyheaded judges who “slic[e] ever finer and finer distinctions whose practical consequences are seemingly minuscule, if not microscopic,” maj. op. at 1602-03, my colleagues pull out a scalpel of their own and proceed to engage in the same exercise, so that “our standards of review continue to multiply, the relationships between them growing more obscure with each iteration.” Id. at 1603.

Before reading today’s opinion, no one could have guessed its outcome and methodology. Saying that the error is plain eviscerates the “plain” part of the plain error standard. If this is plain error, no error isn’t.

The case, which was about a jury determination that a person was an Indian, is here (PDF).

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:07 PM | Comments (33)
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The Wall Street Journal's MarketBeat blog had an amusing post about the evolution of the Toxic Asset Relief Program. A taste:

The Pre-Cambrian Period (2007-early 2008, a.k.a. The Entity): This plan, with Citigroup as its main beneficiary, would have taken the off-balance-sheet assets of various banks and fenced them off in a structure that investors could have taken shares in (in part to finance this festering pile of sludge). Citigroup attempted to prop up this idea for months, helped along by positive commentary from then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — but it eventually died of its own lack of use. In a way, the newest plan isn’t much different.

The Stone Age (Sept. 23, 2008-Oct. 5, 200 : Mr. Paulson is given $700 billion to invest in mortgage-backed assets, designed to clean up the balance sheets of the largest institutions, which are struggling under the weight of their bad decisions. The original passage of this plan was first delayed by Republicans in the House of Representatives, but was eventually pushed through in the waning months of the Bush Administration.

Click over for the whole thing. One caution, it was written yesterday and the final category was based on the leaks coming from Treasury which purported to be describing Secretary Geithner's new plan. Of course, after today's disastrous announcement that Geithner has a plan and "what do you mean 'details'?" things are actually looking worse than before.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:47 PM | Comments (42)
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Business reporters blamed the nearly 400 point loss on Geithner's bank bailout plan, feeling it wasn't dramatic enough.

I'm quite certain that was one factor in the day's decline. But notice the MSM is not willing to mention other possibilities. Like the passing of the "stimulus."

Is there no one in AP reporters' rolodexes who offered (or would offer, if called) a quote suggesting that the spendulus will harm the economy? None? That's quite strange, given that a large number of economists believe the spendulus harmful, and also considering that, as far as politics and economics, traders and fund managers and analysts skew a bit to the right as compared to, say, Paul Krugman.

It seems to me entirely implausible that no expert the AP could have called -- or did call -- would offer his opinion that the sell-off was due partly to the uninspiring spendulus package.

And yet that's how the day's events were reported. According to the MSM's reporters, economic analysts are all on the same page in believing that the government needs to spend even more. And so the only possible way to explain a sell-off is by referencing Geithner's supposedly-not-generous-enough bailout.

I would contend this is a deliberate lie by both commission and omission. Like global warming, they're just not going to even report any experts offering opinions that conflict with the liberal consensus.

Posted by: Ace at 02:56 PM | Comments (147)
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Could be funny.

Is Brad Pitt good-looking enough to play Billy Beane?

Yes, that was a blatant suck-up. Please send job offers and/or spring training tickets to us.

E! Online reported Friday that Pitt and Steven Soderbergh, who teamed for "Ocean's 11" and its sequels, are discussing reuniting for "Moneyball," centering on Beane, the real-life Oakland Athletics' general manager who used complex statistican analysis to draft a playoff-caliber team.

I say it could be funny because drafting in baseball, at least if Moneyball was telling the truth, had been ludicrous.

I thought the book would be about math geeks demonstrating that some stats -- say on-base percentage -- were more important than the stats actually being looked at, like batting average or RBI's.

And that the book would be about proving these other stats were more predictive than the more attention-getting stats.

That's not actually what it was about at all. Most baseball scouts didn't look at stats at all, preferring, in their mind, to see "the man who could be" instead of the man who actually was. They actually rated baseball players according -- not exclusively, you understand; but this was a major consideration -- whether they had athletic bodies and looked good in a uniform and whether their faces had a "baseball look."

They also checked stuff like how fast a guy could sprint and the like... but while these are hard numbers and are indeed predictive, they're nowhere near as predictive as looking at a guy's actual, real-life, as-applied-to-the-actual-game stats. A man's gross speed is a secondary concern; your primary concern is how often he beats the throw to first base and how often he steals a base and how often he gets caught stealing a base. Maybe the fast guy has poor judgment and gets thrown out a lot, while the slower guy is cagier and manages to get bigger leads before making the attempt. Speed, while important, isn't really the stat you care about.

Beane's "innovation" was actually just looking at basic statistics and drafting (for example) an overweight college catcher who despite not having a "baseball look" or filling out a uniform nicely was, you know, hitting the ball consistently and blasting a lot of home runs. The scouts didn't like him just because he was fat. Billy Beane liked him because the stats showed he could hit.

Now, I'm sure this wasn't all scouts and I'm sure stats played some part in a scout's evaluation. However -- again, if Moneyball is to be believed -- scouts were fairly determined that they were not going to just look at stats (which anyone could do) but get a fuller picture of "the man who could be" by, not to exaggerate, judge how handsome a guy was and how built he was.

I thought it was jaw-dropping that scouts resisted drafting a chubby slugger who had a solid statistical record to judge him on based on such nonsensical irrelevancies.

So, anyway: Could be funny. Would love to see a filmed version of those drafting arguments where a guy hitting .320 is denigrated for failing to have a "baseball look."

I'm telling you, the impression I got was that scouts weren't drafting for baseball, but drafting for Chippendales. I might be overstating it, but I don't think I am.

I guess the word I'm avoiding here is that baseball scouting was incredibly, incredibly gay.

Thanks to DavidR.

Posted by: Ace at 01:43 PM | Comments (53)
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Don't drill, baby, don't drill.

Institute for Energy Research (IER) president Thomas J. Pyle issued the following statement today after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced his decision to delay the American peopleÂ’s ability to develop their own energy resources:

“Less than 24 hours ago, the president urged Americans to support his plan to spend over $700 billion in taxpayer dollars to fight our economic downturn. Meanwhile, the Department of Interior this afternoon added unnecessary government red tape that will delay an opportunity to use our vast, domestic energy resources to bring new jobs and billions of dollars in new revenue to this nation.

“Though our economy is in a free-fall and millions of Americans are out of work, the Obama Administration prefers to spend money we don’t have and ignore the resources we do. We are headed down a path that empowers government planners to decide how much energy Americans are allowed to use, and how much they will pay for it. Regrettably, what they fail to realize is that access to affordable energy represents the best and most direct path out of this economic mess.”

Click on the link to send an email protesting this inanity.

Posted by: Ace at 01:29 PM | Comments (74)
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