paulw's Blog

paulw Commented on Jack-Booted Parenting Nazi Alert by Todd Gitlin

2009-08-13T23:36:43Z

Is there a #%$^$%^ christianist way to put on a diaper that I never found out about? Or a muslim way to not shake your baby when they cry? Or a hindu way to put in effing outlet covers and safety latches on the poison cabinet under the sink? I learned the secular humanist way to burp an infant, and it seems pretty damn identical to the way every other religion does it (except some members of their own abusive sects who say "put it on the floor and hit it till it stops crying").

It would be nice if this thing were kinda funny and irrelevant, but what it actually means is that Norris and his old-rightwing-white-guy pals are coming out in favor of increasing the number of babies dying in unpleasant ways.

paulw Commented on Maybe We Need "Birth Panels"- Promoting Less Costly, Safer Births by Nathan Newman

2009-08-13T23:23:33Z

First, of course, the Post should have used constant dollars. So that's really a rise from $72,000 to 126,000 (about 70% instead of 150%). Second, anyone who bothers to read the article will see that it's making the opposite point from the one "Abdul" claims: all the doctors are saying that if C-sections were intended to reduce litigation and thus malpractice costs, they've failed miserably. All they've done is drive up doctor and hospital income and increase morbidity for mothers and babies.

paulw Commented on Hawking: Ironically, My Death Panel Saved My Life by Brian Beutler

2009-08-12T19:42:48Z

If investors have been reading this kind of stuff, no wonder the economy is in the toilet...

Hawking was diagnosed with ALS in early adulthood (while a graduate student, iirc) so in the US, no university would have hired him on tenure track, only as a no-benefits adjunct. By the time he got to the point of applying for private insurance he'd have been chockful of existing conditions, and he couldn't be on medicaid while employed and bringing in grant money...

paulw Commented on Internet: The Cause And Cure For Nanostories by Amanda Marcotte

2009-08-12T13:07:58Z

Y'know something, Ellen? Your responses to this administration's actions probably are colored by the institutional racism that pervades the United States. Everybody in this country is trained, pretty much from the first few years of life, to react differently to black people and white people (and hispanics and asians and...)

So the more you protest, the more people will start thinking the shoe fits.

paulw Commented on About That Dropped Gun In Arizona... by Eric Kleefeld

2009-08-12T13:02:07Z

Does anyone remember the Black Panthers? When they exercised their right to bear arms openly, it was widely considered a confirmation that they were dangerous radicals intent on violent destruction of the existing social structure.

But when white guys do it they're just patriotic citizens who maybe got a little het up.

paulw Commented on Gun-Toter At Obama Town Hall: 'Who'd Be Silly Enough To Carry An Unloaded Firearm?' by Rachel Slajda

2009-08-11T23:47:21Z

It's awfully tempting to suggest that the secret service should have obliged him (I'm assuming for the sake of argument that he considers himself a patriot), but that would have been giving him one of the things he wanted. Instead, he got the other thing he wanted, what was to get on TV trying to intimidate people.

paulw Commented on Stink boats and the forthcoming spectacular inventory bounce by John Hempton

2009-08-06T21:32:29Z

Of course, since stink pots are very much a discretionary item, there's also a chance (if the manufacturers time things wrong) that the demand will have switched to other forms of conspicuous consumption by the time production comes back up...

paulw Commented on Birther Vortex Sucks In Innocent Australian Man by Eric Kleefeld

2009-08-06T21:10:52Z

So I wonder what the libel laws are like in australia...

paulw Commented on Forged Letters: Now Markey Wants Answers From Coal Industry Group by Zachary Roth

2009-08-06T14:04:49Z

Usually when people have a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed by their employees, they have a duty to report it, or else face possible prosecution as accessories/co-conspirators. Just sayin'

paulw Commented on Putting the Poor Far Away by Dean Baker

2009-08-05T15:44:09Z

Does anyone else see a big fat parallel to "de-institutionalizaton"?

paulw Commented on Entrepreneurship and the Poor by Arthur Brooks

2009-08-05T15:26:45Z

You want to foster entrepeneurship? Implement national health care and the rest of the social safety net. That way poor people don't have to choose between the day job that lets them stay healthy and housed (yeah, as if for too many of them already) and the chance of a better future. And if they start a business, they don't have to tell their prospective employees "well, you'll have to give up your health insurance for a few years..."

What you generally see in successful entrepeneurs is situations where they're not at risk of losing everything they have if the bold new plan doesn't work. Oh, and in the US you often see a huge government-aided market for their products (e.g., customers reachable via the internet, the interstate highway system or the postal system).

And one other thing, which is sometimes hard to figure out: it would be nice if the regulatory environment were not skewed toward the largest firms. Smaller enterprises with dedicated employees still need to do all the necessary things for health, safety and product quality, but sometimes the prescribed methods and sheer burden of proof can be an issue. (Unfortunately the previous administration seems to have been mostly interested in removing regulatory burdens from large players, so we're not starting from a good baseline.)

paulw Commented on Poverty, Coming to a (Suburban) Neighborhood Near You by Scott Allard

2009-08-05T15:12:09Z

The same things that make so many suburbs suck for mass transit also make them suck for poverty. Just enough density to get anonymity and petty crime, not enough to get efficient provision of services. And houses and other buildings that are very difficult to re-use in the ways that urban buildings often are (just imagine trying to cut a mcmansion up into apartments). Or am I thinking about the exurbs and the suburbs-nobody-should-have-built?

paulw Commented on There again . . . by Rotwang

2009-08-05T15:05:56Z

Just one comment on the good days/bad days thing: although it's easy to dissect this one when you're in full control of your faculties, that's not the situation where the decision usually has to be made.

paulw Commented on Follow up on high frequency trading by John Hempton

2009-07-31T14:46:53Z

The argument for HFT sounds to me exactly like the argument for insider trading: it increases liquidity, increases information flow (through price changes) and generally makes markets more efficient. But, as with insider trading, it just coincidentally happens that ordinary investors are on the losing side of all of those efficiency-increasing trades, and insiders (whether company or market) are on the gaining side of all of them.

And from the reporting I've seen, the early routing of information to market insiders, coupled with faster routing of their orders, makes frontrunning pretty much automatic. By the time your order actually hits the market-making machine, the HFT orders have changed the shape of the market.

paulw Commented on My Road Trip by Robert Reich

2009-07-31T14:27:28Z

What's the relative energy consumption?

paulw Commented on Report: Senate Subpoenas Goldman, Deutsche Bank, On Subprime Statements by Zachary Roth

2009-07-31T14:21:32Z

This is going to be interesting, because the whole idea behind packaging up these securities was to game to bond-rating system (even assuming that the rating system had been working properly). If not for the gaming of the rating system, you wouldn't have been be able to buy all the components that went into a mortgage-backed security for less than you sold it for. That's how markets and arbitrage work.

So if the firms don't simply stall or refuse to honor the subpoenas they're going to find that the whole market was based on public pronouncements being more optimistic than private forecasts.

paulw recommended Report: Senate Subpoenas Goldman, Deutsche Bank, On Subprime Statements by Zachary Roth

2009-07-30T20:42:25Z

paulw Commented on Emails Show Cozy Ties Between Federal Pension Guarantor And Wall Street Firms He Hired by Zachary Roth

2009-07-29T20:45:53Z

So it sounds like Millard was trying to cash in on his government position by steering contracts to Wall St firms in exchange for a sinecure when he left office. And they played him for a chump, knowing that they didn't need him once the contracts were signed. No honor among thieves.

I love the euphemism "may have run afoul of federal contracting rules". On the planet of ordinary people that's called breaking the law.

paulw Commented on Feds: Brooklyn Man Trafficked In Human Kidneys by Zachary Roth

2009-07-23T23:45:01Z

Israel seems at first glance like an unlikely source for kidneys, but the combination of poor immigrants, a highly-skilled medical establishment and a very specialized gene pool...

paulw Commented on F-22 RIP by Jon Taplin

2009-07-22T19:59:59Z

A quick search reveals figures ranging from 20-80 maintenance hours per flight hour for other military aircraft, with numbers trending down over the decades. (There's also the distinction between direct maintenance hours, which are in the 3-10 range, and total hours, which are much higher because you have to do periodic inspections and replacements of lots of parts...)

paulw Commented on The Economics of Abuse by Mark Kleiman

2009-07-22T17:26:31Z

Not sure that there's a plausible level of a drink tax in bars that would cut consumption in a serious way. If someone is buying 3 or 4 drinks in a bar, they're already spending $10-20 plus tip (plus food) and adding a buck or two wouldn't make much difference (except maybe to sales of top-shelf drinks). You would need enough of a tax that 3 surtaxed drinks would cost the same as 4 drinks do now, or something like that.

I would favor a revision of the dram-shop laws. If a bar has a parking lot, there's a box to blow into on the way out. Allowing patrons to get in their cars with over-limit BAC would be a directed-verdict and loss-of-license offense in the case of an accident or moving violation.

Whoever planned suburbia must have just thought people didn't drink...