Times.konradturski.com - Political and Economic Commentary by a Postgrad in London

This is an equation, courtesy of a certain Robert H. Topel, published in the American Economic Review. What is x, subscript i, superscript jm? What does theta stand for? What on earth is big F? Sadly, Robert H. Topel refrains from explaining any of that. The exception is dotted z superscript jm, which is defined, of course, as the cost-sharing weighted average of five aforementioned skill groups.

Dear economists: purposefully making your papers absolutely unintelligible to all but the uninitiated just to prove how handy you are with the Greek alphabet and how proficient you are with Word’s Equation Editor, is not acceptable. Please revise your work, this time properly defining all variables, subscripts, and randomly-placed dots. Thank you.

Consider an experiment in which the experimenter pre-establishes not  only his or her assumptions, but also the data, the method, the observations and the conclusions of their trial. It’s the empirical equivalent of a one-man judge, jury, and executioner, and it’s a common practice in philosophical novels and America’s new superhero genre.

It’s not entirely a bad thing: many atheists have long held the Bible to be just this kind of deterministic morality play, and many more, myself included, find moral proselytizing to be valuable regardless of whether viewed through a secular or faith-based lens. But therein in lies the catch.

There is a difference between, on the one hand, finding a train of thought valuable for its normative or moral pedigree (”Value by Induction”), and, on the other hand, equating that value with a sound logical foundation (”Value by Deduction”). Both Ayn Rand and Director Christopher Nolan should be commended for continuing the long tradition of the former; we, on the other hand, should know better than to do the latter.

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Just kidding! But one thing he will do, as astute followers of the  Senate Banking Committee saw yesterday, some twenty minutes before the end of Chris Dodd’s Special Hearing to Save Your Bank, is chuckle at his own use of obscure economic lingo!
Pre-empting an answer of his own making, regarding the need for veto-based central bank oversight of the financial system, Federal Reserve Chairman and “Your Best Friend’s Dad” Ben Bernanke began, “Well, being risk averse” before actually delving into the finer intricacies of Federal Reserve monitoring of over-the-counter derivatives and other nonsense. Ha ha ha!

With his Independence Day speech on patriotism, Barack Obama may  have unintentionally marked a second unlikely milestone: the Left’s decisive abandonment of the 1960’s. Though Democrats conceded(perhaps wisely) to the virtue of “Supporting Our Troops” in the immediate aftermath of the Afghanistan War, Obama’s well-intentioned pleasantries on the virtues of honouring veterans and moving beyond the fiery clashes of Vietnam era mark a new, institutionalized development away from an era that, in many ways, marked the pinnacle of Leftist strength and a certain something more.

There is a certain logic to this shift. Perhaps because it also begot a period of weakness - crowned by the apologist presidency of Jimmy Carter, and replaced by the ideologic vigor of the Reagan era - many in the Left have followed Obama and other party leaders without regret. We have proven increasingly willing to abandon  uncompromising anti-war and anti-government stances in favor of a quiet acknowledgement that excesses were made.

This is a mistake.

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McCain gave a speech at the La Raza Hispanic convention in San Diego today. Instead of deriding Obama, he went out of his way to complement both him and Hillary. There’s nothing friendly about his aggressive foreign policy proposals, but it’s clear that McCain has brushed up his public speaking skills as well as his manners since the widely-panned “Not Change we Can Believe in” Green Speech. Good for him.