Measuring the dependency of different variables

Again, no one of importance won the “Literature” Nobel. Good.

I am always surprised by the excitement that the Nobel Prize for “Literature” generates in some people considering how unrelated to literature it is (and has always been).

The List of winners reads not as a Who’s who of 20th century literature, but rather as a Who’s He?. As far as I know, this is not true of any of the other Nobel Prizes (even the by-nature highly political Peace Prize is awarded to people who an informed audience has at least heard of). Also, as far as I know, no other Nobel Prize has ever been awarded to the members of the Jury who was deciding the Nobel Prize.

The US government is dependent on the Chinese central bank for credit. Without the support of China, interest rates on US Treasury would be much higher than they are now. Also, the Chinese government, if it were to start dumping its bonds on the markets, could make it as difficult as it wanted for the US government to continue borrowing. Put it another way, the Chinese government has veto power over most US government spending (unless Congress were to clean up its act, of course, but that would take things like health care reform out of the picture for the next few years).

Until recently, it was always argued that the Chinese central bank would never abuse its position vis a vis the US because a US fiscal crisis would become a US economic crisis and that would hurt China through its export dependency. Mutual Assured Economic Destruction.

It turns out that China has, to a larger extent than previously appreciated, decoupled from the US. It’s not so export-dependent. A crisis can be pretty nasty in the US while China chugs along. So, MAED is not true. China could probably punish the US much more than it hurts itself.

I guess that people in Washington and Beijing have already started taking this into account in China-US relationships, but I haven’t seen it mentioned in public too often.

Apropos this discussion, I have long noticed that, in Europe, in general, the conservative opinions of Jane Jacobs won against the urban planners like Moses.

In spite of Le Corbusier raving about tearing down central Paris to builld “more rational” buildings, he never did. The only European capital touched by the spirit of urban planning to the same degree was East Berlin, which tore down all the ancient buildings and churches (partially just to show off—some of the German planners were aware of the historical value of the buildings, but there were political orders to demolish churches).

The traditional politician’s fallacy runs as:

1. Something must be done.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore, this must be done.

Amazing how many health-care discussions follow exactly this pattern:

1. The health care system in the US has problems and there are many ways in which it could be changed for the better.
2. Congress and Obama are proposing to change the health care system.
3. Therefore, we need to be ready to support whatever change will come out of Congress.

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This is embedded into the question “Do you support health care reform?” which is, properly speaking, a trick question. It seems to be asking whether you agree with proposition 1, but it really asks for support of proposition 3.

Just a week ago, I decided I should try shopping at Wal-mart every once because of what it represents, but wasn’t really looking forward to going to a new super-market (I’m a creature of habits).

Turns out I can still shop at Whole Foods with a clear conscience (I had forgotten that the CEO of WF is a contributor to the reason foundation).

After two years, Bill Clinton was a failed President. In the end, he turned out to be “the best Republican President of the 20th century.”

When it comes to the environment, cost-benefit analysis is just a right-wing ploy to take government regulation out of the market place and, besides, who can meaningfully put a dollar value on clean water or a human life? It’s just immoral.

When it comes to health care, cost-benefit analysis is just a left-wing ploy to put government regulation into the market and, besides, who can meaningfully put a dollar value on good health or a human life? It’s just immoral.

When I started reading blogs, Sunday was the busiest day in terms of blog posts. Now, the blogs I respect the most generally do not post on Sundays.

A bookshop, with cardboard boxes of books. I look through one cardboard box, but it’s full of second rate novels.

As I’m about to leave, an older man looks at me and informs me that the bookshop is closing down and that those books will be put out for free later, but there are others (like him) already waiting to get first picks when the books are put out. I comment that Yes, books shouldn’t go to waste.