[cherdano]

Phil, on 2012-October-22, 22:05, said:

The bayonets and horses line was very clever and made for a nice sound bite.

It also did answer Romney's claim that our navy will soon become the smallest since 1917.

It really made me smile, it kind of makes me happy that the debate format can be used to make someone looks ridiculous because he has continuously asserted ridiculous things. More generally, it's the only event left in the campaign where the candidates can't avoid being confronted with direct criticism.
(OTOH, I want to fast-forward whenever Obama attacks Romney for having investments in China.)

[cherdano]

Phil, on 2012-October-23, 09:18, said:

This was their [the Republican's] election to win. Maybe they will learn their lesson and start grooming someone for '16.

I don't think that's true. Nate Silver's model has an economic component, and that component alone was always pointing towards a small (2-3%) Obama win.
Meanwhile, I don't know all that much about the Republican bench (Christie, Bush, ...), but there seems no shortage of potentially good candidates who chose to wait until 2016.

[kenberg]

cherdano, on 2012-October-23, 15:49, said:

(OTOH, I want to fast-forward whenever Obama attacks Romney for having investments in China.)

I just poured some more wine but yeah, I agree.

[hrothgar]

phil_20686, on 2012-October-23, 12:55, said:

Debt is a way of transferring consumption from one person to another, with the aim of getting it back later. Through inflation, the fed can make this transfer permanent in what is effectively a redistribution from rich to poor.

Your argument is flawed on any number of levels.

First and foremost, you're completely ignoring rational expectations. Borrowers and lenders both bake expectations about inflation into interest rates. The only time that you end up having any kind of real wealth transfer is when the real inflation rate deviates from the expected inflation rate. Almost by definition, these unexpected shocks can operate in either direction. The real inflation rate can be higher than expected, in which case there will be a wealth from lenders to borrowers. However, just as likely that the inflation rate will be lower than expected in which the wealth transfer moves in the opposite direction.

Equally significant, you seem to be assuming that there is some strong causal relationship between income level and borrowing. My understanding is that demographic characteristics tend to define borrowing habits. People take out large loads to purchases houses and pay for education. There are definitely some members of society who get trapped in revolving credit cycles, payday loans and the like. However, give the ridiculous interest rates that these folks are paying, I'd be hard pressed to claim that there is much of a wealth transfer going on. (Indeed, given the high interest rates that these folks are paying, deviations from expected inflation is trivial at best)

[phil_20686]

hrothgar, on 2012-October-23, 16:14, said:

Your argument is flawed on any number of levels.

(1) First and foremost, you're completely ignoring rational expectations. Borrowers and lenders both bake expectations about inflation into interest rates. The only time that you end up having any kind of real wealth transfer is when the real inflation rate deviates from the expected inflation rate. Almost by definition, these unexpected shocks can operate in either direction. The real inflation rate can be higher than expected, in which case there will be a wealth from lenders to borrowers. However, just as likely that the inflation rate will be lower than expected in which the wealth transfer moves in the opposite direction.

(2) Equally significant, you seem to be assuming that there is some strong causal relationship between income level and borrowing. My understanding is that demographic characteristics tend to define borrowing habits. People take out large loads to purchases houses and pay for education. There are definitely some members of society who get trapped in revolving credit cycles, payday loans and the like. However, give the ridiculous interest rates that these folks are paying, I'd be hard pressed to claim that there is much of a wealth transfer going on. (Indeed, given the high interest rates that these folks are paying, deviations from expected inflation is trivial at best)

(1) This is true, but it isnt the point. A savings glut can drive the natural rate of interest below inflation. Rational expectations are irrelevant: I know that my loan will only earn my 1%, which is less than inflation, but it is still better than 0% which is what I get for cash. We are living in a time when real interest rates in China are about 4% below inflation there, and yet people still lend money in huge amounts. Any time the interest rate is below (expected) inflation, there is a wealth transfer to the borrower. That much, at least, is clear.

(2) So debt is very complicated. You are right, that in the US, right now, borrowing and lending vary over life cycles. This is because most of the (visible) borrowing most people do is tied up in their mortgage. But this is not the only story. For example, it seems clear to me that lower interest rates persuade people to bid more for houses, and take out bigger mortgages and hence the debt level tends to increase as interest rates fall. Thus a correlation between low interest rates and high inequality looks causative - people naturally take on more debt when interest rates are lower. Also, unsecured debt, like credit cards, has expanded hugely over the last twenty years, and cannot be explained by demographics. Also, I did specifically say that I was unsure of the direction of causation, but the data shows a huge correlation between debt levels and gini coefficients.

I think part of it is that the rise of the professional classes has led to a lot of workers who expect to be paid more every year as they get more experienced. Lawyers, programmers, finance professionals etc. All these jobs the value of the worker goes up with experience. In such cases it is clearly more rational to take on debt early on, and pay it off in your fifties when your kids have finished college and you are entering the highest paid segment of your career.

[PassedOut]

We gotta get this guy elected to the US Senate, there's so much at stake. -- Mitt Romney

[Winstonm]

PassedOut, on 2012-October-24, 11:28, said:

We gotta get this guy elected to the US Senate, there's so much at stake. -- Mitt Romney

The U.S. should be a Christian theocracy, just like God intended...

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on 2012-October-24, 12:30, said:

The U.S. should be a Christian theocracy, just like God intended...

link?

[kenberg]

I suppose if we believe that a pregnancy resulting from rape is God's will we can also believe that aborting the pregnancy is God's will and voting against idiots like Mourdock is God's will. And so on. Everything is just all God's will.

Voters should try hard not to embarrass themselves. Of course if they do embarrass themselves, it's God's will.

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on 2012-October-24, 15:29, said:

link

What is Mod Squad?

[dwar0123]

kenberg, on 2012-October-24, 15:56, said:

I suppose if we believe that a pregnancy resulting from rape is God's will

I had to read that three times to realize you were not referring to the virgin birth but rather to the video linked.

My confused state of thinking was more profound.

[phil_20686]

kenberg, on 2012-October-24, 15:56, said:

I suppose if we believe that a pregnancy resulting from rape is God's will we can also believe that aborting the pregnancy is God's will and voting against idiots like Mourdock is God's will. And so on. Everything is just all God's will.

This was basically a non event. He was just saying, in a not very elegant way, that the designs of providence take account of men's evil. God allows evil, He does not will it, nor intend it, but He does take account of man's evil in the designs of providence. Moreover, evil makes possible some goods that would otherwise be impossible, on account of being unnecessary. It is the position of nearly all Christian churches, that human life, from conception, is inherently a good thing. A life conceived by rape is a good that has come out of evil.

This is the position of essentially all Christian churches. I didn't think it was very controversial, except insofar as the existence of God is controversial.

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on 2012-October-24, 15:29, said:

link?

Quote

“I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good… Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called on by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.”

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, in The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne

Quote

“So let us be blunt about it: We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will be get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”

–Gary North, quoted in Albert J. Menendez, Visions of Reality: What Fundamentalist Schools Teach, Prometheus Books, 1993

Quote

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ."

From The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action by George Grant, published in 1987 by Dominion Press

[blackshoe]

phil_20686, on 2012-October-24, 16:21, said:

This was basically a non event. He was just saying, in a not very elegant way, that the designs of providence take account of men's evil. God allows evil, He does not will it, nor intend it, but He does take account of man's evil in the designs of providence. Moreover, evil makes possible some goods that would otherwise be impossible, on account of being unnecessary. It is the position of nearly all Christian churches, that human life, from conception, is inherently a good thing. A life conceived by rape is a good that has come out of evil.

This is the position of essentially all Christian churches. I didn't think it was very controversial, except insofar as the existence of God is controversial.

God created Man, Man created Evil? I don't buy that. Man had nothing to do with Lucifer's Fall. Besides, everybody knows that God created everything. It says so in the Bible.

[PassedOut]

Interesting analysis by Nate Silver today: The Virtues and Vices of Election Prediction Markets

Quote

At the political betting market Intrade, however, traders seemed to have a much stronger opinion about the day’s news. Mr. Romney’s stock, which can be read as a forecast of the chance that he will win the Electoral College, rose to 45.4 percent from 39.7 over the course of the day.

The probabilistic forecasts issued by FiveThirtyEight have been quite close to Intrade and those at other trading and betting markets over the course of the election. The spread as of Tuesday night – with Intrade implying that Mr. Obama has a 55 percent chance of winning the election, and FiveThirtyEight a 68 percent chance – is much wider than usual.

Looks like Romney supporters have decided to bet.

[lalldonn]

PassedOut, on 2012-October-24, 17:18, said:

Looks like Romney supporters have decided to bet.

You mean Romney supporter.

Quote

At several points on Tuesday and early Wednesday, what appeared to be a single trader bought a large number of Mr. Romney’s shares at Intrade, at one point boosting Mr. Romney’s chances to about 49 percent from 41 percent over the span of a few minutes. The betting patterns echo similar ones in the pricing of John McCain and Mr. Obama’s stock at Intrade late in the 2008 cycle.

[Flem72]

This thread started out as a question about Nate Silver's statistical analysis of poll results and his 2008 success. Let me ask: What are the odds that he turns out to be a One-Hit Wonder? And whether you think the answer is relatively yea or nay, do you have anything upon which you base that answer other than his 2008 success?

[dwar0123]

An interesting use of campaign cash, I wonder if it could become a type of self fulfilling prophecy. Buy enough stocks to keep Romney over 55%, convincing some people he will win, leading to an actual victory.

If it works, you help Romney win and you make a staggering amount of money.

If it fails, you lose a staggering amount of money. Of course, staggering amounts of money are being spent by both sides already, so this might not really be that big a downside.

[dwar0123]

Flem72, on 2012-October-24, 17:43, said:

This thread started out as a question about Nate Silver's statistical analysis of poll results and his 2008 success. Let me ask: What are the odds that he turns out to be a One-Hit Wonder? And whether you think the answer is relatively yea or nay, do you have anything upon which you base that answer other than his 2008 success?

People's who opinion I respect supporting Nate Silver's predications.
vs
My opinion of those who disagree with Nate Silver.

Given the vast difference in my opinion between the two sets of people, even if Nate Silver was totally wrong in 2008, I would still grant him more weight.

[hrothgar]

phil_20686, on 2012-October-24, 16:21, said:

This was basically a non event. He was just saying, in a not very elegant way, that the designs of providence take account of men's evil. God allows evil, He does not will it, nor intend it, but He does take account of man's evil in the designs of providence. Moreover, evil makes possible some goods that would otherwise be impossible, on account of being unnecessary. It is the position of nearly all Christian churches, that human life, from conception, is inherently a good thing. A life conceived by rape is a good that has come out of evil.

This is the position of essentially all Christian churches. I didn't think it was very controversial, except insofar as the existence of God is controversial.

Hardly know where to begin here...

Let's start with the biggie. I was raised in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The notion of an activist God, who creates miracles or takes action to determine whether people get pregnant is completely foreign to me. I know that other denominations have very different beliefs. However, I personally find the notion that god intends for someone to get pregnant from a rape downright offensive. This is a complete misrepresentation of what I was taught.

Second, you are conflating conception with the start of human life. Here once again, I'll use the ELCA as an example.

Quote

Where does the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America locate itself in the midst of this debate? First of all, it is fair to say that our people look at this from the various vantage points we can discern in the general population. However, we do have a common place from which to begin our moral deliberation. The document, A Social Statement on Abortion, adopted by the Churchwide Assembly in 1991, operates with the following conviction, "Human life in all phases of its development is God-given and, therefore, has intrinsic value, worth, and dignity." One could readily infer from this statement a moral prohibition of research with embryonic stem cells.

For the purpose of this discussion, the import issue is how carefully the language skirts when life begins... "Life begins at conception was most certainly NOT church teaching back when I was actively involved with the ELCA.