EclectEcon

Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Video: The Sequel is out!

Here it is:

Suzuki Contest: Who Has Done More to Make Science Attractive to the Public?

My friend Jack and I have quite different views about the contributions to society by elitist, interventionist David Suzuki (I guess you can tell where I stand). Jack says "No one has done more to make science attractive to the public." I disagree.

So I'm launching a contest (prize to be determined). Who has done more than David Suzuki to make science attractive to the masses? Some possible suggestions I sent to Jack before I thought of holding a contest:

• Mr. Wizard
• Star Wars
• Sputnik
• NDEA fellowships
• All the consumer goods firms that produce remote-control toys, home electronics, etc.
• Steve Jobs
• Bill Gates
• MacGyver
• BenS (our mutual friend)

 

As Much As I Might Like the Efficient Market Hypothesis,.... searching for a safer haven

The efficient market hypothesis [EMH] essentially says that it is, on average, difficult or impossible for schmucks like me to beat the market because all the information about potential financial investments is already incorporated into stock prices before I have a chance to act on any new information. For the most part, especially over longer periods, this hypothesis seems compelling.

But if it is correct, why did the down-rating of US gubmnt credit-worthiness by S&P (not particularly reliable when it came to assessing mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, credit-default swaps, etc., leading up to the most recent financial crisis) have an impact on the stock market? Given all the concerns about entitlement funding, about sky-rocketing deficits in the US, about the political economy that makes it difficult to ratchet spending downward, why didn't investors just shrug off the S&P announcement? Surely these problems with US debt should already have been capitalized into the prices of all financial assets long before now?

One possible answer might be that the S&P announcement caused investors to alter their estimates of the probabilities of problems that might occur. I.e., investors all have known about the problems for years and have known these problems might be serious, but this announcement caused many of them to attach a higher probability to more serious financial problems in the near and distant future. As many of them revised their estimates of the probabilities that there might be serious future financial problems, they looked for safer havens.  

This explanation makes some sense. And it helps salvage at least the weak form of the EMH.

But just what might be decent safe havens these days? Any suggestions?

Lotteries are a Tax on the Innumerate

from here via Bart:

Pedantic note: the word "only" is often placed too early in a sentence, as in this cartoon. It belongs in front of the word "because".

Concerns about the Funding of a Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron College, University of Western Ontario

It has come to the attention of a number of us that Huron College is in the process of accepting money to fund a chair in Islamic Studies. I think that's just fine.

But I'm concerned about the source of the funding. I would hate for Huron College to fall into the abyss populated by the LSE or Hartford Seminary. Here is the full text of the letter we sent to the Acting Principal of Huron College [very big h/t to Eva, Rory, et al for all the work they did on the letter!]:

Dear Principal Fulton,

I am writing to you on behalf of a local group of alumni, friends and faculty (present and former) of the University of Western Ontario to express our alarm over the disclosure that two Islamist organizations -- the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) -- will provide most of the $2 million in funding for a new Chair in Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Theology at Huron University College. While we commend the College for undertaking to “make a substantive contribution to understanding of Islamic thought and Muslim identity in pluralistic societies” through the establishment of this Chair, we think it is extremely ill-advised of the College to accept funding from any organization implicated in violent jihad.

Published reports state that the IIIT has agreed to match funds raised by the Muslim Association of Canada, the London Muslim Mosque and private individuals. That means that the IIIT contribution will be up to $1 million. The IIIT is incorporated in the United States and is believed to receive most of its funds from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.

While leaders of the IIIT and the MAC insist that they are peaceful, moderate and democratic, these assurances cannot stand up to inquiry. Evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

MAC states on its website that its mission is: "To establish an Islamic presence in Canada, that is balanced, constructive and integrated.” For greater clarity, the statement adds: “We believe that, in the twentieth century, the approach of Imam Hassan Al-Banna best exemplifies this balanced, comprehensive understanding of Islam.”

Al-Banna was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The MB was the creator of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). In the existing Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas quotes Al-Banna’s declamation: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

The IIIT is also an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood. Two examples of IIIT’s involvement with terror: In 2003, Shaykh Taha Jabir al-Alwani, a co-founder and former president of the IIIT, was cited as an  un-indicted  co-conspirator in the trial of Sami al-Arian, an Islamist activist  who  served a 57-month prison sentence in the United States for conspiring to channel funds to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated terrorist group in the United States and Canada. In pleading guilty, al-Arian admitted that he knew that the PIJ engaged in suicide bombings and other “horrific and deadly acts of violence” against the people of Israel.

Jamal Barzinji, founding member and current vice-President of the IIIT, has likewise been implicated in funding for terrorists. In a sworn affidavit filed in 2003, a senior special agent with the United States Customs Service testified: “I believe that Barzinji is not only closely associated with PIJ as evidenced by ties to Al-Arian..., but also with HAMAS.”

Connecticut-based Hartford Seminary (HS) is deeply involved with the IIIT. Several IIIT academics are appointed to positions at the HS and a year ago it accepted a $1-million gift from the IIIT, despite the organization’s well-known radical links. Meanwhile, the Muslim studies courses and programs at the seminary are roiled in controversy. In an article published last month by the National Association of Scholars, Islamo-Correctness at Hartford Seminary, Andrew Bieszad, a Catholic who graduated from Hartford Seminary last year with a master’s degree in Islamic studies, relates his very unpleasant  personal experience at HS. He concludes: “In Islamic studies at universities today it has become difficult to disagree with Islam and still maintain one’s credibility, safety, or ability to study in school. Academia has refused to question Islamic teachings, and has thus become a participant in promoting Islamic orthodoxy at the expense of academic integrity.  I know this because I am a product of this environment.”

 In 2008, Temple University refused $1.5 million in funding from the IIIT for a chair in Islamic Studies. University President Ann Weaver Hart explained in a statement that Temple University had decided not to act on “this generous offer” by the IIIT, “until post-9/11 federal investigations of the IIIT are complete.”

A few days before the new Chair in Islamic studies at HUC was announced, newspapers all over the world were reporting the enormous embarrassment of the London School of Economics as its acceptance of funds from Gadaffi’s Libya became known. The scandal resulted in a student revolt and the resignation of the Director of LSE. We do not want to see similar headlines about our university some day in the future.

We urge Huron University College to follow the example of Temple University and refuse funding from both the IIIT and MAC. Otherwise, Huron University College will not only jeopardize its exemplary reputation for academic integrity, but also seriously undermine its efforts to raise funds from other individuals and organizations that would not want to provide financial backing to a university that is affiliated with Islamist groups that provide moral and/or material support to violent jihadists.

We look forward to your response to our concerns.

 

Using the Size of 50-50 Prizes to Estimate Actual Attendance at "Major" Sporting Events.

The Brandt Arena in Regina seems like an ideal place to host a major curling tournament championship. Saskatchewan is the heart of prairie curling; curling is the official sport of the province; and Amber Holland from here was the silver medalist just a few weeks ago at the women's world championship.

So how has the attendance been?

Through draw seven, paid attendance has been a bit over 30,000. But that's paid attendance, not actual attendance. Her are the data so far:

Drw PdAtt 50-50 Cumul C 8am?
#01 05595 10935 05595 *
#02 05748 10515 11343 *
#03 03948 01818 15219 - *
#04 05633 10765 20924 *
#05 04497 05635 25421
#06 02513 02280 27934 * *
#07 02585 03318 30519

The Paid Attendance (PdAtt) and the Cumulative Paid Attendance (Cumul) are official figures. "C" indicates whether Canada was playing, and 8am? indicates whether the game was an early morning game.

As you can see, more fans come when Canada is playing, but even then, they would rather not come to the early morning draws.

The column of interest for this post is the size of the prize for the 50-50 prizes held during each draw. 50-50 contests are simple: people buy tickets and at the end, whoever's ticket is drawn wins half the total amount paid for the tickets and the sponsor (ordinarily a charity or non-profit organization) keeps the other half. A 50-50 contest is held after each draw.

In the interest of honesty and transparency, the prize sizes, along with the names of the winners, are posted after each contest, making these data readily available for those of us who might want to look at them.

My hypothesis in this posting is that the size of the 50-50 prize provides a fairly good indication of the actual attendance at each of the draws (games). If the tendency to buy 50-50 tickets does not vary much with the types of people who attend games in the morning vs. in the evening, or for games featuring Canada vs. those draws when Canada is not playing, then the size of the 50-50 prize should be a good measure.

But maybe people who attend curling games in the morning are less likely to buy 50-50 tickets (you couldn't prove that by me, given the number of tickets I have seen sold at charity breakfasts). And maybe fans from other countries are less likely to buy 50-50 tickets AND are likely to make up a larger portion of the audience when Canada is not playing.

With these caveats in mind, and with the rough estimate I made on Sunday morning that there were no more than 1000 fans in the arena, I propose the following proxy method for estimating actual attendance at each draw:

Actual Attendance = 0.5 x (50-50 prize)

In words, take half trhe 50-50 prize and that will tell you roughly the number fannies in the seats.

I think we need a SHRCC grant to hire people to actually do the counts to test this hypothesis. 8-)

Caveat: my recollection from attending RoughRider CFL games in the autumn of 2010 is that the 50-50 prizes there were roughly dollar-for-person equal to the size of the crowds. 

Clearly we need a grant to look into this in more detail.

[cross-posted here]

Anti-Semitism: Rife in England!

Read the whole article about how a small group of people is forcing the closure of a business in Covent Garden. Here is a very small extract [h/t Gary] that talks generally about the situation. But as I say, read the entire article for the particulars in this case:

In the 21st century it is not acceptable to be identified as an anti-Semite, but it is du rigeur to be anti-Israel, or as the kids call it a ‘social justice advocate.’ And so within the BDS movement there is a convergence of various groups; the Hamas loving terror supporters, the democracy hating socialist-communists, the women’s libbers who turn a blind eye to how women are treated in Israel’s neighbouring countries, the student activists who believe whatever their professors tell them as long as it is anti-Israel and anti-American, the gay rights groups who don’t care that Hamas’ sugar daddy hangs gays from cranes, the social justice activists who are so busy condemning Israel they forgot to protest women being stoned to death in Afghanistan, and a few randoms. But they all have something in common: they hate Israel and they want Israel as it is to cease to exist. 

Is the US Economy Just on a "Sugar Rush"?

I've been concerned for some time about the huge US gubmnt deficits and the huge monetization of their debt that the Fed is carrying out via "quantitative easing" [a euphemism for having the Fed buy up gubmnt debt]. Here, via reader MA is someone else who shares these concerns.

The trouble with this latest US recovery is that it amounts to little more than an economic “sugar-rush”. The recent growth-burst is built on monetary and fiscal policies which are wildly expansionary, wholly unsustainable and will surely soon come to an end. When the sugar-rush is over, and it won’t be long, the US will end up with a serious economic headache. Investors should keep that in mind.

.... It is undeniable ... that the latest wave of euphoria to have spread across corporate America, and into the echo chamber that is Wall Street, is ultimately based on quantitative easing and a series of unaffordable tax cuts.

It seems likely the Fed will fully implement QE2 – the latest $600bn bout of money-printing - following the $1,700bn programme already completed. This is in spite of protests from countries as diverse as Thailand, Australia, South Africa and China, all of them complaining that America’s unprecedented monetary expansion is causing dangerous bubbles in markets going way beyond US equities.

... Global investors are increasingly wondering what happens when the money printing stops and those debt service costs rise. More and more interest is being shown in the fact that America’s total sovereign liabilities, including off-balance sheet items such as Medicare and Medicaid, amount to $75,000bn – no less than five times’ annual GDP.

Very disconcerting stuff!