EclectEcon

Are Statins Poison?

Two and a half years ago, Ms Eclectic was put on Crestor. After only a month or two, she went off it because she felt as if she was suffering from drug-induced fibromyalgia. Shortly after that, our family physician put me on Crestor. I acquiesced, but with some concerns (see this). After experiencing horrendous side effects (see this) I stopped.

A few months ago, Ms Eclectic was put back on a statin, this time Lipitor. Increasingly she experienced painful and other side effects.

I gather these side effects are common, especially in our demographic cohort. For example see this [via Jack]. The money quote from the piece is,

...on the one hand, the results showed "tremendous" potential health benefits to be gained including far fewer heart attacks. On the other hand, potential side effects that may have particular consequences in the elderly - including muscle pain and weakness or mild declines in cognitive function - could offset those gains.

In our case, we are both convinced that the known, experienced side effects do more-than-offset the probabilistic gains.

After experiencing what I went through and after seeing what Ms Eclectic is going through, I'd rather risk heart disease, thank you very much.We simply cannot imagine going through the rest of our lives with these side effects. We are both somewhat risk averse, but not so much that we are willing to put up with known painful side-effects to reduce the chances that we might soon have some sort of heart problems.

Meanwhile, here's hoping there are other medications that are on the way to help others (indeed, our family physician has put Ms Eclectic on a non-statin prescription [Ezetimibe]; here's hoping it works and has at most few and minor side effects).

Obama: Obamacare Is a Disaster

Well, he didn't quite say it that way.

President Obama is again acknowledging critics of his signature health-care initiative as the government continues to grapple with new, technologically complex demands.In an interview with Fast Company, Obama concedes that HealthCare.gov was a "well-documented disaster" and a kind of wake-up call for the way government relates to technology:  Read full article »

Would that every person who dares to utter the phrase "market failure" would also be required to examine and discuss "gubmnt failure" as well.

Best Line at The Wedding of the Decade

Last weekend I officiated/officianted at "the Wedding of the Decade," a fund-raiser put on by Murder for Hire for The Sunshine Foundation.

Most of us involved in the wedding wrote our own speeches.  The best line of all the speeches was one from the vows written by the "bride" who said, quoting the famous Doris Day song,

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me.

No.

 

Crass Commercialism

Some years ago, I recommended that the Economics Department at UWO set up an Amazon.ca referral account, and put links to Amazon on all the course websites for students to order their texts directly. The students would be able to get books cheaper than at the University Bookstore, and the department would be able to raise some cash through referral commissions. I even volunteered to set everything up.

Alas, the recommendation was rejected, but not for the reason I expected. I figured that in an attempt to extract monopoly rents from the students, the university had/has some policy that doesn't allow such a circumventing of University Bookstore sales .

But no. The reason given was that doing so smacked of commercializing education, something perceived as a "no no" I guess.

I let it go. I was near retirement age and was tired of picky battles. And to be honest, I have no idea whether such a thing is even possible with Amazon (though I strongly suspect it is).

I was reminded of this event from my past when I read Don Boudreaux's wonderful post at Cafe Hayek yesterday on "Crass Commercialism". It is a terrific piece. Here are a few snippets:

Those activities that regularly get labeled as “crass” are those that appeal to the masses.  Hollywood blockbusters are “crass”; indie movies are cool.  Pop music is “crass”; John Cage’s music is cool.  McDonald’s is “crass”; artisan cheesemakers are cool.  Wal-Mart is “crass”; a boutique merchant selling hand-knitted sweaters is cool.  Supermarkets are “crass”; farmers’ markets are cool.  Shopping malls are “crass”; small stores tucked into basements along Bleecker Street are cool.  Barnes & Noble and Amazon are “crass”; independent bookstores each specializing in only one genre of literature are cool.  Home Depot is “crass”; a mom’n’pop hardware store is cool.  DisneyWorld is “crass”; Iceland’s fjords are cool.  American football is “crass”; soccer (in America) is cool.  The suburbs are “crass”; Georgetown is cool.  Budweiser is “crass”; Sierra Nevada brews are cool.  White zinfandel from California is “crass”; rosés from Bandol are cool.

This list can be greatly extended, but you get the picture: whenever and wherever entrepreneurs and businesses adopt business models that appeal to large numbers of people, they are called “crass.”  Far more appealing, apparently, are entrepreneurs and businesses that refuse to seek larger profits by catering to large numbers of people.  Cool are the entrepreneurs and businesses that ignore the desires of the masses and concentrate their attentions on serving only a select handful of customers – as it happens, customers typically with above-average incomes.  (Quite the opposite holds for politicians: when a politician adopts a populist political position, he or she is often hailed as a pioneering “Progressive.”  Catering the masses politically is widely regarded to be commendable; catering to the masses commercially is widely regarded to be contemptible.  Strange that.)

For this, Professor Boudreaux deserves honourary membership in the Philistine Liberation Organization.

Spiralizer/Spiralator

Recently we bought a Spiralizer (I like the name Spiralator, too). The minute we opened the box and put the device together, we wanted to see how it worked, so we put a potato through it. I wish I had taken photos of it all, but alas...

The potato ended up as extremely long spaghetti-noodle-type strings. Then we did a half onion, and fried them up together [for my Facebook friends: #carbsbedamned]. They were great!

Today we ran a couple of zucchini through the spiralizer, fried up the "noodles" a bit and had them with spicy home-made tomato-sausage-mushroom sauce. It was a delicious and very low carbs.

I do have one photo. It's of the "core" that the spiralator leaves after making the noodle-strings.

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Sliding Down the Banister

I used to love sliding down the banisters at my grandmother's house. The one from the second floor to the main floor was especially fun because it was long(-ish) and had a 180-degree bend in it at the landing.

But I would really like to slide down this banister. I wonder if they rent out the opportunity to do so at various times. The outer banister would be fun if it were continuous. The inner banister looks continuous, though it's a pretty tight spiral.

 

From some email I received:

Australia ------ Spiral Staircase in Sydney - This amazing spiral staircase is located at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney.   It is five stories high and makes your body turn about 6.5 revolutions when you climb to the top, but there's an exit on each floor.

Here's another that would be fun to slide down, and in this case it looks as if the outer spiral would work just fine.

The description I was sent for this staircase:

New Mexico -- a Miraculous Staircase located in Saint Joseph church at Loretto Chapel in Santa Fé,. 136 years after it was built in 1878, it still confounds architects, engineers, and master craftsmen in the physics of its construction and remains inexplicable in view of its baffling design. The unusual helix shaped spiral staircase has two complete 360° turns, stands 20 feet high up to the choir loft and has no center pole to support it as most circular stairways have. Its entire weight rests solely on its base and against the choir loft - a mystery that defies all laws of gravity, it should have crashed to the floor the moment anyone stepped on it.  Yet it is still in daily use for over a hundred years. The risers of the 33 steps are all of the same height.  Made of an apparently extinct wood species, it was constructed with only square wooden pegs without glue or nails.  At the time it was built, the stairway had no banisters. These were added 10 years later in 1888 by Phillip A. Hesch at the Sisters' request for safety sake.

One of my all-time favourites was the staircase of the Alabama Capitol building that we visited during the summer when I was seven-years-old. I think it was dad's suggestion there that this would be a great banister to slide down.

The Importance of Staying Hydrated

A number of years ago I had some kidney stones. (photo on the right). The urologist said it was because I hadn't stayed properly hydrated when I was hiking, especially, but also in general. So I drink a lot nowadays. I have had no problems and no indications of any problems since then.

 

 

Here's the current FB meme about drinking water:

My own version:

• Drink a Coke Zero or Diet Dr. Pepper when I wake up.
• Drink a 12 oz coffee an hour later, black or with about 1/3 of a package of Splenda.
• Drink 8 - 12 oz water with my morning placebos.
• Throughout the rest of the day: drink 32 - 64 oz of a concoction of (very roughly) 1oz lemon juice, 1/2 oz lime juice, 12 oz Diet Lemonade, and about 50 oz club soda.

Some days when I know I'll be staying up later, I add another Coke Zero or Diet Dr. Pepper during the afternoon. And some days I have a second cup of coffee in the morning.

• In the evening (after 8pm), but only when I'm not acting and not driving, 3-5oz scotch. On those days when I get home late, I might have 2oz when I get home.
• Drink another few oz of water with my evening placebos.

This is just a rough sketch. When we eat in restaurants, I drink a lot of water with my meals. And sometimes I drink wine. Mostly white wine for me (Note how Ian Klymchuk often makes fun of this preference).

Related articles

Giving up Alcohol for 60 Hours or so

More on Alcohol Dependence/Abuse

Tom Lehrer

I recently came across this article about Tom Lehrer, which inspired me to look at the Wikipaedia entry for him. Lehrer is a former professor of mathematics and musical theatre! Both items make for good reading, if you remember Lehrer and his songs.

If you are not familiar with his songs, I highly recommend them. Here are links to just two of his classics:

The Elements, in which he lists the elements in a very Gilbert-and-Sullivan-like tune.

 I think his wittiest song by far is "We will all go together when we go", an anti-war song of the concerns we all had in the early 1960s about possible nuclear holocaust. The ways he divided phrases and even words to keep his rhyming schemes are hilarious and very clever.

I have a feeling I might no longer enjoy Lehrer's political views, but I still admire his brilliance.

If you have some time, it's worth listening to his songs via YouTube, if nothing else.

The Non-conformist

 

I saw this cartoon recently on Facebook. It's an old theme, but it captures some of my reality.

 

When I was a young assistant professor, I dressed like a pseudo-hippie: long hair, long-ish beard, work shirts (often, not always), denims, boots, the full regalia:

 

 

 

 

 

 

But in the late 1970s, for some inexplicable reason, I decided to change my appearance and wardrobe. Just as my colleagues were choosing to no longer wear coats and ties, I started wearing them.

Oddly, I have no photos of me from that era.

 

Related articles

Going off line for 48 hours

Go Liquid!

According to this article [via Jack], interest rates are very likely to start climbing soon (I agree). And as that happens, financial investments like stocks and bonds lose value (standard Economics 020 stuff).

The first week of June recorded the highest interest rates since December. Bond prices are down about 12% since the end of January.

The stock market, meanwhile, follows the bond market’s direction — except by a much wider margin. A multiple of 2.0 is conservative. A 2x multiplier figured against the recent 12% plus loss in bonds prices would generate a 24% decline in stock prices. ...

So pay attention to rising actual rates. The “actual” bond market is already into a bear market, with declining tops and lower lows since the end of January. The stock market is vulnerable here. The first week of June saw interest rates spike, with bond prices losing 2.5% of their value. This is comparable to around a 7 1/2% loss in stock prices in one week.

The pressures are increasing exponentially since the decline in bond prices has not resulted in a stock market slide [EE: yet]. And the greater the pressure, the greater and quicker will be the downward move.

In preparation, I recommend that people beat the drop/crash/whatever and go liquid now (T-bills, money-market instruments, etc.). Of course if everyone agrees with me (and with this article [and others -- see the links below]), the drop/crash should have occurred already. So either the articles and I are wrong, or the efficient markets hypothesis ain't all it's cracked up to be; or both.

JR (my favourite drug dealer) and I have already gone liquid, specializing in scotch.

Related articles

Deflatinator: What's the Appropriate Standard of Proof?

Which Way will Bond Prices Move? | Jason W Galanis

COOPERMAN: Four signs that we're entering a bear market

A Much Bigger Threat Than Our National Debt

Bear Market Signaled

David Suzuki Is a Dangerous Man

To all my friends (and others) who worship David Suzuki...

or maybe don't worship him but think he is right on environmental and climate issues...

or maybe think he is sometimes worth listening to:

David Suzuki wants to prosecute those who disagree with him. (see this)

David Suzuki is at it again: Calling for "climate change deniers" and other people who disagree with him -- including Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- to be jailed.

And he has been saying this for a number of years.

So much for freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression.

So much for intellectual challenges with open discussion.

About 25 years ago, I watched Suzuki (a noted geneticist) debate the infamous Phil Rushton (a schlock psychologist) about the relationship between race and I.Q. Suzuki's only point was, essentially, the morally superior attitude of, "How dare you even think about studying this topic?" He certainly contributed nothing to the debate. And he definitely disagreed with the academic process of scientific inquiry.

This man is no scientist. He is a demagogue.

For some of my other thoughts about the David Suzuki empire, see this or this or this.

"The Library" --- a show worth avoiding at the London Fringe

I made plans to see "The Library" at the London Fringe Festival last night because two of my friends were in the cast. It turned out they had both withdrawn from the cast "because of schedule conflicts". Good move on their part.

The play was performed in the basement of a vintage clothing shop. No fooling. Basement. Rafters, cement floor, posts, stairs in the middle, bare lightbulbs, zero sightlines, hard chairs or seating on the floor. It was a basement.

Before we went down the stairs, we were warned that there was incense and turmeric being burned during the play. I joked to my friend, "Yeah, sure. It's dope." I wish it had been. I might have enjoyed the show if I had been under the influence of second-hand dope smoke.

After the announcements, we were allowed to go down the stairs to the venue in the basement. The stairs were none-too-great for older people with trifocals, that's for sure. And no handrail on the upper half of the stairs. Nevertheless, I made it down ok, and grabbed a chair in a place where I hoped to be able to see most of what was going on.

The play opened with some young woman, dressed in a tight white one-piece thing (a teddy?) wearing a massive cod piece.

Okay, more weirdness, I'm thinking. Then she started conversing with a guitar player who was at the other end of the basement, and some guys dressed in yellow came down the stairs.

After about 2-3 minutes I noticed people across from me rolling their eyes. Despite the fact that the actors were using the stairs all the time, those folks left after 20 minutes. I would have, too, if it wouldn't have been so frickn obvious from where I was sitting.

What the heck was the play about? My best guess is that it was about people wanting to explore different sexual pleasures but constantly being thwarted by some morality cops who got theirs in the end.

So we got to watch all sorts of simulated sexual acts. Sorry folks, but it didn't work for me. What I saw only vaguely showed what the programme promised: Bollywood drag queen, executioners, musical passion. Huh?

Redeeming features?

• The woman singing at the beginning had a gorgeous voice as she sang a Renaissance-type tune. But I couldn't understand her lyrics nor the speeches of the folks who were talking at the same time.
• There was a group dance somewhere near the midpoint that was very well choreographed and synchronized.
• It took a LOT of courage to do this show. And that deserves some credit, since that's what Fringe is supposed to be about.

But the acting was spotty (at best), the dialogue (if you can call it that) was often inaudible, the music was egregiously too loud about half the time, and the script was horrible. It seemed like self-indulgent nonsense.

I will grant that I am from a demographic cohort that probably is not the target audience for this type of play. But the folks who walked out (oh, why couldn't there have been an intermission after 10 minutes so I could have left somewhat discreetly?) were all young adults likely in their 20s. I later heard that people walked out on other performances as well. I don't blame them.

If you want to support daring, sloppy, and self-indulgent, you may want to see this. But for me it was the worst theatre experience of my entire life.

I'll give it 1.2/5 as a rating. The .2 is for the positive things I listed above, but I wish I'd stayed home to watch the Jays on television.

And that reminds me. I think Ian Klymchuk got off easy with the show he saw but didn't like.

Differential Social Mobility: Whites vs Blacks in the US

Scott Sumner writes amazing stuff at Econlog. I eagrely await the daily digest from that blog every day to read his blog posts.

In a recent post, "The (white) kids are alright," Sumner reproduces some tables from a Brookings study on social mobility. I have no idea how social stati are measured in this or any other study (apparently only by income in at least one of these two charts), but the differences in mobility that show up are revealing of the socio-economic problems in the US.

As Sumner points out, the social mobility of whites in the US has been quite fluid. It is difficult to make a big case about inequality when there is this much mobility between the quintiles.

But the social mobility of blacks in the US has been considerably less fluid (see the chart below)

First, there are extremely few blacks born into the upper decile (so few the data weren't reported!).

And second, blacks seem to have been far less mobile than whites. Those born into the lower quintiles were much less likely to move up to higher quintiles.

These differences seem like cause for concern, at least to me. And yet, I have no idea what to do about them. I am dismayed by the high number of teen pregnancies among people in lower quintiles, regardless of whether they are black or white. But implementing programmes that would discourage them while at the same time trying to maintain some semblance of a caring social safety net does not seem easy.

Last Blast: Chet Baker Checks Out See this Fringe Play! It is Brilliant!

Tonight we saw Jason Rip's play, Last Blast: Chet Baker Checks Out. It is a 90-minute entry in the London Fringe Festival, and it is spectacular. I'd give it 4.5/5.

What was so brilliant was the script in combination with the staging, coupled with the acting, especially by the two leads: Chris McAuley and Franklin Davis.

The story has a somewhat unforgiving angel (Davis) visit jazz trumpeter Chet Baker (McAuley) in a hotel room in Amsterdam shortly before Baker is going to die. The angel drags Baker through all his miserable relationships and his drug addiction before Baker dies. It is an interesting way to do a biographical/historical script.

The script itself is witty. Rip shows himself to be a premier wordsmith and an extremely knowledgeable playwright once again. This is one of the best things I have ever seen that he has done.

In the wrong hands, the production of the script could have been a boring recitation. Fortunately, Rip, who directed the play as well, brought life to the script with unique staging and excellent casting. The roles played by the women in Baker's life were cast with actresses who captured a wide range of Baker's experiences.

Last Blast  is an impressive, significant play about Chet Baker. There are two more shows scheduled at The McManus Theatre: Thursday, 8:30pm; and Saturday, 4:15pm. Don't miss it.

Disclaimer: I know and/or have worked with all but two members of the ten members of the cast as well as several members of the crew for this show.

 

More on Residential Schools in Canada

As I previously posted, I think the "Truth and Reconciliation" report likely misses some important facts (or at least assertions). Here are some additional items, via Jack:

Of note and not commonly reported:

“When the government revised the Indian Act in the 1940s and 50s, a slim majority of Indian bands, along with regional and national native organizations, wanted residential schools to stay open. Those who supported the schools wanted to keep the religious component as well. Motivations for support of the schools included their role as a social service in communities suffering extensive family breakdown; the significance of the schools as employers; and the seeming lack of other opportunities for children to receive an education. In the 1960s, when the government decided to close certain schools, some Indian bands pleaded to have them to remain open.[36]” [the material in quotes is from Wikipaedia].

Jack adds,

The alleged higher death rate for students than for others out of the residential schools might be so, given that TB was the big killer, and confining ill kids with others insured transmission. The situation on the reserves is  not available for comparison.

Certainly the appropriate standard for comparison is the counterfactual, not the death rate is WWI.

Related articles

The Counterfactual: Reassessing the Truth and Reconciliation Report

Student Debt and the Value of Higher Education

I find the willingness of students to go into massive debt to finance college and university living to be puzzling and astounding. Why accumulate debts of up to $100K or more to attend a college or university only to study topics that have little-to-no marketable value? Do these students have no idea what they are doing?

Perhaps more articles like this opinion piece in the NYTimes, despite its whiny self-centered tone, will help more students and parents make better-informed decisions in the future. I read most of the comments there and fully agreed with the ones that took the writer to task for everything said in the piece.

By the end of my sophomore year at a small private liberal arts college, my mother and I had taken out a second loan, my father had declared bankruptcy and my parents had divorced. My mother could no longer afford the tuition that the student loans weren’t covering. I transferred to a state college in New Jersey, closer to home.

Years later, I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.

I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans.

The writer is Lee Siegel, a successful journalist/author. If it's the same Lee Siegel as in the Wikipaedia link, he can afford to repay the loans. He sounds more like a creep than an exploited student. For example, from Wikipaedia,

In September 2006, Siegel was suspended from The New Republic, after an internal investigation determined he was participating in misleading comments in the magazine's "Talkback" section, in response to criticisms of his blog postings at The New Republic's website and vicious attacks on his character.^[5] The comments were made through the device of a "sock puppet" dubbed "sprezzatura", who, as one reader noted, was a consistently vigorous defender of Siegel, and who specifically denied being Siegel when challenged by another commenter in "Talkback". In response to readers who had criticized Siegel's negative comments about TV talk show host Jon Stewart, 'sprezzatura' wrote, "Siegel is brave, brilliant, and wittier than Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep".^[6] The New Republic posted an apology and shut down Siegel's blog. In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Siegel dismissed the incident as a "prank".

 So this guy is basically a schmuck who is trying to use the plight of students today to justify not repaying his student loans from 30 years ago?

Read the comments on his piece. They are mostly devastating.

As I said, I hope young high school students today will learn from him. But I hope they will learn to look ahead and carefully assess their decisions about higher education, course majors, and student loans. I hope they will not take this piece as a justification for borrowing big and not repaying the loans.

Underneath the Lintel - a one-hour, one-man production at the London Fringe

I just saw "Underneath the Lintel" at the London Fringe. I'd rate it at 3/5 stars.

The play is about the adventures of a Dutch librarian as he explores the mysteries unlocked when a 113-year-overdue book is returned through the night deposit box.

The energy of Patrick O'Brien, the actor is amazing. He goes rapid-fire, non-stop for an hour with the show. The props, the slides, the audio are all impeccably organized so that the show flows rapidly from one situation to another with no fumbling and no delays. The energy of O'Brien and the organization for the show were captivating.

The energy and rapidness also detracted from the show. Too many times, O'Brien spoke so rapidly (and slightly muttered) that I couldn't make out what he was saying. That was tolerable, though, because the actions and expressions carried the show through those scenes anyway.

Unfortunately, the show was boring near the end. There was O'Brien on stage, ranting and raving and philosophizing and muttering and trying to make something of a play that had degenerated into superficial philosophizing by playwright Glen Berger about Jesus, the Wandering Jew, immortality, lost loves, etc. My mind wandered and I couldn't wait for it to end.

See it for the energy and production quality. See it for the fun and humour in the first half or so. Those things might make it worthwhile for you.

A Programme that Appeals to Me

My younger son, Adam Smith Palmer, recently wrote that our granddaughter has been admitted to the "...3 G&T program..." 

Where do I apply? Is that three gin and tonics per afternoon?

 

[btw he was writing about Lara, for those of you who remember her.]

Credit Card Fraud

This morning I logged onto my internet banking account and looked over the various entries there. Much to my surprise, there was a large authorized (but not yet posted) charge for over $1000 from a major retailer from whom I had bought nothing in the past month or two.

I called the credit card company and within a very short time my card was blocked, and a new card sent to me; I'll receive it in a few days. Also I will not be charged for that transaction since it appears to have been a fraudulent use of my card.

Apparently the card had been used to do an address check with another retailer a day or two earlier where nothing was purchased.

The security person with whom I spoke said that there is no way to tell when my card may have been compromised. I guess it's time to start carrying tinfoil in the credit card section of my wallet? Or maybe just buy a new wallet with RFID protection.

 

rfid wallet

Egg-o-nomics

A great example of supply-and-demand in action: What would happen in the market for eggs if a disease wiped out a huge chunk of the laying-hen population?

It has happened in spades over the past month. Wow!

Avian flu, which has proven lethal in other parts of the world, has spread throughout the United States like wildfire. Since April, when cases began spreading by the thousands each week, the virus has escalated to a point of national crisis.

As of this month, some 46 million chickens and turkeys have been affected, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nearly 80 percent of those are egg-laying hens, a reality that has been crippling for the egg industry.

But it's becoming increasingly clear that it isn't merely those who produce eggs that will suffer. Those who eat them will pay a price, too.

The wholesale price of eggs sold in liquid form (a.k.a. egg beaters, the kind used by large food manufacturers) has skyrocketed — from $0.63 per dozen to more than $1.50 — since the virus began to spread. While that stands to affect the price of breads, pastas, cakes and other commercial confections made with eggs, it also bodes poorly for food service providers, such as McDonald's, which sell millions of egg-filled meals every morning. Texas-based fast-food chain Whataburger recently announced that it will be shortening its breakfast hours for the foreseeable future.

• The disease shifted the supply curve of eggs to the left
• causing a shortage of eggs at the old prices [see the original story for examples!]
• leading buyers to offer and sellers to ask higher prices
• with a resultant increase in the equilibrium price of eggs

 

 

I Figure the Odds are Good that I Would Like One of Theseself-balancing unicycle with a seat and hand grip

Available from Amazon.com.

The Counterfactual: Reassessing the Truth and Reconciliation Report

The recent "Truth and Reconciliation" report about the horrible things that happened in Canada's residential schools for aboriginals outlines some things we all wish had not happened, including sexual and other abuses.See, for example, this report in HuffPress (via Jack).

Estimated number of residential schools student deaths: over 6,000 ...

Odds of a student dying over the life of the program: 1 in 25 (if 6,000)

- Odds of dying for Canadians serving in the Second World War: 1 in 26 ...

Odds of a residential school student dying in the early years of the program: 1 in 2 ...

Compensation for sexual or serious sexual assaults:

Claims resolved by the independent assessment process: 31,970

Claims in progress: 5,995

Total compensation paid: $2.8 billion

When he sent this link to me, Jack raised some very interesting questions involving the counterfactual:

• What would have happened to these young people if they had not been placed in residential schools? How many of them would have died or been abused if not removed from the reserves?
• What would have happened to the aboriginal native children placed in (sometimes abusive) foster care if they had not been placed in foster care? How many of them would have died or been abused if not removed from the reserves.

These questions are raised, not to excuse the abusers. Far from it.

Rather they are asked because conditions on reserves were (and are) not always very good. They point out that possibly the young native Canadians placed in foster care or in residential schools were better off than they would have been if they had not been placed there.

I don't know the answers to these questions. But based on sketchy knowledge of what conditions were  like for some children on reserves, these are reasonable questions to ask.

Jack added:

Also, NOBODY seems to ask why residential schools were set up in the first place. It was to give some hope for kids who were dealing with outrageous reserve conditions.

The Liberal critic on Face the Nation today put the issue of the many native kids in foster care in the same boat, never once questioning why they ended up in foster care.

Game Theory in Economics and Sports a survey of economists

Via Gabriel:

"Behavior in many complex and seemingly intractable strategic settings can be understood more clearly by working out what each party in the game will choose to do if they realize that the other parties will be solving the same problem. This insight has helped us understand behavior as diverse as military conflicts, price setting by competing firms and penalty kicking in soccer."

It isn't new. This approach underlay the Cournot equilibrium nearly two centuries ago and the Edgeworth disequilibria long before the extensions that developed with John Nash et al.

The important thing in applying the technique to penalty kicks in soccer is the collection of lots of data and analyzing the snot out of it. A refined analysis generally leads to the use of optimally proportioned mixed strategies. Some of the research in these areas is intriguing, even fun.

I find it amusing and amazing that I, a non-mathematical, intuitive game-theorist economist, strongly and confidently agree with this quotation but there are some in this survey who don't.

More on Alcohol Dependence/Abuse

My announcement of my decision to go alcohol free for 60+ hours led to considerable comment in email and on Facebook. It seems very likely I'll have made it for more than 70 hours before I finally can settle down with a wee dram of scotch this evening.

Meanwhile, here is another article that Jack sent. It seems very sensible.

Four warning signs that you may be dependent on alcohol

1. Worrying about where your next drink is coming from and planning social, family and work events around alcohol.
2. Finding you have a compulsive need to drink and finding it hard to stop once you start.
3. Waking up and drinking – or feeling the need to have a drink in the morning.
4. Suffering from withdrawal symptoms, such as sweating, shaking and nausea, which stop once you drink alcohol.

I have had none of the above. My going alcohol-free was more to check to make sure I don't have those signs.

The article continues,

Staying in control

Drinking within the lower risk guidelines will help you keep your drinking under control. Here are three ways you can cut back:

1. Try alternative ways to deal with stress. Instead of reaching for a beer or glass of wine after a hard day, go for a run, swim or to a yoga class, or a talk to a friend about what’s worrying you.
2. Keep track of what you’re drinking. Your liver can't tell you if you're drinking too much, but MyDrinkaware can. It can even help you cut down.
   
3. Give alcohol-free days a go. If you drink regularly, your body starts to build up a tolerance to alcohol. This is one of the main reasons why many medical experts recommend taking regular days off from drinking to ensure you don't become addicted to alcohol. Test out having a break for yourself and see what positive results you notice.

It is interesting and purely coincidental that I decided to take a short break from alcohol. Even more interesting and coincidental is that Jack decided to do so, too, at about the same time even when we had not communicated about our decisions until yesterday.

Giving up Alcohol for 60 Hours or so

I have not had any alcohol since Saturday evening, and I won't have any tonight. Likely I will have been able to go 60+ hours without a drink.

I miss the taste of Ledaig (my current scotch of choice), but I don't feel as if I am going through withdrawal from an addiction. That's why I did this: to see if I could do it, and to make sure I am not getting addicted.

Most of my life I drank very little, but I have begun to wonder if I have been drinking more lately; hence this brief dry period.

When I told Jack about this decision, he sent me this link from WebMD.

You might be dependent on alcohol if you have three or more of the following problems in a year:

1. You cannot quit drinking or control how much you drink.
2. You need to drink more to get the same effect.
3. You have withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking. These include feeling sick to your stomach, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety.
4. You spend a lot of time drinking and recovering from drinking, or you have given up other activities so you can drink.
5. You have tried to quit drinking or to cut back the amount you drink but haven't been able to.
6. You continue to drink even though it harms your relationships and causes physical problems.

This brief period of abstinence is to reassure myself that 1, 3, and 5, especially don't apply to me. 2 and 4 certainly do not; and I don't think 6 does. Certainly I am not experiencing any of these symptoms.

So far, so good!