James Madison once said...

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

The last decade has been terrible of civil liberties in this country. Last I checked its been over 10 years since anyone died at the hands of terrorists in the US. We don't exactly have enemies knocking down the gates. I understand that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measure but those times are clearly past. But we're still holding enemy combatants without trial, we're still spending hundreds of billions nation building and we're trying to pass a new Patriot Act. Worse still, the latest National Defense Authorization Act has some scary stuff in it. The language is sufficiently vague that it could be used to justify jailing anyone anywhere in the world (including US citizens in the US) without due process. My heart sank when I read this:

http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2011/11/another-bill-before-congress-pushing-the-usa-further-into-the-dark-of-endless-war-stripping-away-our-liberties/

At least Obama has threatened to veto the bill. I'm really glad McCain (one of the authors of the bill) isn't president right now.

My job

Good article from Chance Magazine pretty much sums up the work I've been doing for the last few years. It's titled Model Risk and the Great Recession.

Performance enhancing drugs

Forget EPO, cigarette smoking can increase serum hemoglobin and hematocrit levels, increase lung volume and stimulate weight loss. Ken Myers makes a pretty convince case in this paper while demonstrating the dangers of medical review literature.

h.t. Infectious Greed

Articles like this drive me nuts

The title definitely roped me in, Why We Spend, Why They Save. But the explanation is thoroughly unsatisfying, the author just lays all the blame/credit at the hands of the government. Though I don't doubt that government plays a roll in the savings/spending debate but he doesn't even offer another single explanation. What about the fact that its much more difficult to buy a house or get a mortgage in Europe? That's the biggest source of debt for most people and many young Europeans live at home or rent because its basically impossible to afford housing in the big cities. The demographics in Europe (higher ratio of old to young people) also favor savings. The author portraits Americans as materialistic, debt addicted and in need of government to save us from ourselves. Give me a break.

The one thing I did learn from this article is that I should stop reading op-eds.

Congress is more popular than Fidel Castro

But less popular than communism, banks, BP during the oil spill and Nixon during Watergate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/congress-approval-problem-in-one-chart/2011/11/15/gIQAkHmtON_blog.html#excerpt

Maybe we should just let banks run the country. Oh wait, too late.

The psychology of political parties

A great blog post from earlier this year discusses potential psychological roots behind extreme partisan politics. The title itself summarizes the argument: "Are liberals driven by a desire for novel pleasure and conservatives by fear of pain?" Its an interesting argument with some compelling research to back it up. The author clearly doesn't like the current state of partisan politics in the US (who does?) He argues that such extreme rhetoric on both sides really discredits the whole political process. Both extreme fear and affinity for change will lead us to make bad decisions. I also like the Buddhist plug at the end.

Wealthy Chinese want out and it has me worried

A recent survey found that half of Chinese millionaires are looking to emigrate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/31/us-china-immigration-idUSTRE79U2CG20111031

They cite problems with government, pollution and over-crowding as primary reasons. Also it might have something to do with the fact that interest rates and investments are largely controlled by the state. The government basically mandates negative real return on savings. And if the government finds itself in a bind sometime soon and needs money guess who will be footing the bill? Yes they do have a couple of trillion in reserves but they've got a lot of bad loans on their books. And if they start selling any assets en masse they will depress prices and find they're sitting on a lot less than the full 2 trillion. In short a hard landing for the Chinese will be disastrous for the newly wealthy class there. So that has me thinking, what are they seeing that I'm not? The fact that so many Chinese are looking to take their wealth abroad has me worried about the prospects in the short / medium term. Official Chinese economic data is notoriously unreliable and even that data admits growth is slowing down. How bad can things get over there? Occupy Beijing could grind their economic machine to a halt.

If the wealthy Chinese want to come, I say let them in (after some background checks etc). Anyone who wants to get away from a communist regime is OK in my book. Plus there are some great deals on houses in California right now, plus they'll need cars and will probably take a trip to Vegas. Sounds like an easy way to generate a few billion in extra economic activity / tax revenue.