Learn Econometrics

Too Much Higher Education – Walter E. Williams.

Here is another instance of how the truth hurts.

A recent study from The Center for College Affordability and Productivity titled “From Wall Street to Wal-Mart,” by Richard Vedder, Christopher Denhart, Matthew Denhart, Christopher Matgouranis and Jonathan Robe, explains that college education for many is a waste of time and money. More than one-third of currently working college graduates are in jobs that do not require a degree.

If you want to know why college is getting more expensive faster than most things, here you have it.  It is no different than trying to drive the home-ownership rate above its equilibrium.  We see how that worked out.  Prices rise rapidly, bubbles form, collapse ensues.    I’m not sure what the distortionary effect will be in higher education, but I firmly believe that the policy will not achieve what it intends.  And, it won’t be pretty.  In the meantime, a whole lot of resources will be wasted.

At least college is fun.  Enjoy it before you have to start repaying those loans.

But education is not something that can be given to anybody. It is something that students either acquire or fail to acquire. Personal responsibility may be ignored or downplayed in this “non-judgmental” age, but it remains a major factor nevertheless.

via Thomas Sowell : The Great Escape – Townhall.com.

As I have often said, learning is hard.  It takes effort and desire.  It is not something delivered by a teacher no matter how gifted he or she may be.   I am often asked if I am “teaching today.”  I usually respond that, no I’m just standing in front of the class and talking about econometrics.  There’s a big difference, as Dr. Sowell reminds us.

An old friend, former Vietnam era Green Beret and all around great guy, Bob Lundy often said, “if the student fails to learn it’s because the teacher failed to teach.”  I  never agreed with Bob about this, but it certainly expresses another point of view.   I think his point was that the teacher is somehow responsible for the failures of his students.  But this would only apply when the student is properly motivated and equipped.  In other words, if the students are qualified and doing everything they can to learn and don’t then you can blame the teacher.  Sadly this does not describe what we observe today.  Instead, students come to the party expecting a show–and a damned good one at that.   They don’t see much value in what you are studying and they place a pretty low priority on trying to figure it out.  Too bad, because there is much collected wisdom in economics….

YouTube – Imogen Heap Ft. Jeff Beck or vice-versa – Blanket – at Ronnie Scott’s.

Jeff Beck and Imogen Heap.  Wow!  What more can I say….

This clip is from Jeff Beck’s excellent Blu-ray disk ” Performing This Week:  Live at Ronnie Scott’s.”   Check it out.  One of the most creative electric guitarists of all time with a crackerjack band.

G8, Developing States Seek Common Ground On Climate Change – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2009.

“… they agreed that worldwide temperatures must not rise more than 2 degrees Celsius.”

Well, that will be a trick.  In fact, this is the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a while.  Don’t believe me?  Check out this graph of global temperatures for the last 65 million years (since the dinosaurs died off):

What this shows is that climate fluctuates a lot more that +/- 2.5 Celsius without any influence by man.  It also shows that we are well below ‘normal’ despite greenhouse gas emissions due to man.  The arrogance of our ‘leaders’ is astonishing.  Somehow they think we can keep temperatures in a certain range?  They cannot be serious (channeling John McEnroe).  The causes of the fluctuations you see are not even fully understood, much less under our control?  Laughable if it weren’t frightening.

So, what is the agenda?  Since we have almost no control over long term temperature fluctuations, it must be a desire for more control over something else.  I leave you to think about what that might be.  Morons?  Hardly.  Get people scared and use that to move your agenda.  Exercising more control over you and me … It is a theme that is as old as mankind.

Oh yeah.  One more thing.  Warmer climate is generally a good thing.  Our species (that would be man) flourishes during warming and was almost extinguished during the last ice age, which ended 14000 years ago.

Well, this is promising.  The media are finally listening to someone else besides the climate change kooks.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)

via Strassel: The Climate Change Climate Change – WSJ.com.

Meanwhile, Congress debates whether to go against the tide and pass cap and trade anyway.  There are four good reasons not to:

1. Climate science is simply unable to tell us how much of an effect on climate that man has.  Without this knowledge, we could be making things worse rather than better.  It’s like when we were told, “Butter is bad for you and  margarine is better.”  Well, not really as it turns out ….
2. Action by the U.S. will have no effect on the climate.  Our emissions are not grown in a number of years despite the significant increase in the size of our economy.  Our percentage of global output of greenhouse gases is rather small and shrinking.
3. The costs will far exceed even the most pessimistic estimate.  Despite all of the blather about the creation of green jobs, nothing is said about the destruction of other jobs this will cause.   Using the lowest cost energy source will actually create or save the most jobs.
4. The most pressing pollution problems are local, not global.  Every penny that is spent on an ineffectual global policy is a penny not spent on preventing or cleaning up actual environmental damage.
5. Bonus reason:  It will start a trade war since some form of protection will have to be put into place for disadvantaged domestic producers.

So let me summarize.  Cap and trade, which is not working elsewhere, carries enormous economic costs and provides very little, if any, environmental benefit.  In fact, I think it can be argued that the environment will suffer as environmental investments will be siphoned off for this boondoggle.  It will pad the pockets of a chosen few whose special interest will benefit from the measures being considered.   This, my friends, is a no-brainer….

RealClearPolitics – Could Australia Blow Apart the Great Global Warming Scare?.

Sigh!  One can only hope that science prevails in this ‘debate.’  Given the agenda of those who push global warming hysteria, I doubt it.  But, there is hope.  At least the Aussies appear to be coming to their senses….

Watts Up With That?.

This blog by Walt Meier is very, very interesting.  If you are a science nut, then check this out.  If the media have you scared to death about an impending disaster caused by man-made climate change then definitely check this out.  You’ll sleep much better  … unless you turn on the news or listen to the scaremongers in Washington.

Here is an interview by townhall.com with Dr. Meier.  If you are impatient, here are a few quotes that caught my eye.

There is a belief out there that we will get into a runaway condition where at some point a tipping point would occur and that at that point there is no turning back and then the world would destroy itself. That is being pushed in the media a lot and it is flat wrong.

As we go back into history, into past millennia, we can see that our atmosphere has in fact had much more CO2 – up to 6,000 parts per million, compared to the 380 parts per million that we have now – and it has responded and it has settled. Earth didn’t destroy itself. It didn’t burn up and boil off the oceans. So the comparison that we see with runaway global warming and the turning of Earth into Venus, things of that nature, are probably the most dangerous and wrong ideas that are being pushed.

Hmmm.  We’ve got a long way to go to get to 6000 parts per million.  We’ve only got about 200 or 300 years of fossil fuel left.  I don’t think we’re going to make it to 6K.

Because of something called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation Meier speculates that we are headed for a 20 or 30 period of global cooling.  Folks, cooling is likely to be worse than warming.  Warmer temperatures increase atmospheric moisture (a good thing) ; warmer nighttime temperatures (which is where most of the warming has been observed)  and longer growing seasons allow plants to grow in places that they formerly could not.   Iceland used to grow much more of their own food.   Why do so many things grow in rain forest?  Not because it’s cold and dry.

Here’s another example about California.

Particularly the United States, because the weather flows from west to east. And particularly California. California had a fairly cool climate prior to 1978. And during the warmer period from 1978 to last year, agriculture boomed in California. Grapes began to be grown in places they haven’t been grown before. The wine industry expanded. Agricultural expanded. And it expanded under a warmer climatic regime. Now that warmer climatic regime is in danger of shrinking again. So we may find growing seasons and growing places reduced back to areas that they were historically at in 1978.

If California cools and grows less food, it looks like higher food prices are in our future.   Good for some I suppose….

And how does Meier sum it up?

That the climate has always changed. It has never been static. In the past it has seen extremes hotter and colder than what we experience today. So change is normal.

The climate hysteria was once amusing to me.  I love wacky science.  But now that Washington appears to be on the cusp of actually acting on this nonsense, I’m a bit worried.  One thing is assured.   Whatever cost benefit analysis that has been done to support government action is rigged in favor of that action.  That’s where the money and power are.

The truth is the net effect of man’s  influence on climate is largely unknown.   I picture a small boy aboard the Titanic with a gavanized bucket, bailing furiously.  By an act of Congress, surely he could have saved the ship?

Even if we did know that the temperature will rise by 3 degrees in the next hundred years, I doubt we could  agree about whether higher temperatures are good or bad.   From what I’ve read, it’s likely to be good for most….

FT.com / US & Canada – US to put conditions on Tarp repayment.

This is an interesting report from the Financial Times.

Strong banks will be allowed to repay bail-out funds they received from the US government but only if such a move passes a test to determine whether it is in the national economic interest, a senior administration official has told the Financial Times.

If true, this is a stunning admission.   And, it should be a warning to us all.  The general will supercedes individual will.  Uncle sam gives you a ‘loan’ and then you are on the hook.

With apologies to Ray Parker Jr., of Ghostbusters fame:

When something’s wrong,
In the neighborhood
Who you gonna call?
A Seal team.

Congratulations to the U.S. Navy (and the President) for managing to free Captain Richard Phillips, who surrendered himself to Somali pirates so that his crew could go free.  Captain Phillips’ courage is inspiring.  The situation in Somalia is dreadful and I suspect there will be even more violence before things get better.  In case you’ve been in a cave here’s the story.

Many of you may not know that the U.S. has a merchant marine academy located in King’s Point, NY.  It operates much like the U.S. Army’s West Point and the U.S. Navy’s Annapolis Academies.  Check it out.

Obama Orders Chevrolet and Dodge Out Of NASCAR Wow!  This needs no commentary.  Simply incredible.

April fool!  It just sounds so pausible!!