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America is under attack. Literally thousands of people are invading from our exposed southern flank. We must summon great courage to repel this threatening force of . . . oh, wait. It's children. This is perhaps a tipping point in the clustered calamity that is our xenophobic immigration policy, our lack of coherence in dealing with people in need (you can't cry "amnesty creates moral hazard" when the moral hazard is an economic boon), and our inhumane and uneconomic and tyrannical drug war. Luckily, one Grumpy Old Man is here to provide wisdom.

What's the worst low-carbon energy alternative? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind . . .

Russ Roberts and Mike Munger discuss many steps forward, while Megan McArdle laments one step back.

This is a subtle, (should be) obvious, and great point by Art Carden on the minimum wage debate. If you don't get this, you are truly living in economic, ivory tower fantasy land.

Sticking with Art, here is his attempt at Bryan Caplan's challenge to pen how conservatives are often quite authoritarian. Sex, drugs, rock & roll, war, and so much more. Bryan made the case that liberals (more appropriately named progressives) are quite authoritarian. I strongly agree with both, and one thing that stands out to me is how much more blatant conservatives tend to be in their acts of authoritarianism.

Sticking with art of a different sort, Sumner makes two excellent points about the city of Detroit's apparent art wealth--namely that Detroit can dig out some by selling some assets and that it is the reasonable thing we should expect but some find it hard to apply this logic when dealing with a government entity.

Investing Is Not A Sport

Investing using the sports mindset will leave you saying, "I've made a huge mistake." And it doesn't just take something as colossal as buying real estate in Iraq circa 2002. It is little decisions made all along the way. Examples:

• Buying a stock and then watching its day-by-day or even minute-by-minute performance. This includes trying to explain every fluctuation in price. Most of what goes on over short periods is random noise. This is actually true of sports as well, but it is part of the allure of sports. However, following your investments' gyrations will lead to poor decision making and potentially heart failure.
• Falling in love with a stock. You aren't a fan, you're an investor. You're making an educated evaluation of the asset's value. She's a beauty, but don't fall in love. She's one in a million and there are bound to be plenty better. 
• Thinking that you "obviously" should have purchased some asset that recently had a great run. There is nothing obvious before the fact in investing. That "couldn't miss" real estate deal undoubtedly had tremendous downside risk that just didn't happen to play out. Remember, the reason you're even thinking about it is because it happened to be a winner. "If only I'd had money back circa 2002-03, I would have gobbled up Apple stock." Yeah, Apple's comeback was about as obvious back then as the 2004 Red Sox's comeback against the Yankees in the ALCS right before Big Papi stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the 12th. In hindsight the winning outcome seems logical and likely because it is the winner. We don't have to fully create the narrative as to how it could come to be. Reality has done that for us, but there were many, many other possible outcomes. Often some of these were individually more likely than the actual outcome. 
• Getting wrapped up in performance rather than process. We choose teams and individuals to root for based on a lot of reasons many of which are based on past performance. But successful past performance in investing means buying yesterday's winners--a strategy that doesn't correlate very well with future investing success. Good investing is about finding a good process. That process should generate future investing success.
• Talking yourself into taking a lot more risk than you should simply because the risk started small. Remember this amazing lucky break cum colossal mistake? You are never "playing with house money". 
• As a related point, if you find yourself playing in the equivalent of the championship game, realize that you are mistaken. Investing doesn't work that way. You don't accrue your way into a large reward/low risk situation. Investing is about choosing a risk/reward mix over the long term.
• Sitting a turbulent/uncertain/rough period out on the sidelines. There are no sidelines in investing. Cash is an asset. The mattress, safe deposit box, and interest-free checking account are all examples of investments--albeit, very poorly performing ones. The game is still going on whether you are playing a highly active role or trying to avoid all volatility. Inflation is constantly trying to eat away at the value of your net worth. And ALL periods are turbulent, uncertain, and rough. 

Perhaps golf offers the closest analogy to investing: your performance is largely independent of others' performances, your choices imply the risk/reward mixture (laying up versus going for the green), there is a cumulative effect between actions, the course you choose to play should be dictated by your abilities and your knowledge of the course will affect your performance, about the best you can hope for is a little better than "par", discipline is more rewarded than ability, etc. But even this analogy runs into strong limitations. Investing is always continuously cumulative. You never get to start a new round or new hole. Knowing how to successfully invest relies more heavily on learned skill than raw ability. 

Highly Linkable

Terry Anderson is thinking sensibly about climate change. (HT: Don Boudreaux)

Speaking of Don Boudreaux, he has a fantastic new series of videos out as part of MRUniversity's "Everyday Economics" series. I highly recommend these short, extremely well-made videos.

Steve Landsburg points out an amazing physical-world derivation of pi. Here is the full paper. I don't suggest you pull this little nugget out the next time you're gambling, Eddie, gambling money on pool games, but it is pretty cool. Aside from being impressed by this myself, I think it demonstrates something about political economy. It is understandable that because brilliant people can discover truths like this other people believe brilliant people can discover the truths about how to govern other (not-so-brilliant) people's lives.

Two from Megan McArdle: In the first she offers an explanation as to why so many people are saving too little (AKA, building too much personal debt). In the second she talks about the social media frenzy surrounding the Supreme Courts' Hobby Lobby decision and how the calls of BOYCOTT! are very unlikely to actually succeed. This supports a thesis I have had about how the world has changed. To wit: Cults and cult leaders are less likely today while riots are more likely. Negative, tipping-point events can be blown out of portion and escalated more easily today, but they're not as long-lasting and sustainable as they were in the past. In the past information restriction, a critical tool of the cult, was much more easily accomplished. Hence, it is easier to incite a mob, but harder to inspire a movement.

I plan on reading the new book The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters and this recent EconTalk encouraged my excitement for it. But John Tamny at Forbes raises a few negatively critical points that are worth considering.

Vintage Photos:
Moscow in 1968
Street scenes of NYC in the 60s and 70s
More street scenes of NYC in the 70s
Other color photos of NYC in the 70s
Besides being very cool to look back at these places and people in the past, there is something I notice--more evidence against the Great Stagnation theory. For one we can see some stark differences between life back then and modern life in these cities. The second is a bit more subtle. In the previous era the USSR could appear to compete with the USA economically (e.g., having a large number of cars, the world's biggest X, etc.). In the current era the shortcomings are too obvious. Life today in the USA is filled with so many creature comforts available to so many of us, that in the comparison we rightfully consider Moscow as the capital of a undeveloped economy.

Communication Breakdown

I have been thinking lately about steps one can take to advance the cause of liberty. Early July is an appropriate time for this type of thinking, but there is never a wrong time. I'm thinking about small steps rather than a stairway to heaven, and it probably has to begin with how we converse with those we seek or should be seeking to win over.

With a nod to Arnold Kling's Three Languages of Politics, most of our efforts to communicate with our ideological adversaries float like a lead balloon. Libertarian arguments often strike conservatives and progressives as poison by reinforcing their respective fears of barbarism and oppression. Allow me to propose some antidotes. Please note that these are antidotes with limitations. The conservative so afflicted as to be a moral crusader and the progressive so burdened as to be against private property are beyond this proposal's reach.

For conservatives the narrative needs to focus on responsibility. We should show how people should be treated as responsible to make decisions for themselves regarding issues like drug use, gambling, and marriage. The responsibility angle already works for conservatives when considering issues like welfare--an able-bodied person should be ultimately responsible for his own well being and individuals should be responsible for charity. We can extend that framework to include other issues. An adult should have the responsibility to decide for himself what chemicals to put in his body, when to engage in games of chance, and who to partner with in marriage.

For progressives the narrative needs to focus on empowerment. We should show how people should be empowered to have more choice in where to send their kids to school, greater flexibility in the terms of their employment, and more options in how to save for retirement. Specifically, we need to show how our favored policy responses will help the most vulnerable.

While these techniques will not work on all issues (at least not in isolation), they may well advance the effort on many important issues.

cross posted at Liberty.me

WWCF: 3-D Immersion TV or Live Wallpaper?

Which will come first?

3-D Immersion TV

or

"Live" Wallpaper

Let me start by defining some terms. 3-D immersion TV means a television experience that transcends the current "I am watching something projected before me" to be more "I am in the middle of something occurring around me". I don't know exactly what it would look like other than think of the difference between watching a stage performance of Les Miserables on television versus actually being at the performance seated down front. Now imagine stepping on stage. 

The 3-D immersion experience (3-D I-TV) would have the action truly happening about you rather than just with depth in front of you. Perhaps it would be holographic from a device(s) located on the ceiling and floor. I think it will start with sports and then reality shows with scripted programs in large part to follow. I imagine multiple camera locations/angles such that watching the football game from home will be much like having the best seats in the house where your perspective changes as the action dictates. Imagine multiple Skycams where perhaps you choose your vantage point following the action as best suits you. There would be little worry about an important part of the play going out of screenshot--just turn your head, and you can watch the quarterback getting late-hit as the ball sails down field. 

As for "live" wallpaper (Live-Walls), this is a combination of two ideas I've had for a very long time. When I was young, I dreamed of a spherical room you could step into and suddenly be looking at a 360' x 360' view of some impressive landscape like the Grand Canyon. The camera system driving this video would be mounted on a tall, thin tower. Holding onto this dream, I was then influenced from the early Web's webcams. Molding my concept into a more practical form, I now want walls that will project whatever desirable vista I would like to surround myself with: the beach in Hawaii, Broadway in NYC, the Champs-Élysées, etc. 

Imagine what this technology does for the elderly trapped in their hospital/nursing home/prisons. Imagine how this can transform schools. Imagine how much more enjoyable your current, drab office would be. Sure this will put Big Picture Frame out of business, but the rest of us will be Soarin' Over California from our living rooms. 

The limiting factor for 3-D I-TV is probably technological, but we are getting closer and closer to holograms. The limiting factor for Live-Walls is probably more economical related to the business plan--getting to a critical mass to make the investment using existing technology worthwhile (e.g., using just flat-screen HDTVs). The ultimate desire to have entire walls that act as video screens puts technology as an additional hurdle for Live-Walls. 

I think the critical point for which has come first will be once one of these technologies is common in middle-class homes. The first may seem to face more obstacles, but this might be what "saves" TV. Imagine shopping from your home in a 3-D environment. Imagine the demand for sports and hence sports advertising. The business case for 3-D I-TV may drive its advancement. Of course there is a third possibility: that these two ideas converge in one large step toward Nozick's Experience Machine.

My guess is Live-Walls is coming first and will be within the next 10 years. 3-D I-TV follows within 5 years of Live-Walls' critical mass achievement.

What's On My DVR And On My Netflix List:

I've made a lot of progress against the ever-rising tide of television programming that beckons, but so much more work remains to be done.

If you remember from my previous post, I was ranking the comedic shows I was watching. Not much changed in the rankings as this past season progressed. "HIMYM" disappointingly but expectantly continued its slumping trend right up to the bitter end. I was an early predictor that the mother was dead. I was wrong about Ted and Robin getting together for good. I was right that it was evident the skill of the writers had run out preventing them from pulling off that ending.

On a bright note Jeff Winger did indeed right the ship of "Community"--another prediction I nailed. I think this show is basically back to original form even with the cast changes. That is an impressive feat.

"New Girl" is still probably my top show. I am equally impressed at how this show is integrating new characters.

"Louie" is amazing. This show is arguably one of the best dramas on TV as well as best comedies. Charles Grodin's appearances are apropos the quality of this show. This scene in particular was great writing--"Misery is wasted on the miserable".

Now, to the point of the post. My current to-watch list includes in no particular order:

• "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" - I could watch these conversations go on for hours. Each episode is too short.
• "The Middle" - Kept passing by this one. Need a marathon to catch up.
• "The Simpsons" & "Family Guy" & "Futurama"- I list these together since I have to watch them on my own sans wife. 
• "The Americans" - Still on the list. Still not started.
• "The Goldbergs" 
• "Breaking Bad" - If nothing else, doing it to keep up with the rest of society.
• "House of Cards" - Ditto
• "Mad Men" - Going back to fill in the gaps in my viewership. 

Notably off the list is "Downton Abbey". Remember, I found religion (seventh item down). 

Highly Linkable

My finger painting never looked quite this good.

I like this framework comparing networks to hierarchies. I find it captures something very true. I'll have more to say on it once I get around to starting a new meme on the blog which I will call Dimension Analysis. (HT: Arnold Kling)

Cliff Asness makes the case for HFT and indicates how some of the "facts" and "reasoning" about it might not be quite so factual or reasonable.

David Bernstein weighs in on an on-going discussion over at The Volokh Conspiracy about how legal extremist (and ridiculous) the Obama Administration has been.

Sumner argues that the American system is rigged to favor the rich. I think this is part of a natural evolution and hope to expand on this thought in an upcoming post.

The O'Bannon v. NCAA trial has ended. Michael McCann has a good summary of how the last day turned a bit in the NCAA's favor. Anyway you look at it, though, the NCAA is in a prolonged process much like a divorce where there is no winning--only degrees of losing. They have all but lost the moral/ethical argument. They have been forced to admit to being a cartel (but a good one, not like any of those other bad cartels). Like I tweeted to McCann,

@McCannSportsLaw NCAA:"If we pay players what they're worth, fans will suffer." --May win O'Bannon, but doesn't pass ethics sniff test.
— Steve Winkler (@swinkler78) June 28, 2014

They can't have it both ways in either an ethical or legal sense: the NCAA is either a consumer-harming monopolist or a labor-harming monopsonist (or both, they can fail to have it both ways).

In a different realm of sports meets law meets consumer demand, it only surprises me that this has taken until now to come about. I expect a lot more up and through a tipping point. Poor guy . . .

PS. I've made many promises in this post. I hope I can live up to them.