Two Weeds Grown in Progressive Soil

Arnold Kling on his blog Econ Log writes:

“There seems to be more awareness now of what I call the two weeds that have grown in Progressive soil: entitlement spending; and compensation of unionized public sector workers. Greece seems to be an object lesson in what can happen if these weeds are left untrimmed for too long.”

I would say “new awareness” on the part of whom? I certainly would like it to be true that there be such new awareness, and in particular on the part of our Congressional and other leaders in Washington, including President Obama.

But I haven’t seen the evidence of it, only heard the voices from the Right, such as that of Kling, and the angry shouts of the Tea Partiers. I haven’t yet heard our leaders in power apply the “object lesson” that is Greece, to California, say, where retired police and firemen in their fifties are being paid annual pensions of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Also, while agreeing with Kling’s point that entitlements and public sector compensations have gone wild I wouldn’t have called them two “weeds” growing in progressive soil.

Because they’re not weeds. Social security, medicare, medicaid do have value and there are few, if any Americans who now would want to tear them from our ground and discard them as weeds

These government programs are rather much more like those “indeterminate” tomato plants sold in the garden sections of Home Depot, Lowes, and other outlets.

These plants, just as these entitlement programs, if not carefully watched and disciplined, will quickly overrun your entire raised bed garden, crowding out everything else.

In any case that does seem to be what Kling’s “weeds” are now doing to our country’s budget, overunning it, and while doing so restricting our ability to address any of the many other more pressing needs that are out there and confronting us and demanding action.

To see the adult in the child…

Here I give you a few bits of wisdom concerning child rearing from a Saturday Essay, The Breeders’ Cup, in the Wall Street Journal of June 19th.

“If you enjoy reading with your children, wonderful. But if you skip the nightly book, you’re not stunting their intelligence, ruining their chances for college or dooming them to a dead-end job.”

“The same goes for watching television, playing sports, eating vegetables, living in the right neighborhood: Your choices have little effect on your kids’ development, so it’s OK to relax.”

“And once you realize that your kids’ future largely rests in their own hands, you can give yourself a guilt-free break.”

And if you’re a grandparent, like I am, I’m sure you’ll join me in saying, “If I had known grandchildren were this much fun I would have had them first.”

So, is the author, Brian Caplan right? Do we really have little or no influence on what our children become? Without going quite as far as he does I would say yes.

The evidence is on his side. What the children become in most cases cannot be attributed to the actions of the parents. Parents, of course, do not believe this and go on being soccer moms and fervid adherents to Sylvan Learning Centers, Kumon, and Suzuki violin lessons.

So if you’re a parent what should you do? Caplan has this right when he says, “If you create a loving and harmonious home for your children, they’ll probably remember it for as long as they live.”

Proof: lim (sin x)/x

This is a Salman Khan 10 minute video from u-tube. Sal has done thousands of them, mostly math and science, and some social science, subjects.

I discovered him when I went back to relearn the Calculus.

Go to the Khan Academy and watch a few of them. If not the Calculus or Linear Algebra perhaps Credit Default Swaps 1 and 2, or Ponzi Schemes. You won’t be disappointed.

Over Hamburgers at Ray’s

Last week BP’s embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, was criticized for attending a yacht race (while, of course, his oil continued to gush into the Gulf waters).

This week, in the picture below, we see President Obama at Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Va.  enjoying a hamburger and fries with President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia.

While the two presidents chatted, clearly enjoying themselves and the burgers while gently readying themselves for the G-20 Summit meeting this weekend in Toronto, wars in the North Caucasus and Afghanistan continued to rage.

Of the three, the millions of barrels of oil spewing into Gulf waters, the fighting verging onto civil war in Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, and the other North Caucasus republics, and in Afghanistan the seemingly inexhaustible Taliban fighters tying down some 100,000 American troops onto bloody, inhospitable lands, while simultaneously  terrorizing the long brutalized (and terrorized) Afghan population, — the oil may well be the least destructive.

In any case the leaders of our world probably do just as well to enjoy themselves, at yacht races and at Ray’s Hell Burger. For there’s probably nothing they can do, no steps they might take, by what, by remaining on the job, —by Tony’s remaining on a BP platform in the Gulf, to improve either these sores of our civilization, or any number of others.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Why did I never hear about this before now? What is it? According to Wickipedia

“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.”

“Metacognitive,” that’s knowing about knowing. People are not aware, all people, of their incompetence. And with all due respect to Steven Weinberg there is and will be no final theory. We’re destined to continue stumbling along, and some of us while doing so thinking that we’re the smart ones.

La Douce France

The French are again on strike. Here they are, in Marseilles, protesting, that which, along with cheese and wine production, they do as well or better than anyone else.

And why are they striking? In order to bring down spiraling budget deficits Sarkozy has proposed raising the retirement age from 60 to 62.

The Unions say additional monies for the pension system should not be taken from their present benefits but rather from new charges (taxes?) on those who are still working. Yes, they did say this.