Considering all the TV watching that Trump does, could the term "boob tube" be more apt?
Thanks to the New York Times, my local newspaper, and many other online newspapers for providing me with a wide variety of information and opinion, far beyond my little corner of the world and far beyond my own biases.
Comment to “John Kelly’s Latest Mission: Controlling the Information Flow to Trump”, New York Times, 2017-08-24.
Showing posts with label bias. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bias. Show all posts
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Thursday, June 20, 2013
If regulation is bad for business, then…
Why are so many breweries opening in Duluth and elsewhere in Minnesota? See "Canoe give me a Bent Paddle". Alcohol production and sale is very highly regulated. Why are so many other small businesses opening, if they don't compete with giant corporations? See "Big corporations hinder little corporations".
This blog entry was inspired by an interview with Niall Ferguson about his book "The Great Degeneration". The interview was by Lauren Lyster "The Daily Ticker" and entitled "The 1.8 Trillion Tax You've Never Heard Of". This huge tax is the supposed cost of all the government regulations. Among other indicators for increased regulations is the increased number of pages in the Federal Regulations.
The premise is if we only cut back on regulations then we'll free up businesses to be more productive. What Ferguson doesn't say is less regulation pushes costs off on everybody else. Yep, if businesses were free to pollute they would be more productive and their prices would go down (or would it be the CEOs salary would go way up). But if they were free to pollute what would our costs be in health? If they were free of regulations in construction then rents would be less (or CEO salary…). But if they were free of construction regulations how many of us would die when their buildings collapsed or caught fire? Triangle Shirtwaist Factory anyone? Bangladesh garment factory? Salvation Army building collapse?
Regulations have increased not because government is eager to have more control. Regulations have increased because we live in an ever increasingly complex and compact society. Regulations increase because we understand more about the harmful effects of many activities and substances on ourselves. Lead in gasoline was seen as beneficial because it reduced engine knock. But then lead was seen as harmful to growing brains. Factories could dump whatever pollutants into nearby streams and lakes, but then people realized that the pollution was killing fish and costing cities more to clean up the water for drinking.
A counter to Niall Ferguson's position can be found at "Niall Ferguson Cites Flawed Evidence to Stoke Regulation Fears", Albert Kleine, Media Matters for America.
This article cites an Office of Management and Budget report of the costs and benefits. Two of my selections from this report follow.
"The estimated annual benefits of major Federal regulations reviewed by OMB from October 1, 2001, to September 30, 2011, for which agencies estimated and monetized both benefits and costs, are in the aggregate between $141 billion and $691 billion, while the estimated annual costs are in the aggregate between $42.4 billion and $66.3 billion. These ranges are reported in 2001 dollars and reflect uncertainty in the benefits and costs of each rule at the time that it was evaluated."
"It is important to emphasize that the large estimated benefits of EPA rules are mostly attributable to the reduction in public exposure to a single air pollutant: fine particulate matter. Of the EPA’s 19 air rules, the rule with the highest estimated benefit is the Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule, issued in 2007, with benefits ranging from $19 billion to $167 billion per year. While the benefits of this rule far exceed the costs, the cost estimate for the 2007 Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule is also the highest at $7.3 billion per year. In addition, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CAIR Replacement Rule (2060-AP50)) has benefits ranging from $20.5 to $59.7 billion and costs of approximately $0.7 billion."
- 2012 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local and Tribal Entities
This blog entry was inspired by an interview with Niall Ferguson about his book "The Great Degeneration". The interview was by Lauren Lyster "The Daily Ticker" and entitled "The 1.8 Trillion Tax You've Never Heard Of". This huge tax is the supposed cost of all the government regulations. Among other indicators for increased regulations is the increased number of pages in the Federal Regulations.
The premise is if we only cut back on regulations then we'll free up businesses to be more productive. What Ferguson doesn't say is less regulation pushes costs off on everybody else. Yep, if businesses were free to pollute they would be more productive and their prices would go down (or would it be the CEOs salary would go way up). But if they were free to pollute what would our costs be in health? If they were free of regulations in construction then rents would be less (or CEO salary…). But if they were free of construction regulations how many of us would die when their buildings collapsed or caught fire? Triangle Shirtwaist Factory anyone? Bangladesh garment factory? Salvation Army building collapse?
Regulations have increased not because government is eager to have more control. Regulations have increased because we live in an ever increasingly complex and compact society. Regulations increase because we understand more about the harmful effects of many activities and substances on ourselves. Lead in gasoline was seen as beneficial because it reduced engine knock. But then lead was seen as harmful to growing brains. Factories could dump whatever pollutants into nearby streams and lakes, but then people realized that the pollution was killing fish and costing cities more to clean up the water for drinking.
A counter to Niall Ferguson's position can be found at "Niall Ferguson Cites Flawed Evidence to Stoke Regulation Fears", Albert Kleine, Media Matters for America.
This article cites an Office of Management and Budget report of the costs and benefits. Two of my selections from this report follow.
"The estimated annual benefits of major Federal regulations reviewed by OMB from October 1, 2001, to September 30, 2011, for which agencies estimated and monetized both benefits and costs, are in the aggregate between $141 billion and $691 billion, while the estimated annual costs are in the aggregate between $42.4 billion and $66.3 billion. These ranges are reported in 2001 dollars and reflect uncertainty in the benefits and costs of each rule at the time that it was evaluated."
"It is important to emphasize that the large estimated benefits of EPA rules are mostly attributable to the reduction in public exposure to a single air pollutant: fine particulate matter. Of the EPA’s 19 air rules, the rule with the highest estimated benefit is the Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule, issued in 2007, with benefits ranging from $19 billion to $167 billion per year. While the benefits of this rule far exceed the costs, the cost estimate for the 2007 Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule is also the highest at $7.3 billion per year. In addition, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CAIR Replacement Rule (2060-AP50)) has benefits ranging from $20.5 to $59.7 billion and costs of approximately $0.7 billion."
- 2012 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local and Tribal Entities
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
GMO producers don't want free markets
Susan K. Finston has written an op-ed piece on GMO products and labeling in many places, including the Fresno Bee, "FDA shouldn't order costly GMO labels". I read it in the Duluth News Tribune was part of one the DNT's Pro and Con pairings. See https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=36&article_id=236256. It was published in many newspapers across the country on 2012-07-07. The DNT published only two letters on her article, both in opposition. One was mine that was titled by the editor as "Lack of information spells doom for free markets – and possibly people". See https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=36&article_id=237319. The text is :
Free markets are disappearing, and it is free-market proponents who are taking them away.
The classic definition of a free market is:
Many buyers and many sellers.
Both buyers and sellers are free to enter and leave the market.
Both buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make an advantageous transaction.
All costs are covered in the transaction; that is, there are no externalities.
In this letter I want to cover a third point: all the information needed. This was ignored by Susan K. Finston in her Pro/Con commentary, “FDA shouldn’t order costly GMO labels just to satisfy scientific illiterates,” which was published in the News Tribune on July 7.
The top story on an online search for “GMO deaths” is about sudden cattle deaths at a small ranch in Texas. However, it was hybrid grass that produced cyanide after a couple of drought years that caused the deaths. If a hybrid grass can do this, how do we know that a GMO grass won’t do the same?
As to be expected, most of the hits led to “sensationalist” sites, those with a cause; they only repeated stories from elsewhere. I added, “Union of Concerned Scientists” to my search and found a much more credible report: “Environmental Effects of Genetically Modified Food Crops — Recent Experiences,” by Margaret Mellon and Jane Rissler, writing for the Union of Concerned Scientists website.
“No major human health problems have emerged in connection with genetically modified food products,” Mellon and Rissler reported. But a company put a Brazil nut gene into soybeans to increase the latter’s nutritional quality. Experiments showed that people allergic to Brazil nuts were also allergic to the altered soybeans.
Some allergic reactions are fatal. Would you rather eat foods you know don’t give you a reaction? Or would you like being surprised by a fatal ingredient? Labeling is important!
Free markets are disappearing, and it is free-market proponents who are taking them away.
The classic definition of a free market is:
Many buyers and many sellers.
Both buyers and sellers are free to enter and leave the market.
Both buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make an advantageous transaction.
All costs are covered in the transaction; that is, there are no externalities.
In this letter I want to cover a third point: all the information needed. This was ignored by Susan K. Finston in her Pro/Con commentary, “FDA shouldn’t order costly GMO labels just to satisfy scientific illiterates,” which was published in the News Tribune on July 7.
The top story on an online search for “GMO deaths” is about sudden cattle deaths at a small ranch in Texas. However, it was hybrid grass that produced cyanide after a couple of drought years that caused the deaths. If a hybrid grass can do this, how do we know that a GMO grass won’t do the same?
As to be expected, most of the hits led to “sensationalist” sites, those with a cause; they only repeated stories from elsewhere. I added, “Union of Concerned Scientists” to my search and found a much more credible report: “Environmental Effects of Genetically Modified Food Crops — Recent Experiences,” by Margaret Mellon and Jane Rissler, writing for the Union of Concerned Scientists website.
“No major human health problems have emerged in connection with genetically modified food products,” Mellon and Rissler reported. But a company put a Brazil nut gene into soybeans to increase the latter’s nutritional quality. Experiments showed that people allergic to Brazil nuts were also allergic to the altered soybeans.
Some allergic reactions are fatal. Would you rather eat foods you know don’t give you a reaction? Or would you like being surprised by a fatal ingredient? Labeling is important!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Polling the self-selected
The political world is filled with polls that are targeted toward audiences that agree with the questions. These polls are generally sent only to those who are predisposed to "positive" answers to the questions. The Democratic National Committee does it. The Republican National Committee does it. News media with a particular slant do it. Political offshoots of all kinds do it.
I generally avoid polls of all kinds, no matter what the source. I don't even like the follow-up calls from businesses with whom I plan to buy again and again.
My Congressional Representative, Chip Cravaack, is one of the worst offenders in the biased presentation of polls. His latest is about "What Would You Cut", a list of three items he would like to cut from the budget - replacing TSA employees with private contractors, dispose of excess baggage scanners, and "Terminate a National Science Foundation program aimed at shaping public opinion on climate change". On the last he writes, "A review of prior grants made by the program shows a repeated pattern of funding activities intended to sway public opinion on a controversial topic about which the facts remain in heated dispute." The controversy is coming from those who ignore the facts and have a lot of money to lose if there is to be a serious mitigation of climate change.
This particular poll is at http://cravaack.house.gov/press-releases/cravaack-what-would-youcut/ as of 2012-05-15. Cravaack's staff will probably reuse this URL for a subsequent poll.
Rather than submit my answers, I sent the following webmail to Rep. Cravaack:
"With regard to your "What would you cut" email and many others, please have a chat with Bill Frenzel on how to communicate with constituents.
Rep. Frenzel wrote facts about what Congress was doing, not what he wanted constituents to agree with.
Each one of your "What would you cut" items makes it very clear what you want constituents to answer.
There are many much larger costs for things that are not really needed but have large constituencies supporting them.
I hope I don't have to tell you what these are; that would tell you what my biases are."
Bill Frenzel was the Representative from the suburbs of Minneapolis. He would be considered a RINO by today's Republicans. He wrote quite interesting newsletters about Congress that hardly ever touted what he was doing.
I generally avoid polls of all kinds, no matter what the source. I don't even like the follow-up calls from businesses with whom I plan to buy again and again.
My Congressional Representative, Chip Cravaack, is one of the worst offenders in the biased presentation of polls. His latest is about "What Would You Cut", a list of three items he would like to cut from the budget - replacing TSA employees with private contractors, dispose of excess baggage scanners, and "Terminate a National Science Foundation program aimed at shaping public opinion on climate change". On the last he writes, "A review of prior grants made by the program shows a repeated pattern of funding activities intended to sway public opinion on a controversial topic about which the facts remain in heated dispute." The controversy is coming from those who ignore the facts and have a lot of money to lose if there is to be a serious mitigation of climate change.
This particular poll is at http://cravaack.house.gov/press-releases/cravaack-what-would-youcut/ as of 2012-05-15. Cravaack's staff will probably reuse this URL for a subsequent poll.
Rather than submit my answers, I sent the following webmail to Rep. Cravaack:
"With regard to your "What would you cut" email and many others, please have a chat with Bill Frenzel on how to communicate with constituents.
Rep. Frenzel wrote facts about what Congress was doing, not what he wanted constituents to agree with.
Each one of your "What would you cut" items makes it very clear what you want constituents to answer.
There are many much larger costs for things that are not really needed but have large constituencies supporting them.
I hope I don't have to tell you what these are; that would tell you what my biases are."
Bill Frenzel was the Representative from the suburbs of Minneapolis. He would be considered a RINO by today's Republicans. He wrote quite interesting newsletters about Congress that hardly ever touted what he was doing.
Friday, November 19, 2010
A couple examples of how some "discourse"
I posted a comment to "American Angst", Jeremy Siegel, Yahoo Finance, 2010-11-17, http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/111333/american-angst, very similar to the webmail I sent to Gail Collins about projecting how some people voted to being what all people wanted, http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/11/republicans-do-not-have-peoples-support.html.
As of yesterday I had two replies. I'll let you judge how germane they are to the issue of voting. I chose not to honor them with a reply.
On vote count for Democratic Senators
Yes, but many of these folks were in cemeteries, so they had little choice.
-----
It was not clear to only those with tin ears.
The message to all parties in the recent election was that YOU WORK FOR US. Start doing what you are suppose do or we will come after you.....elephant, donkey, green or whatever.
-----
What neither poster seems to understand is there are a lot of people with differing views, many not in agreement with theirs. The first demonizes these "others". The second assumes that all the voters have an agenda that is different than that of the politicians. What the second poster doesn't understand is that some people were willing to keep an incumbent in office and some people wanted the incumbent to be replaced. This is true of either party. Some incumbents of both parties were returned to office; some incumbents of both parties were not returned to office. And far too many people didn't even care to cast a vote for or against an incumbent.
As of yesterday I had two replies. I'll let you judge how germane they are to the issue of voting. I chose not to honor them with a reply.
On vote count for Democratic Senators
Yes, but many of these folks were in cemeteries, so they had little choice.
-----
It was not clear to only those with tin ears.
The message to all parties in the recent election was that YOU WORK FOR US. Start doing what you are suppose do or we will come after you.....elephant, donkey, green or whatever.
-----
What neither poster seems to understand is there are a lot of people with differing views, many not in agreement with theirs. The first demonizes these "others". The second assumes that all the voters have an agenda that is different than that of the politicians. What the second poster doesn't understand is that some people were willing to keep an incumbent in office and some people wanted the incumbent to be replaced. This is true of either party. Some incumbents of both parties were returned to office; some incumbents of both parties were not returned to office. And far too many people didn't even care to cast a vote for or against an incumbent.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Lies, damn lies, and headlines
Jana Peterson, editor of the Duluth Budgeteer, wrote a refreshing editorial in this week's issue, "No tolerance for lying". Her editorial addresses the people who expect her to publish their letters even when they make statements that are not true. The best part of it was quoting a note she has hanging over her desk:
Good morning,
Thank you for your editorial “No tolerance for lying”.
I am really disheartened by the number of people who get coverage for their distortions of facts or even creation of falsehoods. I’m even more disheartened that a once honorable party has been all but taken over by such people.
Unfortunately, “lying”, or more appropriately distortion, is practiced by many who have more honorable motives. You yourself did it with “Working to ensure our children are insured”. Yes, too many vulnerable people do not have sufficient resources to pay for health care. But, how many of them currently need health care? By stressing the former, we make the problem more acute than it actually is. Of course, the cases of immense health care expenses are relatively few, but who’s counting when one of them is you (thanks to Bob Gibson’s “Ski Songs”). Kidding aside, shouldn’t we spend more resources addressing the problems of the few rather than a more expensive “one size fits all” approach?
“Lying” also takes the form of the “narrative fallacy”, the connection of facts when no meaningful connection may exist. For example, “Investors drove down stocks today on the latest oil prices”. One, did all investors drive down prices. Two, aren’t those who react daily to “market conditions” traders rather than investors. Three, weren’t there many, many more factors involved in stock price fluctuations than oil prices. Four, did all stock prices drop or only slightly more than fifty percent. Or maybe a majority of stock prices rose, but those that dropped were greater in sum than those that gained. In other words, a simple headline hides important information, which is another form of lying.
An even worse “narrative fallacy” is ascribing the votes of some to all voters. For example, “Massachusetts voters reject Obama health plan”. For more on this, see “The Party of One has capitulated?”,
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/02/party-of-one-has-capitulated.html
I got the term “narrative fallacy” from “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I think it is a must read for all those who wish to think more deeply about the whole process of thinking. It is available at the Duluth Public Library. I bought my copy at Northern Lights Books, and I hope to read it more times than I read “Lord of the Rings” (3).
If you think this rant is suitable for publication, I plan to tie your hands. After I click on send, I will post this to my blog, see below. I think the title will be “Lies, damn lies, and headlines”.
Keep writing. You have some of the attitudes that will make you a “skeptical empiricist”, another term used heavily by Taleb.
"Giving lies equal access to truth is not balanced journalism."I sent her the following email. Since I haven't posted anything for a few days and it took me some time to write, I decided I may as well make it a blog entry. Drat, there goes having hundreds of readers over having a dozen or so readers. Ah, but my blog entry will be available to all for years; my published letter will only be freely available to all for a week.
Good morning,
Thank you for your editorial “No tolerance for lying”.
I am really disheartened by the number of people who get coverage for their distortions of facts or even creation of falsehoods. I’m even more disheartened that a once honorable party has been all but taken over by such people.
Unfortunately, “lying”, or more appropriately distortion, is practiced by many who have more honorable motives. You yourself did it with “Working to ensure our children are insured”. Yes, too many vulnerable people do not have sufficient resources to pay for health care. But, how many of them currently need health care? By stressing the former, we make the problem more acute than it actually is. Of course, the cases of immense health care expenses are relatively few, but who’s counting when one of them is you (thanks to Bob Gibson’s “Ski Songs”). Kidding aside, shouldn’t we spend more resources addressing the problems of the few rather than a more expensive “one size fits all” approach?
“Lying” also takes the form of the “narrative fallacy”, the connection of facts when no meaningful connection may exist. For example, “Investors drove down stocks today on the latest oil prices”. One, did all investors drive down prices. Two, aren’t those who react daily to “market conditions” traders rather than investors. Three, weren’t there many, many more factors involved in stock price fluctuations than oil prices. Four, did all stock prices drop or only slightly more than fifty percent. Or maybe a majority of stock prices rose, but those that dropped were greater in sum than those that gained. In other words, a simple headline hides important information, which is another form of lying.
An even worse “narrative fallacy” is ascribing the votes of some to all voters. For example, “Massachusetts voters reject Obama health plan”. For more on this, see “The Party of One has capitulated?”,
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/02/party-of-one-has-capitulated.html
I got the term “narrative fallacy” from “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I think it is a must read for all those who wish to think more deeply about the whole process of thinking. It is available at the Duluth Public Library. I bought my copy at Northern Lights Books, and I hope to read it more times than I read “Lord of the Rings” (3).
If you think this rant is suitable for publication, I plan to tie your hands. After I click on send, I will post this to my blog, see below. I think the title will be “Lies, damn lies, and headlines”.
Keep writing. You have some of the attitudes that will make you a “skeptical empiricist”, another term used heavily by Taleb.
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