Positive Iraq Excerpts

I've generally avoided posting many links or excerpts regarding Iraq as I'd assumed everybody has seen more than enough of them - both negative and positive (I certainly have). I've been told that may not be the case so I will post some positive ones over the next few weeks as I encounter them.

This one is from the May 25, 2004, NY Post:

The fact is that the news from the battlefield in Iraq these past five or six days has been remarkably good. The forces commanded and directed by the thug-cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are on the run or nearly destroyed in three different cities.

Sadr's uprising two months ago was the moment at which even passionate supporters of the war and proponents of the success in achieving civil order began to grow terrified that somehow the United States might actually lose in Iraq. So shouldn't the fact that we're routing him be grounds for some optimism?

It's very meaningful that other Shiite clerics in the city of Najaf now feel safe enough to issue what must be judged an astounding denunciation of Sadr in the past few days.

As reported on the brilliant Healing Iraq blog, Najaf clerics laid the blame for the entry of U.S. forces into that holy city: "It is the movement of Sayyid Muqtada [Sadr] that has encouraged the occupiers to cross the red lines," the senior clerics in Najaf wrote. "And it is clear that the organization of Sayyid Muqtada - and whoever follows the Sadrist movement - were the first to violate the sanctity of" the city's holiest shrine.

The Data Versus the Story

Jim writes:

I'm beginning to suspect that Bret does not believe anything unless it can be reduced to an equation.

That's true in some cases. For example, consider the article Jim cites about the Iraq war generating more radicalized Muslims. I can find thousands of articles in mainstream magazines and other media that also put forth this opinion in a compelling and convincing manner. However, I can also find thousands of articles in mainstream magazines and other media (and I'm sure Jim's aware of them) that put forth the exact opposite opinion in an equally (to me) compelling and convincing manner. In such a case as this, I choose not to form an opinion until considerably more data comes in, which, in this case, will take years or even decades. Especially since these mainstream media have reported all kinds of stuff that turn out not to be true. One prison scandal does not make or break a war effort. It is only one data point.

Tidbits About Nationalized Healthcare in other Countries

Nationalized healthcare can be beneficial but can also be expensive. France is having problems according to this:

France offers its citizens the best healthcare in the world, and it isn't only the French who will tell you so. The World Health Organization ranks France at the top of its list.

The trouble is, the country cannot afford it. The French public health insurance scheme is heading for a $15.5 billion deficit this year, threatening to bankrupt the system.

Canada's healthcare system is also having some difficulties:

Prince Edward Island Premier Pat Binns warned, "our current system is not sustainable, the principles of the Canada Health Act are at risk, and health care as we know it will not survive the end of the decade."

I really don't know that much about it, but Jim mentioned he was interested in understanding healthcare and these articles struck me as interesting.

What Goodwill?

A common theme from the Bush hating portion of the populous is that under Bush we've squandered goodwill (here, for example) or that Bush's actions have damaged our reputation. The actions that have alledgedly caused the squandering or reputation reduction are always listed (e.g., invading Iraq, not ratifying Kyoto, etc.), but never the mechanism, nor the evidence that our reputation was particularly high in the first place, nor any evidence that our reputation is lower now. For example, I've never seen a worldwide poll conducted that shows that a significant majority of the six billion people on this planet have significantly less respect for a majority of American attributes today than they did, say, five years ago.

But I also never paid it much attention since the goodwill or reputation thing seemed to be a touchy feely sort of thing that didn't have much intrinsic value. In other words, all other things being equal, I'd just as soon people around the globe feel goodwill towards us, but if they don't, so be it.

But Jim recently wrote:

The U.S.'s reputation in the world is perhaps the lowest it has ever been, seriously inhibiting our ability to lead anything globally.

So now I have something more concrete beyond the touchy feely realm. Our reputation is low, and, as a result, it's inhibiting our ability to lead. Now I'm curious. What sorts of things are we now unable to accomplish (that we want to accomplish) because we can't lead because our reputation is lower than it was that we would have been able to accomplish five years ago when our reputation was higher? Things that we can still accomplish but at a higher cost because of the lowered reputation also count.

Personal Bankruptcy

As Jim has pointed out, personal bankruptcies hit record numbers in 2002 and looked poised to do so in 2003. Given that our population increases every year, that's not surprising. Indeed, it wouldn't be surprising if the number of personal bankruptcies set a new record every year. It has no real meaning by itself.

Note that the bankruptcy rate (e.g. bankruptcies per thousand people) doesn't set new records every year. There was a significant increase in the rate during the Clinton years, but that seems to have largely leveled off now. There was also a bit of an uptick during this last recession, but that's typical and also not surprising.

Who loses when someone declares bankruptcy? Each of the players involved has different perspectives and the surprising answer is that from their respective perspectives, nobody loses.

Society and the economy as a whole don't lose. The same assets and wealth exist the instant before and the instant after bankruptcy. It's just redistributed. In fact, society gains because the burden of debt isn't as heavy and stressful to people so they can be more entreprenuerial and live closer to the edge which on average can be argued to allow them to live fuller, more interesting lives.

The party filing bankruptcy doesn't lose. That's why they filed for bankruptcy. Since their debt is erased, their net worth increases when they become bankrupt. Sure, there's significant disruption to their lives, but they were able to enjoy living significantly beyond their means, possibly for many years. After the bankruptcy, they can usually even still get credit, though on worse terms.

So that leaves the lenders. Lenders look at their aggregate portfolio. They have sophisticated statistical tools that predict bankruptcy rates for different classes of borrowers and set their rates accordingly. Some lenders actually court higher risk borrowers because they can charge an interest premium. So from their perspective, the bankruptcies were expected and paid for out of the larger pool of borrowers.

So society wins, the party filing bankruptcy wins, and the lenders win overall. What a deal!

Can You Own a Number?

I hereby copyright the number 2. No, you say? 2 is already in the public domain? Okay, how about 3? 4? 5? Okay how about:

15877575984212609504763115756706965291501878261851534087635
64891832003676869799297884259172109327688002986001480035883
23693523357010415077790251707695283137900002973952959101864
23581702643871648624628622998187372047371355120329162104057
208453097857559009117949551169826542064483858232069340889350149?

This number possibly has never been printed before. Do I own it now? By copyright law for the next 120 years?

Turns out this integer was generated by the expression 3⁶²⁵ (and then subject to double precision floating point roundoff error so it's not exact). And, of course, 625 is 5⁴. If I own the above big integer number, do I also own the expression 3⁶²⁵? And how about 3? 625? Subexpressions such as 5⁴?

Every integer can be generated by an infinite number of expressions containing all of the other integers. If I own the big integer above and all ways of generating it and the relevant subexpressions and integers, I own all of the integers. If I only own the integer but not all expressions and subexpressions that could possibly generate that integer, then my copyright protection is much less useful. In that case, anybody could copy a few numbers that could then be used to generate my number.

The contents of a CD or DVD is nothing more than a number. To be sure, it's usually a very large number, with possibly billions of digits. Somebody copyrights it and owns that number and every possible subsequence of that number as long as the subsequence is large enough to be deemed unique. And they apparently own every possible expression for generating that number as well. Otherwise, Napster could have simply created three different numbers for each CD, people could have downloaded those three numbers, and Napster would have done absolutely nothing illegally. If, after downloading the three other numbers, a user regenerated the copyrighted number, they would have violated copyright law, but not Napster. But if Napster can have the three numbers (which everyone knows full well can be used to generate the original number), Napster might as well be able to copy the original number as well.

So, we have a paradox here. Either a copyright holder owns all numbers, or he has virtually no protection.

I think that copyright should apply only to the number when it is presented to a medium that converts the number into something physical. In otherwords, if I have the number that represents Madonna's latest album on my computer (and I haven't paid for it), or even on a CD, it should not be a violation of copyright unless and until I cause that number to be played so that someone can hear it. I think this is the only approach to copyright that makes sense.

Crisis

I've noticed that Jim uses the word "crisis" a lot more than I do in the posts on this Blog (and comments). Jim has used it 15 times, six times for Bret (but 5 of those were quoting or responding to Jim), and Howie once.

I'm wondering if it's just coincidence, reflects overall pessimism/optimism, reflects an affinity for the word, or is based on a definitional difference. I have a hunch it's just a definitional difference.

I would say that we haven't really had an economic crisis in this country since the Great Depression and would like to know what Jim considers to be a crisis.

Must an economic contraction be at least 2%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 50%, or 80% to pass the threshold for an economic crisis?

Must the unemployment rate exceed 6%, 8%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 40%, or 60% to be called a crisis?

Or is there any other way the concept of economic crisis can be related to numbers?

I know, I'm a numbers guy and Jim is a story guy, but try to speak my language so I can better understand what a crisis is (in the economic sense). Or is this a case of not being able to define it, but you'll know it when you see one?

New Blogger Help

Anybody have any idea how to get the post window to wrap the text in this new counfounded blogger post window? How annoying!

April Jobs Report: It’s All Good

The April Jobs Report shows more good economic news:

On its face, the April jobs report released today by the Labor Department looks good, but the details look even better. Job growth was far above expectations in both the payroll and the household surveys, the rate of unemployment dropped to 5.6 percent, hourly earnings grew by 0.3 percent, and, best of all, the number of people suffering long-duration unemployment declined by hundreds of thousands. This is the first time in years that the labor markets show universally positive gains in every area—job growth, wages, and hours—in almost all sectors and across all demographics. The U.S. economy is moving from recovery into a self-sustaining expansion.

Payroll employment jumped by 288,000 workers in April, the second straight month of strong employment gains. The data also show that the number of working Americans is at an all-time high of 138.57 million, according to the household survey...

Not bad, given that Bush has been characterized by certain economists as the worst President for the economy since Herbert Hoover.

Senator Seeks Gods Resignation

This must be a misprint, but I found it funny:

Once those people are identified, Biden said, Bush must "demand the resignations for whoever is involved in this policy, and that includes Lord God Almighty himself."

Sorry God, you're fired!!!

Victor Davis Hanson

In today's opinion journal, Mr. Hanson has an excellent summary of the hawkish right's perspective. I'm not pointing to this article because I agree with its premises, or because I expect anyone else reading this blog will agree, but because I think that many people do agree with the article's contents, and it's clear why someone who did agree would then be supportive of Bush and his foreign policies.

Hypershapes

Here's a new saying to try:

"It's better than a badly angled million dimensional hypercube in the eye."

I'll bet you never heard that particularly nerdly variation of the "sharp stick in the eye" saying before.

Hypercubes are nasty things. Consider a unit-square. Each of the sides is one half unit from the center. However, the corners are farther from the center than the sides: about 1.4 times as far. The corners of a cube are even farther relative to the sides: about 1.7 times as far. For a four dimensional hypercube the ratio is 2.0.

For a million dimensional hypercube, the ratio is 1000. What this means is that if you take a 3 dimensional projection of the hypercube tilted at just the wrong set of angles, you can get one really nasty, spikey shape with some points coming 1000 times farther out from the center than others. Let's just say you wouldn't want to sit on one by mistake. If this blog supported pictures, I'd post the shapes here for lower dimensional hypercubes, so you could see what I mean, but I can't, so I won't.

One last thing about hypercubes. The number of vertices is 2 ^N where N is the number of dimensions. For a 1000 dimensional hypercube, there are far more vertices than subatomic particles in the universe.

Hyperspheres are as sexy as hypercubes are nasty. They are wonderfully smooth everywhere. Just as a sphere is more smooth and sexy than a circle, a 4 dimensional hypersphere is even sexier than either of those. An infinite dimensional hypersphere is infinitely sexy. You just want to touch one. It makes me drool just thinking about it. Well, maybe not, but you get the idea.

I know what you're thinking now that you've read the above, admittedly rather off-the-wall, paragraphs. Either Bret has lost his hyper-marbles completely, or has just jumped off the nerdly deep end. Have no fear, there's method to my madness. I'm going to write, over the next couple of years, a series of posts describing everything from Marxism to Bushisms as interactions of vectors in high dimensional hyperspaces. I'll try to introduce the concepts in hyper-byte sized chunks. Bear with me, as it will take a while to get to the meat. The meat is not necessarily useful, but it is (I think) interesting.

Borrowing Forever

Suppose I were to keep a diary. And suppose that for every two days I live, I write about one day of my life in my diary. Then, when I die, I will have written about one-half of my life.

Suppose an immortal deity were to keep a diary and also takes two days to write about each day of his existence. How much of his life will he end up chronicling? All of it! Because he will write about each day N on days 2N and 2N+1. There are no days that he won't write about.

The difference between the time limited and the forever applies to borrowing as well. If I borrow more than I pay off every year of my life, when I die there will be, by definition, unpaid debt that will never be paid and at that point my estate would be bankrupt (if not before). However, it's not quite the same for a government. If the U.S. government borrowed four percent of GDP each year forever, and the U.S. economy grew four percent each year, also forever, would the total government debt:

(a) Spiral out of control causing the government to go bankrupt; or
(b) Asymptotically approach 1.04 times GDP and level off?

The answer is (b). In other words, the government can borrow forever, and as long as there is some growth, the total debt as a fraction of GDP will approach some constant level. 1.04 times GDP might be a bit high, but if the deficit were only 2% on average, the total debt level would be 0.52 times GDP, a pretty manageable value. Higher growth reduces the level further. Inflation (i.e., higher nominal growth) reduces it further.

Indeed, that is why Social Security and Medicare dwarf deficits when considering future government liabilities. As long as there's growth, deficits today matter little in 50 years.

Also, even this year's deficit doesn't look like it will be as bad as first expected. According to the Washington Post, Federal Deficit Likely to Narrow by $100 Billion:

Smaller-than-expected tax refunds and rising individual tax receipts will pare back federal borrowing significantly for the first half of this year and could reduce the $521 billion deficit projected for the fiscal year by as much as $100 billion, Treasury and congressional budget officials said yesterday...

U.S. government deficits are way down on my list of worries at the moment.