Hopefully Anonymous

Brain Droppings Sunday February 15, 2009

1. I'm of course happy that Gregg withdrew from Commerce Secretary nomination. Now I hope Obama appoints someone with domain and general competency to manage the large, diverse, quant-heavy bureacracy that is Commerce Dept. President of a large research university or governor of a reasonably large population state would probably be perfect: it's the closest I can think of to managing a department that has Census and NOAA, among others, in it.

2. I'm not wild about Sebilius as HHS head, because I think Obama works to hard to subordinate potential rivals (Clinton, Richardson, Napolitano) in filling these slots, rather than pick the most qualified -although both is preferable to picking poorly qualified buddies like Daschle. As I posted before, I would prefer the Public Health head of a large population state, or an undersecretary or regional director from a recent past administration. Still, Sebelius is a huge improvement on a Daschle or a Gregg -she's actually managed a fairly large bureacracy, and has decent intellectual credentials (JD -harvard, MPA U Kansas, I beleive). Also, in an original star trek kind of symbolism, I like the idea aesthetically of the HHS director coming from something closer to the health and human services sciences. It's not like (to my knowledge) Sebelius was even a health and/or human services policy specialist prior to becoming a governor. Still, I think she meets the threshhold competency minimum -although she's not close to the archetype of the perfect nominee for the job. That's why I suspect subordinated potential rivals is putting the thumb heavily on the Obama scale for her.

Brain Droppings Thursday February 13, 2009

Obama was the 105th President of the Harvard Law Review.
As such, he is by some measures the most intellectually credentialed president we've ever had.
(Incidentally, I enjoyed one commenter in Will Wilkinson's blog dissing Leiter in a thread as a "credentialist". I'm a bit of a credentialist too, although I do put empiricism above credentialism a heuristic for determing competent leaders.)
So who should come next as presidents after Obama? As I've blogged earlier, I think governor of a large population state is probably the best prior-job credential for President. But how about academic credentials? I like President of Harvard Law Review as part of the portfolio: it shows the highest level of legal literacy combined with the ability to deferred to as a leader by others of the highest level of legal literacy (it's an elected position, and unlike Senate Majority Leader or bar association president, it does tend to go to one of the most talented of the cohort rather than the most nonthreateningly average in ability).

Here's people that the past would indicate would be statistically unlikely to run for president or even governor, but should probably be encouraged to go that direction if we want to improve our public administrative talent:

Post Obama Presidents of Harvard Law Review (106th-122nd Presidents)
1. 106th (1992-1993) ?
2. 107th (1993-1994) ?
3. 108th (1994-1995) ?
4. 109th (1995-1996) ?
5. 110th (1996-1997) ?
6. 111th (1997-1998) ?
7. 112th (1998-1999) Katherine Mayer Christensen, 25, a native of Guymon, Okla., as its 112th president
8. 113th (1999-2000) Michael Leiter, magna cum laude, Class of 2000, former naval flight officer, extensive intelligence experience, in Obama administration
9. 114th (2000-2001) Anne K. Small
10. 115th (2001-2002) Matthew Hellman, Class of 2002, 24 years old when became President (31 years old today, 35 years old in 2012, 39 years old in 2016)
11. 116th (2002-2003) Bert I. Huang
12. 117th (2003-2004) Daniel B. Kirschner, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law
13. 118th (2004-2005) Thiru Vignarajah
14. 119th (2005-2006) Brian Fletcher, after graduation clerked with Judge Merrick Garland of Court of Appeals, District of Columbia
15. 120th (2006-2007) Aileen McGrath
16. 121st (2007-2008) Andrew Manuel Crespo, from Monroe, New York, Harvard College undergrad, first Hispanic President of Harvard Law Review
17. 122nd (2008-2009) Robert Allen, Sears Prize Winner, High School Debate Champion, "Best Senior Thesis" Prize in college, from Buckhead, Georgia, majored in economics at Emory University, graduated Phi Beta Kappa,  graduated from Buckhead Academy for high school

I'm going to try to database more information about these harvard law review presidents, and how more of them can be persuaded or incentivized to pursue career paths leading to the presidency.

Also, what are peer intellectual credentials? I'm thinking they may include valedictorian from Harvard or Princeton's MPA program, and valedictorian from elite large population state law schools such as Boalt (Berkeley), UCLA, UTexas, UFlorida, and since NYC only has elite private law schools, NYU or Columbia.
Same with elite state MPA programs (probably pretty much the same institutions).

I'm going to try to start databasing these individuals.

Also, one can think of a few relatively convenient ways Obama (and these folks) could've improved their resume and training for governing.
1. National guard JAG for a large population state (similar to Joe Biden's son did for the tiny state of Delaware).
2. A pH.D. in (macro)economics (perhaps not so convenient, but I think would've taken about the same effort for Obama as the years he spent at the civil rights firm, and could be done in conjunction with teaching constitutional law serving in the national guard, and interning at the legal or economic departments of a large population state.
3. learning two other widely used international languages from different regions. A relatively cheap way to signal preparedness for the foreign policy aspect of being president.

#2 may be the highest barrier for someone on this list to achieve, but #1 and 3 seem pretty low cost. To help it, it would be nice to see JAG develop an honors program similar to the Justice Dept and the SEC's honors programs, and the White House Fellows program. A program prestigious enough and with interesting enough work to attract elite, ambitious havard law latin honors types.

Bleg, if you can help me fill in gaps on the harvard law review presidents (post-Obama) list, please do so. If you are on the list, feel free to contact me for further (and personally tailored) brainstorming.

Brain Droppings Wednesday February 11, 2009

Probably fairly old, outdated musings. been sitting around in my  notepad for a few days. I'll be busy the next few weeks, don't expect to post much:

1. Very interesting post on Hazlitt, his critics, and the critics of his critics by Professor Caplan:

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/02/blocks_intro_to.html

2.

Kling returns (in my opinion) to shrill middle brow bumper stickerism. Too bad, his economic explanations are great.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/02/who_is_advising.html#comments

3.

I'm no expert, but I intuit here that Kling is being a useful critic rather than engaging in shrill bumper stickerism. I hope its not just that I like his language, using terms such as "folk marxism". I'd love to be part of an Ariely type experiment to see the degree to which I'm likely to swallow bullshit and be skeptical of best empiricism based solely on stylistic grounds.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/02/morning_comment_11.html

4. Stop making your CV solely a PDF on your academic websites. make it html too, to lower barriers to access.

5. I think the best argument for a libertarian approach (or the one I'd feel most confident about with my non-expert knowledge about macro) is simply that we tried a more keynsian approach last time around, and all other big economies are going keynsian. The only way to do diversified experimentation at the macro level is to change strategy with each new depression.

But, by this argument, there's also a strong case for trying a keynsian approach without tarriffs, to help tease out the effects of those two policies.

6. Interesting post by Prof. Henderson, who usually annoys me:

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/02/barro_interview.html

7. Seems to me like a great post from Prof. Kling:

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/02/morning_reading_6.html

8.

I think it’s extremely legitimate for Barro to criticize Krugman on the topic of macroeconomics, if Krugman isn’t a macroeconomist. I don’t know why international trade is considered different than macroeconomics, but I note that Krugman doesn’t appear on this list and Barro appears near the top:

http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.mac.html#authors

The Romers, Bernanke, and Mankiw are some other names on the list active in the public stimulus discussion. I don’t know what it means that I don’t see Feldstein, Summers, or Volcker among the top 90 -are they not macroeconomists? Did they just not submit their name to the list?

If Krugman is the equivalent of the world’s leading neurosurgeon commenting on the best way to do a heart and lung transplant, he should be called out on that -which I think is how I think Barro was attempting to frame him.

Anyway, I think the most important thing for a leader to do now is assess and build best expert consensus on practically achievable course of action. Macroeconomists with expertise on stimulus-related stuff: a great population to community organize right now.

8. Roger, it's not my position that the stimulus bill be stopped. I'm agnostic on the stimulus bill, and would rather defer on that decision to expert consensus. It seems unecessary to me to pass the full $1 trillion all at once. Even if we approved it roughly in thirds, with the best ideas passed this month and the other 2/3 held for more substantive deliberation and analysis, to be passed in each subsequent month. If the expert consensus truly says "rush" then I'll support that too, against my own intuitions.

9. Jonathon Lehrer blog? (neuroscience of decision making)

10. Macroeconomist of Christina Romer and higher (by this website's rankings):

Top Macroeconomists:

http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.mac.html#authors

1. 2.6 M Hashem Pesaran 
http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/faculty/pesaran/
2. 3.37 Olivier Blanchard
http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/blanchar/index.htm
3. 3.86 Michael Woodford
http://www.columbia.edu/~mw2230/
4. 3.95 Lars E. O. Svensson 
http://www.princeton.edu/svensson/
5. 4.93 Jordi Gali
http://www.crei.cat/people/gali/publications.html
http://www.econ.upf.edu/en/research/papers.php?upfid=p769&nom=Gal%ED%2C+Jordi&pagina=1
6. 5 Mark L. Gertler
http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/gertlerm/papers.html 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_L._Gertler
7. 8.99 Robert G. King
http://people.bu.edu/rking/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_King_(economist) 
*8. 9.16 N. Gregory Mankiw
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/ 
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/mankiw/papers_mankiw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._Gregory_Mankiw
9. 9.19 Thomas J. Sargent 
10. 9.68 Frederic Mishkin 
11. 10.27 Patrick Kehoe 
*12. 10.95 Robert J. Barro 
13. 12.18 Willem Hendrik Buiter 
14. 12.35 John B. Taylor 
*15. 18.85 Ben S. Bernanke 
16. 19.36 Edmund S. Phelps 
17. 19.5 James Hamilton 
18. 20.66 Bennett McCallum 
19. 21.64 Frank Rafael Smets 
20. 24.16 David Romer 
21. 24.27 Adrian Rodney Pagan 
22. 25.24 Andrew Hughes Hallett 
23. 25.26 Athanasios Orphanides 
24. 27.38 Alex Cukierman 
25. 27.98 Robert J. Gordon 
26. 28.21 Jess Benhabib 
27. 28.27 Maurice Obstfeld 
28. 28.53 Glenn D. Rudebusch 
29. 28.53 Marvin Goodfriend 
30. 30.64 Ricardo J. Caballero 
31. 31.17 Richard Rogerson 
32. 31.28 Gary D. Hansen 
33. 31.38 James H. Stock 
34. 31.47 Robert C. Merton 
35. 32.49 Laurence Ball 
36. 32.54 George William Evans 
37. 34.07 Randall Wright 
38. 35.84 Edward C. Prescott 
39. 36.1 Stephen J Turnovsky 
40. 36.23 Edward Nelson 
41. 37.16 Finn E. Kydland 
42. 37.71 Anil K Kashyap 
43. 39.44 David Laidler 
44. 41.29 Varadarajan Chari 
45. 42.49 Seppo Mikko Sakari Honkapohja 
46. 42.49 Martin Eichenbaum 
47. 42.8 Andrew Theo Levin 
48. 46.48 Walter Erwin Diewert 
49. 47.06 Dale T. Mortensen 
50. 47.44 Christopher F Baum 
51. 49.61 Ellen R. McGrattan 
52. 50.43 Stefan Gerlach 
53. 50.67 Sergio T Rebelo 
54. 51.24 John C. Williams 
55. 52.52 Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé 
56. 55.89 Lawrence Christiano 
57. 58.79 Alan S. Blinder 
58. 59.59 Roberto Perotti 
59. 59.68 Shouyong Shi 
60. 60.1 Daniel L Thornton 
61. 60.46 David B. Gordon 
62. 60.71 Alberto Alesina 
63. 61.86 Brent Richard Moulton 
64. 62.84 Harald Uhlig 
65. 63.52 Michael David Bordo 
66. 65.13 Andrew Kenan Rose 
67. 65.33 Christopher Carroll 
68. 66.84 Geert Bekaert 
69. 67.04 Stephen D. Williamson 
70. 68.25 Roger E. A. Farmer 
71. 68.89 Gregor W. Smith 
72. 69.82 Martín Uribe 
73. 70.82 Ricardo Reis 
74. 72.06 William Arnold Barnett 
75. 72.32 Alain Monfort 
76. 75.27 Christopher A Pissarides 
77. 75.48 Raf Wouters 
78. 76.85 James Bullard 
79. 77.62 John Muellbauer 
80. 78.84 Zvi Hercowitz 
81. 79.41 Eric Leeper 
82. 79.85 Michael B. Devereux 
83. 81.33 Douglas W. Diamond 
84. 82.18 Ilian Mihov 
85. 84.93 Volker Wieland 
86. 85.11 Francis X. Diebold 
87. 86.94 William Thomas Gavin 
88. 88.58 Carl Walsh 
89. 88.8 Giancarlo Corsetti 
*90. 90.56 Christina Duckworth Romer

Brain Droppings Friday February 6, 2009

Some of these may be a little dated now. The news cycle has been working quickly and these have been collecting since the last post.

1. A good source of ambassadors outside of the professional diplomat corps:

http://ksgfaculty.harvard.edu/faculty/mediaCategories.asp?id=69

2. A good appeal to expertise:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/jobs_in_all_fifty_states/

3. Volcker should have a larger role?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aaLzJZKNcc6Y

4. Smartest people in the world, or the luckiest? They seem smart to me:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4657

5. Prof. Ariely's great but undernoticed blog:

http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?page_id=17

6. I'd like to know more about Oakeshotte, Burk, Kirk and Hart. I think their insights/ideology can be subsumed to normative goals of minimizing existential risk (avoiding social epistemological capture by ideological fad).

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/conservatism-li.html

7. Interesting case at the margins, of baby born alive and then killed in abortion clinic (allegedly).
In the explanation, a good articulation of how the law can side with repugnancy bias over our best empirical understanding and a consequentialism strongly grounded in empiricism.

http://www.buffalonews.com/260/story/570428.html

8. I posted this in the comments section of yglesias.thinkprogress.org

I think Democrats should start thinking very critically about education spending and health care spending. I intuit as a non-expert that there may be quite a bit of validity to arguments that we “waste” a lot of resources in those two areas to signal that we care about individuals and populations. If that holds up under scrutiny, it may make sense to spend a lot less on education and healthcare, and reduce much of that spending to more efficient symbolism. For example, I think it may be wasteful for the public to pay for so many kids to learn algebra and for so many people to see doctors and even registered nurses. Maybe we should even be consumption/luxury taxing that behavior in the private sector.

In general I think Democrats and progressives should get over process repugnancies that may harm core outcome goals.

all subject to expert analysis and insight, of course.

9. Cutting criticism of Krugman and the stimulus, apparently from a domain expert, Barro by way of Andrew Sullivan:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/keynesian-macro.html

wow, the original Barro interview is excellent!

http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/02/an_interview_with_robert_barro.php

10.

DTM,
That seems like modern mythology to me (in all honesty).
Interacting with Congress doesn’t seem to me like very important part of what most department heads do in the federal bureacracy. In contrast, competent management of a large bureacrcacy seems to me to be a very, very important part of what most department heads do. When I think of fails by most department heads in the past, it seems to me to have been due to incompetent management, and/or domain illiteracy.

In particular, Senators confirming Senators seems particularly suspect to me.

Finally, former undersecretaries, former regional directors, big population state governors, and presidents of large research universities and institutions seem to me to be very likely as a class to have developed competency interacting with legislative bodies (if not Congress itself) -whereas members of Congress who lack administrative experience over large bureacracies seem to me to be strongly ill-suited to start with the very large bureacracies of the federal government.

In short, I doubt the meme from you, Colby, and others strongly. Although I’m a non-experts, and would defer to their consensus.

Brain Droppings Part 2 Wednesday February 4, 2009

1.

Association for the scientific study of consciousness (closely linked to prof. Kock of Caltech)

http://assc.caltech.edu/index.htm

A run down of the recent James Prize winners and descriptions of their winning research (very cool)

Sample sentence "These findings suggest that there is an intermediate level of conscious processing between subliminal perception and conscious access."

http://assc.caltech.edu/prize.htm

I notice consciousness researchers seem to be a little hipper and better looking than typical cogsci researchers. I guess a sexy field draws sexier researchers?

5. Obama doesn't seem like to cite experts and expert consensus for his decisions. And that's a bad thing. I'd advise him to treat every executive order, speech, and q & a like a submission to a peer reviewed journal. Citations should be his best friend. It works on President-As-Role-Model level, on the propaganda level, and also a restraint against his own authoritarian principles, that threaten his ambition for a maximally impressive historical legacy.

Brain Droppings Wednesday February 4, 2009

1. I don't know what this means. Daschle was a bad pick, period. Picking Daschle, and being reluctant to dump him in the face of criticism doesn't make Obama superior to the more opportunistic Clinton. It just reveals an unmeritocratic tendency in Obama. If he and his staff don't check it, he'll veer into George W. Bush territory again and again. I was stupid (1) to nomminate Daschle for HHSA (even if no one ever thought it scandalous but me), (2) to expend any capital at all when Daschle became controversial, (3) to have Gibbs defend Obama with lines equivalent to "Daschle will be ethical because Obama says he will be." There is nothing brilliant about Obama finally dumping Daschle. It just showed a lack of disastrous stupidity. If Obama wants to maximize his odds of historic greatness, he should drop the "appoint my friends, appoint my rivals, appoint senators" shtick, and start hunting for the best talent for the jobs, Google-style.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/a-third-way.html

2. Good move by Obama. A sign he gets it.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/he-said-it.html

3. Smart blog, smart comments:

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2009/01/02/refuted-economic-doctrines-1-the-efficient-markets-hypothesis/

4. University Presidents are an underutilized source of gubenatorial candidates and federal adminstrative nominees. Here's two good ones:

http://www.upenn.edu/president/gutmann/biography.html

http://www.utexas.edu/president/bio.html

Post Daschle Change In Competency Expectations?

1.

It's so strange that the commenters don't want to accept that Daschle lacks

administrative experience. Why be so kind to this guy? So far I think only

Rich Lowry had hit the nail on the head.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/02/03/the-bad-news-

for-daschle.aspx

2. Good to see Andrew Sullivan writing about competency expectations for

department heads:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/daschles-

depart.html

3. Beutler also pushing the competency meme. I feel our existential odds

improving:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/02/judd_gregg_hates_the_com

merce_department.php

Thoughts on Daschle, and protecting talent from ruinous scandal

1. I'm pleased Senator Daschle stepped down. I think I was the first and most frequent critic of his nomination. Too bad my central meme: that he had insufficient administrative experience and health and human services expertise never caught on.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28994296/

2. Shame about the highly qualified performance czar/ OMB deputy, also lost due to unpaid taxes. But blame Daschle. I think she would have made it in if not for him, given she shares "unique" qualifications similar to Geithner.

3. There needs to be a better mentor track for talent to keep them from committing:

1. tax mistakes or fraud

2. marital infidelity

3. plagiarism

4. general violations of law or strong cultural norms

Each person nominated or running for a high civil position has a whole network of support staff dependent on their success and avoidance of scandal. It strikes me as weird that the support staff don't put in place policies to minimize chance of scandalous behavior. Is your boss running for Senator or Governor? Was your son elected class president and did he just score in the 99.9th% on the LSAT? Assume that they will cheat on their taxes, cheat on their spouse with a prostitute, and engage in rampant plagiarism and cheating in college and graduate school. Now, what are you going to do about it? Demand they meet once per month with a sex addiction specialist, even though they deny a sex addiction problem? Hire someone to check all their school research papers for plagiarism before they submit them for grading?

The cost for having a relatively unblemished past seems low to me compared to the status rewards, both for the individual and their support staff. And we're all stakeholders in not losing the best talent due to violations of laws or social taboos.

So how about some mechanisms to protect talent as a class from otherwise inevitable flameouts. How about some paternalism for our paternal class?

More Brain Droppings Tuesday February 3, 2009

1.

I like this anti-Daschle piece by Marie Cocco

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/daschle_is_indefensible.html

2. Another tough piece that is still in some ways too easy on Daschle:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/02/022714.php

Why can't anyone but me point out that Senator Daschle has no substantive administrative experience, and he's being appointed to administer a $750 billion annual bureacracy? Or his extraordinarily weak academic resume compared to others appointed to HHS? His level and calibre of education is Palinesque. And as Senator of South Dakota, how many people did he ever represent? a few tens of thousand? There's a near conspiracy not to expose the level of ridiculousness of putting Daschle in charge of Treasury, even without the lobbyist payday scandal.

James Ridgeway, Mother Jones:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2009/02/12111_the_daschle_deb.html

3. Dan Shaviro gets extraordinarily high marks for his predictions back in 2004.

http://danshaviro.blogspot.com/2004/12/new-years-predictions.html

"Wednesday, December 29, 2004
New Year's predictions
I certainly don't claim to have special intuitions about the future (I almost used the cliche "crystal ball"), nor do I have the sort of inside information that I would need to put real money down on anything. But I do think that:
1) Iraq will go really badly - as much beyond what we now expect as 2004 was relative to expectations a year ago.
2) Social Security will be going badly for Bush, and he will extricate himself with an irresponsible giveaway that offers individual accounts as a free benefit on top of everything else.
3) Though perhaps not until 2006, tax reform will turn into a small package of changes, with no significant revenue-raiser apart from (possibly) repeal of the state and local tax deduction if they can push it through despite the leeriness of blue state Republicans.
4) The Yankees will win another world championship, with at least one major superstar being added after Randy Johnson and Carlos Beltran, and with a payroll that is 2X even the Red Sox and Angels (say, $220 million). By year's end they will be adding more superstars.
5) At least one other major foreign policy disaster for the US will strike. No predictions about terror attacks here as that, literally, hits too close to home for me. (Living near Ground Zero will do that.)
6) The US economy will be doing poorly, but the timing of fiscal meltdown will still be unpredictable.
7) Bush's approval rating will be in the 40-43% range, but the Democrats will still be floundering. (Perhaps I should be ashamed of myself for making such an obvious prediction as the latter.)
8) More Administration scandals even though it is hard to see who would report or investigate them.
Cheer up, all, and pop those champagne corks. I know that I will - as Jim Carrey would say as the Mask, because I gotta.
Posted by Daniel Shaviro at 10:21 PM"

4. Another Harvard Law Magna Cum Laude:

http://www.frcblog.com/2009/02/change_watch_backgrounder_davi.html

"David Ogden
POSITION: DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL

NOMINEE: David Ogden

Born: November 12, 1953

Family: Wife, Anne Harkavy, and three children.

Occupation: partner at the Washington, D.C. firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, co-running the firm's Government and Regulatory Litigation Practice Group.

Education: B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, 1976; J.D. magna cum laude in 1981 from Harvard Law School

Clinton White House: 1994-1995, Deputy General Counsel and the Legal Counsel for the United States Department of Defense; 1995 - 1997, Associate Deputy Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice; 1997 - 1998, Counselor to the United States Attorney General; 1998 - 1999, chief of staff to the United States Attorney General; 1999 - 2000, Acting Assistant Attorney General; 2000 - 2001, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division in the United States Department of Justice."

5. Finally, 1 person other than me acknowledges that Senator Daschle (1) is making a ridiculous administrative leap from managing nothing to managing the federal government's largest bureacracy, and (2) that he's not a recognized health (and human services) expert. Thank you Rich Lowry.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/02/daschles_paytoplay.html

"Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, has no management experience to prepare him for running a 60,000-person department and has no greater expertise in health care -- he's co-authored a book on the subject -- than any number of other possible nominees."

Daily Droppings Tuesday February 2, 2009

1. This is why I'm against official news publications that don't use bylines (I know, a bit hypocritical, but I don't claim to be offering news or facts, just non-expert analysis).

I think these non-bylined "AP" stories are often ways of promoting mythologies, in ways that would be undermined if it could be attached to an individual to affect our valuation of their credibility and biases.

This particular story seems to me to be a powderpuff reprint of a press release. What do we need the "AP" for? Why can't it just say whitehouse.gov?

http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/38817432.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says President Barack Obama
considers Tom Daschle's tax troubles to be a "very serious"
matter. But the president's spokesman says Daschle remains the
right person to lead the Health and Human Services Department.
Daschle expressed remorse on Monday about failing to pay more
than $120,000 in back taxes. And Obama says he "absolutely"
stands by him.
But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that Daschle
had made a "serious mistake" that he then fixed. Gibbs said the
White House is "not insensitive" to the news of the unpaid taxes
by a potential Cabinet secretary.
Gibbs said that if Daschle is confirmed he will closely follow
the ethical guidelines and rules of the administration.

2. Recommendation from Anonym, an occupant of overcomingbias comment threads, on a good introductory book on probability and statistics

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Uncertainty-Dennis-V-Lindley/dp/0470043830/

3. Response to recent TGGP comment:

We agree that regulation is about rules. Although the omission of a rule is a de facto rule, too (here perhaps paternalists and libertarians part ways?)

In that sense I think paternalists are more honest about comission/omission bias.

If one's goal is to reduce existential risk, for example, it makes sense to balance rules that increase or decrease existential risk with omissions of rules that result in existential risk at a certain amount.

However, the more libertarian one is, the more one may be concerned selectively about rules that increase existential risk.

I think here I'm more in Professor Sunstein's camp, butressed by research of people like Professor Ariely -I care more about outcomes than I do about reduction of rules. Reduction of rules seems to me to be a weak or sometimes negative or uncorrelated measure of outcomes.

Although I don't care much about liberty as an end in itself, it seems to me the empirical evidence strongly suggests that functional liberty for many people involves a certain level of paternalism -they don't experience a complete lack of paternal regulation over their own behavior as "liberating".

That's why I like opt-out paternalism (grounded in empiricism) better than libertarianism.

But I'm open to what the best evidence and expert analysis indicates will maximize my persistence odds.