Deinonychus antirrhopus

Blogger Credibility

Roger L. Simon has a pretty good riposte to the query about the credibility of bloggers. Comments. While perhaps not a complete answer it does have some benefits over and above what we see at most mainstream media outlets. Also, there are other bloggers. Bloggers don't move as a unified source. Actually I'd say quite the opposite. If I post something that is incorrect another blogger can post on his own blog pointing out my error. On top of this there is the trackback function which allows me (and many bloggers) to see who is linking to the post and what their take on the issue is. And last but not least there is e-mail. Many bloggers post their e-maill addy and it usually goes right to the blogger (not some underpaid, overworked flunky who really doesn't give a shit).

All-in-all, I'd say that blogs are better at addressing errors, omissions, and so forth than the mainstream media. Is it perfect?¹ No far from it, but I see it as a drastic improvement over what is currently in place at most mainstream media operations. The mainstream media will have to evolve to account for this or face extinction, IMO.
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¹Here is a good example. I posted on the electronic election markets and the prices therein being probabilities. Prof. Bainbridge saw the post, and another one disputing it, and made a post pleaing for help. This brought to the fore the paper by Charles Manski on this topic which spawned even more posts by even more people who offered differing views on the topic. Can you get that with a newspaper or television news program? Hell no, and right now you never will. You only get this kind of rapid response, and counter-response with blogs.

Health Insurance

Arnold Kling has a very good article on health insurance. I reommend it to everyone who is interested in the health care debate. The article is very good at pointing out that our current system of health care hides the actual costs of providing the health care.

For example, does an employee's employer pay for the employee's health care out of kindness? No. The firm views all of this as part of the employee's wage-benefits package. Firms look at this when making a decision to hire a person not just the wage. Further, when the benefits portion of the package increases the wage protion likely has to increase at a slower rate, remain constant and maybe even decrease. Further, if one employee drives up costs for the employer this has an effect on the other employees and even the firm itself.

Another concept that many people don't understand is that for insurance to work the outcomes have to be uncertain. That is, the chance of your getting sick cannot be certain. Or even more simply, insurance does not work for those who are sick. I have touched on this before (see here and here).

Again, read the whole thing.

Changes in Health Insurance Coverage

I found an interesting tidbit of information over at the Urban Institute today. According to this study, while the number of people without health insurance coverage increased, the number of children without health insurance coverage did not change.

Using Current Population Survey data from 2000–2002, this paper documents the changes that led the uninsured population to grow by 3.8 million during that time period. All of the increase in the uninsured occurred among adults, and two-thirds was among low-income adults.

The primary culprit: the recession. The reason for the lack of increase of children with no health insurance appears to be related to public provided coverage (link).

Just something to keep in mind if a political candidate tries to invoke "the children" as a reason to support some policy.

Look Out Its a Giant Oompa Loompa

What is going on with John Kerry? Is this some sort of midlife crisis? Was he just worried he'd look a bit too pasty on television during the debates? Did he fall asleep in a tanning bed? He looks like an Oompa Loompa suffering from gigantism or something.

I know, I know this has nothing to do with any of his policies. But come on, this looks really weird. And the explanation that he got the tan during a game of flag football is just...lame. It sounds like another attempt to "connect with the common man"...at least it does to me. I mean who actually has a bunch of those silly little flags and belts lying around anyways? Don't most people play touch-football?

Sen. Kerry, Your Plan B Would Be...?

Daniel Drezner points to this article from the Financial Times about the problems with getting more Europeans involved in Iraq. I have argued before that Kerry is deluding himself if he things there will be more that 20,000 troops. Now according to the Financial Times France and Germany are indicating they will send no troops irrespective of who wins in November. I'd say Kerry's plan just took a serious hit and is taking on water fast. So what is his back-up plan. Surely a nuanced Senator such as John Forbes Kerry has a secondary plan. Right?

No End In Sight too Economy's Soft Patch?

The Weekly Leading Indicator at ECRI is flat suggesting the the current soft pathc is going to go on for some time.

Moreover, the Conference Board announced that the U.S. Leading Index also decreased in August. This is the third consecutive decrease.

The leading index fell again in August, the third consecutive decline, and the weakness in the last three months has become more widespread. However, these declines in the leading index have not been long enough nor deep enough to signal an end to the upward trend in the leading index underway since March 2003.

I find it rather amusing when I hear the conservative talk radio hosts going on about the strong economy.

Kerry Campaign Deceptions

You know it is amazing. I wonder if politicians and their paid hacks can't mention Social Security and/or Medicare without trying to induce the specter of doing wrong by the elderly.

Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said: “The last thing seniors want to hear from George Bush is a rehash of his flawed social security privatization scheme."

One of the Kerry Campaigns own sources puts the lie to the above statement. Under President Bush's plan the current retirees would not face any reduction in their benefits. This can be seen from Table 2 of the CBO analysis. Except for the median Social Security recipient in the highest income quintile, benefits would not change under President Bush's plan.

For those in later age cohorts and different income quintiles benefits would decline when compared to what is promised under the current law. The problem is that when the people in the age cohort for the year 2000 get to retirement it is doubtful that Social Security will still be around (the trust fund is expected to run out of money around 2053). Technically if we were to use the actual benefits that would be paid out in 2067 or, we'd use $0.00.

Update: Kip Esquire has a good catch highlighting that John Kerry himself (as opposed to his staff) is also misleading as well.

"The truth is, the only people who benefit from George Bush's Social Security scheme are the special interests," Kerry said. ...Kerry, however, contended that diverting money from Social Security to private accounts was a "bad, old idea."

"That's not a plan, it's a rip-off," he said. "George Bush's scheme hurts seniors by cutting benefits, and it hurts our economy by increasing the deficit."--emphasis added

Well the CBO would disagree. Bush's plan would tend to have an effect on those who are 57 years old and younger.

There is also this claim in the article,

Kerry pointed to a study by Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago business professor, who studied a model that proposes workers set aside a small percentage of their pay in private accounts as a method to adjust Social Security to a rapidly graying population. Goolsbee concluded that fees charged by financial companies could reap them hundreds of billions of dollars and eat 20 percent of the benefits in an account held by a worker making an average salary.

Prof. Goolsbee has rejected the 0.3% annual administrative fee that most analysts (including the CBO) use in favor of an 0.8% annual administrative fee.

While some investment plans do have fairly high administrative fees, the simpler the plan the lower the fee tends to be. As far as I know, the Presidents plan is one that would be pretty simple. There would not be a great deal of personal choice. Based on what I have read there will not be several different portfolios and investment options, but a single investment option. So Goolsbee's assumption of a 0.8% annual administrative fee is highly questionable.

So we have Kerry being outright misleading as well as relying on a study with a dubious initial assumption necessary to arrive at the "bad" conclusions.

Here is Goolsbee's analysis.

Here is the report of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security.

Kerry's Plan For Social Security: Wishful Thinking

I was curious as to what John Kerry is going to do, if elected, to address the looming problems of Social Security. Here is one of the Campaign's webpages on the topic. The main parts of Kerry's plan are,

• Grow the economy. The Kerry-Edwards plan will jump-start growth today and invest in stronger long-run growth. A larger economy will be in a better position to pay for an increasing number of retirees.
• Restore fiscal discipline. Social Security is part of the broader fiscal challenge facing America. The Kerry-Edwards plan will cut the deficit in half and restore fiscal discipline to Washington.
• Bipartisan Process. Historically, successful reforms of Social Security and Medicare - like in 1983 and 1997 - have been accomplished on a bipartisan basis. As president, John Kerry will build on his strong record of working with Democrats and Republicans on fiscal issues to address Social Security's challenge.

All three of these points are either wishful thinking, or bad. For example, the idea that having a growing economy will save the day, while true, is basically a crap shoot. It amounts to hoping that growth is sufficient so that the looming crisis fails to materialize. As for Kerry's claim of fiscal discipline that is just plain laughable at this point (link, link, link). The last one, Bipartisanship, is truely a scary idea. Whenever politicians from different viewpoints get together and agree on something it is generally a sign one should grab onto his wallet. As much as Democrats hate Bush's education plan and Prescription Drug plan they started out as bipartisan efforts. The California electricity market deregulation was another example of bipartisanship run amuck (although I find the attempts to pin it on Bush by various microcephalics amusing).

So Kerry's plan can be rephrased (more accurately) as:

• Hope for the best.
• Fantasize about cutting spending.
• Get together with the assholes in the other party so we can really fuck things up.

Granted, Bush's plan isn't much better, but it is aleast a step (sort of) in the right direction.

Why Is John Kerry Bashing Our Allies

I've been seeing this on several blogs lately and finally this column by Charles Krauthammer makes me wonder: What the Hell is John Kerry thinking? Let me run through this simply:

• Kerry says the key to victory in Iraq is bringing in more allies.
• Austrialia is already there.
• The current Australian Prime Minister is in a tight race with an opponent who will pull Aussie troops from Iraq if he wins.
• The Kerry Campaign makes bone head statements like this,

  "Australia has kept faith with the US and we are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels," she said, referring to the invasion of Iraq.

• Me: What the Hell...???

That sounds amazingly stupid. How are you going to get more troops into a combat situation that you are protraying as illegal, and provides support for the opposition candidate who will do precisely the opposite of what Kerry has been saying is the solution to Iraq. The stupidity is simply stunning.

An Update on Manski, TradeSports and Predictive Markets

This is a follow up to this post which looks deeper at exactly what is the price at electronic markets such as TradeSports.com and the Iowa Election Markets. Prof. Bainbridge was confused over my claim that the market price at TradeSports.com and the Iowa Markets is a probability that Bush will win the election and pointed to this post at Marginal Revolution. The post at Marginal Revolution pointed to an interesting paper by Charles Manski that argued against the probability claim. People have been jumping all over this, but one of the best responses to this is by Victor over at Dead Parrots Society. In reading Victor's post and thinking further about Manski paper, I'm still fairly certain that the market price is probability. However, it isn't a probability that we can interpret that easily. I'm going to steal Victor's examples to highlight this issue.

Lets assume we have two people in the market (for simplicity). We have one who believes Bush will win with certainty, and the other beleives Kerry will win with certainty. So in the Bush election market the beliefs are:

• Prob(Bush) = 1 for the Bush supporter,
• Prob(Bush) = 0 for the Kerry supporter.

Now the mean probability belief¹ is Prob(Bush) = 0.5. This also happens to be the market price (at TradeSprots it would be 50, but since the price ranges from 0 to 100 it is the same thing). So in this case the price and the mean probability of the participants beliefs are the same.

Now, lets assume that the Kerry supporter is not so sure of Kerry's victor. He thinks Kerry has a 50-50 shot. So now the probabilities are:

• Prob(Bush) = 1 for the Bush supporter,
• Prob(Bush) = .5 for the Kerry supporter.

Now the equilibrium price is still 0.5. To that this is so, suppose the price is 0.75. The Kerry supporter would sell his contracts and drive the price down. If the price were 0.25 both would bid the price up by buying contracts.

However, the mean probability of the participants beliefs is Prob(Bush) = 0.75. This is different than the market price.

So does the market price tell us anything about Bush's chances of being elected? Yes. At any given point we can use Manski's results to put bounds on where the mean probability belief is. For example, if the Bush contract is selling at 0.68 then the mean probability lies within the interval (0.4624,0.8976). Further, as the price of the contract increases the interval containing the mean probability belief also increases. For example, suppose the Bush contracts price increases to 0.72, then the bound changes to (0.5184,0.9216). So an increasing contract price over time indicates that the even in worse case scenario--i.e, when the mean probability belief is the minimal value of the interval--means better is getting better for Bush.

So when we see Bush's contract going up over an extended period of time, it should still have the Kerry campaign worried. Also, the market clearing price is a probability it just isn't a statistic such as the mean probability. So I am fairly certain that Manksi's description of the market clearing price as not being a "market probability" is incorrect. It is a probability and one that is generated by the market, it just isn't as informative as we might like. The market clearing price (probability) might be higher, lower, or even equal to the mean.²

Update: Lots of people are getting on this. First up we have Alex Tarbarrok at Marginal Revolution. Then there is also Daniel Davies at Crooked Timber (See here as well for a follow up).

Also, Victor from Dead Parrots Society, noted some potential confusion. I wrote:

Further, as the price of the contract increases the interval containing the mean probability belief also increases.

One could read that as implying the size (i.e., width) of the interval is increasing. As Victor shows in comments this is not the case. The size of the interval varies non-monotonically (i.e., its width changes as the market probablity changes first the interval widens then contracts). What I meant was that both the upper and lower bounds of the interval increase.
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¹The term mean probability belief might be a bit strange sounding. But remember each player has their own belief (not necessarily unique--i.e., players can share beliefs). This set of beliefs over the probability that Bush is re-elected forms a probability distribution itself. Hence we can construct a mean value of this distribution just like can for any other distribution.
²The more players in the market however, might mean that the latter claim (the market clearing probability is equal to the mean probability belief) is more and more unlikely. The extreme case is when the distribution of beliefs of an events probability of occuring is continuous. With a continuous distribtution the probability of observing any given point is zero.

The Effect of MT-Blacklist

Well I guess Blacklist is having an effect. I just found some spam comments, and here is the url:

hap[dot]heydo[dot]com/buy_online/index[dot]html

That was if you wanted to buy cialis. I imagine the urls will get even more strange as time goes by.

An Angry Little Man

I was reading InstaPundit the other day and eventually wound up at this post by Brian Leiter. Immediately I was reminded of a quote that arguments in academia are so vitriolic because they are over issues that are so small. In reading Leiter I thought that the basic idea of the quote could be expanded that the most vitriolic academics tend to be vitriolic because they are largely irrelevant. Lets use Brian Leiter as an example? Is he important? Not at all. If he were to fall of the face of the earth tomorrow the set of people who would care would be of measure zero. Is his work important? No again. If the sum total of everything that Leiter has written were to disappear would anybody notice? Again a set of measure zero. So here is a guy who is pretty darn smart who simply does not matter. Do you think it annoys this Leiter that "moral cretins and self-important poseurs" who are "full of shit" get more attention? I'm sure it does. I see his vitriolic posts as a sort of "look at me!" kind of post.

Leiter excoriates millions of people simply because they have not vocally passed judgment on Michelle Malkin's book (you can read a critique of Malkin's book here, and for the record Muller seems to have a strong argument that Malkin is greatly overstating her case). The thing is, bloggers comment on what is important to them. Is the fact that Dan Rather used forge documents important to me? Yeah. Is Michelle Malkin's book important to me? No. I read Michelle Malkin's blog on occasion, but over the years I've found here writing to be...inaccurate at times (particularly her coverage of the CA energy crisis). Muller has done an admirable job digging into this, and it isn't like it is totally ignored by the blogosphere. I first got to Muller's work via InstaIgnorance and I saw a reference to Muller's work over at Oliver Willis' blog. I'm sure if I looked elsewhere I'd find many other references. And I think Gordon Smith summarizes the point nicely as to why Malkin's book isn't an issue. Generally speaking, people aren't going to read and say, "Oh...wow, it was right to round up all the ethnic Japanese, deprive them of their property and toss them into concentration camps all based simply on their heritage vs. their actual guilt. Lets do it to all muslims!" Public perception is overwhelming that internment was a black spot on America's record.

So the bottom line here is Leiter is wrong. And he knows he is wrong and that is why he is so angry. That and the Liberal establishment is taking a beating right now. Kerry's campaign is in trouble. Democrats are completely in the minority in all three branches of government. So in response we get this kind of nasty screed that attacks everybody for not thinking exactly like Brian Leiter.

Now, lets get into looking at some of Brian Leiter's own misrepresentations. First we have this example.

Whatever the problems with health care systems in civilized countries like Canada, this stuff doesn't happen. In Canada, health care is rationed, when it is, by need; in the United States, it is rationed by wealth. Unsurprisingly, the wealthy are very pleased with this approach.

Prof. Leiter would probably have done better sticking to the law and philosophy. His sojourn into health economics is abysmal and misleading. Health care in the U.S. is not regulated by wealth. This is one of the great myths of those on the Left. If you don't have health care, and especially if you don't have money and you get sick you die. However, this is a myth. Don't believe a right-wing fascist like me? How about Brad DeLong.

If you do not purchase health insurance and you do get really sick, somebody else will pick up most of the tab. If you are relatively young and healthy with few assets, buying health insurance can seem like a sucker's game.

Looks like Prof. Leiter is guilty of being a "moral cretin and self-important poseur". The bottom line is if you are really sick in the U.S. you will be taken care of. You might die, but not because you did not receive medical care. Leiter is repeating a favorite Lefty lie. One that should be obviously false. This shows that Brian Leiter is an intellectual moron. He is an intellectual moron because he didn't think clearly about this.

Next up we have this piece of drekh. Here Brian Leiter attempts to refute Arnold Kling and laughing engages in the same mistake he excoriates Kling for.

Incredibly, no real evidence on these points is mentioned by the author. Instead, the author offers us the following by way of argumentative support:

Whoa. I didn't now that Kling's TechCentralStation.com article was actually to be a peer reviewed academic article. But laughingly, we have this tripe from Leiter,

It might have occurred to the author, but apparently did not, that one explanation for these changes might be that (1) prices of many of these items went down, and (2) individuals and households now work more. If the former, then consumer goods are more available, but we have not yet shown that life has gotten better along any other pertinent dimension (health, leisure, professional and personal well-being, even overall standard of living); if the latter, then life has gotten worse along one equally tangible dimension.

But where is Prof. Leiter's evidence? Nowhere in sight. What kind of a dimbulb excoriates another for not providing evidence then fails to provide evidence himself? Brian Leiter, that kind of dimbulb.

For the record hours worked per week have been declining for decades Prof. Leiter. One has to wonder whether the University of Michigan and the University of Texas are "not happy about this"? I mean do they usually like it when their professors run around advertising their ignorance in public like this?

Further, the point that the price went down that Leiter raises supports Kling's assertion. When the price of something goes down, people consume more of it (and more of other goods as well) which tends to make them better off. Basic economic theory.

One of the update's is hilarious.

A law colleague elsewhere writes: "If desired consumer goods are indeed getting cheaper, that is in fact a rise in the standard of living for both rich and poor." To which I replied, in part: "There is more to the standard of living than color TVs." Unnoted in the article, except anecdotally: changes in the costs and availability of health care, schooling, housing, personal services, safety, transportation, etc., as well as changes in the amount of time it is necessary for people to work to secure any of these items, including consumer goods.

Again we see Leiter making the same mistake that he snottily accuses Arnold Kling of making. First he provides no data on the other issues, let alone color televisions. Second, while there is more to happiness than color TVs, but if the price of color TVs has gone down then that bit of evidence supports Arnold's position and weakens Leiter's position.

So we can see that Brian Leiter is very much like Michelle Malkin in that he only presents that evidence (when he presents evidence at all) that suits his world view. Personally I find it rather funny.

Let the Conspiracy Theories Begin

This article on Bill Burkett is chock full of stuff that will give the Lefty Loons plenty of ideas about how Ra^therGate is actually a brilliant Rovian plot. Of course there are two things to consider.

1. If this really is a Rovian plot, it does not excuse, explain or justify CBS' crappy job performance on this whole issue.
2. If this really is a Rovian plot the Democrats might as well pack it in right now as they have no hope of defeating the Prince of Darkness (that would be Karl Rove to you non-conspiracy minded folk).

Media Bias or Just Bad Reporting?

This article about John Edwards campaigning in Ohio had something interesting in it. In the second paragraph we have,

The Democratic vice presidential nominee from North Carolina spent most of his 30-minute speech at the Bond Hill Recreation Center talking about presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry's plan to create jobs, provide health care for all Americans, and provide affordable, quality education.--emphasis added

Then buried deeper into the story (11 paragraphs in) we get a more accurate portrayal of Kerry's health care plan.

He [John Edwards] said he and Kerry would make health care available to every American, allow Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada, and force drug companies to be more truthful in their advertisements.--emphasis added

Neat trick eh? Changing provide to avialable. So...is it media bias, or is Stephenie Steitzer just a dopey reporter?

[Note: Don't get me wrong, I'm starting to come around to Kerry's health care plan with the government acting as a re-insurer. There are still some problems I have with it, but I think it has potential. Still the shift from the initial description to the more accurate description is telling, IMO. Neither explanation (dopiness or bias) is very re-assuring.]

The Kerry Campaign Has Got To Be Worried

Check out the Iowa market's graph. Remember these markets tend to have somewhat better predictive power than standard political polls. These people are looking at the polls plus additional information that we are seeing in the news. Further, this information in aggregated over a large number of individuals so it is likely the "aggregate information set" is larger than your typical person taking a poll.

You can see the same thing over at TradeSports.com as well. Bush is now around 0.69 and Kerry is continuing his long slow decline to 0.20. Right now the momentum is with Bush and it shows no sign of changing.

Update: Via Dean comes this tidbit from McAuliffe.

“In today’s New York Post, Roger Stone, who became associated with political ‘dirty tricks’ while working for Nixon, refused to deny that he was the source the CBS documents.

“Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone’s relationship with these forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr. Stone’s involvement? Or for that matter, others with a known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or Ralph Reed?”

More evidence that the Democrats are becoming desperate? I don't know, but that is what it looks like to me. A drowning man clinging to anything he thinks will help keep him afloat just a bit longer.

This conspiracy thing is a bit much. I mean come on, the documents are such obvious forgeries did they really expect that CBS would be so sloppy with their vetting of the documents? A better job of authenticating the documents would have completely killed this story. In addition, lets nt forget that the Kerry campaign is part of this story. Ben Barnes after all is a big fund raiser for the Democrats. So this idea that the documents are a Rove dirty trick is just not credible.

On a side note, I love how this Rovian Trick has completely exonerated CBS in the eyes of some on the Left. CBS was tricked therefore they are not to blame. These morons seem to have forgotten it is CBS' job not to be tricked--i.e., they are to make sure what they are reporting on is legit.

And on the issue of the prices at these electronic markets being interpreted as probabilities, Prof. Bainbridge points to this Marginal Revolution post. The bottom line is that interpretting the prices as probabilities may be a bit more problematic based on this research by Charles Manski.

I'm not sure that Manksi is completely correct in his interpretation of his result. The idea is that we have a group of people who come up with subjective probability assessments of an event. Then they place bets based on their probability assessments either for or against. All we see is the market clearing price. Now, if I am reading Manski right (and I admit I may not be), the price that is settled on is in the initial distribution of probabilities. Hence it is still a probability, but based on Manski's numbers it isn't a "statistic" such as the mean, median, etc. Hence interpreting that probability in a meaningful way is problematic, IMO. Now that in and of itself is an interesting result.

Anyhow, Prof. Bainbridge has shot off a note to Alex Tabarrok asking for his input. While, I have little doubt I just bored many readers with this part of the update, I happen to find this stuff rather interesting.

Oh ho!

Dan Rather said that CBS went to Burkett for the documents; "he did not come to us".

Who sent CBS in Burkett's direction?

Update

Allahpundit asks the same question. Woo hoo, I scooped him by 1 minute!

Update 2

I need to read Allahpundit more often.

They can't verify the "real" source's identity? Does that mean Burkett is still refusing to give them the name of the "real" source or that he gave them a name but it appears to be made up? Suddenly, I have this image of Burkett telling Rather that "Art Vandelay" is his source, then cut to Rather looking all credulous. ". . . And what is Mr. Vandelay's connection to the president?"

Mr. Vandelay got them from his cousin Regina Filangy, who got them from Anastasia Beaverhausen....

Some Sage Advice for Mary Mapes

Get a lawyer, now.

Danny Boy's Statement

From Drudge:

Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question. [emphases added]

So that is what Rather considers the "key question": how their source got the documents. Not "who fabricated these documents," not "who neglected warnings of the fabrication", nothing like that. Dan's "key question" is the chain of custody for the memos. The implication is that Rather still believes the content of the documents, but can no longer vouch for their authenticity because he doesn't know how the source got them.

Andrew Heyward's statement is similarly chocked full of weaseling:

Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report.

Shouldn't that read, "Based on what we now know, CBS News admits that the documents are forgeries, and will diligently investigate to find out just who duped us. Or, more likely, since out credibility on this subject is in the toilet, we eagerly await the results from the investigations by ABC, the Washington Post, and the Pajamahadeen."

We should not have used them.

No shit, Andy.

A question for any legal minds out there: since Burkett has admitted to being their source, and has admitted that he "misled" CBS as to what his source was, is he in any potential legal trouble for passing on forgeries?

I realize that his defense would be that he didn't know they were forgeries and passed them on to CBS in good faith, but for that defense to work, won't he have to reveal who gave him the memos? He doesn't have a journalist-shield law to hide behind.

CheckList

Sunscreen -- check
Cooler with "arnold palmer" mix --- check
Brisket and turkey -- check
Haywards barbeque sauce -- check
Potato chips -- check
Lawnchairs -- check
Red & white teeshirt -- check
Big foam "We're Number 1" finger -- check
Arrowhead car-flag -- check

Okay, I'm ready to go to the game. Go Chiefs!

For those of you who have never been tailgating at Arrowhead stadium, it's quite an experience, especially with nice weather like today.

Aren't ya jealous?

UPDATE

The game sucked, but a good time was had regardless. Other than the ludicrous number of penalties (I momentarily thought it was a Chiefs / Raiders game), my only cmoplaint was the second-hand fat squishing over from the seat next to me.

Would It Kill To Actually Read the Damn Proposals?

Kevin Drum wants to use the collapse of the California Charter Academy as an example of why "privatization" wont work. And is usually the case with Kevin it is abundantly clear he has not read proposals as to how to affect such a change in Social Security.

Laurence Kotlikoff's proposal avoids many of the problems Kevin discusses. Kevin writes,

This is one of my biggest problems with Social Security privatization. It's not really clear to me that it benefits anyone except the well-off to begin with, and I'm certain that if private returns collapsed the government would rush in to make up the shortfall anyway. That's just the political reality. But if the government is essentially guaranteeing a minimum rate of return, why bother with privatization in the first place? Just let the feds fund Social Security out of current revenues the way they do now.

First off, Kotlikoff's plan is still administered by the government, not by an investment company. Second, the principle is insured by the government. There is no option in terms of investing your retirement savings, you will be forced to invest it in a broadly defined index fund.

Is there a chance the fund could tank and people are left with only the principle? Yes. However, consider fully what that means. It would likely mean the entire economy just tanked hard. People will have alot more to worry about than simply their retirement. We are talking something on the order of magnitude like the Great Depression. Even with the government taking over Social Security such and event would still result in huge problems for Social Security recipients.

Privatization implies private sector levels of risk, but as the charter school story shows, the public is not willing to accept that kind of risk for things they think of as public services. They may like the idea of school choice, but when the charter schools fail it's the local school district that has to put up with the outraged parents.

Part of the reason for this has to do with the fact that the public school district exists. If it didn't then the only people left to deal with it would be the parents. Also, lets remember one thing here: this is a government funded program. The government is a damn awful adminsitrator/supervisor. Billions are lost every year to waste fraud and abuse (I've blogged on this before.). So is it really shocking that a shady operator has defrauded the federal government? Not in the least. In fact, it is actually to be expected. What kind of oversight is there?

Now, when it is your money, and your child's education might you look into the school's track record more? My son goes to a private school. We picked the school he currently attends because it has been around for decades. Could it go belly up tomorrow? Yeah, but it is unlikely.

There's no free lunch. The free market absolutists who are so enamored of privatization ought to know this. But they don't seem to.

This is insulting. Kevin is completely distorting the privatization argument (not surprising has when in comes to economics Kevin is a complete dunce). The argument for privatization of Medicare and Social Security is that it will solve demographic problems, and it will remove the incentive for politicians to pander to the elderly by expanding benefits (Bush's Medicare Drug plan anybody?). The market isn't going to suddenly create free lunches let alone turn every retiree into a millionaire. But not doing anything will not solve this problem. Raising taxes provides a disincentive to work (for wages). Higher Social Security/Medicare taxes will induce people to shift to sources of income that do not bear those taxes.

For once it'd be nice if Kevin engaged his brain on economic issues.

Update: Dave Sheridan has an excellent follow up post to this one. Check it out.

Kerry's Military Records

Well I'd say it is official now: Kerry lied about his military records. Not all of his records have been released.

The U.S. Navy released documents Wednesday contradicting claims by Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry that all of his available military records have been released.

The Navy, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request from the legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, also referred interested parties to Kerry's campaign web site for government military documents.

Navy Personnel Command FOIA Officer Dave German wrote in an e-mail to Judicial Watch that the Navy "withheld thirty-one pages of documents from the responsive military personnel service records as we were not provided a release authorization."

Via Debunkers.

No WMD Stockpiles Found in Iraq

I'm sure this will have the Left side of the Blogosphere all a twitter today. However, once you get past the headline you find that things were a little bit different.

Fallen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but left signs that he had idle programs he someday hoped to revive, the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq concludes in a draft report due out soon.

According to people familiar with the 1,500-page report, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, will find that Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a dual-use industrial sector that could produce weapons.

The last paragraph above will undoubtedly be used by defenders of Bush to say that invasion was necessary. And of course, the Left side of the blogosphere will likely ignore this rather uncomfortable portion of the story,

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has criticized the president's handling of the war, but also has said he still would have voted to authorize the invasion even if he had known no weapons of mass destruction would be found there.

Further, there are the other reasons for going into Iraq besides the WMDs. Invading Iraq allowed the U.S. to pull troops out of Saudi Arabia (which was one of the issues that lead Bin Laden to attack the U.S.). Also, it allows for more U.S. troops in that region of the world. It removes a destabilizing force in the region (although it could be argued that the invasion has created more short term instability and possibly more long term instability). Also, the invasion removed a supporter of terrorism (no I'm not talking about the Saddam-Al Qa'ida links, but Saddam's support for suicide bombers).

Anyhow, I'm sure the wails of "Bush Lied People Died" have already started on the Left.

Economy Still Mired in Soft Patch

The weekly leading index from ECRI has fallen again. According the managing director, Lakshman Achuthan, at ECRI, "the long term decline in a number of areas of the index suggest that there is more at work here than simply high oil prices".

Achuthan is even noted that this decline if it continues could herald a more serious economic picture in 2005.

"It's an open question whether this lacklustre growth gives way to more serious downturn in 2005 or we have a reacceleration in growth. We don't know yet," he said.

Update: This article from CNBC has a quote from ECRI managing director Laksham Achuthan noting that the retail sales is "in a clear cyclical donw trend," and that this makes it harder to believe that the economy was in a temporary soft patch over the summer.

The numbers show that retail sales are “in a clear cyclical down trend,” Lakshman Achuthan, Economic Cycle Research Institute managing director, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

The growth rate in sales has been slowing since March, and the persistent slump makes it harder to believe that the economy went through just a temporary soft patch in June and July, Achuthan said.

Looks like on reason for this might also be the hurricanes,

Office Depot (ODP, news, msgs) said its fiscal third-quarter earnings will come in between 26 cents and 28 cents per share, below the Reuters Research consensus estimate of 33 cents per share. It cited continued weakness in European sales for the shortfall.

“Revenues in the quarter have not met our expectations across all three of our business units,” Office Depot CEO Bruce Nelson said in a press release. “In addition, we have sustained unexpected costs and lost sales from the impact of three major storms and the contingency planning for a fourth storm, Hurricane Ivan.”

Update II: It also looks like the Fed is getting ready to raise interest rates again (link and link). However, from the first link comes this interesting bit,

Leslie Preston at CIBC World Markets also noted that core inflation below a two percent annualized pace is a sign of weakness, and that the Federal Reserve may pause after boosting rates next week.

"Widespread discounting in a number of sectors also reinforces our view that the economy may not be emerging from its soft patch as quickly and strongly as Greenspan and some observers have recently been suggesting," Preston said.

"Greenspan has not deviated from his story that the current soft patch is temporary, and a 25 basis-point hike next week is likely a done deal. But, as the squeeze on retailers spreads through the economy the Fed will eventually be forced to take a long pause on its rate hike agenda."

The idea that we are out of the soft patch may be premature, and it is not inconcievable that we are heading towards another recession.

Update III: I don't this think will help either.

World oil prices surged a dollar on Friday on worries that the ongoing storm season in the U.S. Gulf would continue to hamper energy production and imports, delaying vital pre-winter stock building.

With refining capacity so limited in the U.S. the following is not good news either,

Oil companies are estimated to have shut in about 4 million barrels per day of production this week until Thursday as a precautionary measure against Ivan.

Over 11 billion cubic feet a day of gas production and 13 percent of total U.S. refining capacity has also been shut this week, while the closure of Gulf ports has prevented millions of barrels of oil imports from entering the country.

Welcome Washington Post Readers

If you're linking here from the September 16th Washington Post article, the post you are probably looking for is located here:

Update on Bill Burkett

Mr. Burkett's comment is the fifth one down. I've C&P'd the relevant part:

Did I lie about George W. Bush's records. No.

Of the files that I saw within the 15 gallon waste can were numerous documents which detailed why 1LT George Bush was grounded from flying including a two-page counseling statement signed by LTC Jerry Killian.

Update: I'm going to change the time stamp on this post so it stays at the top of the page (original date and time of this post was Sept. 15th, 2004 8:59 PM Pacific Time, if anybody cares).
--Steve

Innumeracy From the Past

Recently Glenn Reynolds noted he got around 440,000 page views. While clicking around in Glenn's sitemeter data I noted a couple of things. First the upward trend for the past month. Then the upward trend for the year. Then I recalled this old post of mine about Hesiod and David Appell about how Glenn had peaked.

I noted that David and Hesiod had basically been fooled by what was basically seasonality--i.e., a seasonal fluctuation in the number of visitors to Glenn's (and practically everybody else's) blog.

Emily Will

She's on the Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly today. Hopefully there will be a trascript, but I'll live blog it a bit (tape delayed-blogging since my local radio station puts it on after Limbaugh).

She only looked at two of the documents, they were fax quality delivered by air-mail.

She says she had 5 problems with the June 24, 1973 document's signature. She sent those concerns (plus ones on the other document) to CBS. CBS said they'd send some new documents to her, but never did.

She later called them to ask about them, and was told that Matley had verified those documents so they basically didn't need her.

Sounds like she did the "these problems I'm pointing out" thing on the phone, not in an email. She was reluctant to say what their reply was. O'Reilly pressed, but she said she wouldn't repeat what someone else said "at this time". [Quick impression -- she was nervous about repeating anything CBS said -- I'm sensing some lawyers might be involved in this. Maybe her lawyer is telling her to be careful so she doesn't get sued]

She flatly denies that she "misrepresented her comments to ABC".

[FTR, I'm wearing cargo shorts and a white polo shirt. I haven't owned pajamas since I was 10.]

The Negative Aspects of Ra^therGate

I was talking to my old college roommate this morning and we both agree, one of the major negative aspects of Ra^therGate is that it is one more thing that will keep the focus of the election away from some very real issues. Granted this isn't all that new a problem. When John Kerry went to the Democratic Convention he chose to hype his 4 months in Vietnam instead of the issues. The main line of attack against Bush has been to try and make the Texas Air National Guard/AWOL story stick to Bush one. More. Time.¹

There are serious issues this year (and these issues have been around for years). Aside from the most obvious issue of terrorism (which is extremely important) there is also the issue of Social Security and Medicare. There is the issue of rising health care costs. There is the issue of taxes and the deficit. However, the big news right now is what complete blithering morons Dan Rather and his staff are. Dan Rather is a lying two faced hypocrite when you get right down to it. The other day I linked to a story in the New York Observer. Near the end of that article in talking about his reputation and the image of the mainstream media in general Rather says,

"I certainly care about it," he said. "To me, even people who aren’t inclined for one reason or another to like me know I’m a lifetime reporter trying to be independent and to report without fear or favor, to be an honest broker of information."

The problem here is that Dan Rather is part of the problem not part of the solution. Do we really need another story about Bush's Texas ANG service? The voters just don't seem to care about it. It is an old story, one that has been flogged to the point where you can't even find the dead horse anymore, and yet voters don't seem to care.² So by dredging these obviously fake forgeries and engaging in the very thing Rather is decrying (obscurantism) he is part of the problem: deflecting focus away from the issues noted above.

And the candidates are all too happy to go along. To talk about the issues opens oneself up for attack. President Bush doesn't really want to talk about reforming Social Security/Medicare. As soon as he says the p-word (privatization) the Democrats start with the shrill cries of the Republicans wanting the elder to crawl off and die in a corner. And of course, the almost gleeful accessories to this kind of stuff is...the mainstream media.

Kerry doesn't want to really talk about health care reform, because it leaves him open to attack. He is a big government liberal, he'll raise taxes, and so on. All the time the main stream media is right there helping out.

So Bush wants to retreat to 9/11 and Kerry wants to wrap himself in his Vietnam service. Both allow the candidates to trot out the "patriotism" defense if anybody looks at those two issues in detail. And the mainstream media, and even bloggers love this stuff. Hell I'm guilty of it too. And what gets lost in all of this is any serious discussion of the actual issues. What are we going to do when the Baby Boomers start retiring and there are more elderly than young people? What are we going to do as health care costs continue to sky-rocket?

I don't know what the solution to this problem is, but I do know that Dan Rather is indeed part of the problem. Going on national television and presenting documents that are obvious forgeries does not help focus the discussion on issues such as health care reform or Social Security/Medicare reform. Should Dan Rather be fired or resign? Yes, but that is only part of the answer. What the rest is I don't know, but I do know Dan Rather should be ashamed of his duplicitous behavior.
_____
¹For example how many hours has Kevin Drum spent blogging about Bush/AWOL? 100 hours? More?
²Or other aspects about Bush outweighs the impact of the TANG story. Bush has been President for several years now and while he may not be the greatest President he isn't the worst (I'd rank Carter below Bush).

Detailed Statement from cBS

It wasn't easy to find (the link on CBS's main page was in a small font [ahem]), but here's a more detailed refutation [ahem] of the criticisms floating around. You can find a nice fisking of it here.

One thing leapt out at me:

Two of the examiners, Mssrs. Matley and Pierce, attested and continue to attest to their belief in the documents’ authenticity. (see attachments 1 and 2) Two others, Ms. Will and Ms. James, appeared on a competing network yesterday, where they misrepresented their conversations and communication with CBS News. In fact, they assessed only one of the four documents used in the report, and while one of them raised a question about one aspect of that one document, they did not raise substantial objections or render definitive judgment on the document. Ultimately, they played a peripheral role in the authentication process and deferred to Mr. Matley, who examined all four of the documents used. [emphasis added]

From ABC's interview with Emily Will:

Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.

"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said.

She probably has a copy of the email she sent -- has that hit the internet yet? We can decide for ourselves whether she "misrepresented" herself on ABC.

When she releases the email, will CBS dare to say that she faked it?

The Big Statement That Took...

Over 5 hours to write.

Statement by the President of CBS News, Andrew Heyward:

"We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing."--link

They have got to be kidding. I think the Weekly World News just surpassed CBS as being more reliable. Lying jerks.

I Think Dan Rather is Insane

From the New York Observer today.

Mr. Rather said that the focus on questions over the veracity of the memos was a smoke screen perpetrated by right-wing allies of the Bush administration.

"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said. "If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents.

First, why bother with questions from forged documents. Should Dan Rather have to answer questions if I forge docuements suggesting he likes to have sex with little boys? Should he deny the charges is the documents are obviously forgeries?

And why is that kooks like Rather always have to assume that people are "well financed via the forces of Evil^TM"? Does he really believe that Glenn Reynolds, the guys at Power Line, and all the others are recieving checks from the Bush Family Evil Empire (well if they are where can I sign up; I'll continue posting on this issue for $50 a month--which is better than what I'm getting now which is -$7 a month for hosting services)? This kind of kookiness is something I expect from Democratic Underground, not a major media figure who has had decades on the job.

"This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth," he said.

Did Dan forget his medication this morning? I mean since when did pimping obvious forgeries on television help at getting to the truth? Even if the documents contain accurate information (a fairly debatable assumption, IMO), putting obvious forgeries on national television isn't going to help matters...it is going to make them worse.

"There are people who believe that there are little green folks in the center of the earth," he [Rather] said. "I don’t believe that. It’s possible, but I don’t believe it."

It is also possible that Dan Rather is really just a giant talking twinky with a really good make-up job. I don't believe it, but its possible.

Christ, the man has gone senile...or insane...or even both.

Tom Maguire is All Over the CBS Press Conference

He is watching and waiting...looks like it could be a long wait though as the press conference was bumped to 3:30.

It would be nice if the little weasel turds would just be honest for once.

Update: The weasel turds have postponed again, now 5:00 PM ET. Pathetic. Guess they are having trouble coming up with a good lie.

Memos are Forgeries, But the Information is Accurate?

That is what Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, and Richard Via, another TANG officer, claim (link). Both agree the memos are forgeries, but that they reflect Killian's views on Bush and his going to Alabama.

Marian Carr Knox told the Dallas Morning News after viewing copies of the disputed memos, "These are not real," and that "the information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones." She declined to be interviewed late Tuesday, but her son, Pat Carr, confirmed her comments.

Apparently Knox did all the typing for Killian, but that the machines she used could not have produced the memos. Further, she claims to have precise recollection of names and dates and that the information is basically correct and was lifted from the real memos.

Via says he remembers discussing the issue of Bush's physical and going to Alabama with Killian and others.

Via said he and others he worked with "remember the physical, and him going to Alabama was an issue." He said Killian "made notes and put them in his files about things like that."

Killian kept the files because "he was trying to cover his ass," Via said. "He was always worried something would come back on him."

He said Killian's secretary "would type them up, and he'd put it in his desk drawer and lock it."

This story just took a very, very weird turn. The memos are still fakes, but the information was lifted from the original memos? Why? Why re-type the memos in MS Word and give them to CBS?

I have a hard time accepting the Karl-Rove-is-a-devious-genius explanation because why use supposedly accurate information that would reflect badly on Bush? I'm now at a total loss, I'll have to wait and see what the heck pops up over the next few days.

MoveOn.org: Source for the Ra^therGate Memos?

Via Steve Antler comes this story from CrushKerry.com that the source and possible creators of the forged memos was MoveOn.org.

It’s important to bear in mind our source could not state with certainty that MoveOn.org was the source of the fraudulent document.

“I don’t know if it was them. I don’t know anything about it, first hand. But I can tell you everyone here [at Kerry HQ] thinks they gave it to CBS. And lots of people here think they created the damn thing,” our source told us.

Now this would explain why Ra^ther is not willing to divulge who the source is. If it is MoveOn.org and it the general public learns of this Rather probably couldn't get away with merely resigning. He'd probably have to commit ritual suicide on the evening news.

Update: Now this is one heck of a conspiracy theory.

So, who's the mastermind behind this Machiavellian machination? Do you think it's a coincidence that Clinton staffers have begun to take over the Kerry campaign? Is it a coincidence that James Carville is now an official advisor to the campaign? How long has he been giving unofficial advice? It seems very clear that the only mind subtle enough to be behind this whole shebang is none other than Old Serpent Head himself. And if he's behind it all, can a Clinton be to far away?

Yes, folks, you heard it here first. This whole RatherGate scandal has been the first stage in Operation Hillary in 04.

Not sure about this one. Would it be legal? Still its a fun read.

Democratic Undergound Idiocy

I was wallowing in the muck (with suitable protective gear on) and came across this rather disturbing post at Democratic Underground. I am going to reproduce the entire document letter here so that the context is beyond question.

To whom it may concern:

I am grateful that your news organization has the
courage to broadcast the story about the Presidents
service in the Texas Air National Guard.

As a veteran I know that if I had decided to ignore
the direct order of a superior that I would definitely
not gotten off so lightly. I think that this story
goes to the heart of the matter. It speaks of the
character of our President. My grandfather served in
World War II, my Father served in Vietnam, and I
served in the Gulf War and Somalia. We served because
we loved our country and we cherished the freedoms
that service represented. None of us were great heros
but rather we did what millions of men and women have
done throughout the great history of this nation. We
sacrificed our time to preserve our democracy. I
served so that news organizations like yours could
question our democracy. To maintain that precious
balance between democracy and tyranny. If we lose
that balance I feel that the country that I love will
slide into tyranny. Once again thanks for your
courage.

John Flood
Memphis, TN
Emphasis Added

Question Democracy? Delicate balance between tyranny and Democracy? Sheesh, don't they even pretend to hide their Authoritarian streak anymore?

Better Than Joe McCarthy

I got a chuckle out of this from Drudge. The list of people and their popularity is funny.

• Michael Jordan: 83 (2000)
• Tony Blair: 76 (2003)
• Pope John Paul II: 73 (2003)
• Democratic Party: 54 (2004)
• John Ashcroft: 49 (2003)
• Michael Dukakis: 47 (1988)
• Prince Charles: 45 (2003)
• Herbert Hoover: 43 (1944)
• Jesse Jackson: 38 (2003)
• Vladimir Putin: 38 (2003)
• John Kerry: 36 (2004)
• Martha Stewart: 36 (2004)
• Joseph McCarthy: 35 (1954)

And this part was aslo funny.

Kerry finds himself in a dead heat with Martha Stewart and Joseph McCarthy, and behind Herbert Hoover -- although he narrowly beats O.J. Simpson.

Not sure this means much, but I found it amusing.

What does mean something, IMO, is that Kerry's favorability rating has slipped 18 percentage points over the past six months.

This is...Just...Stunning

I am absolutely stuned by this comment from kos,

Those memos added an unecessary exclamation point to Bush's record. While their authenticity appears to be real, based on subsequent research, it's all irrelevant and a debate that serves only to deflect attention from the truth (which is the whole point of the excercise).

I'm tempted to conclude that kos is a liar....but I can't. I'm thinking there is something seriously wrong with that man's brain. I mean, Kevin Drum has got to be the guy who most seriously wants the Bush-AWOL story to turn out to be true. But he has been skeptical of the memos to date. The only way to conclude these memos are legitimate is to dismiss a pile of evidence in favor of extremely unlikely assumptions, which when taken together make the legitimacy of these memos even more suspect.

Atrios is still pimping these documents as well. Again, I am just amazed at the credulity of these people. Are they so blinded by their hate that they will discard what is patently obvious.

Simply stunning if you ask me. That anybody would consider Atrios credible speaks to that person's credibility, IMO.

kos link via John Cole.

Coming out of the Soft Patch?

Are we coming to the end of the "soft patch"? Maybe, the Weekly Leading Index from Economic Cycle Research Institute appears to have stopped declining, and even rose for the week ending Sept. 3rd.

Also, there was the last payroll survey which showed an increase in the number of jobs created compared to the past several months. While 144,000 isn't something to be jumping for joy over it is indeed higher than the 73,000 jobs that were added in July and 78,000 jobs that were created in June.

Now this doesn't mean the economy is great shape. The Weekly Leading Index is still down considerably from several months ago. This means that for next 8 months or so that economic growth is not going to be what it has been. But this is the second increase in the Index, and it looks like things might be getting better down the road.

U.S. Airways Asks to Skip Pension Payment

I found this item over at Atrios' site. You have probably heard about U.S. Airways' filing for bankruptcy (the second time in 2 years) already. Not only is U.S. Airways asking to skip a payment, but may also ask to terminate the plans. Nice, eh?

But what really caught my eye was Atrios' take on this,

Reason number 8 million why we need Social Security...

Actually this is why Social Security needs to be reformed. Reforming Social Security so that it is a mandatory savings program that is invested in a broad based index fund with the principle insured by the government would help solve two problems here.

The first problem is the problem with pensions that skip payments or are reduced as a company encounters financial difficulty. By switching from a pay-as-you-go system to one that is a mandatory savings/investment plan would allow people to become less reliant on corporate pension plans.

Also, consider how much Social Security pays out when one retires. It is nowhere near enough for many people. Factor in the long term problem of running out of money and this problem becomes a much more relevant one as one means of restoring solvency to the system is to...reduce payments. And this brings us to the next problem: solvency...or lack there of, of Social Security.

Social Security as it is currently structured is subject to "shocks" due to shifts in the demographics. Right now the Baby Boomers are very close to retiring and that will mean many, many, many more retirees drawing funds from Social Security. Further, due to advances in health care this demographic bulge is believed to be permanent, not temporary. This problem happened before, and the "solution"--i.e., raising taxes and reducing benefits, didn't work. It was supposed to make the program viable till somewhere around 2055 or so.

With a mandatory savings/investment program this problem would disappear as well. Now there would literally be an account with each individuals name on it. You could get periodic statements like people do with their 401k's, and so forth.

Social Security reform has many, many benefits. Unfortunately it is a political football in that every time a politician tries to address the problem the other side screams that they want to kill the elderly (well okay, the only ones screaming that, that I know of are the Democrats). As an economist I would have expected better of Duncan Black.

Source of the Ra^therGate Memos

Was it Bill Burkett? In comments to this post we have cryptic comment by Bill Burkett himself.

Did I lie about Geroge W. Bush's records. No.

Of the files that I saw within the 15 gallon waste can were numerous documents which detailed why 1LT George Bush was grounded from flying including a two-page counseling statement signed by LTC Jerry Killian.

I checked the IP (205.188.117.12 ) and it is an AOL IP, which fits with the e-mail address used in the post.

Also Burkett mentions a two page memo. None of the memos were more than about half a page. However, this memo is along the lines of a counselling memo. So it isn't clear the Burkett is the source, but I guess he could be the source.

Ra^therGate

Hugh Hewitt has a nice post listing all the problems with the memos used by Sixty Miniutes II. It is a surprisingly long list of items.

One item however did stick out to me.

The fake docs are easily and exactly reproduced on modern word-processing equipment, underscoring the ease with which the bad forgery could have been produced contrasted with the near impossibility of Lt Colonel Killian's producing them in 192/3;

This highlights why the Left side of the Blogosphere has done a bad job on this one. This is a fairly direct application of Occam's Razor. Basically we want to go with the simplest hypothesis that explains a phenonmenon. In this case we have two hypotheses:

1. Lt. Col. Killian went to tremendous trouble to produce these very modern looking memos to himself.
2. The documents are forgeries.

In terms of explanatory power both hypotheses have the same amount of power. Both, in short, explain the existence of the memos. The problem, from the perspective of Occam's Razor, is that the first hypothesis requires a large number of additional assumptions. For example, we have to assume that Killian had access to a then state-of-the-art typewriter/word processor. Secondly that Killian would take a great deal of time producing basically personal memos (when a personal handwritten journal would have been much, much easier and possibly far more believable).

My previous post that uses a Bayesian analysis to conclude the Left, generally, is being irrational is qutie relevant here as well. Occam's Razor is a special case of Bayesian Model comparison and Bayes Factors (for more in depth detail on some of this, download this postscript file by William H. Jefferys and James O. Berger).

The bottom line is to go with the first hypothesis above is to go with the least likely hypothesis. This is right in line with believing in a flat earth, a young earth, and that the earth is the center of the universe. Many of these Lefty bloggers would heap loads of scorn on people who'd hold positions such as a flat earth and/or a young earth. But when it comes to these documents thay reverse themselves based on virtually no evidence and a plethora of unbelievably unlikely assumptions.

Update: In comments Jim provided a link to a pdf version of Jefferys and Berger's paper that developes the links between Occam's Razor and Bayesian Statistics. If you have a decent math background (including probability theory)I recommend reading the paper.

CBS Hires New PR Director

Thanks to GregF at Debunkers.

Is Dan Rather a Secret Operative of the BFEE?

That picture is the Trade Sport graph for Bush's re-election chances. Givent he way the price is constructed it can be interpreted as a probability. This means right now, the market sees Bush as having a probability of winning that is greater than 60%.

It isn't clear that this is the result of the TANG Document controversy, but I'd say that it probably is the reason.

TANG Document Forgeries

Both sides of the Blogosphere are getting all a twitter over the possibility that the Texas Air National Guard (TANG) documents showing Bush was AWOL are forgeries. We have Powerline which has been at the forefront of the Forgery claims. Other blogs that have come out in favor of the forgery claims have been InstaPundit, Little Green Footballs, and INDC just to name a few of the more notable participants on the "Right" side of the blogospher.

On the Left we have Atrios, Oliver Willis, and the Daily Kos. The "Left" has been pretty much doing the "These are not forgeries" claim. Now, one might be wondering who is right...the "Left" or the "Right". In this case, the "Right" has the better of the argument. Lets run through a numerical example.

Lets suppose we go to one of the more hardcore "Lefty" bloggers and ask them to tell us their initial reaction to the TANG documents. That is were they legit or not? Lets further assume that the initial reaction was quite strong, say something like 99% sure the documents are legitimate (i.e., a probability of 0.99--from here on all probabilities will be expressed as decimals).

Now, we go on over to Kevin Drum's site, a notable exception for the Left side of the blogosphere who has made a skeptical post on this issue. Lets take this bullet point from Kevin,

However, it does not appear that IBM made a typewriter with both proportional type and the capability to make a superscripted "th."

Now, what does this tell us about the initial probability assessment above by our hypothetical hardcore Left? It says, that at the very best this new information does not help them. Lets run this through Bayes Theorem. Bayes Theorem is given by,

Now that looks a bit intimidating, but it really isn't. A is the event of No Hoax (NH) and B is the event that no typewriter exists.

Now if we have the following probabilities,

• Prob(NH) = 0.99,
• Prob(NTW) = 0.9,
• Prob(NTW|H) = 0.95,
• Prob(NTW|NH) = 0.05,

then Bayes Theorem says that the Prob(NH|NTW) = 0.84. That is a rather big step down from the intial number of 0.99.

Conversely if a typewriter turns up that does have both proportional spacing and changable fonts then the probabiltiy of a hoax declines. As Kevin says, the fact that nobody knows of such a typewriter doesn't mean one doesn't exist. However, consider this: How many people read these weblogs? How many people read Instapundit, Atrios, Kevin Drum, and so forth? Maybe a million? What are the odds that if such a typewriter exists, that not nne of these people have heard of it? Seems pretty small to me. I'd say we are on firm footing saying no such typewriter exists. This means that even a die-hard believe anything that tars Bush type of person should be revising their initial assesments of these documents downwards (or at the very least not upwards!). If you are not you are irrational. You are refusing to believe what the evidence is telling you. You are as dogmatic as any Young Earth Creationist.

So unless somebody comes up with a typewriter that can do both proportional spacing and change fonts, DailyKos poster Hunter is being irrational. Atrios is being irrational. And of course, Oliver Willis lost it awhile ago. Also, lets not forget that Kevin has a list of items that make him skeptical of the TANG documents. Each of Kevin's points would keep driving the probability of "no hoax" down, and the probability of a "hoax" (i.e., forgeries) upwards. Kevin is right to be skeptical. Atrios, Hunter, and Willis are being really stupid.

(Cautionary Note: The numbers above are hypothetical numbers. Their purpose is to highlight how approaching this issue form a probabilistic stand point works. As new information comes out that appears to hurt your initial stance you should lower the probability of that initial stance being the correct one. We are not seeing that by and large from the "Left". At the same time, these things are not necessarily conclusive proof of a forgery/hoax, but it does look quite bad for CBS and Dan Rather.)

Update: I thought an update on iterative applications of Bayes Theorem is also in order. Kevin, as noted, has a number of bullet points that indicate something fishy going on here. If we assume that each bullet point has the same effect as the one quoted above about proportional spacing and changable font, then after only three iterations of Bayes Theorem the probabilities have reversed themselves. That is after three of the bullet points you should be highly skeptical of the TANG documents (assuming my numbers above are reasonable). By the fourth one the probability of forgery is getting quite close to one.

Update II: Thanks to Kevin Brancato for pointing me to this post at Shape Of Days. Here is the short version:

1. Apparently there was a typwriter that could do proportional typing and the special superscripting.
2. However, the machine is ridiculously expensive. $16,000 to $22,000 in todays dollars.
3. Also, the typewriter couldn't easily reproduce the memo precisely. It was close, but not close enough.
4. This typewriter also cannot reproduce millimeter centering as seen in the CBS documents.

So while the existence of this typewriter might make one think the probability of hoax declined, the latter items would substantially raise the probability of hoax practically to the level of 1. Read Jeff's entire post, then click over to the main blog and read his other posts on this.

I'd say this one is totally dead in the water. Dan Rather lied. CBS lied. Atrios, Oliver Willis, et. al. bought into a hoax simply because they wanted it to be true.

Dan Rather on Forgerygate

("Forgerygate just doesn't ring, does it?)

The intrepid folks at Powerline have this tidbit:

...Dan Rather went on CNN and said that he knows the Jerry Killian documents to be authentic, and knows that they are not forgeries. Therefore, he said, there will be no retraction, no correction, and -- apparently -- no investigation.

Next week on 60 Minutes II, Dan Rather will reveal the CD, recently discovered in Rose Mary Woods's personal files, that contains the infamous "missing 18 1/2 minutes," in which Nixon and Haldeman discuss the methods for intimidating Texas ANG officials into covering up George W. Bush's AWOL status.

Kerry's Medals and the Navy Investigation

Reader Rob Lister sent this in, and since the post it refers to is a fair ways down I thought it deserved its own post.

Rather than post this in the comment section, I thought I'd just e-mail you directly.

Kerry's initial Silver Star citation is signed by someone other than the SecNav. While the current SECNAVINST provides the the SecNav retains authority to award this medal, I am almost positive that this is the result of an instruction change. The following link is that of a Silver Star citation during the same period for a marine, and for whom this instruction did and does pertain (Link).

Note that it is signed by "COMMANDING GENERAL, FLEET MARINE FORCE, PACIFIC" and not the SecNav. If asked I could probably find other citations so signed for Navy personnel as well. My point is that during that period, the SecNav either delegated that authority -- as per the written instruction at the time -- or that the written instruction -- at the time -- did not mandate SecNav authority or delegation. Hey, military instuctions change all the time and unless you happen to have an old copy of one, it is difficult to know exactly what changed. The record of changes only gives broad strokes as to the changes and doesn't reflect former changes (so far as I know).

So, Several possibilities exist. If the authority for the Silver Star changed during Leman (sp) reign as SecNav (1980?-) then it is possible (although I think unlikely) that duplicate Awards would have been automatically issued strictly as a bureaucratic function to reflect that change. Failing that, the only reason I can think of that Kerry would have such a late-signed duplicate is that he became aware of the wording of the (more-current) instruction around 1980 and, without realizing that the instruction may have changed, somehow finagled someone in the SecNav office to autopen the SecNav sig on a new one. In other words, I think the award is legit but he thought it might not be and dug himself an unnecessary media grave.

I think this could be the case. It could very well be that regulations on the awarding the Silver Star have changed. Of course the additional wording in the latest citation is still a bit of a mystery. Also it does not address the issue of the two additional bronze stars for the Vietnam Service Medal.

By God...Kerry Really Was In Cambodia

Proof positive. I'd better send an e-mail to Kevin Drum and apologize for suggesting he is clueless. I'm the clueless one.

Update: Sort of related, but it looks like Kevin Drum is angling to become the most responsible Lefty Blogger. I think that is actually a pretty good post. His bottom line is pretty good if a bit weak. I'd have put it a bit differently, basically saying the probability these are forgeries is really, really high. Almost all of his bullet points suggest an extremely high probability of forgery here.

The Possible Forgeries

Even ABC news is picking up on the possibility that these documents were forged. From page 2 of the ABC document:

The memos were written using a proportional typeface, where letters take up variable space according to their size, rather than fixed-pitch typeface used on typewriters, where each letter is allotted the same space. Proportional typefaces are available only on computers or on very high-end typewriters that were unlikely to be used by the National Guard.

The memos include superscript, i.e. the "th" in "187th" appears above the line in a smaller font. Superscript was not available on typewriters.

The memos included "curly" apostrophes rather than straight apostrophes found on typewriters.

The font used in the memos is Times Roman, which was in use for printing but not in typewriters. The Haas Atlas — the bible of fonts — does not list Times Roman as an available font for typewriters.

The vertical spacing used in the memos, measured at 13 points, was not available in typewriters, and only became possible with the advent of computers

I have to wonder, who would be so stupid and inept a forger as to produce these documents allegedly in Microsoft Word?

I think the answer to my question is obvious: Karl Rove and the evil Bush Machinery! One of Rove's minions produced these memos, and laundered them through 3 or 4 cutouts to get them to CBS, knowing full well that the forgery would be discovered. This is just another attempt by the BFEE to sabotage the Kerry campaign's juggernaught roll towards victory in November, with the CBS News as collateral victims. Mwaaa-ha-ha-ha! [/freak]

Funnily enough, I didn't find this conspiracy theory floated on DU yet. At this point they're still defending the veracity of the story, so I guess it won't be trotted out unless/until CBS issues a retraction.

UPDATE

Naturally, the Instapundit beat me to it.

Now people are wondering if the whole thing was a Karl Rove setup. Could be, I guess, if Karl Rove is really an invincibly brilliant genius, in which case Kerry might as well just give up now.

Great minds and all that.

I don't know why I was expecting the DU to come up with this, when I should have been expecting it to come from a prominent Democrat operative.

(Lehane even floated the idea that the Bush campaign might have been responsible)

UPDATE 2

A commenter at Balloon-Juice has an even better theory:

My counter conspiracy theory is as follow:
Recently due to the RNC convention bounce, Kerry campaign have to make drastic personnel changes with plenty of Bill Clinton crew ending up calling shots. Kerry's old staff is kept merely as token. This gives Clinton the perfect opportunity to torpedo Kerry campaign by floating an obvious forgery, clearing the way for Hillary’s '08 run.

Those Evil Conservatives: Judicial Watch

They are at it again. Trying to tear down a great man...a great man. We all know that Kerry is great. Why? Because he spent 4 months and 12 days in Vietnam. Not only that, but he went before the U.S. Senate and told the Senate and the American People what a bunch of atrocity committing monsters our troops were (they committed atrocities on a daily basis you know).

So what are these guys at Judicial Watch up to? Well here is something interesting,

The supplemental filing, available by clicking here, provides the Secretary of the Navy with additional analysis of Senator Kerry’s publicly available Navy record concerning his award of the Silver Star, in light of Secretary of the Navy (“SECNAV”) Instruction 1650.1G (“Navy and Marine Corps Awards Manual”). Orders and citations posted on Senator Kerry’s Internet site reflect citations for the Silver Star being “awarded” to Senator Kerry under the authority of both Vice Admiral Zumwalt (Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam) and Admiral Hyland (Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet). Section 113.3 of SECNAVINST 1650.1G directs that only the Secretary of the Navy can, in the name of the President, award the Silver Star.

Hmmm...interesting. Could this be why Lehman's name is on the third citation?

You know, no matter how much the media doesn't want to touch this story. If it turns out that Kerry's Silver Star is bogus (I'm still far from convinced it is) it will kill his campaign and leave the media looking like a large collection of morons.

So...Kerry Really Was In Cambodia

In whose universe? In every single case in which documentation exists, the SBVT allegations have been shown to be false.

Oh...sorry, my bad. That is from Kevin Drum. Somebody should clue him in. Sheesh.

Why Do We Have A Crappy Press Corp?

At least in terms of economic reporting? David Tufte at VoluntaryXchange has taken a shot at answering the question. His answers look pretty good to me.

Here We Go Again...

...back into the Bush-AWOL story. Oh well, it was bound to happen. What with the flap about Kerry's medals, the Swift Vets and now a formal Naval Inquiry into the medals; the press had to obviously "find balance" and come up with some dirt on Bush. I suppose this will inspire a million blog posts on the Left side the blogosphere about how Bush was AWOL.

Wages vs. Total Compensation

A few days ago I blogged about the difference between total compensation and wages. Anyhow the new National Economic Trends is out. And in there are two interesting graphs. The first shows the growth rates for total compensation, wages, and benefits as seperate time series,

Notice that the growth rate for benefits is increasing rapidly, the compensation growth rate is increasing at a mild rate and the growth rate for wages and salaries is actually declining. Now we have a complete picture, unlike what you'll get from John Kerry or Nathan Newman. They will focus solely on wages and salaries and ignore the rest. For firms it is total compensation that is important. This represents the full labor costs to the firm.

The other graph shows total compensation annual rates of change for the past several quarters.

From these graphs we see something else that you wont get from people like John Kerry and his ilk. The decline in wage growth rates has been going on for some time. It started back in 2000 under President Clinton. The decline in the wage growth rate started right about when there was a sudden upsurge in the growth rates of benefits. Could this be a reason for for the decline in wage growth rates? Most likely.

Also lets keep in mind this recent TCS article by Arnold Kling. That article points to one potential explanation for the recent and protracted divergence between the payroll employment survey and the household survey.

Ask yourself this question: Which would you rather have

• $5,000, or
• A plasma screen television that costs $5,000?

I bet 99% of the population would want the money. If they really wanted the television they could take the money and buy one. Fruther, and more importantly not everybody wants such a television over all the other things they could do with $5,000. Those few who really want the television are vastly out numbered by those who'd rather spend $1,000 on their car, or $1,500 on their house, or $2,000 on a vacation, etc.

This follows from basic economics. In economics people are typically considered to value a mixture of goods more than just a single good. That is suppose I offered you the following "baskets of goods":

• Basket 1: $500 of swiss cheese.
• Basket 2:
  • $10 of bread,
  • $10 of cheese,
  • $50 of steak,
  • $100 of clothes
  • $100 of gasoline (for your car),
  • $30 of DVDs,
  • $100 of shoes,
  • $40 of toiletries,
  • $60 of utilities.

Which would you rather have? They both have the same monetary value, but if you want the second basket you are saying it gives you more personal benefit. Given $500 to spend what are you going to put in your own "basket"? Will it tend to look more like the second one, or will it just have 100 lbs. of cheese?

So if an employee can "opt out" of health benefits by becoming a contractor for his employer he might just do that. He'll do it because the extra cash can allow him attain a higher level of welfare.

This is especially true here in the United States. If you have little or no assests and are healthy then having no insurance at all is actually the optimal strategy. No hospital can refuse to treat you if you suffer a catastrophic accident and cannot pay. Further, small out of pocket expenses such as a quick doctor's visit for a flu shot, minor injury or infection would probably be less than paying a monthly insurance premium. So there is a double incentive to "opt out" and push any unexpected high costs onto those who have not opted out.

The solution is to take away people's freedom. You make them buy insurance. If you don't have insurance and you suffer an accident then you have to suffer rather nasty consequences such as having your credit rating ruined for a number of years (even this wont result in 100% coverage). Either that or the government takes over and simply does it for you. They take part of your wages and buy insurance for you. And we all know how wonderfully well the government works.

Kerry's got a gun....

[yes yes, I'm still here]

Henry Hanks gets one wrong, I think.

JFKerry...: Too bad I can't shoot Bush

Referring to this AP story, which includes the following feeble attempt at humor:

In West Virginia, Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, gave Kerry a rifle [sic] as a gift. Kerry, a self-described gun-owner and hunter, quipped: "I thank you for the gift, but I can't take it to the debate with me."

No no, the "rifle" (it's actually a shotgun, but nevermind) is for any panelists that might dare to question his patriotism by asking him anything about his Senate record.

Priorities Indeed

In this post, I linked to a post by Kevin Drum. In that post Kevin was noting the problems in Iraq, Afghanistan and the overhaul of the U.S. intelligence communty suggested by the 9/11 Commission. Kevin seemed distraught that the Republicans weren't going to consider any of these things in legislation. Kevin in fact focused on this part of the article,

The pace of legislative action is likely to quicken in the next several weeks, said Patrick Basham, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, but "most of it will be carefully packaged, focus-group-tested, window-dressing stuff designed to appeal to swing voters in closely contested congressional races, such as they exist."

He predicted that the Republican leadership would bring bills to the floor "for the sole purpose of embarrassing or flushing out the Democrats on emotive or wedge issues. Between now and election day, the action on Capitol Hill will be more symbolic than substantive."

Already, House Republicans are planning to bring up the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, according to Stuart Roy, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). And one House Republican aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leadership planned to schedule a bill to keep the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Kevin then seemed upset when the "NY Times reported that abortion, flag burning, and tort reform are on the agenda too".

Kevin's final conclusion?

To paraphrase a famous man, I guess the Republican leadership is more interested in gay bashing and special interest demagoguery and not interested in the security of the American people. Maybe they should start getting their priorities straight.

There are two issues I have with this post by Kevin. First is that the issue of intelligence reform and the 9/11 Commission is on the agenda too. It is at the top of Kevin's first link.

Measures to carry out recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission and to increase domestic security are on the agenda. So is legislation on transportation, energy, education, health and jobs programs and extending President Bush's tax cuts. There is also likely to be a huge omnibus spending bill laden with fe