Something More Upbeat

In article . com,
wrote:

On the day my daughter was born I took a photo of her hand in mine.
Not much data density: poorly lit photo of a baby's hand in an
adult's. However, I take a photo of her hand in mine each year on her
birthday. Thus far, the series is still short. Each single photo
carries little information. The photos in series are more interesting;
I hope that in twenty years (if the series lasts that long) they will
be far more interesting.

I actually now use the graph as an example for "when is smooth too
smooth?" to illustrate how the eye and brain process visual data. It
didn't start that way: when I started the graph the riser height of
each step was much clearer. I never thought the number of stairs would
be so large and that's part of the story, both in terms of visual
decoding and also data density. I've had to rescale the axes several
times, and that's part of the story, too.

And, to come back to your question about when the numbers of deaths
are high or low, I had posted this back when the President was
promoting The Surge:
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/temp/deathsbymonth.png

There had been clear seasonality in the coalition death tolls, so one
would think there is also seasonality in overall violence (not just
deaths of coalition soldiers). If so, then evaluating the effect of
The Surge (either on coalition deaths or more generally on overall
violence) should also take into account seasonality.

Speaking of graph smoothing:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._07/011682.php

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

On Jul 27, 7:55 am, Howard Kveck wrote:

Speaking of graph smoothing:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._07/011682.php

Hmmm. OTOH, it appears to have some data density.

On Jul 25, 12:47 am, wrote:
On Jul 25, 5:58 am, wrote:

Was it a Habanero Cycles frame,http://www.habcycles.com/index.html,
or was it just "like" one? Because not only are Habaneros
made in China, not Russia, but the owner and proprietor of
Habanero, Mark Hickey, used to post in rbr and rbt until our
own JFT sent him to Usenet Guantanamo.

I think Hickey just couldn't stand the thought that all of his Bush
chickens were coming home to roost and used JFT as a convenient
excuse.

Perversely, I give Mark some credit for this. I mean,
not for being a torture denialist (IIRC that was one
of the issues of the argument), but I think somewhere
inside he recognized that previous positions (his or
the Admin's) were no longer tenable, and the escalating
cognitive dissonance eventually caused him to flip
his wig. As you said, JFT happened to be the trigger.

The reason I give him credit for flipping his wig over
untenable positions is that there are also people, not
just in rec.bicycles.*, but on prominent editorial pages,
who don't flip their wigs but are perfectly happy
insisting that the grass is mauve and the sky is
polka-dotted.

I briefly considered buying a Habanero but stopped because I wondered
what Hickey would be like if anyone ever disagreed with him about
needing warranty service.

Well, to be fair to Mark, everybody on rbt who has
one seems happy with it and him. I'm sure the frames
can stand up to a lot of abuse (har har). I'd think
about buying one, but I'd be afraid it would always
pull to the right. Which would be fine if I raced
crits, but I never liked crits.

Ben

On Jul 27, 8:53 am, "
wrote:
I'd think
about buying one, but I'd be afraid it would always
pull to the right. Which would be fine if I raced
crits, but I never liked crits.

Maybe Mancebo could benefit from one.

On Jul 26, 10:55 pm, Howard Kveck wrote:

Speaking of graph smoothing:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._07/011682.php

This is way off thread and topic now, and it is your fault.

I have my doubts that was "smoothing" or regression at all. It just
looks like drawing a line where "you" decide you want it.

But the line in the second graph is bogus too:

http://economistsview.typepad.com/ec...ain-tax-c.html

Even if some mathematical operation is performed correctly, it says
nothing about whether it has any meaning, or the underlying data is
(or not) bogus; it doesn't. It is only a facade of legitimacy.

The Laffer curve has to exist a priori -- that part is not arguable
(unless one adds some twists to language, and that has indeed been
done). That doesn't mean someone can acquire data to demonstrate the
Laffer curve in a real economy.

The actual question right-wingers and left-wingers hissy-fit about is
whether the corporate tax levels are anything close to a point where
cutting them would actually increase revenues. I wouldn't propose to
say the US corporate tax rate is near or at that "point." I don't
know, but I have some doubts.

But wonder what the real question is. Are left-wingers just saying:
"soak them because we can; because we can get more of someone else's
stuff?" Frankly, I have to say yes. They tax because they can. They
don't have another good reason. "Should they(?)" doesn't even seem to
come into the picture. Left-wingers simply seem to be saying "I'll
just tax as heavily as possible until squeezing stops increasing my
revenue." There is no introspection, no justification.

I think during Reagan the corporate rates were higher, so maybe there
was a better chance then that reduced rates increased revenue. I
don't know, and I don't think that is the prime question, although it
would be really stupid to raise rates to a negative return (so it is
something leftists would do).

Should corporations be taxed at all? I don't think they should be
taxed. Therefore the rates are too high, regardless of where the
rates would fall on the Laffer curve if one could actually acquire the
data.

Do you have any rationale of why you think corporate tax rates, or any
tax rates for that matter, should be this or that?

"It's the spending stupid." --BF, 1759

"To the intellectual the social device of capitalism
offers a displeasing picture. Why? In his own terms,
here are self-seeking men in quest of personal aggran-
dizement. How? By providing consumers with things they
want or can be induced to want. The same intellectual,
puzzlingly, is not shocked by the workings of hedonist
democracy; here also self-seeking men accomplish their
aggrandizement by promising to other men things they
want or are induced to demand. The difference seems to
lie mainly in that the capitalist delivers the goods."
--Bertrand de Jouvenel,
_Treatment of Capitalism by Intellectuals_

de Jouvenel tapped his mother-in-law IIRC. Another great Frenchman!!!!

In article .com,
SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:

On Jul 26, 10:55 pm, Howard Kveck wrote:

Speaking of graph smoothing:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._07/011682.php

This is way off thread and topic now, and it is your fault.

I have my doubts that was "smoothing" or regression at all. It just
looks like drawing a line where "you" decide you want it.

Well, of course. I was kidding when I suggested it was a case of smoothing. They
drew that line becuse it allowed them toprove what they wanted.

But the line in the second graph is bogus too:

http://economistsview.typepad.com/ec...ain-tax-c.html

That graph seems to be how they normally are drawn - averaging the numbers and
ignoring the outliers (and in this instance, Norway is a clear outlier).

Even if some mathematical operation is performed correctly, it says
nothing about whether it has any meaning, or the underlying data is
(or not) bogus; it doesn't. It is only a facade of legitimacy.

The Laffer curve has to exist a priori -- that part is not arguable
(unless one adds some twists to language, and that has indeed been
done). That doesn't mean someone can acquire data to demonstrate the
Laffer curve in a real economy.

Well, the Laffer Curve is (and has been) something of a holy grail to supply-side
adherents but it hasn't been shown yet to actually exist in real life.

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

In article . com,
wrote:

On Jul 27, 7:55 am, Howard Kveck wrote:

Speaking of graph smoothing:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._07/011682.php

Hmmm. OTOH, it appears to have some data density.

I'll take it!

I think the WSJ line looks dumb, but I'm pretty sure Mark Thoma's line
isn't a whole lot better, maybe worse.

I'll concede that this is better evidence for the Laffer Squiggle than
the Laffer Curve.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

On Jul 27, 5:48 pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
wrote:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._07/011682.php

Hmmm. OTOH, it appears to have some data density.

I'll take it!

I think the WSJ line looks dumb, but I'm pretty sure Mark Thoma's line
isn't a whole lot better, maybe worse.

I'll concede that this is better evidence for the Laffer Squiggle than
the Laffer Curve.

Mark Thoma's line uses fewer free parameters and
runs closer to the data points. Also, he probably
constrained it to go close to (0,0), since that
point is fixed. Anyone got the actual data table?

I read in a discussion of the original plot that the
Norway point included tax revenue from offshore oil
on the Y-axis, but didn't include this in the tax
rate on the X-axis. Supposedly, if you just
consider non-oil tax rates and revenues, the Norway
point comes down to the other Western European
countries, like the UK. IOW, not only the Laffer
curve fit, but the data, were bungled (or fudged).

Ben

On Jul 27, 5:11 pm, Howard Kveck wrote:
In article .com,
SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:

The Laffer curve has to exist a priori ...

Well, the Laffer Curve is (and has been) something of a holy grail to supply-side
adherents but it hasn't been shown yet to actually exist in real life.

It isn't a holy grail. People use the idea as a subtle argument keep
the tax rate down, even if it the argument is technically wrong for a
given economy at some given time. It really isn't that big of a deal
as it is a fairly straightforward and simple concept.

It is actually at the extremes where the concept becomes more dubious,
not the middling regions. (By that I mean it really is questionable
if you can call the theoretical "societies" and "economies" at the
theoretical extremes "the same ones" as "the middling ones." "The
same ones" is so incredibly subjective, and the character differences
at the extremes must be so very great. So if the general concept has
a problem, that is where is lies, not criticism in the manner tax hogs
project.)

In more practical terms it must exist a priori. The reason it can't
actually be empirically well demonstrated is because "society" and
"the economy" isn't a toy model/experiment you can twiddle to get a
satisfactory set of data on. A starting problem is "the economy" is a
very loose and vague fiction. I'm not saying the terminology can't be
useful, it can, but be careful. You can't ceteris paribus a "society"
or an "economy" while doing your Laffer test tweeks.

Why do you think all of them are drawing lines on top of lame data?
They don't have good data -- so they resort to lameness. The reason
you have problems with it is it has been cartoonized and politicized.
It really isn't that big of a deal. Both sides are riddled with smoke
and mirror presentation. It is crap.

All of this is irrelevent, as neither side really bothers to drive to
answering the hard question of why any tax should be at any particular
level.


"It's the spending stupid." --BF, 1759

On Jul 27, 5:48 pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
In article . com,

wrote:
On Jul 27, 7:55 am, Howard Kveck wrote:

Speaking of graph smoothing:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._07/011682.php

Hmmm. OTOH, it appears to have some data density.

I'll take it!

I think the WSJ line looks dumb, but I'm pretty sure Mark Thoma's line
isn't a whole lot better, maybe worse.

It is not worse. The WSJ line doesn't even have the pretense of
looking real. The phony Mark Thomas' line has better fooling quality.