Curt Doolittle

Form: Quote Commentary

  • QUOTE OF THE DAY “Ugh, the c-word: consensus. Science does not work that way. Wh

    QUOTE OF THE DAY

    “Ugh, the c-word: consensus. Science does not work that way. What is the ‘consensus’ on the necessity of state?” – Paul Vahur

    (Almost fell off my chair 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-21 12:11:00 UTC

  • RECORD AND IMPROVABILITY OF ECONOMIC FORECASTING “…economist Victor Zarnowitz

    http://m.nber.org/papers/w2099.pdfTHE RECORD AND IMPROVABILITY OF ECONOMIC FORECASTING

    http://m.nber.org//papers/w2099.pdf

    “…economist Victor Zarnowitz wrote in “The Record and Improvability of Economic Forecasting” that there was too much reliance on trends, and he also noted that predictive failure was also due to forecasters’ incentives. Zarnowitz wrote: “predicting a general downturn is always unpopular and predicting it prematurely—ahead of others—may prove quite costly to the forecaster and his customers”.

    Incentives motivate Wall Street economic forecasters to always be optimistic about the future (just like stock analysts). Of course, for the media and bloggers, there is an incentive to always be bearish, because bad news drives traffic (hence the prevalence of yellow journalism).

    In addition to paying attention to incentives, we also have to be careful not to rely “heavily on the persistence of trends”. One of the reasons I focus on residential investment (especially housing starts and new home sales) is residential investment is very cyclical and is frequently the best leading indicator for the economy. UCLA’s Ed Leamer went so far as to argue that: “Housing IS the Business Cycle”.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-20 15:48:00 UTC

  • A HISTORY OF “YOU” “Using a plural to address a single person was once reserved

    A HISTORY OF “YOU”

    “Using a plural to address a single person was once reserved for the very highborn, but made its way down the social ladder until any social superior was to be addressed with you. It didn’t stop there, though, as vous and Sie did. Instead, having once crowded out ye, you now edged out thou in the early modern period.

    To recap: you began as as objective, then became usable in subject position too. Then it went from plural only to singular too. Then it went from formal use to informal use too. Ye, thou and thee (the objective form of thou) were all left behind in the history books. Quite the conquering pronoun. Good job, you.”

    (From The Economist)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-20 11:10:00 UTC

  • LIBERTARIANS MAY BE RIGHT ABOUT INSTITUTIONS. BUT CONSERVATIVES ARE RIGHT ABOUT

    LIBERTARIANS MAY BE RIGHT ABOUT INSTITUTIONS. BUT CONSERVATIVES ARE RIGHT ABOUT HUMAN CAPITAL

    “Superficial statesmen and politicians — always too plentifully represented in every Reform, Radical or Revolutionary Party — constantly make the mistake of assuming that if a well-tried and old-established institution begins to reveal serious flaws, the fault must inevitably lie with the institution itself and not with the men trying to run it.” – Anthony Ludovici

    (HT to Traditionalist)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-20 09:56:00 UTC

  • WHATS WRONG WITH UKRAINE: “…financial reports are prepared for tax purposes ra

    WHATS WRONG WITH UKRAINE:

    “…financial reports are prepared for tax purposes rather than as a means of establishing their financial state.”

    You cannot trust any numbers here unless they are kept by a foreign national using western accounting standards. (GAAP).

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 12:56:00 UTC

  • Mathematics vs Cinema As Tools For Explaining The Universe

    ‎”Cinema can still explain the whole world. Mathematicians think it’s math. I believe it’s cinema.” – Jean-Luc Godard

    Mathematics can explain only what we cannot sense. That is why we have mathematics: to compensate for our limited ability to perceive the universe. However, human concepts must at some point be reduced to those stimuli which we can experience. All language is reducible to an analogy to experience. All imagery is by definition experience. Mathematics is, at some degree of abstraction, simply a vehicle for compensating for our terribly weak short term memories by creating categories, applying quantities, and rearranging symbols while preserving ratios. The mind could do this without mathematics if we had the short term memory to do it with. Film is, today, the most informationally rich means by which, that which we *cannot* perceive directly, can be reduced by analogy and narrative, to that which we *can* perceive directly. At first glance, these statements are not terribly romantic. But after we consider that human beings have invented mathematics, the narrative, and visual media so that we can rapidly sense what we could not sense directly, we can certainly wonder at the marvel of what man can accomplish in the service of his mind and his experience. And in that understanding we can appreciate that there is no material difference between mathematics and cinema. They are simply extensions of us. And that is as romantic an experience as any. – Curt Doolittle 😉 (Originally posted under FilmmakerIQ)

  • LIDDEL-HART’S ORIGINAL “It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whethe

    LIDDEL-HART’S ORIGINAL

    “It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off … since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.” – Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

    REVISED VERSION

    “It is folly to imagine that the members of the bureaucratic state can be bought off… Since the payment of taxes stimulates the demand for more taxes. But they can be curbed. The very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force. “

    Let all men be armed.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 11:05:00 UTC

  • WAR IS COMMERCE BY OTHER MEANS? “While there are many causes for which a state g

    WAR IS COMMERCE BY OTHER MEANS?

    “While there are many causes for which a state goes to war, its fundamental object can be epitomized as that of ensuring the continuance of its policy — in face of the determination of the opposing state to pursue a contrary policy. In the human will lies the source and mainspring of conflict.”

    “War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.”

    “Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of to-day is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future”

    – Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 10:38:00 UTC

  • “It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nation

    “It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off … since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.” – Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 07:38:00 UTC

  • “The downfall of civilized states tends to come not from the direct assaults of

    “The downfall of civilized states tends to come not from the direct assaults of foes, but from internal decay combined with the consequences of exhaustion in war.” – Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 07:13:00 UTC