Defending Rational Markets

Liberals like to assume markets and individuals are irrational, in agreement with their denial of individual cognitive exceptionalism. After all, if everyone is an irrational blank slate, how can anyone be intrinsically better than anyone else? It’s then not surprising to see Michael Lewis – the inveterate liberal anti-banker journalist – be in favor of… Continue reading Defending Rational Markets

The Tyranny of the Bookish

Saw this re-tweeted by the great Charles Murray: Controlling for confounds, kids' test scores are unrelated to time in school, studying, TV. But reading = big deal http://t.co/cHHqYVUAXr — SteveStewartWilliams (@SteveStuWill) May 13, 2015 Perhaps it’s reading books, not grades, parenting, or TV, that is the biggest influence of success at life. It seems in… Continue reading The Tyranny of the Bookish

The Great Decoupling

From AV: The Great Decoupling Ultimately, I think this whole debate on wages, STEM, wealth inequality, and automation boils down to IQ. The decoupling is also obvious when comparing advanced degree employment and income versus those with only high school or ‘some college’. It’s also pronounced between majors, with STEM earning more. these trends have… Continue reading The Great Decoupling

Marc Andreessen and Twitter

Marc Andreessen, who is perhaps the most important VC and forecaster right now, like more soft-spoken Peter Thiel, is correct about many things such as Web 2.0 not being a bubble and being skeptical of democracy. The later point agrees with the NRX (Neo Reaction) ideology, showing that one need not be directly affiliated with… Continue reading Marc Andreessen and Twitter

Bernanke is Right

He’s right: Bernanke sees no risk of hard landing in China, bullish on U.S. economy Not only does Bernanke deserve a standing ovation for saving the day in 2008 (along with Paulson and Bush), he’s right about the US economy still being fundamentally sound and about China not having a crash landing, as much as… Continue reading Bernanke is Right

The Canonization of Dr. Nash

Yesterday, the Nobel Prize winning mathematician and economist John Nash Jr. and his wife died in a taxi accident. From the NY Times obituary: Receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Carnegie, he arrived at Princeton in 1948, a time of great expectations, when American children still dreamed of growing up to be physicists like… Continue reading The Canonization of Dr. Nash

Defending the EMH

Continuing on my first post about the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), I believe in a semi-strong version of the hypothesis, which allows for some opportunities to make profit through a process called fundamental drift. It would seem that the EMH’s biggest opponent are from the ‘right’ of the political spectrum (zerOh3dge and Market Ticker type… Continue reading Defending the EMH

Feeling Left Out?

The feeling of being ‘left out’ is something that one normally assumes applies to children and teens – you outgrow it as an adult, but the question, Do you feel like you’re missing out?, that I posed on Hacker Network apparently touched a nerve, as evidenced by all the replies: It seems like with all… Continue reading Feeling Left Out?

Uncomfortable Truths

IMHO, one of the most pressing problems in society is this inviolable, pervasive discomfort surrounding the topic of IQ, in that educators, parents, and policy makers can’t come to grip with the reality that individuals below a certain threshold of intelligence are either less valuable to society (everyone is not equal) and or it would… Continue reading Uncomfortable Truths