Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived
A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?
Update: seemingly not
Update: Oh yeah!
Friday, July 29, 2011
Christ, what a moron
If the Reuters comments system wasn't so annoying I wouldn't have to bother you lot with these ... also from Felix's site, Alan Greenspan:
Since the devastating Japanese earthquake and, earlier, the global financial tsunami, governments have been pressed to guarantee their populations against virtually all the risks exposed by those extremely low probability events. But should they? Guarantees require the building up of a buffer of idle resources that are not otherwise engaged in the production of goods and services. They are employed only if, and when, the crisis emerges.
An earthquake, in Japan, is not an "extremely low probability event". Like the eventual collapse of the San Andreas Fault (which will not be a "Black Swan", when it happens, btw), it is pretty much a probability one event. It is a low frequency event, but that is not the same thing at all. The words "only if, and" should be deleted from the last sentence quoted above, which makes the whole thing correct and shows you why social guarantees against inevitable but difficult-to-plan-for events are an obviously good idea, which is why literally every literate society ever has had them as a top priority. Alan Greenspan presumably hasn't got life assurance because seriously, death, how many of those are you likely to go through in your life?
Tangentially related to this, and to the post below, the original Twitter rumour that motivated that discussion was one to the effect that "Piers Morgan has been sacked by CNN". I would say that this is in the class of statements that were false when made, but which are basically true statements waiting for reality to catch up with them. If the newspapers ever mistakenly print my death, I plan to write to the obits editor concerned and reassure him that "History will vindicate you one day".
this item posted by the management 7/29/2011 05:28:00 AM
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