Enoch

OK, that's just laughably idealistic. The implementation of some state of mythical supercapitalism isn't going to abolish human nature. Believing otherwise is every bit as nuts as Marx's dream of a socialist worker's paradise. People have always done dumb things from time to time, and sometimes people do dumb things en masse. Yes, markets do adjust and correct for mistakes better than pure command-and-control economies, but it still takes time before confidence returns and business gets going again. (It wasn't government action that had all the major investment banks and hedge funds employing 30X leverage...)

Well, of course nobody can prove (or disprove) that boom/bust cycles come from Ayn-Rand-dreamstate pure-free-market capitalism-- there has never been such a thing on a large scale. My earlier statement was a bit of a shorthand; I thought about historical analogies and the closest example I could think of was 19th-Century America, which was characterized by a dramatic business cycle. You (correctly) pointed out that there were a lot of other external factors that had a pretty big part in causing that instability, such as huge demographic shifts, money supply problems, etc., which I conceded. FWIW, I'm not blaming current economic problems on "capitalism" or "socialism." I'm blaming it on bad decisions and bad leadership, from both the private sector and the public. Every economic system is pretty much equally susceptible to that. Personally, I don't think talking about the extremes is particularly useful-- we're in a modern mixed economy, wherein the market is the core mechanism, but government activity takes up a quarter or so of GDP. That ain't gonna change meaningfully anytime soon (and, at the risk of sounding Panglossian, it shouldn't), despite what the "creeping socialism" alarmists might think.

Theorists have gone back and forth on this kind of thing. Pure Keynesian theory was dominant until it couldn't account for the stagflation of the '70s. Neo-classical Monetarism generally replaced it as the en vogue theory. What you say about Monetarist domination might have been true 20 years ago, but the data from the late '80s through the present has led to a revival of 'neo-Keynesian' thought. Ultimately, both schools (and their accompanying policy prescriptions) have had their successes and their failures-- and the competition between the two has been very good for the field overall. But I doubt that anybody is ever going to come up with a model that can reliably explain the micro and macro sides at the same time. Of course, you were probably talking about the "Socialism!!1!" strawman that libertarians love to throw out there, rather than incremental Keynesian policy. And it is certainly true that you're not going to find many academic socialists in the economics department of any American univerisities. (The English departments, on the other hand...) But political discussions about actual fiscal policy proposals in the U.S. are about as removed from socialism as anti-littering laws are from police-state fascism. (I sometimes think that mentioning Marx in this kind of discussion should be governed by something similar to Hitler and Godwin's law-- it's the point where a libertarian's argument officially descends into absurd hyperbole.) Well, consider the intellectual history of the field. Back when classical economics was the only game in town (when it was called "political economy"), the business cycle was a much-discussed topic. It was explained as a side-effect of the creative destruction of a free economy: When times are good, firms would race each other to expand, which tended to lead to overproduction, prices falling, firms failing, and (particularly for durable goods) future demand declining, which rippled out to other industries via reductions in payrolls and defaults on debt. The Classical prescription for government response to an economic slowdown was to ensure that the government didn't crowd out private finance by borrowing money. This was done generally by raising taxes or curtailing government spending, and it didn't work particularly well. Keynesian theory arose specifically as an attempt to address this-- observing in the real world that wages and prices were "sticky" and the delays in their adjustment often led to firms failing and markets collapsing. Since the adoption of Keynesian policy prescriptions by leading governments, the business cycle has generally been gentler. It's not too hard to imagine where people came up with the idea that it helped. I suppose a rephrase would be a more useful way to approach the issue-- how would a hypothetical pure-free-market economy prevent or mitigate the effects of rapid expansions or contractions in economic activity?

I've had a Samsung for about 18 months and it has recently developed 2 vertical 1-pixel-width black lines that show up when certain colors are displayed.

Attention Bioware/EA/LA: Playable Jawas = +1 sale. That is all.

R.E.M. -- I Remember California

not when it comes to economics, and the liberalism that idiots like killian are pushing does not work. i'm sorry, but you are simply wrong here. we'll keep on pushing the same end of the string in hopes that some day it will work, however, driving ever forward to catastrophe. I can't vouch for Hades' views, but it may shock you to learn that there are well-respected professional economists on both sides of the aisle in America. The Chicago School doesn't always have all the correct answers. Market failures exist, transaction costs sometimes need to be controlled, firms and consumers, even in the aggregate, don't always behave in a wholly rational manner, and, occasionally, it is actually in the nation's best interest to knowingly sacrifice some economic efficiency to achieve other societal goals. Based on these factors and others, there is solid economic analysis in support of many politically liberal policy initiatives. You'd think so, but the problem in the States is that people have so stridently sorted themselves into one party or another that they would generally rather vote for an extremist on "their" side than they would for anybody on the other side. (This is often in spite of their official registration-- lots of voters register as "independent" but still reliably vote for only 1 party.) Both the major parties have figured out that it is easier to pander to the extremes of their party to raise the turnout among core supporters than it is to appeal to centrist voters (who aren't as likely to vote in the first place) and risk alienating your base.

Nathaniel Chapman Developer Diary Some neat descriptions of the new Overland Map.

Once I realized that the splicers were respawning (about 4 hours in), I quit the game altogether. I'm no big fan of FPS gameplay to begin with, and when I realized how much of my time would be spent on repetitively killing the same weak opponents, I decided that seeing the rest of the fantastic art direction wasn't worth it. Maybe someday I'll find an invulnerability cheat so I can ignore the combat and see what all the hubbub was about the rest of the story/setting/art.

Okay, that crosses some kind of line. Implying that people only support liberal candidates because of pure self-interest and charismatic pied-pipers is both mean-spirited and ignorant. Frankly, taks, I expect better of you. Public policy isn't like science class-- there are extraordinarily few positions that are clearly "right" or "wrong," and if you think you know for certain which ones they are in advance, you're fooling yourself. Rational arguments can be made on both sides, and we can differ in our opinions without believing the worst about one another.

I doubt that Powell would get a cabinet post or similar position in an Obama administration. More likely would be something like a temporary Special Envoy to deal with a high-level diplomatic mission (e.g., to Pakistan, Isreal/Palestine, etc.). Anyhow, the effect on the election will be minimal, if anything. Endorsements, when they have any import at all, are generally useful as a proxy to help voters who hadn't invested the time to familiarize themselves with the candidates a whole lot (i.e., "I don't know about X, but I like Y, and Y endorses X, so he's got my vote"). Thus, their importance is generally inversely proportional to the public awareness of the race/candidates. Late in a general election for the most high-profile position possible, people aren't changing their decisions based on an endorsement. (As Pop points out, though, has been entertaining to see the far rightward end of the media try to spin this as nothing more than Powell's loyalty to his Soul Brotha.)

DL'ed the World of Goo demo last night. Stayed up way too late going through the levels. I think I'll be buying the whole game shortly-- it even had the wife interested.

Wow, the World of Goo hype has gotten pretty insane if it's now inspiring fetish costumes. Oh, and today I read lots of federal student loan statutes. While not quite as bad as last summer when I had to read many federal medicare statutes, I predict that many beers will be consumed this evening.

By the way, has it ever been confirmed that we'll be starting at 0 xp? The OC had the "harvest fair" XP extravaganza to bump us up to level 3 (for 0 ECL characters) right off the bat, but the D&D low-level problems are somewhat mitigated in SoZ with the a 4-person group. (Plus, there isn't much need for all the "this is how you cast a spell" tutoring.)

I had the same reaction. Put about 4 hours in and decided that seeing more of the cool art direction wasn't worth the tedium of going through all the splicers, especially once I realized that the game respawns them in areas you've already cleared out. I've been playing Deus Ex (for the first time). To my embarrassment, I got almost all the way to the end of the Hong Kong area before I realized that repair bots could recharge my bioelectric energy. They probably covered that in the 'training course' intro, but I forgot it sometime between then and the first time I actually used by nano-abilities enough to deplete my charge significantly.

I spent most of the weekend watching football and playing Deus Ex, while my wife made me look bad by starting to pack stuff up for our move a month from now.

Eh. Big gains, but it's a typical bear market rally. Bear rallies are like one-night stands: intense and satisfying, but they almost never last.

Thelonious Monk -- Raise Four

White Stripes -- Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine

Clearly, they need to use more draconian DRM.

Dexter Gordon -- Love For Sale

Neat. This is the first I've heard of it, and it certainly looks fascinating. Plus, I don't think that something with a name like "World of Goo" could possibly be bad.

I'm reminded of this. And I'm reminded of Joseph Heller's Something Happened.

Mostly, I'm interested in Storm of Zehir and Fallout 3 right now. (I actually didn't start to get excited about FO3 until I saw the ad campaign they started in the DC Metro this week. The 'local' aspect of the game to me is a fun selling point-- I'm a sucker for unexpected intersections between my "real" life and my nerd life.) Unfortunately, both come out in late Oct.-early Nov., and we're going to be moving to our new house on November 8. (Translation: all my free time will be spent packing, unpacking, shopping for furnishings, and playing handyman.) Looking further ahead, Dragon Age and Alpha Protocol are the big attractions once the calendar flips over to '09. Now that I think about it, I don't know where I'm going to get the time to play all that stuff. A 30-hour game usually takes me a month or so, and I imagine that will go up with the new house and the holidays coming up.

US Fed & Euro banks order emergency rate cut.