patrick.net

Well, that would do away with the sample size issue.

Why it's called mathematical induction when it's a deductive process is a mystery to me. Didn't mean to change the subject away from chi squared distributions and what not.

I meant to be humorous…they jump from n=1 & n=2 to all n, without mathematical induction.

It is fine if n = 2...

Might as well include economists in our late-nite festival:

Micro Economists do proofs as such: if a rational n = 1 but would like to be n = 2, and a rational m = 2 but would like to be one, then P = 1.5, but only assuming elasticity of ..., then we take the set the first derivative AC = 0 ... and finally we discover that MR = MC. Wow, lets make this into a 400 page book with lots of graphs.

Macro Economists do proofs as such: money = this theory, aggregate supply = that theory, capital = other theory, inflation = this + that - other theory. Wave hands a lot, and *poof*, we can't tell you anything about the future except that it is uncertain, but we can explain the past as if we should have known it before it happened.

Well, that would do away with the sample size issue.

If you know alpha you don't need the sample size, but it would be nice. You know how accurate the guess is with an alpha (because it incorporates n and sigma).

LMAO,

That's why I did much better in Macro than Micro economics.

If extraterrestrials were monitoring transmissions from Earth, what would have more meaning for them...the decimal expression of pi to 100 thousand digits, or Hootie and the Blowfish?

They're watching Seinfeld reruns in the Vega system about now, aren't they?

I think they'd be studying up on how to serve us

for dinner

I think they’d be studying up on how to serve us for dinner

Free-range human with truffle cream sauce?

Owneroccupier Says:

“There is a gay phase in adolescence for all guys”

I think it is many, but not “all” guys…

“most of us grow past that, some of us get stuck there. Sexual orientation is not entirely a natural-born thing, it is also influenced strongly by your early sexual experience and sexual partner.”

I think that almost everything is a combination of both nature “and” nurture.

If you look at 100 kids from normal families you will naturally have a small number of gay kids, by if you look at a group of 100 kids who were molested by an older step brother for years you will have a lot more gay kids. The results will be similar if you look at when you guys who hit women every now and then you will have a kid who grew up in a happy Christian home who for some strange natural reason beats his wife, but most abusers come from homes where Dad beat the crap out of the kids and their Mom…

I think sending them a simple sequence of prime numbers would stop them dead in their tracks - Sort of like the Jesuits marching into the Amazon with the Crucifix held high before them.

I think sending them a simple sequence of prime numbers would stop them dead in their tracks - Sort of like the Jesuits marching into the Amazon with the Crucifix held high before them.

Braised "prime number" human brain with cracked pepper.

Let the feast of a thousand beasts begin!

Content has degraded from the thread standard.

Content has degraded from the thread standard.

How?

Do you think aliens will eat human sushi? Or they may think we are filthy animals?

"Content has degraded from the thread standard."

(I'm gonna incorporate that into a Donnie Darko comment and then head for bed)

Peter P,

Are you saying Aliens observe Kosher law?

Oops... if aliens are studying this thread... we just gave them some recipes... oh no!

---

Dear aliens, Our brains taste horrible and truffle cream sauce is no good.

astrid gently warmed, drizzled with Jake G. cream sauce. Then sent to bed.

I guess I'll be banned for sure now.

I guess I’ll be banned for sure now.

No one will be banned for suggesting a recipe.

Disclaimer: No recipes here posted have been kitchen tested.

"astrid gently warmed, drizzled with Jake G. cream sauce. Then sent to bed."

And on that obscurely obscene note, good night to all and to all good night.

Disclaimer: No recipes here posted have been kitchen tested.

Also, no animals have been harmed.

Disclaimer: All references to Jake Gyllenhaal cream sauce are made without the express consent of Sony Pictures Inc., Paramount Inc., or Warner Brothers Productions.

Okay now, what is Jake Gyllenhaal cream sauce? Is it similar to truffle cream sauce?

Owneroccupier Says:
I know this Margaret Hwang woman, before she got married. Haven’t been in touch for years.
Let me put it this way, she is not the brightest bulb in our circle of friends, but definitely a climber. Used to intern for some big name senator or something, tried politics, didn’t work, wanted to do ibank, didn’t work. Kinda surprised to find her in academia. One should check who sponsored that study, I bet it is some realtor/builder-related interest that is doing so.

bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,
fire burn and housing double...

reminds me of a fairly useless 1946 paper written by one milton friedman on the cost of housing in chicago etc at a time of similar concern. he actually submitted that you could control all property prices rather than just rents, but kind of dismissed that as a possibility, one memorable line was 'but what of the man who wants to rent?'

http://mason.gmu.edu/~kbrancat/Papers/roofs_or_ceilings.pdf

oh, Capuchin Economics - the behaviour of Capuchine monkeys - behavioural economics - i'm all for that stuff - i thought the name was like 'latte economics' for a moment...

i like these sorts of quotes:
"In other words, home buyers do not operate in a world of rational expectations. They are easily swayed by low interest payments, low down payments, tax code changes and perhaps most importantly by the emotional tug of being left behind or not getting their fair share of wealth that others are receiving. This last factor is the founding basis for behavioral finance and Capuchinomics. We then fully understand that such behavior is emotionally normal, but financially destructive."

a recent study found some 8-10% of sheep (rams) were gay...

Inside the Mind of the Gay Sheep
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/08/inside_the_mind/
(quite a funny site, too)

a guy called milton diamond (no relation to jared?) postulated 4 stages of pre-natal sexual differentiation through the action of hormones - the derangement of any of the stages would lead to different manifestations of cross-gendered behaviour...

Different Sean wrote:

>reminds me of a fairly useless 1946 paper written
>by one Milton Friedman
http://mason.gmu.edu/~kbrancat/Papers/roofs_or_ceilings.pdf

Friedman's writings usually make a lot of sense and I did not find anything in the link above that I didn't agree with.

Bingo. The international carry-trade via ultra-cheap $USD was a huge factor in spawning RE bubbles all over the globe.

hmm, when wall st sneezes, the whole world catches a cold... (not that it was wall st exactly this time, tho greenspan lowered interest rates to save the share market...) interest rates definitely went down in many countries following 9/11 and all the rest.

tho wendell cox at demographia.com insists it is urban consolidation housing policies alone that drive up prices, when you consider parts of america are still very cheap (the smith article calls these "screaming bargains") - i am somewhat surprised in fact that people haven't swooped on every part of america and tried to milk the ROI on investment property - if you get good cash flows on cheap property in nebraska or wherever, why haven't all those places gone through the roof as well - interstate investors buying up all the places?

wee

sorry about the post above. For some reason my last post wasn't posted.
Anyhow, About the baby boomers selling off their houses in 10 years.. I was reading an article the other day and the scary thing it mentioned was that the next big baby boom is pretty much happening right now. Get this- The majority of those having kids are: you guessed it- Baby Boomers! Yay! another entirely new generation of boomers to start all over again! The good thing is that by the time lil' Jr gets old enough to buy anything, we'll hopefully be out of this mess and be in homes of our own( if you aren't already.)

SFwoman,
When I lived in Berkeley, I knew a lot of people who claimed to have their home residences at their friend's houses just so their kids could go to Berkeley High School. Amazing. I think they have since cracked down on that because Berkeley had a huge amount of students for a few years.

It sort of scares me at the level of hostility being exhibited in those posts. Someday, I might be one of those guys with california tags driving around there. I hope they don't associate all californians simply as "assholes". I can understand the fear of people coming in and jacking up their prices, but I'm sure many of the people who moved there are in my same boat and needed the ability to attain upward mobility, not just cash out and gorge on cheaper real estate.

When I have looked at the Demographia papers they always seem vaguely like Heritage Foundation papers, the outcome is known before the data/study is put together. Suburbs=good,...

yeah, i don't agree with his single-cause theory, it has to be interactive at the very least. i initially took offence at his 'anti-urban planning posture', because it seemed like a near-trivial input to inflation. however, he is adamant it's the main driver. i suggested to him it is a correlation at best, like eating ice-cream doesn't cause you to put on sunscreen, altho both behaviours are present on a hot day.

further, with the current fuel crisis, peak oil, etc i completely disagree with his 'flight to suburbia' - i argue for better train links, higher densities, and so on - but then he has arguments saying it is costlier to run trains. other reasons not to sprawl are that it cuts into arable farmland and costs much more to implement infrastructure over large areas - therefore all environmentally wasteful activities...

he has a good grasp of demographic data tho... and points out that housing is affordable in houston area, altho it takes in millions of people... and the US experience has been that the coasts have become particularly unaffordable, other areas not so bad...

the Schiller house bubble hedge

how will it work?

nomadtoons2 Says:

About the baby boomers selling off their houses in 10 years.. I was reading an article the other day and the scary thing it mentioned was that the next big baby boom is pretty much happening right now. Get this- The majority of those having kids are: you guessed it- Baby Boomers!

I don't know if the article you refer to is talking about the same thing, but there's a well-described phenomenon of the "echo boom", ie, boomers' kids are in another generation that has a larger population than its predecessors and successors. I'm gen-X (yes, that term fell out of vogue long ago it seems), so we're stuck being in a minority demographic and subject to mass effect from the boomer generation. They're certainly not all evil, but there sure are a lot of them.

maybe the californians will be mistaken for terrorists, targeting the wal-mart...

Friedman’s writings usually make a lot of sense and I did not find anything in the link above that I didn’t agree with.

it makes some sort of sense in some sort of status quo way, but so what? he really is working inside the box, working in a model he has been given - no useful suggestions for ameliorating a problem. hence, i wouldn't go to him for any kind of useful social policy advice... maybe there's a reason he struggled as an academic for a long time, until market fundamentalism and laissez-faireism and economic rationalism became the order of the day in a new era... and homo economicus was born...