Sunday, October 29, 2023

No Man is God

 

With God On Our Side

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war

And a powerful man on your side, such as Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk is NOT God.

It makes no difference whether that powerful man has views with which you agree, such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, or George Soros.  A human is not, can not, ever be God.  A man may act like God, but if we also act like that man is God, then that is our mistake.  If as humans, we defer to powerful rich men, believe that they are on our side, then it is better that we pluck them out than let that cause the rest of us, our body, to stumble. 

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for
thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Matthew 5:29



Friday, October 27, 2023

The Election of a Speaker of the House II

 

Hey There Little Red Riding Hood

I'm gonna' keep my sheep suit on
Until I'm sure that you've been shown
That I can be trusted, walking with you alone
Awooh

MAGA Mike Johnson has been called Jim Jordan with a jacket and a smile by a Republican colleague.

While the speaker’s race has mercifully ended, the conservatives crazies have won.  The candidates desired by the Republican moderates, Steve Scalise and Mike Emmer, withdrew from the race when it became obvious that they would not get the crazies’ vote.  Mike Johnson was not opposed by Donald Trump precisely because he was one of the architects of Donald Trump’s election denialism.   That he was not well known by the public is no excuse for the moderates backing him. 

While the Senate and a Presidential veto may keep the bad bills passed by the House in check, but the Speaker's House still needs to originate among other things appropriation bills. Stopping bad bills can be expected, but no good bills can also be expected.  Humoring the “Freedom” Caucus is appeasing the ”Freedom” Caucus, and that is not so funny.  If the moderate Republicans voted against Jim Jordan, then they should also have voted against Jim Jordan with a jacket and smile, i.e. his sheep suit.  Don't we deserve someone who can actually be trusted, not someone who can deceive us into being trusted.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

The Election of a Speaker of the House

 

Burning Down the House

Ah, watch out You might get what you're after Cool babies Strange but not a stranger I'm an ordinary guy Burning down the house

Watching the Republicans in the speakership disaster is watching them “Burning Down the House”!

Mike Emmer has joined Steve Scalise in withdrawing his name from the Speaker’s race after winning the support of a majority of the Republican Conference.  The problem is that while there are  two parties in the House, the Republican Conference is in fact a coalition of the “Freedom” Caucus and moderate Republicans versus a coalition of Democrats of all persuasions.  While the coalition of Democrats has remained firm, the coalition of Republicans has been anything but firm.  Since the job of the Speaker is to govern a coalition of the entire House of both parties, a Speaker who can not even win the support of a coalition of Republicans can probably not do the People’s business. 

Because the Speaker of the House is the third in line to the President after the Vice President, maybe the People are better served by no Speaker until a new House takes office in January of 2025 than having a Speaker who has the support of those who want to burn down the House.  Matt Gaetz is like the dog who chased after trucks only to catch a truck. That dog did not know what to do after he caught that truck. Matt Gaetz did not know what to do after he removed Speaker McCarthy.  The People should watch out because Matt Gaetz got what he was after!

Monday, October 16, 2023

Perfection is the Enemy of the Good

 

If I Can’t Have You

If I can't have you
I don't want nobody, baby
If I can't have you, uh-ho-oh-oh-oh

Love the One You’re With

And there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can't be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you're with

Dueling lyrics to show that "Perfection is the Enemy of the Good.”

Stating an absolute position sounds admirable, but it is limiting. “All, or nothing at all” means you will accept the absolute, perfection, or will accept nothing. Like teaching sex education to teenagers.

Should unmarried teenagers be having sex?  Probably not. 

Will teaching sex education make unmarried teenagers have sex? Probably not. 

If unmarried teenagers are not having sex, then do they need sex education?  Probably not.  But if they do have sex, then at least they will know what then are doing.

Humans are not absolutes. We can approach an absolute but can not attain that absolute. IOW, we exhibit exponential behavior. Saying that you will only settle for an absolute, IOW perfection, guarantees that you will attain nothing.  On the other hand, if you accept less than perfection, then you will attain something.

When disaggregating an Origin-Destination table, such as USDOT’s Freight Analysis Framework, or any matrix which is itself an aggregation, or expansion of a survey,  then there is one unique outcome that is related to that aggregation or survey, IOW is accurate. However, there are many possible outcomes, e.g. disaggregations, many of which are virtually identical and some of those are also the most numerous, probable.  That most probable outcome may not be ACCURATE, but it is available and can be solvable.   Or as statistician George Box famously put it, “All models are wrong, but some are useful”  A most probable solution may be wrong, but it may be useful.  Use the solution you can solve, e.g. love the one you’re with.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Dr. Suess vs Mother Goose

 

Teach Your Children

Teach your children well
Their father's hell did slowly go by
Feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by

All you really need to know you learned in Kindergarten.

As children we learned from Doctor Suess, not Mother Goose and maybe that is the issue.  To be fair the Little Red Hen was written by Mary Mapes Dodge, not Mother Goose.  But the lesson of the Little Red Hen, like much of Mother Goose, is that if you don’t work you will get no benefit.  However the Little Red Hen did not ask why no one else in her group would help her.  She ignored that her growing of the wheat depended on the weather being good, there being enough rain, there being no pests, etc. IOW, luck.  And when she ate the bread, it was not clear than she could actually eat all of the Bread instead of sharing it.

Doctor Suess instead taught us that 

“A person’s a person no matter how small."

“Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store.” 

“Why fit in when you are born to stand out”. 

“Unless some like you cares a whole awful lot.  Nothing is going to get better. It’s not”.  

Thank you, children, for listening, and not giving up on the dream.

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Business

 

Taking Care of Business

And I'll be taking care of business (every day) Taking care of business (every way) I've been taking care of business (it's all mine) Taking care of business and working overtime, work out

Is the Business of America, Business?

The business of a business is to make money, to seek the user equilibrium of their business. The business of America is America, not business, to ensure that a system equilibrium is reached and to ensure that each individual, including businesses, have the resources available to be able to do business. This may mean spending money on the group rather than making money on every transaction.

In order to do business, those businesses have to access to goods. Goods are classified in two dimensions by economists: rival (priced) and exclusive (only one person can use that good), not just one dimension as private and public property. There are private goods, and those are priced and exclusive, using a good prevents another from simultaneously using that good. Government, the group, has a role in ensuring that private priced and exclusive goods are not taken without compensation. That is why there are crimes against stealing and a police force to deter that theft. There are Public Goods and those are unpriced and nonexclusive. Government has a role in ensuring that everyone has access to those goods. Individuals can not demand access fees from others to public goods.

It gets more complicated for Common Resources, which are unpriced but exclusive. These are not necessarily free or unlimited. Businesses may not be able to function unless these resources continue to exist. An educated workforce is one example. Each business may depend on, take advantage of, but not pay for, the education of the workers that it employs. But that education has a cost which is covered by the government with no expectation that it will make a profit, or even cover those expenses.

It also gets more complicated for Club Goods, also called Public Monopolies, which are priced but nonexclusive. While they are priced, using that good does not prevent others from also using that good.  Unless they are protected in some fashion, those goods may not be produced. Government may license those goods, for example a cable TV system, or may issue copyright or patent protections to ensure that these goods are not copied without compensation. The government may not receive a profit or even cover the expenses for the license, copyrights, or patents.

Why is this an issue? The Constitution says that a Postal Service will be provided to ensure the free exchange of ideas among all of its citizens. It may not be profitable to make this service available to citizens living in rural areas. But we currently have a businessman in charge of the United States Postal SERVICE (emphasis puposefully added), who is discounting or curtailing rural service that does not make a profit. Duh,…. it is called service because it is NOT always expected to make a profit or even cover its costs. But that does not mean that it is not essential. No one is saying that a service should be provided at any cost, but a small loss does not mean that the service ( there is that work again) is not essential. And that is the difference between America and a business, America seeks a system equilibrium, an a buisness seeks an individual user equilibrium. Taking care of business means respecting and cherishing that difference.  In other words, viva la difference.

Monday, September 11, 2023

Packing SCOTUS?

 

Midnight Rider

And I've gone by the point of caring,
Some old bed I'll soon be sharing,
And I've got one more silver dollar,
But I'm not gonna let 'me catch me, no
Not gonna let 'me catch the Midnight Rider.

Should the Supreme Court ride again?

The United States currently has 12 Circuit Courts of Appeal.  So why are they called Circuits?  At the time of the country’s founding, travelling was difficult, and it made more sense for judges to travel to the trial, rather than having the trial come to the judge.  The judges instead would thus "ride" a circuit from trial to trial.

As travel became easier, the practice of riding a circuit was discontinued, but the word remained.  Why does this matter for the Supreme Court?  At the time of the Supreme Court’s founding, each Supreme Court Justice was responsible for a circuit.  There are 12 Circuits of Appeals Courts in the United States, so there must be 12 Justices on the Supreme Court?  Oh, there are currently only 9 Justices?  Then adding three Justices would be returning to normal, not court packing.  The idea that there should be Circuits, is because while there could be an opinion within a Circuit, which is typically several states, it is the opinion of the entire United States that should be the opinion of the Supreme Court.

The Justices of the Supreme Court are individuals, not an absolute.  So how can we ensure that they have the certainty of an absolute?  The answer is in the very jury system overseen by the judiciary.  There are twelve members of a jury in a criminal case.  Those cases are decided by unanimous decisions, i.e. 12-0 of the jury, not by dominate decisions, i.e. 7-5. 

There is a reason for that.  There are 4,096 possible votes of a jury, only two of which are unanimous decisions: Unanimously Guilty; or Unanimously Not Guilty. The certainty of a Unanimous Guilty decision by a jury is thus not 100% but it is 99.98%.  But as could be imagined a lone hold-out juror might extract concessions from the rest of the jury and the decision could then be biased, not certain.  That is why a unanimous decision is not required in a civil case.  The decision is less certain, but also with less of a possibility of a hung jury, or a decision which reflects the lowest common denominator of the entire jury.

A twelve-member court has a mean of 6.5 and a variance of all of their votes of 4.  A 6-6 decision reflects no more than chance, 0% dominance but 77% certainty.  A 7-5 decision  reflects 100% dominance but only a certainty of 80.6%.  A decision that is 9-3, still reflects 100% dominance but its certainty has increased to 94.6%.

For reasons cited in a previous blog post,  https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2023/05/judicicary.html, which discussed only increasing the size of the Supreme Court’s bench to 10 members, a sixteen-year term, staggered among the Justices, is recommended, but the first terms of the three new Justices could be adjusted such that they have terms that expire, assuming their appointment in 2025, respectively, in 2045, 2047, and 2049.  The sitting Justices’ terms would then begin to expire in 2027 with one term expiring in that year and every subsequent 2 years based on the seniority of the sitting Justices. Thus the last sitting Justice’s term would expire in 2043, assuming that the terms of the three new Justices begin in 2025. Upon the death, or resignation, before the end of that term the President would be expected to nominate and the Senate to confirm the nomination of a Justice to complete the unexpired term.  A president, serving one four-year term could thus nominate only 2 Justices  serving full terms. A president serving two one-year terms, could thus only nominate 4 Justices serving full terms.  Even in the event of a vice president being promted into more than 3 years of the term of his President, and then subsequently beginning elected to two of his own four-year terms would only get to nominate 6 of the 12 Justices serving full terms. That nomination could be of the Justice whose term is expiring.  Yes, that would mean that individual could conceivably  serve 32 years, but life expectancy and interest is expected to cut that short, such that a two term limit for justices seems superfulous.

The number of Supreme Court Justices would then be consistent with the number of Circuit Courts of the United States, even if those Justices would not be required to "ride" those Circuits.  The decisions of the Supreme Court would be required to be 9-3 which represents both the certainty of one standard deviation, the square root of variance, from the mean, AND dominance.