Both Sides Now

 

Ten Thousand Voices

Ten thousand kisses
Ten thousand tears
Ten thousand wishes
Ten thousand years

Ten thousand years sounds like a long time.

In Europe, they  think that 100 miles is a long distance and 100 years is a short time.  In the US, we think that  100 miles is a short distance and 100 years is a long time.  But Europeans are also very intolerant of people not in their group, the Irish and the British for example, or the Poles and the Russians.   I am the grandchild of immigrants from Europe.  They left Europe to get away from intolerance.  So pick your poison, the group that lives a long time but thinks people from far away are bad, or the individual who lives a very short time and thinks people from far away are not so bad.  

 IMHO the problem today is that people like MTG, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, etc., think only about the short term AND that people from far away are bad.  The worst of both worlds. I would prefer to think about the long term AND that people from far away are good.

Cycles

 

The Circle of Life

It's the circle of life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
'Til we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of life

Life isn’t a straight line up. Life isn’t a straight line down. Life is a circle, a cycle.

Humans tend to view things as a straight line. When things are getting worse, think they will get even worse, which also means that things were better in the past, MAGA. If things are going good, we think they will continue to be that way forever,

The truth is that life is a cycle. You just have to not be hasty, and allow the cycle to complete itself. Our persective can change how we view thingss.  To a toddler, next Christmas seems like forever.   A senior citizen might say instead, is it Christmas again already? The fact is, it is always a year between Chistmases.  It did not take less time, your perspective just changed.  

If the cycle is very long you might miss the fact that it is a cycle.  If the cycle is very short, it might look like there is no cycle, that things just happen. But if there is life, you can be sure the cycle is there. Even if the cycle is in your imagaination, dreams.

Dumb and Dumber?

 

Epistle to Dippy

Rebelling against society,
Such a tiny speculating whether to be a hip or
Skip along quite merrily.
Through all levels you've been changing
Elevator in the brain hotel
Broken down a-just as well-a
Looking through crystal spectacles,
Ah, I can see I had your fun.
dumb dumb dumb, dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

So Dippy, are you dumb, or dumb like a fox?

The most convincing lies sound true. Such as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  You can use simple math to prove this is not true. Let “=” be friendship and “<>” be enmity. Let a be you, b be your enemy, and c be the enemy of your enemy. The enemy of my enemy is his enemy is true, b<>c. My enemy is my enemy, is true, a <>b. But the enemy of my enemy is my friend, a=c, is not true. The enemy of your enemy might be your friend a=c, but they could also be your enemy a<>c.

Similarly tax brackets, which are MARGINAL tax rates are not EFFECTIVE tax rates. A 99% marginal tax rate is not a 99% effective tax rate, any more than acceleration is speed. Prior to Reaganomics in 1979, the highest tax bracket was 70% but the effective tax rate was 37%.  In 1981 after the Reagan tax cuts, the highest marginal tax rate was 50% and the highest effective tax rate was 32%. In 2023, after the most recent Job and Tax Cuts Act, the highest marginal tax rate was reduced to 37% and the effective tax rate was 29%. You can have policy debates on what the marginal tax rate or the effective tax rate effective rate should be, but you should not confuse the two. Was this an example of being dumb, or being dumb like a fox?

A Flat tax rate on income, where the marginal tax rate is always equal to the effective tax rate of income, not households, is implictly assuming that the variance of income in every household is zero, which means that every household has the same income. Sounds rather communistic that way, doesn’t it?

It is true that an absolute has a mean/median/mode which is abosute zero, but this does not mean that an absolute has no variance, σ². In this case determinism is really 0 ± σ and randomness is (x<∞) ± σ. It is NOT determinism is 0 ± 0 and randomness is x ± σ. Making your mean/median/mode equal to zero and your variance zero does not make you an absolute. It only makes the look like you are pretending to be an absolute. The only question is did you unintentionally claim to be an absolute, in which case you could be corrected, or did you intentionally lie about being an absolute and can not be corrected. You can be shown to be lying, but you might still lie.

 

It's A Wonderful Life II

 

Buffalo Girls

Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight?
Come out tonight, Come out tonight?
Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight,
And dance by the light of the moon.

Don’t we all want to lasso the moon!

45 years ago I married into a family from Tioga County, PA.  I spent many Fourth of Julys traveling from my in-laws home to see the see the Elmira Pioneers play baseball.  I shopped in downtown Elmira, Corning, and Horseheads.  While in college, I traveled to Cornell to root against Ken Dryden playing hockey against my college.  I toured most of the baseball stadiums in the New York-Penn League of baseball when it included the St. Catherine Stompers, the Welland Pirates, the Batavia Clippers, the Geneva Cubs, etc.  I am kicking myself now that I was so close but never visited Seneca Falls the inspiration for Bedford Falls,  especially after hearing the podcast, George Bailey Was Never Born.

My favorite movie of all time is still Casablanca.  My favorite Christmas movie fluctuates between Die Hard and White Christmas, depending on my mood.  But those are emotional decisions.  Intellectually, IMHO,  the most important movie of all time is It’s A Wonderful Life.

It is the movie cited most often by economists as being the best teaching tool.  https://www.npr.org/2023/01/10/1148144705/its-a-wonderful-life-bank-run-economics.

The movie intuited Nash Equilibriums before they were articulated by John Nash in 1951, where someone, e.g. George Bailey, blocks the bad impulses of some Users so that the rest of the Users can be equal.  Yes, the second act is a horror movie when George is not born and everyone can pursue their User Optimal. Yes, the first act is a horror movie where George has to accept something less than his own User Optimal to achieve a Nash Equilibrium for everyone.  But his is the price of achieving something approaching a System Equilibrium, and that seems better to him, and to everyone else, as is revealed in the final act.

The movie intuited that our reality is the exact opposite of what we would like it to be if you consider life to be complex. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2023/09/distribution-of-income-ii.html

I eagerly look forward to the new museum quarters being completed in downtown Seneca Falls.  My favorite  museum in the world is the Charles Shultz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA, and yes I have been, and am comparing it, to: the Louvre, the MFA in Boston, the Met in New York, the MOMA in Los Angeles, the Vatican Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Getty Center, etc.  It is because the Schultz Museum loves its subject, and not merely its possessions.  And my goodness there is a great subject to love in It’s A Wonderful Life.

Rules

 

The Rules of the Road

So these are the ropes
The tricks of the trade
The rules of the road
You're one of the dopes
For whom they were made
The rules of the road

Let’s hear it for the rules!

A contest for dominance between only two players involves no rules.  Either player can lie, cheat, or steal to be dominant, win.  A contest with rules, especially rules enforced by referees, does not have to only be a contest of dominance.  If the losing player is not destroyed, can complete in future contests, either with the winner of that contest or some other player, then the result of that and many contests can also be one of certainty, in addition to dominance.

It might seem like a contest is only between two teams, contestants.  But if you look closely that is because the third team in the field/arena/court, the referees, are virtually invisible if they are doing their job correctly.  That does NOT however mean they are not there, and it does not mean that they are not important.

Players in such contests may “work” the refs to try to gain an advantage, but that is implicitly acknowledging that there are rules and referees.  A player who acts like there are no rules, or is not subject to rules,  and that there are no referees, may win every contest in which he competes but he will never achieve certainty.

In elections or other political contests, it might seem like you are competing for dominance. That may be a winning tactic, but it is a losing strategy.  A winning strategy is to compete in accordance with the rules to achieve certainty.  Learn and follow the rules.

Certainty II

 

You’re The Top

You're the Tower of Pisa
You're the smile on the Mona Lisa
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top

But how many are on top!

With apologies to Billboard,  it is not the Top 100.  With apologies to  AP sports polls, it is not the Top 25.  With apologies to David Letterman, it is not the Top 10.  It might be only the Top 3 that matters.

The top, first place, indicates dominance, but it does not indicate certainty.  Appearing on a top list can indicate certainty, but while more than a certain number increases visibility by appearing on the list, it does nothing to increase certainty. It is customary to rank things in order and to award the lowest number of points to the bottom of that list and the highest number of points to first place finishes. For example in a Top 5 list, 5 points for first place, 4 points for second place, and so on.  But the number of places in that list does not usefully increase certainty.  If there is a list of one, the certainty is only 25%.  If there is a list of two, there is a certainty of 50%.  If there is a list of the Top 3, there is a certainty of 75%.  If there is a Top 4 list, there is a certainty that the top is on that list of 100%.  If there is a list of the Top 5, there is a certainty that the top is on that list of 125%.  But anything more than 99.99999+% is also imaginary.  That means that the Top 3 list has the greatest certainty without being imaginary.  The number of podium appearances or the number of Olympic medals matter. Anything more is just window dressing. Good for public relations, but not certainty.

Medals

 

The Best

You're simply the best
Better than all the rest
Better than anyone
Anyone I've ever met

In the upcoming Olympics, which country is the best?

In the upcoming summer Olympics in Paris, during the opening ceremony there will be a parade of Nations of every athlete who participates in the Olympics.  During the closing ceremonies, the athlete participants are supposed to mingle without regard for country.  Between the Opening Ceremonies and the Closing ceremonies will be the events of the Olympics where medals will be awarded.  The closing ceremonies indicate that everyone gets a participation ribbon, but how should you count the medals by Nation during the events to determine which country is the best?

In each event, there are Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals awarded.  To be the Gold medalist in an event is to say that during that event you were the best.  But that does not mean that you are always the best, because that event can be viewed as a random event.  The gold medal indicates dominance on that day in that event, but it does not indicate certainty.  How can you indicate both?

In some countries only the number of Gold medals are considered.  I.e. each Gold medal is worth one point.  The country with the most points is considered the best.  But since the finish is random, that only indicates dominance, not certainty.  In some countries, each medal is awarded a point. Then the question becomes why stop at 3 medals for each event.  Why not award everyone who participates a medal.  Sounds like the political debate of woke vs. non-woke!

It is typical  in the United States, for each Bronze medal to be awarded one point, each Silver medal to be awarded 2 points, and each Gold medal to be awarded 3 points.  The points are totaled and the country with the most points is considered to be not only dominant but certain.

This is a Nash Equilibrium between the User Optimum of considering only Gold medals and the System Optimal of considering all medals as equal.  Is it perfect?  It does not consider Users who shop for a country which allows them the best chance to compete, nor does it consider a country which offers citizenship and/or rewards to athletes who have the best chance of winning.  But it considers the difference among medals, and awards no points to athletes who merely wish to compete with no expectation of winning, such as the Jamaican bobsled team. So arguably the US system is the best at determining the best country with dominance AND certainty.