Commandments

 

At Your Command

I had you, I held you, you gave me your all
Your love dreams I shattered beyond recall
Now that I've lost you, please understand
I'm here forever at your command 

Not commandments, warnings 

As a parent, I remember warning my then toddlers not to touch a hot stove.  It might have sounded like a commandment to a toddler, but it was only meant as a warning that the toddler would not like the consequences of touching a hot stove. 

By the same token, the Ten Commandments might be warnings from God that not following these would bring bad consequences.  And what if “Do not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” to Adam in the Garden of Eden was a warning, not a commandment.  We need warnings as toddlers just as much as we need handrails in bathtubs as we get older.  They are there for our safety, protection, not to restrict us.  Commandments are ONLY there to restrict us. "Danger, Will Robinson' is a warning, not a commandment. 

Variance

 

It Ain’t The Meat It’s The Motion

It ain't the meat, it's the motion
Makes your daddy wanna rock
It ain't the meat, it's the motion
It's the movement that gives it the sock

And it ain’t the average, it’s the variance.

“The Possible Collapse of the U.S. Home Insurance System
The Daily ( a NY Times Podcast)

Across the United States, more frequent extreme weather is starting to cause the home insurance market to buckle, even for those who have paid their premiums dutifully year after year. Christopher Flavelle, a climate reporter, discusses a Times investigation into one of the most consequential effects of the changes.

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000655653194”

In the climate change crisis, much attention has been given to the increase in AVERAGE global temperatures. That will certainly impact the most vulnerable areas. But since weather is a random event, it depends on two parameters: the location, which corresponds to the average; and the VARIANCE, the range of those random events. It is the variance that is at the heart of the insurance industry. Insurance is a means to deal with the unlucky by using insurance payments from many to pay the claims of the very unlucky. But as the variance increases, the proportion of wealth of the very unlucky increases and this affects everyone, not just the very unlucky. If the variance becomes too extreme, and it has, the insurance system may collapse, which is the subject of the podcast above. While the effects of Climate Change, and the effects of sea rise from average temperature rise, may impact only those in coastal areas,  if the variance also increases, then it impacts everyone, including those NOT in coastal areas.

The increase in variance is also why reducing government expenditures as close to zero as possible may NOT be wise in a growing economy. By fixing the average starting wealth as close to zero as possible, if there is any growth, then the variance must increase to capture this growth. But variance increases for the unlucky too, not just for the lucky.  A foolish fixation on NOT keeping the variance the same when the economy grows and instead increasing the Universal Basic Expenditure for all, requires that more of the growth be distributed to the lucky. But increasing the variance in this manner, also increases the number of the unlucky. By pretending that is a zero-sum game in an increasing economy, a decrease in the share of income of losers will be balanced by the share of income going to the winners. This was discussed in a previous post. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2023/09/distribution-of-income-ii.html

There is a joke among statisticians that is intended to illustrate variance. A good variance is one where your head is the same temperature as your feet, in which case your body has the same average temperature. You might have the same average temperature if your head is in an oven and your feet are in a freezer. In the latter case the variance is much, much greater, even if the average is the same and your situation is much worse.  IOW, it ain't the average, it's the variance.

Running Out The Clock

 

Wrecking Ball

When the game has been decided
And we're burnin' down the clock
And all our little victories and glories
Have turned into parking lots
When your best hopes and desires
Are scattered to the wind
And hard times come and hard times go and
Hard times come and hard times go and
Hard times come and hard times go and
Hard times come and hard times go and
Hard times come and hard times go
Yeah, just to come again

Bring on your wrecking ball
Bring on your wrecking ball
C'mon and take your best shot
Let me see what you got
Bring on your wrecking ball

WHAT the Boss said!

Bruce Springsteen had the misfortune of releasing his Wrecking Ball at virtually the same time as Miley Cyrus’s more popular and different Wrecking Ball.  That is unfortunate because I heard the Boss sing it in person ( and Donald Trump,  I have been in several  Springsteen crowds.You may dream of having more people than the Boss as you did at your Wildwood, NJ rally on May 11, 2024, BUT YOU SIR ARE NO BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN).

It is unfortunate that it did not become more widely played, because it has IMHO the finest words by which to live.  Your opponent may think they have dominated you,  forced you to burn down the clock, and give up before the game is over.  But play on as hard as you can against that opponent.  “So hold tight to your anger, Hold tight to your anger, Hold tight to your anger, And don't fall to your fears”. “I will stand my ground, I won't back down”.  “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.   BRING ON THAT WRECKING BALL.

Jolly Good Show

 

My Country ‘Tis of Thee.

My country, 'tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing:
land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims' pride,
from every mountainside
let freedom ring!

Or “God Save the King” as the British might sing.

The United States and the United Kingdom/Great Britain/England are different countries on opposite sides of the pond, the Atlantic Ocean. They are two great countries separated by a common language. (Cue appropriate spit take by an American hearing a Brit say he is going to “knock up”, by which he only means “call on”, an old girlfriend). They are also two countries with very different forms of government. In the United States, the executive and legislative functions are completely separate. Under the British parliamentary system, the executive and legislative functions are combined. In the United States, this would be as if MAGA Mike Johnson was also the head of the executive branch.

The Conservatives/Tories have had a  recent run of 13 years in office that is likely to change in the election later this year. According to some polls,  the opposition to the Tories, the Labor party, have a better than 20% advantage among likely voters. It is so bad that while the ruling and minority parties are supposed to sit on opposite sides in the House of Parliament, this may not be possible if there are too many members of the ruling party. The minority party is supposed to also form a shadow executive branch, but it may not have enough members to form this branch. If Brexit and its aftermath have been a lot of fun, just wait, we ain’t seen nothing yet. Meanwhile, as bad as things are in the USA, they could be worse. MAGA Mike has a hard enough time serving as Speaker of the House. Imagine if he was President as well!

Technically I am aware that the United Kingdom describes Great Britain AND Northen Ireland, and England is only one country in  Great Britain, along with Scotland and Wales, but the United Kingdom parliament, is the British or English, parliament as far as Americans are concerned. Our bad. And I realize that Brexit has created difficulties between the Irish Republic which is an EU member and Northern Ireland which is no longer an EU member, but who share a land border. The fact that this land border has attracted so much consternation, must amuse the Swiss, who seem to have managed an EU/non-EU land border with no difficulty for many years. No one tell the Swiss that this is an insurmountable problem, okay?

Imagination Matters

 

It Don’t Matter to Me

It don’t matter to me
If you really feel that
You need sometime to be free
Time to go out searching for yourself
Hoping to find
Time to go to find.

But some things do matter

Imagination matters. If the answer is a complex number, and the coefficient of the imaginary portion of that complex number is zero, it does NOT mean that it is no longer a complex number, and the imaginary axis can be dropped. It only means that the coefficient of the imaginary axis is zero.

A case in point is the formula for the variance of a logistics, sech squared, distribution. As in most random distributions, it is defined by two parameters, a location, µ, and a range, a function of the variance, s. Its Probability Density function, PDF, for a given value of x is  

1/(4*s)*sech²((x-µ)/(2*s))

Its Cumulative Distribution Function, CDF, the integral of the PDF, is a scaled version of the hyperbolic tangent

½ + ½*tanh(x-µ)/(2*s))

In this function the mean/median is also µ and the variance, σ², whose  square root is  the Standard Deviation is

σ²=s²*π²/3.

When the parameters are real numbers, then they can also be expressed as complex numbers as µ_c=µ_r+0*i and σ_c²=s_r²*π²/3+0²*i. While on all surfaces it is perfectly acceptable to treat µ_c as equal to µ_r which effectively seems to ignore the imaginary coefficient. However, the variance expressed as a complex number is also the formula for a triangle, and the surface on which the triangle resides matters. If that surface is flat or a very large sphere, then it is true that there is a single solution and that solution is σ=s*π/√3. But on a hyperbolic surface, there are two solutions (one for each sheet of a two sheeted hyperboloid formed by rotating that surface around an imaginary axis),  σ=ln(0 ± 2*cosh(s*π/√3)).  This is true for any non-zero value of s. For example for s =1/2, where s could be interpreted as the mean of the number of absolutes,  the Standard Deviation, σ, square root of the variance, σ², on a flat surface,  also know as Euclidean surface, is σ=0.9069.  But on a hyperbolic surface σ=1.0579. In this case by considering imagination, the Standard Deviation has increased by 16%.

Confidence Games

 

Pick Yourself Up

Don't lose your confidence if you slip
Be grateful for a pleasant trip
And pick yourself up
Dust yourself off
Start all over again

Confidence is good.  A confidence game is bad.

A confidence game is when a person defrauds a victim of their money, property, or information through tricks. The perpetrator is able to defraud the victim of their possessions through gaining the victim's trust.  https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/confidence_game

So how do con(fidence) men gain victims trust?  They tell the victims a plausible lie to confuse the victim.  Unfortunately it is far to easy to confuse some people.  Many similar sounding concepts are not the same, such as mean and mean, or effective tax rates and marginal tax rates, but to confuse the victim they are treated as if they are the same.  Also some lies that sound convincing, but are provably false are told.  These lies can include:

·        “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”.  Oh, yeah! That must mean that Sadam Hussein who was the enemy of USA's enemy Iran was our friend.  That must mean that Stalin whose enemy was Hitler, was the USA’s friend, etc.

·        “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Extremism is ALWAYS a vice.  Moderation is ALWAYS a virtue, as is liberty and justice.  The ends never justify the means.

·        “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Government policies might be the problem, but government itself is not the problem.  Yes, I know, Ronald Reagan, said it so it must be true, but it wasn’t his microphone either.  That microphone belonged to Bob Molloy. https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2015-12-05/meet-the-microphone-ronald-reagan-paid-for-at-the-famous-debate-in-nashua

·        “I read it on the internet, so it must be true.” There is even a State Farm Insurance TV commercial making fun of this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DZbSlkFoSU

Don’t be fooled. Trust but verify.  Always check the facts, cut the cards, and kick the tires.

Speaker of the House II

 

Lies

Lies, lies, you're tellin' me that you'll be true
Lies, lies
That's all I ever get from you

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

"I can't wait to see Democrats go out and support a Republican speaker," Greene said. "I also can't wait to see my Republican conference show their cards and show who we are because voters deserve it." - https://www.aol.com/house-back-turmoil-marjorie-taylor-131659598.html

Oh Marge, you make me laugh.  There is no Republican Speaker of the House.  The Speaker of the House serves ALL of the American People.  That is what our constitutional republic, is all about.  As such, Mike Johnson might be a Republican, but he serves everyone in the House, which last I looked also included Democrats.  You might be confusing him with Steve Scalise, the House Republican Majority Leader.  Just because Democrats acknowledge that Mike Johnson is the Speaker by working with him, doesn’t make it less true. But you do believe in alternate facts don’t you? I prefer to call alternate facts by their other name, lies.