Quote of the Day
I have no special talent.
I am only passionately curious.
Albert Einstein
Are Voters 'Stupid'?
The Washington Examiner recently published a story including an interview with the Politico chief editor John Harris (embedded below) explaining the motivation behind a recent controversial column regarding anomalous voter responses, e.g., whether Obama is a Muslim, whether he was born in the US, whether he is responsible for gas prices and various inconsistencies. [The article mentions Afghan policy, but you can repeat many such examples over the years: e.g., the Congress is bad, but I love my own Congressman; I want to balance the budget, but without cutting spending or increasing taxes, etc.] In particular, Politico quoted a Democratic pollster (whose results I have frequently criticized in this blog) whom pithily explained that "voters are stupid".
(Periodic reminder to readers: Videos are available on the date of publication and subject to removal without notice by the contributor or web hosting service at a future date.)
Just a few comments here. First, most of us who have conducted behavioral research realize that you don't rely on subjective measures where more objective evidence is available: Did you take your meds (when I've witnessed his ongoing dysfunctional behavior pattern or have the results of his blood tests)? If you personally saw or witnessed on tape your teenage children sneaking out of the house, what's the point of asking them whether they were in their rooms last night?
Second, there are known questionnaire biases (social desirability, halo, etc.) I don't know a single person (at least anyone whose opinion I respect) whom seriously believes that Obama was born in Kenya or is Muslim. I suspect what these surveys are showing is voters signifying their displeasure with Obama more than anything else.
Third, none of these opinions, even if they were substantive, really bear on President Obama's performance per se. I do want to briefly discuss the gas price question. I do think it's fair to raise that issue because (1) President Obama has raised unrealistic expectations about results from an interventionist government and (2) the President does have a limited number of methods that can bear the situation, e.g., approving permits or opening up more federal land and offshore areas for explorations (and hopefully massive new finds which can affect prices), accessing cheap oil from the strategic reserve, or implementing industry tax and regulatory reform; certainly foreign policy, e.g., involving Iran, has contributed to Mideast unrest (including perceived problems of getting oil out of the Gulf) and has had an effect on prices. And, as I've discussed in recent posts, the depreciating dollar has had an effect on oil prices, and Obama has some influence there in terms of his appointments to the Federal Reserve.
Can Obama slash gas prices? No, and even if he could, he shouldn't resort to short-term gimmicks: it undercuts the viability of alternative fuels and incentives to explore and develop new oil fields. Let the market be the market.
Are voters stupid? Well, in 2008, they elected someone without any serious administrative experience or leadership, legislative track record, or policy expertise into the White House and at the same time handed full control of both chambers of Congress to the President's own party. They gave control, in the middle of the biggest recession, to a Congress and President tied to the same party and policies which had failed to bring the economy out of a Great Depression some 70 years earlier.
Stupid voters? I'll be more tactful: if Greenspan once referred to a strong bull market in 1990's stocks as "irrational exuberance", perhaps the morally hazardous, fiscally irresponsible, economics-illiterate political tsunami that swept over the 2008 elections was the result of "irrational hope and change".
If the American people somehow misread the resilience of the American economy to persevere political malpractice of a Democratic Congress (especially a dysfunctional, corrupt Democratic-controlled Senate) and/or President since 2007 at the expense of bankrupting future generations of Americans and somehow credit a clueless White House for unduly modest progress after 3 years of treading water with the lowest labor participation rate in a generation today, then the American people deserve another four years of the same old same old economic malaise and inertia and political analysis paralysis and hyper-polarization, with Ponzi scheme of trillions in unfunded entitlement liabilities and an unconscionable national debt, already leading to the first downgrade of national debt in our history.
Yes, if the voters keep this self-serving, incompetent President and Democratic control of the US Senate in power after this fall's election, they deserve the government they vote for. And don't pay for.
Smart Meters and Individual Rights: Some Comments
What got me started on this topic is a relevant discussion in the always thought-provoking Daily Bell. I'm not going to go into various suspected health issues posed by the technology or the pushing-on-a-string cost-benefit case for technology adoption, but I want to raise some salient points of data privacy. Before the Internet revolution and online access to financial asset information, who would have known that unlike earlier years when you simply had to keep an eye out for local pickpockets, robbers, or thieves, today malware and other threats to computer security can steal your identity from halfway around the world, drain your accounts without your knowledge or consent (until too late), and even use your existing credit lines to ruin your credit at the blink of an eye.
We have also seen some evidence of suspected Chinese or other hacks into our national security systems without even stepping foot on American soil. But consider the other side of purported benefits of smart meter technology. For example, imagine if it was possible to remotely turn on energy-intensive devices (say, air conditioning) at a peak load period or if a local burglar could verify certain household appliances (say, a stove, washing machine or TV) in your home had not been utilized over the past week while you are on vacation. Suppose a bureaucrat thought it wasn't enough to rely on your own initiative to limit your use of energy but decided to impose some sort of rationing (on behalf of the "common good", of course) and started controlling your own devices without your knowledge or consent. (Whoops! You mean that was some libertarian's cable Internet connection? Innocent mistake: I thought I was turning off his iron or toaster.)
There's a lot to be said for making smarter technology and using dynamic energy pricing models to more efficiently and uniformly distributing energy utilization generated from more efficient plants. But it must be usable, learnable, secure and designed to accommodate the user, not subject to the whims of some arbitrary overriding authority, in blatant violations of the spirit and intent of the Fourth and Ninth Amendments.
Rube Goldberg Machines...
Next Demonstration: A Democratic Jobs Bill...
According to Wikipedia, "a Rube Goldberg machine, contraption, invention, device, or apparatus is a deliberately over-engineered or overdone machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction." Think, for example, of the individual taxpayer trying to navigate his way through a tax form, work through various schedules and baskets of receipts to get to the finish line. (There are much more efficient ways of having one's pocket picked, I suppose.)
And then you have the Rube Goldberg machines where entrepreneurs run the gamut, somehow navigate through stacks of rules and regulations, employee mandates, and adverse economic conditions to finish in the black.
Political Humor
"There's a new study that shows the NCAA basketball tournament will drastically reduce workplace productivity in March. Five million workers will waste 90 minutes a day watching basketball and filling out brackets. Maybe we should export March Madness to China to slow them down a little." - Jimmy Kimmel
[But Jimmy, federal bureaucrats then wouldn't get their radios, TV's, PC's, iPad's, or cellphones in time...
Barack Obama has already published his picks for the Final Four: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich.]
"Police across the country say there's been a spike in criminals stealing Tide laundry detergent. So I guess all those commercials that say it cleans blood stains are really paying off." - Jay Leno
[I'm not saying that our public education system is lacking, but I don't think that young people have quite grasped the concept of money laundering...]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Cars, "Let's Go"
