Original Cin

If it sounds too good to be true… not that I would necessarily call something that creates unemployment “good”.

Obama sounds populist themes in Virginia bus tour - Yahoo News

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 14 minutes ago

MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Democrat Barack Obama is sounding tough populist themes on the campaign trail, pledging to create union jobs to build energy-efficient cars and to end tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas.

The Skeptical Optimist takes a humorous look at energy policy:

Q: But to encourage entrepreneurs, scientists, and companies to get moving a lot faster towards that superbattery breakthrough, the government will need to set up some kind of new incentive, won’t it?
A: Of course; I’ve been trying to tell you all along that government energy policy needs to change in a big way.

Q: How about something like an “X-prize” for a new superbattery? Maybe a few hundred million dollar prize for the first entrepreneur, or company, or group of scientists to come through with the new technology?
A: Uhhh… No, no, we couldn’t do that. Uhhh… that’s McCain’s idea… obviously just a “gimmick” (…according to these talking points they sent me…).

I was running Windows Update today, and found this gem in the “Important” updates:

Just to go over what I’ve highlighted in the image above: The update is just over 56 MB. It’s considered an “Important” update. And it updates the dictionary used for spellcheck - to add new words to it.

Now, I can see how a dictionary update could be important if the default dictionary is correcting words in a dangerous, humorous, or obscene manner. But all this does is remove a few squiggly red lines.

And what words does KB955020 actually add? According to Microsoft: “Friendster,” “Klum,” “Nazr,” “Obama,” and “Racicot”.

For reference, the entire ISPELL wordlist is just over 1.5MB, uncompressed.

Obama Turns FDR Upside Down - WSJ.com

….the economic well-being of the country is not measured by how much taxes the government can collect, or even the size of the deficit. Rather, it is measured by the country’s productive capacity. Our theoretical entrepreneur’s 11.2% decline in taxable income reflects both less effort on his part and a less efficient use of his income in order to avoid confiscatory tax rates. Or, to put it directly, Sen. Obama’s plan would reduce an entrepreneur’s after-tax profits by $70,000 – $56,000 in lost profits and $14,000 more in taxes – just to produce a net revenue gain to the government of $14,000.

It is shocking to think that we have a presidential candidate who would make the private sector $5 poorer in order to make the government $1 richer. More likely, given the calculated political design of the proposal, no one in the Obama campaign told the candidate about the economic, ethical or historical consequences of his suggestion.

Via Thinking on the Margin via Greg Mankiw.

McCain calls for building 45 new nuclear reactors

Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030…

This is a concrete plan that will do more than shuffle the pie around.

Bizarrely, the Foresight Exchange still does not seem to have a claim for Obama…

There have been some surprising changes and lack of changes with the recent debates. Here’s what FX says now, as compared to my last post on the topic:

First of all, note that the inferred and actual values for “Any Republican” and “Any Democrat” have not changed. There was, and still is, a 60% chance of a Democratic president and a 40% chance of a Republican one.

Now, on the Republican side: No changes for the long shots. Rice has gone from an unlikely possibility to a long shot. There’s been no change for John McCain, and virtually no change for Giuliani.

On the Democratic side, things are a bit more interesting. Oddly, FX is convinced that Al Gore is still a possibility (I think Osama bin Laden is more likely to be arrested for shoplifting in Kansas than Al Gore is likely to be our next President); he’s currently given a 8% chance. Clinton advanced from 25% to 30%. John Edwards remains a 9%. The inferred chance of another Democrat being elected, and the maximum chance for Barrak Obama, has declined dramatically, from 24% to 13%.

There’s been a lot of buzz lately regarding Obama’s campaign. Comparisons with Hillary Clinton’s fundraising having become particularly in vogue. Here’s where things stand on the Foresight Exchange right now (note that I have substantial NO holdings in Gore08 and recently pushed the price down from 0.05 to its current level of 0.02)

Rudy08 0.15  Rudy Giuliani President 2008

Rice08  0.06  Condi Rice President 2008

TomT08  0.01  Tom Tancredo US Pres by '09

JMcn08 0.16  John McCain President 2008

Alln08  0.01  George Allen President 2008

RepP08 0.40  republican elected pres in '08

HRC08  0.25  Hillary Clinton US Pres by2009

gore08  0.02  Al Gore President 2008

Edw08   0.09  John Edwards

For some reason, there doesn’t currently seem to be a claim about Obama. This make analysis more difficult, but the numbers here indicate that he has no greater than a 24% chance of being elected (this is the chance of any Democratic candidate not listed above being elected). For comparison, there seems to be a 6% chance of a Republican candidate not listed being elected.

As time goes by, I suspect more and more that the Republicans may be in serious trouble for the next Presidential election (in 2008). The Democrats have lined up several interesting personalities, all of whom are more politically savvy and marketable than anyone we’ve seen before in my lifetime. I also suspect that the George Bush Presidency has been an exercise in misapplied logic - it would have been the best damn Presidency ever in a world of Vulcans, and here on earth, it sucked, because it assumed short-term rationality on the part of people who were either completely irrational or willing to forego short-term rationality for some long-term goal.

Just to be clear on my own politics, I generally prefer Republicans to Democrats for office, but have always either considered myself a Libertarian or independent. I’ve found my enthusiasm for the Republican Party to be waning in direct proportion to their increasing abandonment of fiscal issues. I sense that the Republicans are too greatly abusing security theater to the detriment of taxpayers and citizens. True, the Democrats aren’t any better in these respects, but the Republican party has no advantages for me in other respects. It’s become of the party of the bland. All of this has shown up in the party’s real ability to get elected; right now, Hilliary Clinton alone has a 30% chance of being the next President based on the Foresight Exchange claim HRC08. I haven’t looked at claims for the other candidates, but, naively, this seem to indicate to me that the Republicans have only 35% chance of winning the election. With a few percentage points moved around, Clinton could mop the floor with all Republican challengers combined. (Why a prediction market instead of a poll? In short, you get slightly better results asking people what they think will happen rather than what they want to happen; see The Wisdom of Crowds for a good explanation, although I was into prediction markets before prediction markets were [sort-of] cool).