robert and benita rabello wrote: > Darryl McMahon wrote: > >>There is an oblique reference to this in the archives. I have just >>finished reading the book, and recommend that people put it on their >>reading lists. (No time like the present to get on your public >>library's waiting list.) > > Yes, I think I'm the one who referenced it. This is one of my > stockbroker sister's favorite books. > >>I thoroughly enjoyed the book, even learned a thing or two. I was aware >>of the gun-related items, but I had not previously made the crime rate >>drop connection in the U.S. with Roe vs. Wade. > > The causal relationships the author mentions are tangential, at > best. I'm sure a correlation can be made with the drop in crime rate > versus GDP too. In fact, I'll bet you could correlate a drop in crime > rate with the introduction of Viagra . . .
Actually, I've done some x-y correlation research in my day, and while it's been a while, the text of the book rings true with my experience. It strikes me that Levitt has done a reasonable job of substantiating his conclusions, as much as anyone can in the social sciences where running conscious control populations can be tricky. However, he's done a pretty good job of finding reasonable controls for comparisons from data typically collected for other purposes. So you might find a correlation between Viagra and crime rates, but could you posit a reasonable causal relationship, and show it across multiple time-frames and jurisdictions while consciously controlling for other likely connections? And that the reverse action leads to the reverse result. If so, I'd like to see the work backing that up. > >>Nice piece of de-spinning work. So many more subjects need more such >>treatment. > > It's a great book for NeoCons. Interesting perspective. I certainly did not see it that way. In fact, I would have thought NeoCons would have hated it. I suppose anyone can find something they like in here, but NeoCons and the whole book, that I don't see. Maybe my definition of NeoCons is off. I tend to associate them with the current White House crowd (Bush II, Rove, Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc) and the American religious right. I would not expect that crowd to welcome a positive correlation between free choice access to abortion and a lower crime rate. Or that for many categories of crime, harsher sentences are not a significant deterrent. Perhaps the NeoCons like the example that pools are more dangerous for toddlers than guns. However, it's not like Levitt is trying to extrapolate that result to the general population, and doing so is disingenuous. > >>From the epilogue: >>"But the fact of the matter is that <i>Freakonomics</i>-style thinking >>simply doesn't traffic in morality. As we suggested near the beginning >>of this book, if morality represents an ideal world, then economics >>represents the actual world. > > If only we had reliable numbers . . . If only we could tabulate how > much it REALLY costs to rape the environment, destroy human life and > elevate the welfare of the wealthy over the welfare of the poor. At its > core, morality IS economics, but the paradigm is upside down. I disagree. I don't think morality has much of a relationship with economics, any more than physics. If a meteorite strikes the earth and kills people, that's reality that can be explained by physics, but I don't ascribe any morality to the event. Economics attempts to explain the actions of individuals relative to their choices in the use of resources. Levitt gives a couple of cases where the economic incentives are in conflict with the presumed moral choice. Which one wins depends on the individual. The take-away for me is that we should be doing a better job of aligning incentives with morality as a society, not putting them in conflict to see which wins. If we want to expend the effort, I'm sure we can get a reasonable estimate of how much it costs to destroy the environment, and human life and extracting wealth from the poor for the benefit of the rich. (That may come in a later post; I'm currently reading The Weather Makers by Flannery; in a word-terrifying.) I trust you feel this direction is counter to your morality; it is counter to mine. So, I would not expend the effort on the accounting analysis. Economics is a tool, like a shovel. You can use a shovel to cultivate the garden, or stove in your neighbour's head. The shovel has no inherent morality. Economics can be used to our benefit (e.g. Schumacher) or our detriment (e.g. Reagan supply-side economics, and I would argue Friedman's monetarism - but that's another debate). So long as we permit social policies to incent action that is contrary to our morality, it is not the fault of economics that it can explain the mechanism or keep score; it is our fault for permitting the policy to remain in effect. The thing I hope most people take away from this book is to look past the "conventional wisdom", and think for themselves. That alone would be a great step forward. >>"The most likely result of having read this book is a simple one: you >>may find yourself asking a lot of questions. Many of them will lead to >>nothing. But some will produce answers that are interesting, even >>surprising." > > Or entirely stupid. Take your pick! No doubt that will also be a result, but there's already plenty of that around us today, so it will be lost in the background noise level. > > Sorry Darryl, but I'm simply NOT impressed . . . > > > robert luis rabello -- Darryl McMahon http://www.econogics.com It's your planet. If you won't look after it, who will? _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
