2010 in Review

Since 2007, I have apparently published two-hundred and twenty separate blogs under the "Logicology" banner.

I know many of these have been excessively long, but I have always basically prided myself on making sure I am thorough. I do my best, and whenever possible I try to keep records of sources and link to more in-depth discussions of ideas that I write about. It's always been my intent to keep this blog as professional, and ideas-based as possible, while leaving most of my personal life out of it.

Generally, I don't find my personal life to be that interesting or that worth posting publicly, and that's kinda what Facebook was always for anyway... But then, as my business and personal life intertwine (as, by the way, I think they should), it becomes harder to separate one from the other. So naturally the events of the past several months have slipped through the cracks. I still don't feel compelled to explain everything, but in what proved to be one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, back in July, I moved out of Los Angeles and straight into the maw of heart-break. The full details are irrelevant, but it all turned my life upside down and now I'm stuck digging my way out.

So for the first time in a while, I decided to start pursuing some more "stable" work arrangements.

One of these was a potential job with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Unfortunately, I learned today that that job wouldn't be happening, so for the short term it's back to square one... Well, not square "one", as I have definitely built a decent business on my own.

Anyway, I liked everyone over there, and to my knowledge, they liked me. In fact, I was told today that they had initially planned to make me a substantial offer, however, as has been the case for many people and many businesses, the economy basically got in the way. Originally, they were hoping to hire two new people, one to produce multimedia (me), and the other to work within their communications (marketing) department.

However... As it turned out, they had to make a tough choice and cut one new potential hire, and they decided to focus on the marketing side. I can't really blame them. If I had a marketing department that wasn't just myself, I'd probably be focusing my attention in it right now too... Alas, I have to do all jobs myself, as is the deal when you strike out on an entrepreneurial journey such as mine.

I wish the TPPF all the best, and of course I suggested that I might be available to do contract work if they so needed as well. They seem to be a fine organization... Thing is, I really was looking forward to the idea of moving to Austin. I do feel like the move to the East Coast was such a spectacular failure that having a good reason (and means) of leaving that part of the world seemed like a great thing for me. I still think it is, of course, but now I no longer have a vector. At least... Not at the moment.

An interesting alternative just cropped up in Washington D.C., but perhaps I'll have to save any details about that until I know what the opportunity is.

So we shall see what 2011 holds for me. Perhaps it will be a break-out year. I'm sitting on a half a dozen good-to-great video ideas and at least one fabulous musical idea right now. The musical idea is easy enough to put into action. But the video ideas need sponsors. Preferably substantial sponsors... As yet I'm not sure who that will be (but I have a couple ideas). If anyone reading this is interested in finding out more, by the way, just email me and I will give out some more information.

At any rate, I've been reflecting on the events of 2010, and I have to say, this year has been a year of extremely high, highs, and low, lows to match.

CitizenA Media put out its first(ish) video on "The Fear of Violence: Government vs. Liberty" last December, and then I made the popular "Profits" video shortly there-after, and the company has been driving towards new media for "education and advocacy" ever since. Under the CitizenA label, I've done video editing for a Los Angeles DA campaign; a small "mini-documentary" at a Young Americans for Liberty tax-day protest/rally at UCLA's campus; multiple scores for the Institute for Justice videos on topics ranging from the serious (such as compensating bone marrow donors) to the ludicrous (like onerous government licensing requirements for beauticians and yoga studios) to the profoundly influential (such as this video depicting the 5 years after the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo vs. New London).

One of my IJ scores even made an appearance on John Stossel's Fox Business show, "Stossel".

Then we get to the really cool stuff... The Moving Picture Institute fellowship, which produced the Bill of Rights videos, and what might be my favorite achievement of the year; "America's Economics Knowledge Deficit" for the Foundation for Economic Education:

Toss in a bunch of smaller jobs (including a couple for the folks at www.AntiWar.com), arranging a Peter Pan musical, producing videos I made for my own purposes, and a couple great parties, and 2010 wasn't too bad at all...

At least, it was without including the single, but immensely negative downside to the year caused by my decision to put faith in the wrong person. That whole sequence of events... Moving out of Los Angeles, the emotional devastation of having one's trust broken, blah blah blah.... It wasn't good.

That said, I'm not one who tries to dwell too much on personal set-backs.

There's work to be done, getting back out into the "real world" of mainstream news and middle class living that I always re-discover when visiting my parents, I realize just exactly how much work there really is left to do.

In the last few years, there has been a wonderful up-tick in videos and articles focusing on decent economics... Even a fair bit on the Austrian School. Folks at a bunch of organizations - like Douglas French of the Mises Institute- have been positively excited about it. For instance, French's recent article, "Flooding the World with Truth" says;

"Our time is coming. Of this I'm convinced. The explosion of the Austrian School into the popular media is so large and so vast that it is impossible to keep up. We're in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, all over the television, in journals and hundreds of books, and in every other conceivable media outlet."

That's true. There has been a great new resurgence of Hayek, Mises, Bastiat and even though people don't quite realize it, Menger & Böhm-Bawerk.

This is undeniably good, but the benefits and scope are, in my opinion anyway, vastly overstated.

I've now been out on the town to malls and multiple bookstores, and the TV here is often set to the irritating drone of the likes of Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr., Rachel Maddow or the mostly-tepid comedy of Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert. And while there are few people on TV more hostile to rational economic reasoning than someone like Lawrence O'Donnell (except perhaps, Keith Olbermann himself), I don't for one second suggest that Fox or CNN, or any of the other TV networks are contributing anything better...

But here's the truly important point; TV news viewer-ship is still a fraction of the size of the audiences for weekly entertainment shows, and far less influential in a lot of ways because of the nature of how susceptible people are to confirmation bias when told information directly vs. how people adopt ideas that are presented as entertainment or as "generally accepted". News puts people in antagonistic modes of thinking. Things that confirm people's existing beliefs get through, all else is usually tossed aside. But movies, most TV and other forms of entertainment don't make people take sides. People accept the premises as presented and don't think very much at all about what is being taken in.

Now... Stuff like "Fear the Boom and Bust" is perfect in a lot of ways!

But only if people actually understand it. And I suspect far fewer do than should... I know that outside of my core group of friends, who are and uncommonly informed and active group, few people I encounter anywhere have the slightest clue what Mises or Hayek were all about, and even fewer actually care enough to learn more. It's kind of a downer, but I'm only saying this because I do care.

If you want to see a good barometer of what information people are getting exposed to, and what information is truly in the popular zeitgeist, go to your local Borders or Barnes & Noble. Or check out your local movie theatre.

My experience from the past couple days of doing just that suggests that we're in a lot of trouble still. I'm going to go back to one such bookstore and do a more thorough examination, but on a limited glance, when Robert Reich's book; "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future" is placed at eye-level with a prominent display, and Peter Schiff's new book on how an economy grows is buried on an invisible shelf bad ideas are still getting center stage.

And if I seem to be cherry-picking here, the ratio of good books on economics to the nonsense was... well... not good.

I took some pictures... My favorite pair of images comes from this book:

The book claims to be "everything you need to know about how the economy works and where it's going", as I'm sure you can see from the subtitle.

So I pick up the book, curious to see what they have to say, and as I'm browsing its table of contents, I see that the second chapter is titled, "Three Great Economists".

As one might expect, my mind wandered to all of the brilliant figures in economics that have profoundly influenced the field in the last few hundred years. Friedrich Hayek on the limits of knowledge? Bastiat on broken windows and the unseen costs? Jean Baptiste Say on production and demand? Maybe even Murray Rothbard on political economy, the state and the Great Depression? Even Milton Friedman talking about capitalism & freedom? Don't be silly...

Let's get real. Of course they included Adam Smith... That was hardly even worth "guessing". The grand-daddy of economics was a shoe-in. But who were their other two "great economists"?

Check it out for yourself: over there on the right.

Yep. John Maynard Keynes and none other than Karl Marx. Please... Someone explain to me a single idea that Karl Marx contributed to the subject of economics that has any validity what-so-ever.

From Labor Theory of Value (which he didn't even invent), to the perpetuation of zero-sum idiocy, Marx is nothing but a stain on the field - and oh yeah, he wasn't actually an economist! He was a philosopher, a political theorist, and not even a very good one.

So yeah... That's what was at my local Borders. What's at yours?

I'm willing to bet you won't find much better than this... I may go to Powell's Books in Portland later this week, and I'll try to take some video or pictures and maybe get a third example and talk about this in more detail, but the point here is that as great as it is to have some decent ideas showing up in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and on Freedom Watch with Andrew Napolitano, the way to tell where the mainstream ideas actually reside is by observing the cultural and (ironically) commercial barometers like what ideas show up in the popular entertainment people are watching and what ideas people are going to the bookstore to read about.

If any of the mainstream stuff I've been observing lately is any guide, it ain't "Human Action" (which by the way, hasn't actually been for sale in any of the bookstores I've been to yet). Don't even get me started on the big-time movies of the past (a bit more than a) year like Avatar. I mean... Bad economics are the bread & butter of the film industry.

So that's sort of my final thought for 2010....

It's been an excellent year in a lot of respects,, both professionally for me, and for the advancement of liberty in America.

A lot of headway has been made in the form of getting good ideas that had no seat at the table at all to receive a tiny bit of attention. "A seat" is better than "no seat" at all... But don't mistake that headway for being enough, or really even all that substantial at all. "We" definitely need to build on this year's successes - and there have been a lot of good moments, to be sure - but looking up from the cloistered vantage point of anyone who is surrounded by their intellectual allies, I suspect that while the sound economics voice has grown, so have all the voices supporting the ludicrous, destructive ideas that got us where we are today.

To anyone who's interested in a peaceful, prosperous society, we still have an immensely long way to go.

The Bill of Rights on YouTube!

I've finally decided to release my Bill of Rights series to the public at large, and post them up on YouTube for everyone to see.

Watch them both right here on the blog in order. And please like or favorite the videos, rate & comment, and most of all - please share these with everyone you know! People need to better understand the ideas of natural rights, the ideas behind the US Constitution, and behind the protections against government abuse that the Bill of Rights was supposed to provide us all against the potential (and existing) abuses of government.

Without this understanding, we are more likely to - and do - allow government to overreach its mandate often and with increasing intensity. That's why I wanted to produce these films, and fortunately the Moving Picture Institute generously agreed with me, and helped to fund my existence for a few months as I created the project.

First, take a look at the history & philosophy behind the Bill of Rights in Part 1:

Then, follow that up with a look at the purpose of each individual amendments in Part 2:

These ideas are crucially important to understand, and more importantly - they are empowering!

To know that only you own your own body, your own mind and you are responsible for your actions is a powerful idea. It is one of the most fundamental foundations of liberty. So please go to YouTube and rate, comment and "like" these films. And by all means, embed this series on your own blogs and share them with your friends.

Thanks for watching!

Misleading Study Finds People are Misled

Apparently a new "study" from World Opinion.org came out the other day supposedly finding that Americans are highly misinformed by cable TV news, and Fox News viewers, most of all. Maybe that's all true, however... Based on the study itself, who'd know?

Like most public opinion data gathering, this survey was so poorly done and so dependent on (what I must assume are) the views of the authors of the questions that it's completely meaningless and ironically, the whole thing is probably more misleading than a lot of the ideas they are discussing.

I took a statistics class once with a professor who literally addressed the class saying "wah wah wah", like Charlie Brown's teacher. And I do mean, "literally".

I suspect this thing will be burning up teh intertubes, thanks to the magic of confirmation bias, but I really want to take a second and point out some of the intense failure that happened within the questions that were asked of participants.

They claim that various percentages of people incorrectly believe that a whole list of "obviously false" statements are in fact true. But if you actually go through each of these statements, the accuracy is extremely suspect. Few of their points have easily determinable "binary" answers, so the very idea of "true" vs. "false" is kind of silly in a lot of cases. More importantly though, in any case that is open to interpretation, the authors foolishly defer to the government-backed, statist position.

On economic issues, as many of these are, that is a recipe for failure. Check it out.

First, here are the few points excerpted by Mark Howard's article, "Study Confirms Fox News Makes You Stupid" (what was I saying about confirmation bias again?) that I'm not really going to argue with:

• 56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout
• 38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP
• 63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear)
• 60 percent believe climate change is not occurring
• 38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP

These points are basically binary, so true or false more or less applies. I'll go ahead and be generous and give them a pass on things like Obama and the GM Bailouts (no, he didn't initiate them, but he certainly owned them, didn't he?), and I'll avoid getting into too much of a discussion of climate change. Though I will note that climate change is a broad idea that has come to package a bunch of bad policy and bad conclusions with highly complicated and occasionally dubious science... So I don't always blame people for answering "no" to questions like "is climate change occurring", if they believe that a yes response would be taken to mean that they also support the whole package of idiocy.

I do feel compelled to point out, however, that while Mark Howard is using the study to specifically mock Fox News viewers and "Republicans" in general, he seems to have entirely missed this whole passage:

On the other hand those who voted Democratic were more likely to incorrectly believe that: it was proven to be true that the US Chamber of Commerce was spending large amounts of foreign money to support Republican candidates (voted Democratic 57%, voted Republican 9%); Obama has not increased the level of troops in Afghanistan (51% to 39%); and Democratic legislators did not mostly vote in favor of TARP (56% to 14%).

So... Just to be clear, 38% of Republicans believed that Republicans opposed TARP, but 56% of Democrats believed Democrats opposed TARP.

Both are wrong, but as you can see, Team D was substantially more wrong. In fact, a majority of Democrats were wrong about that issue, as compared with the minority of Team R. That's an odd miss for someone writing an article about how Fox News Republicans don't know anything... Of course it really all comes down to confirmation bias. Republicans want to believe that Obama is responsible for stupid stuff that Bush did, like initiating bailouts, and Democrats want to believe that Obama is not the war-mongering jerk expanding troop levels in the Middle East that more principled people are still paying attention to.

Strange... Or not.

The study points out that viewers of the other cable networks have big problems too... Of course, I doubt we'll hear much more about that from any bloggers, journalists or pundits that pick up this story.

But there's a lot more here that's not only "debatable", but in, my opinion, just plain wrong about the so-called study. For instance - taken from the World Opinion site:

• Though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that the stimulus legislation has saved or created 2.0-5.2 million jobs, only 8% of voters thought most economists who had studied it concluded that the stimulus legislation had created or saved several million jobs. Most (68%) believed that economists estimate that it only created or saved a few jobs and 20% even believed that it resulted in job losses.
• Though the CBO concluded that the health reform law would reduce the budget deficit, 53% of voters thought most economists have concluded that health reform will increase the deficit.
• Though the Department of Commerce says that the US economy began to recover from recession in the third quarter of 2009 and has continued to grow since then, only 44% of voters thought the economy is starting to recover, while 55% thought the economy is still getting worse.

Now let's take a second and step back here...

The "proof" offered for each point comes from the government itself - and it's hardly even really proof to begin with, as measurements like "jobs saved or created" DON'T EXIST!!

The authors of the study, and idiots like Howard jumping on the bandwagon, don't seem to grasp that they're looking for proof of something that is fundamentally non-existent and intrinsically flawed. They also don't seem to grasp how the CBO actually works.

The Congressional Budget Office releases reports that virtually always come with massive disclaimers because their mandate basically forces them to analyze the economic impact of political actions based solely on the assumptions provided by the politicians themselves. They are rather inhibited in general and wind up making frequently flawed predictions because they are required to base their projections on static data, when - much like Schroedinger's Cat - manipulations of the economy by the government change the incentives people rely on to make economic decisions.

And by the way, I'm not just making this up. The CBO is staffed by some reasonably smart people after all! So they're usually pretty clear about this - for instance, from their Director's Blog last year:

CBO’s forecasting record provides a measure of the uncertainty underlying forecasts under normal circumstances. However, the current degree of economic dislocation exceeds that of any previous period in the past half-century, so the uncertainty inherent in current forecasts exceeds the historical average.

Note what he's saying here (in as diplomatic terms as I think someone in his position could possibly use) is that their predictions are filled with uncertainty in the best of times, and in the worst like now - they're positively unreliable. I mean, geesh... Let's not forget that back in 1965 when Medicare started, it was estimated (by the CBO) to cost $12 Billion by 1990.

How much did we spend on Medicare in 1990? $110 Billion!

The CBO was not just wrong... They were wrong by a factor of 10! Yet that's the evidence that the authors of the World Opinion study employ to prove that people are misinformed on stuff like health care?

Maybe, rather than viewing people as "misinformed", we should be recognizing that the results of their study show a higher level of mistrust for government, and government statistics. Blindly believing what the government claims about the economy has proven to be a gigantic mistake, time and time again.

Let's try not to forget that back in 2006, just before the housing collapse, our wonderful Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke said:

"A leveling out or a modest softening of housing activity seems more likely than a sharp contraction…”

Yeah... Good work.

So specifically, I'm going to utterly reject the fictitious notion that government stimulus has "saved or created" any jobs. That's pure Broken Window Fallacy reasoning, and nothing more. I'm further going to reject the idea out of hand that a massive government health care mandate filled with entitlements and pay outs is going to reduce the deficit in any way, shape or form. Again - the CBO score reflected their limitations, not reality. I wrote about this a long time ago in an article titled "The Parmenides Fallacy in Health Care".

Lastly - Any projections of current "economic growth" relies solely on GDP data, and well... Guess what... GDP goes up when government spends more. Private sector job growth is non-existent, and there is no economic growth happening outside of the state-sector.

So... No. Fail.

When unemployment has hovered at 9.6% for two years (and even increased a little in the last couple months) and isn't even counting people who gave up looking for jobs, and when prices at the store are rising, and wage rates are stagnating... Looking at numbers like GDP or CPI really radically miss the point. The authors are basically suggesting that people are misinformed for being skeptical of highly dubious claims made by politicians who make careers out of screwing things up.

So are you "misinformed" for believing that the economy isn't improving, that adding a massive and impossible-to-fund Federal government program to accommodate the payment of insurance for 30+ million currently uninsured Americans will add to the deficit, and that the stimulus had negative economic effects?

Or... Are you just employing the basic critical thinking skills that the study authors have abandoned?

* * * * *

Now... Here's the thing... I don't know what this says about Fox News - and I don't care. I don't watch it. I don't watch MSNBC either... Since I don't actually own a TV, I tend to get my news directly from wire-services, the internet, and through the magic of social networking. I find the whole cable news concept to be broadly misinforming and an abysmal way to learn about the world. But this study doesn't show that. It just shows that people can use weak science, bad questions and weak statistical gathering methods to say whatever they want to say.

And oh by the way....... Total news viewer-ship is roughly around 7,000,000 per day. Want to know how big the sample size of this study was?

848 people... So they're making assumptions about a very large group of people based on around 0.15% of people who are presumed to be part of that group. Why does anyone think this kind of nonsense qualifies as valid information!?

Seriously... Stop it.