Investors Should Sue the Nobel Committee

Bloomberg is reporting that Nassim Taleb, Black Swan author, thinks that investors should sue the Swedish Central Bank:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, said investors who lost money in the financial crisis should sue the Swedish Central Bank for awarding the Nobel Prize to economists whose theories he said brought down the global economy.

“I want to make the Nobel accountable,” Taleb said today in an interview in London. “Citizens should sue if they lost their job or business owing to the breakdown in the financial system.”

Taleb said that the Nobel Prize for Economics has conferred legitimacy on risk models that caused investors’ losses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. Sweden’s central bank will announce the winner of this year’s award on Oct. 11.

Taleb was interviewed by EconTalk's Russ Roberts this past Spring. One of the points that Taleb makes in that interview is that because failure is (in a sense) a scientific tool for exploring our world, governments should adopt policies that make failure "inexpensive". His view is that most governments today take steps that precipitate 2008-style banking failures. He's extending that argument to include big government enablers like the Swedish Central Bank.

I agree with Taleb, but I don't know about the lawsuit. I strongly feel that: too big to fail is two words too long. By that I mean that government has an obligation to pursue policies that prevent "too big" from happening and that organizations that are "too big" have to be paired back so that their failure does not have wide ranging economic impacts. I'll have more thoughts on the policy details of that after the election.

GOP Threatens Once Safe Democratic Seats

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the GOP Threatens Once Safe Democratic Seats:

Some Democrats are signaling the potential for a rout, particularly in the House. A new survey by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg gives Republicans a six-point edge, 49% to 43%, when likely voters are asked which party they support in House races. That's a margin pollsters generally believe foreshadows large gains. 'If the election were held today, it would produce a very unhappy night' for the Democrats, he said.

Mr. Greenberg said the gap is narrowing as the party base becomes more engaged and voters start paying attention to candidates and their television ads. But it must close quickly, he said, for Democrats to be in contention to save their House majority. 'I do find movement,' with the numbers narrowing a bit, Mr. Greenberg said.

'Professional left' Worried about November

TheHill.com is reporting that the 'Professional left' says Obama's needling strategy won't work:

Jane Hamsher, founder of the blog FireDogLake.com, told The Hill in an email Friday that the strategy being employed by the White House as polls show a Republican landslide looming is the wrong way to go.

“Hectoring your supporters doesn't work, and it never has,” Hamsher said. “And anyone with as much campaign experience as Obama and [Vice President] Biden knows that, which is why you never saw them do it in their own races.”

Obama and Biden have in recent weeks repeatedly pressed the voters who propelled them into office in 2008 to get off the sidelines, with Biden going as far as to jokingly, but repeatedly, insult those voters at his rallies.

Hal Lewis Resigns

Gateway Pundit already noticed the resignation of Hal Lewis. I guess I'm behind the times. I think the entirety of Lewis's resignation letter is interesting, so here it:

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence---it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer "explanatory" screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind---simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members' interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people's motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don't think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I'm not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President's Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

Hal, best of luck to you in your future endeavors!

November Looks Good for Conservatives

Could Democrats have had a month worse than August? Yes: September.:

At this time last month, 44 Democrat seats were rated toss up. Today, there are 52 — a level I didn’t think Democrats would reach until election day. The firewall to preserve the Democrat majority is gone, and the second firewall, incredibly deep into the caucus, is now failing.

That’s Seat 81 which was acting as a second bulwark, pretty much capping our known universe of attainable seats. That universe has now been opened wide. (See: Congressman of over a half-century John Dingell) I’m not asserting Republicans will win every race in whatever electoral universe we’re talking about, or that Republicans won’t lose seats (Cao’s LA-2 seat isn’t looking good.) But, I am asserting that Republicans will win a majority of them, and a fair number of them unexpectedly.

Ouch. But remember: don't get cocky. Get out there!

Godspeed Glenn

The Blaze reports on Glenn Beck's Medical Conditions:

This morning on his radio program, Glenn Beck discussed in more detail some of the physical challenges he’s been facing. Glenn told his audience that he will be taking several days off next week to undergo tests at a hospital “out west.”

He announced over the summer that he's losing his vision. It sounds like his condition involves more than that now. I emailed him the words John Milton wrote as he contemplated the onset of his own blindness:

Sonnet XIX: When I Consider How my Light is Spent

When I consider how my light is spent
    Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
    And that one talent which is death to hide
    Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
    My true account, lest he returning chide,
    "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
    I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
    Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
    Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
    And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
    They also serve who only stand and wait."

Russ Quixote and the Wind Farm Bailout

The Missouri Record's cartoon column, Off the Record, has captured the essence of Russ "Quixote" Carnahan's (D-MO) problem. The cartoon of Russ says: "Those aren't my brother's tax subsidized wind mills.... Those are giants!" This parallels the arguments made at left-leaning blogs as they assert that Russ is innocent in the matter of the $107 million grant in lieu of $90 million tax credit for his brother Tom's wind farm.

As long as the left defends the indefensible award of $107 million grant in lieu of $90 million tax credit they fail to see the structural injustice of a bureaucracy that peddles money and influence into the hands of a few, well-connected individuals. That's the same injustice that bailed out banks and automakers. In fact, because wind power is not economically viable at the moment, funding wind farms is the equivalent of preemptively bailing them out. It's the same injustice, so to say that "Russ is innocent" is to ignore his vote for Cap and Trade which is a reasonable proxy for whether or not he wants to bailout "Big Green".

Perhaps Tom Carnahan has developed an innovation that will make his wind farms economically viable. In that case he will succeed with or without public subsidy and deserves to be richly rewarded for bequeathing to civilization an environmental boon. But in a time of economic turmoil and high unemployment, Russ Carnahan's policy preferences are irresponsible as they will drive up the cost of electricity even for the poorest Americans.

In short, vote for Ed Martin on November 2nd.

Update: Here's a recent example of the systemic problems with bureaucracies. Pajamas Media reports on their FOIA request to the FDIC:

Late last month, PJM reported that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) — ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — had begun an investigation into allegations the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) gave preferential treatment to banks with political connections.
...
In the two-page response, the FDIC does not claim they do not maintain such a list or engage in the practice of flagging banks which have important contacts. Instead, they essentially say they do not have to provide such information to PJM because the request was simply too broad.

Is there anyone that would be surprised to learn that the FDIC plays favorites?

24thState Gets Results

Hotline On Call is reporting that the DSCC Moving Money Out of Missouri:

The DSCC is moving TV ad money out of Missouri, a sign that the Senate race may be moving beyond Democrats' grasp.

Four Republican sources who monitor media buying and three Missouri TV stations have confirmed to Hotline On Call that the DSCC has canceled reservations from Oct. 11 to Oct. 25. The DSCC still has reservations in Missouri for the last week before Election Day.

Clearly Sir Robin Carnahan's appearance alongside brother Russ over at 24thState.com doomed her election... or maybe it was her silencing of Green Jobs Man. Can Russ's electoral prospects be that far behind?

Russ Carnahan is Vulnerable

Ooops! The black baby butchers tipped their hand: NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC Sends $100,000 to Candidates in Competitive House Races:

The PAC‘s contributions include $5,000 each to the general-election campaigns of the following pro-choice incumbents: Reps. Russ Carnahan in Missouri’s 3rd District; Phil Hare in Illinois’ 17th District...

They list several other incumbents, but I think Adam "Jackpot Brother" Sharp would be proud that his top two targets are listed first among the Congressional candidates that NARAL believes to be vulnerable. Nice work, Sharp!

Get out there!

The midterm elections are upon us. It's time to move beyond the Tea Parties and take an active role in getting conservatives elected. Congressional campaigns are busy calling voters and canvasing neighborhoods. Go volunteer on one this weekend! If you're in the St. Louis area, Robyn Hamlin and Ed Martin could use your help or you could volunteer at the St Louis Tea Party headquarters. Over on the western side of Missouri, Vicky Hartzler is in a tight race against Ike Skelton and Jacob Turk has an uphill battle in Kansas City.