Obama, lapel pins and Patriotism

Brownlee’s mistake was to put into practice something that worked only in theory.

Meet the economists who know why we buy what we buy | Money | The Guardian

Buried in an excellent article introducing the field of behavioural economics to a wider audience is that one line takedown of economics theory! I happen to believe that economists just aren’t scientific enough to understand how modeling works. A well behaved, rational human being who makes every decision independently of other decisions based solely on maximizing her economic utility is like (warning, quantum theory reference) a physicist reading about the particle in a box model and deciding to predict the behavior of all subatomic particles. Yes, it is a neat theory with some neat math, but it’s only the first step!

Scientists try to be a little more humble with their modeling. They seem to know that the chaos and probability driven events in even the simplest of real world settings make models/simulation mostly exercises in trend seeking, not deterministic end points.

To predict the economic behavior of people, you have to include the variables that make them people! Not assume that all people will follow all your assumptions of their behavior strictly, and to not call them names when they don’t act to maximize their short term utility!

Anyway, apropos nothing, I like to rant about economists! The article also notes that Barack Obama is a follower of behavioral economics, good for him. I wonder if McCain even knows what that phrase means.

“(Our) stance is not limited to those who fight on the government’s side but applies to all Sudanese, including those who still bear arms and fight the government. They are Sudanese, and we will not let them be tried by any court outside Sudan.”
— Sudan Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi
Sudan rejects ICC jurisdiction, says one suspect held | Reuters

To wit…

For a number of reasons, the United States decided that the ICC had unacceptable consequences for our national sovereignty. Specifically, the ICC is an organization whose precepts go against fundamental American notions of sovereignty, checks and balances, and national independence. It is an agreement that is harmful to the national interests of the United States, and harmful to our presence abroad.

—John Bolton, Ex US Envoy to the UN

Nothing more to say, goose, meet gander, eat sauce!, insert other acceptable truisms, here. When Sudan uses the same language as the leader of the free world to “protect” perpetrators and apologists of genocide, you know that the world is a FUBARed place.