Schadenfreude

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — The chief of the state-owned utility company said Thursday that former King Gyanendra and his relatives will be forced to pay outstanding electricity bills totaling more than $1 million.

Gyanendra and his relatives have not paid the state-owned Nepal Electricity Authority since he seized absolute power in 2005.

Arjun Karki, chief of the company, said 22 buildings and compounds are covered by the bills. Many are private residences of the ex-king and homes belonging to his daughter, sisters and cousins. Some of the buildings on the list, like the royal palaces, have since been nationalized by the government.

The company has given a 15-day deadline for the bills to be paid, Karki said. If they remain unpaid, the electricity will be cut off, he said.

Kill your dictator

In “Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War,” Olken and Jones looked at the effects of political assassination, using a strict empirical methodology that takes into account economic conditions at the time of the killing and what Olken calls a “novel data set” of assas­sination attempts, successful and unsuccessful, between 1875 and 2004.

Olken and Jones discovered that a country was “more likely to see democratization follow­ing the assassination of an autocratic leader,” but found no substantial “effect following assassinations—or assassination attempts—on democratic leaders.” They concluded that “on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy.”

From a profile of Ben Olken in the American. And here's the paper (free access).

Obama meets Bartlet

Here.

The WSJ is copying us!

Check this out, from Kids Prefer Cheese:

WSJ: "Divided Government is Best for the Market"

...since 1948, the stock market has done better under Democratic presidents (15.6%) than Republican ones (11.1%).

But it's not so simple... First, not all Democrats act like Democrats, and not all Republicans act like Republicans. John F. Kennedy, for example, was an enthusiastic supply-side tax cutter, and George H.W. Bush raised taxes. Bill Clinton promoted free trade, and Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls.

If you assign those four presidents to the opposite party based on that -- make the two Democrats into Republicans and the two Republicans into Democrats -- the numbers completely reverse. Now stocks average 14.7% under Republicans and only 10.5% under Democrats.

In fact, it turns out that if you do just one single switch -- if you make Richard Nixon into a Democrat -- it's enough to reverse the numbers."

Loyal Bluematter. readers will of course remember that this type of analysis was pioneered here, in a seminal post investigating what more daughters do to a President.

Prison and TB

Using longitudinal TB and cross-sectional multidrug-resistant TB data for 26 eastern European and central Asian countries, we examined whether and to what degree increases in incarceration account for differences in population TB and multidrug-resistant TB burdens.

We find that each percentage point increase in incarceration rates relates to an increased TB incidence of 0.34%.

Net increases in incarceration account for a 20.5% increase in TB incidence or nearly three-fifths of the average total increase in TB incidence in the countries studied from 1991 to 2002.

The paper (gated) is here.

Fun with statistics, "which Palin is the mother?" edition

Well, Sarah, I'm calling you a liar. And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson.

The Daily Kos has an 'interesting' story claiming that Sarah Palin's youngest son, who has been diagnosed with Down's syndrome, is really her daughter's son. There is much evidence presented, mainly consisting of pictures where certain bellies appear to be too large while others too small. But statistics deliver the killer argument:

The final point of interest is that Trig Palin has been diagnosed with Down's syndrome (aka trisomy 21). This is an interesting point, as chances of having offspring with Down's Syndrome increases from under 1% to 3% after a mother reaches the age of 40. However, 80% of the cases of Down's Syndrome are in mother's (sic) under the age of 35, through sheer quantities of births in this age group.

And of course, 99% of deaths are not due to suicide, so killing yourself is safe!

Thanks to Scatterplot for the pointer.

Obama on the beach

They don't come cuter than that! For many more pictures & a family bio, check out Obama's scrapbook.

Abolition of slavery 'nail in the coffin' for poor

Angry protesters surrounded Parliament today, demanding government does not proceed with controversial legislation to completely ban slavery.

The protesters, estimated at around four million, chanted slogans against the government and demanded that the controversial measures be dropped. The protest was mainly peaceful, but there was some violence near the gates of parliament. A police spokesman said one person died following a heart attack. Twelve people have been admitted to hospital, one in critical condition, and there were sixteen arrests.

Parliament is due to vote tomorrow on the 'Make Slavery History' Bill. The date was deliberately chosen to coincide with the 48th anniversary of the vote on the historic 'Everyone is Born Free' Bill, which ended ownership of children by their parents or the parents' legal owners, and banned under-18s from entering contracts leasing themselves for a period greater than 8 hours a day.

Bluematter's political editor said that while the 'Born Free' Bill enjoyed support across the country and was welcomed by the electorate, the level of support for the current Bill is high only amongst the currently enslaved - however there is much uncertainty even around this fact, as current slaves are not allowed to vote or express their opinion in public.

'Nail in the coffin'

Government insiders told Bluematter last month that they expected only a limited reaction to the legislation, mainly from groups such as the Association of Slave Owners.

Despite this expectation, the protest today enjoyed support from across the civic spectrum, including from such unlikely allies as the Confederation of Businesses, the Confederation of Trade Unions and anti-poverty charities.

Mary Rose, the Chairperson of the CoB, said: 'How can the government expect us to compete in today's globalised economy without slaves? This will put us at a huge disadvantage, and if the legislation passes we will be challenging it at the World Trade Committee'. The CoTU has not issued a statement yet, but it is believed that their main grievance is that a sudden influx of ex-slaves in the labour rental market will significantly dampen wages.

But these were not the only grievances aired during the protest. Perhaps the most prominent theme throughout was the fight against poverty.

John Harpes, a 26-year carpenter, is one of the protesters. 'If this bill goes forward, it will be complete disaster for me' he said. 'My dream has always been to run my own business, but the bank will never lend me money without collateral. But I was born poor and the only thing I own are these two hands'.

'I will now be forced to rent my daily labour for a pittance to survive. How will I feed my children? This is the nail in the coffin for me.'

Even some slaves object the legislation. One of them said 'My master now has an interest in taking care of me, making sure I'm healthy and happy so I can produce the most for him. If I'm freed, why would he bother? I'll die in the street like a dog.'

'Back to the dark ages'

Christian groups have also been vocal in their opposition to the bill, and today a large number of believers attended the protest.

'Slavery is mentioned time and again in the Bible, and not a single verse mentions anything bad associated with the practice' said the Right Rev. John Gieves, a representative for the Inter-Christian Faith Council which speaks for all the main Christian Churches, including the Vatican and the Church of England.

'In fact, slavery is a powerful force for promoting ethical conduct and enhancing our morality, and it is a time-honoured tradition. Believers across the world will never accept this legislation.'

The Libertarian Alliance also strongly condemned the move. A spokesman said: 'The government now says that we are not even allowed to own our very own selves. They will invalidate contracts signed by consenting adults. The rights to private poverty and free exchange are inalienable, and we should not allow the nanny state to walk allover them. Abolishing slavery will return us back to the Dark Ages'

'Populist'

'These proposals are just a populist measure that will benefit a small number of those currently enslaved, but at a great cost for all generations to come', said Greg Biden, an economics professor at Harvard University and a former member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

'Not only will it remove the right to property from millions of poor people, but it will also kill entrepreneurship and innovation and will undermine the government's commitment to protect property rights in the future. The capitalist system that has allowed us to enjoy unprecedented wealth and economic growth simply cannot survive without government commiting to protect private property.'

'The future of the world is in jeopardy. Why would anyone educate themselves and invest in human capital if they cannot use it as collateral? Who will want to own an asset that he cannot sell and which he cannot commit to a given use? Which employer will invest in their staff if they can leave at any time they wish? How far can we progress economically with this unnatural restriction in place, where we are allowed to only rent out services for a very limited period of time?'

'The poor and the young, who do not own any physical capital, will suffer most. This is a tragedy in the making'

A spokesman for the Campaign to End Slavery said: 'The cost to the government of ensuring the slaves obey their masters has been spiralling out of control. Slavery is not fair on the slaves, and it is not fair on the taxpayer. Abolishing slavery is essential to protect the most vulnerable amongst us, and it will benefit the public purse. This is not a 'nanny state', this is a compassionate society.'


Miscalculation

Bluematter's political editor believes that the government may now try to defer the vote, citing a need for public consultation and more evidence on the long-run implications before the policy is introduced. Political observers believe the move has been a dramatic miscalculation on the part of the government, which hoped that freed slaves would tip the balance in its favour in the upcoming national election on January 22 but failed to predict the ferocity of the public backlash.

Parliament is expected to vote on the issue tomorrow, however the police fears that a large number of protesters will again convene outside parliament tomorrow, despite the ban on further public demonstrations.

On politicians that don't give away much

Tyler Cowen complains there's nothing new to say about Obama, despite the extensive coverage he receives. In my view, that's something to be expected of a well-run campaign for two reasons:

1. What's the point of staggering the release of information? The information you want out there is 'released' on day one, and there's no need or desire for more information later on.

2. The point of a presidential campaign is to reach Average Joe, not to keep the likes of Tyler and myself happy by feeding us with more news, and even more so important news. There's a simple message to be communicated - 'vote Obama cos he'll bring change' - and it will be communicated over and over again until it has reached everyone, preferably more than once. That's why companies run information-poor 30-second ads over and over again; the point is not to reach out to the afficionados, as they can no more keep a company afloat than they can win you an election.

Even more importanly, a politician that doesn't commit to specific policies (as is the case with the current low-information Obama campaign) is simply more powerful when in office, and given checks and balances and the fact that Average Joe is vehemently anti-market, anti-foreigners, anti-reason, etc, that's not necessarily a bad thing - think of how rarely referenda are used, and how the Western World would look like if that wasn't the case.

So stop complaining about politicians speaking without saying anything; on the one hand they are good marketers, and on the other they would like, once in power, to actually have some. A *successful* politician who communicates too much substance before an election can only be a populist.

Bonus: This comment on Tyler's post is worth perusing:

Obama is too intelligent and well educated to have any fixed principles. He has fixed inclinations and preferences, but not principles.

The BBC

Does not do economics. Does not believe in it. Anything vaguely related to economic reasoning is alien to anything that has anything to do with the Beeb. Check this one out:

The likes of Jonathan Ross and Chris Moyles are not receiving salaries above the market rate, according to a review of how the BBC pays its top names.

That’s not taking into account the fact that the BBC has massive price-setting power, being by far the biggest broadcaster in the land (and controlling 2 of the 5 terrestrial channels, only one of which has anything near it’s market share)... I would also think that Jonathan Ross, Chris Moyles, etc pretty much ARE the supply side of the market for extremely well-known and trustworthy TV presenters.

So, over-simplifying but just a little, the report says that the BBC does not pay more for its stars than what the BBC pays for its stars. Nice.

And ignoring market structure completely, they utterly fail to understand what the law of one price implies. ‘The BBC does not pay more than others’ – what’s the alternative? That they paid more than ITV for the same thing just for the fun of it?

I want my license fee back! And yes, I love Dr. Who and Have I Got News for You, but £130 a year?

Natural born bigots

Stephen Landsburg, writing before the last presidential election:

If George Bush had chosen the racist David Duke as a running mate, I'd have voted against him, almost without regard to any other issue. Instead, John Kerry chose the xenophobe John Edwards as a running mate. I will therefore vote against John Kerry.

Duke thinks it's imperative to protect white jobs from black competition. Edwards thinks it's imperative to protect American jobs from foreign competition. There's not a dime's worth of moral difference there. While Duke would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of skin color, Edwards would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of birthplace. Either way, bigotry is bigotry, and appeals to base instincts should always be repudiated.

There's not a dime's worth of moral difference indeed. But then why stop at trade policy? (protectionism, at the end of the day, screws the majority of Americans as much as it screws foreigners) I would think that every policy that any government ever comes up with is geared towards benefiting its citizens, with little consideration for the interests of Johnny Foreigner.

The thing that freaks me out the most

Watch it here.

No, I don't think it is actually the most scary thing out there, but it freaks me out alright.

Niloufar

From Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis.

A girl argues with God

This is from the superb Persepolisby the Iranian Marjane Satrapi. If you read one thing this year, this should be it.

I will be posting a couple more excerpts from the book and commentary in the following days.

What are the odds?

You are on holiday in some strange land, and you bump into Sue, an old friend. What are the odds?

Well, the probability is 1. 100%. It's certain. It bloody happened.

OK, you say, fair point - but that's not what you meant. What you meant is what is the probability you would bump into Sue, assuming you hadn't just bumped into him. I reply that that's a silly assumption to make as you just did bump into him, but you insist.

Well then, the probability is whatever you want it to be - pick a number, and I'll explain to you why it's plausible. You look perplexed and ask what I mean.

I explain: first of all, you need to specify the probability of what you are interested in.
-Do you want to know the probability you'd bump into Sue at the time and place you did
-Do you want the probability you would bump into an old friend while on holiday in general
-Or do you want the probability that something 'remarkable' enough would happen to you at some point in your life that would make you start asking silly questions about 'what is the probability of that happening'?

You say the first, obviously, and that I should stop being clever. I wasn't done, I say, and proceed to ask what is the information set I should base my probability estimate at - quantum mechanics aside, randomness is in the eye of the beholder after all, and if I was all-knowing God the probability of whatever it is that happened would be 1 even before it happened.

You throw your pina colada on my head and vow never to speak to me again.

A few days later, you are kind of missing me but don't feel like talking to me yet, so you visit bluematter. as a first step in rebuilding the relationship. And the first thing you see is this delightful little story, via Andrew Gelman:

In the city of Syracuse, the strangest thing happened in Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary.

Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama received the exact same number of votes, according to unofficial Board of Election results.

Clinton: 6,001.

Obama: 6,001.

The odds of Clinton and Obama tying were less than one in 1 million, said Syracuse University mathematics Professor Hyune-Ju Kim.

Elaborating on Thursday, she [Professor Hyune-Ju Kim] noted: "The "almost impossible" odd is obtained when we assume the Syracuse voter distribution follows the New York state distribution. Since it is almost impossible to observe what we have observed, statistically we can conclude that Syracuse voter distribution is significantly different from the New York state distribution."

There would be less than one in 1 million chance of a tie occurring between Clinton and Obama in voting by a randomly selected group of 12,346 New York Democratic voters, she said.

To which Andrew replies:

Not to pick on some harried mathematics professor who'd probably rather be out proving theorems, but . . . of course Syracuse voters are not a randomly selected group of New Yorkers. You don't need a statistical test to see that. Regarding the probability of an exact tie: I don't think that's so low: a quick calculation might say that either Clinton or Obama could've received between, say, 5000 and 7000 votes, giving something like a 1/2000 chance of an exact tie. That's gotta be the right order of magnitude.

If there was one thing you were ever certain about, it is that you don't want to read what I have to say on this. A baseball bat happens to lie next to you (what are the odds!?). You grab it with both your shaky hands and smash the computer monitor to pieces.

You can't get more politically incorrect if you try

Israel's deputy defence minister has said Israel will have "no choice" but to invade Gaza if Palestinian militants step up rocket attacks.

Matan Vilnai said Palestinians risked a "shoah", the Hebrew word for a big disaster - and for the Nazi Holocaust.

"We're getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we've used a small percentage of the army's power because of the nature of the territory," he added.

From BBC News. And the follow-up:

[...] many of Mr Vilnai's colleagues have quickly distanced themselves from his comments and also tried to downplay, them saying he did not mean genocide.

You've got yourselves an identification problem

PRESIDENT BUSH AND SENATOR KERRY BOTH WENT TO YALE, AND BOTH WERE MEMBERS OF SKULL AND BONES. IS AMERICAN POLITICS BECOMING MORE ELITIST?

No. Skull and Bones is becoming less elitist.

This is William Buckley, who died two days ago. This was his sin.

The central question that emerges--and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by meerely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal--is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes--the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced ace. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.

Letter from Turkey

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.

The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

The Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernise, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.

Its supporters say the spirit of logic and reason inherent in Islam at its foundation 1,400 years ago are being rediscovered. Some believe it could represent the beginning of a reformation in the religion.

According to Fadi Hakura, an expert on Turkey from Chatham House in London, Turkey is doing nothing less than recreating Islam - changing it from a religion whose rules must be obeyed, to one designed to serve the needs of people in a modern secular democracy.

Significantly, the "Ankara School" of theologians working on the new Hadith have been using Western critical techniques and philosophy.

It's a very interesting development. The Enlightenment did not kill Christianity, but it softened it up and increased its separation from politics.

And as anyone who has looked at religion carefully knows, the tails are affected by the mid-region of the distribution.

Protectionism in everything

And at this rate, for ever:

Since the 1200s, South Shields has the right to block rival markets being run less than a day's donkey ride, or six and two-thirds of a mile, away.

North Shields, on the opposite side of the River Tyne, wants its own market, but is blocked by the ancient charter.

"We have been trying for a number of years to get around this, but every time we have approached South Tyneside Council, they say they were given a market charter some time in the 1200 region by King John, so that no one can set up a market within a day's donkey ride."

A spokeswoman for South Tyneside Council said that the ancient six and two-thirds mile exclusion zone referred to the distance a trader was deemed to be able to travel from home, sell for eight hours, then return in a single day.

She added: "South Shields market is [...] of great importance to South Tyneside and, as its owner, the council has a duty to protect it from rivals."

A solution to global warming too perhaps?

South Africa's parliament held a special session to debate an electricity crisis; the country has been hit by a series of blackouts since the new year.

The energy minister suggested, among some of the ways to conserve power, that people should go to bed early.

From the Economist.