can climate scientists do multiple regressions

Multiple regression is a technique used to figure out linked variables as they relate to other variables. For example, an economists might use multiple regression to figure out if being more educated makes one more libertarian. To do that, they would want to look at a large group of equivalent people. Ideally, you want to compare a one person that has all the same traits as another except differing in views on liberty and one other variable. Then one can see if that variable has any effect. To do that you would have to try to control for all factors of relevance. This might include: income, race, number of parents, church attendance, etc. For the record, more education looks like it makes people more libertarian.

Bryan Caplan wants to know if Climate scientists have regressions showing Carbon and Warming are linked. This might not exist, as warming has paused for the last decade. Couple this with the fact that scientists are reluctant to release the data and some of it has been destroyed (a good general rule is not to trust anyone who is not transparent). But Caplan posts a valid question, where is the regression:

The baseline regression I suggested – temperature on CO2 and a linear time trend – is one that any competent first-year stats student should take seriously. It’s a standard way to see if your story that “X is making Y go up” is superior to “Y just seems to be going up.” Why add other trending variables? To see if the data are more consistent with your story than random made-up stories. Inquiring minds want to know.

should climate scientists direct government policy

Climate science is hotly debated in the press. One side claims there is a solid and unimpeachable consensus on Global Warming (now being relabeled to Climate Change) and the other side points out that dissent is censored. But what if every claim of the Global Warming alarmists were correct? Would that mean that the scientists’ suggestions for government policy should be enacted?

The answer is a definitely no, while scientists may be experts in their particular field, they are not experts in Economics. Scientists are not trained in cost benefit analyses. They are not trained to know if it would be more efficient to subsidize recycling or to ban throwing away recyclables (or to do both or to do neither).

They are not trained in Economic costs (that is “what you give up to get something”). They are not trained to look at the resources (time, money, and administrative costs) spent installing carbon filters and figuring out if it is less costly than switching to alternative fuel sources.

They are not experts in understanding effective government policy. When the Affordable Care Act was passed, insurance costs began to skyrocket.

They are not experts in finding unintended consequences. Animal advocates want to ban hunting certain animals. Where hunting of rare animals is banned, often the species dies out.

They often do not understand real value. Are we saving the Earth to save the Earth, or are we saving the Earth to make human life better? What if we could do so by not trying to stop global warming?

Economics should be left to the economists.

Human civilization requires many ingredients to exist. Single-mindedly protecting one at the expense of all others is not the path to paradise, well-being, or even survival. And that’s why economists’ focus on trade-offs is so much wiser than environmentalists’ nightmares about their favorite ingredient going kaputt.-Bryan Caplan

It would be silly to forfeit potential consumption today, in the form of tighter emissions cutbacks, if our descendants would perceive a greater benefit from our channeling those savings into more traditional invest ments that would make them wealthier. – Robert Murphy

the increasing costs of obamacare insurance

Reason.com posted an email by a small business who is dealing with Obamacare. The whole post is worth reading, it explains why we have a system in which health care is tied to our jobs. But showing the reality of the effects of a law intended to “give everyone insurance”, he writes:

Health benefits are our third highest cost, after payroll and search ads, but now more than our rent. A 28% increase is significant. We essentially have four options:

1) Keep the exact same CareFirst plan, and have Capterra swallow the cost. Individuals currently pay 0% of their premiums (which are around $500/month) but families pay 25% (of their $1500 monthly premiums). So the families would also pay more for their 25% share. The higher cost for Capterra would reduce our ability to hire, give raises, etc.

2) Keep the exact same CareFirst plan, and start charging both individuals and families 25% of the premiums. (Most companies, yes even Google, that provide health insurance benefits to their employees have them pay 25-50% of their monthly premiums.)

3) Keep CareFirst but subscribe to a cheaper plan that includes an in-network deductible. This basically means if you ever visit your doctor, you will be paying the first 1k or whatever the deductible is in expenses that year.

4) Switch to a different top tier plan from a a different insurance provider such as United that for whatever reason has not increased their premiums yet and not change anything (yet) about how we pay for everyone’s insurance.

5) Stop paying heath care benefits, pay people cash instead and encourage everyone to do health savings accounts (they are not taxed!) and buy catastrophic plans with part of the cash. More on this later.

The cost is already vastly exceeding what proponents have predicted, and the lie that everyone could keep their previous health insurance has been proved fraudulent. The real question is when the nation will start listening to those who make accurate predictions instead of those who make lousy predictions.

go sell all you have and give to the poor

In the synoptic gospels, there is an instance described that baffles modern Christians. A rich young ruler approaches Jesus, asks what he has to do to be saved, Jesus tells him to follow the commandments, and follows that up with a command to sell all he has and give to the poor, because:

Mar 10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

This scares modern Christians for several reasons. Bart Ehrman, in his book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet Of The New Millennium, touches on a few:

Ever since, readers of the story have gone away crestfallen as well, especially those who suspect that Jesus meant what he said, and that his injunction wasn’t limited to this one particular fellow. Interpreters have tried to get around the problem since it was first written (especially interpreters who weren’t willing to give away everything for the coming Kingdom); but doing so ignores its logic. Everyone who saves his life will lose it. Jesus’ demands were simple, in that they weren’t that difficult to figure out; but they were also radical. The Kingdom required an absolute commitment. No one should look for it without considering what it would cost (cf. Luke 14:28-33)—for it will cost everything.

But a contextual understanding, Bart Ehrman points out, will show Jesus was preaching an imminent coming of the Kingdom of God. People were to sell all they had, because as in Acts 2, everyone was expecting the end to come quickly. Ehrman explains:

That’s why, for Jesus, the present life holds no real attractions. Life in the present age should be at best a matter of indifference. One shouldn’t be concerned about such trivial matters as what kind of clothes to wear or what kind of food to eat. As he says in the Q source, “seek first the Kingdom of God, and all its right way of living, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). What does its “right way of living” entail? It entails loving God, the one who brings the Kingdom, and one’s neighbor as oneself. All else should be completely secondary in importance. If thieves want to take your clothes—let them! If bullies want to force you to do their work for them—let them! If the government wants to take your money—let them! If thugs want to beat you— let them! If enemies want to kill you—let them! None of these things matters. You should give away your shirt as well as your coat, you should go an extra mile, you should render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, you should turn the other cheek, you should not fear the one who can destroy your paltry body. The Kingdom is coming, and the concerns of this life are trivial by comparison (see Matt. 5:39-42; 10:28; Mark12:17; Luke 6:29-30; 12:4-5).

This is made clear by the context of the passages:

Mar 10:29 So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s,
Mar 10:30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.
Mar 10:31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Notice that Jesus promises rewards “in this time”. These are physical rewards, family, houses and lands. Jesus taught an imminent coming of a physical kingdom that would give the righteous rewards, and that is why people we told to sell everything they had. If people sell everything they have without the Kingdom of God coming to earth, they end up like the Saints in Jerusalem (Acts 2) who had to rely on charity to survive (1Co 16).

God kills people for terrible sermons

Listening to today’s kgov.com show, Pastor Bob Enyart mentions a sermon in which a different pastor stated it was God’s plan to kill a father in a car accident. Although horrible, it reminded me of a similar, and funnier, sermon from the past.

When I was about 16 years old I attended a semi-Calvinist church. The pastor of the church was very popular and well spoken. When a friend of his died, he was absent one Sunday and left the less competent youth pastor in charge of giving the sermon. I could tell things were going bad the instant he pulled out a PowerPoint with a bright blue background and big bold letters, complete with slide transitions. The sermon was one of those bland topical sermons that ramble on without much support, and by the end of it I could sense the audience was none too impressed.

Then, when he was about finished, he made a horrific statement. I paraphrase:

It is funny how God orchestrates events like this to happen. I have been thinking about preaching on this topic for quite a few weeks. God knew that this was what the church needed to hear and gave me the opportunity to preach it.

My brother and I looked at each other in disbelief: “God killed a good Christian man so that the church can hear a terrible sermon”.

patents did not cause the industrial revolution

From Deirdre McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Dignity (p 302-4):

British patents were very expensive, a minimum of £100 (a respectable lower-middle class annual income at the time) and requiring many months of attendance on law courts in London. Therefore they were taken out as only one of many alternative ways of establishing ones credibility as an ingenious person — someone to be admired, and to be paid to do all sorts of engineering work, or to be given a governmental sinecure. Patents were considered undignified by many inventors, and were often treated with suspicion by judges, as constituting monopolies (as they do). Getting a head start in producing according to ones idea was then, as usually also today, better assurance of fame and fortune. Patents sound neat, but were not…

Allen himself admits that patents for invention, though available in England from 1624 on, were in fact as I’ve noted little used, which would be odd if making money were all that was involved… Thomas Carlyle, the scourge of the classical economists, remarked in 1829 that “with men: that they have never been roused into deep, thorough, all-pervading efforts by any computable prospect of Profit and Loss, for any visible, finite object; but always for some invisible and infinite one.”

An economist who is thinking like an economist, instead of like a fourth-rate applied mathematician who knows only the use of Max U and Max’s marginal balances, does not in fact find it so strange. Computable prospects would already have been discovered. Routine balances of profit and loss cannot have motivated the sudden, unique, and gigantic lurch forward 1700-1900…

McCloskey’s theme over his (he is a biological man) trilogy is that it was the rise of the Bourgeois in public esteem that caused the Industrial Revolution.

more price controls in action

In a hilarious article, it is being reported that Venezuela is going to import 50M rolls of toilet paper. When one sees headlines like this, the first thought that should run through their head is “price controls”. 10 out of 10 times they will be correct. The sure fire signs of price controls are lines and shortages. From the article:

Patience is wearing thin among consumers who face shortages and long lines at supermarkets and pharmacies. Last month, Venezuela’s scarcity index reached its highest level since 2009, while the 12-month inflation rate has risen to nearly 30 percent. Shoppers often spend several days looking for basic items, and stock up when they find them.

Of course the reason is price controls. Everywhere and always they cause shortages. This is because people consume more of something the lower the price is. At a price lower than the natural market price, more people want to consume that good than there are goods to go around. If you had a pizza with 10 slices, 10 people in line, and told everyone that each slice was 10 cents, how much would the last person get? Multiply that by 2.9 million and you have Venezuela.

The US imposed price controls in the 1980s on gasoline. Price controls were placed on gasoline after hurricane Katrina. Soviet Russia and Red Germany set prices. The results were always the same: long lines and harsh shortages. The government creates this misery.

And now for the funniest line of the article:

President Nicolas Maduro, who was selected by the dying Hugo Chavez to carry on his “Bolivarian revolution,” claims that anti-government forces, including the private sector, are causing the shortages in an effort to destabilize the country.

The scary “lets run them out of toilet paper” plot.

Also remember this news story.