I receive email alerts from MedPageToday online. Here’s the headline for a recent alert:
Stroke Rounds: Less Educated Smokers at Higher Stroke Risk
The article is about a large observational study conducted in Denmark. The conclusions drawn by both the investigators and the reporter approach head-bang-on-desk levels of mushy thinking. Let’s take a look:
The combination of a low level of education — a marker of socioeconomic status — with smoking appears to increase risk of stroke, especially in men, according to one of the first studies to analyze social inequality and stroke risk.
Social inequality and stroke risk? Someone is studying that? That had me scratching my head already. Turns out the study was funded by something called the Danish Cancer Society Commission of Social Inequality in Cancer. (And as Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.) I don’t know why the Social Inequality division of a national cancer society is mucking around in the field of social inequality in stroke risk, but apparently they felt the need. Anyway …
In a pooled cohort of more than 68,000 people, lower education and current smoking led to 134 (95% CI 49-219) extra cases of ischemic stroke per 100,000 person-years in men, the authors wrote.
“The combined effect of low education and current smoking was more than expected by the sum of their separate effects on ischemic stroke incidence,” wrote Helene Nordahl, MS, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen, and her co-authors online in Stroke.
So don’t smoke unless you have a college degree, which apparently will provide you with some protection against strokes.
This particular example of the impact of socioeconomic position on risk was “quite interesting and novel” and “the most surprising finding of our study,” Nordahl told MedPage Today.
The impact of socioeconomic position … you know where they’re going with this, right? They’re going to make a case that smokers with less education are having more strokes because of their lower socioeconomic status – and by gosh, someone (meaning the government) needs to do something about it.
Overall, the combination of exposure to smoking, low level of education, and hypertension on ischemic stroke was associated with 566 extra cases among men and 438 among women, compared with those who had no exposure to the three risk factors.
I’m not sure how you avoid exposing yourself to a low level of education, but I suppose refusing to respond to the greeter at Wal-Mart could help.
“In order to reduce social inequality in stroke we need to challenge disparities in unhealthy behaviors, particularly smoking,” Nordahl told MedPage Today.
Yeesh … I hope the goal of reducing social inequality in strokes doesn’t find its way to the United States. Given the crowd currently running Washington, the result would be more strokes among wealthy people.
The social differences in risk of stroke have been a topic of interest for health research for a number of years, Nordahl told MedPage Today.
So let’s talk about those social differences. Normally when studies like this are conducted and published in the U.S., reporters assume people lower on the socioeconomic ladder have worse health outcomes because of inferior healthcare. The unfairness of U.S. medicine and all that. If only we had a socialized system where everyone is equal, by gosh, we wouldn’t see these disparities.
I remember reading an article along those lines awhile back in our local socialist rag – excuse me, local newspaper. The article pointed out that people living in Williamson County (where I happen to live) have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, etc., and suggested perhaps we need to find a way to move more poor people here so they’ll be healthier. Clearly those well-to-do folks in Williamson County are enjoying superior healthcare. Oh, the unfairness of it all.
But wait … this study about stroke and social inequality was conducted in Denmark, which already has socialized medicine. Since the researchers couldn’t blame inferior healthcare, they seem determined to blame “exposure” to a low level of education. Must be the education disparity, ya see.
It’s the same problem we see over and over with conclusions drawn from observational studies: researchers and reporters can’t seem to grasp that the data is nothing more than the result of comparing different kinds of people — and I’m not just talking about health-related studies. Fuzzy-thinking conclusions about cause-and-effect have led to mistaken beliefs about education as well. (The Denmark study researchers seem determined to pull off the unusual feat of engaging in fuzzy thinking about both health and education.)
I remember reading about the relationship between income and education in a book about economics. (Sorry, don’t remember which one.) The author noted that people who earn college degrees have higher incomes than those who don’t, and people who earn degrees from an Ivy-League school have much higher incomes. Most people assume this means going to college will raise your future income, and going to an Ivy-League college will seriously raise your income. Cause and effect. So let’s make sure everyone goes to college, and we’ll end poverty. (Just ask all those kids taking on $100,000 in student-loan debt to get a degree in Art History.)
But as the author explained, those correlations don’t prove cause-and-effect at all. As he recounted in the book, it occurred to some researchers that perhaps people who attend Ivy-League schools have significantly higher incomes because they’re smart enough to attend an Ivy-League school. There is, after all, a very strong correlation between IQ and income.
So the researchers went out and found thousands of people who had been accepted into an Ivy-League college but, for one reason or another, decided not to attend. Guess what? On average, they were just as financially successful as people who earned degrees from Ivy-League schools. In other words, if you’re smart enough and hard-working enough to be accepted into Harvard, you’re probably going to do very well in life – even if you choose to attend a state university instead.
To a large extent, the same goes for the correlation between a college degree and a higher income. Yes, there are many high-paying jobs you’d probably never get without attending college – good luck landing a job as a CPA without a degree – but according to the author of the book on economics, people who earn college degrees end up with higher incomes largely because they have higher IQs and more discipline on average than people who don’t attend college.
In other words, they’re different. I’ve written before about what Dr. Mike Eades calls adherers vs. non-adherers. (I think of them as conscientious people vs. people who don’t give a @#$%.) As Dr. Eades pointed out years ago, adherers regularly end up with better health outcomes. In drug studies, for example, the adherers get better results than the non-adherers even if they’re in the placebo arm of the study. That means it’s not the drug making the difference. Perhaps they just take better care of themselves in ways the study investigators don’t measure. Perhaps their lives are less of a mess, so they’re less stressed.
One factor that separates adherers from non-adherers is the degree to which they are motivated by possible future consequences. Adherers plan ahead and act accordingly. Non-adherers are more likely to live for today. I can think of all kinds of ways being motivated by future outcomes would cause an adherer to think and act differently:
- That soda would taste good, but I don’t want to become fat and diabetic.
- Those French fries smell awesome, but the broccoli would be better for me.
- There are a lot of good shows on TV, but I need a good workout more than I need entertainment.
- I’d like to go hang out with my friends, but I need to study so I can get good grades and get into a good school.
- I’d love to own that new car, but I need to save more money to invest or use to start my own business.
- Yeah, he’s hot as all get out, but he doesn’t seem to have any kind of work ethic and would probably be a lousy provider if we got married and had kids. Pass.
You get the idea. Compared to non-adherers, adherers are more likely to take care of themselves, so they’re healthier. They think about long-term consequences, so they study and get better grades, probably go to college, are more willing to defer fun and gratification now if it means a higher income later, so they end up better off financially.
Then they move somewhere pleasant where the homes are bigger and more expensive – like Williamson County, for example. The local schools end up being highly ranked because the smart adherer children of the smart adherer parents study and do their homework and pay attention in class.
Then researches and reporters notice how those well-to-do people have better local schools and lower rates of heart disease and cancer and stroke, and they think they’ve spotted social inequality that might need a government cure.
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I think the book you’re referring to is Thomas Sowell’s “Economic Facts and Fallacies.”
Could be. I’ve read that one and quite a few others.
I think the book you’re referring to is Thomas Sowell’s “Economic Facts and Fallacies.”
Could be. I’ve read that one and quite a few others.
My bet is on making higher taxes for the middle class and the rich to equalize things. It can’t possibly go wrong.
It’s worked so well in the past.
Civilization creates inequality just so it can be studied…
https://libcom.org/history/hunter-gatherers-mythology-market-john-gowdy
A very long and silly essay. Hunter-gatherer tribes were often socialist, so it’s the answer for us too. Nonsense. The “let’s all share equally” idea can work in a hunter-gatherer society because everyone knows everyone else. It’s like sharing among the members of an extended family. If someone decides to be a freeloader, everyone knows who he is and can deal with the situation accordingly.
As Milton Friedman argued very effectively (with plenty of examples) in “Free To Choose,” the disparity in incomes between rich and poor is more pronounced in government-controlled economies. As always, the smart and cunning people figure out how to leverage that control for their own benefit.
Tom, I love your writing and I have been following you ever since I first stumbled upon the Fathead movie. But I am not sure what you’re going on about here.
(Full disclosure: I am a Danish person living in Copenhagen so I might feel miffed on behalf of my country).
The Danish Cancer Society works on lots of other, possibly related, health markers, and there is a marked difference in the social status of people who get cancer. We’re a very socialist country so inequality is basically a factor in everything 😛
The quote “Overall, the combination of exposure to smoking, low level of education, and hypertension” uses a comma and should be read as “Overall, the combination of (exposure to smoking), (low level of education), and (hypertension)”. But I bet you knew that, being a writer and all.
The way I read the study, the researchers are merely pointing out that there seems to be some correlation between stroke risk and socioeconomic status, which is probably true. Now, whether this is due to lower income and thus shittier food, or the fact that the more uneducated a Danish man is, the more likely he is to believe that going to the doctor is for sissies (yes, our healthcare is free, but people are still stupid) I don’t know, but there might well be some correlation, and thus we should probably focus some of the stroke-preventing information on the people with lower socioeconomic status as it might be more beneficial there. That is all.
I totally agree about this probably being an adherers vs. non-adherers issue, but I cannot find anything in the article that disputes that anyway. It’s an article mentioning the correlation, not the causation.
I know you’re an edutainer, but I feel like you’re trying to be funny by mocking something that doesn’t really deserve it, by wilfully reading it wrong. There are plenty of silly studies to pick from that you could mock and still be technically correct (the best kind of correct!) so I think you missed your mark here.
I still love your blog though 😛
I’m mocking the study because the authors seem to believe a lower level of education is cause instead of an effect, and that perhaps some kind of government solution is in order.
I don’t think the authors believer/were trying to prove that less education is a cause of stroke (or an effect of stroke? Not sure what you mean here), but that it is a factor; i.e., one of a few or several characteristics that contribute to a person having a greater likelihood of stroke. You don’t meet (at least in the US) too many PhDs who smoke, You meet plenty of high school dropouts/GED who do. It goes without a long-term expensive study to see that the latter population is also more likely to habitually intake other habit-forming substances and to be exposed to less-healthy environments, as well as to be less concerned about overall health, nutrition, fitness, etc.
Sure, those traits are statistically correlated, but what the researchers are suggesting is akin to saying people who are less educated are more likely to smoke and are less healthy because they’re less educated. So somebody needs to fix this social inequality in education. I’m saying both traits (less education, worse health habits) have the same root cause: the non-adherer personality.
If you’ve seen my Science For Smart People speech, you’ll recall the bit about how kids whose parents read books to them and keep a lot of books in the house get better grades in school. The assumption was that it was a matter of cause-and-effect. Read to your kids, keep a lot of books in the house, they’ll get better grades. But on careful analysis, that didn’t hold up. Intelligent parents are more likely to enjoy books, to buy a lot of books, and to read to their kids. Those kids end up doing well in school because they inherited their parents’ higher IQs. The books themselves weren’t a factor.
I love to read because I enjoy learning. My daughter Sara inherited those traits. She reads constantly, and she does very, very well in school. But she does well in school for the same reason she loves to read: she’s very intelligent and curious. Take away her books, and she’d still do very well in school because she has a high IQ.
My bet is on making higher taxes for the middle class and the rich to equalize things. It can’t possibly go wrong.
It’s worked so well in the past.
Civilization creates inequality just so it can be studied…
https://libcom.org/history/hunter-gatherers-mythology-market-john-gowdy
A very long and silly essay. Hunter-gatherer tribes were often socialist, so it’s the answer for us too. Nonsense. The “let’s all share equally” idea can work in a hunter-gatherer society because everyone knows everyone else. It’s like sharing among the members of an extended family. If someone decides to be a freeloader, everyone knows who he is and can deal with the situation accordingly.
As Milton Friedman argued very effectively (with plenty of examples) in “Free To Choose,” the disparity in incomes between rich and poor is more pronounced in government-controlled economies. As always, the smart and cunning people figure out how to leverage that control for their own benefit.
Tom, I love your writing and I have been following you ever since I first stumbled upon the Fathead movie. But I am not sure what you’re going on about here.
(Full disclosure: I am a Danish person living in Copenhagen so I might feel miffed on behalf of my country).
The Danish Cancer Society works on lots of other, possibly related, health markers, and there is a marked difference in the social status of people who get cancer. We’re a very socialist country so inequality is basically a factor in everything 😛
The quote “Overall, the combination of exposure to smoking, low level of education, and hypertension” uses a comma and should be read as “Overall, the combination of (exposure to smoking), (low level of education), and (hypertension)”. But I bet you knew that, being a writer and all.
The way I read the study, the researchers are merely pointing out that there seems to be some correlation between stroke risk and socioeconomic status, which is probably true. Now, whether this is due to lower income and thus shittier food, or the fact that the more uneducated a Danish man is, the more likely he is to believe that going to the doctor is for sissies (yes, our healthcare is free, but people are still stupid) I don’t know, but there might well be some correlation, and thus we should probably focus some of the stroke-preventing information on the people with lower socioeconomic status as it might be more beneficial there. That is all.
I totally agree about this probably being an adherers vs. non-adherers issue, but I cannot find anything in the article that disputes that anyway. It’s an article mentioning the correlation, not the causation.
I know you’re an edutainer, but I feel like you’re trying to be funny by mocking something that doesn’t really deserve it, by wilfully reading it wrong. There are plenty of silly studies to pick from that you could mock and still be technically correct (the best kind of correct!) so I think you missed your mark here.
I still love your blog though 😛
I’m mocking the study because the authors seem to believe a lower level of education is cause instead of an effect, and that perhaps some kind of government solution is in order.
I don’t think the authors believer/were trying to prove that less education is a cause of stroke (or an effect of stroke? Not sure what you mean here), but that it is a factor; i.e., one of a few or several characteristics that contribute to a person having a greater likelihood of stroke. You don’t meet (at least in the US) too many PhDs who smoke, You meet plenty of high school dropouts/GED who do. It goes without a long-term expensive study to see that the latter population is also more likely to habitually intake other habit-forming substances and to be exposed to less-healthy environments, as well as to be less concerned about overall health, nutrition, fitness, etc.
Sure, those traits are statistically correlated, but what the researchers are suggesting is akin to saying people who are less educated are more likely to smoke and are less healthy because they’re less educated. So somebody needs to fix this social inequality in education. I’m saying both traits (less education, worse health habits) have the same root cause: the non-adherer personality.
If you’ve seen my Science For Smart People speech, you’ll recall the bit about how kids whose parents read books to them and keep a lot of books in the house get better grades in school. The assumption was that it was a matter of cause-and-effect. Read to your kids, keep a lot of books in the house, they’ll get better grades. But on careful analysis, that didn’t hold up. Intelligent parents are more likely to enjoy books, to buy a lot of books, and to read to their kids. Those kids end up doing well in school because they inherited their parents’ higher IQs. The books themselves weren’t a factor.
I love to read because I enjoy learning. My daughter Sara inherited those traits. She reads constantly, and she does very, very well in school. But she does well in school for the same reason she loves to read: she’s very intelligent and curious. Take away her books, and she’d still do very well in school because she has a high IQ.
Your right Tom, the fact that your daughters will grow up as well read, well adjusted, intelligent, “adherers” has everything to do with the traits inherited from yourself and your lovely wife.
Those there “other” people living in the inner cities or poor rural areas, they are simply the spawn of lower intelligence “non-adherers”. Nothing we as a society can do about that I guess…..
Words like poverty, poor-housing, racism, social challenges and economic marginalization. These aren’t real issues that might affect a kids ultimate outcomes in life right?
Those are just weasel words to try and guilt all us “adherers” into thinking those “other” people’s circumstances is anything but their own fault……
If you really believe this kind of stuff, you might want to check a little closer and see if your ideology is causing some confirmation bias in your own head.
Anyway, preach on sir
Cheers
My, my, Darren, that was quite an intellectual leap. Let’s summarize your reaction:
“Our local school district is highly ranked because parents living in this area have higher-than-average IQs.”
“Racist! Tom is a racist!”
Here’s the thing, Darren: we can’t solve problems by refusing to recognize the source of those problems. If you don’t believe the choices people make in life have something to do with whether they end up rich or poor, fine. You may continue going merrily through life as a mushy-headed liberal (pardon the redundancy). After all, mushy-headed liberal programs have worked so awesomely well at giving us fine inner-city schools and teaching teenage boys how to grow up to be responsible husbands and fathers, eh? My, yes, look at how the illegitimacy rate among the poor just plummeted after the mushy-headed liberals rushed in to help. Oh, wait …
Hi Tom,
I think its you that is actually making the leap here Tom. I never said You are Racist.
To Paraphrase:
You said essentially that social ills are strictly tied to individual choices (“adherers” and the “Non adherers”) and it would seem luck (i.e. who your parents are). Not sure if you are making a nature/nurture argument here or a combination of both.
I said other factors like poverty, poor-housing, racism, social challenges and economic marginalization also play a huge role in outcomes as well.
Also I never said individual choice does not matter either, that would be silly to suggest. However it is just as silly to suggest that other factors are not equally at play, and even dictate the choices that are ultimately even available to some people.
Pardon me for thinking that a modern society can do more that just throw up its hands and say “hey, thats just the way it is, if only people would just adhere more”.
You think I am a mushy headed liberal. Fine.
I think you are blinded by your own ideology.
Then as the man said in “Cool Hand Luke,” what we have here is a failure to communicate. To review your previous comment:
Those there “other” people living in the inner cities or poor rural areas, they are simply the spawn of lower intelligence “non-adherers”. Nothing we as a society can do about that I guess…..
Words like poverty, poor-housing, racism, social challenges and economic marginalization. These aren’t real issues that might affect a kids ultimate outcomes in life right?
Those are just weasel words to try and guilt all us “adherers” into thinking those “other” people’s circumstances is anything but their own fault……
If you really believe this kind of stuff, you might want to check a little closer and see if your ideology is causing some confirmation bias in your own head.
You want to tell me which parts of my original post led you to conclude that I don’t believe growing up in poverty affects a kid’s ultimate outcome in life? Bill Gates’ kids will have far more opportunity to succeed than my kids will, and my kids will have far more opportunity to succeed than a kid who grows up in a ghetto. That isn’t the point.
I made the simple and self-evident observation that people who think long-term and act accordingly (adherers) tend to be both healthier and more financially successful on average than people who don’t consider long-term consequences (non-adherers). That creates a correlation between income and health. So the mush-heads see that poorer people have higher rates of heart disease and cancer and leap to the conclusion that they’re in worse health because they’re poor or (as the mush-head in our local paper wrote) they’re in worse health because they live in a poor county. So then they come up with solutions based on their mush-head ideas, such as “If we could only move more of those people to a wealthier county, their health would improve.”
I forgot to ask: what exactly is it you think a modern society ought to do to improve the lives and health of poor people with bad health habits that we’re failing to do? How do you suggest we in a modern society should relieve them of the burdens of economic marginalization and social challenges that prevent them from being healthier and more successful?
And by “do more,” do you mean The Anointed need to get together and come up with a new Grand Plan to help them? Because I’m sure you can guess how much confidence I’d have in that idea.
There are number of things I think that can be done to improve my own country, and yours as well, what it really comes down to is what kind of society the people of each country want to have. Every country in the world has its own cross to bear in this regard.
I know you probably won’t believe it, but I actually do not feel that I am a left wing liberal (whatever that means). I am a self-employed consultant just like yourself and I guess I would probably fit the “adherer” profile. I see my beliefs as being prudent, and driven by achieving positive outcomes in the most efficient way possible while trying to balance that with fiscal responsibility, individual choice, and liberty. I am interested in results and outcomes and the best way to achieve them, not dogma.
As to specific suggestions, I am not sure where I would even begin and this would go way beyond the scope of a single blog post. Suffice to say that freedom and free markets are great things, but they don’t solve everything, and they make some things far worse.
One thing for sure, I definitely think all governments of the world need to incorporate behavioral economics in their policy strategies and decision making. Some people refer to this as Nudge theory.
A good example of this kind of policy in practice would be a mandatory increase the employee portion of public pension contributions (Social Security in your country Canada Pension plan in mine). This mandatory increase would also have an opt out clause. And then have a nice long application for people to fill out and mail in if they want to opt out. Behavioural science tells us that most people won’t bother, and they won’t miss that couple hundred basis points off their pay checks. In this way most people (particularly the “non-adherers”) we are concerned with, begin properly funding their own retirement. And freedom loving “adherers” like yourself can still opt out, and continue doing as they have always done. Those that pay more into the system get more out of it later, those that don’t pay less get less. Nice and fair. And you have fewer “non-adherer” old people eating cat food. Everybody wins. The only problem with implementing something like this? Ideology.
Suggestions for Health? In earlier blog posts we have also covered things like socialized health care (single payer) which I think is cheaper and more efficient as a nation especially when compared to the mess you guys currently have. Look around the world there are lots of examples.
Your Income tax system needs a serious overhaul (so does ours), your defense spending also needs a serious look, and you guys are going to have to get serious about your deficits and debt (You’re also not alone in that regard either).
I of course know that almost none of what I am suggesting will resonate with you because of your own ideological perspective, but again I am just not willing to believe that there are not ways every society can improve upon whatever social and economic ills they decide they have.
You’re a smart guy Tom and I actually have a lot of respect for you, that’s why I read your blog in the first place. I just don’t drink your brand of Kool-Aid is all.
Anyway carry on sir.
We agree more than you think, then. I’d absolutely favor an opt-out for Social Security (all of it, not just part), our current healthcare mishmash of sort-of-private insurance and various government payers is indeed a mess, our deficits and debts threaten our very existence as a sovereign nation, and our tax system is so f’ed up, I don’t believe an overhaul will even take care of it — that whole mess needs to be scrapped and replaced.
The difference would probably like in how we’d tackle those problems.
No offense Tom but conservatives don’t do to well with the education system either.
If by “conservatives,” you mean someone like George W. Bush putting his stamp of approval on a massive federal program like No Child Left Behind (which was basically designed by Ted Kennedy when he and Bush were still all kissy-kissy), I’d agree. But that’s what happens when supposed conservatives forget their principles.
A true small-government conservative wouldn’t have the audacity to decide he can pick the best curriculum for every public school in the country. A true small-government conservative would abolish the Department of Education and return control back to the local school districts.
Economics? Pshaw! I was recently reading Jesse Norman’s excellent book “Edmund Burke”, and came across the following passage:
“… much of modern economics still arises from three basic simplifying assumptions about human nature: that individuals are perfectly rational; that they maximize their utility, benefit or profits; and that they act independently of each other, on the basis of perfect information”.
(Those are four assumptions, I think, but never mind). Looking at those assumptions, it struck me that every single one is not just unproven, but the exact opposite of the truth!
So it’s not surprising that, while much of modern economics is highly mathematical, consistent, rigorous, and even aesthetic, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the world we live in. In other words, economics is a branch of pure mathematics.
None of the books on economics I’ve read assume people act on perfect information. In fact, the information is usually imperfect.
Well, to be fair to Tom W here, that’s because you don’t read books on Economics by Keynesians and other quant gurus.
They’ll all give a nod to the idea that perfect information isn’t available to people, then say that’s why the government needs to take care of things. The implication being of course, that the government experts DO have perfect information.
All of these “modern” schools of economics are in fact purely math-based. Their models all have a high degree of precision and are always right. Until they’re completely wrong, at which point they fail catastrophically. See “Cash for Clunkers,” “Quantitative Easing,” “Son of Quantitative Easing,” etc.
Cheers!
Now it makes sense. It never occurred to me that anyone would be so foolish as to think the guvmit would have perfect information.
To the list of failures, I’d add Paul Krugman’s insistence in 2002 (no doubt based on mathematical models) that Greenspan should create a housing bubble to replace the tech-stock bubble. That worked out well.
Economics? Pshaw! I was recently reading Jesse Norman’s excellent book “Edmund Burke”, and came across the following passage:
“… much of modern economics still arises from three basic simplifying assumptions about human nature: that individuals are perfectly rational; that they maximize their utility, benefit or profits; and that they act independently of each other, on the basis of perfect information”.
(Those are four assumptions, I think, but never mind). Looking at those assumptions, it struck me that every single one is not just unproven, but the exact opposite of the truth!
So it’s not surprising that, while much of modern economics is highly mathematical, consistent, rigorous, and even aesthetic, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the world we live in. In other words, economics is a branch of pure mathematics.
None of the books on economics I’ve read assume people act on perfect information. In fact, the information is usually imperfect.
Well, to be fair to Tom W here, that’s because you don’t read books on Economics by Keynesians and other quant gurus.
They’ll all give a nod to the idea that perfect information isn’t available to people, then say that’s why the government needs to take care of things. The implication being of course, that the government experts DO have perfect information.
All of these “modern” schools of economics are in fact purely math-based. Their models all have a high degree of precision and are always right. Until they’re completely wrong, at which point they fail catastrophically. See “Cash for Clunkers,” “Quantitative Easing,” “Son of Quantitative Easing,” etc.
Cheers!
Now it makes sense. It never occurred to me that anyone would be so foolish as to think the guvmit would have perfect information.
To the list of failures, I’d add Paul Krugman’s insistence in 2002 (no doubt based on mathematical models) that Greenspan should create a housing bubble to replace the tech-stock bubble. That worked out well.
Economics make MODELs of human behavior.
They try (have to) simplify the interactions between people in the real world
in order to understand and analyse them.
Of course they cant make perfect predicitons. Just as meterological forcast cant.
But by using models, your predictions have a rational basis in a functional model,
and are more useful than a farmers wisdom in the long run.
“individuals are perfectly rational; that they maximize their utility, benefit or profits:”
-in the long run people thend to ACT reational (even without THINKING rational)
as cronically doing actions that reduce utility would put them in a disadvantage.
I new idea or behavior that supports the group or individual would be embraced.
Even a dog acts rational (in time), avoiding the electric fence, even without understanting
Maxwells laws.
“and that they act independently of each other, on the basis of perfect information”
you dont need perfect information if you have a well evolved set of experiences and stereotypes.
Assuming perfect information is a way to MODEL the insteractions. In reality people donw have perfect information,
but they will get very skilled in estimating them from a subset of information. That the experiance.
This fails in novel circumstances (buying the first car), but not in repeated tasks (coosing the most tasty foods in the
groceries)
Economics try to simplify and rationalise the effects of human behavior. And that tends to workd well in interactions
that are repetative and common. It will likely fail in very novel or unusual circumstances.
poverty and poor health seem to be common place, even in countries with socialized healthcare. According to an Economics of Healthcare class I took, richer people tend to go to the doctor more often, resulting in fewer strokers.
Granted, more government is usually what causes more poverty…
I think richer people have fewer strokes mostly because on average, they’re more future-oriented and take better care of themselves.
It’s not about being poor, it’s about feeling poor. At least that’s what the guy in the second Zeitgeist movie said.
poverty and poor health seem to be common place, even in countries with socialized healthcare. According to an Economics of Healthcare class I took, richer people tend to go to the doctor more often, resulting in fewer strokers.
Granted, more government is usually what causes more poverty…
I think richer people have fewer strokes mostly because on average, they’re more future-oriented and take better care of themselves.
It’s not about being poor, it’s about feeling poor. At least that’s what the guy in the second Zeitgeist movie said.
On a more positive note, many believe the higher education spending bubble has stretched to its outermost tolerance. States, which cannot print their own dollars, have already slashed funding like crazy. This federal loan silliness is just the icing on the cake, but too little, too late.
The steep ride down is going to be painful for those who work in higher ed. They have the federal goverment to thank for enacting policies that drove the cost of an education up way beyond what it was worth.
Many of them will be out of a job and have to find work in sectors based on outrageous things like supply, demand, and performance. Many will also have to get on Obamacare. Hope they like it.
On a more positive note, many believe the higher education spending bubble has stretched to its outermost tolerance. States, which cannot print their own dollars, have already slashed funding like crazy. This federal loan silliness is just the icing on the cake, but too little, too late.
The steep ride down is going to be painful for those who work in higher ed. They have the federal goverment to thank for enacting policies that drove the cost of an education up way beyond what it was worth.
Many of them will be out of a job and have to find work in sectors based on outrageous things like supply, demand, and performance. Many will also have to get on Obamacare. Hope they like it.
Yup, it’s like a mini version of the housing bubble. Making all that federal funny money available drove up prices.
On a more positive note, many believe the higher education spending bubble has stretched to its outermost tolerance. States, which cannot print their own dollars, have already slashed funding like crazy. This federal loan silliness is just the icing on the cake, but too little, too late.
The steep ride down is going to be painful for those who work in higher ed. They have the federal goverment to thank for enacting policies that drove the cost of an education up way beyond what it was worth.
Many of them will be out of a job and have to find work in sectors based on outrageous things like supply, demand, and performance. Many will also have to get on Obamacare. Hope they like it.
Yup, it’s like a mini version of the housing bubble. Making all that federal funny money available drove up prices.
I think richer people have fewer strokes because they are just less stressed in general. It doesn’t matter how well educated you are, if (for whatever reason) you can barely keep a roof over your head and are painfully aware that one small change in your circumstances would leave you homeless or dependent upon other people, that is a chronic stressor.
Agreed. Money may not buy happiness, but it can certainly buy some peace of mind.
?? I’ve seen two posters in this comments section imply that going to the doctor more often will reduce your chance of a stroke.
I firmly believe there is absolutely no correlation between doctor visits and chance of stroke, but I’m open to new information … bring it on.
These days going to the doctor will increase your likelihood of taking health-damaging medicines, which is … bad, actually. And an appaling state of affairs!
Agreed. Little of our healthcare system is actually geared toward prevention. It’s more a sick-care system.
I think richer people have fewer strokes because they are just less stressed in general. It doesn’t matter how well educated you are, if (for whatever reason) you can barely keep a roof over your head and are painfully aware that one small change in your circumstances would leave you homeless or dependent upon other people, that is a chronic stressor.
Agreed. Money may not buy happiness, but it can certainly buy some peace of mind.
?? I’ve seen two posters in this comments section imply that going to the doctor more often will reduce your chance of a stroke.
I firmly believe there is absolutely no correlation between doctor visits and chance of stroke, but I’m open to new information … bring it on.
These days going to the doctor will increase your likelihood of taking health-damaging medicines, which is … bad, actually. And an appaling state of affairs!
Agreed. Little of our healthcare system is actually geared toward prevention. It’s more a sick-care system.
Hollywood is full of uneducated smokers and they’re not stroking out. Of course, they’re all attractive which is a sign of good health. Maybe all the healthy, pretty people marry up out of the lower socioeconomic conditions and leave behind a bunch of ugly, sick people. See, you can conclude anything you want if you rely on biases more that good science!
Now the Danish commission on Stroke and Social Inequality or whatever it’s called will have to conduct a study on stroke and exposure to a low level of attractiveness.
Hollywood is full of uneducated smokers and they’re not stroking out. Of course, they’re all attractive which is a sign of good health. Maybe all the healthy, pretty people marry up out of the lower socioeconomic conditions and leave behind a bunch of ugly, sick people. See, you can conclude anything you want if you rely on biases more that good science!
Now the Danish commission on Stroke and Social Inequality or whatever it’s called will have to conduct a study on stroke and exposure to a low level of attractiveness.
I am not sure how to feel about this. I guess I just think it’s easy to feel a bit smug about one’s circumstance being better than others, rather like how people who almost miraculously strike it rich often think they somehow worked harder or better than the million other people doing the same thing when it is probably not so. I’ve known several people who became celebrities or very wealthy without the fame element and it’s interesting to watch the rationalizations that psychology makes.
On the other hand I have my extended family to consider. When I was working two jobs, or working for the worst people at times, or spending 50 hours a week training myself on this or that (computers, later coding, and so forth), they… weren’t. When I was trying to save my money or at least, spend it on something useful, they… weren’t. Every time I would see my cousins I’d hear about why they left their job because of (check a circumstance I myself put up with, often far worse, for a larger goal, because apparently I did not think I was ‘better than that’ at least, not to the degree of thinking unemployment would be better), and then eventually they’d always say, “You’re so lucky!” As if the hours and effort that I put in for years that contributed to my being qualified to do X or have Y just fell out of the damn sky on me. “What does luck have to do with it?” I would say, irritated.
“I don’t have time,” they’d say about learning anything new. Yeah? I worked 2.5 jobs and I taught myself rudimentary trumpet, crammed in a compact car in a parking lot in the business section with my feet up on the dash at 2am-3am because that’s the time I had. (I really sucked at trumpet. But it’s the best vocal warmup in the world it turns out! And it taught me to love the quality of a single note, resonance and melody, when getting one out well was such work.) You wanna do something, you make the time, even though it meant I wrote songs on my 4.5 hours commute on the L.A. freeways every day when I did work and school but really wanted to be home playing guitar, and would have to try and get them down when I got home at 1am in that era, back up at 5 (sleeping standing up in a cold shower in the morning, and I wonder why I wrecked my metabolism!…).
But the point is, I tried. I didn’t succeed at everything. So CA coastal economy in the early 80s, two jobs and jr. college and I left the latter because strangely enough, 2.5 hours of sleep was not enough for my body, go figure, but I had to make enough to pay rent and car/insurance and in those days in that place it was basically the NY/SF type market, insane. I did ok through my life in jobs anyway. I’m nearly 50 now and lived to tell, my kid just turned 18 and shows no sign of being a serial killer and just got her first job so I’m thinking maybe I’ll get some fraction of a disney ending. But I think this is, fundamentally, because I TRIED.
Is it genetic? Environment? I don’t know. I’m 15 nationalities. Mom died when I was 9, dad’s a workaholic responsible sort, my cousins and half-siblings are all somewhat distant in terms of upbringing.
But the thing is, what made me driven? What makes me work on things now? Because my health is something I’m having to work very hard on right now, and I’ve had the (interesting, in the chinese sense) opportunity to really SEE what a profound difference a sufficient amount of spectrum-aminos, minerals, vitamins, and lipids make, vs. not having them. It changes my interest levels, it changes my attention, it changes my optimism. I start noticing my environment first, then I start caring, then I start thinking about projects, then I start gradually doing things. When I am really well fed for some time I actually start DO-ing things again, like I did my whole life. When I don’t eat enough or well enough (my biggest problem, esp. as I am supersize — being anorexic when you’re huge is an almost humorous problem nobody but those who know you would ever believe…) I have less and less energy, and the first place it hits is the physical but it gradually takes down every other area too. Until all I want to do is read, listen to music, daydream, I don’t really care so much about anything, except my job which “survival instincts” keep in focus, not much else. Ramp up the protein and good fats and basic nutrients again and I see the “ramp up” of my mind, my psychology, everything.
Nutrition literally makes me a different personality, I mean radically different, at this point in my life. Two weeks on say, three different dietary intakes and I am three different people. Same base, drastically different implementation.
So I can say how I work hard and hence it’s me me me responsible for my doing ok in life (so far). But when I see how much nutrition affects my enthusiasm, my “proactive” level, my ability to “connect with the sense of the completion of an idea” (the sense that makes one believe they can do something start to finish successfully), then how could I not say that nutrition may be radically related to the psychology of at least some other people too?
Especially when it’s a kid, or it’s something going on for years and decades?
I’m sure there are “adherer” personalities, and I’m sure that genetics matter some, but I am not entirely sure that we can ever actually surgically remove nutrition/environment from that equation and say that those same personalities WOULD be the same in different circumstances.
When I was 8 I carried a switchblade and lived in the projects and helped my brother and his friend carry electronics out of peoples’ houses, and other quality-time family projects. I tend to think if I had stayed in that environment, rather than my mother’s death throwing me across town into my father’s lower middle class dysfunctional but far better fed and behaved world, I’d have been very different, but I think it’s likely that the “adherer” nature of my personality would have been very different too.
PJ
I wouldn’t attribute our choices and behaviors exclusively to genetics or environment. It’s clearly a mix of both.
If you win the lottery, inherit a fortune, get picked out of thousands for a starring role and become a celebrity, we could call that miraculously striking it rich. But most rich people in America didn’t inherit their wealth or wait for a miracle. And yes, as His Highness was so anxious to point out during the election, if you started and now own a successful business, that doesn’t necessarily mean you worked harder than everyone else. Lots of people work very hard at manual-labor jobs that don’t pay well. That isn’t the point. What separates the person who starts a business from the person who would rather draw a paycheck is the willingness to work hard and/or risk a chunk of money on a venture that may fail. It’s the willingness to put in hours and hours of unpaid time and effort in hopes of reaping a reward that may never come.
You did that when you taught yourself programming. I get that one. I taught myself programming by reading books and writing code at night, when it sure would have been more fun to go hang out and drink beer with friends. I also put in more hours than I can count and risked a helluva lot of money on Fat Head, never knowing if it would go anywhere. People who operate strictly from the paycheck mentality don’t take risks like that — and that’s fine. Not everyone should.
You know, normally when I see a comment this long (other than one of my own, of course), I think “oh, no, someone else using up scarce interweb space,” but I found this whole stream of thought interesting.
About this, though…
“Nutrition literally makes me a different personality, I mean radically different, at this point in my life. Two weeks on say, three different dietary intakes and I am three different people. Same base, drastically different implementation.”
… given this profound effect, which I think most folks here would agree with to varying degrees, does it not clarify that the school lunch programs, SNAP, et al. inflicted by The Anointed (primarily on those with limited options) are truly crimes against humanity?
Cheers
But it’s all working out quite well as a government-worker employment program. Government workers run the nutrition programs and decide what people should eat. When the kids eating that crap develop ADHD or other problems in school, more government workers are hired to help them overcome those barriers to learning. When the “help” turns out to be useless and the frustrated kid quits school at the earliest opportunity and ends up unemployed, government workers are hired to run unemployment-assistance programs. When the unemployed former kid with the behavior problems turns to crime, government workers get arrest him, prosecute him, and keep him in prison.
And that’s not even including the chain of government employment that results from people developing health problems after eating all those government-subsidized grains.
I’m pretty sure that’s what Keynes meant by the “multiplier” effect of government spending.
I am not sure how to feel about this. I guess I just think it’s easy to feel a bit smug about one’s circumstance being better than others, rather like how people who almost miraculously strike it rich often think they somehow worked harder or better than the million other people doing the same thing when it is probably not so. I’ve known several people who became celebrities or very wealthy without the fame element and it’s interesting to watch the rationalizations that psychology makes.
On the other hand I have my extended family to consider. When I was working two jobs, or working for the worst people at times, or spending 50 hours a week training myself on this or that (computers, later coding, and so forth), they… weren’t. When I was trying to save my money or at least, spend it on something useful, they… weren’t. Every time I would see my cousins I’d hear about why they left their job because of (check a circumstance I myself put up with, often far worse, for a larger goal, because apparently I did not think I was ‘better than that’ at least, not to the degree of thinking unemployment would be better), and then eventually they’d always say, “You’re so lucky!” As if the hours and effort that I put in for years that contributed to my being qualified to do X or have Y just fell out of the damn sky on me. “What does luck have to do with it?” I would say, irritated.
“I don’t have time,” they’d say about learning anything new. Yeah? I worked 2.5 jobs and I taught myself rudimentary trumpet, crammed in a compact car in a parking lot in the business section with my feet up on the dash at 2am-3am because that’s the time I had. (I really sucked at trumpet. But it’s the best vocal warmup in the world it turns out! And it taught me to love the quality of a single note, resonance and melody, when getting one out well was such work.) You wanna do something, you make the time, even though it meant I wrote songs on my 4.5 hours commute on the L.A. freeways every day when I did work and school but really wanted to be home playing guitar, and would have to try and get them down when I got home at 1am in that era, back up at 5 (sleeping standing up in a cold shower in the morning, and I wonder why I wrecked my metabolism!…).
But the point is, I tried. I didn’t succeed at everything. So CA coastal economy in the early 80s, two jobs and jr. college and I left the latter because strangely enough, 2.5 hours of sleep was not enough for my body, go figure, but I had to make enough to pay rent and car/insurance and in those days in that place it was basically the NY/SF type market, insane. I did ok through my life in jobs anyway. I’m nearly 50 now and lived to tell, my kid just turned 18 and shows no sign of being a serial killer and just got her first job so I’m thinking maybe I’ll get some fraction of a disney ending. But I think this is, fundamentally, because I TRIED.
Is it genetic? Environment? I don’t know. I’m 15 nationalities. Mom died when I was 9, dad’s a workaholic responsible sort, my cousins and half-siblings are all somewhat distant in terms of upbringing.
But the thing is, what made me driven? What makes me work on things now? Because my health is something I’m having to work very hard on right now, and I’ve had the (interesting, in the chinese sense) opportunity to really SEE what a profound difference a sufficient amount of spectrum-aminos, minerals, vitamins, and lipids make, vs. not having them. It changes my interest levels, it changes my attention, it changes my optimism. I start noticing my environment first, then I start caring, then I start thinking about projects, then I start gradually doing things. When I am really well fed for some time I actually start DO-ing things again, like I did my whole life. When I don’t eat enough or well enough (my biggest problem, esp. as I am supersize — being anorexic when you’re huge is an almost humorous problem nobody but those who know you would ever believe…) I have less and less energy, and the first place it hits is the physical but it gradually takes down every other area too. Until all I want to do is read, listen to music, daydream, I don’t really care so much about anything, except my job which “survival instincts” keep in focus, not much else. Ramp up the protein and good fats and basic nutrients again and I see the “ramp up” of my mind, my psychology, everything.
Nutrition literally makes me a different personality, I mean radically different, at this point in my life. Two weeks on say, three different dietary intakes and I am three different people. Same base, drastically different implementation.
So I can say how I work hard and hence it’s me me me responsible for my doing ok in life (so far). But when I see how much nutrition affects my enthusiasm, my “proactive” level, my ability to “connect with the sense of the completion of an idea” (the sense that makes one believe they can do something start to finish successfully), then how could I not say that nutrition may be radically related to the psychology of at least some other people too?
Especially when it’s a kid, or it’s something going on for years and decades?
I’m sure there are “adherer” personalities, and I’m sure that genetics matter some, but I am not entirely sure that we can ever actually surgically remove nutrition/environment from that equation and say that those same personalities WOULD be the same in different circumstances.
When I was 8 I carried a switchblade and lived in the projects and helped my brother and his friend carry electronics out of peoples’ houses, and other quality-time family projects. I tend to think if I had stayed in that environment, rather than my mother’s death throwing me across town into my father’s lower middle class dysfunctional but far better fed and behaved world, I’d have been very different, but I think it’s likely that the “adherer” nature of my personality would have been very different too.
PJ
I wouldn’t attribute our choices and behaviors exclusively to genetics or environment. It’s clearly a mix of both.
If you win the lottery, inherit a fortune, get picked out of thousands for a starring role and become a celebrity, we could call that miraculously striking it rich. But most rich people in America didn’t inherit their wealth or wait for a miracle. And yes, as His Highness was so anxious to point out during the election, if you started and now own a successful business, that doesn’t necessarily mean you worked harder than everyone else. Lots of people work very hard at manual-labor jobs that don’t pay well. That isn’t the point. What separates the person who starts a business from the person who would rather draw a paycheck is the willingness to work hard and/or risk a chunk of money on a venture that may fail. It’s the willingness to put in hours and hours of unpaid time and effort in hopes of reaping a reward that may never come.
You did that when you taught yourself programming. I get that one. I taught myself programming by reading books and writing code at night, when it sure would have been more fun to go hang out and drink beer with friends. I also put in more hours than I can count and risked a helluva lot of money on Fat Head, never knowing if it would go anywhere. People who operate strictly from the paycheck mentality don’t take risks like that — and that’s fine. Not everyone should.
You know, normally when I see a comment this long (other than one of my own, of course), I think “oh, no, someone else using up scarce interweb space,” but I found this whole stream of thought interesting.
About this, though…
“Nutrition literally makes me a different personality, I mean radically different, at this point in my life. Two weeks on say, three different dietary intakes and I am three different people. Same base, drastically different implementation.”
… given this profound effect, which I think most folks here would agree with to varying degrees, does it not clarify that the school lunch programs, SNAP, et al. inflicted by The Anointed (primarily on those with limited options) are truly crimes against humanity?
Cheers
But it’s all working out quite well as a government-worker employment program. Government workers run the nutrition programs and decide what people should eat. When the kids eating that crap develop ADHD or other problems in school, more government workers are hired to help them overcome those barriers to learning. When the “help” turns out to be useless and the frustrated kid quits school at the earliest opportunity and ends up unemployed, government workers are hired to run unemployment-assistance programs. When the unemployed former kid with the behavior problems turns to crime, government workers get arrest him, prosecute him, and keep him in prison.
And that’s not even including the chain of government employment that results from people developing health problems after eating all those government-subsidized grains.
I’m pretty sure that’s what Keynes meant by the “multiplier” effect of government spending.
How do people like Paul Krugman get to a position of influence?
By telling liberal newspaper editors what they want to hear.
How do people like Paul Krugman get to a position of influence?
By telling liberal newspaper editors what they want to hear.