Tell me if you understand the problem in its full simplicity: former regulators and public officials who were employed by the citizens to represent their best interests can use the expertise and contacts acquired on the job to benefit from glitches in the system upon joining private employment -- law firms, etc.
Think about it a bit further: the more complex the regulation, the more bureaucratic the network, the more a regulator who knows the loops and glitches would benefit from it later, as his regulator edge would be a convex function of his differential knowledge. This is a franchise. (Note that this franchise is not limited to finance; the car company Toyota hired former U.S. regulators and used their "expertise" to handle investigations of its car defects).
Friday, August 06, 2010
Something to think about ...
... The Regulator Franchise, or the Alan Blinder Problem. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For all you hockey fans ...
... The Hockey Sweater – All Things Hockey.
I'm not terribly into hockey -- Philly didn't have a team when I was growing up -- but Judith is a passionate fan.
I'm not terribly into hockey -- Philly didn't have a team when I was growing up -- but Judith is a passionate fan.
Thought for the day ...
Do not fear lest you should meditate too much upon Him and speak of Him in an unworthy way, providing you are led by faith. Do not fear lest you should entertain false opinions of Him so long as they are in conformity with the notion of the infinitely perfect Being.- Nicolas Malebranche, born on this date in 1638
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Silver-screen editor ...
... The return of a man called Perkins. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)
Perkins also appears in the 1983 film Cross Creek, where was played by Malcolm McDowell.
Perkins also appears in the 1983 film Cross Creek, where was played by Malcolm McDowell.
The perils of age ...
... Night thoughts.
I still find, usually, when I can't bring something to mind as quickly as I would like, that telling myself "it will come to me" works. Though earlier this summer I could not for the life of me think of the name of a flower in my garden - alyssum, as it happened. The Greeks, of course, thought that forgetting was a blessing. I'm guessing my memory won't always be as sharp as it usually has been, but am hoping it will remain serviceable to the end. But who the hell knows? I will, eventually.
Ishiguro
I came upon the film adaptation last night of Ishiguro's Remains of the Day. I hadn't thought for quite some time about that novel, but wow, after watching Anthony Hopkins (for the second or third time), I was again singing Ishiguro's praises. Mesmerizing, masterful, Remains of the Day presents a powerful account of tradition, history, and that complex thing we call loyalty.
Thought for the day ...
- All lovely things will have an ending,
- All lovely things will fade and die,
- And youth, that's now so bravely spending,
- Will beg a penny by and by.
- Conrad Aiken, born on this date 1889
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Perhaps ...
... Better Science Through God? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, an atheist may have unraveled the Big Bang, but a Benedictine monk discovered it.
Well, an atheist may have unraveled the Big Bang, but a Benedictine monk discovered it.
Not as a god ...
... but as a god might be. (BTW, just because the sun appears to us to be an immense and distant sphere of exploding gases, there's always the possibility that such is what a supernatural person might look like to us. Just a thought.) I figure it's only fair to give the other side a hearing from time to time. And I find Pat Condell entertaining, even though I disagree with him on a lot of things.
Christopher Hitchens ...
... on the Topic of Cancer.
Myself, I love the imagery of struggle. I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don’t read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent soldier or revolutionary is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.
Thought for the day ...
In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes two persons, things, situations, seem alike.- Walter Pater, born on this date in 1839
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Sorry I missed this ...
... especially since I'm usually there a couple of times a week (the Reading Terminal Market, not Brindisi): Brindisi. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Judith's picks ...
... Outstanding: Garry Thomas Morse, Ken Norris & Jack Spicer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hooked ...
... "Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter / Sermons and soda water the day after." (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sermons and Soda-Water is a wonderful book. O'Hara excelled in the novella. The second one eapecially, "Imagine Kissing Pete," is extraordinary.
Sermons and Soda-Water is a wonderful book. O'Hara excelled in the novella. The second one eapecially, "Imagine Kissing Pete," is extraordinary.
My latest column ...
... The political class thinks of itself as the ruling class.
In the meantime, take a look at your tax dollars at work. Note that this bill was supposed to stimulate the economy, which it obviously has not done. And small wonder. This is the usual pork-barrel crap that seems about the only thing our Congressional doofuses are able to manage.
Thought for the day ...
War makes strange giant creatures out of us little routine men who inhabit the earth.- Ernie Pyle, born on this date in 1900
Monday, August 02, 2010
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Mark your calendar ...
... August 21st- Poets on the Ryerss Porch.
I'll be in the mountains by then, doing tai chi and and scribbling haiku.
I'll be in the mountains by then, doing tai chi and and scribbling haiku.
Smoke ...
... meet fire. Glenn Reynolds on JournoList: Controversy proves collusion among liberal journalists.
In "The Appearance of Impropriety," my former University of Tennessee College of Law colleague Peter Morgan and I noted that sociologists like Erving Goffman think that every functioning society needs a "backstage" where people can let their hair down and speak without observing social proprieties. But journalists have been destroying that backstage for everyone else for decades. Why should they be permitted to keep one, when no one else is?
Boundless ego ...
... raging artistic ambition and zero ability: Enter The Room ("prime contender for the title Worst Movie Ever Made").
Thought for the day ...
Irony differentiates. Cynicism never does.- Paul Horgan, born on this date in 1903
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thought for the day ...
Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.- Primo Levi, born on this date in 1919
Friday, July 30, 2010
He seems a good candidate ...
... to me: Was Cardinal Newman a saint?
The purpose of a university, for Newman, was to ensure that those educated there had “a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind”. This, surely, is still the central aim of preprofessional undergraduate education. Whatever discipline an undergraduate pursues, or majors in, it is not so much the acquisition of that particular body of knowledge that is important, but the acquiring, through that discipline, of a sense of the aims and methods of science and scholarship. It is the function of liberal education to make one aware of the boundaries of the domains of the sciences, and give one a grasp of which questions can and which cannot be settled by science.
This week's batch ...
... of TLS Letters: Arthur Koestler and women, Mailer’s war, Operatic beds, and more!
Thoughtful ...
... An Agnostic Manifesto.
The person best-qualified to comment on this, of course, is Mark Vernon, whose After Atheism, which I read last summer, I cannot recommend highly enough.
I am well aware that many churchgoers regard their beliefs with an unwarranted certainty (unwarranted because, if one is certain, there is no need for faith). I never tire of repeating Newman's definition of faith: "being capable of bearing doubt." To assent or dissent to a belief in God is an act of faith, since you cannot be certain either way.
I think that Ron Rosenbaum is not as closely acquainted with the thought of Aquinas as he ought to be. Aquinas, after all, is the one who said that all things runs into mystery, and that we cannot know what God is, only what he is not. The agnostic is not someone who is especially attuned to the mystery of being, since any authentic act of faith must be premised on an acknowledgment of that mystery. The agnostic simply declines to make an act of faith. If agnosticism really involved a reverence for mystery, it would be rubbing elbows with faith -- as I believe Mark Vernon's does.
I am well aware that many churchgoers regard their beliefs with an unwarranted certainty (unwarranted because, if one is certain, there is no need for faith). I never tire of repeating Newman's definition of faith: "being capable of bearing doubt." To assent or dissent to a belief in God is an act of faith, since you cannot be certain either way.
I think that Ron Rosenbaum is not as closely acquainted with the thought of Aquinas as he ought to be. Aquinas, after all, is the one who said that all things runs into mystery, and that we cannot know what God is, only what he is not. The agnostic is not someone who is especially attuned to the mystery of being, since any authentic act of faith must be premised on an acknowledgment of that mystery. The agnostic simply declines to make an act of faith. If agnosticism really involved a reverence for mystery, it would be rubbing elbows with faith -- as I believe Mark Vernon's does.
Thought for the day ...
I cannot express it: but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you.- Emily Brontë, born on this date in 1818
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Work in progress ...
... The Best Magazine Articles Ever. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Lots of the usual suspects, and I guess they mean best American magazine articles.
Lots of the usual suspects, and I guess they mean best American magazine articles.
A wonderful discovery ...
... courtesy of Dave Lull by way of the Maverick Philosopher: Don Colacho’s Aphorisms.
Here's one I especially like: "There is an illiteracy of the soul which no diploma cures." Indeed.
Here's one I especially like: "There is an illiteracy of the soul which no diploma cures." Indeed.
In the meantime ...
... here's Martin Amis on euthanasia.
Perhaps the problem with aging would seem less if we, like earlier generations, honored age instead of worshipping youth.
Perhaps the problem with aging would seem less if we, like earlier generations, honored age instead of worshipping youth.
Thought for the day ...
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.- Dag Hammarskjöld, born on this date in 1905
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thought for the day ...
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.- Karl Popper, born on this date in 1902
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Let us pray ...
... for my friend Judith: The pen and the pain.
I'm concerned, of course. But I would even more concerned if I didn't know that Judith is tough as nails. She will more than survive.
I'm concerned, of course. But I would even more concerned if I didn't know that Judith is tough as nails. She will more than survive.
Pretty pathetic ...
... Journolisters Risked Their Integrity.
I can't ever remember any of my colleagues at The Inquirer talking like this about those they disagreed with. This guy Spencer Ackerman seems especially to revel in posing as a tough guy. Watch what you ask for, Spence.
The trouble with experts ...
... according to Richard Feynman: The Difference between ‘True Science’ and ‘Cargo-Cult Science’.
… there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. … It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Noir in brief ...
... On crime & thrillers: Manhattan Noir 2, The Classics.
Not so brief may be Paul's wait for that Philly collection. The collector, sources tell me, is my former colleague Carlin Romano, who just loves to take things down to the wire.
Fascinating ...
... Richard Strauss in Life and Death. (That sounds like John Gielgud doing the voice-over.)
In this corner ...
... Shav vs. Shakes.
Also, don't miss The Smiling Genius.
More here. I never realized that "Hot Diggity" was based on Charier's España.
Also, don't miss The Smiling Genius.
More here. I never realized that "Hot Diggity" was based on Charier's España.
The artist's situation ...
... `As Charming, and As Absolute'.
I never met Guy Davenport, but he was a friend of my late friend, the composer John Davison. Both went to Harvard, and Davenport taught at Haverford College for a couple of years. John was for many years the chairman of the music department at Haverford. His music ought to be better known.
Thought for the day ...
Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.- Hilaire Belloc, born on this date in 1970See also Meditation on Statistical Method. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Monday, July 26, 2010
A history professor's satori ...
... It turns out that Starbucks is just a company.
The author of this excerpt is also not a terribly elegant writer.
The author of this excerpt is terribly confused if he thinks that people today have fewer musical choices than they once had. They might have fewer musical choices at Starbucks, but the “increased consolidation of corporate media power” doesn’t seem to be helping record companies or keeping millions of people from discovering music — tens of thousands of songs — from all over the place on the Internet. Usually the concern we hear is the opposite — that there is no longer a central cultural resource, that the gatekeepers (editors, reviewers) don’t have the power they once did, that there are too many alternatives and people don’t know what to choose and we no longer have a shared national culture.
The author of this excerpt is also not a terribly elegant writer.
Try this out ...
... I Write Like. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
I plugged in something from a blog post, something from a column, and something from a review. The results? In order: Cory Doctorow, H.P. Lovecraft, and Mary Shelley.
Postscript: I just plugged in a paragraph from a review I wrote of Julian Barnes's Nothing To Be Frightened Of and was told I write like Charles Dickens. Here's the paragraph:
I plugged in something from a blog post, something from a column, and something from a review. The results? In order: Cory Doctorow, H.P. Lovecraft, and Mary Shelley.
Postscript: I just plugged in a paragraph from a review I wrote of Julian Barnes's Nothing To Be Frightened Of and was told I write like Charles Dickens. Here's the paragraph:
However much Barnes may assent intellectually to the notion that our sense of self is an illusion, it has in no way eased his fear of death, and he should perhaps be warned that faith would not entirely dispel that, either. As Newman observed, faith means “being capable of bearing doubt.” The faith that my own chain of causation forces me to profess offers, not the assurance, but the hope that God in His mercy will forgive me my many sins and allow me, eventually, to take up residence in one of the humbler corners of a much better neighborhood of being.
Very interesting ...
... The Limits of the Coded World. (Hat tips, Lee Lowe and Dave Lull.)
The model in question holds that the universe exists in space and time as a kind of ultimate code that can be deciphered. This image of the universe has a philosophical and religious provenance, and has made its way into secular beliefs and practices as well. In the case of human freedom, this presumption of a “code of codes” works by convincing us that a prediction somehow decodes or deciphers a future that already exists in a coded form. So, for example, when the computers read the signals coming from the monkeys’ brains and make a prediction, belief in the code of codes influences how we interpret that event. Instead of interpreting the prediction as what it is — a statement about the neural process leading to the monkeys’ actions — we extrapolate about a supposed future as if it were already written down, and all we were doing was reading it.
The monkey experiment mentioned at the outset also involves a category error. "The monkeys were ... taught to respond to a cue." Well, the reason we practice something is so we don't have to think about it when we do it later. So being able to determine that the monkeys were going to do something they had been trained to do before they "thought" about doing it tells us nothing.
One thing in particular that Egginton says is especially interesting: "I am free because neither science nor religion can ever tell me, with certainty, what my future will be and what I should do about it." Yes, indeed. I'll start taking determinism a good deal more seriously when its predictive powers become more manifest.
On Saturday, Mark Vernon posted something that seems pertinent to this: Scream for help in dreams. Mark writes that "we're far less free than we think we are. Our conscious life is, in large part, shaped by the unconscious." I have never thought of my "self" as even fundamentally, let alone exclusively, my conscious self. So I don't identify my freedom with my conscious self either. I rather like Georg Groddeck's idea that we do not live so much as we are lived by our It. But that It is us, and it is free. Our conscious self is merely its epidermis.
Thought for the day ...
Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.- Aldous Huxley, born on this date in 1894
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)