Elk Bugling

Emily and I took an afternoon trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park on
Saturday afternoon to view the pre-mating elk ritual in which the males
"bugle" to attract females, who choose their mates based on (presumably)
some sort of evolutionary impulse to mate with the biggest and strongest
male available.

Prior to mating, the elk all assemble in lower-altitude valleys and the
males strut around (and "toot their horns," as Emily puts it) and call
the women in. They seem to sort themselves into smaller and larger
groups based (presumably) on the desirability of the male, as well as (I
imagine) the probability that a female with have of actually mating with
the chosen male.

As I told Zane today, this sounds like an agent-based modeling project.

But it's also a tremendously fascinating and really beautiful thing to
watch. Elk are really charismatic animals (in a way that many large
deer, like moose, are not) and the bugling is quite visible and, if our
experience is any guide, a really easy thing to find.

Financial Bailouts

Zane writes about the bailout, expressing his frustration with the
amount of our money which is being spent to get these financial
institutions out of the hot water that they got themselves into.

I agree, although at this point, I'm not sure what the alternatives
are. I'm no economist, but it sounds like the consequences of not
bailing these firms out would be too terrible to imagine.

But over the long term, I wonder if the real problem, and one problem
that we should be concerned with, is the _size_ of these firms. Zane
got me thinking along the lines of Adam Smith the other day, and it got
me to imagining the economy as Smith might have thought of it. When he
was writing about the invisible hand and the functioning of markets,
most of what existed at the time in Great Britain (among other places)
were relatively small firms by today's standards. Even the biggest
weren't that big, relative to the size of the whole economy. If one of
those firms failed, no big deal, right? Firm goes down, some people out
of work... nothing that a modern welfare state apparatus can't deal with.

But what we're seeing here is an end to Schumpeterian creative
destruction. Firms aren't being allowed to fail because it would cause
too much pain among the innocents in the market.

Is it unreasonable to think that we should re-examine our anti-trust
laws to consider the size of a firm--and thus it's status as a "trust"
based not only on whether that firm can manipulate markets in an unfair
way, but whether (in the case of financial institutions like banks,
especially), the size of these firms would make a failure too harmful to
the economy as a whole.

Should the government be making sure that we have a couple hundred major
banks in the country, rather than a couple of conglomerates whose
failure could cause major havoc?

If the government played a role in overseeing the size of firms in this
way, maybe we would be able to allow financial firms to fail when the
time came.

On the other hand, maybe we would just see a lot of small firms failing
(or getting bailed out) the same way a few big ones are being bailed out
at the present.

Financial Crises and Regulation

Brooks (and by extension, Mankiw) point out that regulation is hard, and
as a result, would not have prevented the current crisis, or might have
done so at the cost of significant inefficiencies in the economy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/opinion/19brooks.html?ex=1379563200&en=4606e98ba0576260&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I'm no economist, but do they seem to miss that:
1. The nationalization of financial firms such as that which the US
government has just performed on AIG and Fannie and Freddie was
necessary in the absence of regulation which kept them from engaging in
clearly unsustainable practices.
2. The nationalization of industry is bound to introduce great
inefficiencies into the operation of economies.

Market fundamentalists seem to think that the question is, "is it better
to regulate or let the market function." But we're not letting the
market function. Nor could we, unless we like the idea of a 1929-like
global economic meltdown. So, shouldn't the question be, "is it more
efficient to regulate or to nationalize?"

Brooks argues that regulators are not all-knowing, and so can't predict
the future. Maybe so, but there are times when they _can_ see the
future. I don't know about the current troubles in the financial
markets, but I believe that there were people calling for the regulation
of subprime mortgages well before the crisis began.

Of course, I couldn't see those problems myself--I'm not an economist.
But if I understand, a number of economists and lawmakers saw the risks
as early as 2002, and called for regulation of mortgages to prevent
predatory lending practices. Indeed, Georgia enacted legislation to
prevent those practices, followed by New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico.

Or am I missing something here? Probably am, since Dani Rodrik's most
recent blog posting reads something like, "which of the following
fourteen things explains our current wacky crisis?"

Arrrrr....

"Liberal Bloggers"

The link I posted below refers to "liberal bloggers." I just want to
make it clear that I am not one of those people. My partisan
affiliation is neither with the Democratic Party nor the Green Party. I
put myself firmly in the Wool Pants Party camp, which makes me a
right-leaning revolutionary syndicalist/left-leaning anarcho-capitalist.

More Election Ridiculosity

Not to pick on McCain (I really don't have anything against him, except
for his terrible judgement in running mates), however:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-na-trailspain19-2008sep19,0,2931922.story?track=rss

Let the hilarity ensue!

Perhaps we were too hasty...

...in nominating our candidate:


Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

Economists Favor Obama

Check it out--possibly a good argument for Obama, and also hilarious.
John McCain is "a lukewarm corpse."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/16/dilbert.economy/index.html

Scary goings-on in Bolivia

So, as I understand it, among a range of other violence, including
radical rightist youth trashing national government offices, a group of
paramilitaries armed by the regional governor in Pando has ambushed a
group of peasants and killed something like thirty of them. The US
State department has issued a travel warning, and urged the cessation of
all "nonessential travel" to Bolivia.

Evo also expelled the US ambassador (it's about damn time--from what
I've read, he's an incompetent fool) for meeting with leaders of the
opposition, and the US retaliated in kind.

Leave it to the Bush administration to make the wise and mature choice.

Scary.

Hopefully, Evo Morales is smarter than W. Wouldn't be hard.

I've (of course) been following the situation as closely as I can,
though it's difficult to know what's going on when things are happening
so quickly. However, I'm wondering where this leaves me--I'm supposed
to go to Cochabamba on Oct. 4. Cochabamba has been pretty calm through
this most recent outbreak, as I understand it, but I go in through Sta.
Cruz, which is the epicenter of the troubles.

The Boren people want me to sign a waiver, and also have offered to push
back my program or make changes to my proposed program. I've mentioned
the idea that I might like to do my language training in Peru instead,
and we'll see what they say to that.

If scholars who study civil war are correct, two of the biggest things
needed for longstanding, costly civil wars are terrain (jungle and
mountains, especially) and low weight, high-value goods. Bolivia has
(a) lots of mountains, (b) lots of jungle, and (c) lots of cocaine.

Lucky them.

If researchers are right, Bolivia could be in for a bad stretch if
violence gets worse.

This Rules!

Check it out:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=09&year=2008&base_name=what_is_the_european_union_how#109088

WPPA

In caucus, at the urging of party stalwarts, the Wool Pants Party of
America has nominated Kinky Friedman as our candidate for vice
president. Friedman supports the "de-wussification" of America, and
argues that we should utilize Mexico's traditional system of patronage
politics to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

As our current presidential nominee, former one-term U.S. president
James K. Polk would be the oldest person to serve in the executive
office (currently 203 years old), Friedman is an important addition to
the ticket, as his likelihood of serving as president, were Polk
elected, is very high (nearly 100%).

Cotton Kills
Wool Pants in '08

EPIRBs

Blattman has discovered the EPIRB (personal locator beacon):

http://chrisblattman.blogspot.com/2008/09/links-i-liked_08.html

I'm surprised it took him so long. I've wanted one of those for years,
but had to settle for a handheld VHF radio when I was kayaking. It's
one of four things I'd like to own for being on the water:

1. I'd like to finish my half-built kayak back in CT.
2. I'd also love to own a feathercraft Khatsalano--a folding kayak that
fits into a large duffle bag. It would be perfect for Lakes Atitlan and
Titicaca.
3. An EPIRB
4. A tuilik--an Inuit garmet that looks like a waterproof sweatshirt,
but ties down to the cockpit coaming of the kayak to keep you dry when
you eskimo roll, and also covers your head--much more comfortable than a
wetsuit. You can buy them made of neoprene, but I would make one out of
coated nylon.

I heard...

...that Sarah Palin has more political experience as than any American
political figure, ever, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry
Truman, combined.