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Now, anyone from New York can tell you that this fails the basic rules of logic. So riddle me this. If you present someone with a chart of global temperatures for the last 40 years, or better yet, a chart showing the damages from those increases, what do they naturally conclude about the future path in that chart? OK, assume that someone is a member of the alarmosphere? OK, assume that person is a member of the actual deniosphere?

Keep those answers in mind.

Now riddle me this. How would each side respond if instead of a climate-related chart, you showed them a chart of federal spending or of the federal debt held by the public? Would each side conclude that the future as predicted in the first scenario would be replicated in the second? Hardly. I am pretty sure that the alarmosphere would be coming up with all kinds of Herbert Steinian explanations for why the debt problem is not a problem despite the clear evidence, and 100% scientific consensus that the trend lines are pointing in the wrong direction. And what of the deniosphere? Well, I would argue that they are going to get all fire and brimstone-y about the unsustainability of debt, how we are taking away from our children’s future, and so on – by projecting current trends forward.

Ya see the problem here?

5 Responses to “I am Both a New York Mets and New York Yankees Fan”

  1. Harry says:

    If you are from New York, being a Yankees fan and a Mets fan is, of course not incompatible at all. If you are from Greenwich, Conneticut, and have a Yankees decal on one side of your rear Bentley right window, and a Mets decal on the other, and an Obama rainbow sticker on your bumper, then you are as consistent as WC, but ignorant.

    I am not so sure that I would trust much if any information from the CBO, given their epistemological limitations, but they, like Value Line, operate with assumptions that they define, and for economists and we who risk our own money and, more importantly, the money of good people who rely on us, this is a portion of the ocean we all swim.

    So WC spends his waking hours when he is not caring for his family, hiking, or brewing ale, thinking about economic facts, and trying to put those facts into coherence.

    I think I see the problem here, WC, to which you allude, though there many complex problems that come to mind.

    Yesterday Chairman Ben affirmed he would follow Weimar currency policy by printing Eighty Five Billion dollars of electronic fiat money a month. Draw a graph of that, you get a straight line of QE Forever. The dollar declined against other currencies, that are being inflated by an amount that twenty-year old traders surmise that paper, er, electronic dollars, are worth. A trillion a year, for another three years and beyond, to control long-term interest rates?

    I know several brokers who are nonplussed about this, who explain that economic weakness is good, because it means the government will goose the stock market with phantom money. This is very scary.

    A question: is there any reader who thinks that creating paper or electronic money can make us wealthier?

  2. Harry says:

    I would add that inflation, which is defined as a cheapening of the value of money, whether by clipping coins or any other method, has always discouraged enterprise, and has made common, ordinary people like you and me poorer. Caesar benefitted from clipping the coins, not the Populusquae. And no , I am not a Gold Bug misanthrope.

  3. tillzen says:

    As one ages, matures and develops an aesthetic, sport finds more organic place in our lives. Where once I was defined by my teams and how they fared, now I see sport as a spice in my life instead of as the meal itself. I too root for both the Yanks and the Mets. I am less defined by who I root for than why it is I root. The players themselves are my team. I appreciate them more and more, as much for how they raise me up as for how they break my heart. I treasure sport for its place at my table. It reminds me daily how lucky I am to live in a nation where I have the choice to live for more than triumph, to see loss as victory, victory as loss and my teams colors as mere clothing.

    • Harry says:

      Great comment, Tillzen!

      If you are a Yankees fan, with the many pennants circling the stadium, it is easy to be a Mets fan, too. One of my best friends is a Yankees fan, and another best friend loves the Mets.

      But it is another thing to be a Phillies fan, where it takes a lifetime to get a fat year or two, and that is not loyalty to any principle, it is just blind faith.

  4. Harry says:

    A great expression: “Herb Steinian explanations”.

    Eighty five billion dollars a month for three months would equal, roughly, the budget deficit in 2004. I know the limitations of that number, so that is the reason I said roughly. With a growing economy, any deficit is more manageable.

    To issue worthless currency is by definition inflation, and inflation’s manifestation in higher prices may not be immediate. That’s why they do it.

    Eventually people discover that someone is clipping coins, or, in modern terms, they discount the present value of their money relative to something more tangible.

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