Emptying the Bottle: March '09 Links List

Here are some links listed in order of most to least interesting. If you find the first link worthwhile, then move to the next one (and so on).

1) Your family may once have been a different color (Text or Audio).

2) The perfect crime: identical twins with indistinguishable DNA and 1 good alibi.

3) How is the stimulus bill is like a big kegger.

4) 50 best stores with pun names.

5) How the free market pushes for racial equality.

6) Magician/Comedian/Libertarian Penn Jillette Q & A.

7) Internationally, rich people are happier than poor people.

8) Why politicians are more harmful than the rich.

9) It's like Craigslist, but for items confiscated by the government.

10) Stop motion animation: Bruce Lee vs Iron Man.

*Check my Bookmarks to see what I find interesting on a daily basis*

This Recession is a Result of Irrationality

My last post was a brief summary of how I think rational actors (politicians, businesses, consumers) have all contributed to this financial panic. However, if you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know that I blame government for most the problem. After all greed has always existed, so that can't be blamed for this specific problem. Unless of course government created incentives that manipulated that greed. But that begs the question, if people are rational, why do we would elect politicians who push for bad policy? Economist and blogger at EconLog, Bryan Caplan argues in his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, that bad policy comes from four irrational biases that voters have. Here's a brief summary of each:

Anti-foreign Bias: People assume that the destruction of jobs is a bad thing. Even though large numbers of farmers have been put out of work for the last 200 years, we are better off. Creating jobs isn't the solution, increasing the productivity of those jobs is.

Make-work Bias: People assume their nation is in zero sum competition with the rest of the world. This is why job exportation and trade are always under attack. Not only does free trade ALWAYS makes nations richer and usually makes them safer.

Pessimistic Bias: People overemphasize current problems and underestimate past growth. Especially now we constant hear how things used to be better, despite the fact that if you're reading this you're rich.

Anti-Market Bias: People regularly see themselves as victims of the free market instead of the beneficiaries. The few instances of scams are reported, yet the billions of beneficial transactions a day are ignored.

This Recession is a Result of Rationality

1) Rational elected officials push for policies that appeal to voters.

2) These government interventions (Fed reducing interest rates, government sponsored enterprises, etc) made debt cheap, causing rational people to take on too much of it (especially houses).

3) Rational government officials feel pressure to "do something" (Bailout, Stimulus, AIG bonus taxation).

4) This scares rational buyers and investors who sit on the sidelines waiting to see how the rules change.

5) Rational blogger decides to explain where the irrationality exists on his next post to peak reader interest.

Economics of Relationships

Every relationship has a certain amount of give and take (from 1-100%). Some relationships are more give (parent to an infant=100%) and some are more equal (co-workers=50%). For a large majority of my life I have been on the receiving end of most of my relationships. My parents, my teachers, and many times my friends gave more to me than I did. This is measured by who takes more responsibility in the relationship (listening instead of talking, calling to catch up, or challenging). I think it is fairly normal for young people to be served more than they serve. Not only are they less aware of this responsibility, but they are also less capable of serving people (like any skill it is learned).

But kids grow up into adults and part of being an adult is taking more responsibility for yourself and others. A good sign of growth is if you are taking more responsibility for your relationships then you used to. However, I think it's also important to have a balance. People are only capable of a certain amount of service without a recharge. Be sure you have friends who serve you 75% and friends you serve 75%. Here's a question I'd be interested in hearing your response to, what is my percentage to you, have you seen it change, and are you satisfied with it?

The Big Picture of the AIG Bonuses

One thing I try to do here at Bottlenecked is get past the noise and focus on reality. I understand people's outrage over giving bonuses to AIG managers who played a part in the failure of a institution that threatened the entire economic system. However, I believe the payment of these it is necessary for that economic system for 3 reasons:

1. First and foremost it is unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution states that "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." This means two things: a) the government cannot declare a person guilty without trial and b) the government can't pass a law that punishes acts done before the law. To punish managers for doing something perfectly legal by targeting them specifically, through taxation, is exactly what James Madison warned against in the Federalist Papers #44: "Bills of attainder, ex-post-facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation."

2. They need these people. I'm not ruling it out, but I don't think AIG guaranteed this money as a way to help their fellow AIG friends using taxpayer money. They did it to keep important, knowledgeable, and skilled individuals through hard times. More than ever this company needs people who know how to unwind this financial maze. As frustrating as it may be, the people who created it, know a lot more about it than anyone else. AIG is not the ideal place to work and they need to offer big bucks to keep the know-how in house. Now that the US citizens own most of the company, our success is tied to their success.

3. Voiding contracts is very bad. Whether its businesses trusting employees, lenders trusting borrowers, or consumers trusting producers, capitalism needs trust. Formal or informal, all economic relationships involve contracts. If the government suddenly assumes the power to break legal contracts between parties, massive uncertainty will be created and we might really have the Great Depression II.

So what is the solution? It's the same song I've been singing all year. They should do what they should have done in the first place, file for bankruptcy, which is essentially the legal system for renegotiating contracts. This problem shouldn't remind us how greedy corporations are. Instead it's proof that the tax payers should never have been forced into this position.

The Ongoing Campaign

I predict this to be a trend for future presidents:

Millions of campaign supporters are receiving emails urging them to call members of Congress. Groups allied with the White House are running ads scorning the President's foes. States that were closely fought in the 2008 election are again being visited by Mr Obama.

On Friday morning, Melbourne time, he will arrive in talk show host Jay Leno's studio to appear on The Tonight Show. Candidates have often used late-night talk shows to highlight their lighter side, but no sitting president has appeared on one, according to NBC.

Never stop reminding the people about the mistakes Bush made and how much you're doing to fix it. Seems like a useful, yet scary, tool.

Does John Stossel Read My Blog?

I wish. But apparently we have similar complaints about America. Last Friday on 20/20 Stossel, along with another favorite news source Reason Magazine, had a special entitled "Bailouts and Bull." Coincidentally, he talks about a lot things I've discussed here:

Part I: How the government is greatly mismanaging this panic (from me)

Part II: Possible solutions to traffic congestion (from me)

Part III: The deplorable arrest and conviction of Charlie Lynch (from me)

Part IV: Problems with Universal Preschool
Part V: The worthless wall on our Southern border
Part VI: The fallacy of the struggling middle class (from me)

The Original Reformer

In my World History class I came across this little known church leader

John Wycliffe lived almost 200 years before the Reformation, but his beliefs and teachings closely match those of Luther, Calvin and other reformers. As a man ahead of his time, historians have called Wycliffe the "Morning star of the Reformation."

Born in the 1300s, Wycliffe criticized abuses and false teachings in the Church. In 1382 he translated an English Bible—the first complete European translation done in nearly 1,000 years. The Lollards, itinerant preachers he sent throughout England, inspired a spiritual revolution.

But the Lollardy movement was short-lived. The Church expelled Wycliffe from his teaching position at Oxford, and 44 years after he died, the Pope ordered his bones exhumed and burned. Intense persecution stamped out his followers and teachings. It would be hundreds of years before men like Martin Luther resurrected the reforms of which Wycliffe dreamed.

This got me thinking: What if Martin Luther King Jr. (or any leader) was born just decades earlier? Would the world have ready for his message? So I guess it takes two things to be a great leader, talent and luck.

Beauty and the Geek Q & A

One of the great things about the comedy world is meeting interesting people. One of those people is Will McDonald, a former contest on the reality television show Beauty and the Geek. He graciously agreed to answer some questions about his experience and allow me to share them with my readers. Will has also agreed to watch the blog for 48 hours and answer any questions you may have (except for a few legal details).

Do you ever watch these kind of reality TV shows?

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I never did watch any reality TV shows because I thought to myself, "Why would I care to find out about someone that I'm never going to meet?". I knew of the of shows and I thought the concept was interesting but to actually watch the shows could be a bit painful, to the extent that you felt so bad for the geek or beauty.

What was the audition process like?

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Well I met the Casting agents at my restaurant and we spoke for about ten minutes. They invited me to the casting call, I signed up at the casting call, and the next thing I knew I was being invited to a second interview. The second interview is really intense because it's designed to get to know you as fast as possible and even if you think your ready for it, your not.

Any advice for people auditioning for reality TV?

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Don't do reality TV unless you're ready to have all your faults highlighted and concentrated.

Did you get paid or compensated for the show?

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We received a daily stipend in the form of a check so that we had someone money to return to.

How were housing, food, toiletries supplied?

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We had production assistants that would go out and those supplies for us. Try as we might everyone wanted hard alcohol but everyone said no dice every time.

Did they make you more geeky in the beginning?

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Well the funny thing about that I was called in maybe a day before my flight left for la la land and I hurriedly packed all my gear and well the thing of it is the company couldn't have any of the guys wearing logos. Most of m my stuff has like The Doors on the front or Snap crackle and pop and the like. So they couldn't use any of it and so I looked less put together than I normally am. And obviously the show is about transformation of a geek to a whatever you wanna call it and so maybe the way we were depicted was to show a bigger transformation.

It was obvious that you didn't like your beauty, care to elaborate?

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God blah. I'll try to keep it short for your readers because I could elaborate this at length. She was so selfish and into herself that it was disgusting. I also feel that there could be some kind of a black hole of thought inside of her brain that just sucks up any other thought. I didn't like her because it seemed that she wanted me to be there just for her and when we were partnered I tried at first but she wouldn't believe anything that I said when she would ask me questions, then get frustrated at ME. Ironically the one thing she did listen to me on was the pronunciation of a certain word and that's what cost us the game.

What kind of fame followed you after a show like this?

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I was invited to some local award shows. I met Ron Jeremy and I was interviewed by a few reality t.v websites. Oh people still recognize me and think it's really a fun thing to meet someone that's done a show like this. Nothing beyond that though.

More Old Improv Videos

Every so often I come across a video of my old improv group, Mock Turtle Soup. Unlike the improv, the video quality isn't that great.

Part II
Part III