Hi, Sam Stone! -- I Pit the Blathering Bullshit about Stock Market movements

The BBQ Pit
81

Braess’s paradox has nothing to do with governments. I thought I mentioned this.

It is interesting that your solution to a paradox about laissez-faire capitalism is to postulate a private monopoly. Who’s talking about a “private firm operating the regional transportation network”?

I thought you were in favor of free enterprise? George Farnaby owns land on either side of the canyon and erects a bridge. What does your “private firm operating the regional transportation network” do? Blow up George’s bridge with dynamite?

82

Most transportation networks would have some degree of regional dominance but not a legal monopoly. Do you think people there would be a patchwork of property owners owning 200 feet of power lines? No, of course a energy supply firm would own miles of power lines. Why would transportation of vehicles/people be so different than the transportation of energy?

Do you agree that regional transportation firms could optimize to minimize transit times? If so, Braess’s Paradox does not provide the critique of aliases-fairs you think it does.

83

So …

Braess’s paradox depicts a simple system of free competition which can be improved by inflicting some central authority (whether cartel or government). And your way to improve the “system which can be improved by inflicting some central authority” is to … [wait for it] … inflict some central authority.

Do you think you should add this insight to the Wikipedia page?

Oh. I forgot. Your key contribution is to note that the private cartel’s accountant will be smart enough to figure out how to optimize the network, but a government accountant, performing the identical function, will not be so smart. Got it.

BTW, your “solution” doesn’t even work in general. The existing roads might be public domain trails. Your profit-seeking cartel might note that it can build a bridge and extract tolls.

84

What reason does the private firm have to minimize transit times? They are making money from the bridge, and the time commuters spend waiting to cross it doesn’t affect them.

So why is your private entity closing the bridge if it removes 52,000 tolls (assuming they own the whole network, which you see to be positing)?

85

It has nothing to do with which manager is smarter. It has to do with the mechanisms that determine outcomes in the two systems. I explained that to you, old fella. Take a nap.

86

Who is to say their fees are structured in that way? This is part of what I am driving at. The assumptions for Braess’s paradox are not valid assumptions for a transportation market.

87

All this attention on this paradox means, I assume, that you conceded the point that conservatives consistently misstate the applicability of the laffer curve. Thanks.

88

“Not dumb” is not enough to avoid rebuke. I consider Sam Stone a deluded ideologue. His posts are clever in the way that a hackish right-wing magazine pundit is clever, so he’s cleverer than the dogged HurricaneDitka or some of the other wingers on this board. But he seems to have long ago started idealizing the USA’s right wing, never having had to live under them. I remember mocking him for this years ago–or at least trying to point out how far gone the USA is, in the vain hope that he’d realize the right wing in my country is *actually *crazy.

89

WillFarnaby, oddly, is not quite a case in point. He’s less “right-wing” and more “utterly opposed to government in all its forms.” Quite mad, though.

90

It is precisely because Sam Stone isn’t dumb that he deserves a Pitting.

Beating on a dolt like Shodan or Clothahump is like kicking an old dog who’s gotten mangy. The Doper HurricaneDitka just confuses me: Is he an imbecile? Or just a clownish moron trying to be a troll?

But Sam Stone is intelligent. He could form rational conclusions about economics or U.S. politics if he weren’t so blindered. If he lacks the time or moral sense to correct his misconceptions, at least he should have the self-awareness to keep his trap shut on topics where he has no useful opinion.

When a moron prattles like an imbecile it’s amusing. When an intelligent man prattles like an imbecile, an intervention is called for. Perhaps my abusive language doesn’t seem empathetic, but this Pitting, if he just had the grace and gumption to grasp its validity, would be doing Sam a favor.

And I keep coming back to his claim that Obama’s onerous anti-business regulations stifled stock market growth — that’s why the NASDAQ “only” quadrupled during the Obama years. Tell me: If all you knew about Stone was this comment, would you still consider him “intelligent”?
.

91

I have never been on a transportation network that wasn’t funded by primarily by usage fees (toll bridges, toll roads, public highways (which are mostly funded by gas taxes which are a reasonable proxy for usage)).

What is your funding mechanism that removes the incentive for adding users? Remember, the government can’t get involved.

92

lol

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21056719&postcount=5260

93

You look like an idiot. Who was the President who allowed the Russians to conquer Crimea? Allow the Russian proxies to invade eastern Ukraine? Along with the items mentioned in the post you quoted. You are blinded by your hatred and partisan myopia.

94

Please do read the idiocy he posted in the context of the thread, kthxbai.

And lol @ “allowed”, as if you were arguing here that we needed to send troops into Crimea to kick those nasty Russkies out.

95

The quoted post was about empowering Putin. The annexation of the Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine did more to strengthen Putin than the agreement with North Korea. Sam Stones review of the Obama administration handling of Russia is correct and can be corroborated by neutral sources like Foreign Policy. Trumps hinting at recognizing the annexation of the Crimea does more to empower Russia. Neither Obama nor Trump had the experience to successfully navigate the stormy seas of foreign affairs. Its moronic to point fingers at any one administration when foreign policy carries over from one administration to the next.

96

The thread is about the Mueller investigation.

Regardless any mistakes Obama made re: the Crimea it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, and his conclusion, that there is more evidence of Obama/Putin collusion than Trump/Putin is Hannity levels of stupid, well-deserving to be linked-to in this thread.

97

Braess’ paradox might not be the best analogy, though. It is basically fluid dynamics in a complex system. More, smaller pipes will function better, but introducing a larger pipe might starve the efficiency of the broader system.

Cash flow is a little different from a physical fluid (which tends to correlate well with traffic, if you introduce a strong unpredictability component. In a properly functioning market system, you have competition, which spreads out the flow load across a diverse array of channels (sellers<->buyers).

Where you run into problems is where there is constriction (inability to provide or overstock for whatever reason), which is “solved” by easing restrictions on credit and regulations that inhibit production.

Then, of course, there is cornering. It may well be a valid point that monopolies are facilitated by the government, which ends up passing laws to strengthen them because they pay it to do so. Get rid of that kind of government interference in the market and … um … I guess it is pretty hard to guess what would happen. Some kind of cosa nostra type situation, most likely.

This is the sticking point with market dogma. Monopolies are generally a net negative, but the market wants less regulation, which seems to end up fostering monopolism. Tell an Austrianist that you want to inhibit the formation of monopolies and it ends up being the heresy of defeating the greed motivator that keeps innovation and growth moving apace.

You see, the market has a facet. And another facet. And a third one, but the second facet has several facets within it, and, on, ad infinitum (I am not being facetious). Baess’ Paradox fails to refute or support market dogma because of the whole system’s complexity, which is exactly the same shortcoming that Sam’s analogies suffer.

What is apparent is that dogma sucks. Laffer’s napkin sketch may have some validity to it, but it should not be used as a be-all-end-all approach. No one has the ultimate solution, and that is Sam Stone’s biggest weakness: that he does. Never trust anyone who has the answer to our problems, because that person is going to be full of shit.

98

I think we’re in agreement. Braess’s paradox works because there are constraints that cannot be relaxed. (I’ve wondered if a Braess-like paradox could be constructed involving, say, a very rare element with two uses.) The elegance of the paradox to me is that it is *such a clearcut example of complete failure of a “free market.” * People are happy to play a bridge toll … but everyone (except the toll collector) is better off if terrorists blow up the bridge!

And real-world economic systems do have constraints, even if not so extreme. Wasn’t it J.M. Keynes himself who said “In a system that’s totally without friction … everyone slips, falls down and cracks their head open dead”? (Maybe not: Google didn’t find this quote. But it was something about everybody being dead.)

One weird example doesn’t “disprove market economics” of course. but it exposes to ridicule the dogmatic absolutist thinking of someone like Stone. He refused to acknowledge the paradox’s existence, muttering that he knew something about networks! :smack: I’m sure he was smart enough to grasp the example, once he reviewed Wikipedia. I just wanted to hear him say “Yep! Interesting little paradox.” He couldn’t do it; he’s under some form of hypnotic paralysis. (Once every year or two I taunt him, asking for a preprint of his Braess Refuted! paper. No response.)

This is what irritates me especially about Sam Stone. Like the wizards in Harry Potter who are afraid to even whisper “Voldemort,” Stone is unable to write “I was wrong.”

I’m sure Sam is intelligent and could provide useful insights — he probably understands economics better than a few of the Board’s liberals! But he seems incapable of learning. I try to admit when I’m wrong, but where is Sam’s humility?

99

<turns on the light>
Sorry. Just looking for my keys. Carry on.
<turns off light>

100

Lonely, Sam?