A little better understanding of the relationship between funding and research and also between money and ballot-box success might be in order.
Because both are endogenous, the notion of causality from funding to research is a misguided one, as is the belief the money buys elections. In both cases, the causality often runs the other way.
In the case of academic research, publication is king. Tenure, peer recognition and future grants are related to one's ability to publish. And let's face it, the stronger or more controversial the findings, the greater likelihood of prominent publication. Those who like your past research, then fund your future research, an example of causality going the other way.
As for money and politics, economists have found that money goes to those already likely to win. The winner is not obligated to homage-payer. Econometricians have found that in cases of repeated elections with the same groups of candidates, different levels of spending by the candidates has had little ability to change the percent of the votes earned by the candidates. Candidates are either liked by the electorate or not. Steve Forbes and Ross Perot or two classic examples. Although one could easily find an example of something that looks like bought elections (i.e. the whole Republican Party), the data election-by-election tells a different story.
While fantasy leagues are mildly interesting, attempting to simulate a game and the determinants of its outcome from box scores and misc data is more interesting, since a lot of econometric and analytical tools come into play.
Typically, these tools are applied to processes that we cannot observe, so we can rarely test the efficacy of the statistical models or of the modeling techniques. Monte carlo helps a lot, but it oftn lacks the complexity of something real world, like a basketball game with an explaosive number of possible variables. Sports games, however, offer us a chance to grab the data, build the models and then watch the game to see how close we were. Well, just one application anyway.
Why use a Japanese word for a Chinese chip? How can they sell chips without a slick marketing campaign? Why not name it after a bunch of Chinese rivers like that other firm... y'know the ones that made the Blue Man Group famous for nothing?
Great ideas from academics gone mad. Sure, markets are quite nice to aggregate diverse opinions, but are open to significant speculation. For instance, it's likely that industries would begin putting money down against themselves as a way to hedge their position, like buying insurance. This would present one such source of informationless activity.
Another issue would be how to get enough liquidity in such a market. Besides, needing a lot of participants, attempting to nail a when and where bet on a terrorist act is pretty difficult given all the possibilities. Without substantial liquidity, the amrket is absolutely useless due to stale prices and bets and poorly aggregated opinions.
Well, given that the project has been sacked, it's still quite an embarrassment that it had gotten this far. What a perversion of the market!
We've had video cell phones for about 2 years now. People still pay per-minute charges on their land-lines.
If this wonder product really existed, they should consider ADVERTISING it in Japan, not reporting it in WIRED.
Yup, innovation, and technology ownership are the keys to continued good times in IT.
Then one might ask, once the regular IT jobs have moved, what keeps the jobs of innovation from shifting off-shore as internationals become increasingly more adept?
If the trend in IT follows the maturation cycle of semiconductors, then it's a good bet that US innovation will continue to dominate, thanks in part to our univerisity research programs, and in part to the firms that jealously guard their IP and reap the financial rewards.
And what's this? An industry notorious for its freelancers waxing about company loyalty?
No worries about the wired situation in Japan. Landlines are exorbitantly expensive due to the NTT monopoly, but the deflationary forces, the local fetish for new technology and new competition means that things are much better just in the last few years.
(1) ADSL is available for less than US$30/month in most places with unlimited landline usage and no additional fees.
(2) (Free) internet cafes with a lot of terminals are available, though slow.
(3) The cellphone technology is outstanding. They've had video phones commercially available in the major cities for about 10 months now. These phones have color LCDs and a video cam and are no bigger than the phones here.
Cheers, and enjoy Japan,
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id =S'(X%2C%2BRA%3B!%200!4%0A&CFID=61581345&CFTOKEN=3 cc25fb-873315f9-96db-421b-9995-d09f0c2d2a5b&tranMo de=none
As it is premium service, I summarize the features of the global real estate bubble:
(1) high housing prices to rents, which is like a P/E ratio for real estate
(2) a majority of sales going to "investors," or short-term speculators, rather than long-term residents, i.e. buy-n-holders,
(3) and heavy incidence of flipping on new homes.
To which I add one other indicator:
(4) Lots and lots of people talking about a bubble.
The parallels to stock bubbles and hot IPO markets are rich.
And for the bathrooms and dishes! Sounds very much like the Altanta homeless policy: send pollution on a one way bus ticket out of our sight!
Because both are endogenous, the notion of causality from funding to research is a misguided one, as is the belief the money buys elections. In both cases, the causality often runs the other way.
In the case of academic research, publication is king. Tenure, peer recognition and future grants are related to one's ability to publish. And let's face it, the stronger or more controversial the findings, the greater likelihood of prominent publication. Those who like your past research, then fund your future research, an example of causality going the other way.
As for money and politics, economists have found that money goes to those already likely to win. The winner is not obligated to homage-payer. Econometricians have found that in cases of repeated elections with the same groups of candidates, different levels of spending by the candidates has had little ability to change the percent of the votes earned by the candidates. Candidates are either liked by the electorate or not. Steve Forbes and Ross Perot or two classic examples. Although one could easily find an example of something that looks like bought elections (i.e. the whole Republican Party), the data election-by-election tells a different story.
While fantasy leagues are mildly interesting, attempting to simulate a game and the determinants of its outcome from box scores and misc data is more interesting, since a lot of econometric and analytical tools come into play. Typically, these tools are applied to processes that we cannot observe, so we can rarely test the efficacy of the statistical models or of the modeling techniques. Monte carlo helps a lot, but it oftn lacks the complexity of something real world, like a basketball game with an explaosive number of possible variables. Sports games, however, offer us a chance to grab the data, build the models and then watch the game to see how close we were. Well, just one application anyway.
umm... don't answer that!
Why use a Japanese word for a Chinese chip? How can they sell chips without a slick marketing campaign? Why not name it after a bunch of Chinese rivers like that other firm... y'know the ones that made the Blue Man Group famous for nothing?
Class Action the world and get it done in one lawsuit?
As you know, thousands of starving grad students are aggregating his data. Not for money...they need a thesis!
Great ideas from academics gone mad. Sure, markets are quite nice to aggregate diverse opinions, but are open to significant speculation. For instance, it's likely that industries would begin putting money down against themselves as a way to hedge their position, like buying insurance. This would present one such source of informationless activity. Another issue would be how to get enough liquidity in such a market. Besides, needing a lot of participants, attempting to nail a when and where bet on a terrorist act is pretty difficult given all the possibilities. Without substantial liquidity, the amrket is absolutely useless due to stale prices and bets and poorly aggregated opinions. Well, given that the project has been sacked, it's still quite an embarrassment that it had gotten this far. What a perversion of the market!
Typical, cheap, baiting off-topic remark. How does it get a score of 4?
We've had video cell phones for about 2 years now. People still pay per-minute charges on their land-lines. If this wonder product really existed, they should consider ADVERTISING it in Japan, not reporting it in WIRED.
Yup, innovation, and technology ownership are the keys to continued good times in IT. Then one might ask, once the regular IT jobs have moved, what keeps the jobs of innovation from shifting off-shore as internationals become increasingly more adept? If the trend in IT follows the maturation cycle of semiconductors, then it's a good bet that US innovation will continue to dominate, thanks in part to our univerisity research programs, and in part to the firms that jealously guard their IP and reap the financial rewards. And what's this? An industry notorious for its freelancers waxing about company loyalty?
No worries about the wired situation in Japan. Landlines are exorbitantly expensive due to the NTT monopoly, but the deflationary forces, the local fetish for new technology and new competition means that things are much better just in the last few years. (1) ADSL is available for less than US$30/month in most places with unlimited landline usage and no additional fees. (2) (Free) internet cafes with a lot of terminals are available, though slow. (3) The cellphone technology is outstanding. They've had video phones commercially available in the major cities for about 10 months now. These phones have color LCDs and a video cam and are no bigger than the phones here. Cheers, and enjoy Japan,