It has been "intimately linked to the United States of America" in the minds of natives of that country. Pretty much everybody else makes no such link.
Experience has shown me that people assigning value to any kind of number purporting to measure intelligence tends to be evetually very dumb. In fact, anyone assigning value to any one-dimensional model of the value of people cannot be very bright (well, that or is way too inmature)
Maybe this will sound harsh: but yes, my tastes, at least, are much more refined than Hollywood's latest. Now, I do not think that they are wrong (what they want is to make money, and that is most certainly working) but of the last, say, 25 movies made by Hollywood (actually, of USian origin) I must have liked two or three.
How many non-Hollywoodian movies have you seen lately? I watch in average one/two movies a week, with highs and lows, of course, and I'd very much bet that of those, at most a 15% are of USian origin (every country in the world makes movies, in these last few weeks, I've seen movies from Corea, China, South Africa, France, England, Germany, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Finland---and probably I'm missing a couple). I have found that the quality of the USian ones most usually is very low.
I will not be making any movie (I don't know about the
GP) and I really don't think "reawaken great taste in the masses" means much. Basically: there is so much more to see than Hollywood productions, and there is so much better than Hollywood's latest, that I really do not feel the need to go make my own movie.
Are you seriously saying that there are less goodd movies outside California? Or outside the US, if you want. Nte I am not talking about blockbusters: I am talking about good movies.
Keep in mind, this is a case where you dug to the very depths of your intelligence, and came up with the best possible example.
I am sorry, but I really do not care about you that much. While writing the previous post, I considered better options, but I really did not feel like writing them up.
In the example that you specifically constructed to show how I'm wrong and how bright you are, there still exist regions in which raising taxes causes revenues to decline!!! Oops. Back to the drawing board.
Heh. Now, there also exist regions where raising taxes lowers revenues. Of course, that is true also of Laffer's curve. That is pretty much irrelevant to anything, too.
I'd like to know where you're a math professor so I can tell your colleagues about what went on here.
Go to Google and search for my name. It should be pretty easy to filter out the non-mathematical stuff. Now, in fact, I am not a professor of Mathematics: I'm right before becoming one in Buenos Aires. I am a professor in another university, but of Computer Science. My research is only in Mathematics, though.
One final mistake: I don't know why you called it the Suarez-Alvarez Theory.
Well, Suarez-Alvarez is my last name.
Shouldn't it be the Suarez-Alvarez de Lopez de Castillo de Gonzales de Madrid de Saxe-Coburg-Gotha de Rodriguez-San Felipe Theory or something? Just a suggestion.
I have to confess I do not follow. All interpretations I seem to find of this are way too stupid, I'll just assume I have not found the correct one.
You are not very entertaining to write to, you know?
The Laffer Curve Theory can be refuted without even a hint of overturning any theorem, fundamental or otherwise (theorems cannot be overturned: at most, statements mistakenly believed to be theorems are shown to be false). The Laffer Curve Theory rests on reasoning of economical nature, on hypothesis of economical nature, and is only sensibly discussed in economical terms. You can make all kind of models of the same situation which can be refuted in economical terms. A very simple example is the following:
Let me introduce you to the Suarez-Alvarez Curve Theory, which models the behaviour of tax revenue T in terms of tax rate R: it is quantitatively expressed by the equation
T = - R (1 - R).
It clearly predicts that maximum tax revenue will be obtained by either setting tax levels either to zero or to 100%, and that any other choice of tax level will in fact cause a negative tax revenue, also known as trouble.
If you think for a minute about this alternative theory of the relation between taxation and revenue, you'll see that pretty much any mathematical reasoning you can do with the Laffer Curve can be done on the Suarez-Alvarez curve mutatis mutandi, just taking care of reversing some signs, and replacing maxima by minima and so on.
You will clearly agree that this Suarez-Alvarez Curve theory is quite inadecuate. Pretty much the same fundamental theorems are used in dealing with it as with Laffer's. The key difference (at least, so supply-side economists try to convince us of this), the Laffer Curve theory is supported by economical reasoning and econometric data, while the Suarez-Alvarez Curve Theory apparently is not.
How many fundamental mathematical theorems have been overturned because of the tragic fall of the Suarez-Alvarez Curve Theorem?
As for the rest of your comment, forgive if I ignore it.
It stopped being profitable because of what, exactly? I'm asking because I do not know. Did the cost of greyness not change (in the way of more credible threats, burocratic impediments, whatever, on cheaters, for example)?
Well: I'd imagine without such a big stretch of imagination that there were other factors concurrent with the tax cut.
In Argentina, after a massive economic crisis, taxes on exports were raised to unheard-of levels and, guess what?, total tax revenue has ever since been at their highest point ever in the history of the country, by a margin which surpassed every expectation (even of those who proposed and implemented the raise).
The only thing that one can conclude from examples is that taxes do not happen in the void.
REALLY? Fundamental mathematical theorems have been overturned? You mean, it's possible for a continuous function to start at zero, increase, and then reach zero again without ever decreasing?
in responding to someone's "The Laffer Curve is a laugh and has been refuted".
I am sorry if I understood that you were claiming that the Laffer Curve [theory] is a fundamental mathematical theorem. If you weren't, then I have no idea what you were saying in the second sentence in that post.
If you used the word increase in that post without meaning that the function was increasing (strictly or non strictly,that's rather unrelated), well, again, I have no idea what you meant in your third sentence in that post.
As for your comments on my research... Nah, I have nothing to say about that: I really don't care.
I really don't feel like going into the boring game of explaining what you said, what I understood, and the rest: no amount of that will change the fact that whatever statement you had in mind was still completely irrelevant: Laffer's Curve Theory is not a fundamental mathematical theorem, it is not a mathematical theorem, and it is not a theorem.
As for your fun attempt at a come back: I am a professional research mathematician, and I'm mostly reading invitations for post-docs right now: when I get the time, I promise to look into those ads you mention. Cheers.
The fact that an increasing function which increases away from zero cannot go back to zero is a triviality once you have set up basic properties of inqualities, and has been known since, well, the beginning of time. It has not much to do with the correctness of the Laffer Curve theory, though.
The Laffer Curve thing is not a fundamental mathematical theorem. It is a cualitative stamenent of an economical theory, from which cualitative consequences can be drawn, and, if hard data is provided, maybe cuantivative ones too (but that is much, much harder). Those consequences are as valid---assuming the derivation of those consequences is sound, which is a very big if,---as the hypothesis that supports the original economical theory, which of course cannot be of a mathematical nature.
The truth (*) of an economic theory does not follow from the soundness of mathematical arguments, but from the validity of its hypotheses and the concordance of its predictions with reality. I'll leave it as an exercice to check whether these two are in favor of Laffer's theory.
The fact that the theory can be stated mathematically does not imply its truth, as there is plenty of examples of false but mathematicallt expressed theories around, in economy and in other subjects.
(*) Of course, this usage of the workd "truth" is both vague and incorrect. Yet it is clear that with big enough doses of philosophy of science this statement can be made correct.
See, it does give me a strange feeling that someone can try to argue such subtleties about "control" and "no control" and at the same time, being an adult and talking/writing to adults, somehow feels compelled to write "FUC****" instead of the clearly intended "FUCKING".
Well, that is called "people standing up to get something", or, sadly, "people standing up trying to maintain something people before them got by standing up in a similar way". I hope you took pictures.
Slashdot Mirror
It has been "intimately linked to the United States of America" in the minds of natives of that country. Pretty much everybody else makes no such link.
Experience has shown me that people assigning value to any kind of number purporting to measure intelligence tends to be evetually very dumb. In fact, anyone assigning value to any one-dimensional model of the value of people cannot be very bright (well, that or is way too inmature)
I guess we have different criteria: I most certainly do not find 90% of US-made movies to be worth my money nor my time.
This ends up being a matter of taste, I guess.
You are making fun of the fact that I misspelt Korea?
Maybe this will sound harsh: but yes, my tastes, at least, are much more refined than Hollywood's latest. Now, I do not think that they are wrong (what they want is to make money, and that is most certainly working) but of the last, say, 25 movies made by Hollywood (actually, of USian origin) I must have liked two or three.
How many non-Hollywoodian movies have you seen lately? I watch in average one/two movies a week, with highs and lows, of course, and I'd very much bet that of those, at most a 15% are of USian origin (every country in the world makes movies, in these last few weeks, I've seen movies from Corea, China, South Africa, France, England, Germany, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Finland---and probably I'm missing a couple). I have found that the quality of the USian ones most usually is very low.
I will not be making any movie (I don't know about the GP) and I really don't think "reawaken great taste in the masses" means much. Basically: there is so much more to see than Hollywood productions, and there is so much better than Hollywood's latest, that I really do not feel the need to go make my own movie.
Are you seriously saying that there are less goodd movies outside California? Or outside the US, if you want. Nte I am not talking about blockbusters: I am talking about good movies.
I am sorry, but I really do not care about you that much. While writing the previous post, I considered better options, but I really did not feel like writing them up.
Heh. Now, there also exist regions where raising taxes lowers revenues. Of course, that is true also of Laffer's curve. That is pretty much irrelevant to anything, too.
Go to Google and search for my name. It should be pretty easy to filter out the non-mathematical stuff. Now, in fact, I am not a professor of Mathematics: I'm right before becoming one in Buenos Aires. I am a professor in another university, but of Computer Science. My research is only in Mathematics, though.
Well, Suarez-Alvarez is my last name.
I have to confess I do not follow. All interpretations I seem to find of this are way too stupid, I'll just assume I have not found the correct one.
You are not very entertaining to write to, you know?
The Laffer Curve Theory can be refuted without even a hint of overturning any theorem, fundamental or otherwise (theorems cannot be overturned: at most, statements mistakenly believed to be theorems are shown to be false). The Laffer Curve Theory rests on reasoning of economical nature, on hypothesis of economical nature, and is only sensibly discussed in economical terms. You can make all kind of models of the same situation which can be refuted in economical terms. A very simple example is the following:
If you think for a minute about this alternative theory of the relation between taxation and revenue, you'll see that pretty much any mathematical reasoning you can do with the Laffer Curve can be done on the Suarez-Alvarez curve mutatis mutandi, just taking care of reversing some signs, and replacing maxima by minima and so on.
You will clearly agree that this Suarez-Alvarez Curve theory is quite inadecuate. Pretty much the same fundamental theorems are used in dealing with it as with Laffer's. The key difference (at least, so supply-side economists try to convince us of this), the Laffer Curve theory is supported by economical reasoning and econometric data, while the Suarez-Alvarez Curve Theory apparently is not.
How many fundamental mathematical theorems have been overturned because of the tragic fall of the Suarez-Alvarez Curve Theorem?
As for the rest of your comment, forgive if I ignore it.
It stopped being profitable because of what, exactly? I'm asking because I do not know. Did the cost of greyness not change (in the way of more credible threats, burocratic impediments, whatever, on cheaters, for example)?
Well: I'd imagine without such a big stretch of imagination that there were other factors concurrent with the tax cut.
In Argentina, after a massive economic crisis, taxes on exports were raised to unheard-of levels and, guess what?, total tax revenue has ever since been at their highest point ever in the history of the country, by a margin which surpassed every expectation (even of those who proposed and implemented the raise).
The only thing that one can conclude from examples is that taxes do not happen in the void.
Dude: you said:
in responding to someone's "The Laffer Curve is a laugh and has been refuted".
I am sorry if I understood that you were claiming that the Laffer Curve [theory] is a fundamental mathematical theorem. If you weren't, then I have no idea what you were saying in the second sentence in that post.
If you used the word increase in that post without meaning that the function was increasing (strictly or non strictly,that's rather unrelated), well, again, I have no idea what you meant in your third sentence in that post.
As for your comments on my research... Nah, I have nothing to say about that: I really don't care.
I really don't feel like going into the boring game of explaining what you said, what I understood, and the rest: no amount of that will change the fact that whatever statement you had in mind was still completely irrelevant: Laffer's Curve Theory is not a fundamental mathematical theorem, it is not a mathematical theorem, and it is not a theorem.
As for your fun attempt at a come back: I am a professional research mathematician, and I'm mostly reading invitations for post-docs right now: when I get the time, I promise to look into those ads you mention. Cheers.
The fact that an increasing function which increases away from zero cannot go back to zero is a triviality once you have set up basic properties of inqualities, and has been known since, well, the beginning of time. It has not much to do with the correctness of the Laffer Curve theory, though.
That is probably the best way of convincing people! You should post the code somewhere.
Actually, that is the wrong answer: switching doors will double your chances of winning.
This is very well explained in the Monty Hall problem page in Wikipedia.
The Laffer Curve thing is not a fundamental mathematical theorem. It is a cualitative stamenent of an economical theory, from which cualitative consequences can be drawn, and, if hard data is provided, maybe cuantivative ones too (but that is much, much harder). Those consequences are as valid---assuming the derivation of those consequences is sound, which is a very big if,---as the hypothesis that supports the original economical theory, which of course cannot be of a mathematical nature.
The truth (*) of an economic theory does not follow from the soundness of mathematical arguments, but from the validity of its hypotheses and the concordance of its predictions with reality. I'll leave it as an exercice to check whether these two are in favor of Laffer's theory.
The fact that the theory can be stated mathematically does not imply its truth, as there is plenty of examples of false but mathematicallt expressed theories around, in economy and in other subjects.
(*) Of course, this usage of the workd "truth" is both vague and incorrect. Yet it is clear that with big enough doses of philosophy of science this statement can be made correct.
Uff. Watch that joke go by.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why is it too many cooks spoil the broth'...
Hmm. In what way was their problem solved?
Hmmm. Actually, forget that: there is no need to get into such depths... What was the problem they had that involved Iraq?
See, it does give me a strange feeling that someone can try to argue such subtleties about "control" and "no control" and at the same time, being an adult and talking/writing to adults, somehow feels compelled to write "FUC****" instead of the clearly intended "FUCKING".
Control happens in many ways.
Argentina no longer does that. Thankfully.
I would most certainly not mind that my country be cut off from the U.S.-produced movie distribution system...
So you found that strange. Quite characteristic.
Well, that is called "people standing up to get something", or, sadly, "people standing up trying to maintain something people before them got by standing up in a similar way". I hope you took pictures.
You can't be serious.
You find nothing of interest outside of the US?