The Media Market

Christmas is over and we're back to deal with the news media again.

This is what has happened: Over 70,000 people died in the tsunami earthquake in South-east Asia. And Susan Sontag died at age 71 in New York City. Apparently these two stories got about the same amount of news coverage. Or so it seems.

In WP, Henry Allen writes a typical orbituary (Thinking woman) where the word "intellectual" appears six times in the first two paragraphs. Whenever your friends (or fans) are that keen on stressing your cerebral capacities, without any evidence to back up their claims other than to point at your rap mouth who offered smart remarks about things in general, then you can be sure that it is an exaggeration.
Yet, the journalists at the culture desks are jumping over eachother in attempts to write glorifying stories about her: NY Times, another WP article: Cultural Author, Activist Was a Fearless Thinker, Slate "Remembering an intellectual heroine".

Somewhere out there was a woman who made no sense at all. Aaah! She must be a true intellectual.
She was at the right place at the right time. An opportunist who lived on Manhattan. She despised the U.S., endorsed Communist dictatorships wherever she could find them, and cashed in on funds from capitalist funds and donors. Now, I don't claim to be very smart (at least I don't expect people to write long articles about me and use the word "intellectual" over and over) - but even I can see that there is a somewhat obvious double-standard in her thinking: She didn't like U.S. capitalism - but she enjoyed the money it provided for her. Since her writing couldn't. Few people read her books. But that is only because they were of a higher standard, because Sontag was an I-n-t-e-l-l-e-c-t-u-a-l!

And still... it doesn't make sense.
Some fine examples of the intellectual excesses of Sontag can be read in Roger Kimball's orbituary.

In her 1964 "Notes On 'Camp,' she states that the camp style is "serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious. [...] The ultimate camp statement: it's good because it's awful."

Well, maybe here whole point was that nothing makes sense, and to tantalize her audience with inexplicable perseverance. The outcome is the kind of satisfaction Peter Keating finds in The Fountainhead:

"Keating leaned back with a sense of warmth and well-being. He liked this book.
It had made the routine of his Sunday morning breakfast a profound spritual
experience: he was certain it was profound, because he didn't understand it."

Well, it's soon Christmas, so I guess it's alright to have a little less serious approach towards politics this time of year.

Therefore: I recommend The First Dog - Barney, starring in the White House presentation "Where in the White House is Miss Beazley?"

The movie includes a number of well known personalities, and among the cast you may notice Bill Plante and a whole bunch of cabinet members although the latter actors shouldn't count on any Academy Awards for delivering their lines.

The funniest part of the movie, without a doubt, must be when a frustrated Karl Rove is ripping ornaments from a spruce in a hall, saying: "Blue ornaments? Whoever decorated the Christmas tree with blue ornaments?"

;)
Happy holidays!

In his highly praised book Bowling alone, Robert Putnam makes the argument that Americans are undermining the foundation of democracy by staying away from such events that once tied people together and made strong communities in those Levittown suburbs. (There's a certain romantic flair around Putnam's description of these old images of small-town America.)

But recent studies have found that his presumtions are wrong. For example, the implications of the sprawl-commuting on today's communities. And there is more. Nick Gillespie's article in Slate points out that there have been a number of significant improvements since those memorable decades following WWII. For example - as the argument goes in John Robinson's and Geoffrey Godbey's book Time for Life: The Surprising Ways Americans Use Their Time , Americans in general now hold five more hours of leisure time, compared to the 60's.

The important theoretical measurement in Bowling Alone is the term "social capital" - the ability for humans to build strong inter-human relations. And it certainly seems as if chapter nine (in the importance of Internet) in his book holds the key to many of the improvements he is longing for (although in shapes that noone even could dream about in the 1960's).
For what it seems - the cost-efficient form of blogging seems to be promising for society - not only in terms of market relations (individual bloggers reaching a large audience), but also in more general ways of promoting democratic awareness (available information at low or non-significant cost to many readers) where established media elites are being challenged.

In this Foreign Policy article, Web of Influence, Drezner (U of Chicago) and Farrell (GWU) states their case about the importance of blogging (three famous cases where bloggers or Internet media resources have had a major impact - The Lewinsky Scandal, The CBS Memogate, The Trent Lott racial remark):

“The typical Web log is an online diary written by a teenage girl to inform her
friends, in bimonthly updates, how she has been spending her time. But a tiny
upper tier of bloggers produce daily commentary that can influence domestic
politics, set agendas for the news media, and perhaps even sway global affairs [...]"

Drezner and Farrell presented a paper, The Power and Politics of Blogs, at the 2004 APSA Convention.

Links:
Clay Shirky’s Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality

Drezner's blog (who is taking a sabbatical until January 1, 2005).
Farrell's group blog - Crooked Timber

One blogger made me aware of an old Newsweek article: Some exit polls are more important than others.

This might explain the very core of democratic awareness: it's a hook-up event! Or rather, it points to the fact that there are beneficial spin-offs from voting (or taking part in democratic election campaigns), which helps explain why this form of irrational behavior (voting) can be appealing to people.

Earlier this year, my book The Public Tribunal - Pack hunters and Democracy, ("Offentlighetens tribunal - Drevkarlar och demokrati") got media coverage from Sweden's largest daily - Dagens Nyheter. You can read the review here (in Swedish).

A free pdf file of the Swedish manuscript can be ordered from:
joakim.nilsson@svet.lu.se

The theoretical chapters from this manuscript are going to appear in my forthcoming book (in English) on mediated elections campaigns and political scandals. I will keep posting oulines of my manuscript on this blog.

Peter J Olsson (political editor at the Evening paper, Kvällsposten, in Sweden) has written about my book "Offentlighetens tribunal - drevkarlar och demokrati" in the latest issue of Svensk tidskrift. My interdependence model and game theory application on empirical studies of pack journalism is discussed in the article.

A fellow Ph.D. Candidate at my department tried to make the argument that the Kyoto protocol was an implementation of basic free market-based solutions to the environmental problems of our time. My standard reply, as always, is to refer to (the Hoosier) Elinor Ostrom's excellent defense of free-market solutions. I really admire her work and some of her papers are as important for the environment as they are for the market for information. (Do a J-Stor search on the following title: "Covenants With and Without a Sword - Self-Governance is Possible" together with James Walker and Roy Gardner APSR, 1992, 86 (2): 404-417 , and an Amazon search for "Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action" Cambridge Press 1990.)

Now, for all of you who would like a quicker read on the issue, I suggest you read this article where Björn Lomberg writes about the Kyoto protocol in The Telegraph. (Thanks to Henrik for the link.)
A market solution can of course include locked-in rates of interests. But in the Kyoto case, the rate of return under that regime is clearly questionable if you compare it to the pretty low alternative costs for other, bi-lateral agreements.

The Spectator, my favorite Swedish blog (in English!) recently published a story about the portrayal of Kerik in the Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

I strongly advice anyone who is interested in discussing media bias, not to use overstatements about 'cover-up's or implying bias or partisan reporting in other blatant ways. It is as easy as the story about the boy who cried wolf.

You can read the article and the following discussion at this trackback permalink.

Triangulation - the oh so hip marketing stragegy from the good ol' 90-ies ... The Clintonian success machine in the U.S. (built by Begala, Carville, Morris and Stephanopoulos) and the Blair Witch Project in the U.K (constructed by pretty much the same men). By taking over their opponents questions, and neutralize the opposition with a new position (the triangular point) on important issues, Clinton and Blair where able to move their parties toward the middle ground focus groups.
Now, Swedish 'conservative' party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt is trying to do the same thing, according to Nicklas Lundblad. Or is he? Triangulation implies an agenda which is switched, altered or tampered with (hence, the change of position concerning issue advocacy). It does not imply the non-existance of any issue positions - which, as it happens, seems to be more likely the case in the Swedish current debate. True - the conservative right-of-center party, 'Moderaterna', has given up on old issue positions. But they haven't turned these into new ones right away. For a triangulation to be successful the public needs to get the impression that the party has changed its policy. And according to recent polls in Sweden - there is not an increase in support for the Moderaterna (since the old party leader carried moderaterna four years ago - which suggests that the public rather sees (m) as weary of its own role in Swedish politics.

Not that triangulation hasn't worked before, but in the Swedish case it would be more credible if Reinfeldt would let bygones be bygones... The recent development in party politics strategy from Moderaterna seems to have more in common with the failure of Yngve Holmberg (former party leader during the red late sixties who changed the blue party logotype to a red...) than with the success of Tony Blair.

Barbara Cochran is hitting hard in her recent article in slate, to defend her position that local tv-stations in fact are meeting consumer demands on political information. Norman Ornstein, who wrote a piece on the subject earlier, is of a different position. Among other things, they differ in their view on how to interpret a Pew survey.
As the Pew researchers said in their report:

"Ratings for local TV news have remained steady in recent years,
suggesting that the public's increased criticism of the media is directed
more at national news organizations than at local news establishments."

Now, this seems to be counter-intuitive. At least from the view of competitiveness. How is it possible that national news (with several different strong actors) can be ranked lower than local tv news (with fewer media outlets and less competition). Maybe Cochran and Ornstein are mixing banans and apples when they are referring to the Pew study. Is it really fair to compare local level tv news with national politics both in terms of coverage and real impact on personal life - especially when the Pew study includes 90 stations in 44 cities (of different sizes)?

The crowding out effect (as well as the logic of collective action i.e. the farther away from the impact (political cost) of a political decision you are - the less will you be inclined to get involved in the real issue) also makes for interesting verifications of such a study. And maybe this is what Cochran and Ornstein really ought to be debating. Well, it's just a thought.

Michael Moynihan from The Stockholm Spectator has written a piece in Svensk Linje, a wonderful little political magazine that I used to be editor-in-chief for, a couple of years back.
His wonderful take on Sweden's liberal fascination with the Kerry camp is called 'Four more years of loathin'. Enjoy.

Little Green Footballs has some great stories that they just recently published:

The Jihad movement in Iraq shows its true colors - and they are all red, white and blue - the French way...

Transcript from the video film:

"We thank all those, including those of Britain and the U.S. , who took to the
streets in protest against this war and against Globalism. We also thank France,
Germany and other states for their position, which least to say are considered
wise and balanced, til now."

To top it off with a nice liberal finish, LGF places a few comments on Dean Opperman's obituary over the state of the union in his article - 'A liberal’s final wish' in The Pasadena Weekly.

Like LGF puts it - It reads like a parody of someone with “an especially virulent case of Bush Derangement Syndrome”.

France and Germany get endorsements from terrorists in Iraq! And the world thinks that the U.S. is in trouble??? How do you spell 'damage control' in French?

Ok, we've heard so much about Kerik.


He had extramaritial affairs, a "love den" in Battery Park City and had a hard time keeping his mistresses apart from eachother. At one time, according to The Daily News one of his mistresses, Judith Regan, the correctional officer with whom he had "workout sessions", left him a romantic note, which (unfortunately for Kerik) was found by his other mistress Mrs. Jeanette Pinero. Mrs. Pinero, the Washington Post reported, is the woman who is involved in the civil suit against Mr. Kerik. (See also ... sexist remark of the week: Kerik on Regan in Vanity Fair)
Now, as Newsweek reported, Regan had to hire bodyguards to keep Kerik away when their affair went down the drain. Well, funny thing, Kerik had a hard time dealing with his marriages in more ways than one. For example... he had a somewhat liberal view on bigamy. In fact, Newsday reports, it seems as if he hadn't really divorced his first wife (Linda Hales) when he married his second (Jacqueline Kerik). Nevermind the fact that the second marriage didn't seem to make him end up as very ... what'sthewordi'mlookingfor... faithful.

Since then, the nanny story hasn't really evolved even though there are a number of articles written. The only thing we now seem to get is is a whole lot of rumors.
Different media outlets - completely different stories - as in: Washington Post, LA Times.

And to top it of... there's the alleged connections between Kerik and organized crime in New York City's Department of Investigation and the whole (Newsday) story about what Guiliani really knew about it.

At times like these, there is only one thing to say: Wow.
The list of related stories just keeps growing (as do the stories themselves)
a) The Nanny story
b) The warrant in NJ
c) Riker's Island
d) The Baghdad connection
e) The mistresses
f) The bigamy
g) Organized crime

Now to a somewhat more theoretical scope of the whole mess.
Anyone who is lying or stonewalling, the way it seems like Mr. Kerik has done his entire life, will have to make a number of estimations as to whether a lie is suitable or not. Let's use some economics to explain this. I suggest a cost-benefit analysis for lying (See Tullock.1972. Towards a Mathematics of Politics: pp 135-139). (As we will see, the act of stonewalling has the same utility function as the act of lying.)

[BLP – Cc – (1-L)CpLp + CrLr = P]

B Expected utility from action held secret by
lying.
L Probability that the audience is persuaded by the lie
P The internal interest for lying; The probality that the lie, if convincing
enough to persuade the audience, will lead to expected end-result.
Cc Conscience, internal cost for lying
Cp Cost for punishment
Lp Probability for punishment, if audience doesn’t buy into a lie
Cr External cost; Harm done to actor’s reputation given that other actors discover the lie

Lr Probability that the harm done to actor’s reputation will occur if the audience discover the lie not to be true

Now, how can we explain the (internal) cost-market for rumors like these? For example, how is it possible for newspapers to print so many different unsubstantiated claims about the nanny? The formula above explains why. The critical difference is between micro (the media prey - in this case - Kerik) and macro (audience) expactions of respective utility functions. Since (L) to an ordinary reader is very high, while [(1-L)CrLr] is low. However, for Kerik, L is extremely, which is why he should try to push up Cp anyway he can.
To Kerik... his internal cost-estimation is perhaps what made this whole problem appear in the first place. Since a lie is preferable if, and only if, [BLP>(1-L)(CrLr+CpLp)] .
So, really, what Kerik has been doing all along is to behave like an extreme optimist, playing a game that has promoted his career so far. Until he realized that in the world of politics, you better be able to have damage control ready right away.

The coalition, now formed among journalists who hunt for Kerik in any new side story they can create, is so strong that it seems impossible for Kerik to ever recover from the story. (More on this coalition force soon to come.) And in any case - he is off the table as new head of DHS. I guess he found out the hard way - Playing with the big boys in D.C. is not like dealing with the wise guys in NJ - it's worse.

So much happened during the weekend.

Bernard Kerik is no longer the man for the Department of Homeland Security. Kerik has withdrawn his nomination as the new Secretary of DHS. The official reason is said to be tax problems concerning the fact that he hired a nanny who turned out to be (surprise!) an illegal immigrant.
The Kerik scandal became official after Newsweek released their story on Friday, that a New Jersey judge had issued a warrant for Bernard Kerik concerning a civil dispute over unpaid bills for a condo (apparently the documents were being faxed to the White House as early as Wednesday...). Washington Post has an article on Kerik and for further reading there is a Talking points memo article . Talking points makes a number of connections that are hard to evaluate at this point. Too many allegations are up in the air right now - as for example the rumors about who Kerik has run Riker's Island as a contemporary Tammany Hall (this being the argument of Joshua Marshall at the Talking points memo blog). It's an interesting allegory, with the slight imperfection of one tiny detail - that Tammany Hall was the corrupt organisation of the Democratic party in New York city in the late 1800's.

No matter what - Kerik is in for a Linda Chavez treatement. The White House is obviously dropping him, and the question right now is not only who the Bush administration should look for next, but also how the failed Kerik nomination will affect Rudy Giuliani's position in the GOP.
As in many other forms of handling media scandals, the person in the eye of the storm has few chances to survive unless he is endorsed (and continually supported) by his political peers or a leading figure within the party.

Then, there is also the obvious evolution of side-issues and stories that are not related to one another,
a) The Nanny story.
b) The warrant in NJ
c) Riker's Island
d) The Baghdad connection

As foundations for a political scandal, they are very different, indeed. The only thing that connects them is that Kerik can be placed in them all. Some of these stories may only have the purpose of reinforcing the view of Kerik as a party hack and a crook.

Over time (even though this story has evolved rather rapidly) Kerik's position has deteriorated. It becomes impossible to try stonewalling by not responding to the allegations. Doing so would only hurt him more.
For the Bush administration, though not necessarily for the GOP, this story may soon be over since Kerik never went over to Capitol Hill.

I just got this little tale sent to me from my brother. Very funny!

Mathematics at its best.

After forcing Johnny Munkhammar to leave his job at The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (CSE) (See archive: Tuesday, December 7), the following news piece is even more astonishing (December 9): Greger Hatt, an old labor union suit, as well as the former speechwriter for the labor government under Ingvar Carlsson, is now speaking out in an op-ed in the Swedish financial newspaper Dagens industri. In his article, Hatt defends the Swedish labor unions attempt to stop Latvian construction workers from competing on the Swedish market.
Oh, did I forget to mention that Hatt is now working for CSE, handpicked by the CEO Ebba Lindsö.
Let's reiterate: When Hatt is defending the socialdemocratic government, Lindsö seems to be just fine. When Munkhammar is defending free markets, then he has to leave the organisation.

Wow, it's 50 percent freedom of speech - Pinochet-style: All speeches favoring the government are allowed. With capitalists like Lindsö there is no need for socialists in Sweden to worry too much.

Fundraising ´04: Democrats Got More Money Than GOP
Guess what? Democrats outscored Republicans in raising money for their cause.

Howard Kurtz is, as always, right on target in his analysis of media madness:
John Snow (Treasury Secretary) has had a rough time with the media. But - in contrast to the speculations newspapers have only been to eager to build their stories around - Snow still has Bush's supprt.
Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all have their different ways of trying to explain their gossiping form of journalism, or - as in the case with LA Times - divert attention by discussing Bush's possibility to work with the new, stronger majority on Capitol Hill.

Kurtz also writes in his column about the Plame case, which raises interesting question about the principle to hold journalists to different standards (and not have them reveal their sources). The Plame case is important because here, the reporter seems to be more than a witness (and the source involved is not an ordinary whistle-blower but a person suspected of a crime. It is almost as if the reporter becomes an accessory to the crime (by publishing the story). Kurtz' puts forward some strong points, not often addressed to journalists who are used to being treated as if they sometimes were above the law.
Let's hope that this debate continues.

Congress has passed the new Post-9/11 Intelligence Bill (with the astounding margin of 336-75 in the House, and 89-2 in the Senate).
The policy issue at hand is not so much about what is included in the bill, and what kind of impact it will have on national security, but rather the fact that the 911 Commission, contrary to what many Democrats had hoped, turned out to produce a neatly packed program in the president's taste. (Even though, as some pundits noted, the new Republicans in Congress won't let Bush force them into ugly victories - like the Medicare restructuring agenda. Nevertheless, victories are still victories - no matter how ugly.)
So, after all of that we've seen and heard, The 9/11 Commission Report, and the new Intelligence Bill, all worked in favor for the president.

Somebody should give Michael Moore a call. A wake-up call.

This is a great example of why a society where information is free and readily available, is better than a closed society where people can't get information to refute old urban legends and non-scientific beliefs. The Washington Post reports that the debate about evolution vs creationism is still alive and kicking in the American heartland: Fresh Challenges in the Old Debate Over Evolution. 35 percent of the respondendents in a recent Gallup poll say that they don't believe in Darwin's theory. 35 percent!

Which is why the Internet becomes a perfect example of how fast and easy fact-gathering has become with modern day information technology. It is easy to refute creationist claims, and the evidences are provided from this excellent homepage.

Evolve... evolve. And show that you support science.

Here, articles on economic theory and the media market:

Price Competition, Advertising and Media Market Concentration

Can the Media Be So Liberal? The Economics of Media Bias

Media Economics: Understanding Markets, Industries and Concepts

More to come.
Usually, media economics means an analysis of financial statements, statistics and mergers. Some theoretical pieces do dare to take the next step and analyze the entire market according to logical models of market forces and interactions between actors. I will put up more articles on the subject soon.

Big media isn't getting it:

"Journalists are beginning to get it." [...] "However, I'm still not convinced
that Big Media is doing the most important thing: listening. We are still in a
top-down mode and don't realize that the conversation is more important than our
pronouncements. I see progress, but not enough".

For more, see - We the media.

Some journalists try to refute the promising force of scrutiny by bloggers. Eric Engberg, who has been made infamous in Bernard Goldberg's book Bias, has not much good to say about bloggers in this trademark piece. (Engberg once slanted a news story on Steve Forbes' flat tax so harshly that it could only pass as propaganda. At least to everybody but Engberg himself.)
(For all of you who can't get enough of CBS... here's more CBS - criticism of their election night coverage.)

The Fifth Estate?

In the world, post-November 2 2004, it is evident that bloggers play an important role. This is so, because: a) they hold a strong watchdog position, and b) because the cost for entering the market is literally not existing. For more see: The Watchdog impact of bloggers - with low entrance costs on the market.

(Also on blogs and media relations: Jay Rosen's thought)

A number of great articles on how the blogs and Internet has changed the political environment. One success story is this one - MoveOn in Wired .

Harvard University Conference - the impact of the net on the election ´04:
Harvard gathers faculty (Pippa Norris and Robert Putnam) and election insiders (Michael Turk and Chuck DeFeo, Internet managers for Bush-Cheney ´04 as well as Zack Exley, Director of Online Information for Kerry-Edwards 2004).

A great blog for comments on the election 2004 is Pressthink. Some thoughtful insights and remarks. Especially the following:
Dan Rather - The World According to Park Avenue

Why The Media is No Longer the Message - The Revenge of the Bloggers.

CBS: Blogs - new medium, same ol' politics.

Jim Thune may have conservative values. But he was sure to use top notch new blog technology when he defeated Tom Daschle in the South Dakota race for the U.S. Senate.

See also:
www.dumpdaschle.com

The Big Ten (no, not the college football league, nor the comandments) media corporations are the focus of this article on media giants.
Facts about the most successful media outlets (AOL/TimeWarner, GE, Viacom, News Corp., Bertelsmann, Vivendi, Disney, Liberty Media, Sony and AT&T) can be found here.

This is something The Nation loves to hate, and the Big Ten are often given a lot of attention in books by Robert McChesney (Rich Media, Poor Democracy) and Ben Bagdikian.
And the power of persuation is probably strong among these big ten businesses. But let's look at it from another point of view, if nothing else so for the sake of the argument. Let' say that we have ten established firms on a market of information, strategically spread out over the market.

[1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10]

What follows is the old game of ice cream stands on a beach. To get into the market, you have to squeeze in between already existing ice cream stands. So to cram in a stand, say [3<x>4], is going to have an effect, not only on 3 and 4, but also on the rest of the stands, when the chain reaction starts to have an effect on all ice cream stands... (3 moves closer to 2, moves closer to 1; 4 moves closer to 5 et c.)

Add to this a very high entrance fee (initial profit loss to capture market shares), which has proven to be a fact in media businesses (see Picard, Robert 1997. "Modelling the Problem", in Newspaper Research Journal, 18 (3-4): 94-109) and gains from economies of scale. And all of a sudden it is easy to explain why established media outlets are effective strongholds on the market. It has very little to do with conspiracy theory, or persuasion tactics, or evil capitalist tycoons interested in silencing the "common people". It can all can be explained by simple economics. No more. No less.

# posted by Joakim Nilsson @ 1:27 AM

The liberal bloggers out there have a hard time not to cry foul over business deals.

I do not defend everything Fox News does. But neither do I defend what other broadcasting networks do. The sad truth about arguments as the one in the link above, is not so much that they disagree with Fox, as the fact that they imply that people they disagree with should not have the right to operate in the first place. From a microeconomic perspective, this is a ludicrous position.
As if the following: If person a can atract five people to gather around a table, he can (and has to right to) unify them all according to his beliefs. If he can gather five million people in front of his tv-channel, all of a sudden he's a villain.

Clearly, this line of reasoning doesn't hold water. The mere implication of an overwhelmingly influential media network doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that the merger is an economic bad. Only when social returns (on a market of information) are hurt by such an investment can we talk about a predatory dominant actor in the economy. Interestingly enough, the one position which would instantly refute the right for Fox to acquire more stations -- the position of someone who is advocating a public service broadcasting network -- is the very one that does in fact hurt the market for information by developing a monopoly, overcharging consumers, penalizing them for their efforts to get alternative information (by driving up prices on alternative media outlets, via regulations) and creating economic bads by lowering social returns within a market, dominated by scarce or non-existant competition.

Yes, I am sometimes slow at finding these things, but here’s a sequel that I just have to promote. (I was seriously addicted to the former version.) Railroad Tycoon III will bring out the Dagny Taggart or John Galt in you, plus stimulate any kind of strategic thinking within economics… The entire game, the constructing mode (and the payoffs for shipments) between the cities are based on several formulas for supply and demand! In other words - Economics rule! This is more than a railroad game. This is a lesson in business management as well as a serious simulation of economic motives and cost-benefit analysis.
Plus… it will speak to the little, little boy in us all…

Bonus game - Economics for the kids - Tragedy of the Commons. This time in a bunny version.

Think that it's tough to be a free market advocate? Try Sweden, where blogger Johnny Munkhammar had to quit his job at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (CSE) after CEO Ebba Lindsö reacted and thought his pro-market blog was harmful for the organisation. Yes, Lindsö, who has hired former Social Democrats as speech writers, sure doesn't want to upset the Social democratic government. It's so much cozier to pass the Danish around. Apparently Wesley Mouch appears in many shapes.
Mr Munkhammar has now moved on and is soon to join the think-tank Timbro, which is perhaps the last free market organisation in Sweden.

Upon news like this there is only one appropriate quote for the day:

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you
saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms
trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last ofthis
strength, and the greater his effort, the heavier the world bore down on his
shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"
"I... don't know. What... could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."

Republicans in Congress are being blamed for holding on to Newt Gingrich's old revolution of 1994. However, House majority leader, Tom Delay (R-Tx), is far from the same man as Newt, and the House over which Hastert is watching is far more interested in getting government interventions.
In fact, this article in Slate, shows that today's Republican majority behaves more reckless with taxpayers' money than before - 3,407 pork barrel projects to appropriation bills in conference committee, compared to 47 for 1994 when Democrats ruled the floor. (For further facts, see also this Boston Globe article.

Not that this necessarily means that Democrats are standing up for fiscal conservatism. Nevertheless, it points to the fact that there are some distinct differences between the Contract with America and today's Republican revolution.

Richard Posner starts off his and Gary Beckers' blog with a comment on the market for blogging and information:

"Blogging is a major new social, political, and economic phenomenon. It is a
fresh and striking exemplification of Friedrich Hayek’s thesis that knowledge is
widely distributed among people and that the challenge to society is to create
mechanisms for pooling that knowledge."

Spontaneous order on a market for information then leaves it up to the consumers to evaluate the supply of information. Hence, what it comes down to is a form of coordination game, an n-person game depending on the establishment of common knowledge (see Aumann, R. 1976 "Agreeing to Disagree", Annals of Statistics, 4: 1236-1239).

This all comes down to the very core of economics, so eloquently put by Israel Kirzner ( 1990. "Self-Interest and the New Bashing of Economics", Critical Review 4 (1-2): 33):

"[T]he existence of systematic market forces means the existence of a spontaneous process of learning. What economic theory essentially sets out to explain, therefore, is how a spontaneous learning process can be set in motion by the interaction of exchanging individuals."

This new history book is about to make it into the big league. For everyone who has grown tired of Howard Zinn's views on history.

Ruy Teixeira doesn’t know how to call it quits… Right now he’s out looking for people who voted for Bush. Who really voted for W? Apparently not too many, if you want to believe him – well, not too many regular folks, that is. On his blog, he is still working on proving his case and he finds that just about everyone who voted for Bush is a right-wing nutcase . Too much statistical analysis can do that to a man.
This should come as no surprise – after all when you’ve written a book less than two years ago, which had as its main theme the prediction that Democrats are soon to take over national politics in the U.S., well, then I guess you have a lot of damage control to take care of right now…

The latest from his blog of the not so rising Donkeys is The non-existing vote increase for Republicans among Hispanics. I agree with him - the exit polls gave a bad (as in misrepresenting) picture of the electorate. So why even bother trying to crunch numbers that can't be trusted in the first place? Well, first of all - Teixeira argues - there are are places like Texas and California, where it is possible to break down the ethnic vote to see just how big increase W received among Hispanics. And Teixiera's conclusion - Bush did not get 44 percent of Hispanics, but rather 40. Wow. Four points. So much talk. So little to talk about.

Does the political science community ever feel burdoned by people from the left who are trying to squeeze stats into a political blender to fit their world view? Probably not. Afterall, Teixiera was moderator John Kingdon's choice for the APSA panel (see previous entry November 19).

Btw... The Washington Post has run several stories on the case:
Realignment or Tilt? (by John F. Harris)
Pollsters Debate Hispanics' Vote (by Darryl Fears)

Was the election just a mishaps? A "Tilt" of the game Democrats are supposed to win? And are the Republicans still not "in tune" with the American people (i.e. ethnic minorities)? With this form of analysis (or, rather - spinning) I guess you can lose any election and not really lose at all.

Allow me to share a laugh with you: Eeeh-aw, eeeh-aw!

The Moral Vote Lingers in the minds of analysts. Here are some reflections on the debate which dominated the net less than a month ago.
The Washington Post ran a number of stories on the evangelical vote. One blogger wrote two pieces on the identity research theme - A new evangelical politics and 'Values Vote' during the days after the election, seemingly without the insight that his two pieces contradicted eachother. However, they both include some good insights that point to the fact that the evangelical vote was NOT the driving force behind the Republican victory. As everybody should know by know - the multiple choice questions presented to voters at the exit polls made for slanted stats on the impact of moral values.

What to say to those who still want to pursue the value-theory as the driving force behind the election? To quote Tucker Eskew on November 3:

Good morning.

Yes, it is.

"[B]logs are similar to the London coffee house phenomenon or American pamphleteering (interestingly no one directly invoked Habermas)".

More about why blogging is becoming increasingly important to academic research...
Recommended: academic blogging.