Shorter George Will
- Liberals think that lax regulation and greed on Wall Street caused the current financial crisis. But uh-oh! I’ve just found a study by an economist showing that eBay and StubHub have never experienced a financial meltdown and they’re not regulated at all! How you like me now, chumps?
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
If you don’t believe that Will’s column is really as st00pid as I’ve made it out to be, I give you the following excerpt:
Yet the average price of the tickets offered declined from $359 to $304. This was partly because the quality (seat location) of the remaining tickets declined. Also the number of selling days was becoming smaller. Seats at entertainment events are, like airline seats, a perishable inventory: When the plane takes off, or the game begins, the value of an unsold ticket becomes zero.
A greedy seller — one who priced his tickets too high — was less likely than other sellers were to sell them two weeks before the game. Hence he had to resort to much deeper discounts than others did as game day, and the potential worthlessness of his assets, drew near. The larger the number of seats available in the secondary market, and the more transparent that market is, thanks to the Internet, the more likely it is that greed will be punished.
Buh-buh-buh-but George! You’re talking about a fairly straightforward and near-perfectly competitive Internets market where buyers are given accurate information about what they’re purchasing! That’s completely different from the market for, say, credit default swaps where oftentimes the people trading them had no idea what the hell they were buying! I mean, damn, son! Let me break out my all-time favorite chart here:
UPDATE: Hoisted from the WaPo comments section:
Mr. Will’s analysis could be extended to the Somalian pirate problem.
Like ticket scalpers, the pirates are entrepreneurs who intercede themselves into the transfer of goods from producer to end user, charging a premium for allowing the transfer to continue. Furthermore, piracy thrives because the Somalian market is unregulated to a degree that Mr. Will no doubt can only envy.
There’s the little detail that piracy is illegal under international law, but that’s just another form of market regulation that should be removed.
So, following Mr. Will’s argument, the international community should deal with Somalian piracy by legalizing it, with the hope that the free market would punish greed and keep the ransoms from getting to high.
One of the true mysteries of modern journalism is why pundits are paid to act as “experts” on such a wide variety of subjects that they know nothing about. Although there are exceptions — I hear this Paul Krugman guy is a pretty good economist, for instance — for the most part our op-ed pages are filled with people such as George Will who provide shallow and simplistic analysis of problems that they don’t understand.
First?
Yes, now I have to read it before I comment further.
Oh, Christ. Fwill again?
This man needs to take two tablets of shut up and go to bed for a decade.
And if we’re not careful, lax regulation may bring an end to the fairly straightforward and near-perfectly competitive Internets market.
I can’t even laugh at these people (who populate the Post opinion pages) anymore. When they don’t praise torture or whine about liberals using bad language, they pull this kind of “Econ 101 is teh theory of EVERYTHING” stunt? Christ.
When they don’t praise torture or whine about liberals using bad language
… or complain about how jeans are destroying the civilization…
Yes, the Invisible Hand works when there are many buyers and sellers with full information. Will seems to think that liberals disagree with this notion. We part company when it comes to health care, education, finance, etc. Concentrations distort the market, which the government can help correct. Pretty basic economics.
Now that’s one hell of a chart, dammit! We should all mail it to this dolt.
Stubhub does guarantee that the ticket you are buying is real. Greedy scalpers can sell fake tickets, Stubhub can’t. Without that oversight Stubhub would be out of business. There can be no Madoff’s on Stubhub.
“everyone knows we are in our current economic pickle because greed, which slept through the Clinton administration…”
Tell that to Phil Gramm.
How you like me now, chumps?
Same as before, as in NOT.
That reminds me, I was watching something on eBay. Better go check in.
So, where was the super-fantastic-capitalism before Al Gore invented the internet? Answer me that GF Will ! Al Gore is the Obi Wan of modern economic wealth and you are indebted to him. Oh and GF Will…dude, the reason Cubs tickets get cheaper closer to game time is that the CUBS SUCK!
GF Will was so embarassed by his crappy global warming articles for the WaPo, that he scrounged in his file cabinet for an unpublished screed about denim to phone in. He’s such a pansy, “Everybody proved that I was a tool about climate science, so I dropped this denim turd in the opinion pages to show them what would happen if I ran out my contract with flotsam. I’ve been around a long time, I’ve got lots of flotsam. I know I’ve got a restraining order against my putting baseball articles in the newspaper, but no one said anything about poloponies !”
Okay Shecky, no need to insult the Cubs just because George Fucking Will is a fan. I know it’s hard being a White Sox fan this year, with them on their way to ninety losses and all, but can’t we please stay civilized about it?
Hey, this is a great idea! If we all stop going to the doctor or the hospital, then Teh Invisible Hand will slash the prices and we’ll actually be able to afford to get sick! Of course a lot of us will be dead in the meantime, but so what? The free market works!
If we had only traded all our Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps on eBay, none of this would have happened.
they pull this kind of “Econ 101 is teh theory of EVERYTHING” stunt
Nothing wrong with Econ 101, of course. But apparently George Will’s econ professor didn’t drill into his head enough that a perfectly competitive market is a very useful hypothetical model which is nonetheless almost nonexistent in the real world.
Little known fact: When MLB came back to DC, they were trying to think of a name. The Senators had left twice so that was out. The “Congressionals” was offered, because after GW Bush threw out the first baseball, half the team would be needed to ‘cleanup’.
Of course, both websites are US businesses, and are, in fact, regulated by various federal and state laws that require things like not defrauding customers, keeping credit card info secure, reporting income, etc etc.
Nothing wrong with Econ 101, of course. But apparently George Will’s econ professor didn’t drill into his head enough that a perfectly competitive market is a very useful hypothetical model which is nonetheless almost nonexistent in the real world.
The useful hypothetical model is the enemy of modern corporations, and with small investments (for them) in bribing our political and media classes, they get oligopolistic profits.
StubHub?
Speaking of media tools, we have wanker.
Speaking of Econ 101: My high-school economics teacher (who was also the track coach) told us on the first day of class: “Now, I grade on the curve. You boys’ll just have to get by the best way you can.” Haw Haw!
By the way, I made an “A.”
Nothing wrong with Econ 101, of course.
Atrios complains about this sometimes, and I think it does suggest that there is, in fact something wrong with Econ101 because so many students never go on to take 201 where they learn about things that actually ruin their nice perfect markets, like the inherent irrationality of people, and we end up with internets full of Ron Paul glibertarians quoting von Mises and unaware of a little thing known as “externalities”
Atrios complains about this sometimes, and I think it does suggest that there is, in fact something wrong with Econ101 because so many students never go on to take 201 where they learn about things that actually ruin their nice perfect markets, like the inherent irrationality of people, and we end up with internets full of Ron Paul glibertarians quoting von Mises and unaware of a little thing known as “externalities”
A little learning is a dangerous thing, as the Pope said. (Just kidding, it was Pope, not the Pope.)
I guess my bias comes from the fact that I did learn all that shit in Econ 101. I had a pretty good professor, I guess.
Once, just once, I’d like the Invisible Hand to give me a good, old-fashioned reach-around.
anyway, regarding the latest word salad to dribble out of Mr. Will’s keyboard:
Get your war on summed it up best – he talks out of his ass so much his seat cushion is probably deaf.
The thing is it’s not even Econ 101 — it’s the first two weeks of Econ 101. When I took econ 101, we learned about monopolies, monopsonies, oligopolies, etc. You learn very very early in the course that perfectly competitive markets are extraordinarily rare.
Googling StubHub fraud seems to indicate that he is filled to the uttermost with beans, as per usual.
Journalists are stupid: read on and I will prove it.
When I was a young bitch-pup, I took Intro to Econ (in paleoacademia courses had names, not numbers). My professor (a free marketeer) was deadly dull and knew it. If he couldn’t make it interesting, he was going to make it scientific. He made some arguments and put up a differential equation that I as a math major/physics minor recognized as resulting in a harmonic oscillator to which a damping/forcing function was applied. As any geek knows, the devil’s in the damping/forcing function. It includes effects of advertising, childhood hopes and dreams, delusions/illusions about the source of happiness, and sexual fantasies surrounding the product/process/service for sale. These things are difficult to characterize, let alone quantize, and can’t easily be described by the kind of closed form that’s useful for prediction. It sounds great to a bunch of math-phobic/math-ignorant, hungover sophomores, but it’s the kind of stuff that keeps the ShamWow guy supplied with hookers.
The Somalian national anthem, incidentally, starts with these verses:
Aww shit, get your towels ready it’s about to go down (shorty, yeah)
Everybody in the place hit the fucking deck (shorty, yeah)
But stay on your motherfucking toes
We running this, let’s go
I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat)
I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat)
Everybody look at me ’cause I’m sailing on a boat (sailing on a boat)
I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat)
I’m on a boat
Take a good hard look at the motherfucking boat (boat, yeah)
Ironically this is almost identical to the GOP marching song, which George Will has tattooed on his ass.
I blame the necktie. The weight and placement of it has put pressure on his flagulus shmengy artery and cut off oxygen to Will’s brain. I’m afraid it’s inoperable. All we can do now is make him comfortable and laff at him.
I actually wonder if George Will, Tucker Carlson et al have those bow ties TO reduce the oxygen to their brain.
George Will has big words engraved into his reptilian brain, whileTucker has dickishness – so by cutting off just enough oxygen, they can flail around with minimumal forebrain activity, while maintaining all appearance of full consciousness.
Arg! minimal forebrain – preview is my friend. And I have no bow tie. I plead 9 AM on a Saturday.
Moon Dragon, it’s long been my suspicion that most mainstream economic theory is made of baroque workarounds, to hide just how badly the bottom 97% are screwed.
And that most economists are an academic priest class, who internalize the beliefs they propagate because they don’t themselves want to realize they’re in the service of those doing the screwing.
What are your thoughts on this? Agree / disagree?
Purchasing ANYTHING via avenues other than eBay and Craigslist is affirming your slavery to an economic system that is diametrically opposed to freedom. Markets, like Men deserve, nay yearn, to be free. That’s why I buy toilet paper on CL. Freedom ain’t free, people. Poop, also.
I majored in Econ, believe it or don’t.
My first Econ class was in fact called Econ 101a (a=fall, b=spring, if I recall correctly…it was 1977 or some such).
By the way, what exactly are the financial incentives making sure that economics is a real science and is taught in such a way as to prevent rather than promote ideologically desirable conclusions?
Well, there was that quant who created what wired called the forumla that Killed Wall St. It was as AJ suggests, a formula is cooked up by a math whiz, and applied by gazillions of people who don’t actually understand it, and have no idea why it is flawed.
Doc Wilson: It’s the truth that you should never trust anybody who wears a bow tie. Cravat’s supposed to point down to accentuate the genitals. Why’d you wanna trust somebody whose tie points out to accentuate his ears?
So now Medicare and Socialist Security are going to go broke sooner than expected. Medicare in just a few years (2017). And the government thinks it can run everyone’s healthcare? Where will they get the money? There just aren’t enough “rich” people to tax anymore to pay for it all.
another jim,
While I’ve never thought of it that way, it makes sense. My prof truly believed his schtick, and actually seemed hurt when people would fuck with his head (not realizing that they only wanted him ) This guy was one of the few people who taught me at the utterly affordable state run institution (not part of the market driven education rat race) I attended who didn’t seem to question anything, except maybe for the psych prof who had an unhealthy fixation with dog shit.
Cravat’s supposed to point down to accentuate the genitals.
Does it have to be an old Will?
for the most part our op-ed pages are filled with people such as George Will who provide shallow and simplistic analysis of problems that they don’t understand.
Amen. Jack-offs of all issues, masters of none.
Soon to be even-shorter FGeorge – Will give blowjobs for food.
left out (not realizing that they only wanted him to feel the same level of pain as they were feeling.)
They didn’t teach Econ at the Tony Manero Dance Academy and Cosmetology Yeshiva, but that doesn’t make me any less of a hora. [Rimshot!]
Stay in school, kids.
the international community should deal with Somalian piracy by legalizing it
Get a state to issue a letter of marque and you’re good to go, or would sucha license be too much meddling in the free market?
Why do the people who hate me most express most loudly their desire to help me? Well, with my status as an extremely popular gov’t program, I’m positive my funding will trump the Pentagon’s. Right?
A++++++++ WOULD LOOT AGAIN
J-, that would be protectionism. Can’t have that.
Craigslist and eBay are for slaves and parasites. Real men, following Malkin’s suggestion, shop at Galtslist. Currently they’re sold out, that’s how strong demand is.
At my instamatution of higher learnin’, Econ was in Group III, just like “political science”.
Math and real science and Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (and such as) were in group IV.
So that’s how you know it isn’t real sience (c.f. Beavis and Butthead).
Also: Group I = English literature, and Group II = architecture, and art history, etc.
Sir Francis Drake was a slave, and Queen Elizabeth, a parasite.
By the looks of that latex glove – & the two fingers being extended – I’m guessing you’re in for both a disappointment & a surprise. Is there any chance of at least the minimal mercy of some Invisible Vaseline here? Sadly, no.
WaPo comment (“Logical Conclusion Boogaloo” Remix):
“Like ticket scalpers, the arms industry are entrepreneurs who intercede themselves into the transfer of goods from producer to end user, charging a premium for allowing the transfer to continue. Furthermore, war thrives because the international conflict market is unregulated to a degree that Mr. Will no doubt can only envy.
There’s the little detail that aggression is illegal under international law, but that’s just another form of market regulation that should be removed.
So, following Mr. Will’s argument, the international community should deal with the threat of a global nuclear holocaust by rendering it mandatory, with the hope that the free market would punish greed and keep the costs of fallout & nuclear-winter aftereffects from getting too high.”
On the subject of brokers who facilitate or complicate transactions as they see fit, Ken Silverstein’s article (Harper’s, March 2009) on Ely Calil, one of the big middlemen in the international oil business, has a great line. Here Silverstein and Calil are discussing the possible sale of an old oil refinery to Lebanon.
I am bottleneck. Hear my invisible hands roar.
… or complain about how jeans are destroying the civilization…
Maybe he’s just never tried them.
I’m glad that Mr Will is speaking up for my free market rights. I’m tired of government regulations preventing me from making an honest living. After all, the Invisible Hand has spoken. And it says the middle school crack market is a high demand, high profit business. How dare the socialist government unfairly regulate my ability to feed my family caviar. They have even blocked my wonderful Saturday morning ad campaign featuring Crackie the Clown singing our fun and catchy “Crack Me Up” jingle.
God damn it, America, stop fucking rewarding stupidity
GF Will is right !!! this is the only post, either here or over at WaPo, that agrees with that douchebag. GF Will, I hope you putz it in your scrapbook.
“for the most part our op-ed pages are filled with people such as George Will who provide shallow and simplistic analysis of problems that they don’t understand”
His audience is shallow and simplistic, and unfortunately it is vast.
Thank you, George Will, for writing a column that provides even more ammunition FOR regulation.
It is axiomatic that a George Will column is pompous idiocy.
There is nothing in the United States Constitution that prohibits torture against enemy combatants. The Constitutional protection enumerated in the Bill of Rights apply to American Citizens only. Including the prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Our Founding Fathers never intended for Our Nation’s Constitutional Safeguards to apply to non-citizens, and they certainly never intended for them to apply to the enemies of Our Nation!
You liberals love to cite the Constitution and Bill of Rights to “support” your codddling of terrorists. But does the Constitution really require that? Well, as your’re all so accustomed to saying around here, Sadly, No!
No, except for the part about treaties being the law of the land. The most immediately applicable treaty is the 1994 UN Convention Against Torture, which specifically applies to persons, as do the rights outlined in the U.S. Constitution — for example, the Constitution rarely mentions citizens and applies rights to persons throughout. That’s without getting into the U.S. criminal code which outlaws torture and defines even torture which takes place outside U.S. borders as an actionable offense.
But, of course, Ronald Reagan said it pretty well in his signing statement for the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture, as he signed it for the U.S.Senate in 1988:
Reagan made sure to include references to the US’ own Constitution and in particular its 5th, 8th, and 14th amendments.
There are all sorts of things which are wrong which are not illegal; and there are all sorts of things which are illegal which aren’t in the U.S. Constitution. These are obvious statements.
At my instamatution of higher learnin’, Econ was in Group III, just like “political science”.
Math and real science and Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (and such as) were in group IV
I know where you went to school, doo dah, doo dah.
I think Sirius Lunacy has a sirius beef with the government interference in his business.
Mr. Thunder,
Does that mean people who majored in group III were B Ark people?
There’s nothing in the Constitution that prevents the torture of persons named “Lord Harry”, either. As there’s no evidence that “Lord Harry” is actually a US citizen, there’s no evidence he or she has any rights.
Of course if you investigated, you might find out that Lord Harry is a US citizen – but you would have to investigate first AND THEN arrest.
With a presumption of guilt, you can just arrest first, and then never bother to investigate. Only torture, if you feel like it, with no obligation to even have a trial. Or even notify anyone that you’ve captured and are “enhancedly interrogating” Lord Harry.
Of course, Lord Harry has nothing to fear, unless a government agency makes a mistake.
It’s an odd thing how right-wingers can just switch that total trust of government on or off, depending on whether or not some brown people might be getting the shaft.
I’m sure someone’s mentioned this, but do you think Will feels even a little odd pointing to an Internet business as a reason government shouldn’t be involved in business when the government, uhm, helped create the Internet? His columns get crazier and crazier as he realizes that the New Deal won’t be repealed in his lifetime.
When Will gets around to his autobiography — an ugly thought, I know — “Greed” should be the title.
Leave George Will alone!
He’s the conservative movement’s greatest thinker!
So there.
Will is a dreary, pompous ass. The shallowness of his thinking is matched only by his self-regard. (At least he’s wearing normal ties.)
Say what you will about George Will, but now that WFB has passed on into demi-lich status, GW is the handsomest lich in the land.
like comparing apples to quasars is more like it
When Will gets around to his autobiography […] “Greed” should be the title.
“Life as the Ghost of Bushes”.
If only “shorter” George Will could be “shortened” George Will, i.e., without a head. He doesn’t seem to use it for much of anything, after all.
“Seats at entertainment events are, like airline seats, a perishable inventory: When the plane takes off, or the game begins, the value of an unsold ticket becomes zero.” – George “Slugger” Will
He neglected to mention the last two steps. 1) Highly-paid lobbyists write legislation using truckloads of taxpayer money to bail out the richest and most well-connected of said
speculatorssellers, which sellers have wiselymade generous campaign contributions“purchased insurance” against such events; and, 2) such legislation is quickly passed and signed into law by politicians whose only question when told to jump is, “how high?”.Jennifer said:
“Hey, this is a great idea! If we all stop going to the doctor or the hospital, then Teh Invisible Hand will slash the prices and we’ll actually be able to afford to get sick! Of course a lot of us will be dead in the meantime, but so what? The free market works!”
Exactly Jennifer. Just like the ticket has no value after the plane takes off, the value of medical services drops to zero after you’re dead!
And, oh, Lord harry, the constitution applies to all persons (including corporations) under the authority of the US government, not just white male voting property owners. If you had a law degree, like I do, you’d know this.
Yes, that, and there’s also the little fact that the Founding Fathers viewed the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights as “the Great Rights of Mankind.” In their view, these are not rights granted to citizens by the Constitution, these are rights the Constitution merely formally recognized all humans have by virtue of being human; not one of them disagreed that all free people held these rights.
If someone were to make a presentation about, oh, let’s say the space shuttle mission, and was all “I have a better way to do these space missions: now, assuming a spherical frictionless space shuttle of uniform density — ” they would be laughed out of the room before finishing that sentence, and rightly so. If they made ridiculous assumptions implicitly, they would be told that, and then laughed out of the room.
Somehow this does not seem to happen with economics, at least when the people making the assumptions are doing so in newspaper columns. I wonder why that is.
Somehow this does not seem to happen with economics, at least when the people making the assumptions are doing so in newspaper columns.
This is a problem throughout the entire discipline, not just in newspaper columns.
Another Jim @ May 16, 22:53:
Or you could pull any man or woman off the street and torture them until they say they’re Lord Harry. Problem solved!
Of course, the media often doesn’t fare much better when it DOES tap so-called experts for commentary and gives a forum to idiots from the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation, who may have academic credentials but are so ideologically hidebound that they spout nonsense.