On Not Attacking the Human

I wanted to post my feelings on this topic in video format because I think it's a nice touch to have facial expressions and the sound of one's voice helping to unveil the sincerity with which we often type, but cannot convey.

A recent comment was made via an online argument that (paraphrasing) "I like how FB allows people to get on and talk about stuff without the fear of being known for who they really are."  Well, my answer to that is, watch this video.  I'm not afraid to be "found out" and I'm not unaware that I'm no smarter than most average people my age with my background--most of us are nothing if not average.  So, I'm throwing out the challenge, I'll play this game, but the ball is in your court.

Bitching about Capitalism... on Facebook. (What a Riot!)

So, I stumbled upon what I thought were shit statistics last night (I think I was about 4 beers deep when I decided to comment).  The following is the conversation as it has been going...


The whole thing started with this:

This table comes from the following website:  http://tmotr.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/going-for-broke-will-legislate-for-food/


Here's the convo:


Anton J Razzmataz 

Those are horrible statistics. How about we control for production?? All these stats say is that a CEO in the US is more productive than a CEO in other countries... should that surprise anyone? I don't doubt that US CEOs are horrible people, but this table is straight up statistical gibberish. Let's control for things... one idea, how about benefits? i.e. how are they determining this metric "pay"...every good economist knows that "pay" is a generic term. If stuff is so bad for South African and Mexican workers, why is it we have an overwhelming amount of people coming IN to the US?

Sam Westbrook ‎300,000 mexicans just went back because the situation is that much better down there. and are CEO's in this country really that much more productive? What have they produced other than more wealth for themselves? meanwhile driving the average worker in the dust.


Long Tom Outtgun Dear Anton, Are you seriously that stupid, or do you just come off that way in print? Sincerely, Another Concerned Citizen


Daniel Castello 

This Anton guy needs to actually understand economics and capitalism before talking about what CEO's production rate is. I agree with Long Tom. Additionally, mass production of American goods is largely subsidized and outsourced abroad. Statements like "why are mexican and south African workers coming IN to our country" are so ignorant. Buy a plane ticket, explore the world and leave your bubble, you might gain some perspective.

Anton J Razzmataz 

Stepping aside from ad hominem (Long Tom), let me make my points a little better. First, I get that 300,000 Mexicans went back. But, that's a factor of high unemployment here--if I had my way, we'd have open borders and no minimum wage.This wouldn't result in Mexicans, Africans, or any other -ans going back. And, I understand enough economics and capitalism to know I don't understand anything--which is the mistake that most people make when they talk about economics. My point is that these are shitty stats... the points on controlling for production/productivity go like this: how about we run some regressions against things like GDP, PPP, and other metrics that might give insights into why the rates of pay could be so divergent. Now, I'm too lazy to actually do this because I have other shit to do (which may be the excuse for not doing it in the first place). And again to the point of Africans or Mexicans coming in our country... it's not ignorant, it's a fact. And, this fact would be even more poignant if we did the right thing and let more people in with less barriers to entry. Having seen some interesting places in the world I can say that people come here for good reason--we have a great country!

Anton J Razzmataz 

And Daniel, I'm talking about labor production more than anything... but I threw GDP out there because most people don't know much about the Marginal Value of Product (MVP) and I'm not smart enough to know how we could use that to control for these stats anyway... but I'll be thinking about it. My argument is that an average CEO in the U.S. has a higher Marginal Physical Product than an average CEO in the rest of the world. Why would this be? Perhaps having the insight to recognize that the world is flat... and so, outsourcing becomes another reason to look at these figures with more scrutiny. At the end of the day if we sat around and talked about this, we'd probably all come to some level of agreement. I really believe it's a matter of lying about Bayesian priors that we often find ourselves disagreeing (see Robin Hanson).

Long Tom Outtgun 

Anton ... this is a table of RATIOS ... comparing the pay of the average worker to that of a CEO ... the "1" could be dollars, it could be chickens, it could be Moons of Alderaan for that matter ... therefore, for every one "Moon of Alderaan" a US employee makes, an american CEO makes, essentially, a whole solar system ... This has nothing to do with GDP or outsorcing or immigration or anything else you mention ... it has EVERYTHING to do with the grossly un-equal distribution of wealth seen in the US compared to other standards globally ... How long would it take for you to save up for a car? A CEO can buy one every week, still pay his bills AND go out drinking with his buddies. Wake up.

Daniel Castello Yeah, what he said

Daniel Castello lol, I love how Facebook and other public digital forums, have allowed people to speak so passionately without the fear of inadequacy or judgement. And Sam, see at you picture prompted?! I like it a lot


Sam Westbrook 

as do i my friend/s. i love that we finally have a place where these discussions can happen. Quite frankly if fb didn't exist i'm not sure Occupy _____ would've gained so much ground. Lord knows the media's total disinterest in the subject was starting to get a bit disconcerting. It took two weeks for even the slightest mention of it to make it to the mainstream media. Rediculous. So long and short. thank you fb, for everything.

Sam Westbrook and by the way. i want to get paid in moons of Alderaan.

Anton J Razzmataz 

This msg is going direct to my buddy, Long Tom: I fail to see how this table proves anything about income inequality... Hypothetically, if the average CEO in the US works two times as hard as other CEOs in the world (we could consider analyzing his/her productivity), wouldn't you expect figures such as these? The figures would only say that this marginal CEO is more productive relative to a common ground of the average productive workers in a society (which ISN'T a very good metric to compare against anyway)...I'm willing to submit to your point that this may just be just a "table of ratios" meant to highlight the uncomfortable notion that there is a lot of income inequality (it certainly isn't science.. I mean, are you really claiming that 1 avg worker = 1 avg worker (regardless of where they live)?? --no, workers also vary in their skills--esp. across borders)... Anyway, if the question is: "Is the inequality higher in this country than in other countries?" ...Let me agree; but, that says NOTHING about why that inequality exists. You can't go from "the country has income inequality" to concluding that that inequality is a function of being a CEO. Why not? Well, for one, there is the function of being a lazy ass worker that can also be a factor in this view of income inequality (remember, 1 avg worker != 1 avg worker). So, this isn't really an argument about what's causing the inequality, which would be a more productive argument than what we're doing here... I'd be happy to move to that subject if you want... but, even then,you'll find me arguing that income inequality is better than trying to ensure everyone gets paid the same wage... Capitalism may not work, but it's better than any other system that's been tried. What are your suggestions? You're good at tearing people's arguments down (well, you seem to like doing it, anyhow); however, what do you have to add to the conversation? CEO's get paid too much?? You want more pay?? You want poor people to have some of rich people's money?? Why not work towards raising everyone's pay... even if it means the rich get richer??

Long Tom Outtgun 

Bro? Seriously? Here: "1" is less than "475" ...therefore, inequal. Get it? And yes, this chart DOES seem to operate under the assumption that an ethiopian getting paid in keef is equal to a chinese getting paid in rice is equal to an american getting paid in Big Macs ... and for the record, this was never an argument about the how and why ... it was a simple table of ratios. All said and done, from what i understand, you agree that this "may" be a table of ratios, and that wage inequality is higher in the US than anywhere else. Good. That was the point. My point: Very little, if anything you said about this chart had ANY thing to do with the chart.

Anton J Razzmataz ‎12 to 475 **

Anton J Razzmataz 

Anyway, my only point is that the chart is misleading. It claims that there is direct correlation between being a CEO and income inequality. Here's a quote that I just heard, which I think sums up my points on CEOs: People seemed to like this on my personal profile, so I'll repost it here:

Apple's market cap: 353 billion, and people are leaving flowers and notes for Steve Jobs at Apple stores.

Bank of America's market cap: 62 billion, and people are marching on its offices in protest.

Capitalism- it can be done right, but most of you are doing it wrong.

Anton J Razzmataz ‎(I'm quoting Jodi Beggs, an economist at Harvard)

Anton J Razzmataz I wish I could explain this easier... OK... Check it out, I'm gonna do some quick excel shit and show you what I mean with numbers.


Anton J Razzmataz 

Here's an interesting finding... and this is after a few mins of messing around with different variables: If you take the U.S. out of the sample, the countries that have the highest CEO premiums tend towards having less companies in the Forbes top 100. Now, when you add the U.S., this trend reverses. So, the point is... even doing some basic statistical work with this table, we're not even sure that having a high CEO pay premium relative to each worker is a bad thing... it seems like for the countries other than the U.S. it is, but for the U.S. it isn't. So, my point is, these are misleading figures. It's misleading to have a table with CEO pay premiums listed, note that the U.S. is significantly higher than any other country, and conclude the U.S. is full of corporate fat cats living off of the little guys.. In fact, there is a lot more going on here... and if 10 mins of basic stats can give you an indication that there's more to the story, I'd suggest there's definitely more to the story.

Anton J Razzmataz The U.S. is definitely an outlier... Haha, I'll give you that. Now I just wonder why.




Now, trust me when I say the irony doesn't escape me that all of this conversation is occurring over Facebook... in fact, right after my last post I saw this:

This is essentially the point I'm trying to make.  Now, I'm going to post this blog link as a Facebook response so we can stop blowing up Sam's FB.  Besides, what better way to bring traffic to my blog??

Job-Hunting 2

So, while I shun trying to start a Job-Hunting company, I have decided to take on a lead roll as the President and Founding Member of George Mason University's College Veterans for Hire.

This opportunity will allow me to document my job-search history and the lessons learned and it will allow me to give back to student veterans, like myself.

I am looking forward to the opportunity to serve my fellow veteran job-hunters.

-Anton

Job-Hunting

The more and more I read about job-hunting,the more I am drawn to the idea of sharing my experiences with the world.  The question, from an economics standpoint, is basically one of cost-benefit analysis.  What are the costs of sharing my experiences versus the benefits?  

As it stands, it seems only fair that I should share my experiences with other individuals as I have been met with some very friendly help on sites such as LinkedIn and the Actuarial Outpost.  I think the conclusion that I've come to is that, as long as I can help other people in their job search, I will most likely be helping myself.  

This point makes me think, once again, about the fact that true altruism may not actually exist... but, for now... I'll just do what feels right.

Going Postal with Partnerships

I was in Rite Aid the other day and noticed something that, in my opinion, is nothing other than straight genius:

The U.S. Postal Service doing something smart, say what??  It probably wouldn't shock people that even quasi private companies enter into partnerships to gain market share; however, at a time when we're all wondering what's gonna happen to this Dino, it's nice to see some cool ideas coming out.



I guess the key question is:  which company brought the idea forward?

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Live-8 Treats Africans Like Children. The West Assumes a Parental Role.

After reading through Bill Easterly's "The White Man's Burden," I am contented to say that perhaps Americans are misled into thinking that we have the power to help the world through top-down economic planning.

Even something as simple as Live 8, in the eyes of educated Africans, seems to be indicative of the West's inability to be humbled by the notion that people tend to want to help themselves.

The following quote by Cameroonian lawyer and journalist Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme, referred to in Easterly's book, comes from a 2005 NY Times OP-ED Column:

"But the truth is that it was not for us, for Africa, that the musicians at Live 8 were singing; it was to amuse the crowds and to clear their own consciences, and whether they realized it or not, to reinforce dictatorships. They still believe us to be like children that they must save, as if we don't realize ourselves what the source of our problems is."

The point is, perhaps we should be pushing for bottom-up movement as opposed to top-down planning. It's not up to the West to take care of Africa's problems; however, it might be in our interest to try to understand the source of those problems before we start trying to help.