Merry Christmas to all!.
First, I wish to say I’m sorry for the long-winded response below but others outside FR read my posts here. I have successfully observed the trend in the US Dollar against other currencies which I published and also the trend in emerging domestic oil production which for years I have published to a group. Many members of this group didn’t believe my early reports on a number of emerging trends but now give me credibility; I’ve done better since I removed all opinion from analysis but my trends can reverse without explanation or with a deluge of explanations none of which are actually genuinely causal. All I do is detect long-term trends by statistical test. In politics I don’t try to rationalize people’s motives or principles; I just watch their ability to attract others and then count the number of converts, dropouts or decliners.
If you’re looking for ‘solutions’ as in permanent solutions, you will never find them. No person, no law, no ruling, nothing will offer a ‘permanent solution’. There are ideas but there are never complete solutions because these kinds of problems are usually intractable. Let’s agree that any so-called solution to anything is only temporal in nature.
What will happen is events will unfold, people will make judgments and settle for a time on some sort of agreement. Nothing is forever ‘solved’. It is said (and I believe it strongly) that in the end it matters not what a person did or what they said, it matters only how they made people feel.
While you’re thinking Article V is an exercise in futility, the COS project grows. This I believe will be a detectable trend confirmed by statistical test. It already appears marginally statistically significant using Cross Tabs Odds Ratios but the sample size is small; it could change.
I watch trends. I no longer look at logic or informed opinion to explain or rationalize prospective success for ‘new things’.
I have a PhD in Statistics from one of top 3 departments in the world. I am proud of that but also humble, never thinking it somehow makes me more worthy than any other human being because for me it was inborn talent that I was responsible to develop and use for the benefit of others. So I know a little but about analysis.
Part of my dissertation was a mathematical statistics adaptation of Kurt Gödel’s work on completeness-incompleteness, the philosophy of the human intellect that Einstein was so enamored with that he chose to be Gödel’s close friend at Princeton. And in connection with my field of research I was an invited fellow at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague where mathematical philosophers were and are still carrying on extensions of Gödel’s work. The whole field was and still is embraced by major software companies for application of AI or Artifical Intelligence, creating contextual constructs for computers/robots to think and rationalize. I know it all sounds impressive but I will get to why I bring it up.
It served me well as I interacted and worked with computer-information-analytics startups as a consultant while continuing to work in Academia. In early 1995 one of those startups offered me a contract job as ‘Employee Number 8’. I turned it down and told my colleagues I thought it was a fly-by-night company that had no chance of surviving in the commercial world. And my reasons for turning it down were based on some sound principles and logical extensions. That company’s name was Amazon. One of my students took their offer as ‘Employee Number 17’. His stock options enabled him to retire at age 35.
So I was humbled as I began to understand after seeing so many promising ‘sure thing’ technologies, activities and new ideas that would end in abject commercial failure while many unlikely things would take off successfully without warning or rational explanation. I learned that my evaluation of ‘new things’ should not be based on anything personal or subjective but simply on the informational capture method and detectable trend. Of course knowing of mathematical philosophical paradoxes helped me to avoid and to help others avoid and not waste time on flawed inferences (predictions). The key was not to think so much about rationalizing the information, not to read too much into it; just observe (sample) and see (test) if there is a detectable trend (signal) or a flat line of noise (no signal).
It all sounds so impressive but in all of my experience what I learned is that a great percentage of what we think, say and do with regards to ‘new things’ is wrong. Our dogs are better with their senses at detecting what’s coming than we are when we allow ourselves to debate it.
We try to engineer procedural processes and outcomes but our judgment is relatively feeble even for the most exalted among us. Gödel’s incompleteness theory demonstrated we are practically doomed for perfecting any system of laws (physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, judicial matters, political matters, etc,) as to be incomplete meaning unable to predict, unable to capture all reality by deriving it from laws. Einstein had embarked on a Grand Unified Theory and failed because his theory was always incomplete; it could not capture certain counterexamples which always seemed to pop up and frustrate. Computer theory scientists spend a lot of time on analyzing whether a proposed theoretical algorithm is NP, NP-Hard, NP-Incomplete etc. to avoid spinning one’s wheels. It’s one thing to have a ‘solution’ in theory; it’s another thing altogether if any algorithm for that solution takes forever to execute which means it’s never a solution to begin with in reality. It’s good to know such things ahead of time so as not to waste time.
Two tautologies that all of us can rely on are:
1) “All models are false, some are useful”
2) “The trend is your friend”
So for politics I follow trends and avoid modeling (predicting) based on opinion no matter how astute or objective I try to be. Because all manner of irrational behaviors get thrown into the mix when it comes to politics, and there is no way to neatly set up categories and make a fair inference (prediction). Politics is generally intractable.
When looking back with 20/20 hindsight there are always a few things we see that were there all along but we couldn’t detect them because of personal biases (choice) or lack of information (ignorance).
What I see happening ... is a government culture around the Beltway (where I grew up and still have relatives) trending its mindset into a broader sense of entitlement punctuated by crass selfishness and greed. Such human traits have always been present in politics but it is the growing degree of their acceptance and adaptation that makes a detectable trend. The trend is that those inside the Washington DC fortress shield themselves and strive to erect controls and mechanisms that reinforce their shield. We’ve heard it all before “Washington is out of touch”, “Politicians are liars” etc. The trend is towards more and more Federal Government Isolation, a veritable us and them situation (I coined the phrase “Us Vs. Them” on the Michael Medved show years and years ago).
So Federal Government is “Trending” away from the people that empower it to govern because it doesn’t need them anymore; not so much.
The Federal Government no longer needs the taxpayer. The notion of a budget is becoming obsolete, Funds are created digitally to channel through bond markets from Central Bank sources to monetize government debt (this is new as of about 2008); tax revenues are a throwback to an earlier era now serving to keep society snowed under (mark time; keep ‘em busy). Tax enforcement is now a political weapon. Getting away with breaking laws is a function of how clever one’s lawyers are at making up narratives that appear plausible and legal as well as how many judges are controlled as well as how many players on committees and board rooms are controlled as well as how many advocates one has in the media.
The bottom line is the taxpayer is irrelevant. The non-fortress dwellers, the taxpayers (collectively the outsiders) no longer have genuine representation inside the fortress.
Voters react by exercising their vote but their choices at the ballot box most often derive from a menu crafted by the insiders; “vote for A or B, both are our guys. Voters are allowed to have their temper tantrums, but it doesn’t much matter as emotions are here today, gone tomorrow. The Tea Party primary challenges caught insiders off guard for a time but the comeback reaction has been to lie and cheat more potently; winning is everything.
All of this nastiness in politics is nothing new. It’s always existed. What is different now is that taxpayers no longer matter and Congress is no longer an effective representational body.
A first detectable trend is:
1) Federal Government is growing in size and growing more isolated at an increasing rate. The trend is confirmed by myriad measures ranging from gross expenditures to how many mismatches exist in vote pledges vs. actual votes.
We all know this; nothing surprising here. What is novel are the new ways that a growing backlash are being expressed against it.
Outsider backlash has manifested in such things as massive rallies and demonstrations of millions on the Mall and in local news (failed effect), of heated expressions and angst on talk-radio (so-so effect), court actions (so-so effect; mostly fail); voter waves (apparently successful but actually ineffective and irrelevant), attempted party take-over (fail). Many of these are just gut-level reactions. New faces are quickly frustrated, allowed to vent but it doesn’t matter except for possible entertainment value. The trend result in these efforts are mostly crash and burn (fail).
All this failure and so-so performance was observed by a few well-respected and serious persons. One of their proposed ‘solutions’ was to seriously explore (meaning money or time on the table) the creation of an Article V project now known as the Convention of States (COS) project.
Is it successful? No. Is it a failure? No. Is it disappearing? No. Is it growing? Yes.
A second detectable trend to be further tested is:
2) State Legislators interested in the COS Project are growing in number.
Will its growth affect a ‘solution’? Unknown. Some trends and movements have taken generations (for example, more than 50 years) to bear fruit. Looking back shows the key thing about them was their growing trend continued.
In an attempt to stop the Article V growth or movement, narratives executed by the media and selected personalities have thrown every imaginable monster at it and continue to sound out a relentless drumbeat of negative comments to scandalize it; same thing they’ve been doing to the ‘Tea Party’.
Article V ‘supporters’ have continued to grow. I didn’t say ‘grassroots; I said ‘supporters’. What’s the difference? The real supporters, the ones that count are the State Legislators. How many are we talking about?
http://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/number-of-legislators-and-length-of-terms.aspx
More than 7000 total.
There we see the surviving genuine representation of the People. Unfortunately for us it is powerless until it self-organizes and asserts Article V.
Try calling your State Rep or your State Senator and compare the experience with what you have with a staffer for your federal level Representative or US Senator. The difference is striking. Most people don’t even know who their State Rep or State Senator is. But when talking to them for the first time it’s like talking to a neighbor and it’s not surprising to hear that ‘neighbor’ will invite themselves over to meet you.
As to the assertion that “Many states are perfectly happy with the status quo and aren’t going to so much as lift a finger to change it”. Each state legislature is made up of people who comprise leaders and followers. Leaders are those that are ambitious and know how to wield power to whip the followers in a direction that the leaders want them to go. The Mid-Term Election last month is sending swarms of new Conservatives into State Legislatures. This is a ‘Sea Change’ in State Level politics. We need to wait and see if the new Conservative state leaders actually persuade their fellow state legislators to follow in their direction.
Now I am not saying you are wrong. You could very well be right. The evidence we need to look at is NOT the idea that State Legislators are “perfectly happy with the status quo”, we must look at the actual data events that are forming to determine a detectable TREND. A detectable trend is arguably the most important thing that should concern us here.
The COS is a growing trend that is on track to be confirmed or unconfirmed as real and substantial in the coming months. Its trend signal becomes more credible as it continues to grows.
Can it crash and burn? Yes, it’s possible.
Can it go the distance? Yes, it’s possible and looking more probable.
I’ll continue reviewing the COS trend and report results in March 2015.
Your observations regarding DC are spot on. We are not governed by fellow citizens, but ruled by a near permanent elitist class. Gruber isn't the exception; he is the rule.
Don't worry about Amazon. Starbucks won't go anywhere either. /s
As you point out, that is what most think of Article V.
It is comforting to know a statistician has noticed an Article V trend.
My experience with national v. state reps is identical to yours. Form letter response, if that, from national reps. Senators? Forget about it. OTOH, my state rep spent an hour with me at his local office and listened intently while I went on and on about Article V.
Most state reps/senators have private sector businesses. They know very well of the heavy hands from DC which push around their businesses and state government.
I hope you turn the last few paras of your post into a stand alone vanity. Freepers need to hear and be convinced we have recourse. IMO, we have two years at most, for the elites know of our movement, and will exert pressure behind the scenes to scuttle a convention.
I've recently backed off with vanity posts to FR and started writing letters to newspaper editors. One is the lefty newspaper of record in a state capital and university town. I'm three for three so far. I suspect I'm regarded as a token conservative, but that is no matter. I've received several supportive emails in response from people with .edu addresses.
Press on!!!
Gödel bump
ping
a post worth reading and remembering
Thanks for an excellent post.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you as well!
This is a fascinaring post and I thank you for taking the time to write it out. Indeed we will see whether a COS grows legs and your analysis will be welcome . Ultimately my argument against it is the extreme difficulty in getting 75% plus of the state legislatures to agree to ratify the end results. Or perhaps more accurately, getting 75% of the states ratify something that is worth having. So instead of winning a political fight once, you get to do it 38 times in succession to accomplish your desired end result.
There are a couple of points in your post I would like to address specifically. First, with regards to the beltway culture. No significant arguments with the observation, I would merely challenge you to extrapolate to the various legislatures. The loss of representation is not limited to the beltway.
Second, on your observation regarding monetization of the debt, again no real arguments with the observation, however occams razor comes to mind when considering potential responses.
Finally, with regards to solutions and their temporal narure. Again no real arguments with the observation. I would just suggest that they are not only temporal, they are highly dependent on perspective. Or said another way, one man’s solution is another man’s nightmare. Indeed, I think that the only great solitions, to the extent that those exist, are those that we personally implement ourselves. For example, what is really the better solution to the problem of high taxes? Using political means to reduce the tax rate on X, or to embark on a tax planning strategy that reduces my own taxes by a significant amount? I would argue that the latter is a more logical and beneficial approach. Further, I would argue that conservative politics has come to embrace approaches that are only concerned with the fate of the commons (i.e. Would be concerned solely with political means to reduce the tax rate on X ) rather than the fate of the individual.
In any case, thanks again for the insightful post. It was well worth the read.
Blast it. This is like an itch that won’t go away.
OK. If I.m getting this, you’re going to perform some sort of trend analysis on the state legislatures and their members. All 7000 as data points? Presumably looking for a statistically significant trend, at some sort of confidence interval.
A couple of questions: methodology for sampling? Absent a vote, I would think it difficult to pin down a number one way or the other and a vote is usually the end result of a process. You have to have a bill or resolution introduced, which for whatever reason might not happen (deadlines being a particular constraint that comes to mind, or leadership priorities)
Methodology for analysis? I’m not a statistician so I don’t understand in depth the plusses and minuses of the various distributions. I assume a standard normal distribution?
Thanks again (i think) for a provocative and insightful post.