Perverse Incentives Are Endemic (TM)
Posted by Marc Hodak on May 9, 2008 under Politics | 
2 Comments to Read
This is about the ffffunniest thing I have ever seen.
Warning: If you’re squeamish about language, you’ll still laugh your a** off, but you won’t feel good about it.
via Perrin
Posted by Marc Hodak on May 8, 2008 under Self-promotion | Comments are off for this article
That was the working title for this article that I just published in Forbes. Another possible title was “Defending Outrageous CEO Pay.” Anyway, it appears in their special report on Competition. Dissenting mail (not quite hate mail) has already started rolling in.
Posted by Marc Hodak on under Scandal | Read the First Comment
This from a recent BBC report
Mr Fritzl reportedly criticised media-coverage of his case as “totally one-sided”, and added that he was “not a monster”.
I don’t doubt that the reporting has been one-sided, given my research into how the media exploits scandals. But how one-sided is the statement that, “He has, however, admitted holding Elisabeth captive and repeatedly raping her.” Over 24 years. And what is the other side of his story, the side that points out his humanity? Referring to his captive daughter/grandaughter’s severe illness that required hospitalization:
“Without me [she] would not be alive anymore… I was the one who made sure that she was taken to a hospital,” Mr Fritzl said.“I could have killed all of them – then nothing would have happened. No-one would have ever known about it,” he added.
I don’t know if “monster” is the right word, but in this case I would consider that a fine semantic distinction, not a fundamental issue of media bias.
Fritzl’s attempt at defending his humanity strongly reminded me of the following quote attributed to another man captured just a few miles from Fritzl’s home:
My name is Franz Ziereis, born 1903 in Munich, where my mother and brothers and sisters are still living. I, myself, am not a wicked man…
In the same note, here is his description of the prison that he commanded.
The inmates had to haul stones until they collapsed, then they were shot and their record was annotated “Trying to escape”. On 30 April 33, inmates of the camp office were ordered to assemble the court yard. There they were shot like wild animals by SS Oberscharfuehrer Niedermeyer and the Gestapoagent Polaska. Altogether, as far as I know, 65,000 inmates were murdered in Mauthausen. In most cases, I myself took part in the executions.
The theology of evil is a difficult, some might argue loaded, philosophical issue. But the psychology of evil is straightforward: apparently, nobody believes that they are a wicked person.
Posted by Marc Hodak on May 5, 2008 under Economics | Comments are off for this article
Barbara Corcoran wrote two books subtitled “…and other business lessons I learned from my mom.”
The lessons themselves are interesting and useful, but Corcoran, who boasts straight D’s in high school and college demonstrated that there were some important economics lessons that were missing or forgotten. The other morning on the Today Show, she gave her take on the current crisis of foreclosures: the big financial institutions lured poor suckers to buy homes they couldn’t afford in order to make a buck, and the government wasn’t doing enough to help these poor people. Some of you might recall that real estate brokers were involved somewhere in the this process…hmm, what was that? Oh, yea brokering the transactions. Hey, Corcoran is a broker!
Apparently, one of the lessons her mom taught her was, “always cast blame in every direction but yours.”
Corcoran established her credibility on economics, as it were, beginning in November 2005, when she was pooh-poohing economists who were warning about the unsustainability of the housing boom:
It’s funny what’s happening right now – there’s so much uncertainty in the market, and everybody’s been spooked by all the media coverage that’s out there that it really is a great time to buy. It’s a great opportunity right now, and I don’t think it’s going to last very long…This ‘bubble babble’ is baloney, and it’s scaring people away and making buyers “think about it”, and while they’re “thinking about it”, the house prices are going to go up, and I truly believe that.
By next Fall, Corcoran was singing a different tune…about why people should be buying:
If you look at the actual sale prices, the deals that are happening now, prices have already come down, and they’ve come down by a lot.
Another lesson she learned was, “It’s OK to mislead your customers in order to make a sale.”
Posted by Marc Hodak on May 4, 2008 under Politics | 2 Comments to Read
“Polls show voters favor Democrats on most issues except the war on terrorism.”
That means that I am probably on the opposite side of the average American voter on every single issue .
