Mathematical Malpractice Watch: Et Tu, Reason?

Oh, no, not you, Best Magazine on the Planet:

The growth of federal regulations over the past six decades has cut U.S. economic growth by an average of 2 percentage points per year, according to a new study in the Journal of Economic Growth. As a result, the average American household receives about $277,000 less annually than it would have gotten in the absence of six decades of accumulated regulations—a median household income of $330,000 instead of the $53,000 we get now.

You know, I hate it when people play games with numbers and I won’t put up with it from my side. I agree with Reason’s general point that we are over-regulated and badly regulated and that it is hurting our economy. Even the most conservative estimates indicate that bad regulation is sucking hundreds of billions out of the economy — and that’s accounting for the positive effects of regulation.

But the claim that we would be four times richer if it weren’t for regulation is garbage. As Bailey notes in the article, the growth in the US economy over the last half century has been about 3.2 percent. Without regulation, according to this study, it would have been 5.2, which is far higher than the US has ever had over any extended period of time, even before the progressive era. And because that wild over-estimate is exponential, it results in an economy that would be four times what we have now; four times what any large country would have now. The hypothetical US would be as wealthy, relative the real US, as the real US is to Serbia. Does anyone really think that without regulation we would be producing four times as much goods and services?

Even if we assume that we could produce an ideally regulated society, regulation is not the only limit on the economy. Other factors — birth rate, immigration, war, business cycles, education, technological progress, social unrest and the economic success of other countries — play a factor. A perfectly regulated society would most likely move from a position where its growth was limited by regulation to a position where its growth was limited by other factors (assuming this is not already the case)

The paper is very long and complicated so I can’t dissect where their economic model goes wrong. But I will point out that no country in history, including the United States, has ever had half a century of 5% economic growth. Even countries with far less regulation and far more economic freedom than we have do not show the kind of explosive growth they project. In the absence of any real-life example showing that regulatory restraint can produce this kind of growth, we can’t accept numbers that are so ridiculous.

Other studies, as Reason notes, estimate the impact of regulation as being something like 10-20% of our economy. That would require that regulation knock down our economic growth by 0.3% per year, which seems much more reasonable.

(H/T: Maggie McNeill, although she might not like where I went with this one.)

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is, if nothing else, ambitious. Clocking in at just under three hours, it actually earns that length (unlike a lot of recent bloated movies) because it tells six related stories spanning a time of half a millenium, ranging from a 19th century slaving ship to a 24th century post-apocalyptic tale. It uses a small group of actors to play multiple roles in the various stories and the tagline is that all these stories are connected.

I liked Cloud Atlas quite a bit and intend to watch it again. In time, I may grow to love it. But, for right now, I admire it more than like it. I feel it falls just a bit short of its lofty ambitions.

The biggest problem is that the connections between the six stories seem kind of weak. My understanding is that the book has nested stories, where each one is being read or watched by those in the next story, so that it becomes a story within a story within, etc. six times. The movie seems to be trying to do something grander and more imaginative: have the stories play off of each other or feed each other in a karmic sense so that we feel we are seeing the same souls interact as they try to reach a glimmering future. But … and maybe I need to watch it again … I felt the connections were between the stories were tenuous at best. Doona Bae and Jim Sturgess are lovers in three of the stories, but this isn’t really revealed until the end. Tom Hanks and Halle Berry only interact in two of the stories and their connection seems tenuous. The birthmark seems to link the six protaganists — Adam, Robert, Luisa, Timothy, Sonmi and Zachry. But their stories are different and the six actors who play them don’t seem to be playing reincarnations of the same character. The over-arching plot doesn’t seem to have the resolution and catharsis that the eloquent voice-overs promise. So, in the end, this seems less like six interconnected stories spanning 500 years than six stories juxtaposed together. I felt like one more pass through the script might have tightened those connections and made a much more emotionally deep picture.

However, although the film’s reach exceeds its grasp, it’s still a very good movie and at least it’s reaching. All six of the stories are compelling in some way. Reading through the reviews, I’ve noticed that the critics always napalm or praise different segments, never the same ones. That’s probably because all six works pretty well. Even when the script is a bit weak (the Luisa Rey sequence), the acting and directing carry it. And when the story is strong — Sonmi 451, the Pacific Crossing and Sloosha’s Crossing were my favorites — it’s very good.

All three directors do a fine job: the film is always visually and narratively compelling. The acting is strong, even if the makeup that allows the actors to change races and genders isn’t always up to par. But it is rarely outstanding. It’s fun to watch the actors slip in and out of roles (although that muddies the supposed karmic connections between the stories). And watching Hugh Grant and Hugo Waving slither through six villains is a treat. But no performance in the film really grabbed me as particularly inspired.

As has become par for the Wachowskis, there are many striking visual images: Luisa’s dizzying plunge into the river, the Abbess’s eyes changing color, the chase of Sonmi and Hae-Joo. Thankfully, the visuals are mated to good stories and good acting, so they never grow tiresome.

So, overall, a good film. Maybe, in time, a very good one. But it falls just short of greatness for me, so I have to give it an 8/10. It will probably rank as one of my Best of 2012 in the post I’ll cook up over the next few days.

You know what excited me most about Cloud Atlas, though? It hints that the Wachowskis have at least one more great film in them. The Matrix is a great film, of course. Its sequels are a bit disappointing but have their moments. V for Vendetta is a visually excellent film and has a strong narrative. Speed Racer was a commercial and critical flop that I have yet to see. But Atlas hints that they have something great in them, that their talent for visual flair an imaginative ideas is going to come together into something really jaw-dropping in the near future. Maybe it will be Jupiter Ascending. Or maybe Jupiter will stink and we’ll have to wait ten years for it. But I think there’s greatness there. And perhaps Cloud Atlas is where we’ll say we first saw it.

Saturday Linkorama

  • This visualization of the Right of Spring is seriously seriously cool. Seeing the music like that, you start hearing the subtleties that elude you when you just hear it. This is one of the reasons I like to see classical music in performance. There is so much more going on than the ear can take in.
  • This map of linguistic divides in the United States, is something I could spend an entire post on. I match most of the pronunciations from Georgia except for “lawyer” and “pajamas”.
  • This story, about charities that just exist to raise money, should be getting national attention. It’s a disgrace.
  • I’ve used some of these.
  • Roman concrete was apparently better than the shit we’re using.
  • I think this is more or less true: the financial industry has stopped being about enabling economic progress and more about itself. When engineers can make more moving piles of money around than inventing things, we’ve got a problem.
  • Teenage boys killed the sex scene.
  • There’s Vitamins and then There’s Vitamins

    Note from Mike: I recently tweeted an NYT story that claims deleterious health effects from consuming too many vitamins with the note that I thought it likely people were gobbling too many pills. My wife decided the article merited a response.

    This NYT article on vitamins contained a few scientific issues that I feel the need to respond to. Unfortunately, the NYT didn’t allow opinions to be expressed so you will have to endure my ranting and raving.

    The article provides details about published studies, two of which are published in The New England Journal of Medicine, that claim deleterious effects from excessive vitamin consumption. These studies show that those that took Vitamin A or beta carotene (Vitamin K) supplements were more likely to die from lung cancer or heart disease compared to those who didn’t. The article also lists other studies showing a correlation between taking Vitamin A, E, beta carotene (Vitamin K), Vitamin C and selenium supplements and mortality. The author then goes on the say the link between mortality and the vitamins ingested are antioxidants.

    I cannot agree with this conclusion as this conflates fat soluble vitamins and water soluble vitamins and minerals. Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat soluble meaning any excess taken in the diet is stored in the fat of an individual and the body can’t regulate these nearly as well as the water soluble ones. Selenium is water soluble, as are the Vitamins B and C. An excess of a water soluble vitamin or mineral is removed in the urine by the body. I can therefore see the disease and mortality states arising from fat soluble vitamins. But I am concerned that the studies showing consuming the water soluble vitamins plus Vitamin C and selenium came to the wrong conclusion. It may be a case of guilt by association with the fat soluble vitamins. Have any studies looked at water soluble vitamins in isolation?

    I worry about this because there are benefits to high vitamin levels for certain conditions. The third paragraph claims:

    Nutrition experts argue that people need only the recommended daily allowance — the amount of vitamins found in a routine diet. Vitamin manufacturers argue that a regular diet doesn’t contain enough vitamins, and that more is better.

    Up until I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), I would have subscribed to the nutrition experts’ opinion as well. But after turning my research interests towards the genetic underpinnings of MS (I am a medical geneticist), I quickly uncovered how vital Vitamin D is in the management of the relapse-remitting disease. I even tried getting out in the sun in the summer and turned to tanning beds in the winter to maximize my body producing enough Vitamin D to manage my MS without resorting to Vitamin D supplements. After many flare ups over a two to three year period, the last of which put me in a wheelchair in the summer time, my Vitamin D level came back each time as below optimal levels. For this reason, I now take four times the FDA recommended level of Vitamin D in a supplement form to help manage my MS. Over the past year of doing this, I can report, my MS is well managed without any flare ups. For this reason, I think that the levels listed on the recommended daily allowance are not adequate for people with medical conditions needing additional supplements.

    I consume a prescription strength dose of folate, vitamin B12 and Vitamin B6 for overcoming the chance of a miscarriage while I carry my second child. After three miscarriages, I was recently diagnosed as being a carrier of a gene known to be involved with miscarriages as well as migraines, cardiovascular disease and other disorders. To overcome this reduced gene function, more Vitamin B is needed to reduce homocysteine levels in the body. Since Vitamin B is a water soluble vitamin, I am also supplementing it with the consumption of spinach, which does not contain much Vitamin B12 or Vitamin B6, just folic acid (folate). Since my taste for spinach is waning, I rely on the supplement strength pill for these additional vitamins as I know my body can self regulate the concentration of these vitamins without much harm to the baby. Similarly, my husband also has the same genetic abnormality and suffers from migraines. To treat this disease, we buy an over the counter Vitamin B supplement for his symptom management at not much cost to us versus the prescription strength pill that I take.

    This is why calling on the FDA to better regulate vitamin supplement sales makes me a bit nervous. If the FDA becomes involved in this fight, I worry that the ability to self regulate symptom management for diseases and disorders may be impaired. Tighter regulation of the fat soluble vitamins may be justified. But it is not obvious that tighter regulation of water soluble vitamins is.