Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-11-2008

[andrewducker]

• 8 really, really scary predictions about the economy
  (tags: economics 2008 depression predictions)
• The digested read: The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling
  Very, very funny
  (tags: funny books harrypotter)
• Chinese girl gets 'kiss of deaf'
  The chorus of warnings was echoed by the Shanghai Daily, which wrote: "A strong kiss may cause an imbalance in the air pressure between two inner ears and lead to a broken ear drum."
  (tags: weird biology kissing)
• Man's genes 'key to baby's sex'
  Raar! My sperm have The Power!
  (tags: genetics gender)

Comments

[call-waiting.livejournal.com]

The odds, he said, would favour fathers with more sons - each carrying the "boy" gene - having a son return from war alive, compared with fathers who had more daughters, who might see their only son killed in action.

Good grief! What utter and complete statistical bollocks. I'd expect it of the BBC, but not from an original source.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

A thought occurs about those 'scary predictions'.

The value of an economist isn't in predicting whether or not a bubble is a bubble or whether or not it will crash. I don't know what it is, but it isn't that. Any idiot can see bubbles forming, it was obvious to a whole wack of people during the dot-com bubble, and it was obvious to a whole bunch of people during the housing bubble.

Also, tulips.

I mean, seriously, any idiot could order videos from Kozmo.com, along with laundry and grocery service, and realize that they weren't going to go anywhere, and that's what most of the dot-coms were!

But now I'm just complaining by rote, as I don't like seeing economists take hard stands on issues and advise people to do the sort of things that'll prevent the market from regaining confidence.

I should go into economics just to develop a branch of econ theory centered around the idea that we're just guessing what's going to happen.