For me, the real goal of the survey of economists was to give voters an appetite for useful and unbiased information, so you demand it in the future. I consider all of the criticisms of this survey to be steps in the right direction. That’s where the conversation should be, and not so much about lipstick and pigs. If your reaction to the survey was “That’s not enough information,” I call that progress. Demand more.

– Scott Adams

I observed an interesting pattern at the train stop this morning.

A message came up on the LED message board saying that the next inbound train to Boston would be arriving on the outbound track this morning. A few people noticed this and you could see the inner dialogs in their heads about whether they should trust the message and go over to the other side of the tracks. One person decided to tentatively trust it and went to the outbound track. Then a couple more people, myself included, went over as well. The gist of the small-talk overheard was “Sure, it says ‘outbound track’, but how often are these messages ever true?”

Now that there were a handful of people waiting on the outbound track, other brave souls started coming over too. Not long after, all the new people that arrived at the inbound track went directly to the outbound one without hesitating.

One can only conclude that seeing a large enough group of fellow passengers that decided to trust the message somehow gave it more validity. But the interesting thing is, the orginal few “leaders” had very strong doubts about going over. They didn’t know any better than the rest of the people, they just made a choice and went with it.

I think there are two lessons to be learned here:

1. If you want people to trust you, be consistently accurate in the messages you send out (unlike the MBTA).
2. Don’t blindly follow the crowd because, chances are, its leaders didn’t have any more of a clue than you do. Trust your own common sense.

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, writes:

This summer I found myself wishing someone would give voters useful and unbiased information about which candidate has the best plans for the economy.

Then I realized that I am someone, which is both inconvenient and expensive. So for once I asked not what my country could do for me.

Today he finally released the results of his survey of 500 economists regarding which presidential candidate would be better overall for the economy. You can read his commentary on CNN here: Dilbert guy’s economic poll on McCain, Obama (or see the detailed survey data or read his blog post).

I’ve been looking forward to these results for some time now. I’m a little surprised at the factors that the economists were polled on, though. When I think “economy,” I think “money.” And when I think “What are economists qualified to give advice on?” the answer is “economic issues.” The survey, however, looked at issues like education, environmental policy, energy, and health care. I guess these all have an impact on the economy, but my understanding of the term was always more along the lines of how Wikipedia defines it:

An economy is the realized social system of production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area.

So, based on that definition, let’s look at the questions that were asked by Adams’ survey where an economists’ opinion would be most valuable.

International trade

• Obama: 26%
• McCain: 51%
• No Difference: 23%

Mortgage/housing crisis

• Obama: 41%
• McCain: 18%
• No Difference: 41%

Reducing the deficit

• Obama: 37%
• McCain: 29%
• No Difference: 33%

Increasing taxes on wealthy

• Obama: 79%
• McCain: 14%
• No Difference: 7%

Overall, on average, that’s:

• Obama: 46%
• McCain: 28%
• No Difference: 26%

However, it’s questionable whether increasing taxes on the wealthy is a positive thing, so taking that out, we get:

• Obama: 35%
• McCain: 33%
• No Difference: 32%

Unfortunately, that seems too close to call. I guess I was hoping to have a more definitive answer regarding the economy from economists. This is pretty disappointing.

Something about this song really resonates with me. I think a lot of it has to do with the somewhat raw quality to the song. It sounds like a live performance (maybe it is, I don’t know) and there’s something just slightly off in the way the lyrics work with the music, which makes for an interesting sound.

As an aside, this embedding feature of Songza rocks!

Not unusual.

(Note: Hold your mouse over the image to view the notes.)

The treasures of my file cabinet, left by some unknown office worker long ago and only now excavated by me, armed with a new key to open the cabinet. Using the penny-dating technique, I place these contents somewhere between 1975 and 1992.