Sunday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Why is Switzerland so peaceful?

2. Is there a white flight from football?

3. More on Dau, the Russian mega-film.

4. Most financial anomalies don’t replicate.

5. Are events the new magazines? (NYT)  A weird but interesting piece that just barely makes sense.

Comments

Jabob Harrington

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2. Ethics dumping without crossing borders

Anonymous

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What is ethics dumping?

Clarence

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2. Of course there is, more and more parents are unwilling to take the risk of CTE and other types of head trauma for the reward of an NFL contract. As the risk grows only those with "nothing to lose" will continue to pursue football, outside of QB, K & P a majority of positions are filled by black players.

Flanders

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"“I mean, it’s a dangerous sport and I think it’s, I, it’s really tough” if his son wanted to take up the game, Mr. Trump said in an interview with CBS "

Old Bone Spurs is truly a wimp.

EdR

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1. Because everyone has guns.

You don't mess around with someone with a gun.

Sure

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Particularly as the other option is chocolate for playing nice.

EdR

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Guns, Cheese, and Chocolate was the original title, but someone said, "nah, Germs and Steele". And so it went ...

MattW

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Yeah that's not why.

Dick the Butcher

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Yeah It's not only "good fences" and "assault rifles." Every able-bodied man is a soldier.

It's what Schweiz does not have. Switzerland has a seriously limited national government. No Baltimore. No Black Hebrew Israelite. No Chicago. No Chief Nevabin2VietNam. No CNN. No Deplorable. No Farrakhan. No MAGA hat. No Northam. No Obama. No Pelosi. No MPSNBC. No Schumer. No Sharpton. No Trump. No Washington Post. [. . . ]

trains

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Trump has guns. Everybody still messes him. It is the God given right of every American to mess with Trump.

EdR

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I read somewhere the deplorables have guns, and looong memories.

Red

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And shooort weiners

19 million Yemeni civilians without access to clean water and 14 million at risk of famine. But who gives a sh*t?

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Funny how the Swiss don't go on shooting sprees also...

clockwork_prior

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Except occasionally.

'The perpetrator of the 2013 mass shooting in the village of Daillon in southwestern Switzerland was declared not responsible for his actions due to his mental condition. Three people died and two were seriously injured when the gunman went on a shooting spree on the village streets.' https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/daillon-shooting_swiss-mass-shooter-declared-mentally-unsound/44362040

'The Zug massacre took place on 27 September 2001 in the city of Zug (Canton of Zug, Switzerland) in the canton's parliament. Friedrich Leibacher shot dead 14 people before killing himself.

In the years before the massacre, Leibacher drew attention to himself by an intense use of lawsuits. These were dismissed, so he assumed he was being persecuted by the state, thus he felt he had to resort to the crime. Leibacher was armed with a civilian version of a Stgw 90 (Swiss Army assault rifle), a SIG Sauer pistol, a pump-action shotgun, and a revolver, and he wore a homemade police vest. Leibacher was able to enter the parliament building without problem.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_massacre

EdR

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Hi anonamouse!

I heard the "Democrats for Yemen" are going to send the Yemenies care packages with birth control pills, a late term diy abortion kit, and diversity training on a DVD. It will work just great - it'll be like Baltimore or the South Side of Chicago, certainly an improvement.

LOL

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This is what this clown thinks advances discussion.

Dick the Butcher

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The Swiss have no shooting sprees because every able-bodied man is provided military discipline, organization, and training, and possesses an actual assault rifle, a combat load of ammunition, and multiple high-capacity magazines.

Oh, and they do not have 20,000 gun laws.

Scratching my head . . .

clockwork_prior

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'The Swiss have no shooting sprees because...'

.. you clearly pay no attention to actual Swiss shooting sprees, as noted above.

Barkley Rosser

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Dick,

Actually the Swiss do have lots of gun regulations, far more than we have in the US. For starters, handguns are all but forbidden. What Swiss males who served in the military (most of them, but not all) is a rifle that is supposed to be locked up ans also under a variety of tight restrictions. And in the end they also have less than half as many guns per capita as we have in the US. It is quite a different situation.

Dick the Butcher

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Thanks for the optimistic remarks. America's 300+ million guns and eight trillion bullets ought to be sufficient.

Really?

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So....repeal the 2nd?

RW Force

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"And we don't get bullets any more," he adds. "The Army doesn't give ammunition now - it's all kept in a central arsenal." This measure was introduced by Switzerland's Federal Council in 2007.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912

rayward

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4. Of course not. I recall the financial markets valuation of medical practices in the 1990s. That was the era of practice management companies (PMCs), which would sell their stock at multiples of 20 to 30 in the public markets, and then purchase medical practices at multiples of 10 to 12. Arbitrage. That the business model was doomed to fail didn't seem to occur to the public markets or the management companies. Why was it doomed to fail? Pay a physician a large sum in cash and maybe he isn't interested in working 60 hours a week, and encumber a physician practice with a long term management contract and maybe young physicians might not be interested in working there. Duh. Was that a financial anomaly? This worship of markets is stupid.

Larry Siegel

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Not every business model is a good idea. Who knew?

I'll stick with markets as the way to figure out which ones are.

EdR

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1. Guns in Switzerland:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Switzerland

Tony

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#1 Mountains, duh.

Bob Barker

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We have a winner!

poor & ignorant

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What does it mean to "barely make sense". It's sense on a spectrum? What about the common variety?

Axa

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Did you read the link? There are differences among: a) owning a gun, b) buying ammo, c) carrying a loaded gun.

Try open carry for once in Switzerland, then share the experience.

Willitts

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In Switzerland, 2011

https://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/gun-in-apple-store-e1313083204877.jpg

Anon7

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1. Build a wall...err...mountain!

Also, as noted in the older story about the animal rights activist who disliked cowbells, local residents have a veto on admitting disruptive newcomers.

Taeyoung

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I think the veto on disruptive newcomers is probably a really, really important part of the story, although physical segregation ("geographic arrangement") of the different populations is also part of it. I think the ability to eject disruptive foreigners is a big part of why Japan is so peaceful too -- they're not shy about kicking out foreigners who don't want to adapt (or literally paying them to go away and never come back).

mkt42

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Disruptive foreigners are the problem? The why was Russia convulsed with revolution and war (unless we consider Lenin to be a foreigner)? The ancient Greek city-states (not counting Persian meddling, which was indeed disruptive foreign intervention) also had no problem fighting with each other.

Conversely Australia and Canada have high proportions of immigrants and peaceful societies.

anonymous

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4. Barry Ritholtz did an interview with a pioneer in algorithmic trading. He said newly discovered anomalies were exploitable for shorter and shorter windows as algorithmic competition increased. So, if my glance is correct, and this is talking about old, possibly aged, anomalies, no surprise. $100 bills are thin on the ground.

By the way, what do you think of these algorithmic exploits?

https://twitter.com/smartereveryday/status/1091833011262423040?s=19

mkt42

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Yep, we'd expect anomalies, once discovered, to disappear.

I can only read the abstract, which does a poor job of conveying what the researchers are trying to say. I think they maybe are saying that even within the historical data, the alleged anomalies turn out not to be anomalies after all. But the abstract is annoyingly unclear to me.

Jonathan

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I have corresponded with the authors (from an earlier version that was linked here last year) about the arbitrage problem and the result doesn't go away when you stop the period at the time the article was published, according to the new paper. What they are doing is finding a uniform dataset and methodology on which to test published anomalies and many of the anomalies don't hold up... period. Ther are some interesting adjustments made for microcap stocks, whose anomalies, even if they exist, are probably not arbitrageable owing to liquidity constraints.

mkt42

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Okay that makes sense. Use better data and a better or at least uniform methodology to revisit alleged anomalies.

anonymous

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Do "commercial investigators" publish? Or do they keep using an algorithm until it falls below positive return?

I would think there is a strong disincentive for publication among active investors.

khalil

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7. Yes, barely coherent. I think the headline is a bit of a red herring. The piece is basically new agencies that provide 'talent' for branded content events. The connection to magazines might be that branded content events have -- in some people's minds -- replaced magazines.

Personally I don't think this is true from the consumer side. But from a content-production side there's some logic to it; people who used to work in magazines now work in branded content.

So, if you live in that particular bubble, it makes sense.

[I just spent way too much time thinking about that].

Millian

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Race politics, vetos on outsiders and guns, are hardly small steps toward a much better world.

Calvin Hobbes

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Yes, not small steps. Big steps toward a much better world for the Swiss.

Whereas importing millions from the turd world is terrible for the vast majority of Americans.

Ha!

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Take THAT brown people....oops, I mean brown almost-people!

in 16 words or less

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"White flight" is not politically correct.

If on reflection you think it is ....

Learn to code!

16 words or less

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Brothers Karamazov ---- unChristian because:

Dmitri's intense "aristocratic Christianity" - Jesus taught otherwise.

failure to accurately portray Grushenka

16 words or less

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investment advice -diversify into silver - now 15 - was near 50 circa most recent Davos-favorable inflection point

16 words or less

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Mozart's last 2 symphonies in C major were impressive.

But so were Sibelius's first 2.

Word.

16 words or less

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Those prayerful Hebrew words ....

wonderfully translated into English : "Shadow of a Great Rock" :

astonish, when understood.

Cheers!

Best in Hebrew, visuaized/heard/felt/.

16 words or less

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I Meant to Say: Cheers! cor ad cor loquitur .....

Veritas Pravalebit

16 words or less

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14 minutes into the fourth quarter, 10 point difference - two possession game ----
15 minutes : try again.

16 words or less

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Good news from the Bible:
We can make our plans but the Lord determines our steps.

16 words or less

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Sad: Lusitania, Halsey's Typhoon, Pueblo, Smith's Point Memorial ...

Not sad: prayerful Hope always triumphs ...

(I remember)

16 words or less

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Ramanujan, when asked what made him happy,
in his halting English,
didn't say Numbers.

(I remember).

16 words or less

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Jimi Hendrix remembered every good guitar riff he had ever heard

and always tried to improve

16 words or less

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one early Midwest morning , at a roadside stop, Bix played a few clear notes at dawn

16 words or less

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you can delete this but I am not a bot and I mean what I say!

16 words or less

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Good news from the Bible:
we can make our plans but the Lord determines our steps!

As for me, I usually don't really know what I am talking about and I am just trying to cheer someone up.

jorod

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1. No diversity.

GOP Man

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Islamic State doesn't have much diversity either. No wonder Trump supports making ISIS great again!

Willitts

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2. It's not about opportunity. It's about opportunity costs.

Willitts

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1. You mean insular, tightly knit, and ethnically homogeneous people get along better than disparate groups thrown together in tight spaces? Say it ain't so!

Jonfraz

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Er, the Swiss have be four national languages and are divided between Catholic and, Protestant, as division that was once Europe's bloodiest divide. They are not at all homogeneous.

Don't be naive

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He means white people.

Matt Young

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4. Most financial anomalies don’t replicate.

Most don't when they are innovations in a liquid market.

A few, outside of liquid markets, replicate with periodic regularity and hammer us nearly to bankruptcy. In particular, the change in political parties at the presidential level is a sure sign we will get hammered bad.

Ted Craig

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5. You might find it "weird" and that it "just barely makes sense," but this has been reality in all publishing for a few years now. In trade publishing, the magazines often exist in order for there to be a show.

Butler T. Reynolds

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#2 - If you really want to create opportunities for your son to break out of your economic situation, you can start by not naming him Marqwayvian. Before you call me names, note that middle, upper middle, and upper income A-A families do not name their kids things like Marqwayvian. With a name like that, A-As will judge your kid more harshly than anyone.

If you don't want to drive away middle and upper income kids from football, you can also quite playing crap like Drake during warm-ups. The idea is to motivate the players, but it makes the whole game atmosphere feel like a housing project. If you don't want middle and upper income flight, then don't scare them away.

If you say I'm being a bigot, then watch a Drake video first. Middle and upper income parents don't want their kids to associate with that kind of trash.

Anonymous

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I guarantee you 1000% middle and upper class kids also have Drake at warm-ups

Butler T. Reynolds

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...but much less likely and much more judiciously. But certainly not at soccer, hockey, and lacrosse matches, which is the point.

When your stadiums don't fill up, your community doesn't show up, and your booster clubs don't have volunteers and donors, well, enjoy the twerk-tunes.

Ccccccc

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What universe do you live in? Black musicians are popular across color lines and have been for generations. You are a deplorable person.

Dave Smith

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Regarding 2. Are sports really a driver of economic opportunity for lower class people? Surely someone has at least tried to measure that.

Butler T. Reynolds

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"Are sports really a driver of economic opportunity for lower class people?"

No, but the people who think so probably also buy lottery tickets.

Willitts

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Their warped perception is their reality.

On the other hand, how many Blacks become successful astrophysicists even with at least one prominent role model?

Barkley Rosser

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On the matter of peace in Switzerland, I think the paper is probably right that having these geographically well defined boundaries between groups has helped keep the peace, along with the substantial autonomy the cantons have in the face of the weak central government as noted by several here. Their guns have zero to do with it.

However, another special factor has to do with the specific nature of the groups in Switzerland, in particular that none of them had much support from an outside neighbor. This is especially important regarding the second largest group, the French. The last time there wa organized conflict in Switzerland several centuries ago, it was over religion, broadly Catholiciam versus Protestantism. The peculiarity is that whle in general in Europe Latin language speakers are Catholic while most Protestants are Germanic (with some Germanic speakers Catholic), the French Swiss are Proetestant, with in fact Geneva being the home of Jean Calvin and of the Calvinist Protestant sect. Given that at times in France there was suppression of Protestants by the central government, this meant that the French Swiss had no interest in being part of France, and given their much smaller numbers in comparison to the their mostly Catholic Germanic neighbotrs (some oddball Protestants among the SchwiezerDeutsh). there were several reasons for them not to press too hard with their largely religious wars with those neighbors and to come to an achievable and sustainable peace with them. As for the SchweizerDeutch, their dialect separates them from the Austrians who had previously tried to rule them, as well as the Germans in Germany, and having the Protestant French as their allies helped strengthen them agains unfriendly outsiders. As for the Italians and the much less numerous Romansch, who have no outside nation speaking their language, Italy did not become unified until the late 19th century, by which time the Swiss Italians were well satisfied being a part of well-off Switzerland and allowed their high level of llocal autonomy.

Calvin Hobbes

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That’s a very informative comment. Thanks.

My interpretation of your comment is that the Swiss may have been very lucky, with their internal and external environments causing them to unite against outsiders, rather than for Swiss factions to join with external allies against each other.

If we in America had any sense (which we don’t, at least collectively), we would have policies that cause us to become more united and focused on our common welfare.

Instead, we import problems and conflicts, and we promote the “identity politics” of different competing factions.

Barkley Rosser

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An addendum here is that the various Swiss-German dialects are so distinct that standard Hanoverian German is taught as a subject in Swiss schools.

I already mentioned this in regard to the Italian part of Switzerland, but it applies to the French and Germanic parts as well: that real per capita income is higher in Switzerland than any of its neighbors (well, not counting miniscule Liechtenstein) reduces the desire of any of the sub-parts to become part of any of the neighboring countries, thus further reinforcing the loosely structured national unity and harmony.

Hazel Meade

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In 20 years, McDonalds, football, and barbequing will all be considered "black" things. And yet some people will still think blacks aren't real Americans. How much beer do you have to drink on your deck while grilling hamburgers in a football jersey before people consider you an American?

RatInPutinsMaze

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Who's telling you blacks aren't "real" Americans? I don't see anyone saying that on this blog.

Hazel Meade

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I'm just messing with you today.

Butler T. Reynolds

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"And yet some people [that I've never actually met] will still think blacks aren't real Americans."

FTFY

Roadrunner

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2. They cite two majority white towns that dropped youth football, neither of which are majority white after factoring out hispanics.

I used to live in Ridgefield. Its a quarter korean, and a third hispanic. At the school level, its no more than one third white.

Part of the decrease in popularity of youth football is due to bringing in an immigrant population that has no love for it.

bob

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Immigrants, besides not having a love for football, are generally physically smaller, and hence unlikely to play.

mkt42

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Meaning white immigrants are smaller that white native-born? I haven't seen evidence of that.

Non-white immigrants include Pacific Islanders who are not only over-represented at the lineman positions but are now showing up at the skill positions notably quarterback: Mariota and Taigovailoa.

Granted, these Pacific Islanders do not contradict the white flight observation. It wouldn't surprise me if that observation is correct.

Asian immigrants, yeah probably smaller on average. Latino immigrants? Not clear to me that they're much smaller. Tony Gonzalez just got elected to the football hall of fame as a tight end; tackle Anthony Munoz is already there; Tom Flores was a finalist this year.

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