Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Sum Sum Sum Sum Sum Sum Summertime

I really don't get the argument that despite not really having the appropriate experience or temperament, we should support Summers because if he screws up and causes the world to blow up he's slightly more likely to push the Omega 13 button in order to go back and fix his mistakes.

...adding that I know that this isn't the argument Brad thinks he's making, but it's the argument he is making. Winding up in the "lower tail of the outcomes distribution" won't be due to some exogenous event, it'll be due to some endogenous one. Sure I suppose Europe could get swallowed up by a sinkhole, or be eaten by a giant badger, but otherwise bad events will happen, if they do, because the people in charge with the power from stopping them from happening didn't do their jobs.