bad news, club
 

I understand the impulse, but that's crazy. If the government decides to let planes fly into San Jose Airport after 8 p.m., must it compensate everyone in the flight path who has a plane fly overhead? Surely the value of their land is diminished.

And you're extending rights to propertyholders that they didn't even have at common law. The law of nuisance is all about restrictions on your land for the benefit of your neighbors. People have always accepted that you can't use your land in a way that hurts your neighbors.

And, re the post above, skeks is picking up the thread of an old conversation. His point, as I understand it, is that if the gains to the country of free trade are greater than the losses to some workers, why not compensate the later out of the gains to the former. Club seems to accepting that compensation is appropriate when it's propertyholders who receive it, but not when it's working men and women.

bad news, club
 

In order to buy into Skek's view, you have to essentially ignore macroeconomics. A treatise can be written on the subject, but as an example, what do you think happens to our exports in the absence of a free trade pact and who do you think ultimately pays the price?

I am accepting of compensation in the propertyholder context because propertyholders actually have a right that should be compensated. There is no right to earn a living, and certainly not at a particular wage. If one's services are no longer as valuable as in the past, why should they continue to be paid for them at the same price. It is a complete waste of resources.

Paying someone for the provision of services is based in contract (i.e., mutual agreement). The basis for compensating someone for taking their property has an entirely different basis that is not dependent on mutual agreement.





efs

bad news, club
 

This makes me think you're not seeing his point. Suppose that a particular free-trade pact with Chile will benefit the country as a whole to the tune of 12,000 utils, but will hurt workers in certain affected industries to the tune of 4,000 utils. Skeks is saying (I think), let's give those workers job training, etc., to the tune of 4,000 utils. Even after the tax to do that, the rest of us are still better off. We're all sharing the benefits. You've always said, no -- the workers can lump it.

There's no right to free trade. The Constitution does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics.

bad news, club
 

Every thing taken to its extreme is crazy. But I have read about developers who buy a piece of property and then the government decides that nothing can be built on it. Usually because of a lawsuit by an environmental group. Then the property becomes worthless. If the government decides that you cannot use your property it should have to purchase it. In other words, the government can purchase the property and then do nothing with it. There is a group called the nature conservatory that buys property and then lets it remain natural. They have bought most of Catalina Island. I have raised money for them. But Eminent domain can occur without the government actually physically taking title.

bad news, club
 

Before the New Deal the government did recognize some economic rights. However, there is no right to Free Trade, but trade restrictions are always stupid policy. In a capitalist society there is rapid market changes and people get hurt financially. That is just the way it is. What if through free trade we import a new drug that cures cancer. But what about all the domestic workers that live off the cancer industry. What about those workers that build chemotherapy machines. They should get compenstated correct? And exactly how long do we keep paying them to do nothing. Our economy is so intricately tied to the international trading system that it would be crazy to try and figure out who lost some "utils" with each new foreign product that came onto our shores.

One last thing. What makes those workers who just lost their jobs so special. What about other workers who never had a chance to get the highpaying manufacturing job in the first place. Or the worker that was never able to get a job where they got training. Just because a person obtains a job, that means they have a right to always have that same standard of living? The fair thing to do is to educated\ your workforce so they have the flexibility to change careers. Instead of the government picking which workers get special educational benefits you should just try and make the educational system for everyone the best possible.

bad news, club
 

I have far less of a problem with job retraining than I do with straight up benefits, which I thought is what he was suggesting.

I have no idea what you meant here.

Summers
 

So I don't think this has been discussed. Anyone actually think he was wrong?

Summers
 

Nice vague question. What exactly do you want to discuss? Was he wrong about what he hypothesized about? Was he wrong about the way he approached the subject? Was he wrong about the forum he chose in which to make his comments? Was he wrong about (as one commentator stated) "riffing off the top of his head" on the subject? Was he wrong about the way he handled the backlash?

aV

Summers
 

On which of the three hypotheses?

we see fewer women in science because:

1) discrimination
2) less willing to devote the necessary hours
3) "inate" differences.

bad news, club
 

Yes, we know about regulatory takings, but you're not really advancing it very well.

First off, oftimes the "developer" is buying a lawsuit, and they know it. They want to build some massive complex on previously low-impact-development land, and then sue. If anyone deserves compensation, it's the seller, for the reduced value of the land.

Second, it's not that they can't do anything with the land, it's that they can't build 75 mcmansions on 3500 sq.ft. lots.

Finally, do you have an issue with the standard of deprivation of all economically beneficial use for there to be a regulatory taking? Because I can see an argument that something short of that should qualify as a taking, but I don't know how you'd implement a workable test that's anything short of "all" or "nearly all".

bad news, club
 

Ty,

As I read it, you're arguing against a balancing test by positing an absolute -- that the government has the right to use emminent domain to benefit private citizens as long as the government determines there is a public benefit. What Club and I (boy, I don't type that much) are saying is that public benefit should be narrowly construed and should be something clearly available to the public at large.

Put a different way, the government might take my land and give it to you, because it would be a public benefit for you to have it to raise your pretty rosebushes on it, while in my hands the place looks like a dump with broken down cars out front and no paint for the last 10 years. Is that an appropriate use of emminent domain, if the only public benefit is the view from the street? What if the only public benefit is that you're a nice guy and I'm a pain in the ass? Should anyone, like a court, ever get to second guess the party in power on these issues?

It's all about the balance. I'd narrowly construe the power.

Summers
 

I'm not all that concerned with the merits, mainly, because the answer is probably currently outside our knowledge base. What bothers me is the the circling of the wagons of the thought police.

bad news, club
 

There's hope for you.

bad news, club
 

This, of course, bears no relationship to what happens in an eminent domain case. Government sets the price, and you can bear the cost of litigating or take the price. This lets the price be set low.

We interrupt this economics discussion for a cheap political shot.
 

For the liberal geeks among us:


Bumper sticker seen today on the hippie-dippie streets of Venice Beach:

FRODO FAILED
BUSH HAS THE RING


Unsurprisingly, its bearer* was a dirty, white VW Vanagon with vanity plates reading "SMEEGOL."

Carry on.





*The bumper sticker's, that is.

Summers
 

So then you're not really asking if others think that Summers was wrong. You're asking if others think that the reaction to his comments was wrong.

aV

Summers
 

I'm not asking if he was wrong on the substantive point. I'm asking whether he, as an academic, was wrong to openly consider what could possibly be true, as well as the reaction.

Summers
 

Isn't that to be expected? Summers had already pissed people off, and now it's time to pile on.

That said, I don't think the answer is necessarily outside possible knowledge. It's possible to design cross-subject and cross-cultural data to try to gain insight as to whether "inate" differences in the way minds work might be an explanation. But I would guess that some people don't want to see such a study, because they have an interest in the continuation of "antidiscrimination" policies.

Summers
 

In reading the transcript, he seemed to go beyond posing the question, and posited the answer, without any real support (the excerpt I read, IIRC, basically was "there are three possible reasons--it can't be discrim., because we've taken steps to root that out; it might be a bit hours, but we see women achieve succes in other fields, so that's probably not it; third is inate differences, and because the other explanations are out, this must be the dominant reason." Uh, yeah, that's logical reasoning.

We interrupt this economics discussion for a cheap political shot.
 

that makes Clinton Gollum or bilbo?

Summers
 

But how do you design around cultural/societal forces?

Summers
 

cross-cultural studies are a useful approach. For example, one might look at success rates of women becoming scientists in other cultures. If they differ, then perhaps culture is to explain. If they're the same, then perhaps it's inate differences. Or a universal culture. But one could at least take a first whack at the question.

Summers
 

You have to incorporate them into the design methodology and do cross-cutrual studies over a long time and many societies. I can guarantee that you're going to end up seeing a lot more women scientists in some cultures than others (not necessarily this one).

ETA:

You're also going to have to look at the way boys and girls are encouraged early on, and you're going to have to look at education methods.

Summers
 

Read the transcipt. Summers sat there arrogantly spewing unsupported prejudices in front of a group of intelligent and analytical scientists. This is what Harvard faculty do in front of students, but not what the President does in front of faculty.

ETA: I'm serious in this point. Institutionally, Summers has a very different role to play, and part of what he undermines is the idea that a standard of academic rigour ought to apply in an institution like Harvard. Granted, that standard has been worn down over the years (cf. the neo-cons for an example today), but he really just trashed it entirely.

Crazy Prediction
 

I have a crazy prediction to make based on flimsy evidence.

As women come into science more full force, they will begin making a disproportionate share of the significant new breakthroughs. This is based on my observations of my daughter and son, who think in very different ways about science and about how things work. The daughter is more often surprising to me in her perspective, thinking about something very differently than I (or my male, software engineer friends).

Men are very yesterday. Yes, for one reason or another, women think differently. But the way men think is played out and over-mined.

Summers
 

And at the end of the day, the results are going to be inconclusive. There are just far too many variables.

Personally, I think it is more of a matter of interest than anything else, but that may be affected by societal pressure as well.

Summers
 

The only way to say for sure is to raise kids in a society vacuum and see what happens, and I'm not sure you'd get IRB approval for that.

I do think that men and women think differently, and it'd probably be really interesting to see how that's impacted in their work. I deal with men and women scientists on a regular basis, and they're all a pain in the ass when you're trying to get them to be compliant.

Summers
 

“In the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong...”

The effing arrogant cad! Doesn't he know that we've already figured out the math gap in junior high?

Oh, wait, we haven't? . . . .

Crazy Prediction
 

You effing, arrogant cad!

(Um, this is basically what Summers said.)

Summers
 

I agree -- also, I think that people overlook that when they say things like "women don't conceptualize math the same way as men" that there's a continuum, and that there are going to be individual women who conceptualize math the way an average male does, and that there are going to be individual men who conceptualize math the way the average woman does.

While the Summers stuff was still big in the news, I happened to grab a very very old Newsweek to read at lunch and it had a (couple? few?) piece(s) on how looking at brain waves and the differing abilities of men and women to figure out stuff like spatial relations vs. what people's feelings are by looking at a picture of just their eyes, autistic kids are like super-"male"s and, as one might expect, the vast majority of autistic kids are male. There was also a little sidebar or mention of some opposite-of-autistic thing where a person is extremely empathic but has no clue about spatial relations (or whatever).

Anyway, basically I find all of this very interesting. I definitely, definitely agree that there are, on a general level, sex-linked differences in how people process information.

We interrupt this economics discussion for a cheap political shot.
 

Or, if you're not a LOTR fan, you may like the real-world themed bumper sticker that someone passed along in response:

"I never thought I'd miss Nixon."

Summers
 

His mistakes:

(1) Whether he likes it or not, he speaks for an institution; he needs to think about how his position impacts Harvard's recruitment of potential faculty members in the audience; he doesn't have the freedom that Harvard faculty have to be idiots and not get called on it

(2) He concludes that both discrimination and socialization are "lesser" - As we say on this board, "cite please".

(3) He suggests science and engineering are "special cases" - why? Again, cite please.

Summers
 

The "I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong" is the arrogant asshole miscalculation. He in no way thinks he's going to be proven wrong, and he deosn't care. THAT was his opportunity to act like a leader and discuss the strides the women at the conference have made, blah blah blah, and the new outlook they bring, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. He's not a fucking (what is WITH you and the "effing"? Christ.) researcher in the area, obviously; he was there to give the message that the administration recognizes that this convention or whatever is important/worthy/what have you.

What he did is like the Queen going to Charles and Camilla's wedding and giving a toast that discusses how people who divorce are irredeemable sinners. OK, not that bad, but you get the drift.

Bilmore, you effing, arrogant cad!
 

Not quite. Sommers statement implies that Science as it is now practiced is good and correct and male, the last being unfortunate but unavoidable. My statement implies that women will bring into science things that will make it better. But both statements begin from a position of accepting the idea that there may be differences in the way many men and many women think about things.

Sommers is looking at it from a biased perspective. Not surprisingly, a biased male perspective.

We interrupt this economics discussion for a cheap political shot.
 

*sniff*

Bi-partisan bullshit
 

So.

Houston politics are theoretically non-partisan. No one runs for office under the ageis of one political party or the other. Last year, the GOP made an effort to concentrate power and they fucked up on the mayor side (ran two people for awhile, then one dropped out, and the one left was a complete moron), but got a majority of the seats on City Council.

The guy who ended up winning as mayor is what the Houston Press describes as Best Identity Crisis:

• He's a lawyer-turned-businessman and Bill Clinton's former deputy secretary of energy. He was able to attract prominent Republicans to his campaign for mayor, and he won 62 percent of the vote in the runoff that got him elected. But who is Bill White? Is he the liberal Clinton appointee fighting to find health insurance money for Houston children, or is he the conservative fighting against his so-called liberal union base to cut the pensions of city employees? Is Mayor White the man willing to take on conservatives with his traffic mobility plans -- including tow-truck regulation -- or the one who shows a willingness to take on the powerful unions -- like the police union -- by appointing outsiders to run departments? The mayor keeps the usually combative City Council under control, and so far he's found a way to appeal to the loyal audiences of Bob Lanier, Lee Brown and the Bushes. But if he ever settles on an identity, that may quickly change.

According to the Burnt Orange Report, his last approval rating was around 76 percent.

Today, there's a hysterical article in the Houston Chronicle about the GOP being pissed off as hell that their flunkies on City Council *gasp* support the mayor! I guess bipartisan support and actually getting stuff done aren't core GOP values.

Halfway to Socialized Medicine
 

From BNA

Summers
 

First, he told them, ahead of time, that there were very special conditions under which he would appear - and I believe one of them was that he not be invited as giving an institutional representation.

Second, he posits. He throws something out for discussion. These are not settled issues. Can he only say something like that once it's proven?

Finally, I think what he meant by "special cases" is that the gender stats in those two fields aer so different from other fields.

What he really said was, "there seems to be something to the idea that there are biological differences explaining the disparity in numbers. Discuss, please." For this he gets trashed? I don't get it.

Bilmore, you effing, arrogant cad!
 

I've only read parts of the transcript. What I read didn't leave me with this impression. I saw more of a "could this be a reason, as distasteful as we might find it?".