Public education matters.

This is close to the advice I give. If you aren't thinking "I will literally die if I don't do a PhD right now" don't do it. Work for 2 years first. First, cash helps a lot: 1) if doing a PhD after taking a huge pay cut still seems attractive, you should do it. 2) not relying solely on a PhD stipend removes an insane stressor from an already stressful situation 3) if your advisor sucks, having cash on hand means you can tell them to pound sand Also, for ML/CS, being in the industry is a great way to get ideas and see what people outside academia really care about. And having job experience makes #3 easier also.

Today I read the new Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Capitalism by @chiaracordelli. It is, simply put, a bad piece of scholarship. I will illustrate it with just one passage using one of my most popular posts ever: “A guide for students of economics: Ten statements that demonstrate that someone does not understand modern economics or what an equilibrium is, and that you can safely ignore everything else they say.” xitter.cf/JesusFerna7026/status/… I quote from the entry when it talks about Hayek and Friedman. “From all these exchanges, an “equilibrium,” perhaps a “general equilibrium,” spontaneously arises in a capitalist economy.” Compare with my explanation (which builds on the tradition of Hayek and Friedman): “Equilibrium is not meant to describe the daily state of the world. It is a conceptual device used to understand the outcome of our models under the assumptions we make.” The entry continues: “This in turn means that the factors of production that are capital and labor are employed in their most efficient proportions. Also, produced goods and services flow through markets to where, at the margin, they are most valued, making these markets efficient, too.” Compare with my explanation: “Equilibrium is often conflated with efficiency, but equilibrium merely reflects decentralized consistency, not welfare maximization. Market power, externalities, incomplete markets, nominal rigidities, and frictions routinely produce inefficient equilibria. I often teach a first-year macro graduate course, and not a single one of the equilibria I define is efficient.” The article continues: “Inherently, it has no real crisis tendencies that it cannot self-correct. Capitalism goes wrong when it is politically interfered with” Compare with my explanation: “Equilibrium is sometimes misinterpreted as a static state in which nothing evolves. In fact, many equilibria are sequences of probability distributions over states driven by shocks, policy rules, and endogenous responses. Learning dynamics (Bayesian updating, adaptive rules, experience-based expectations) can occur within equilibrium if the evolution of beliefs is self-consistent.” And finally: “Capitalism goes wrong when it is politically interfered with” Compare with my explanation: “Some interpret equilibrium as a laissez-faire concept. In fact, equilibrium analysis is the foundation of modern policy evaluation. Fiscal, monetary, and regulatory interventions work through equilibrium responses (prices, wages, interest rates, quantities) and must satisfy equilibrium conditions to be credible. Equilibrium is a tool for policy design, not a barrier to it.” None of this is deep. I knew it as an undergraduate student in college. Hayek and Friedman were subtle economists who, yes, defended market economies but who understood economics much better than the author of the entry. I recently argued that institutions waste their credibility by engaging in political activism instead of scholarship. How can I trust now the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Hegel, for example, if the entry on Capitalism would fail my undergraduate course at Penn?

Piece of advice: if you are a parent, watch out what the Finns are doing and copy them. It's one of the few countries that pays closer attention to their youth. They observe, study, and adjust all the time! For example, they are now gradually reversing their decade-long, tech-heavy education model to combat declining cognitive performance and severe classroom distractions. Schools are scaling back on devices in favor of printed textbooks, handwriting instruction, and pen-and-paper assignments.

Economics: The optimal level of tax evasion, govt waste, crime, and even voter fraud is often *above* zero. (Because getting to literal zero usually requires imposing dramatically higher costs & burdens on everyone else to ensure prevention of those last, few, toughest cases.)

Today, I’m releasing the City’s preliminary budget. After years of fiscal mismanagement, we’re staring at a $5.4 billion budget gap — and two paths. One: Albany can raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy and the most profitable corporations and address the fiscal imbalance between our city and state. The other, a last resort: balance the budget on the backs of working people using the only tools at the City's disposal.   The first path matches a structural crisis with a sustainable and fair solution. I know where I stand. New Yorkers voted for bold change and competent leadership. We will deliver both, and we look forward to partnering with Albany to protect working New Yorkers.

How much of “Mississippi’s education miracle” is an artifact of selection bias? statmodeling.stat.columbia.e…