We used to think that the shape of a man’s skull correlates with his character.

Then we discovered that that’s actually not true; phrenology is fake science.

Then we discovered that the shape of a man’s skull actually does correlate with his character:

The new Caltech study is the first to show that observers have a knack for picking out corrupt politicians based on just a portrait and that observers perceive politicians with wider faces as more corruptible.

All knowledge is provisional.  As Richard Rorty observed, truth is that which we regard as true.

Of course no good blog post is complete until it includes an appropriate picture:

PS.  How about me? I think I’m a bit more corrupt than Obama, but less corrupt than Trump, but it’s hard to judge one’s own face.  Any thoughts?

PPS:  Yikes!

PPPS:  Lighten up everyone, this entire post is meant to be a joke.  I know that the correlation is quite small and only shows up with large data sets.

HT:  Scott Alexander

It’s hard not to be dismayed went you look at what’s happened to society.  We now live in a country where almost everyone, including those in the elite media, has a view of reality that is completely shaped by their politics.  Thus whether people believe decades-old accusations of sexual assault depends almost entirely on the relationship between the political party of the observer and the political party of the accused.  There are days when I wonder if we wouldn’t all be better off if a giant asteroid hit Earth and put us out of our hypocrisy, er, misery.

But then I recall that there is one moral giant with a long and consistent record on sexual assault, regardless of the politics of the accused.  I speak, of course, of Donald Trump:

Days after President Clinton admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Trump said Clinton was a “victim” and critiqued the physical appearances of various women with whom Clinton had been accused of having extramarital relations at different times.

“It’s like it’s from hell, it’s a terrible group of people,” Trump said in an interview with FOX News’ Neil Cavuto on Aug. 19, 1998. . . .

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing in terms of what Starr has done or a terrible thing, I think it’s a terrible thing, actually,” Trump added, presumably referring to the former Whitewater independent counsel who expanded his investigation into the Lewinsky affair.

As far as his personal opinion of Clinton, Trump gave Clinton a strong rating.

My only quibble is that when Trump discussed Starr’s persecution of Clinton, he left out his sidekick, Brett Kavanaugh.  Today, Trump continues to relentlessly defend any and all men accused of sexual misconduct; Rob Porter, Roger Ailes, Roy Moore, Bill O’Reilly and one other name I can’t recall.

Unlike 99% of Americans, he doesn’t let politics affect his moral compass, which never deviates from his core beliefs:

Anne Applebaum is one of America’s most distinguished conservative reporters.  (In the “classical liberal sense.)  Interestingly, in 2018 we’ve reached the point where distinguished conservatives and center-left reporters are almost identical on a wide range of foreign policy issues.  She has written the single best article I’ve ever read on the recent transformation of Eastern Europe.

Applebaum has dual citizenship with Poland, and is especially good on that country.  But the essay ranges over a wide range of topics.  For instance, until today I could never really “get” the Dreyfus Affair of 1894.  I knew that a French military officer was wrongly accused of treason.  And that the fact that he was Jewish probably played a role in this scandal.  But I never understood why this event was viewed as being so important.  It’s mentioned in almost every book I’ve ever read on French society in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  You could be reading a biography of an artist or author, and they’ll always spend a lot of time discussing that person’s opinion on the Dreyfus Affair.  Why?

After reading Applebaum’s story you’ll suddenly get it. History will start locking into place, at a psychological level. Indeed any future historian that wants to write a 21st century history of Europe should probably start with the Dreyfus Affair.

She’s also great on Hungary.  It’s long, but read the whole thing.

PS.  I see that Trump is gloating about how Nike stock dropped right after the Kaepernick ad was put out:

President Donald Trump had plenty to say about a topic he has been obsessed with, tweeting that Nike was getting “absolutely killed with anger and boycotts” and asking what the company was thinking with their divisive decision.

If the President were smart then he should have waited to see the impact on sales.  But then if he were smart . . . well a whole lot of things would be different:

Ten days after Nike announced that Colin Kaepernick would be the face of its “Just Do It” 30th anniversary ad campaign, the sports apparel behemoth’s stock price closed at an all-time high on Thursday at $83.47, according to a report from Bloomberg.

People seem to have tuned Trump out, which bodes well for the midterms.  And the good news keeps piling up, as the “brave” Manafort flipped today.

PPS.  Robert Shiller is in the news today:

At the same time, the president’s apparent Teflon to slough off scandals, conflicts of interest, evidence of incompetence, and other issues that would doom traditional political figures is well documented.

Shiller says this mindset is reflected in the market, which he considers overvalued.

“I think Trump encourages us to be more risk-taking” when it comes to investments, said Shiller.

Shiller’s hypothesis that this thinking may have seeped into the public consciousness.

How can I put this politely . . . umm, no.

Trumpistas in 2016:  “Sumner, you just don’t understand.  You professors live in an upper middle class bubble, where you don’t see all the suffering out in the real America.  The economy is not doing well; it’s doing horribly.  Things are so bad that average people are turning to meth, to opioids.”

Trumpistas in 2018:  “Sumner, you just don’t understand.  Trump has made America great again—the economy has never been better.  Look at the stock market.  Look at the black unemployment rate.  As Trump says, America is doing great.”

I’m willing to concede that I just don’t understand, so please help me to learn.

Are we really doing better than ever?  Better than the LBJ years, when RGDP growth averaged 5% over 21 quarters, instead of peaking at 4.2% for one or two quarters?  Maybe so.  After all, we really are richer than in the 1960s.  But if that’s your criterion, then wouldn’t the same apply to Obama’s second term, when real median household income reached an all time record in 2016?

Today the Census bureau released the income data for 2017, and it showed another 1.8% increase in real median household income, to a new record of $61,372.  Pretty impressive.  But it’s also true that this measure rose by an even more impressive 3.2% in 2016, and by an extremely impressive 5.2% in 2015.

They also announced a reduction in the poverty rate, from 12.7% to 12.3%.  Again, pretty impressive.  But the rate fell from 13.5 % to 12.7% in 2016.  And it fell from 14.8% to 13.5% in 2015.

There are many ways of looking at a picture as complex as the US economy.  In 2016, I saw an amazing wealth generating machine that produces living standards that earlier generations (and most other countries) can only dream about.  Trumpistas saw economic carnage everywhere they looked.  Both are valid arguments, depending on what data points you want to emphasize.  You can even claim the economy is doing better under Trump than Obama.

What is not a valid claim is that we’ve suddenly gone from being a disaster to being great again, because of a few upward tweaks in some data points. Tweaks that are not dramatically different from what occurred in previous years and decades.  All the problems in the Rust Belt are still out there.  Either the Trumpistas were lying in 2016, or they are lying today.  (I say they were lying in 2016–we’ve always been great.)

PS.  In a previous post I noted that people in south Orange County seemed friendlier than in Boston.  In fairness, I should note that this might partly reflect my “white privilege”.  People in south Orange County are certainly not as friendly to a visiting high school football team from Santa Ana, a city that is 80% Hispanic.  In that respect, my daughter’s Newton, Massachusetts high school was superior to the Aliso Niguel high school.

My wife and I like to visit Santa Ana, which is less boring than Mission Viejo.  You might wonder how we dare visit a city full of “rapists and murderers”.  Here’s Wikipedia:

In 2011 Forbes ranked Santa Ana the fourth-safest city of over 250,000 residents in the United States.

That ranking partly reflects traffic safety, but its crime rate is also fairly low.  (Ranking 11th safest in terms of violent crime.)  Ironically, I almost ran someone over in Santa Ana a few days ago.  A motorcycle merging onto the freeway flipped over right in front of me, and the guy tumbled into my lane.  Fortunately, I was going a bit slower than normal (I had just merged, and was only up to about 60mph.) I slammed on the brakes and came to a stop about 10 feet from the guy.  Drive defensively!

PPS.  Commenter Ben Cole will like this:

“Just run the presses — print money,” Trump said, according to Woodward, during a discussion on the national debt with Gary Cohn, former director of the White House National Economic Council.

And this made me smile:

As a candidate, Donald Trump pledged to balance the federal budget and lower the national debt, promises that are proving difficult to keep.

Actually that’s fake news.  Trump didn’t promise to balance the budget; he promised to run budget surpluses that were so enormous that the national debt would be entirely paid off in 8 years.  And yes, I’d say if you increase government spending and sharply cut taxes, causing the deficit to suddenly double to $1.1 trillion (in 2019), despite 3.9% unemployment, then it would prove “difficult” to keep your promise.

As an analogy, if a person who goes to AA each week suddenly goes out and buys an entire crate of Jack Daniels, it might be difficult for them to keep their sobriety promises.

When I evaluate how good a job my plumber did, I don’t look at how the US is doing.  The same is true of Presidents.

You might argue that Presidents are much more influential than plumbers.  I agree.  My plumber might contribute 1/330,000,000th to the success of America.  The president might be 10 million times more influential.  Maybe 3% of America’s well being is due to the President.  But that leaves 97% due to other factors, including other government officials. Unemployment fell sharply under Obama, whereas it rose sharply under Bush (actually both Bushes).  I doubt you’d find many Republicans that believe this was due to Obama’s superior economic policies.

Almost every day we receive new evidence of the unbelievable incompetence of our current President—by far the worst in US history.  A recent NYT piece written by a high government official argues that Trump is enacting some good policies.  I think he exaggerates the success of Trump’s policies (although I concede the corporate tax cut has likely boosted growth).  But let’s put that debate aside.  Where we both agree is that this success is not a reflection of Trump, rather it’s due to broader trends in government policy.  Indeed according to this official, Trump’s aides spend much of their time trying to stop him from doing crazy things:

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

This is one reason why I find theories of a “deep state” to be so amusing.  The people trying to prevent Trump from wrecking the world are precisely the people that he appointed to become high government officials.  If you are a Trumpista, the real problem you should be worried about is the “shallow state”.  Trump’s own appointees.

Those of us who see Trump for what he is should thank people like Gary Cohn, who prevented Trump from tearing up the Korea free trade agreement.  They are the true patriots.