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Of course! But so what? This fact tells us nothing about the causal impact of income on test scores. [...] This graph is a good example of omitted variable bias, a statistical issue discussed in Chapter 2 of my favorite textbook. The key omitted variable here is parents' IQ. Smart parents make more money and pass those good genes on to their offspring. [...] It would be interesting to see the above graph reproduced for adopted children only. I bet that the curve would be a lot flatter.

I don't know of any large studies that test the relationship between test scores and socioeconomic status in adopted children. But the closest adoption study described in Richard Nisbett's Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count (I'll put the full citation at the bottom) has this to say about IQ and socioeconomic status (SES):

The obvious point to make here is that children born to wealthy parents and raised by downscale families have almost exactly the same IQ range as children born to downscale parents and raised by wealthy families. Nisbett uses this to make what I thought would have been an entirely uncontroversial point -- namely, that "both genes and class-related environmental effects are powerful contributors to intelligence"

And is it really hard to figure out why those "class-related environmental effects" should make a difference? Better schools, better nutrition, better health care, better test preparation and better neighborhoods all come to mind. I'm sure an intelligent guy like Greg Mankiw can figure that out.

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(John Sides reports on some other studies and makes some good points here. The chart above is drawn from Capron & Duyme, "Assessment of Effects of Socioeconomic Status on IQ in a Full Cross-Fostering Study" (1989).)

The "strong" version of the supply side argument is that tax cuts will generate enough growth to increase tax revenue. (Not to be confused with the general Laffer Curve proposition that tax cuts can do this, which will probably be true under some circumstances -- say, if a tax rate went from 100% to 99%.) The "semi-strong" version is that tax rates are the key factor governing economic growth. And the "weak" version is that the growth and efficiency generated by lower taxes is more important than the equality generated by redistribution. (The "weak" version pretty much just restates the big difference between the left and the right, so it's really quite general.) 

While the advertising boycott has generated substantial media coverage, Fox News said it has not impacted the network's revenues or Beck's audience. "The advertisers referenced have all moved their spots from Beck to other programs on the network so there has been no revenue lost," a spokeswoman said.

Obama's government-run health "reform" would pay for seniors' meetings with a doctor to discuss end-of-life care. While nonthreatening at first, something that is quite normal for a family to do becomes troublesome when the government gets involved. Seniors know that government programs that seem benign at first can become anything but. The government should simply butt out of conversations about end-of-life care and leave them to seniors, their families and their doctors.

Morally, everyone of us would like to cover every American with health insurance but that's where you spend most of the trillion dollars plus, or a little less that is estimated, the estimate said this health care plan will cost. And I'm afraid we've got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy is out of recession. There's no reason we have to do it all now.

The first is typical and predictable free-trader-ism: If the number of American car owners is dwindling because Americans are buying more foreign cars, I'd say American consumers are probably better off, because the foreign cars must be better or cheaper or otherwise more desirable. But this also seems like one of those situations where the wonders of free trade extend only so far, especially as they pertain to the domestic stimulus benefits of the Cash for Clunkers program.

But a third point: The fact that a lot of the dollars are going to foreign companies does not mean the program hasn't been successful. We don't live in a zero-sum world, and the simple fact that a law benefits foreign companies and foreign economies doesn't mean it's bad for America, too. It can be good for both! 

Update: In response to a couple of smart emails I should make something clear. One issue I do not consider in this post is what makes a company "American." A lot of car companies that were founded in America produce cars abroad, and a lot of car companies that were founded abroad produce cars in America. Both kinds of companies have shareholders in America and shareholders abroad. There is, furthermore, a difference between GDP and GNP accounting, and those differences will become more pronounced depending on the ownership and production structure of a company.

So I'd say this: my post starts with the assumption that a greater proportion of revenue at an "American" company ends up in the pockets of both American domestics and nationals than does the revenue at a "foreign" car company. I believe that is correct. But, this being the blogosphere and all, I'm not totally sure.

Cross-posted to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish

(Photo: Flickr User ThreadedThoughts)

You could be forgiven for thinking that a serious campaign is afoot -- aided and abetted by the national Republican Party -- to question Barack Obama's citizenship. Over the past two weeks, an inordinate amount of news coverage has been afforded to "birthers," conspiracy theorists who claim that the President was not born in Hawaii, as his birth records indicate, but in Kenya.

It is not Obama's right-wing opponents, however, who are devoting the most attention to this obscure, Internet-driven "movement," if one can even use that label to describe such a paranoid groupuscule. Rather, it's liberals, bent on portraying their conservative opponents as extremists -- and changing the subject to help a President under increasing scrutiny for the substance of his policies -- who are driving this story.

Why? Because there's no reason why the two claims are mutually exclusive! It can be true that lots of idiots on the right are questioning Obama's birth certificate. And it can also be true that the liberal media is devoting the builk of the attention to what is undoubtedly a pretty embarrassing fact for the right. It actually seems far more plausible to me that both claims are true than that only one of them is.

Of course, Jamie is also skeptical as to whether there really is a substantial group of people on the right which questions the birth certificate. He says the birthers are but an "obscure...paranoid groupuscule." (Which certainly looks diminutive to me.) But can Jamie really believe this? In the last paragraph of his piece, he writes: "Yes, it's true. A new poll shows high numbers of Republicans doubting whether Obama was, in fact, born in the U.S." Well, which is it? Large number of Republicans, or obscure groupuscule?