... Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has conducted a mischievous experiment on the relationship between religious giving and religious observance. His inspiration was a comment his father made after he was elected treasurer of his synagogue in New Jersey. “Good,” Gruber’s father told him, with some amount of irony, “now I don’t have to go.” Somebody thinking purely about the temple might have decided that the treasurer should attend services even more often than an ordinary congregant. After all, he would need to set an example as a community leader. But someone who wanted to attain a certain commitment level — who wanted do enough to feel the warm glow of being involved in the life of the temple — would consider regular attendance and synagogue duties to be substitutes for each other.I'm presenting this to you as interesting on its own, but I also think it sheds light on the mind of Gruber, if that matters — does it? — in the current swirl of excitement around Gruber.
To see how typical his father was, Gruber dug into surveys that ask people about how they spend their money and their time. Sure enough, his dad was typical. When the tax code changed in the early 1990s and made the deduction for charitable giving more valuable, the average churchgoer gave more money — and attended services less often. Gruber called his research paper “Pay or Pray.”
Personally, I think Gruber is a wonderful character. I might be his biggest fan. He seems to feel the urge to say what others won't say, to tell the truth about lying, even lying that he has participated in. The truth about lying — and I'm using "lying" in its broadest sense — is that people lie all the time and it's necessary, interwoven throughout human culture.
Gruber's father seems to have had a humorous style of revealing the ways human beings dissimulate, and Gruber was inspired and has based his work on the influence of his father. I don't know the whole story of Gruber, son and father. Perhaps, Gruber — exiled, now, from politicians who need to continue their lying, deceitful activities — will compose a memoir telling us all about how he formed his intellectual orientation, with many more words from the old man.
I'm think that it is precisely Jonathan Gruber's orientation to open up any human activity and reveal the trickery. So: of course, he wanted to talk about the creation of Obamacare in terms of the rhetoric and the manipulations. He thought people would appreciate his insight into human psychology and the deception and illusion that permeate human culture. What is more fascinating? What could be more enlightening and important than to become conscious of such things — especially if you are a good and empathetic person? Gruber got in trouble for telling us that people are "stupid," and the question is why are we too stupid to see the value of studying the ways in which we are, indeed, stupid?
The answer is that the people who are talking about Gruber are still inside the political game of promoting or attacking Obamacare. They prefer to use Gruber's statements to the extent that they are useful in continuing whatever political prestidigitation they are performing.
Gruber needs to go meta. He can never insinuate his way back into the center of things. Gruber, you've been there, and they used your wisdom until it was too much wisdom, and then they shut you out and said they never knew you. Now that you can't go back, go forward. Tell all. Give us all the truth you've got — the truth about lying.
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93 comments:
The "Grrube" crossed the line when he used deception to add false morality to the ACA. The object of his deception, ACA, stands on it's own merits as written or fails on it's lack of merit. The "end" doesn't justify the means. The "means" is an end in itself. No virtue in his actions, ethics were paid for handsomely, and morality vaporized the minute he sold his soul for a false GOD.
When I taught statistics classes, we would hear of flashy research results like that---studies that are either very smart, or just shabby click bait. We would get the original papers and find out which kind they were. They were half and half. I'll look for Gruber's 1990's paper today, and apply the test. If I can, I'll report back in this thread. Maybe another commenter will do it first and we can compare notes.
"When the tax code changed in the early 1990s and made the deduction for charitable giving more valuable, the average churchgoer gave more money — and attended services less often."
Social science has a serious problem with confusing correlation and causation.
I always thought Sean Hannity was lying when he would say that the American taxpayer could not afford to pay for the new ACA subsidies but could and should continue to pay for the exclusion from taxes of employer contributions for medical insurance and care. Oh wait, he forgot to say the second part.
Gruber lied to help get ObamaCare passed. The only stupid ones were those who believed the lies - Democrats. The rest of us weren't fooled.
Here's the thing, it's not the American people that were stupid. It's not like they actually had a chance to vote on this law and passed it. It was written after the election not before, so the only people who could vote on it were members of Congress. The American people always opposed it in polls. The lying was to the Congressional Budget Office and the betrayal was to the political process and the concept of clean government. It was all about plausible deniability. The bills were written in the dead of night and by very small groups and didn't go through any of the normal hearing processes. That's what undivided government gets you. The whole thing is an example of political hubris and not the stupidity of the hoi polloi. And part of the bill for that hubris came due just a few weeks ago.
Nice theory, but it leaves out the personal greed.
JHapp: Mostly because I don't pay for someone else's exclusion from taxes. It's the government taking less money from someone else. Please don't conflate spending with revenue. They are two different things.
A lion is up on a hill fucking a zebra. Suddenly he sees his lioness is coming. She is almost to the top. Any second she will see them.
Thinking fast the lion says to the zebra, "Quick! Act like I'm killing you."
Gruber is the zebra now. There is no good outcome for the zebra.
Gruber is nothing more than a strutting popinjay who has relished the opportunity to preen and posture among his fellow academics in the faculty lounge. No offense is intended to our hostess, but really, there is very little to recommend tenured faculty who live in a hothouse that creates artificial environments for smug and inadequates little human stumps who would literally shrivel and die if left to survive outside of their protected status.
It's delicious to see him disintegrate like this so publicly.
- Krumhorn
All the trickery he participated in was to get things done the way he wanted them done.
He is justifying his own actions, not looking at them neutrally.
Were the Tea Party Town Hall Hecklers 'smart', as opposed to the 'Stupid' electorate? I remember seeing them (almost) expectorate in the presence of Democrats, but were their arguments cogent dissections of the proposed Law? That was a long time ago, and all i seem to remember is the Sturm und Drang of the videos. I think the bottom line was, they didn't know what they didn't know, they just didn't want Change. If you hide enough information, All people look stupid.
Another Democrat with daddy issues, huh?
The point of all this is that Gruber was WRONG and the law is not working. If it were, the employer mandate would have gone into effect on time. He is just not as smart as he thought he was and the Democrats are even stupider. I wonder if that has occurred to the losers ?
Tell the truth, Althouse: you only like Gruber because of the shirt he wears.
Gruber has been well paid for his lying on behalf of several politicians. He gives every appearance of being amoral. This is a societal problem on more levels than I can count.
Gruber is Obama's nightmare. He is like the rep who shouted 'you lie' at the SOTU a few years ago, only more as a credible witness and with credible evidence on an unpopular product that Obama peddled and still peddling.
What if Gruber had gone around lecturing how his dad and people like him skirted one commitment for another, perhaps easier one? How would the dad feel and how would the others he exposed in his survey feel?
Money Gruber.
Fawn away at the glorious honest liar. The real hero in all of this is an unsung American citizen named Rich Weinstein
How dare he! & He should expect some IRS hassles real soon.
10 members of a family is tragedy.
10 million is a statistic.
The Professor may want to keep in mind that the ACA basically is a fraudulent money scheme.
I want to remind everyone that Gruber's plan hurt a lower middle-class 20-year-old who I know. She works for a fast food chain and has no family support, either financially or socially. She is barely getting by. A few months ago she received a post card from her employer which came to my house since she had temporarily lived with my family. The card said that the mini health plan she had did not meet ACA standards so it was cancelled for all employees but they could buy insurance on an exchange. Also, her hours of work would be kept under 30 hours per week. Thanks, Gruber. Her drug-dealing relatives don't limit anyone's hours. Is that the only opportunity you want her to have?
Once again, the bigger lie isn't our liar for a president - it is our ridiculous, unprofessional, incurious, totally one-sided, biased, in-the-tank, dishonorable, blatantly dishonest pro-one-party press.
>>Give us all the truth you've got — the truth about lying.
You want a liar to tell the truth about lying?
It's much more likely that he will lie to you about lying.
Maybe the average American population is too 'stupid' to understand laws such as these.
Or maybe we have reached the point where government has been made overly complex, to put it outside of the understanding of many.
Example: taxes should be a simple thing. Make 'x' amount of money, pay 'x' amount of taxes. Yet we have a tax code that requires experts to navigate on our behalf. An entire industry has developed that would collapse if the law were to be simple to the average man.
I believe that the many people are too 'stupid' to understand Obamacare, but because the law was written in a way to purposely exclude basic understanding.
As such, we have a government that now precludes the average person from participating fully, and this is intentional: we must have Wizards now to navigate the dark forests of gibberish, and we have plenty of 'elite' desiring nothing more than to be appointed as such a Wizard.
The termites now rule the house. Time to burn it down to the foundation.
Althouse is around the bend on this one. Though you make all the convoluted facile arguments you want, you cannot square the circle.
"Are we too stupid to understand Jonathan Gruber?"
Well. Liberals are. Or they were and are simply lying. Probably the latter.
Tols ya it was a tax. Told ya the numbers were bogus.
Oh. Well.
The story about his father Explains a Lot - he was reared by someone with poor character, so his own poor character is easier to understand.
I believe that the many people are too 'stupid' to understand Obamacare, but because the law was written in a way to purposely exclude basic understanding.
I argue that it is not our stupidity but our 'trust' that they are taking advantage of.
If you voted against Obama or didn't support Obamacare, then you weren't fooled and among the stupid. Only those who voted for Obamacare and supported Democrat initiatives in this area were successfully conned because they were stupid.
This seems a HUGE indictment of the Democrat voter.
Krumhorn wrote -
"Gruber is nothing more than a strutting popinjay who has relished the opportunity to preen and posture among his fellow academics in the faculty lounge."
This!
I view Gruber purely in terms of politics and Obamacare rather than the man himself. Politics and Obamacare adversely affect me both directly and materially. Gruber the man not so much.
Only those who have not lost their original coverage, had their hours cut, and/or face a 40% premium increase like me can afford to find the man himself interesting.
Ann seems to admire this man because "he tells the truth". But that's not what he's really doing, is it? He thinks he understand the truth about people, and uses this truth to manipulate people.
This is not admirable, this is despicable.
For the record - many people were never 'stupid' about the true intent of the ACA. WE tried to point out the truth, but were vilified by both the 'stupid' and their manipulators. This included Gruber himself, BTW, who claimed his critics were 'lying' about the ACA.
Althouse is around the bend on this one.
I thought it was kinda awesome myself.
I'd like to see Gov. Walker sue Gruber for fraud and lies, and get WI's $400,000 back.
Gruber. Godwin. Done.
I always thought Sean Hannity was lying when he would say that the American taxpayer could not afford to pay for the new ACA subsidies but could and should continue to pay for the exclusion from taxes of employer contributions for medical insurance and care.
Two points:
1) Employer-provided medical insurance rose as a way of "compensating" employees because of wage controls imposed by Democrats. To the extent that Taxpayers "pay" by "excluding" this "compensation" from taxation, IT IS DUE ENTIRELY TO DISTORTIONS IMPOSED BY GOVERNMENT ON THE WAGE MARKET; and
2) For the millionth time, just because there is something in the world that might conceivably be taxed, and yet is not, does not mean that there is somehow a "cost" to the "taxpayer." Anyone who argues otherwise is implicitly saying that everything belongs to the state - that you'll eat the gruel you're given, and be grateful for it.
To which I say: NT&FY.
I think that, like many of the people with whom Obama surrounds himself, Gruber is a damaged freak.
I wouldn't mind letting "the smart people" run the country if they were actually "smart" and not just idiots who managed to regurgitate the propaganda in order to be highly credentialed.
I'm on the Althouse' side on the Gruber character analysis, though I view Gruber's character in slightly more fallen terms. Here is the character of the mischievous magician, the smart guy who can juggle monkey wrenches. Sometimes he sticks one in the works (the smoking story); other times he reveals the trick after the fact (the stupid voter story).
Yet I can't imagine that Gruber is only a mischievous magician. He is also, like all of us, subject to vanity, self-justification, and self-deception.
Getting the ACA passed was a game to play. It is easy to get wrapped into a game, where principles are just a matter of tactics. If that sounds too forgiving, I would point out that many of those opposed to the ACA were also playing it as a game -- a game of sound bites and political maneuvers. Each side could point to the other to justify its own tricks.
I cannot see how, when the deceptions and half-truths are exposed, that Gruber doesn't experience humiliation and, perhaps, remorse. At the very least, there should be the remorse of the unforced confession.
Free speech is the antidote for Grubers who are paid liars with University credentials hired as expert witnesses by lawyers to support either side with a careful array of BS.
That is why speech is made so costly by the established powers that be. The John Doe Warrants are a cost of gathering donations to support free speech in face of Campaign Finance Laws that are deliberate restrictions on such speech.
Catching liars before the next election has become a dogfight with the OODA Loop shortened by the internet. That is the story here. The catching of Gruber by digital memory of digital videos.
Tell the truth, Althouse: you only like Gruber because of the shirt he wears.
The shirt thing was bad Althouse. Bad Althouse bad! That's a rarity, though. I feel like she got emotional and defensive because she had done a couple of posts on the shirt.
In particular Rocket Man was a shitty post. The need to mock and belittle a guy after he lands a mission on a comet?
On the other hand, the Gruber posts are awesome. I like it that she likes Gruber. I like it that she humanizes him while everybody in the world is shitting on the guy. Althouse says, fuck the world, I say what I think.
She is awesome.
Note too that this is the classic girl move, this urge to bring you down when you are on top of the world, and to pick you up when you are down in the gutter.
When Gruber's a rock star, when he's the man, Althouse has got shit to say about him. Doesn't even notice him. But when everybody and his mother is calling this Shit on Gruber Day, Althouse is his best friend. Tell me that's not awesome.
Or socialism, it might be socialism. Actually if she did this with her grades I would be so pissed off. That's a great argument! D+
But the instinct, to remind the superior that they are human and the inferior that they are human, it's a very nice instinct.
The problem, amielalune, is that "the smart people" cannot know enough. It is an impossibility. The free market works because the knowlefge required for it to operate efficiently is widely disbursed. This has been a basic understanding of economics for more than 50 years.
One supposes Gruber slept through those lectures while earning his PhD from Harvard -or- those lectures are not delivered, seriously, at Harvard.
Inexplicably, Althouse's gushing about Gruber made me think of those headlines about Charles Manson that were flitting through my newsfeed earlier this week.
I felt a similar respect for Gosnell. He exposed the dark underside of the abortion industry and planned parenthood rituals. The ISIS-like strategy to reduce deductible assets with a swipe of the scalpel and liquidation of underwater assets in toilet tax havens.
I agree with Henry's analysis excepting the inclusion of "all of us" subject to Gruber's vices.
There comes a point when what some call "conscience" takes control. For most of us. We do have to live with ourselves in close quarters.
And we do live in a generally civil society. Not always moral.
"Althouse is around the bend on this one."
Pretty sure she's doing doing her detached-but-amused sociologist riff.
"The bills were written in the dead of night and by very small groups and didn't go through any of the normal hearing processes. That's what undivided government gets you."
This was why I was so frightened of Obama's election in 2008.
Talk about stupid! Every con man and carnival huckster knows that after you fool the rube and take his money, you don't tell him you've fooled him. You blow town. Stupid Gruber.
One academic analyzing another academic. Just how different are the engines beneath the respective hoods?
YOU NAILED HIM MY DEAR LADY. THANK YOU. MAY HIS FATHER REST IN PEACE. We need a Constitutional Convention to fix the Republic before this descends into fascism. I urge you to take up this theme. With hard work and luck and help from the Muslim crazies we could be there in a decade.
Gruber Sr. was exhibiting a fundamental lack of belief as well. It's like buying your kids off instead of spending time with them.
I'd love to see one of those Reddit forums with him where you can ask him anything - I forget what it's called. He would be great.
What 'truthtelling' has Gruber done that has opened cloistered introspection by proxy?
Could Althouse's fascination be that of analyzing her own innermost academia fears through Gruber's words?
Is all of this about Gruber, or is it really about Althouse herself, examining herself and her own motives in plain view? What is it, she might be asking, that separates her from a Gruber?
Wheels within wheels.
I am Laslo.
Excellent post.
And not because I agree with all of it.
Well, that too.
Sometimes a Gruber is just a Gruber.
Gruber knows his audience and thus could not resist flattering them by letting them in on the secret they already knew. The rubes are idiots. Conservatives are easily tricked. Liberals are insiders, the smart guys and you, the audience, are amount them, among us, with me.
He could not resist. And what professor does not play that same game every day?
I don't agree that Gruber is a truth teller. I think he has a very strong ego and needs everyone to know how 'clever' he is - so he needs to explain to all his friends that he's been able to manipulate all the 'stupid' people -
Of course people wouldn't go along with the ACA if they really understood it. Most people don't want others to go without healh care. But they don't want their own children's healthcare 'redistributed' to someone else. So Gruber, Obama et al lied. And Gruber wants a high-five for his 'successful manipulation'.
Bitchtits certainly is too stupid to understand.
@Michael: And what professor does not play that same game every day?
Lots of them--those teaching math and science, especially. They love what they do, they care about it, and they think it is very important to share with people.
I taught an extremely difficult subject to people who were not prepared to learn it, were not interested in learning it, and only joined the class because it was a graduation requirement. So there would have been little point in flattering their egos in the way you describe, even if it were possible under those conditions.
It's not always about getting into a secret club, though if you assume that every time you deal with plains apes you'll be right more often than wrong.
He displays a keen understanding of human behavior, bug uses that truth in the service of deception. That kind of intellect, that false 'honesty', should not be celebrated.even giving him the benefit if the doubt, they he believed that the policy was good and necessary, doesn't absolve him of responsibility. Lots of people think that the ends justifies the means but it rarely is so.
"Lots of people think that the ends justifies the means but it rarely is so."
Somen women's rear ends justify the means, I have found.
I am Laslo.
Gruber was honest about the deception involved. Not something to celebrate. But oh well. weee!
"Personally, I think Gruber is a wonderful character."
This is why I visit Althouse daily. It's like a box of chocolates. There is merit in her point of view. It made me imagine Gruber getting some coffee with Seinfeld, since Cosby's spot recently opened up.
>>Gruber was honest about the deception involved.
Let me fix that for you:
Gruber was honest about his deception.
See, now it doesn't make any sense.
He's a confessed liar;admits that he lies in matters of national consequence, and profits in the millions from his lies.
Why on earth would ANYONE care what he has to say about anything?
Chances are very good it will be... lies.
Gruber's "stupid" comments clearly don't apply to all Americans, only some of them. They don't apply to Obamacare opponents, because those people clearly weren't fooled by the supporters' lies and half truths. They also don't really apply to the die-hard supporters, because none of the lies mattered to them, except insofar as they repeated the lies to win arguments. Such people would have supported Obamacare even if they'd known the truth about it.
His comments instead apply to those in the middle who were skeptical, and ended up supporting Obamacare because they believed their own insurance situation would not be worsened, that this plan would more than pay for itself, that it would expand coverage, make more Americans healthier, and even cut costs, because they bought into the magical thinking that Gruber and Obama and company floated around.
The upshot of this is that a lot of people in that category--the swayed middle--are going to feel burned, as they did when they learned that millions lost their coverage as a result of the new rules, or saw their premiums go up and coverage drop, or saw the Administration continue to delay implementation of hard but apparently necessary parts of the law (e.g., not a single person has been smacked with a penalty yet, and the Medicare cuts have been delayed, as were the employer mandates). The question is how these people will react come 2016, when Obama's heir apparent has to defend this crap.
Who did Gruber lie to about Obamacare before it was passed?
I'd vaguely heard of the guy before the recent blowup about his speeches saying some of the public had to be deceived. But who did he lie to? Who relied on anything he said? Some congressional staffers or representatives of senators? Some administration officials or staffers? The President?
"This was the first thing Mark had been asked to do which he himself, before he did it, clearly knew to be criminal. But the moment of his consent almost escaped his notice; certainly, there was no struggle, no sense of turning a corner. There may have been a time in the world's history when such moments fully revealed their gravity, with witches prophesying on a blasted heath or visible Rubicons to be crossed. But, for him, it all slipped past in a chatter of laughter, of that intimate laughter between fellow professionals, which of all earthly powers is strongest to make men do very bad things before they are yet, individually, very bad men." --C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
Earlier on the thread I promised to report on the merits of Gruber's "Pay or Pray" paper, which appeared in the J. Public Econ., Dec. 2004. Actually I read an earlier version, an NBER working paper dated Mar. 2004.
It is an excellent research paper; one of the best pieces of social science research I have read. It is well organized and very clearly written, free of jargon, hasty assumptions, irrelevant excursions or excessive self-promotion. Its review of the existing literature seems to be thorough, intelligent, detailed, and fair. The methodology is both creative and sound. Gruber shows technical skill, and makes a very considerable effort, in his treatment of many details.
FWIW, his conclusion is this: "...doubling of the current level of charitable subsidies to religious giving would lead to a fall in religious attendance of as much as 3.6%...." The mechanism he proposes is that some people would make larger monetary contributions, and would see them as partly meeting their religious goals, making it less necessary for them to attend services. It's a strong conclusion, and hard to believe that it could be proved from existing survey data. But Gruber has made a strong case.
I am skeptical of his result for several reasons, some of which might be resolved by further study of his paper. He does show some small biases that might make him too confident of his result. And of course, excellent research isn't proof of wisdom or character. But anyone who can do research at the level of this paper deserves considerable respect.
Ann seems to admire this man because "he tells the truth".
He told the truth about lying, and profiting from it, at the expense of others. You don't get any points for that.
Even worse, people used his lies as justification to malign and laugh at the people who understood the numbers didn't add up.
April Apple, that is some collection! I hope someone does a mashup like this and adds a laugh track. Or Yakety Sax. Yakety Sax makes everything funny.
Walter S:
FWIW, his conclusion is this: "...doubling of the current level of charitable subsidies to religious giving would lead to a fall in religious attendance of as much as 3.6%...."
A whole 3.6%? Of the total, or of the people who give more? This sounds like exchanging statistical significance for significance.
We all know how the big lie "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" was told in the service of getting this turkey passed. Turns out there was a second big lie of equal magnitude and effect.
"White House officials had no comment, despite repeated requests by CNN."
That is something perverse, Ann, to admire someone with the morals of a snake because at least he acts like the snake he is.
He is an immoral man, and being forthright about his lack of morals does not change that equation.
He reminds me of the Pardoner in the canterbury tales who gets through describing how useless his pardons are and how he dupes people into buying them and how they enrich him. And then he offers a chance to all the people on the pilgrimage to buy pardons.
Its rare you get someone so blatantly describing the trickery that goes behind the public display so matter of factly.
"Gruber needs to go meta........."
In her final paragraph, Althouse absolutely nails it. Gruber has been made radioactive to the left...even worse in his own mind, irrelevant.....the only way for him to matter in 3 months is to go full Benedict Arnold on Obama......Please-Please-Please let this happen....
Walter S claimed, "It is an excellent research paper; one of the best pieces of social science research I have read."
Best social science is an oxymoron.
"Hans" Gruber may be write about the sheeple who bought into the Obamacare snake-oil, not to mention all the other snake-oil from the "liberal" Hive. (And by "liberal" I mean of course "tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State-f*ckers.") If you put your trust in Big Brother, you ARE stupid, and a real "Grube."
the only way for him to matter in 3 months is to go full Benedict Arnold on Obama......Please-Please-Please let this happen....
It's SO not going to happen. Ann, I believe, is wrong about the guy. He is neither interesting nor fascinating. He is utterly banal.
He is tenured faculty in a Boston university where his visibility among his peers has been heightened by his engagement as an 'expert' consultant in a high profile leftie enterprise.
He isn't "telling the truth about lying". He is rejoicing in it, believing, with the arrogance and condescension of the typical elitist academic leftie, that the only people who count are those that agree with his noble leftie objectives, and he presumes that he is safe from rebuke because he is speaking to his fellow travelers in the insular hothouse world of academia.
He's in a terrible bind now. The pinkos at the Daily Kos and Firedoglake are as nauseated as the rest of us because they regard him as the agent of doom for the single-payer plan that they crave.
After all, he lied to them too.
As I said earlier, he is nothing but a strutting popinjay relishing the opportunity to preen and posture among his colleagues in the faculty lounge. When I think of him, I picture the Keith Carradine character in the great 1973 movie, Emperor of the North.
That's all this guy is.
- Krumhorn
Of course I meant "right," not "write." Type in haste, repent at leisure.
The scandal seems to be that Gruber thought the stupid people were stupid, and the stupid people just found out.
I was telling the stupid people they were stupid from the start.
Economics, people.
John Gruber is Hans gruber's dumber younger brother. Gruber too likes to engage in rampant lies and misdirection while going for the massive cash grab. And in this case the dems and Obama are in on the plot from the get go. The only proplem is that usually Mcclaine has to solve the ploy on his own after jumping through the hoops laid about by Hans before realizing it's just a ruse.Johnny is so dumb he gives it away and explains the plot after the money has been stolen. And it's exaxtly like Mcclaine thought from the get go.
Nows about the time where MacLaine says Yippee Kay ayyyy mother fucker! And blows him out of the helicopter he's trying to fly away in.
I bet Gruber was called Goober a lot in school. Probably got beaten up by his friends for being a tattle tale and snitch.
When he says they were relying on Americans gullibility to get this past they should speak for them selves. Practically no republican fell for it and certainly not voted for it. What does that say then about libs? They're either real dumb or really big liars.
What's all the fuss? Isn't this just Plato all over?
MattL:
He means 3.6% of everybody. So in the year after the change, a church that expected 250 at an average service would have only 241.
Of course, the church would have a lot more money. And if it spent some of the money making its facilities a tiny bit more comfortable, that might win back the 3.6%. That's a delayed effect, so I doubt Gruber's method would spot it. And unless I missed it, he didn't mention that issue.
You're right! There is a big difference between "statistical significance" and significance. I didn't say Gruber's paper was important, or even that it was correct. I just said it was well done.
Hey, Skyler, there's lots of good social science research!
Granted, sometimes it's hard to find.
The scandal seems to be that Gruber thought the stupid people were stupid, and the stupid people just found out.
What is interesting to me about this is that conservatives (otherwise known as sane, rational people) knew right away that if you want to keep your plan/doctor, you can't keep your plan/doctor.
So it seems that the only stupid voters were librul voters. But then we pretty much already knew that.
- Krumhorn
The stupid are the Dem base. No one's said that, here. Of course the bait was as a bloody steak to a starving dog. They wanted to believe. Not a very hard thing to do. Which is why I give Gruber a -D.
I know a lot of people who bought the "you can keep your plan" BS. And they weren't stupid. They were ignorant about health care economics, but they were smart and knowledgeable about all sorts of things. They were suckered, yes, but they weren't fools. That, ANN ALTHOUSE, is why I think Gruber is repellant, not interesting. A decent society would banish him.
You also have to consider Gruber is an MIT geek, Althouse. Most of those are a little Aspergery. They just say stuff, without really understanding the social cues about when you should or shouldn't, or how it will be received.
I think his focus of study is additional evidence that way. Most people don't want to study the seamy underbelly of human social psychology -- of how we make our little secret ethical tradeoffs. After all, it's not something that typically makes you proud to be a human being. It can be rough to figure out how to keep your own ethics (and hope and faith in other people) straight.
But if you read autistics (the high-functioning ones) -- Grandin, that odd Ms.Trunk -- you'll see they are often fascinated by human social ethics, secret interior ethical bargaining, and the weird mashup of semi-lies and semi-truths and occasional genuine heartfelt truths that get us through the day. I think it's a bit how primate researchers are fascinated by chimp social rituals. It's so...close to something that makes intuitive sense to you.
Carl, most interesting comment on the subject I've read anywhere. Nicely done.
- Krumhorn
Who did Gruber lie to about Obamacare before it was passed?
I just hope Mr. Gruber did so -- somewhere, either in person or in filings -- under oath, with one of Mr. Weinstein's drip-by-drip video releases as proof and a personal invitation from some unpleasant House committee chairman to testify.
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