I see a little discussion on intrade but no actual markets up yet.
I would guess that most of the regulars here are sane enough to be able to discuss positive/negative aspects of OWS, but I personally don’t want this to be a place where people can turn to estimate the worth of most political events. “Let’s see what those smart people at LW think” seems like the wrong approach to me. Most phenomena like this already have lots of expert attention/modeling/research on it, and it would be better to study that.
To really understand the economics of the situation, I recommend a basic economics text, a money and banking text, Mueller’s Public Choice text, Olson’s Logic of Collective Action, a basic Law and Economics text, Bryan Caplan’s book on voters, and a google scholar search for “corporation campaign finance,” or “campaign finance election outcomes.” Look for papers doing statistical analysis of effect sizes, ignore papers without actual numbers backing the claims. All combined this should get you 1) The size and scope of the problem OWS protestors are protesting, 2) How effective their proposed solutions would be, 3) Blind spots of the protestors/media, 4) What’s unique and what isn’t with regard to this recession, etc.
I’m sure a sociology expert would have some offerings on the likelihood of the protest to create lasting political change, the probability of violence or worse resulting from it, and so on. But I really recommend digging into Google Scholar and finding out for yourself.
I see a little discussion on intrade but no actual markets up yet.
I would guess that most of the regulars here are sane enough to be able to discuss positive/negative aspects of OWS, but I personally don’t want this to be a place where people can turn to estimate the worth of most political events. “Let’s see what those smart people at LW think” seems like the wrong approach to me. Most phenomena like this already have lots of expert attention/modeling/research on it, and it would be better to study that.
To really understand the economics of the situation, I recommend a basic economics text, a money and banking text, Mueller’s Public Choice text, Olson’s Logic of Collective Action, a basic Law and Economics text, Bryan Caplan’s book on voters, and a google scholar search for “corporation campaign finance,” or “campaign finance election outcomes.” Look for papers doing statistical analysis of effect sizes, ignore papers without actual numbers backing the claims. All combined this should get you 1) The size and scope of the problem OWS protestors are protesting, 2) How effective their proposed solutions would be, 3) Blind spots of the protestors/media, 4) What’s unique and what isn’t with regard to this recession, etc.
I’m sure a sociology expert would have some offerings on the likelihood of the protest to create lasting political change, the probability of violence or worse resulting from it, and so on. But I really recommend digging into Google Scholar and finding out for yourself.