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Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

nytimes.com

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Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#11

Post by Retric »

ars wrote: post #10

Good article - up until the point where he claims the Republicans are the "rogue elephants". To the other side the Democrats are the "rogue elephants", and it's interesting that the author appears incapable of seeing that. A truly irrational person is a rare thing. If you are unable to explain the actions of your opponent in any other way then the fault lies within you, not them.

I think he is calling Republicans "rogue elephants" because they have split into dysfunctional elements is reasonable. When significant portions of their party are not willing to make any deal they lose their majority standing in the house and are forced to act as a minority party in both the house and senate.

PS: A basic functional strategy would be to block any Democratic bill in the senate and then pass a poison pill in the house which they can then present as the "only option to avoid default". Instead their only option is compromising in the Senate so they can get enough Dem support in the House to pass something. However, they are still acting like they can pass something in the House and blocking legislation in the Senate.

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#12

Post by anonymoushn »

xradionut wrote: post #7

This is an interesting article, but the game isn't chicken, what is happening in Washington is a dance of distraction. Most of the damage to the economy is already done, the public is just waiting for the "leadership" to finally drive the rotting ship into the iceberg. No matter how much the rational and historically educated among us yell "The emperor has no clothes", we are powerless against the interests that have…

You've written this in such a way that any reader will either think he or she is familiar with the your ideas or have no clue what your ideas are. Could you elaborate?

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#13

Post by erikb »

Giving oponents a reasonable percentage of irrational behaviour is actually a normal thing in game theory. Game theory doesn't stop to apply because someone on this planet acts irrational to gain an advantage. I like to think more in terms of finding the rationale behind the "irrational behaviour". That the truthfully out of mind elephant acts this way because the cost of a failure really doesn't matter to him at that moment. If u don't care about the losses, maximising the win percantage actually is quite rational. And in a game of chicken the best chances of winning are of course if you really don't stop, ever. The only reason why most people stop before the crash, is that they worry about the cost of a failure might be bigger to them then the possible win of a success.

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#14

Post by demallien »

jessriedel wrote: post #6
asnyder wrote: post #2

I thought this was an interesting article as it's more analysis than it is political commentary, something the hacker news community could enjoy from an analytical perspective.

This article is a pseduo-analytical wrapper around an extremely partisian stance: My political opponents are irrational idiots (literally mad elephants ), having purposely made themselves incapable of rational cooperation. Therefore, I will take the high road as the morally upright and rational person I am. The key thing about the game of chicken is that it is symmetric. And, in fact, the current budget debate is mor…

The situation isn't symmetric - the President will just invoke the 14th Amendment and bump up the debt ceiling next week if needs be. It's just that the Democrats seem to have decided to use this issue to demonstrate to the voting public just how unreasonable the Republicans have become in negotiations, by trying to negotiate when they don't even need to. Looking at recent polling results, the strategy seems to be working.

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#15

Post by rcthompson »

ars wrote: post #10

Good article - up until the point where he claims the Republicans are the "rogue elephants". To the other side the Democrats are the "rogue elephants", and it's interesting that the author appears incapable of seeing that. A truly irrational person is a rare thing. If you are unable to explain the actions of your opponent in any other way then the fault lies within you, not them.

I assume the author is making reference to the fact that the elephant is the Republican mascot: http://media.nowpublic.net/images/3d/5/3d5c7422c1c56dc249ed9...

Of course, it doesn't justify the claim, but it might trick people into believing it if they aren't paying attention.

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#16

Post by paganel »

Astrohacker wrote: post #9
tomjen3 wrote: post #4

So how could he stop playing the game? Simply give up on raising the debt ceiling? That doesn't seem like it would give a good outcome.

It would be terrible in the short run, but it would be vastly better in the long run. Presently, the US is on the unsustainable trajectory of acquiring debt until it defaults. Not raising the debt ceiling would immediately end this problem. Is it better to have a smaller catastrophe now, or a bigger catastrophe later?

> It would be terrible in the short run, but it would be vastly better in the long run. Presently, the US is on the unsustainable trajectory of acquiring debt until it defaults.

Some of us have been saying this ever since Bear&Stearns went down, in the spring of 2008, that you cannot just prop up an non-solvent bank/country/whatever.

At that time all the "bright" economists were saying things like "it's only a liquidity problem, we just need to grease the system with a little more printed money and things will be just fine" (which they finally did, after Lehman's collapse), while now they're saying things like "let's just raise the debt ceiling this one more time to allow the FED to print more money and things will be just fine". Well, if things have turned up to be "just fine" first time around how did we "evolve" from the level of "Wall-Street bank going into default" to "the first military power of the Earth possibly going into default" ? To this question the bright economists don't have any answer, apart from stupid things like "we should have printed more money".

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#17

Post by bd_at_rivenhill »

tomjen3 wrote: post #4

So how could he stop playing the game? Simply give up on raising the debt ceiling? That doesn't seem like it would give a good outcome.

Unfortunately for the president, he is the one who has the final move if the debt ceiling isn't raised: he will either have to shut down non-essential government services and skip making some entitlement payments, or he will have to skip an interest/principal payment on the sovereign debt. This puts him in a weakened position relative to the Republicans (many of whom would probably consider skipped entitlement payments as more of a feature than a bug), which probably explains why they are pushing it down to the wire. In addition, the Democrats clearly wish to avoid having another debt ceiling showdown next year during the presidential election, which further weakens their position. It appears that the Republicans are angling for a short-term benefit of spending cuts with a minimal amount of revenue increases in addition to a medium-term benefit of getting to play this game again next year when they have an even larger advantage, so they are presenting this unpalatable option along with the even more unpleasant option of major spending cuts with no revenue increases over a longer period. Attempting to view this from the position of a neutral observer, it actually appears very well played on their part.

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#18

Post by bd_at_rivenhill »

paganel wrote: post #16
Astrohacker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be terrible in the short run, but it would be vastly better in the long run. Presently, the US is on the unsustainable trajectory of acquiring debt until it defaults. Not raising the debt ceiling would immediately end this problem. Is it better to have a smaller catastrophe now, or a bigger catastrophe later?

> It would be terrible in the short run, but it would be vastly better in the long run. Presently, the US is on the unsustainable trajectory of acquiring debt until it defaults. Some of us have been saying this ever since Bear&Stearns went down, in the spring of 2008, that you cannot just prop up an non-solvent bank/country/whatever. At that time all the "bright" economists were saying things like "it's only a liquid…

Eventually there will be a good deal of money printing involved in solving this problem, especially given the paucity of options available for fixed-income investors with a low appetite for risk (what, would you prefer the Euro or the Yen?), but it will never be the case that the US will have a solvency problem in the same way as Bear Stearns or Greece because they can always print their way out of it with inflation as the downside. Inflation is still very tame relative to the period between 1972 and 1982, and it is very unlikely that we will see contributory mistakes of the magnitude of imposing price controls and eliminating the link to gold during the upcoming period.

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#19

Post by jpadkins »

Retric wrote: post #11
ars wrote: post #10

Good article - up until the point where he claims the Republicans are the "rogue elephants". To the other side the Democrats are the "rogue elephants", and it's interesting that the author appears incapable of seeing that. A truly irrational person is a rare thing. If you are unable to explain the actions of your opponent in any other way then the fault lies within you, not them.

I think he is calling Republicans "rogue elephants" because they have split into dysfunctional elements is reasonable. When significant portions of their party are not willing to make any deal they lose their majority standing in the house and are forced to act as a minority party in both the house and senate. PS: A basic functional strategy would be to block any Democratic bill in the senate and then pass a poison p…

They did pass a bill, the debt ceiling is tied to a balanced budget amendment.

Re: Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants

#20

Post by jpadkins »

bd_at_rivenhill wrote: post #17
tomjen3 wrote: post #4

So how could he stop playing the game? Simply give up on raising the debt ceiling? That doesn't seem like it would give a good outcome.

Unfortunately for the president, he is the one who has the final move if the debt ceiling isn't raised: he will either have to shut down non-essential government services and skip making some entitlement payments, or he will have to skip an interest/principal payment on the sovereign debt. This puts him in a weakened position relative to the Republicans (many of whom would probably consider skipped entitlement paymen…

Congress already passed a bill instructing the Treasury to pay interest on debt, social security, wages of troops in that order. If the President does not follow that law, it's probably an impeachable offense.

The result won't be a default or social security checks not getting sent out, but a normal 1994-style government shutdown.

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