auto boulot dodo - left coast

Well damn it's been a long time since I wrote in the blog. I was busy with the new job, studying for exam 3 (actuarial crap) other standardized tests, being overwhelmingly depressed/angry/frustrated/sad about the election. It's one of those things that just drives home what a different reality (or at least a different perception of reality) that I live in.

I can't say that I'm too surprised given the underwhelming amount of independent thought that goes on in this country. I think I may have some unique skills to contribute in that respect. I certainly like to think of myself as an independent thinker and I have a fairly unique background in that I have been exposed to fairly cutting edge thought in quite a few disciplines. So while I may not be a super expert game theorist, economist, historian, or neuroscientist I at least have some basic sense of where those respective fields are coming from. In addition I actually work in the real world! in a real important, screwed up industry (health insurance)!

So in this vein my new mission is to work on a couple things.
- a coherent, realistic, attractive theoretical framework for progressive policies which encompases

• Why the fundamental assumptions of modern economics are suspicious and evidence for where and why they break down (when are economic actors not rational or self interested or when do they lack crucial information or have wacky preferences).
• A game theory analysis of the incentives people/institutions have in certain markets which prevent truly efficient outcomes from "free markets"
• A framework to quantify the effects of distortionary actions by gov't and other actors
• Prioritization of policy actions by their effectiveness at acheiving maximum outcomes specifically laying out which interventions would have the best chance at producing the best *measurable* results. (identifying virtuous cycles, characteristics of successful programs)
• Proposals for effective mechanisms to quantify and internalize externalities.

My major project is a study of the US health care system. I want to write something that will help an intelligent person with no special theoretical knowledge understand how our health care system is actually structured and how current trends will only cause the problems to get worse and could have an extreme detrimental effect on overall health and productive capacity. But I also want to have substantive theory behind my analysis.

Daunting!! My outline is due to Robin on Friday.

Otherwise - I went to the Krazy thanxgiving at dev's - there were lots of people who i hadn't seen in too long. Hopefully that will change now that liz is living in the bay area. There was a fractal pie some people are just too cool - thankfully my somewhat batty suggestion of an inverse dutch auction for pie eating was never carried out. On friday we played a wacky swedish lawn game kube (no idea who those people are but actually a good explanation) it was fun fun fun and the park was nice as spice. Then we went to a mindblowing salvage warehouse. They had all sorts of random industrial surplus things that I thought were fascinating although i wouldn't ever use them. Almost makes one want to become an eccentric inventor type person. Or a bad ass industrial engineer/constructor person. I think my calling though is to be more of a wonky public policy person.

listening to: camera obscura - biggest bluest hi-fi