In honor of President’s Day, I am going to do a few posts today about U.S. presidents, but because it’s also Family Day (here in Ontario), I will start by discussing the Bush family (a family of Presidents, thus combining Family Day and President’s Day!).
A reader asked me to estimate the IQ of George H.W. Bush and this is fairly easy, because we know from SAT scores that his son (George W. Bush) has an IQ equivalent of about 125 (U.S. norms).
The IQ correlation between one parent and one child is 0.45, so if all we knew about George H.W. Bush was that his son has an IQ of 125, our best guess for George H.W. Bush’s IQ would be 45% as far from the U.S average as his son:
Expected IQ = 0.45(25) + 100
Expected IQ = 111
However we also know that George H.W. Bush is a U.S. president, thus when guessing his IQ, we should regress the expected IQ, not to the average of all Americans, but to the average of American presidents, which appears to be about 130.
The average U.S. president would likely have an offspring with an IQ of 30(0.45) + 100 = 114, so George H.W. Bush has a son that is 11 points above the average of presidential kids. Thus George H. W. Bush would have an expected IQ of:
Expected IQ = 0.45(11) + 130
Expected IQ = 135
So my guess is that George H.W. Bush was about 10 IQ points smarter than George W. Bush. This may help explain why the father had the good sense not to topple Saddam Hussein, but the son didn’t.
However his son is 11 points smarter than the average President’s offspring. This may help explain why the son was smart enough to become President just like his Dad, something the vast majority Presidents’ kids never come close to achieving.
Now, some might object that in a restricted sample like U.S. presidents, the parent-child correlation would be lower than 0.45, however since that correlation was likely derived from testing offspring when they are very young, and since George W. Bush was tested near adulthood, it’s probably an underestimate anyway, so reducing it in a restricted population would be redundant.
Of course, this is just a rough statistical prediction, and should not be considered a substitute for actual test scores.
Pumpkin Person 
Thank you! I’m looking forward to more presidents!
Were you the one who request George H.W. Bush’s IQ estimate? I’m glad you showed up to see it!
the last decent republican, but not very impressive.
it was actually he who first used (or popularized) to phrase “voodoo economics” as a description of what has become GOP orthodox economic policy…
and he was right.
supply side economics has not lived up to its promise of “a rising tide lifts all boats”…
it’s been a 100% failure…empirically.
but contemporary republicans don’t care about facts.
their theory has been tested for the last 30 years in america, and…
it’s been dis-confirmed.
but their theory still sounds good…and it benefits their donors in the short term…so they keep spouting it…
basically there are two types of hardcore GOP in economic policy:
1. those who think that they’re clever for pointing out ad nauseam that inequality can be good for everyone…even those at the bottom…and that liberals are just envious or “demagogues”.
2. the GOP donor class…shortsighted capitalists who view labor as just another commodity input to production…and profit…who never ask themselves: who’s going to buy the product?
or put another way…
1. those who are diseased with the just world phenomenon.
2. evil and stupid rich people.
supply side economics has not lived up to its promise of “a rising tide lifts all boats”…
Supply side economics caused great inequality, but conservatives might argue that the lowest boat is now a lot higher than it used to be in an absolute sense, and by absolute sense, I don’t mean income adjusted for inflation, but rather buying power:
Conservatives might argue that the poorest of the poor now have color TVs, iphones, and internet access, things not even royalty had in the past, and they might further argue that their policy of obscenely rewarding innovation allowed for that, though liberals could counter that a lot of the innovations were made by government, and high tech moguls just hogged all the profits.
conservatives might argue?
how old are you?
“conservatives” don’t argue, and never have. they’re cognitively incapable of arguing about anything.
buying power is income adjusted for inflation fucktard.
but forget about those obfuscations.
the countries where supply side has had the most sway have grown at a slower rate over the last 30 years than those where it hasn’t.
an example:
sweden’s economy has grown more than america’s over the last 30 years.
shhhh.
don’t wake the baby.
conservatardism and liberal-tard-ism are just two sides of a flat earth…
pssst…
the earth isn’t flat…but jews want you to believe it is.
the ethnic, religious, and “historical” composition of any society matters a lot:
1. both to its working politics
2. and to whether it is governable at all
america is cancer. it has so far successfully convinced almost the whole of the rest of the world’s elite that the whole world should look like and act like america…a new world state…a state but not a nation…a joke…like canada or mexico…but worse and much more powerful. your own country has plenty of ethnic friction peepee.
what’s even worse is that the american ideology survives only because immigrants buy into it.
the solution to the poverty of the third world is not, and cannot be, that everyone in the third world moves to the rich world. then the whole world would become like latin america…what the american elite really wants.
buying power is income adjusted for inflation fucktard
In theory, but no amount of money gives you the power to buy something before it’s been invented, so it’s a bit misleading to say $25 decades ago has the buying power of $50 today, because one’s buying options were fewer then.
sweden’s economy has grown more than america’s over the last 30 years.
But America has presumably been a lot more innovative over the last 30 years, but that could be for reasons other than supply side economics.
yes. i agree with that.
and according to a post by prof shoe if silicon valley and wall street…a few zip codes…were eliminated…inequality hasn’t grown in the US…or no that much.
there has been innovation in silicon valley, though much of it of dubious value…
and the same sort of innovation has taken place on wall street…
that is, citibank has more software engineers than microsoft, etc….
of course with a few exceptions, like peterffy (gentile) and simons(jew), the innovations on wall street have made non-technical people super rich…
the technical people, the quants and coders, have gotten rich too, but hedgistan and private equity and i-banks are still ruled by guys who can’t code or do much math for the most part.
and america’s innovativeness is…like everything else american…more maketing than truth…
japan is actually, and has been actually, much more innovative than the US…just not in a manner which gets attention or media coverage.
in fact, i’d say oil from shale is america’s greatest innovation since…the model T…but actually the motor car was a german invention.
and btw,
there is no doubt in my mind that the world’s most innovative country…by far…during the 19th c…was what was then called The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
wo warst du amerikaner?
and before that the center of the world was…
Italy.
and before Italy…
and if the supply siders were actually honest and consistent…
just make personal capital expenditures tax deductible. (corporate capex is already deductible, in part, via depreciation expense.)
i would NOT object to that.
but have any of them actually proposed that?
no!
so if you’re a CEO of a major american public corporation and your total compensation is 50 million in one year then…
the IRS can say to you…
“whatever portion of that you invest…actively…in business enterprises which you have so sway over…like the one you currently head…
on that you will pay a tax rate of 0%.
but on the portion that you would consume or invest passively…
on that you will pay at least 50%.”
but of course supply side economics isn’t really about supply side economics at all.
and some retards will make the claim that passive investment via the capital markets is no different from active investment.
and this bullshit leads to the following absurdity.
if you buy 100k worth of stock and sell it for 500k, your tax rate is the SAME as that of a guy who buys some decrepit old house for 100k, fixes it, and sells it for 500k.
it’s absurd.
but then the retards say…
a larger pool of passive investments is more capital for those who would employ it actively…
no!
false!
most american IPOs nowadays are from private equity LBO exits.
it’s the stupidity stupid.
ideology is so fucking pervasive in the US.
on the american radio program Philosophy Talk hosted by two Stanford philosophy profs…one of whom is a black guy…the latest program was on “the free market” and all that jazz…
a guy called in and asked the obvious question, “why is america so much more ‘free market’ than every other developed country? or why, at least, do some of its politicians claim to be?”
guess what no one mentioned?
not the white philosophy prof.
not the black philosophy prof.
not their guest philosophy prof.
not the call-in.
hmmmmm.
could it be…
RACE!
oops!
mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
the above vid is pro-satanist…
just up peepee’s alley.
like this lesbian horror movie.
the only thing good i have to say about devil worshippers…
ozzy’s Paranoid and Don’t Fear the Reaper…
and…
Carmina Burana
otherwise i’d just shoot them…
like blokhin shot pollocks/polacks…
let’s do it.
just to show how “conservative” i can be…or rather consistent…
my opinion of…
1. “a rising tide lifts all boats”…(not as a claim of fact, but as an ideal…conservatards can’t tell the difference.)
and rawls’s
2. Inequalities are permissible when they maximize, or at least all contribute to, the long term expectations of the least fortunate group in society.
…
i would re-state them as…
1. “…lifts almost all, but not necessarily all, boats”…but the claim of fact has been proved FALSE.
2. Inequalities are permissible when they maximize, or at least all contribute to, the long term expectations of most of the least fortunate groups in society.
and…for those who can think…
there is another reductio ad absurdum for supply siders…
following their logic…
1. capitalists should pay NO tax…
AND
2. should be paid with the taxes of their employees a NEGATIVE tax.
but none bother to insist that these ad hoc arguments for gross inequality be followed to their necessary conclusions.
why?
it’s the stupidity stupid.…and…”the concision (and cliche) constraint”
but that’s just the economic GOPers…
a tiny minority.
because the GOP donor class’s motives are un-sell-able…
as chomsky and others have noted…
the contemporary GOP has had to sell itself to…
1. “christian” weirdos
2. gun nuts
3. racists
4. people who are afraid of…whatever
5. the military and all of its dependents
of course the DEMs have had to sell themselves to niggers and chinks and faggots and carpet cleaners and all manner of perverts…
when they’re really just controlled by the same people who control the GOP.
of course one fact overlooked by both right and left…but a smidgen less by the left…is…
that social science (including economics and psychology) theories and the extent to which they correspond with social facts…
as soros has tried to promote so many times…
DEPENDS on those very theories…
and it’s not just true at the level of society.
it’s true at the level of the individual.
that is…
one’s own theory about how the world works…in particular how social status is determined…and the extent to which social status is a desirable thing…
will GREATLY influence the social status he actually attains…
it won’t determine it, obviously…whatever one’s theory…if he’s an idiot he’ll get nowhere…
but it is a very big factor.
so as chomsky has noted…
a bit hyperbolically…
even if you’re very smart…
if you think your society is shit…
you’ll wind up driving a cab…metaphorically…
not because, or not only because, you will be discriminated against…even in-ccognizantly…but because…
you yourself will CHOOSE to be a loser in a society where “winning” is the opposite for you.
http://cdn.hark.com/swfs/player_32x32.swf?pid=nkxsvvysnj
Pumpkin PersonThe IQ correlation between one parent and one child is 0.45
This could go in two directions.
I am thinking in regards to my mom.
(13 / 100) * 45 = 5.85
(13 / 45) * 100 = 28.8
So my moms IQ is either 128 or 105.
If my grandmother was 118 this would make my mom 108.
My grandmother took my mom to the Narramore Institute in Arizona when she was 20 in 1976. They told her she was a genius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_M._Narramore
I don’t know? She likes to buy lottery tickets.
That is kind of dumb just like the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was dumb.
I learned yesterday that copper is good for you. Heavy metals in the environment such as from car exhaust have toxic properties that the body absorbs. Copper is non magnetic but if you do not get enough copper then toxic metals are used by the body instead and they absorb radio waves and magnetic waves that mess up how cells function. I am going to buy some copper supplements tomorrow.