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shared by Gene Ellis on 10 May 12 - No Cached

shared by Gene Ellis on 25 Apr 14 - No Cached

We have neither the mental capacity nor the understanding to decipher the full web of cause-and-effect relations in our social existence. So our daily behavior and reactions must be based on incomplete, and occasionally misleading, mental models.
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Social scientists – and economists in particular – analyze the world using simple conceptual frameworks that they call “models.”
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Useful social-science models are invariably simplifications. They leave out many details to focus on the most relevant aspect of a specific context.
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But, as inevitable as simplification is for explanation, it is also a trap
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Unfortunately, economists and other social scientists get virtually no training in how to choose among alternative models. Neither is such an aptitude professionally rewarded. Developing new theories and empirical tests is regarded as science, while the exercise of good judgment is clearly a craft.
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The philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between two styles of thinking, which he identified with the hedgehog and the fox. The hedgehog is captivated by a single big idea, which he applies unremittingly. The fox, by contrast, lacks a grand vision and holds many different views about the world – some of them even contradictory.
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shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 15 - No Cached

A glance at military spending in NATO's European members
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2.4 percent of GDP, British military spending exceeded $60 billion in 2013 — the highest of all European NATO members
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1.9 percent last year, according to NATO statistics.
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about 1.3 percent of GDP is devoted to the military.
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Poland's President Bronislaw Komorowski announced Tuesday that Poland would raise that figure to 2 percent as "a very tangible, very clear engagement" in the alliance
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1.2 percent of its GDP on the military
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1.3 percent of its GDP on the military.
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Germany is reducing the size of its army, which is expected to slightly trim military spending in coming years.
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inancially challenged Spain's defense budget has shrunk from 1.2 percent of GDP in 2009 to 0.9 percent, NATO statistics show.
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