{"id":196203,"date":"2010-01-18T17:40:24","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T22:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.33706"},"modified":"2010-01-18T21:17:12","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T02:17:12","slug":"hedging-the-net-psychic-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/196203","title":{"rendered":"Hedging The Net Psychic Wealth"},"content":{"rendered":"

So the polls have Martha Coakley in free-fall, and even Nate Silver, who’s been pretty pessismistic on Brown, says the FiveThirtyEight forecasting model puts Brown at a 3:1 chance of winning<\/a>.  Intrade also has her at 25 cents on the dollar.<\/p>\n

I confess, I can’t quite believe it.  It’s Massachusetts.  Teddy Kennedy’s seat.  And special elections are notoriously difficult to poll–many of the results rely on educated guesses about the makeup of the electorate tomorrow.  I’m very tempted to take a flyer on Ms. Coakley’s chances, at 3:1.<\/p>\n

And even if I thought those numbers were about right, it might make
\nsense as a way to hedge my net psychic wealth.  If Scott Brown wins,
\nI’m happy–and if Martha Coakley wins, at least I get $50 or so to
\ndrown my sorrows.<\/p>\n

I’m a great believer in hedging emotional
\nrisks.  Betting against an outcome you really want is an excellent way
\nto manage downside disappointment.  But in the case of the whole future
\nof our nation’s health care policy, I can’t quite bring myself to do
\nit.  Some risks are better off unhedged. <\/p>\n



\n

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So the polls have Martha Coakley in free-fall, and even Nate Silver, who’s been pretty pessismistic on Brown, says the FiveThirtyEight forecasting model puts Brown at a 3:1 chance of winning.  Intrade also has her at 25 cents on the dollar. I confess, I can’t quite believe it.  It’s Massachusetts.  Teddy Kennedy’s seat.  And special […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}