The Ace of Spades

No one is exactly sure when people began using playing cards—it was probably in China somewhere between 1000 and 1100 years ago.  There are references to a “leaf game” that used pieces of paper with block printing stamped on them, but whether it was a true card game or the pieces were used in a board game is unknown.   

About a century later, there are references to printed pieces of paper being used in a drinking game.  This is absolute proof that—against all logic—the college fraternity was invented almost a century before the first college was founded in Bologna, Italy in 1088. 

Those first playing cards were fashioned after Chinese paper money and the values and types of currency may be the origin of the suits and values of today’s playing cards.  By  the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), a trick-taking game called Madiao was being played with a deck of 38 cards that had four suits (and the local authorities were already worried about the use of cards in gambling).

Playing cards made their way across Asia into Europe, probably through Muslim-occupied Spain.  By last decades of the 14th Century, there were two fairly common traits about the cards.  First, the cards had four suits, each with 10 numbered “pip” cards and 2 or 3 “court” cards, depicting royalty.  Second, small-minded religious leaders (who were terrified that somebody, somewhere was enjoying himself) probably urged civil authorities to ban their use.

The four suits had a lot of variations depending on the country, but the most common early suits were cups, coins, polo sticks, and swords.  Over time the cups and coins were replaced with hearts and diamonds while swords slowly changed into spades.  Since polo sticks were not common in early Europe, they changed into war clubs that over time became the symbol of clubs that we use today.  

By the end of the 19th Century, the 52-card deck (or French Deck) featured four suits of 13 cards each, with reversible court cards, four Aces, two Jokers (an American invention that originally featured a dog in a doghouse, see right) that came in a “tuck box” sealed with a stamp.  By 1937, the boxes were wrapped in cellophane to prevent tampering.

Which brings us finally to the subject of aces.  (Forgive me, it is hard for me to get directly to a subject, I feel compelled to give the backstory of everything before I start.)

The word ‘ace’ comes from the latin “as”, the name for the smallest Roman coin, one-tenth of a denari.  In France, this became the name for the lowest possible roll of a die.  As the word traveled into England, it was pronounced “ace” and since the lowest roll of a die was losing in most dice games, it was associated with bad luck.  Evidently, the Ace of Spades was destined to be associated with bad luck even before it existed.

When playing cards arrived, the cards with a single pip were called aces, and since in most of the early card games, the ace was the lowest possible card, it was still associated with losing or bad luck.  It was not until trump-taking card games became popular, early in the 19th century, that the rank of the ace climbed higher than the king.  

In 17th-century Britain, the government had a bright idea: tax playing cards!  And how would you prove you had paid?  Simple: the Ace of Spades would be stamped with an official tax mark.  No tax, no ace — and no ace, no legal deck.  Over time, the Ace of Spades grew fancier and fancier, loaded with coats of arms, crowns, and enough scrollwork to make a medieval scribe blush.  The card became so important that forging it could even get you the death penalty.  Yes:  forging the Ace of spades to avoid a very small tax could literally cost you your head.  Cue the spooky music.

Naturally, with stakes that high, people started looking at the Ace of Spades a little differently.  It wasn’t just another card — it was the grim-faced tax enforcer of the deck, the brooding sheriff among cheerful hearts and dashing diamonds.  Play a seven of clubs and everyone’s smiling, but slap down an Ace of Spades and you could practically hear a ghostly breeze.

Fast forward again, this time to the battlefields of the 20th century.  Soldiers — always traditionally fond of superstition — took one look at that dark, ornate Ace and said, "Yep, that’s our card."  It appeared on fighter planes, helmets, and, most famously, scattered over battlefields during the Vietnam War by the US soldiers. Some troops even requested crates filled only with Aces of Spades to use as psychological warfare, leaving them on enemy bodies like grim calling cards. (Never mind that the Vietnamese didn’t actually associate the card with death — it’s the thought that counts, right?)

Over the years, the Ace of Spades cemented its reputation: mysterious, dangerous, fatalistic, and a little bit theatrical. Musicians, motorcyclists, and magicians adopted it. It found its way onto leather jackets, album covers, and more tattoos than we can count. Somehow, what began as a coin for a loaf of bread became a universal symbol of bad omens and rock-and-roll rebellion.

Today, when you see that bold black spade staring up from the table, it’s hard not to feel a tiny shiver — and maybe a chuckle. After all, it’s just an overworked playing card that got wrapped up in taxes, war, and a dash of good old human drama.

So next time you draw the Ace of Spades, tip your hat to the centuries of gamblers, tax collectors, soldiers, and rock stars who made it the legendary “death card” — and then go ahead and win the hand anyway.

Who Pays Tariffs?

One of the first things you learn as a student majoring in Economics is that the average politician could not pass the midterm in any of your freshman classes.  The realization is that most of the members of Congress have almost no understanding of the basic facts about our economy is rather frightening.

Luckily, most of the members of Congress have very little to do with drafting legislation:  they are far too busy fundraising and searching for the next camera.  Most legislation is actually written by Iron Triangles, cooperative groups that—though they rarely make the news—are the real power in Washington.

These triangles have three parts:  Congressional Committees are the members of Congress (especially subcommittees) who write laws and control agency funding. They want expertise, support, and campaign donations.  Bureaucratic Agencies are the government departments (like the EPA, FDA, or Department of Defense) that implement laws.  They need budgets and legislative authority to do their jobs.  Special Interest Groups include corporations, lobbyists, unions, and professional associations.  They want favorable policies or regulations, and they offer expertise, lobbying, political support and (most important) the campaign funds needed to keep the members of Congress from running off in search of a press conference.

Here's how it works:  Interest groups draft or heavily influence legislation.  Bureaucrats shape the policy in regulations or provide technical language.  Congressional committees then adopt it (usually word-for-word, because that saves time and pleases donors).  These triangles become self-reinforcing loops, as Interest groups support Congress, which in turn funds the agencies, who enforce the rules favoring the special interest groups.

You’ll notice that nowhere in the above have I mentioned the constituents—the people like you and me—who pay taxes and naively think our votes and opinions matter.  Oh well, I’ll play along.  The hot topic on the news right now is tariffs and who pays them, and it won’t surprise you when I tell you the news channels aren’t telling you the whole story.  News reporters keep you interested by relying on the fallacy of a binary choice—difficult problems rarely only have two options.

However, before we can talk about tariffs, we have to talk about one more variable factor: price elasticity of demand.  I promise the lecture will be painless.  Mostly.

Elasticity of demand, as it refers to price, is a fancy way of asking: “How much do people freak out when prices change?”  Imagine you’re shopping for chocolate.  If the price doubles and you say, “No thanks!” and walk away, your demand is elastic — it stretches and changes a lot when price changes.  But if it’s coffee and you must have it, no matter the cost, then your demand is inelastic — it barely budges.

Examples of inelastic demand products include insulin, cigarettes, sugar, and gasoline.  No matter what the price is, people will come up with the money and pay for goods that they “have to have”.

Economists measure this using a number. If the price goes up 10% and your quantity demanded drops by more than 10%, that’s elastic.  If it drops by less than 10%, it’s inelastic.  A perfectly elastic demand would mean nobody buys it at all if the price rises even a little.  A perfectly inelastic demand?  People buy the same amount no matter what it costs.

Why does demand elasticity matter? It tells businesses how much they can raise prices without losing customers.  It tells governments who really pays when they add taxes—think tariffs.  And it tells you whether you can really justify that $12 latte.

Demand elasticity is how sensitive people are to a price change.  If a small price increase makes you stop buying something, your demand is elastic.  If you’ll keep buying no matter what (like gas or insulin), your demand is inelastic.  Think of it as the “ouch” factor — how much a price hike hurts your wallet and affects your willingness to pay.  Elasticity depends on things like availability of substitutes, on whether the item is a necessity, and on how much of your budget it takes.  So, demand elasticity is just how much price changes mess up your next trip to the grocery store.

A great example of an iron triangle and price elasticity of demand working together is the story of Epipens, the autoinjectors of epinephrine for people with serious allergies.  In 2007, Mylan bought the exclusive marketing rights for the Epipen from Merck, then launched an expensive lobbying campaign for legislation requiring schools to stock epinephrine auto-injectors, effectively increasing demand for their product.  Additionally, Mylan raised the price of a two-pack of EpiPens from about $100 in 2007 to over $600 by 2016, despite the actual cost of epinephrine being around $1 per dose.  That the president of Mylan was the daughter of a U.S. senator was not a coincidence. 

So what does elasticity have to do with tariffs?

Tariffs are taxes on imports, but who bears the burden?—The foreign producer or the domestic consumer?  The answer depends on relative price elasticities of demand.  If demand is inelastic, consumers are less sensitive to a price increase and they will pay most of the tariff.  If demand is inelastic and the foreign country can’t find a different place to sell the higher-priced goods, then producers will bear more of the tariff to keep the customers buying.

Let’s put this simply:  If our government puts tariffs on products we must have (and there are no other sources for them), then we, the consumers, will pay the tariffs.  On the other hand, if tariffs are placed on consumer goods that we don’t really need (or there are other goods we can buy instead), then the foreign country will have no choice but to drop the price, thus effectively paying the tariff, in order to keep us buying the product.

I could explain the two graphs, but I think you get the idea.  I’ll leave you with three takeaways:

• If a political party says that tariffs are paid only by the manufacturing company, it is wrong and should probably shut up and sit down.
• If a political party says that tariffs are paid only by the consumer, it is wrong and should probably shut up and sit down.
• Regardless of who ends up paying the tariffs, fewer goods will be sold.  (C’mon!  Look at the graphs!). There will be shortages.  It is possible that these shortages will spur domestic production.

Okay, now that you know more about tariffs, go ahead and write to your elected representatives.  If you put a check in the envelope, it might even get read...by someone.

The Hunt for Yellow

For centuries, artists sought a yellow pigment that could capture the richness of sunlight, the warmth of skin tones, and the golden glow of sacred imagery—without turning poisonous, slowly fading into a grayish brown, or muddying the canvas.  The problem was simple: yellow was everywhere in nature, but hard to trap in paint.  A beautiful yellow pigment could be made from the mineral orpiment, but came with a deadly side effect—it was laced with arsenic.  Others, like lead-tin yellow and Naples yellow, were more stable but equally toxic.  Earthy yellows, such as ochre, were safe, but far too dull to capture vibrant light or glistening fabrics.

What artists craved was a pigment that was both brilliant and reliable—something that would layer beautifully in glazes, maintain its color over time, and not kill the painter in the process.  This desire only intensified during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, when oil painting flourished, and the play of light became central to artistic technique.  Painters needed a yellow that could hold its own against ultramarine skies, deep crimson robes, and luminous flesh tones.  

Until the 20th century, artists often worked barehanded, ate or smoked in studios, and used solvents in poorly ventilated rooms, thus, unknowingly exposing themselves to a wide variety of poisons.  Caravaggio, Francisco Goya, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edvard Munch, and countless other artists suffered ill health because of exposure to such toxic chemicals as lead, mercury, and arsenic.  Since the pigments were used in dyes for everything from clothing to food, consumers also suffered.  An arsenic-laced green wallpaper may well have even led to the death of Napoleon.  (No, I don’t mention Napoleon in every blog.  I counted and he is only mentioned in 81 of the 825 posts.  So far.)

By the end of the Renaissance, there were a few yellow pigments available but all were either highly toxic or the pigments slowly changed colors and turned dark over time.  

Into this golden gap entered India Yellow—a mysterious, glowing pigment that promised just enough brilliance, transparency, and permanence to feel like an answer to centuries of frustration.  The pigment could be easily mixed with linseed oil to produce a smooth oil paint, with gum arabic to make a transparent watercolor, or with an egg yolk to produce a fast-drying and durable tempera paint.  Best of all, the pigment was non-toxic.

During the nineteenth century, oil painting became increasingly popular as prepared oil paints were available in tubes.  Artists such as J. M. W. Turner, John Constable, and John Singer Sargent all used India Yellow in their paintings and Vincent van Gogh used India Yellow in The Starry Night.

India Yellow was a little more expensive than other yellow pigments, and slowly, there surfaced rumors that the method of production was not ethical.  There were occasional news stories that said the process of gathering the pigment was cruel to cows.  Finally, in 1883, T.N. Mukharji was commissioned by the British government to investigate the authenticity of the India Yellow production methods.

Mukharji reported that local producers fed cows exclusively on mango leaves, resulting in a distinctive yellow urine.  This urine was collected, concentrated, and dried into foul-smelling yellow balls known as "purree," which were then exported as pigment.  He noted the poor health of the cows subjected to this diet, since mango leaves are slightly toxic.

India Yellow was not the only ethically challenged pigment being sold at the time.  Artists could also buy tubes of Egyptian Brown, a pigment made from grinding up the mummies of both humans and animals removed from Egyptian tombs.  Several companies sold tubes labeled as “Genuine Mummy.”  Or you could purchase a tube of Tyrian Purple, a rich, beautiful pigment whose production process required a quarter of a million sea snails to produce an ounce of pigment.

Happily (at least for the cows), when this report was published in English newspapers, popular sentiment grew against the use of such pigments.  Within a few years, most companies no longer produced either Egyptian Brown or India Yellow.  (Supposedly, Winsor & Newton buried its last stock mummy in the courtyard of its London offices.). India Yellow was replaced by new pigments such as cadmium yellow.  Though some companies still produce paints labeled India Yellow, the modern synthesized pigments have nothing to do with either cows or mangos.  

If you are interested, you can still buy Tyrian Purple that is made by the traditional method.  A German company, Kremer Pigments, will sell you an ounce of the pigment for about $125,000, roughly 55 times more expensive than gold.

Self-Delusion

A couple of decades ago, I convinced the History Department at Enema U to send a survey to all of our students asking what the department was doing right, what it was doing wrong, what courses they wished we would offer, and in general what we could do to improve.  Students were generally enthusiastic, and we got almost a thousand responses with many students writing fairly long essays on their experiences.  

Some of the comments by students were predictable.  Students generally hate every book they are assigned to read, regardless of the content.  If Harry Potter was assigned reading, J. K. Rowling would still be unemployed and would never have bothered to write a sequel.  Most of the student responses were informative, a few even offered valuable insight into our program.  A few responses were not quite so kind.

While the students’ reactions were informative, the reactions of my colleagues reading those responses were fascinating.  Without fail, every member of the faculty believed the student responses concerning them was positive.  Indeed, most of the faculty had received generally good responses, but for a few professors…. Well, one professor received a less that helpful suggestion: “Die Bitch, Die!”  Another professor was absolutely positive that the survey had been personally positive, somehow ignoring that not a single response had mentioned the professor by name nor any of the courses taught by the professor.

Still, every single member of the department believed the survey supported their teaching.  This type of self-delusion has a name: Confirmation Bias.  People selectively pay attention to information that supports their existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret information that contradicts them.  The professors were unconsciously looking for evidence confirming that they were effective or valued.  They did this to preserve self-esteem or avoid cognitive dissonance (the psychological discomfort from conflicting information).  We all do this to some extent to maintain a positive, coherent self-image.

There are countless real world (nothing in academia is real) examples.  Confirmation bias is why newspapers, the three or four real newspapers still publishing, still print horoscopes in the 21st Century.  Readers interpret generalized predictions about personality traits as uniquely tailored to themselves believing vague descriptions precisely describe their personal traits.

Confirmation bias is why employee performance evaluations are generally a waste of time.  Employees usually interpret all but the most strongly written negative feedback as highly positive, believing they are indispensable, even if the review is average or slightly negative.

This is also why professional sports announcer on television can comment on a game and make fans of both teams happy.  The announcers have learned that the fans interpret neutral statements as supportive of their team, believing the announcers favor them or their favorite players.

Ever notice that television commercials trying to sell you medications never specifically describe the diseases they treat?  Consumers interpret general product claims as uniquely relevant to their needs, believing products are specifically beneficial or targeted to them personally.

I’ll give you another personal example.  A few years ago, I read The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko.  The book was first published in 1996 and is based on extensive research into the habits and behaviors of wealthy Americans.  The book challenges popular assumptions about wealth, showing that many millionaires live modestly, save diligently, and avoid flashy spending.  The neighbors of most millionaires literally have no idea of the prosperity of the people living next door.

I really enjoyed the book and recommended it to several friends.  Without exception, everyone I knew who read the book commented on how much their own lifestyle matched the lives of these closet millionaires.  The book gave dozens of examples, so everyone who read it could find at least one example that matched their lifestyle.  One friend, whose extravagant spending habits all but guarantee he will still be working long after he starts receiving Social Security, knew the book was about him because, just like the average millionaire, he drove a Ford pickup.  

This is a perfect example of the type of confirmation bias called the Barnum Effect.  The term comes from P. T. Barnum, the showman who supposedly said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”  Psychologist Bertram Forer demonstrated it in a 1949 study where he gave students identical personality descriptions and told them they were based on a personal test—the students rated the descriptions as highly accurate.

The Millionaire Next Door hits this sweet spot because it describes frugal, hard-working people who quietly accumulate wealth—an identity many people want to claim, whether or not it’s entirely true.  So, they unconsciously see themselves in it.

The Barnum Effect is why motivation seminars and self-help books are so popular.  “You’re the type of person who’s destined for greatness but just hasn’t found your path yet.”

I’ve learned a lot about confirmation bias this week.  Last week, I wrote what I thought was satire, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, I suggested that the reader could find inner peace and joy if he would just adopt an extreme political position and eagerly hate anyone opposed to his opinions.  Free from the onerous tasks of using reason or conducting research, anyone could find instant comfort if they just let MSNBC or FoxNews do all their thinking.  This was supposed to be satire.

The blog post went viral almost immediately.  In less than a week it was read thousands and thousands of times.  It has been shared repeatedly on Facebook, and garnered hundreds of “likes” on dozens of sites.

So what am I bitching about?  Almost all of those Facebook sites where that attempt at satire has been posted are extreme partisan sites, both Republican and Democrat.  It seems that each of the people posting that blog believe that I was referring to “the other guy.”

Now, for the worst self-delusion of all.  When I wrote last week’s blog post, I thought I was, in an admittedly microscopic way, helping to lessen the extreme partisan hatred.  Instead, it appears that I was just fueling the fires of hatred by writing a how to manual of bigotry.