Weakonomics

Open Letter To The Finite Physicist

The Weakonomist — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:39:14 +0000

Dr Murphy;

I just finished reading your post on your dinner with an unnamed accomplished economist. One must admire your success in getting an economist to talk in circles. But it isn’t really all that difficult as you’re applying legitimate scientific thinking to a subject that is in fact not a science.

Economists try to say their art is a science by applying two very common themes to their work: laws and controlled experiments.

Laws: In physics, there is the well understood law of gravity. Every objects attracts other objects at a rate proportional to their masses or something. This law has helped govern and expand our understanding of physics for hundreds of years.

Economic Laws: The most basic economic concepts are still hotly debated. Is gold a currency? What caused the Great Depression? How do you tax pollution? What is the right measure of the economy? GDP, which is a common topic in your discussion with the economist, isn’t even universally agreed upon as the best measure for the economy. See happiness. There are no laws at which understanding can be furthered. Economics in 2012 is where physics was before Newton was walking. How long did it take for us to understand physics enough from that point to fly even a hundred feet? We can observe economic concepts in markets, but they are rarely consistent and nearly impossible to predict. Thankfully gravity is.

Controlled Experiments: In all manners of science, we are able to further our understanding by conducting controlled experiments. We can isolate almost every variable and change only one to observe the change. These observations have given us cancer-beating drugs, astronauts, electric cars, and the glass your reading this on.

Economic Experiments: Macroeconomists can’t experiment at all. They can only observe the real environment and report. When asked for advice or input they propose solutions “ceteris paribus”. Ceteris paribus is what real scientists do in a lab. But economists can’t hold all other factors equal when talking about solutions to a broken market. Markets are driven by people. At this point in our understanding of people there are too many factors at play to control all of them. So sure, if you control for every other aspect of the economy, you can improve it by having government spend more. But we really don’t know what every other aspect of the economy is.

Even though you have no formal training in economics it’s clear from your story you have a well enough understanding of it. So it was very disappointing that simply for the sake of conversation you limited the capacity for humanity to grow to the confines of the planet. While the pace of space exploration has certainly slowed, to even hypothetically chat about how we’ll be living in 400 years without including at least gathering resources from space is fruitless. Much less live in places other than Earth. No one was enriched by this conversation.

But the biggest problem with your conversation is that neither of you were willing to talk about the possibility of new understanding of your respective fields. Only after the conversation ends and you have time to reflect do you start to get to where some of us already are. I’ve already talked about our limited understanding of economics. But does anyone in your field ever talk about the thought of having it all wrong? Perhaps we can travel 300,000,000 m/s through normal space. To quote Scotty from the most recent Star Trek film: “Imagine that! It never occurred to me to think of space as the thing that was moving!” Our understanding of things could change.

While on the concept of science fiction, there are some things about economics that can be learned from Star Trek and Star Wars. The Star Trek universe had largely given up money. In such a hypothetical situation how would we measure the economy? Likewise, the Star Wars universe spans thousands of years without any significant change in technology or energy usage. The powerful were simply the ones that could gather the most resources and influence the most people. Again, how do we measure economy there?

The concept of unlimited growth is merely a way for economists to frame their limited understanding of their “science”. If GDP is ever constrained by the physical limits of growth they are likely to achieve some new understanding of economy. But that has not occurred yet. Until then, or until an economics Einstein comes along, the concept of unlimited growth is as sound as the speed of light. It provides a constant for which they can expand their knowledge.

Economics is not a mature field. Nor is it sophisticated. But they are trying. To apply real scientific logic to something that at this point, for the sake of argument, is an art, leaves a taste of snobbery in my mouth that was evidenced all over your post. At the very least you should disclose who the economist was, so they can confirm the events of your article, or perhaps offer a more well thought out response.

I am no fan of any economist (or politician) that thinks they actually understand the economy enough to explain how one action will result in a specific opposite reaction in a market. I prefer to look at economics the way we do psychology. We’re only beginning to understand how the brain works and apply real scientific methods to understanding it. But no one is trying to break psychology because physics and biology can’t explain where the soul comes from. This would have been a much more interesting starting point for your conversation I think.

Please continue to poke holes in economics where you see a chance, it’s enlightening to see those outside the field take an interest. But if you want to add real value do it within the confines of the discipline, not by applying another one to it.

Exponentially,

The Weakonomist

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Six Things The Bachelorette Can Teach Us About Money

The Weakonomist — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:15:27 +0000

Being married to the fairer sex, one often finds themselves watching television shows that don’t normally show up on their radar in order to spend quality time with said partner. Funny, as when Star Wars comes on I find myself quickly alone in the room. Marriage is about sacrifices though and so last night I sat through 90 minutes of what I can only imagine the CIA refers to as water-boarding.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t exploit my discomfort to find some pop-culture references that can be tied into something for this blog. Usually, I prefer to do these lists with things I actually like (see below), but I can make an exception.

So what can a reality show that by its very nature defies the statistics behind matchmaking teach us about money? Just see:

If something is profitable, make more: And it doesn’t have to be good, it just has to make money. This is really what The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have always been about. Television and movie producers will happily take concept and run it into the ground. Not only have the original shows had many seasons, but offshoots of the concept like Joe Schmo, Joe Millionaire, and Flavor of Love and more have also had varying degrees of success. It doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t even have to be a success based on the fake premise of one person finding love among dozens of members of the opposite sex. It just needs to be entertaining. This model isn’t limited to TV. We see this in toys, video games, and just about any form of entertainment because product and content executives really have no idea what will work until it’s in front of the people.

Nothing is safe, there are no guarantees: On The Bachelorette one beautiful woman is given 25 guys that will try to court her. Through a long and drawn out process of elimination she will get the group down to just one and then that one must choose to be with her or not. Many times the show ends with the two engaged or at least caught up in a fairy-tale style romance. The reality is that the couples don’t normally last. This is easily evidenced by the fact the current bachelorette won on the last bachelor and then they broke up. The same thing of course applies to our finances. No investment is perfectly safe. Any investment, even the cash in your bank account could go away. Most people assume their money is always safe because that’s how it’s pitched by bankers and investment advisors. Investments and cash are much safer than a relationship formed on a reality show, but by its very nature money is never safe. Even under your mattress.

There’s always enough idiots to fall for a scam: The financial crisis exposed Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme and since then government agencies have cracked down on dozens of other investment scams. But there will always be enough morons to fall for the next one. Just like there will always be enough potato-brained viewers to buy into the premise of The Bachelorette. Keep in mind, the premise is that 25 guys would all magically like the same girl and compete for her love. The only place that’s reality is China. But like an investment scam, to get viewers the show sells the idea that something that is too good to be true is actually true.

Stick with the boring options: Advisors and bankers commonly convince their clients to put their money in products they don’t understand. But they look interesting and have all the bells and whistles. On the show the best person for the man or woman is likely the most boring contestant. The one that doesn’t cause trouble and stays out of the way of the other suitors. The one that doesn’t do cheesy things to get attention of viewers or the opposite sex they’re courting. But those people aren’t entertaining, and don’t last long on the show. It was clear in the premier who the producers of the show like, and they will somehow last much longer than the view would expect because they’re fun to watch. Stick with boring investments that are easy to understand, they’re the only ones that will still be around when you’re old and grey.

Past performance is not an indication of future returns: We see this all the time on the documentation you receive about mutual funds. They must disclose this in the marketing materials because those materials contain nothing but carefully framed charts showing their past performance. It’s good they must disclose this. On The Bachelor this is not disclosed, but it is implied in the premise. The show’s track record for successful relationships is actually terrible. The simple fact that they bring back someone that was matched in a prior season is enough. This year the beauty has a kid too. I’m sure that kind of baggage will certainly get the guy to stick around after he wins.

People will do what their incentives tell them to do: On the show, every person has an incentive to win. Winning gets you celebrity status for at least a short time. If you can “win” you can parlay that into a career in Hollywood regardless of your relationship status. The winning couple can make quite a bit of money in endorsements and other celebrity related goodies. So is this really about love? Love of money perhaps. Pretending to love a pretty girl long enough to get there is a small price to pay. This is exactly the same problem we have everywhere in the world: politics, business, school, sports. People have various incentives and they may not be perfectly aligned with the intent of their position. This is why we are constantly disappointed but really shouldn’t be surprised when these people do something bad that lines their pockets.

There is much to learn in the world of television. Look all around you and try to learn lessons from other peoples mistakes.

Other “Six Things Can Teach Us About Money” Posts:
Star Wars
The Ferengi
James Bond
World Cup
March Madness

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The Magic Number For A Robamney Fight

The Weakonomist — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:15:45 +0000

This is the line drawn in the sand. If the American economy averages about 175,000 news jobs a month then Obama should win the election. If it’s below 100,000 jobs a month then Romney is moving in. Anything else in between then we have a fight.

That is at least according to some analysis by the NY Times:

“Historically, nothing — not social issues, campaign advertisements or gaffes — has influenced voters more heavily than the direction of the economy in an election year. In only three races since World War II has the outcome been different from what the economy’s direction would have suggested: 1952 (when the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower was running), 1968 (when the Vietnam War hobbled the Democrats) and 1976 (when Watergate hobbled the Republicans).”

In the absence any kind of scandal against a party, this looks like a race that comes down to jobs. And last month the economy added only 115,000 jobs. But the 6 months prior averaged almost 200,000.

This should be interesting then.

But it’s also sad. I’ve talked before about how candidates play games with economics. When it suits them, they will take credit for something in the economy. When it doesn’t, they won’t or their opponent will use it as an attack point. The reality is the role of the president in the economy is marginal at best. Even if a president put in different policies, there is no guarantee they would have been more effective.

No one really knows what the magic button is for jobs. But any candidate with a good smile (and both do) can convince you their policies did or would work.

The fact that the economy plays such a role in our elections is disappointing. Who was president really doesn’t matter. But in an election where the media is more focused on alleged high school bullying than a campaigner’s actual stance on issues tell us all we need to know about how rational voters will be come November anyway.

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The Queerest Thing Of All

The Weakonomist — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:49:09 +0000

There was a lot of gay stuff in the news this week. I’m glad the debate is happening, and we all know where we’ll be in 10-15 years. But we aren’t there yet. Before we get there more feelings will get hurt. I wish we didn’t have to do that but that will be the case. The primary fight is over religion.

Most folks that are anti-gay marriage or whatever are so on religious grounds. Christians are the best example but they aren’t alone. And that doesn’t mean all Christians are anti-gay. It means that some are. The Bible is certainly open to interpretation and they have interpreted it in that way. So why do they force their beliefs on others?

They don’t see it as forcing their beliefs on others. Or if they do, that is inconsequential. Their belief system puts God in front of all others. And God’s law is primary over constitutional law. Their interpretation of God’s law also means that it’s not enough to simply live that way, but to help other people live that way too. If they don’t do both, then they could be in trouble in God’s eyes.

Now I haven’t done this view perfectly, as it’s not my own. But I respect everyone’s right to choose. And if a majority chooses one way that is fine. There will always be a majority that suppresses a minority. One must have respect for the process though or our society will truly become fragile. Eventually, the minority will become the majority. The gay issue is something that is clearly changing in the United States. It’s clear the majority is only the majority in certain regions. I’m sure many people would prefer it happen now, myself included. But it takes time.

Before we leave I want to discuss three more things. First, the separation of church and state. People think this means the church shouldn’t be able to influence law. That is not the case. The law was written to keep the state out of church.

Second, what is really needed is an open debate from two sides of the aisle. Not some atheist arguing with a priest, but two religious scholars that have interpreted the Bible differently. We think the Bible is full of contradictions, but we see what we want to see. And cherry-picking scripture out of context does allow for someone to make that point. A well-informed discussion has not occurred on any large scale and it’s about time that two experts on the Bible come together and actually talk about what the Bible is really saying about homosexuality and any other contradictions or hypocrisy that might exist. This isn’t about changing minds, but people at least understanding both sides.

Consider this my formal request for Intelligence Squared to have such a debate.

Finally, Obama didn’t do anything profound this week with his statements on support of gay marriage or whatever he said. He always felt this way. To pretend otherwise just to win votes, as he did in 2008, is more despicable than someone who is proudly anti-gay. Misinformed or misled as they may be, at least they have a belief and stick to it.

Weakend: Rice Professor Is My Hero

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Imagine A World…

The Weakonomist — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:59:07 +0000

Wall Street is all a-flutter right now because it’s earnings season. The term is a bit odd since earnings are reported 4 times a year. Every season is technically earnings season. But most companies do report their earnings over a stretch of a few weeks and so that is a hot time for the market.

Company earnings are the primary driver of a stock’s performance. If the earnings meet investor expectations, prices are more stable. But if they are much higher or lower, the stock can move a lot in a couple of days. To help avoid surprises, companies provide what’s called “guidance”. Guidance is the company’s best guess at what they think their earnings will be. An industry veteran debates whether or not companies should provide guidance here.

Guidance is one of many things that can influence stock markets. Stock markets are quite volatile, and some people’s careers can be made or broken in a matter of seconds. A headline alone can move a market into the red, even if the headline was published in error. Economic reports like unemployment or Gross Domestic Product can also shift markets in one direction or another.

With dozens and potentially hundreds of factors impacting the movement of the stock market, it’s a wonder anything ever gets sorted out. Trillions of shares, trillions of dollars, and split-second decisions; it’s enough to drive a trader to lunacy.

Imagine a world then that is much more stable. Instead of seeing an economic report every month, it comes out once a year. Instead of reporting earnings once a quarter, how about yearly? Maybe stocks even only traded for an hour a day, or for one day a month.

This is about giving people time to digest the news. Whatever it is, the news can lead to people making rash decisions. These decisions have to be made quickly or else you’ll miss out on whatever opportunity is there. If you couldn’t act on the news immediately, you might have time to really dig in deep and determine if it’s something worth acting on.

Behavioral economics has already taught us that we don’t make good decisions when faced with lots of choices. It would be interesting to know if we make the right decision if we have to act that second compared to being given 5 minutes, or 5 days to really mull it over.

This is all flies in the face of the advantages of the stock market as it is today. News is digested quickly. The market is considered efficient. It’s liquid. These are all true things. But fear and panic made the financial crisis worse than it had to be. It’s at least food for thought. What would the world look like if markets were given more time to make decisions?

Image: Alex E. Proimos

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Against The Europes

The Weakonomist — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:01:54 +0000

This time last year, the crisis in Europe was picking up again. The same headline has been around for a few years now. Will Greece default on its debt? Will they leave the Euro? These were questions in May of last year. And May of 2010. Part of Europe’s problem is the fact that they share a currency but don’t actually have all their fiscal policies aligned. The United States is the contrast to this model.

Europe has been trying to get to some level of stability for some time now. This has included more centralized control and massive budget cuts. The hope is to cut spending and get debt under control. But such measures involve great pain.

The lack of centralized control has also lead to many patchwork compromises. Many would say that they are “kicking the can down the road”. This implies they put off an important decision today because no one can really agree on long term solutions. Well, we’ve caught up to the can again and now the Eurozone must decide if to kick again, and where to kick the can. The problem is, they may be out of road.

Weakonomics doesn’t spend much time on the Europe issue because nothing ever seems to change. But for today let’s check in on the major stories playing out there this May:

Greece: After two bailouts, things are still not looking good for Greece. In order to get the bailouts Greece had to agree to huge cuts in spending. This has ruined the economy as it still sits in recession and suffers from an unemployment rate over 20%. Recent elections made everything worse. The Greek people don’t like all the austerity, so they’ve elected some new politicians that represent the far right and left. Some are actually Neo Nazis. Many of those elected are ready for action. This is stirring up fears of defaults again or perhaps Greece leaving the Euro currency. Whatever happens, the relative stability of the past few months is gone.

France: These guys also just had an election. The head hauncho Nicolas Sarkozy actually lost. The new guy, Francois Hollande, is also anti-austerity. Greece isn’t the only country that isn’t happy with its economy. The entire continent basically embraced the idea of cutting government spending to get debt levels back in check. Those cuts have hurt the economy though. Now Hollande has to go eye to eye with Germany, the arguably most powerful state in the EU, which still has a government in place that supports austerity. Once again, a lack of stability comes in to play.

Spain: When Greece got its first few bailouts, everyone thought there could be another domino to fall. Ireland and Portugal are going through similar crises but Spain’s economy is much larger than the others. Spain’s stress could be a tipping point between weaker outlier countries and the stronger countries at the core. In addition to high unemployment, Spain is also dealing with a real estate collapse. Whereas other countries are dealing with bad government debt, Spain also has the housing thing to deal with.

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Economic Warfare: Quietly Discomforting The 21st Century

The Weakonomist — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:14:12 +0000

In the world of foreign policy, war is the last thing anyone wants. For the most part, Hillary Clinton’s job is to keep us from going to war. This is done by establishing and maintaining relationships with partners all over the world. Thankfully that part of her job is relatively easy. We are not at war with any major countries today. So the State Department focuses instead on building and broadening relationships.

But sometimes those relationship crack. Perhaps a country is breaking some fundamental human right, or maybe they’re lying about what their plans are with a mountain of plutonium. For whatever reason, the US and other major world powers don’t want to just send the military in to fix the problem. So we instead use a tool that only recently has started to have some value.

Back in the 1960s the US got in a big fight with Cuba. Perhaps rightfully so, we cut Cuba off. The hope was that by refusing to have an economic relationship with Cuba the country would be forced to see their erred ways and come to work with the US again. It didn’t happen. The embargo is still in place.

In the 1960s trade relationships weren’t nearly is significant as they are today. The dollar was the king of currencies, but countries were largely self-sufficient. Even the US imported a fraction of oil compared to domestic production.

Nowadays we’re all totally reliant on each other. We need China for cheap goods and loans, and they need us to keep buying the stuff they make. We need the Middle East to supply us with oil, and they need us and Europe for places to spend their money. And smaller, less developed countries, rely on aid from 1st world countries to provide the stability needed to grow and modernize.

When one of those countries gets on our nerves, we bring out the sanctions. We’ve been especially hard on Iran because of their push towards having nuclear power. Many believe they are trying to make a bomb. One would have to assume that for us and the EU to be so tough on Iran the intelligence community knows something the rest of us don’t. The sanctions include not doing business with their central bank, and boycotting their oil exports.

The hope would be that this would cause enough economic chaos that the country would fix the issue to stabilize. If no one is buying their oil, then the country starts to run out of money real fast. Angry citizens could demand their government fix it. The suffering of innocents could lead to a similar solution. This is the ultimate goal of sanctions. The hope would be that just the threat of sanctions would be enough.

Think of it this way. You run a company with 100 employees. Most of your profits come from one customer. That customer doesn’t like what you’re doing and threatens to cut you off if you don’t fix the issue. If you don’t you’re employees will suffer, and so will your business. What do you do?

The argument seems simple. But it isn’t. In many of the countries we sanction, the leader won’t feel the effects of the sanctions. As the leader of your business, you can watch your employees slowly get laid off, and die of starvation. But if you have your own stockpile of cash you can afford to wait it out. Assuming the leaders of these countries don’t care about their people, sanctions won’t matter to them so long as they can keep paying the body guards.

This is the fundamental problem with economic sanctions as a policy. The wrong people suffer. The decision makers causing all the problems aren’t going to feel the affects of the sanctions. Certainly not immediately. And the sanctions hurt the punisher too. If the punished can afford to wait it out, they will.

That doesn’t say sanctions, don’t work. In many cases they do. But does that make them good policy? Are there other options? I don’t know.

Image: Nouhailler

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Movieconomics

The Weakonomist — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:15:40 +0000

The film industry never gets much attention. They make movies and you either go and watch them or don’t. You read reviews to maybe help decide what to see or maybe ask some friends if anything is good. Those with children probably go see whatever it is the kid wants. But for the most part, we don’t know how the industry works, or what’s changed for them lately.

Movies are essentially investments for production companies. They have a cost to purchase and there is an expected return on the investment. Purchase costs can be difficult to predict though. The cost to produce a film may run over your budget. The payoff can be risky too. Depending on what type of company you are, you might produce the film and sell the rights to distribute to another company. Or if you’re one of the larger companies you might produce yourself and distribute. Distribution is a huge cost, as it often include the marketing of the film as well.

Theaters basically purchase the film wholesale and sell it to viewers at a retail price. Unfortunately for the theaters, they don’t make much money on the film itself. They make their profits on concession items and nowadays selling advertising to play before the show starts.

But movie ticket sales have been on a downward trend for years. The recession slowed this trend as people likely gave up more expensive outings for a family trip to the movies, but sales are still falling. The cost to produce blockbuster films have gone up though. This has started to squeeze profit margins and the poor showing of John Carter illustrates this well. This has led to the studios taking on considerably less risk than they would have in prior years. Much like banking, they aren’t just going to throw good money after bad anymore.

So the industry is taking a page from banking and making smarter investments. They’re also building a pipeline of movies that play off each other. A series of well-produced sequels are much more likely to be successful the a collection of unrelated movies with each having its own risk. The pipeline can easily be dumped too if the first film doesn’t work out.

This is very obvious in The Avengers, which just came out last week and is already breaking box office records. They’re costs were similar to John Carter but the return on investment will be triple. This is because they’ve been building up to this movie for years. One of the heroes in the movie is Iron Man, and they’ve been teasing an Avengers movie in the Iron Man films since the first one came out in 2008. There have been Captain America and Thor movies as well since then, each building up a character that is in the Avengers. This makes for a franchise that is sure to be very profitable since each plays off the previous.

What does all this mean for the customer though? Falling ticket sales forces the movie makers to be smarter. The collective pie is smaller so if you want the biggest chunk you have to go after films more likely to be successful. This means a lot less crap in the movies. The quality of films that make it to the theater is likely to be much higher.

But don’t expect movies to get any cheaper. For some reason all movies cost the same price. What would it look like if popular movies like The Avengers cost more at the theater?

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Three New Ways To Pay For College

The Weakonomist — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:09:42 +0000

Somehow, our elected officials in Washington have managed to agree on the issue of student loan interest rates. It’s a cause for celebration. Federal student loan rates are set to double soon if new legislation doesn’t get signed. Everyone agrees, and yet they’ve still made it political.

In Washington the only currency is political capital. It benefits a politician’s career more to get in the way of legislation than it does to actually work towards getting something passed. I’m not a huge fan of student loans, and only consider them a last resort option. Nowadays they’re the only option for many. That’s because schools continue to jack up tuition and they don’t bear any the risk if their students can’t afford to pay back those loans.

Perhaps they should be responsible in some way for students being able to pay their bills. Colleges don’t have to compete on price because each one offers such a different experience. They’re able to charge what they want because the people borrowing the money aren’t thinking about a return on the investment. Economists might see this as a broken market. I agree. So here a few ways to pay for college that could help balance this out a bit more:

Equity Stakes: This is a brilliant idea that encourages entrepreneurship. Clarkson University is holding competitions among potential students to pitch business ideas. The best ideas get full rides to the school and in return Clarkson gets a 10% stake in the company. If Harvard had done this with students like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates they’d have an endowment so big half their students could go to school for free. This is a bit risky, but it’s a great way to align incentives. Everyone wants these kids to succeed. And universities have the resources to incubate ideas.

School Financed: If schools think their product (education) is so valuable, perhaps they’re willing to provide the loans for you. Given the appropriate interest rate they could recover a few losses and even make a profit. You’ve seen this with vehicles; GM and Honda both have/had in house financial services companies that provide the lending for their products. The parent company bears the risk. There’s no reason a school couldn’t do this too.

Income Based: Like the equity stakes, this option forces the school to make sure their students are successful. Instead of taking a stake in a company, you get a cut of that student’s future income. Maybe it’s 5% of pre-tax income for 20 years, or 10% for 10 years. The student could be given options just like they have for student loans. The school would do everything to get the student into a good paying job. Perhaps alums could cut their obligation short by hiring new grads from their school too.

Every one of these options puts some of the risk on the school itself. Right now they don’t have any risk. Successful schools will thrive in this environment. Crappy ones won’t. There’s no reason why the school shouldn’t have skin in the game. And there’s really no reason for the government to have so much in it either.

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Weakend: Adam Yauch (MCA)

The Weakonomist — Sat, 05 May 2012 12:49:55 +0000

The Weakonomist likes music but hardly considers himself an aficionado. There aren’t many musical types or styles I don’t like. But there are a few groups or performers that I’m a huge fan of. OAR, Jack Johnson, Outkast, and The Lonely Island are just a few. Beastie Boys are among that list as well and this week the 3 member group lost one of its members: Adam Yauch aka MCA.

Most people who are fans of the Beastie Boys like them for their rebellious streak that many youths go through. They were the perfect band for a group of teenage boys to blast while driving home from the last day of school. Party anthems and whatnot. My appreciate for them also goes towards the ability of three Jewish boys from New York to get into the rap game. Eminem was not the first. These guys came way before him.

Below are my favorite five tracks from the Beastie Boys. Put your bests in the comments. There are no wrong answers.

Intergalactic

Sabatoge

(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)

So What Cha Want

Sure Shot

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