Welcome to 'Roundhead Roundtable', where we think inside the box. I'm your host, Humphrey Burroughs, and joining me this week to fit their round pegs into our square hole are our regular guests, Grover Columbus of the Center for Public Policy in the Private Interest...
"Good to be here, Humphrey"
...Victoria Bassington-Bassington, Senior Scholar at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign Relations...
"Quid est nomine tibi, Humphrey"
...Max Werkover-Thyme, Editor-at-Large of Newspeak Magazine...
"The print media need government support, Humphrey"
...and joining us this week to discuss the latest events surrounding the Gulf oil spill, Jason Sleekit, spokesman for the Members' Institute for Safety and Health in American Petroleum, or MISHAP, an oil industry group.
"As you can see, I'm not the least bit British, Humphrey"
Alright, issue one: this week, Judge Martin Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana struck down the Obama Administration's six month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, calling it "punitive", and stating that it would cause "irreparable" harm to businesses. Gov. Jindal of Louisiana applauded the decision, stating that the moratorium would have amounted to a second man-made disaster, while environmental groups, including Greenfleece and Friend of the Sea, condemned the decision as irresponsible, stating that it places the entire Gulf region at further risk of major environmental damage.
First to you, Grover. Disaster averted, or disaster aggravated?
"Averted, Humphrey. The fact of the matter is that there are 30000 off-shore wells in the Gulf of Mexico, and over the past 40 years there have only been 2 major well blow-outs, including the present leak. Indeed, the long-term effects of the Ixtoc blow-out have proven to be largely non-existent. The very small risk of another accident of this kind compared with the immense continuing requirement for domestic oil production makes the Administration's proposed moratorium not only unnecessary, but foolhardy. My position is unrelated to the fact that a major oil magnate funds my fellowship."
Victoria?
"Aggravated. As was made so painfully clear during Tony Hayward's testimony before Congress last week, no one yet has a complete understanding of the causes of this disaster, and the potential costs of another such catastrophic failure, no matter how purportedly unlikely, more than justify our waiting until all the facts are in. If the oil majors wish to continue exploiting the Gulf, they would do well to pressure BP to be more forthcoming. In the meantime, the precautionary principle must apply. My position is unrelated to the green technology firms for which I regularly consult."
What say you, Max?
"No question, Humphrey. What we're seeing in the Gulf now is an environmental Anschluss, and this Feldman might as well change his name to 'Chamberlain'. If we don't draw a line in the sand now, the tarballs will. We need to look clearly at the real cost of America's oil dependency: millions of dead children. We can power this entire nation with clean, renewable wind power by 2020 if we just reduce the size of the economy by 80%. That's a small price to pay for the future, isn't it? This tragedy has already wiped out 50000 miles of irreplaceable coastal ecosystem. Mark my words: another spill like this will complete the environmental Holocaust, or my name's Godwin."
Mr. Sleekit?
"What absolute poop, Max. Humphrey, this brave man, Judge Feldman, has definitely averted a disaster for America just as bad- frankly, worse- than anything we've seen so far in history. Friends, this is what defines us as a nation: faith, family, friends, deep-sea oil drilling. The brave men and women of the domestic oil industry are working every day to keep this nation up and running, and this Administration needs to recognize that. We need to look at the big picture: a recent MISHAP study has indicated that NOT continuing deep-sea oil exploration for more than 5 weeks will not only devastate members' bottom lines, but could cause the extinction of the rare drilling mud carbuncle. The oil industry won't abide a preventable environmental catastrophe of this sort, which is why blocking this moratorium was vital.
And I hate to say it, Humphrey, but I can't be anything but absolutely 100% honest with your viewers: these so-called environmental groups supporting the drilling ban hate America, and they hate Freedom. Why do you think Judge Feldman has been receiving death threats since he handed down his decision? If we stop drilling in the Gulf, friends, the terrorists win."
And the impact on the market of the Administration's decision to appeal, on a scale of 1 to 7, 1 being the unreliability of iPhone 4 antennas and 7 being the assassination of Jean-Claude Trichet?
"2; a substantial blow if it's overturned, but the Fifth Circuit isn't going to overrule this. I was at Choate with Judge Jones, and she'll keep it on even keel."
"1; it should be overturned, and it will be. A reasonable amount of caution in this case will be no more harmful to the domestic oil industry than it was to the nuclear industry."
"3; these dinosaurs are going to learn their time is through. I, for one, won't miss them. Roll on the Green Revolution! Viva fotovoltaica!"
"7; I advise your viewers to hide their gold in their mattresses and invest in seeds."
Very good; Now turning our attention to...
Friday, July 2, 2010
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Today's WaPo Weather Forecast
Today's Washington Post EXPRESS had a nice cover photo of Teddy. Also, a weather forecast:
As you can see, today it's going to thunderstorm, and tomorrow is Cloudy with a chance of Super Nintendo controllers.
As you can see, today it's going to thunderstorm, and tomorrow is Cloudy with a chance of Super Nintendo controllers.You know you're a grown up when the newspaper's art department starts sneaking in iconic shapes from your childhood.
Monday, August 24, 2009
In Case You Missed It
The Mayor of Milwaukee is a hero. I totally missed that one.
Unicef finds attitudes toward domestic abuse vary wildly. Former Soviet Union and Latin America don't brook wife beating (maybe the gender-equality elements of Marxism have a lasting effect), while the Arab world, Asia, and Africa are mostly accepting (some notable exceptions). But the study didn't cover the first world at all.
This is an engrossing populist interpretation of US history, particularly the history of race relations. I find it compelling, but whenever someone is that good a speaker I can't help but start sniffing for a fault in the logic. In a context where accuracy matters less, here's the same guy taking a turn as a CNN talking head. I'd like to see him go up against Bill O'Reilly.
Unicef finds attitudes toward domestic abuse vary wildly. Former Soviet Union and Latin America don't brook wife beating (maybe the gender-equality elements of Marxism have a lasting effect), while the Arab world, Asia, and Africa are mostly accepting (some notable exceptions). But the study didn't cover the first world at all.
This is an engrossing populist interpretation of US history, particularly the history of race relations. I find it compelling, but whenever someone is that good a speaker I can't help but start sniffing for a fault in the logic. In a context where accuracy matters less, here's the same guy taking a turn as a CNN talking head. I'd like to see him go up against Bill O'Reilly.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Cash for Clunkers gets Traded in
It looks like Cash for Clunkers (the refreshingly legible name for what's officially the "Car Allowance Rebate System" or CARS -- funny how the media sobriquet overwhelmed the stolid, uncatchyily contrived government acronym) is on its last legs. Dealers are under instructions to stop making deals next week. This also puts to rest my chief concern -- that the program would be so popular it becomes an entitlement. That is of course what happened in Germany, where their rebate program metastasized into a sacred right to government subsidized new cars. If you ask me, auto ownership should not be part of the social contract.
So it's time to do a bit of wrap-up analysis. The Associated Press reported Tuesday on the program's progress. 358,851 vehicles, mostly pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, were traded in (that's worth about $1.6 billion, so the second half of the program's $3 billion hasn't been accounted yet).
The top ten vehicles purchased on a Clunker trade-in:
1. Toyota Corolla
2. Honda Civic
3. Ford Focus
4. Toyota Camry
5. Toyota Prius
6. Hyundai Elantra
7. Ford Escape (front-wheel-drive)
8. Honda Fit
9. Nissan Versa
10. Honda CR-V (four-wheel-drive)
I think this is proof the program had its desired effect: SUVs and Pickups out, compacts in. Yeah, the Escape is biggish, but it gets good mileage. Ditto the CR-V. They say this is augmenting the recession austerity and high gas prices as a means of raising national fuel economy.
Perhaps an unintended side benefit: pulling half a million old light trucks off the road will shift significantly the crash-worthyness of the American vehicle fleet. It's not sufficiently acknowledged that SUVs keep their occupants safe at the expense of others -- sure, you survive, but that high bumper on your Escalade will hit a sedan driver at high in the torso -- and a pedestrian at mid-thigh. Collisions are an applied science, so it's complicated, but basically, a pedestrian hit below the knee will be thrown onto the hood -- and probably survive with minor injury. A pedestrian hit above the knee will be shoved to the ground very hard, and then run over -- lethal. A shift to low-bumper, light-weight vehicles will result in fewer pedestrian deaths, and these new mini-cars are much less lethal to occupants of other vehicles.
I don't know how safe the occupants of of the new vehicles will be. On the one hand, new cars are safer than older ones (better belts and airbags, traction control and ABS, not to mention better seats and safety cages), but on the other hand, they are smaller, and so suffer more in a given collision.
Vehicle size as a safety feature is an example of the Prisoner's dilemma. Everyone is safer (and saves more money) driving small, low cars. But any one person can defect, buy a big, high SUV, and survive by murdering their fellow drivers. Selfishness makes each of us defect, so we all do. The result is everyone paying more to drive bigger cars, which are inherently more dangerous -- more momentum, higher center of gravity, higher bumpers.
First Player
CAR SUV
2nd CAR 2,2 3,0
Player SUV 0,3 1,1
Each player wants to get 3, and so trades 2 for 1. The government subsidy for fuel efficiency (and thus for small cars) changed the utility levels:
First Player
CAR SUV
2nd CAR 4,4 3,0
Player SUV 0,3 1,1
Obviously, these numbers are notional rather than literal (there are other values besides safety and cost, and individuals weigh the hedonic balance differently), but in this example (as in real life), the subsidy has the effect of changing the game -- people prefer SUVs by less than $4500, so that much subsidy moves almost everyone into cars.
So it's time to do a bit of wrap-up analysis. The Associated Press reported Tuesday on the program's progress. 358,851 vehicles, mostly pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, were traded in (that's worth about $1.6 billion, so the second half of the program's $3 billion hasn't been accounted yet).
The top ten vehicles purchased on a Clunker trade-in:
1. Toyota Corolla
2. Honda Civic
3. Ford Focus
4. Toyota Camry
5. Toyota Prius
6. Hyundai Elantra
7. Ford Escape (front-wheel-drive)
8. Honda Fit
9. Nissan Versa
10. Honda CR-V (four-wheel-drive)
I think this is proof the program had its desired effect: SUVs and Pickups out, compacts in. Yeah, the Escape is biggish, but it gets good mileage. Ditto the CR-V. They say this is augmenting the recession austerity and high gas prices as a means of raising national fuel economy.
Perhaps an unintended side benefit: pulling half a million old light trucks off the road will shift significantly the crash-worthyness of the American vehicle fleet. It's not sufficiently acknowledged that SUVs keep their occupants safe at the expense of others -- sure, you survive, but that high bumper on your Escalade will hit a sedan driver at high in the torso -- and a pedestrian at mid-thigh. Collisions are an applied science, so it's complicated, but basically, a pedestrian hit below the knee will be thrown onto the hood -- and probably survive with minor injury. A pedestrian hit above the knee will be shoved to the ground very hard, and then run over -- lethal. A shift to low-bumper, light-weight vehicles will result in fewer pedestrian deaths, and these new mini-cars are much less lethal to occupants of other vehicles.
I don't know how safe the occupants of of the new vehicles will be. On the one hand, new cars are safer than older ones (better belts and airbags, traction control and ABS, not to mention better seats and safety cages), but on the other hand, they are smaller, and so suffer more in a given collision.
Vehicle size as a safety feature is an example of the Prisoner's dilemma. Everyone is safer (and saves more money) driving small, low cars. But any one person can defect, buy a big, high SUV, and survive by murdering their fellow drivers. Selfishness makes each of us defect, so we all do. The result is everyone paying more to drive bigger cars, which are inherently more dangerous -- more momentum, higher center of gravity, higher bumpers.
First Player
CAR SUV
2nd CAR 2,2 3,0
Player SUV 0,3 1,1
Each player wants to get 3, and so trades 2 for 1. The government subsidy for fuel efficiency (and thus for small cars) changed the utility levels:
First Player
CAR SUV
2nd CAR 4,4 3,0
Player SUV 0,3 1,1
Obviously, these numbers are notional rather than literal (there are other values besides safety and cost, and individuals weigh the hedonic balance differently), but in this example (as in real life), the subsidy has the effect of changing the game -- people prefer SUVs by less than $4500, so that much subsidy moves almost everyone into cars.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Hunger in America
Home sick today (stomach bug), so I'm watching Hulu. Not that I don't watch hulu ordinarily, but now I have the time to actually watch the commercials. One of these caught my attention: it's the Public Service Announcement about how one in eight Americans "struggles with hunger" -- black and white stills of photogenic people of all demographics, interspersed with everyday items shaped like the numbers one through eight, to convey that hunger could strike anyone, while a bad Springsteen impersonator repeatedly groans "I'll never let go of your hand". Tag line "Who's the 1 in 8 in your life?" You know the ad?
It's for a group called Feeding America. If you visit the website, it comes down to an awareness campaign built around a single government statistic: "in 2007, 36.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households". I don't know about you, but 'food insecure' doesn't evoke a common-sensical definition to me. So I looked up the original report. Read it for yourself.
Turns out the USDA does an annual survey, with 18 questions about food availability. If you answer a certain number of them "Yes", you count as "Food Insecure". Indeed, 11.1% of Americans fit this description.
That's one in NINE, not 1 in 8, but here's the part that I really object to. The "Feeding America" ad, website, and materials all refer to "hunger" as though it were the biological symptom, and to "lack of food" like one in nine Americans have empty bowls and that's it. The government study, and it's questionaire, repeatedly use the key phrase that's missing: going hungry because "there wasn’t enough money." It's not like 1 in 9 Americans can't find a grocery store! There isn't a famine! There's no food shortage; there's a MONEY shortage. Some people just don't have enough MONEY. They're POOR. They're SO POOR they can't afford FOOD.
This is, however an old story. An ad that said, "just a reminder, but about 11% of Americans are broke at some point during a given year. We like to think they could be living next door, but they don't -- you don't know anyone that poor, at least not personally. Please support social welfare spending!" wouldn't tug at the heart strings quite the same as the "hunger Russian Roulette" concept -- it could be you of someone you love who is suddenly struck by hunger, so you should empathize. This appeals to the same instinct that says, since about 5% of the population is gay, any group of 20 or more people must have a gay person in it.
This is what bothers me:
1- The public is too stupid, blasé, or both, to care about the actual facts.
2- There are well intentioned people who think it's okay to distort reality to get through to the dummies.
3- Since there's an ad campaign, someone is willing to bankroll this mendacity. Altruistic mendacity, but still.
4- This is the kind of policy advocacy that leads to government bread wagons. After all, if the public is too dumb to get that poverty has bad effects on the poor, then they probably think "give them food, then they'll have food" is a good policy solution.
5- Someone presumably got PAID to come up with all of this. Someone whose combination of low ethics and bad statistical sense entitles them to be the SUBJECT, not the author, of such a PSA.
Ugh, sigh. Back to throwing up my breakfast. That I bought with MONEY. That I got from the GOVERNMENT (but it's okay, I work for them!).
It's for a group called Feeding America. If you visit the website, it comes down to an awareness campaign built around a single government statistic: "in 2007, 36.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households". I don't know about you, but 'food insecure' doesn't evoke a common-sensical definition to me. So I looked up the original report. Read it for yourself.
Turns out the USDA does an annual survey, with 18 questions about food availability. If you answer a certain number of them "Yes", you count as "Food Insecure". Indeed, 11.1% of Americans fit this description.
That's one in NINE, not 1 in 8, but here's the part that I really object to. The "Feeding America" ad, website, and materials all refer to "hunger" as though it were the biological symptom, and to "lack of food" like one in nine Americans have empty bowls and that's it. The government study, and it's questionaire, repeatedly use the key phrase that's missing: going hungry because "there wasn’t enough money." It's not like 1 in 9 Americans can't find a grocery store! There isn't a famine! There's no food shortage; there's a MONEY shortage. Some people just don't have enough MONEY. They're POOR. They're SO POOR they can't afford FOOD.
This is, however an old story. An ad that said, "just a reminder, but about 11% of Americans are broke at some point during a given year. We like to think they could be living next door, but they don't -- you don't know anyone that poor, at least not personally. Please support social welfare spending!" wouldn't tug at the heart strings quite the same as the "hunger Russian Roulette" concept -- it could be you of someone you love who is suddenly struck by hunger, so you should empathize. This appeals to the same instinct that says, since about 5% of the population is gay, any group of 20 or more people must have a gay person in it.
This is what bothers me:
1- The public is too stupid, blasé, or both, to care about the actual facts.
2- There are well intentioned people who think it's okay to distort reality to get through to the dummies.
3- Since there's an ad campaign, someone is willing to bankroll this mendacity. Altruistic mendacity, but still.
4- This is the kind of policy advocacy that leads to government bread wagons. After all, if the public is too dumb to get that poverty has bad effects on the poor, then they probably think "give them food, then they'll have food" is a good policy solution.
5- Someone presumably got PAID to come up with all of this. Someone whose combination of low ethics and bad statistical sense entitles them to be the SUBJECT, not the author, of such a PSA.
Ugh, sigh. Back to throwing up my breakfast. That I bought with MONEY. That I got from the GOVERNMENT (but it's okay, I work for them!).
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Destruction of Detroit
The Utterly Dubious "End of America" Series
In the fine tradition of the edge-of-your-seat, impossible-to-suspend-disbelief action movies that define August, Slate gives us the semi-serious "End of America" series. You can read the articles if you want, or play with the interactive parts, but really you want this: the list of 144 potential catastrophes. Some even refer to the summer-quality films that inspired them, but even those that don't can be traced back to a writers' room at some studio.
In fact, it comes down to the following basic plots, labeled here for an iconic film in that vein:
The Day After Tomorrow: Something we do to Gaea comes back to bite us in the ass.
The Omega Man: Disease kills us all off.
Children of Men: Modernity poisons us, and population shrinks to insignificance.
The Siege: Terrorists decide to harm America. Only this time it works!
Red Dawn: Color-coded foreign powers take over (yellow menace also a concern, as is the green scourge -- the Caliphate of the United States).
Soylent Green: Demographics screw us. Suffers from the "No one goes there, it's too crowded" paradox.
Frankenstein: We bring it upon ourselves through technology.
Deep Impact: Something from OUT THERE comes and gets us, beyond even our power to piss off Mother Earth.
All the Kings Men: American "politics as usual" eventually drives us off the rails.
Wall Street: The Corporatocracy suffers worse hubris even than government.
Left Behind: God, gods, or Quetzalcoatl rapture us.
In fact, it comes down to the following basic plots, labeled here for an iconic film in that vein:
The Day After Tomorrow: Something we do to Gaea comes back to bite us in the ass.
The Omega Man: Disease kills us all off.
Children of Men: Modernity poisons us, and population shrinks to insignificance.
The Siege: Terrorists decide to harm America. Only this time it works!
Red Dawn: Color-coded foreign powers take over (yellow menace also a concern, as is the green scourge -- the Caliphate of the United States).
Soylent Green: Demographics screw us. Suffers from the "No one goes there, it's too crowded" paradox.
Frankenstein: We bring it upon ourselves through technology.
Deep Impact: Something from OUT THERE comes and gets us, beyond even our power to piss off Mother Earth.
All the Kings Men: American "politics as usual" eventually drives us off the rails.
Wall Street: The Corporatocracy suffers worse hubris even than government.
Left Behind: God, gods, or Quetzalcoatl rapture us.
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