Cab Thoughts 12/31/11

The EPA has set new standards for power plants that include more stringent rules for arsenic and mercury. Presumably lower doses are more dangerous now. They also are limiting water use for cooling the plants. These decisions have uncertain motives but are good indicators of the potential for government manipulation towards an unspoken or unratified or unproven end. Any attack on domestic energy production in this country until our basic problems are solved is quite mad.

Fifty percent of Japanese women born in the '70s are childless. From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of Spanish women childless at age 30 almost doubled, from just over 30% to just shy of 60%. In Sweden, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, 20% of 40-year-old women are childless. The welfare state, whatever you call it, depends upon a growing base to the population's pyramid. If the base shrinks, as is apparent, a new model must--must--be created.

If Iran shuts the Straits of Hormuz, their foot will be on our gas hose. The impact will be on farming and transportation. (Interestingly, increase in petroleum costs hurts China's labor advantage in pricing.) For every 10% increase in petroleum costs, there is a 0.2% decrease in GDP.

City Councilwoman Marian Tasco will retire on Friday, collect a six-figure pension payment and then return to work after she is sworn-in on Monday to serve her seventh term.
Francis Bielli, executive director for the city’s Board of Pensions and Retirement, said he was recently notified that Tasco, who is enrolled in the controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan, will retire on Friday and collect $478,057. (From the Philadelphia Daily News)
I suppose this is the price we have to pay to get really high quality people in government.

The USA installed between 1,700 and 2,000 megawatts of solar during 2011, and new solar power may have exceeded new coal. World investment in renewable energy plants exceeded investment in fossil fuel plants this year. Oil demand in 2011 is about 7% below 2010 levels; gasoline demand is down about 5% from 2011. Electricity demand will barely increase in 2011 and is projected to actually decline in 2012 by EIA. I suppose the less optimistic might say that in a financial slowdown, things slow down but something is going on here. One can only hope that natural gas plays a part.

Happy New Year!

Old New Years Problems

All nations face problems. Some are specific: The management of the rainforest. Some are generic: Management of health care resources. Some are practical: Farmland productivity. Some are theoretical: The inevitability of the destruction of the bourgeois. In all of this international competing mess, the United States has to pick leaders that have insight into the nation's specific and generic, practical and theoretical problems.

We have, for some reason, focused upon a number of bizarre components of the nation's integrity. We worry about coal plants emissions, income disparity, regime change in Libya. Now these may or may not have some value as problems, they may or may not have some relevance in history, they may or may not have some provable importance to us at some time. But there are two obvious, staggering problems that we face that are irrefutable, hazardous and entirely within our control that are almost never discussed. First, we are a culture totally dependent on fossil fuel most of which is supplied by foreigners who do not like us and wish us harm. And, second, we have allowed to develop a financial system that depends upon a growing and productive group of younger people to support programs promised to the older population and the direction of that supporting population is declining.

These two problems can be quantified and must be dealt with sooner or later but there is no evidence that the current candidates plan to discuss or deal with any problems that are not of their own fetish or choosing.

Income Disparity and its Discontents

From Joseph Stiglitz's recent article inVanity Fair:

"It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality , America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow."

The notion of "income equality" is a new one. It is a slight variation of the old socialist outrage. But whether it is earned income or net worth, the idea that the government should have a hand in balancing things out is revolutionary for the United States. This is simply not a nation that historically would permit such an intrusion in peoples' lives. Moreover, there is the question of the value of such an intrusion. Are there studies that support the notion that disparities in income are particularly bad? Is it reasonable to compare the income disparities between those in Saudi Arabia and the U.S.? Are rich people really responsible for the failure of poor people to be rich?

There is a lot going on in this country that is wrong. Cheaper labor competition, short-term economic thinking, unproductive foreign wars, unmanaged entitlements, scandalous financial mismanagement, an aging population are all serious problems with serious negative impact on the country's economic health. The shift in the nation's emphasis from production, creativity and development to the collection of management fees has been a terrible shift as well. But income disparity? Is that a cause or an effect of problems? And can the government fix that fairly? The same government that felt it could fix the Iraqi nation?

A study from the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics reported the following numbers from the period 1984 to 2009:

The median net worth of the members of the house of Representatives rose 2.5 times--inflation adjusted!--from 280,000 dollars to 725,000 dollars. In the same period the average net worth of the average American family fell from 20,600 dollars to 20,500 dollars.

Now there is an income and net worth disparity worth some scrutiny.

Gifter's Remorse

I am having second thoughts about a Christmas present this year.

A good friend has become an American citizen and I was interested in finding a book that might give him some insight into some difficult areas of American history. After some reflection, I decided on The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, a 1974 fictional account of the battle of Gettysburg focusing on the Little Round Top. It is a very perceptive, open-minded recreation that gives an idea of the time and the men. And I wanted a hardcover; while there has been an anniversary reissue, intact hardcovers are hard to come by.

I like books. I spend a lot of free time in book stores and I collect first editions. I'm one of those guys who worry about the implications of e-readers. Books are inherently worthwhile to me, the older the better. I prefer hardcovers--unless I'm traveling--and I destroy books with markings, notes and marginal questions unless I think the book has some value. As I wandered over the last months, I found two books I had been thinking of as gifts, one a good hard cover of "Killer Angels"--exactly what I wanted--and a second book, much rarer, "Camp of the Saints", an English translation of the notorious French original that has been vilified for the last generation but nonetheless raises a very interesting and ugly question. I had not seen either one in any condition in months--the "Camp" never. I grabbed them both and gave them both as gifts.
The problem is that the Killer Angels had a dedication on the front page. I saw that; I just did not care. I would have cared if it had been a book I wanted to collect because the market values the pristine; I must confess I do not. I think the history of a book adds to it. (I do not think scars do. Nor do I like books with the awful library stickers--although the famous book thief, John Gilkey, specialized in them.)

While I was thrilled that I found a book of good quality at all, I think my friend was surprised and disappointed by the dedication. Perhaps it was the difference between a new and used car. At any rate, I think, had I to do it again, I would not do it.

Unasked Question from Iraq

So the Americans are withdrawing from Iraq without anyone raising the obvious question:
How can it be that a group of politicians (conservatives), ostensibly philosophically opposed to the notion of the ability of government to plan and develop the political and economic structure of a state efficiently and accurately, moves into a foreign state with the confidence that they can completely refashion it from the top down?
And how can it be that a group of politicians (progressives), ostensibly confident in government's ability to plan and develop the political and economic structure of a state efficiently and accurately, opposes that effort to recreate that state with the opinion that such a refashioning can not be done?

A Democracy of Those who Serve as Well as Vote

A big story recently was Biden getting called for jury duty; he went. Last year Obama begged off. A tiny story, really, but it does stimulate the mind.

A great problem in government well recognized by America's founders and demonstrated at every government turn is the eagerness of some to lead others, the need of the ambition of some to be satisfied. Whether it is driven by philosophy, kindness, hubris, religion, inherited royalty or greed the drive of some to run the lives of others seems to be a curse of man that is both ceaseless and unquenchable. Indeed much of the inefficiency in government that so many decry in the United States was built into the infrastructure by the nation's creators to blunt the aspirations of just such people. To paraphrase Madison: "We have government because men are not angels; we distrust and control government because men are not angels."

A modest proposal: Make the land a true democracy. Eliminate these contaminated elections and select our leaders like we select those who sit in judgement of their fellow citizens and hold their fate, their very lives in their hands (certainly there is no greater responsibility.) Appoint them off the tax rolls like jury duty. Pick our leaders at random. Could the results possibly be worse?

Can't you just envision it: A working guy gets a letter from the draft office, he and his family huddle around it, they worry and pray, finally with trepidation they open it. It's true! He's drafted to be a senator! Immediately the family goes to work: How can he get out of it? They pace. They fret. They call their friend the lawyer. Finally they go to the doctor with the hopes of getting a medical excuse.

How different it would be.

Sunday Sermon 12/25/11

Of the four gospels, only two mention the birth of Christ, Matthew and Luke. The other two, after some Mark's genealogy and John's "In the beginning..." start with Christ and John the Baptist. Both Matthew and Luke describe the Annunciation as well.
Luke's introduction to the gospel is quite lovely. It is rigid in time and space. It is in the time of Caesar Augustus, the governor was Cyrinus and the Romans were enrolling the whole world. Joseph and his wife were to be enrolled in Bethlehem because he was connected to the house of David. Everything is specific, tied down in space and time and history. And then, suddenly, injected into this space and time is Infinity.
Merry Christmas.