I'm not paying enough for gasoline. Neither are you. When you buy gasoline, you aren't paying all of its costs. You aren't paying for the environmental degradation. You aren't paying for the health costs. And you definitely aren't paying for the war in Iraq. As a taxpayer, you pick up the tab for fixing the environment, health care, oil company subsidies and tax breaks, and, of course, our oil-driven foreign policy. Wait! Don't go away! This isn't an anti-Bush screed. Even if you give full credibility to everything the Bush administration says about the Iraq invasion, it's still about oil. Forget the claims that we want to loot Iraq's oil reserves. Forget about weaning ourselves off our Saudi addiction by diversifying suppliers. Forget the conspiracy theories about needing to keep oil in dollars to prop up our currency. You don't need theories and speculation when you have hard facts staring you in the face. Focus on how we got into this mess.
You may think there is a connection between September 11th and Iraq. Hopefully, you do not. Regardless, had September 11th not happened, we would not be in Iraq. Why did September 11th happen? Because Osama bin Laden and his band of terrorists are really, really mad at the United States. They're mad because we stationed infidel troops in the land of their Prophet. They're mad because we support oppressive regimes throughout the Middle East. And they're mad because we prevent the creation of an Islamic state. Why do we do all of those things? To protect oil.
Look at Saddam Hussein. He supported terrorist groups, pursued weapons of mass destruction, and made war on his neighbors. Sponsonring terrorism and weapons of mass destruction-related program activity are expensive. Where does that money come from? Oil. Wars with neighbors are expensive in lives and money and resources. Where does the money come from? Oil. What makes the war worth it? Gaining control of even more oil.
The Middle East has almost no democracies. The governments are oppressive and dictatorial. Why is there no democracy? Why are these nations so impoverished? Because an economy based solely on natural resources will inevitably fall under the control of a few who will do everything they can to keep it from the many. Again, it's oil.
So add that all up. Iraq is going to be at least $200 billion
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. Afghanistan is a few tens of billion more. Who knows what the environmental and health costs are? I just know they're big. And none of that is getting paid at the pump. When you waste gasoline, you're only paying part of the price. The rest of it falls on the taxpayers. The people who incur a cost should be the ones who pay it, not me. If gasoline was priced in a manner appropriate to its true costs, we wouldn't have to subsidize solar, wind, or other alternative energy sources because people would choose those of their own volition. The most effective thing George W. Bush and Congress can do to prevent terrorism and the loss of American lives is to increase the gas tax. It won't be easy. That both presidential candidates promised cheaper gasoline is proof enough of that. It's going to take a lot to convince Americans that their dependence on gasoline is causing all of this, but one way or another, it has to be done. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.
1 That's about $2000 per US household. That's about $1.50 per gallon (assuming 131 billion gallons of gas consumed annually). I drive a frugal Toyota Corolla (32 mpg) or a slightly-less-frugal Honda Accord (27 mpg). Think about people who drive considerably less frugal vehicles (Hummer H2 is about 10 mpg). For me, that $1.50/gallon comes to about $1200 extra. Compare that to the $2000 average above, it's clear I pay too much. Do the math for the H2 and it's clear that its owner pays far too little. I'm doing the right thing, and but I'm paying extra for it.
If you don't find the concept of a gasoline war tax compelling and stubbornly insist that gasoline should be as cheap an plentiful as water, don't think of it as a "war tax," think of it was a "war prevention tax. The United States has fought wars caused by oil, and it's naive to think that the United States has never been induced by oil to enter into wars, but in those cases, it was always mixed in with other reasons. That may change, however, in the next 20 to 50 years, though. If our economy isn't weaned off oil, it is inevitable that we (along with other industrialized nations) will make a bald grab for oil. The United States may be top dog today, but I hesitate to assert the same will be true in 20 to 50 years. With all the difficulties in Iraq even as top dog, I shudder to think what such a war would be like. Heavily taxing gasoline wouldn't just pay for our current military involvement; it would also force us to find alternative energy sources
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so that, while the rest of the world is squabbling over oil, we're sitting pretty in our nuclear/wind/solar-powered fortress. There is a counter-argument that the market will naturally solve the problem once the price of oil rose enough. Seeing how our government's foreign policy has already been influenced by oil with it as cheap and plentiful as it is today, it's clear to me that the tail is going to wag the dog even harder in the future; natural market forces have never been the dominant factor in oil. Think of a gas tax as part of your patriotic duty. Paying a little extra now will help us avoid paying more later, in money and in blood.
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Drilling domestically is not an alternative. I oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) not because I love furry animals but because it isn't a solution. The best estimates indicate that it contains about 6 months worth of domestic consumption. That isn't enough to make a strategic difference; it only buys a little time and gives the energy companies money they can't wait for. I see it as a given that we will drill in ANWR eventually, but it's ridiculous to do it for the sole reason that oil is at $47/barrel. We need to keep it in reserve for when we really need it.
By now, you may have heard that the Pentagon is proposing deep cuts in the F/A-22 Raptor fighter program. I'm a bit of a military airplane buff, but even I see that the "Advanced Tactical Fighter" program under which the F/A-22 was developed (as well as its erstwhile competitor for the contract, the F-23) is a Cold War relic. We aren't planning a war with the Soviets any more.
Ignore that its mission no longer exists. I have to question the wisdom of a program that produces fighters at a cost of $258 million each
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. Yes, the F/A-22 can travel faster than the speed of sound without using afterburner ("supercruise"). Yes, it has advanced avionics. Yes, it is more maneuverable than current fighters. And yes, it is "stealthy." But how does any of that matter? At this point, I figure the cost of building yet another F-15 or F-16 or F/A-18 is far less than $258 million. Let's say it's $32 million, which is a not-unreasonable number I mostly invented. The F/A-22 is better and cooler than any of those current fighters. But is it 8 times better? Clearly not. We have bases all over the world, so sustained supersonic speeds aren't as important. Our Air Force hasn't really had to engage other fighters since Vietnam, so maneuverability doesn't really matter. And we have such military dominance overall that advanced avionics and stealth capabilities don't do much for us. That all sidesteps the real issue. Even if we still needed all of those things, why does it cost so much?
I am not saying we need to cut back on defense. Nor am I arguing that the F/A-22 fighter has no reason for existence, as that is obvious. What I am questioning is a system that produces so little for so much. How do we let that happen? I'm not against a strong defense strategy, but I am against a wasteful one. It has taken nearly 25 years to get from concept to almost-production on the F/A-22. It has already taken $40 billion of an estimated $72 billion
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to get this far.
This is completely naïve, but let's compare the F/A-22 against other, roughly comparable things. The somewhat less-capable Eurofighter costs about $100 million each, but is also produced in Europe, where everything costs more. Boeing's most recent production airliner, the 777, costs about $200 million each3
, but it took only 6 years to go from concept to production, and that's without bulk discounts. The F-15 Eagle, one of the fighters the F/A-22 is meant to replace, ran about $30 million each in 1998. Those are inexact comparisons, but they are close enough to see that we're getting far too little, far too late, for far too much money.
I believe that we could and should get the exact same product for considerably less, but we don't because of a lack of government discipline. Defense is a sacred cow. The Republicans push free market enterprise and cutting back government pork, except with the Defense Department. They like the big budgets, even if they're wasteful. The Democrats are no better; they're highly sensitive about being portrayed as wimps, and no more so before than now. When the Pentagon comes knocking, then, neither party finds it easy to say "no." When a defense contractor with lots of lobbyists and manufacturing plants in important districts says they need more time, neither party finds it easy to say "no." These numbers are so big that people can't wrap their heads around them and understand how big they really are
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. And so we end up with $258 million fighters that are 15 years past relevance being built because neither party has had the balls to cancel it, nor did any party have the balls to make the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin accountable from the beginning. You don't need to agree with the priorities. You don't need to agree with the politics. You don't need to agree with anything justifying the program at all. This is waste, plain and simple. Our defense budget is $420 billion, but we're not getting $420 billion worth.
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Amortizing R&D costs, I assume, but compare that to its estimated cost of $80 million just 7 years ago.
2$57 billion with the proposed cuts, but both estimates should be taken with many grains of salt, given how the cost of the program tripled over the last 7 years.
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I love how the prices are quoted there like it's the L.L. Bean catalogue.
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One data point to compare against: the cost of one (1) Raptor fighter is approximately triple what the United States government has thus far pledged in tsunami aid, but that is a tirade for another time.
You've probably heard the Supreme Court decision strengthening the power of local governments to seize private property. Thinking about how this is a terrible decision has made me wonder how good of an idea eminent domain is in the first place. The standard application of eminent domain results in the owner of the seized property getting reimbursed according to the market value of the property. A fundamental premise of economics, and thus, the "free market," is that different parties value the same commodities differently. If all parties valued things identically, there would be no trade. There is no possible way of determining market value that does not involve actual sale on the market of the property in question. The conventional way of assessing market value only works by ignoring differences in how people value the same property, but those differences are fundamental to having a market at all. I haven't thought this through completely, but I don't see that further thought will find a way around that essential contradiction.
One of the things that makes me instantly suspicious of eminent domain is the justification of the seizure for the "greater good."
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That is a paraphrase of "the end justifies the means." You can't do good in the large by doing bad in the small. Goals and intent are so opaque and nebulous and subjective that being able to invoke some positive goal as justification for a negative act opens the door to any negative act. This is especially true when dealing something as easily corrupted as a local planning commission. The "greater good" can be used to cloak all manner of nefarious deeds, and, indeed, has been.
My skepticism toward eminent domain is related to my disapproval of the way that cities often pursue development projects. Austin, for instance, will woo big companies like Home Depot, Intel, and Samsung with tax breaks and various incentives to bring in jobs. I dislike such specificity. If you think that offering lower property taxes to Dell is a good thing, you should lower property taxes for everyone. Don't discriminate. Good development doesn't come from the city picking and choosing, but from the city embracing good policies. The government should set up a positive environment, from which positive results will naturally follow. In other words, they need to take a more hands-off approach and stop micro-managing. We should have zoning. We should have building codes, noise ordinances, environmental impact requirements, and other regulations. We shouldn't, however, offer one thing to one group and another thing (or nothing) to another group. Property must be purchased legitimately. If the owner doesn't want to sell, well, bummer. Try something else. Business should be taxed uniformly. If they don't want to come, either your overall tax structure is out of whack or attracting that employer would have cost more than it would have benefited. You shouldn't work outside the system by seizing parcels of land or granting special tax treatment. If you feel like that's the only option, you need to rethink your goals or your overall policy system, because that's where the problem is. Circumventing established policies to favor some residents over others is inherently unfair, subject to corruption, and leads to sub-optimal results. And don't even get me started on sports arenas.
It sure is a bummer that reporter Judith Miller is in jail for not revealing a confidential source to a prosecutor. I'm finding it hard to swallow the principle she is standing for, however. The argument is that journalists need to be able to guarantee secrecy to sources in order to provide the public with important information. The problem is that it divides people into two groups, journalists and everyone else.
There are relationships that the law respects when it comes to compelling testimony. Conversations between attorney and client, spouses, or between clergy and laity are granted confidentiality under the law. That's easy to understand because those are easily defined relationships. Furthermore, these are limited relationships. A lawyer cannot argue that every conversation she has with anyone is protected, nor can a priest make a similar claim. I only have one wife.
A journalist, on the other hand, has neither a well-defined status nor a clear relationship with their source. Many journalists have professional credentials, but those credentials are not and should not be recognized in law. As such, any individual could claim to be a journalist if they have ever published an article, a family newsletter, or a personal weblog. Nor is there an objective standard for what is news worth reporting, so a journalist could argue that every single statement they hear constitutes a potential story and is thus subject to protection. Allowing such a privilege, then, eviscerates the ability of prosecutors to compel testimony from anyone. Legislatures and judges can devise finer standards, but they'd be drawing lines in a murky grey zone. Even worse, they would be creating two classes of citizens with different rights
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, which should be offensive to everyone.
I have no solution for this conundrum. I think the prosecutor's pursuit of Judith Miller is over-zealous and misguided prosecution. It distracts from the real issues, namely whether Karl Rove committed a criminal act
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, to what extent George W. Bush had knowledge (both before and after) of this act, and what he ought to do about it. Even that is merely a sideshow to the biggest issue of all, which is to what extent the Bush administration misled the public (either intentionally or through negligence) about Iraq. Judith Miller's situation is unfortunate, but it is not the threat to freedom and democracy that the New York Times would have you believe.
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Which may run afoul of the incredibly ambiguous 14th Amendment.
The state of Oregon is concerned about losing gasoline tax revenues due to efficient automobiles and is investigating a tax on miles driven. What a monumentally stupid idea, especially since it solves a problem that is thus far only hypothetical in nature. Why would you want to discourage efficiency? Did it occur to these people that they could make up the lost revenues by increasing the existing gasoline tax?
The broader issue is what it indicates about the nature of specific taxation. Once you tax a specific thing, you become dependent on taxing that specific thing, so you make bad decisions. Sin taxes are an excellent example. Ignore that the government shouldn't be telling you what to do like that. Suppose your state taxes cigarettes heavily. At some point, it becomes in their best interest to encourage smoking. The dependency on that revenue stream warps their thinking. That's part of why I believe that all consumption taxes should be the same
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.
Distinguishing between different kinds of consumption based on external considerations just creates artificial incentives and disincentives, artificially distorting what people would naturally do, and creating an overall inefficiency. In other words, calling some things "good" and other things "bad" is usually subjective. You don't want to tax bad things, because then you're motivated to encourage them, and you don't want to tax good things, because then you discourage them. Then there are the grey areas; something might be somewhat good, but giving it preferential treatment makes it cost more than the benefit derived. The easiest and best thing to do is to just tax everything equally, except where there is provable harm, in which case you tax only as much as it costs to remedy that harm. Anything else is unnecessary, oppressive, and inefficient.
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Massive exception: if you can demonstrate that consumers of a specific good or service don't pay for the entire cost of that consumption, it makes sense to add an extra tax to internalize those costs. For example, cigarettes create a public health burden. Gasoline pollutes and leads to foolish foreign policy choices. Distributing those costs over the consumers makes sense. However, those revenues must be used only for remediation of those externalized costs. They can't be put into the general fund.
The death of Cindy Sheehan's son was a tragedy, and the war surrounding his death an even greater one. The Bush administration has done a poor job of appearing to value the lives lost in the war, with a degree of oblivious heavy-handedness that makes it appear as though Bush has little concern for the soldiers who have died. However, Cindy Sheehan's protest is also a stunt, and her demand being met would merely suggest that stunts like that work. The President of the United States should not have his agenda dictated by a single individual who devises a clever plan to attract attention to her cause. His agenda should be dictated by the will of the American people, however, and it's increasingly clear that a gap has grown between the two. The Bush administration can and should do more for the families of the dead and wounded. They should cease the foolish rhetoric about "making their sacrifice mean something." They should recognize and acknowledge the mistakes of the war. They should do all that and more because it's the right thing to do, not because of Cindy Sheehan.
This NY Times article on new fuel efficiency standards combines two of my hot-button issues: excessively selective government policies and gasoline taxes. By dividing fuel efficiency categories into "passenger cars" and "light trucks," the government encourages manufacturers to attempt to game the system. For example, according to the article, Subaru made minor design modifications to the Outback model in order to move it into the "light truck" category with its attendant, lower efficiency standards. You can't blame Subaru, as they are merely doing what is in their best interest, as the system rewards that type of behavior. The problem could be avoided entirely just by taxing gasoline at a higher rate. The costs and benefits are simple and clear; the alignment between cost and benefit couldn't be closer. Customers, and thus manufacturers, would immediately place a higher value on fuel efficiency. There would be no use for a complicated regulatory system that didn't achieve its goals anyway. It would just work. This isn't going to happen anytime soon, though, because (some) people like having systems with loopholes and benefit from costs being inappropriately externalized, internalized, shuffled, transformed, and otherwise distorted. Some people benefit, but the rest of us lose.
I consider it a delicious irony that so many conservatives so vocally oppose biological Darwinism while at the same time strongly supporting public policies that advances social Darwinism. It is especially ironic given how much more emphatically their Bible opposes the latter compared to the former.
People have piled on House Speaker Dennis Hastert for suggesting that New Orleans not be rebuilt. Enough have jumped on him that a spokesman hastily disavowed those comments (buried in this article). That's unfortunate. They're saying that it will be several months before there even is electricity in New Orleans, forget about being habitable. Even if we expended all reasonable effort to rebuilding New Orleans, it would be 2006 before a substantial number of residents could return, and probably much longer before life could return to some semblance of normal. It's one thing to make arrangements to live for a few weeks, but it's another thing entirely if your time horizon is half a year or more. Businesses can survive a few weeks or even a few months being closed or by having temporary arrangements, but they'll have to establish something permanent and stable long before they can expect to New Orleans. If they're going to make that kind of investment, why would they then throw it away to return to New Orleans? Where the businesses are, the jobs are. Many people might currently intend to return, but you can't establish a temporary life for 6 months or longer. They'll inevitably settle into their temporary lives and make them permanent. A year from now, I'm sure many will want to return, but many will have established new lives and have no reason to return. Because this will likely happen again, any rebuilding will be a gamble. Beyond that, though, it seems futile to even try, because so many people will have severed their connections and established new ones. New Orleans will live again, but there's no point in rebuilding the old New Orleans.
I don't welcome the surge in gasoline prices due to Hurricane Katrina's devastation of Louisiana and Mississippi. I think it's the right thing for the federal government to do to lend oil from the strategic reserve. I even think it's ok to temporarily lower the gasoline tax. I want gasoline prices to rise, but not this suddenly; a gradual rise will be good for our economy, but sudden shocks are bad. The important thing is to realize why this happened in the first place. When you:
Allow your economy to be heavily dependent on a single commodity
That is predominantly found in an unstable region of the world
Where you have started a war
While the world's two largest nations have gotten their economic act together and are hungry for energy
And your own citizens are profligate wasters
You have very little room for error. The system becomes fragile, where a single disaster can have excessive effects. Our dependency on oil has been a constant gamble, and the odds are getting slimmer and slimmer. Without a real policy change ("more" is not a policy), this sort of thing will only happen more frequently.
Hunting is in decline. What's the problem with that? Apparently, conservation programs are funded by sales of hunting licenses. Reduce hunting, and you reduce conservation programs. The common sense solution is to fund conservation some other way, but common sense seems to be lacking in this case. Yet another example of what happens when you fund a worthy goal by taxing a specific activity: now the success of that goal depends on that activity, so you find yourself incented to promote that activity, even if it has no purpose or merit on its own. You can guess that I don't like hunting, but surely everyone can see that nothing good can come of forcing together two things that aren't inherently connected.
There are people who believe that there have been alarming increases in the average temperature of the Earth in recent times are due to human action that increases atmospheric greenhouse gases. Then there are people who disagree. A problem in the debate on this issue is that global warming is a complex concept with numerous parts, and you have to believe all those parts in order to accept the whole:
The average temperature of the Earth has risen in recent centuries. A reasonable person cannot dispute this. We have records.
The rise in the temperature is great enough and rapid enough to be a concern. This is also well-supported. Warmer temperates mean that ice melts and sea levels rise. You don't have to get into more complicated theories such as the global conveyor belt thermohaline circulation to see a danger from increased temperatures. There is some uncertainty as to how much of a temperature rise causes how much melting, though that is lessening as we watch the ice in the Arctic and Antarctic shrink.
Human action can cause macroscopic changes in the global climate. I include this because anyone who disagrees with it is a fool. Perhaps you disagree that we are currently causing climate change through excessive greenhouse gas emission, but you cannot think that we would be unable to alter the global climate if we really put our minds to it. Remember nuclear winter? There are over 25,000 nuclear warheads in the world. Then there was the change in temperature patterns after September 11 when no airplanes flew. We can create and drain massive lakes, divert rivers, and destroy mountain ranges. It is obviously within human power to remake the world's climate if we dedicated ourselves to that goal. Obviously, we won't, but it is a small step from there to accepting the idea that we could also do it accidentally.
Gases such as carbon dioxide and methane affect the Earth's temperature. No serious scientist disputes the existence of greenhouse effects. Earth isn't the only planet with an atmosphere. Venus has a severe greenhouse effect due to its carbon dioxide atmosphere that makes its surface temperature 900° F, hotter than Mercury. With an atmosphere comparable to Earth's, Venus would also have a similar climate. Mars has a thin atmosphere, so even its 95% carbon dioxide concentration is insufficient to warm the planet.
Increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases increases a planet's temperature. This is a logical consequence of the previous point. The temperature increase that results from an increase in greenhouse gases can be precisely determined in laboratory experiments by measuring how much infrared radiation a known quantity of a gas absorbs. Coupled with measurements of atmospheric samples, solar radiation intensity, and the Earth's albedo (reflectivity).
The concentration of these gases has increased in the last few centuries. This has been established by samples of the atmosphere from previous eras through sampling ice cores, though these samples do not cover most of the Earth's geologic history.
The increase in greenhouse gases is a result of human action. We know how many trees have been cut down. We know how much oil we have extracted and burned. We know the same for coal and natural gas. There are additional sources of carbon dioxide, however, such as volcanic action. We also don't fully understand the global effect of plants and algae that consume atmospheric carbon dioxide. We release methane through wasteage in our consumption of natural gas, as well as landfills, cows (seriously), and other human activities. We have also released large quantities of haloalkanes (e.g., CFCs, also implicated in the ozone hole), but our use is phasing out. Human activity does not significantly increase atmospheric concentrations of nitrous oxide, ozone, and water vapor.
Obviously, I consider the case for global warming to be strong. I also acknowledge there are areas of legitimate contention, but they come down to just two main points: how a given increase in the average temperature affects weather patterns, and how the carbon cycle works. Next time you encounter someone who asserts global warming is a myth, break it down. Find out where the precise disagreement is. Chances are, they don't know the science (even the basic sketch above). If nothing else, you'll find out whether there's any point in discussing it with that person.
The House Republican committee investigating the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina is apparently going to issue a harsh report on Wednesday according to this NY Times article. An excerpt from a draft of this report says:
At every level &emdash; individual, corporate, philanthropic and governmental &emdash; we failed to meet the challenge that was Katrina.
Individual? Is this blaming the victims? Corporate? Apparently, Wal-Mart kicked ass post-Katrina. Philanthropic? What? People gave in huge amounts. I don't get that. That's a nitpick, though, as it sounds like the report is thorough and critical and does not pull its punches due to party loyalty, as was feared.
Note this quote by Allen Abney, a White House spokesman:
The president is less interested in yesterday and more interested with today and tomorrow so that we can be better prepared for next time.
That makes no sense. How can you prepare for next time without 1) figuring out what went wrong 2) discouraging incompetence? Note how similar this response is to the Bush administration's responses regarding criticisms of the war in Iraq. The Bush administration has zero interest in examining the events leading to these events because they were (and continue to be) disasters, and not of the natural kind. Repeating hollow phrases such as the above has been a disturbingly effective strategy to date in deflecting the consequences of their bad decisions, but that such a strongly-worded report is coming from the Republicans is a hopeful sign.
There are those who believe that we invaded Iraq to secure its oil. These people may be right, but they may be wrong. It doesn't matter, because even if we didn't invade Iraq to secure its oil, we are still there because of oil, no matter whom you believe. Don't believe me? We attacked Iraq in 2003 because (pick any or all):
We wanted their oil.
Saddam Hussein was an oppressive, brutal dictator
They had weapons of mass destruction
They supported Al-Qaeda
They were a threat to Saudi Arabia
The first one's easy. Go straight to oil; do not pass GO or collect $200(,000,000,000).
Saddam Hussein was clearly a terrible man. There appears to be a strong correlation between strong economies and free societies. More interestingly, there appears to be a strong correlation between strong economies and a lack of natural resources. Correlation is not causation, but it makes a lot of sense. Natural resources can be easily controlled by a small group of people, and it's wealth that literally comes out of the ground, as opposed to the wealth produced by trade, manufacturing, and services, which is greatest in free societies. Natural resources often support tyrannies. Witness Iran, the Republic of Congo (back when it was Zaire), Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc. Saddam Hussein would have been a despot regardless, but controlling the oil enabled him to strengthen his grip even more.
We know they had weapons of mass destruction at some point. Of course, those programs aren't free. How did Iraq pay for the investment in research and capital? Oil money. Why would they be useful? For attacking or intimidating neighboring countries in advancement of the goals of Arab nationalism and Iraqi expansionism. Oh, and you can take their oil, too.
Then there's Al-Qaeda. We now know that there was no meaningful connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, but Al-Qaeda is still relevant. The roots of that organization are in the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but Al-Qaeda only formed in the early 1990s due to Osama bin Laden's outrage at infidel troops being stationed in the holy land of Islam. Those infidels? US troops. The holy land? Saudi Arabia (I smell oil...). He was also strongly opposed to the Saudi government itself, which we have helped to keep in power for decades.
US troops remained in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War because Iraq was considered a threat. Why do we care about Saudi Arabia? Because they are the major producer of oil (there's that word again). That's the same reason the Iraqis would consider invading. We attacked Iraq in 1991 because they invaded Kuwait. Why did they invade Kuwait? Because Iraq and Kuwait had a dispute over whether Kuwait was illegally tapping Iraqi oil fields. It was also because Iraq's port facilities had been destroyed in the Iran-Iraq War, not to mention their substantial debts arising from the same war.
The Iran-Iraq War had numerous causes. Mesopotamia has been a mess for basically all of recorded history. However, there were certain more immediate issues. One was Saddam Hussein's desire to fully control the Shatt al-Arab waterway, an important shipping channel for oil exports from both Iraq and Iran (hello, oil). The Iranian Revolution had occurred the previous year, presenting Hussein with an opportunity, as the revolution had alienated the west, as well as inspiring fear that the revolution would spread to the Shi'a majority in Iraq. The United States supported Iraq in the war as part of a strategy to counter-balance the dangerous revolutionaries in Iran, but also sold weapons to Iran as part of the Iran-Contra Affair. These actions certainly prolonged the war. Still, that's all geo-political, right? There's no oil there...
Except there is. The Iranian Revolution was a revolution against the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, whose regime was corrupt, autocratic, un-Islamic, and pro-Western. The Shah had been returned to power in 1953 as part of an Anglo-American operation to overthrow the legitimately elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh. There were two primary reasons for this: the first was because of Mossadegh's socialist rhetoric and Iran's position on the border of the Soviet Union. The second? The Iranian government nationalized the oil-producing assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, due to ongoing disputes over the distribution of royalties (from... oil).
So... where does that leave us? We wanted the oil directly. We wanted to secure the alleged weapons of mass destruction that were financed with oil money. We wanted to hit an alleged ally of a terrorist group formed in response to our actions to protect our oil supply. This threat came from a nation whose fortunes were tied to and often driven by oil. Any way you slice it, no matter who you believe on the Iraq War, our involvement is inextricably intertwined with petroleum. It's all in Wikipedia; you can see for yourself. We only care about the area today (besides Israel) because of oil. These are essential facts for people to understand. Our oil addiction kills.
Read this depressing article about Guantanamo. It's the sort of thing that makes me feel like a coward for sitting here typing this instead of doing something real. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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And, make no mistake, this kind of ends-justify-the-means, inhumane, cruel behavior is exactly what is meant by evil in the real world.
I can't believe I forgot a biggie in my explanation of the roots of the Iraq War. We send money to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries for oil. The Saudi government supports the extremist Wahhabi school of Islam, sponsoring religious schools that spread this brand of militant fundamentalism throughout the Middle East, including in Afghanistan, creating an environment where terrorist organizations flourish. Numerous wealthy individuals in the Middle East also give money to Al Qaeda, with their source of income frequently being oil or oil-related, such as Osama bin Laden's inherited fortune from construction.
I was reading up on the upcoming Honda Fit as a possible next car for us. Along the way, I spotted a rumor that Honda would introduce a gasoline-electric hybrid version. I hope that's false, because it's a dumb idea. The regular Fit already gets about 35 mpg on average. Let's say hybridizing the power train pushed it to 45 mpg. For someone who drives 12,000 miles per year, that means a drop of about 75 gallons annually. At current prices, that's less than $200/year in savings for a $3,000 increase in cost. With an investment return of 8%, it would take at least 19 years to make your money back. Hybridizing already-efficient cars doesn't save much money because it doesn't reduce gasoline consumption. What we need is hybrid Suburbans. If you turn 13 mpg into 18 mpg, you save 255 gallons per year, or about $635. That only takes 6 years to pay for itself at the same 8% return on savings. That's pretty good.
gets even better. Consider the wide variation in mileage. I drive our Toyota Corolla to and from work. That's about it. Any weekend trips are in the Accord. My office is about 9 miles each way. That works out to about 3600 miles per year. That's nothing. There are normal people who drive several times that, especially in places like Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Houston, or Atlanta. More importantly, there are some people who drive an order of magnitude more than that. Regional managers. Taxis. Pizza delivery. Any one of those people can easily drive 200 miles per day. At 20 mpg, that's 2000 gallons of gas (assuming 200 work days). At 25 mpg, it's 1600. That's $1000 saved per year. That's 4 years to pay back.
p>
gets still better. Those people drive ordinary passenger vehicles. What about the UPS trucks, delivery vans, US mail, and 18-wheelers? Those vehicles rack up the miles. They're also big and heavy, with mileage in thesingle digits. Assuming a trucker drives 6 hours per day at 60 mph for 40 weeks per year is 72,000 miles per year (very, very conservative). That's about 14,000 gallons of gas (yes, fourteen thousand) Hybridizing a single 18-wheeler to boost its mileage 20% saves about 2300 gallons of gas, or over $5700. Obviously, doing that to a tractor rig would cost more than the $3000 it costs for a passenger car, but at anything under $25,000, it's a no-brainer.
point is, there are vehicles whose performance characteristics and/or usage patterns result in gasoline consumption that dwarfs ordinary passenger vehicle use. Hybridizing those gets way, way more bang for the buck than a hybrid Prius, Civic, or Escape. I'm not saying you personally shouldn't buy a hybrid, just that as a nation, our efforts are best focused on the biggest consumers of gasoline. I'm not aware of any government program that encourages commercial operators to invest in those technologies, though
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. Maybe Congress overlooked something here. That's the flaw with using tax credits to encourage specific behavior. We don't want people to buy hybrids, we want them to use less gasoline. A gasoline tax will always be superior to targeted incentives because people are creative and diverse. Congress can itemize and encourage everything under the sun that reduces gasoline consumption, but then they have to find out what the possibilities are, whether they're real, who might use them, how effective they are, etc. Or, they could just slap a $1/gallon tax on gasoline and let us deal with it. We'd do a better job.
Speaking of excessively-finely targeted behavior, I'm going to contradict both my above statements and previous ones. I am now against a gasoline tax. Gasoline isn't the commodity we want to minimize. What we want to minimize is oil. We derive a lot of products from oil that aren't gasoline. Fuel oil, fertilizer, and plastics are big ones. It's not good policy to target gasoline specifically. Instead of a $1/gal gasoline tax, then, I suggest instead a $20/barrel tax on oil itself. The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day, or 7.3 billion barrels per year. That's $146 billion in oil taxes per year, more than enough to cover the ongoing (monetary) costs of our oil war. Of course, the US government wouldn't actually collect that much money because it would destroy demand. Doesn't matter to me because it's a win either way.
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I haven't done a super-thorough search, but I have looked.
Ronald Reagan is given credit for helping to end the USSR
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. As the story goes, this happened due to a massive military build-up that the Soviets could not match. Now, many who believe this are likely to believe that the Soviet economic system was a poor system. As such, it was doomed anyway. Reagan may have hastened its fall, but we are still reeling from the tax cuts, changes to Social Security (to a pay-as-you-go system to finance the tax cuts), and the deficits brought about by that spending. The question I have, then, is whether the Reagan strategy was the right thing to do. If the dissolution of the USSR was inevitable, and we are still paying for what we did to end it, are we better off today?
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You could also give some credit to Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen who bled the USSR from 1979 to 1989.
Building on a comment on Slashdot... Power generation from fossil fuels definitely kills (statistically) a number of people scattered widely, while nuclear fission power risks killing a smaller number of people in a narrow area. It's like car accidents vs. workplace shootings (or most terrorism). The latter is rare and local, but seizes on the imagination, while the former is frequent and pervasive, but seems pedestrian to us. The latter seems like a big threat, the former truly is.
A New York Times article describes how genetic testing is affecting race-based benefits such as affirmative action, Israeli citizenship, Native American casinos, and the like. A quote from the beginning:
Alan Moldawer's adopted twins, Matt and Andrew, had always thought of themselves as white. But when it came time for them to apply to college last year, Mr. Moldawer thought it might be worth investigating the origins of their slightly tan-tinted skin, with a new DNA kit that he had heard could determine an individual's genetic ancestry.
The results, designating the boys 9 percent Native American and 11 percent northern African, arrived too late for the admissions process. But Mr. Moldawer, a business executive in Silver Spring, Md., says they could be useful in obtaining financial aid.
This surely isn't what affirmative action was meant to achieve, but it's inevitable given its focus on race rather than circumstances. The incidents described in the article demonstrate the folly of applying different rules to people based on race, ethnicity, descent, and the like, no matter how well-intentioned. You should treat people according to what they do and what has happened to them, not who they are.
The newspaper had an article on the spike in gas prices in the Austin area. Three people were quoted as saying they were going to drive out of town less and find ways to avoid driving to work. What did they drive? A Toyota SUV, a Chevrolet pickup truck, and a GMC SUV respectively. Now, they can't exactly go out and buy a replacement vehicle and have that make financial or ecological sense. I realize that and sympathize. The thing is, though, those vehicles have always been wasteful if you weren't the sort of person who actually needed them. It's just that the consequences are more painful now than they used to be. So they have my sympathy, but not much of it.
In opposition to nuclear power, many people have asked, "would you want a nuclear power plant in your backyard?" Certainly not, but I wouldn't want a coal-fired plant in my backyard, either. If I had to choose, I'd choose the nuclear plant without second thought. Of course, you won't get that apples to apples comparison from opponents of nuclear power because nobody seems to feel the need to be fair anymore. They frame the choice as being nuclear power or nothing, which is of course ludicrous.
A post from Monday on Glenn Greenwald's weblog (linked earlier on impeachment) highlights a disturbing combination:
When the administration assures everyone that its most extreme and illegal measures -- warrantless eavesdropping, secret torture gulags, lawless detentions, etc. -- are being applied only to the enemies of the U.S. -- i.e., only to al Qaeda and its allies -- isn't there a fairly significant danger that they are using, or will use, the sweeping, broad definitions which are now routinely used for these terms by Bush followers, a definition that encompass not only actual allies of Al Qaeda but those domestic political opponents deemed to give aid and comfort to Al Qaeda by virtue of their political views, to the point of deserving prison?
In other words, if you criticize the President, he (asserts that he) can send you to Guantanamo.
I'd just like to take a moment to remind everyone how some peanut-brained nitwit had a famous freakout a couple years ago over some Syrian men on a plane. Terrorist dry run my ass. In a just world, Annie Jacobsen's journalism career would now constitute delivering the Podunk Post door-to-door, but she continues to write columns at the same publication, where she is advertised as bringing "the same investigative passion and perception that broke the Terror in the Skies stories." Some people make me wish stupidity was a crime.
I linked to Glenn Greenwald's weblog in my post on Bush's law-breaking. Ironically, since I post this on a weblog, I still tend to place more weight on statements like this when they appear in the mainstream media. There are many excellent weblogs like Glenn Greenwald's, but there are also many more that are awful information sources. The mainstream media has many flaws, but they're like McDonald's: you know what you're going to get. A more "independent" source has greater variability in quality. All of that is a long-winded way of saying the Boston Globe has an article analyzing Bush's law-breaking that reaches much of the same conclusions. The article begins:
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
The article explains why Bush hasn't wielded the veto pen: he's going to ignore laws he doesn't like anyway, so there's no need to formally veto it.
The Cato Institute published a paper earlier
this week detailing the many ways in which George W. Bush has violated the
Constitution and thus his oath of office. You can't claim "liberal bias" with
the Cato Institute. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Heritage
Foundation, though. An excerpt:
The administration's legal position can be summed up starkly: When we're at war, anything goes, and the president gets to decide when we're at war.
Also:
Indeed, the president's lawyers have already informed the federal judiciary
that they regard the entire world, including every inch of U.S. territory, a
"battlefield." That outlandish claim has profound implications for the Bill
of Rights because there are no legal rights whatsoever on the battlefield.
And:
Under this sweeping theory of executive power, the liberty of every American rests on nothing more than the grace of the White House.
"We went from totally believing in Bush to really having our doubts," said Wayne Toomey... "It comes down to his lack of care about gas prices."
Of all the reasons to turn against Bush, they chose such a relatively small issue in the face of so many wonderful and compelling ones, an issue that Bush has little control over and certainly isn't his responsibility anyway.
Also:
And then there is the story of gasoline, which in Florida now averages $3 to
$3.45 a gallon.
...
"It is 60 miles round trip to visit my family," Ms. Meicher said. "It costs me a half a tank of gas and maybe $15 when it used to be $8. I give it a second thought now when the family says, 'Let's do this or that.' We are real close, but now I feel like I am saying 'yes' maybe two out of every three times these days."
You think maybe your problems have something to do with getting less than 14 mpg?
My first issue of The Economist1
pointed out that Iran's military and foreign policy are under the control of Ayatollah Khamenei
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, not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In other words, even though Ahmadinejad is the one banging his shoe on the lectern, he doesn't have control over the nuclear program or negotiations related to it. However, he does control much of the domestic policy, including government spending on various programs. Those are important for maintaining stability, given the popular disaffection with the ruling clerics and the rampant unemployment. Much of Iran's revenue to finance those programs comes from oil. Every time Ahmadinejad
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makes an inflammatory speech, the price of a barrel oil spikes, increasing Iran's oil revenues, and giving the Islamic Republic more money to spend pacifying the populace. Their belligerent grandstanding is just about asserting their power or negotiating better relations with Europe and the United States, but quite likely a cleverly calculated ploy to maximize their oil revenue. It's a dangerous game if misunderstood, which I'm afraid this administration is all too likely to do.
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Who is apparently no dummy; he ranked 130th in Iran in university entrance exams in 1976, and has both a master's and Ph.D in engineering. He definitely is a fanatic, though.
Norm Mineta, Secretary of Transportation, testified to a Congressional committee last week regarding fuel economy standards. Defending a proposal to allow different levels of fuel economy for vehicles of different sizes, he made three main points:
First, a size-based system preserves vehicle choice: Instead of forcing manufacturers to produce smaller vehicles for purposes of regulatory compliance, this approach takes the manufacturers. own product mix projections and then applies separate fuel economy targets to each vehicle based on its dimensions. Under a size-based system, automakers will still be able to build the cars consumers want, but those cars will have to be more fuel efficient across the board.
Currently, we already have something like that. There is one set of fuel economy standards for "passenger cars" and another for "light trucks." The sales-weighted average mileage of passenger cars has to be at least 27.5 miles per gallon (the same as it's been for 16 years). For light trucks, the minimum is 22.2 mpg for model year 2007, a slow rise from 20.2 mpg in 1990. You can find all of these numbers on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration web site.
Have you noticed how small and mid-sized SUVs like the Toyota RAV4, Ford Freestyle, and Honda CR-V are basically tall station wagons with a slightly beefier appearance? They get similar gas mileage to those wagons, but the manufacturers get to classify them as "light trucks." In other words, some simple cosmetic tweaks allow the manufacturer to get away with 25% less fuel economy.
The benefit to manufacturers doesn't come in the form of gas-guzzling compact SUVs, though. Instead, these compact SUVs raise the manufacturers' light truck fleet average mileage, allowing them to continue selling the real gas guzzlers like the Ford Excursion, Hummer2, and Chevrolet Suburban.
From a common sense perspective, a Ford Escape is a passenger car, but Ford (and the other manufacturers) game the regulatory system to get it classified as a light truck, as the Ford Escape's decent mileage would pull down the passenger car average and provide zero benefit to the highly profitable light trucks. Without those smaller SUVs, they couldn't sell the big ones without running afoul of regulators.
Creating more categories as Mineta proposes will just lead to manufacturers doing similar things to "promote" fuel-efficient vehicles into the next category, allowing them to sell vehicles with below average mileage for the class. If the boundary between small car and mid-sized car is 3,000 lbs, you can bet there will be a lot of 3,000 lb cars. Your gasoline consumption may be low due to driving such a vehicle, but you make it possible for someone else to buy some 14 mpg road pig.
Furthermore, the above ignores that larger vehicles require more steel and labor. Manufacturing a vehicle is an incredibly energy-intensive process, what with smelting the steel, molding the plastics, welding the joints, manufacturing the tires, assembling it all, transporting it to the customer, etc. The bigger the vehicle, the greater those costs. We want to reduce all energy consumption, not just gasoline, because every energy source is (roughly speaking) substitutable for every other one.
Mineta goes on to say:
Second, a size-based system eliminates the perverse incentives for manufacturers to produce smaller and more dangerous vehicles instead of introducing fuel-saving technologies.
Here, Mineta repeats the common fallacy that larger vehicles are safer. That's only true to a point. Your friend and mine Malcolm Gladwell destroys that myth. The short version is that there are two types of safety, passive and active. Passive safety describes the characteristics that protect you when an accident is certain. It's like wearing a helmet when you box. If it's a given that you're going to get hit, you want as much padding as possible.
Of course, that generally only applies when hitting a smaller vehicle, as bigger vehicles have just as much momentum as you, negating the benefit of extra crumple area. If you wear twice as much padding, but your boxing opponent hits you twice as hard, you haven't gained anything. Overall, though, large vehicles are generally better when it comes to passive safety. There's just more stuff between you and whatever you're hitting. Of course, passive safety is only part of it.
Active safety refers to the characteristics that keep you from having the accident in the first place. It's like just not entering the boxing ring in the first place. It means your car is a smaller target. It means being less likely to turn over. It means a shorter stopping distance, quicker acceleration, and better maneuverability, so you can react more effectively and avoid the accident in the first place.
So how do these two factors balance out? It turns out that active safety matters more. To invent some numbers, let's say passive safety characteristics of a Dodge Durango decreases your likelihood of death by 50% compared to, say, a Honda Accord. Its reduced active safety might mean you're three times as likely to get into an accident in the first place. The net result is that you're substantially more likely to get into an accident and die. That's just a hypothetical example, but the statistics support that conclusion (PDF warning).
Of course, if everyone drives a large vehicle, the active safety advantages of small cars will get eclipsed by the heightened risk and severity of accidents due to those other people. In such a case, everyone's active safety is worse than an equivalent setting with everyone driving smaller vehicles, as accidents are more likely, but the gains in passive safety are erased because all combatants are bigger. The policy proposed by Mineta will make us all less safe compared to where we could and should be with a more sensible scheme. That's what's perverse.
Finally, Mineta's third point:
Third, a size-based system ensures that all manufacturers are introducing fuel-saving technologies, not only the manufacturers of larger vehicles.
That's just plain disingenuous. Why does Hyundai need to introduce fuel-saving technologies? They're already using the best technologies of all: smaller cars with smaller engines. Hybridization is not worth it (roughly speaking) for any vehicle that gets 30 mpg or more unmodified. On top of that, the goal is not introducing technologies, the goal is using less gasoline. The 4-cylinder Honda Accord gets 26/34 mpg. The 6-cylinder hybridized Accord gets 25/34 mpg, just slightly worse. Guess which one is better for the environment and our national security? Now guess which one gets the $3,000 income tax credit? I'm already doing the right thing by driving a Toyota Corolla and 4-cylinder conventional Honda Accord. I'm not the problem, but Mineta seems to think it's a good idea to make small cars more expensive for minimal gain, while giving a free pass to the already-expensive and much more wasteful large vehicles.
Focusing on specific technologies is stupid. So is differentiating between different types of vehicles. Why is it acceptable for a farm vehicle to get 10 mpg, but my vehicle, which I require for my job just as a farmer does, has to be at least 27.5 mpg? In effect, I am forced to support other people's waste, to the detriment of us all. Our goal is to reduce gasoline consumption, so we should tax gasoline (or, ideally, oil). Any measure that focuses on specific types of vehicles, fuel-saving technologies, uses, or features will just distract from the primary issue. That invites gaming the system and destroying its effectiveness. Trying to mandate this through regulation is too much work for too much benefit when we have a simple, effective solution staring us in the face.
It is undeniable that higher CAFE standards kill people: Larger, heavier cars have lower death rates in crashes.
And equally undeniable is that larger, heavier cars are in far more crashes.
Because automakers have met CAFE standards largely by reducing automobile weight, traffic fatalities in smaller cars have increased.
I'd attribute that much more to the vastly increased number of larger, heavy
vehicles driven on the roads by people insufficiently skilled to handle them.
In spite of the flaws in that editorial, we still end up in the same place:
As for saving gas, there's little evidence that CAFE standards matter all that much. Americans tend to drive more miles in high-mileage cars, and when gas prices are lower they shift to SUVs and other vehicles that give them space and a greater sense of security. The best gas-saving plan around is today's high prices.
Today seems to be "oil and gas day." Continuing with that theme... it drives me nuts to hear people complaining about Exxon/Mobil's record profits last year.
Does anyone know what Exxon and Mobil's profits in 1999 were? What about 2003? No? Of course you don't. Everyone focuses on the 2005 numbers in isolation. Yes, $36 billion is a lot of money. What if Exxon lost $5 billion in 2000-2004? Would it still be "excessive profit" then? I know they didn't; I'm just making a point. You can't look at a single number over a relatively short period of time and decree that it's too much. That's ridiculous.
Of course, the idea of "excessive profit" is stupid to begin with. It's like "price gouging." What exactly does that mean? Suppose you have the only hotel in town. It can hold 100 people. Now, let's say there are floods and 200 people are now homeless. What do you do? No matter what, you have more demand than you have supply. You have to deny some people. You can do a lottery. You can pick people you like. Or, you can raise your prices until only 100 people are willing to pay. The problem with a lottery is that it doesn't distinguish between the single father with two young children and the college student who can live in his VW bus. It doesn't care who's deserving. Picking who you like relies on an extremely subjective idea of who's deserving. Maybe you don't like Indians, or women, or anyone from the South. That's not exactly fair. Raising your prices, a.k.a. "price gouging," isn't a perfect solution. Far from it. It separates out the people who really need it, though. Maybe some people have friends or family they can impose on. You can't determine worthiness, but you can measure desperation, which is close enough. It sounds mean, and you sure are getting a nice wad, but no matter what, you're going to have to turn 100 people away. Discriminating by price is the worst way to do it, except for all the other ones (with apologies to Winston Churchill).
The idea of "excessive" means nothing in free market economies. The price is agreed to by the buyer and the seller. If either one dislikes the deal, that party can walk away. There are very, very few circumstances where the difference is life and death.
How much profit is too much? There is no answer to that question that is consistent, fair, and specific. It can't be done because it just doesn't make sense in a free market.
Then there's this whole "windfall tax." To me, that is not much different from an ex post facto law. It's just plain unfair to change the rules retroactively, especially in a process so easily hijacked by political whims (or spawned by same, as in this case).
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists has compiled a list of comparative profit margins of large companies in various industries. The oil industry may make a lot of profit in absolute terms, but their margins are nothing compared to Microsoft or Citicorp. I work for a company that made $16 billion last year. That's more than all US oil companies not named Exxon/Mobil. Besides, it's not like that money just disappears.
What do you think they're going to do with that money? They're going to give some of it to their shareholders in the form of dividends. The rest of it they're going to hang on to for future investment (i.e., finding more gas for you). Yes, Exxon/Mobil gave former CEO a $400 million retirement package, but the source of that problem isn't Exxon/Mobil profits so much as it is how corporate compensation is just messed up in general. Just look at how much Michael Eisner took home from Disney, or Jack Welch got from General Electric. That's a problem no matter how much money Exxon/Mobil makes.
The same applies to environmental issues, or how oil money supports oppressive governments around the world. The complicity of the oil industry in those actions is a bad thing no matter how much money they're making. The idea of profit doesn't even enter the equation. You know I'm no fan of the oil companies. They supply an unhealthy addiction. However, we're not going to solve the problem by focusing on the wrong issues. That will just hurt us in the long run. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Except then we have to be responsible, instead of blaming someone else
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.
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Incidentally, I find it ironic that many of the people who condemn contraception for eliminating the consequences of sex are the same people who want to drill in ANWR or resist raising the fuel economy standards in order to dodge the consequences of profligate wastefulness.
Cruising along on the way home, a woman suddenly pulled out in front of me from a stop. She clearly didn't see me coming. Luckily, I was paying attention, so I could react. I stomped on the brakes, the tires squealed, cloud of black smoke and all that. There was no damage to my car or to me. I stopped before I got scary close, maybe about 15 or so feet away. I know for sure that if I'd been driving a Ford Expedition or similar vehicle, I'd be watching it getting taken away by a wrecker right now, possibly holding an icepack to my airbag-bruised face.
As much as I believe a gas/oil tax would provide many benefits, I also recognize that it won't happen. On September 12, 2001, we as a nation focused our attention on a single purpose. We were as receptive as we ever would be to sacrifice and radical changes in order to track down the killers behind September 11th. Gas prices were above the historical lows of the 1990s
1
, but nobody considered them painful. Even if they had, the surge of anger and determination following these attacks would have made us all willing. Had Bush proposed such a tax and explained its benefits, Americans would have embraced it, as it would have given the average American a real and meaningful way to contribute.
Instead, nearly 5 years of governmental incompetence and malfeasance have destroyed any semblance of national consensus. The last few years of gasoline price increases have made people fearful of future increases. Raising gas prices from $3/gallon freaks people out while doing it from a base of $1.30/gallon (October 2001) would have been perfectly fine. Even if gas prices decline to those levels again
2
, they would have to remain low for an impossibly long time before people would be willing to raise the taxes
3
.
People are just too skittish about gasoline prices, and they won't soon forget. They don't realize that the era of cheap oil is permanently over. They're too attached too their past lifestyle, unwilling to accept that it is gone forever. We had the opportunity to address this problem without too much pain, so we could meet an inevitable future on our own terms, and even postpone it. Instead, Bush and Congress blew a singular opportunity to create a smooth transition and kill several birds with a single stone. The future is still coming, but now we will be dragged forward kicking and screaming.
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I paid under $0.80/gallon at least once in Houston.
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Which they wouldn't, because they wouldn't see the need for it. There's a tiny window between when the fear passes and when the awareness of the need dissipates.
The bombing that killed Zarqawi also killed 5 other people. One was a child. The other four could very well have been insurgents as well, but a child? The media have barely mentioned this, which is consistent with how they have barely mentioned civilian deaths in general. There are many issues here, the vast majority I will leave alone.
Civilian deaths like these are unavoidable, and massacres like the one alleged to have happened in Haditha are almost inevitable as well. This does not mean that war should be avoided at all cost, but at minimum, they should not be sought out has happened with Iraq. When making the decision to go to war, one should be forthright and acknowledge that many innocents will die. That's (part of) why the pre-emptive war doctrine is so terrible, because it elevates war to a choice rather than something forced upon you. That doesn't even get into figuring out where the conservatives' respect for life went.
Navy Rear-Admiral Harry Harris, the [Guantanamo Bay] base commander, described the suicides as "not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us."
Holy crap. How twisted must your world view be to consider someone's suicide an act of war against you? What kind of person must you be for that to make sense? And we trust people like this to make important decisions? You don't need to read the rest of the article; that one quote is ample proof of thoroughly messed up our treatment of these prisoners is.
In the spring of 2003, Iran made an indirect overture to the United States to discuss everything from nuclear weapons to Israel. The last 3 years make clear what the US response was. Oops. The Washington Post has the story, including some weak "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" spin from Condoleeza Rice.
A ballot measure in California proposes to tax oil production. As you well know, I think a tax on oil would be a good thing, but I meant on consumption. Taxing production is a stupid idea. California is not a swing producer, so taxing oil production in that state will do nothing except to drive oil producers out of the state. Californians will pay higher prices to have more oil imported from out of state, which will certainly reduce consumption, but would that benefit be enough to make up for the loss to the economy of oil production?
The problem is that this tax implies that oil production is the problem. It's not. Consumption is the problem. By its very nature, a tax discourages the activity that incurs it. If California could significantly affect the domestic or global oil supply and thus constraint consumption, this tax might make sense, but they can't. All they can affect is consumption in state. You can import oil from other states and countries, but nobody is going to drive to Nevada or Mexico to buy gas.
In the end, California is going to have a well-meaning bill that achieves nothing positive beyond a short-term and relatively small boost to state revenue, while incurring costs to the economy from overhead and driving out businesses. Some demagogues will make political hay, demonizing the oil industry for feeding Californians' oil addiction, and looking like they're taking strong action, even as they avoid facing the hard truth and doing the right thing.
The idea that democratic debate gives "aid and comfort to our enemies" is self-evidently stupid. It doesn't make logical sense, and there isn't a shred of proof, either. I think it may be even more wrong than just having no effect, though. A vigorous debate about the Iraq war, rendition, Guantanamo Bay, domestic spying, and all the other bad Bush policies in defense of which the administration has trotted out the above canard could very well weaken our enemies.
Remember who the enemy is, and where their support comes from. They are extremists, to whose benefit it is to polarize the people into diametrically opposed sides, to eviscerate the moderate middle. They want Arabs and Muslims to believe that America is hell-bent on the destruction of Islam and the enslavement of Muslims. They get much of their support from poor, idle, angry youth who believe that America is responsible for their problems, and that they have little choice but to fight.
Now consider what effect a sensible, deliberate, reasonable, and, above all, public debate would have. It would demonstrate that America is not hell-bent on destroying them. It would demonstrate that there is a hope for a future that does not involve blowing up innocent people and themselves. They would immediately recognize that extremist tactics would make it harder for the moderate, reasonable voice to be heard. Far from strengthening Al Qaeda et al., showing our disunity would have the opposite effect. The fact is that we cannot win the "War on Terror" without winning over those who might otherwise become terrorists.
Consider how we in the United States reacted to the apparent ascendancy of Iranian moderates like Khatami, and the disappointment of their replacement by hard-liners like Ahmadinejad. There were and are many Iranians who interested in normalized relations, avoiding aggression and hostility, and finding a peaceful solution to various problems. That they exist is a good thing. That they publicly disagree with the ruling hard-liners is a good thing. That is, it is a good thing for everyone except for the hard-liners.
And there lies the crux of it. When the boisterous discourse of a functioning democracy is condemned as treasonous, the ultimate goal is maintaining power. That debate may be a healthy thing for America and the world at large, but it is a threat to the Bush administration. They have no interest in the morale of the troops
1
, though that is the banner they wrap themselves in. No, the goal is to squelch and pollute any reasoned discourse of important issues, because their destructive and short-sighted policies cannot stand up to scrutiny. Only thus can they remain in power and achieve a "permanent majority."
Consider. Syria and Iran have a mutual defense pact. Invading Lebanon is almost like invading Syria, as it has been a puppet state for decades. If we attack any of those countries, either independently or with Israel, we'll be at war with all of them. It won't be a separate war, either; a war with Syria will merge with the war in Iraq which will merge with the war with Iran which will merge with the war in Afghanistan. Then consider the effect on Egypt and Saudi Arabia. They already have trouble keeping the lid on Islamist rebellion; after their people see the United States go to war with half of the Middle East, they won't be able to continue being US allies. Even worse, their governments could collapse, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who replaces them would not be positively disposed towards either the United States or Israel. It's hard to see Muammar Qadafi not try to take advantage of this situation as well.
Up north, Turkey will have a hard time keeping out of the war due to its substantial Kurdish population seeing the war engulfing the other large Kurdish populations just over the borders in Iraq and Iran. On the east side is Pakistan, which is already having its own problems with Islamists and rebellion. Having a war along its whole western border will hardly help its stability. If Pakistan goes under, look to India to immediately invade to prevent Pakistan's nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of Islamist fundamentalists. So now we have a single war stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, and that's just how it starts. Imagine what happens if China takes advantage of our impotence to take Taiwan, or North Korea invades South Korea, leading to a war there and a remilitarized Japan. I can't possibly understand how these people think that is something that can help us.
The United States is number one right now. We have the most powerful military in the world backed by the most powerful economy in the world. In spite of that, we are bogged down and slowly losing two wars. From what bottomless well do Kristol et al. think we can find the manpower and resources to fight Iran, a nation bigger than Iraq and Afghanistan put together, as well as Syria?
Few nations have started and won wars on this scale. Wars on this scale overturn the established order, and we very much want the established order to continue. WWI ended the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire both, while WWII saw the sun set on the British Empire, the near-total destruction of Germany, and the ascendancy of the United States and the USSR respectively. The only way we can maintain our position of power is to not use that power, for to use it is to test it, and it only needs to fail once.
Iran and Syria have little to lose and plenty to gain. We have everything to lose and little to gain. After all, it's hardly as if Iran and Syria threaten core American interests. This is not Red Dawn. Those countries can't strike us with anything like what the USSR can. The threat they pose is significant, but it is also localized and indirect. If we put ourselves (more) in their reach, they can bleed us dry. The United States can only be a loser in such a contest. We can look at modern day Germany to see the future that awaits us if we embark on this foolish venture. After we have wrecked ourselves, and a swath from Libya to India is in ruins, China will emerge as the undisputed superpower of the world. If that isn't what Kristol and Gingrich want, it's hard to tell.
This post by Zack Exley articulates exactly what is wrong with the overuse of the "we're in a war" excuse constantly used by the Bush administration. Al Qaeda can't hurt us in any meaningful way. They are not the USSR. They are not Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan. They're not even Canada. And yet, we have allowed our government to do things we never allowed during World War II and the Cold War. There's something very wrong with that, and I'm glad to see someone with at least a little influence saying the right things.
I don't watch "The Daily Show" regularly anymore, but I did catch the episode with Aasif Mandvi responding to the "opportunity" in the Middle East right now. Check it out. I'm amazed that he could keep a straight face the whole way through. Watch it all the way through; the September 11th zinger is a killer.
It's absolutely nuts how issues that were long since settled have crept up again. Teaching Creationism in schools? Freaking out because Janet Jackson showed a nipple on TV? Eavesdropping without warrants? Racial profiling (discrimination)? Arresting people who say things you don't like? Arresting people without charges? Disappearing people into the black abyss of secret prisons? A divinely chosen and inspired leader? Torture for crying out loud?!?!
All this stuff was settled. There were memos. There were meetings and conventions and zines and flamewars. Hell, there were at least a dozen real wars. We figured out the right answer ages ago. So what is happening with people going on TV with perfectly straight faces rolling the clock back on centuries of progress like it never happened, like years and years of blood and fire and pain and destruction didn't teach us all exactly what was wrong with all of that, and people take them seriously? How did this happen so easily and so quickly? Is the veneer of civilization really that thin?
If all that stuff's back on the table, how is anything off-limits? Am I going to see Sean Hannity expounding at great length about the benefits of child labor? Maybe Bill O'Reilly will tell us all what a good thing it would be to bring back debtors' prisons. Will Rush Limbaugh tell us that women don't really need the vote? Are we going to see Khalid Sheikh Muhammed subjected to trial by ordeal? "He drowned, so he's innocent!" Forced conversions? Religious taxes? Slavery!?!? It took so little to regress these last 5 years. Where will they stop?
The torture bill that just passed is one of the most reprehensible actions Congress has ever taken. There is so much wrong with it at every level. I'll just cover a few highlights of why torture is such a terrible thing, with assistance from this surprisingly intelligent Something Awful thread.
Bush & Co. argue that nobody can define precisely the boundaries of humane treatment, so there's no point in such guidelines, but does anyone doubt that ripping off people's nipples with pliers is torture? Somehow we have a firm enough definition to know that. They misleadingly say that since there is some grey area, it's all grey area. They also claim that what they're doing "isn't that bad." If that was true, why would they do it? It's a waste of energy and time to try things that don't work, not to mention just plain mean. If is effective, then it really is that bad. What would make you reveal information that could result in the capture and death of friends and relatives? Just because what they're doing sounds mild does not mean it actually is mild. It's likely that the methods they have disclosed were chosen particularly because they sound less innocuous than pliers and hot irons while still being cruel and devastatingly effective.
It's also not just about any particular method in isolation, but the totality of circumstances. There's a huge difference between reading a description of waterboarding or even having it demonstrated on you once in a safe, controlled environment, and having it inflicted on you over and over again by people who wouldn't mind if you died in a gulag from which you have no chance of escape. Certainly that provides a motivation for telling the truth.
But then, how do the torturers know you're telling the truth? If they have enough information to know what is fact and what is fiction, then the torture is pointless in all but the most extreme and contrived cases. If they don't have enough information to distinguish, they could stop before they get the real truth or continue long after. What if their corroborating information is wrong, and the victim is telling a truth that disagrees with it? The goal of torture is to break the victim, but once the victim is broken, their attachment to their cause severed, and their will made subservient to the torturers, it's ludicrous to think they could have any attachment to the truth. Torture doesn't work any better than slower, less cruel methods. More effective and less cruel methods focus on psychological manipulation that builds trust and makes the subject want to help you. And no, "make the pain stop!" is not the same thing as wanting to help you. That is the key practical issue with torture. It provides you with little that is useful while destroying something of great value.
What torture does is turn a human into a savage beast. When a torture victim is "broken," you reduce them to a sub-rational animal state of helpless terror, where the world reduces to a simple binary choice: say this and the pain continues, or say that and the pain stops. Whether there is any truth in it back from when you were still a rational human being is immaterial. Whether the interrogators promised to keep you from suffering permanent injury or dying is irrelevant. Even if you even remember what you were before or what promises you heard, you're not likely to believe it or be able to think rationally when your world has shrunk to hold only agony. That is the fundamental immorality of torture, that its effect, indeed, its goal, is to take a human being and reduce him to a cowering, fearful, pathetic animal.
The effect isn't to make you tell the truth, but to make you do whatever it takes to make it stop. There is effectively no difference between breaking your will to keep secrets and just plain breaking you and turning you into the torturer's eager slave. As a means of obtaining information, torture is almost always ineffective in comparison to the gentler methods, and you can never know until after the fact whether it was the rare case where it was more effective. As a means of obtaining reliable information, it's useless.
That doesn't mean that torture is useless in general, though. It's great for getting people to say what you want and to confess to whatever you want them to. That's why Stalin and Pol Pot and an endless list of murderous sadists liked it so much; they weren't after information or justice but instead wanted a confession to justify their actions, no matter how valid or true the confession might be. It's also effective as an intimidation tactic aimed at anyone who might cross you. In theory, that's not us, but bills like this recent one and the apparent inability of our government to listen to people with experience in these matters tells me that we're not so much better after all. Among a host of tragedies, that is a final one.
Using torture robs us of the most essential weapon we have in our battles against Al Qaeda and the like: the moral high ground. America has made plenty of mistakes, but we've always been distinguished from other nations in that our defining essence is based on principle rather than geography, ethnicity, or other accidents of history. What makes Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency and the Chechens and all of those terrorists so very wrong isn't what they want, but how they're willing to hurt and kill innocents to achieve those ends. We bind ourselves with limitations because we understand that is what separates right causes from wrong ones, not the goals. What is fundamentally American is that a nation ought to be founded on freedom and justice. Torture ought to be beneath us, because we should be both too smart and too good to do it. And yet, here we are.
They say everyone breaks; it's just a matter of time. I don't know if that's true, but I'm willing to accept it. On the face of it, that suggests the best you can do is delay, but you can never win. It turns out, however, that you can use that against your captors.
Let's suppose you are captured by those who would torture you to get information from you. You must assume you will break. Once you know that, you can use it against your captors. Well before you actually break, you start telling them things. You tell them things that are completely true, things that are mostly true, and things that are fabrications. You tell isolated facts and whole stories and everything in between. You spew a barrage of information, within which you bury the truth. They'll be able to verify some of it and disprove some of it, but most of it will be ambiguous. After all, if they knew that much there would be no need to torture you.
Your goal is to prevent them from learning the truth so they can defeat your cause. What if they hear the truth, but consider it a falsehood, or if they hear a lie and call it truth? In that case, you have succeeded, even if at some point the truth came out of your mouth. This is even something you can train for, in much the same way an improvisational comedy troupe practices. If I can think of this, I'm sure Al Qaeda can too. In fact, knowing that your victim is using this strategy would help you not one bit. By overloading them with false information, you make yourself useless as an intelligence source, even if you know lots of true and useful information, even if you tell it to them, and even if they break you.
Furthermore, you can do more than just make your interrogation pointless. If the information you give them sounds reliable, but clashes with other intelligence, you introduce uncertainty and destroy the value of those other sources. This will happen regardless of whether you're telling the truth or a lie. Your torturers will know well the limits of torture, but their bosses might not. You might not be able to save yourself, but you can protect your cause.
Other parts of a potential Democratic agenda receive less support, especially calls to impeach Bush: 47 percent of Democrats say that should be a "top priority," but only 28 percent of all Americans say it should be, 23 percent say it should be a lower priority and nearly half, 44 percent, say it should not be done.
Hmmm. Did they just say that 51% of Americans are in favor of impeaching Bush? They make it sound like less by creating a group of those who think it's a "top priority" and those who think it should not be a "top priority," but should still happen. Remember, this is from the general population, not just Democrats.
When Bank of America bought Works, we got laid off by Works and then re-hired by Bank of America. One of the stipulations of the employee agreement is that they have the right to ask me to take a drug test. I'm betting they won't ask, because when they do, I'm going start looking for a new job because it's none of their business. As long as I'm not high at work, and my job performance is acceptable, then it's irrelevant. And if I am high at work, is it ok to be drunk? If my job performance is bad, does it matter what the reason is? I don't blame the Bank; I'm sure it's some federal regulation. The government shouldn't be able to commandeer private business to effect social policy.
I am nowhere near the front of the line on this moral issue. This is usually where I'm supposed to say, "it's not your business, but I'd pass the test anyway." I won't, though, because that's trying to have it both ways, to take the moral high ground while not risking your job. The issue isn't whether they can ask you to pee in a cup; the issue is whether they ought to be entitled to that information about you. Even if you could avoid the actual test itself, you've still given them the information. The only responses with integrity are a simple "no" or obedience without protest.
The top ten countries in the world according to one particular statistic are:
China
Iran
Pakistan
Iraq
Sudan
United States of America
Saudi Arabia
Yemen
Vietnam
Kuwait
You can see we're not in good company. Without knowing what the statistic is, I think just being associated with those nine nations is enough reason to push for a change. Any guesses what the issue is? I'll post the answer later.
I take no pleasure in the passing of Jerry Falwell. To be sure, he was a bad man. He was the epitome of the entrenched hard-liner. He spread hatred and bigotry, and did a lot to hold back the progress of civilization. The wheels of progress will move more smoothly without him in the way. Nevertheless, his death is not a cause for celebration. I hate the idea of living in a world where the only way to achieve progress is to kill those holding it back, or at least to wait until they die. I regret that Jerry Falwell didn't learn the errors of his ways while he was still alive, and while it could still do good. Surely humanity is capable of more. A world where everyone's beliefs and views are effectively given to them at birth and cast in stone is a depressing, pointless one. Without the capacity to learn and grow, we are left with little. Jerry Falwell does not seem to have learned or grown much in his time on this Earth, but there was still hope as long as he lived. Now there is no longer that hope, and so I can take no joy in his death.
The NY Times says employers are unhappy with the new immigration bill because "it would not cure the severe labor shortages they foresee in the coming decade." I have a cure for labor shortages that works every time in every situation: pay more.
I've been finding it hard to find a clear dividing line between personal freedom and economic freedom. It makes me wonder whether the future perspective will think of state-run companies as being like state-sponsored churches and communism like a theocracy. Or maybe I should just go to bed.
This essay from the American Enterprise Institute isn't the first time I've heard the collapse of oil prices in the 1980s being the real reason for the collapse of the USSR, but it's certainly the most thorough. It was written by a former cabinet minister under Yeltsin, which gives it some added weight. I think it's especially noteworthy because one might assume that the AEI would be interested in burnishing the legend of Ronald Reagan.
Following up on Home Depot cutting their ads from Bill O'Reilly's program... I disagree with nearly everything Bill O'Reilly says, but the solution is not to keep him from saying it. The solution is to refute him. I want to see Bill O'Reilly get pwned publicly for being an imbecile. That way the message gets out to the people who believe the same things. Without people spreading stupid ideas, it's a lot harder to get people who share them to pay attention to better ideas. It seems like people spreading stupid ideas have the advantage, but I think that's just because they've adapted to the medium better at this point in time. It's easier to use a new medium when your ideas are shallow and simple; it's hard to articulate many good ideas even in familiar media. Home Depot isn't the problem; they're responsible to their shareholders, and their shareholders don't (and shouldn't) care if people have stupid reasons for boycotting their stores. This is a problem for the rest of us, and there's only one solution: respond patiently and thoughtfully.
Both the military and police forces are investing heavily into so-called "non-lethal" weapons. The most famous example of this is the Taser, which has in fact resulted in some deaths 1. It's hard to object to "non-lethal" or "less lethal" weapons in principle. They definitely sound like an improvement. The problem arises when you realize that the world is not static.
The benefit of "less lethal" weapons is that they provide an alternative to guns. When a police officer would normally use her gun, she can use a Taser instead, incapacitating rather than killing. What isn't so beneficial is when the Taser becomes a substitute for other things as well. Nobody thinks of verbal engagement as a weapon, but it's often the most useful way for a police officer to defuse a potentially dangerous situation. On the other hand, a Taser is unequivocally a weapon. It hurts. It burns. But it does not (usually) kill, and often doesn't leave any marks. The consequences of using a Taser inappropriately are (understandably) considerably less than using a firearm inappropriately. Instead of using persuasion, which is frustrating, hard, and not guaranteed to work, a police officer can just use the Taser. It has a known effect with a known cost. That makes it easy to use, not just in situations where it is appropriate, but also insituations whereanother approachmight be better.
The fundamental problem breaks down into two parts. One, police may be more likely to use the weapon because of its reduced lethality and evidence of use. Two, those who might have been inappropriately assaulted have an uphill battle making their case because it is harder to prove injury. The courts are generally reluctant to override the judgment of a police officer in the heat of the moment. Even more concerning are "crowd control" weapons, which have a history of use against peaceful orderly protests as well as riots, as those are more often a deliberate choice by law enforcement officials rather than the panic or misjudgment of a single officer. There is an inherent restraining effect in police batons and especially firearms because the injury is obvious and lethality likely. "Less lethal" weapons have no such built-in restraint.
There is no clear solution here. These weapons can be used appropriately and achieve police goals at reduced risk to both officers and citizens. However, using these weapons without clear protocols for use and effective accountability mechanisms at the organizational level is a recipe for abuse. Technology can help with some of these issues, from the cameras mounted in police cars to memory chips embedded in the Tasers themselves recording their use. This is only useful insofar as police oversight is effective and responsive; technology cannot be a panacea.
The greatest worry I have is not with these weapons, but the apparent increase in the divide between the public and the police, as evinced by the militarization of the police. Police officers will naturally want to act with as much power as they can in order to safeguard themselves, but that greatly increases the consequences of mistakes. The police are "peace officers," not military. The motto is "to serve and protect," but too often the police seem to see citizens as an enemy.
1 It's worth noting that Taser themselves don't call it "non-lethal", though they do imply it when contrasting their product against "lethal force" as illustrated by an semi-automatic pistol.
Fact: John Walker Lindh never attacked or planned to attack US citizens or US soldiers. Fact: Lindh never provided assistance to Al Qaeda. Fact: though Lindh was involved the Taliban, he primarily did so before the United States had any dispute with them, i.e., before September 11th. Fact: Lindh had nothing to do with the uprising at the prison in Mazar-i-Sharif, nor the death of CIA officer Mike Spann. Fact: Lindh was tortured and otherwise deprived of the rights due a US citizen. Fact: the worst offense Lindh pled guilty to (he was convicted of nothing) was carrying weapons for the Taliban.
Due to all of that, Lindh is now serving a 20-year sentence in the ADX SuperMax facility in Colorado, where he is kept in solitary confinement 24 hours a day, with only 1 hour outside his cell in the prison yard. Consider the other guests in residence there, and their crimes. Lindh may have broken the law 1, but there is no way that what he did justifies his treatment. He didn't kill anyone. He didn't injure anyone (that I'm aware of). He didn't kidnap anyone. He didn't steal anything. He didn't commit treason 2. As far as we know, he never fired his weapon or even raised his voice in anger. For this he gets 20 years. If there was anything remotely like justice in his case, he would be a free man today 3, but if justice could be relied on, this never would have happened. I just wanted to make sure you didn't forget he existed.
1 I say may because the US government behaved very, very badly in his case, and it's easy to understand how a frightened, tortured, isolated 21-year old might plead guilty to crimes he never committed with the full weight of the federal government against him in the terrified hysteria of late 2001 and 2002.
2 Do you think they would have hesitated to charge him with it if they thought they could?
I haven't come up with a complete and articulate expression of my opinion on affirmative action, but since I was asked directly...
I'm not going to bother with any of the issues of fairness or equality because those are a quagmire, and I'm not really sure of what I think about them anyway. It matters more that affirmative action is misguided and ineffective. Affirmative action is the solution to the wrong problem. Some people's level of achievement is diminished by social and economic consequences of their race. Instead of helping those people reach their true potential, affirmative action says we should just pretend they already have.
Affirmative action is an attempt to solve a special case of the problem of heritability of advantage and disadvantage. Kids from rich families tend to be rich. Kids from poor families tend to be poor. Frankly, I don't really care what caused your misfortune if it wasn't your fault 1. I want to help the kid who starts off with the disadvantage of being from Louisiana just as much as I want to help the kid with the disadvantage of being black. In either case we have a kid who through no fault of his own is starting life at the back of the pack.
To take an extreme hypothetical example... Suppose you're a young black child of an unwed, uneducated mother. In spite of a chaotic home life, you manage to show up to school regularly. Your mother doesn't read to you, but you discover books on your own, turning your back on the babysitter TV. While your peers are getting distracted or in trouble, you forge ahead through school. Finally, after 18 years, society notices you and asks if you want to go to Texas State instead of nowhere. Gee, thanks. Where were they when you were hungry and cold? Where were they when you got beaten up for being a know-it-all? Where were they when your mom wanted you to drop out of school to help support your younger siblings? By the time affirmative action shows up to help, the damage is already done.
If we're really sincere about helping those with disadvantages, we'd start much earlier. Is race really the root cause? Or is it just a strong correlation? I think it's the latter. We should focus on helping disadvantaged children regardless of race. Will that help more blacks and more Hispanics? Certainly. In that way, it won't differ from affirmative action. Affirmative action does too little too late. They need to start getting help as early as possible. Affirmative action is more than just an inadequate solution, it's an impediment in the way of doing the right thing. As long as it's there, we privileged few can kid ourselves into thinking we're helping.
Since I seem to be in a mood for tearing down the liberal orthodoxy...
I don't think we should have a minimum wage. It has nothing to do with economics. Rather, if we as a society believe that we should guarantee a minimum standard of living for each of our citizens, we should all bear the burden. Instead, what we do is force employers like Wal-Mart to do it. Then the help only goes to those who have the minimmum wage jobs, the costs are borne primarily by one small part of the overall economy, and a lot of the help is wasted on people who don't need it as much (teenagers, for instance). Nobody is owed a living wage, nor is anyone owed a job. It's not Wal-Mart's job to help out the less fortunate, it's all of ours.
I've mentioned my preference for longshot candidates Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, and Ron Paul. I'd also consider a 3rd party vote for Michael Bloomberg if he ran. The conventional wisdom is that I'm throwing my vote away. That's not just wrong, it's backwards: you're throwing your vote away if you vote for a mainstream candidate. When you do that, all you're doing is affirming the status quo. I don't know many people who think the status quo is as good as it's going to get. Votes aren't like bets; you don't get anything, regardless of how your candidate does. That's why the winnerism of American politics is so confusing to me; what exactly do you get for having cast your vote for the eventual winner? It seems like you get nothing, because that candidate was going to win with or without you (it's a country of 300 million people, after all).
For mainstream candidates, what matters is winning. Every vote beyond a plurality for a mainstream candidate might as well be an abstention or a spoiled ballot. Bush's solid victory in 2004 bought him nothing; in fact, it lead to overreaching that squandered the "political capital" Bush thought he had. Once a candidate has one, more voters piling on is irrelevant. Another way of saying that is that the average vote for the winner isn't worth a full vote.
For the smaller candidates, what matters isn't winning so much as making a respectable showing 1. Every vote for one of those candidates is another iota of credibility to the views they espouse. You're not throwing your vote away like when you vote for the candidates of the establishment; you're sending a message that you reject the whole establishment. You're keeping them on their toes, knowing that there are votes out there who can't be taken for granted.
People should be complaining about the spike in food prices. That's something more essential that the government can legitimately do something about, like eliminating the corn ethanol subsidy (since farmers are switching fields from other food crops to corn), eliminating other farm subsidies (so as not to prop up prices), and getting rid of tariffs (like on imported sugar).
$515 billion for defense? Not including Afghanistan and Iraq? What is that buying? The military isn't growing by that much. Islamic terrorism is by no means the existential threat that the Soviet Union was. This makes no sense.
Am I the only one who thinks that the 40 members of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee have better things to do than to find out if Roger Clemens is a juicer? Maybe they can switch to something involving oversight and reform of, you know, the government. I tell you, next time any one of those Representatives claims that we need to make sacrifices because "we're at war" or anything like that...
This 2 month paternity leave has been a huge help. I think everyone should get a chance at it. The civilized thing to do would be for every father to get 3 months and every mother 6 (even 9) months. However, it's not fair to make employer's foot the bill for something like this; it's good for us all, so we should all pay for it. My half-baked idea is to have the checks come for the government. They'd be on a sliding scale, so that someone who makes $20,000 on an annual basis gets their full pay, while someone making $60,000 gets three-quarters, and all such pay is capped at (an annually-adjusted) $50,000. Those numbers are just for illustrative purposes; actual numbers would depend on a number of factors, not least of which is real data.
Where would the money for this come from? Simple: eliminate the child tax credit. At $1000 per child, the child tax credit is worth approximately $18,000 until the child reaches majority. Average annual household income in the United States is about $45,000. In the simplest case, where the mother and father earn equal amounts, 6 months pay for the former and 3 months pay for the latter works out to about $16,000, which is roughly the same. Obviously, the present value of the child tax credit isn't $18,000, but the numbers are in the same ballpark.
One oversight in this scheme is what to do when only one parent works outside the home, especially in the case where one parent decides to stay home. There are other details I haven't worked out, but I'm confident such problems are relatively minor and could be worked out easily.
The NY Times summarizes the phenomenal1 earnings of some hedge fund managers. One sentence caught my eye: "Some ... profited handsomely from the turmoil in the mortgage market ripping through the economy." That makes it sound like they caused the collapse, or at least made it worse. In reality, they probably made the collapse less severe.
These managers made their money through short-selling (well, to oversimplify). That means they bet securities would go down. Lots of people dislike short-sellers because they confuse making a profit from a decline to causing a decline, a decline that wouldn't otherwise happen. Consider a simple example. Shares of UDG are currently trading at $10. You're willing to buy them at that price. I think that's too high, so I borrow some shares and sell it at $10. That action pushes the share down to $9. Then your trade goes through, and you end up getting it for $9. If the share price subsequently rises, you make an extra $1 profit, and I get hit. If it goes down, you lose money, and I make money, but you lose $1 less than you would have. Either way, you're $1 better off than if I hadn't sold it short.
That's an example simplified to the point of triviality, but it illustrates the point. Short-sellers smooth out the market. The hedge fund managers who bet against mortgage securities kept the bubble from getting even bigger. They kept other parties in the market from losing as much money because they got better prices than would have otherwise existed. That doesn't mean that their pay is reasonable, only that they can't be blamed for sabotaging our financial system.
1 And excessive, but that's only a problem for the people paying them, i.e., their investors
