Our flight from San Francisco went to Houston, where we had to wait a considerable time because of delays. I happened to speak to several people were going to Bogotá for major petroleum industry conference regarding. They regarded Columbia as an important new frontier for petrochemicals.
We arrived in Bogotá where our hosts took us to an elaborate five-star hotel, where they put us up in an apartment rather than an ordinary hotel room. The hotel is a gigantic five-story complex, which probably covers two city blocks with a very large courtyard in the center, complete with a church. Blanche was told that foreign service officers used to stay here very frequently, but not so much anymore. Not surprising, quite a few of the people here are wearing apparel that show an affiliation with petrochemical industries.
We went to the University the next day to meet with the president and vice president, then went to a small auditorium, where the faculty, who already some of my books, posed questions to me. It was a very pleasant experience, except that in the course of our discussions, I learned that the country has no new petroleum deposits. Instead, the petroleum industry will use more intensive methods of extracting the remaining hydrocarbons.
I asked a group, if they knew anything about fracking. To my horror, they knew nothing about it. I showed them the trailer for gasland and the cover page for the New York Times series, Drilling Down. They were shocked at the trailer.
The economics department is quite large, with 442 students. Eduardo Samiento, an American trained economist, who was once quite influential in the country, but was somewhat marginalized after his criticism of the government became too irritating. Even so, he seems to have been able to create his own department with his own heterodox faculty, something almost unthinkable in the United States.
This afternoon, I will give my first address. I was told that people will be coming from other cities to share the address and the University expects that this will be the first time that the auditorium is expected to be filled. I will find out later how true this is, but for the moment I will enjoy the thought.
Finally, I will mention how much I enjoy the people here. The staff in the café in hotel struck up a conversation with Blanche, who told them that I was interested in environmental questions. One of them has invited me to give a talk Saturday evening to the local Greenpeace chapter. I just told him this morning about fracking, and he too was unaware. I mention him because he and another worker who of gone out of their way to procure food that would suit our the diet. In the supermarket, people routinely struck up conversations, especially with Blanche.
Regarding security, when our host took us to a shopping mall to get Sim cards for phones, the guards had to open the trunk and use dogs to check for explosives. Similarly, when I went there myself with my computer in my large fanny pack, I was checked with some electronic device.
At the same time, everybody who talks to us is curious about our own fears about security. They tell us that the elaborate security procedures are meant to put people at ease, rather than as necessary precaution. Even so, my host told us that we should be cautious about using a cell phone in public, because people snatch them whenever they see a target. At the little stand, where someone cracked our cell phone to make the sim card works, a young man came with a handful of cell phones to have some sort of work done on them.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Adam Smith on Education
I gave a talk last week at a local college called "What is living in the thought of Adam Smith and dead as a doornail in modern economics." One focus of the talk was this passage from Book V of WN:
V.1.178
In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging, and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.
Notice the rationale for government intervention here: this has nothing to do with correcting a market failure, nothing to do with efficiency; the argument is that the great body of the people produced by a commercial society with a refined division of labor would otherwise be, as he goes on to say, "deformed in an essential part of their humanity." And this is most emphatically not education as "human capital." Tellingly, when I ask my history of economic thought students to write about Smith on the Division of labor, after we have looked at the first three chapters and the passage from which the quote above is lifted, and I ask were they any qualifications Smith made to his enthusiasm for the DOL in the opening chapters, students will cite this passage and say that here Smith is saying that The DOL may in fact make people stupid and so less productive after all!!! Obviously they have completely misread this passage. Why? They have already been so indoctrinated by their study of economics that they cannot think about what Smith thought was crucial - the way in which economic institutions shape character and preferences, for ill (as in this passage) or for good (there is lots in Smith of course about the way markets promote the virtue of prudence, eg). The further implication that one cannot evaluate economic institutions without evaluating the preference they promote or hinder is again simply unthinkable for someone who has received the standard education in economics, where the idea of evaluating preferences is a veritable contradiction in terms - since the efficient satisfaction of exogenous preferences is the sole evaluative criterion countenanced, and anyone who thinks otherwise is committing the grave sin of paternalism.
Does the Ryan Plan Reduce the Deficit and Does That Really Matter?
Douglas Holtz-Eakin praises the Ryan long-term budget proposal:
His argument that this proposal would be growth enhancing rests critically on the presumption that the reductions in Federal spending dominate the reductions in taxes.
Paul Krugman weighs in on this aspect of the debate:
In other words, Holtz-Eakin’s argument rests on his belief that the Ryan plan actually does cut spending by more than it cuts taxes – even if a lot of the spending cuts are unspecified and the tax revenue projections are based on unspecified offsetting tax increases.
Oh but the National Review has a counterargument of sorts from Lawrence Kudlow:
Yes – the same old Laugher Curve nonsense that one can cut taxes by more than one cuts government spending and still see faster long-term growth. After all, reducing national savings does not necessarily reduce investment in Kudlow’s supply-side world! After all – this worked wonders 30 years ago – right?
The Ryan budget would provide beneficial impacts on economic growth because it lowers marginal tax rates, controls spending, and reduces debt.
His argument that this proposal would be growth enhancing rests critically on the presumption that the reductions in Federal spending dominate the reductions in taxes.
Paul Krugman weighs in on this aspect of the debate:
Ryan is proposing huge (and largely unspecified) spending cuts; but he’s also proposing very large tax cuts, mainly, of course, for those with high incomes. And as you can see, a large part — roughly half — of the spending cuts are going, not to deficit reduction, but to finance those tax cuts. Actually, it’s even worse, since the revenue figure in the Ryan plan is simply assumed, and is clearly too high given what he’s actually proposing on taxes; so either the fall in revenue will be even larger than shown here, or there will be unspecified tax hikes on the middle class.
In other words, Holtz-Eakin’s argument rests on his belief that the Ryan plan actually does cut spending by more than it cuts taxes – even if a lot of the spending cuts are unspecified and the tax revenue projections are based on unspecified offsetting tax increases.
Oh but the National Review has a counterargument of sorts from Lawrence Kudlow:
Obsessing over the debt is not by itself a policy. Advancing the economy and setting the stage for more job creation is a policy. Mr. Ryan kept an important dose of Ronald Reagan in both the spirit and reality of his plan. Limited government, lower tax rates, and deregulation (of energy) will all promote the path to prosperity.
Yes – the same old Laugher Curve nonsense that one can cut taxes by more than one cuts government spending and still see faster long-term growth. After all, reducing national savings does not necessarily reduce investment in Kudlow’s supply-side world! After all – this worked wonders 30 years ago – right?
Our flight from San Francisco went to Houston, where we had to wait a considerable time because of delays. I happened to speak to several people were going to Bogotá for major petroleum industry conference regarding. They regarded Columbia as an important new frontier for petrochemicals.
We arrived in Bogotá where our hosts took us to an elaborate five-star hotel, where they put us up in an apartment rather than an ordinary hotel room. The hotel is a gigantic five-story complex, which probably covers two city blocks with a very large courtyard in the center, complete with a church. Blanche was told that foreign service officers used to stay here very frequently, but not so much anymore. Not surprising, quite a few of the people here are wearing apparel that show an affiliation with petrochemical industries.
We went to the University the next day to meet with the president and vice president, then went to a small auditorium, where the faculty, who already some of my books, posed questions to me. It was a very pleasant experience, except that in the course of our discussions, I learned that the country has no new petroleum deposits. Instead, the petroleum industry will use more intensive methods of extracting the remaining hydrocarbons.
I asked a group, if they knew anything about fracking. To my horror, they knew nothing about it. I showed them the trailer for gasland and the cover page for the New York Times series, Drilling Down. They were shocked at the trailer.
The economics department is quite large, with 442 students. Eduardo Samiento, an American trained economist, who was once quite influential in the country, but was somewhat marginalized after his criticism of the government became too irritating. Even so, he seems to have been able to create his own department with his own heterodox faculty, something almost unthinkable in the United States.
This afternoon, I will give my first address. I was told that people will be coming from other cities to share the address and the University expects that this will be the first time that the auditorium is expected to be filled. I will find out later how true this is, but for the moment I will enjoy the thought.
Finally, I will mention how much I enjoy the people here. The staff in the café in hotel struck up a conversation with Blanche, who told them that I was interested in environmental questions. One of them has invited me to give a talk Saturday evening to the local Greenpeace chapter. I just told him this morning about fracking, and he too was unaware. I mention him because he and another worker who of gone out of their way to procure food that would suit our the diet. In the supermarket, people routinely struck up conversations, especially with Blanche.
Regarding security, when our host took us to a shopping mall to get Sim cards for phones, the guards had to open the trunk and use dogs to check for explosives. Similarly, when I went there myself with my computer in my large fanny pack, I was checked with some electronic device.
At the same time, everybody who talks to us is curious about our own fears about security. They tell us that the elaborate security procedures are meant to put people at ease, rather than as necessary precaution. Even so, my host told us that we should be cautious about using a cell phone in public, because people snatch them whenever they see a target. At the little stand, where someone cracked our cell phone to make the sim card works, a young man came with a handful of cell phones to have some sort of work done on them.
We arrived in Bogotá where our hosts took us to an elaborate five-star hotel, where they put us up in an apartment rather than an ordinary hotel room. The hotel is a gigantic five-story complex, which probably covers two city blocks with a very large courtyard in the center, complete with a church. Blanche was told that foreign service officers used to stay here very frequently, but not so much anymore. Not surprising, quite a few of the people here are wearing apparel that show an affiliation with petrochemical industries.
We went to the University the next day to meet with the president and vice president, then went to a small auditorium, where the faculty, who already some of my books, posed questions to me. It was a very pleasant experience, except that in the course of our discussions, I learned that the country has no new petroleum deposits. Instead, the petroleum industry will use more intensive methods of extracting the remaining hydrocarbons.
I asked a group, if they knew anything about fracking. To my horror, they knew nothing about it. I showed them the trailer for gasland and the cover page for the New York Times series, Drilling Down. They were shocked at the trailer.
The economics department is quite large, with 442 students. Eduardo Samiento, an American trained economist, who was once quite influential in the country, but was somewhat marginalized after his criticism of the government became too irritating. Even so, he seems to have been able to create his own department with his own heterodox faculty, something almost unthinkable in the United States.
This afternoon, I will give my first address. I was told that people will be coming from other cities to share the address and the University expects that this will be the first time that the auditorium is expected to be filled. I will find out later how true this is, but for the moment I will enjoy the thought.
Finally, I will mention how much I enjoy the people here. The staff in the café in hotel struck up a conversation with Blanche, who told them that I was interested in environmental questions. One of them has invited me to give a talk Saturday evening to the local Greenpeace chapter. I just told him this morning about fracking, and he too was unaware. I mention him because he and another worker who of gone out of their way to procure food that would suit our the diet. In the supermarket, people routinely struck up conversations, especially with Blanche.
Regarding security, when our host took us to a shopping mall to get Sim cards for phones, the guards had to open the trunk and use dogs to check for explosives. Similarly, when I went there myself with my computer in my large fanny pack, I was checked with some electronic device.
At the same time, everybody who talks to us is curious about our own fears about security. They tell us that the elaborate security procedures are meant to put people at ease, rather than as necessary precaution. Even so, my host told us that we should be cautious about using a cell phone in public, because people snatch them whenever they see a target. At the little stand, where someone cracked our cell phone to make the sim card works, a young man came with a handful of cell phones to have some sort of work done on them.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Annals of Unscientific Economics: “....is consistent with....”
Sciences are distinctive in many ways, but they all have in common the drive to minimize Type I error. This, you will recall, is the risk of accepting a hypothesis when it is actually false, as against rejecting it when it is actually true—the Type II variety. Sciences are progressive, advancing over time, because they have systematic procedures for expunging falsehoods. Other fields of human achievement have much to offer, but they lack this particular trait. Biology in 2011 is “better” than biology fifty years ago in a way that music or politics isn’t.
If you are still wondering whether economics should be considered a science, think about all the articles you’ve read that claim to be testing theories, and where the key language is “is consistent with”. “The starred coefficients in Table 9 are consistent with the properties of equation 18", “The greater incidence of such episodes in countries in Panel A is consistent with the predictions in our model”, etc.
The long form of “is consistent with” is “we should be more willing to accept this theory because it could be explaining the data”. The short form of this long form is “rejecting this theory risks Type II error”. Remarkably, most economists think this approach is what makes economics scientific.
If you take Type I error seriously, you have to ask, does the evidence preclude any other explanation? Am I at risk of accepting a false explanation because there is another which is actually correct? In practical terms, this means two things: taking all plausible explanations into consideration and not just the one you want to support, and searching aggressively for all the elements in your data that might contradict your pet theory. This second admonition includes examining subsamples whenever feasible, for instance.
Because economics, as it is practiced, is more concerned about Type II than Type I error, it propagates and defends a vast array of dubious propositions, and there is little methodological resistance.
If you are still wondering whether economics should be considered a science, think about all the articles you’ve read that claim to be testing theories, and where the key language is “is consistent with”. “The starred coefficients in Table 9 are consistent with the properties of equation 18", “The greater incidence of such episodes in countries in Panel A is consistent with the predictions in our model”, etc.
The long form of “is consistent with” is “we should be more willing to accept this theory because it could be explaining the data”. The short form of this long form is “rejecting this theory risks Type II error”. Remarkably, most economists think this approach is what makes economics scientific.
If you take Type I error seriously, you have to ask, does the evidence preclude any other explanation? Am I at risk of accepting a false explanation because there is another which is actually correct? In practical terms, this means two things: taking all plausible explanations into consideration and not just the one you want to support, and searching aggressively for all the elements in your data that might contradict your pet theory. This second admonition includes examining subsamples whenever feasible, for instance.
Because economics, as it is practiced, is more concerned about Type II than Type I error, it propagates and defends a vast array of dubious propositions, and there is little methodological resistance.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Not Exactly the Job Growth We Were Looking For
Mark Thoma wasn’t exactly cheering the latest employment report precisely because an employment to population ratio equal to 58.5% is still extremely weak. Kim Peterson notes one firm is about to hire 50,000 more workers:
We are eating at McDonald’s and not better restaurants because we are poorer. And these jobs are not exactly coming with very high wages.
The hiring binge is one result of the extraordinary business run McDonald's has engineered over the past few years. When the economy tanked, more people turned to the Golden Arches to dine on a budget.
We are eating at McDonald’s and not better restaurants because we are poorer. And these jobs are not exactly coming with very high wages.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
De Short and DeLong of Marx
Brad DeLong asks, What was Karl Marx's principal contribution? and concludes that it can all be summed up in about ten paragraphs on the philosophy of history.
I will leave to real Marxists (which I am not) to post a strong defense of the guy, but I have to say I'm surprised that someone who claims to take history seriously, as Brad does, would devalue Marx's contribution to that field. Given the evidentiary record available to him at the time, Marx was an extraordinary student of British history during the previous three centuries. Wouldn't it be fair to say that the largest part of modern British historiography is in some sense in dialog with Marx?
Marx's main failing was to generalize from this single case an entire theory of political, social and economic development. The further Marx (or his disciples) strayed from England and the time period of the emergence of capitalism, the worse they have fared. This should not obscure the accomplishment, however.
I will leave to real Marxists (which I am not) to post a strong defense of the guy, but I have to say I'm surprised that someone who claims to take history seriously, as Brad does, would devalue Marx's contribution to that field. Given the evidentiary record available to him at the time, Marx was an extraordinary student of British history during the previous three centuries. Wouldn't it be fair to say that the largest part of modern British historiography is in some sense in dialog with Marx?
Marx's main failing was to generalize from this single case an entire theory of political, social and economic development. The further Marx (or his disciples) strayed from England and the time period of the emergence of capitalism, the worse they have fared. This should not obscure the accomplishment, however.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Radiation - the end never comes. Quotes for week 3 of the global nuclear emergency.
"'At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine,' said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine. ... 'We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident. All this information has been ignored by the IAEA and WHO. We sent it to them in March last year and again in June. They've not said why they haven't accepted it.'"[1]
"Just how does the United Nations IAEA manage to ignore half a million to a million dead Eurasians?…. The "threshold dose" concept is used as the determinant of who is counted and who is not. That's how the IAEA/WHO manipulates the data on Chernobyl and in-effect lies to the world on the horrors of radiation poisoning. Multiple official sources confirm that there is no safe dose of radiation, at all.” [2]
“Libya has dislodged from the headlines a nuclear catastrophe in Japan, on top of a seismic one, that’s one of the epic dramas of the past half-century and what’s doubly weird is that the actual fighting in Libya is a series of tiny skirmishes. The muscle-bound adjectives and nouns used to describe the military engagements – if they even deserve that word – in press reports remind me of a Chihuahua trying to mount a Newfoundland. Ambition far outstrips reality, which is in this case is a nervous rabble motley insurgents – maybe 1,500 or so at most, posing for television crews and then fleeing back down the road to the next village (“strategic stronghold”) at the first whiff of trouble….”[3]
"There was a rumor that George Monbiot had handcuffed himself to the Libyan nuclear research center to show solidarity with Qaddafi’s alleged commitment to research into nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, but the word from Monbiot HQ was that that the silliest man in Great Britain is planning a symbolic flyover of Chernobyl as a monument to the safety of nuclear power, before inaugurating a “nuke camp” next to Daiichi 2 at Fukushima. Everything is out of proportion." [4]
“World markets are simply unpreapared for the third-largest economy to suddenly and violently downshift. The persisting crisis at Fukushima simply worsens the picture.” [5]
“Mr. Golay said he doubted that it would be possible to evacuate a 50-mile radius in and around an urban area in the U.S.. "We're certainly not prepared for it," he said…. About 20 million people live within 50 miles of Indian Point [home of two nuclear reactors] which is 35 miles from Midtown Manhattan.” [6]
U.S. emergency-response plans call for only evacuating residents within a 10-mile radius of a nuclear disaster. However, last week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommended that Americans within 50 miles of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant evacuate. [This was later followed by a mass evacuation of hundreds of thousands of American defense personnel from the entire Japanese nation.] [7]
“The end never comes, this just goes on forever” [8]
"Today, tens of thousands of tons of irradiated fuel sits in spent fuel pools across America. At many sites, there is nearly ten times as much irradiated fuel in the spent fuel pools as in the reactor cores. The spent fuel pools are not cooled by an array of highly reliable emergency cooling systems capable of being powered from the grid, diesel generators, or batteries. Instead, the pools are cooled by one regular system sometimes backed up by an alternate makeup system. “The spent fuel pools are not housed within robust concrete containment structures designed to protect the public from the radioactivity released from damaged irradiated fuel. Instead, the pools are often housed in buildings with sheet metal siding like that in a Sears storage shed. I have nothing against the quality or utility of Sears’ storage sheds, but they are not suitable for nuclear waste storage. “The irrefutable bottom line is that we have utterly failed to properly manage the risk from irradiated fuel stored at our nation’s nuclear power plants. We can and must do better." (The Union of Concerned Scientists.)[9]
31st March 2011: “..According to Business Week, "When plutonium decays, it emits what is known as an alpha particle, a relatively big particle that carries a lot of energy. When an alpha particle hits body tissue, it can damage the DNA of a cell and lead to a cancer-causing mutation." If plutonium leaches into groundwater or pristine aquifers, the threat to public health and the environment will be extreme.” [10]
29th March 2011: Radioactive caesium and iodine has been deposited in northern Japan far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, at levels that were considered highly contaminated after Chernobyl. The readings were taken by the Japanese science ministry, MEXT, and reveal high levels of caesium-137 and iodine-131 outside the 30-kilometre evacuation zone, mostly to the north-north-west. Iodine-131, with a half-life of eight days, should disappear in a matter of weeks. The bigger worry concerns caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years and could pose a health threat for far longer. Just how serious that will be depends on where it lands, and whether remediation measures are possible."[11]
24th March 2011: "...The soil contamination is really high. Soil found 40 kilometers away.... the levels on the soil were very high—in fact, a thousand times iodine, 4,000 times the cesium standard. And we just got a report from the Kyoto Research Reactor Institute, Dr. Tetsuji Imanaka, that said that—he had to look a little bit more into the sampling of the Japanese government, but depending on how the sampling was done, this level of contamination in the soil could be twice the amount that was compulsory evacuation for Chernobyl.[12]
REFERENCES:
[1] The Guardian from March 25th of 2006: "UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths
As quoted in:
Atomic Moron - The UN Would Never Lie to George Monbiot
By JOE GIAMBRONE. Weekend Edition, Counterpunch. April 1 - 3, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/giambrone04012011.html
[2] JOE GIAMBRONE in his article: Atomic Moron - The UN Would Never Lie to George Monbiot
Published in the Weekend Edition, Counterpunch. April 1 - 3, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/giambrone04012011.html
[3] Battling the Beast By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch Diary, Weekend Edition April 1 - 3, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/
[4] Battling the Beast By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch Diary, Weekend Edition April 1 - 3, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/
[5] EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Latest Satellite Imagery From Fukushima Tells Sobering Tale
Friday, April 1, 2011, 4:54 pm, by cmartenson
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/breaking-latest-satellite-imagery-fukushima/55711
[6] Plants Face New Worries - Spread of Radiation in Japan Fuels Questions About Evacuation Plans in U.S.
By DANIEL GILBERT. 24th March 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703362904576219031025249872.html
[7] Nuclear Evacuation Zones. March 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704604704576220373366809468.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
[8] Radiation Expert on CNN: “The end never comes, this just goes on forever” (VIDEO)
[9] Dave Lochbaum, Director of UCS’s Nuclear Safety Project, who testified on Wednesday before the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee.
As quoted in:
Fukushima Fallout Hits the US. March 31, 2011
Radiation Found in Rainwater From California to Massachusetts
By MIKE WHITNEY
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03312011.html
[10] Fukushima Fallout Hits the US. March 31, 2011
Radiation Found in Rainwater From California to Massachusetts
By MIKE WHITNEY
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03312011.html
[11] Caesium fallout from Fukushima rivals Chernobyl
* 15:29 29 March 2011 by Debora MacKenzie
For similar stories, visit the The Nuclear Age Topic Guide
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20305-caesium-fallout-from-fukushima-rivals-chernobyl.html
[12] Aileen Mioko Smith, March 24 (thanks to Michael Collins "They said it wasn't like Chernobyl and they were wrong"
As quoted in:
The Doomsday Scenario - Is Fukushima About to Blow?
By MIKE WHITNEY. March 28, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03282011.html
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Political Economy of Fees
With all the hubbub about the need to cut taxes, I haven't seen much attention to the subject of fees. Fees are an excellent way of gouging extra money from the public. Airlines, knowing that people shop by price, advertise low prices and then pile on the fees. Banks make enormous profits from fees. During a recent stay at the Hilton Hotel in New York, I discovered that the cost of printing out a boarding pass was several dollars and that the charge for Wi-Fi in the lobby was separate for the $15 daily charge for the Internet in our room.
In the public sector, government can generate revenue from taxes or from fees. For example, governments can make up for shortfalls in revenue, in part, by becoming more conscientious about getting tickets for driving or parking infractions. Visits to parks or museums become more expensive.
Privatization offers an indirect method for generating fees. The privatization of the public road saves the government money for maintenance, but the public then covers the cost, as well as profits for the operator, by charging fees. In addition, the public has to endure the inconvenience of stopping and waiting to pay their fees.
Fee-based government seems to be a far more fiscally regressive method than the traditional fee-based government. In addition, these do not seem to generate the same degree of public resistance.
In the public sector, government can generate revenue from taxes or from fees. For example, governments can make up for shortfalls in revenue, in part, by becoming more conscientious about getting tickets for driving or parking infractions. Visits to parks or museums become more expensive.
Privatization offers an indirect method for generating fees. The privatization of the public road saves the government money for maintenance, but the public then covers the cost, as well as profits for the operator, by charging fees. In addition, the public has to endure the inconvenience of stopping and waiting to pay their fees.
Fee-based government seems to be a far more fiscally regressive method than the traditional fee-based government. In addition, these do not seem to generate the same degree of public resistance.
My visit to Bogotá
I am leaving for Bogotá tomorrow. The Columbia School of Engineering is holding a three-day conference/seminar on my work. They are generously flying Blanche and myself, to spend a week there. I've never had an opportunity like this before.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Obama's Oil Speech
Why write a new speech when an old one will do? Here is the relevant section from a speech I wrote for Obama on this site when he was running for president. For some reason I can't fathom, he didn't use it.
"We should begin with a sobering fact: while energy prices will continue to fluctuate unpredictably, in the long run they are headed up, up, up. In part this is because the supply of scarce resources like petroleum is starting to reach its limit. Experts disagree about just when this peak supply will occur, but they agree that the day is not far off. In the meantime, the demand for oil and other energy products is rising quickly in countries like China and India. We are happy to see anyone anywhere move out of poverty and into a more comfortable lifestyle, but we should also recognize that this means they will be able to afford to buy more cars, heat their houses to a more comfortable temperature and in general use more energy. Between a plateau of supply and a rising curve of demand, we are facing a future of scarce and expensive energy.
"But there is another side to energy prices. In previous speeches I have talked about the urgent necessity of weaning America from its dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. Avoiding conflict over oil supplies is central to our national security, whether it is about getting drawn into battles in oil-producing countries like Iraq and Iran, or finding a way to end warfare where oil fields and oil pipelines are at stake, as is now the case in the conflict between Russia and Georgia. The less reliant we are on these supplies, the more we can focus on the true threats to our security, like groups that would commit wanton acts of terror against our population. The fixation on oil is distorting our priorities and fomenting violence around the world.
"Just as urgent is the demand to prevent catastrophic climate change. Already the concentration of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere is entering the danger zone, and every day our factories, power plants and automobiles are pushing that number up higher and higher. No one knows where the tipping point is, the level of greenhouse gases that can trigger a process of self-reinforcing climate change that we will be powerless to stop. We must drastically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, and quickly, if we are to keep faith with future generations that will inherit whatever world we leave them. And there is little we can do as a country that would more restore our standing in the world than to shoulder our share of the burden in preserving a liveable planet.
"For all these reasons, we have to kick the fossil fuel habit. And this will mean higher prices, much higher than today. So, not only are we unable to repeal the law of supply and demand to bring down these costs, in fact we need higher prices to achieve our core national objectives. What then can we do?
"Here is where I will ask you to think outside the box. What I will propose to you today is that the problem is not the price of oil and other energy products as such, but where the money goes. When you pay four dollars or more at the pump for a gallon of gas, your hard-earned money is on its way to a foreign country or a fabulously profitable oil company. It’s gone: you will never see it again.
"But suppose we did something different. Instead of paying high prices to far-off governments or oil profiteers, suppose we paid it to ourselves, so that we could actually get it back. This is what I’m going to suggest.
"The way to do this is by actually raising the price of oil. You could do it through a tax. The way I’ve proposed, in my climate change plan, is to have a limited number of permits for bringing fossil fuels into the economy, and to make energy companies pay for every one of these permits. Of course, they will pass this cost along to you, the consumer. This is how a market economy works. It will lead to innovation, as businesses and households find new ways to conserve energy. But the bottom-line result is that, to kick the fossil fuel habit, we will be paying a lot more for whatever we continue to use.
"Yet here is the key point: the extra cost you will pay will not go to a foreign government or an oil company. It will come right back to you. Specifically, I am proposing to put all of these revenues from higher energy prices into a big pot, and then pay out the money in equal amounts to every American citizen. This is the simplest and fairest solution. I want to be very clear: this money will not be kept by the government. It is yours. I promise, here and before all of you, that at least 95 cents of every dollar collected in selling fossil fuel permits will be given back to the people, quickly, efficiently, fairly. Economists who have studied this idea estimate that the amount each of us would receive would be something like $1000 per year. Any additional public programs for energy research or conservation would be financed out of tax revenues as they are, or more accurately as they should be, today. The extra money you pay for energy would be earmarked, virtually all of it, to return to you.
"This plan has many benefits. It will do more for our national security than any other single step we can take. It will restore America’s leadership role in the fight against climate change. It will be an added benefit for the most vulnerable Americans, those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder and use the least energy already: they will get back much more than they pay. But what I want to emphasize is that this is the only meaningful long run solution to the problem of runaway energy costs. Energy costs will rise, and in some respects we even need them to rise. But the problem is that, under the current system, every dollar we pay for energy is a dollar lost. The solution is to change the system so that we get this money back, literally, every one of us. It is the responsibility of government to set up this system and then get out of the way, so that the money can return to the public in the simplest, fairest and most direct manner. On the international front, if we can convince enough other countries to take a similar stand, and I think we can, the overall effect will be to bring down global demand substantially, so that much less of our energy bill ends up in foreign or corporate hands.
"Unlike offshore drilling, the proposal I’ve just outlined is not in the news. The pollsters aren’t asking you what your position is on it. But, also unlike offshore drilling, it gets to the heart of the problem. We can’t legislate energy prices down and we shouldn’t try. But we can protect the budgets of our families and our economic health as a nation by turning Americans into recipients of energy money as well as payers of it. So this is my answer to out-of-control energy costs: let’s get this money back. Let’s take control of our energy problems and protect our standard of living at the same time. Let’s have a future in which, when you read headlines about higher energy prices you think, “That’s more money in the bank, for me.” Let’s get the energy money back."
"We should begin with a sobering fact: while energy prices will continue to fluctuate unpredictably, in the long run they are headed up, up, up. In part this is because the supply of scarce resources like petroleum is starting to reach its limit. Experts disagree about just when this peak supply will occur, but they agree that the day is not far off. In the meantime, the demand for oil and other energy products is rising quickly in countries like China and India. We are happy to see anyone anywhere move out of poverty and into a more comfortable lifestyle, but we should also recognize that this means they will be able to afford to buy more cars, heat their houses to a more comfortable temperature and in general use more energy. Between a plateau of supply and a rising curve of demand, we are facing a future of scarce and expensive energy.
"But there is another side to energy prices. In previous speeches I have talked about the urgent necessity of weaning America from its dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. Avoiding conflict over oil supplies is central to our national security, whether it is about getting drawn into battles in oil-producing countries like Iraq and Iran, or finding a way to end warfare where oil fields and oil pipelines are at stake, as is now the case in the conflict between Russia and Georgia. The less reliant we are on these supplies, the more we can focus on the true threats to our security, like groups that would commit wanton acts of terror against our population. The fixation on oil is distorting our priorities and fomenting violence around the world.
"Just as urgent is the demand to prevent catastrophic climate change. Already the concentration of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere is entering the danger zone, and every day our factories, power plants and automobiles are pushing that number up higher and higher. No one knows where the tipping point is, the level of greenhouse gases that can trigger a process of self-reinforcing climate change that we will be powerless to stop. We must drastically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, and quickly, if we are to keep faith with future generations that will inherit whatever world we leave them. And there is little we can do as a country that would more restore our standing in the world than to shoulder our share of the burden in preserving a liveable planet.
"For all these reasons, we have to kick the fossil fuel habit. And this will mean higher prices, much higher than today. So, not only are we unable to repeal the law of supply and demand to bring down these costs, in fact we need higher prices to achieve our core national objectives. What then can we do?
"Here is where I will ask you to think outside the box. What I will propose to you today is that the problem is not the price of oil and other energy products as such, but where the money goes. When you pay four dollars or more at the pump for a gallon of gas, your hard-earned money is on its way to a foreign country or a fabulously profitable oil company. It’s gone: you will never see it again.
"But suppose we did something different. Instead of paying high prices to far-off governments or oil profiteers, suppose we paid it to ourselves, so that we could actually get it back. This is what I’m going to suggest.
"The way to do this is by actually raising the price of oil. You could do it through a tax. The way I’ve proposed, in my climate change plan, is to have a limited number of permits for bringing fossil fuels into the economy, and to make energy companies pay for every one of these permits. Of course, they will pass this cost along to you, the consumer. This is how a market economy works. It will lead to innovation, as businesses and households find new ways to conserve energy. But the bottom-line result is that, to kick the fossil fuel habit, we will be paying a lot more for whatever we continue to use.
"Yet here is the key point: the extra cost you will pay will not go to a foreign government or an oil company. It will come right back to you. Specifically, I am proposing to put all of these revenues from higher energy prices into a big pot, and then pay out the money in equal amounts to every American citizen. This is the simplest and fairest solution. I want to be very clear: this money will not be kept by the government. It is yours. I promise, here and before all of you, that at least 95 cents of every dollar collected in selling fossil fuel permits will be given back to the people, quickly, efficiently, fairly. Economists who have studied this idea estimate that the amount each of us would receive would be something like $1000 per year. Any additional public programs for energy research or conservation would be financed out of tax revenues as they are, or more accurately as they should be, today. The extra money you pay for energy would be earmarked, virtually all of it, to return to you.
"This plan has many benefits. It will do more for our national security than any other single step we can take. It will restore America’s leadership role in the fight against climate change. It will be an added benefit for the most vulnerable Americans, those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder and use the least energy already: they will get back much more than they pay. But what I want to emphasize is that this is the only meaningful long run solution to the problem of runaway energy costs. Energy costs will rise, and in some respects we even need them to rise. But the problem is that, under the current system, every dollar we pay for energy is a dollar lost. The solution is to change the system so that we get this money back, literally, every one of us. It is the responsibility of government to set up this system and then get out of the way, so that the money can return to the public in the simplest, fairest and most direct manner. On the international front, if we can convince enough other countries to take a similar stand, and I think we can, the overall effect will be to bring down global demand substantially, so that much less of our energy bill ends up in foreign or corporate hands.
"Unlike offshore drilling, the proposal I’ve just outlined is not in the news. The pollsters aren’t asking you what your position is on it. But, also unlike offshore drilling, it gets to the heart of the problem. We can’t legislate energy prices down and we shouldn’t try. But we can protect the budgets of our families and our economic health as a nation by turning Americans into recipients of energy money as well as payers of it. So this is my answer to out-of-control energy costs: let’s get this money back. Let’s take control of our energy problems and protect our standard of living at the same time. Let’s have a future in which, when you read headlines about higher energy prices you think, “That’s more money in the bank, for me.” Let’s get the energy money back."
Monday, March 28, 2011
Open Records Requests
UPDATE: The madness has percolated over to Michigan, where conservatives are demanding emails of labor studies faculty.....about the situation in Wisconsin. This is so clearly against the intent of open records legislation that my post is almost superfluous.
Original post:
A fishing expedition in a Wisconsin professor’s email has been making waves. (I always wanted to say something like this.) The story: William Cronon, the esteemed author of Changes in the Land and Nature’s Metropolis, wrote a blog post tracing Republican initiatives in Wisconsin to a secretive but well-funded national organization for state legislatures. Republicans responded with an open records request, demanding all of Cronon’s emails containing references to their party and to a raft of individual Republican politicians. Some, like Paul Krugman, consider this a threat to academic freedom. The University of Wisconsin promises to balance this concern against the law’s demand for disclosure. For a journalistic treatment, see this; for Cronon’s own account, see this
.
For me, it is déjà vu all over again. My institution has been the repeated target of such broad records requests, asking for any email by any employee—faculty, staff or administrator—relating to one or another controversial issue. Our public records officer would then dutifully instruct all of us to go through our past emails and forward any that fit the description. What they have not done, fortunately, is to sift through the email record themselves (is that “sifting and winnowing”?) by virtue of their access to the archives, reducing the level of intrusion.
I am not a lawyer. I cannot offer a legal analysis of the language in my state’s (Washington’s) open records law, much less that of Wisconsin or elsewhere. Nevertheless, a basic principle seems perfectly clear to me.
The purpose of all such laws is to make the decision-making and performance of public institutions transparent to the citizenry. We have a right to know how and on what basis decisions are made by those purporting to act on our behalf, and we need to know how well public officials are performing the functions for which they are responsible. That’s democracy.
We don’t need to know their personal opinions on topics over which they have no official influence. I can see no legitimacy to a request for emails of the Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources on the topic of Lady Gaga, for instance. In this respect, the Commish is simply a private individual and entitled to a general privacy protection. (If he or she is so consumed by Ms. Gaga that essential work goes unperformed, that is a public concern—but it should center on the work, not the details of the distraction.) Indeed, if an official is in charge of water pollution, his or her personal views on, say, wolf reintroduction should also be beyond the scope of an open records request. Only communications bearing on the decision-making or implementing aspects of the individual’s job should be fair game.
So what about a professor? If the professor is on a committee that makes policy, it is vital that communications pertaining to this work be accessible to the public. (There are obvious exceptions for personnel and student privacy matters.) Communications that pertain to the performance of a professor’s teaching duties, or the institutional aspects of her research projects, are fair game. By “institutional aspects”, I mean all those having to do with adherence to institutional policies regarding funding, resource use, human subjects review, public disclosure, etc. The intellectual content of the research should be off-limits.
To be clear, I am not calling for an exception for academic freedom. I regard Cronon’s views of Republican tactics in Wisconsin to be as deserving of protection on privacy grounds as his views regarding Madison’s best car-repair shops or his favorite historians of the Progressive movement. And the people who empty his wastebaskets are entitled to the same privacy protection.
Again, as a non-lawyer, I suggest that the clear intent of open record laws be taken into consideration. Their purpose was not to lay bare as much of the private and mental life of public employees as possible, but to give citizens the opportunity to see for themselves how public institutions are functioning.
Original post:
A fishing expedition in a Wisconsin professor’s email has been making waves. (I always wanted to say something like this.) The story: William Cronon, the esteemed author of Changes in the Land and Nature’s Metropolis, wrote a blog post tracing Republican initiatives in Wisconsin to a secretive but well-funded national organization for state legislatures. Republicans responded with an open records request, demanding all of Cronon’s emails containing references to their party and to a raft of individual Republican politicians. Some, like Paul Krugman, consider this a threat to academic freedom. The University of Wisconsin promises to balance this concern against the law’s demand for disclosure. For a journalistic treatment, see this; for Cronon’s own account, see this
.
For me, it is déjà vu all over again. My institution has been the repeated target of such broad records requests, asking for any email by any employee—faculty, staff or administrator—relating to one or another controversial issue. Our public records officer would then dutifully instruct all of us to go through our past emails and forward any that fit the description. What they have not done, fortunately, is to sift through the email record themselves (is that “sifting and winnowing”?) by virtue of their access to the archives, reducing the level of intrusion.
I am not a lawyer. I cannot offer a legal analysis of the language in my state’s (Washington’s) open records law, much less that of Wisconsin or elsewhere. Nevertheless, a basic principle seems perfectly clear to me.
The purpose of all such laws is to make the decision-making and performance of public institutions transparent to the citizenry. We have a right to know how and on what basis decisions are made by those purporting to act on our behalf, and we need to know how well public officials are performing the functions for which they are responsible. That’s democracy.
We don’t need to know their personal opinions on topics over which they have no official influence. I can see no legitimacy to a request for emails of the Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources on the topic of Lady Gaga, for instance. In this respect, the Commish is simply a private individual and entitled to a general privacy protection. (If he or she is so consumed by Ms. Gaga that essential work goes unperformed, that is a public concern—but it should center on the work, not the details of the distraction.) Indeed, if an official is in charge of water pollution, his or her personal views on, say, wolf reintroduction should also be beyond the scope of an open records request. Only communications bearing on the decision-making or implementing aspects of the individual’s job should be fair game.
So what about a professor? If the professor is on a committee that makes policy, it is vital that communications pertaining to this work be accessible to the public. (There are obvious exceptions for personnel and student privacy matters.) Communications that pertain to the performance of a professor’s teaching duties, or the institutional aspects of her research projects, are fair game. By “institutional aspects”, I mean all those having to do with adherence to institutional policies regarding funding, resource use, human subjects review, public disclosure, etc. The intellectual content of the research should be off-limits.
To be clear, I am not calling for an exception for academic freedom. I regard Cronon’s views of Republican tactics in Wisconsin to be as deserving of protection on privacy grounds as his views regarding Madison’s best car-repair shops or his favorite historians of the Progressive movement. And the people who empty his wastebaskets are entitled to the same privacy protection.
Again, as a non-lawyer, I suggest that the clear intent of open record laws be taken into consideration. Their purpose was not to lay bare as much of the private and mental life of public employees as possible, but to give citizens the opportunity to see for themselves how public institutions are functioning.
Stop worrying and love nuclear power. Fuel rod meltdowns are happening now but they're only temporary. More quotes.
“..the government believes that the meltdown [of fuel rods at No 2 reactor] is only temporary.”[1]
“…the radioactive releases of iodine-131 in Japan had reached about 2.4 million curies by March 22, 2011. That is about 160,000 times the best estimate of the amount released during the TMI accident in Pennsylvania (15 curies) and about 140,000 times the maximum estimate of 17 curies. It is about 10 percent of the estimated amount released during the Chernobyl accident…”[2]
“…radiation-induced cancers do not simply arise immediately following exposure. It's not as though it will be like the Black Plague, where one would see one's neighbors being hauled out of their houses, dead. This damage to human life, these murders, will only be visible -- if they are allowed to be visible -- in statistical data collected long years after the exposure event…”[3]
“Why Fukushima Made Me Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Power … Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to nuclear power.”[4]
“All of the information media are at fault here I think. They are saying stupid things like, why, we are exposed to radiation all the time in our daily life, we get radiation from outer space. But that’s one millisievert per year. A year has 365 days, a day has 24 hours; multiply 365 by 24, you get 8760. Multiply the 400 millisieverts by that, you get 3,500,000 the normal dose. You call that safe?[5]
“Should the public discover the true health cost[s] of nuclear pollution, a cry would rise from all parts of the world and people would refuse to cooperate passively with their own death.” [6]
“Let's not beat about the bush. They have visibly lost the essential of control (of the situation). That is our analysis, in any case, it's not what they are saying.'”[7]
“The mechanisms of the accident would be very different than Chernobyl, 4 where there was also a fire, and the mix of radionuclides would be very different. While the quantity of short-lived radionuclides, notably iodine-131, would be much smaller, the consequences for the long term could be more dire due to long-lived radionuclides such as cesium- 137, strontium-90, iodine-129, and plutonium-239. These radionuclides are generally present in much larger quantities in spent fuel pools than in the reactor itself. In light of that, it is remarkable how little has been said by the Japanese authorities about this problem.[8]
“…there are disputes over whether or not Chernobyl's nuclear fuel still poses a threat of causing another explosion. There is also a teetering reactor core cover and the deteriorating sarcophagus itself that may collapse and send plumes of radioactive dust in all directions. …with tens of millions of lives at stake, nation actors that have the ability to assist in mitigating this disaster now, but choose instead to squander their manpower and resources elsewhere (like in Libya), must remember that their actions today will be remembered and judged for centuries to come.”[9]
“….During the Chernobyl disaster, reactor workers barley prevented a second nuclear explosion that has been covered up to the public for many years. This secondary explosion would have been powerful enough and toxic enough to wipe out the population of half of Europe according to Russian officials.”[10]
REFERENCES:
[1]URGENT: Radioactive water at No. 2 reactor due to partial meltdown: Edano
TOKYO, March 28, Kyodo
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81431.html
[2]Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
Takoma Park, MD 20912
For Immediate Release Friday, March 25, 2011
'Radioactive Iodine Releases From Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Reactors May Exceed Those of Three Mile Island by Over 100,000 Times'
http://www.ieer.org/comments/Fukushima_IEER_press_release_2011-03-25.pdf
[3]James Cronin, as quoted in:
CounterPunch Diary
Libya, Oh What a Stupid War; Fukushima, Cover-Up Amid Catastrophe
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
http://www.counterpunch.org/
[4] George Monbiot, the Guardian newspaper. 21st March 2001
As quoted in:
CounterPunch Diary
Libya, Oh What a Stupid War; Fukushima, Cover-Up Amid Catastrophe
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
http://www.counterpunch.org/
[5]Hirose Takashi
As quoted in:
CounterPunch Diary
Libya, Oh What a Stupid War; Fukushima, Cover-Up Amid Catastrophe
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
http://www.counterpunch.org/
[6]Dr. Rosalie Bertell. “No Immediate Danger,” xiii.
[7]French Industry Minister Eric Besson
As quoted in:
'They've lost control': French claim Japan is hiding full scale of nuclear disaster as TWO more reactors heat up. Wednesday, March 16, 2011
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2011/03/theyve-lost-control-french-claim-japan.html
[8]Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland
As quoted in:
CounterPunch Diary
Libya, Oh What a Stupid War; Fukushima, Cover-Up Amid Catastrophe
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
http://www.counterpunch.org/
[9]When Does a Nuclear Disaster End? Never.
Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post. Sunday, March 27, 2011
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/03/when-does-nuclear-disaster-end-never.html
[10]Fukushima Radiation Found In Massachusetts Rainwater As “Bio-Robots” Fight To Prevent Disaster
(AP / Yomiuri Shimbun, Takuya Yoshino)
The Intel Hub
Shepard Ambellas
March 27, 2011
http://theintelhub.com/2011/03/27/fukushima-radiation-found-massachusetts-rainwater-as-bio-robots-fight-to-prevent-disaster/
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Greg Mankiw Confuses Social Security with Medicare Part D
Brad DeLong is not happy with something Greg Mankiw wrote:
Brad correctly notes:
Let me simply add this: we did choose to tax ourselves to pay for Social Security benefits.
The seeds of this crisis were planted long ago, by previous generations. Our parents and grandparents had noble aims. They saw poverty among the elderly and created Social Security. They saw sickness and created Medicare and Medicaid … If we had chosen to tax ourselves to pay for this spending, our current problems could have been avoided.
Brad correctly notes:
Mankiw is talking about President Reagan, his supporters, and his appointees. Mankiw is talking about President George W. Bush, his supporters, and his appointees. And--as one of George W. Bush's cabinet-level appointees, Chairman of the Presidents Council of Economic Advisers in 2003-2004--he is talking about himself. Is it too much for me to expect, from him, an apology to America? A whispered: "I am sorry"? An admission that the unfunded 2001 tax cuts that he cheerled for were a mistake, and that we as a nation would have been better off had they not been passed? An admission that the unfunded 2003 tax cuts that he cheerled for were a mistake, and that we as a nation would have been better off had they not been passed? An admission that the unfunded 2003 Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit that he cheerled for was a mistake, and that we as a nation would have been better off had it not been passed?
Let me simply add this: we did choose to tax ourselves to pay for Social Security benefits.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Why Libyan Partition Will Not Happen: Oil And Geography
Having argued a few days ago that a partition between East and West in Libya might be an outcome based on their long history of disunity and numerous differences, I am now thinking that this is a very unlikely outcome for a variety of reasons, although oil and geography are at the top of the list.
So, for a stable partition, it would probably need to be the case that there would be a relatively even split of the oil revenues between the two sides. However, of the six oil terminals in Libya, four are clustered near each other at the east end of the Gulf of Sidra and have changed hands between the two sides. Currently Qaddafi's forces control three of them, but the most intense front line of the battle appears to be happening at Ajdaibiya (sp?), where according to Juan Cole, the rebels are gaining strength and control. For anything other than a 5-1 or 1-5 division of the terminals, a stable line would have to be established drawn through the middle of these terminals, but this looks extremely unlikely to me. One side or the other will probably take them and whoever does so will win overall.
Another fact is that while in general the rebels are stronger in the East and Qaddafi's supporters in the West, the rebels continue to have support in and control certain locales in the West, with the new Allied air strikes helping them defend those locales, particularly Misurata, the third largest city in Libya, and Zaitan in the southwest. Qaddafi's strongest base, his hometown of Sirte, is east of those cities. There simply is not a neat division and I suspect that there will not be.
Moving beyond this basic oil-geography issue, there are other matters. One is that both sides appear determined to claim total victory. The only way that such a partition will occur is if there is a stalemate after long fighting, but I think other dynamics are at work, with Juan Cole pointing to the volatility of tribal loyalties. In this case, the key tribe is Libya's biggest, the Warfalla, at 1 million nearly a sixth of the whole population, who happen to have a major base in rebel-held Misurata. The Warfalla have long been among Qaddafi's strongest supporters, fellow Arabized Berbers (although with more intermarriage with real Arabs than in Qaddafi's tribe), and long providing many of his innermost staff and guards, despite leading an attempted coup in 1993.
As it is, the Warfalla are reportedly vacillating, possibly having shifted back and forth twice already in this conflict. But they may not wish to have a stalemate, and if they tilt strongly to the rebels, this might tilt things in the rebels' direction, leading to a major move in the military to stop supporting Qaddafi, particularly given the apparent unwillingness of the military to fight too much against the Allied air strikes (and with the Libyan air capapbility reportedly shut down pretty much already). The word of actual Arab support for the Allied force from Qatar and UAE (the only two Arab nations not to have had any demonstrations or uprisings so far in this Arab Spring) may add to this impetus, along with the withdrawal of the US from commanding it to behind the skirt of NATO, with formerly opposed Germany and Turkey now acquiescing.
Adding further to this is that the US and French and others appear to be becoming more enthusiastic about the rebel leadership. There has been much muttering about Islamist influences (and the former king Idris was the grandson of one of the founders of the radical Islamist Salafi movement), but the new leader of the provisional government, which has now established a central bank and oil company, Jibril Mohammed, got a PhD in strategic planning from the U. of Pittsburgh and appears to be a pro-western secularist, even described as a supporter of "neoliberalism" in his newly written (with misspellings) Wikipedia entry. Expect this to encourage stronger external support for the rebellion, which will seek to topple Qaddafi, even if Germany and Turkey mumble unhappily (and Putin and Medvedev argue over whom Russia should support).
However, the key to the outcome will be if the Warfalla and other tribes that have been supporting Qaddafi, as well as their members in the military, decide that it is not worth it supporting him any longer. If they turn on him, it will be all over. But the bottom line looks like it is much more unlikely than I previously thought that there will be any sort of stable partition as an outcome of all this.
So, for a stable partition, it would probably need to be the case that there would be a relatively even split of the oil revenues between the two sides. However, of the six oil terminals in Libya, four are clustered near each other at the east end of the Gulf of Sidra and have changed hands between the two sides. Currently Qaddafi's forces control three of them, but the most intense front line of the battle appears to be happening at Ajdaibiya (sp?), where according to Juan Cole, the rebels are gaining strength and control. For anything other than a 5-1 or 1-5 division of the terminals, a stable line would have to be established drawn through the middle of these terminals, but this looks extremely unlikely to me. One side or the other will probably take them and whoever does so will win overall.
Another fact is that while in general the rebels are stronger in the East and Qaddafi's supporters in the West, the rebels continue to have support in and control certain locales in the West, with the new Allied air strikes helping them defend those locales, particularly Misurata, the third largest city in Libya, and Zaitan in the southwest. Qaddafi's strongest base, his hometown of Sirte, is east of those cities. There simply is not a neat division and I suspect that there will not be.
Moving beyond this basic oil-geography issue, there are other matters. One is that both sides appear determined to claim total victory. The only way that such a partition will occur is if there is a stalemate after long fighting, but I think other dynamics are at work, with Juan Cole pointing to the volatility of tribal loyalties. In this case, the key tribe is Libya's biggest, the Warfalla, at 1 million nearly a sixth of the whole population, who happen to have a major base in rebel-held Misurata. The Warfalla have long been among Qaddafi's strongest supporters, fellow Arabized Berbers (although with more intermarriage with real Arabs than in Qaddafi's tribe), and long providing many of his innermost staff and guards, despite leading an attempted coup in 1993.
As it is, the Warfalla are reportedly vacillating, possibly having shifted back and forth twice already in this conflict. But they may not wish to have a stalemate, and if they tilt strongly to the rebels, this might tilt things in the rebels' direction, leading to a major move in the military to stop supporting Qaddafi, particularly given the apparent unwillingness of the military to fight too much against the Allied air strikes (and with the Libyan air capapbility reportedly shut down pretty much already). The word of actual Arab support for the Allied force from Qatar and UAE (the only two Arab nations not to have had any demonstrations or uprisings so far in this Arab Spring) may add to this impetus, along with the withdrawal of the US from commanding it to behind the skirt of NATO, with formerly opposed Germany and Turkey now acquiescing.
Adding further to this is that the US and French and others appear to be becoming more enthusiastic about the rebel leadership. There has been much muttering about Islamist influences (and the former king Idris was the grandson of one of the founders of the radical Islamist Salafi movement), but the new leader of the provisional government, which has now established a central bank and oil company, Jibril Mohammed, got a PhD in strategic planning from the U. of Pittsburgh and appears to be a pro-western secularist, even described as a supporter of "neoliberalism" in his newly written (with misspellings) Wikipedia entry. Expect this to encourage stronger external support for the rebellion, which will seek to topple Qaddafi, even if Germany and Turkey mumble unhappily (and Putin and Medvedev argue over whom Russia should support).
However, the key to the outcome will be if the Warfalla and other tribes that have been supporting Qaddafi, as well as their members in the military, decide that it is not worth it supporting him any longer. If they turn on him, it will be all over. But the bottom line looks like it is much more unlikely than I previously thought that there will be any sort of stable partition as an outcome of all this.
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