The Economist ran a long piece explaining what America ought to do to shape up. Included in the mix was a long rant about "infrastructure", and the lack of "investment" (read spending) upon it. To prove the need for more infrastructure they show a graph of commute times for various countries around the world. The US is nearly the worst with an average commute time of 43 minutes.
Trouble is, commute time is a measure of how long we are willing to commute, not of the quality of the roads. When job seeking, the jobs are located in a circle centered up on your house. The longer you are willing to commute, the bigger that circle, and the more jobs contained therein. Improve the roads, and we can commute farther in the time we are willing to spend commuting. So we tend to find jobs farther from home and the commute time stays the same.
We don't need or want more roads. Boston, which suffers as much from rush hour traffic as anywhere, defeated an attempt to add two superhighways into the center of town. The state highway people tried to run I95 right into, and thru, the downtown. This occurred back in the 1980's. The folk whose homes would have been taken to build I95 rallied politically and defeated the construction plan. Boston, left with two ring highways, and four divided highways into the center of town, has all the road the land and the people will bear.
The famous Boston "Big Dig" merely buried the unsightly elevated central expressway in a tunnel. The fabulously expensive project did nothing to improve automobile access, it merely freed up some very nice downtown real estate that used to have the expressway standing upon it.
We don't need any more "investment" in new highways, we have all the road we can stand.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Leadership of the Anglosphere does a marriage
Weather in London was fine, William and Kate got married with all the pomp and ceremony that the British could arrange, and that's a lot of pomp and ceremony. A helova good show, enjoyed by multitudes. Why do we care?
The British monarchy is the ceremonial leadership of the entire Anglosphere, England, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, even India. This is the alliance that won WWII, and has called the shots world wide ever since. The British royals are widely respected, loved, and serve as a focus for loyalty and patriotism thruout the Anglosphere. They have been particularly effective in North America, cementing the loyalty and support of the obstreperous Americans to the larger missions of the Anglosphere.
The Brits may gripe about the cost of running the monarchy, but that's short sighted of them. For less than the cost of operating a single aircraft carrier or army division, they receive unparalleled support. Ask the Argentinians about that.
The British monarchy is the ceremonial leadership of the entire Anglosphere, England, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, even India. This is the alliance that won WWII, and has called the shots world wide ever since. The British royals are widely respected, loved, and serve as a focus for loyalty and patriotism thruout the Anglosphere. They have been particularly effective in North America, cementing the loyalty and support of the obstreperous Americans to the larger missions of the Anglosphere.
The Brits may gripe about the cost of running the monarchy, but that's short sighted of them. For less than the cost of operating a single aircraft carrier or army division, they receive unparalleled support. Ask the Argentinians about that.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Right to Work in NH
House Speaker Bill O'Brien on the Neil Cavuto show, here. O'Brien is saying the right to work law passed House and Senate with veto proof margins. The guv'nor has promised to veto it, but O'Brien thinks the legislature can over ride his veto.
Funny, the Speaker never mentions the real reason to pass right to work. We need right to work because most corporations won't open new plants in states that don't have right to work. New Hampshire needs new plants to provide jobs for our out-of-work citizens. Too much of the New Hampshire economy is tourism, which doesn't pay much even if it is scenic and green. Just one good factory would do a lot of good things in a place like up country New Hampshire.
Funny, the Speaker never mentions the real reason to pass right to work. We need right to work because most corporations won't open new plants in states that don't have right to work. New Hampshire needs new plants to provide jobs for our out-of-work citizens. Too much of the New Hampshire economy is tourism, which doesn't pay much even if it is scenic and green. Just one good factory would do a lot of good things in a place like up country New Hampshire.
Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation Law
It doesn't regulate Wall St, it regulates anything that Dodd or Frank wanted to regulate. Buried in the 2000 pages is a requirement for US companies to report to the SEC yearly if they use tantalum, tin, tungsten, or gold from the Congo or nine neighboring countries.
Tantalum is needed to make high performance capacitors. Used to be only military electronics could afford tantalum oxide capacitors, while civilian electronics had to make do with aluminum oxide capacitors, but now tantalum is cheap enough for civilian use. Tungsten makes lamp filaments and tungsten carbide teeth to tip saw blades. Tin and gold have been valuable since Phoenician times.
Apparently Dodd or Frank slipped this goody into the financial regulation bill in order to cut off sales by Congo rebels. In actual fact it's cutting off sales from all of Africa. It also requires every company in the supply chain to do mountains of extra paper work, raising costs for all of us.
First I ever heard of it was yesterday's Wall St Journal. Apparently Dodd and Frank knew that a straight "apply-economic-sanctions-to-the-Congo" bill would never pass Congress, so they hid it deep inside their pet financial regulation bill.
Another good reason to never pass any bill too long to read.
Tantalum is needed to make high performance capacitors. Used to be only military electronics could afford tantalum oxide capacitors, while civilian electronics had to make do with aluminum oxide capacitors, but now tantalum is cheap enough for civilian use. Tungsten makes lamp filaments and tungsten carbide teeth to tip saw blades. Tin and gold have been valuable since Phoenician times.
Apparently Dodd or Frank slipped this goody into the financial regulation bill in order to cut off sales by Congo rebels. In actual fact it's cutting off sales from all of Africa. It also requires every company in the supply chain to do mountains of extra paper work, raising costs for all of us.
First I ever heard of it was yesterday's Wall St Journal. Apparently Dodd and Frank knew that a straight "apply-economic-sanctions-to-the-Congo" bill would never pass Congress, so they hid it deep inside their pet financial regulation bill.
Another good reason to never pass any bill too long to read.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Spring at last.
I opened the windows, sat on the deck, and put up the deck umbrella. First time this year.
Tax break for the oil industry?
Obama was on TV complaining about tax breaks for the oil industry. He wants to stop them, and spend the money (some $4 billion Obama says) on alternate energy. I have a question for Mr. Obama. Just what are these oil industry tax breaks? According to the web, the famous oil depletion allowance was eliminated for large corporations in 1975. So just what is this tax break, and why is it only $4 billion dollars. Seems like chump change for a trillion dollar industry.
And lastly, if such a tax break exists, and we end it, we don't want to spend the savings on boondoggles, in fact we don't want to spend it at all, we want to use it to reduce federal borrowing.
And lastly, if such a tax break exists, and we end it, we don't want to spend the savings on boondoggles, in fact we don't want to spend it at all, we want to use it to reduce federal borrowing.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Do you like austerity as an idea?
The TV newsies (even the Fox ones) have been bloviating that Americans don't want austerity measures to balance the federal budget. This article suggests that the pollsters are asking the wrong questions and the newsies are repeating the wrong answers.
Balancing the budget is selecting the best of several unpleasant alternatives. Nobody likes tax hikes or spending cuts. When the pollster asks "Do you approve of this unpleasant alternative" the answer is always NO. Of course, nobody approves of unpleasant choices. I don't, and you don't.
The correct question to ask is "Do you prefer this unpleasant choice over that unpleasant choice." When presented with these kinds of questions, a goodly sample of Americans choose to reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending, raise the eligibility age for social security and bump up the limits of the FICA tax. Taken together the measures produce (on paper at least) a balanced budget. In one year.
This article suggests the Federal budget problem in Washington is the product of small bore politicians who aren't trying to get the budget balanced. Instead they are all trying to win the 2012 election, by bashing their opponents over the budget.
Balancing the budget is selecting the best of several unpleasant alternatives. Nobody likes tax hikes or spending cuts. When the pollster asks "Do you approve of this unpleasant alternative" the answer is always NO. Of course, nobody approves of unpleasant choices. I don't, and you don't.
The correct question to ask is "Do you prefer this unpleasant choice over that unpleasant choice." When presented with these kinds of questions, a goodly sample of Americans choose to reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending, raise the eligibility age for social security and bump up the limits of the FICA tax. Taken together the measures produce (on paper at least) a balanced budget. In one year.
This article suggests the Federal budget problem in Washington is the product of small bore politicians who aren't trying to get the budget balanced. Instead they are all trying to win the 2012 election, by bashing their opponents over the budget.
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