The Times is confused

Regular readers of the New York Times know that the Grey Lady fancies herself a champion of the common man. Recent articles and editorials have focused on the hardships faced by ordinary folks confronted with the rising costs of energy and food, as well as the number of jobs being lost overseas due to evil international trade and big, scary corporations. See what I mean here, here, and here.

The Times is also opposed to anything involving actions taken by the Bush administration, pretty much regardless of what they are. So naturally, when pro-business lobbyists (corporations! ew!) start lining up in support of last-minute reforms, a ludicrously-biased article (not an editorial) against any and all of the proposed changes qualifies as some of the news that's fit to print. Trouble is, the Times pretty much cherry-picks all the bad stuff that would come from the reforms without considering any potential benefits, advocating policies that will worsen the problems they courageously publicize in the above examples.

If rising energy costs are a problem, especially as temperatures are dropping all over the northern US, shouldn't we be looking for ways to let energy companies offer lower prices for their product? If you write for the New York Times, the answer is no.

At the Interior Department, coal companies are lobbying for a regulation that would allow them to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys. It would be prohibitively expensive to haul away the material, they say, and there are no waste sites in the area. Luke Popovich, a vice president of the National Mining Association, said that a Democratic president was more likely to side with “the greens.”

It may very well be that letting coal mining companies dump their waste products in streams is a bad idea that should be made illegal. The sticking point is that that people don't just dig up coal and dump rocks into streams because they think it's fun - they do it because they're trying to make electricity, which is an expensive process. Paying people to drive trucks long distances for a more environmentally-friendly dumping site will inevitably raise the costs of energy production. That the Times is simultaneously against people being cold in the wintertime (a very bold stance, by the way) and pretty clearly against any reforms that might lower the price of energy is simply irresponsible journalism.

The Times is also - along with most of the normal world - bravely and vehemently opposed to hunger. Supporting measures that might reduce the cost of chicken production, however, seems to be a little further than the paper is willing to go.

Perdue Farms, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers, said that it was “essentially impossible to provide an accurate estimate of any ammonia releases,” and that a reporting requirement would place “an undue and useless burden” on farmers.

But environmental groups told the Bush administration that “ammonia emissions from poultry operations pose great risk to public health.” And, they noted, a federal judge in Kentucky has found that farmers discharge ammonia from their barns, into the environment, so it will not sicken or kill the chickens.

I'm not entirely sure what that last sentence means (surely concentrated ammonia in a barn is different from a few parts per million in the atmosphere), but again we are faced with a direct conflict of interest. Chicken is food, which can help make hunger go away. Unfortunately, those nasty prices sometimes get in the way of everyone having as much chicken as they want. So of course, if hunger is a problem, food prices are the cause. Letting chicken farmers lower their costs (one might think) would be a good thing.

The way this article is written is pretty obviously slanted, but the real problem with it is that big business lobbyists are portrayed as evil money-grubbing planet-destroying poverty-spreading Bush cuddlers. Environmental lobbyists are quoted and presented as people who just care about the earth, and what could possibly be wrong with that? The consequences of the regulations they support aren't really given any thought.

Personally, I care more about hungry, cold people than I do about ammonia or river contamination, but really I care about both. I don't think writing an article explaining the costs and benefits of both sides would be too difficult. How much cheaper would energy be if coal companies could dump their waste products wherever they want? How many more people could buy chicken if farmers didn't have to worry about putting ammonia into the air? Is ammonia pollution really a problem? If so, how much should we be worrying about it? The Times doesn't seem to know the answer to these questions, and I doubt they thought to ask them in the first place. That's alright, though. Nobody really pays attention to national papers of record anyway.

Oh.

Big day for Venezuela

Chavez' constitutional reforms are being put to a national vote today. Maybe they'll be passed enthusiastically by a completely legitimate election, maybe not. But I'm having a hard time envisioning a guy like Hugo throwing up his hands and acknowledging the "will of the people" if the results don't go his way. That's just me, though - we'll see what happens.

These are the new storms, same as the old storms

One of my greatest annoyances in today's world of environmentally-sensitive college students is the tendency for people my age to blame almost anything weather-related on global warming. Seemingly no climatic event can escape global warming's sinister influence.

Unseasonably-warm fall day? And to think, people say global warming isn't a problem. Big snow storm in January? Global warming causes extreme weather patterns! Endangered species? Global warming. Bad crop season? Global warming. Really cold winter day? Global warming.

For many such students, the horrible event of hurricane Katrina's landfall was simply fuel to the fire. All those displaced and devastated people would have been saved if we'd just stopped using fossil fuels, don't you see? ... Storms get stronger and more frequent because of global warming, didn't you know that? ... Just look how much stronger hurricanes are today - look how much more damage they're causing! ... and on and on.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm refuting global warming as an existing phenomenon. Clearly the earth is warmer now than it was in the recent past, and clearly human beings are putting things into the sky that cause the planet's temperature to increase. What remains to be seen, however, is whether we humans have had an impact equal to that of lighting a match in a building of several stories, or to, say, turning on the oven in your kitchen (see Coyote Blog for a better explanation).

Beyond any doubt, however, is the fact that strange weather patterns have existed as long as there has been weather. Pick any cold climate. Pick Vermont. Vermont has been having the occasional crazy-warm days in the middle of December for centuries, just as there have been temperatures on July nights that dip into the 40's. I have heard someone remark, aghast, at the powerful affects of global warming during the weirdly warm days every goddamn time. But, of course, no one mentions the cold days, they just complain about the cold. Similarly, hurricanes have been happening for a very long time. Just because we happen to see a big one come along at the same time as lots of people start to learn more and more about global warming does not mean that the two are related.

Patrick J. Michaels of the Cato Institute, summarizing a study performed by Roger Pielke, Jr. of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, explains:

Is the planet warmer than it was? Yes. Is there any trend in hurricane-related damages in the United States, where good records of damages exist? After accounting simultaneously for inflation, population, and property values, no.

Even without accounting for population increases (which have been large), Katrina doesn't top the damages list. Again, Mr. Michaels:

Katrina pales in comparison to the Great Miami hurricane of 1926. Pielke gives two estimates, averaging around $148 billion. AIR pegs it at $160 billion. Given the trajectory of property values and population in Florida, Pielke notes that a $500 billion hurricane (in today's dollars) should be quite likely by the 2020s.

A little history. After the Great Miami and Katrina, the remaining top ten storms (in descending order) occurred in 1900 (Galveston 1), 1915 (Galveston 2), 1992 (Andrew), 1983 (New England), 1944 (unnamed), 1928 (Lake Okeechobee 4), 1960 (Donna/Florida), and 1969 (Camille/Mississippi). There is no obvious bias toward recent years. In fact, the combination of the 1926 and 1928 hurricanes places the damages in 1926-35 nearly 15% higher than 1996-2005, the last decade Pielke studied.

Michaels adds at the end of the article that monetary damages from hurricanes and tropical storms do show an increasing trend, but only if factors like property values (above inflation) and population aren't taken into account. It's just a silly, childish way of comparing costs, almost as bad as comparing earthquake damages in pre- and post-1849 San Francisco without adjusting for the fact that there was no one around before 1849.

So stop it, environmental people, if you're reading. I'm right there with you on the whole defending the environment thing, really, but citing stupid day-to-day anecdotal evidence confuses a very important debate about the future of our race and planet. Thank you.

I will continue putting bullets through my foot as long as my opponent pledges to do the same

The setting: CNN/YouTube Republican Debate

The question (#11): will you eliminate farm subsidies?

The answer (from Giuliani and Romney): blah, blah, energy independence, blah, can't rely on other countries to supply our food, blah blah, NOT UNTIL EUROPE REDUCES THEIR OWN EVEN LARGER SUBSIDIES.

That'll show 'em.

European governments punish their own people by confiscating the equivalent of billions of dollars in tax revenues and putting it toward the propping up of inefficient, expensive farms. They could simply let European citizens select their own food based on price and quality, but they don't. As a response, the US government turns around and does the exact same thing to Americans. Fantastic.

Sort of like a hostage negotiator who grabs someone off the street and shouts into the hijacked building, "LET THE PRISONERS GO ...OR THIS POOR BASTARD GETS IT!"

Fear and Loathing in Guanajuato

Last night I was lucky enough to get invited to a costume party at a friend of a friend of a friend's apartment. I didn't really have a costume, so I shaved most of my week-old stubble, leaving behind a red, horseshoe-shaped Hulk Hogan style goatee and flavor saver – which I think might become a Fu Manchu with a little cultivation – to go with my already unkempt sideburns. I threw on a grey wool zig-zag-patterned Mexican-style tunic, a bright white cowboy hat, a pair of khakis, and I was ready to go. I still didn't have a costume, but at least I looked like a dumbass.

Around seven o’clock my Norwegian roommate and I headed out, ate some dinner, bought several 40-ounce bottles of Mexican beer, and rolled to a different apartment to pregame. The group waiting for us there consisted of one American, one Mexican, one German, and five Norwegians, all but two of whom had put together a costume of some sort. We sat around the kitchen counter for a few hours, drinking the beer, listening to music, and trying to determine the best adhesive for six-foot-six inch Burt Reynolds’ fake mustache (scotch tape was eventually selected, but it came off every time he smiled). Once our collective blood-alcohol had climbed sufficiently, we decided to make the 20-minute trek to the real party.

Off we went, strutting through downtown Guanajuato under the full moon, eating up all the shouts and horn honks sent our way by shocked and amused Guanajuatensis. Among the nine of us were two trolls, their hair dyed green and styled to stick straight up in a wavy, fluffy, flame-like ordeal; one cat; one Aristotles, wrapped in a golden sheet, laurel crown fashioned from pieces of a Christmas wreath; one Spanish missionary, long beige poncho draped over his shoulders, a crucifix dangling from his neck; one oddly-dressed white boy (me); and, of course, a giant Burt Reynolds, popping his collar and winking or pointing two parallel index fingers at each gawking passerby.

The walk was really surreal. I kept thinking of certain scenes from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," when Johnny Depp's character (Hunter Thompson) walks through public places on all kinds of drugs, constantly convinced that people are watching him as he stares back at them with wide, wild eyes, careening dangerously through large crowds. The difference is that we were largely in control, but people really were staring at us with their jaws hanging slack. I got the sense that if we had been on acid, or mescaline, or whatever other crazy hallucinogens Thompson ingested in that story, we might have dreamed ourselves up and been really terrified - for good reason, mind you. Instead, we were the hallucination, and every innocent, sober convenience store patron, pedestrian, and bus passenger got to trip out for a couple minutes, whether they wanted to or not.

Truth be told, we felt sort of untouchable, like partiers cruising through town on a parade float, separated from the masses by a layer of absurdity.

* * *

I’m not sure what it is about dressing strangely that changes the way people act, but parties with alcohol and costumes always have a distinctly different feel from normal gatherings. It could be that I’m just a little bit insecure when I wear regular, this-is-who-I-am clothing, and that costumes allow me to feel like the things I do aren’t really of consequence. I don’t act completely crazy, but I get the sense that I’m more comfortable being outgoing and that I’m more creative when it comes to striking up conversations. I don’t think I’m alone on this, either. I bet lots of people feel a little more open, more free, and more relaxed when they throw on a stupid costume (as long as everyone else looks stupid, too). Costumes serve as sort of an equalizer for people who otherwise feel uncool, unattractive, or just generally awkward in social situations, and they were working their magic last night at the party. Everyone, as far as I could tell, was having a fantastic time, and we didn’t stop partying until well after five AM.

So here’s my suggestion: let’s make costumes a more regular part of normal life. Let’s do what we can to make truly outrageous, disarming, asshole-ish clothing more accepted. You wanna go to work as Batman today? Go right ahead! UPS man, you wanna deliver packages in drag? Just make sure the packages get there on time. Going shopping today? Throw on a dress, paint your face teal, hike up some striped socks, spike your hair, lace up your basketball shoes, and hit the town!

I could be mistaken, but I don’t see insecurities going away any time soon. With that in mind, let's advocate more lunacy and fun ... even if it just means more costume parties.

More from Discover

This article is pretty sweet. It doesn't strike me as entirely out of the realm of possible occurrences that humans will figure out a way to stop the aging process entirely sometime in the next few centuries, which in some ways would be great. In a lot of other ways, I think it might suck.

Regardless, this article should have been called "How long would the elves in Lord of the Rings really Live?" or maybe "If you were Super Mario, and you ate one of those flower things, how long could you go without falling in a hole or getting crushed by huge pillars of stone?"

Día Acción de Gracias

I spent most of today really, really wishing I could fly north for some of Ma and Pa Gelbs' delicious cooking. Instead, I'm here in Mexico, where celebrating Thanksgiving would be sort of like us gringos taking the day off from work and preparing feasts in honor of the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century. I dunno if that analogy works perfectly, but you get the idea. It would be weird.

Lucky for me, though, the program I'm with - which is entirely run by Mexicans - decided to throw a little party, complete with traditional Turkey Day fixin's. We ate in the dining hall of one of the host-moms' houses, which I assume is more of a mansion, though I didn't see the whole thing (our 10 tables, each of which could seat 10 people, fit easily. I don't know anyone in the US with a dining room this big).

There was decent beer, good food, and a few program directors and students made little speeches, thanking everyone (how appropriate!) for their contributions throughout the semester. The wait staff (!) even walked around with pretty little pewter vessels in one hand ("Mas gravy, señor?"). The first course was a big plate of tide-bottle-orange spaghetti, which threw me off a little, but everything else was pretty much spot-on, right down to the pumpkin pie dessert. The whole thing went off without a hitch, and I really couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my first Thanksgiving away from my family.

I'm thankful for my family, my friends, my health, and all the other wonderful things going on in my life right now. Thanks to everyone who's taken a few minutes out of their day to read this blog. I'm having a blast doing the writing, and I hope I've provided some insights that made the trip to this address worthwhile.

Hope everyone had a fantastic Thursday. Take 'er easy.

Just a fancy term for economics?

Several articles and posts have been published recently about the potential demise of the internet as we know it. This one from the BBC says that by 2010 we may already be experiencing slower downloads and more frequently failed transactions. Since 2008 is only a little over a month away, a failing internet two years from now seems like a pretty big deal to me, especially since I'm having so much fun with this brand-new blog.

But as a closet Promethean (whoops), I probably won't be losing a lot of sleep on this one. I'm not sure if the term is widely used, but Prometheans are people like Julian Simon who basically believe that human ingenuity will allow us to get it together and figure shit out. I still consider myself something of a borderline Promethean, though, since ... well, I just haven't been around very long. Additionally, I think the term itself might come from people who look at Julian Simon and other pro-growth economists and scoff, so I don't know if I should be comfortable slapping myself with the opposition's label. Whatever, too late.

Anyway, I strongly believe that humans will sort out this internet crisis before it becomes a serious problem. Seems to me, people like John Doyle over at CalTech will have the situation under control. Carl Zimmer's article in Discover Magazine explains Doyle's experience, ideas, and even some of the toys he's already been working on (like the one that runs fast enough to send every word from every document in the Library of Congress across the country in 15 minutes). It's a nice piece.

Needless to say, much of the information being processed by Doyle and his colleagues is way, way over my head. I have no idea how something like the internet can possibly function properly. Who's responsible for taking care of the servers? How can people work on changing and improving the entire internet when people like me already have such seemingly in-depth access to it? How can the internet really be defined as one single entity when there are so many ISP's, servers, websites, and users? Obviously, I have no idea. I don't even know if these questions make any sense.

What I do know is that the types of insanely complicated, seemingly chaotic networks on which Doyle is an expert are much more obvious than the article makes them seem. The author gives examples like E. Coli bacteria and the inner workings of the human body, comparing them to the internet in their ability to constantly expand and adapt while remaining unbelievably intricate without the aid of any obvious regulators or outside influence. Their trade is defined as follows:

"Control theorists, roughly speaking, try to understand how complicated things can run efficiently, quickly, and safely instead of crashing, exploding, or otherwise grinding to a halt."

Sounds an awful lot like markets, no? I wonder if control theorists study free exchange, the system by which huge societies make themselves every day more robust in terms of wealth and complexity. Perhaps they travel to Hong Kong, a place where each transactions between individuals are appallingly simple, and yet the island's interactions with itself and the rest of the world are nuanced at a level beyond the powers of human observation.

Nah. Probably a bunch of statists.

Good try, though

I'm almost certain that Mark Winne is a very nice person. According to his editorial in yesterday's Washington Post, he has spent much of his life working to organize food banks and food drives in an effort to help feed the hungry. Any life dedicated to such services is admirable.

Unfortunately, it seems Mark has also dedicated much of his life to being a moron.

See, Mr. Winne has had a recent change of heart. Things he used to believe in and work to create, like charitable food donations, have fallen out of favor in his eyes. Check out his description of US food banks:

"America's far-flung network of emergency food programs -- from Second Harvest to tens of thousands of neighborhood food pantries -- constitutes one of the largest charitable institutions in the nation. Its vast base of volunteers and donors and its ever-expanding distribution infrastructure have made it a powerful force in shaping popular perceptions of domestic hunger and other forms of need. But in the end, one of its most lasting effects has been to sidetrack efforts to eradicate hunger and its root cause, poverty."

I mean, who even hears about poverty anymore? I used to worry about it all the time, but now that there are food banks - fuck it! I'm sure everyone's fine. It's kinda like the Red Cross - ever since they came around, who talks about health care problems anymore? Clearly they convinced Washington and the general public not to worry long ago. Red Cross has things under control.

I'm trying not to be completely cynical here, since I actually sort of agree with part of this article. The idea of creating a population of people dependent on handouts is a little bit scary, and food banks certainly have the potential to do just that. But Winne's conclusion is that the government should be spending lots more money in efforts to "end poverty." In the process he insinuates that private, charitable donations create dependency, while handouts funded by taxpayers on threat of force somehow do not. His thinking reminds me of the now widely-spurned Labor Theory of Value, according to which consumers price goods based on the processes required to create them. The theory is wrong because most people generally don't care how products are made. They value things for what they are as a final product. Diamonds are expensive because they are rare and beautiful, not because people are impressed by the elaborate processes undergone in their extraction from the bowels of the earth.

Along those same lines, people value food because it makes them less hungry. They value donations of foodstuffs because money not spent on food is money that can be spent on other valuable goods, such as more food. And since free food is free food, I doubt people care very much how they get it. They probably would line up in even greater numbers for free handouts of cash, which can be used to buy any product, and which the government already organizes through welfare programs.

Now, welfare programs are widely lambasted for their inefficiencies and lack of poverty alleviation, and I can understand the argument that their real problems come from not enough funding. I don't agree, but I can see the logic. Unconscionable, however, is the implication that the problem of dependency can somehow be solved by more government handouts. Just as food is food, a handout is a handout. I'm not opposed to free food giveaways, but their social effects are undeniable (many of them are good). Very deniable is the idea that a difference exists between a government giveaway and a private giveaway, at least for the recipients. Mark actually sums up my point rather nicely in his article's title:

"When Handouts Keep Coming, the Food Line Never Ends."

Worst of all, though, is Winne's notion that poverty would somehow be alleviated if the following took place:

"Put all the emergency food volunteers and staff and board members from across the country on buses to Washington, to tell Congress to mandate a living wage, health care for all and adequate employment and child-care programs, and you would have a convoy that might stretch from New York City to our nation's capital."

Mandate a livable fu**ing wage??! That's your solution???

Say it with me now:
Price controls cause supply shortages. Low income is better than zero income. Mandated wage floors will not help.
Price controls cause supply shortages. Low income is better than zero income. Mandated wage floors will not help.
Price controls cause supply shortages. Low income is better than zero income. Mandated wage floors will not help.

Mark can ignore the laws of supply and demand all he wants, but they're not going anywhere.

Okay (deep breath). I feel better.

I guess that settles it?

The illegal immigration debate in the United States seems to be largely over, at least from my perspective. I just finished watching both of the the recent major party debates, and not one leading candidate suggested the possibility that illegal immigrants are anything but a "growing problem." The candidates' ideas of how to keep illegals out are varied, but overall they agree: undocumented aliens are a disease which needs to be cured (I should note that Kucinich sort of came out in favor of freer immigration, but he's against free trade and loves unions, which creates a rather large conflict of interest. Also, let's be real - he's got no shot at the nomination).

Lots of candidates from both parties readily support increased legal immigration, by which I suppose they mean the flow of immigrants who have been approved on a case-by-case basis by our government. Today, legal immigrants tend to be educated, skilled workers or their family members, but that's only because their numbers are so limited by bureaucratic quotas and inefficiencies (granted, we still allow more immigrants to enter each year than any other country in the world). The problem with this "solution" is that eventually we will have to start allowing in immigrants of slightly less impressive backgrounds if we are to expand legal immigration. There are far more people who want to move to the United States than there are skilled workers with good prospects for high-paying jobs, meaning more legal immigration will drastically change the demographic of the immigrant population. Expand immigration enough, and the same people who were supposedly stealing jobs and committing crimes at appalling rates as illegals will be allowed to enter as documented, legal aliens. The "problems" created by inflows of unskilled workers will not have gone away, but the government will have a better idea of who lives where and they'll be able to collect taxes more easily.

So, problem ... solved?

To me, most politicians approach the immigration debate from the wrong angle to begin with. They view economics as a zero-sum game in which one immigrant's improved fortune has to create some sort of misfortune for an American. That fact is that immigrants can and do create wealth for themselves at no one's expense. The same false logic applies to free trade. Many people assume that jobs and cash being sent abroad have to cause nationals to lose their jobs or lower their wages. John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich often bring up the massive job losses that American workers have incurred as a result of freer trade between the US and China or Mexico. What they never mention is the much larger number of entirely new jobs which have been created as a result of economic growth, a phenomenon inextricably linked to increased trade. Similarly, politicians don't often talk about the available improvements in standards of living for illegal aliens. The continued traffic of immigrants risking almost all of their already-limited assets to get to the US is proof enough of the opportunities that exist there.

To make matters worse, both parties seem to have agreed that we need to start cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants, people whose only crime is the provision of work at a mutually agreed-upon wage. If they've been convinced somewhere along the way that minimum wage laws don't cause unemployment (read: labor shortages), watch what happens when businesses have to start paying every illegal immigrant six bucks an hour.

It seems to me that increased human mobility has almost always been followed by increased human prosperity. For that reason, among others, I believe that people have the right to live wherever they want, provided they obtain their property via consensual means. In fact, if we cancel for xenophobia and racism, any argument for increased immigration restrictions directed at foreigners is really no different from arguing for increased mobility restrictions between states within the US. And why stop there? If immigration restrictions are justifiable because the movement of new people and new workers from Mexico to California hurts Californian workers, shouldn't we be restricting human mobility of all kinds? Doesn't a Vermonter moving to New Hampshire hurt the workers of New Hampshire? What about a Brooklynite moving to Queens?

Even if we accept the horror stories of job losses and drug trafficking supposedly attributable to immigration, the policies being advocated won't make any difference. Immigrants will still be the same exact people with the same exact same desires: get a job, create a better life for myself and my family. Your government can label me however they want.

As if politicians need an excuse for more subsidies...

Politicians really enjoy talking about "energy independence." When they get on the subject, almost inevitably they have to mention corn ethanol, a fuel alternative to oil which has recently been made artificially cheap to consumers and profitable to farmers due to huge federal subsidies. The politicians never mention the subsidies, but they do ramble on and on about the dangers of relying on oil-producing countries to power our cars and heat our homes. Sometimes they even have the audacity to complain about oil's fluctuating prices, implying that energy "security" would make all of our worries about the gas-price see-saw go away.

These politicians are liars.

Any candidate for any public office can promise the world to his or her constituents. Unlike regular people, public officials have the ability to make lots and lots of citizens cough up the money to fund their promises, which makes things much easier to promise in the first place. In the case of energy independence, politicians are promising two things: no more reliance on foreign oil, and higher taxes to make a product Americans ordinarily would have no interest in purchasing seem cheap (ethanol). The product doesn't actually get any cheaper, it just looks that way at the gas station. Someone (meaning all of us) is still paying full price, whether we roll to work via Hummer, Prius, or bicycle.

Anybody wanna guess what we call the system of government that picks and chooses which products it wants to see produced in an economy without the use of prices or demonstrated consumer demand? It was tried in places like the Soviet Union, China, Poland, and East Germany for a long time. ... anyone?

If you said Communism, you're our winner! Congratulations! You've just qualified for a chance to win higher taxes, the money from which which will be transferred (inefficiently) to huge farms all over the Midwest, propping up firms that would otherwise have had to leave the market years ago like every other business that couldn't find a way to provide a product people actually wanted to buy. Meanwhile, farmers hoping to sell you perfectly good (and extremely cheap) fruits, vegetables, and ethanol from places like Africa and South America will be going under, dragging one of the few industries in which they can compete on a global level down with them.

Brazil, it's worth noting, produces ethanol from sugar much more efficiently than anyone in the United States can from corn. They're able to complete the whole sugar-to-fuel process at a lower price than our own farmers' corn ethanol while using much less fuel. I've heard a few estimates of the amount of pollution created by American farms making corn ethanol. Most of them conclude that we would be better off just burning gasoline. Brazil does it better, but we don't buy any ethanol from them.

To me, the bottom line is this: if American ethanol made any sense, consumers would already be buying it, and the subsidies wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

Reason magazine says it much better than I can. Check 'em out.

Happiness Surveys Are Stupid

In today's Times, Eduardo Porter makes the not-particularly-original argument that all our advances in technology and gains in income have been for naught. His first sentence really sets the tone for the whole article.

"The framers of the Declaration of Independence evidently believed that happiness could be achieved, putting its pursuit up there alongside the unalienable rights to life and liberty."

This is a faceplant right out of the box. Placing the pursuit of happiness on equal footing with the rights to life and liberty says absolutely nothing about whether or not happiness can be achieved. It says everyone has the right to pursue happiness. That's it.

The article goes on to ramble about how surveys have indicated that we're no happier now than we were ... sometime before now. No points of reference are given, nor are any recent surveys, scientists, or experts cited to perhaps prove his assertion that people today are no happier than their grandparents or their grandparents' grandparents were. He briefly mentions a "notorious" study from 1974 and provides a truly damning quote from Alan Krueger, who states that "we should be concerned" about happiness. Lack of troubling evidence aside, we're just supposed to trust Porter that really, seriously, we can all get as rich as we want, but we won't be any happier for it.

His logic follows the idea that we only really care about our well-being as it relates to that of our peers, and it's an argument many people have made before. The general implication is that government should step in and focus on creating equality instead of prosperity, thus creating happiness throughout the land. Of course, his entire article relies on the existence of some sort of consistent definition of happiness and a reliable happiness quantifier to go along with it, neither of which exists. He even admits that happiness surveys are ludicrously subject to in-the-moment feelings:

"Happiness seems fairly cheap to manipulate. In one experiment, subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire about personal satisfaction after Xeroxing a sheet of paper. Those who found a dime lying on the Xerox machine reported substantially higher satisfaction with their lives.

So, remind me again why we should be getting worked up about the results of these polls? Honestly, how did he manage to write this paragraph without scrapping the entire article? Unless the subject is pocket change, the numbers of a scientific study should never be "substantially" affected by whether or not the respondents recently found a dime. If they are, your study doesn't mean shit. Sorry.

But I digress, as usual.

The point is that people are definitely happier now than they were in the past. The problem for these types of surveys is that people's perspectives change. Things that seem like really big problems today, like waiting around in airports or buying a Kia instead of a Porsche, would seem laughable to people living 50, 100, or 200 years ago. Trouble is, people aren't very good at remembering what they felt like 20 years ago, let alone 50. And very few people alive today in the US (the article seems to be sort of focused on Americans) have any idea what it feels like to lose a child to disease during infancy, or to bring in bath water from an outside well, or to go through surgery without anesthesia. Those things suck, but today's norm exists without them, so people don't appreciate valuable advances in their quality of life on a day-to-day, am I happy or not kind of way. Asked to step back and appreciate the ease with which we live, I think lots of Americans would express deep gratitude for the things they supposedly take for granted. Whether or not their "happiness" is affected by this gratitude is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, he goes on:
"More broadly, if the object of public policy is to maximize society’s well-being, more attention should be placed on fostering social interactions and less on accumulating wealth. If growing incomes are not increasing happiness, perhaps we should tax incomes more to force us to devote less time and energy to the endeavor and focus instead on the more satisfying pursuit of leisure."

Aaaaand there it is, folks. What we really need to do is raise taxes, 'cause then people will have less income and they'll be less focused on making money! I mean, look at poor people now - homeless people, even. They spend almost no time whatsoever trying to accumulate wealth, and look how happy they all are! Those guys asleep at the park have tons of leisure time. They're not worried about jobs, or their kids' education, or any of those awful entrapments of normal life.

Man, that must be sweet.

Phew!

Way back in 2000 my itsy bitsy little pipsqueak of a home state was actually a pretty interesting place to be. Vermont had recently become the first state to legalize civil unions, granting same-sex couples access to all the legal benefits of heterogeneous married couples. This was big news, especially in a gubernatorial election year, especially in a state like Vermont, where anything even remotely out of the ordinary can become a front-page sensation.

As one might expect, lots of people were seriously pissed off about the new law. I remember lots of my friends and acquaintances forecasting our culture's impending doom, as though suddenly the streets of Burlington would be swarmed by exceptionally clean men holding hands, making out, wearing cutoff jeans shorts, and talking with lisps. My family received pamphlets in the mail from some sort of anti-queer Vermont Republican coalition, claiming that the law was certain to open the floodgates for homosexual businesses (whatever those are), lewd clubs, more drug problems, RuPaul, and a few other supposedly horrible things, contaminating our otherwise pristine state. They basically said everything they could get away with, short of "THE FAGS ARE COMING! Do you wanna get FAG COOTIES or something??!!!"
The whole scenario was pretty embarrassing. Many homeowners even went so far as to put big black-and-white block-letter "TAKE BACK VERMONT" signs on their lawns or garages, which may as well have just read "I SCREW THE OPPOSITE SEX... IN CASE ANYONE WAS WONDERING."

Needless to say, Vermont didn't really change at all over the next few years. I assume some same-sex couples got civil unions and are happy about it. Some of them probably even got a divorce afterward, or whatever you call the civil union equivalent of a divorce (civil fission? if that's not what they're called, it should be). But basically Vermont went right along being the very beautiful, slightly boring state it's always been. Until recently, however, I didn't actually have any statistical proof to show that for most people, Vermont really didn't change at all. Thankfully, today that all changed when I saw city-data.com's Top 101 Cities, Counties, and Zip Codes List, which has a page showing the Top 101 cities with the largest percentage of likely homosexual households. A grand total of zero Vermont cities made the list. It seems the gay nomads of the world have decided not to universally march on Montpelier, which means we may yet stave off our population's conversion into a bunch of flamboyant George Michael fans after all. I'm sure that would be a nightmare. Or not.


Hat tip to Coyote Blog for the cities list site.

People Figured This Shit Out Waaaayyy Back

Here in Mexico I take a class at the University of Guanajuato called "Arte Mesoamericano" with a few other extranjeros from the US and Europe and three Mexicans. The class is held at a Mexican university where the vast majority of students are Mexican, but the professor speaks relatively slowly and he's not too tough, so a disproportionate number of non-Mexicans sign up every semester. Once a week we all sit in an auditorium for four hours staring at slides of rock piles put together by ancient civilizations. It's generally pretty boring, especially as the last of four classes I sit through every Wednesday. Thankfully, there's a catch: everyone in the class gets to go on a 10-day trip to the Yucatan to climb all over the stuff they've been learning about all semester, which to me makes the class more than worth taking.

Just yesterday I got back from said 10-day trip, sunburned and tired, but infinitely grateful for the chance I was given to see some of the most incredible structures human beings have ever built. If anyone reading this has ever thought about visiting places like Chichen Itza, Ek Balam, Uxmal, Tulum, or Coba, please go, you will not regret it. Shit, if you're thinking about spending spring break in Cancun or Playa del Carmen, take a few days away from the beach and the white folk to see these places. I was consistenly floored by the scale and beauty of each site, and I want to go back as soon as I can. Each structure is unique, and the jungle surroundings of the whole region are truly spectacular.

My class was fortunate enough to make the trip with our professor, who is an expert on pretty much everything Mesoamerica. When we weren't gawking upward at massive pyramids and temples, we got to walk along several "sacbes," which are elevated stone roads linking one ancient city to the next. Some of these roads stretch hundreds of miles, linking four of five cities and extremely diverse cultures. The sacbes served as trade routes, and they were marked by intricately-decorated archways at the boundary of each new civilization (see photo at right).

The Mayans were smart in a lot of ways, and they understood something very important: the more expensive trade becomes, the less likely it is to take place. The cheaper trade becomes, the more it will happen. Therefore, the Mayans sought to eliminate as many barriers to trade as possible. They created sturdy, well-kept roads, making things like thick jungles and tall grass less of a problem. Trade costs went down, and the trafficking of corn, water, stones, or whatever became easier. People prospered as a result.

More trade is good. Trade barriers are bad.
But hell, don't take my word for it. Read this, or this, or this, or this.

Just finished Youtubing the democratic debate I missed last week... forgive me if I'm a little frustrated.

Stubborn Secularity

Hidey ho Gelbs, since you're off in Mexico doing your thing and pissing off communists everywhere, thought I'd let you in on a little tiff on the hill recently. The all and ever knowing Bullsheet documented a righteous debate between secularity and religion, but what was this cause of this dissonance? The upstart Denison Secular Student Alliance, responsible for posters splayed across campus shouting the faults of Religion as a town crier in the Dark Ages.

The argument for secularism is simple as near as it has been displayed to me, "Religion is responsible for all of the world's conflict": a blanket statement in a world of absolute hyperbole, so it fits in quite well. The problem with this blanket statement lies in its implications, and what this implies is that there has been no war or conflict EVER in the history of society by way of political aspiration or liberty. No this has NEVER happened NOT EVEN ONCE. If you honestly believe this is true, then I should not be forced to listen to an ignorant and ill-informed opinion. Multiple Revolutions in South America (Calling all Castros again) have come as a result of economic injustice. Then the argument follows that the injustices fueling the war must have been as a result of religion. This is not true, absolutely and positively false. What Secularists are referring to is Religion captured in the hands of bigotry. Hitler was not a fervent Catholic, but he'll be damned if the Church will oppose him in his own country. And so the clerical collars followed Hitler in his demonic work. Human cowardice should not be mistaken for the ineptitude of religion.

I myself do not affiliate with any specific religion, but that does not mean I look down on those who do. Religious organizations have the ability to support a community, but also the ability to destroy its humanity. The fate of religion and spirituality lies in the hands of humans, they cannot be destroyed and thus must be harnessed properly. Besides, secularists are also making the assumption that conflict is a bad thing...

Government-Funded = Free ... right?

The New York Times reports today that college tuition costs in the U.S. have outpaced inflation for the ninth straight year. As Times articles go, this one is pretty neutral on what should be done, but a few fallacies are implied. The first one, which is revealing because it's completely ignored, is the notion that the price basket offered by college tuition fees has not remained constant. In other words, they don't even suggest the possibility that tuition today is different than it was, say, 15 years ago.

If average car prices were rising faster than inflation (and I have no idea if they are), lots of people might note that the average car today is pretty sweet compared to a similarly-priced car 15 years ago. 15 years ago, cars with anti-lock brakes, air bags, CD players, power windows, etc., were fairly spiffy. Today, most of those features come standard, even on the cheapest vehicles, so manufacturers might be forgiven if the average price of their product has increased slightly.

Similarly, schools today offer vastly different educational experiences today than they did twenty, fifteen, or even nine years ago. The school I attend (purely anecdotal evidence here) has installed at least two really fancy, really expensive buildings in the last nine years. One of them is so nice inside that I'm certain it has drastically changed the way physical science majors study. The library now offers the equivalent of a full subscription to several hundred academic journals, many of which have been hugely beneficial to me at around 3:45 AM during finals. Our entire campus recently had wireless internet installed. Granted, some of these upgrades can come from alumni donations or other sources. But I doubt very much that schools have just been jacking up prices without altering the product they sell in any way. On top of the changes, I would be shocked if the professors here haven't been getting pay raises all the while.

Sadly, failure to acknowledge the possibility of a change in the market basket offered by today's colleges and universities is not the Times' most egregious omission. The article is basically about a study someone actually bothered to do, revealing the following:

"The changes in tuition at public institutions closely track changes in financing they receive from state governments and other public sources ... When state and local support for public colleges declined over the last seven years, tuition and fees rose more quickly, and as state support has grown of late, the pace of increases fell."

Let's make sure I have this right: when the government pays producers to make their product, those same producers can lower the number consumers see on the price tag? Unbelievable! Trouble is, someone's still paying for college tuitions every year for every student, regardless of the size of the checks households actually send. When the government does it, everyone in the whole country pays for college kids like me, from students and parents of students to total recluses living nowhere near civilization. When individuals pay, they do it because they really care whether they themselves, their children, their friends, or their relatives gets an education and graduates. I like the latter system much better.

I'm not saying governments shouldn't provide some help for qualified students without the means to pay for higher education. I'm just saying that free education doesn't exist, and neither do free discounts on education, no matter what we do to bury the costs amid other government asset seizures.

Poor People are Cute/Quaint/Satisfied

Disturbingly common among the anti-trade, anti-growth, anti-business, environmentalist liberals of the world is the belief that poverty is somehow a part of people's culture. Their disproportionately large fear of cute, starving brown people losing ties to a "unique way of life" is often used as justification for the prevention of growth. Growth often spurs cultural change (not to mention increased standards of living), and rich people evaluating poor ones from afar want the world's impoverished to stay exactly as they are: poor and different.

But to get back on track, I started this post with the intention of writing about Cuba. Everybody's favorite communist dictatorship appears to be on the precipice of a regime change, assuming Castro kicks the bucket sometime soon. Way back in the 1950's Castro promised his people democracy. Then he decided - and this is basically the premise upon which all communism is founded - that the experts, meaning he and a few close pals, really knew what was best for the country. He appointed himself to 50 years of dictatorship, which is a lot like democracy, just without all those pesky rights, freedoms, and elections. Therefore, most sane people, including myself, are looking forward to the day Cuba gets to choose a new system. Still, a future of democracy and freedom is far from inevitable in Cuba, even after Fidel has bought the farm. For that reason, among others, people like Erik and Bridget from Minneapolis need to shut the fuck up.

Erik and Bridget are dreading the inevitable days of Castro's demise. They're worried that American business will ruin Cuba's flavor or quirky appeal, since the loss of either would really put a damper on their next vacation. Once the trade embargo is lifted, Erik and Bridget will no longer be able to feel like sneaky little Russian spies stealing into enemy territory. They'll have to board a plane in an American city and suffer through a flight to Havana along with hundreds of other gringos and Cubans, and that simply won't do. You see, Cuba, where many people live on less than 10 dollars a month, is "forbidden treasure," according to Erik, and he'll rue the day that those nasty Americans come and piss all over his cute little food-rationing booty. He adds: "It will be so Americanized in a few years. Just like Cancun."

The horror!

Three things, Bridget and Erik:

First - I'm not one of them, but lots of people really like places like Cancun, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of people who go there each year. These people include many Mexicans, who have managed to avoid turning into Caucasians or frequenting Applebee's restaurants despite the raping their culture has been subjected to by us Amurricans.

Second - Lots and lots and lots of people are ready and willing to sacrifice a little bit of their culture in favor of job opportunities and increased income. That's how people change their lives, by being able to decide what they value, and by acting accordingly. Believe it or not, places like Tokyo, New York, Sydney, Paris, Copenhagen, Montreal, Hong Kong, Dublin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Chicago share some things, such as Hard Rock Cafe, McDonald's, and a majority population of well-fed, rich people, but the similarities pretty much stop there.

Third - Fuck you. Seriously. If a country like Cuba is lucky enough to become "Americanized" over the next few years, by which I mean prosperous, your only response should be one of happiness at the knowledge that more people in the world can enjoy the standards of living you so arrogantly take for granted. Frightfully sorry to have inconvenienced you out of your fav' vacation spot, but for millions of people actually living there, Cuba is a long way from paradise.

For Americans, spending money in Cuba is supposed to warrant a $55,000 fine. I think the trade ban is stupid, but here's hoping Erik and Bridget get nailed for every penny.

Diego Rivera: Artist, Ignoramus, Communist

I recently took a weekend away from my five-month stay in Guanajuato, Mexico where I am currently studying abroad to visit el Distrito Federal, or as most Mexicans refer to it, Mexico. Sort of like if Americans called Washington, D.C. "America" or "The United States." Anglophones like me generally know it as Mexico City, and it's only a 300-peso, 6-hour bus ride away from my school. So two fridays ago, when a friend of mine in my 11:00 grammar class asked me if I wanted to grab a cab with her to the bus station at 3:00 that afternoon, I happily accepted. I rushed home to pack after class, crammed everything I could into my trusty black EMS backpack, called my parents, called my girlfriend (not living with me in Mexico), and ran back to the town center to meet my friend. Nine hours (construction), two cab rides, and three badly dubbed movies later, we were in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the world.

The first night didn't get started until after midnight, and it ended before 2AM. Both of us were pretty exhausted and hoping for an early start, so we settled for a few beers in the bar-filled section of town near our hotel. The next morning we met up with a Swedish lesbian couple from my school back in Guanajuato and started trying to do as many typical, touristy things as humanly possible.

Knowing nothing whatsoever about Mexico City prior to my arrival, I was completely at the mercy of the three women leading me around with guide books and subway maps. That said, I knew that I really wanted to get a chance to check out some Diego Rivera murals. I had seen pictures and various reproductions of some of Rivera's work, most of which I thought was very interesting and beautiful. For that reason, I was excited to go to the Teatro de Bellas Artes, where our taxi driver had told us there would be an unveiling of a recently-moved Rivera mural to go along with the many others already covering the walls of several government buildings.

I saw Rivera's murals at both the Palacio Nacional and the Teatro de Bellas Artes, and I saw more of his stuff when we went to the house he shared with Frida Kahlo. In each of those places, I was amazed by the energy and life that truly emanate from each of his pieces. I suspect that many critics think of Rivera's style as a bit crude, but when you are standing in front of a fresco that's 80 feet wide and 35 feet high, full of bright colors and impassioned historical figures the size of trucks, it's hard not to be impressed. However, what shocked me the most about Rivera's work was not the scale or the vividness of the colors, but rather the frequency of his proud, blatant representations of communism and its leaders, often juxtaposed by a gray, dreary, miserable United States, complete with factories and Standard Oil signs. Several of the paintings show Lenin himself, leader of the masses against injustice and poverty. Fine.

I understand communism's appeal, especially if you live in a place like Mexico and believe (mistakenly) that your country has tried free markets and elections and failed. Diego Rivera spent most of his life in a desperately poor country with a corrupt government pandering to the desires of a select few business elites. When he showed support for communist movements in his work or traveled to Russia to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution's success, I'm about 95 percent certain that he believed the movements he admired would fight against the status quo and create more justice, equality, etc. The status quo of early 20th century Russia and Mexico (and the vast majority of the world) was a truly miserable thing, so I completely sympathize with the desire for change. What I cannot understand or justify is the amount of support that Rivera continued to show for communism well into his later life (he died in 1957). His house, which I assume has been largely redone since his death, is literally covered with socialist and communist propaganda, including framed portraits of the two men - Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong - responsible for more deaths than any other pair of human beings this century, perhaps ever.

Anyway, I had been pretty good for most of the day, trying my best not to reveal my strong ideological feelings about the bombardment of bullshit to which I had been subjected. But finally, on our last stop at the Palacio Nacional, leaning up against the marble railing next to a Swedish lesbian, staring Lenin right in the face, I let loose this gem:

"Good call, Diego. The Russians got it right. Definitely chose the best system."

Immediately I could tell I had said the wrong thing. The girl turned to me, stiffened her spine, stared me straight in the eye, and retorted:

"I'm not sure you can say that our system has worked out any better," and walked away.

For the record:
Russia GDP/capita (at purchasing power parity) 2006, after roughly 20 years of supposed reform: $12,200
World Rank: 82

United States GDP/capita (at purchasing power parity) 2006: $43,800
World Rank: 10

20th century famines responsible for the deaths of over 5 million people:
China: 1
Russia: 1
United States: 0

But hey, at least they were better at something.

What is this newfangled contraption?

This crazy thing that I have been invited to join? Is it some new form of record keeping, perhaps actively updating to the point that its speed and accuracy diminishes all contributions from the printing press? It is a strange falcon that weaves the gyre of this embryonic notion. Can it be nurtured into something more, greater than hypothetical pipedreams made into reality?

How the fuck should I know?

Signs of Dissent in Chavez's Paradise

Yesterday, some crazy Venezuelan radicals had the gall to destroy a beautiful tribute to revolutionary socialist Che Guevara. What a bunch of assholes, ruining Chavez's soon-to-be dictatorship's efforts to further idolize a murderer of thousands.

Note to Chavez: next time you want to immortalize your buddy Castro's right hand man, try making something out of stone.

Much more to come on this blog about Che and other idiot communist assassins like him.