Friday, September 03, 2004
Who's Counting?
Anthony Downs' insight re rational ignorance is now thought to describe, both, how we acquire and how we process data that pertain to the commons.Moreover, it is an affluence story because it considers the ever higher opportunity costs of our time.
All of this is germane every time a political candidate, these days, says practically anything.
Beyond presidential politics, in California, the favored mantra is now that the state is projected to gain xx (fill in the number) millions of population growth by 20yy (pick a year) and, therefore we have to bite the bullet and think big and do really crazy stuff fast.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority knows how to play the game. They will soon ask voters to approve preliminary funding of a multi-billion dollar high-speed rail system to carry passengers around the state. The sales claims made are, as usual, out there. In 20 years, the envisaged system will: "Return twice as much financial benefit to the state's citizens as it costs; Carry more than 32 million intercity passengers and another 10 million long-distance commuters annually in the San Francisco Bay area, in the Los Angeles area and in San Diego; Generate at least $900 million in annual revenues; Return an annual operating surplus to the state of more than $300 million." (From their Business Plan at www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov; many other zingers are available).
When pressed, serious people admit that big projects only get built if big lies are told. So, it's OK.
Taking a leaf from the late Julian Simon, would any of the authors of these claims put up for a bet?
Just dreaming.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Progressives and Regressives
Many smart people (and many others) refer to the Bush tax cuts as "the most regressive in American history." Yet, many of the same folks say very little about Social Security and the payroll tax.What do we know?
1. The payroll tax is the fastest rising federal tax.
2. The payroll tax is the most regressive federal tax -- worst if you are minority with shorter life expectancy.
3. The Social Security and Medicare entitlements represent multi-trillion dollar unfunded liabilities with dim prospects in light of reasonable economic and demographic extrapolations.
What, then, do the "Progressives" who fret over regressive income tax cuts have to say about all this? That they will "fight to protect Social Security", e.g. the untenable status quo.
For all of the Republicans' faults, by making the "Ownership Society" a part of the platform, they are, at least, offering a discussion of alternatives to the untenable status quo. Self-directed savings that are actually vested and that can be willed to heirs and others are an incredibly attractive alternative to the untenable status quo.
Monday, August 30, 2004
LA Story
Just when I was becoming a gullible consumer of the NY Times' Sunday travel supplement, they feature "Your Car's Here, on Track 2: Seeing Los Angeles by subway, no valet needed". This is pure "Man bites dog." The story begins with, "Something must be said right away about riding the subway in Los Angeles: It may not take you where you want to go ..." The writer did visit some of the standard destinations in downtown LA and Pasadena but bravely concludes "I'd do it again, only next time I would put on sunscreen, carry a bottle of water and wear exercise shoes."This must be why the Red Line (the only part that is subway) was advertised to serve 376,000 daily riders before it opened in 1983 and in 2003 ($7 billion plus later) attracted only 95,000 (thanks, Tom Rubin).
Not a problem. The story also reports that six more miles of route will be available by 2009. Our leaders are no match for Boston's in the mega-spending (other people's money) stakes but at least Boston's Big Dig will carry serious traffic.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Progressive Conservatives
Libertarians seem to split on school choice. Some like the idea of empowering parents (especially the poorest) and injecting competition into an industry that suffers badly from too little of it. Others worry about introducing government into private school systems that have achieved excellence. Perhaps U.S. universities are an apt example. Their strengths can be traced to the fact that they compete; their weaknesses can be linked to their ties to government and politics.With another bleak political convention getting started, David Brooks, writing in today's NY Times Magazine, argues that "The Era of Small Government is Over". Republicans in power are unprincipled about big government, its pork and its scope. What to do?
Brooks looks for a way out and quotes George W. Bush as advocating that, "government can and should help citizens gain the tools to make their own choices." The new prescription drug entitlement includes some of this and Brooks-Bush see an acceptable trade-off in the idea of big federal government but one that offers recipients greater choice -- among other things. The Brooks piece is worth a look.
The sad part is the strong suggestion that this is the best that we can hope for. Socialism's failures are finally widely acknowledged, the Berlin Wall is gone, market economics is no longer deemed exotic or eccentric. Yet, while Democrats have embraced the label "progressive" and define it as New Deal-plus, Brooks' "progressive conservatives" would go along but for the price of including more choice.
Brooks does acknowledge that war changes everything and that we are in a war (foisted on us)against Islamic extremists. They embrace terror but it is not a war against inanimate terror but against the people who practice it: Islamic extremists. Norman Mineta take note.
