I realized while writing the headline that I am not going to be as general as that might imply . I am watching a NatGeoWild show on Tigers and the search for them in the last area necessary to complete an uninterrupted landscape along the Himalayas for them to live in.
Tigers are a magnificent breed that have survived for many millennium in Asia. Now mankind is expanding into their territory and poaching, for bizarre reasons, is a very real risk for any surviving Tiger.
I do not believe that Tigers have any use for mankind to exist beyond their inherent Spiritual Existence as a magnificent being. Humans are also magnificent beings and we should do everything possible to help the Tigers survive as an example of what Natural Selection has allowed this wondrous world to evolve into.
Thank you Hermann Hesse for that education.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Gun Control?
The repeated carnage from the lack of gun control, accompanied by unrelenting pressure from the NRA, leaves me baffled. Within the last 48 hours, we had someone with no reason at all kill 3 or 4 courageous members of the Nevada National Guard at an IHOP. He did this with an automatic weapon which has no hunting value at all. Why does the NRA protest regulation of Automatic Weapons and handguns.
No advocate of gun control has every said hunting guns should be made illegal. What is wrong with gun registration? How is it different from a drivers license? And, how is allowing anyone to own an automatic weapon in the national interest or in the interest of preserving hunting rights?
The sad thing about this, is that it will stir no debate about gun control as the NRA has paralyzed the entire center of the political spectrum, including me until tonight.
Automatic weapons should be tightly regulated.
No advocate of gun control has every said hunting guns should be made illegal. What is wrong with gun registration? How is it different from a drivers license? And, how is allowing anyone to own an automatic weapon in the national interest or in the interest of preserving hunting rights?
The sad thing about this, is that it will stir no debate about gun control as the NRA has paralyzed the entire center of the political spectrum, including me until tonight.
Automatic weapons should be tightly regulated.
The Post Office Saga
That the Postal Service's challenges have been known for some time. The current state of affairs was obviously inevitable several years ago, but management did not start the conversation with Congress early enough and then when they did last year, they got shot down on both a rate increase and a cut in operations. So, both the Post Office management and Congress are to blame for this financial mess.
Now it does not take a rocket science business person to know that the Post Office should have started downsizing years ago. If one Post Office can serve 20,000 homes, you don't need a Post Office in every small town when there are other small towns within 15 or 20 minutes of each other.
The Post Office has good market share. They can compete, they need to downsize and then charge an appropriate price for their basic service.
Now it does not take a rocket science business person to know that the Post Office should have started downsizing years ago. If one Post Office can serve 20,000 homes, you don't need a Post Office in every small town when there are other small towns within 15 or 20 minutes of each other.
The Post Office has good market share. They can compete, they need to downsize and then charge an appropriate price for their basic service.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
One way to insure US solvency
Extend the duration of U.S. debt from 5 years to 10 years at current rates. Just like every homeowner should have a sub 4% mortgage ASAP, the government could lock in sub 3% money for a long time. That would keep interest expense from exacerbating the fiscal deficit.
The Importance of Reading
Two articles caught my attention this morning. One was a blog on the NY Times by a Republican consultant.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/should-democrats-play-by-republican-rules/
It does a wonderful job of explaining the role of political party membership and the role that political parties need to play. Political parties funnel information to the electorate in a manner that allows the electorate to focus their time on their daily needs and not have to delve deeply into details to form an opinion. The political parties therefore need to keep their message simple and keep repeating it while not getting caught in any inconsistency.
Of course, reality is more complicated than that and reality changes, so the political message should change to reflect reality gradually to avoid being accused of inconsistency (or it needs to be changed suddenly with a lot of explanation and then the new position needs to be held onto with consistency).
The second article is on Bloomberg.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-06/osama-bin-laden-fulfilled-his-one-true-ambition-noah-feldman.html
Osama Bin Ladan wanted to being down the U.S. as far as he could. He thought he could do it with violence and trigger a revolution in the Middle East overthrowing our friends there. However, he was much more successful than that. He got the Bush Administration to combine its zeal for tax cuts with an overriding desire to conduct wars with the aim of establishing democracy to replace autocracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, we borrowed 100% of the funding for the War on Terror in combination with a massive fiscal stimulus (combined with a lack of regulation - another Bush administration priority) and created the housing bubble. When the housing bubble burst in a systemic manner it crushed both the allocation of credit and the primary savings vehicle for most of the population.
The only solution to this environment was massive government intervention to save the banking system and an effort to prevent a depression with fiscal stimulus. If we hadn't borrowed the War on Terror, this would have been easily affordable and probably not even likely because the fiscal stimulus in the mid 2000's would have been much smaller.
Why did Osama Bin Ladan win? Because the U.S. economy is now into its 4th year of economic turmoil and this is likely to continue for at least another 2 to 3 years. Neither party has a coherent message on how to fix this because both are caught up in their historic simple messages.
Republicans: Cutting taxes and reducing regulation will create employment. Balance the budget.
Democrats: Stimulate with fiscal policy and protect the social safety net.
Well we need to do what each party (Republicans and Democrats) wants but the only way to get there is to have the country build a political consensus around all these things. That is not a easy message to simplify into a political campaign theme. But that is the President's reelection challenge.
It also the obligation of every Democrat to somehow incorporate into their message because the Republicans are stuck on their consensus that less regulation and lower taxes will create jobs while privatizing the social safety net will balance the budget. I have commented repeatedly about why I do not believe eliminating the social safety net is good for society. Universal healthcare is what the country needs to create a competitive work place for our employers vs other countries. The U.S. does need tax reform. Eliminating tax subsidies is preferable to raising tax rates, but some combination is needed to raise revenues to aid balancing the budget without destroying the social safety net. And as for the Republican desire to reduce regulation, it was a failure to regulate that created this crisis and helped Osama bin Ladan achieve his goal beyond his wildest imagination.
Now the Republicans did not knowingly aid Osama bin Ladan's achievement of his goal. Rather, their adherence to their policy message with no adjustment for changes in reality created the synergy. Their campaign is heading down that same path and the Democrats need to challenge that message with a coherent middle ground message of their own.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/should-democrats-play-by-republican-rules/
It does a wonderful job of explaining the role of political party membership and the role that political parties need to play. Political parties funnel information to the electorate in a manner that allows the electorate to focus their time on their daily needs and not have to delve deeply into details to form an opinion. The political parties therefore need to keep their message simple and keep repeating it while not getting caught in any inconsistency.
Of course, reality is more complicated than that and reality changes, so the political message should change to reflect reality gradually to avoid being accused of inconsistency (or it needs to be changed suddenly with a lot of explanation and then the new position needs to be held onto with consistency).
The second article is on Bloomberg.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-06/osama-bin-laden-fulfilled-his-one-true-ambition-noah-feldman.html
Osama Bin Ladan wanted to being down the U.S. as far as he could. He thought he could do it with violence and trigger a revolution in the Middle East overthrowing our friends there. However, he was much more successful than that. He got the Bush Administration to combine its zeal for tax cuts with an overriding desire to conduct wars with the aim of establishing democracy to replace autocracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, we borrowed 100% of the funding for the War on Terror in combination with a massive fiscal stimulus (combined with a lack of regulation - another Bush administration priority) and created the housing bubble. When the housing bubble burst in a systemic manner it crushed both the allocation of credit and the primary savings vehicle for most of the population.
The only solution to this environment was massive government intervention to save the banking system and an effort to prevent a depression with fiscal stimulus. If we hadn't borrowed the War on Terror, this would have been easily affordable and probably not even likely because the fiscal stimulus in the mid 2000's would have been much smaller.
Why did Osama Bin Ladan win? Because the U.S. economy is now into its 4th year of economic turmoil and this is likely to continue for at least another 2 to 3 years. Neither party has a coherent message on how to fix this because both are caught up in their historic simple messages.
Republicans: Cutting taxes and reducing regulation will create employment. Balance the budget.
Democrats: Stimulate with fiscal policy and protect the social safety net.
Well we need to do what each party (Republicans and Democrats) wants but the only way to get there is to have the country build a political consensus around all these things. That is not a easy message to simplify into a political campaign theme. But that is the President's reelection challenge.
It also the obligation of every Democrat to somehow incorporate into their message because the Republicans are stuck on their consensus that less regulation and lower taxes will create jobs while privatizing the social safety net will balance the budget. I have commented repeatedly about why I do not believe eliminating the social safety net is good for society. Universal healthcare is what the country needs to create a competitive work place for our employers vs other countries. The U.S. does need tax reform. Eliminating tax subsidies is preferable to raising tax rates, but some combination is needed to raise revenues to aid balancing the budget without destroying the social safety net. And as for the Republican desire to reduce regulation, it was a failure to regulate that created this crisis and helped Osama bin Ladan achieve his goal beyond his wildest imagination.
Now the Republicans did not knowingly aid Osama bin Ladan's achievement of his goal. Rather, their adherence to their policy message with no adjustment for changes in reality created the synergy. Their campaign is heading down that same path and the Democrats need to challenge that message with a coherent middle ground message of their own.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Dick Cheney Says
President Obama has not been very effective in the economic area. Well, since economic effects take at minimum 12 months to 24 months to become effective, I guess that is a comment on the Bush II administration's economic policy!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Global Warming: Partisan Politics Destroy Reasonable Discussion
I don't like to comment on topics where I have less intellectual knowledge than a basic college education provides. So while I believe that Global Warming is real, because I only took the Science of Music (I do understand why vibrations produce sound) in college, I generally keep my opinions on this to myself.
However, with the political campaign picking up, the shrillness of some commentators on Global Warming (believers and disbelievers) has reached an irritating level for me that compels me to put fingers to the keyboard.
First let me side with the disbelievers. Global Warming did not cause the devastation of Irene in the Catskill and Green Mountains that have been my home for most of my life. 100 year floods happen every 100 years or so. The East Sidney Dam was built to control flooding in the Susquehanna in the 1950's. But that did not prevent Sidney from having its flood plane inundated with a flood in 2006. Man can only do so much to control water. Building plans have to take 100 year floods into account when designed. Such farm land needs to be managed around the periodic floods.
I also do not believe that any other periodic bouts of weather are caused by global warming in any specific case. Irene was the 1st hurricane to hit the U.S. in 3 or 4 years, when "normal" is for us to be hit by at least one somewhere.
However, the disbelievers in global warming are ignoring one basic reality. The earth is warming and ice caps are melting. The less intellectually honest disbelievers shout that the believers are cooking the data. Most of those, I believe, probably don't believe in evolution either and probably believe in any other number of conspiracies. The somewhat more intellectually honest believe the earth goes through regular warming and cooling cycles and you cannot attribute this warming to green house gases. In their view, the market will generate the signals to provide solutions to global warming when it becomes real.
I don't think this should be left to the market. Lack of regulation led to the free enterprise system dumping toxic waste into any number of waterways and the air. Does anyone want to return to those days? I have been to China and their toxic waste is not managed well and that is the primary reason I don't ever want to go back despite the many interesting tourist activities. Now, the Chinese people want good regulation of toxic waste and the pressure is on the politicians to do so. Pollution imposes a societal cost that is not priced. So either the government puts a price on it in a form of a tax or regulates it without putting an explicit cost on it. But every government should do something to try and reduce green house gases.
The decline in ice caps is proof to me that the earth is warming. There are scientific studies that show this in other ways. The U.S. needs to be a leader for the rest of the world in this. Cap & Trade was designed by members of both political parties to let the market figure it out. But this has gone nowhere with the current state of partisanship by the Republicans.
Believers in global warming need to promote non-fossil fuel energy in an economic manner. That means, do not be a NIMBY if there is an economic location for solar, wind or water power. Figure out a way to improve your car's cash mileage. That will create demand for such products and reduce their cost.
The earth started to warm with the Industrial Revolution. The pace of this warming as far as we can tell is unprecedented in history. Even the CIA believes this and ranks in its top 5 global concerns for creating future conflicts. A rational discussion is needed on what mix of regulation and economic signals should be put in place for the U.S. to be a leader in moving towards a less fossil fuel centric economy.
However, with the political campaign picking up, the shrillness of some commentators on Global Warming (believers and disbelievers) has reached an irritating level for me that compels me to put fingers to the keyboard.
First let me side with the disbelievers. Global Warming did not cause the devastation of Irene in the Catskill and Green Mountains that have been my home for most of my life. 100 year floods happen every 100 years or so. The East Sidney Dam was built to control flooding in the Susquehanna in the 1950's. But that did not prevent Sidney from having its flood plane inundated with a flood in 2006. Man can only do so much to control water. Building plans have to take 100 year floods into account when designed. Such farm land needs to be managed around the periodic floods.
I also do not believe that any other periodic bouts of weather are caused by global warming in any specific case. Irene was the 1st hurricane to hit the U.S. in 3 or 4 years, when "normal" is for us to be hit by at least one somewhere.
However, the disbelievers in global warming are ignoring one basic reality. The earth is warming and ice caps are melting. The less intellectually honest disbelievers shout that the believers are cooking the data. Most of those, I believe, probably don't believe in evolution either and probably believe in any other number of conspiracies. The somewhat more intellectually honest believe the earth goes through regular warming and cooling cycles and you cannot attribute this warming to green house gases. In their view, the market will generate the signals to provide solutions to global warming when it becomes real.
I don't think this should be left to the market. Lack of regulation led to the free enterprise system dumping toxic waste into any number of waterways and the air. Does anyone want to return to those days? I have been to China and their toxic waste is not managed well and that is the primary reason I don't ever want to go back despite the many interesting tourist activities. Now, the Chinese people want good regulation of toxic waste and the pressure is on the politicians to do so. Pollution imposes a societal cost that is not priced. So either the government puts a price on it in a form of a tax or regulates it without putting an explicit cost on it. But every government should do something to try and reduce green house gases.
The decline in ice caps is proof to me that the earth is warming. There are scientific studies that show this in other ways. The U.S. needs to be a leader for the rest of the world in this. Cap & Trade was designed by members of both political parties to let the market figure it out. But this has gone nowhere with the current state of partisanship by the Republicans.
Believers in global warming need to promote non-fossil fuel energy in an economic manner. That means, do not be a NIMBY if there is an economic location for solar, wind or water power. Figure out a way to improve your car's cash mileage. That will create demand for such products and reduce their cost.
The earth started to warm with the Industrial Revolution. The pace of this warming as far as we can tell is unprecedented in history. Even the CIA believes this and ranks in its top 5 global concerns for creating future conflicts. A rational discussion is needed on what mix of regulation and economic signals should be put in place for the U.S. to be a leader in moving towards a less fossil fuel centric economy.
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