Mark Steyn on the new Clinton week of hype

While making my way through the Telegraph, there is this gem by the singular Mark Steyn. Most observers agree that Clinton overshadows Kerry, the question is, does Clinton intend to.

Cars are more fuel-efficient than trains?

So claims a study reported in the Telegraph. The Telegraph article claims that trains have increased in weight: "Virgin's SuperVoyager rolling-stock is estimated to be 40 per cent heavier per seat than the ageing 125s it replaced." Further, "Engineers at Lancaster University said trains had failed to keep up with the motor and aviation industries in reducing fuel needs." This is entirely believable. It reflects the constant effect of the market operating on automobile design and the much more statist approach to railroad procurement. Also in that vein, "Roger Ford, of Modern Railways magazine, said one reason for declining energy efficiency was the impact of health and safety and disability access regulations."

The report continues, "I know this will generate howls of protest, but at present a family of four going by car is about as environmentally friendly as you can get." They include a nice chart worth a look. I would like to look at the numbers, but I would not be surprised if the constant application of engineering effort has improved automobile effeciency substantially while regulations have reduced the effeciency of trains.

Despite this there are questions that the Telegraph didn't explore. Paul Marston, their transport correspondent, gets some criticism from other sources, but most of it is not on point. "Friends of The Earth expressed surprise at the findings, which it said were not in line with previous studies." This may or may not be true, but the notion that studies are not in lock step agreement tells us nothing about which to find credible. Tony Bosworth, of FoE, is quoted as saying, "The main problem is not long-distance travel but the 25 per cent of car journeys which are less than two miles. Those are the least efficient and often the most polluting." I don't know how transportable these statistics are, but the Edinburgh to London trip is not a typical automobile trip, both in terms of its distance or in terms of the number of likely passengers. Bosworth wants to compare apples as well as oranges, and clearly a thorough analysis, of which this Lancaster University study is only a part, would consider not just a sample drive, but would analyze various kinds of drives in terms of their alternatives. The article has nothing to say on intra-city rail. Finally they quote Bosworth as saying, "Cars cause congestion, disrupt communities and are much less safe than trains." All of which would be part of a total analysis of transport alternatives, but does nothing to challenge the claims made by this study that trains cease to be fuel effecient. Not mentioned in the article is the question of how many people actually are riding in cars. I get the impression that the study is presuming more riders in cars than I would have expected, but that might be accurate for the British experience. Some examination, or a nice chart, on the number of riders per mile of travel at least, would be useful. They also seem to assume that the VW Passat is a typical vehcile. Is it? I'd like a variety of vehicles compared based on their prevelence on the road.

What is inescapable is that the study's claims that automobile effeciency increases and railroad effecincy descreases may have made automobiles a much better option than car alternative advocates might have expected. This includes me. I will be interested to see just how widely this analysis can be applied beyond a Passat traveling lengthwise across England. Most notably, the average commute will be my key interest in any analysis I attempt. See my two posts on rail here and here.

The Telegraph also includes an editorial on the subject with this final line, "the environmentalist lobby, traditionally as rigid in its thinking as Victorian missionaries, will have to come up with some new slogans. May we make a modest suggestion? "Save the planet. Jump into your car."

German Revolution?

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is reporting substantial electoral defeat by Schröder's Social Democrats, the German party of the left. The FAZ's own word for it is "debacle". They report, "The two dominant opposition parties - the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union - are not really interested in a quick change in government." They provide one key reason, that the opposition parties don't want to be saddled with Schröder's “Agenda 2010" in mid course of reform. I suspect they also would prefer to wait out the Iraqi situation a bit longer. Traditionally the Social Dems have been cool on America and the Christian Dems have been the America friedly party. That will be politically easier to pull off after soveriegnty is transfered in Iraq and things have been going well there. Just how Americophillic they will be will be an interesting thing to witness.

In fact, I would not be surprised if the future of politics in many parts of the world is that part of the differences in party result in a pro-America party or parties, and an anti-America party or parties. Its not unprecidented, but I suspect it will be the dominant paradigm, rather than Victor Davis Hanson's prediction that Europe is a lost cause.

How Timely

Recently, I argued that while many of us regarded the War on Terror to be the most important issue, I invented a conjectoral social conservative who was unhappy with the President, based on a caller to the Hugh Hewitt show. My point was, that just because we knew plenty of folks from the far right to the responsible center left (a catagory that includes Joe Lieberman and Bill Clinton) and on to a few like Christopher Hitchens who back the President because of the war on terror, doesn't mean there aren't folks who are unhappy because they prioritize differently.

Andrew Sullivan has added himself to those ranks. Glenn Reynolds mentioned his disagreements with the President, but supports him because the War on Terror is his priority. Arthur Chreknoff has done the same. But, for Sullivan, the priorities are different. I'm not going to attempt to arrange the three areas in priorty as Sullivan sees them, since I am not aware of a systematic approach to these iisues on his part. What I can say, based on his blog and and other statements, is that the domestic issues are very important to Sullivan, namely normalizing the the status of homosexuals in our society, and that this puts Sullivan squarely in opposition to Bush. In economic matters, Sullivan was not crazy about the tax cut and does lament the deficit. Sullivan clearly supports the War on Terror. Whatever support for the War Sullivan has, and on whatever economic issues he may find the President on solid ground, these are not sufficient to sustain his support for Bush. His priorities lead him to withdraw support for a president who he shares agreement with on other issues.

What's Wrong with Forks?

All silverware, but forks especially, suffer from a problem of balance. Too often the busy diner wants to move from here to there and so picks up their plate and the fork falls off. Especially bad are forks weighted in the handle. Too me this seems entirely backwards. When the time comes to utensilize some future kitchen, I will need to seek out a set of tableware which has addressed the problem.

separation of Powers

Those who have a strong commitment to a separation of powers in our society are often liable to support the principle broadly, favorite a divert of power centers in society, and so being suspicious of trusts or other combinations of power which would undermine the defense of liberty. My friends on the right would have no problem recognizing the problems inherent in the alliance of big media with one political party. For similar reasons, its troubling that some accomodationists would happily blur the line between church and state, or deny that the separation of church and state is intended by the 1st Amendment.

Its one thing to be even-handed but separate, its quite another to either attempt to purge religion or to ask the state to endorse religion. Purging religion is to arm the state with an ideological purpose, as is endorsing religion.

One the one hand there should be a concern about allowing the state to acquire power over the operation of churches or the ideas which they promulgate. If you want to see religion remain ideologically independent of the state position on controversial issues, separation benefits religion. Are cultural conservatives normally people who look at the state and say, I want more of that, and give me a double helping of bureaucratic inefficiency and multiple constituency inertia?

Religion, just like markets, flourish when the state gets out of the way. I don't want the state subsidizing steel or Catholicism, and I don't want burdensome regulations or interference which would deny us cherry tomatoes or evangelical outreach.

People are Short Term Optimizers

Professor Bainbridge has an interesting post on setting the economic sliders. I view the economy as governed by four sliders, much like the one that controls your computer's sound volume. As you move any slider the other three are affected. The sliders are productivity, equity, stability, and sustainability. At any given moment, a shift towards greater equity will tend to reduce the other sliders. Over the long term economists have learned how to increase the stability slider a bit while keeping the productivity slider pretty high. We call these Keynesianism and Monatarism.

Specifically, Bainbridge is talking about these choices in terms of corporate governance. In terms of my metaphore, he asks what effect on productivity is had when we try to slide the equity slider toward greater equity as a result of greater labor influence in corporate governance.

My own extended thought experiment in the effects of socialism, but more importantly the long term evidence suggests that a shift which increases equity and lowers productivity has long term consequences for sustainability and stability.

This reinforces the notion that humans are good short term optimizers (and sometimes they prefer to maximize) but that they are poor long term optimizers. They tend to be especially bad when the consequences of action is both temporally distant and indeterminate. Eating a proper diet involves certain short term costs (mostly of a transitional nature) but provides long term benefits. Since the benifit is deferred and the costs are front loaded, eating well (or quitting smoking, or wearing seatbelts) are difficult for humans to sustain. When the consequences are not only deffered but uncertain, they are especially hard to sustain.

So, given a choice between guiding a corporation towards shareholder wealth maximization or improving worker advantages now, workers tend to benefit their immediate selves, even at the cost of their long term selves.

As Jane Galt discusses (here and here) attempts to do both simultaneously. As Bainbridge noted, "my article presents a clear explanation of why some firms find employee involvement enhances productivity and, perhaps even more important, why it fails to do so in some firms." Putting aside the question of those who fail to navigate an increase to equity and productivity, just how real are the achievements of those who appear to achieve both. Galt asks, to what extent are these successes there result of a "stakeholder" model, and to what extent is the success based elsewhere, and the equity benefits are possible therefore?

This kind of situation is very complex and understudied, but I suspect it may well be possible to find combinations of equity benefits (broadly distributed rather than concentrated in stockholder an excecutive hands) and productivity benefits in our current (and future) enviroments.

In general, I would argue that there are minimum thresholds of stability, sustainability, and equity that are required at a given level of productivity, below which, productivity is harmed. Once they are met, any play left in the system can be allocated according to the values of the society setting the sliders. However, productivy has a tendency to produce benefits to the other catagories as it climbs.

This leads me to conclude that in general, the greatest benefits to the greatest number are realized when threshold levels of equity, stability, and sustainability are met and the rest of the play is put into productivity.

Airborne

My brother has caughed up four posts this month so far on his blog. He has, however, revealed that he plans to parachute for his 31st birthday.

Three factions in the Republican Party

I have long held that there are three factions in the Republican party, the social conservatives, the pro-business wing, and the hawks. Today, a few callers to the Hugh Hewitt show were complaining that Bush was spineless because he hadn't done much to advance a conservative social agenda. I called in and made the point that parties are collations, and that the president has opted to spend his efforts on the war on terror (foreign policy) and the recovery via the tax cut. As such, his domestic achievements had suffered. Aside from No Child Left Behind there have been no major policy initiatives.

Now I read in Power Line that the President is commanding a huge lead over Kerry on foreign policy and a substantial lead on the economy. Its as though where the President has made an effort, he has built a popular record. He has placed foreign policy as the top priority and has a huge lead. He has put the economy in second place, doing only enough to cut taxes substantially and release the productive power of the American people. As such, the deficit is left for later. Something of a compromise. People who are committed to some specific or to a broad conservative social agenda seem to be disappointed that the President hasn't been more active. I say the war on terror has crowded out initiatives the President would have taken otherwise.

Hugh responded that he has a forthcoming book on the subject and that he argues that we should measure success in terms of getting 75% for the reasons I have mentioned, rather that focusing on the lost 25% and lamenting failure.

I am interested in what Hugh will have to say on paper. If he means to say that 75% of the conservative agenda has been accomplished I demure and suggest that its more like half. If he means to include the idea that the liberal agenda has been halted at the Federal level during this administration, I will concur.

Let's take a domestic issue, one that the caller raised, gun rights. The President has done nothing to advance the cause of responsible gun ownership by repealing some of the silly Clinton era laws. He has however allowed some to lapse, and certainly not considered any new limitations. Is the glass half full - no move to the left on guns? Or is the glass half empty - no move to the right on guns?

For a guy like me, who considers foreign policy to be the most important issue for a president, who puts economic issues second, and who further more would probably have problems with Bush's social agenda, I feel like I am getting 90-95% of what I want. Aside from the deficit, I'm totally a happy camper.

For a fellow who puts social issues first, economics second, and like me in reverse is not happy with Bush's foreign policy agenda (lets call him a Buchananite in FP), he's getting very little indeed.

I can swallow the deficit and celebrate the tax cut because I'm getting what I want in foreign policy and can ignore Bush's stand on church-state issues, his gay amendment, and some other troubling policies because its mostly talk. For the other guy in my example, who just sees talk in the domestic arena, who doesn't like the President's FP, he cannot swallow the deficit, but rather ends up writing off the tax cut as the only good thing Bush has done.

All I can say to such a fellow, however, is that Bush was your man before 9-11, but he's mine now. Whether you can have him back in a second term is up for grabs.

Note: As anyone who has ever called a talk show might recognize, my phone comments were brief, and my description of them here are elaborated, a benefit of this forum.

Iraqi Trial of Saddam

The way some people are discussing what constitutes a fair trial for Saddam Hussain leaves something to be desired. The question is one of establishing what he really did, and finding a fair punishment. No fair trial would not find him guilty. Its guilty of what, that is the question, and what do we do about it.

Wolfowitz in the WSJ

He outlines policy nicely on Iraq, covering the President's five point plan.

The End is Nie

My brother has seen The Day After Tomorrow and has reviewed it. So, it turns out has Matt Welch. He writes, "Utter horseshit, but damned entertaining."

Which is the Progressive Party?

Reading Roger Simon's post on "Did I leave the left or did the left leave me?" and subsequent comments. A long back and forth takes place as the notion of possitive social change and an adhearance to the status quo is discussed. Most conclude that both parties have on various occassions taken both roles. As someone who worries about the influence of the South on Republican politics, I am heartened to read this comment: "One could argue (as my own Democrat Father does) that the South has become more progressive the more Republican it has become." This means that the old Dixiecrat preservation of the status quo is not a Southern quality which transends party, but something that is being shed just as hostility to the party of Lincoln has.

Highway Follies

Almost three weeks ago I linked to Virginia Postrel's NYT article on highway spending. There has been some back and forth over at the Dynamist on this topic. First, a reader suspects some highways statistics are inflated and unsupportable by methodology. A Senior Staff Economist in the FHWA Office of Policy replies and defends the figure that one billion dollars in spending creates 48,000 jobs. VP remains dubious: "It still doesn't pass the smell test." A few more thoughts by VP on how a great deal of this road spending is "low-value roads with porkbarrel appeal. It also subsidizes neighborhood amenities." Road spending isn't aimed to be effecient expenditure, economically stimulating, but rather is its about political spending to bring dollars back to the district. She continues in a sequential post on how the assumption behind the 48,000 per billion statistic assumes Keynesian disequilibrium of Great Depression proportions.

Are you in an echo chamber?

Too many people are, and here is more evidence. Daniel Drenzer links to a prose stylist who has gone over the Marxist academic cliff. Chun the Unavoidable has mixed feelings about his anthropological discovery of a rare specimen (or so it is supposed), an alleged supporter of, "the President without having an obvious financial interest at stake." As the specimen, Sissy Willis, responds, "We were reminded, of course, of Pauline Kael's reaction to Richard Nixon's landslide presidential victory over George McGovern in 1972: 'How can that be?' she supposedly said. 'No one I know voted for Nixon.'"

Chun the Unavoidable has seemed to avoid a large segment of the population, given the number of people who voted for W. And I wouldn't be surprised if they were avoiding him too. As Virginia Postrel pointed out some time ago, people like it that way. People are congregating more and more with the like-minded. She notes, "The danger, of course, is that people will believe the stereotypes of their political opposites, because they don't actually know anyone on the opposite side of the red-blue divide."

The most interesting people to talk to and to read are those who are dealing with engagement (not neccesarily agreement) across their own boundaries. If you don't talk to and read what other people have to say, people with different assumptions, values, and goals, you are wearing a set of blinders.

The Outsourcing Bogeyman

This is the title of Daniel Drezner's article in Foreign Affairs on this hot election year topic. The heart of the matter is here: "The benefits of such free trade -- to both consumers and producers -- are significant. Cushioning this process for displaced workers makes sense. Resorting to protectionism to halt the process, however, is a recipe for decline."

Condorcet voting method

I came across something interesting on the web this morning. A method of voting advocated during the late eighteenth century by the marquis de Condorcet, the enlightenment mathematician and economist. I am familiar with his economic theories (we slight Condorcet in favor of Adam Smith, but in fact, both are founders of capitalism). In 1785, Condorcet wrote the Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Majority Decisions, which I had seen refereced, but never described. Here is a nice website on the Condorcet Method. Here is the wikipedia version.

I had always had a soft spot for Condorcet because of his economic ideas, his social ideas, and because I am generally partial to enlightenment figures, but here is another thing to weigh in favor of him.

As someone who laments the way winner take all eliminates the possibility of any escape from the two-party system, as well as the seemingly unresolvable problems of campaign finance reform, the Condorcet method seems quite interesting.

Cosby chastizes those poor parents in the Black community

This story seems to be ignored for the most part by major media out of concern for the minefield that accompanies issues of race. Matt Rosenberg covers it in NRO.

Shattered Glass

The movie is out on home format now, so I rented the DVD, watched the 60 Minutes interview, watched the movie, and watched the movie again with the commentary provided by the screenwriter/director and Charles Lane, who was a writer then the editor during the period of Glass' ficturnalism. Afterwards I went to the web to read the original Forbes coverage. This is Kambiz Foroohar's analysis written at the time. The movie makes him the editor of Forbes Online (which may well be accurate, but movies take liberties). This is Adam L. Penenberg's article on the New Republic piece which brought Glass down. As portrayed in the movie, Forbes is irked that they were scooped, and sets out to write a companion piece with a bit more meat for their business oriented readers. When they look at the story it comes apart in their hands. This is Penenberg's article on the Forbes revelation that the TNR story was no good.

I ended up at the Daily Standard's take, written by Jonathan V. Last. Last is not a sympathetic reviewer, because, I suspect he differs with TNR politically. While he points to all manner of charges against Glass from the Correspondence pages, I'd need to go back and read more of the correspondence to draw form conclusions about how telling these Last prints are. For myself, I would not be surprised if TNR doesn't find charges made by the college RNC, the American Conservative Union, and other similar groups to be disinterested. My old TNR's are in a box and I'll have to get them out at some point and take a look. I have seen some articles in TNR and other places generate heated correspondence, but as Last points out, its not one or even a few pieces that raise eyebrows, some issues are controversial, its that Glass had an unusual amount.

Its a interesting story. The movie was well done, neither sensational nor tedious. The actors were well chosen and interesting choices. I particularly enjoyed seeing Hank Azaria and Steve Zahn playing dramatic roles.

Swingers at Slate

Slate has a new feature on swing states, and its first example is Missouri. Show me!