A city-journal.org article on climate change by Guy Sorman.
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We’ve all come across the images of polar bears drifting on ice floes: emblematic victims of the global warming that’s melting the polar ice caps, symbols of the threat to the earth posed by our ceaseless energy production—above all, the carbon dioxide that factories and automobiles emit. We hear louder and louder demands to impose limits, to change our wasteful ways, so as to save not only the bears but also the planet and ourselves.
In political discourse and in the media, major storms and floods typically get presented as signs of impending doom, accompanied by invocations to the environment and calls to respect Mother Nature. Only catastrophes seem to grab our attention, though, and it’s rarely mentioned that warming would also bring some benefits, such as expanded production of grains in previously frozen regions of Canada and Russia. Nor do we hear that people die more often of cold weather than of hot weather. Isolated voices criticize the alarm over global warming, considering it a pseudoscientific thesis, the true aim of which is to thwart economic modernization and free-market growth and to extend the power of states over individual choices.
Not being a climatologist myself, I’ve always had trouble deciding between these arguments. And then I met Judith Curry at her home in Reno, Nevada. Curry is a true climatologist. She once headed the department of earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, until she gave up on the academy so that she could express herself independently. “Independence of mind and climatology have become incompatible,” she says. Do you mean that global warming isn’t real? I ask. “There is warming, but we don’t really understand its causes,” she says. “The human factor and carbon dioxide, in particular, contribute to warming, but how much is the subject of intense scientific debate.”
Curry is a scholar, not a pundit. Unlike many political and journalistic oracles, she never opines without proof. And she has data at her command. She tells me, for example, that between 1910 and 1940, the planet warmed during a climatic episode that resembles our own, down to the degree. The warming can’t be blamed on industry, she argues, because back then, most of the carbon-dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels were small. In fact, Curry says, “almost half of the warming observed in the twentieth century came about in the first half of the century, before carbon-dioxide emissions became large.” Natural factors thus had to be the cause. None of the climate models used by scientists now working for the United Nations can explain this older trend. Nor can these models explain why the climate suddenly cooled between 1950 and 1970, giving rise to widespread warnings about the onset of a new ice age. I recall magazine covers of the late 1960s or early 1970s depicting the planet in the grip of an annihilating deep freeze. According to a group of scientists, we faced an apocalyptic environmental scenario—but the opposite of the current one.
But aren’t oceans rising today, I counter, eroding shorelines and threatening to flood lower-lying population centers and entire inhabited islands? “Yes,” Curry replies. “Sea level is rising, but this has been gradually happening since the 1860s; we don’t yet observe any significant acceleration of this process in our time.” Here again, one must consider the possibility that the causes for rising sea levels are partly or mostly natural, which isn’t surprising, says Curry, for “climate change is a complex and poorly understood phenomenon, with so many processes involved.” To blame human-emitted carbon dioxide entirely may not be scientific, she continues, but “some find it reassuring to believe that we have mastered the subject.” She says that “nothing upsets many scientists like uncertainty.”
This brings us to why Curry left the world of the academy and government-funded research. “Climatology has become a political party with totalitarian tendencies,” she charges. “If you don’t support the UN consensus on human-caused global warming, if you express the slightest skepticism, you are a ‘climate-change denier,’ a stooge of Donald Trump, a quasi-fascist who must be banned from the scientific community.” These days, the climatology mainstream accepts only data that reinforce its hypothesis that humanity is behind global warming. Those daring to take an interest in possible natural causes of climactic variation—such as solar shifts or the earth’s oscillations—aren’t well regarded in the scientific community, to put it mildly. The rhetoric of the alarmists, it’s worth noting, has increasingly moved from “global warming” to “climate change,” which can mean anything. That shift got its start back in 1992, when the UN widened its range of environmental concern to include every change that human activities might be causing in nature, casting a net so wide that few human actions could escape it.
Scientific research should be based on skepticism, on the constant reconsideration of accepted ideas: at least, this is what I learned from my mentor, the ultimate scientific philosopher of our time, Karl Popper. What could lead climate scientists to betray the very essence of their calling? The answer, Curry contends: “politics, money, and fame.” Scientists are human beings, with human motives; nowadays, public funding, scientific awards, and academic promotions go to the environmentally correct. Among climatologists, Curry explains, “a person must not like capitalism or industrial development too much and should favor world government, rather than nations”; think differently, and you’ll find yourself ostracized. “Climatology is becoming an increasingly dubious science, serving a political project,” she complains. In other words, “the policy cart is leading the scientific horse.”
This has long been true in environmental science, she points out. The global warming controversy began back in 1973, during the Gulf oil embargo, which unleashed fear, especially in the United States, that the supply of petroleum would run out. The nuclear industry, Curry says, took advantage of the situation to make its case for nuclear energy as the best alternative, and it began to subsidize ecological movements hostile to coal and oil, which it has been doing ever since. The warming narrative was born.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration played a role in the propagation of that narrative. Having ended its lunar expeditions, NASA was looking for a new mission, so it built some provisional climate models that focused primarily on carbon dioxide, because this is an easy factor to single out and “because it is subject to human control,” observes Curry. Even though it is just one among many factors that cause climate variations, carbon dioxide increasingly became the villain. Bureaucratic forces at the UN that promote global governance—by the UN, needless to say—got behind this line of research. Then the scientists were called upon and given incentives to prove that such a political project was scientifically necessary, recalls Curry. The UN founded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 to push this agenda, and ever since, climatologists—an increasingly visible and thriving group—have embraced the faith.
In 2005, I had a conversation with Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian railway engineer, who remade himself into a climatologist and became director of the IPCC, which received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize under his tenure. Pachauri told me, without embarrassment, that, at the UN, he recruited only climatologists convinced of the carbon-dioxide warming explanation, excluding all others. This extraordinary collusion today allows politicians and commentators to declare that “science says that” carbon dioxide is to blame for global warming, or that a “scientific consensus” exists on warming, implying that no further study is needed—something that makes zero sense on its face, as scientific research is not based on consensus but on contradictory views.
Curry is skeptical about any positive results that might follow from environmental treaties—above all, the 2016 Paris Climate Accord. By the accord’s terms, the signatory nations—not including the United States, which has withdrawn from the pact—have committed themselves to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in order to stabilize the planet’s temperature at roughly its present level. Yet as Curry elaborates, even if all the states respected this commitment—an unlikely prospect—the temperature reduction in 2100 would be an insignificant two-tenths of a degree. And this assumes that climate-model predictions are correct. If there is less future warming than projected, the temperature reductions from limiting emissions would be even smaller.
Since the Paris Climate Accord was concluded, no government has followed through with any serious action. The U.S. pullout is hardly the only problem; India is effectively ignoring the agreement, and France “misses its goals of greenhouse-gas reduction every year,” admits Nicolas Hulot, the French environmental activist and former minister for President Emmanuel Macron. The accord is unenforceable and carries no sanctions—a condition insisted upon by many governments that wouldn’t have signed on otherwise. We continue to live in a contradictory reality: on the one hand, we hear that nothing threatens humanity as much as rising atmospheric carbon dioxide; on the other hand, nothing much happens practically to address this allegedly dire threat. Most economists suggest that the only effective incentive to reduce greenhouse-gas levels would be to impose a global carbon tax. No government seems willing to accept such a levy.
Is there an apocalyptic warming crisis, or not? “We’re always being told that we are reaching a point of no return—that, for instance, the melting of the Arctic ice pack is the beginning of the apocalypse,” Curry says. “But this melting, which started decades ago, is not leading to catastrophe.” Polar bears themselves adapt and move elsewhere and have never been more numerous; they’re less threatened by the melting, she says, than by urbanization and economic development in the polar region. Over the last year or so, moreover, the planet has started cooling, though “no one knows whether it will last or not, or whether it will put all the global-warming hypotheses in question.” According to Curry, the truly dramatic rupture of the ice pack would come not from global-warming-induced melting but from “volcanic eruptions in the Antarctic region that would break up the ice, and these cannot be predicted.” Climatologists don’t talk about such eruptions because their theoretical models can’t account for the unpredictable.
Does Curry recommend passivity, then? Not at all. In her view, research should be diversified to encompass study of the natural causes of climate change and not focus so obsessively on the human factor. She also believes that, instead of wasting time on futile treaties and in sterile quarrels, we would do better to prepare ourselves for the consequences of climate change, whether it’s warming or something else. Despite outcries about the proliferation of extreme weather incidents, she points out, hurricanes usually do less damage today than in the past because warning systems and evacuation planning have improved. That suggests the right approach.
Curry’s pragmatism may not win acclaim in environmentalist circles or among liberal pundits, though no one effectively contests the validity of her research or rebuts the data that she cites about an exceedingly complex reality. But then, neither reality nor complexity mobilizes passions as much as myths do, which is why Judith Curry’s work is so important today. She is a myth-buster.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Monday, October 28, 2019
The rush to nullify the First Amendment
Here is a column by Jonathan Turley.
JT is on target.
We are rapidly losing our ability to speak freely.
________________________________________
For people fearful of the power of companies like Facebook and Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg is right out of central casting. A Silicon Valley billionaire with an androidish demeanor, he comes across as more machine than man in responding to politicians on Capitol Hill who, at times, appear on the verge of hysterics over the supposed “lies” of their opponents.
With the House Financial Services Committee hearing this past week, Democrats and the media condemned Zuckerberg and his refusal to put a stop to false political ads. As unpopular as it may be, however, Zuckerberg is right that what members are demanding from Facebook is censorship and, if allowed, it would create a dangerous regulation of free speech. Indeed, the scariest thing to come out of the hearing, besides the relative silence of civil liberties and free speech groups, is that Zuckerberg may be one of the last barriers to a system of political censorship in America.
Watching the cable news coverage of the hearing, you sensed the rising revulsion on some networks over his refusal to promise to review and regulate political ads for alleged lies. Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York made regulating political speech sound noble and obvious by demanding, “So you will not take down lies or you will take down lies? I think that is just a pretty simple yes or no.” The answer, if you believe in free speech, is a simple no. Media hosts and writers expressed disbelief that Zuckerburg would allow lies to pervade the 2020 election, and Ocasio Cortez was heralded for “schooling” and “dismantling” him.
I have written for years about the erosion of free speech in Western democracies, particularly in Britain, France, and Germany. Governments now regulate political speech and prosecute those deemed to engage in hate speech or false speech. In the United States, calls for greater speech regulation are growing on college campuses all across the country and in media outlets, both once the bastions of free speech.
On college campuses, conservative or controversial speakers are routinely prevented from participating in discussions. A controversy at the Harvard Crimson newspaper is illustrative of this trend. The student newspaper was completing a story on immigration issues and protests. The reporter did what any responsible journalist would do and asked the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for a response. That request triggered a furious counterprotest. It was not the content of the comment that sparked it, but the mere solicitation of comment from the agency.
University of Pennsylvania students recently prevented a discussion with former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas Homan. Georgetown University students prevented others from discussing immigration policy with Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan. No action was taken by the college against the students. Northwestern University students stopped a class from discussing policy with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement representative after the class heard from an undocumented person. Student April Navarro rejected the right of the professor to have a “nice conversation” about the agency. Again, no action was taken by the college against the students.
The House hearing with Zuckerberg revealed what House Democrats want to create, which is a system where companies can block political ads deemed false. Of course, reasonable minds can disagree on what is false in politics. But history shows that once this power is given to regulate speech, the appetite for censorship then becomes insatiable.
An insight can be found in the work of the British Advertising Standards Authority. Established to weed out gender and racial stereotypes and other social ills in advertising, the authority has set about its task with humorless zeal and recently banned commercials for Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Volkswagen. The first showed men so lost in enjoying the cream cheese that they leave their babies on a conveyor belt.
The fact that it was a joke did not matter since, as Ella Smillie of the agency explained, “The use of humor or banter is unlikely to mitigate against the potential for harm.” The commercial was spiked for implicating that women are better at child care. The Volkswagen commercial was taken down for having images of male astronauts and hikers along with a brief shot of a woman with a baby. Clearly, Volkswagen was saying that women cannot be astronauts or hikers.
Americans have long resisted such boards or authorities. Yet Democrats are using Russian internet trolling operations and presidential tweets to make another play for speech regulation. Would Ocasio Cortez feel the same way about Facebook banning an ad featuring her false assertion that the “vast majority” of Americans do not make a “living wage”? Or her false assertion that Walmart and Amazon do not pay minimum wages? Or how about her false assertion that most of “Medicare for All” could be paid for by simply recouping $21 trillion lost due to “Pentagon errors”?
Then there is Representative Adam Schiff using a House hearing to give a false account of the transcript of the call between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart. The Washington Post itself found repeated misrepresentations in his speech. While assuring the public that this was the “essence” of the transcript, he proceeded to falsely speak in the voice of Trump as he read, “I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you though. I am going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent. Understand? Lots of it, on this and on that.” It clearly was false, designed to enrage.
But where does Facebook stop? Trump offers troubling descriptions of undocumented persons, while Hillary Clinton has hinted at Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii being a “Russian asset.” Then there are contested descriptions of climate change on both sides. One can imagine constant demands from groups to take down ads as factually misleading, a more sophisticated version of the shout downs on college campus.
There is an alternative to the kind of political commissar demanded by Ocasio Cortez and others. It is free speech. Zuckerberg correctly stated that plenty of third parties currently review and contest false political statements. He would leave political speech to politics. Facebook already engages in too much content regulation of sites and postings. Yet that is still not enough for many House members, who want to decide when and how individuals and groups can speak out in the political arena.
The truly insidious aspect of this effort by those on the left is that they are dressing up censorship as the protection of democracy to try to convince citizens to give up core free speech protections. In the silence that would follow, few would be able to object. After all, the censors could merely treat censorship objections as simply more “lies” to take down.
JT is on target.
We are rapidly losing our ability to speak freely.
________________________________________
For people fearful of the power of companies like Facebook and Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg is right out of central casting. A Silicon Valley billionaire with an androidish demeanor, he comes across as more machine than man in responding to politicians on Capitol Hill who, at times, appear on the verge of hysterics over the supposed “lies” of their opponents.
With the House Financial Services Committee hearing this past week, Democrats and the media condemned Zuckerberg and his refusal to put a stop to false political ads. As unpopular as it may be, however, Zuckerberg is right that what members are demanding from Facebook is censorship and, if allowed, it would create a dangerous regulation of free speech. Indeed, the scariest thing to come out of the hearing, besides the relative silence of civil liberties and free speech groups, is that Zuckerberg may be one of the last barriers to a system of political censorship in America.
Watching the cable news coverage of the hearing, you sensed the rising revulsion on some networks over his refusal to promise to review and regulate political ads for alleged lies. Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York made regulating political speech sound noble and obvious by demanding, “So you will not take down lies or you will take down lies? I think that is just a pretty simple yes or no.” The answer, if you believe in free speech, is a simple no. Media hosts and writers expressed disbelief that Zuckerburg would allow lies to pervade the 2020 election, and Ocasio Cortez was heralded for “schooling” and “dismantling” him.
I have written for years about the erosion of free speech in Western democracies, particularly in Britain, France, and Germany. Governments now regulate political speech and prosecute those deemed to engage in hate speech or false speech. In the United States, calls for greater speech regulation are growing on college campuses all across the country and in media outlets, both once the bastions of free speech.
On college campuses, conservative or controversial speakers are routinely prevented from participating in discussions. A controversy at the Harvard Crimson newspaper is illustrative of this trend. The student newspaper was completing a story on immigration issues and protests. The reporter did what any responsible journalist would do and asked the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for a response. That request triggered a furious counterprotest. It was not the content of the comment that sparked it, but the mere solicitation of comment from the agency.
University of Pennsylvania students recently prevented a discussion with former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas Homan. Georgetown University students prevented others from discussing immigration policy with Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan. No action was taken by the college against the students. Northwestern University students stopped a class from discussing policy with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement representative after the class heard from an undocumented person. Student April Navarro rejected the right of the professor to have a “nice conversation” about the agency. Again, no action was taken by the college against the students.
The House hearing with Zuckerberg revealed what House Democrats want to create, which is a system where companies can block political ads deemed false. Of course, reasonable minds can disagree on what is false in politics. But history shows that once this power is given to regulate speech, the appetite for censorship then becomes insatiable.
An insight can be found in the work of the British Advertising Standards Authority. Established to weed out gender and racial stereotypes and other social ills in advertising, the authority has set about its task with humorless zeal and recently banned commercials for Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Volkswagen. The first showed men so lost in enjoying the cream cheese that they leave their babies on a conveyor belt.
The fact that it was a joke did not matter since, as Ella Smillie of the agency explained, “The use of humor or banter is unlikely to mitigate against the potential for harm.” The commercial was spiked for implicating that women are better at child care. The Volkswagen commercial was taken down for having images of male astronauts and hikers along with a brief shot of a woman with a baby. Clearly, Volkswagen was saying that women cannot be astronauts or hikers.
Americans have long resisted such boards or authorities. Yet Democrats are using Russian internet trolling operations and presidential tweets to make another play for speech regulation. Would Ocasio Cortez feel the same way about Facebook banning an ad featuring her false assertion that the “vast majority” of Americans do not make a “living wage”? Or her false assertion that Walmart and Amazon do not pay minimum wages? Or how about her false assertion that most of “Medicare for All” could be paid for by simply recouping $21 trillion lost due to “Pentagon errors”?
Then there is Representative Adam Schiff using a House hearing to give a false account of the transcript of the call between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart. The Washington Post itself found repeated misrepresentations in his speech. While assuring the public that this was the “essence” of the transcript, he proceeded to falsely speak in the voice of Trump as he read, “I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you though. I am going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent. Understand? Lots of it, on this and on that.” It clearly was false, designed to enrage.
But where does Facebook stop? Trump offers troubling descriptions of undocumented persons, while Hillary Clinton has hinted at Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii being a “Russian asset.” Then there are contested descriptions of climate change on both sides. One can imagine constant demands from groups to take down ads as factually misleading, a more sophisticated version of the shout downs on college campus.
There is an alternative to the kind of political commissar demanded by Ocasio Cortez and others. It is free speech. Zuckerberg correctly stated that plenty of third parties currently review and contest false political statements. He would leave political speech to politics. Facebook already engages in too much content regulation of sites and postings. Yet that is still not enough for many House members, who want to decide when and how individuals and groups can speak out in the political arena.
The truly insidious aspect of this effort by those on the left is that they are dressing up censorship as the protection of democracy to try to convince citizens to give up core free speech protections. In the silence that would follow, few would be able to object. After all, the censors could merely treat censorship objections as simply more “lies” to take down.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Saturday, October 26, 2019
How government and do-gooders killed millions
Ed Regis in Forbes.
ER is on target but forgets to examine all the tradeoffs, including the impact of increasing the population density in impoverished countries.
The moral of the story is Governments and do-gooders almost always cause needless death and inefficiency.
----------------------------------------
The cover of the July 31, 2000, edition of Time magazine pictured a serious-looking bearded man surrounded by a wall of greenery: the stems, leaves, and stalks of rice plants. The caption, in large block lettering, read, “This rice could save a million kids a year.”
The man in question was Ingo Potrykus, a professor of plant sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, where Albert Einstein had studied and taught. The rice plants around him, although the joint products of many minds and hands, had been largely inspired by him. Their kernels were not the usual plain white grains of rice. Instead, they had a distinct golden hue, the color of daffodils. When spread out on a black surface, they looked like nothing so much as tiny yellow gemstones.
This was Golden Rice, the fruit of nine years of research, experimentation, and development. The “gold” was in fact beta carotene, a substance that is converted into vitamin A in the human body. Conventional rice plants already contained beta carotene, but only in their leaves and stems, not in the kernels. Golden Rice also carries the substance in the part of the plant that people eat. This small change made Golden Rice into a miracle of nutrition: The rice could combat vitamin A deficiency in areas of the world where the condition is endemic and could, thereby, “save a million kids a year.”
Vitamin A deficiency is practically unknown in the Western world, where people take multivitamins or get sufficient micronutrients from ordinary foods, fortified cereals, and the like. But it is a life-and-death matter for people in developing countries. Lack of vitamin A is responsible for a million deaths annually, most of them children, plus an additional 500,000 cases of blindness. In Bangladesh, China, India, and elsewhere in Asia, many children subsist on a few bowls of rice a day and almost nothing else. For them, a daily supply of Golden Rice could bring the gift of life and sight.
The superfood thus seemed to have everything going for it: It would be the basis for a sea change in public health among the world’s poorest people. It would be cheap to grow and indefinitely sustainable, because low-income farmers could save the seeds from any given harvest and plant them the following season, without purchasing them anew.
But in the 20 years since it was created, Golden Rice has not been made available to those for whom it was intended.
For one, Golden Rice is a genetically modified organism, and as such is weighed down with all the political, ideological, and emotional baggage that has come to be associated with GMOs—stultifying government overregulation, fear and hostility, and criticism (much of it unfounded) from environmentalist and other activist organizations and individuals. Greenpeace, for one, was especially vocal in its condemnation of genetically engineered foods, Golden Rice in particular.
To many, this protracted delay has been unconscionable, and it brought forth reactions as extreme as the hyperbolic claims made by GMO opponents. In 2016, for example, George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, said in an interview with the science publication Edge:
Golden Rice was a tough call strategically for Greenpeace and some of their associates. … A million lives are at stake every year due to vitamin A deficiency, and Golden Rice was basically ready for use in 2002, so it’s been thirteen years that it’s been ready. Every year that you delay it, that’s another million people dead. That’s mass murder on a high scale. In fact, as I understand it there is an effort to bring them to trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity. Maybe that’s justified, maybe it isn’t.
Much of the pro-Golden Rice backlash was overstatement, too. For one thing, it is doubtful that Golden Rice was “ready,” in any but the most technical sense, in 2002. Indeed, some critics would argue that as a proven, viable, agricultural commodity, it is not yet ready even today. Still, the fact is that the crop has been grown, and grown successfully, first in laboratories, then in greenhouses, and finally in open fields since it was invented. The rice has also been subjected to safety studies—toxicity and allergenicity studies—and studies on human consumption, including among American adults and Chinese children. These have found it to be more effective in providing vitamin A than spinach and almost as effective as pure beta carotene oil itself.
So what really happened? Extremist opposition, protests, rhetoric, and even vandalism did not, by themselves, have the power to stop Golden Rice in its tracks or even to substantially hamper the pace of its development. Indeed, the delay may come down to a variety of other, less obvious, factors.
The first source of delay was simply the scientific and technological difficulty of inventing a new crop type, one that was nutritionally enhanced by molecular methods to express beta carotene in a part of the rice plant that did not normally do so. The tasks of genetically engineering a new metabolic pathway in the plant, getting the plant to express the desired trait at the most beneficial levels of concentration, and then transferring that newly engineered trait into several different varieties of rice successfully—all of these things were, at the time, new, untried, and unproven technologies.
The second cause was the fact that plants themselves are recalcitrant experimental subjects: They grow only so fast and no faster, and the cycle of germination, maturation, and seed production is a process that can’t really be sped up. However, this same process can easily be slowed down, or even terminated, by a variety of causes such as disease; insect attack; natural disasters and weather events including floods, frosts, heat waves, and droughts; vandalism; or simple human misjudgment or mishandling.
But it was something else altogether that had the greatest power to impede the development of Golden Rice, and that was government regulation. That power resided in a complex set of operational guidelines, restrictions, and requirements that created enormous obstacles for the Golden Rice scientists to overcome. Governments imposed these constraints in the name of safety; chiefly responsible for these restrictions is an international treaty known as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and its highly controversial Principle 15, otherwise known as the “precautionary principle.”
ER is on target but forgets to examine all the tradeoffs, including the impact of increasing the population density in impoverished countries.
The moral of the story is Governments and do-gooders almost always cause needless death and inefficiency.
----------------------------------------
The cover of the July 31, 2000, edition of Time magazine pictured a serious-looking bearded man surrounded by a wall of greenery: the stems, leaves, and stalks of rice plants. The caption, in large block lettering, read, “This rice could save a million kids a year.”
The man in question was Ingo Potrykus, a professor of plant sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, where Albert Einstein had studied and taught. The rice plants around him, although the joint products of many minds and hands, had been largely inspired by him. Their kernels were not the usual plain white grains of rice. Instead, they had a distinct golden hue, the color of daffodils. When spread out on a black surface, they looked like nothing so much as tiny yellow gemstones.
This was Golden Rice, the fruit of nine years of research, experimentation, and development. The “gold” was in fact beta carotene, a substance that is converted into vitamin A in the human body. Conventional rice plants already contained beta carotene, but only in their leaves and stems, not in the kernels. Golden Rice also carries the substance in the part of the plant that people eat. This small change made Golden Rice into a miracle of nutrition: The rice could combat vitamin A deficiency in areas of the world where the condition is endemic and could, thereby, “save a million kids a year.”
Vitamin A deficiency is practically unknown in the Western world, where people take multivitamins or get sufficient micronutrients from ordinary foods, fortified cereals, and the like. But it is a life-and-death matter for people in developing countries. Lack of vitamin A is responsible for a million deaths annually, most of them children, plus an additional 500,000 cases of blindness. In Bangladesh, China, India, and elsewhere in Asia, many children subsist on a few bowls of rice a day and almost nothing else. For them, a daily supply of Golden Rice could bring the gift of life and sight.
The superfood thus seemed to have everything going for it: It would be the basis for a sea change in public health among the world’s poorest people. It would be cheap to grow and indefinitely sustainable, because low-income farmers could save the seeds from any given harvest and plant them the following season, without purchasing them anew.
But in the 20 years since it was created, Golden Rice has not been made available to those for whom it was intended.
For one, Golden Rice is a genetically modified organism, and as such is weighed down with all the political, ideological, and emotional baggage that has come to be associated with GMOs—stultifying government overregulation, fear and hostility, and criticism (much of it unfounded) from environmentalist and other activist organizations and individuals. Greenpeace, for one, was especially vocal in its condemnation of genetically engineered foods, Golden Rice in particular.
To many, this protracted delay has been unconscionable, and it brought forth reactions as extreme as the hyperbolic claims made by GMO opponents. In 2016, for example, George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, said in an interview with the science publication Edge:
Golden Rice was a tough call strategically for Greenpeace and some of their associates. … A million lives are at stake every year due to vitamin A deficiency, and Golden Rice was basically ready for use in 2002, so it’s been thirteen years that it’s been ready. Every year that you delay it, that’s another million people dead. That’s mass murder on a high scale. In fact, as I understand it there is an effort to bring them to trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity. Maybe that’s justified, maybe it isn’t.
Much of the pro-Golden Rice backlash was overstatement, too. For one thing, it is doubtful that Golden Rice was “ready,” in any but the most technical sense, in 2002. Indeed, some critics would argue that as a proven, viable, agricultural commodity, it is not yet ready even today. Still, the fact is that the crop has been grown, and grown successfully, first in laboratories, then in greenhouses, and finally in open fields since it was invented. The rice has also been subjected to safety studies—toxicity and allergenicity studies—and studies on human consumption, including among American adults and Chinese children. These have found it to be more effective in providing vitamin A than spinach and almost as effective as pure beta carotene oil itself.
So what really happened? Extremist opposition, protests, rhetoric, and even vandalism did not, by themselves, have the power to stop Golden Rice in its tracks or even to substantially hamper the pace of its development. Indeed, the delay may come down to a variety of other, less obvious, factors.
The first source of delay was simply the scientific and technological difficulty of inventing a new crop type, one that was nutritionally enhanced by molecular methods to express beta carotene in a part of the rice plant that did not normally do so. The tasks of genetically engineering a new metabolic pathway in the plant, getting the plant to express the desired trait at the most beneficial levels of concentration, and then transferring that newly engineered trait into several different varieties of rice successfully—all of these things were, at the time, new, untried, and unproven technologies.
The second cause was the fact that plants themselves are recalcitrant experimental subjects: They grow only so fast and no faster, and the cycle of germination, maturation, and seed production is a process that can’t really be sped up. However, this same process can easily be slowed down, or even terminated, by a variety of causes such as disease; insect attack; natural disasters and weather events including floods, frosts, heat waves, and droughts; vandalism; or simple human misjudgment or mishandling.
But it was something else altogether that had the greatest power to impede the development of Golden Rice, and that was government regulation. That power resided in a complex set of operational guidelines, restrictions, and requirements that created enormous obstacles for the Golden Rice scientists to overcome. Governments imposed these constraints in the name of safety; chiefly responsible for these restrictions is an international treaty known as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and its highly controversial Principle 15, otherwise known as the “precautionary principle.”
Thursday, October 24, 2019
The risk of a takeover by socialists
Here is a column by Victor Davis Hanson.
VDH is on target.
If you are a socialist - you are ignorant and dangerous.
-----------------------------------------
"Socialist!" is no longer a McCarthyite slur.
Rather, the fresh celebrity "Squad" of newly elected identity-politics congresswomen -- Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) -- often either claim to be socialists or embrace socialist ideas. A recent Harris poll showed that about half of so-called millennials would like to live in a socialist country.
Five years ago, septuagenarian Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) was considered an irrelevant lone socialist in the U.S. Senate -- Vermont's trademark contribution to cranky quirkiness. But in 2016, Sanders' improbable Democratic primary run almost knocked off front-runner Hillary Clinton, even as socialist governments were either imploding or stagnating the world over.
After Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 general election, Sanders is back, running as a socialist warhorse, promising endless amounts of free stuff, with those promises suddenly being taken seriously.Sanders, like the members of the Squad, has limited political power. But the celebrity and social media influence of these new and retread socialists has been on the upswing -- especially in the current 21st-century climate of radical transformations in economic and political life.
Note the shock over Clinton's 2016 defeat, the furor directed at a take-no-prisoners Trump, and sudden progressive criticism of the Obama presidency as too temporizing, weak and ineffectual. And there are still other undercurrents that explain why currently socialism polls so well among young Americans.
College-educated Americans collectively owe an estimated $1.5 trillion in unpaid student loans. Many of these debtors despair of ever paying back the huge sums.
Cancelling debt is an ancient socialist rallying cry. Starting over with a clean slate appeals to those "oppressed" with college loans.
A force multiplier of debt is the realization that many students borrowed to focus on mostly irrelevant college majors. Such degrees usually offer few opportunities to find jobs high-paying enough to pay back staggering obligations.
Asymmetrical globalization over the last 30 years has created levels of wealth among the elite never envisioned in the history of civilization. In addition to these disparities, "free" but unfair trade, especially with China and to a lesser extent with the European Union, Japan and South Korea, hollowed out the interior of the United States, impoverishing and diluting the once-solid middle class. Warped free trade and Chinese buccaneerism, not free-market capitalism per se, impoverished millions of Americans.
Lots of young people claim to be socialists but are instead simply angry because they cannot afford a home, a new car or nice things in their "woke" urban neighborhoods.
Usually, Americans become more traditional, self-reliant and suspicious of big government as they age. Reasons for such conservatism have often included early marriage, child-raising, home ownership and residence in a suburb, small town or rural area.
Today's youth are generally marrying later. Most have few if any children. Twenty- and thirty-somethings are not buying homes as quickly or easily as in the past. They are concentrating in the urban centers of big- and medium-sized coastal blue cities such as Boston, New York, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle -- but often in dead-end jobs that pay them just enough to get by and enjoy the perks of cool life in the big city.
These are the ingredients for a culture that emphasizes the self, blames others for a sense of personal failure and wants instant social justice.
Finally, schools and colleges have replaced the empirical study of economics, history and politics with race, class and gender indoctrination.
Few young activists of the old Occupy Wall Street bunch, and few of the current violent Antifa street fighters, know the 20th century history of "socialists" who were actually hardcore communists. Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, Soviet Union strongman Joseph Stalin and Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong each killed millions of their own people.
Today's students romanticize Che Guevara and Fidel Castro because they are clueless about their bloody careers. The Castro government for over a half-century was responsible for the murders of thousands of Cubans and Latin Americans in efforts to solidify Cuban "socialism" throughout Latin America.
When our schools and colleges do not teach unbiased economics and history, then millions of youth have no idea why the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Japan became wealthy and stable by embracing free-market capitalism and constitutional government. Few learn why naturally rich nations such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela -- or entire regions such as Central America, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia -- have traditionally lagged far behind due to years of destructive central planning, socialist economics and coerced communist government.
The handmaiden of failed socialist regimes has always been ignorance of the past and present. And that is never truer than among today's American college-degreed (but otherwise economically and historically illiterate) youth.
VDH is on target.
If you are a socialist - you are ignorant and dangerous.
-----------------------------------------
"Socialist!" is no longer a McCarthyite slur.
Rather, the fresh celebrity "Squad" of newly elected identity-politics congresswomen -- Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) -- often either claim to be socialists or embrace socialist ideas. A recent Harris poll showed that about half of so-called millennials would like to live in a socialist country.
Five years ago, septuagenarian Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) was considered an irrelevant lone socialist in the U.S. Senate -- Vermont's trademark contribution to cranky quirkiness. But in 2016, Sanders' improbable Democratic primary run almost knocked off front-runner Hillary Clinton, even as socialist governments were either imploding or stagnating the world over.
After Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 general election, Sanders is back, running as a socialist warhorse, promising endless amounts of free stuff, with those promises suddenly being taken seriously.Sanders, like the members of the Squad, has limited political power. But the celebrity and social media influence of these new and retread socialists has been on the upswing -- especially in the current 21st-century climate of radical transformations in economic and political life.
Note the shock over Clinton's 2016 defeat, the furor directed at a take-no-prisoners Trump, and sudden progressive criticism of the Obama presidency as too temporizing, weak and ineffectual. And there are still other undercurrents that explain why currently socialism polls so well among young Americans.
College-educated Americans collectively owe an estimated $1.5 trillion in unpaid student loans. Many of these debtors despair of ever paying back the huge sums.
Cancelling debt is an ancient socialist rallying cry. Starting over with a clean slate appeals to those "oppressed" with college loans.
A force multiplier of debt is the realization that many students borrowed to focus on mostly irrelevant college majors. Such degrees usually offer few opportunities to find jobs high-paying enough to pay back staggering obligations.
Asymmetrical globalization over the last 30 years has created levels of wealth among the elite never envisioned in the history of civilization. In addition to these disparities, "free" but unfair trade, especially with China and to a lesser extent with the European Union, Japan and South Korea, hollowed out the interior of the United States, impoverishing and diluting the once-solid middle class. Warped free trade and Chinese buccaneerism, not free-market capitalism per se, impoverished millions of Americans.
Lots of young people claim to be socialists but are instead simply angry because they cannot afford a home, a new car or nice things in their "woke" urban neighborhoods.
Usually, Americans become more traditional, self-reliant and suspicious of big government as they age. Reasons for such conservatism have often included early marriage, child-raising, home ownership and residence in a suburb, small town or rural area.
Today's youth are generally marrying later. Most have few if any children. Twenty- and thirty-somethings are not buying homes as quickly or easily as in the past. They are concentrating in the urban centers of big- and medium-sized coastal blue cities such as Boston, New York, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle -- but often in dead-end jobs that pay them just enough to get by and enjoy the perks of cool life in the big city.
These are the ingredients for a culture that emphasizes the self, blames others for a sense of personal failure and wants instant social justice.
Finally, schools and colleges have replaced the empirical study of economics, history and politics with race, class and gender indoctrination.
Few young activists of the old Occupy Wall Street bunch, and few of the current violent Antifa street fighters, know the 20th century history of "socialists" who were actually hardcore communists. Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, Soviet Union strongman Joseph Stalin and Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong each killed millions of their own people.
Today's students romanticize Che Guevara and Fidel Castro because they are clueless about their bloody careers. The Castro government for over a half-century was responsible for the murders of thousands of Cubans and Latin Americans in efforts to solidify Cuban "socialism" throughout Latin America.
When our schools and colleges do not teach unbiased economics and history, then millions of youth have no idea why the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Japan became wealthy and stable by embracing free-market capitalism and constitutional government. Few learn why naturally rich nations such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela -- or entire regions such as Central America, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia -- have traditionally lagged far behind due to years of destructive central planning, socialist economics and coerced communist government.
The handmaiden of failed socialist regimes has always been ignorance of the past and present. And that is never truer than among today's American college-degreed (but otherwise economically and historically illiterate) youth.
Is America Entering a Dark Age?
Here is a column from Victor Davis Hanson.
VDH is on target. The United States is unlikely to be great again.
--------------------------------------
Many of the stories about the gods and heroes of Greek mythology were compiled during Greek Dark Ages. Impoverished tribes passed down oral traditions that originated after the fall of the lost palatial civilizations of the Mycenaean Greeks.
Dark Age Greeks tried to make sense of the massive ruins of their forgotten forbearers' monumental palaces that were still standing around. As illiterates, they were curious about occasional clay tablets they plowed up in their fields with incomprehensible ancient Linear B inscriptions.
We of the 21st century are beginning to look back at our own lost epic times and wonder about these now-nameless giants who left behind monuments that we cannot replicate, but instead merely use or even mock.
Does anyone believe that contemporary Americans could build another transcontinental railroad in six years?
Californians tried to build a high-speed rail line. But after more than a decade of government incompetence, lawsuits, cost overruns and constant bureaucratic squabbling, they have all but given up. The result is a half-built overpass over the skyline of Fresno -- and not yet a foot of track laid.
Who were those giants of the 1960s responsible for building our interstate highway system?
California's roads now are mostly the same as we inherited them, although the state population has tripled. We have added little to our freeway network, either because we forgot how to build good roads or would prefer to spend the money on redistributive entitlements.
When California had to replace a quarter section of the earthquake-damaged San Francisco Bay Bridge, it turned into a near-disaster, with 11 years of acrimony, fighting, cost overruns -- and a commentary on our decline into Dark Ages primitivism. Yet 82 years ago, our ancestors built four times the length of our singe replacement span in less than four years. It took them just two years to design the entire Bay Bridge and award the contracts.
Our generation required five years just to plan to replace a single section. In inflation-adjusted dollars, we spent six times the money on one quarter of the length of the bridge and required 13 agencies to grant approval. In 1936, just one agency oversaw the entire bridge project.
California has not built a major dam in 40 years. Instead, officials squabble over the water stored and distributed by our ancestors, who designed the California State Water Project and Central Valley Project.
Contemporary Californians would have little food or water without these massive transfers, and yet they often ignore or damn the generation that built the very system that saves us.
America went to the moon in 1969 with supposedly primitive computers and backward engineering. Does anyone believe we could launch a similar moonshot today? No American has set foot on the moon in the last 47 years, and it may not happen in the next 50 years.
Hollywood once gave us blockbuster epics, brilliant Westerns, great film noirs, and classic comedies. Now it endlessly turns out comic-book superhero films or pathetic remakes of prior classics.
Our writers, directors and actors have lost the skills of their ancestors. But they are also cowardly, and in regimented fashion they simply parrot boring race, class and gender bromides that are neither interesting nor funny. Does anyone believe that the Oscar ceremonies are more engaging and dignified than in the past?
We have been fighting in Afghanistan without result for 18 years. Our forefathers helped to win World War II and defeat the Axis Powers in four years.
In terms of learning, does anyone believe that a college graduate in 2020 will know half the information of a 1950 graduate?
In the 1940s, young people read William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pearl Buck and John Steinbeck. Are our current novelists turning out anything comparable? Could today's high-school graduate even finish "The Good Earth" or "The Grapes of Wrath"?
True, social media is impressive. The internet gives us instant access to global knowledge. We are a more tolerant society, at least in theory. But Facebook is not the Hoover Dam, and Twitter is not the Panama Canal.
Our ancestors were builders and pioneers and mostly fearless. We are regulators, auditors, bureaucrats, adjudicators, censors, critics, plaintiffs, defendants, social media junkies and thin-skinned scolds. A distant generation created; we mostly delay, idle and gripe.
As we walk amid the refuse, needles and excrement of the sidewalks of our fetid cities; as we sit motionless on our jammed ancient freeways; and as we pout on Twitter and electronically whine in the porticos of our Ivy League campuses, will we ask: "Who were these people who left these strange monuments that we use but can neither emulate nor understand?"
In comparison to us, they now seem like gods.
VDH is on target. The United States is unlikely to be great again.
--------------------------------------
Many of the stories about the gods and heroes of Greek mythology were compiled during Greek Dark Ages. Impoverished tribes passed down oral traditions that originated after the fall of the lost palatial civilizations of the Mycenaean Greeks.
Dark Age Greeks tried to make sense of the massive ruins of their forgotten forbearers' monumental palaces that were still standing around. As illiterates, they were curious about occasional clay tablets they plowed up in their fields with incomprehensible ancient Linear B inscriptions.
We of the 21st century are beginning to look back at our own lost epic times and wonder about these now-nameless giants who left behind monuments that we cannot replicate, but instead merely use or even mock.
Does anyone believe that contemporary Americans could build another transcontinental railroad in six years?
Californians tried to build a high-speed rail line. But after more than a decade of government incompetence, lawsuits, cost overruns and constant bureaucratic squabbling, they have all but given up. The result is a half-built overpass over the skyline of Fresno -- and not yet a foot of track laid.
Who were those giants of the 1960s responsible for building our interstate highway system?
California's roads now are mostly the same as we inherited them, although the state population has tripled. We have added little to our freeway network, either because we forgot how to build good roads or would prefer to spend the money on redistributive entitlements.
When California had to replace a quarter section of the earthquake-damaged San Francisco Bay Bridge, it turned into a near-disaster, with 11 years of acrimony, fighting, cost overruns -- and a commentary on our decline into Dark Ages primitivism. Yet 82 years ago, our ancestors built four times the length of our singe replacement span in less than four years. It took them just two years to design the entire Bay Bridge and award the contracts.
Our generation required five years just to plan to replace a single section. In inflation-adjusted dollars, we spent six times the money on one quarter of the length of the bridge and required 13 agencies to grant approval. In 1936, just one agency oversaw the entire bridge project.
California has not built a major dam in 40 years. Instead, officials squabble over the water stored and distributed by our ancestors, who designed the California State Water Project and Central Valley Project.
Contemporary Californians would have little food or water without these massive transfers, and yet they often ignore or damn the generation that built the very system that saves us.
America went to the moon in 1969 with supposedly primitive computers and backward engineering. Does anyone believe we could launch a similar moonshot today? No American has set foot on the moon in the last 47 years, and it may not happen in the next 50 years.
Hollywood once gave us blockbuster epics, brilliant Westerns, great film noirs, and classic comedies. Now it endlessly turns out comic-book superhero films or pathetic remakes of prior classics.
Our writers, directors and actors have lost the skills of their ancestors. But they are also cowardly, and in regimented fashion they simply parrot boring race, class and gender bromides that are neither interesting nor funny. Does anyone believe that the Oscar ceremonies are more engaging and dignified than in the past?
We have been fighting in Afghanistan without result for 18 years. Our forefathers helped to win World War II and defeat the Axis Powers in four years.
In terms of learning, does anyone believe that a college graduate in 2020 will know half the information of a 1950 graduate?
In the 1940s, young people read William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pearl Buck and John Steinbeck. Are our current novelists turning out anything comparable? Could today's high-school graduate even finish "The Good Earth" or "The Grapes of Wrath"?
True, social media is impressive. The internet gives us instant access to global knowledge. We are a more tolerant society, at least in theory. But Facebook is not the Hoover Dam, and Twitter is not the Panama Canal.
Our ancestors were builders and pioneers and mostly fearless. We are regulators, auditors, bureaucrats, adjudicators, censors, critics, plaintiffs, defendants, social media junkies and thin-skinned scolds. A distant generation created; we mostly delay, idle and gripe.
As we walk amid the refuse, needles and excrement of the sidewalks of our fetid cities; as we sit motionless on our jammed ancient freeways; and as we pout on Twitter and electronically whine in the porticos of our Ivy League campuses, will we ask: "Who were these people who left these strange monuments that we use but can neither emulate nor understand?"
In comparison to us, they now seem like gods.
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
The moral decline of the United States Citizenry
Here is a column by Walter Williams at Townhall.com titled "US in Moral Decline".
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
WW is on target.
----------------------------------------
Last week, U.S. Attorney General William Barr told a University of Notre Dame Law School audience that attacks on religious liberty have contributed to a moral decline that’s in part manifested by increases in suicides, mental illness and drug addiction. Barr said that our moral decline is not random but “organized destruction.” Namely that “Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”
The attorney general is absolutely correct. Whether we have the stomach to own up to it or not, we have become an immoral people left with little more than the pretense of morality. The left’s attack on religion is just the tiny tip of the iceberg in our nation’s moral decline. You say: “That’s a pretty heavy charge, Williams. You’d better be prepared to back it up with evidence!” I’ll try with a few questions for you to answer.
Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not peaceably submit to such use, do you believe that there should be the initiation of force against him? Neither question is complex and can be answered by either a yes or no. For me the answer is no to both questions. I bet that nearly every college professor, politician or even minister could not give a simple yes or no response.
A no answer, translated to public policy, would slash the federal budget by no less than two-thirds to three-quarters. After all most federal spending consist of taking the earnings of one American to give to another American in the form of farm subsidies, business bailouts, aid to higher education, welfare and food stamps. Keep in mind that Congress has no resources of its own. Plus there’s no Santa Claus or tooth fairy that gives Congress resources. Thus, the only way that Congress can give one American a dollar is to first, through intimidation and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American.
Such actions by the U.S. Congress should offend any sense of moral decency. If you’re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of some other American. When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment — “Thou shalt not steal” — I am sure that He did not mean thou shalt not steal unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress. By the way, I do not take this position because I don’t believe in helping our fellow man. I believe that helping those in need by reaching into one’s own pocket to do is praiseworthy and laudable. But helping one’s fellow man in need by reaching into somebody else’s pockets to do so is worthy of condemnation.
We must own up to the fact that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. Morality is society’s first line of defense against uncivilized behavior. Religious teachings, one way of inculcating morality, have been under siege in our country for well over a half a century. In the name of not being judgmental and the vision that one lifestyle or set of values is just as good as another, traditional moral absolutes have been abandoned as guiding principles. We no longer hold people accountable for their behavior and we accept excuses. The moral problems Attorney General William Barr mentioned in his speech, plus murder, mayhem and other forms of anti-social behavior, will continue until we regain our moral footing.
In 1798, John Adams, a leading Founding Father and our second president said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I am all too afraid that a historian, writing a few hundred years from now, will note that the liberty American enjoyed was simply a historical curiosity. Then it all returned to mankind’s normal state of affairs — arbitrary abuse and control by the powerful elite.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
WW is on target.
----------------------------------------
Last week, U.S. Attorney General William Barr told a University of Notre Dame Law School audience that attacks on religious liberty have contributed to a moral decline that’s in part manifested by increases in suicides, mental illness and drug addiction. Barr said that our moral decline is not random but “organized destruction.” Namely that “Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”
The attorney general is absolutely correct. Whether we have the stomach to own up to it or not, we have become an immoral people left with little more than the pretense of morality. The left’s attack on religion is just the tiny tip of the iceberg in our nation’s moral decline. You say: “That’s a pretty heavy charge, Williams. You’d better be prepared to back it up with evidence!” I’ll try with a few questions for you to answer.
Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not peaceably submit to such use, do you believe that there should be the initiation of force against him? Neither question is complex and can be answered by either a yes or no. For me the answer is no to both questions. I bet that nearly every college professor, politician or even minister could not give a simple yes or no response.
A no answer, translated to public policy, would slash the federal budget by no less than two-thirds to three-quarters. After all most federal spending consist of taking the earnings of one American to give to another American in the form of farm subsidies, business bailouts, aid to higher education, welfare and food stamps. Keep in mind that Congress has no resources of its own. Plus there’s no Santa Claus or tooth fairy that gives Congress resources. Thus, the only way that Congress can give one American a dollar is to first, through intimidation and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American.
Such actions by the U.S. Congress should offend any sense of moral decency. If you’re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of some other American. When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment — “Thou shalt not steal” — I am sure that He did not mean thou shalt not steal unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress. By the way, I do not take this position because I don’t believe in helping our fellow man. I believe that helping those in need by reaching into one’s own pocket to do is praiseworthy and laudable. But helping one’s fellow man in need by reaching into somebody else’s pockets to do so is worthy of condemnation.
We must own up to the fact that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. Morality is society’s first line of defense against uncivilized behavior. Religious teachings, one way of inculcating morality, have been under siege in our country for well over a half a century. In the name of not being judgmental and the vision that one lifestyle or set of values is just as good as another, traditional moral absolutes have been abandoned as guiding principles. We no longer hold people accountable for their behavior and we accept excuses. The moral problems Attorney General William Barr mentioned in his speech, plus murder, mayhem and other forms of anti-social behavior, will continue until we regain our moral footing.
In 1798, John Adams, a leading Founding Father and our second president said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I am all too afraid that a historian, writing a few hundred years from now, will note that the liberty American enjoyed was simply a historical curiosity. Then it all returned to mankind’s normal state of affairs — arbitrary abuse and control by the powerful elite.
Sunday, October 20, 2019
CO2 is not the primary driver of climate change
Here is a link to an article by Nir Shaviv titled "The Milky Way Galaxy's Spiral Arms and Ice-Age Epochs and the Cosmic Ray Connection.
Some excerpts follow.
----------------------------------------------
A record of the long term variations of the galactic cosmic ray flux can be extracted from Iron meteorites. It was found in the present work that the cosmic ray flux varied periodically (with flux variations greater than a factor of 2.5) with an average period of 143 ± 10 Million years. This is consistent with the expected spiral arm crossing period and with the picture that the cosmic ray flux should be variable. The agreement is also with the correct phase. But this is not all.
The main result of this research, is that the variations of the flux, as predicted from the galactic model and as observed from the Iron meteorites is in sync with the occurrence of ice-age epochs on Earth. The agreement is both in period and in phase: (1) The observed period of the occurrence of ice-age epochs on Earth is 145 ± 7 Myr (compared with 143 ± 10 Myrs for the Cosmic ray flux variations), (2) The mid point of the ice-age epochs is predicted to lag by 31 ± 8 Myr and observed to lag by 33 ± 20 Myr.
-----
Some excerpts follow.
----------------------------------------------
A record of the long term variations of the galactic cosmic ray flux can be extracted from Iron meteorites. It was found in the present work that the cosmic ray flux varied periodically (with flux variations greater than a factor of 2.5) with an average period of 143 ± 10 Million years. This is consistent with the expected spiral arm crossing period and with the picture that the cosmic ray flux should be variable. The agreement is also with the correct phase. But this is not all.
The main result of this research, is that the variations of the flux, as predicted from the galactic model and as observed from the Iron meteorites is in sync with the occurrence of ice-age epochs on Earth. The agreement is both in period and in phase: (1) The observed period of the occurrence of ice-age epochs on Earth is 145 ± 7 Myr (compared with 143 ± 10 Myrs for the Cosmic ray flux variations), (2) The mid point of the ice-age epochs is predicted to lag by 31 ± 8 Myr and observed to lag by 33 ± 20 Myr.
-----
By comparing cosmic ray flux variations to a quantitative record of climate history, more conclusions can be drawn. This was done together with Jan Veizer, whose group reconstructed the temperature on Earth over the past 550 million years by looking at 18O to 16O isotope ratios in fossils formed in tropical oceans. The following astonishing results were found once the reconstructed temperature was compared with the reconstructed cosmic ray flux variations:
- Cosmic Ray Flux variations explain more than 2/3's of the variance in the reconstructed temperature. Namely, Cosmic Ray Flux variability is the most dominant climate driver over geological time scales.
- An upper limit can be placed on the relative role of CO2 as a climate driver.
- Using point #2, an upper limit can be place on the global "radiative forcing" sensitivity - the ratio between changes to the radiation budget and ensuing temperature increase. The upper limit obtained is lower than often stated value. This implies that a large fraction of the global warming witnessed over the past century is not due to CO2. Instead, it should be attributable to the increased solar activity which diminished the cosmic ray flux reaching Earth.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Who pays more taxes
John Cochrane shows you how ill informed about how to examine taxes are the talking heads, politicians, and media stars you have been relying on for tax perspective.
Here is JC's column.
--------------------------------------------
A retired guy and a carpenter walk in to a bar, and they each order a beer. When they pay, the fashionable progressive economist asks them, "how much tax did you pay today on the money you got to buy that beer?" The carpenter answers, "Well, I just got my paycheck today. So, that's 30% federal income tax, 5% state income tax, 15% social security and other payroll taxes." The retiree says, "I took the money out of my bank account at the ATM on the way over. There isn't a tax on taking money out of banks so I didn't pay any taxes today."
"The shame, the horror, the inequality!," proclaims the progressive economist, sending the preprint of his study in the New York Times. "Retirees, who have a lot more in their bank accounts than working folks, aren't paying any taxes! All the taxes are being shouldered by poor workers! We need to tax money people take out of banks!"
"Wait a darn-tootin' minute," says the retiree, having spilled half his beer. (Old people talk like that.) "I worked my whole life. I paid Federal income taxes, state income taxes, city income taxes, and payroll taxes on that money. My company paid sales taxes, corporate income taxes, property taxes, mitigation fees and so on out of every dollar I billed made for them. I paid vastly overinflated health insurance to cross subsidize medicaid, medicare, and indigent care. I saved for my retirement, rather than blowing it all when I was young. Then every year I paid taxes on interest and dividends, and capital gains when I rebalanced my portfolio. It's a miracle I still have this lousy $5 left to buy a beer. No, thank goodness there is not a take-it-out-of-the-bank tax. But I paid a heck of a lot of taxes on this money!"
I think this little story captures the essence of one of the many little -- well, Phillip Magness in in the AEIER, reflecting a little traditional conservative politeness, calls them "fibs" -- in the latest Saez-Zucman effort to prove that rich people pay less taxes than you and I, an equally ardent effort to prove that despite everyone else's numbers the rich really did pay a lot more taxes in the golden 1950s, reinforcing the trope cited even in the Democratic debates* with lightning speed.
Others have torn the numbers apart, including Magness, David Splinter at the Joint Committee on Taxation, Larry Kotlikoff in the Wall Street Journal, Robert Verbuggen in the National Review, Michael R. Strain at Bloomberg and many others. To usually sleep-inducing results. Hand it to Saez and Zucman to know how to tell the big fib and get your name in the headlights. So let me focus on two very simple problems that my little story highlights.
Income taxes:
Here is JC's column.
--------------------------------------------
A retired guy and a carpenter walk in to a bar, and they each order a beer. When they pay, the fashionable progressive economist asks them, "how much tax did you pay today on the money you got to buy that beer?" The carpenter answers, "Well, I just got my paycheck today. So, that's 30% federal income tax, 5% state income tax, 15% social security and other payroll taxes." The retiree says, "I took the money out of my bank account at the ATM on the way over. There isn't a tax on taking money out of banks so I didn't pay any taxes today."
"The shame, the horror, the inequality!," proclaims the progressive economist, sending the preprint of his study in the New York Times. "Retirees, who have a lot more in their bank accounts than working folks, aren't paying any taxes! All the taxes are being shouldered by poor workers! We need to tax money people take out of banks!"
"Wait a darn-tootin' minute," says the retiree, having spilled half his beer. (Old people talk like that.) "I worked my whole life. I paid Federal income taxes, state income taxes, city income taxes, and payroll taxes on that money. My company paid sales taxes, corporate income taxes, property taxes, mitigation fees and so on out of every dollar I billed made for them. I paid vastly overinflated health insurance to cross subsidize medicaid, medicare, and indigent care. I saved for my retirement, rather than blowing it all when I was young. Then every year I paid taxes on interest and dividends, and capital gains when I rebalanced my portfolio. It's a miracle I still have this lousy $5 left to buy a beer. No, thank goodness there is not a take-it-out-of-the-bank tax. But I paid a heck of a lot of taxes on this money!"
I think this little story captures the essence of one of the many little -- well, Phillip Magness in in the AEIER, reflecting a little traditional conservative politeness, calls them "fibs" -- in the latest Saez-Zucman effort to prove that rich people pay less taxes than you and I, an equally ardent effort to prove that despite everyone else's numbers the rich really did pay a lot more taxes in the golden 1950s, reinforcing the trope cited even in the Democratic debates* with lightning speed.
Others have torn the numbers apart, including Magness, David Splinter at the Joint Committee on Taxation, Larry Kotlikoff in the Wall Street Journal, Robert Verbuggen in the National Review, Michael R. Strain at Bloomberg and many others. To usually sleep-inducing results. Hand it to Saez and Zucman to know how to tell the big fib and get your name in the headlights. So let me focus on two very simple problems that my little story highlights.
Income taxes:
Really the problem starts by defining the question as income taxes -- what is the tax rate on this year's income -- and defining income to include "capital income," dividends, interest, and capital gains. Once you allow that definition, much of the game is lost. Yes, old and wealthier people tend to have more capital income, and young and less wealthy people tend to have more earnings. We tax earnings at a way higher rate, so duh. The fact that this "capital income" comes from savings, which comes from earnings that were taxed at the most progressive rates in the world then vanishes in this accounting.
"Income" is really a fairly meaningless concept. We do not live in the Ancien Regime, or a Jane Austen novel in which people are described for life by the annual income they receive. Income varies a lot over a lifetime, and ebbs and flows for many. And "capital income" is not the same as earned income. The broad consensus theory of taxation states that capital income -- the rate of return you get to induce you to save some income for future consumption rather than to blow it all right away -- should not be taxed at all. It really isn't "income" in any meaningful sense.
Consumption is a meaningful concept, and lifetime consumption in particular. A progressive consumption tax makes a lot of sense. But as the many commenters above point out, very rich people tend to consume much lower fractions of their wealth than the rest of us. They take this "income" and plow it back into businesses and mortgages, where it is out there hiring the rest of us and producing products for us. The horror of it all. So if you look at lifetime taxes paid as a fraction of lifetime consumption... the rich are paying much higher rates than the rest of us.
Corporate taxes:
"Income" is really a fairly meaningless concept. We do not live in the Ancien Regime, or a Jane Austen novel in which people are described for life by the annual income they receive. Income varies a lot over a lifetime, and ebbs and flows for many. And "capital income" is not the same as earned income. The broad consensus theory of taxation states that capital income -- the rate of return you get to induce you to save some income for future consumption rather than to blow it all right away -- should not be taxed at all. It really isn't "income" in any meaningful sense.
Consumption is a meaningful concept, and lifetime consumption in particular. A progressive consumption tax makes a lot of sense. But as the many commenters above point out, very rich people tend to consume much lower fractions of their wealth than the rest of us. They take this "income" and plow it back into businesses and mortgages, where it is out there hiring the rest of us and producing products for us. The horror of it all. So if you look at lifetime taxes paid as a fraction of lifetime consumption... the rich are paying much higher rates than the rest of us.
Corporate taxes:
Of all the other heavy thumbs on the scale, let me point to the other biggest one, the treatment of corporate taxes.
To assess the progressivity of the tax system, in any sensible way, we have to include all taxes, and as many transfers as we can. It makes no sense to include only one tax and say A pays less than B, if B pays more than A of some other tax. If A pays $10 in tax but gets back $5 in cash benefits, he or she is really only paying $5. We also have to figure out who bears the tax, not just who pays it.
It is painfully obvious that "corporations" bear no tax. Every cent of corporate tax is paid by people, either from higher prices, lower wages, or lower payments to bondholders and stock holders. By and large most estimates find it's mostly higher prices and lower wages. Corporate taxes are not paid by lower electric bills -- you either pay that or they turn off the lights. For the same reason, corporate taxes are, in the usual accounting, not much paid by stock and bondholders. They just invest less or abroad until the after tax rate of return is the same.
Into this interesting economic debate wade Saez and Zucman and assume all corporate tax comes out of shareholders' pockets. And since the corporate tax rate has been coming down over the years, and since wealthy people hold more stocks, aha, the wealthy are paying less tax. (Despite higher statutory rates back then, there were lots more deductions, so even they grudgingly admit that wealthy people did not pay higher income tax rates in the halcyon 1950s.)
Note they do not assume all sales taxes come out of shareholders pockets. (Actually, I'm assuming here -- if someone has read in detail let me know if I'm right on this.) It's painfully obvious that sales taxes, though "paid" by corporations, are "borne" by you and me via higher prices.
But sales taxes and corporate taxes come equally out of the bottom line of a company's profits. Why does a company make up for its sales tax payments 100% by raising prices, but makes up for its corporate tax payments 100% by lowering interest and dividends (somehow, magically, without that lowering of payments also lowering the stock and bond prices so rates of return remain unchanged)?
Well, there is no reason at all to make such an assumption. Except that sales taxes, which are indeed borne by all consumers, have risen over time, while corporate taxes, which they alone assume are borne by the wealthiest, have gone down over time. So if you treat the taxes equally, you get the "wrong" answer.
Yes, figuring out the incidence of taxation is hard. The tax system is deliberately complex and opaque so that people can't figure out what they really pay, and can't figure out that indeed rich people don't pay nearly as much as the headlines say -- even if it is still quite progressive.
Economists should be spending their time studying the disincentives of the tax system, not its "fairness," on which we have little professional expertise. Yes, you heard it here, economics really has nothing to say about whether "the rich" should pay more or less taxes -- but we have a lot to say about what happens to economies that tax away the incentive to become rich, to study, move, start businesses, innovate, hire others, and produce great products along the way. But the (dis) incentives of the tax system are even more opaque, again deliberately. Not even every tax economist I have ever asked the question of can answer "what is your all-in marginal tax rate?" If it were clear, I suspect a lot more people would stop working!
* From the Transcript
Biden: Why in God's name should someone who's clipping coupons in the stock market make -- in fact, pay a lower tax rate than someone who, in fact, is -- like I said -- the -- a schoolteacher and a firefighter? It's ridiculous. And they pay a lower tax.
[Poor Joe: I won't belabor that stocks pay dividends, not coupons, and "they pay a lower tax" is absolutely false. At least he said "rate" the first time.]
By the way, a tiny ray of common sense in that debate:
YANG: ... "The problem is that it's [wealth tax] been tried in Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, and all those countries ended up repealing it, because it had massive implementation problems and did not generate the revenue that they'd projected."
To assess the progressivity of the tax system, in any sensible way, we have to include all taxes, and as many transfers as we can. It makes no sense to include only one tax and say A pays less than B, if B pays more than A of some other tax. If A pays $10 in tax but gets back $5 in cash benefits, he or she is really only paying $5. We also have to figure out who bears the tax, not just who pays it.
It is painfully obvious that "corporations" bear no tax. Every cent of corporate tax is paid by people, either from higher prices, lower wages, or lower payments to bondholders and stock holders. By and large most estimates find it's mostly higher prices and lower wages. Corporate taxes are not paid by lower electric bills -- you either pay that or they turn off the lights. For the same reason, corporate taxes are, in the usual accounting, not much paid by stock and bondholders. They just invest less or abroad until the after tax rate of return is the same.
Into this interesting economic debate wade Saez and Zucman and assume all corporate tax comes out of shareholders' pockets. And since the corporate tax rate has been coming down over the years, and since wealthy people hold more stocks, aha, the wealthy are paying less tax. (Despite higher statutory rates back then, there were lots more deductions, so even they grudgingly admit that wealthy people did not pay higher income tax rates in the halcyon 1950s.)
Note they do not assume all sales taxes come out of shareholders pockets. (Actually, I'm assuming here -- if someone has read in detail let me know if I'm right on this.) It's painfully obvious that sales taxes, though "paid" by corporations, are "borne" by you and me via higher prices.
But sales taxes and corporate taxes come equally out of the bottom line of a company's profits. Why does a company make up for its sales tax payments 100% by raising prices, but makes up for its corporate tax payments 100% by lowering interest and dividends (somehow, magically, without that lowering of payments also lowering the stock and bond prices so rates of return remain unchanged)?
Well, there is no reason at all to make such an assumption. Except that sales taxes, which are indeed borne by all consumers, have risen over time, while corporate taxes, which they alone assume are borne by the wealthiest, have gone down over time. So if you treat the taxes equally, you get the "wrong" answer.
Yes, figuring out the incidence of taxation is hard. The tax system is deliberately complex and opaque so that people can't figure out what they really pay, and can't figure out that indeed rich people don't pay nearly as much as the headlines say -- even if it is still quite progressive.
Economists should be spending their time studying the disincentives of the tax system, not its "fairness," on which we have little professional expertise. Yes, you heard it here, economics really has nothing to say about whether "the rich" should pay more or less taxes -- but we have a lot to say about what happens to economies that tax away the incentive to become rich, to study, move, start businesses, innovate, hire others, and produce great products along the way. But the (dis) incentives of the tax system are even more opaque, again deliberately. Not even every tax economist I have ever asked the question of can answer "what is your all-in marginal tax rate?" If it were clear, I suspect a lot more people would stop working!
* From the Transcript
Biden: Why in God's name should someone who's clipping coupons in the stock market make -- in fact, pay a lower tax rate than someone who, in fact, is -- like I said -- the -- a schoolteacher and a firefighter? It's ridiculous. And they pay a lower tax.
[Poor Joe: I won't belabor that stocks pay dividends, not coupons, and "they pay a lower tax" is absolutely false. At least he said "rate" the first time.]
By the way, a tiny ray of common sense in that debate:
YANG: ... "The problem is that it's [wealth tax] been tried in Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, and all those countries ended up repealing it, because it had massive implementation problems and did not generate the revenue that they'd projected."
"If we can't learn from the failed experiences of other countries, what can we learn from?
We should not be looking to other countries' mistakes. Instead, we should look at what Germany, France, Denmark, and Sweden still have, which is a value-added tax. If we give the American people a tiny slice of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every robot truck mile, every Facebook ad, we can generate hundreds of billions of dollars and then put it into our hands, because we know best how to use it."
Well, "we [the Democratic party, when it takes over the Federal Government -- I presume he does not think President Trump needs 22% of GDP to spend!] know best how to use it" might be a bit open to question, but I'll take rays of sanity where I can find them.
We should not be looking to other countries' mistakes. Instead, we should look at what Germany, France, Denmark, and Sweden still have, which is a value-added tax. If we give the American people a tiny slice of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every robot truck mile, every Facebook ad, we can generate hundreds of billions of dollars and then put it into our hands, because we know best how to use it."
Well, "we [the Democratic party, when it takes over the Federal Government -- I presume he does not think President Trump needs 22% of GDP to spend!] know best how to use it" might be a bit open to question, but I'll take rays of sanity where I can find them.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Climate science is not simple and it's not settled
Here is a link to a nice video that puts climate science in perspective.
Climate science is not simple and it's not settled. The Alarmists are misinformed.
Climate science is not simple and it's not settled. The Alarmists are misinformed.
The rush to renewable power is likely to be disastrous
Here is a letter to the Telegraph by Steve Proud.
SP is on target. The rush to renewable power will be a disaster as heralded.
----------------------------------------------
SIR – As a chartered engineer who worked in the electricity supply industry for 39 years, I despair to hear politicians like Rebecca Long-Bailey claiming that renewables will provide for most of our energy needs by 2030.
Renewable generation – solar, wind and tidal – is, by definition, non-synchronous and it is technically impossible to operate our electricity transmission system solely on non-synchronous generation. There is a real danger of system instability and consequential widespread blackouts once non-synchronous generation exceeds around 30 per cent of total generation at any one time.
The National Grid report on the recent major outage makes numerous references to the lack of inertia in the system. This resulted from insufficient large synchronous generators (nuclear, coal, gas) being connected.
Given the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the only option is to increase significantly nuclear build rapidly. Both Labour and Conservative governments have been unwilling to commit themselves to this, which has led us into the problems we now face.
It is unfortunate that politicians and environmental campaigners are ignorant of the technicalities of energy supply, or wish to ignore them. MPs may have the power to change the laws of the land, but not to change the laws of physics.
Steve Proud
Swansea
SP is on target. The rush to renewable power will be a disaster as heralded.
----------------------------------------------
SIR – As a chartered engineer who worked in the electricity supply industry for 39 years, I despair to hear politicians like Rebecca Long-Bailey claiming that renewables will provide for most of our energy needs by 2030.
Renewable generation – solar, wind and tidal – is, by definition, non-synchronous and it is technically impossible to operate our electricity transmission system solely on non-synchronous generation. There is a real danger of system instability and consequential widespread blackouts once non-synchronous generation exceeds around 30 per cent of total generation at any one time.
The National Grid report on the recent major outage makes numerous references to the lack of inertia in the system. This resulted from insufficient large synchronous generators (nuclear, coal, gas) being connected.
Given the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the only option is to increase significantly nuclear build rapidly. Both Labour and Conservative governments have been unwilling to commit themselves to this, which has led us into the problems we now face.
It is unfortunate that politicians and environmental campaigners are ignorant of the technicalities of energy supply, or wish to ignore them. MPs may have the power to change the laws of the land, but not to change the laws of physics.
Steve Proud
Swansea
Wednesday, October 09, 2019
Idiotic Environmental Predictions
Here is a column by Walter Williams, Professor of Economics at George Mason University.
WW is on target.
Concerning the Alarmist idiocy about climate change, read Curry, Shaviv, and Svensmark.
-------------------------------------------
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has published a new paper, “Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.” Keep in mind that many of the grossly wrong environmentalist predictions were made by respected scientists and government officials. My question for you is: If you were around at the time, how many government restrictions and taxes would you have urged to avoid the predicted calamity?
As reported in The New York Times (Aug. 1969) Stanford University biologist Dr. Paul Erhlich warned: “The trouble with almost all environmental problems is that by the time we have enough evidence to convince people, you’re dead. We must realize that unless we’re extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years.”
In 2000, Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at University of East Anglia’s climate research unit, predicted that in a few years winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” In 2004, the U.S. Pentagon warned President George W. Bush that major European cities would be beneath rising seas. Britain will be plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020. In 2008, Al Gore predicted that the polar ice cap would be gone in a mere 10 years. A U.S. Department of Energy study led by the U.S. Navy predicted the Arctic Ocean would experience an ice-free summer by 2016.
In May 2014, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared during a joint appearance with Secretary of State John Kerry that “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”
Peter Gunter, professor at North Texas State University, predicted in the spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness: “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. … By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
Ecologist Kenneth Watt’s 1970 prediction was, “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000.” He added, “This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
Mark J. Perry, scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus, cites 18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of first Earth Day in 1970. This time it’s not about weather. Harrison Brown, a scientist at the National Academy of Sciences, published a chart in Scientific American that looked at metal reserves and estimated that humanity would run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold and silver would be gone before 1990. Kenneth Watt said, “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate … that there won’t be any more crude oil.”
There were grossly wild predictions well before the first Earth Day, too. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior predicted that American oil supplies would last for only another 13 years. In 1949, the secretary of the interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous energy claims, in 1974, the U.S. Geological Survey said that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. However, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that as of Jan. 1, 2017, there were about 2,459 trillion cubic feet of dry natural gas in the United States. That’s enough to last us for nearly a century. The United States is the largest producer of natural gas worldwide.
Today’s wild predictions about climate doom are likely to be just as true as yesteryear’s. The major difference is today’s Americans are far more gullible and more likely to spend trillions fighting global warming. And the only result is that we’ll be much poorer and less free.
WW is on target.
Concerning the Alarmist idiocy about climate change, read Curry, Shaviv, and Svensmark.
-------------------------------------------
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has published a new paper, “Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.” Keep in mind that many of the grossly wrong environmentalist predictions were made by respected scientists and government officials. My question for you is: If you were around at the time, how many government restrictions and taxes would you have urged to avoid the predicted calamity?
As reported in The New York Times (Aug. 1969) Stanford University biologist Dr. Paul Erhlich warned: “The trouble with almost all environmental problems is that by the time we have enough evidence to convince people, you’re dead. We must realize that unless we’re extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years.”
In 2000, Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at University of East Anglia’s climate research unit, predicted that in a few years winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” In 2004, the U.S. Pentagon warned President George W. Bush that major European cities would be beneath rising seas. Britain will be plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020. In 2008, Al Gore predicted that the polar ice cap would be gone in a mere 10 years. A U.S. Department of Energy study led by the U.S. Navy predicted the Arctic Ocean would experience an ice-free summer by 2016.
In May 2014, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared during a joint appearance with Secretary of State John Kerry that “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”
Peter Gunter, professor at North Texas State University, predicted in the spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness: “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. … By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
Ecologist Kenneth Watt’s 1970 prediction was, “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000.” He added, “This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
Mark J. Perry, scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus, cites 18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of first Earth Day in 1970. This time it’s not about weather. Harrison Brown, a scientist at the National Academy of Sciences, published a chart in Scientific American that looked at metal reserves and estimated that humanity would run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold and silver would be gone before 1990. Kenneth Watt said, “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate … that there won’t be any more crude oil.”
There were grossly wild predictions well before the first Earth Day, too. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior predicted that American oil supplies would last for only another 13 years. In 1949, the secretary of the interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous energy claims, in 1974, the U.S. Geological Survey said that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. However, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that as of Jan. 1, 2017, there were about 2,459 trillion cubic feet of dry natural gas in the United States. That’s enough to last us for nearly a century. The United States is the largest producer of natural gas worldwide.
Today’s wild predictions about climate doom are likely to be just as true as yesteryear’s. The major difference is today’s Americans are far more gullible and more likely to spend trillions fighting global warming. And the only result is that we’ll be much poorer and less free.
Monday, October 07, 2019
Amputees merge with their bionic leg
Here is a link to an article in Science News.
its Summary follows.
-------------------------------------
Scientists have helped three amputees merge with their bionic prosthetic legs as they climb over various obstacles without having to look. The amputees report using and feeling their bionic leg as part of their own body, thanks to sensory feedback from the prosthetic leg that is delivered to nerves in the leg's stump.
its Summary follows.
-------------------------------------
Scientists have helped three amputees merge with their bionic prosthetic legs as they climb over various obstacles without having to look. The amputees report using and feeling their bionic leg as part of their own body, thanks to sensory feedback from the prosthetic leg that is delivered to nerves in the leg's stump.
What increasing income inequality?
A new paper by Auten and Splinter, "Income Inequality in the United States: Using Tax Data to Measure Long-term Trends", finds that:
This paper shows the effects of adjusting for technical tax issues and the sensitivity to alternative assumptions for distributing missing income sources. Our results suggest that top income shares are lower than other tax-based estimates, and since the early 1960s, increasing government transfers and tax progressivity resulted in little change in after-tax top income shares.
These results destroy the 2003 Piketty and Saez paper that found greatly increasing after tax income inequality. The PS paper was and continues to be the basis for the Left's claim of increasing income inequality.
Here is a key chart from the AS paper.
Once again, the Alarmists have been proved wrong.
The paper's introduction follows.
-------------------------------------------
Based on the results of studies using income tax data (Piketty and Saez, 2003; Piketty, Saez, and Zucman, 2018), the idea that U.S. income inequality has increased dramatically since the 1960s has become one of the most powerful narratives of our time. Broad acceptance of this view has fueled concerns that increasing inequality could indicate greater concentration of political power and increased rent-seeking (Stiglitz, 2012; Lindsey and Teles, 2017) or increased bargaining power of top earners for compensation (Piketty, Saez, and Stantcheva, 2014). In turn, these concerns have led to speculation that inequality could lead to problems such as decreasing institutional accountability, reduced economic efficiency, and stagnating middle-class wages due to shifts in relative bargaining power.
This paper presents new estimates of the levels and trends of U.S. top income shares that address these challenges. We start with income as reported on tax returns and develop an improved measure of market income—also referred to as fiscal income—that corrects for tax reforms and technical tax issues as well as social issues such as declining marriage rates. We then account for total national income with estimates of pre-tax and after-tax income. While our results are similar to several other recent studies, they suggest lower top income shares and less upward trend than Piketty and Saez (2003) and Piketty, Saez, and Zucman (2018, hereafter PSZ). Finally, we discuss why our results differ from PSZ and the implications for considering the distribution of economic growth and tax burdens.
This paper shows the effects of adjusting for technical tax issues and the sensitivity to alternative assumptions for distributing missing income sources. Our results suggest that top income shares are lower than other tax-based estimates, and since the early 1960s, increasing government transfers and tax progressivity resulted in little change in after-tax top income shares.
These results destroy the 2003 Piketty and Saez paper that found greatly increasing after tax income inequality. The PS paper was and continues to be the basis for the Left's claim of increasing income inequality.
Here is a key chart from the AS paper.
Once again, the Alarmists have been proved wrong.
The paper's introduction follows.
-------------------------------------------
Based on the results of studies using income tax data (Piketty and Saez, 2003; Piketty, Saez, and Zucman, 2018), the idea that U.S. income inequality has increased dramatically since the 1960s has become one of the most powerful narratives of our time. Broad acceptance of this view has fueled concerns that increasing inequality could indicate greater concentration of political power and increased rent-seeking (Stiglitz, 2012; Lindsey and Teles, 2017) or increased bargaining power of top earners for compensation (Piketty, Saez, and Stantcheva, 2014). In turn, these concerns have led to speculation that inequality could lead to problems such as decreasing institutional accountability, reduced economic efficiency, and stagnating middle-class wages due to shifts in relative bargaining power.
These profound implications emphasize the importance of correctly measuring income inequality. Estimating the income distribution over long time periods, however, is complicated by major challenges. These include changes in social conditions (marriage rates, household size and composition) and demographics (age distribution). Rising education standards and increased college attendance resulted in higher earnings but later entry into the labor force. Retirement incomes have changed due to expanded Social Security benefits and the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans. Periods of high inflation have distorted the measurement of income, and business cycles had differential effects on income groups.
Compared to survey data, tax data better represent top income groups, but using tax data presents additional challenges. Tax rules and incentives for reporting income have changed over time as the result of tax legislation. Declining marriage rates and changing household structures can lead to biased results when tax units are the unit of observation. While many adults do not file tax returns, many returns are filed by individuals under age 20, other dependents, and nonresidents. Important sources of income are missing in tax data, including government transfer payments and non-taxable employer-provided benefits. The share of income missing in tax data has increased over time, such that market income on tax returns accounts for only about 60 percent of national income in recent years. In addition, there are many technical issues with respect to differences between what is reported on tax returns and what economists regard as current-year economic income. Prior studies may have been misleading as a result of failure to adequately account for these challenges.
This paper presents new estimates of the levels and trends of U.S. top income shares that address these challenges. We start with income as reported on tax returns and develop an improved measure of market income—also referred to as fiscal income—that corrects for tax reforms and technical tax issues as well as social issues such as declining marriage rates. We then account for total national income with estimates of pre-tax and after-tax income. While our results are similar to several other recent studies, they suggest lower top income shares and less upward trend than Piketty and Saez (2003) and Piketty, Saez, and Zucman (2018, hereafter PSZ). Finally, we discuss why our results differ from PSZ and the implications for considering the distribution of economic growth and tax burdens.
Using income reported on individual tax returns, the highly influential paper by Piketty and Saez (2003 and updates) estimated that the top one percent share more than doubled from 9 to 20 percent between 1962 and 2015. About 40 percent of this increase, however, occurred in the years just before and after the Tax Reform of 1986 (TRA86). This major reform lowered statutory tax rates and broadened the tax base, thereby substantially changing tax rules and incentives for reporting income and organizing businesses. The potential for TRA86 to affect measures of U.S. inequality was noted by Feenberg and Poterba (1993) and Gordon and Slemrod (2000). Basing income groups on tax units produced additional upward bias in top income shares over time because marriage rates decreased disproportionately more among lower-income groups.
PSZ addressed some of these issues and made several important methodological improvements. Their recent paper uses an expanded measure of income that targets total national income and incorporates Social Security benefits. It addresses declining marriage rates by basing income groups on the number of adults age 20 and over. Despite changes that might be expected to reduce top income shares, PSZ still concluded that the top one percent share doubled since 1980 and increased by about two-thirds since 1962.
As illustrated in Figure 1, our results are quite different, especially since 1979. We both estimate that the top one percent shares of pre-tax and after-tax incomes declined slightly between the early 1960s and 1979, although our top share levels are slightly lower. Between 1979 and 2014, however, PSZ estimated that pre-tax top one percent shares increased by 9.0 percentage points while our estimates suggest that they increased by only 3.2 percentage points. For after-tax income, which also includes transfers, PSZ estimated that top one percent shares increased by 6.5 percentage points between 1979 and 2014.
Our estimates suggest that they increased by only 1.4 percentage points. Over the longer period since the early 1960s, our estimates suggest that the top one percent share increased less than half as much as PSZ and that after-tax income shares were nearly unchanged. Our estimates also differ for the bottom half of the distribution. PSZ estimated that the bottom 50 percent share of pre-tax and after-tax shares decreased by about 7.5 and 6.2 percentage points since 1979. In contrast, we estimate that pre-tax and after-tax income shares decreased by 5.6 and 2.2 percentage points over this period. Our estimates suggest that taxes and transfers offset most of the recent changes in both bottom and top income shares. In contrast with the PSZ estimate that average real pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent remained virtually unchanged, we estimate that they increased by nearly one-third. For pre-tax/after-transfer income (which includes Social Security benefits) and after-tax income, we estimate a real increase for the bottom half of the distribution of nearly two-thirds. Our estimates are similar to those of the Congressional Budget Office (2018) for the bottom two quintiles.
Why are our results so different from Piketty and Saez (2003) and PSZ? There are many methodological differences, and this paper provides a detailed decomposition of their effects. Our estimates correct the tax sample to remove dependent and non-resident filers, as well as filers under age 20. We account for increases in the share of single-parent households and changing family size, as well as for falling marriage rates. We also correct for many special features of how income is reported on individual and corporate tax returns and how this has changed over time. While many improvements have only small or offsetting effects on top income shares, their cumulative effects can be significant.
Different treatments of business losses and pension income prove to be particularly important. Our approach corrects for the large tax shelter losses prior to TRA86 and adds back net operating loss carryovers from prior years, which are not current-year income. Our approach also accounts for business losses when allocating underreported income because detailed IRS audit studies show that returns with business losses account for a significant share of underreported income. PSZ, however, ignore losses and allocate underreported income only by positive reported income. Our retirement income allocation methodologies also produce quite different results, in part because PSZ mix taxable retirement income flows with non-taxable amounts, which are largely rollovers of assets.
We are not alone in finding lower levels and smaller increases in U.S. top income shares when using broad measures of income. Combining tax return and Census data, Fixler, Gindelsky, and Johnson (2019) estimated a top one percent share of personal income in 2012 of 13 percent, compared to 21 percent in Piketty and Saez (2003 and updates, hereafter PS). Using Survey of Consumer Finance data, Bricker et al. (2016a) found that the top one percent share increased 3 percentage points between 1988 and 2012, compared to 6 percentage points in PS. Using tax return and Census data, the Congressional Budget Office (2016) found that the top one percent share of before-tax income increased 6 percentage points from 9 to 15 percent between 1979 and 2013, compared to the PS estimate of a 10 percentage point increase from 9 to 19 percent. Our pre-tax income share increases by 4 percentage points from about 10 to 14 percent over this period. Using internal Census data to overcome top-coding issues, Burkhauser et al. (2012) estimated that the top one percent share only increased 2 percentage points from 10 to 12 percent between 1967 and 2004.
Our paper makes several important contributions to this emerging “consistent income inequality” literature on the distribution of income in the U.S. First, we provide new estimates of top income shares using administrative data to address major challenges in measuring the income distribution over long periods, while accounting for major tax reforms and other technical issues in using tax data. Second, we address the uncertainty created by the need to impute components of national income not reported in tax data by showing our step-by-step adjustments and imputations as well as sensitivity tests of less certain assumptions. This allows other researchers to see the effect of each adjustment and consider alternative estimates based on different combinations of assumptions. Third, we compare our methodology with PS, PSZ, and the Congressional Budget Office so that readers will have a better understanding of why our results (and those of other researchers) differ.
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