April 2008 Archives

Apparently Senator Clinton has reversed her prior stance and is now joining Senator McCain in calling for a federal gas tax "holiday" this summer. I guess this shouldn't come as a big surprise. Nothing seems to get voter's attention like high gasoline prices, and this is a quick "fix" to bring down prices. Furthermore, it's the only easy "fix" that would have an immediate impact.

Overall, this is a bad idea. The strongest case you can make for it is to frame the proposal as an economic stimulus measure, similar to the rebate checks the government is currently mailing out. And even for that purpose it's not a particularly efficient or equitable means of priming the economy (lots of people don't use cars.)

What's wrong with this plan? One problem is that it cuts off a major source of highway funding. Remember that bridge collapsing in Minneapolis last year? Apparently some politicians don't. Or rather they don't recall all the talk they made of beefing up our national infrastructure. How are we supposed to maintain crumbling bridges and highways while cutting off the money? It's irresponsible financial management.

Moreover, a gas tax holiday sends the wrong message to consumers. The temporary duration of the plan suggests that the run-up in gas prices we've experienced is only a short-term phenomenon. In other words, once we weather this short-term shock, prices will then return to "normal."

I can't see the future, but my hunch is that the opposite is true. Global oil demand is growing, while production (since 2005) has remained flat. So, absent a world-wide economic recession, I think oil prices will likely be even higher next year.

This means we should be earnestly pursuing policies that reduce our consumption of gasoline. A tax rebate does the contrary by encouraging motorists to consume more gas. That's bad policy.

If politicians are concerned that about the impact rising fuel prices are having on the economy, they should seek solutions which do not create an incentive for Americans to use more fossil fuels.

I've noticed, particularly when watching C-SPAN, that some people are already starting to play up the 200th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's birthday, despite the fact that we are nearly a year away from the event.

Not to diminish Lincoln--who is almost universally regarded as one of America's greatest leaders--but I've never understood the fascination some people have with the 16th president. It's one thing to have a healthy historical curiosity about the man. It's another to collect memorabilia and attend annual conferences and acquire shelves full of books. That smacks more of deification.

There are a number of great figures in American history. Yet none of the other ones seem to have the obsessed following that Lincoln commands. I've never quite figured out why.

Via Fark, comes this nugget (emphasis added):

For many years now, Edgerton High School in Wisconsin has allowed students in its Spanish class to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish over the Intercom one day of the school year. It also invites foreign exchange students (the school now has three) to say it in their own language.

This year, when Spanish students recited the Pledge on March 11, it caused a ruckus.

Parents complained. They demanded that the Spanish teacher, the principal, and the superintendent be fired. And they intend to press the issue at the school board meeting on April 28.

The superintendent, Dr. Norman Fjelstad, has even been physically threatened.

By now I should probably be used to stories of people getting bent out of shape over what I consider to be trivial matters, but it still baffles me.

I'm not a parent, but if I was one, and I were to list concerns I had regarding my high school child, at the top of the list would be things such as grades, teacher performance, social interaction, drugs, sex, and things of that ilk. And somewhere near the bottom of the list would be the horror of having my precious snowflake exposed to a few seconds of Spanish over the school public address system one day a year.

And yet, according to this article, some parents think this warrants the school superintendent's removal.

I think those parents would do themselves a favor by reviewing American history. Somehow, millions of immigrants who didn't know English assimilated into this country. And we managed it without society collapsing.

If our flag was able to weather the storm of German, French, Italian, and more in earlier eras, I'd say it can withstand the test of Spanish class.

Recently I've read some chatter suggesting that the social acceptability of extravagant spending is on the decline. For instance, CBS news cites anecdotal evidence in a story "Is Cheap Now Chic?", concluding

The new status...is not how much you spend, but how much you don't.

A USAToday piece on teen spending reaches a similar conclusion:

It's even becoming cool to be frugal.

Undoubtedly many consumers are cutting back on spending. Gas and food prices are up, the home equity ATM is drying up, and many people are up to their eyeballs in credit card debt.

But the question regarding this wave of frugality is, is it simply one of necessity? Or does it reflect a broader change in attitude toward spending?

I'm not yet convinced of the latter. In the near-term I don't think you can tell--in a recessionary environment people aren't spending because they don't have a choice. Perhaps in the longer run, when the economic tide turns, we'll have a better picture of whether or not people are consciously choosing to save rather than spend because its now "chic."

Several of the more doomerish commenters on peak oil sites such as The Oil Drum have been predicting that rising gasoline costs will eventually lead to the abandonment of some of the outer residential developments surrounding major cities. Simply put, people won't be able to afford to make a 30+ mile drive into work everyday.

Such forecasts may or may not turn out to be true, but there's evidence we have started heading in that direction:

Economists say home prices are nowhere near hitting bottom. But even in regions that have taken a beating, some neighborhoods remain practically unscathed. And a pattern is emerging as to which neighborhoods those are.

The ones with short commutes are faring better than places with long drives into the city. Some analysts see a pause in what has long been inexorable -- urban sprawl.

The story gives examples of price trends in and around Washington, D.C. House prices away from the city have been falling, while those closer to the city center, or near public transit lines, have been holding their value, or even increasing.

David Stiff, chief economist for the company that produces the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, saw the trend in other cities, as well -- including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, San Diego, Miami and Boston.

Stiff recently matched home resale values against commute times and found that in most of these major metropolitan areas, the trend is the same. The longer the commute, the steeper the drop in prices.

It's something to keep in mind if you are house shopping. Easy access to public transportation will likely command a growing premium.

I thought this was prehaps the most remarkable statements from last week's debate:

Clinton, who has painted herself as stronger on foreign policy issues than Obama, said Washington should bring other Middle Eastern nations in addition to Israel under a security "umbrella" to create a deterrent against an Iranian threat.

"I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel," she said.

"We will let the Iranians know, that, yes, an attack on Israel would trigger massive retaliation, but so would an attack on those countries that are willing to go under the security umbrella and forswear their own nuclear ambitions."

An "umbrella of deterrence"? That's quite an expansion in America's commitment to be Middle East peace keeper. Did she really mean it?

Apparently so. Senator Clinton has now upped the ante:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Yes, one would expect America to respond to an attack on Israel, and yes, America is certainly "able" to "obliterate" Iran. But why this harsh rhetoric? What does this accomplish?

Clinton elaborated on her plans for a nuclear response on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" (via Ab2kgj):

Certainly if Iran were to launch an unprovoked attack on another nation, it would be an extraordinary circumstance which might call for an extraordinary response. But I'm very uncomfortable with this kind of escalation in campaign rhetoric. Is it warranted by some sort of immediate threat?

Moreover, as Ab2kgj notes, what happened to that rule against addressing "hypothetical," crisis-type questions?

CLINTON: We're not going to engage in these hypotheticals. I mean, one of the jobs of a president is being very reasoned in approaching these issues. And I don't think it's useful to be talking in these kind of abstract hypothetical terms.

I don't understand when the "hypothetical" rule does or does not apply in discussing foreign policy.

A Political story discusses the large number of Pennsylvania voters switching party registration from Republican to Democrat:

That statewide Democratic surge has been accompanied by a flood of party-switching. More than 178,000 voters have changed their party status since January -- and the Democrats have captured 92 percent of those voters.
. . .
Those party-switchers now represent about 7 percent of the roughly 2 million Democratic voters expected to turnout Tuesday, said [Terry] Madonna.

Which candidate does this help? The Politico analysis infers the switching is concentrated in areas that benefit Obama:

For instance, about 143,400 Democratic newcomers - including newly registered and party switchers -- are in Philadelphia and its suburbs. Those numbers could help Obama rack up big margins in what is considered his strongest turf.

About 28,400 of them are in or around Pittsburgh, an urban area Clinton needs to counter Obama's Philly support. Another 30,000 of them hail from the generally smaller, conservative counties in the state's northwest and southwest, a region that Clinton is hoping to draw Reagan Democrats back to the party and to her cause.

There's also a poll of these switchers which purports to give Obama the edge:

A poll [Franklin & Marshall College Poll] of those switchers and new registrants released by Madonna last week found that Obama was the preferred candidate for 62 percent of them. Clinton insiders said they are also bracing for the same 60-40 split among newly registered Democrats.

I'm not going to put much weight on either of these indicators. I think this is a hard phenomenon to measure and thus I'll wait for the exit polling to sort it out.

It's been amusing listening to comedian Rush Limbaugh puff himself up for weeks with his so-called "Operation Chaos," wherein he directs listeners to cross over and vote for Senator Clinton. One wonders how he can credibly claim to be influencing the Democratic primaries, when he obviously had very little impact in his own party's primaries. Perhaps that's the point--to mask his earlier failed effort to shape the election.

I only caught the last half hour or so of the ABC debate the other night in Philadelphia. At the time, I thought it very curious that the questioners only allowed a minute to discuss high gasoline prices. After all, that's one of the primary issues you hear most people complaining about these days. Shouldn't the topic be given a greater emphasis than a throw-away question near the end of the evening?

Turns I actually caught the more substantive part of the debate. Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos wasted most of the evening focusing on what D.C. pundits are chattering about rather than what American voters are talking about.

Earlier I criticized the candidates for wasting time talking about silly, non-issues rather than the big problems America faces. And it's true that the campaigns have been pushing these type of stories.

But what I neglected to mention, and what was evidently and painfully on display Wednesday, was the national news media's responsibility in dumbing down our electoral process.

Let's face it, candidates, being "rational" actors, are going to respond to media coverage which they believe is giving them a competitive advantage. If there's a story out that a candidate believes is hurting his or her opponent, that candidate has an incentive to keep it alive as long as the news is going to keep talking about it.

How has the main-stream media been handling its responsibility of shaping the electoral conversation? Just look Wednesday night. In an era of teetering financial institutions, falling home values, rising energy costs, and a fiasco in Iraq, could a debate host come up with a lamer issue than a flag pin? You'd have to try to come up with a stupider question than that.

And yet these are the things the beltway pundit class apparently believes our elections should turn on.

UPDATE: Jon Stewart, quoted at Crooks and Liars:

The first hour of last night's debate was a 60 minute master class in questions that elevate out-of-context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues into subjects of natural discourse...which is my job! Stop doing my job! That's what I'm here for! I'm the silly man!

Kidding aside, I suspect Stewart could have done a better job than the "serious" news people who were running the show Wednesday night.

I was riding my bicycle along Neyland Drive yesterday evening and looked up the access ramp as I rode underneath the Buck Karnes (Alcoa Highway/Highway 129) Bridge. I noticed construction barrels stacked along the side of what appeared to be a bicycle lane leading up to the bridge.

Could the bicycle/pedestrian lane project that I had read about be completed?

I turned around and went up the ramp. Sure enough, the lane is finished--or at least it appears to be. All the construction machinery has been removed, leaving a smoothly-paved lane spanning the bridge. Designers appear to have done a fairly good job with the lane (a few construction pictures are currently available here). There is a concrete barrier on the highway side so you feel sufficiently isolated from the oncoming traffic. The vertical railing on the river side does not over-obstruct the scenery.

I rode across the Tennessee River just as the Star of Knoxville riverboat was paddling underneath. It's a nice view from up there.

I went to the other side of the river and spent a few minutes exploring the old service roads that the path connects to. The problem is that there currently aren't many riding options on the south side. Cherokee Trail isn't very bicycle-friendly, and there aren't any other thru-roads in that area. I understand the longer-range plan is for the greenway to be extended to Marine Park, and eventually on into Blount County. But there's not much there for now.

Nonetheless, the bridge bike lane extension is a welcomed improvement in the non-motorized infrastructure. I hope to see more of this kind of progress.

Although Senator Obama all but mathematically clinched a plurality of the elected Democratic delegates for the nomination weeks ago, I've resisted suggesting that the race is over and that Senator Clinton should gracefully exit. Generally speaking, I'm for meaningful state primaries and against media-driven pressure for candidates to quit races.

That, of course, is premised on the assumption that the campaigns are offering voters meaningful policy choices. Unfortunately, that's not what we are getting. The two candidates offer quite similar agendas. So, instead of this being a contest on which direction our nation should take, it's often descended into contest revolving around who does a better job apologizing for something or renouncing a supporter.

This brouhaha regarding Senator Obama's comment on "bitter" Americans is but the latest example. What has this episode reveled about who is best equipped to solve problems? Does anyone really think that Senator Clinton, whose family reported $100+ million in income since leaving the White House, is any more in touch with average Americans than Senator Obama is, simply because she fired a gun when she was a kid? Is this the kind of thing that makes her more qualified to be commander-in-chief?

We've got some serious issues for the next president. For example:

"Food Inflation, Riots Spark Worries for World Leaders"

Jesse Eisinger adds:

From the moment the next president takes office, one issue will overwhelm all others: the American financial crisis. The Federal Reserve has been taking extraordinary measures for more than half a year to contain the spreading misery, including recently brokering the bailout of Bear Stearns. But the damage continues to spread.

Is it that bad? Well, yes. The threat now is to the foundation of our economic structure. Faith in the financial system is crumbling. Because of the scope of the problem, dealing with its aftermath will dominate the next president's entire agenda.

I could add more, but you get the point. We've got serious storm clouds on the horizon. If we must carry on this Democratic nomination battle, the candidates should be focusing on those issues, not playing silly rhetorical games.

A lot of people in Washington DC are regurgitating talking points regarding Iraq today. So why not join in?

There's plenty of debate regarding "victory" or "winning" in Iraq. What do those words mean?

Here's my definition:

America will be on the path toward success in Iraq when we are able to remove a substantial number of American troops (more than 50%) without the country descending into chaos.

Five years into the conflict and I'm still waiting to see signs that we are anywhere close to victory.

I was talking with someone who has connections in Washington D.C. According to his sources, during the closed session of Congress on March 13, lawmakers didn't merely discuss the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as reported. They also discussed the extraordinary measures the Federal Reserve is taking to keep large financial institutions solvent.

He says that people in (and outside consultants working for) the Federal Reserve have been working seven days a week trying to get our financial system out of this mess.

We're skating on thin ice.

Interesting note on how some truckers are starting to drive slower to save fuel costs:

Now that fuel for the first time has surpassed labor as the most significant cost for many trucking companies, it's not surprising that they are taking steps to save. But here's the tricky part. They want all of us to do the same.

The American Trucking Associations is calling for a nationwide 65-mph speed limit--not only to save fuel but as a matter of safety. "It would prevent a differential of speeds between trucks and cars, where you have cars weaving in and out to get by trucks," says Clayton Boyce, spokesman for ATA. He says 77 percent of the ATA's member companies have electronic speed limiters set at 68 mph--with many of them, like Con-Way, now opting for even lower speeds.

I don't have a good sense as to how broad of a movement there is to slow down. Nor have I been doing enough highway driving to notice if truck (and other) drivers are indeed slowing down.

But if fuel prices continue to rise (as I believe they will), we'll have more people calling for a reduction of highway speed limits. I don't know that we'll see a return to the national 55 m.p.h. standard, but a reduction to 65 m.p.h. along select (non-western) interstates is certainly conceivable.