Government – Page 107 – artdiamondblog.com

Scots Fear London May Delay the Dawn

“Inverness, Scotland, at 8 a.m. Thursday. A change to year-round daylight time in Britain would make winter sunrise as late as 10 a.m. in the north.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A7) INVERNESS, Scotland — The question was time, and whether to support legislative efforts in London to move it around in order to bring more light to the afternoons. The answer was no, said Jean Kaka, 67, a resident of this city far to the north.
. . .
“They’re trying to tamper with our time,” she said. “England is a different country than we are, and they’re imposing this on us.”
. . .
The problem is that while a clock change might bring afternoon joy to London, it would condemn Inverness in the far reaches of Scotland — in relative terms, about 700 miles north of Montreal — to long, dark winter mornings with sunrises as late as 10 a.m.
Even worse, many Scots feel, it would mean giving in to English politicians. Though the devolution of British politics has given Scotland its own legislature and responsibility for many of its own affairs, the clock is still controlled by Parliament in London.
“Certainly the people in London don’t have any real concept of the effects further north,” said Anthony Billington, 64, who was strolling through town recently. “I’m much more of a morning person, anyway.”
. . .
Robin MacDonald, 63, who owns a television store in downtown Inverness, said that while Parliament’s efforts to jump time ahead hardly mean that time is literally being stolen from him, he could do without having to set and reset his clocks twice a year.
When he was a child in the rural north, he said, he traveled to and from school in conditions “as dark as the inside of your hat.” So he doesn’t care what time legislators decide it is, as long as they decide something.
“They should make up their mind,” Mr. MacDonald said, “and then they should leave it alone.”

For the full story, see:

SARAH LYALL. “Inverness Journal; Scots Tell London, Hands Off Our Clocks.” The New York Times (Fri., January 21, 2011): A7.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated January 20, 2011.)

“Robin MacDonald would rather not have to reset his clocks twice a year.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

“Enough Is Enough with the Ineffective Theatrical Security Measures”

(p. B6) “DOES he bite?” the screener at the checkpoint asked warily.
“She doesn’t bite,” I said.
“Because we have to check under the wings,” he said.
“In that case,” I said, “she might bite.”
At issue was our chatty little African Grey parrot, Rosie, who was watching the scene from inside her travel cage at the security checkpoint at the Newark airport. This was last week, a few days after a suspected terrorist tried to blow up an international flight on its descent into Detroit by igniting some explosives hidden in his underwear.
While the explosion fizzled, it threw airport security into a tizzy.
. . .
We were very anxious at the checkpoint. My wife solved the problem, though. One of Rosie’s tricks is to spread her wings and lower her beak if you ask her to imitate an eagle.
“Rosie, do an eagle,” my wife said. Inside her cage with the screener’s face framed in the open door, the bird promptly spread her wings wide.
The screener had his look under the wings and lowered his wand. Merriment ensued all around — but it had to look pretty silly.
. . .
On a more serious note, an airline pilot who did not want his name used, asked, “When will passengers say enough is enough with the ineffective theatrical security measures?”

For the full commentary, see:
JOE SHARKEY. “On the Road; Please Take Off Your Shoes, and Is the Parrot Loaded?” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., January 5, 2010): B6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated January 4, 2010, and has the title “On the Road; Take Off Your Shoes, and Is the Parrot Loaded?”)

“The Adventurous, Pioneering Spirit”

Source of book image: http://www.jetagebook.com/

(p. 30) “Jet Age” is ostensibly about the race between two companies and nations to commercialize a military technology and define a new era of air travel. There’s Boeing with its back to the wall and its military contracts drying up, betting everything on passenger jets, pitted against de Havilland and the government-subsidized project meant to reclaim some of Britain’s lost glory. . . .
. . .
But the book is really about the risk-taking essential for making any extreme endeavor commonplace. “Jet Age” celebrates the managers, pilots, engineers, flight attendants and, yes, even passengers (for without passengers there is no business) who gambled everything so that we might cross oceans and continents in hours rather than days.
It is easy to forget, in this time of overcrowded flights, demoralizing security checks, embattled flight attendants and dwindling service, that risk was once embraced as a necessary, even desirable, part of flying. Quoted in the book, the celebrated aviator Lord Brabazon summed it up in post-accident testimony: “You know, and I know, the cause of this accident. It is due to the adventurous, pioneering spirit of our race. It has been like that in the past, it is like that in the present, and I hope it will be in the future.”

For the full review, see:
MICHAEL BELFIORE. “Fatal Flaws.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., February 6, 2011): 30.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 4, 2011.)

The book under review is:
Verhovek, Sam Howe. Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World. New York: Avery, 2010.

Koch Does Not Run with the Antelope

If you were standing amongst a herd of antelope when a dangerous predator arrived, you would not see the antelope defending themselves against the predator. What you would see would be their white rear ends disappearing in the distance.
Last July in Wichita I heard some executives from Koch Industries talking about Market-Based Management. A couple of them mentioned Koch’s stands in defense of the free market. As a result of these efforts, Koch Industries has become the target of many agencies of the government and of groups opposed to the free market. Once or twice I heard an executive say something like: ‘it would have been a lot easier if we had just painted our butts white and run with the antelope.’
Schumpeter thought that those in business would not defend the fortress of capitalism (CSD, p. 142). And the evidence suggests that Schumpeter was mainly right. But we can hope that there are enough exceptions, in unpretentious places like Wichita, to keep the fortress standing.

(p.A15) Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis. Federal spending will total at least $3.8 trillion this year–double what it was 10 years ago. And unlike in 2001, when there was a small federal surplus, this year’s projected budget deficit is more than $1.6 trillion.

Several trillions more in debt have been accumulated by state and local governments. States are looking at a combined total of more than $130 billion in budget shortfalls this year. Next year, they will be in even worse shape as most so-called stimulus payments end.
For many years, I, my family and our company have contributed to a variety of intellectual and political causes working to solve these problems. Because of our activism, we’ve been vilified by various groups. Despite this criticism, we’re determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously.

For the full commentary, see:
CHARLES G. KOCH. “Why Koch Industries Is Speaking Out; Crony capitalism and bloated government prevent entrepreneurs from producing the products and services that make people’s lives better.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., MARCH 1, 2011): A15.

Koch’s book is:
Koch, Charles G. The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World’s Largest Private Company. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007.

Unclear Regulations Reduce Energy Innovation Investment

“Source of graphic: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. R3) Bill Gates reshaped the computer industry by pumping out new versions of Microsoft Windows software every few years, fixing and fine tuning it as he went along.

He’s now betting that he can reshape the energy industry with a project akin to shipping Windows once and having it work, bug-free, for 50 years.
Thanks to his role funding and guiding a start-up called TerraPower LLC, where he serves as chairman, Mr. Gates has become a player in a field of inventors whose goal is to make nuclear reactors smaller, cheaper and safer than today’s nuclear energy sources. The 30-person company recently completed a basic design for a reactor that theoretically could run untouched for decades on spent nuclear fuel. Now the company is seeking a partner to help build the experimental reactor, and a country willing to host it.
It’s a long-term, risky endeavor for Mr. Gates and his fellow investors. The idea will require years to test, billions of dollars (not all from him) and changes in U.S. nuclear regulations if the reactor is to be built here. Current U.S. rules don’t even cover the type of technology TerraPower hopes to use.
“A cheaper reactor design that can burn waste and doesn’t run into fuel limitations would be a big thing,” Mr. Gates says. He adds that in general “capitalism underinvests in innovation,” particularly in areas with “long time horizons and where government regulations are unclear.”
. . .
The company has made pitches in France and Japan, Mr. Myrhvold says; both have big nuclear-power industries. He’s also made the rounds in Russia, China and India, he says. So far, there have been no takers.
One country he is certain won’t be a customer anytime soon is the U.S., which doesn’t yet have a certification process for reactors like TerraPower’s. It would likely be a decade or more before the reactor could be tested on U.S. soil. “I don’t think the U.S. has the willpower or desire to build new kinds of nuclear reactors,” Mr. Myrhvold says. “Right now there’s a long, drawn-out process.”
. . .
Mr. Myrhvold says he hopes the process will speed up and spark innovation to meet the world’s growing energy demand. “Let’s try 20 ideas,” he says. “Maybe five of them work. That’s the only way to invent our way out of the pickle we’re in.”

For the full story, see:
ROBERT A. GUTH. “A Window Into the Nuclear Future; TerraPower–with the backing of Bill Gates–has a radical vision for the reactors of tomorrow.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., FEBRUARY 28, 2011): R3.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Defending the Right to Bear Arms

(p. 20) State Representative Jack Harper, who introduced a bill allowing professors to carry guns, said an Arizona State University professor, whom he has refused to identify, first raised the issue with him. “When law-abiding, responsible adults are able to defend themselves, crime is deterred,” Mr. Harper said in a statement.

That is the philosophy in Arizona as a whole, where gun laws are among the least restrictive in the country. If law-abiding people can carry guns one step outside the campus to keep criminals at bay, supporters ask, why not allow them to enter a university with their firearms? That is already permitted in Utah, alone so far in allowing guns to be carried on all state campuses.
“I think that every person has the right to bear arms no matter what the circumstances,” said Ashlyn Lucero, a political science student at Arizona State University who has served in the Marine Corps, is the daughter of a sheriff and grew up hunting.
Ms. Lucero carries her Glock pistol whenever possible and would carry it on campus if she could. “If I’m going out to eat somewhere, I usually have a gun with me always,” she said. “It’s just one of those things that you never know what’s going to happen.”
Thor Mikesell, a senior majoring in music who grew up hunting, is also a backer of allowing guns on campus. “There’s no magic line, there’s no magic barrier that makes me more safe on the campus than it is when I’m being a real person in the real world outside of the school,” he said.
. . .
“This is not the 1890s’ O.K. Corral shoot ’em up, bang ’em up,” he said. “These are not vigilante kind of people. Their interest is their personal security and the security of their family.”
The State Senate president, Russell Pearce, who recently said he would not prevent senators from taking guns into the Senate chamber despite rules against it, is an advocate for loosening as many gun restrictions as possible.
. . .
“Guns save lives, and it’s a constitutional right of our citizens,” Mr. Pearce said of the guns-on-campus proposal. Speaking of the Tucson shooting, which took place at a shopping center and not on a university campus, Mr. Pearce, a former sheriff’s deputy, said, “If somebody had been there prepared to take action, they could have saved lives.”

For the full story, see:
MARC LACEY. “Lawmakers Debate Effect of Weapons on Campus.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., February 27, 2011): 14 & 20.
(Note: ellipses added.)

What a Picture Is Worth

“In Cairo, Egyptian youths used laptops to post video they had shot earlier Tuesday in Tahir Square. The group has been collecting accounts of the demonstrations and voices of the protesters, putting them on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

The photo above was at the top of the first page of the New York Times on Weds., Feb. 9, 2011. You have a group of lively, engaged, young people intoxicated with the idea that they may be helping to bring their country freedom. And in the center of the dark picture, amidst the conversations, is one youth looking with concentration at an Apple laptop, the sole source of color and illumination.
If I was Steve Jobs, I would value this one photo at more than a whole hour’s worth of Superbowl ads.

The photo above was placed above the following story on the front page of the NYT:
DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK. “As Egypt Protest Swells, U.S. Sends Specific Demands.” The New York Times (Weds., February 9, 2011): A1 & A12.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 8, 2011.)

Occupational Licensing Adds Billions a Year to Cost of Services

Source of graph: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) . . . economists–and workers shut out of fields by educational requirements or difficult exams–say licensing mostly serves as a form of protectionism, allowing veterans of the trade to box out competitors who might undercut them on price or offer new services.

“Occupations prefer to be li-(p. A16)censed because they can restrict competition and obtain higher wages,” said Morris Kleiner, a labor professor at the University of Minnesota. “If you go to any statehouse, you’ll see a line of occupations out the door wanting to be licensed.”
While some states have long required licensing for workers who handle food or touch others–caterers and hair stylists, for example–economists say such regulation is spreading to more states for more industries. The most recent study, from 2008, found 23% of U.S. workers were required to obtain state licenses, up from just 5% in 1950, according to data from Mr. Kleiner. In the mid-1980s, about 800 professions were licensed in at least one state. Today, at least 1,100 are, according to the Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation, a trade group for regulatory bodies. Among the professions licensed by one or more states: florists, interior designers, private detectives, hearing-aid fitters, conveyor-belt operators and retailers of frozen desserts.
. . .
Mr. Kleiner, of the University of Minnesota, looked at census data covering several occupations that are regulated in some states but not others, including librarians, nutritionists and respiratory therapists. He found that employment growth in those professions was about 20% greater, on average, in the unregulated states between 1990 and 2000.
Licensing can also drive up costs to consumers. Licensed workers earn, on average, 15% more than their unlicensed counterparts in other states–a premium that may be reflected in their prices, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and conducted by Mr. Kleiner and Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University.
Mr. Kleiner estimates that across the U.S. economy, occupational licensing adds at least $116 billion a year to the cost of services, which amounts to about 1% of total consumer spending. In a look at dentistry, Mr. Kleiner found that the average price of dental services rose 11% when a state made it more difficult to get a dental license.

For the full story, see:

STEPHANIE SIMON. “A License to Shampoo: Jobs Needing State Approval Rise.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., February 7, 2011): A1 & A16.
(Note: ellipses added.)

“Some of the jobs that require licensing in one or more states.” Source of caption and table: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.

Property Rights Arise When Labor Creates Scarce Value

Marking snow-cleared parking spaces is a wonderful example of Demsetz’s theory of how property rights tend to emerge when the efficiency gains are large enough.
I remember when I was a graduate student in Chicago sometime in the mid-to-late 1970s, there were a couple of very snowy winters in which Chicagoans would similarly claim spaces from which they had cleared the snow.
I remember, but alas did not save, an article (probably in the Chicago Tribune) documenting how someone “stole” a marked space, and later returned to find that a garden hose had been used to cover their car in a considerable layer of ice.

(p. 8A) CHICAGO (AP) — A blizzard that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on Chicago last week has revived a city tradition: Break out the patio furniture. Or, if none is available, suitcases, garbage cans, strollers, bar stools and milk crates work, too.

Chicagoans use all these items in a time-honored yet controversial system of preserving parking spots, a system known as “dibs.”
. . .
Actually, a city ordinance makes the practice illegal.
. . .
Even the city’s top police officer sympathizes with those who do it.
“Think about it, you spend a couple hours clearing a spot, and somebody from another block takes it?” Superintendent Jody Weis said Friday.
. . .
“This is my spot because I worked hard to dig my car out,” said Max Rosario, 27, just before he put his patio chair on the street. It joined 16 chairs, one slab of plywood, a plastic kids table, three bar stools and a TV dinner tray, among other things.

For the full story, see:
AP. “Chicagoans calling dibs after digging out; Chairs and other objects save precious parking spots that have been shoveled.” Omaha World-Herald (Sun., FEBRUARY 6, 2011): 8A.
(Note: ellipses added.)

The Demsetz paper is:
Demsetz, Harold. “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” American Economic Review 57, no. 2 (May 1967): 347-59.

Kappos Says Private Company Would Have Run Patent Office Better

“David Kappos of the Patent Office, with an Edison bulb.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) “There is no company I know of that would have permitted its information technology to get into the state we’re in,” David J. Kappos, who 18 months ago became director of the Patent and Trademark Office and undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property, said in a recent interview. “If it had, the C.E.O. would have been fired, the board would have been thrown out, and you would have had shareholder lawsuits.”

Once patent applications are in the system, they sit — for years. The patent office’s pipeline is so clogged it takes two years for an inventor to get an initial ruling, and an additional year or more before a patent is finally issued.
The delays and inefficiencies are more than a nuisance for inventors. Patentable ideas are the basis for many start-up companies and small businesses. Venture capitalists often require start-ups to have a patent before offering financing. That means that patent delays cost jobs, slow the economy and threaten the ability of American companies to compete with foreign businesses.

For the full story, see:

EDWARD WYATT. “U.S. Sets 21st-Century Goal: Building a Better Patent Office.” The New York Times (Mon., February 21, 2011): A1 & A3.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 20, 2011.)

Paul Romer Looking to Found a “Charter City”

Romer’s idea of setting up a Charter City sounds like a more advanced version of a free trade zone. It might work if you could find a well-governed nation to serve as guarantor of the city’s charter. That’s a big “if.”
Still, it’s a more intriguing idea for advancing economic development than most of the default policies (like sending foreign aid to be stolen by corrupt dictators).

(p. A2) For the past couple of years, economist Paul Romer has been hopscotching the globe looking for a country desperate enough to try his audacious notion: Start a new “charter city,” an enclave free of old laws and practices, as William Penn did in Pennsylvania. (Think “charter school,” a school free of union contracts and school bureaucracy.)

. . .
About a decade ago, he walked away from academia, started an online teaching company, sold it and then turned to his next big idea: To create jobs to lift millions out of poverty, take an uninhabited 1,000 square-kilometer tract (386 square miles), about the size of Hong Kong, preferably government-owned. Write a charter: the all-important rules. Allow anyone to move in or out. Invite foreign investors to build infrastructure for profit. And sign a treaty with a well-governed country, say Norway or Canada, to serve as “guarantor” to assure investors and residents that the charter will be respected, much as the British once did for Hong Kong, and–. . . .

For the full story, see:
DAVID WESSEL. “CAPITAL; The Quest for a ‘Charter City’.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., FEBRUARY 3, 2011): A2.
(Note: ellipses added.)