Category: Government

Chinese Government Stimulus Inflated Egg Futures Bubble

(p. A1) HONG KONG — China is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into its economy in a new effort to support growth. Some of it is going into roads and bridges and other big projects that will keep the economy humming.
And some of it is going into eggs.
China’s latest lending deluge has sent money sloshing into unexpected parts of the economy. That includes a financial market in Dalian where investors can place bets on the future productivity of the country’s hens.
Egg futures have surged by as much as one-third since March, the sort of move that would be justified if investors believed China’s chicken flocks were headed for an unfortunate fate.
But the market’s usual participants say the flocks are fine. In fact, the actual price of eggs in the country’s markets has fallen from a year ago, according to government statistics.
The reason for the unusual jump in egg futures, they say, is China’s tendency to experience investment bubbles when the government steps up spending and lending. China’s previous efforts to bolster growth unexpectedly (p. B2) sent money into real estate and the stock market — markets that had unexplained rises followed by striking drops.
“Many commodities prices have gone up crazily,” said Du Shaoxing, a futures trader in Guangzhou, in southern China. “We surely hope for a more stabilized trend where futures can reflect economic fundamentals. The way in which recent commodity prices went up is worrisome.”
China’s latest bubble illustrates the potential risks of its newest effort to spur growth. The Chinese economy is already burdened with too much debt, economists say. And sometimes, stopgap measures to help the economy create long-term problems.

For the full story, see:
NEIL GOUGH. “China’s Flood of Cash Roils Egg Futures.” The New York Times (Weds., May 2, 2016): A1 & B2 [sic].
(Note: the online version of the article has the date May 1, 2016, and has the title “China Lending Inflates Real Estate, Stocks, Even Egg Futures.”)

Seeking a “Safe Space” to Protect Taxpayers from Wasteful “Spending on Political Correctness”

(p. A1) WORCESTER, Mass. — A freshman tentatively raises her hand and takes the microphone. “I’m really scared to ask this,” she begins. “When I, as a white female, listen to music that uses the N word, and I’m in the car, or, especially when I’m with all white friends, is it O.K. to sing along?”
The answer, from Sheree Marlowe, the new chief diversity officer at Clark University, is an unequivocal “no.”
The exchange was included in Ms. Marlowe’s presentation to recently arriving first-year students focusing on subtle “microaggressions,” part of a new campus vocabulary that also includes “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings.”
. . .
(p. A3) In August [2016], the University of Wisconsin system, which includes the Madison flagship and 25 other campuses, said it would ask the State Legislature for $6 million in funding to improve what it called the “university experience” for students. The request includes money for Fluent, a program described as a systemwide cultural training for faculty and staff members and students.
But that budget request has provoked controversy. “If only the taxpayers and tuition-paying families had a safe space that might protect them from wasteful U.W. System spending on political correctness,” State Senator Stephen L. Nass, a Republican, said in a statement issued by his office, urging his fellow lawmakers to vote against the appropriation.
Mr. Nass’s objection to spending money on diversity training reflects a rising resistance to what is considered campus political correctness. At some universities, alumni and students have objected to a variety of campus measures, including diversity training; “safe spaces,” places where students from marginalized groups can gather to discuss their experiences; and “trigger warnings,” disclaimers about possibly upsetting material in lesson plans.
Some graduates have curtailed donations, and students have suggested that diversity training smacks of some sort of Communist re-education program.
The backlash was exemplified recently in a widely publicized letter sent to new freshmen at the University of Chicago by the dean of students, John Ellison.
He warned that the university did not “support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual safe spaces where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

For the full story, see:
STEPHANIE SAUL. “Campuses Cautiously Train Freshmen Against Subtle Insults.” The New York Times (Weds., SEPT. 7, 2016): A1 & A3.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date SEPT. 6, 2016, and has the title “Campuses Cautiously Train Freshmen Against Subtle Insults.”)

Panopticon: “Bentham’s Most Infamous Idea”

(p. C6) Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of the book, highlighting Mr. Crawford’s ability to mix philosophy and reporting, is the one about the panopticon. The idea of an annular building with a central observation tower was conceived by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). The utilitarian is known most superficially by students of and visitors to University College, London, as the eccentric who willed that, after his death, his body be preserved seated on a chair in a glass case.
Mr. Crawford fleshes out the story, noting that, in fact, the smartly dressed Bentham figure that sits inside a glass display case today is actually a skeleton of the man, his head a wax replica of the real one that did not survive the preservation process. When I was a regular at University College one summer, I was told that the cabinet holding the “Auto-Icon” (Bentham’s term) was rolled over to the lecture hall on occasion, something that I don’t recall witnessing.
The author’s real purpose in discussing Bentham’s most infamous idea is to describe the utopian–or dystopian, depending upon one’s point of view–concept. In one embodiment, it took the form of a rimless wagon wheel, in which someone situated at the hub could oversee activities in all directions, making the layout ideal for insuring that workers in a factory did not take more breaks than allowed, inmates did not misbehave in a prison or students did not cheat on an exam.
Bentham’s insight was that the mere fact that those being observed knew that they were being watched would cause them to alter their behavior for the better. Could Bentham have imagined that his idea would form the foundation of our surveillance society? Looking at our culture today–with its CCTV, smartphones and so on–to some it surely seems that we live in a permanent panopticon. “All this,” Mr. Crawford writes, “from a ‘simple idea in architecture.’ “

For the full review, see:
HENRY PETROSKI. “What Goes Up.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., MARCH 11, 2017): C6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 10, 2017, and has the title “The Lives and Deaths of History’s Greatest Buildings.”)

The book under review, is:
Crawford, James. Fallen Glory: The Lives and Deaths of History’s Greatest Buildings. New York: Picador, 2017.

Fewer Regulations and Lower Taxes Rouse “Animal Spirits” in Small Businesses

(p. B1) More than any other president since Ronald Reagan, President Trump is moving to strip away regulations and slash taxes, said Jeffrey Korzenik, an investment strategist with Fifth Third, a large regional bank in the Midwest and Southeast. In meetings with clients, Mr. Korzenik has been making the case that these policies will rouse the slumbering animal spirits in businesses across America.
“And now we have seen this huge spike in small-business confidence since the election,” Mr. Korzenik said, pointing to a chart. “So I have to ask you: Do you feel more confident now?”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by a howling northwestern Ohio wind that rattled the floor-to-ceiling windows in the bank’s boardroom.
Then, with rapid-fire speed, came the responses.
The president of a trucking company spoke of a “tremendous dark cloud” lifting when he realized he would no longer be feeling the burden of rules and regulations imposed by the Obama administration.
The owner of an automotive parts assembler gave thanks that he would not be receiving visits from pesky envi-(p. B3)ronmental and workplace overseers.
And the head of a seating manufacturer expressed hope that, finally, his health care costs would come down when the Affordable Care Act was repealed.
“My gut just feels better,” said Bob Fleisher, president of a local car dealership. “With Obama, you felt it was personal — like he just didn’t want you to make money. Now we have a guy who is cutting regulations and taxes. And when I see my taxes going down every quarter — well, that means I am going to start investing again.”
. . .
A heavier regulatory burden and uncertainty born of a weak economic recovery have kept small-business owners from making big bets in investments or hiring.
But in Toledo, this reluctance is changing — and quickly.
Louis M. Soltis owns a small company that manufactures control panels for large factories and machines. After four years of not adding to his work force of 22, he has seen orders for panels jump in the last two months and is looking to take on as many as six new workers.
There may not be a direct correlation between his surging order book and the new president, but there is no doubting the psychological boost.
“That guy is a junkyard dog, doing his tweets at 3 a.m. and taking on the news media — I just get strength from him,” Mr. Soltis said over a wine-soaked dinner with a large group of his small-business friends and peers from around town. “And I have to say, it makes you feel gutsy — ready to step up and start investing again.”
. . .
Yet there is a downside to animal spirits that persist too long, especially in labor markets, like Toledo’s, that are operating on the tight side.
And that is a sharp uptick in inflation.
In his presentation to Fifth Third’s banking clients, Mr. Korzenik raised this issue, suggesting that the broader economy was in the “seventh inning” of what has been a pretty long business cycle.
. . .
Still, no one in the room seemed overly concerned. As the group saw it, the party was just beginning.
“Most businesses I know are just taking a deep breath, happy that there is finally someone in the White House who understands what they do,” said Mr. Fleisher, the owner of the Lincoln car dealership. “So you say we are in the seventh inning — well, I am not sure we are.”

For the full story, see:
LANDON THOMAS Jr. “Small Businesses’ Hopes Are Up.” The New York Times (Mon., MARCH 13, 2017): B1 & B3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 12, 2017, and has the title “The President Changed. So Has Small Businesses’ Confidence.”)

Restaurants Add Labor Surcharges to Help Pay Minimum Wage Costs

(p. B1) In lieu of steep menu price increases, many independent and regional chain restaurants in states including Arizona, California, Colorado and New York are adding surcharges of 3% to 4% to help offset rising labor costs. Industry analysts expect the practice to become widespread as more cities and states increase minimum wages.
“It’s the emerging new norm,” said Sharokina Shams, spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Association. She said California restaurants are adding surcharges as the state lifts the minimum wage every year until it reaches $15 an hour by 2023. It is currently at $10.50 an hour for employers with 26 or more workers.
. . .
While adding a surcharge risks turning diners away, some restaurateurs say they want customers to understand the consequences of higher wages on a business with profit margins of generally between 2% and 6%.
. . .
(p. B2) Sami Ladeki added surcharges to the menu at six Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza & Grill restaurants in San Diego and eight more across California. He said it was a mistake to call the charge a state mandate, and has changed the wording. But he remains critical of rising minimum wages.
“This is not sustainable,” said Mr. Ladeki, who says he makes a profit of around 1% charging $12 to $14 a pizza. “People are not going to pay $15 or $20 for a pizza.”
. . .
David Cohn, who owns 15 restaurants in San Diego, including BO-beau, said his 3% surcharge wasn’t a stunt.
“We want people to understand there is a cost,” Mr. Cohn said. “How do we stay in business with margins shrinking and competition increasing?”

For the full story, see:
JULIE JARGON. “New on Your Dinner Tab: A Labor Surcharge.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., March 10, 2017): B1-B2.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 9, 2017.)

China’s “Ruthless” One Child Policy Forced Some Women to Have Abortions

(p. 15) Deng Xiaoping, China’s leader after 1978, had set a target of quadrupling the country’s per capita national income by 2000. China’s planners decided that they could achieve this goal only if, in addition to increasing the size of the pie, there were fewer people to share it.
So they determined, in their words, to “adjust women’s average fertility rate in advance.” The man who ran the program that treated women as if they were production functions was a rocket scientist, Song Jian, who had worked on ballistic missiles. Song went on to help manage the giant Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. His was a world in which unintended consequences were not important.
Population control was not unusual in the 1980s. India also had a fertility-­control program. The United Nations gave its first-ever population award to the Chinese minister for population planning in 1983 (along with Indira Gandhi). But China’s application of population control was particularly ruthless.
In 2012, Feng Jianmei, a factory worker pregnant with her second child, was taken to a clinic, forced to sign a document consenting to an abortion and injected with an abortifacient. She was in her seventh month. Pictures of her lying next to her perfectly formed seven-month dead fetus went viral. But hers was hardly an unusual case. In the 1990s, population targets became a major criterion for judging the performance of officials. It is no surprise that they carried out the one-child policy ruthlessly. Reading this account, one wonders why rape as a weapon of war is (rightly) seen as a war crime, whereas the forcible violation of women’s bodies in pursuit of government policy wins United Nations awards.

For the full review, see:
JOHN PARKER. “Little Emperors.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., JAN. 10, 2016): 15.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date JAN. 8, 2016, and has the title “”One Child,’ by Mei Fong.”)

The book under review, is:
Fong, Mei. One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

U.S. Science Agencies Omit Margin of Error in Warming Stats

(p. A13) The year 2016 was the warmest ever recorded–so claimed two U.S. agencies, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Except it wasn’t, according to the agencies’ own measures of statistical uncertainty.
Such fudge is of fairly recent vintage. Leaving any discussion of the uncertainty interval out of press releases only became the norm in the second year of the Obama administration. Back when he was presenting the 2008 numbers, NASA’s James Hansen, no slouch in raising climate alarms, nevertheless made a point of being quoted saying such annual rankings can be “misleading because the difference in temperature between one year and another is often less than the uncertainty in the global average.”
Statisticians wouldn’t go through the trouble of assigning an uncertainty value unless it meant something. Two measurements separated by less than the margin of error are the same. And yet NASA’s Goddard Institute, now under Mr. Hansen’s successor Gavin Schmidt, put out a release declaring 2014 the “warmest year in the modern record” when it was statistically indistinguishable from 2005 and 2010.
. . .
. . . other countries like the U.K. and Japan also do sophisticated monitoring and end up with findings roughly similar to the findings of U.S. agencies, yet they don’t feel the need to lie about it. For instance, the U.K. Met Office headlined its 2016 report “one of the warmest two years on record.” A reader only had to progress to the third paragraph to discover that the difference over 2015 was one-tenth the margin of error.

For the full commentary, see:
HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR. “Change Would Be Healthy at U.S. Climate Agencies; In the Obama era, it was routine for press releases to avoid mentioning any margin of error..” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Feb. 4, 2017): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)

How Uber Resisted Regulation

(p. B1) Uber Technologies Inc. has for years employed a program that uses data from its ride-hailing app and other tools to evade government officials seeking to identify and block the service’s drivers, according to a person familiar with the matter.
. . .
Uber has set up GPS rings around government offices, tracked low-cost phones and looked for other clues that regulators were targeting its drivers, such as frequently opening or closing the app or using credit cards tied to city agencies, according to the Times report. Once identified, Uber kept regulators out of vehicles by failing to send drivers their way, according to the newspaper.

For the full story, see:
GREG BENSINGER. “Uber Used Program to Evade Authorities.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., March 6, 2017): B4.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 4, 2017, and has the title “Uber Used ‘Greyball’ Program to Circumvent Authorities.” )

British Government Environmentalists Increase London Air Pollution

(p. A4) London is choking from record levels of pollution, much of it caused by diesel cars and trucks, as well as wood-burning fires in private homes, a growing trend.
. . .
London’s air pollution today is different from seven decades ago, and more insidious. No longer thick as “pea soup,” as it was traditionally described, the city’s air is now laced with nitrogen dioxide — a toxic gas mostly produced by vehicles with diesel engines.
. . .
The current problem is, in part, an unintended consequence of previous efforts to aid the environment.
The British government provided financial incentives to encourage a shift to diesel engines because laboratory tests suggested that would cut harmful emissions and combat climate change. Yet, it turned out that diesel cars emit on average five times as much emissions in real-world driving conditions as in the tests, according to a British Department for Transport study.
“No one at the time thought of the consequences of increased nitrogen dioxide emissions from diesel, and the policy of incentivizing diesel was so successful that an awful lot of people bought diesel cars,” said Anna Heslop, a lawyer at ClientEarth, an environmental law firm that last year forced the British government to produce a better plan to improve air quality.
. . .
Bob Miller, 69, a cabdriver who has crisscrossed London for 30 years, wasn’t convinced. He has lost faith in recommendations by policy makers and experts, he said.
“We were told how wonderful diesel is, how they were supposed to be cleaner than petrol,” Mr. Miller said, idling his cab in heavy traffic with the window open.
“The experts make the rules, then they’re wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “I give up.”

For the full story, see:
KIMIKO de FREYTAS-TAMURA. “A Push for Diesel Leaves London Gasping Amid Record Pollution.” The New York Times (Sat., FEB. 18, 2017): A4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 17, 2017.)

U.S. Forest Service Killed “Prometheus,” World’s Oldest Tree

(p. D9) Great Basin’s . . . big draw–trees about as old as Egyptian hieroglyphics–sits at the top of the sky island in Wheeler Peak Bristlecone Grove.
. . .
At the grove, a stand of weather-battered bristlecone pines await, just as they have for between 3,000 and 4,000 years. With their knobby trunks and gnarled branches, the trees look like characters in an animated film’s enchanted forest, ready to burst into song. They often have only a small strip of bark, with the rest of the trunk bare, exposing the smooth, rich browns, yellows and grays in its fine grain.
At one time the oldest known tree in the world lived here. Its dignified appearance earned it the name Prometheus. In 1964, two decades before Great Basin became a national park, a researcher, trying to collect data about the area’s climate history, drilled into defenseless Prometheus (not knowing its exact age) to examine its rings. When his coring instrument got stuck, the Forest Service felled the tree to retrieve his tool– only to discover that the tree was 4,900 years old.
Oops.

For the full story, see:
JIM ROBBINS. “In a Strange Land; One of the country’s least-hyped nature preserves, Nevada’s Great Basin National Park has a weird, wild beauty all its own.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., MARCH 11, 2017): D9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 9, 2017, and has the title “A Hike Through America’s Otherworldly Outback.”)

“High Expectations, High Support” Charter Schools Work Well

(p. 2) The briefest summary is this: Many charter schools fail to live up to their promise, but one type has repeatedly shown impressive results.
Hannah Larkin, the principal at Match, refers to such schools as “high expectations, high support” schools. They devote more of their resources to classroom teaching and less to almost everything else. They keep students in class for more hours. They set high standards for students and try to instill confidence in them. They focus on giving teachers feedback about their craft and helping them get better.
. . .
The latest batch of evidence about this approach is among the most rigorous. Professors at M.I.T., Columbia, Michigan and Berkeley have tracked thousands of charter-school applicants, through high school and beyond, in Boston, where most charters fit the “high expectations, high support” model.
Crucially, the researchers took several steps to make sure the findings were real. They compared lottery winners with losers, controlling for the fact that families who applied for the lotteries were different from families who didn’t. They also counted as charter students all those who enrolled, including any who later left.
When you talk to the professors about their findings, you hear a degree of excitement that’s uncommon for academic researchers. “Relative to other things that social scientists and education policy people have tried to boost performance — class sizes, tracking, new buildings — these schools are producing spectacular gains,” said Joshua Angrist, an M.I.T. professor.

For the full commentary, see:
Leonhardt, David. “Schools That Work.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., NOV. 6, 2016): 2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date NOV. 4, 2016.)

The “latest batch of evidence” mentioned above, includes:
Angrist, Joshua D., Sarah R. Cohodes, Susan M. Dynarski, Parag A. Pathak, and Christopher R. Walters. “Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston’s Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice.” Journal of Labor Economics 34, no. 2 (April 2016): 275-318.