Category: Public Choice

Feds Release Covid Origin Report on a Friday Evening–A Time to “Put Out News They Want Buried or Ignored”

(p. A12) The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a long-awaited declassified report, which included spy agencies’ findings on the so-called lab leak theory, . . .

The 10-page report said scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology did conduct research on coronaviruses, in some cases had inadequate safety measures and had genetically engineered coronaviruses.

. . .

After three years of study, some senior U.S. officials have said that the spy agencies are unlikely to come to any satisfactory conclusion, in large measure because China has not cooperated with international inquiries and some officials in Beijing are not interested in digging deeper into the cause of the pandemic.

. . .

The report was released on a Friday evening, traditionally a time when administrations put out news they want buried or ignored. Conservatives had criticized the government for failing to meet a deadline of the beginning of the week, though few congressionally mandated reports are delivered precisely on time.

While Biden administration officials have said they have ordered investigations without favoring one theory over another, Republicans have harshly criticized how the White House and its intelligence agencies have investigated Covid’s origins.

“The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence and common sense,” John Ratcliffe, who served as the director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, said as the report was released Friday [June 23, 2023], adding: “The Biden administration’s continued obfuscation of Covid origins is a disservice to the intelligence community.”

For the full story, see:

Julian E. Barnes. “Intelligence Agencies Remain Divided Over Theory That Covid Came From Lab.” The New York Times (Saturday, June 24, 2023): A11.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 23, 2023, and has the title “U.S. Intelligence Report Finds No Clear Evidence of Covid Origins in Wuhan Lab.”)

Is Leonardo’s Ferry Moored Due to Global Warming or Due to Bureaucratic Credentialism?

(p. 4) On a recent sunny morning on the banks of the Adda River in northern Italy, schoolchildren on a class trip to Imbersago — the “Town of the Ferry of Leonardo da Vinci” — gathered next to a moored boat and listened as a guide explained how the flights of the river’s birds, the formations of its rocks and the workings of its ships inspired Leonardo’s genius.

“Why doesn’t it move?” one of the students interrupted, pointing to the ferry, which sat behind a chain and a sign reading, “Service suspended.” It looked like a deserted summer deck atop two rowboats.

. . .

. . . some of the townspeople say an Italian problem more daunting than climate change is the real culprit for the ferry’s immobility since May [2023].

“Bureaucracy,” said John Codara, who owns the gelato shop next to the ferry.

. . .

“I mean Leonardo wasn’t a moron,” he said, under a framed picture of Leonardo. He demonstrated how the ferry worked on a small wooden model made by a local pensioner — “It’s to scale; it’s worth 500 euros,” or nearly $550, and argued that low water and weak currents meant operators required elbow grease to move it across the cable connecting the two banks.

“The force of the ferry is these,” Mr. Codara said, pointing at his biceps.

What they did not need was an advanced nautical degree, he said, as he marched out of his cafe and made a beeline for a sign honoring “The Human Face of the Ferry” and its pilots over the past century. “Harvard, Harvard, Harvard,” Mr. Codara said with derision as he pointed at the names. “They all went to Harvard.”

Roberto Spada, 75, whose father was one of those ferrymen, said he helped navigate the ferry as a 12-year-old and was interested in helping out the town by doing it again as a volunteer.

“I thought with my license I could do it,” Mr. Spada told the mayor as they leaned against other signs posted next to the ferry that featured both Leonardo’s sketch and an excerpt from Dante’s “Inferno” about Charon, “ferryman of the damned.”

A retired truck driver and president of the local fishing association — which has the ferry as its logo — Mr. Spada had a boating license but seemed bewildered as the mayor explained all of the certifications and bureaucratic hoops that needed to be jumped through to pilot the ferry.

“It’s a really long process,” said Mr. Vergani, the mayor.

For the full story, see:

Jason Horowitz. “Leonardo’s Ferry Left High and Dry in a Warming Climate.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, April 23, 2023): 4.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated April 25, 2023, and has the title “Leonardo’s Ferry Left High and Dry by Global Warming and Red Tape.”)

Government Infrastructure Serves Elite More Than Ordinary Citizens

(p. A1) In a country where major industry and political fortunes alike are often tied to a vast, interwoven rail system, India has lavished public resources on new trains, but its purse strings have been much tighter when it comes to ensuring the safety of those already racing along its tracks.

Those decisions loomed large on Sunday [June 4, 2023] in the aftermath of a devastating train wreck that killed at least 275 people in eastern India.

. . .

Over the past years, India has been polishing its long-ramshackle infrastructure as never before, and its railways, which are at the heart of the world’s fifth-largest economy, have been a prime beneficiary. The government spent almost $30 billion on the rail system during the past fiscal year, up 15 percent from the year before.

But the amount spent on basic track maintenance and other safety measures has been falling. A report last year by India’s auditor general, an independent office, found that less money was being allocated for track renewal work and that officials had not even spent the full (p. A11) amount set aside.

. . .

. . . most of Mr. Modi’s initiatives have been aimed not at the basic steps needed to get trains from Point A to Point B without mishap, but at improving speed and comfort. He regularly extols higher-fare new electric Vande Bharat trains connecting bigger cities and has made an early priority of a Japanese-style bullet train, though it can do nothing to improve the lives of the country’s ordinary passengers.

For the full commentary, see:

Alex Travelli. “Rail Funding In India Put Upkeep Last.” The New York Times (Monday, June 5, 2023): A1 & A11.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date April 18, 2023, and has the title “Money for Show Horses, Not Work Horses, on India’s Rails.”)

Did Feds Bail Out Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) Because It Was “a Climate Bank”?

After the article quoted below appeared, the Feds decided to bailout the Silicon Valley Bank. They claimed that this was a selective action–not one they would equally apply to all failed banks.

(p. B1) “Silicon Valley Bank was in many ways a climate bank,” said Kiran Bhatraju, chief executive of Arcadia, the largest community solar manager in the country. “When you have the majority of the market banking through one institution, there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage.”

Community solar projects appear to be especially hard hit. Silicon Valley Bank said that it led or participated in 62 percent of financing deals for community solar projects, which are smaller-scale solar projects that often serve lower-income residential areas.

. . .

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank threatens to derail what was a fast and growing part of the venture capital sector. More than $28 billion was invested in climate technology start-ups last year, up sharply from the year before, according to HolonIQ, a data provider.

For the full story, see:

David Gelles. “Bank’s Collapse Leaves Climate Start-Ups at Risk.” The New York Times (Monday, March 13, 2023): B1 & B4.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 12, and has the title “Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Threatens Climate Start-Ups.”)

So-Called “Inflation Reduction Act” Mandates Pharma Firms Dishonestly Say They Voluntarily Negotiated Prices

(p. A15) The pharmaceutical company Merck claims in a lawsuit filed this week that the “Drug Price Negotiation Program for Medicare,” part of last summer’s Inflation Reduction Act, is an unconstitutional taking of company’s property and a violation of the company’s freedom of speech. If successful, this lawsuit will prevent the unconstitutional practice of forcing drug companies to sell drugs to the U.S. government at a government-determined price.

To make the provision of the 2022 law constitutional, Congress could have imposed price controls, or it could have bargained with pharmaceutical companies using the massive marketing power of Medicare, which accounts for some half of all American drug spending. Instead, Congress tried to prevent pharmaceutical companies from walking away from any potential deal. Under the act, secret negotiations force pharmaceutical companies to agree to government-determined prices amounting to massive discounts off market-based prices, under the threat of crippling taxes and penalties.

Americans tend to support pharmaceutical “price negotiations,” but oppose “price controls.” Knowing this, Congress set up a ruse.

. . .

. . ., the law essentially requires a company to communicate that it agreed to the set price—compelled speech that is prohibited by the First Amendment. Time and again, the Supreme Court has declared forced speech beyond the power of the government. The government’s only seeming interest is to pretend that a system of unilateral price controls and mandated sales is actually a system of voluntary negotiations.

For the full commentary, see:

Daniel E. Troy. “An Unconstitutional Offer Drug Companies Can’t Refuse.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, June 9, 2023): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 8, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

As Millennials Age They Shift to Republicans

(p. B4) Fifteen years ago, a new generation of young voters propelled Barack Obama to a decisive victory that augured a new era of Democratic dominance.

Fifteen years later, those once young voters aren’t so young — and aren’t quite so Democratic.

. . .

This shift toward the right among the young voters who propelled Mr. Obama to victory 15 years ago is part of a larger pattern: Over the last decade, almost every cohort of voters under 50 has shifted toward the right, based on an analysis of thousands of survey interviews archived at the Roper Center.

It’s not necessarily a stunning finding. Political folklore has long held that voters become more conservative as they get older. But it is nonetheless at odds with a wave of recent reports or studies suggesting otherwise. The Financial Times, for instance, wrote that “millennials are shattering the oldest rule in politics” by not moving to the right as they age.

For the full commentary, see:

Nate Cohn. “Millennials Aren’t an Exception. They Have Moved to the Right.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, June 4, 2023): A16.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary was updated June 2, 2023, and has the title “Millennials Are Not an Exception. They’ve Moved to the Right.”)

“They Just Invest in How to Navigate This Bureaucracy”

(p. A1) Capella Space, a San Francisco-based start-up, is building a fleet of small, inexpensive satellites that can track enemy troops as they move at night, or under cloud cover that traditional optical satellites cannot see through.

Fortem Technologies, a small aerospace company in Utah, wants to supply the Pentagon with a new type of unmanned aircraft that can disable enemy drones.

HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based firm, has used private equity funds to launch its own satellites that use radio waves emitted by communications equipment and other electronic devices to detect the presence of enemy troop concentrations.

Each of these systems is getting real-world testing in the war in Ukraine, earning praise from top government officials there and validating investors who have been pouring money into the field.

But they are facing a stiff challenge on another field of battle: the Pentagon’s slow-moving, risk-averse military procurement bureaucracy.

When it comes to drones, satellites, artificial intelligence and other fields, start-up companies frequently offer the Pentagon cheaper, faster and more flexible options than the weapons systems produced by the handful of giant contractors the Pentagon normally relies on.

But while the military has provided small grants and short-term contracts to many start-ups, those agreements often expire too quickly and are not large enough for young companies to meet their payrolls — or grow as rapidly as their venture capital investors expect. Several have been forced to lay people off, delaying progress on new technologies and war-fighting tools.

. . .

(p. A8) From the early months of the war, SpaceX’s Starlink, the Elon Musk-founded satellite internet service, had played a critical role for frontline Ukrainian troops. But small drones and a denser collection of satellites are also helping to provide the capacity for pervasive surveillance, allowing Ukraine to identify and track threats and targets constantly.

A new generation of cheaper and more precise attack drones carrying bombs can loiter in the air autonomously until they find their targets. Artificial intelligence-backed computer systems can fuse this collected data and other feeds to make targeting decisions, faster than any human.

The Ukrainians have also innovated a great deal themselves, impressing Pentagon officials as they have converted commercial drones, for example, into mini bombers.

Taken together, said Thomas X. Hammes, who studies war-fighting history at the Pentagon-backed National Defense University, the developments represent a “genuine military revolution,” and one that is happening much more quickly than the shift from infantry that traveled by foot in World War I to the motorized and mechanized armies of World War II.

. . .

(p. A9) Perhaps the most revolutionary use of American technology in Ukraine has been the application of software that uses artificial intelligence, made by Palantir, to help with targeting efforts. The company’s chief executive, Alex Karp, traveled to Ukraine last year to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“If you go into battle with old school technology,” Mr. Karp said this year at an event to discuss artificial intelligence tools in warfare, “and you have an adversary that knows how to install and implement digitalized targeting in A.I., you obviously are at a massive disadvantage.”

Some experts say that artificial intelligence, which has been used in Ukraine to help sift through the massive loads of data being accumulated from surveillance, will ultimately prove as disruptive to the nature of war-fighting as nuclear weapons.

. . .

For Primer, the small artificial-intelligence firm based in downtown San Francisco, it was a breakthrough moment.

Not long after the war in Ukraine started, its engineers, working with Western allies, tapped into a tidal wave of intercepted Russian radio communications. It used advanced software to clean up the crackly sound, automatically translated the conversations, and most importantly, isolated moments when Russian soldiers in Ukraine were discussing weapons systems, locations and other tactically important information.

This same work would have taken hundreds of intelligence analysts to identify the few relevant clues in the mass of radio traffic. Now it was happening in a matter of minutes.

The findings were quickly matched up with other so-called open source intelligence streams, like geolocation data pulled from social media accounts, giving updates on the location of troops or equipment, that could be matched with surveillance video from drones or images from satellites.

“It’s getting situational awareness,” said Sean Gourley, the founder of Primer.

Yet at the same time, the Pentagon was still deciding when to move ahead with major purchases of its technology. The company was burning through its cash reserves too quickly, so Mr. Gourley laid off engineers and other staff members.

“These engineers are great at creating solutions to solve these problems, which is what matters,” Mr. Gourley said. “But there is the uncertainty: When is this contract going to close? It’s very, very hard to justify that spend.”

Mr. Gourley said he decided instead to invest more money in a government relations push, hiring a former top aide to the Senate Armed Services Committee to help the company promote its business in Washington.

“The big defense companies, they don’t really kind of invest in the tech,” he said. “They just invest in how to navigate this bureaucracy. That kind of sucks, but that’s how you’ve got to play this game.”

In interviews, nearly a dozen top executives of technology-oriented companies shared stories of stalled efforts or frustration.

For the full story, see:

Eric Lipton. “Pentagon Is Slow At Signing Deals With Innovators.” The New York Times (Monday, May 22, 2023): A1 & A8-A9.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 21, 2023, and has the title “Start-Ups Bring Silicon Valley Ethos to a Lumbering Military-Industrial Complex.”)

Russians Are Reading Book on How to Remove Dictators

(p. A24) . . . the book, “The End of the Regime: How Three European Dictatorships Ended,” is not about Russia or Vladimir Putin. It’s about three dictatorships — those of Francisco Franco in Spain, Antonio Salazar in Portugal and the colonels in Greece — and how those countries became democracies, returning to the global fold. A large number of Russians haven’t suddenly taken an interest in the history of 20th-century Southern Europe. Rather, discussions of the book have common themes: How do prolonged right-wing dictatorships end? And can Russia become a democracy?

As one might expect, the book is being widely discussed by opposition groups and those calling for an end to the war. More surprisingly, it is also being read by the Russian nomenklatura — those at the apex of the Russian state. It seems that the book has become a pretext for discussion of taboo topics, such as political transition, the health and death of the leader, defeat in a colonial war, the end of isolation and, indeed, the end of the regime.

. . .

Russian readers have found much that is resonant in the book. How the Greek dictatorship, for example, collapsed after an attempt to annex Cyprus, which it regarded as a historical part of the country. Or how the Portuguese regime caved in as a result of a colonial, imperialist war that dragged on for years. Or how Salazar, plagued by health problems, was removed from power but continued to think that he was ruling the country. (To maintain the illusion, a special newspaper was published just for him.) And then there is the story of how in Spain, the idea of a transition to democracy slowly took hold and was brought about by the ruling elite itself.

For the full essay, see:

Alexander Baunov. “Russians Are Still Asking Questions About What’s Next.” The New York Times (Thursday, April 27, 2023): A24.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the essay has the date April 26, 2023, and has the title “Russians Seem Very Interested in My Book About How Dictatorships End.”)

Baunov’s essay discusses his Russian-language book:

Baunov, Alexander. The End of the Regime: How Three European Dictatorships Ended.

Political Challenges Were Greater Than Technology Challenges in Creating Geostationary Satellites

(p. A13) After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first satellite, in 1957, a 31-year-old Rosen was inspired to build “a lightweight satellite that, when launched into a high orbit above the equator, would mimic the Earth’s rotation and retain its relative position, like a spoke on a wheel.” Mr. Amelinckx goes on: “This geostationary satellite would provide twenty-four-hour global communications, something never before attempted. Rosen was excited.”

Indeed he was. Rosen was a brilliant electrical engineer who worked at Hughes Aircraft in California. His tenacity enabled him to surmount, over the following years, the seemingly endless number of infuriating obstacles that stood between him and his goal. There was the multitude of technical problems to be solved—from the satellite’s weight to its spin, antenna, solar panels and more. There were the questions from NASA, Congress, the Pentagon and aerospace companies about whether the U.S. should prefer low-orbit satellites or geostationary ones. (The latter would possess greater transmitting and receiving versatility, but many scientists were convinced that geostationary satellites, which orbit at much higher altitudes, were impractical and would “take years to develop.”)

Mr. Amelinckx notes that solving the political challenges proved more difficult than creating the necessary technologies. Fortunately for Rosen, President Kennedy was keen on communications satellites. And so in 1961, NASA began funding Hughes to create Rosen’s vision.

For the full review, see:

Howard Schneider. “BOOKSHELF; How ‘Early Bird’ Got the Worm.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, April 14, 2023): A13.

(Note: the online version of the review has the date April 13, 2023, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; ‘Satellite Boy’ Review: How ‘Early Bird’ Got the Worm.”)

The book under review is:

Amelinckx, Andrew. Satellite Boy: The International Manhunt for a Master Thief That Launched the Modern Communication Age. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2023.

The “Huge Opportunity Cost” of Congress Keeping Obsolete Warthog Planes Flying

(p. A1) The Air Force has said for years that the A-10 jets, nicknamed Warthogs for their bulky silhouette and toughness in a fight, have passed their prime and will be vulnerable in the wars of the future. The production line where they were made fell silent in the mid-1980s, and the average A-10 here is four decades old. Its job can be done by newer, more advanced planes, the Air Force says.

“The A-10, while it has served us well, is simply not a part of the battlefield of the future,” said Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs.

Congress has other ideas. Bowing to members whose constituencies are dependent on the jet for jobs and the flow of federal tax dollars, it has instead insisted nearly all the planes keep flying at a cost of more than $4 billion over the past 10 years.

This kind of intervention is common—and is (p. A9) impairing the U.S.’s ability to respond to rapidly modernizing Chinese forces in a new era of great-power competition, say current and former senior defense officials and military analysts.

Efforts by lawmakers to bring military jobs and funding to their districts and keep them there are as old as Congress itself. But they come at a huge opportunity cost at a time when the U.S. is facing its most formidable adversary since the end of the Cold War. Congress is in effect forcing the Pentagon to spend billions on programs for which it sees no role in future wars.

For the full story, see:

Daniel Nasaw. “Why Is America Still Flying the A-10 Warthog, a Cold War Relic?” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, April 14, 2023): A1 & A9.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 13, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

National Public Radio (NPR) Is “U.S. State-Affiliated Media”

Nobel-Prize-winner F.A. Hayek in The Road to Serfdom wisely worried about the independence of the press when it is funded by the government.

(p. B6) Twitter on Tuesday [April 5, 2023] evening added a label to National Public Radio’s account on the social network, designating the broadcaster “U.S. state-affiliated media.”

. . .

Twitter’s guidelines define state-affiliated accounts as “outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.” Other news media accounts with the label include RT of Russia and Xinhua of China.

According to cached versions of Twitter’s published policy, for much of Tuesday the guidelines noted that NPR and the BBC of Britain did not receive the label because they were “state-financed media organizations with editorial independence.” The reference to NPR has since been deleted from that policy.

. . .

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment, and an email to Twitter’s communications department was returned with a poop emoji autoreply. Mr. Musk tweeted in apparent support of the move, posting a passage from Twitter’s policy and saying it “seems accurate” in a reply to a user pointing out the label on NPR’s account.

For the full story, see:

Lora Kelley. “In Policy Shift, Twitter Calls NPR ‘State-Affiliated Media.” The New York Times (Thursday, April 6, 2023): B6.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the same date April 5, 2023, and has the title “Twitter Labels NPR ‘State-Affiliated Media,’ in Change to Policy.”)

Hayek’s book mentioned above is:

Hayek, Friedrich A. von. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944.