E.U. Regulations Protect Paris Rats

(p. A4) PARIS — On chilly winter mornings, most Parisians hurry by the now-locked square that is home to the beautiful medieval Tour St. Jacques. Only occasionally do they pause, perhaps hearing a light rustle on the fallen leaves or glimpsing something scampering among the dark green foliage.
A bird? A cat? A puppy?
No. A rat.
No. Three rats.
No. Look closer: Ten or 12 rats with lustrous gray-brown coats are shuffling among the dried autumn leaves.
Paris is facing its worst rat crisis in decades. Nine parks and green spaces have been closed either partly or entirely
. . .
In the 19th century, rats terrified and disgusted Parisians who knew that five centuries earlier, the creatures had brought the bubonic plague across the Mediterranean.
The plague ravaged the city, as it did much of Europe, killing an estimated 100,000 Parisians, between a third and half the population at the time. It recurred periodically for four more centuries. Not surprisingly, the experience left Paris with a millennium-long aversion to rodents.
. . .
. . . why are they proliferating? Could it be everybody’s favorite scapegoat — the European Union and its faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats?
Yes, it could.
New regulations from Brussels, the European Union’s headquarters, have forced countries to change how they use rat poison, said Dr. Jean-Michel Michaux, a veterinarian and head of the Urban Animals Scientific and (p. A14) Technical Institute in Paris.
. . .
While the poison could be a risk to human beings, so are the rats — potentially, although no one is suggesting that the bubonic plague is likely to return.

For the full story, see:

ALISSA J. RUBIN. “PARIS JOURNAL; The Rats Came Back. Blame the E,U.” The New York Times (Fri., DEC. 16, 2016): A4 & A14.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 15, 2016, and has the title “PARIS JOURNAL; Rodents Run Wild in Paris. Blame the European Union.”)

Government Permission to Build Takes Longer than It Takes to Build

(p. A21) America used to be the envy of the world in building great projects responsibly, efficiently and on time. The Pentagon was built in 16 months. The 1,500-mile Alaska-Canadian Highway, which passes through some of the world’s most rugged terrain, took about eight months. Today, infrastructure projects across America often require several years simply to get through the federal government’s pre-build permitting process. Consider a few examples.
New U.S. highway construction projects usually take between nine and 19 years from initial planning and permitting to completion of construction, according to a 2002 Government Accountability Office study. It will have taken 14 years to permit an expansion of Gross Reservoir in Colorado, and it took almost 20 years to permit the Kensington gold mine in Alaska.
It took four years to construct a new runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but it took 15 years to get the permits. Todd Hauptli of the American Association of Airport Executives bitterly joked to the Senate Commerce Committee last year, “It took longer to build that runway than the Great Pyramids of Egypt.”
These problems have been building for decades as the U.S. regulatory state has grown.

For the full commentary, see:
DAN SULLIVAN. “How to Put Building Permits on a Fast Track; It can take 15 years to win approval for a new airport runway. No wonder U.S. infrastructure needs a lift.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Dec. 5, 2016): A21.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Dec. 4, 2016.)

Greenspan “Implemented a Successful Rule-Based Monetary Policy”

(p. C12) Effective public policy requires getting good ideas and putting them into practice. There is no better account of the world where economic ideas emerge as economic policy than Sebastian Mallaby’s thoroughly researched (there are 1,625 endnotes) “The Man Who Knew,” which takes up Alan Greenspan’s long career. Mr. Greenspan knew the ideas, Mr. Mallaby first argues, and then tells story after story of how the economist worked them into policy in Washington. Mr. Greenspan approved President Ford’s questionable stimulus package in order to implement ideas on spending control; he skillfully drove reform ideas as chair of the Social Security commission; he implemented a successful rule-based monetary policy at the Fed with careful data analysis for many years, but ran into difficulties when the data gave mixed messages toward the end of his term.

For Taylor’s full book recommendations, see:
John Taylor. “12 Months of Reading.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 10, 2016): C12.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Dec. 7, 2016, and has the title “John Taylor on Alan Greenspan.”)

The book recommended, is:
Mallaby, Sebastian. The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan. New York: Penguin Press, 2016.

$19 Billion in Farm Subsidies Mostly Go to Big Farms

(p. A17) President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington could begin with the Agriculture Department. Federal aid to farmers is forecast by the Congressional Budget Office to soar to $19 billion in 2017. Farmers will receive twice as much of their income from handouts (25%) this year as they did in 2013, according to the USDA. Whoever Mr. Trump names as his agriculture secretary should target wasteful farm programs for spending cuts.
. . .
While generous government subsidies are defended by invoking the “family farmer,” big farmers snare the vast majority of federal handouts. According to a report released this year by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based nonprofit research organization, “the top 1 percent of farm subsidy recipients received 26 percent of subsidy payments between 1995 and 2014.” The group’s analysis of government farm-subsidy data also found that the “top 20 percent of subsidy recipients received 91 percent of all subsidy payments.” Fifty members of the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans have received farm subsidies, according to the group, including David Rockefeller Sr. and Charles Schwab.

For the full commentary, see:
JAMES BOVARD. “Living Off the Fat of Washington; If Trump is going to ‘drain the swamp,’ he might start with wasteful ag subsidies.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Dec. 12, 2016): A17.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Dec. 11, 2016.)

Business Cycles Can Be Moderated

LongEconomicExpansionsGraph2016-12-05.png

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

(p. B2) It’s tempting to think of an economic expansion as being like a life span. The older you get, the closer you are to death; a 95-year-old probably has fewer years left to live than a 60-year-old. But this year Glenn D. Rudebusch, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, looked at the evidence from post-World War II United States economic expansions, and did not find that pattern held up at all.

“A long recovery appears no more likely to end than a short one,” Mr. Rudebusch wrote. “Like Peter Pan, recoveries appear to never grow old.”

Expansions don’t die of old age. They die because something specific killed them. It can be a wrong-footed central bank, the popping of a financial bubble or a shock from overseas. But age itself isn’t the problem.

A look around the world also shows plenty of examples of expansions that have lasted a lot longer than either the seven years the current United States expansion has been underway or the longest expansion in American history, from 1991 to 2001.

Britain had a nearly 17-year expansion from the early 1990s until the 2008 global financial crisis. France had a slightly longer expansion that ended in 1992. And the record-holders among advanced economies in modern times, according to the research firm Longview Economics, are the Netherlands, which experienced a nearly 26-year “Dutch miracle” that ended in 2008, and Australia, which has an expansion that began in 1991 and is on track to overtake the Dutch soon for the longest on record.

For the full story, see:

NEIL IRWIN. “Expansion Is Old, Not at Death’s Door.” The New York Times (Fri., OCT. 28, 2016): B1 & B2.

(Note: the online version of the article has the date Oct. 27, 2016, and has the title “Will the Next President Face a Recession? Don’t Assume So.”)

Rudebusch’s research, mentioned above, appeared in:

Rudebusch, Glenn D. “Will the Economic Recovery Die of Old Age?” FRBSF Economic Letter # 2016-03 (Feb. 8, 2016): 1-4.

Unbinding Entrepreneurs Can Create Jobs and Speed Growth

(p. A21) This week more than 160 countries are celebrating Global Entrepreneurship Week. The Kauffman Foundation, which I once led, created this event eight years ago to encourage other nations to follow the American tradition of bottom-up economic success. Yet this example has been less powerful in recent years, as American entrepreneurship has waned. Fortunately, President-elect Donald Trump has plenty of options if he wants to resurrect America’s startup economy.
Consider the economic situation that the president-elect is inheriting. Despite the addition of 161,000 jobs in October, the labor-force participation rate fell to its second lowest level in nearly 40 years, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve. More people have joined the ranks of the chronically unemployed, slipping into poverty at alarming rates as their skills decay and dependency on public assistance grows. Considering population growth, America needs at least 325,000 new jobs every month to stanch the growing numbers of discouraged workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Merely bringing back factories from overseas will not solve this problem. Technology has made every factory more productive. Fewer workers make more goods no matter where they’re located. At the same time, fewer U.S. businesses are being started. New firms are the country’s principal generator of new jobs. Data from the Kauffman Foundation suggest companies less than five years old create more than 80% of new jobs every year. While the nation seems more enthusiastic than ever about the promise of entrepreneurship, fewer than 500,000 new businesses were started in 2015. That is a disastrous 30% decline from 2008.
. . .
What can President Trump do to encourage more entrepreneurship?
. . .
Government must . . . widen the scope of innovation by stepping back and letting the market find the future. By promoting trendy ideas and subsidizing politically favored companies, government dampens diversity in creative business ideas.
. . .
Mr. Trump can also reverse regulatory sprawl and cut government-imposed requirements that add to every entrepreneurs’ costs and risks. Anti-growth policies like ObamaCare and minimum-wage increases make hiring workers prohibitively expensive.
. . .
With these policies in mind, President Trump should set another goal: that his administration will create an environment that enables one million Americans to start companies every year. Such an outcome would assure his target of 4% GDP growth, as well as full employment.

For the full commentary, see:
CARL J. SCHRAMM. “The Entrepreneurial Way to 4% Growth; Trump should set a goal: fix the business climate so a million Americans a year can start companies.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Nov. 16, 2016): A21.

Jane Jacobs Studied the “Mess of Everyday Life”

(p. C6) The decidedly unpredictable and unscientific mess of everyday life was the passion of the urban theorist Jane Jacobs. For her, studying the street and the city was the key to understanding how things work. Robert Kanigel’s “Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs” has taken a place on my bookshelf right next to Robert Caro’s landmark biography of her nemesis, Robert Moses.

For Bierut’s full book recommendations, see:
Michael Bierut. “12 Months of Reading.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 10, 2016): C6.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Dec. 7, 2016, and has the title “Michael Bierut on Jane Jacobs.”)

The book recommended, is:
Kanigel, Robert. Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.

Not All Secure Jobs Are Good Jobs

(p. C8) The village idiot of the shtetl of Frampol was given the job of waiting at the village gates for the arrival of the Messiah. The pay wasn’t great, he was told, but the work was steady.

For Epstein’s book recommendations, see:
Joseph Epstein. “12 Months of Reading.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 10, 2016): C8.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Dec. 7, 2016, and has the title “Books of The Times; Review: ‘A Truck Full of Money’ and a Thirst to Put It to Good Use.”)

Estonia Encourages Citizens to Own Guns to Defend Freedom

(p. A4) Since the Ukraine war, Estonia has stepped up training for members of the Estonian Defense League, teaching them how to become insurgents, right down to the making of improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s, the weapons that plagued the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another response to tensions with Russia is the expansion of a program encouraging Estonians to keep firearms in their homes.
. . .
(p. A10) Encouraging citizens to stash warm clothes, canned goods, boots and a rifle may seem a cartoonish defense strategy against a military colossus like Russia. Yet the Estonians say they need look no further than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to see the effectiveness today, as ever, of an insurgency to even the odds against a powerful army.
Estonia is hardly alone in striking upon the idea of dispersing guns among the populace to advertise the potential for widespread resistance, as a deterrent.
Of the top four nations in the world for private gun ownership — the United States, Yemen, Switzerland and Finland — the No. 3 and 4 spots belong to small nations with a minutemen-style civilian call-up as a defense strategy or with a history of partisan war.
“The best deterrent is not only armed soldiers, but armed citizens, too,” Brig. Gen. Meelis Kiili, the commander of the Estonian Defense League, said in an interview in Tallinn, the capital.
The number of firearms, mostly Swedish-made AK-4 automatic rifles, that Estonia has dispersed among its populace is classified. But the league said it had stepped up the pace of the program since the Ukraine crisis began. Under the program, members must hide the weapons and ammunition, perhaps in a safe built into a wall or buried in the backyard.

For the full story, see:
ANDREW E. KRAMER. “TURI JOURNAL; Wary of Russia’s Ambitions, Estonia Prepares a Nation of Insurgents.” The New York Times (Tues., NOV. 1, 2016): A4 & A10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date OCT. 31, 2016, and has the title “TURI JOURNAL; Spooked by Russia, Tiny Estonia Trains a Nation of Insurgents.”)

Invention Requires More than Just Necessity

If necessity is the mother of invention, why did it take 2,000 years for necessity to give birth?

(p. D2) Archaeological evidence suggests that after setting sail from the Solomon Islands, people crossed more than 2,000 miles of open ocean to colonize islands like Tonga and Samoa. But after 300 years of island hopping, they halted their expansion for 2,000 years more before continuing — a period known as the Long Pause that represents an intriguing puzzle for researchers of the cultures of the South Pacific.
“Why is it that the people stopped for 2,000 years?” said Dr. Montenegro. “Clearly they were interested and capable. Why did they stop after having great success for a great time?”
To answer these questions, Dr. Montenegro and his colleagues ran numerous voyage simulations and concluded that the Long Pause that delayed humans from reaching Hawaii, Tahiti and New Zealand occurred because the early explorers were unable to sail through the strong winds that surround Tonga and Samoa. They reported their results last week in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our paper supports the idea that what people needed was boating technology or navigation technology that would allow them to move efficiently against the wind,” Dr. Montenegro said.

For the full story, see:
NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR. “Long Layovers: A 2,000-Year Pause in Exploring Oceania.” The New York Times (Sat., November 8, 2016): D2.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date NOV. 1 [sic], 2016, and has the title “How Ancient Humans Reached Remote South Pacific Islands.” The passages quoted above are from the much-longer online version of the article.)

Montenegro’s academic article, mentioned above, is:
Montenegro, Álvaro, Richard T. Callaghan, and Scott M. Fitzpatrick. “Using Seafaring Simulations and Shortest-Hop Trajectories to Model the Prehistoric Colonization of Remote Oceania.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 45 (Nov. 8, 2016): 12685-90.

Best Entrepreneurs, and Managers, Help Workers Lead Meaningful Lives

(p. C6) In “Payoff,” Dan Ariely makes the strong case that the best way to motivate people, including ourselves, is not through persuasive tactics, however subtle, but by providing the groundwork for meaning in people’s lives.

For Altucher’s full book recommendations, see:
James Altucher. “12 Months of Reading.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 10, 2016): C6.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Dec. 7, 2016, and has the title “James Altucher on con artists.”)

The book recommended, is:
Ariely, Dan. Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations, Ted Books. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2016.