Infrastructure Costs Often Exceed Benefits

(p. A13) Most federal infrastructure spending is done by sending funds to state and local governments. For highway programs, the ratio is usually 80% federal, 20% state and local. But that means every local district has an incentive to press the federal authorities to fund projects with poor national returns. We all remember Alaska’s infamous “bridge to nowhere.”
In other words, if a local government is putting up only 20% of the funds, it needs the benefits to its own citizens to be only 21% of the total national cost. Yet every state and every locality has potential infrastructure needs that it would like the rest of the country to pay for. That leads to the misallocation of federal funds and infrastructure projects that benefit the few at the cost of the many.
. . .
Japan tried infrastructure-heavy serial fiscal stimuli for decades and is trying again under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Yes, Japan now has many new bridges, roads and paved drainage ditches, but the spending has done little to improve Japan’s meager growth rate.

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL J. BOSKIN. “All Aboard the Infrastructure Boondoggle; Whoever wins on Nov. 8, a flood of public-works money is coming. Cost-benefit tests are crucial.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Nov. 1, 2016): A13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date Oct. 31, 2016.)

Blockchain Can Cut Out Financial Middlemen

(p. A9) Blockchains are basically a much better way of managing information. They are distributed ledgers, run on multiple computers all over the world, for recording transactions in a way that is fast, limitless, secure and transparent. There is no central database overseen by a single institution responsible for auditing and recording what goes on. If you and I were to engage in a transaction, it would be executed, settled and recorded on the blockchain and evident for all to see, yet encrypted so as to be villain-proof. “The new platform enables a reconciliation of digital records regarding just about everything in real time,” write the Tapscotts. No more waiting for that check to clear. It would all be done and recorded for eternity before you know it.
The digital currency bitcoin is currently the best-known blockchain technology. If I wanted to pay you using bitcoin, I would start with a bitcoin wallet on my computer or phone and buy bitcoins using dollars. I would then send you a message identifying the bitcoin I would like to send you and sign the transaction using a private key. The heavily encrypted reassignment of the bitcoin to your wallet is recorded and verified in the bitcoin ledger for all to see, and they are now yours to spend. The transaction is likely more secure and cheaper than a traditional bank transfer.
. . .
The layman, . . . , might want to wait for a more penetrable explanation of blockchains to come along–as one surely will if the authors’ predictions are even one-zillionth right.​

For the full review, see:
PHILIP DELVES BROUGHTON. “BOOKSHELF; Bitcoin Is Just The Beginning; Imagine a personal-identity service that gives us control over selling our personal data. Right now, Google and Facebook reap the profit.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., May 27, 2016): A9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 26, 2016.)

The book under review, is:
Tapscott, Don, and Alex Tapscott. Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World. New York: Portfolio, 2016.

Tesla Fights Car Dealership Monopoly

(p. B4) Tesla Motors Inc. filed an application for a dealership license in Michigan, setting up a potential legal fight over the state’s ban on selling cars directly to consumers.
. . .
About a year ago, Michigan passed a law prohibiting car makers from selling directly to customers in the state without an independent dealer as an intermediary. Tesla has opposed such dealer-franchise laws, calling them anticompetitive. Tesla allows customers to order vehicles directly from the company, something that other manufacturers are prohibited from doing.
A formal denial of its application by Michigan could prompt Tesla to pursue additional legal avenues to fight a law it calls “very harmful.”
“Tesla is committed to being able to serve its customers in Michigan, and is working with the legislature to accomplish that. The existing law in Michigan is very harmful to consumers,” a Tesla spokeswoman said. “Tesla will take all appropriate steps to fix this broken situation.”
. . .
Michigan and Texas are among a small group of states that have a flat prohibition on any direct sales. The laws were created to prevent car makers from building their own stores that would ​then ​compete with independent​dealerships. Michigan Automotive Dealers Association couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Such competition could potentially undercut independent dealerships’ prices and undermine investments made in their stores, according to lawyers and economists who have scrutinized dealer-franchise laws.

For the full story, see:
Ramsey, Mike. “Tesla Seeks License to Sell Cars in Michigan.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Feb. 2, 2016): B4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date Feb. 1, 2016, and has the title “Tesla Motors Files for a Dealership License in Michigan.” The online version is slightly different from the print version. The passage quoted above is from the online version.)

Udacity Entrepreneur Counters Creeping Credentialism

(p. B2) Udacity, an online learning start-up founded by a pioneer of self-driving cars, is finally taking the wraps off a job trial program it has worked on for the last year with 80 small companies.
The program, called Blitz, provides what is essentially a brief contract assignment, much like an internship. Employers tell Udacity the skills they need, and Udacity suggests a single candidate or a few. For the contract assignment, which usually lasts about three months, Udacity takes a fee worth 10 to 20 percent of the worker’s salary. If the person is then hired, Udacity does not collect any other fees, such as a finder’s fee.
For small start-ups, a hiring decision that goes bad can be a time-consuming, costly distraction. “This lets companies ease their way into hiring without the hurdle of making a commitment upfront,” said Sebastian Thrun, co-founder and chairman of Udacity.
. . .
Mr. Thrun, a former Stanford professor and Google engineer who led the company’s effort in self-driving cars, said he was also trying to nudge the tech industry’s hiring beyond its elite-college bias.
“For every Stanford graduate, there are hundreds of people without that kind of pedigree who can do just as well,” he said.

For the full story, see:
STEVE LOHR. “Udacity, an Education Start-Up, Offers Tech Job Tryouts.” The New York Times (Fri., NOV. 18, 2016): B2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date NOV. 17, 2016, and has the title “Udacity, an Online Learning Start-Up, Offers Tech Job Trials.”)

Farmer and Mechanic Invented Pivot Irrigation System

(p. D1) LINDSAY, Neb. — Paul Zimmerer’s contribution to agriculture is now forever immortalized.
A recent ceremony in Lindsay dedicated a memorial to the late inventor whose irrigation system dots the landscape throughout the country.
Zimmerer, inventor of the Zimmatic Pivot Irrigation System, died July 31, 2008, at the age of 94.
. . .
Dave Albracht, chairman of the Lindsay Village Board, said Lloyd Castner, a member of the Platte County Historical Society, first approached him about a memorial.
“I’m sure everybody knows that the small towns struggle, and Lindsay wouldn’t be where we’re at if it wasn’t for the Paul Zimmerer family,” he said.
. . .
Zimmerer opened a blacksmith shop in 1955 and sold modified car engines to be used on irrigation wells. His idea became the foundation of one of northeast Nebraska’s largest companies, Lindsay Corp.
He was a farmer and mechanic and owned Zimmerer Auto Repair and Gas Station in Lindsay before founding Lindsay Manufacturing Co., which is now Lindsay Corp.”

For the full story, see:
Patrick Murphy. “Memorial dedicated to Zimmatic Pivot inventor.” Omaha World-Herald (Fri., Nov. 25, 2016): 4D.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Dignity and Equality Before the Law Unleashes Creativity in the Poor

(p. A23) We can improve the conditions of the working class. Raising low productivity by enabling human creativity is what has mainly worked. By contrast, taking from the rich and giving to the poor helps only a little — and anyway expropriation is a one-time trick.
. . .
Look at the astonishing improvements in China since 1978 and in India since 1991. Between them, the countries are home to about four out of every 10 humans. Even in the United States, real wages have continued to grow — if slowly — in recent decades, contrary to what you might have heard. Donald Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University, and others who have looked beyond the superficial have shown that real wages are continuing to rise, thanks largely to major improvements in the quality of goods and services, and to nonwage benefits. Real purchasing power is double what it was in the fondly remembered 1950s — when many American children went to bed hungry.
What, then, caused this Great Enrichment?
Not exploitation of the poor, not investment, not existing institutions, but a mere idea, which the philosopher and economist Adam Smith called “the liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice.” In a word, it was liberalism, in the free-market European sense. Give masses of ordinary people equality before the law and equality of social dignity, and leave them alone, and it turns out that they become extraordinarily creative and energetic.

For the full commentary, see:
DEIRDRE N. McCLOSKEY. “Economic View; Equality, Liberty, Justice and Wealth.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., SEPT. 4, 2016): 6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date SEPT. 2, 2016, and has the title “Economic View; The Formula for a Richer World? Equality, Liberty, Justice.”)

McCloskey’s commentary, quoted above, is related to her book:
McCloskey, Deirdre N. Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital, Transformed the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Wind Turbines Kill Bats

(p. D2) Wind power can help the world fight climate change, but it’s not so great for bats.
A new study of wind turbines in Britain found that each turbine killed one to two bats each month on average, with some killing more than 60. The researchers said that the efforts that are required in many countries to assess the environmental effect of planned wind farms have proved faulty and inadequate in measuring the risk to bats.

For the full story, see:

JOHN SCHWARTZ. “Kind to the Planet, Not to Bats.” The New York Times (Tues., Nov. 15, 2016): D2.
(Note: the online version of the article has the date NOV. 7 [sic], 2016, and has the title “When Bats Look for Meals Near Wind Power, Bats Die.” The online version is much longer than the print version, and differs somewhat, even where they overlap. The passage quoted above is from the online version.)

The “study” summarized in the passage above, is:
Lintott, Paul R., Suzanne M. Richardson, David J. Hosken, Sophie A. Fensome, and Fiona Mathews. “Ecological Impact Assessments Fail to Reduce Risk of Bat Casualties at Wind Farms.” Current Biology 26, no. 21 (Nov., 7, 2016): R1135-R1136.

Federal Regulations Suppress Organic Innovation In Order to Protect Incumbents

(p. A1) If a fruit or vegetable isn’t grown in dirt, can it be organic?
That is the question roiling the world of organic farming, and the answer could redefine what it means to farm organically.
At issue is whether produce that relies solely on irrigation to deliver nutrients to plants — through what is known as hydroponic and aquaponic systems — can be certified organic. And the National Organic Standards Board, an advisory group that makes recommendations to the federal secretary of agriculture, will get an earful on the topic at its meeting in St. Louis this week.
On one side are the growing number of big and small growers raising fruits and vegetables in these soil-free systems. They say their production methods are no different from those of farmers who grow plants in dirt — and, they add, they make organic farming more sustainable by, for instance, reducing water use.
“Soil to me as a farmer means a nutrient-rich medium that contains biological processes, and that doesn’t have to be dirt,” said Marianne Cufone, an aquaponic farmer and the executive director of the Recirculating Farms Coalition, which lobbies for aquaculture.
. . .
(p. B2 [sic]) The Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 states: “An organic plan shall contain provisions designed to foster soil fertility, primarily through the management of the organic content of the soil through proper tillage, crop rotation and manuring.”
“To me, it seems simple and always has been,” said Sam Welsch, chief executive of OneCert, an organic certification business in Nebraska that has refused to certify hydroponic produce. “There are things the law and regulations require you to do to the soil that you cannot do in a hydroponic system.”
. . .
Colin Archipley’s farm, Archi’s Acres, grows kale, herbs and other produce hydroponically in greenhouses in San Diego. He is frustrated that there is even a debate over whether his produce is organic.
“The reason this has become such a big deal is that systems like ours are becoming more popular because they’re more efficient, which means farmers are more sustainable and profitable,” he said. “That’s put competition on farmers, specifically in Vermont, and so what this really is about is market protection.”

For the full story, see:
STEPHANIE STROM. “Is It Organic? Ground Rules May Be Changing.” The New York Times (Weds., NOV. 16, 2016): A1 & B2 [sic].
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date NOV. 15, 2016, and has the title “What’s Organic? A Debate Over Dirt May Boil Down to Turf.”)

Space Trash Start-Up Aims to Be Quicker than Government

(p. D1) Mr. Okada is an entrepreneur with a vision of creating the first trash collection company dedicated to cleaning up some of humanity’s hardest-to-reach rubbish: the spent rocket stages, inert satellites and other debris that have been collecting above Earth since Sputnik ushered in the space age. He launched Astroscale three years ago in the belief that national space agencies were dragging their feet in facing the problem, which could be tackled more quickly by a small private company motivated by profit.
“Let’s face it, waste management isn’t sexy enough for a space agency to convince taxpayers to allocate money,” said Mr. Okada, 43, who put Astroscale’s headquarters in start-up-friendly Singapore but is building its spacecraft in his native Japan, where he found more engineers. “My breakthrough is figuring out how to make this into a business.”
. . .
(p. D3) “The projects all smelled like government, not crisp or quick,” he said of conferences he attended to learn about other efforts. “I came from the start-up world where we think in days or weeks, not years.”
. . .
He also said that Astroscale would start by contracting with companies that will operate big satellite networks to remove their own malfunctioning satellites. He said that if a company has a thousand satellites, several are bound to fail. Astroscale will remove these, allowing the company to fill the gap in its network by replacing the failed unit with a functioning satellite.
“Our first targets won’t be random debris, but our clients’ own satellites,” he said. “We can build up to removing debris as we perfect our technology.”

For the full story, see:

MARTIN FACKLER. “Building a Garbage Truck for Space.” The New York Times (Tues., Nov. 29, 2016): D1 & D3.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 28, 2016, and has the title “Space’s Trash Collector? A Japanese Entrepreneur Wants the Job.”)

Intellectuals Embrace Despair

(p. A23) Public conversation is dominated by people’s ahistorical insistence that this country is sliding toward decline. As Arthur Herman writes in his book “The Idea of Decline in Western History,” “The sowing of despair and self-doubt has become so pervasive that we accept it as a normal intellectual stance — even when it is directly contradicted by our own reality.”

For the full commentary, see:
Brooks, David. “The Age of Reaction.” The New York Times (Tues., SEPT. 27, 2016): A23.

The book quoted in the above passage from the Brooks commentary, is:
Herman, Arthur. The Idea of Decline in Western History. New York: Free Press, 1997.

Uber Reduces Need for City Parking Spaces

(p. B8) Landlords battling high land costs are turning to a new partner: ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc.
As urban real estate becomes ever-more expensive, some property developers are shrinking or killing their parking spaces and offering Uber subsidies and other incentives instead.
Developers of shopping malls, stadiums and theme parks, meanwhile, are reimagining their exterior footprints to account for more Uber traffic, playing with new ideas such as widening curbside drop-off areas resembling those found at airports–some with concierges offering beverages–and shrinking parking lot space.
The moves show how ride-sharing is starting to change the way cities and urban landlords think about real estate.

For the full story, see:
ESTHER FUNG. “Dear Tenant: Your Uber Car Is Here.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Nov. 23, 2016): B8.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 22, 2016, and has the title “Dear Tenant: Your Uber Is Here.”)