Morning Fog

Reading Online, Reading Real

Reading things online, whether it's on a computer or a phone, is certainly quick and convenient.  And while I have accustomed myself pretty well to electronic media, I've always felt it deprives us of important things. 

Comfort and convenience, for example.  A book, magazine, or even an e-reader travel pretty well and can be used wherever you want them.  But a desktop roots you to a desk; a laptop or tablet is a chunk to carry and needs wireless connection; and a phone is just too small - these devices may be OK for the person who thinks of reading in terms of sound bites, but they all fall short if you think of reading in terms of an hour rather than a couple of minutes.

Browsing is also more difficult.  Even on a Kindle, if you want to flip back a few pages to look at something you just read, it's laborious to do so.   But worse yet is the news.  The advantage of a newspaper is that you can scan through the whole thing, so if there's something there you find interesting, you will find it, even if it's not a topic that you'd ordinarily think to consider as one of your "areas of interest." 

On a webpage, you're always at the mercy of someone else's judgment of what's worth featuring.  This was brought home to me Sunday, when I blogged about an article on the National Zoo, and wanted to set a link to it in my post.  Since it had been the cover story in the Washington Post Magazine, I expected to find it fairly prominently featured on the WP's website.  No such luck; not only wasn't it prominent, but two very complete perusals of the whole page revealed that this item wasn't there at all.   In the end, I had to search for it (and found it) but it's evident that if I were relying on the Post's online presence for news, I would have missed this one entirely. 

Too bad, because the selective nature of the website only reinforces the modern tendency to read only about things we already know about, and opinions that we already agree with. 

 

Now, Affordable Care Made Simple

As I noted a couple of days ago, the putative Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney promises, if elected, to spare no effort to strangle the Affordable Care Act in its crib.  This very act of strangling something he fathered probably has a serious name in legal circles, and seems a strange act for a man of religious principles.  But never mind, if that's his plan, we have to take him at his word. 

For me, if Romney can, and must, do an abrupt 180-degree turn regarding something he should be proud to claim, it signals that the underlying reason is political dogma, not any real flaw in the law.  

Also pointing to the same conclusion:  Consistent and determined ultraconservative resistance to any rational health care system since the 1940s.  (They're currently saying they want to "replace" ACA with something more effective - a transparent ploy, for they'll replace it with nothing.) 

Also, by now we are accustomed to the fact that the right wing, unable to find true arguments to oppose the new law, resort to a fabric woven almost exclusively of lies about the law and its effects.  

But the two most telling arguments suggesting that the ACA is good legislation and should remain the law of the land are these:

A. Look who's against it, (insurance companies, drug companies, corporate interests) and consider how much they're prepared to spend to defeat it.  With that kind of money being poured in, it's easy to tell what the true issue is.  If you believe Aetna and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (to name two) are spending all this money because they're concerned about the quality of your medical care, then I've got a bridge I'd be delighted to sell you.

B. Go watch The Rainmaker, the movie based on John Grisham's novel of the same name.  It's only a so-so movie, but it highlights insurance industry abuses that are widespread.  Decide whether you think the actions of the insurance company in the film are the way you'd like to have your insurance company operate.  

In the end, I believe Romney - whether elected President or not - will ultimately regret allowing this landmark legislation to become known as Obamacare rather than Romneycare.   

Road To Republican Ruin

Economic commentator Ezra Klein has given us a spot-on analysis of the dilemma Mitt Romney and his party face in the current campaign for President of the United States.  Specifically, he limns the paradox between the kinds of pragmatic actions and policies that Romney implemented in his previous lives at Bain Capital and the Massachusetts governorship, and the foolish dogmatic tripe he is now forced to espouse in order to win the nomination of an increasingly regressive party base.

Health care and insurance is, of course, the classic:  Romney implemented a program in Massachusetts that is well-regarded, provides pretty complete universal care, and was a major model for the Affordable Care Act.   On the way to the nomination, however, he has had to disown the very action that brought him to the fore as a potential Presidential candidate in the first place:  His success in governing Massachusetts.  

Originally, "GOP" was supposed to mean "Grand Old Party."  The term seems meaningless today, as there's no grandeur left, only a hardscrabble, angry gang of dogmatists for whom "change" and "progress" are dirty words, and which they combat with a combination of lies and fear-mongering.  "Old" still seems partly applicable, though, when we look at the leading lights of the party.  So I prefer to think of them as "Geezers Obstructing Progress." 

Of course by definition, conservatives seek to retain what they view as fundamental truths and values, but the current crowd actually looks to roll back social and legal changes that have been in place - and fully excepted by all except a lunatic fringe - for decades.  Their economic beliefs also seem to tend toward restoration of the policies of party economic giants like Harding, Hoover, and "Dubya" Bush.  I'm amazed that "business," on the whole, still purports to share a Republican ideology, for if the pols in charge of the GOP these days put their no-going-forward sympathies into economic practice, we'd still be producing buggy whips and scythes. 

Romney might be the next Eisenhower, or Reagan, if allowed to craft his message to the public based on his real views and strengths.  Tragically, that isn't going to happen, the Republican Party is being held hostage by terrorists, and the likely outcome -- unless the American people are dumber than I think they are -- is that Romney is more likely to emerge as the next Goldwater.

Politicians And Cliffs

Democrats are reportedly warning they're prepared to go "off the cliff," allowing several hundred billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that were a part of the debt ceiling arrangement a few months ago, to take effect in January.  The object is to persuade Republicans to deal now, to avert deep cuts in defense and other areas after the turn of the year. 

This is not, they say, equivalent in actual economic effect to the earlier "cliff" the Republicans walked up to, but eventually backed away from, i.e., the debt ceiling cliff that might have caused the U.S. to default on international obligations.

I agree, it's not the same in terms of its effect, because we have the possibility of walking back from this latest cliff, or hanging off the edge of it for a while and scrambling back up, whereas going over the old one could have plummeted us out of control to the bottom.

BUT both cliffs are the same in terms of their political and - dare I say ethical - meaning.  Politics in an evenly divided electorate is always a bit of a game of chicken, but we might wish for less "cliffsmanship" in our political system and more willingness to see common interests. 

Jobs: The Simplified Version

Politicians love to talk about "job creation" when the economy is in a slump, and they're certainly hard at it now.  Who can do better at "creating jobs," or which policies will do so?  It's all mostly a lot of wasted effort, nearly as futile as all that money that gets spent on those negative campaign ads.   Here's what I like to remember about jobs, if I look behind the immediate gut reactions to hard times that tend to engender emotional, rather than reasonable responses:

NO ONE knows how to create jobs.  Not Republicans, not Democrats, and not businessmen either. 

As economies rebound, jobs come about.   Just as unemployment is a late, rather than early, stage of an economic downturn, a return to full employment is likewise something that occurs late in a recovery, after other problems are resolved.  So we should focus on fixing economic imbalances - raw speculation in financial instruments, rank overoptimism in the housing bubble, income disparity, insouciance about consumer protections - not on jobs per se.

The one thing that can clearly help lift an economy is spending.  If consumers can't or aren't in the mood to; if profits are down and businesses (the knights of capitalism become very timid when they see "uncertainty," and when in the world isn't there uncertainty?); then government usually is the spender of last resort.  Stimulative measures -- not focused on one sector or industry, but general ones -- work.

Economies tend to heal themselves in time as imbalances even out.  This one will too, probably within six months to two years, and whoever is elected this coming November will reap the benefit of that -- without having done anything to bring it about.

"It's the economy, stupid!"  That was the powerful compaign slogan used by Bill Clinton, an appeal to the emotions which worked.  (Too bad that after him we got eight more years of stupid.)   But on a deeper, level, I don't think the coming election is about the economy.  It's about what kind of society we want to be going forward. 

 

 

Campaigning Made Simple - And Cheap

As the race to the White House heats up right along with our weather, the political campaign ads are multiplying in all media.  It seems about 90% of this material is of the attack variety, focused not on the candidate who's sponsoring it, but on his opponent, and invariably stretching so hard to paint a negative picture of the latter that truth takes a back seat to exaggeration, distortion, or outright lies.  (Back seat hell, truth can't even fit in the car sometimes!)

Romney campaign strategists were recently quoted as saying that in the upcoming Presidential election voters wouldn't have to "like" Romney; the election would not be about him, but whether voters were for or against Obama.  Probably true, since Romney's ads and statements won't tell us a lot about him or his plans.

The sad thing about that is the millions that are spent on these campaign ads.  Personally I believe most people know they're not credible, so they don't really take them seriously.  Or do they?  The easy answer is to just stop all the campaign messages.  Yet candidates don't do so.  Why not?  "Research" shows that they work; especially the negative ones are touted as being effective.  Maybe they have some subliminal effect.      

Can We Have An Effective Power Grid?

Yesterday I suggested that the high costs to society of the more-frequent and longer-lasting power outages we're all experiencing nowadays offer ample justification for governments to get involved in pushing electric utilities harder to improve their efforts to prevent outages. The companies' stock response that such measures cost them too much no longer suffices.  

First, I'm not confident that the utilities consider all costs in their calculation.  Do they count all the extra expense they incur - now with increasing frequency - to work repair crews overtime, to bring in extra crews from as far away as Canada and New Hampshire, or to provide all the replacement equipment and supplies needed?  Understandably it's near-impossible to bury lines in long-established areas, but what about the hundreds of thousands of square miles that disappear under the bulldozer every year to construct new neighborhoods and communities?  If we had started burying lines in those areas ten or twenty years ago we would be far better off now.

We need also to wake up to the immense costs of outages that are not borne by the companies, but by society at large.  Households have to squander the value of spoiled food, mildewed belongings, and well as the cost of replacement; extra meals eaten out; or even the purchase of generators.  In my case these coststotaled about $800 this week.  Multiply that by two million, and extend it to all parts of the country where damaging storms have occurred, and before long, you're talking about real money..

it's even more true of businesses.  In this storm, entire shopping centers were closed down for days; gas stations couldn't pump gas; supermarkets (every one of the 8 or 9 I have been in) had to throw out their entire supplies of produce, frozen foods, and meats.  What is the dollar cost of all that?  Even for businesses whose goods don't spoil, there are lost profits for every day they can't open.  Finally, society as a whole loses productivity on an immense scale.

Finally, there's a security element.  It's bad enough when roads become more dangerous because stoplights aren't working, but shouldn't we also consider, if a simple windstorm can bring about the kind of chaos we saw here for several days, what a handful of determined terrorists with very simple supplies could do?

There are plenty of ways to reduce these losses of time, money, and security.

• Burying new power lines is certainly a start.  States should pass laws requiring essential utility lines to be underground in all new settlements and in major redevelopment projects; in states that don't use the nineteenth-century "Dillon Rule" to suppress local self-government, municipalities could also take such initiatives if the state seems "unwilling." 
• Voters can elect representatives who understand climate change and its implications;
• Regarding generators:  the electric companies should be forbidden from selling them (they profit from failure to perform) but until that happens, the public should refrain from buying generators from the electric companies and get them elsewhere;
• Of course, electrical equipment should be upgraded when replaced;
• The grid should be rationalized.  Example: my home is part of a group of about 10 in an older neighborhood - these ten houses always seem to lose power first in a storm, and neighboring sections on all sides of us invariably get power restored a day or two before we do; often after outages, we get robocalls from the utility telling us our power has been restored when it hasn't.  Evidently we are on some ancient Rube-Goldberg sort of hookup (as are many other small enclaves, I'm sure).  But anomalies like this are plentiful and they need to be corrected;
• Companies selling solar panels should be developing units designed to power a varied range of specific uses, i.e. which could be wired to specific circuits of your home or business that you want to insure against outages - a refrigerator, air conditioning, or something else.  (From my perspective this is the most likely long-term avenue for getting us out of the "outage" business.)
• Finally, of course, let's remember that we're still going to have to trim back some trees; and yes, we may expect to be paying higher prices than we now do.

Realistically we know we'll still have power outages; but why not do what we can, and stop relying on century-old folk wisdom like "it's too expensive."    

Big Summer Storm Catches Utilities Flatfooted

Late on Friday, June 29, a line of numerous, intense, violent thunderstorms fanned out from somewhere just east of Chicago and caused immense damage in a wide swath of the U.S. mid-Atlantic region.  In greater Washington DC, up to 2 million customers were left without electric power.  As of this morning, a full week after the storm passed, about 4500 utility customers still had no power.  Companies were promising to complete the job by Sunday, nine days after the storm--  and just in time for another predicted band of heavy storms. 

And this was no hurricane, no tsunami, just a line of thunderstorms. True, the storm cluster was indeed unusual by its power and breadth, the kind of thing utilities like to label a "100-year-storm."   Except that it isn't.  Our last power outage of 3-to-5 days occurred only two years ago during heavy winter snowfall.  And another happened not so long before that.   In between those multiday ones, we've become accustomed to more frequent outages of several hours at a time.  The fact is that thanks to climate change, extraordinary is now the norm.  Utility planners appear not to have caught on to that fact, but it's time they did.

This storm has reawakened the oft-rehashed discussion about the wisdom of burying power lines.  Utilities have always insisted this is prohibitively expensive, yet many developed countries seem to be able to manage it (it's sort of like universal health care in that respect).   Our public utilities prescribe trimming trees, but they've been at that for years and clearly it hasn't worked.  Anyway, we should keep in mind that the more trees we cut, the more we contribute to climate change and help create more frequent and damaging storms. 

The discussion of buried lines may revive for a while, but it's unlikely to go anywhere unless it gets a push from (guess who?) - government.  Cost, productivity, and security factors provide ample reason to make that push.  More on that in my next post.

I believe our electrical Rip Van Winkles need to wake up to a new reality they are reluctant to acknowledge  Their environment is changing; if they don't change along with it, they'll soon be going where U.S. automakers were a few short years ago.  The trouble with that is that we don't have a handy second set of Japanese-made power lines standing by as alternatives. 

So there would be great utility in a change of course.

 

In The Shuffle - Stolen Valor

With so much attention devoted to recent Supreme Court decisions on the health care law, and a couple of days before that, on immigration, some of the less controversial decisions may have passed almost unnoticed. 

One I was glad to see was the Court's invalidation of the "Stolen Valor Act," which sought to provide special and needless punishment for those who falsely claim military service and/or honors.  I can't see any reason this particular form of boasting/lying should be treated any differently from lying about your age, or your college degree.  Happily, neither could the Court. 

Veterans groups supported the SVA.  I'm a veteran.  I still don't see any justification for it. 

Here, the Court definitely got one right.  I'm shocked the decision wasn't 9-0, rather than 6-3, but Scalia, Alito, and Thomas found a weak reed on which to perch an opposing view.   Undermining our system of military awards?   There are far worse ways of lying, with far more wide-ranging consequences.