Brian Gongol
Show notes from the WHO Radio Wise Guys - September 13, 2008
Sidejacking...65-mpg cars...technology and employment
Ireland's most libertarian party has an existential crisis
The Progressive Democrats are largely pro-business and anti-tax. Unfortunately, though, they've had trouble getting elected and now one of their few members of the Irish parliament is looking at leaving the party, which in turn leaves the organization with an active debate about whether to even stay together. It holds an interesting lesson for America. Even though we're a two-party system, we're just like any parliamentary system: That is, our governing majorities are formed by the voluntary association of different groups under a single electoral coalition. It's just that parliamentary democracies form their coalitions after the election, and in the United States, we form our coalitions before the votes are cast. Thus, the Democratic Party is a coalition among labor unions, social progressives, and others, while the Republican Party is a coalition among fiscal conservatives and pro-business interests, defense hawks, and social conservatives, among others. But those groups only get any part of what they want when the commit to their coalitions in advance of the election -- that's why third parties continue to fail, and why those who think they're better off bolting from their existing coalitions and flying solo (for instance, the Greens who run apart from the Democratic coalition and the Christian fundamentalists who want to depart the Republican coalition) obviously don't understand the fundamental forces in play.
The absurdity of reporting from the middle of a hurricane
Cable television news seems bent on sending reporters to the middle of situations that sane people should leave. And while watching Geraldo Rivera get hit by a wave may be viscerally satisfying, there's really no reason for it all. Sooner or later, some reporter is going to be killed by flying debris (like the glass that shattered all over Houston), and for no good reason at all. There are easily a dozen things that would be more useful to the viewing public than live shots of reporters in the middle of a storm: UAV video coverage from within the storm, maps of sensor networks indicating what's under water and what's not, estimates of where evacuees have gone, maps of known damage and current conditions, analysis of the preparations made, documentation of what worked and what didn't prior to the event, things that unaffected people could do to help, lessons learned for preparations elsewhere, instructions for those who haven't prepared yet, models of possible storm tracks, shots from unmanned cameras in the storm's path, and just plain dead air. There's just no reason for reasonable people to put themselves in harm's way like they do as these storms arrive. There are essential things that people need to know in these kinds of emergencies.
A frightening crystal ball on fuel
Italian airline Alitalia may have to cancel flights because it can't get enough fuel for its planes. A lack of fuel is enough to keep an airline from flying -- and it would be enough to cripple an entire national economy. With Europe deeply dependent upon Russia for oil and natural gas, Europe's diplomatic options are constrained in situations like the current dispute in Georgia. Like the Chinese ownership of huge amounts of American debt, it's a condition of mutually-assured destruction: Russia needs the export dollars, and Europe needs the fuel. America needs the loans, China needs a place to invest. But in neither case is the exchange the result of free trade within the private sector, and that's what makes those situations precarious. The exchanges are subject to politics. Thanks to natural disaster, we're going to find out what happens when a major urban area goes without electricity for a month. It's a dry run, perhaps, for what could happen if a Western country were to be cut off from oil for a similar period of time. What we can learn from the Alitalia-out-of-gas story and the Beaumont-out-of-electricity situation is that extraordinary disasters may not look likely on the average, but when they happen (and sometimes they will), the regret over earlier failures to take necessary precautions will run deep.
Terrorist attacks kill 20 people in New Delhi
If it had happened in Dallas or Seattle, it would be huge news in the US. But it happened in the world's largest democracy, and yet we will certainly hear almost nothing about it. Something's amiss.
What happens when you don't have a game plan? You lose.
An investment advisor blames the fall of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the failure to plan, and it's probably a fair assessment. But the related worry is that the regulators who have stepped in don't have a plan for what happens next. This is an especially large problem because we have a gigantic debt burden in the United States -- much of it consumer debt -- and little of that debt is invested in capital improvements. It's fine to borrow when you're using the money to build something that will generate revenues or supply value for decades to come. But when you're borrowing to pay for things you've already consumed, then you're making a terrible (and non-durable) choice. It's possible that American debt has been inflated by the availability of cheap money from investors in other parts of the world who don't have enough good investment choices at home. But in the long term, debt has to be a matter of deliberate choice, not a default mode of operation. Perpetual operating indebtedness would never pass muster in a 100-year business plan.
The pop-vs.-soda divide is pretty clear
Galveston suspends water service
Sidejacking: Stealing Internet cookies and using them against you
The architecture of the mid-20th Century
We look at it now with a mixture of appreciation and levity. But looking back from 50 years in the future, what will we say about today's residential construction? Will the much-maligned McMansion be featured in tomorrow's residential home tour? Perhaps more importantly, will the McMansion even be standing in 50 years? If not, why aren't we using demolition bonds to act as an insurance policy against future urban blight? If some of the future cost of getting rid of buildings had been built into the current price, then perhaps the inflated price of housing wouldn't have been so overdone. And while local officials are giddy about the new half-billion-dollar Microsoft data center being built in West Des Moines, we are perhaps only left to hope that someone has taken under consideration what to do when technology renders it obsolete. Data farms in the suburbs may not lend themselves to becoming hulking burned-out ruins like yesterday's factories, but then again, how do we know for certain?
Our thoughts are with Houston, but don't forget Eastern Iowa
As huge numbers of people are ordered to leave the Houston area, the same old problems with a mass evacuation are emerging: Gas stations are running dry and traffic is reportedly a giant mess. Fortunately, at least some lessons have been learned, as aircraft are being used to help get people out (using every available tool is the only way to conduct a mass evacuation). But officials may be painting themselves into a corner by asking most Houstonians to stay in place. If the storm is as strong as the forecasts suggest (and as locals reasonably fear), it'll be far too difficult to evacuate lots of people in short order by car tomorrow. A mass evacuation by automobile is challenging, but not impossible.
Harvard Medical School researcher is close to creating life from non-living parts
The research involves the creation of protocells -- or what some evolutionary biologists think might have been the precursors to cells, which (obviously) are the building blocks of what we know as life. The main question appears to be whether they can find a way to get something made from independently non-living parts to replicate spontaneously when they come together. Other researchers are starting with the genes first.
Are we doing enough to fight hunger?
Not according to Norman Borlaug, who says "We are in a world food crisis that stands to drive at least another 100 million people into hunger and exacerbate global instability." That's a frightening prospect, considering that most wars are fought over resources -- no matter what kind of political excuses are used for cover. Related: US exports don't appear to be as strong as they have been recently, and that decline would be profoundly bad for the economy as a whole. Despite the fear-mongering from politicians who find it convenient to mislead those who don't realize the benefits, trade makes a huge difference to our way of life. 11% of the US economy comes directly from exports.
Are newspapers going to abandon the traditional newswires?
One big paper is experimenting with going AP-free
Louisiana stages evacuation buses just in case
Hurricane Ike is still following an uncertain path that could take it into parts of the Bayou State. It's certainly good to see that adults are finally in charge in that state. National Guard troops from Nebraska are still in Louisiana, helping to clean up from Hurricane Gustav.
65 miles per gallon apparently aren't enough
Ford is about to start selling a 65-mpg car in Europe, but won't sell it in the US because it thinks there's insufficient demand for a diesel-powered passenger vehicle.
US dam infrastructure needs a lot of work
Studying finance doesn't necessarily make a person a better investor
It turns out that even among academics in the field of finance who are certain that markets are efficient, many still think they can beat the market. That's like saying you're positive that man can't fly, but you're going to build a flying machine anyway.
A merger that could push iron prices even higher
Technology is far more disruptive to labor than trade
And no reasonable person is going to be convinced that we should give up on technological progress -- it creates far too many good things. So instead of trying to throw up nonsense barriers to trade (which is what a lot of politicians are promising to do under the guise of "fair trade"), government ought to acknowledge its relative powerlessness to stop the change and instead devote our precious taxpayer resources to improving workers' skills by expanding the quality and availability of higher education. Unfortunately, that would require many of them to give up convenient scapegoats like "foreigners".
Houston may not be hit directly by Ike, but being upwind could be worse
Models of the storm surge make it look like a direct hit would be far less damaging (at least in terms of flooding) than a near-miss just to the south, since the counter-clockwise rotation of a hurricane would pull more water and storm surge up and into Galveston Bay than a direct hit. The forecast storm track puts Houston on the map of possible sites for landfall. While we're considering the effects of a hurricane in the United States, we ought also to be aware of the flooding that has pushed 2.6 million families out of their homes in India.
No money left for roads
The US Highway Trust Fund is going to be out of money by the end of the month, in large part due to the fact that gasoline taxes just don't work anymore. But in shifting to a per-mile tax (which will be the only reasonable way to get around the problem), Americans absolutely ought not to capitulate to liberty-infringing proposals like GPS tracking of our movement.
Inflation is underway
The M1 money supply (cash and bank accounts, mainly) has risen at an annual rate of 8.8% in the last three reported months. That's spooky, especially considering Milton Friedman's maxim that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. In other words, somebody is putting too much cash into the economy, and that's going to send prices higher. Sadly, this is happening at the very same time that China is dealing with its own inflation problem, as well as the trouble of dealing with the stability of the American bonds it has purchased in things like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the collapse and bailout of which is unnerving to the highest degree. But it seems that it must be too much to expect any kind of analysis or even basic reporting on the matter to ever make it to most news outlets, since overinflated personality has replaced reporting at the cable news networks -- MSNBC, Fox, and CNN abandoning thoughtful reporting for Keith Olbermann's shouting, Sean Hannity's pandering, and Anderson Cooper's emoting.
The US can't win "hearts and minds" with sporadic, panicky attempts at public diplomacy
Freedom and liberty are appealing enough to stand on their own merits, without an outlandish effort to coordinate messages or promote an agenda. Telling the truth about individual liberties and powerful tyrannies should be enough. But we have to do it consistently, not just when the threat of terrorism or war looms. The BBC has been the voice of Britain to the world since 1932, to the extent that today, even many Americans are aware of it. The United States should place the highest of priorities on supporting the Voice of America and get immediately to work on making sure it can be heard reliably and easily throughout the world, especially in Latin America (which is far too often neglected in our day-to-day diplomacy and current affairs).
Commuter trains kill almost 11 people per day in Mumbai
It's more evidence that prosperity saves lives and poverty kills: By comparison, almost no one is ever killed on the New York City subways or on the London Underground.
Hurricane Ike could hit Houston as a Category 4
Notes from the Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - September 7, 2008
Early warning for an aging population...nationalizing the mortgage companies...disaster costs get bigger...and a podcast highlight