Category: Current Affairs

Antibiotic resistance

The E coli strain that is killing people in Europe is both new and resistant to at least a dozen antibiotics in eight classes. It’s clear, therefore, that this strain picked up resistance via gene transfer from previous strains that evolved resistance over a longer time frame. Thus, antibiotic resistance can spread very quickly, probably more quickly than we can develop new antibiotics. One of the places that resistance develops is in farm animals where antibiotics are used as growth promoters, not just as therapeutics.  Since there is a significant externality from antibiotic use, there is a good case to be made for regulating antibiotic use. As Glenn Reynolds once put it:

I think you can make a better case for regulating antibiotics than heroin: Misusing antibiotics can endanger countless others, while misusing heroin mostly endangers oneself.

(FYI, Tyler and I use antibiotic use as an important example of externalities in Modern Principles).

Denmark progressively regulated and reduced antibiotics for sub-therapeutic use in pigs, poultry and other livestock beginning around 1995. After some experimentation, pig production was not adversely affected and resistance in the wild declined. It’s less clear whether human health increased due to the regulation of antibiotics in farm animals (although there is less resistance in countries that use fewer antibiotics). It may be that Denmark is simply too small and connected with the rest of the world to see a large effect. Nevertheless, Denmark shows us that the costs of reducing antibiotic use in farm animals is not excessive, especially if phased-in, and the benefits of maintaining the effectiveness of our stock of antibiotics is so high that I see more intelligent but reduced use as an important goal.

See also Megan McArdle’s very good talk on this topic.

Which is the more important headline?

US solar power nears competing on price (“US solar power will compete on price with conventional generation within three years without subsidy thanks to plummeting costs, industry leaders say.”)

Or:

Oil leaps as Opec descends into acrimony

Is a falling oil price a necessary concomitant of viable solar power on a large scale?  Or not?  Is the price of natural gas falling through the floor?  I missed that headline.

I thank Jim Olds for a relevant pointer.

Peter Diamond withdraws his name

His statement is here.  There should be no doubt about Diamond’s qualifications as an economist, but oddly his parting statement makes him sound less qualified as a Fed candidate rather than more qualified.  It is not so much the case that further analytical expertise is needed, which is what Diamond seems to suggest.  What is needed is someone who can help push some fairly simple and already well-understood ideas through Congress.  Was Diamond that person?  From a distance it’s hard to say, and of course “parting shots” are strategic in their own right.  Still, the piece seems overly focused on technocratic issues and it is not obvious that he is the ideal ambassador to, say, Ron Paul.  In other words, there is a reasonable chance that this not unexpected development is a blessing in disguise.

For the pointer I thank Jeffrey Deutsch.

China at the frontier

Following previous efforts (http://www.genomics.cn/en/news_show.php?type=show&id=644 and http://www.genomics.cn/en/news_show.php?type=show&id=647), BGI, based in Shenzhen, China, and its collaborators at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, as well as a growing number of researchers around the world “crowdsourcing” this data, are exploring in-depth the European disease outbreak helping trace the origin and spread of the lethal E. coli strain. Different sources have reported that two strains, 01-09591 from Germany isolated in 2001 and 55989 from Central Africa in 2002, are highly similar to the 2011 outbreak strain. Based on the most recently curated assembly publically released by BGI yesterday (ftp://ftp.genomics.org.cn/pub/Ecoli_TY-2482), these strains have an identical Multi Locus Sequence Typing (ST678) based on analysis of seven important “housekeeping” genes*.

BGI (formerly known as Beijing Genomics Institute) was founded in 1999 and has become the largest genomic organization in the world. With a focus on research and applications in the healthcare, agriculture, conservation and bio-energy fields, BGI has a proven track record of innovative, high-profile research which has generated over 178 publications in top-tier journals such as Nature and Science.

Bravo.

The Global War on Drugs has Failed

The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.

…End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others. Challenge rather than reinforce common misconceptions about drug markets, drug use and drug dependence.

…This recommendation applies especially to cannabis, but we also encourage other experiments in decriminalization and legal regulation that can accomplish these objectives and provide models for others.

…Break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now.

  • Asma Jahangir, human rights activist, former UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions, Pakistan
  • Carlos Fuentes, writer and public intellectual, Mexico
  • César Gaviria, former President of Colombia
  • Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico
  • Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil (chair)
  • George Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece
  • George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State, United States (honorary chair)
  • Javier Solana, former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Spain
  • John Whitehead, banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, United States
  • Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ghana
  • Louise Arbour, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, President of the International Crisis Group, Canada
  • Maria Cattaui, Petroplus Holdings Board member, former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Switzerland
  • Mario Vargas Llosa, writer and public intellectual, Peru
  • Marion Caspers-Merk, former State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health
  • Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, France
  • Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve and of the Economic Recovery Board
  • Richard Branson, entrepreneur, advocate for social causes, founder of the Virgin Group, co-founder of The Elders, United Kingdom
  • Ruth Dreifuss, former President of Switzerland and Minister of Home Affairs
  • Thorvald Stoltenberg, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Norway

The report of The Global Commission on Drug Policy is very strongly worded and the commissioners are so stellar it will be difficult to ignore.

As long as we are on medieval topics…

Science magazine reports that Enzo Boschi, the president of Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, and his fellow seismologists have been charged with manslaughter after they allegedly didn’t alert the residents of L’Aquila in Central Italy before a quake hit that town and killed 308 residents.

This might seem insanely harsh. Seismologists do work hard at trying to discover when and where a quake might hit.

However, in this case, it seems that these seven, all of whom sit on Italy’s major risks committee, reportedly offered certain words of reassurance that caused some residents of L’Aquila not to abandon their homes, but to stay in an area that had previously experienced some smaller quakes.

Judge Giuseppe Romano Gargarella reportedly offered that the seven had held a televised press conference six days before the quake and offered “imprecise, incomplete, and contradictory information.”

Some might wonder whether this is what scientists regularly do, however certain their words might sometimes seem. However, Garagarella reportedly further accuses Franco Barberi, the vice chairman of the committee, of specifically stating that no quake was to be immediately expected in the area.

This reassurance, Gargarella reportedly claimed to Corriere Della Serra, “thwarted the activities designed to protect the public.”

The story is here, other versions here, here is what the same guy said May 11, and for the pointer I thank John Bailey.  I predict a boom in Italian earthquake forecasts.

Crime is falling, still

The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.

In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States. Small towns, especially, are seeing far fewer murders: In cities with populations under 10,000, the number plunged by more than 25 percent last year.

This development reminds me of a fallacy committed by (some) intellectuals.  Occasionally you will read it insinuated that if inequality continues, or continues to rise, “the public will take matters into its own hands,” or something like that.  Apart from being potentially factually false, such an outcome is neither endorsed nor condemned by the intellectual.  The writer is hinting that the losers from such a rebellion would deserve what is coming to them, without having to say so.  Least of all is the writer willing to throw his or her efforts behind dissuading or criticizing such a public response (is it so hard to write “don’t bring out the guillotine”?).  The ostensibly “positive” description of what the public will do is used as a veiled threat, to be enacted if the warnings of the supposedly smarter intellectual are not heeded, yet without the intellectual having to make the threat himself.

A similar issue comes up in some discussions of free trade.  It is sometimes hinted that if more is not done to help victims of free trade, the public will turn against free trade and force through extreme populist anti-trade measures.  Again, the writer is playing on mood affiliation rather than analyzing such an outcome dispassionately and then evaluating the behavior of the public and trying to prevent it by framing the issue in a different manner.

The reality is that the public does not respond to most events, or most changes in the income distribution, as the intelligentsia likes to think it should, or will.

Maybe I will call this “the public as billy club” fallacy.  I have a low opinion of sentences in which this fallacy is committed.

Star Children: Return to Home

DARPA, believe it or not, has a request for information on what they call the 100 YEAR STARSHIP™ STUDY.

Neither the vagaries of the modern fiscal cycle, nor net-present-value calculations over reasonably foreseeable futures, have lent themselves to the kinds of century-long patronage and persistence needed to definitively transform mankind into a space-faring species.

The 100 Year Starship™ Study is a project seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible….

We are seeking ideas for an organization, business model and approach appropriate for a self-sustaining investment vehicle. The respondent must focus on flexible yet robust mechanisms by which an endowment can be created and sustained, wholly devoid of government subsidy or control, and by which worthwhile undertakings—in the sciences, engineering, humanities, or the arts—may be awarded in pursuit of the vision of interstellar flight….

Responses should describe the:

• Organizational structure;
• Governance mechanism;
• Investment strategy and criteria; and
• Business model for long-term self-sustainment.

The best model we have of such an organization is a religion. Business organizations such as the Hudson’s Bay Company have occasionally lasted hundreds of years but more by accident than by design. Universities have lasted hundreds of years, although often with government support and vague missions. A few foundations have lasted for a long period of time but often with big mission changes.

Many religions, however, have maintained themselves more or less intact for over a thousand years. Even in the modern age, new religions appear to be quite capable of forming and maintaining themselves for long periods of time. Mormonism has been on-going for nearly two centuries, the Unification Church and Scientology (n.b. started by a science-fiction writer) have been on-going for over half a century. A religion with a million or so adherents can easily last for hundreds of years while generating substantial revenues and while maintaining focus.

Humanity was born of the stars, our very atoms forged in the heart of a million suns. It is in the stars that we lost travelers will find our true home and our true destiny. The twinkling lights of the yawning sky gently call to us each night to return to the place of our birth. We must answer that call. Star-children, return to home.

(See what I mean? This could work. )

Hat tip: Daniel Kuehn.

Scenes from the Class Struggle

Two quotes:

When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.

and

The key is that unless there is accountability, we will never get the right system. As long as there are no consequences if kids or adults don’t perform, as long as the discussion is not about education and student outcomes, then we’re playing a game as to who has the power.

….I think we will get—and deserve—the end of public education through some sort of privatization scheme if we don’t behave differently.

Surprisingly, both quotes are from Albert Shanker, President of the American Teacher’s Federation from 1974 to 1997. Shanker is quoted in an excellent piece in the Atlantic by Joel Klein, former chancellor of New York City’s school system, who argues that his eight years of attempted reforms in New York were undermined by teacher’s unions who continue to operate according to the former rather than the latter philosophy.

A few thoughts on the debt ceiling

This topic is so laden with “us vs. them” thinking that I am loathe to approach it.  Still, here are a few thoughts:

1. There is plenty in the federal budget which can be cut and should be cut, starting with farm subsidies but extending considerably further.

2. In blackmailing President Obama (and arguably the Senate too), the House Republicans are cowards.  They want him to take the heat for the spending cuts.

3. In considering the blackmail to be blackmail, the Obama administration has its share of cowards.  “You are forcing us to propose something we believe in” is not that serious a negative charge, even if the motives of the forcers are ignoble.  That said, the Obama administration is probably not going to propose something it believes in, which makes them ignoble too.

4. “Blackmail” is also known as “checks and balances” and it does not, normatively speaking, require an electoral mandate.  That said, arguably the House Republicans do have an electoral mandate for the idea of “doing something about the crummy budget,” but do not have a mandate for particular cuts which might be prompted.  Which of these is the “fact of the matter” is a moot point.

5. In my view the consequences of “funny debt ceiling outcomes” could be very, very bad.  Various crude causal theories, or underspecified bargaining theory axioms, will be used to apportion this blame to one side or the other.  The naive causal perspective would seem to apportion most of the blame for the chance of catastrophe to the Republicans.

6. By refusing to raise income tax rates on the non-wealthy, or to propose some comparably unpopular reforms, the Obama administration is somewhat undoing the normative relevance of the naive causal perspective here.  The Obama administration is also stonewalling on (required) further fiscal reforms to Medicare, to better use the issue against the Republicans.

7. Do we take market prices seriously?  Since Treasury rates are still low, low, low, arguably we can infer that the market does not think the Republican stance is so catastrophic.  Paul Krugman does not take a consistent position on the relevance of low rates.  They are allowed to indicate that the U.S. government should spend more, but not allowed to indicate that we should diminish the blame to be leveled at Republicans.  One cannot have it both ways.

Addendum: Megan McArdle comments.