Category: Current Affairs
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.
What makes you an economist?
Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been arrested, taken off a plane to Paris, and accused of a shocking crime. When I hear of this kind of story, I always wonder how the “true economist” should react. After all, DSK had a very strong incentive not to commit the crime, including his desire to run for further office in France, not to mention his high IMF salary and strong network of international connections. So much to lose.
Should the “real economist” conclude that DSK is less likely to be guilty than others will think? If you are following the social consensus estimate of p, does that make you less of an economist? A lesser economist? Is everyone else an economist anyway and thus you can agree with them? How many economists seriously use the concept of incentives — more than non-economists do — to understand everyday events? Is the notion that incentives predict individual behavior actually so central to economics? Should it be?
So run my thoughts this evening. I asked similar questions when legal charges were levied against Kobe Bryant.
Sentences to ponder
Majid Movahedi, 30, is scheduled to be rendered unconscious in Tehran’s judiciary hospital at noon on Saturday while Ameneh Bahrami, his victim, drops acid in both his eyes, her lawyer said.
The story is here.
The EU is to end passport-free travel?
European nations moved to reverse decades of unfettered travel across the continent when a majority of EU governments agreed the need to reinstate national passport controls amid fears of a flood of immigrants fleeing the upheaval in north Africa.
In a serious blow to one of the cornerstones of a united, integrated Europe, EU interior ministers embarked on a radical revision of the passport-free travel regime known as the Schengen system to allow the 26 participating governments to restore border controls.
Here is the story, which I take to be big news indeed. Addendum: Some of the comments claim that the Guardian’s account is exaggerated. Here is a more balanced story.
France fact of the day
Before the ban, the Interior Ministry estimated 2,000 women wore facial veils in France.
For all the fuss, that’s not so many. And:
French police have stopped 46 women seen wearing facial veils in public since a ban on such coverings went into effect last month, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
Sendhil Mullainathan to the CFPB
The Treasury Department announced the hiring of senior leadership for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Among the hires: Harvard University economist Sendhil Mullainathan .
The leading behavioral economist of his generation, his research has focused on how people’s biases and weaknesses lead them to make bad economic decisions. He is also a founder, with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, of MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
His research has provided much of the intellectual foundation for the establishment of the CFPB, which is tasked with making “markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans.”
Here is more.
Assorted Links
1. In defense of flogging by Peter Moskos. I was pretty sure I wrote something like this a few years ago but after a search all I could find was this post on sex and spanking.
2. Google lobbies Nevada to allow Self-Driving Cars. The future isn’t here until suddenly it is. FYI, texting while in the “driver’s” seat would be made legal in such cars.
3. Used car prices are rising so much that many models are selling for more today than a year ago.
4. Conor Friedersdorf’s Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism.
Selling Government Assets
In November of 2008 I wrote:
The Federal Government owns more than half of Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Alaska and it owns nearly half of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. See the map (PDF) for more [N.B. the vast majority of this land is NOT parks, AT 2011]. It is time for a sale. Selling even some western land could raise hundreds of billions of dollars – perhaps trillions of dollars – for the Federal government at a time when the funds are badly needed and no one want to raise taxes. At the same time, a sale of western land would improve the efficiency of land allocation.
The Obama administration is beginning to implement just such a proposal. Jonathan Easley of Salon summarizes:
The administration has identified a massive asset class worth unloading. The federal government is the largest owner of real estate in the nation, sitting on hundreds of millions of acres of land that takes up about 30 percent of the country’s surface. The value of Uncle Sam’s nondefense real estate portfolio is estimated at $230 billion, and it carries a maintenance cost of around $20 billion a year.
If Congress moves ahead on the White House’s recommendation, 60 percent of sale proceeds from properties the White House has deemed excess will go to paying down the deficit, with 40 percent to cover costs on other government-run facilities. In addition to the one-time cash from the sale, the government can begin generating tax revenues on land that was previously an expense.
The first set of assets proposed to go on the auction block are mostly empty or little used warehouses, office buildings, barracks and other properties, quite a few of which are now scheduled to be demolished. The total acreage up for sale is very small so Easley greatly exaggerates when he says the proposed sale is Obama’s “libertarian turn,” but heh, it’s a start.
Robert Clower passes away at 85
First mentioned by Brad DeLong, it is now confirmed by Wikipedia. Here is an obituary, and another from UCLA. Clower is well known for rethinking the microfoundations of macroeconomics, assigning a primary role to money as a medium of exchange and the double coincidence of wants, liquidity constraints, and emphasizing the coordination problems behind Keynesian economics. He showed how a lot of Keynesian concepts made microeconomic sense, even without invoking the macro notion of aggregate demand or IS-LM analysis. He opposed what is now called “hydraulic Keynesianism” and was a wise man for doing so.
He was part of the UCLA department in its glory years and for several years in the early to mid 1980s he was the main editor of the American Economic Review, the flagship journal of the profession. During those years, he favored and published many unorthodox economists, often disgruntling the more mainstream members of the economics profession. He was good to me.
Here is Clower on whether economic theory is an inductive science (pdf), and Clower on axiomatics (pdf). Here is his famous paper with Leijonhufvud on Keynes and coordination (pdf). Here is his famous paper with Howitt on the microfoundations of monetary theory (pdf). For a full view of his work, you need to search scholar.google.com for both “Robert Clower” and “Robert W. Clower.”
The demand for affiliation (the dogs of war)
Economists should write more papers on this general topic (affiliation that is):
Ezra:
We sent 79 commandos to get Osama bin Laden — and one dog. A lot of people want to know about that dog, but unfortunately, the military isn’t telling…
NYT (1/20):
Suzanne Belger, president of the American Belgian Malinois Club, said she was hoping the dog was one of her breed “and that it did its job and came home safe.” But Laura Gilbert, corresponding secretary for the German Shepherd Dog Club of America, said she was sure the dog was her breed “because we’re the best!”
Here is more information about the dogs.
The Military Industrial Complex
From Wired:
John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, is now an “independent director” of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater.
Ashcroft will head Xe’s new “subcommittee on governance,” its backers announced early Wednesday in a statement, an entity designed to “maximize governance, compliance and accountability” and “promote the highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private security industry.”
Inconvenient possibility?
Usually in such matters it takes a long time for the full and true story to come out, if indeed it ever does, but an MR commentator drew my attention to the following, concerning the courier who led them to the bin Laden hideout:
Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The story (1/20) is here, and from Haaretz here is the same point made more explicitly. I have never been pro-Guantánamo, or for that matter pro-torture (and do note the caveats above), but I am willing to report results which may run counter to my views. The moral and the practical do not always coincide, and perhaps we should be celebrating just a bit less. It is possible this is not a totally “clean” victory on our part.
And the big winner is…
Other than Obama, the team that actually killed OBL, and the Indians who warned against Pakistani military and intelligence agency perfidy, I say Twitter was the big winner last night. The military operation itself was, unknowingly, live tweeted. The national outpouring of emotion, interpretation, jokes, and analysis came rapidly, even before Obama’s speech started. There was a short moment of overload but overall the Twitter network held up well.