Steven Bartus

Subway station graffiti goes Occupy

2012-02-07T15:16:00.001-05:00

Why does American governance tend to be so bad?

2012-02-02T13:52:00.002-05:00

Frank Fukuyama writes:

I would argue that the quality of governance in the US tends to be low precisely because of a continuing tradition of Jacksonian populism. Americans with their democratic roots generally do not trust elite bureaucrats to the extent that the French, Germans, British, or Japanese have in years past. This distrust leads to micromanagement by Congress through proliferating rules and complex, self-contradictory legislative mandates which make poor quality governance a self-fulfilling prophecy. The US is thus caught in a low-level equilibrium trap, in which a hobbled bureaucracy validates everyone’s view that the government can’t do anything competently. The origins of this, as Martin Shefter pointed out many years ago, is due to the fact that democracy preceded bureaucratic consolidation in contrast to European democracies that arose out of aristocratic regimes.

Waiting for the D train

2011-12-04T16:22:00.001-05:00

From the annals of the really fucked up

2011-11-17T10:20:00.001-05:00

Nick Kirstof is in Cambodia:

Srey Pov’s family sold her to a brothel when she was 6 years old. She was unaware of sex but soon found out: A Western pedophile purchased her virginity, she said, and the brothel tied her naked and spread-eagled on a bed so that he could rape her.

“I was so scared,” she recalled. “I was crying and asking, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ ”

After that, the girl was in huge demand because she was so young. Some 20 customers raped her nightly, she remembers. And the brothel twice stitched her vagina closed so that she could be resold as a virgin. This agonizingly painful practice is common in Asian brothels, where customers sometimes pay hundreds of dollars to rape a virgin.

Paul Krugman Explains The Eurozone Crisis In One Sentence

2011-11-11T16:28:00.001-05:00

"What has happened, it turns out, is that by going on the euro, Spain and Italy in effect reduced themselves to the status of third-world countries that have to borrow in someone else’s currency, with all the loss of flexibility that implies."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-spain-and-italy-were-reduced-to-third-world-countries-2011-11#ixzz1dR0Y8JlN

Explaining OWS

2011-10-26T21:38:00.001-04:00

Suresh Naidu writes:

In Acemoglu and Robinson, when protesting citizens have enough political power, they demand and win democracy instead of just redistribution. In this way, democracy is a commitment device, ensuring that non-elites get to decide policies even after they have demobilized from the streets. If one admits that de jure U.S. politics, while democratic in form, has certain parts of it (e.g. monetary policy, financial regulation, tax policy) captured by elites regardless of the politician in power, then this democratization model becomes pretty applicable. Perhaps it took Obama's election and subsequent ineffectiveness to really communicate the extent of elite capture of U.S. politics, although the evidence has been accumulating for decades. In any case, many of the folks in Zuccotti square think that electoral politics is completely run by the rich, and so it takes street politics to force reform. The problem is, as in Acemoglu and Robinson, that mobilization is generally temporary: you don't get people protesting on the streets for years. A lasting victory would depend on converting this mobilization into institutions and durable policy gains.

Hat tip to Chris Blattman.

From the annals of the really fucked up

2011-10-09T13:05:00.002-04:00

Nick Kristoff is in Sierre Leone:

In a rape treatment center here, I met a 3-year-old patient named Jessica, who was cuddling a teddy bear.

Jessica had seemed sick and was losing weight, but she wouldn’t say what was wrong. Her mother took her to a clinic, and a doctor ferreted out the truth. She had been raped and was infected with gonorrhea.

RIP Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T00:07:00.001-04:00

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

On the legality of killing Alwaki

2011-10-02T17:06:00.000-04:00

From Robert Levy:

The administration argues that suspected al Qaida terrorists – even U.S. citizens – can be targeted for assassination because they either (a) pose an imminent threat or (b) are part of an enemy army; and (c) other governments are unwilling or unable to act. Although the Fifth Amendment ensures that persons not be denied due process, it’s unclear what process is “due” – especially when the person is a citizen. For example, a U.S. citizen who threatens hostages with imminent loss of life can be killed by law enforcement authorities. Similarly, an American who serves in a foreign army against which the United States is at war is plainly a legitimate target.

Moreover, under the Nationality Act, a citizen can lose his citizenship if he intends to do so (although intent can be inferred by actions) and he either (a) declares allegiance to a foreign state, (b) serves in a post requiring such a declaration, (c) serves in armed forces in combat with the United States, or (d) serves as an officer or NCO in the armed forces of a foreign state.

Still, the killing of Awlaki is a close legal call. On balance, it’s probably unlawful. The imminent-threat contention isn’t credible. To my knowledge, no one has identified a threat that is imminent (meaning: about to happen). The part-of-an-enemy-army claim and the loss-of-citizenship argument raise several questions: First, is the Nationality Act itself constitutional? The Constitution establishes criteria for citizenship. Stripping someone of citizenship effectively changes those criteria, and Congress may not have that power. Second, even if the Nationality Act is constitutional, does al Qaida qualify as a foreign state for purposes of the Act? Are al Qaida agents equivalent to soldiers engaged in combat with the United States? Third, even if the Nationality Act might apply in Awlaki’s case, how do we know that he triggered the provisions of the Act? Can the administration simply assert that he met one of the tests for loss of citizenship, or must there be some threshold process to make that determination?

Finally, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force sanctioned force against those involved in the 9/11 tragedy. Awlaki, although not directly involved, probably qualified as part of an “associated force”; but actions that might self-evidently be lawful if Awlaki were actively fighting on a battlefield are less so when he’s allegedly plotting attacks from Yemen.

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-02T11:06:00.001-04:00

Some photos taken with my phone's camera:

This looks great

2011-09-29T22:14:00.000-04:00

Bill Cunningham New York Trailer from Gavin McWait on Vimeo.

Milton Friedman on the Euro

2011-09-27T12:10:00.003-04:00

Alex Tabarrok cites some prescient words about the Euro in a 2000 interview with Friedman:

Milton Friedman:…I think the euro is in its honeymoon phase. I hope it succeeds, but I have very low expectations for it. I think that differences are going to accumulate among the various countries and that non-synchronous shocks are going to affect them. Right now, Ireland is a very different state; it needs a very different monetary policy from that of Spain or Italy. On purely theoretical grounds, it’s hard to believe that it’s going to be a stable system for a long time. …

If we look back at recent history, they’ve tried in the past to have rigid exchange rates, and each time it has broken down. 1992, 1993, you had the crises. Before that, Europe had the snake, and then it broke down into something else. So the verdict isn’t in on the euro. It’s only a year old. Give it time to develop its troubles.

Rouge Traders & Rogue Burritos

2011-09-17T15:00:00.001-04:00

From Matt Ygleisas:

I of course can’t prove it, but my strong suspicion is that Steve Randy Waldmann has the curious intractability of the “rogue trader” problem about right. These rogue traders are out there because their bosses don’t want to know what they’re doing. I never get a “rogue burrito” at Chipotle because the management wants people to get burritos that are rolled properly. But suppose the management wants people to obtain the kind of high returns that can only be achieved through unduly risky trades. Well, you can’t very well issue a directive telling people to make unduly risky trades. You certainly can, however, create circumstances under which incentives, control, and supervision are structured so as to make it the case that “rogue traders” will pop up here and there and then there rogueishness can be blamed ex post for undertakings that go badly.

I was always struck in college, watching people head off into the field of finance, by the mismatch between the demographics of the folks who’d go be bankers and the stated desire to manage risk. If I’m conjuring up in my head a vision of a prudent risk manager, I’m thinking maybe a mother of two. Someone smart, of course, but also someone who’s cautious. Someone who sees the whole field. Someone who juggles. I’m not thinking “young smart arrogant dude with limited practical experience and a burning desire to get ahead.” That to me sounds more like a rogue trader!

Sitting and Standing at Work

2011-09-16T15:24:00.001-04:00

From Cornell University Ergonomics:

The Perils of Sitting Sitting for more than 1 hour has been shown to induce biochemical changes in lipase activity (an enzyme involved in fat metabolism) and in glucose metabolism that leads to the deposit of fats in adipose tissue rather than these being metabolized by muscle, and extensive sitting also relates to heart disease risks, so people are advocating standing to work because this use more muscle activity (burns about 20% more calories). These changes happen in both fit people who regularly aerobically work out and also unfit and obese people, so regular exercise doesn’t address this.

The Perils of Standing But, standing to work has long known to be problematic, it is more tiring, it dramatically increases the risks of carotid atherosclerosis (ninefold) because of the additional load on the circulatory system, and it also increases the risks of varicose veins, so standing all day is unhealthy. The performance of many fine motor skills also is less good when people stand rather than sit.

Sit-Stand Workstations We have tested computer use when sitting and standing in different ways. The problem with standing is that when you raise desk height for keyboard/mouse use you need to also raise screen height above the desk or you get neck flexion. Also, for standing computer work the computer fixes the person’s posture there is greater wrist extension and pretty soon people end up leaning which also compromises their wrist posture, thereby increasing the risks of a musculoskeletal disorder like carpal tunnel syndrome.

In our field studies of sit-stand workstations we have found little evidence of widespread benefits and users only stand for very short-periods (15 minutes or less total per day). Other studies have found that the use of sit-stand stations rapidly declines so that after 1 month a majority of people are sitting all the time.

Others have proposed a treadmill workstation or a bicycle workstation. Both of these have been tested and shown to decrease computer work performance (typing and mousing slows down and significantly more mistakes are made).

Sit-stand workstations are expensive and generally ineffective in addressing the issues to hand.

The bottom line: Sit to do computer work. Sit using a height-adjustable, downward titling keyboard tray for the best work posture, then every 20 minutes stand for 2 minutes AND MOVE. The absolute time isn’t critical but about every 20-30 minutes take a posture break and move for a couple of minutes. Simply standing is insufficient. Movement is important to get blood circulation through the muscles. Research shows that you don’t need to do vigorous exercise (e.g. jumping jacks) to get the benefits, just walking around is sufficient. So build in a pattern of creating greater movement variety in the workplace (e.g. walk to a printer, water fountain, stand for a meeting, take the stairs, walk around the floor, park a bit further away from the building each day).

So the key is to build movement variety into the normal workday.

Remembering 9/11 in Brooklyn

2011-09-11T22:32:00.002-04:00

9/11 by the Numbers

2011-09-11T22:32:00.001-04:00

Complied by New York Magazine:

Total number killed in attacks (official figure as of 9/5/02): 2,819
Number of firefighters and paramedics killed: 343
Number of NYPD officers: 23
Number of Port Authority police officers: 37
Number of WTC companies that lost people: 60
Number of employees who died in Tower One: 1,402
Number of employees who died in Tower Two: 614
Number of employees lost at Cantor Fitzgerald: 658
Number of U.S. troops killed in Operation Enduring Freedom: 22
Number of nations whose citizens were killed in attacks: 115
Ratio of men to women who died: 3:1
Age of the greatest number who died: between 35 and 39
Bodies found "intact": 289
Body parts found: 19,858
Number of families who got no remains: 1,717
Estimated units of blood donated to the New York Blood Center:36,000
Total units of donated blood actually used: 258
Number of people who lost a spouse or partner in the attacks:1,609
Estimated number of children who lost a parent: 3,051
Percentage of Americans who knew someone hurt or killed in the attacks: 20
FDNY retirements, January–July 2001: 274
FDNY retirements, January–July 2002: 661
Number of firefighters on leave for respiratory problems by January 2002: 300
Number of funerals attended by Rudy Giuliani in 2001: 200
Number of FDNY vehicles destroyed: 98
Tons of debris removed from site: 1,506,124
Days fires continued to burn after the attack: 99
Jobs lost in New York owing to the attacks: 146,100
Days the New York Stock Exchange was closed: 6
Point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average when the NYSE reopened: 684.81
Days after 9/11 that the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan: 26
Total number of hate crimes reported to the Council on American-Islamic Relations nationwide since 9/11: 1,714
Economic loss to New York in month following the attacks: $105 billion
Estimated cost of cleanup: $600 million
Total FEMA money spent on the emergency: $970 million
Estimated amount donated to 9/11 charities: $1.4 billion
Estimated amount of insurance paid worldwide related to 9/11:$40.2 billion
Estimated amount of money needed to overhaul lower-Manhattan subways: $7.5 billion
Amount of money recently granted by U.S. government to overhaul lower-Manhattan subways: $4.55 billion
Estimated amount of money raised for funds dedicated to NYPD and FDNY families: $500 million
Percentage of total charity money raised going to FDNY and NYPD families: 25
Average benefit already received by each FDNY and NYPD widow: $1 million
Percentage increase in law-school applications from 2001 to 2002: 17.9
Percentage increase in Peace Corps applications from 2001 to 2002: 40
Percentage increase in CIA applications from 2001 to 2002: 50
Number of songs Clear Channel Radio considered "inappropriate" to play after 9/11: 150
Number of mentions of 9/11 at the Oscars: 26
Apartments in lower Manhattan eligible for asbestos cleanup:30,000
Number of apartments whose residents have requested cleanup and testing: 4,110
Number of Americans who changed their 2001 holiday-travel plans from plane to train or car: 1.4 million
Estimated number of New Yorkers suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder as a result of 9/11: 422,000

Waiting for the D train

2011-08-31T20:40:00.003-04:00

50 Documentaries to See Before You Die

2011-08-29T11:03:00.000-04:00

According to Current TV:

50. Spellbound (2002)
49. Truth or Dare (1991)
48. The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002)
47. One Day in September (1999)
46. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998)
45. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
44. Burma VJ (2008)
43. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)
42. Catfish (2010)
41. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
40. When We Were Kings (1996)
39. Biggie & Tupac (2002)
38. March of the Penguins (2005)
37. Inside Job (2010)
36. Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
35. Paragraph 175 (2000)
34. Brother’s Keeper (1992)
33. Tongues Untied (1989)
32. Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
31. Jesus Camp (2006)
30. Farhenheit 9/11 (2004)
29. Man on Wire (2008)
28. Gasland (2010)
27. Tarnation (2003)
26. Murderball (2005)
25. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
24. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
23. The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000)
22. Shut Up & Sing (2006)
21. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
20. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
19. Touching the Void (2003)
18. Food, Inc. (2008)
17. Street Fight (2005)
16. Bus 174 (2002)
15. Crumb (1994)
14. Dark Days (2000)
13. The Fog of War (2003)
12. Bowling for Columbine (2002)
11. Paris Is Burning (1991)
10. Grizzly Man (2005)
9. Trouble the Water (2008)
8. An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
7. The Celluloid Closet (1995)
6. The War Room (1993)
5. Supersize Me (2004)
4. Waltz With Bashir (2008)
3. Roger & Me (1989)
2. The Thin Blue Line (1988)
1. Hoop Dreams (1994)

What's wrong with the gold standard

2011-08-23T15:55:00.000-04:00

From Matt Yglesias:

The simplest way to see this is to think about what’s not wrong with the current system. Suppose that you have a pile of U.S. dollars. One hundred thousand of them. And you think that you have a problem. Inflationistas at the Fed are going to reduce the value of your pile. You think the solution to this is to take away the Fed’s discretion over the supply of dollars, and mandate that each dollar be backed by a specific quantity of gold. This, you think, will protect the value of your dollar stockpile by linking it to long-run trends in the supply of and demand for gold. Maybe you’re right that a pile of fiat dollars is a worse investment than a pile of gold-backed dollars and maybe you’re right. But if this is your issue, nobody is stopping you from trading your fiat money for gold. Other people who would rather have fiat money than gold will sell it to you. I promise. This exchange of fiat money for gold happens every day, and you, too, can participate in it.

Interestingly, what won’t give you the security you crave is the adoption of a gold standard. If a federal law mandates that $1,000 be worth a certain amount of gold, there’s nothing stopping congress from changing the law later. If you want the alleged security of gold, there’s no substitute for gold. A gold standard is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Nor does gold ensure stable prices. What it ensures is that inflation trends are driven by the supply of gold. Find a new gold mine somewhere: inflation. Aliens come to steal gold: deflation. All you’re doing is randomizing the extent and timing of inflation.

"Good" and "Bad" Inequality

2011-08-22T13:41:00.000-04:00

From Gary Becker:

The great majority of people in different cultures do not object to someone who has made lots of money when they have superior abilities and talents, and they work hard at producing what are considered useful goods or services. Actors like Tom Hanks or Jennifer Aniston earn millions of dollars per film, yet they are admired as stars rather than condemned for being millionaires because films are a popular form of entertainment. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others who became billionaires by creating innovative companies that provide highly valuable goods and services to millions of individuals are widely admired as the business equivalents of rock stars rather than attacked for their great wealth. Leading transplant and other doctors who become successful and very wealthy through extensive education and superior skills are recognized for their valuable contributions to extending the lives of very sick individuals, and few object to their high earnings.

On the other hand, when hedge fund managers become rich by using arbitrage activities to narrow the spreads in interest rates and other prices between different regions (most hedge funds do not only engage in arbitrage) they produce useful services, but the value of what they do is not so apparent as the businessmen who make successful products. It is still harder for many to understand the usefulness of “speculators” who do well financially by successfully shorting shares of companies or commodities, such as oil, because they believe correctly that their prices will fall in the future. Their activities add value by smoothing out the prices of these shares and commodities over time, but few people like individuals who bring bad news, or who profit from anticipating bad news.

Why HP abandoned Palm and is getting out of the PC business

2011-08-22T11:31:00.000-04:00

From the always-insightful John Gruber:

HP acquired Palm at the end of April 2010, for $1.2 billion. HP’s CEO was Mark Hurd.

Three months later, in early August, Mark Hurd was forced to resign over that scandal with forged expenses and lies about his lady friend.

HP then named Léo Apotheker president and CEO on 30 September 2010.
The thing is, Apotheker’s relevant experience was serving as CEO of SAP. What’s SAP? SAP is an enterprise software and consulting company. Honestly, we all should have seen this coming. You don’t bring in an enterprise consulting guy to turn around a PC and device maker. You bring in an enterprise consulting guy to turn a PC and device maker into an enterprise consulting company.

Palm wasn’t Apotheker’s acquisition. It was Hurd’s. And the PC business wasn’t why Apotheker took the job. Apotheker’s acquisition was announced this week, coincident with the news that HP wants out of the PC and device business: Autonomy — a company I’d never heard of before but which more or less sounds like a rival to SAP.

I suppose Apotheker gave the Palm/WebOS guys a chance, and let them get the TouchPad on the market. But apparently their chance was a one-strike-and-you’re-out opportunity to gain traction in the market immediately. But the TouchPad didn’t get any traction immediately, so, boom, that’s it, Apotheker is done with them. Apotheker simply never had any interest in the consumer market or product development. My guess is that he planned on getting HP out of the hardware business all along, and Palm, at best, was an afterthought. If he’d been named HP’s CEO six months earlier, they never would have acquired Palm in the first place.

How government can help small businesses

2011-08-20T17:52:00.001-04:00

Neil Blumenthal is one of the founders of Warby Parker, an online eyewear company that sells designer frames for less than $100. He was among 150 young chief executives invited to Washington by Our Time, a youth advocacy group, to help start Buy Young, an initiative that encourages consumers to support companies owned by members of the millennial generation. Below is a particularly cogent insight from the conversation published in the NY Times:

Q. What could Washington do to help?

A. The first is streamlining regulation. The rules of optical dispensing vary from state to state. Dispensing eyeglasses is not that complicated and even if it were complicated, there should be uniform rules. I’d also do something about the dearth of technical talent — it is really difficult to hire Web developers and engineers. We aren’t educating enough of these people. It was refreshing to hear the politicians talk about the STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — subjects, but come on, let’s get some of the smart engineers into the country by granting them their H-1B visas.

Reforming unemployment insurance

2011-08-18T12:37:00.000-04:00

Matt Yglesias has an idea:

If you have a car, and your car is insured, and your car gets totaled you don’t get a check every two weeks to help you with bus fare. Nor are you told that the checks will stop coming as soon as you buy a replacement car, but that in order to stay eligible for the checks, you need to demonstrate that you’re making good faith efforts to try to obtain a replacement car. Consequently, we don’t have political controversies about whether or not auto insurance reduces auto sales or unfairly subsidizes the bus. Your insurance works like insurance. “Car got destroyed” is a triggering event, and what it triggers is a payment of money. Normally people spend the money on getting a replacement vehicle, but it’s their money and they’re allowed to do what they want with it.

Unemployment Insurance should be like that. Insurance against the possibility that you’ll get laid off. If the bad thing happens to you, you get the payout. What you do next is up to you. The role of the government in this process shouldn’t be to micro-manage your job search, it should be to take advantage of the government’s risk-pooling efficiency to create a universal, nationwide single-payer Unemployment Insurance system. People who work pay taxes into the system (you can cap the tax liabilities as with the present system), and people who get laid off get lump sum insurance checks and then keep on living their lives. Not as welfare recipients, but as insurance beneficiaries.

How to be sure your San Marzano tomatoes are legit

2011-08-17T09:55:00.000-04:00

If you are not cooking with San Marzano tomatoes, particularly when in-season tomatoes are not available, then you should start soon. But beware of impostors!

The president of the Cosorzio San Marzano says that at least 95% of the San Marzano tomatoes in America are not San Marzano.
How do you make sure they are?

First thing you do, you check the tin's label: it MUST say "Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese Nocerino D.O.P."; it MUST have the symbol of the Consorzio; it MUST have the symbol of the DOP; it MUST have a "N° XXXXXXX", which is the Number assigned to the tin by the Consorzio.

But even if all of these apply, the President of the Consorzio says they have seen cases where labels were printed NOT in Italy, completely fake. Of course! Who is here in the USA to watch??? Very complicated!!! So, what do you do?

As always, best thing is to shop from a merchant you trust!!! And look at the price. If it is too good to be true, it is not.

We're not going to be able to tax-the-rich our way out of this deficit

2011-08-15T21:40:00.002-04:00

James Choi was an illustrative post up on his "quasi" blog in response to Warren Buffet's op-ed in today's NY Times about taxing the mega-rich. Key message:

Suppose we imposed a 100% tax rate on people making more than $1 million a year, and let's pretend that they wouldn't generate any less taxable income in response. (In reality, they would of course stop working altogether or hide their income in response to a 100% tax, so the government wouldn't be able to collect all that income.)

The government would then collect $727 billion from these people, which would be $549 billion more than it actually did. That would still not be enough to eliminate the $1.65 trillion federal deficit in 2011.

This is why Obama's so-called millionaires and billionaires tax hike proposal would have raised taxes on AGIs starting at $200,000 a year for singles and $250,000 a year for couples. There just isn't enough money available in the $1 million+ segment to close the deficit.

And this is why any deal that ultimately balances our budget will have to at least partially hit the upper-middle class (which I loosely define as households that make more than $50,000 a year, which is the top 36 percentiles), either through tax hikes or benefits cuts.