Reticulator

How to supply the corruption that fuels the modern state

 Free markets  No Responses »
Feb 132007
 

A WSJ article about the utility industry, one of a set of article in the Monday February 12 issue:
The Bottom Line

In the power business, the more electricity you sell, the more money you make.

Now state officials and electric utilities — backed by environmental groups — have begun to change that equation. Faced with growing demand for electricity and the environmental consequences of generating it, states and utilities are considering new regulatory regimes that remove the incentive for selling more power — and give utilities a financial stake in saving energy.

The ultimate goal is to eliminate the need for new power plants.

And just how would this be done? Count on the governing class to do anything, just anything, to avoid the use of market pricing mechanisms.

States are considering two major regulatory remedies. The first is “decoupling,” in which utilities receive a predetermined profit each year — thereby separating their earnings from the volume of electricity they deliver.

Here’s how it works. A utility and state regulators hammer out how much profit the company will be allowed to earn. At the end of the year, if the utility’s actual profit is lower than that amount, the company charges customers to make up the difference. If the actual profit is higher, customers get a rebate.

I like that phrase, “utility and state regulators hammer out.” In other words, they get together for some corrupt dealing and influence peddling. Well, that sort of corruption is the fuel that powers the modern state.

But under current rules in most states, utilities can’t earn a return on their efficiency spending — they can only recover the cost. A proposal being considered in California, Texas and several other states would change that.

Under such a system, “the people running the energy-efficiency departments in these utilities will become on a par with those running the transmission and distribution departments,” predicts Mr. Gallagher. “There will be more of a corporate focus on energy efficiency.”

In other words, there will be more emphasis on utilities figuring out how to make regulators happy than on energy production, or profit, or even energy efficiency.

Power trip

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 092007
 

From chron.com and the AP

Snow called Pelosi’s office to make sure she knew the White House supported her use of a military plane.

He also distanced the White House from the GOP’s take on the matter. The Republican National Committee said Pelosi was on a “power trip.” Snow, asked whether the RNC is free to go after Pelosi on its own, said, “Well, apparently they did this time.”

A “power trip.” That would be a good name for Pelosi’s plane.

I for one have a big problem with this, no matter what Tony Snow says. Having her own plane helps free her from the need to make the skies safe for all travelers, not just those who are in positions of leadership. Maybe she’d have to be more responsible in dealing with terrorism if she didn’t have special protections that the rest of us lack.

I didn’t know that Hastert got special privileges, either, nor did I have a lot of sympathy for Newt’s complaints. But two wrongs don’t make a right. These people ought to live in the real world they are elected to represent instead spending their time jockeying for elite perks and privileges. It’s a corrupting influence on them.

Maybe if we had term limits to bring them down to earth once in a while, I’d have a different opinion about it.

I also have a big problem with special protections for judges and police. Those people, too, ought to be making the streets safe for everyone, not just for the privileged few.

Nancy and Newt don’t like flying 2nd class

 Bash the Messenger  No Responses »
Feb 082007
 

From the Washington Times

An aide to Mrs. Pelosi, who asked not to be named, confirmed yesterday that discussions are ongoing with the administration. “It would be done for security reasons,” said the aide, adding that the speaker has used military aircraft for at least one trip back to San Francisco.
The aide asserted that the administration was using a Washington Times reporter, in effect, to negotiate with the speaker’s office by leaking information about Mrs. Pelosi’s request. Asked if the speaker was seeking increased access to military planes, the aide took the question, but did not call back.

Back in 1995, Newt Gingrich was skinned alive when he complained about the seat he was assigned on a Clinton plane.   Here is CNN’s spin on it:

Gingrich and Dole had complained earlier about their lack of discussions with Clinton during the 25 hours of flying time. But Gingrich went a step further Wednesday by saying the incident contributed to the government shutdown.

“This is petty,” said Gingrich, indicating his displeasure at the way the two were treated. “You’ve been on the plane for 25 hours and nobody has talked to you and they ask you to get off the plane by the back ramp. … You just wonder, where is their sense of manners? Where is their sense of courtesy?”

I wonder if Nancy will fare as well as Newt did.

AP “computer analysis”

 Bash the Messenger  No Responses »
Feb 052007
 

LANSING, Mich. — After 15 years of tax cuts, including drops in property and income tax rates, Michigan families have seen their state tax bills decrease by as much as a fourth, according to an Associated Press computer analysis.

The above is from an AP article that seems to have appeared in a lot of newspapers today. I first saw it in today’s Kalamazoo Gazette. It’s the lead article on page 1. Here is a link to the Chicago Tribune version.

The information as to how this “analysis” was performed is pretty scanty. The best I could find was this from something called Michigan Wire.

It’s curious that the AP is now doing analyses like these instead of reporting on other people doing such analyses. Usually the AP is able to achieve a high level of partisanship just by the way it reports on other peoples’ agendas. Apparently that wasn’t enough this time. And it’s suspicious that such an analysis comes out just before the Governor’s State of the State address. Producing a study to serve a political timetable is hardly the way to get objective results.
There are so many things wrong with this, and so many unanswered questions.

Hiding behind the fig leaf “computer analysis” is one of the oldest dodges in the book. There is apparently no web site where one can go to check the data, the assumptions, and the calculations. Just because a computer was used doesn’t mean this piece of work wasn’t ideologically biased.

The article purports to tell how families’ tax bills have dropped over the past 15 years. But in a sidebar that lists tax changes since 1991, there is a list of tax increases (3 of them) followed by a long list of tax cuts. But the latter list includes a cut to the Single Business tax! So how did they calculate the effect of that one in reducing the typical family tax bill?

The article states that “the biggest savings have come through the lower property-tax bills that homeowners have paid since Proposal A passed in 1994.” But I thought the revenues were supposed to be off-set by sales tax receipts. Has that not happened? Are we now spending less per pupil in inflation-adjusted dollars? If so, that would be the story to report on. (Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing, or a good thing. But either way, it would be worth knowing about.)

And if they did somehow make that calculation, where is the information about the indirect effects of changes in the tax rates on economic activity, e.g. on attracting businesses to come to Michigan or leave the state?
And what about the non-school property taxes that are being collected locally? How come those weren’t included in the analysis. Has the reduction in school property taxes made it easier for local governments to raise property taxes for other purposes, as some people predicted would happen? That should have been part of the story, too.

But most of all, I want to know what part of the state GDP is being taken in taxes. Is the government’s percentage of the state’s economy growing or decreasing? Not a word was said about that.

Tom Clay, fo the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council, says policymakers will need to address that question if Michigan is to deal with falling revenues caused in part by lower tax rates.

Note those words, “in part.” But which part? 10 percent? 90 percent? What is the other part that’s not caused by lower tax rates. And what will happen to that other part if tax rates are increased?

I think what’s needed is for some news agency that is a real news agency to do some reporting on this. Find out how the AP really did this study. Find out what motivated it and who the players are behind the scenes. Find out who decided that now was the time for such a study to come out. Find out what the critics have to say about it. Because whatever this story is, it is not a matter of the AP reporting the news. It is a matter of the AP inventing news. And for that kind of work, it should be held to account.

Dennis Kucinich and the Fairness Doctrine

 Leftwing fascism  No Responses »
Jan 222007
 

Back in the cold war days of the 1940s and 1950s, we had the House Committee on Un-American Activities to protect our tender minds from exposure to commie propaganda. Now Rep. Dennis Kucinich, animated by similar concerns over threats to America, wants to revive the Fairness Doctrine to protect us from hearing corporate propaganda.

From the UPI:

The panel also would consider Fairness Doctrine, eliminated in 1987, which had required broadcasters to present controversial topics in a fair and honest manner.

“We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda” Kucinich said during the Tennessee conference. “We are now in a position to move a progressive agenda to where it is visible.”

Never mind that the mainstream media are already steeped in leftwing ideology and give major exposure to any leftDemocrat agenda items that people like Kucinich care to bring up. That’s not good enough. Kucinich and his cadre are apparently so afraid that their ideas cannot withstand criticism that they feel the need to shut down dissenting views, which is what the Fairness Doctrine did back when it was in effect.

O.J. Simpson and stoplights

 Free markets  No Responses »
Nov 212006
 

O.J. Simpson says he was legally muzzled. But the really good news about the cancellation of his book and TV special is that this isn’t true.

It wasn’t the legal system or any other government action that did it. It wasn’t congressional hearings in which smarmy politicians threaten to pass laws. (Who could have stomached another such spectacle as when they inserted themselves into the baseball steroid scandal?)

It was social pressure — the threat of boycotts, Bill O’Reilly’s loud objections, the denunciations from newspaper editors, and the affiliates who refused to carry it. (In short it’s the behavior we should have gotten from the media back when the Clintons were stonewalling the legal system.)

I’ve long held that boycotts and the threat of boycotts are an underutilized tool for social change. In the past, whenever I’ve brought up the possibility, It’s usually libertarians, of all people, who’ve objected the loudest.

But governments can’t and shouldn’t do everything. We as a society need to govern ourselves, and this is incident shows how it can be done.

It’s interesting that it happened on the same day as this article about “controlled chaos” European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs

“The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior,” says Dutch traffic guru Hans Monderman, one of the project’s co-founders. “The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.”

What we had in the O.J. cancellation was an increase in our capacity for socially responsible behavior.

How low can you go?

 Welfare-police state  No Responses »
Nov 202006
 

One of many columns to profess abhorence at the new O.J. Simpson book:

How Low Can You Go?

To those who worried our violent, sex-obsessed, celebrity-crazed culture had at last reached the very farthest depths of depravity, O. J. Simpson and Judith Regan come bearing news: we had so much farther to fall.

And to do such a thing for money! Commentators profess to be aghast at OJ’s money grubbing and the media’s grubbing for money-generating publicity over the whole thing.

But is that really a new low? What about this: Doctors are calling for a debate over proposals for the “mercy killing” of severely disabled babies.

In both cases, you have the weasel words. OJ is writing about killing as if he had been the killer, but nobody is fooled about the “as if” part. The doctors profess to merely want a debate, and what could be more noble than a healthy debate? And everyone knows what the doctors want is not debate, but the right to eliminate expensive babies.

And then there is the money angle. OJ is doing it for his children, and so are the doctors. “A very disabled child can mean a disabled family,” they say. Translation: “it’s about the money.”

loyalty

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Nov 182006
 

Here is a Washington Post article by Jonathan Weisman and Lois Romano: Pelosi Splits Democrats With Push For Murtha: Speaker-to-Be Accused Of Strong-Arm Tactics

…Pelosi’s aggressive intervention on behalf of Murtha has baffled and angered many Democrats, who think she has unnecessarily put her reputation on the line out of misplaced loyalty to a friend and because of a long-standing feud with Hoyer, the minority whip….

…For the most part, lawmakers, Hill aides and some outside advisers — even some close to her — say they are at a loss to explain why Pelosi has held a grudge for so long, because she clearly has the upper hand as leader of the House Democrats. They suggest that part of what rankles her is that Hoyer is not beholden to her and feels no compulsion to publicly agree with her on every issue. This, allies say, she sees as a sign of disloyalty….

It’s interesting that the elected leaders of the two parties are so much alike on this. George Bush and Nancy Pelosi now have reputations for valuing personal loyalty above all else.

It makes me miss Ronald Reagan more than ever. He could put up with blabbermouth skeptics and backstabbers in his own administration. But he was loyal to his own agenda.

Political ploy

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Nov 182006
 

Headline: Seeking re-election, incumbent Dutch government promises to ban burqa

The Dutch government said it would outlaw the head-to-toe burqa worn by some Muslim women and other face-concealing apparel in public places, marking this once-tolerant nation’s latest about-face on questions of culture and assimilation in Europe. …
The opposition Labor Party called the announcement a political ploy.

Well, yes, of course it’s a political ploy. That’s the purpose of having governments “of the people” — to do political ploys.

Some definitions:

Political (adj) Exercising or seeking power in the government or public affairs of a state, municipality, etc.; of, pertaining to, or involving the state or its government; having a definite policy or system of government.
Ploy (n) a maneuver or stratagem, as in conversation, to gain the advantage

Spam, socialism, and net neutrality

 Free markets, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Nov 172006
 

Network World reports on huge increases in the amount of spam over the past several weeks: What’s with all this spam?

Researchers and IT managers are confirming security vendors’ claims that spam levels have spiked in the past month – some say by as much as 80 % — and show no signs of decreasing.

“There are enormous amounts of spam; it’s shot up like crazy since the beginning of October,” says John Levine…

This spam problem is an example of why socialism doesn’t work. Continue reading »

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