Author: Administrator

Avoiding the drag of safety nets

Perry Willis’ recent post  distinguishes two alternative ways in which the state might transfer wealth to ordinary citizens:

  • Dragnets, in which everyone receives the wealth, regardless of need
  • Safety nets, in which only those who are in difficulty receive the wealth.

He characterizes Social Security and Medicare as dragnets, since virtually everyone is covered regardless of need.  Costing 15% of wage and salary for typical workers, these are very expensive programs which might be cheaper if the affluent were excluded from receiving benefits.  He also claims that  “Dragnet programs usually have one other feature — fraud.”

He does not cite any example of a government-funded safety net, tho it seems that Medicaid, which is offered only to those who can meet some need-related criteria, would be a good example. Like any “need-based” government program, it presupposes an apparatus for monitoring everyone’s income from all sources. And does it have fraud?  Take a look.

Perhaps the safety net isn’t much superior than the drag net.  Is there a better approach? Of course. The citizens dividend does not take anything from wages and salaries, does not require an income-monitoring apparatus (altho it might require some kind of citizenship certification), and gives each of us a fair share of what belongs to all of us.

 

 

Transit advocates get more options

Not more transit options; we’re still stuck with CTA bus, CTA rail, Pace bus, and Metra rail.  But now we have more advocacy options. None of them is easy to join. A biased summary (listed in descending order of web site quality) is:

  • If you believe transit’s main problem is that it doesn’t have enough money to spend, you can support the (newly-announced) Riders for Better Transit. It seems that you can’t exactly become a member; you can only click a box to show your support, and/or join the parent organization, Active Transportation Alliance.
  • If you believe that transit workers are good, kind, noble, and generous, but management is foolish, and, yeah, more money is probably needed too, you can join Citizens Taking Action.  The site gives no indication about how one could join, but does announce, and by implication invite one to, their next meeting.
  • If you think transit riders’ main problem is that transit investments and operations are poorly planned and poorly managed, a lot of money is wasted, and, if any more money is needed, it should come from a tax on land value, because land value reflects (among other things) the quality of public transportation, then you’re invited to support The Transit Riders’ Authority. Find where  it says “join TRA! Here’s a membership application:”  There is no membership application, but a PO Box, phone number and email address are given; perhaps they work.

 

 

Yes, LVT falls on the rich

In case anyone doubted it, Bloomberg reports that real estate prices in vacation areas favored by the wealthy, such as Mount Desert ME and the Hamptons on Long Island, continue to rise even as prices generally have dropped.  And, yes, these are land prices, not house prices:

[B]illionaire Mitchell Rales bought a $5.5 million estate and tore it down to build a $25 million mansion

The only specific figure given for the wealthy enclaves is a rise of 14% in Southhampton, and the period to which this applies isn’t specified.

One hopes that local assessors are closely monitoring and responding to these trends.

Prices climb for ag land and infrastructure

I have blogged before about rising prices for agricultural land.  The trend continues, with FRB/Chicago reporting(pdf)  that, as of Q2 2011, farmland prices in its area (Iowa plus most of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana) had risen 17% in a year, and 4% just since the prior quarter.  This trend, of course, reflects an increasing amount of financial power invested in (and therefore inclined to defend) the goverment’s destructive ethanol incentives.

What’s new, to my knowledge, is investment by speculative interests in grain elevators. While elevators aren’t exactly a monopoly like farmland (farmers lacking reasonable elevator services have in some cases built their own), they’re certainly a tool that can be used to squeeze profit without producing or providing useful service.  The source article implies that the investment is simply a function of increasing storage prices (without explaining what caused the prices to increase), with no intention of storing grain to manipulate prices.  Americans wouldn’t do that, would they?

Land Economics and Ownership– cancelled

I am back to the blog, after a series of computer difficulties and travel distractions. I could have resumed earlier, but had (still have) too many things to write about, so I waited for something simple and outrageous. And here it is.

What two products, planned for the 2007 U S Census of Agriculture, have been cancelled?  One is a report on acquaculture.  The other? Land Economics and Ownership.  One inclined to conspiracy theory might say TPTB are trying to prevent folks from learning the truth.  I would tend more to think it’s a product of ignorance, no need for conspiracy. I wonder what the report would have said.

 

 

Does Accurate Forecasting Get Attention?

No, not particularly.  CXO Advisory Group did a little study, comparing the accuracy of forecasts made by a number of investment  “gurus” who they monitor, to the magnitude of google searches.  Based on a couple of different formulations, there was basically no relationship. Of course google searches would be only one measure of fame, and CXO’s way of measuring accuracy isn’t the only reasonable one, but still it is not a surprise.  If I made accurate forecasts, I could prosper with only a few subscribers, who I might charge a high price and ask not to talk about me much.  But if my forecasting record is mediocre, I would want to get as much publicity as possible, because I would need to constantly attract new subscribers.

Tho no surprise, this is not good news for geoists.  At least investment advice can be measured in a more-or-less objective way.  But geoist reforms are in an arena where there are always extraneous factors.  You might get your local tax policy exactly right, for instance, but this could be overwhelmed by an unwise investment in, say, an incinerator.

Producing electricity from waste heat

The general concept of using waste heat from one process as an energy source for another is quite old, but this report says that some University of Minnesota researchers have figured out a practical way to generate electricity from it. It involves a new alloy which changes magnetic properties when it’s exposed to heat. Of course I have no idea whether it’s practical, or even whether some patent troll will step in to exact a fee for its use.  It will be interesting to check back in a year or two and see what has become of it.

And let’s remember, it was publicly funded (fortunately completed before the State of Minnesota suspended operations)

Funding for early research on the alloy came from a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (involving other universities including the California Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, University of Washington and University of Maryland), and research grants from the U.S. Air Force and the National Science Foundation. The research is also tentatively funded by a small seed grant from the University of Minnesota’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment.

(No, I don’t know what “tentatively funded” means regarding completed work.)

This is your technology.  Don’t let the big guys take it away from you.Famous photo, unless it has been relocated

Sun Yat-sen “deeply inspired” by George

Georgists claim Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese republic, as one of us.  But I could never find anything in English-language books to support this assertion. So it’s good to see this article from Focus Taiwan News Channel, about an exhibition on “Sun Yat-sen and the United States.”

[Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou] noted that Sun, when he drafted his political philosophy, was deeply inspired by Henry George, a renowned American political writer of the 19th Century, as well as Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address of 1863.

 

Are San Franciscans fatter than Chicagoans?

Many have complained about cattle-car conditions aboard CTA trains, exacerbated by the few, small, and uncomfortable seats. The newest 5000-series cars are probably the worst in this regard, as nearly all the seats are longitudinal, so, if you manage to snag a seat, you’re stuck in a 17.5″ space with cta-rider-bodies on each side of you.  If you’re only 17″ wide (including your arms, unless you detach those for transport), you’ll fit OK provided that you remain quite stationary. And altho the total number of seats is said to be the same as was provided in the 3200-series cars, that’s fewer than any earlier models.

Not that CTA conducted any surveys or hearings prior to deciding on this seating configuration.  For comparison, consider BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit serving north-central California. Their seats are 22″ wide.  Riders have indicated a willingness to cut that down to 20″, but no further. How does BART know this?

Because they conducted a survey. They took some seats around and asked folks what they thought. They also provide comparisons to seats in other cities, as indicated on this pdf.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the BART board is elected, not appointed.

Have CTA apologists anything to say here?

 

Farmland owners profit by returning to suburbs

As the housing market tanked a few years ago, of course the price of farmland “ripe” for housing crashed along with it.  Meanwhile, many investors, noting impending food shortages and low interest rates, bought farmland in rural areas.  Now, no surprise, they’re selling their rural land and using some of the cash to again purchase suburban farmland, at the much lower prices. The profit, of course, is in buying and selling land, not producing anything.  I am grateful to Mary Ellen Podmolik for her article in the June 19 Tribune, which provides some details.