Month: August 2014

Fraser Nelson over at The Spectator has
crunched the numbers and finds that if Britain were somehow to
become the 51st state (OK by me) it would the
second poorest state in terms of GDP per capita, ranking below
Alabama and just above Mississippi.

Would-be Europhiles might also want to consider that the oil
state of Norway would rank 8th, Switzerland 21st, Germany and
Sweden would vie for 40th place (below Michigan), and the entire
Euro area would rank 45th just below West Virginia’s per capita
GDP. Ah, such are the glories of welfare statism.

Nelson was apparently prompted to make these calculations in
response to the smug condescenion of anti-American commentators
about U.S. economic inequality in the wake of the events in
Ferguson, MO. As Nelson notes:

No one beats up America better than Americans. They openly
debate their inequality, conduct rigorous studies about it, argue
about economics vs culture as causes. Their universities study it,
with a calibre of analysis not found in Britain. Americans get so
angry about educational inequality that they make films like
Waiting for Superman. And the debate is so fierce that the rest of
the world looks on, and joins in lamenting America’s problems. A
shame: we’d do better to get a little angrier at our own.

Speaking of smug condescension, it is well worth your time to
click over The Spectator and
scroll down Nelson’s rankings.

The Congressional Budget Office released another
report on the
nation’s debt and deficit picture today, and the short version goes
something like this: We’ve made some short-term progress in
reducing annual deficits, but the long-term debt picture is still
quite bleak. It’s the calm before the storm more than a sign that
all is well.

There’s no question that the fiscal situation is better than it
was a few years ago. This year’s budget deficit will clock in at
just $506 billion—not a small amount, but far less than the $1
trillion overruns we saw during President Obama’s first term. This
year’s deficit will even be slightly smaller, relative to the size
of the entire economy, than is typical over the last four decades.
Projected Medicare costs—a major driver of long-term debt—have
continued to be reduced
compared to the increases the CBO expected just a few years
ago.

But some of those Medicare savings are based on cuts that, as
Medicare’s Trustees have
hinted rather strongly, may not ever materialize. And some of
them are based on projections of slowing health spending that could
easily be wrong, as much of the slowdown has been attributed to the
economy.

Meanwhile, even as annual deficits have declined, total federal
debt levels have remained high. And they are expected to rise to
unprecedented levels in the years to come. By the end of this
fiscal year, the CBO says, federal debt held by the public will
equal 74 percent of GDP, double its 2007 level, and higher than at
any point since 1950. Then it gets worse. “The persistent and
growing deficits that CBO projects would result in increasing
amounts of federal debt held by the public,” the report says.
Starting in 2018, deficits start to rise above average levels
again, pushing debt as a percentage of GDP up to 77 percent in
2024.

The higher the debt levels, the bigger the problems for the
nation, especially when debt levels are this high. As the CBO notes
(and has said repeatedly in previous reports), higher debt means
higher federal spending on interest to maintain the debt, lower
economic growth rates, less flexibility for policymakers in all
matters, and an increased risk of a fiscal crisis. Basically, debt
costs money to carry, and robs the nation of other options: the
more a nation owes, and the more it spends on debt, the fewer
choices it has to do other things, which creates a kind of
precarious state in which really big problems—like a fiscal
crisis—are more likely, and harder to deal with when they do occur.
It’s a fiscal feedback loop, and it’s threatening to drag us
down.

The Obama administration has tended to treat the recent decline
in annual deficits as a kind of problem solved. It’s not. The
problem is a little smaller, but it hasn’t gone away so much as
been postponed. That’s a good thing, but it’s not enough. 

On
last night’s episode of The Independents, the rapper
Killer Mike—he explains the name in the clip—came on to talk about
the events in Ferguson and the
militarization
of police (the latter of which he has several in his family). I
had not previously been aware of Mike’s work, but the man seems to
have a promising future in cable news. Take a look:

More Indies clips at this
link.

It was with some trepidation
that I clicked through to see what New York Times
columnist Mark Bittman had written under the headline “The
Drinker’s Manifesto.” But Bittman, who is generally more
knowledgeable and interesting as a food writer than as an
op-ed pundit, makes some valid points about the traditional
“public health” approach to alcohol:

Two-thirds of us drink, and many of us either underestimate the
amount we do or actually lie about it. In Britain, for example,
drinking reported to health professionals accounts for only about
60 percent of the alcohol sold. I lie to my doctors about drinking,
because by official standards I drink too much and I don’t want to
be scolded.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says
that men drink too much when we consume 15 “drinks” a week (a drink
is a 5-ounce glass of wine, a shot of spirits or a beer); women get
to have only 8. (Women generally weigh less than men, and alcohol
may have more ill effects on women.) You also drink too much
if you consume five drinks within three hours; that’s a binge. And,
according to the C.D.C., one drink is one too many for people under
21 years of age. Which is absurd, even if it’s the law.

The C.D.C. flatly says drinking too much is “dangerous,” which
is pretty vague, and can “lead to heart disease, breast cancer,
sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancy, fetal alcohol
spectrum disorders, sudden infant death syndrome, motor-vehicle
crashes, and violence.”

Many of these dangerous effects are indirect and can be
mitigated: If you don’t have sex or get into a car after drinking,
you can’t possibly get pregnant or in a car accident….The more
direct ones, like heart disease and breast cancer, have so many
risk factors that drinking may perhaps be discounted, especially in
moderation. And there’s evidence that drinking “the right
amount”—which is less than “too much”—can be good for you….

If we’re reasonably responsible individuals, these are private
matters whose consequences are borne by ourselves.

Bittman is right to be skeptical of the CDC’s drinking
recommendations, which lack a firm scientific basis. The
existing evidence suggests that the CDC’s guidelines are
excessively conservative, which helps explain why other
governments’ definitions
of moderation are often more generous. Furthermore, the
scientific literature on this question is almost certainly biased
toward less drinking because of the underreporting that Bittman
notes. If people routinely underestimate how much they drink,
the actual levels of consumption associated with good health are
probably higher than the research indicates.

Bittman also makes the point that pleasure, which the
CDC’s analysis completely ignores, should count for something. “We
drink because we want to, not because it’s good for us,” he writes.
“Whether you believe that alcohol is proof that God loves us and
wants us to be happy…or that God has nothing to do with this,
it’s clear that alcohol can bring both joy and pain.”

Bittman’s discussion of drinking is admirably calm,
presumably because he likes to drink. That suspicion is confirmed
by his conclusion:

Of course there are people who really drink too much, and we
should continue to discourage overconsumption, but once again when
it comes to public health we fail to prioritize correctly. The
C.D.C. says that excessive alcohol consumption causes 88,000 deaths
a year and “costs the economy about $224 billion.” Obesity-related
illnesses cause somewhere around 112,000 deaths, and cost maybe a
trillion dollars.

You don’t see the C.D.C. saying that people under 21 years of
age “drink too much” if they consume a can of soda. But it
should.

In short, there is nothing wrong with consuming more
alcohol than the CDC thinks you should, but any amount of
sugar-sweetened soda is too much. Note that the death tolls and
cost estimates cited by Bittman were generated by the same agency
whose drinking advice he distrusts. But even assuming they are
accurate, they do not prove what he thinks they do. Like Bittman, I
eschew sugar-sweetened soft drinks and have been known to consume
more alcohol than the government deems proper. Still, I recognize
the absurdity of the distinction he is trying to
draw. If it is possible to drink alcohol
responsibly, surely if it is possible to drink
soda responsibly. And if the consequences of drinking alcohol,
provided you are “reasonably responsible,” are “private matters,”
it is hard to see why the consequences of drinking soda are a
legitimate subject of public concern. Like
Bob Tyrrell, Bittman is simply elevating his
own tastes into moral imperatives under the guise of
science.

Gary Johnson, the two-term governor of New
Mexico, one-time Libertarian presidential candidate, and founder of
the Our America Initiative libertarian advocacy organization, took
to Reddit last night for a session of
Ask Me Anything (AMA).

AMA is a sort of crowd-sourced interview in which the best
inquiries get voted to the top. Johnson received mostly softball
questions and didn’t delve too deeply with any of his responses.
Still, he did have some interesting things to say.  

Perhaps his liveliest moment was taking a jab at Sen. Rand
Paul’s (R-Ky.) libertarian street cred.

Asked if he thinks Paul’s run for president in 2016 will
overshadow a (L/l)ibertarian candidate, Johnson responded, “I hope
not. My fear is that people associate Rand Paul’s social
conservatism with libertarianism, when it’s not.” Disappointingly,
though, Johnson didn’t go into any more detail about his thoughts
on Paul and what he perceives as non-libertarian about him. Not
about Paul, but the GOP in general, he wrote that he thinks
“Republicans, especially the Christian-Right, are hurting or
helping Libertarians politically.” This is an interesting
perspective, since in a Google Hangout last year Johnson said he’d
consider running either for governor or president as a Republican
again.

The former governor, who has previously confirmed that he
intends to run for president again, gave a two-word answer about
his “primary focus” for the 2016 election: “Economic policy.”

He expressed optimism about the chances of a libertarian
president being elected in his lifetime. How will that come about,
though?

By getting more exposure. Johnson is currently suing the
Commission on Presidential Debates for excluding him in the 2012
debates. He explained, “I agree that the two party system stomps on
any kind of competition. A great first step is to open the
presidential debates to all qualified candidates, including the
Libertarians. If that happens, the Libertarian party will
experience unprecedented growth.”

One hot topic on the AMA was prison policy and privatization.
The highest voted question in the entire interview, “Could you
explain your support for privatization of our prison system? Aren’t
you concerned that this could create perverse profit incentives to
lobby for locking more people up, and ultimately cost America far
more money?” went unanswered. Johnson did answer an easier one: “Do
you think the private prison lobby (CCA) has a major influence over
our politicians decisions to want the privatization of
prisons?”

He said, “No, I think that may be an inaccurate statement, but
clearly the public prison lobby is even bigger. It’s probably
accurate to a degree, but unquestionably the public prison lobby is
bigger.”

He also concisely voiced opinions on other issues:

I’m becoming more and more sold on the notion of Bitcoin.
…

I reject the insurance model. I think we should have a free
market approach to healthcare. If that existed, there would be much
lower prices, and we would only have insurance to cover ourselves
for catastrophic injury and illness. …

The Second Amendment is pretty clear. I don’t think suppressers
or magazines should be legislated.

Johnson has done about
a dozen AMAs, so he probably doesn’t feel the need to repeat
himself at length. Though, that raises the question of why he
continues to do them, if he’s not going try to sway people toward
libertarianism with anything more than talking points.

The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has required sewage treatment
plants, catalytic converters on cars, and other things that made
the world cleaner than it was a few decades ago. Today, America’s
waterways are cleaner, and so is the air we breathe. In a rational
world, argues John Stossel, environmental bureaucrats would now
say, “Mission accomplished. We set tough standards, so we don’t
need to keep doing more. Stick a fork in it! We’re done.” We could
keep around some EPA bureaucrats to enforce existing environmental
rules and watch for new pollution problems—but not the 16,000
environmental regulators currently employed. This EPA bloat means
that today, instead of environmental regulations that actually save
lives, we pay to subsidize politicians’ cronies and pet projects,
such as electric cars.

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