WhirledView

Where’s the Failure?

by CKR

David Ignatius must have taken an airplane trip recently. The airlines are in a downward spiral, he tells us. And one of the giants of the industry, Robert Crandall, former head of American Airlines, recently gave a speech outlining why he thinks the airlines should be re-regulated. He’s been opposed to deregulation all along, and some of his more dour predictions have come true.

Crandall makes a number of specific suggestions, but it’s his bigger points that are really important. He talks about goals for the aviation industry and goals for the country. He says we’re lacking goals. But, more precisely, we have allowed a set of ideology-driven fanatics to determine the goals for the country.

The goals we currently are working under are:

1) To maximize the “free market.” This means removing regulatory requirements and privatizing government functions.

2) To increase US hegemony through military power.

It’s becoming clear that these goals are doing far more harm than good, the disaster of airline deregulation being only one of many: crumbling infrastructure, Blackwater, lack of health care for too many citizens, alienation of our allies, and the list goes on.

Ignatius takes quick note of these ills and blames them on Washington gridlock. But he’s wrong. There is a specific ideology that insists on removing regulation, the devil take the hindmost. It is called conservatism, and Peter Scoblic has shown how it has undermined national security.

Some time around when the airlines were deregulated, politics became more of a popularity contest. Television showed us the five o’clock shadow, and politicans learned to be pretty and vague and attractiveness as a beer-drinking partner was added to the promise of a chicken in every pot or a Hummer in every driveway. The preparation for this sort of political career does not include the backbone to develop and stand by policies. It also allowed ideologues to put on a pretty face and promise lower taxes and ponies for everyone.

Crandall observes that we have neither a transportation policy nor an energy policy. Of course not! That’s not why these members of Congress were elected. Politicians proferring energy policies raising gasoline taxes or gas mileage or moving toward solar or nuclear power would have been beaten by those strong-chinned fellows offering the opportunity for every man to be a millionaire by the magic of unfettered free enterprise. Or offering their attractiveness as beer-drinking companions.

We like cheap airline fares, but not the increasingly crummy and cramped cabins. We like cheap gasoline until something happens and it’s not cheap any more. We like easy politicians, not the policy wonks. We don’t like recognizing that the cheap fares give us the cramped cabins or that reducing taxes reduces our ability to respond to changing conditions.

Presidential leadership would help. Like a leader who gave us a long-term energy plan on September 12, 2001, not just a demand for a quick fix by July 4. Like a leader who could recognize that American business depends on convenient, safe transportation, up-to-date infrastructure, and affordable health care. Like a leader who would put those things into enactable legislation, not just talk about them. And Congressional leaders could pitch in some leadership, too.

The United States used to be good at solving problems. These days, we don't seem up to the job.

That’s what Crandall said. I think that we can solve the problems if we focus our attention. We need leadership, and we need intelligent followership too. Here’s hoping voters recognize that in the November elections.

Update: Looks like some other folks were thinking similarly this weekend.

The Numbers, Please

by Cheryl Rofer

The $4 per gallon number has gotten people’s attention, but there’s more to petroleum than that. President Bush now wants to drill in lots of places that have been put aside within the United States, but that is a very long-range solution, if it’s a solution at all.

And one may wonder how much US influence on the Iraqi Oil Ministry has led to this. Certainly Iraq would like to take advantage of record oil prices, but more oil on the market would tend to lower those prices.

I’ve been wondering about a number of claims about petroleum prices. The only way to begin to resolve my questions is to look at some numbers, which I haven’t seen done anywhere in the media. Not surprising for a bunch that thinks water can be a fuel.

It’s not clear to me that any of the claims can really be verified. There are too many possible variables, and too much uncertainty in all of them. Qualitatively, I suspect that there is a war-fear premium on petroleum as long as Bush and Cheney are in office, which may amount to 25% of the current price. Speculation seems to be part of it too, but it is an easy excuse for the oil producers to use. And there does seem to be an increasing demand.

To start, I’d just like to get a sense of what the numbers are and how the various nations stack up. To that end, I’ve collected some of the numbers in a spreadsheet (Download petroleum_2008.xls), for those of you who want to look at or play with them. What I’ve collected is not exhaustive, and it may be somewhat incorrect, for various reasons. I don’t want to get into arguments just now about the accuracy of the data in detail. That comes later, if at all.

Business Models

by CKR

I keep wondering about the airlines’ business model: Reduce service and amenities while raising prices; treat customers and employees as expendable; make access difficult; and tell everyone that this is for their own good and threaten to arrest them if they don’t agree.

To be fair to the airlines, they have built-in economic problems that go back to the days of regulation, and it’s partly the government that is making access difficult and threatening to arrest people. But has their managment not heard of overcoming obstacles? Of making lemons into lemonade?

Tom Friedman seems to be wondering the same thing about the United States.

There has been much debate in this campaign about which of our enemies the next U.S. president should deign to talk to. The real story, the next president may discover, though, is how few countries are waiting around for us to call.

We need the airlines’ product, quick transit from one point to another, so we will be forced to work around reduced service and amenities and pay the increasing price to be treated as suspect terrorists. But Freedman points out that other nations are becoming capable of providing some of the services that have historically come from the United States.

I don’t have any easy solutions for either problem, but it might just be time for both the airlines and the American government to admit that their business models aren’t working.

More Sacrificial Lambs for the West Bank

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Israel continues to dig its grave ever deeper by funneling more Israelis into the occupied West Bank. Not only does this policy further enrage Muslims everywhere. Sympathy for Israel, even in the U.S., is not what it used to be.

Yes. Israel is building 100 more new “housing units” on the West Bank. Assuming that family members per unit may average two adults and two kids, that means sleek modern housing for 400 more Israelis where they shouldn’t be. (Probably twice that number if most of the “units” are inhabited by religious conservatives, since pious types of all persuasions seem to think they have a special dispensation for seeding our over-populated earth with their precious genes.)

Splitting Hairs

The new construction has been subject to protest, of course, but Israeli spokesmen, as usual, have a clever answer. The “settlements” aren’t being expanded, they say. These “housing units” are to be located on land already stolen from the Palestinians—which, needless to say, is not quite how they say it.

"This construction of 50 (housing units) in Ariel and 50 in EL Kana are in the framework of the policy of the government because it will be construction inside the built-up area of existing settlement blocks," said [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev.

"This is consistent with what we said: one, no new settlements; two, no expropriation of land; three, no policy to outwardly expand existing settlement."

Only an official spokesman of the Olmert government could make such a statement with a straight face. Nobody, absolutely nobody, cares about housing units per se. It’s the ever increasing Israeli population on the occupied West Bank that’s the problem. Every additional Israeli is one more person who will have to be extracted (kicking and screaming, no doubt) at some point in the future.

Even so, the settlers themselves are not content with the additional construction:

"Thousands of housing units need to be built to cope with population growth [!!!!]," said Dani Dayan, of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria.”

Already, evidently, some 270,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, with 200,000 more in East Jerusalem.

The Policy of Whining

The official line of the U.S. government is that we keep pleading with the Israelis to cease settlement expansion because it is unhelpful to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the ultimate creation of a viable Palestinian state. The Israeli government appears to agree to desist, then does it anyway, at which point the U.S. produces, for PR purposes, a little pro forma whining.

But U.S. aid to Israel doesn’t get cut off. Essentially Israel can do whatever it wants—and the U.S. gets to pay for it.

Malicious Compliance Or Another Shoe To Drop?

by CKR

I returned last night from a car trip to Boulder, Colorado. I hope to write more about that trip, but right now I want to say how pleased I am that I didn’t plan to fly this week.

I was busy during the week, so I may have missed part of the news. What bothers me is that the response seems out of proportion to the information that is available publicly.

Someone at the Federal Aviation Administration had cozied up to Southwest Airlines, who, as a result, got away with not doing inspections to make sure the skin wouldn’t peel off their planes if something went wrong. Having been found out, Southwest grounded the planes and did the inspections. But American’s MD-80s have now been grounded twice for inspection; once to do it and again to do it right. The MD-80s are being inspected for problems with their electrical wiring, quite a different issue from Southwest’s cracks in the aluminum skin.

But we haven’t heard who in the FAA was friends with whom at American and the other airlines that have been inspecting their MD-80s. In fact, I’ve found very little about what motivated this rage for inspections.

Congressional investigations and the publicity about Southwest’s friendship with the FAA are undoubtedly part of the motivation. The New York Times tells us that all sorts of people, like pilots and airplane mechanics, have started telling the FAA things that they should have spoken up about some time ago. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram says something about an Office of Special Counsel investigation. Neither fully delves into the questions they raise.

The Chicago Sun-Times asks “Who’s at fault, the FAA or the airlines?” But the more interesting question is why this is such a big deal so suddenly. The New York Times article documents a relaxation of FAA safety inspections of the airlines since September 11, 2001. That’s six and a half years, plenty of time to develop plenty of potential safety problems in an aging aircraft fleet, and that is part of the motivation too.

Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness

by CKR

Nice title, don’t you think? But I can’t claim it.

It caught my eye in the 21 March Science magazine, in the Reports section in the back of the magazine. It’s available in pdf from the University of Chicago School of Business.

While much research has examined the effect of income on happiness, we suggest that how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn. Specifically, we hypothesized that spending money on other people may have a more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself. Providing converging evidence for this hypothesis, we found that spending more of one’s income on others predicted greater happiness both cross-sectionally (in a nationally representative survey study) and longitudinally (in a field study of windfall spending). Finally, participants who were randomly assigned to spend money on others experienced greater happiness than those assigned to spend money on themselves.

Yes, there are many questions that can be asked. Some are in the comments section of John Tierney’s column on this paper.

If spending money on others promotes happiness, I’m wondering if seeing others in need and not spending money on them promotes unhappiness. Specifically, I’m wondering if these findings tie in with recent public opinion polls.

Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the
wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.

Or I’m wondering if, more indirectly, Barack Obama makes people feel better about themselves because he’s saying we should help take care of each other.

We’ve been told for some very long time now that tax cuts are good for us, that they put money in our pockets. In the Gordon Gekko world of “greed is good,” that makes all sorts of sense. And, more practically, who wouldn’t want to have a bit more money in this month’s budget?

But taxes are one way we help other people. Sometimes we help ourselves, too, like when those taxes go to fix potholes or improve our children’s schools. And if we’re focused on reducing taxes so that we can have more in our pockets, we may be depriving ourselves of the pleasure of sharing with others.

People can, of course, do something for a relative or support a charity. But taxes also provide a way of identifying ourselves with our nation.

Losing both the pleasure of sharing with others and the warmth of identifying with our nation could be part of the uneasiness people express in agreeing with the pollsters’ “the nation is on the wrong track.” We have been told for so long now that keeping as much of our money as possible is the best of all possible worlds, that it’s likely that these losses would be unarticulated. But the Science article points to a need to help others that is deeply embedded in our nature.

I hope the presidential candidates read this article.

The Airlines Are Melting Down

by CKR

Delta and American Airlines have been scrambling this past week to inspect electrical equipment on their MD-series planes. I have always worried about those planes, which invariably give a burst of electrical-smell as they take off. It has always cleared rapidly on flights I've been on, except for one long-ago TWA flight in which smoke added itself, and the captain decided to circle back and land in Albuquerque.

And before that, Southwest had to take a time out to inspect for fuselage cracks.

I'm wondering why the FAA all of a sudden woke up and remembered that it was responsible for safety inspections. They've probably been understaffed and oriented toward nonregulation, like all other government agencies during the Bush reign, so the surprising thing is that they're waking up.

Meanwhile, Heathrow is having a spot of trouble with luggage in their new terminal. Denver's airport had similar problems when it opened, so the Brits will probably figure this one out.

And the TSA is keeping us safe from nipple rings. This additional vigilance was undoubtedly prompted by the FAA's increased concerns for safety. Good to see our protectors at work. Now they need to tighten up on penis decorations.

Check Out These New Sites!

by CKR

For Paul Krugman fans for whom twice a week isn't enough, the Princeton economist and political commentator now has a blog at the New York Times. It looks like it will be a real blog (as opposed to so much of what newspapers tack onto their sites under that name), with quick thoughts and graphs too wonky to be included in his regular columns. And, also unlike many of the Times "blogs," Krugman updates it regularly.

The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade is the product of multiple organizations opposed to the US-India nuclear deal. It has many substantial articles and links to other resources. Just because the Indian parliament has slowed things down doesn't mean that this undermining of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is dead.

An Economic Suggestion

by CKR

The New York Times Magazine has a long article on Ben Bernanke and the current economic troubles.

I have absolutely no claim to knowing any economics, so this may be totally out of line. But it's clear that manipulating interest rates (indirectly at that) is a blunt tool for the current problem of distrust. The distrust stems from the exotic slice-and-dice of mortgages, sold with the assurance that risk had been eliminated, or decreased, anyway. That turned out not to be true, and, further, mortgages were being handed out like pamphlets at Berkeley's Sather Gate. A big part of the problem seems to be that people don't know how much of which complex securities are rotten.

So here's my suggestion: make known what goes into those securities. This could be done voluntarily by those offering (or having offered) those securities. If they have the computers to slice and dice, they can use those same computers to calculate the risks and all those other good things that the financial types like to chart.

Of course, we now have embarassment and worse attached to making that information known, so it is unlikely that the perpetrators, er, financial institutions will provide the information voluntarily.

Ben Bernanke and others, like our Treasury Secretary and even President, might be able to do some jawboning. Ultimately, it might be smart for Congress to pass legislation requiring more disclosure of what it is that people are investing in. It's one thing for people to be stupid enough to put their money into hedge funds with about the same information as the contents of a bottle of snake oil, but we are now seeing that that lack of transparency can damage the country's, and perhaps the world's economy. But action by Congress will take much too long for the present problems.

Bernanke wanted to bring transparency to the Fed. Here's an opportunity, even if it wasn't exactly what he originally had in mind.

The Five Step Plan to Secure and Happy Homes

By PLS

Some people will do anything to protect a foetus. I find their theology and tactics repugnant, but they have been pretty darned effective in gnawing away at women’s abortion rights. So let’s borrow from the enemy, I say, to protect the family from financial predators.

Families are losing their homes right and left across this great country. This is a terrible threat to family values. A family on the street is a family truly in danger.

Conservatives have already laid the groundwork for this great cause. The Supreme Court has decided that grown women can’t be trusted to make intelligent decisions about their own bodies, and people who otherwise want to keep government out of our lives think they have the right to make reproductive decisions for people they aren’t even related to. It’s one tiny little step to agreeing that lots of people simply don’t have the education or experience to make good decisions about mortgages.

So let’s help the innocents who might be tempted by predatory lenders. I call it the Five Step Plan to Secure and Happy Familyhood:

1. The video: Our video won’t show cute little foetuses, it will show the destitute in extremis. Everyone about to sign up for a subprime loan will have to watch a tear-jerker of a video showing what can happen when you lose your house and can’t declare bankruptcy and your kids can’t go to school because they don’t have a settled address and your teeth drop out for lack of care. Etc. Etc.
2. The picketers: outside every subprime mortgage lending institution let's station aggressive noisy picketers with gruesome signs showing starving kids and crying mothers and fathers drinking their shame away. Etc. Etc.

3. The Written Warning: before anyone can sign for a subprime loan, he or she must read a precise description of terms and penalties in simple English—and in an easily readable typeface (no squinting allowed) and then pass a test* showing comprehension.
4. The Delay: potential borrowers should be forced to go home and cogitate for at least 24 hours after they receive the warning, during which time the little test can be graded by an incorruptible neutral party.

5. The Legislation: all of these procedures are palliatives. The only way to keep good but naive people from being taken advantage of and ruined is to pass legislation which will outlaw these predatory loans. The sooner such consumer protection legislation can be tested and declared constitutional by the courts the better.

There are of course some conservatives who think that people who sign up for bad mortgages have only themselves to blame, but surely we can count the on the family values lobby to support this initiative. What could be more destructive to family life than losing a home? Oh yes, a little rebalancing of the bankrupcy act to provide more consumer protection would also help.

*This was my bright little idea. It would be a bit of a nuisance, but it sure would help to keep people from signing impetuously, optimistically, foolishly on dotted lines they should avoid.