January 2012

TV Transition follies: Plaguing consumers then and now.

by Wayne Crews on January 22, 2009

in Culture, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Tech & Telecom

Looks like the “digital television transition” to abandon analog and make high-definition broadcasts the standard is not going to happen as planned, but is quite likely to be delayed until June. We never favored government forcing a technology on the public and industry in the first place; But it struck us as at least a little bizarre to, years into the making and planning, to pull the rug out from those who’d teed up for the changeover, from broadcasters to equipment makers, to you and me.

It’s probably not a huge deal, but I felt like making a snarky comment, imagining what it’d have been like if such shenanigans and government interference had gone on when television, primarily back in the 50s, was just about to appear on a massive scale in living rooms. of America’s families.

1st TV transition, circa 1956: “We were going to start giving y’all these really cool radios with pictures on ‘em, now we’re not.”

Well, of course it turns out that TV technology, if not in a practical form, had been around for decades already by ’56, had gone thru FCC licensing hoopla, and worse, production on TVs suspended for years during the second World War. So technology really was delayed back then too. Maybe we’re a little luckier than I thought since, regardless, the digital era is here. You can surf over to Netflix and watch a documentary on Philo Farnsworth and the entire era for some perspective on our boundless capacity for screwing things up and making them harder than they need to be. You can even stream it over that high def TV.

Public Lose Interest in Global Warming

by Myron Ebell on January 22, 2009 · 1 comment

in Energy, Environment, Global Warming

Andrew Revkin of the New York Times has just posted a piece on Dot Earth that discusses a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press that finds that global warming has dropped to the bottom of people’s concerns. Asked to rate their top priorities from a list of twenty issues, only 31% listed global warming as one of their top priorities. That’s down five percent from last year. The biggest drop was for protecting the environment, which dropped fifteen points to 41%. For comparison, the top concerns were the economy at 85%, jobs at 82, and terrorism at 76%.

That’s the background for trying to enact energy-rationing programs that can only work if they raise energy prices considerably. Perhaps Al Gore needs to raise more than the $300 million goal of his We can Solve It advertising campaign, which is designed to convince people that they agree with him that global warming is our most serious problem and demands immediate and radical action (such as replacing all the coal-fired power plants that supply half of America’s electricity within ten years). Although Mr. Gore has insisted that the American people already agree with him on global warming, this poll demonstrates that his mass media advertising campaign is going to be an uphill climb.

Shock, Shock–Politics Infects Federal Bail-Out

by Doug Bandow on January 22, 2009 · 2 comments

in Bailout Watch, Politics as Usual

Who would have imagined that the honorable Barney Frank, head of the House Financial Services Committee and chief culprit in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac disaster, would manipulate the bank bail-out for the benefit of his friends!?

Reports the Wall Street Journal:

Troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston didn’t look much like a candidate for aid from the Treasury Department’s bank bailout fund last fall.

The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives’ use.

Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Frank, by his own account, wrote into the TARP bill a provision specifically aimed at helping this particular home-state bank. And later, he acknowledges, he spoke to regulators urging that OneUnited be considered for a cash injection.

I am truly shocked, shocked to find politics going on on Capitol Hill!

John Berlau on Timothy Geithner’s Tax Troubles

by Cord Blomquist on January 21, 2009

in Video

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67nxGiNcWPU 285 234]

The New Green Economy?

by Iain Murray on January 21, 2009 · 4 comments

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere

I’ve spent a while crunching the numbers relating to energy and environment spending in the stimulus bill. The bill will spend about $80 billion on energy and environment, which can be broadly broken down into the following categorizations:

Electricity infrastructure/efficiency – $35.6 billion
Renewable projects – $11.95bn (mostly $8bn in loan guarantees and $2.4bn for clean coal)
Climate science/general energy academic research – $9.3bn!!! (including $1.9 for nuclear research)
EPA programs (Superfund cleanup etc) – $12.2bn
Other environmental (National Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management etc) – $10.899bn

So that means around $57 billion of the total is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Thanks to Jonathan Tolman, we can work out how many jobs this will create. As he says, not every program gives a figure for created jobs, but about 5/8ths of them do. That $50 billion is supposed to create just under 1 million jobs, but many of these are in the traditional environmental areas of clean-up.

Of the $57 billion aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, just over half the expenditures have job numbers associated with them. Those total $32.3 billion, for a total of 353,000 jobs, at $91,000 per job. These are overwhelmingly related to the (much-needed) creation of a smart electricity grid, and improving the efficiency and weatherization of the housing stock, which will be a good thing even if global warming turns out not to be a problem*.

The actual “green energy/jobs” program, in the sense most people think about it of revolutionizing our energy provision, amounts to $6.4 billion and 70,000 jobs. There may well be more (there are no job figures attached to the renewable energy loan guarantees, for instance), but that remains so speculative that it was not even suggested in the Bill.

* This should not be taken as an endorsement of government expenditure on the programs.

Avoiding Political Erectile Dysfunction

by Wayne Crews on January 21, 2009

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Energy, Environment, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Stimulus to Nowhere, Tech & Telecom

According to the Congressional Budget Office, “Bailout to Nowhere” money for the proposed new infrastructure stimulus won’t be spent within the next two years–far too late to do anything about an ailing economy (granting for the moment that such spending is stimulative rather than destructive, which it isn’t). According to the Washington Post:

Less than half the money dedicated to highways, school construction and other infrastructure projects in a massive economic stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats is likely to be spent within the next two years, according to congressional budget analysts, meaning most of the spending would come too late to lift the nation out of recession.

A report by the Congressional Budget Office found that only about $136 billion of the $355 billion that House leaders want to allocate to infrastructure and other so-called discretionary programs would be spent by Oct. 1, 2010. The rest would come in future years, long after the CBO and other economists predict the recession will have ended.

We’ve called for numerous options to grow infrastructure. Erecting new power-line capacity, broadband options, toll-roads and other infrastructure is best accomplished through relaxation of general regulatory barriers, and concerted removal of the artificial walls between the great infrastructure industries (water, power, telecom, sewer, rail, electricity, etc) so that the private sector can carry out the projects rather than the goverment complex of consultants, contractors and politicians.

Trillions for Nothing

by Al Canata on January 21, 2009

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Stimulus to Nowhere

Barack Obama claims his plan “will likely save or create three to four million jobs.” The House gave us a glimpse of what we’re in for last week with an $825 billion bill – page 3 of the bill states a goal “of using at least 50 percent of the funds  for activities that can be intiated not later than 120 days after of the enactment of this Act “.   This at least implies a desire to spend all of the money is one year – although the bill does allow for the spending of some of the monies into the later part of 2010.

If the number balloons to $1 trillion (not that unlikely as even the House’s top appropriator, David Obey (D-WI) feared that $825 billion was too low) then that’s a cost of $250,000 to $333,333 per job.   The overall expenditure number doens’t include the $350 billion of TARP monies either, pushing the cost per job even higher.

At the end of the third quarter, US Gdp was $14.4 trillion and the number of people employed was 145 million – about $100,000 per job.

Other interesting comparisons: The Australian GDP is about $775 billion and supports 10.7 million jobs.  The Canadian GDP is $1.2 trillion and supports a workforce of 17 million jobs.  That about $72,000 per job in Australia and $70,000 in Canada.  GDP per capita in both countries is much lower than that of the United States, which mostly accounts for the lower GDP per job ratio, but still should cause some pause.

For a more detailed breakdown refer to a post by my colleauge Jonathan Tollman.

The Not So Good, the Bad, and the Really Ugly

by Jonathan Tolman on January 21, 2009 · 4 comments

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Features, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

Not all stimulus programs are created equal. If the goal of the latest economic bailout package that Congress is considering is as President Elect Obama has declared, job creation, there is a significant disparity between many of the programs.  While only 39 of the variously appropriated federal programs even attempt to quantify the number of jobs that they would create, there is a huge disparity in how effective various programs are at job creation — ranging from $1,000,000 per job created down to $16,000 per job created.

For a bill that is designed to stimulate job creation, it is disgraceful that Congress would appropriate any money for programs where the agency has not even attempted to estimated the number of jobs that the appropriation would generate. For the few programs that have estimated the number of jobs created there are obviously some that are economically more efficient than others. And Congress should certainly direct resources to those programs that would maximize the job benefit for the buck. At a minimum, Congress should focus on those programs that are more rather than less efficient. If a program cannot even estimate the number of jobs that if would create, that program certainly doesn’t qualify for emergency economic recovery legislation. Congress should insist on knowing how many jobs a program is estimated to generate before appropriating huge sums of American taxpayer dollars.

Here is a list of programs from the stimulus bill and  the estimated cost per job.

jobscost1

Waste Not, Want Not … Or Else!

by Doug Bandow on January 21, 2009 · 1 comment

in International, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Stimulus to Nowhere

The British government is looking after its people, in a motherly sort of way.  It plans to send government officials door-to-door to tell people not to waste food.  Really.

Reports the Daily Telegraph:

Householders are to be visited by officials offering advice on cooking with leftovers, in a Government initiative to reduce the amount of food that gets thrown away.

Home cooks will also be told what size portions to prepare, taught to understand “best before” dates and urged to make more use of their freezers.

The door-to-door campaign, which starts tomorrow, will be funded by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a Government agency charged with reducing household waste.

The officials will be called “food champions”. However, they were dismissed last night as “food police” by critics who called the scheme an example of “excessive government nannying”.

In an initial seven-week trial, eight officials will call at 24,500 homes, dishing out advice and recipes. The officials, each of whom has received a day’s training, will paid up to £8.49 an hour, with a bonus for working on Saturdays.

The pilot scheme, which will cost £30,000, could be extended nationwide if it is seen as a success. If all 25 million households in the UK were visited in the same way, 8,000 officials would be required at a cost of tens of millions of pounds.

Can such a step be far behind in America?  Sounds like a great new job for all of the young Obamacans looking for their next crusade.  Of course, going door-to-door to nag people about their cooking might not be the best tactic in areas where gun ownership is widespread!

New Federal Regulation Hits a Full Stop

by Richard Morrison on January 21, 2009

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy

According to press reports, President Barack Obama has ordered a full stop to all pending federal regulations. Funny, I didn’t hear anything about that in yesterday’s hours of inaugural coverage. Perhaps it would have killed the mood for some people.

WASHINGTON — One of President Barack Obama’s first acts is to order federal agencies to halt all pending regulations until his administration can review them.

The order went out Tuesday afternoon, shortly after Obama was inaugurated president, in a memorandum signed by the new White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. The notice of the action was contained in the first press release sent out by Obama’s White House.

The waning days of former President George W. Bush’s administration featured much debate over what rules and regulations he would seek to enact before he left office.

As the last sentence of the story alludes to, this might be an effort to derail former President Bush’s last minute (possibly even de-) regulatory efforts. As a 10 year veteran of the fight, though, I’d say that any “all stop” to new regulations is bound to be a net bonus.

And in case you’re imagining that this came out of nowhere, I will remind readers that a startlingly similar proposal was advanced months ago by our very own Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews:

Yesterday I called for a major “Deregulatory Stimulus.”

Alongside—with financial, health care, energy efficiency, “green job” and other mandates likely in an Obama Administration—the manner in which dozens of Departments, agencies and commissions regulate needs some attention too.

Upon raising his hand from the Bible after taking the Oath of Office, President Obama should declare a one year freeze on all new government regulations; he’d naturally exempt those he regards as addressing immediate threats to public health and safety.

The point is, during that freeze, the President should clarify an intention to review all regulations on the books, and streamline and control the $1 trillion regulatory state. His transition handlers have announced a desire to employ Executive Orders; he could use that power to liberalize, not add to burdens to a limping economy.

Here’s a grab bag (non-exclusive and in no particular order) of things to do:

– Implement a bi-partisan “Regulatory Reduction Commission.”
– Re-discover federalism, that is, circumscribe the federal regulatory role regarding health and safety matters best left to states.
– Improve the ethic of quantifying regulatory costs, and selecting the least-cost compliance method.
– Codify Clinton’s executive order on “Regulatory Planning and Review” (E.O. 12866), or better, Reagan’s E.O. 12291.
– Require OMB’s Regulatory Information Service Center to publish number of major and minor rules produced by each agency, and strengthen its oversight.
– Reinstate the Regulatory Program of the U.S. Government, which used to appear routinely as a companion document to the Budget.
– Enlarge regulatory flexibility and exemptions for small business
– Declare Federal Register notices as insufficient notice to small business
– Hold hearings to boost the scope of the Small Business Administrations’ “r3” regulatory review program.
– Lower the threshold at which a point-of-order against unfunded mandates applies.
– Lower the threshold for what counts as an “economically significant” rule, and improve explicit cost analysis.
– Explore, hold hearings on, and devise a limited “regulatory budget.”
– Establish an annual Presidential address or statement on the state of regulation and its impact on productivity and GDP.
– Sunset regulations after fixed period unless explicit reauthorization is made. (It’s been said that regulations should expire like a carton of milk).
– Implement a supermajority requirement for extraordinarily costly mandates.
– Challenge and reject delegation of legislative authority from Congress to agencies; That is, require Congressional fast-track approval before major or non-quantifiable agency-promulgated regulations take effect.

That’s a start. Stay tuned. I’ll say more on some of these in the future.

And while we’re celebrating our own foresight, let us mention the well meaning (but pessimistic) commenter who at the time wrote:

Great ideas. However, I have a feeling cows will be flying before the Obama administration implements something as worthwhile as these suggestions. But we can dream!

It seems the time for dreaming is now!

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