Politics, Economics and other Stuff

Criminal Justice Spending to GDP Ratio

Lots of interesting history in the graph of Criminal Justice Spending to GDP ratio below.    The uptick that starts the trend in rising criminal justice expenditures that continues until today occurs in 1967.  The share of policing spending in GDP rises by 130% from 1959 to 2007, while the share of prison spending rises by 370%.  The share of spending on courts in GDP rises by 196%. Time for some cost control here. 

Data from BEA Table 3.16. Government Current Expenditures by Function. Note that courts here covers civil and criminal courts.

Government Primary and Secondary Education Spending to GDP Ratio

1) There is the expected massive rise in the 1960s adn early 1970s, but it gets to a considerable extent scaled back in the late 1970s.  The Carter years are the retrenchment years after the 1960s boom, not the Reagan years. 
2) The Bush II first is indeed a period of government spending growth for primary and secondary education (i.e. NCLB), not small in the scheme of things (~ 0.3% of GDP or about $40 billion in current dollars). 

3) Despite my impression to the contrary, spending on primary and secondary education does not seem to be an important driver for increases in government spending, despite what one would expect due to falling student-teacher ratios and increases in teacher salaries due to women entering traditionally male occupations.  More on this later... it looks like we might want to consider putting a bit more money into this function of government. 

4) I need to check this BEA data against some other data sources to make sure this data isn't misleading. 

Data from BEA Table 3.16. Government Current Expenditures by Function.

Note that this is government spending on primary and secondary eduction, not universities.

Andrew Wyeth is dead

Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World always seemed to me like it was from a time earlier than 1948, say 1933 or some other pre-WWII date.  I was astounded to learn at some point in the 1980s that Wyeth was still alive and working. I was also astounded at the time by the income Wyeth managed to generate from his art, but I'm now older and wiser.  Now dead, at age 91.

(link)

Government share of GDP

Since people like to throw around figures that look at the government budget (including transfer payments) to GDP ratio, I thought I'd put up the government consumption and investment to GDP ratio.  The important thing to realize here is that private consumption or investment financed by government transfers (such as private consumption financed by social security payments) doesn't get counted as part of the government share in this case.  Some classification issues are unclear to me, for instance when education or medical expenditures is attributed to government or households.  The BEA (see p. 226) does not consider (all? most of?) Medicare and Medicaid to be part of government consumption.

One thing to notice is the sharp decline in the government share of GDP in the 1990s and the full reversal of this by Bush II.  The other thing to notice is that the creation of the modern national security state in the late 1940s and early 1950s is the transformative event here, not the Great Society of the 1960s. 

As usual, data from BEA Table 1.5.5. Gross Domestic Product, Expanded Detail.

 

Alcohol as the prime cause of young person mortality?

Christopher Carpenter and Carlos Dobkin, The Effect of Alcohol Consumption on Mortality: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from the Minimum Drinking Age

We estimate the effect of alcohol consumption on mortality using the minimum drinking age in a regression discontinuity design. We find large and immediate increases in drinking at age 21, including a 21 percent increase in recent drinking days. We also find a discrete 9 percent increase in the mortality rate at age 21, primarily due to motor vehicle accidents, alcohol-related deaths, and suicides. We estimate a 10 percent increase in the number of drinking days for young adults results in a 4.3 percent increase in mortality. Our results suggest that policies that reduce drinking among young adults can have substantial public health benefits.

Nothing too surprising here once you recognize how rare non-accident, non-homicide and non-suicide deaths are in this age group. For instance, for age 20-24, for blacks deaths are 72% accounted for by homicide (43.6%), accident (21.3%) and suicide (7%).  For non-hispanic 20-24 old whites the fractions are homicide (5.1%), accident (52.4%) and suicide (16.2%), for a total of 73.7%.  Most death at this age level is pretty preventable.  One can also see where some of lower Japanese and German mortality rates for this age group may come from. 

At the same time, a drinking age of 21 strikes me as pretty blunt policy for improving the situation, decreasing drinking days by only 20% in the US.  Getting a drinking age substantially below the driving age is a better idea, as well as creating situations where people can drink and not drive. 

Time to revise my opinion of Alaska?

via Steve Benen, Gallop reports that Alaska is not a Southern state, despite occasional superficial appearances to the contrary.  Also, David is in one of the right states for him.   And did I ever mention that one of my grandfathers grew up in Vermont? 

Guns vs. Butter in the US

The ratio of military to food expenditures in the US (from Table 1.5.5. Gross Domestic Product, Expanded Detail).  Currently we are above 0.5 and we haven't gone above 1 since WW II, when it hit a high a bit over 2.5.   

GDP Decline by Demand Component since Peak

Inspired by the shockingly large decline in US food consumption, below the percent decline since peak by demand component (components are non-exclusive and contain subcomponents, all in real terms using sector price indicies).  Real food consumption is down 5.4% since peak (at a quarterly frequency -- more at a higher measurement frequency).  Computed from BEA Table 1.5.3. Real Gross Domestic Product, Expanded Detail, Quantity Indexes.

Special bonus observation: yes, military spending is now higher than during the Cold War (peak in 1987), by about 13%.

-62.3 Transportation equipment investment by business
-45.0 Residential Structures Investment
-28.7 Motor vehicles and parts consumption by households
-15.3 Gross private domestic investment
-14.3 Computers and peripheral equipment
-13.6 Fixed investment
-12.2 Industrial equipment
-11.4 Durable goods consumption
-10.8 Equipment and software
-10.8 Other equipment investment
-9.3 Goods Imports
-7.7 Goods Exports
-7.6 Imports
-6.8 Other IT investment
-6.4 Other durable consumption
-6.0 Information processing equipment and software
-5.9 Clothing and shoes
-5.5 Nonresidential investment
-5.4 Food
-5.3 Exports
-4.4 Furniture and household equipment consumption
-3.6 Nondurable goods
-3.3 Gasoline, fuel oil, and other energy goods
-3.2 Software
-3.0 Transportation
-2.6 Electricity and gas
-1.9 Other nondurable consumption
-1.8 Personal consumption expenditures
-1.2  Recreation
-1.0 Gross domestic product
-1.0 Services Imports
-0.7 State and Local Gross investment
-0.4 Nonresidential Structures
-0.2 Household operation
-0.1 State and local

No decline since peak (i.e. current expenditure is the peak):

Services consumption

Housing Services

Other household operation

Medical care

Other services consumption

Services Exports

Government consumption expenditures and gross investment

Federal spending

National defense

Defense Consumption expenditures

Defense Gross investment

Nondefense federal spending

Federal Nondefense Consumption expenditures

Federal Nondefense Gross investment

State and Local Consumption expenditures

US Food Consumption Falls Rapidly

Hm, I'm not sure what to make of this since I cannot get at the underlying tables since the BEA is updating them right now, but US food consumption fell at a 14% (!) annual rate in the forth quarter, after falling at a 7% (!) annual rate in the third quarter.  I don't think this is just a decline in food eaten away from home, since that should be a services, not non-durables consumption.  (BEA table 3, part of today's GDP release)  Looks like it could be a price index mistake/misreading, but I don't think so.  But I need to look into it...

In any case, it is very unusual to see two quarters of declining food consumption with a population that's growing at 1% per annum. 

Update #1: def not a price index problem.  And we've not had this since the early 1970s, when we had a large food price shock. And this fall in food consumption looks noticeably worse. 

Food is not supposed to do this unless there is a severe harvest shortfall.   We are no longer normal business cycle territory.  

Update #2: very odd, this decline in food consumption doesn't show up in nominal retail sales, where grocery stores and restaurant sales are pretty much holding constant in nominal terms.  That means they are not falling at a rapid clip (-10%) since prices are no longer rising at that pace, right?  Ooops, the historical link didn't have the advance data release for retail sales, which does show a big hit for sales at restaurant in December, a 2% nominal decline in one month,  but not much more than a 5% real decline since the peak restaurant spending. 

So this must be a rapid fall in food away from home consumption that does not show up in the retail survey for food establishments (because of survey coverage issues -- but I don't see any in the survey design -- or a revision since the release of the advance retail sales data on Jan. 14)? .  The recent fall in restaurant revenues -- a fall in nominal sales of 4.4% from all of 2007 to all of 2008 -- seems consistent with this story.  And the shift from 25% food away from home in the 1950s to 50% food away from home until last year means one should expect larger falls in food consumption now than in the past. 

From BEA Table 1.5.3. Real Gross Domestic Product, Expanded Detail, Quantity Indexes:

Tropical Reforestation

The NYT reports (in an annoyingly vague NYT sort of way, without citations: where did Wright make these remarks that 'set off a firestorm two years ago'?):

These new “secondary” forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest — an iconic environmental cause — may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster.  ...

The new forests, the scientists argue, could blunt the effects of rain forest destruction by absorbing carbon dioxide, the leading heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, one crucial role that rain forests play. They could also, to a lesser extent, provide habitat for endangered species.

The idea has stirred outrage among environmentalists who believe that vigorous efforts to protect native rain forest should remain a top priority. But the notion has gained currency in mainstream organizations like the Smithsonian Institution and the United Nations, which in 2005 concluded that new forests were “increasing dramatically” and “undervalued” for their environmental benefits. The United Nations is undertaking the first global catalog of the new forests, which vary greatly in their stage of growth.

“Biologists were ignoring these huge population trends and acting as if only original forest has conservation value, and that’s just wrong,” said Joe Wright, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute here, who set off a firestorm two years ago by suggesting that the new forests could substantially compensate for rain forest destruction. ...

About 38 million acres of original rain forest are being cut down every year, but in 2005, according to the most recent “State of the World’s Forests Report” by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, there were an estimated 2.1 billion acres of potential replacement forest growing in the tropics — an area almost as large as the United States. The new forest included secondary forest on former farmland and so-called degraded forest, land that has been partly logged or destroyed by natural disasters like fires and then left to nature. In Panama by the 1990s, the last decade for which data is available, the rain forest is being destroyed at a rate of 1.3 percent each year. The area of secondary forest is increasing by more than 4 percent yearly, Dr. Wright estimates.  [Why use different measurement concepts here???]

Wright's publications are here. Good to hear that the tropic are undergoing some of the same reforestation pattern seen in temperate zones.  Is this also caused by the decline of animal husbandry on marginal land? What are the economic forces behind this? 

Guinea Pig Update

Well, it looks like we may have the classic guinea pig problem...

Output fell in all 50 US States in December

via CR, the Philadelphia Fed reports that output fell in all 50 states in December, the first time since they started this data series in 1979. In all three four previous recessions since then seven or more states always were growing at any one time. 

The House Vote on the Stimulus Bill

244-188.  The interesting thing is the roll call.  All yes votes are Democrats, and 11 Democrats voted against the bill, not all in the Mountain West and South.  For instance, no votes from Paul Kanjorski (D - PA), 11th District, or Frank Kratovil, Jr (D-MD), 1st District.  Kratovil is a first term House Member who won by only 2,000 votes (but against a Republican who had defeated the incumbent Republican in the primary as 'too moderate'!), so he may just be acting carefully here, but still not a good sign.  Ah, Kratovil was endorsed by the former Republican House member and took over with some of the same staff.  So that may explain it.   Kanjorski seems to have longstanding fiscal hawk views.  

Also, I'm not sure I like all the spending in the bill myself, so I do understand votes against it. 

The Republican Strategy

Andrew Sullivan quotes Bruce Bartlett:

I think conservatives would better spend their diminished political capital figuring out how to finance the welfare state at the least cost to the economy and individual liberty, rather than fighting a losing battle to slash popular spending programs. But this will require them to accept the necessity of higher revenues.

Not what we're going to get, I fear.  Would be nice though to have a few supporters for the VAT and large gasoline tax increases. 

Local Flavor

The FAZ writes about Tegernsee:

Der Tegernsee liegt am Rande der Alpen; von Norden reist man über die Münchner Schotterebene leicht aufsteigend an, und entlang der Ufer erreichen die Berge schnell Höhen von weit über 1000 Meter. Am Südende steht der Wallberg, und dort stehe auch ich. Im Sonnenuntergang. Es ist nicht ganz hässlich, hier oben. Unten ist es auch nicht schlecht, wenn man bereit ist, für eine Wohnung in etwa so viel wie für eine sehr gute Münchner oder extrem gute Frankfurter Innenstadtlage zu zahlen. Dafür ist man in einem gigantischen Westviertel und in ein paar Minuten an einem grandiosen See, in dem die Wasserleichen sehr gepflegt aufgefunden werden, oder in den Bergen, von wo aus man in kürzester Zeit vorzügliche Kliniken erreicht, wenn man mit dem Rodel als fliegende Baumschere in einen Abgrund jagt. Ausserdem gibt es famose Friedhöfe mit reaktionären Dichtern, Nazigenerälen und einem Bundeskanzler. Und selbst die Erbtante, die nicht mehr auf den Schlitten passt, kann sich durch die besten Cafes schmausen, bis das Fettabsaugen und Liften der hiesigen Schöheitsspezialisten vom letzten aller Ärzte nach bewährter Sensenart kuriert wird, die verantwortlich für unsere Gesellschaft der reichen Erben ist.  ...

Es ist, um es kurz zu sagen, eine Region, in der Kindern von früh auf vermittelt wird, dass das natürliche Vorkommen von Geld in Koffern ist, wo es in Bündeln lebt. Sehr fremd, wird man sagen, dort die Tegernseer, hier der Rest. Ich aber denke, auch wenn der Tegernsee ein Ort ist, dessen zynisches Motto in der Krise lauten könnte: Wohnen, wo sich andere den Urlaub bald nicht mehr leisten können - es ist immer noch ein gemeinsames Land, in dem wir leben, unter Abtrennung gewisser Regionen zu unser aller Wohl, natürlich. Und wir alle haben etwas vom Tegernsee. Ich habe die Berge, das Wasser und die wirklich sagenhafte, silbrige Luft, was meine Lebenserwartung deutlich erhöht (soviel dann auch zur Theorie, im Tod wären alle gleich). Und Sie, werte Leser, haben Eliten, die wie unschuldige Kinder vom Tegernsee mit Geldkoffern spielen, sie verdanken diesen harmlosen Angelegenheiten solche Interviews mit einem beleidigten Steuerstraftäter, und einen Ministerpräsidenten, dessen jüdische Vermächtnisse noch etwas verfälschter waren als das, was den Kindern hier an ursprünglich jüdischen Erziehungsmassnahmen zugemutet wird.

(link)

Our small backyard red squirrel

As usual not the best light and a bit of a front focus issue.

Update #1: This is the American Red Squirrel, not the larger European Red Squirrel:

American Red Squirrels are also referred to as Pine Squirrels, North American Red Squirrels and Chickarees. They should not be confused with Eurasian red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris); since the ranges of these species do not overlap, they are both commonly referred to as "red squirrels" in the areas where they are native. ...American Red Squirrels are widely distributed across North America. Their range includes most of Canada, and extends into the United States in the Rocky Mountains, the North Central and North East. There are 25 recognized sub-species of red squirrels (Steele 1998). ...American Red Squirrels are abundant and not of conservation concern throughout much of their range. However, an isolated population of red squirrels in Arizona has experienced considerable declines in population size. In 1987 this portion of the population was listed as endangered. ...

Update #2: supposedly we also have the Southern Flying Squirrel (or the Northern Flying Squirrel?) in our yard, or so neighbors with cats tell me, but I've never seen them.  Not too surprising given their nocturnal life style.  A friend of kid #1 has had them living in her house for a while as well.

Madoff Update: more than 40 years of Fraud

Daily Beast via Dealbreaker writes:

a person close to the case says Madoff has admitted to law-enforcement officials that the Ponzi scheme began more than 40 years ago—much earlier than previously believed. Another law-enforcement official says authorities speculate that Madoff’s role as a pioneer of electronic trading, early in his career, may have aided the scheme. It revolutionized the way stocks were traded, and also removed a physical paper trail. Order slips were no longer issued to “runners” who would take them to the floor. Now with the push of a button, a broker could confirm a transaction—or at least give the appearance that he had. Investigators say this could have easily led to a game of electronic hide and seek.

Not clear to me that doing this electronically is key, except that electronic records are easier to automate, keeping fewer people in the loop. 

Anne-Marie Slaughter to become the State Department's Director of Policy Planning

So it looks like  Anne-Marie Slaughter is to become the State Department's Director of Policy Planning.  The noteworthing thing for me is that a friend acquaintance pointed Slaughter out to me back around 1994 as someone who one day would become the State Deparment's Director of Policy Planning.  This was back when Slaughter was still a law professor of the U of Chicago, before moving to Harvard Law School and then the Princeton's Wilson School and becoming Dean there.  And yes, Obama was at the U of C law school at the same time, but that wasn't the reason Slaughter was considered to be on the short list of future candidates. 

I don't have any particularly strong or developed views on Slaugher's academic work.  It doesn't seem particular contentfull to me, but that's par for IR scholars. She is married to another IR scholar,  Andrew Moravcsik, who's work I like much more.  But what has he been up to lately?  Ah, here we are:

"The New Liberalism," in Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, eds. The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (2008).

"Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism," International Organization (Winter 2009) (with Robert Keohane and Stephen Macedo).

"Democracy-enhancing Multilateralism," Institute for International Law and Justice Working Paper (No. 2007/4, New York University Law School, 2007) (with Robert Keohane and Stephen Macedo).

"The Myth of Europe's 'Democratic Deficit'," Intereconomics: Journal of European Economic Policy (November-December 2008).

"The European Constitutional Settlement," World Economy (January 2008).

“What Can We Learn from the Collapse of the European Constitutional Project? A Symposium", Politische Vierteljahresschrift 47:2 (forthcoming 2006). Part of a forum with Fritz Scharpf, Michael Zuern, Wolfgang Wessels, and Andreas Maurer.

Responses by Pepper Culpepper and Archon Fung, James Fishkin, Mark Franklin, Paul Magnette, Giandomenico Majone, Jeremy Rabkin and Loukas Tsoukalis, and Moravcsik's "Response to Eight Critics."

Here's the abstract for Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism:

International organizations are widely believed to undermine domestic democracy. Our analysis challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that multilateral institutions can enhance the quality of national democratic processes, even in well functioning democracies, in a number of important ways: by restricting the power of special interest factions, protecting individual rights, and improving the quality of democratic deliberation, while also increasing capacities to achieve important public purposes+ The article discusses conflicts and complementarities between multilateralism and democracy, outlines a working conception of constitutional democracy, elaborates theoretically the ways in which multilateral institutions can enhance constitutional democracy, and discusses the empirical conditions under which multilateralism is most likely to have net democratic benefits, using contemporary examples to illustrate the analysis. The overall aim is to articulate a set of critical democratic standards appropriate for evaluating and helping to guide the reform of international institutions.

Cryptobiology

My wife has joined the cryptobiology craze and taken a photo of one of our backyard creatures.  Shot with her point-and-shoot camera.

Rubber Plantations

I was stunned to learn this weekend that there are still rubber plantations and that rubber plantations are, moreover, an appreciable and growing land use issue for nature conservancy.  Indeed, natural rubber is now 42.5% of the rubber market, up from 32% in 1980.  (link)  And I thought natural rubber was some specialty product.  More later...

Ultra-long-range flights

Sticking with the big bird theme, some of the ultra-long-range flights currently operating are pretty impressive.  An 18h 40min flight from Newark to Singapore over 16,600 km isn't bad.  My longest flight hasn't gotten beyond Frankfurt-LA.   

Currently operating:

Route	Airline	Flight Number	Distance km (mi) [nm]	Scheduled duration	Aircraft Type	First flight
Newark to Singapore	Singapore Airlines	SQ21	16,600 (10,314) [8,963]	18hr 40min	Airbus A340-500	29 June 2004
Los Angeles to Singapore	Singapore Airlines	SQ371	14,033 (8,771) [7,577]	18hr 10min	Airbus A340-500	5 February 2004
Washington to Johannesburg	South African Airways	SA208	13,806 (8,578) [7,455]	15hr 25min	Airbus A340-600	July 2006
Mumbai to Atlanta	Delta Air Lines	DL185	13,739 (8,537) [7,395]	17hr 55min	Boeing 777-200LR	2 November 2008
Dubai to Los Angeles	Emirates Airline	EK215	13,420 (8,340) [7,246]	16hr 35min	Boeing 777-200LR	26 October 2008
Dubai to Sao Paulo	Emirates Airline	EK261	13,216 (8,260) [7,136]	15hr 30min	Boeing 777-200LR	29 October 2007
Los Angeles to Bangkok	Thai Airways International	TG795	13,216 (8,260) [7,136]	17hr 10min	Airbus A340-500	2 December 2005
Dubai to Houston	Emirates Airline	EK211	13,139 (8,164) [7,094]	17hr 05min	Boeing 777-200LR	3 December 2007
New York to Hong Kong	Cathay Pacific	CX831/CX841	12,990 (8,055) [7,014]	16hr 00min	Boeing 777-300ER	1 July 2004
Toronto to Hong Kong	Air Canada Cathay Pacific	AC015 CX827	12,990 (8,055) [7,014]	15hr 40min	Boeing 777-200LR Boeing 777-300ER	1 August 2004 1 January 2008
Newark to Hong Kong	Continental Airlines	CO99	12,980 (8,060) [7,009]	15hr 50min	Boeing 777-200ER	1 March 2001
Dubai to San Francisco	Emirates Airline	EK225	12,965 (8,103) [7,000]	16hr 00min	Boeing 777-200LR	15 December 2008
Doha to Houston	Qatar Airways	QR77	12,950 (8,047) [6,992]	16hr 45min	Boeing 777-200LR	16 February 20093
Los Angeles to Melbourne	Qantas United Airlines	QF094 UA826	12,748 (7,921) [6,883]	15hr 15min	Airbus A380-800 Boeing 747-400ER Boeing 747-400	October 1999
Newark to Mumbai	Continental Airlines	CO48	12,562 (7,806) [6,783]	15hr 10min	Boeing 777-200ER	1 October 2007
Chicago to Hong Kong	United Airlines	UA895	12,543 (7,794) [6,773]	15hr 25min	Boeing 747-400	15 June 1996
Mumbai to New York	Air India	AI141	12,540 (7,790) [6,771]	16hr 00min	Boeing 777-200LR	1 August 2007
Vancouver to Sydney	Air Canada	AC33	12,484 (7,757) [6,741]	15hr 15min	Boeing 777-200LR	14 December 2007
Atlanta to Shanghai	Delta Air Lines	DL19	12,311 (7,650) [6,647]	15hr 40min	Boeing 777-200ER	30 March 2008
Dubai to Atlanta	Delta Airlines	DL7	12,228 (7,598) [6,602]	15hr 45min	Boeing 777-200ER	1 June 2007
Tel Aviv to Los Angeles	El Al	LY005	12,122 (7,576) [6,545]	15hr 53min	Boeing 777-200ER	May 19884
Sydney to Abu Dhabi	Etihad Airways	EY451/EY455	12,057 (7,492) [6,510]	14hr 55min	Airbus A340-500 Airbus A340-600	27 March 2007
Sydney to Dubai	Emirates Airline	EK418	12,048 (7,486) [6,505]	14hr 45min	Airbus A340-500 Boeing 777-200LR	August 2007
Delhi to Chicago	American Airlines	AA293	12,044 (7,484) [6,503]	15hr 25min	Boeing 777-200ER	October 2005

"The Fed will have a hard time preventing canny operators from gaming its system for unfreezing credit markets. "

The WSJ's teaser for an article yet to be posted.  Seems about right. 

Annoying Lens Calibration Issues

Well, my 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens is now perfectly calibrated, after coming back from servicing with the camera body in November, but that did throw off the calibration for my other two lenses.  Not disastrously, but still noticeably.  Oh well.  Something to deal with later when I have the money to do so, especially since it may mean upgrading to a newer and, since I'm upgrading, fancier camera body. 

Here's the 70-200mm f/4 lens today.  Click for a larger image.  Again, some of the sharpness problems may actually be autofocus related, a combination of inconsistent autofocus, especially in low light, and frontfocusing. Noting too serious here, the problems are more annoying with (unpostable) portrait shots, where frontfocusing is really annoying. Stopping down from f/4 to f/5.6 does help considerably. 

Tetrapod Zoology

I've been having great fun reading the archives of the Tetrapod Zoology blog.  Good stuff. 

Dynastic Qualification

The New Yorker (via Ben Smith) quotes Larry O'Donnell, identified as friend of Caroline Kennedy and a former Moynahan staffer as well as a TV personality, about Governor Paterson's decision to appoint Kirsten Gillibrand:

Paterson has appointed Kirsten Gillibrand, a second-term congresswoman from Hudson, near Albany. “Paterson has no comprehension of upstate New York, absolutely none, and has chosen someone better at representing cows than people,” Lawrence O’Donnell says. “What you have is the daughter of a lobbyist, instead of the daughter of a former President or the son of a former governor. This is the hack world producing the hack result that the hacks are happy with.”

Not the sort of thing a future NY Senator would want a friend to be saying.  

Argentavis magnificens

And since I'm doing large flying animals, how about Argentavis magnificens, the largest flying bird ever? Wiki summarizes:

Currently accepted estimates:

• Wingspan: 5.8–8 m (19 – 26 ft)
• Wing area: nearly 7 m² (75 square ft)
• Wing loading: c. 11.5 kg/m²
• Length: 3.5 m (11.5 ft)
• Height: 1.7–2 m (5.6–6.5 ft)
• Weight: 60–80 kg (140–180 lb)

For comparison, the living bird with the largest wingspan is the Wandering Albatross (3.63 m). Since A. magnificens is known to have been a land bird, another good point of comparison is the Andean Condor, which is not too distantly related to Argentavis. This bird is among the largest land birds, with a wingspan of about 3 m and weighing up to 12 kg. ...

The heaviest extant flying bird is not heavier than 20 kg (several contenders, among which are the European Great Bustard and the African Kori Bustard). The Sarus Crane is the tallest flying bird alive, standing nearly as high as Argentavis due to its long legs.

Supposedly not just a scavenger...still, mostly scavenging. 

Pigs at Work

As usual, click on image for a larger format.

Quetzalcoatlus northropi

I was browsing the latest issue of Science while kid #3 looks at photos of herself as a baby, and I ran across a short news items about Quetzalcoatlus northrop with a drawing comparing this animal to a giraffe.   (sorry, no link)  On the other hand, Quetzalcoatlus northrop appears to be much much ligher than a giraffe, only 70 kg or so.  Not clear how this is supposed to work biomechanically.

I had no idea Quetzalcoatlus northrop was this large.  Very odd, you'd think this would be a well known factoid, not just for people like me but for the general public.  Or maybe I had seen the 10+ meter wingspan figure and just not realized how big that is, especially for the animal on the ground. 

Below an illustration similar to the one in Science. (Ah, also by Mark Witton.)

Also, dimensions via wiki citing Witton and Nash 2008.

 

Ah, here is Witton and Nash's discussion of Quetzalcoatlus northropi weight estimates, suggesting 70kg is very much at the bottom of the range of weight estimates, which go up to over 200kg:

Drawing conclusions about the flight of pterosaurs is problematic due to our limited understanding of their paleobiology. Modelling flight is particularly difficult for the larger forms due to the lack of equivalently sized extant analogues [72]: the absence of such creates problems in estimating the masses of giant pterosaurs, a critical value in modelling even basic flight attributes such as wing loading and flight speed. Despite many attempts at estimating the masses of giant azhdarchids, little agreement has been achieved. Langston [17] suggested a Quetzalcoatlus with an 11–12 m wingspan may have weighed 86 kg and, with a 15.5 m wingspan, 136 kg. Citing Bramwell and Whitfield's [15] aeronautical work with a lightweight Pteranodon, Wellnhofer [24] suggested that an 86 kg estimate for a 10 m span Quetzalcoatlus could be too high and that its weight may have been comparable to modern ultra-light aircraft. Shipman [76] suggested that an azhdarchid of similar size would have a mass of 126 kg. The results of a multivariate analysis by Atanassov and Strauss [77] gave mass estimates of 90–120 kg depending on body density, but similar techniques used by Templin [78] and Chatterjee and Templin [16] produced estimates of 62–77 kg, a range of figures also cited by Witton [32]. A similar mass of 70 kg was produced by Brower and Veinus [71] using regression analysis of geometrically modelled pterosaurs. Considerably higher estimates are given by Marden [79] and Paul [73] at 200–250 kg, but calculations by Chatterjee and Templin [16] suggest a pterosaur of this magnitude would never become airborne. These calculations are contradicted by Marden [79], and other workers have criticised lower mass estimates for being impossibly low [66], [73], [80].

It is noteworthy that all mass estimates of azhdarchids have been based on methods for which pterosaur soft tissue density has to be estimated. Many pterosaurs exhibited extensive skeletal pneumaticity (e.g. [31], [81]) and azhdarchid vertebrae and humeri were clearly pneumatised [29], [40]. We therefore assume that azhdarchids exhibited pneumaticity in both their soft tissue anatomy as well as in their skeleton. However, given that pneumaticity has been shown to vary considerably among extant birds [82] and has a significant impact on mass estimates [83], we know too little about pterosaur anatomy to accurately predict their masses using density-dependent calculating techniques. A regression analysis of dry skeletal mass relative to total body mass [84], a technique that avoids the complications of estimating body density, generates a mass of 250 kg for a 10 m span azhdarchid, a figure matching the higher mass estimates of Paul [73], [80] and Marden [79]. Moreover, calculating the body volume of a giant azhdarchid suggests that soft tissue densities have to be less than 0.25 g/cm³ in order to allow masses of under 125 kg (Witton, unpublished data). We note that the masses of not only giant azhdarchids but all pterosaurs have been grossly underestimated and suggest that the flight calculations based on these hyper-lightweight estimates be treated with caution.

Finally, Witton and Nash's bottom line is that Quetzalcoatlus northropi was a large stork: a terrestrial stalker in high vegetation which flies from feeding spot to feeding spot, unlike storks able to take off by jumping into the air with all four limbs (this proposed mode of take-off was the topic of the news item in Science).  Not clear to me how this sort of behavior works if you don't use feathered wings, since damage to the wing membrane is just going to be too common.  There are bottom foraging bats that seem to do fine, but they are much smaller.  

Update #1: the Vampire bat's all limb take-off, the same -- well, same may be overstating it given size differences -- mode as proposed for Quetzalcoatlus northropi.

Desmodus rotundus jumping.

Kirsten Gillibrand

Very funny, getting elected in a conservative upstate NY House district is going to make Kirsten Gillibrand  a US Senator, or so are the rumors.  And I remember how her House seat was considered endangered when she won in in 2006, since Democrats don't usually win there. Also amusing, since Cuomo is the favored son for this appointment to the Senate, she was special council to Andrew Cuomo during his time as Clinton Housing Secretary.  Younger than me as well. 

Geithner

I've not blogged on this yet since I'm in the tank for Obama, but it does strike me that Geithner is being dishonest about his failure to pay his employer portion of payroll taxes, since the IMF as an international organization doesn't withhold them.  If I were a Senator I might see no way to vote for him on these grounds. 

Update #1: Fallows writes, reflecting what I know as well from having worked at a similar Washington DC institution and having been part of the staff water cooler conversation about these matters:

So by the standard of what the country needs right now, I would probably vote for Geithner's confirmation as Treasury Secretary, if I were in a position to do so.

But I do not believe, and will never believe, that his failure to pay his own self-employment tax while at the IMF was an "oversight" or a "mistake." I have many many friends who have worked for this and similar organizations. I have myself over the years juggled the complexities of what is self-employment income and what is W-2 income and how to handle income from non-US sources  -- and I have a lot less financial acumen than any Treasury Secretary aspirant should and must have. (Though I also use Turbo Tax!) Not a single person I have known from the IMF or similar bodies, not a one, believes that Geithner could have "overlooked" his need to pay US self-employment tax. When I have received similar income from international sources, the need was obvious even to me -- and I wasn't receiving and signing all the forms to the same effect Geithner would have gotten from the IMF. I could go on with details but I'll just say: if this were a situation more average Americans had experienced personally, he would not dare make his "mistake" excuse because everyone would say, "Are you kidding me???"

So we're back to a judgment call. I accept the argument that he is a necessary part of what has to be the best possible team America can assemble at this moment. But I don't like the fact that he is obviously dissembling on this point, and that he obviously was not playing it straight over a long period of years.

Update #2: Jody comments:

I posted the same thing myself. And here, in a slightly more removed context than my own blog, I can add that the first time it was an issue, I TRIED to get TurboTax to let me list World Bank income as regular income (not self-employment income) and it would not let me, given my honest answer of its questions. It really, really pisses me off that Geithner thinks anyone would be fooled here.

What has Andrew Jackson wrought?

Is the long series of undistinguished (or worse) US Presidents after Andrew Jackson until the Civil War in part due to Andrew Jackson breaking the mold of who a US President had to be?   What are the better ways of thinking about this question?  Not my era for the most part.  All Jackson to Lincoln Presidents except Van Buren and Polk are usually considered bottom quartile Presidents and none are considered top quartile Presidents, except for occasional kind takes on Polk. 

Obviously, the structural problems the country faced in the run up to the Civil War doesn't help.  

Presidential Trivia

RBC observes something I've noticed as well:

President Obama said that 44 Americans (including himself) have now taken the Presidential oath. The conventional numbering by which Obama is the 44th President includes Grover Cleveland as the 22nd and 24th presidents. (See wikipedia.)

So shouldn't he have said that 43 Americans have now taken the presidential oath?

Update On NPR's Diane Rehm show one of the participants said they had called the Obama folks with this question and they said they knew of the discrepancy and that it was less confusing to get it wrong and say 44! Is the level of respect for data that we expect from the new administration?

As special bonus trivia point: Cleveland's second term Vice-President was Adlai Stevenson, the grandfather of Adlai Stevenson II, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956. 

Value Added Tax

via NPR, I'm reminded of this outlook:

Larry Summers' old quip that the reason we don't have a value added tax in this country is because liberals think it's regressive and conservatives think it's a money machine. He said we'll have a value added tax when conservatives figure out that a VAT is regressive and liberals figure out that it's a money machine.

We'll see where we get in the next four years. The problem is that this ideal tax has been politically costly when it was introduced in Australia, Japan (1989) and Canada, the three important countries without a VAT besides the US, in the 1990s. 

Obama's Military Procurement Plans

David Axe reads the White House website:

On the first day of his presidency, Barack Obama posted a list of military priorities on the White House website. In short, Obama advocates larger land forces, a greater emphasis on expeditionary and littoral capabilities and the preservation of the Air Force’s ability to penetrate sophisticated air defenses. “We must rebalance our capabilities to ensure that our forces can succeed in both conventional wars and in stabilization and counter-insurgency operations.”

“Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines.” And in order to move those extra troops around, Obama wants more investment in “essential systems like the C-17 cargo and KC-X air refueling aircraft, which provide the backbone of our ability to extend global power.”

The new administration also will “add to the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force Squadrons to support operations ashore.” That means “seabasing,” the Navy’s concept for using modified cargo ships, landing craft and helicopters to support a large land force.

Obama’s emphasis on military logistics systems is prudent, and consistent with his plans to rebuild America’s domestic transportation network. Logistics is the key to our power abroad and our prosperity at home.

But he’s calling for some high-end “shooters,” too. “We must preserve our unparalleled airpower capabilities to deter and defeat any conventional competitors.” That probably means a few more of the ultra-expensive F-22s and adequate funding for the delayed, over-budget F-35. But more importantly, it means serious investment in the so-called “2018 bomber,” a new stealthy, subsonic bomber to replace the long-range, penetrating capabilities lost with the retirements of the F-111 in the late 1990s and the F-117 last year.

For the Navy, Obama wants “smaller, more capable ships, providing the agility to operate close to shore.” That means one thing: Littoral Combat Ships, and lots of them, perhaps more than the currently planned 55. Also, the Navy’s Aegis warship fleet, armed with SM-3 missiles, likely will receive the lion’s share of the funding for what Obama calls “pragmatic and cost-effective” National Missile Defense.

So if these plans stick, what will the military look like in eight years? The Army and Marines will be bigger. The Navy and Air Force will boast bigger fleets of more modern transport platforms. The Navy’s combat fleet will feature fewer big warships — even fewer aircraft carriers, I’m guessing — and many more small coastal ships. The Air Force’s fighter fleet will shrink, but the addition of more bombers will more than compensate. Missile defense mostly will be sea-based.

It’s interesting what’s missing from Obama’s list. There’s no call for Rumsfeld-style network-centric warfare or the Army’s networked “Future Combat Systems.” The Navy’s $5-billion DDG-1000 stealth destroyer warrants no mention. Both of those programs could very well fade away under Obama’s watch, and that’s fine with me. The only thing the bothers me is that Obama ignores the Navy’s need for more, and better, submarines — surely the best and most cost-effective weapons for maintaining sea dominance.

I'm personally not a fan of attack submarines at their current official building rate of two a year. 

NYT pays 14% interest on a six year loan

via Delong, the NYT reports:

Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Slim, who already owns 6.9 percent of the Times Company, would invest $250 million in the form of six-year notes with warrants that are convertible into common shares, the company said in a statement. The notes also carry a 14 percent interest rate, with 11 percent paid in cash and 3 percent in additional bonds.

The deal comes as the Times Company looks to raise money amid flagging advertising sales and approaching deadlines to pay back $1.1 billion in debt in the next few years.

Note that this is 14% plus stock warrants.  As Delong notes, the terms only make sense if the probability that the NYT goes into bankruptcy is now pretty large. 

Obama sticks up for me

Amy Sullivan writes:

Obama's shout-out to "non-believers" was, as far as I can tell, the first such acknowledgment in an Inaugural address. It's not unusual for him (see his 2006 speech at the Call to Renewal gathering) and I suspect it's a formulation, along with "those of all faiths and no faith" that we'll get used to hearing. Remember that this is the first U.S. president who grew up in a secular home and became a Christian in adulthood. That gives him a sensitivity to secularists that is rare in politics.

What will go wrong?

Brad DeLong muses:

The inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America offers the possibility of the first episode of normal politics and policy-making since... since... since...

Well, from 2001-2008 we have been ruled by cruel and incompetent wingnuts. From 1995-2001 the congress was dominated by cruel and maladjusted wingnuts. From 1993-1995 the congress was dominated by old dinosaurs who wanted to teach the hick from Arkansas a lesson. From 1989-1993 we were ruled by reasonable people who thought they had to pretend to be cruel and maladjusted wingnuts. 1981-1989 was the Age of Reagan--when we had to pray for George Shultz and Nancy Reagan's astrologer to outmaneuver the wingnuts in the White House and make good policy. Before then was another four years 1977-1981 when the barons of congress's highest priority was to teach the hick from Georgia a lesson. Before then we lived in Nixonland--in which the twin centers of American politics were the successful attempt to tell all Americans who did not like Black people that they had a home in the Republican Party, and "anticommunism"--in the form of denunciations of Helen Gahagan Douglas was a spy for Stalin (besides being married to a Jew) and denunciations of Harry S Truman for being soft in communism in settling for "containment" rather than "rollback" (and, of course, when the Hungarians in 1956 dared take the rhetoric of John Foster Dulles, Richard Nixon, and Dwight Eisenhower seriously...). Before then were the denunciations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt ("the communist in the White House..." "that cripple in the White House...").

And before then...

The inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America offers the possibility of the first episode of normal politics and policy-making since the Radical Republicans puzzled over how to use the North's victory in the Civil War to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

So, what are the things that can and will go wrong now?  Afghanistan and the inability to finance the US current account deficit, along with a big terror attack, come to my mind first.  China or Mexico collapsing and doing lots of damage to the US in the process?  What else?  And how well will Congress perform? 

State Street

Who says there's no news on inauguration day?  State Street, the largest asset manager in the world with once a bit under two trillion dollars under management and so far relatively unscathed by the credit crisis, lost over half its market value on news of surprisingly bad credit losses.  This then takes the whole banking sector stock market down with it.  See for instance Bloomberg.  Other banks and asset managers, even the supposedly solid ones, go down around 20%.  FTD misleadingly headlines this as Obama drückt Dow unter 8000 Punkte

Not helpful for me.   At least not in any obvious way.   I need to figure out how to make hay with this.  

Finally, it is a bit surprising that State Street fell so much on this sort of news, and even more surprising that it took so many bank stocks with it.  None of this news would seem to fall into the 'big surprise' category by now, except to the extent it implicitly reveals even more bad accounting and risk management than previously suspected.  And I don't see that it does. On the other hand, Roubini Predicts U.S. Losses May Reach $3.6 Trillion:

“I’ve found that credit losses could peak at a level of $3.6 trillion for U.S. institutions, half of them by banks and broker dealers,” Roubini said at a conference in Dubai today. “If that’s true, it means the U.S. banking system is effectively insolvent because it starts with a capital of $1.4 trillion. This is a systemic banking crisis.”

Which would be a lot higher than the current consensus numbers. 

Clusterstock observes the mess. 

Hey, the full earnings call transcript. 

No News

Despite the inauguration, no news.  Kid #2 now denies she ever supported McCain. Kid #1 and #2 are quite into the inaugural parade (kid #1 is watching it at a friend's house). 

Obama is the first President with a Ph.D. Parent

Two Ph.D. parents actually, but as we all know his father didn't stick around.  The WP writes:

He is the first president with a foreign father. He is the first president to grow up in Hawaii, the 50th state. He is the first president whose parents earned doctoral degrees. He is the first president who once could speak the Indonesian language. He is the first president who was president of the Harvard Law Review. He is the first president who was a hapa, as they are called in Hawaii, with parents of different races. He is the first president who has a sister from Asia and a sister from Africa and a wife from the black working-class South Side of Chicago. And he is the first African American president, yet one with no slaves but a few slaveholders in his ancestry.

Presidents with a Ph.D. themselves only show up in the movies or on TV. 

Also, while 'the Indonesian language' does appaer to be the offical locution for the official dialect of Malay in Indonesia, I was under the impression that Obama isn't the first President with a foreign born father.   I do remember Andrew Jackson having both parents being foreign born, both Scotts-Irish from Northern Ireland, though that may not count since Jackson was born in 1767, before the founding of the US, and Northern Ireland was part of the same empire as the American colonies.  James Buchanan's father was also born in Ireland, and Buchanan was born in 1791, after US independence.  Same for Chester Arthur, born 1829, also with an Irish born father.   And a special bonus feature: the 1880 Presidential election had Chester Arthur opponents trying to make hay with the claim that Arthur was born a few miles over the border in Canada, not the US, making him inelligble to be President.  The issue didn't fly. 

So Obama is the first US President with a foreign father who was not Irish (of the Pretestant faith). 

Just trying to drive my readers away...

More Snow

And yes, the light is crappy with overcast skies and the window facing north. But realistic rendering...

Die Hessenwahl

Wow, I've not been paying much attention, but the SPD at around 24% and the FDP around 16% is just, well, I didn't ever expect to see that sort of result north of Baden-Württemberg. With the Greens at 14% the Yellow-Green block is way bigger than the SPD and about as large as the SPD-Links grouping.  

Obama's Polling

Obama's current disapproval at 16% seems very low, even for a few days before inauguration.  The economic crisis and Obama's inclusionist style surly play a big role here, but it is surprising how small the Republican fringe seems to be, or how much they purport to want to give Obama a chance.   Now I just need to find the equivalent polling for previous Presidents.   Ah, Bush in Feb. 2001 had a 55-22 approval, so what stands out here is more Obama's high approval than his low disapproval.  But then again, Bush after 9/11 got into the 89-6 approval range.  So high approval ratings are driven by crises. And there once was a time, even with all Bush's personal qualities and after the Florida standoff, where Bush had only 22% disapproval.  Which demonstrates how nice people are when they are polled about a new President.  Still, Obama's 16% disapproval is lower than Bush's first month disapproval of 22%. Reagan was at 55-15 in his first month, Clinton is similar, while Carter and Nixon (!) -- the politics of an earlier era? -- have  single digit disapproval ratings for several months.   So Obama's ratings are about where a new President facing a crisis should be, while Bush in 2001 started out badly, even with his seemingly low 22% disapproval. 

Understanding the Genetic Basis of Some Highly Hertable Traits is Hard

Steven Pinker writes in the NYT:

Individual genes are just not very informative. Call it Geno’s Paradox. We know from classic medical and behavioral genetics that many physical and psychological traits are substantially heritable. But when scientists use the latest methods to fish for the responsible genes, the catch is paltry.

Take height. Though health and nutrition can affect stature, height is highly heritable: no one thinks that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar just ate more Wheaties growing up than Danny DeVito. Height should therefore be a target-rich area in the search for genes, and in 2007 a genomewide scan of nearly 16,000 people turned up a dozen of them. But these genes collectively accounted for just 2 percent of the variation in height, and a person who had most of the genes was barely an inch taller, on average, than a person who had few of them. If that’s the best we can do for height, which can be assessed with a tape measure, what can we expect for more elusive traits like intelligence or personality?

Lots of missing genetics to get up to the 60-80% heritability for hight we see out there (heritability depends on the population).  I've seen more academic sources on this issue, I should dig them out...

Cold by Local Standards

A bit before 8 am this morning.  0 F or -18C.  Maybe -1 F.  The coldest I've ever experienced was around -20 F or -30 C, in Chicago, with the biggest problem being that you cannot see with glasses because your breath ices them instantly, something that doesn't happen at 0 F. (WGN says the low was -21 F the morning of Jan. 18, 1994, with the high that day at -11F.)

Tamil Tigers face Defeat?

How did that happen?  It would be good to know more.  (Reuters)  If true 25 years of war come to an end.  Also the the largest suicide bombing campaign in history before the recent Iraq civil war.     

Entitlement Reform

Andrew Sullivan writes:

the more prosaic truth is that given that the possibility of a second great depression requires massive borrowing for a year or two, entitlement reform may be unavoidable. How do you persuade the global markets to lend the US more money in the short term if you do not show some small chance of getting back to fiscal sanity in the long term?

There's a longer post here...

100 Hours to Go until Swearing In

100.5 hours until transition.  

Cold by local standards

And getting colder, not that I'm going to wait up to see it.  -14 C at 11:40 pm.  Should go down to -18 C.