The Liberal Order

Global Warming

Prior to George H. W. Bush's presidency, government funding for global climate research was about $170 million. Twenty years later that figure is about $2 billion. This is from MIT Professor Richard S. Lindzen, who is interviewed in this interesting BBC documentary.

Information and Incentive Problems in Disaster Relief

The strongest argument for government relief and aid following a disaster is that private charities will not sufficiently provide for the survivors in both the short and the long term. Hmmmm?

Two problems encountered with any government program of any size is why would we expect government have any better information than what is available through private markets, and even if politicians and bureaucrats did have perfect information, what incentive do they have to get it right?

These problems are both underscored in this article about FEMA trailers.

"While FEMA has 8,420 brand new, fully furnished, never-used mobile homes in a cow pasture in Hope, Arkansas, they refuse to provide the people from Desha, Back Gate and Dumas counties with help. This is crazy," said Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.). "If this is the new and improved FEMA, I don't want any part of it."

FEMA cannot sell unused mobile homes directly to the public because of legislation passed by Congress in October at the industry's urging. Instead, the agency must now go through a time-consuming process of trying to donate them first to federal, state and local agencies and public service groups, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute's Web site.

Wait. What? What does the Manufactured Housing Institute have to do with these trailers other than they possibly desire to help survivors of natural disasters?

"As you can imagine, a public auction of so many vehicles could devastate the market for travel trailers," Michael A. Molino, president of the 2,700-member Recreational Vehicle Dealers Association, said in a letter Friday to FEMA Director R. David Paulison.

Molino's group and the National Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds asked last week that the trailers be sold in lots of five or more so dealers can buy and resell them. Both groups said that selling directly to consumers could pose safety hazards if adequate training is not provided.

What "adequate training" is required prior to moving into a trailer? How to open the doors? Well, at least FEMA is going to recoup the money it needlessly spent on purchasing these trailers. Right?

Though FEMA paid on average $18,620 for each of the trailers and mobile homes, during the past year the agency says it has received an average of only $7,367 for the 2,665 it has sold so far.

"The people who lose in this coming and going are taxpayers," said Steve Ellis, spokesman for Taxpayers for Common Sense. "They paid for trailers that were not needed or inappropriate, and now they're not able to fully recoup their losses if they're only selling them for 40 cents on the dollar," he said. "And it seems like industry has got this coming and going, because FEMA can't seem, either through their own work or through Congress's, to catch a break."

How Washington Works

The Washington Post has a fascinating, if not disturbing, account of Washington's most lucrative lobbying firm, Cassidy and Associates. It's well worth the read.

Cassidy's career has spanned an astounding boom in the lobbying business. When Cassidy became a lobbyist in 1975, the total revenue of Washington lobbyists was less than $100 million a year. In 2006 the fees paid to registered lobbyists surpassed $2.5 billion; the Cassidy firm's 51 lobbyists earned about $29 million. In 1975 the rare hiring of a former member of Congress as a lobbyist made eyebrows rise. Today 200 former members of the House and Senate are registered lobbyists. Two of them, tall, gregarious men named Marty Russo and Jack Quinn, work for Cassidy, and at the 30th birthday party they worked the crowd with relish.

The business involves giving as well as receiving. As lobbying became more and more lucrative, Cassidy realized that members of Congress who helped his clients could be thanked with campaign contributions. "You can't be in this business and not give," he once explained.

He encouraged his colleagues to give, and he gave prolifically himself. In the quarter century leading up to his party, Cassidy, his employees and their spouses had personally given at least $5.3 million to candidates for the House and Senate and to the two major parties. Cassidy and his wife, Loretta, donated more than a million of that themselves. The lobbyists of Cassidy & Associates had received many times that much in fees from their clients - almost always in the form of monthly retainers. The clients had received hundreds of millions in earmarked appropriations and other benefits worth hundreds of millions more.

To keep this lobbyig income figure in perspective, $100 million in 1975 is equivalent to about $375 million today, nearly one-seventh the $2.5 billion lobbyists stole collected in 2006..  No wonder it's so difficult to compete in political campaigns in terms of fundraising. It's all controlled at the top.

Your Government at Work

FORT WORTH — The missing clock didn't stop postal customer Al Cunningham from noticing the amount of time spent waiting for service.

"It's always long here," said Cunningham, 49, an insurance adjuster and former postal employee who was standing in line at the Watson Post Office in Fort Worth.

The Watson Post Office is one of the nation's 37,000 post offices in which clocks have been removed from retail areas as part of a "retail standardization program" launched last year. The effort is designed to give the public-service areas a more uniform appearance, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in Thursday editions.

"We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock," said Stephen Seewoester, Dallas spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service.

At the Fort Worth post office, the hook that once held up the small battery-powered clock now protrudes from a plaster wall. The clock was taken down months ago.

A customer-service expert at Texas A&M University was not impressed with the decision to take down the timepieces.

"It's silly," said Leonard Berry, holder of the M.B. Zale Chair in Retail and Marketing Leadership. "I guess they think people don't have watches."

Story here.

And I guess if we ever get nationalized health care we can ban calendars.

Walter Williams on Democracy

I had the pleasure of seeing my former professor, Walter Williams, on Monday. Walter was here to give a talk and, while railing against democracy, noted that if rape is deemed immoral and a violation of an individual's rights, then gang is no more moral or ethical.

I thought of Walter while reading this:

SACRAMENTO —  Every child born in California would get a $500 savings account to start building a nest egg for college or down payment for a home, under a bipartisan bill introduced Wednesday in the state Senate.

The proposal would cost taxpayers about $285 million a year.

Under the bill, every child born in California after Jan. 1, 2008, would receive the money, regardless of their parents' income or immigration status. Recipients would repay the state's initial $500 investment once they turn 18.

The money may be used for three purposes: college or continuing education, a down payment on a home or a retirement account.

"This is the essence of equal opportunity. Every child, every person ought to get a head start," said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who introduced the bill with Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga.

Equal opportunity? Where else in the world is one's opportunity to move up in terms of socio-economic status greater than it is in the U.S.? And wasn't the purpose of government education sold to provide equal opportunities to all kids? Has it worked? Or has it actually led to more income disparity?

Furter we read:

If families added $50 a month to the state's initial contribution, the savings account would grow to nearly $17,500 at 5 percent interest over 18 years. Steinberg said that would promote saving money in a culture that now is carrying record levels of debt and has the lowest savings rate since the Great Depression.

The original $500 would be worth almost $1,000 in real terms after 18 years. What can you buy with that? Even if the parents contributed the $50 per month so that after 18 years they have the $17,500 discussed in the article, that is only about $10,000 in real terms. How much education or house can they buy with that? And of course there will be many unintended consequences and unforeseen uses and workarounds.

This is just a cheap variant of Ackerman and Alstott's The Stakeholder Society. Then again, bad ideas start out small before ballooning into major problems.