Affirmative Action--Three Posts

SCOTUS considers affirmative action today, the occasion for lots of comments; Three blog posts of note: 

• Kevin Drum argues from the experience of California in prohibiting AA that it doesn't make that much difference.  Kevin would prefer class-based action.
• David Bernstein refers to his book on racial/ethnic classification in today's context. He argues that the groupings the Federal government uses are illogical and never designed for the purposes for which they are used.  
• Steven Hayward publishes a chart showing the distribution of SAT scores by group. I found two things surprising: the degree of Asian-American dominance (25 percent in in the top category) and the fact that the group which was next highest in the top category was--wait for it--mixed race. 

Mistakes in Pandemic

 Reading "Uncontrolled Spread" by Scott Gottlieb on the US response to Covid19. So far (100pp in) it's good. Gottlieb was on the outside (former Trump FDA director for a couple years) but offering input via Twitter and close enough to people on the inside to be knowledgable. 

Those who attack the medical establishment often cite the confusing advice about masks in the early months of the pandemic.  Gottlieb says both CDC and FDA relied on their experience in dealing with flu epidemics, assuming that Covid-19 would be like the flu, SARS and MERs.  They were tracking respiratory cases using their "syndrome" system, which relied on reports filtering up from Medicare and hospitals, using statistical analysis to try to determine if there was a surge in cases which might mean a new virus.  The system had defects--it was after-the-fact--and not precise.

Dr. Birx made much of the failure to identify asymptomatic spread. Gottlieb also notes the problem, with an interesting consequence.  Some early cases, which we now recognize as resulting from asymptomatic spread which isn't usual in influencza, were instead explained by fomites--the idea that the virus was deposited on surfaces.  This meant the early emphasis on handwashing and cleaning surfaces, and the discouraging of masks. 

It's the Best of Times

Lyman Stone is an ex-USDA bureaucrat with an interesting take on many things (demography, religion being two of the big ones).  This morning he tweeted things weren't too bad.

the world is actually fairly okay. there is no compelling reason for anyone with a job in a rich country to be miserable and angry all the time. inequality mostly doesn't impact most peoples' daily lives. the best evidence we have suggests it's been falling for a few years now. https://t.co/yg3vZtJTLB

— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) October 27, 2022

That was in response to a tweet by Claudia Sahm, an economics professor with a dismal outlook, at least today.

Today the sun is out after a spell of cloudy days, so my mood is improved.  I'd claim now the world is in better shape than ever before.  People are living longer and better, with more access to more options and more information than ever before. That's especially true of what we used to call the Third World. 

 

Republican Hypocrisy--1990's and Now

 I may be one of the few who remember the scandal which plagues the Clinton administration in the 1990s.  No, not Monica, but Charlie Trie and John Huang.

Anyone interested can read this collection of Post articles, For those too lazy   busy to do the reading, the capsule summary is that the Democrats accepted donations from various individuals, either Chinese or Chinese-Americans, which might have violated or indeed did violate laws on permissible political donations.  The Republicans pointed at sleaze, claimed the money originated in China, were intended as bribes for favorable treatment and friendly attitudes by the government, and must be investigated by a special counsel.

If I recall, because I'm too lazy to research, the scandal eventually petered out with. Some cases ended in not guilty findings, some in plea bargains, some were more smoke than fire, some were fuzzy areas in the laws.

I'm now reading Andrew Weissmann's "Where the Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation".  I'll comment on the book another time, but what's striking is the degree to which the Trump campaign welcomed Russian aid, specifically the hacks of the DNC and DCC.  Granted there's a difference between money and other kinds of aid, but I don't remember Republicans criticizing the campaign for doing so.  

Forgotten History

Either the Post or the Times today had a piece on the effects of using primaries to select candidates, with the main argument being that primaries widened the gaps between parties and increased partisanship.  I don't have the patience to find the url.

The overall thesis may be right; I won't dispute it. But one sentence I did dispute--describing the time frame during which primaries became important.  It wasn't the 1980s, but earlier. 

For example, in the 1960 campaign, JFK and Hubert Humphrey were the main competitors in several state primaries. I acknowledge not every state held presidential primaries, but effectively JFK won the nomination by winning the primaries.  In 1960, and before, the selection process was a composite: "party bosses", the man in a given state or often a major citywho could sway the selection of delegates to the convention, and "favorite sons" usually the governor or highest elected official in the state who also could sway delegates.  (The "bosses" were behind the scenes; the "sons" might or might not have dreams of becoming the nominee themselves.)

Today states use primaries, in 1960 the bosses and sons relied on the primaries to assess the strength of candidates, rather like polls today. 

Our Limited Vision

Marginal Revolution pointed to this Ezra Klein piece on housing for the homeless in LA. Interesting, encapsulated for me in this quote from one of the mayoral candidates.:

Funders don’t want to give you general operating costs. They want you to solve their pet issue. What I always wanted was money for general operating costs.”

She's talking about her experience as an NGO exec, but the problem is universal. Every problem which Klein identifies, and there are so many neither he nor his readers will come away optimistic, is the result of proponents having tunnel vision, pushing a good idea into law or the courts without reckoning for the effects.  

Liberals criticize capitalism for ignoring exogenous effects of the market economy.  We also need to recognize that our good ideas will also have exogenous effects.

Birx Book

 I've commented on it before.  Some bits:

• US has 574 Indian/Native American nations.
• Jared Kushner comes off as helpful and capable in this book, unlike other recent books where he and his young crew are mocked.
• Seema Verma is mentioned favorably.
• Birx doesn't come across as very flexible--she's focused on data, and keeps referring to the UP/CHop model, always emphasizing asymptomatic spreading. I don't know whether there any consensus has developed over the issue.
• She's down on CDC and portrays Redfield, the CDC head, as unable to move his bureaucracy in the directions she believes it should have gone, though he's one of the group of doctors (Fauci, Hahn, Redfield, and Birx who agreed to hang together). She thinks CDC should have people in the field with the state health departments (I didn't read her extensive set of recommendations at the end of the book).n
• She's no writer, so I did a lot of skimming in the last half. 
• She has an extensive list of recommendations, which I didn't study.  Now have Scott Gottlieb's book on the pandemic which seems also to look to the future. 

Weaponized Globalization

 Here's the first of a thread in which Henry Farrell updates the thesis of a previous book in light of today's developments:

1. Six stories in the last few days about the weaponization of the world economy. It's very strange for @ANewman_forward and me to see the logic of our 2019 article (and forthcoming book - Underground Empire - Holt 2023) playing out. https://t.co/Z742KIljsl

— Henry Farrell (@henryfarrell) October 12, 2022

The thread is interesting. But I've a "but".  I remember back in the early Clinton administration when there was a big controversy over export controls on 486 chips (the hot PC cpu of the day). The Times made a big thing out of it, in my view misunderstanding  the problems of coordinating regulations between two cabinet departments.  Anyhow, Moore's law quickly made the 486 a dead issue.  It suggests to me that the "weaponization" which Farrel describes might be a bit more impressive on the surface, than it is when you get into the details. 

Bottom line: It's difficult for bureaucrats to keep up with innovation; even more difficult for Congress to keep up.

The Importance of History

Just getting back to the blog after a trip to NY Sheep and Wool. 

Noted something this morning on the holes in the sanctions on Russia--Greek oil tankers are getting a break.  The article referenced the large role Greeks play in oil shipments.

Led me to think of Aristotle Onassis, of Jackie fame.  Also of an early scandal after WWII when Greeks picked up cheap ships from war surplus.  

And finally to the Iliad and Greek ships.  I wonder, has Greece always been prominent in shipping since Troy?  Is that culture, or is it geography? 

Hybrid Tanks

 Remember that TFG had big problems with the Ford aircraft carrier--the latest and best USN warship?  He told the Navy to go back to steam-powered catapualts instead of the electromagnetic ones they were pioneering.  Navy ignored him.

Just imagine what he'll think of the new Abrams tank the Army is getting.  It's a hybrid--I guess on the model of a prius though this doesn't give details. Presumably the diesel (rather than gas turbine) drives a generator to the battery which feeds electric motors.  Advantages in fuel consumption and a "silent" mode of operation.

Disadvantages, which the TFG will note:  it's new and therefore will having bugs.

The Force of the Job

 Had a brief discussion about whether Republican victories in 2022 and 2024 would destroy our democracy.  My position is firm: No.

Why? First I define our democracy as continuing to have free elections with winners taking office and losers leaving. (I'm not worrying here about restrictions on the ballot in any real sense.) 

Next I believe in what I can call the "force of the job", which I think we saw working in 2020 and which will continue.  Theoretically our allegiance is to the United States, but in reality our allegiance is to ourselves, our family, neighbors,  etc. But part of our allegiance to ourselves is the widespread desire to do the job.  In the end in 2020 election officials did the job, judges and courts did the job, the police on Capitol Hill did the job, the military did the job--across the board people did the job. 

My prediction is twofold:

• the vast majority of people will continue to be in the system for mundane reasons with no burning desire to see Trump or Biden or whoever break the system.
• those who come into the system supporting Trump with the hope of seeing him elected in 2024 (or similar political desires) will find themselves gradually placing the integrity of their job and themselves over politics--the job (and their co-workers) will be more important than politics. So, in the end, they will do their job, just as the people involved on Jan 6 did their job.

The Problem of Too Many Choices

 Had to buy a clothes washer today.  Our old Magtag broke after 23 years so we were plunged into a world of many options; many new manufacturers (LG, Samsung, Medea) since the last time we bought, new alternatives (Consumer Reports seems to recommend front loaders now, not the top loading impeller used by our old machine, but there are pros and cons to all. Prices are higher now. IIRC the last time we bought the price range was $250 to $800, and ours was right in the middle. This time the range seemed to be $450 to $1.5K, and our purchase towards the low end.

Passed up one option because it had too many options, too complicated for two older people, even though the salesman recommended it as the best value ($400 off the list price--I wonder how many are really sold at the list prices.)

All the choices made for a stressful day, but the choice is made, the money is paid, and the machine comes tomorrow.

On Pot

 I suspect I've written on the subject before, but the president just pardoned everyone convicted of marijuana possession under federal law, and recommended that governors do the same with regards to state law. I noticed in the media today a poll in which a majority of Americans, a sizeable majority, favored the legalization of marijuana.

I'm ambivalent. I think the argument from alcohol and prohibition is strong. I've no experience with marijuana, though I'm open to using edibles if my arthritis gets worse. But a question: if you legalize marijuana, what else: heroin, crack, etc.?  I'm not sure where society could draw the line.

My major concern is change.  It will take some time for society to implement legalization. So far it appears that different states have taken different approaches with perhaps different results. Ideally in the eyes of this bureaucrat when the first couple states started legalizing the feds would have set up a cross-agency group (i.e DOJ, HHS, FDA, etc.) to track how the states were approaching it.  It would share experiences and study results.

We've learned to live with alcohol, not perfectly, but we accept the costs, the addictions, the accidents. But we've been coping with alcohol for decades; we may need a similar time for pot. 

Upgrading to Windows 11

 I understand Microsoft is ending the free upgrade from Win 10 to Win 11 tomorrow. So I went through the process to upgrade the desktop my wife and I share. Eventually I got it done, but next time I think I'll just buy a new desktop for her. 

Housing Codes--Needed or Not?

Some bloggers, maybe all bloggers, have a hobbyhorse.  Matt Yglesias fights against zoning codes, arguing that home prices would be lower if anyone could build anything on any land they own. [In fairness to him, I'm sure I'm exaggerating his position. 

Meanwhile FCW has a post praising the "faceless bureaucrats", which is my hobbyhorse, for their work in enforcing housing codes.  Matt hasn't commented on that.  I suppose he'd probably argue that building codes are essential,  that when he writes "build anything" he doesn't really mean "anything", but buildings built to fulfill their purpose.  That may be a slippery slope, however.

The Big Sort

[Note: I drafted this several days ago but didn't publish.  Then I wrote yesterdays post. Although I never added the links, I ]

I've played with the idea that our big sort  resulted from the proliferation of housing developments after WWII. 

Today from pieces in my two newpapers I'm more persuaded by another factor:

• The Post had a graphic showing how population had shifted--people had moved from the smaller states to the bigger states, presumably the big metropolitan areas within the states (i.e., Massachusetts, New York, DC, Texas, Florida, California.
• The Times had a graphic showing the party splits in presidential elections from 1988 to 2020.  You see some states moving to the Democrats (Virginia, Colorado, New Jersey) and some states moving to the Republicans, and other states become more of what they were before (especially Dakotas)

So my new idea is the younger Democrats are moving to economic opportunity. The nation has emphasized the value of higher education since the 1940's.  The jobs for college graduates tend to be in the bigger metropolitan areas, not in the more rural ones. 

Take a look at the rankings of states by education level.  Eyeballing the HS graduation, it looks as if the non-Southern Republican stats do very well. The South and NY (40th) are low  and CA ( is at the bottom. When you change to bachelors degrees the picture changes drastically.  NY has jumped from 40th to  10th, CA  to 14th, and the top is dominated by Democratic states.  When you go to advanced degrees the spread at the top widens a lot.

Where are the divisions? 

They identify four areas of gradually deepening division: economic inequality, political partisanship, and questions of identity relating to race, as well as gender and sexuality.

From wikipedia:

 Additionally, since the 1970s, income disparities have disproportionately increased in metropolitan areas due to the concentration of high-skilled jobs in urban zones.[10][11] For example, even though New York is the state with the highest inequality levels in the country, the upstate part of the state has a much lower rate of income inequality than the downstate, as the economy of New York City (Gini index 0.5469)[12] is highly reliant on high-salary earners.[11] States with better financial development tend to be more unequal than those with worse financial opportunities, but the trends go in the opposite directions for high-income and low-income states, with the former actually seeing more equality up to a certain level of development, beyond which the inequality rises non-linearly

The Big Sort and Rural Migration

 Can't find sources for my guesses.  This is the closest, showing the ratio of women to men in rural areas went from 99.8 in 1990 to 99.0 in 2000. My guesses are:

• in the old days, women were more conservative in rural areas, men could migrate to urban areas for jobs, both manufacturing and others.
• smart rural women could find jobs as teachers.
• smart rural men went to college and ended up in jobs in urban and suburban areas.
• the sex ratio was heavier female (despite the "norwegian bachelor farmers")
• in the modern world more women go to college and end up in jobs in urban and suburban areas.
• women are now more into social issues and tending to be liberal.

The forgoing focuses on out-migration, but there's also in-migration, from suburban/rural areas to rural. I think when it happens it's generally older people, who also tend to be more conservative.

The combination of all these trends means rural areas have become less Democratic and more conservative; urban areas the opposite.