When Self-Interest Trumps Good Governance

Politico runs a story on the proposed redistricting of Virginia. Essentially it protects incumbents. Personally I like the result, if the story is accurate, because I trade Rep. Moran for Rep. Connolly (both Democrats, but Connolly is less flaky than Moran).  But from the point of view of governance it's a bad deal.  Virginia seems to be trending Democratic, but the 2010 election was big for Republicans.  So protecting incumbents means freezing an 8-3 Republican margin in the House and a split in the state legislature (Reps the House of Delegates, Dems the Senate). A much better result in my goo-goo (good government) eyes would be lots more competitive districts, which would mean more interesting politics and a better expression of the popular will.

On the (Lack of ) Value of Husbands

From an Atlantic article on a study of longevity, hat tip Marginal Revolution:

For example, women who got divorced often thrived. Even women who were widowed often did exceptionally well. It often seemed as if women who got rid of their troublesome husbands stayed healthy—most women, it seemed, can rely on their friends and other social ties. Men who got and stayed divorced, on the other hand, were at really high risk for premature mortality. It would have been better had they not married at all.

Butter

John Phipps links to a post on the history of butter, which the Romans disdained, and apparently it's no longer on the bad food list.  My mother would be glad to know that; she thought milk and eggs the perfect foods.

Scariest Paragraph Re: Boston and Earthquake

From  a Post article on earthquakes:

"We do tend to focus on the expected events. We're going to get blindsided by unusual events. . . . But uncommon events happen," Hough said. "The analog that's worrisome is Boston. Put a 6.1 [earthquake] under Boston. You have all that un-reinforced masonry."

A Sentence To Be Rethought

Gail Collins has fun in the Times trashing Newt, but she got carried away with the last sentence in this paragraph:

Of course, Gingrich is being a better husband this time around. He’s 67! By then, most men have not just finished sowing their wild oats. The oats have been harvested, ground up, reprocessed and turned into soggy cornflakes.

How Old Am I?

Old enough to remember when some college basketball teams would choose between the NCAA and NIT tournaments.

Confirmation of My Opinions

(Don't hold your breath waiting for a post entitled: "My Opinions Are Controverted by Fact".)  Today's Farm Policy includes a couple bits in line with what I've blogged:

• a discussion by former chief USDA economist Keith Collins on the budgetary impacts of crop insurance, the increased prices and the exposure to RMA.
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• Sheila Bair of FDIC talkiing about the dangers of the bubble (my word) in farmland prices

Great Recession: It Was All Reagan's Fault

Long time readers of this blog may have noticed I've certain people whom I'm prejudiced against: Michael Pollan, John Hinderaker, and Ronald Reagan being 3 of them.  So I was very happy yesterday to discover the true cause of the Great Recession: Ronald Reagan.

I'm reading, sporadically, a book called Reforms at Risk, partly because one of its chapters deals with Freedom to Farm. Another chapter deals with the 1986 tax reform act, the best achievement of Reagan's second term.  To describe the logic which connects the tax reform act to the Great Recession:

• in the old days, before the reform act, a taxpayer could include interest on personal loans when she itemized her expenses.  
• the tax experts in the Treasury wanted to end itemizing all interest (and to include fringe benefits like employer-paid health insurance in income, but that's a story for another day)
• the experts got shot down before Reagan submitted his proposal to Congress, but the 86 act did end the itemizing of interest on personal loans.
• so one effect of the act was people reduced their personal loans, and increased their loans secured by real estate, because that interest was still deductible.  This meant not only reducing the amount of down payments (fewer 20 percent down loans) but also taking out second mortgages, and taking equity out of the house by refinancing for higher amounts.
• so the effect of the 1986 tax reform act was turn up the heat under the housing market by increasing the relative advantage of housing loans. Where once the housing market was just simmering away, over 15 years it came to a rapid boil, and then popped.

So, as I say tongue in cheek, it's all Reagan's fault.

Star Spangled Gene Weingarten

Gene is a Pulitizer prize winning columnist for the Post, usually funny.  But he's turned his hand to writing a new national anthem, the results of which you can see and hear here. (The Bill of Rights set to the William Tell Overture.)  Hat tip, Orin Kerr at Volokh

Hybrid Generators

Technology Review has this piece on hybrid generators for the Marines. Instead of sizing a diesel generator to meet peak power demand, the idea is to use batteries capable of meeting the peak demand, recharging them by running a smaller generator when they're drawn down. My Army career ended by running 45KW diesels supporting telecommunications trailers. As I remember it, we ran them at roughly 30KW much of the time, though it varied. The new concept sounds good, though the equipment is significantly more complex, both the batteries and the charging and control software.  That may be a problem: though I was obviously a great operator, the Army didn't expect us to do much. We could start them, shut them down and change the oil and not much more.