The Past Was Long Ago--Pope Pius XII and the Nobility

Via Brad DeLong, this is the speech Pope Pius XII gave to the "nobility" (I think of the Vatican, but I'm not clear on it) in 1943.  (DeLong is blogging WWII.) What struck me was how archaic the sentiments seem: the belief in the duty of the nobility, the patriarchy, the antagonism towards both the Reformation and the Enlightenment, etc.  It's a long way from this speech to Vatican II.

Video Teleconferencing Systems

This notice announces that systems bought in 2009 for FSA state offices are no longer under warranty and may be repurposed or disposed of.  Apparently they've been replaced by Cisco systems.  That should tell me two things:

• video teleconferencing has been very productive.  I suspect, though I'm too lazy to check, I've expressed skepticism on the point in the past.  So I'm glad to hear I was wrong, because in theory I'm all for it.
• the Cisco system is a very big upgrade over the Microsoft system.  If not, what's the justification for replacement?  There may be a hint when the notice says that many of the Microsoft systems are still workable; maybe they weren't very durable.

Profiling the Customer

Had an appointment at my HMO yesterday (Kaiser).  For the first time the technician was filling out fields for my race, languages, etc.  He was apologetic, explaining it was a new requirement.  I was struck by the parallel with FSA/USDA getting similar information from its customers. 

But his explanation was a bit different than FSA's would be: because Reston has so many people from different countries, the big justification for the data was to determine whether there were language barriers and, if so, whether Kaiser could get an interpreter with the right skills.

Whoops--Meade Screws Up

From my RSS feed I see this at the Ann Althouse blog:

The Clown Suit Solution.

by noreply@blogger.com (Meade)

Did you see the comment by Patrick that Glenn linked to:

“I think it would be the ultimate act of honesty to dress the Secretary of the Treasury in a clown costume. I have no objection to that at all.”

Well that gave me an idea. What would be the value of having all 14.5 million federal government employees - starting at the top with the President - made to wear clown suits for, say, the next four years? Who knows? But the free market should give us an idea, right?

For whatever reason, this is no longer on the blog.  I don't know if the blogger thought better of the taste of the comment, but I doubt it, or actually checked his facts and found there are more like 2.1 million federal employees.  I'm tempted to put it down to the conservative mindset, but I'll attribute it to a screw up, nothing more significant.

[Update: this morning the post is back up on the site, with no change]

Words for the Ages?

"A little petting each day goes a long ways towards making the livestock [people] manageable."  From the Sugar Mountain Blog, brackets added.

Killing Farm Subsidies

That we should do so is Robert Samuelson's opinion in today's Post.

The Pace of Change

Does anyone remember electronic calculators and digital watches?  Both used to be big, big in popularity and big in price, if not in size.  I used to do office work on my summer job using an old hand crank calculator, so electronic models seemed a great advance.  Over time the price came down and the capabilities went up, and then the pocket calculator was really subsumed by other electronics.

I try to keep that lesson in mind: electronics changes faster than you expect.  Here's another example: a NM super computer which the latest thing in 2008 is now outmoded and uneconomical in 20013.

The Geezers and the Future

The Times has an article today arguing that Social security is in worse shape than we know, because the actuaries at SSA don't have a good grasp on demographics.  The authors present a lot of graphs and seem rather convincing.

However, I've my own theory, based on simple economics, so it's probably wrong.   

Everyone points to the facts that the baby boomers are getting older, and mostly they're living longer, while the working population is not increasing as fast.  The result is each geezer dependent is and will be supported by fewer workers, meaning the taxes on the workers will have to go up to provide the pensions the geezers have been promised.  That seems sound logic.

But, the geezers don't and won't live on their pensions, not on paper money, they will live on bread and butter and real things, produced by real people during the days and months they're living.  So what happens?  If I understand economics, when the supply (produced by workers) gets small, and the demand (from geezers with fat pensions) is large, the effect will be to boost the wages of the workers.  That should bring more workers into the system, whether by geezers finding it rewarding to work longer or to work parttime, or by workers having two jobs and working overtime, or by immigrants coming into the country.

The one problem I see is the indexing of pensions for inflation, because this process of adjusting the economy would go a lot faster if the pensions weren't indexed.  Perhaps the alternative will be for workers to be paid in intangible benefits, stuff which benefits them and makes work more attractive but which doesn't get reflected in the cost of living indexes.  Is that what's happening in Silicon Valley, with all the fringe benefits? 

Peak Oil, Not So

Sharon Astyk writes well.  She does locavore/food movement things, while raising a family and taking in foster children. She and her husband have big hearts, for which she deserves much praise. She's also  a peak oiler, who has in the past predicted gloom and doom: our economy is falling apart, running out of oil, etc. etc. This year though she's decided not to make predictions.

I think this is a sign of the wisdom which comes with age.  I'm sure wisdom comes with age, it doesn't have much else to recommend it. 

Walt Jeffries: Always Helpful

The Post had three articles on a couple who raised some pigs, then slaughtered them, exploring our relationship to food. Here's a link to the last one which begins:

The death we want for our animals is the one we want for ourselves: painless, instant, on a day like any other. Our three pigs took seven months to reach slaughter weight , and my husband, Kevin, and I had been thinking about that slaughter for the duration. Painless. Instant. On a day like any other.

 Turns out Walter Jeffries was helpful.  As he also is here, at his Sugar Mountain Blog.