The Agency of Subjects of Regulation

"Agency" is a big buzz-word, has been for a number of years.  Typically in liberal and academic circles it means that people have minds and wills of their own, particularly the enslaved, the poor, the marginalized.  But it's also true when bureaucrats try to regulate behavior.  Often the picture in the bureaucrat's mind does not match the reality, or at least the picture in the mind of the person being regulated.  That's a truth often ignored in discussions.

It's particularly nice for a liberal to find this mistake occurring when conservatives/libertarians are the ones designing the regulations.  That's the case in Kansas, where governor Brownback has pushed tax reforms and cuts, intended to prove the old supply-side theory that less regulation and lower taxes will encourage growth and fill the government's coffers.  Jared Bernstein has this quote from a Wall Street Journal article (behind pay wall):

The WSJ piece points out that the number of entities taking advantage of this new loophole [not taxing small business income "passed through" to an individual] turned out to be 70 percent above the state’s projections.
Steve Moore, a key trickler that pushed the plan in Kansas, didn’t see that coming:
“Sometimes it was legitimate, and sometimes it was a gaming of the tax system to pay the zero rate, so that loophole has to be closed,” he said.  “Unless you have some rules about this, people really will shift income and they’ll find ways to legally avoid paying tax, and that was never the intention.”

Luck Turns Against the Old

Based on a sample of one, I believe this is true: the older you get the unluckier you are.

In this statement I'm basically referring to physical luck, to accidents.  I see it in myself--I seem to be having more and more close calls.  For example, the other day I was on the sidewalk of Colts Neck Drive, near the driveway for one of the apartment complexes.  I just started to cross when I saw a car beginning to leave the complex.  Very quickly I calculated I was far enough (5-10') into the driveway that the car would stop and I should keep going.  The next second I found myself walking into the car, which had pulled out quickly without stopping before pulling onto Colts Neck.   (I assume what happened was the driver was looking to the left to check Colts Neck and never looked to the right at all to see me.)

That's the most recent of near accidents I've encountered, in many of which I would have been at fault.

This makes me think--all through my adult life I was lucky (only 3 car accidents, one of which was totally not my fault).  I should have been thankful then; instead I'm fearful now.

Texas Runs on Wind?

Texas under governor Perry has rapidly developed its wind resources, of which it has plenty.

Public Service--Report Amazon Phishing

Received an email announcing either a $50 or $100 credit from Amazon.  Rather obvious phishing.

Forward such emails to stop-spoofing@amazon.com.

Trump Great for Cable, Not Bad for Bloggers

See this

Where Driverless Vehicles First Are Used

In controlled environments, such as mines.  See this Technology Review article  on their use in Australia. 

Habits and Back Pain

Interesting piece here on what our health dollars are spent on.

" The three most expensive diseases in 2013: diabetes ($101 billion), the most common form of heart disease ($88 billion) and back and neck pain ($88 billion)."

"only about 4 percent of spending on low back and neck pain was on pharmaceuticals. Generally, more spending is done on elderly people, but about 70 percent of the spending on low back and neck pain was on working-age adults"

Several years ago I was having low back pain.  Finally mentioned it to my doctor who gave me an exercise routine which takes 15 minutes a day.  No more back pain.  I wonder how much of the pain people suffer could be avoided with similar routines: 10 percent maybe? That's a bunch of money.

It requires access to doctors, establishing habits, and perseverance. 

Contra Trump II

I blogged previously on how Democrats should view and oppose Trump.  To extend my thoughts, because Trump has few or no principles, he can be unusually flexible (can Teflon be flexible?).  Similarly his opponents must be flexible, meaning they should avoid confirmation bias. (See this New Yorker post on this and other ideas relevant to the Trump era.)

We shouldn't believe or argue that Trump is fascist, authoritarian, racist or inept.  I guarantee for every  ten examples we can point to over the next four years showing those qualities he will have a few counter examples. Our best bet is to attack him as inconsistent, unprincipled, hypocritical showman, of whom the American people will become tired and disillusioned and be willing for a return to Democratic sanity and steadiness in 2020.

The bottom line on Trump is he lost the popular vote by 2.8+ million and won the electoral vote with a lot of luck and a very unlucky opponent.  And demographic trends are still against the Republicans.  So a competent candidate in 2020 without 40 years of baggage should be favored, even against an incumbent president, assuming Trump will have as rocky a tenure as we Democrats have to believe he will have.

Merry Christmas

Historical Drinking Patterns

A piece here on current drinking patterns:  New England and Wisconsin the heaviest, northern Midwest and Northwest states next, the evangelical South, Utah, and Idaho the least.  There's a note that the patterns don't change rapidly, but the only data is 21st century.  I wonder about the origins:

• Utah and Idaho would date from their settlement by whites--the Mormon church frowns on alcohol.
• Wisconsin presumably dates back to the German immigrants who settled there with their beer, among whom were some of my maternal ancestors.
• but how about the South?  Their current dryness is accounted for by evangelical religion. I'm not sure when that developed--George Whitefield did evangelical work in the 1740's.  I don't remember that he was particularly teetotal.  Did dryness develop along with the progress of evangelical religion?
• and how about the North?  Evangelical religion, the second Great Awakening, was perhaps more powerful in the North during the early 19th century.  I'm thinking Prohibition saw a contest between the immigrant wets, the Germans with their beer, Italians et.al. with their wine, etc. against the WASPy religious types.  With the end of Prohibition the immigrants had won.