Newmark's Door

Happy Fourth of July

No posts today and tomorrow. See you on Monday.

"Lines from the Declaration of Independence"

Video by Friend of the Door, Michael Greenspan.

(Link is now working. Thanks to David for pointing it out it wasn't before.)

The Washington Post as a "love broker"

If you missed yesterday's amazing story, read a good summary here.

It's good to work for the government . . .

. . . at least in California.

"What your tattoo locations say about you"

Funny but contains potentially offensive, non-PC words.

"What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?"

From the Esquire archives, June 1986, by the very talented Richard Ben Cramer. Long, but worth the time.

"Classic Programming Quotes"

My two favorites:

Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
- Rick Osborne

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
- Rich Cook

Honorable mention to the listed quote from Einstein.

"How to Scan and Fax Documents Online for Free"

I haven't tried any of these services, but still find I have to fax things occasionally--annoying!--I may in the near future.

"How One Teacher Uses Twitter in the Classroom"

Sounds gimmicky to me, but if it works, it works.

Two on volcanoes

Volcanoes were responsible for the mass extinction 260 million years ago.

Scientists better understand the mechanism for the volcanoes in the "ring of fire".

Personal seat licenses for the Berkeley football games . . .

. . . supposedly are listing for $225,000.

The Stanford ticket director quips, "And they give us crap for being elitists."

A new poster child for the Law of Unintended Consequences

Dolphin-safe tuna are an "ecological disaster".

(The linked-to post also refers to "Hippie Hypocrisy: People who try (but fail) to help." I like it.)

Windows 7 is coming

Is it the "best Windows ever"?

If you want, you can try a release candidate now.

"The Mystery of Cheap Lobster"

My late mother and father loved to eat lobster. On the occasions when they would each order a 1.25 pound lobster they'd talk about how filling lobsters of that size were. On one special occasion--a wedding anniversary I think--they each had 1.5 pound lobsters which they said were unusually big (and unusually good).

So the other night my wife, younger daughter, and I were eating out and the restaurant's special of the evening--the waiter noted, "You'd probably want to share this"--was a three pound lobster.

Three pounds. And I thought: what the heck's changed since I was a kid?

Turns out, the food blog of The Atlantic has the answer.

Cap-and-trade and the transitional gains trap

I'm pleased to present today an op-ed by my colleague, Steve Margolis:

Though much remains unknown regarding U.S. plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, Congress is about to ring a bell that will be hard to unring. We are about to be caught in something economists call the transitional gains trap.

The trap arises when a government restricts some activity, often for the specific purpose of increasing prices or otherwise aiding targeted beneficiaries. The limited rights to engage in these activities become valuable as the constraints bind more severely. Owners of these rights become an effective political force for preserving the status quo. Think taxicab medallions, tobacco quotas, land use restrictions and the U.S. sugar program.

First identified by Gordon Tullock in 1975, the transitional gains trap is now commonly taught in introductory economics courses. Tullock’s insight argues strongly for a carbon tax and against cap-and-trade as a means to restrict carbon usage.

Tullock’s main example was New York taxicab medallions, a depression era cartelization of the cab industry. The city issued operating permits—the medallions—in numbers that reduced the number of cabs on the streets.

Medallions can be resold, and in time, as the demand for cab rides grew, so did the price of medallions. The medallion price reflects the benefits to cab operators from restriction on the number of cabs. Those who were in the right place at the right time did well, but today’s cabbies aren’t getting rich. Elevated fares merely pay high the  cost of holding medallions.

Current owners have spent good money on medallions while expecting only a normal return. They are an effective lobby for preserving the status quo. Their case is a good one. They played by the rules and bought medallions in order to participate in the industry, so there is little political will to pull the rug out from under them. And there’s the trap.

There are plenty of other examples. The tobacco program, also started in the 1930s, evolved into a quota system that restricted output of tobacco. Quota owners grew tobacco and benefited from elevated prices, or they leased their quota to others at rates that captured the price premium. Over time, with changing domestic demand for tobacco, the program became an albatross. Quota owners were bought out in 2004 at a cost of $9.6 billion. 

In transitional gains traps, there are initial gains to those who are granted participation rights. Latecomers have to pay a price of entry that captures the scarcity rent. Owners of valuable rights lobby to preserve these programs, so restrictions last long beyond their original purposes. The U.S. sugar program, for example, was created to aid pre-Castro Cuba.

The proposed carbon cap-and-trade system limits economic activity by creating marketable rights to use carbon. Where there are good reasons for restricting an activity, a market for tradable rights does two good things: It sets a readily observable price and it allocates the right to its highest valued use. Accordingly, many economists have supported such approaches. But the particulars of the carbon program combine to create a burdensome trap.

The president’s budget proposed an auction of carbon rights that would raise about two-thirds of a trillion dollars. Although congress will undoubtedly give some of the rights away to favored interests, the budget figure probably captures the values of the carbon rights in play.  So, while we could buy our way out of the tobacco program, undoing this one will not be so easy.

The President’s budget calls for us to spend the proceeds of the auctions about as fast as they come in, $115 billion on green energy projects and the rest on refundable tax credits. Thus, the auction yields no fund for buying back carbon quota if circumstances change. 
 
Furthermore, we are operating in an area of considerable uncertainty. While some of those concerned about global warming shun any discussion of the issue, much of the support for action comes from those who acknowledge some uncertainty but favor taking precautions. One needn’t be a global warming skeptic to entertain the possibility that either our circumstances or our understanding might change over time. And many who accept the forecasts of global warming models nevertheless note that the costs-benefit relationship of CO₂ reduction is unclear. And if other countries do not adopt carbon restrictions, ours may constitute a considerable economic handicap. 

So we may find ourselves quite a trap. Once carbon-use rights are sold, owners will have an interest in preserving their value—two-thirds of a trillion dollars for openers. Carbon cap and trade will set up an alliance between big carbon owners and environmentalists, as both will favor rigid restrictions even in the face of changing circumstances. Big Carbon would likely align with environmental and NIMBY interests to oppose nuclear power, offshore windmills and other alternative energy sources to support the values of carbon rights. 

Carbon cap and trade will establish restrictions on economic activity that will bind future generations. Perhaps that’s what some supporters like about it. But notice who pays. For the most part, it’s not us—not the baby boomers. Sure, we’ll bear some of the cost of these restrictions. But the president’s proposed auction collects the present value of the scarce carbon-use rights from here to eternity, then distributes it in the course of a few years.

Compare the proposed arrangement with an ordinary carbon tax. A carbon tax can limit the use of fossil fuels to the same extent that a cap would—just choose the right tax rate. This year’s taxes are our revenues, available to support our government activities; our children’s taxes are their revenues, available to support their government activities. Under cap and trade, we’ll spend our revenues and our children’s too, thank you very much.

Under the President’s proposal, we capture the transitional gains, but our children live in the trap. Along with our national debt and our Social Security and Medicare obligations, cap and trade is one more way of shifting burdens to our children and their children. This is a heck of a way to start a “new era of responsibility.”

More praise for Mitch Daniels

Rich Lowry, edtior of National Review:

. . . more than any other Republican officeholder, Daniels points the way ahead for his bedraggled party. He’s a Reaganite who is not trapped in 1980s nostalgia; he’s a fiscal conservative who believes not just in limiting government, but in reforming it to address people’s everyday concerns; he’s a politician of principle who refuses to sell his program in off-puttingly partisan or ideological terms.

"A Stimulus You Can Believe In"

Ted Frank urges tort reform. He estimates the cost of excessive litigation in the U.S. to be about $800 billion a year.

That ain't chump change.

"Graduate school for unemployed college students"

Seth Godin:

Fewer college grads have jobs than at any other time in recent memory—a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers annual student survey said that 20 percent of 2009 college graduates who applied for a job actually have one.  So, what should the unfortunate 80% do?

Anybody with enough energy to do all the things on the list probably already has a job. But the thought is good.

Another in Business Week's interviews with business-school admissions directors

This time its the admissions manager for the University of Oxford.

Excellent Munger

Mike Munger comments on a CNN story about Monica Conyers pleading guilty to felony bribery. The story quotes the president of the Detroit City Council: "It hurts the City Council's image, for sure." Munger responds incredulously, "The only way the Detroit City Council could have a worse image is if they admitted to cannibalism."

Oh, snap!

Like a Rolling Stone

Four years ago, on the 40th anniversary of Dylan's release of Like a Rolling Stone, Ben MacIntyre of the London Times paid tribute:

“Come writers and critics who prophesy with your pen,” he invited. So, here goes: I predict that 40 years from now Like a Rolling Stone will still be voted the greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine; that we will still be arguing over whether Dylan wrote anything of comparable brilliance after 1966 to what had come before. I also prophesy that Professor Ricks will have written an Empsonian exegesis on Dylan with more footnotes than text; and that Dylan will have inspired more PhD theses than the rest of pop music put together.