Be Careful What You Wish For

When it comes to so-called “green” automotive technology, the phrases, “be careful what you wish for” and “too good to be true”, both come to mind.  Electric vehicle technology has apparently matured to such a level that Motor Trend magazine has selected the Chevrolet Volt as its 2011 Car of the Year, calling it a “game changer”, “astonishing” and an engineering breakthrough.  It’s an electric vehicle that takes 10 hours to fully charge at 110 volts and 4 hours with the 220 volt kit, and shifts to a small gasoline engine for extended range if you run out of charge.   But if you’re a typical commuter, you may never need to use gas!

The Volt is truly an engineering marvel, delivering fuel efficiencies on the order of 70- to 100 miles per gallon, depending on your driving habits.  But there’s a price for this efficiency.  A decently equipped Volt will run you about $41,000.  Even with the $7,500 Federal tax rebate being offered to Volt buyers, this is still a lot of money to pay when you could buy an equivalent vehicle for around $20,000 or less.

As with most leading edge technologies, what’s expensive at first gradually becomes more affordable as the technology matures, production volumes increase and more competition is involved.  It’s certainly conceivable that, within a few years, the so-called “plug-in hybrid” technology of the Chevy Volt will be offered by many car manufacturers.  As the price comes down, the demand for these cars could grow to the point where every household might own at least one electric vehicle.

Would our electric power infrastructure be able to handle a world in which most vehicles are powered by electricity?  I did a bit of research to find out more about the implications of a greater demand on the grid due to electric vehicles.  What I discovered suggests that we may not have completely thought through these implications.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, the average annual electricity consumption per US household is about 10,656 Kilowatt-hours (KW-Hr).  This unit of energy (the KW-hr) is important because it allows us to compare the energy content of electricity with that of gasoline.  A gallon of gasoline contains the equivalent of 33.7 KW-Hr of energy.  So, if you drive an average of 15,000 miles per year in a car that averages 25 miles per gallon, you will have consumed 600 gallons of gas, which is equivalent to 20,220 KW-Hr of energy – almost twice as much as your entire electricity usage for the entire year!

What would happen if you replaced two cars with two Chevy Volts?  First of all, you’d spend a lot less money on gasoline; about $4,000 less per year at current gas prices.  But you’d also be transferring much of your transportation energy requirements from gasoline to the electric power grid.  Fortunately, Motor Trend tested their Chevy Volt over a 299 mile course to determine how much electricity and how much gas it would use.  It used 58.6 KW-Hr of electrical energy and 2.36 gallons of gas.  Knowing these numbers allows us to calculate about how much of an increase in electrical demand a Volt would place annually on our household usage.  Two Volts would add 5,879.6 KW-Hr of demand annually, which is a 55 percent increase, so you would see your electric bill go up just as your gasoline bills would go down.

But what would be the potential effect on the entire electrical grid if every household’s electricity demand increased 55 percent?  Energy Information Administration data tell us that residential electricity usage accounts for about 40 percent of total demand.  For the state of Virginia, this translates to an overall increase in demand of about 26 percent.  This does not bode well, given that Virginia is a net importer of electricity (we import 36% of our electric power).

Two electric vehicles in every garage will not solve our energy and carbon footprint problems.  At best it will simply shift much of the energy burden from gasoline to coal or nuclear.  Until a major energy technology breakthrough occurs, we must summon the political will to expand our current electric power generation capacity in advance of the inevitable increase in demand.

The Religion Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks...

In Shakespeare's famous play, "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark", there is a famous scene in which Hamlet sets up a play (within the play) for his mother, queen Gertrude, and his uncle Claudius, whom she has married.  Hamlet suspects that she and Claudius have been involved in the death of his father, the king.  Hamlet has the actors in the play re-create what he thinks is the most likely scenario in the king's death.  Hamlet hopes to discern by their reactions the degree of their guilt.  Queen Gertrude utters the famous quote, "the lady doth protest too much, methinks", when she observes the fictitious queen in the play being overly loyal and loving to her husband.  Thus, the quote has gone down in western idiom to describe someone who insists so vehemently that something is true that we suspect it is not.

Islam continues to protest to the world that it is a religion of peace.  It's adherents and apologists routinely object most vociferously that the west is guilty of "Islamophobia" and bigotry whenever anyone is the least critical of the actions and words of some who hold to this religion. 

The most dastardly acts of terrorism ever committed in the United States have been perpetrated in the name of Islam and yet we are not allowed to "profile" suspected terrorists by country or ethnic background.  That would be bigoted and discriminatory.

Cartoonists who caricatured the prophet Muhammad and filmmakers who documented the abusive treatment of women under Islamic law are placed under a Fatwa, or a death sentence.

Now, a small, reclusive and eccentric church in Gainesville, Florida has burned a copy of the Koran - and all hell has broken loose.  Riots in the streets of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Storms of protest, targeted killings of westerners.  Even the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has called for the arrest of those responsible and is amazed that this will not take place.

The "religion" of Islam is more and more showing it's true identity.  And it is not pretty.

It's true that what this pastor in Florida did was unwise.  It was an intentionally provocative act and he knew, because of all the publicity that had surrounded his first plan to burn the Koran last year, that this would ignite a firestorm of protest around the world.  He poured gasoline on that fire by having a video of the burning streamed via YouTube.

The act was not Christian in any sense of the word, and I am ashamed that this man would, by his actions, associate all believing Christians everywhere with this kind of behavior.  He has endangered the lives of many.

But here is the difference between Islam and Christianity:  When a Crucifix was placed in a jar of urine and called a work of art; put on display at an art museum, it was considered edgy and hip.  Yes, Christians protested, but were any death threats made?  Was a $2.4 million bounty placed on the head of the "artist" who created this piece of trash as is the case with the Florida pastor?  Other so-called works of art have featured elephant dung placed on pictures of the Virgin Mary, and figures of Christ in homoerotic poses.  No worldwide violent firestorms of protest erupted from Christians.

Christians don't do this.  Islam does.

It's not cool to say this in a world in which it's politically correct to label Christianity as an oppressive religion, responsible for most of the world's evils (slavery, capitalism, genocide, subjugation of indigenous peoples, etc.), but Christians are being horribly persecuted all over the world, particularly in Africa and Asia.  They are being arrested, tortured, killed and hounded because of their faith. 

Do we hear about this on the news?  No, but we do hear about how we daily hurt the sensitive feelings of Muslims the world over by our so-called bigoted acts of blasphemy.

Why are people afraid of offending Muslims but no one seems to be afraid of offending Christians?  Is it perhaps because, deep down, the world knows that Christianity is the true "religion of peace"?

Not All Unions Are The Same

Polling data can be very informative and useful for decision- and policymakers, but be very wary if you see a newspaper story on the front page touting the latest results of a national poll.  You’re probably looking at an exercise in spin.

Case in point:  USA Today had a top of the fold front page story trumpeting the results of a 21 February USA Today/Gallup poll.  The story was headlined, “Americans favor union bargaining rights” and clearly suggested strong nationwide support for public employee unions. 

Really?

The actual polling question was, “Would you favor or oppose a law in your state taking away some collective bargaining rights of most public unions, including the state teachers union?”  The way this question is worded is clearly designed to elicit an unfavorable response.  No one wants to have “rights” “taken away”!  And why was the state teachers’ union specifically identified?  Was it perhaps to elicit some sympathy for those poor underpaid and overworked public school teachers?  Does the general non-union individual being asked this question even know what “collective bargaining” is?  Does the typical American really know what the phrase, “right to work” means? 

This poll was commissioned specifically to generate a result sympathetic to the union protesters in Wisconsin, not to actually gauge the public’s opinion on public employee unions.

If the goal of this poll was truly to find out what Americans thought about public unions, why not ask a slightly different question?   “Would you favor or oppose a law in your state allowing public sector employees to opt out of paying union dues if they so chose?”  Right now, in Wisconsin and many other states, public employees must join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment.  In Wisconsin, these annual dues can be up to $1,100 per member, and are typically deducted automatically from their pay.  This is nothing less than a cash-generating machine.  And after the union officers’ and staff salaries are paid, how do you think these funds are allocated?  For political purposes.  The overwhelming preponderance of these contributions are given to Democrats.  According to political analyst Michael Barone, “Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle”.   A citation from the Chronicle of Higher Education website shows that 99% of AFSCME contributions went to Democrats and zero to Republicans; Teamsters - 98% Democrat/2% Republican; International Association of Firefighters 83% Democrat/16% Republican.

If Americans knew that mandatory dues were being funneled into a machine funding a single political party that favors public unions, do you think the polling results would be a little different?  Of course they would.

In the private sector, the goal of management is to make a profit for the shareholders.  Private sector unions have been organized to protect labor from being exploited by management (being overworked or under-compensated or both).  The theory is that if the corporation or industry is profitable, some of those profits should be shared with the workers in the form of increases in benefits.  This makes sense and is defensible.

Governmental administration at the local, state and federal level is a non-profit enterprise.  Government employees are supposed to be "public servants".  The source of their income is not revenue from producing a product or service, it is taxes.  So when government unions, such as teachers, go on strike, they are striking against taxpayers, demanding an increase in taxes to fund their benefits.  A state in dire fiscal crisis must make hard choices.  But requiring state employees to contribute something to their retirement and health premiums is not an unreasonable way to control state spending.  The savings to state workers from not paying mandatory union dues would offset much of that contribution! 

Public unions have only been around since the 1950s.  Even FDR and George Meany (former president of the AFL-CIO) both thought public sector unions “unthinkable and intolerable”.  Now they exist as a mechanism, not to ensure management or shareholders do not exploit workers, but to perpetuate a protected stream of benefits paid for by taxpayers.

Not all unions are the same.  If more Americans knew this, some of the polling data would be quite different.

Those Filthy Rich!

A couple of weeks ago I sent a letter to the editors of my local daily paper criticizing the argument and conclusion of a liberal cartoonist who portrayed “The Rich” as a large, predatory fish chasing after those poor, little “working class” fish. A few days later, to my surprise, I received a letter in the “snail mail” from an old friend whose views are decidedly liberal. I had clearly upset him with my brief remarks in the newspaper.

What follows is my reply to his note:

Brad,

It was great to hear from you! Hope you are doing well. It’s actually a pleasant change to receive a letter in the “snail mail” rather than the ubiquitous email.

About your note – I was disappointed you felt you needed to resort to sarcasm. I think you could have made your point without it.

Speaking of your point, let me see if I can summarize it: You seem to suggest that I think the rich are getting a raw deal, when in fact no one should really be concerned about the “wealthy” (of course, we have not actually defined this term) because they already have way more than they need, certainly far more than the “poor”. The Bible underscores this point because there are passages in both the Old and New Testaments that put riches and the wealthy in a bad light.

You missed my point entirely, Brad. My primary concern is for the Truth, and for just and Constitutional government. It is true that a relatively small percentage of the population holds most of the wealth. It’s also true that this small percentage of the population also has the highest income levels. But it is also true that this same group of people pay most of the federal income taxes in this country. That is as it should be. The cartoonist I wrote about suggested that this group of people was trying to take the remaining wealth from the rest of the population. This statement suggests that economics is a “zero sum” game; that the wealthy get that way because someone else is getting poorer. This violates basic principles of economics. All it does is pit one class of people against another. Is that right?

It’s been said that the gap between the “rich” and the “poor” in this country is widening. Does that mean that the rich are getting their wealth from the poor? Not at all! It just means that the wealthier percentage of the population is getting wealthier at a faster rate than the least wealthy percentage. History has shown that living standards for all Americans have continued to increase.

So who are “the rich”? In many cases, it will be people who have built small businesses, which provide jobs and fill important needs in local economies. In other cases it will be professionals such as medical doctors or lawyers, from whose services society benefits. Executives of major corporations are in this “rich” category, but their salaries are driven far more by competition within the free market for executive talent than by some arbitrary standard that says $200,000 per year is more than enough for anybody. For that matter, why are college football coaches paid millions of dollars a year? Isn’t this excessive? It all depends on whether football coaches are considered “worth it” – our society has decided that it values watching good college football teams compete, so there is a lot of money in that particular segment of the economy. The salary of a good football coach is also driven by competition for coaching talent (just like it is for professional sports players).

It’s not fair, nor is it logical, to draw the conclusion that people who have a lot of wealth don’t deserve it! In fact it is a sin, because it violates the commandment not to covet (Exodus 20:17).

As for the Bible’s views on wealth, when you really look at the passages related to riches or property (including the ones you cited) you find that a biblical worldview respects private property and does not make any judgment about the inherent state of being wealthy or poor. The point Jesus makes numerous times is not that being wealthy is bad, but that having great wealth provides sinful human beings with great temptation to place their security and their pride in their possessions, rather than in Christ. Jesus never condemned Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea for their wealth. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus to ask how he might inherit eternal life scripture says that Jesus “looking at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21). The point really was not that he needed to give up his wealth to become poor (as if there is virtue in being poor), but that he not love his money more than God – in contrast to Zaccheus who so loved Jesus and was so grateful, that he paid back multiple times what he had extorted from his victims.

In fact, both the commandments not to steal (Ex 20:15) and not to covet indicate the importance of private property in the life of the people of God. Nowhere in scripture is it commanded or even suggested that it is right for the state to take money from “the rich” and give it to “the poor”. Numerous provisions were made in the bible to provide for the poor (not farming up to the edge of your field, leaving the “gleanings”, not shaking down all of your olives off the tree), including inheritance laws and, significantly, the year of jubilee (Leviticus 25) which meant that every 50 years, property would revert to its original owners.

From a purely economic standpoint, society in the United States as a whole (“poor” included) would benefit from lower tax rates. It has been shown time and again that lower rates of taxation actually generate more revenue to the Federal government because wealth that would otherwise find its way into a tax sheltered investment is now freed to invest in wealth-creating industries that provide value and jobs. Even John F. Kennedy, during his administration, made significant reductions in the tax rate for that very reason. The purpose of taxes is to raise money to run the government, not to punish people who ostensibly have “more than enough”. If super-wealthy individuals like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet think they could afford to pay more in taxes, they are welcome to write the government a check – why do they need to change the tax law?

Brad, I honestly don’t know why so many folks who call themselves “progressives” get so angry and resort to name calling and class warfare. I’m sure they think it’s a matter of social justice. It’s pretty easy to stand back and say the government should tax that rich guy over there at a higher rate so that the poor guy over there can have more money, and thereby incomes will be more “equal”. It’s harder to get personally involved in ministering to the poor. Government administered social welfare programs have not won the “war on poverty”. They have only bankrupted the government and contributed to the breakdown of the nuclear family and the perpetuation of an economically dependent underclass.

As you can see (I hope!) I have given a lot of thought to this. I want you to know that I respect you for writing me, and I hope we can continue to be friends!

The Underground Fire

When I was a Boy Scout, we were taught the proper method of extinguishing a campfire: First, make sure you douse it completely with water to remove the heat and stop the combustion, then stir the ashes around with a green stick to make sure there are no remaining embers and separate any fuel sources from each other, and finally dump some dirt on top of the remains to choke off any possibility of oxygen seeping in and letting a stray coal ignite into flame.

If all you do is dump dirt or sand on the campfire, the flame will go out and the fire will appear to be extinguished. But the fire has not gone out – there are live coals still smoldering deep in the dirt, ready to awaken back into flame if uncovered. In some cases, hot coals can start an underground fire that works its way through tree and plant roots, exploding into flame at a point distant from the original campfire.

I’m belaboring this point because I want to make sure you follow my reasoning as I use fire as a metaphor for our current military involvement in Afghanistan (and, to a lesser extent, Iraq).

Our overt use of military power in Afghanistan is like a flame. Just as fire is a highly visible and powerful force that can provide warmth, generate power, and generally be of service to humans, overt military power can accomplish objectives that clearly serve humanity. However, without a clear and unambiguous mission for that military power, it can become as destructive as a fire that has jumped beyond the fire pit to spread uncontrollably to the surrounding forest. Support for this war is draining away as it drags into its tenth year without a clear sense of any overarching mission or progress.

Not only are we fighting the Taliban insurgency, now we’re having problems with our supposed ally. New revelations about the level of corruption within the Afghan government have surfaced. President Karzai himself is quoted acknowledging receiving payoffs from Iran, “They do give us bags of money—yes, yes, it is done, we are grateful to the Iranians for this”. In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Fouad Ajami, a professor at Johns Hopkins University states, “The brutal facts about Afghanistan are these: It is a broken country, a land of banditry, of a war of all against all, and of the need to get what can be gotten from the strangers. There is no love for the infidels who have come into the land, and no patience for their sermons.

“In its wanderings through the Third World, from Korea and Vietnam to Iran and Egypt, it was America's fate to ride with all sorts of clients. We betrayed some of them, and they betrayed us in return. They passed off their phobias and privileges as lofty causes worthy of our blood and treasure. They snookered us at times, but there was always the pretense of a common purpose. The thing about Mr. Karzai is his sharp break with this history. It is the ways of the Afghan mountaineers that he wishes to teach us”.

The reason we went to Afghanistan in the first place – ten years ago this month – was to find Osama Bin Laden, capture or kill him, and as many of Al Qaeda as possible, and punish the Taliban for giving sanctuary to this organization. We supported the invasion because we were striking back at the terrorists who attacked us on September 11th, and those who harbored them.

But now the mission is no longer clear, and the nation-building we thought we were attempting with Mr. Karzai’s support is being undermined by the very people we’re trying to help. We need to refocus on the original mission, but with a different strategy. To return to the campfire metaphor, we need to extinguish the “flames” of our overt military presence in Afghanistan – pull out all conventional and even special operations forces. Let the world think that the United States has had enough and is going to give in to the prevailing opinion that any military engagement in Afghanistan is unwinnable. Let our enemies think they have won.

Let the flames be smothered, but let the embers continue to burn deep underground. We should begin to wage a covert campaign against Al Qaeda similar to the patient but brutally effective campaign the Israelis launched to seek out and assassinate every member of the Black September organization that attacked the Israeli Olympic team in 1972. Such a strategy would be so low key and secretive that no one in the US government would even know enough to take credit for any success or place any blame for failure. The strategy would have to be plausibly deniable at the highest levels of government. Sure, it would be of questionable legality, but the Bush administration was accused all the time of waging an “illegal” war.

Such a strategy is effective because it is efficient: it will only take the disappearance and/or death of one or two key individuals to begin to frighten and confuse the remaining organization. A frightened and confused organization is an ineffective one. The military has known for years how effective and efficient a good sniper can be at demoralizing the enemy.

Just as the smoldering embers of a smothered campfire send out fingers of fire below the soil, a covert operation, based on the highest quality intelligence and meticulous analysis, will systematically spread fear and destruction among our enemies and achieve the results the flames never could.

The Excluded Middle

The Constitution of the United States is such a fundamental and influential document that it is completely understandable that it would be the center of attention and controversy with respect to the nature of what we believe to be true and significant as a people. As such, the Constitution is subject to a scrutiny that suggests that its propositions and proscriptions are open to interpretation.

Over the last two centuries, there has arisen a concept of political ideology that appears to dispose itself along a spectrum from extreme to extreme – extreme right (facism) to extreme left (communism). Well meaning people from both “extremes” have attempted to make their case for the truth of their position. The so-called “moderate” individual might “split the difference”, and find a middle position that seems to be reasonable and truthful at the same time.

Thus, a common response to the daily back and forth of views on the left and the right is to think that the “Truth” lies somewhere in the “reasonable” middle; the centrist viewpoint. Such a position is considered unassailable and more than likely where the real answers to problems lie. That mode of thinking may pass the test of political correctness, but it doesn’t pass the test of philosophical scrutiny.
The Truth lies where it is – objectively – regardless of where we are positioned on the spectrum of political or ideological views. I’m reminded of the concept of statistical sampling: The mean of the population is a parameter one can never know exactly, but it is “true”. We take a random sample of that population and derive the statistic, the sample mean, which is an estimate of the “true” population mean. From there we can build a 95% confidence interval for the location of this true value. But this interval may or may not enclose the true population parameter. All this tells us is that if we were to construct 100 intervals from 100 random samples, that 95 of them would enclose the “true” population mean. It’s possible (with a 5% chance) that we’re wrong.

Therefore a search for Truth should not be driven to the center from the “extremes”; it should be undertaken objectively, without regard for what society deems far right or left. The Founders, in their wisdom, created a document that attempted to derive a basic set of laws for the nation based on the objectively true principles of liberty and justice as authored by God. But, since it is a creature of man, the Constitution is not perfect. So it allows for amendment. Even the Declaration suggests that a free people reserve the right to overthrow a government destructive of those basic God given rights and start over.
The notion of a “living” Constitution suggests to me that it is possible to ascribe more or less (or different) power and authority to the words of the document based on the exigencies of a particular societal problem. To return to my statistics analogy, this is like constructing a 100% confidence interval: we fit the “Truth” to a space between the extremes we have settled on. The problem with this is that there is no such thing as a 100% confidence interval (unless, of course, your “sample” is the entire population, in which case you would *know* the truth because you had perfect information).

Truth exists. It may actually lie outside the boundaries with which human beings have constrained it. The truly virtuous person will pursue it wherever it may lead, and will not be constrained by boundaries imposed by a fickle society.

Is Denmark so Bad?

The other day I caught a portion of a story on NPR’s “All Things Considered” about tax rates in Denmark. It seems that every year there is a report issued that lists every country in decreasing order of tax rates, and apparently Denmark tops the list year after year as the nation with the highest tax rates.

I didn’t quite catch the percentage of income taxation, but the NPR story did point out that there is a 25% value added tax on all goods and services, and a 200% tax on new automobile purchases! Yes, you heard correctly. To buy a vehicle worth $20,000, a Dane would have to shell out $60,000! I suspect that most of what one earns in Denmark is paid to the government through either income taxes or VAT.

You might expect the Danish government to provide ample benefits and social services for this high rate of taxation, and you’d be right. In addition to free, universal health care, there is a retirement entitlement, and unemployment benefits are paid for up to four years. Most of the people interviewed for the NPR story were actually very happy to pay these high taxes because of all the benefits they received.

A Danish economist and university professor was interviewed who said that, on the whole, the Danish system of social welfare allows employers to be very agile in terms of hiring and firing. Employees can be let go (and rehired) very easily, but with generous unemployment benefits, they usually don’t worry about income. The only downside he suggested was that, “Some people will take the opportunity to stay unemployed because they're paid to stay unemployed”, leading to slower economic growth.

Having lived in Europe on three occasions, I really appreciate the orderliness and security one experiences there. You go to any café in Europe and you can expect a relatively high level of service. Roads and streets are well built and well maintained. Houses are constructed to last hundreds of years. The standard of living seems to be uniformly high.

So, did we get it wrong in the USA? Has Denmark in particular and Europe in general figured out the secret of the ideal utopian lifestyle?

Somehow, though I will be the first to admire all Europe has to offer, I don’t think their economic wonderland can last. In the years immediately following World War II, the Germans, and indeed all of Western Europe, worked feverishly to rebuild their devastated nations. Within only a decade or two, Western European countries had returned to a standard of living nearly on a par with that of the United States. Europeans, particularly the West Germans, worked very hard and productively, building an enviable economy and high living standards for her citizens. When I was first stationed in Germany in 1980, virtually no Germans used credit cards. But in the last three decades, the European worker through the agendas of social democracy, has seen his work week reduced to 35 hours, his vacation increased to more than six weeks per year (in addition to Christmas holiday break) and has acquired numerous other social benefits. Increasingly, Europeans want both the benefits of the welfare state and the income to choose a consumerist lifestyle – buying on credit, having the latest gadgets, better cars, etc.

You can’t have it both ways.

Ultimately, government cannot directly contribute to the growth of an economy. Only business activity can do that. Governments can only redistribute wealth, they cannot create it. To be sure, governmental policies can create an economic environment conducive to the creation of wealth, but they cannot by themselves “grow the pie” larger.

So, should we in the USA emulate the European style of social democracy? It is certainly tempting. However, it’s important to realize that the United States is orders of magnitude larger than Denmark, or even Germany, in terms of population and size of the economy. What might work for delivering services for taxes paid in Denmark would be utterly unworkable in the US. Our Constitution is structured in such a way that it only proscribes limited functions to the Federal government, and reserves the remainder to the States and the people. This suggests that our citizens would be better served if Federal taxation were minimized, with social services primarily provided at the State and local level, where there is more of a direct relationship between the people and the government.

I’m willing to be proved wrong, but I think that the best balance between government and the private sector in providing needed services is to default to minimum essential governmental services, particularly at the Federal level. This gives maximum freedom to individuals to choose their own destiny. It tends to foster a robust and resilient economy where localities are free to choose the degree to which they are taxed and receive local government benefits.

Ultimately, I believe that welfare states tend to stifle the individual initiative and innovation necessary for lasting economic development and the growth of living standards. It may be only a matter of time, but I think that the trend in Europe toward increasing reliance on the benevolence of the state will result in an ultimately unsustainable system in danger of collapse. My hope is that if and when that collapse comes, it will not be catastrophic.

My Movie "Pitch"

For years, “Ben Hur” was my favorite movie of all time.  I was too young to have seen it in the movie theater, but every year one of the broadcast networks would show it on TV around Easter.  So I’d sit on the floor of my parents’ bedroom where the portable black and white television was, and allow myself to be caught up in the grandeur of Rome and the powerful story of the triumph of love and forgiveness over hate.   I never failed to cry at the end when the powerful Miklos Rosza score swelled as Judah Ben Hur gazed upon the clear, healed faces of his mother and sister, who had been miraculously cured of leprosy following Christ’s crucifixion. 

I love big blockbusters.  Having been a fan of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy since I was a kid, I was overjoyed that it was brought to the screen so magically and yet still stayed faithful to the story.   I was spellbound by the recreation of ancient Rome in “Gladiator”.  But it’s the religious epic that has always captured my imagination.  I can still remember Victor Mature as the Greek slave Demetrius in “The Robe”, or “Demetrius and the Gladiators”. 

There have been dozens of movies about the life of Christ, some highly fictionalized and others more faithful to the Gospels.  Cecil B. DeMille gave us the life of Moses in “The Ten Commandments”, there was “Brother Sun, Sister Moon”, about the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.  And there have always been the numerous “sword and sandal” flicks about ancient Rome or Greece.

But I don’t recall a movie ever having been made about the fascinating and intersecting lives of the two greatest Christian Apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Paul.  So, here is my “pitch” for just such a motion picture.

The basis for the movie would be the Biblical book, “The Acts of the Apostles”, which takes up where the Gospel of Luke leaves off with the ascension of Jesus into Heaven.  It records the birth of the Church at Pentecost, and follows the lives and ministries of Peter, James and the other Apostles during the earliest days of Christianity.  It records the dramatic conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus and the beginning of his missionary journeys as Paul.

The movie would also weave into the narrative the “back story” behind many of the letters Paul and Peter wrote to the churches scattered throughout the ancient world.

But most significantly, it would illuminate (in a fictionalized way, of course) the tension between Peter and Paul.  Both were Jews, but Paul clearly saw his mission as being the apostle to the Gentiles, whereas Peter, at least initially, still believed in the centrality of keeping the ancient Jewish Law as vital to the life of the church.  I think this tension would make for a very compelling story, and the fact that Peter eventually had a vision in which it became clear to him that the good news of the Gospel of salvation was for all people, suggests a resolution of that tension in the sovereignty of God’s will for the church.

I tried to search for a book that might form the basis for a screen play for my movie (working title, “Apostle”) but the closest I could find was Taylor Caldwell’s classic 1974 bestselling novel, “Great Lion of God”, a fictionalized account of the life of Paul.  There is also a new non-fiction book about the tension between Peter and Paul entitled, “St. Paul vs. St. Peter”, by Michael Goulder.  It has received pretty good reviews, and could serve to provide some background material for a screenplay.

As for actors who would play the starring roles of Peter and Paul, I have no idea!  Certainly not Tom Cruise or George Clooney!  Maybe it would be better to hire relatively unknown actors so people can really focus on the beauty of the story.

So there you have my “pitch” for a big, religious blockbuster about the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul.  It would be better, I’m sure, if I already had written a screenplay and was trying to persuade a movie studio to produce a film from it.  But this is the blogosphere, and maybe someone out there reading this might take on this project.  I certainly don’t have any financial interest in making this movie – I just want to see it!

Maybe a film like this is already in someone else’s head or is in the works.  If so, I pray that it will bear fruit, and that one day we will see the drama of the early church and her greatest Apostles unfold on the big screen!

Denial of the Truth

The term “denier” is frequently used as a criticism of those who refuse to believe an apparent self-evident truth or fact.  I think it first came into vogue when it was applied to Islamists and ultra-right wing neo-nazis who claimed that the Jewish holocaust of WWII was a fabrication.  The evidence of history is clearly on the side of the truth claim that the genocidal extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime did, in fact, take place.  But in recent years, the derisive term “denier” has been applied to anyone who is the least bit skeptical of the degree to which human activity is primarily responsible for global warming, or even if global warming is taking place.  It’s disturbing to me that this would be the case, given that the body of evidence purporting to undergird the “truth” of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is still very much open to debate.

In fact, those who accuse AGW skeptics of being “global warming deniers” argue that the “debate is over”; that it is now time for radical action.  What’s disturbing about this is that this is not how science is supposed to work.  As an illustration, imagine there are 1000 reputable climate scientists in the world.  If 600 of them are convinced of AGW and the remaining 400 are not, does that mean AGW is a fact?  What if the ratio was 800 to 200?  Does a so-called consensus have to be reached in order to arrive at scientific truth?  Fortunately, science has never worked this way!  If it had, we would still believe the earth was the center of the solar system and that all the matter in the universe had always existed (no big bang)!  Very often, the most profound scientific revolutions come about because of the work of lone scientists working in fields sometimes outside of those in which the discovery is made (see the book by Thomas Kuhn, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”).

Most of the time, the advancement of knowledge through the operation of the scientific method does not engender controversy.  But the current state of global warming alarmism leads me to believe that science is being co-opted by political and social agendas.  I will be blunt:  I strongly believe that leftist, eco-socialists have been promoting AGW as a “hook” to advance a radical environmentalist agenda that is fundamentally anti-capitalist and anti-free market (it has to be man-made global warming or else their agenda doesn’t work).  This agenda seeks to weaken industrialized nations, particularly the United States, and uses the manufactured world cataclysm of the hypothesized effects of global warming (rising sea levels, droughts, etc.) to shake down the “rich” nations and force the transfer of wealth directly to underdeveloped countries.  That this is clearly a political and not a scientific issue is borne out by the fact that opinion on the existence and/or the severity of global warming (particularly AGW) is divided along political lines.  Liberals in congress tend to support AGW and conservatives do not.  It is also evident in the money trail:  grants by governments to scientists to produce evidence of AGW.
 
The academic community is also clearly, and bitterly, divided over this issue.  Here is an excerpt from an open
letter by Dr. Petr Chylek, a leading climate scientist, to the top 100 climate scientists in the world (including Phil Jones, head of the East Anglian University Climate Research Unit whose emails were leaked to the world recently) in which he argues for a return to academic integrity in climate research:

“For me, science is the search for truth, the never-ending path towards finding out how things are arranged in this world so that they can work as they do. That search is never finished.

It seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science. They have substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view. It seems that some of the most prominent leaders of the climate research community, like prophets of Old Israel, believed that they could see the future of humankind and that the only remaining task was to convince or force all others to accept and follow. They have almost succeeded in that effort.

Yes, there have been cases of misbehavior and direct fraud committed by scientists in other fields: physics, medicine, and biology to name a few. However, it was misbehavior of individuals, not of a considerable part of the scientific community.

… To blame the current warming on humans, there was a perceived need to “prove” that the current global average temperature is higher than it was at any other time in recent history (the last few thousand years). This task is one of the main topics of the released CRU emails. Some people were so eager to prove this point that it became more important than scientific integrity.

The next step was to show that this “unprecedented high current temperature” has to be a result of the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. The fact that the Atmosphere Ocean General Circulation Models are not able to explain the post-1970 temperature increase by natural forcing was interpreted as proof that it was caused by humans. It is more logical to admit that the models are not yet good enough to capture natural climate variability (how much or how little do we understand aerosol and clouds, and ocean circulation?), even though we can all agree that part of the observed post-1970 warming is due to the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Thus, two of the three pillars of the global warming and carbon dioxide paradigm are open to reinvestigation.

The damage has been done. The public trust in climate science has been eroded. At least a part of the IPCC 2007 report has been put in question. We cannot blame it on a few irresponsible individuals. The entire esteemed climate research community has to take responsibility. Yes, there always will be a few deniers and obstructionists.

So what comes next? Let us stop making unjustified claims and exaggerated projections about the future even if the editors of some eminent journals are just waiting to publish them. Let us admit that our understanding of the climate is less perfect than we have tried to make the public believe. Let us drastically modify or temporarily discontinue the IPCC. Let us get back to work.

Let us encourage students to think their own thoughts instead of forcing them to parrot the IPCC conclusions. Let us open the doors of universities, of NCAR, NASA and other research institutions (and funding agencies) to faculty members and researchers who might disagree with the current paradigm of carbon dioxide. Only open discussion and intense searching of all possibilities will let us regain the public’s trust and move forward.”

It is very distressing to me that world leaders are so convinced of this so-called “truth” of AGW that they are willing to destabilize their own economies trying to “reverse” the effects of something that, to all intents and purposes, is a complete and total scam.  Radical policy decisions will be made on the basis of a corrupted scientific process in which researchers of good faith are derided and ostracized for reaching conclusions at variance with the prevailing “correct” ones.

Hopefully, decades from now, we will look back and see that the real truth was that the world climate was never in danger of an apocalyptic rise in temperatures.  What will more likely occur, however, will be a revisionist historical view that vindicates the draconian measures currently being taken by the industrialized world to reduce “pollutants” like CO2 as having “done the trick” in saving the world from global warming.  If that is the case, science is doomed to be the slave of politics.

Projection

The older I get, the more I am convinced of the truth that we tend to project onto others those faults and foibles we ourselves struggle with.  There is a liberal columnist whose syndicated column appears in my local paper a couple of times each week.  I disagree with him on virtually every topic, but what really galls me is his self-righteous, finger-wagging attitude.  In every one of his columns he climbs on his high horse and acts as if he is the sole possessor of the moral high ground.

Why does this bother me so much?  Why should I even care?

I think it’s because, as much as I hate to admit it, he and I are probably very much alike.  As a Christian, I understand that both of us share humanity’s fallen nature – we are all sinners.  But it’s deeper than that.  Why do I sense pride and self-righteous egotism oozing from his writing?  Like most liberals, he writes passionately about social justice issues, particularly race.  I’m sure many of his readers admire this passion and concern, whether they completely agree with him or not.  Perhaps the reason I get so incensed when I read his columns is because where others see passion and concern, I see moral superiority, and there’s no way I’m going to let someone with the “incorrect” positions on the issues get away with acting as if he is morally superior to me!
 

But , if I’m honest, I’d have to admit that I’m no different than him.

My natural tendency is to bristle at and criticize people who act as though they are superior (in other words people who tend to bristle at and criticize others!).  If I were a man of true humility, I would be more concerned with getting the log out of my own eye before trying to point out specks in the eyes of others.  But there is a little policeman inside of me that sees it as his duty to “call out” those who don’t follow the rules and who behave as though the rules don’t apply to them.  Here’s how idiotic it can get:  on my drive home from work, I often take the carpool lane (because I carpool), but I am keenly aware of single drivers who try to “get away with” driving in the carpool lane.  So what do I do?  If I see a “single ship” driver coming up behind me in the carpool lane I will slow down to match the rest of the traffic.  I do this intentionally to frustrate him, but more importantly, to make sure he knows that I know that he is a jerk and a lawbreaker!

Again, I have to ask myself the question, “why is this so important to me?”  Why is it important that I be right?  Why do I chafe at the notion that there is someone who thinks they are “better” than me?

The answer is that I am a sinner who does not rightly acknowledge the dominion and authority of the Most High God.  I have often identified with the psalmist when he says, “I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked… they are not stricken like the rest of mankind… pride is their necklace… their hearts overflow with follies”  (Psalm 73).  He even goes on to say, “in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence”.  Yet the author of Psalm 73 also goes on to say, “when my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you”.  In other words, my indignation is nothing more than envy of those whom God alone can and will judge.  God’s Holy Spirit “pricks my heart” and causes me to realize my sin.  That God in His mercy would discipline me to be aware of my own pride and sinfulness is truly a blessing!

In one sense I am no different than my antagonist columnist.  Yet, by God’s grace, I can become more aware of my own failings, and instead of driving me into bitterness and anger, He will turn my heart to repentance and an acknowledgment of His sovereign goodness.  I will still struggle with pride and arrogance, but I know the victory has already been won. 

It is only God’s grace that differentiates me from my antagonist; nothing inherent in my own self-righteousness.  I pray God may deal as mercifully with him as He has with me!

The Danger of Authority Without Responsibility

Bureaucracies are strange things. Once created, they tend to perpetuate themselves and often grow into large, unwieldy corporate entities that take on a life of their own. I happen to work for one of the world’s largest and most notorious bureaucracies, the Federal Government of the United States. Specifically, I work for the Department of Defense, perhaps the largest bureaucracy within the US government. In my more cynical moments, when people ask me what I do for a living, I’ll tell them that I am a bureaucrat.

In almost thirty years of working directly for the DoD, either in uniform or as a civilian, I have come to the conclusion that the US military bureaucracy is too large, too top-heavy, and has developed a pathological culture of risk aversion, obstructionism, and excessive consensus-building. This has created a situation, devastating to organizations in general, in which most low- and mid-level bureaucrats are given responsibility with little or no authority, and most high-level bureaucrats (generals, admirals and senior civilians) have a great deal of authority and little, if any real responsibility. Such a situation directly violates one of the most basic tenets of leadership, which is that one should be given authority commensurate with one’s responsibility.

How did we get to this point? Put simply, there are too many people at the top with not enough real responsibility; so they have to create it. According to author Richard A. Gabriel, “Since Vietnam, the percentage of officers has fallen to 11 percent of total force strength. Curiously, however, as the number of officers relative to enlisted strength has declined since the war in Vietnam, the ratio of general officers to troop strength has increased by 31 percent. The Army has more general officers relative to the number of troops it can put in the field than it did during Vietnam. And the same is true of the Navy and the Air Force as well”. Since not every general or admiral is in the field commanding troops, what are they doing? They are in charge of large staff sections in the Pentagon or one of the several regional or functional commands around the world. Often, they are deputies or special assistants to higher ranking flag officers or senior civilians at the assistant or under-secretary level.

Here then, is the situation: you have a surfeit of ambitious, high ranking officers filling positions, many of which are of questionable value-added to the mission of the US military. Because they are flag officers, they possess a great deal of power and influence. Because they are ambitious, they frequently create an entire small fiefdom around themselves, dedicated to the advancement of a particular political, programmatic or policy agenda which will lead to their own promotion to the next higher rank. Thus, because this tendency is pervasive across the military establishment, a huge amount of work is generated by these individuals. Their staffs churn out hundreds of Power Point briefings, position papers, information papers, studies and analyses, most of which will become “shelf ware”. The low- to mid-level bureaucrats who prepare all of this material work extremely hard and are very diligent. Yet they often have little, if any, sense of the significance of their labor. They are rarely given any authority to speak for, or make decisions on behalf of, their organizations.

All this creates a culture of risk aversion. No one wants to fail or be seen to be incompetent. So incompetence and failure among senior officers is masked and diluted by the sheer number of senior officers and the creation of elaborate “governance” structures consisting of boards, steering groups and other “consensus building” bodies of which they are members. Thus, no one individual can be blamed for making a poor decision. Of course, these boards and steering groups require secretariat staffs to prepare all the briefing materials and coordinate the agenda – more activity leading to more shelf ware.

This practice of consensus building as a means to insure oneself against criticism has generated a strange practice called Joint Staff Action Plan (JSAP) staffing. Let’s say my office within the Joint Staff is the proponent for security assistance training, and my general wants to write a new security assistance policy for the military. A draft of this document must be circulated to every office in the Pentagon, every major joint command and every DoD Agency for comment. This is usually done three times: at the “action officer” (bureaucrat) level, the Colonel (Navy Captain) level, and the Flag Officer/General Officer level. Any comments considered “critical” must be successfully adjudicated with the commenting organization. Such a process stifles creativity and innovation, discourages risk taking, and tends to result in outcomes that give the appearance of progress, but in reality simply “kick the can down the road” and perpetuate the status quo.

Congress is the only organization in the Federal government authorized to establish the size and makeup of the US military. Legislation should be introduced and passed that will fix a target ratio of senior officers and civilians in the DoD at a level far lower than today. This target can be achieved through the gradual attrition of senior officers through the normal retirement process. Congress should also hold hearings to determine the necessity of the continued existence of non-warfighting commands and staffs, both at the Service and Joint levels.

The history of successful militaries, from the Roman legions to the German general staff in WWII, to the Israeli army, has shown that the most effective and efficient fighting forces can be fielded with a relatively few, key experienced and talented senior leaders. And we should never forget that the mission of the US military is to win our nation’s wars, not to provide a career path for high level bureaucrats.

Constitutional Government is Small Government

I carry around with me a little copy of the Constitution of the United States. It’s easy to do, since it’s a very small document. Even with all of the amendments, a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution (along with the Declaration of Independence) is only about sixty pages in length. It is the supreme law of the land, and contains within its various articles the framework and specified powers for the Federal government of this country. The reason this document is so small is because there are actually very few powers specifically given to the national government. For example, Article I, Section 8 lays out the powers of the Congress. They are limited to: taxation, providing for the common defense (raising an Army and Navy) and declaring war, regulating commerce with foreign nations, establishing naturalization laws, coining (and borrowing) money, establishing post offices and post roads, granting patents, and other various duties such as protecting the nation from piracy and calling up the militia. The tenth amendment states in its entirety, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”.

Why then, do we have a Federal government involved in every aspect of our daily life, from education, to health care, to dictating to private corporations? It’s a very long story, but we now live in a country where the unbridled power of the Federal government overshadows every aspect of government. Is this what the founders of our nation envisioned? We have become so used to the influence of Washington in our everyday lives that we take it for granted. But the Constitution does not authorize the kind of power our national government has appropriated for itself.

I’ve frequently asked myself what our country would be like if we actually had a Federal government that existed within the proscriptions of the Constitution. Would we be able to function? Wouldn’t many things just not get done? What is the role of the Federal government, the governments of the various States, local municipalities, and the private sector in providing the necessary services we need to have a functional and thriving society? I’ll try to walk through a few examples of areas where both government and the private sector are involved and do a thought experiment about what “small government” might look like.

Transportation. We have a system of Federal highways that culminated with the Interstate highway system that was essentially completed in the 1960s. Would we have been able to build such a system without Federal tax money or incentives? I suspect that such a system could have been suggested and planned at the Federal level, but the administration of its construction could clearly have been carried out with the States raising the revenue and overseeing the construction. The only real role for the Federal government (according to the Constitution) would be to regulate the commerce those roads carried between the States.

Education. We have a long history and tradition of local schools in this country; public schools financed by local taxes. The role of the Federal government in education of our nation’s youth is nowhere authorized in the Constitution. Unfortunately, the selective granting of Federal money to States and localities to support education has encouraged them to depend on the Federal government and look to it for revenue. It also makes it much easier for the Federal government to dictate to the States in areas of regulation of schools.

Social Welfare. It began with the passage of the Social Security act in the 1930s, but has grown to include Medicare, Medicaid, and Aid to Families With Dependent Children, commonly known as “welfare”. What was viewed initially as a step toward providing a minimum level of financial security to those unable to work either through old age or disability has become a huge system of Federal taxes that find their way into the general revenue fund and have not kept pace with the changing demographics of the nation. It can be argued that welfare programs have actually encouraged the breakup of families, when women are compensated by the Federal government for raising children out of wedlock. The current push to “reform” health care by setting up a so-called “public” insurance option and then mandating that all Americans purchase it or be guilty of breaking the law will only exacerbate the problem, raising Federal taxes and further limiting the ability of the States and the private sector to provide a vital marketplace for medical treatment and catastrophic medical insurance coverage.

The only constitutionally authorized Federal agency still providing services is the U.S. Postal Service. But do we even need a Federal Post Office? Why can’t FedEx, UPS, or any number of other private delivery companies bid on regional postal contracts for the delivery of mail? Could we eliminate the Department of Education? What would be the effect on our schools? I suspect it would not be negative. One might argue that there are Federal agencies, the elimination of which could be detrimental to the welfare and safety of the nation. The Federal Aviation Administration comes to mind. But I think it is a worthwhile exercise to systematically work one’s way through the Federal bureaucracy and analyze the degree to which an agency’s function is either 1) necessary, 2) could be performed by a State or municipal government, or 3) could be addressed through free market competition in the private sector. At the very least, such an analysis must be performed before rushing to the conclusion that every perceived problem must be solved through Federal legislation and the subsequent establishment of another Federal agency.

The size of our Federal government is largely our own fault. Part of the problem is that we continue to elect representatives to Congress whom we reward with reelection when they bring Federal dollars to their home districts. This is classic “pork barrel politics”, and it does nothing except make the problem worse. Until we begin to disassociate Federal representation with Federal largesse, government will continue to grow. A Constitutional amendment limiting terms of Federal representatives and Senators would go a long way toward relocating governmental power in the United States to where it primarily belongs: to the States and the People.

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Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced a bill in the Senate calling for the constitutional amendment described above.

A Proposal for Improving Traffic Flow and Highway Safety

In my post from October 18^th, I promised that in a future posting I would share some ideas I have about solutions to traffic congestion that might make you chuckle. Well, today is that day. In that post, I suggested that it might be possible to improve the capacity of highways through means other than simply adding more roads or widening existing ones. The way to do this was to address the two components of traffic flow, namely traffic density and average velocity. The previous article dealt with the issue of traffic density. Today, I’d like to discuss the speed component, and how we might be able to use technology to improve traffic flow.

Let’s say it’s a bright, sunny morning; there are very few cars on the road. You seem to have the whole road to yourself. How do you decide how fast to drive? If the posted speed limit is 65, you might figure you could get away with setting your cruise control at about 72 and be relatively safe from the State Patrol. You feel that you are driving safely: the road is dry, visibility is good, and there is little traffic. In fact, you might be able to drive for miles without even changing lanes.

Now let’s change the scenario: It’s still dry and sunny, and you’re still able to drive at 72 mph, but now the road is crowded with other vehicles, all moving at about the same speed. The highway is reaching its theoretical maximum capacity, which is that moment just before the density reaches the point at which cars are so close to one another that the slightest decrease in the speed of one car will result in a massive compression wave traveling backwards through traffic until the average velocity plummets to near zero. Here’s my question: What causes that one car to slow down so suddenly? It seems to me that if we were able to minimize such sudden decreases in speed of individual vehicles, we might be able to maintain a higher average traffic velocity and therefore a more efficient use of the existing roadway capacity.

So, here is my hypothesis: If we are able to reduce the number of lane changes of individual drivers, there will be fewer instances of other drivers having to brake to avoid colliding with these drivers cutting in an out of traffic. The reduced instances of braking will generate a smoother flow of traffic , resulting in higher traffic flow and fewer accidents. Stated another way, to the extent drivers keep to the same lane, overall traffic velocity will remain high enough to maintain an efficient traffic flow. Assuming this hypothesis is true, I believe the technology is available today to provide a solution.

Why do drivers change lanes? There really is only one reason: to overtake other drivers. Why would someone want to do that? There may be a number of irrational reasons (competition, a sense of superiority, etc.) and I’m certainly not qualified to go into the psychology of driving behavior. But the rational reason is simply that most drivers want to be able to travel at the speed they choose. If my “chosen” speed is 72 in a 65 mph zone, and the traffic is moving at 58, I will continue to change lanes to “get ahead” of slower drivers until I reach a point where I can drive, unhindered, at 72. Realistically, of course, this never happens if the traffic is very dense. Aggressive drivers who are constantly changing lanes never really manage to get to their destinations much more quickly than they would have if they had “gone with the flow”. But in the process, they create disruptions in the traffic flow that increase the likelihood of collisions and force other drivers to react to their behavior by making sudden braking or steering maneuvers.

Intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies may be useful in gradually curbing excessive lane changing. Consider a stretch of interstate highway, slightly modified so that there are magnetic sensors placed at regular intervals along the lane markers. When a car makes a lane change and moves over one or more of these sensors, an on-board computer records the lane change; keeping a running total. The computer then calculates the number of lane changes per mile traveled. At the end of the year, during the car's annual safety inspection, the data in the computer are downloaded and sent to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The lane-change per mile factor for that vehicle is then compared against values derived from a historical database of driving patterns. Excessive lane changers might be assessed a monetary fine or awarded negative driving points based on the past year's data. Gradually, either driver behavior will improve or such drivers will lose their licenses and be taken off the road.

The ITS-based solution I propose gets to the heart of the speed enforcement problem: Vehicle speed by itself is not the issue; it is speed relative to other vehicles. If I am a law enforcement officer, I am more concerned about the aggressive driver weaving in and out of traffic than the lone driver on a remote highway in Montana or Nevada who is driving above the speed limit.

For those who may be concerned that this proposal violates civil liberties or privacy, I will only offer that the license to drive a motor vehicle on public highways is a privilege granted by the state, not an absolute right. The state has a compelling interest in protecting its citizens and providing a safe driving environment for its licensed drivers. Collecting such data from a vehicle’s computer is no different than the collection of GPS location data by trucking companies of their drivers’ whereabouts. It is in the company’s interest to ensure its drivers stay on the route and are on time, and the acknowledgment of this data collection is a condition of employment.

We have reached a point in the development and management of our national highway system where we have to begin thinking creatively about solutions to traffic congestion and safety problems. If state departments of transportation knew it was possible to increase the traffic flow volume on a stretch of interstate highway without adding another lane, wouldn’t it be worth pursuing simply from a cost standpoint? If highway safety officials knew it was possible to reduce the number of accidents per highway mile and ease the jagged nerves of commuters at the same time through the use of ITS, wouldn't it make sense to investigate? The answer to both these questions is yes; and it will take real vision and bold action at the state and federal level if society is to get the most benefit from ITS.

National Security and Energy Independence

The term, “national security” has come to be synonymous with national defense. But given the geography of the United States, it’s unlikely we would ever need to use our defense forces to secure the homeland from an invading army. National security really has more to do with the protection of those critical infrastructures the loss or degradation of which would place the country in a position of economic and military vulnerability. These infrastructures include:

• Banking and Finance: The nation’s banking system and securities exchanges as well as the public confidence in this system
• Transportation: Road, rail and waterway networks, airports and seaports
• Power: Electrical power generation, transformation and distribution, pipelines for natural gas and oil
• Public Works: Reservoirs, aqueducts, wastewater treatment plants and drainage systems
• Communication: Radio and television networks, satellite networks, computer networks, the internet

Of these critical infrastructures, I would argue that power, or energy production and distribution, is the most sensitive to disruption; not just from physical attack, but because the very sources of energy we rely upon are largely imported from politically and socially unstable regions of the world. For this reason, I believe the United States’ national security is increasingly tied to its energy security.

In the pre-industrial age – before the rise of steam power, gasoline engines and electricity, communities and entire societies were based on an agricultural foundation. Fuel was primarily associated with wood for cooking and heating fires and to generate heat for basic ore smelting and metalworking. This fact of history was brought home to me when we lived in England during the 1980s. The rolling green countryside of central England had once been covered in dense, deciduous forest. By the 20^th century, after thousands of years of human habitation, most of these vast forests had disappeared; the trees having been cleared for farming and grazing land, and subsequently used for fuel and building material.

Today, in a post-industrial world, all the technologies we rely upon for everything from food to shelter to transportation, depend on energy. Securing stable sources of energy has now become a key objective of our national security strategy. Despite all the technological advances in the last century, our primary sources of energy in this country remain fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), as a result of a combination of declining oil production and increasing demand, net US imports of oil and petroleum products increased by 400% from 3.16 million barrels per day in 1970 to 12.04 million barrels per day in 2007. The largest net suppliers of oil and petroleum products to the US are Canada and Mexico, which supply about 30% of the US daily oil demand. Another 28% of this demand is supplied by other countries, including OPEC nations such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. This means that the US domestic production supplies only about 42% of our own oil demand.

According to the EIA, about 86% of the coal mined in the US is used for the production of electricity. Coal plants account for 52% of the electricity generated in the United States. Unlike oil, the US is actually a net exporter of coal, so the situation is not nearly as dire. Coal reserves are estimated to be sufficient to last for hundreds of years at current rates of consumption.

The only other existing source of energy for the production of electricity (other than hydroelectric power) is nuclear energy, which provides 19% of the electric power in the US. Nuclear power, while a relatively untapped source of clean energy (nuclear energy comprises only 14% of the world’s electricity production), spent nuclear fuel is highly radioactive and extremely hazardous. Transport and long term storage of nuclear waste is fraught with controversy.

But the point of this article is that US energy supplies are a critical strategic vulnerability for the future security of the country. We know that fossil fuels will become increasingly more expensive to extract, and will eventually be depleted altogether. No new petroleum refineries have been built in the United States for decades, and the existing refineries are operating at near peak capacity. Nuclear energy is unpopular, highly regulated and as a result, new reactors are slow to come on line.

The solution is energy independence. To the degree we can become free of dependence on external sources of fuel we also free ourselves from the threat of being held captive by petroleum supplying nations or cartels who clearly could care less about the economic well being of the United States. Those who are old enough to remember the days of the OPEC oil embargo in the early 1970s realize the potential devastation that might be wreaked on this nation in the event of a major disruption in oil supplies. And that embargo occurred at the point of America’s peak domestic oil production! We have since become embarrassingly dependent on oil imports to fuel our economy.

This need for secure, stable and environmentally friendly sources of energy is so vital to our national security that this country should invest in a national research and development program on the scale of the Apollo project of the 1960s. Such a program’s goal would be nothing less than the invention and development of next generation energy technology, whether that be nuclear fusion, electrical storage technology (batteries) or significant advances in solar, or other sources of renewable energy supply. In the meantime, all efforts should be made to exploit the reserves of oil, coal and natural gas that exist within our borders, whether they are in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or off our nation’s coasts.

The technology for extracting fossil fuels with a minimum of environmental disruption exists today. Contrary to the assertions of environmental lobbies, this is not an “either/or” situation. It is possible to shift the production of energy back to a domestic basis while at the same time driving toward the next generation solution. As a nation, we should accept that the goal of achieving independence from fossil fuels will involve a period in which we simultaneously cushion ourselves from disruptions in external sources of supply while we wean ourselves from oil. This cushion is necessary. Neither should we hamstring ourselves with the needless burden of cap and trade regulations, the outgrowth of a completely fabricated global climate “emergency”.

Those critics of President Bush, who accused him of waging a “war for oil” may not have been that far off the mark. The middle east would likely not be such a strategically significant part of the world for America were it not for the fact that is currently in our national interest to ensure middle east oil supplies continue to remain on the open market. That’s a reality we must live with. Imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have to.

The Economics of Traffic Congestion

Like most people who must commute to work, I am forced daily to think about the perpetual problem of traffic congestion. It may seem like a pretty mundane thing to write about. It’s not really controversial; nobody likes being stuck in a traffic jam. But attempts to solve traffic problems can be very controversial. For example, if a solution involves building more roads or widening existing ones, there are issues of how to pay for the construction. Should state or local taxes be increased? Should a revenue bond be issued to raise the money? Should new residential development be restricted? I’d like to spend a little time thinking about the basics of the problem before moving to proposing solutions.

On the surface, the problem of traffic congestion really seems like a straightforward one: too many cars trying to use a limited road network. But the causes of traffic congestion are many and varied, so any potential solutions will not be simple ones. I propose that, fundamentally, traffic congestion is a function of economics; that is, the choices we make regarding our desired outcome (a smooth and easy commute) and the costs of our choices, whether those costs be monetary, or in the frustration we experience when we are delayed in reaching our destination due to a traffic jam.

When designing highways, traffic engineers are trying to maximize the flow of traffic. That is, they are trying to design a system that will allow the movement of the largest volume of vehicles as rapidly as possible. This flow is the product of traffic density (the number of vehicles that can fit in a linear stretch of roadway) and the average velocity of the traffic. There is a theoretical maximum flow a highway can accommodate. You’ve probably experienced this when you’ve been in a very fast moving flow of very dense traffic. This can be a dangerous time because the least perturbation in the flow will cause a car to slow suddenly, causing a wave of brake lights to come on and the average velocity of all the vehicles drops dramatically. This is illustrated in the graph below. Traffic flow increases gradually with traffic density until this magical maximum is reached, at which point the efficiency of the roadway begins to degrade as traffic velocity approaches zero.

In theory, one could achieve a higher traffic flow, but to do this, drivers would have to surrender their autonomy as drivers: each vehicle would be bumper to bumper – almost connected like cars in a train – such that all the vehicles moved as one. This would maximize the traffic density. If all the vehicles moved simultaneously (and didn’t change lanes) very high speeds could be reached and thus traffic flow would increase with no possibility of traffic jams. Of course, that isn’t reality! The whole idea behind the private automobile is the freedom and autonomy of being able to control where you want to go. Optimal traffic flow requires the cooperation of many individual drivers following (hopefully) a standard set of traffic regulations.

The notion of autonomy and control of our cars gets us back to my thesis that traffic congestion is primarily a function of economic choices. If we try to solve the problem of traffic congestion by widening existing roadways or building additional ones, we will simply have increased the opportunity for more vehicles to be on the roads without having done anything to improve the efficiency of the traffic flow (remember that traffic flow is made up of the number of cars on the road and the speed they are traveling). I propose that we first focus on solutions that target these two components of traffic flow. Such solutions would simply do two things: they would reduce the number of vehicles on the road (traffic density) and regulate the traffic velocity. The solutions I am in favor of are also economic solutions, because they involve choices with costs and benefits.

At six AM on a Sunday morning, you will likely have no traffic problems, but at seven AM on Monday morning… needless to say, the time of day and the day of the week has a significant impact on the number of vehicles on the road. Here are several ways this number can be reduced:

• Carpooling – one of the reasons that higher gas prices are not necessarily bad is that it forces commuters to consider choosing the minor inconvenience of sharing a ride with two or three others who are going to the same destination. When gas prices topped $4.00 a gallon a year and a half ago, several of us at work decided to explore a carpool. We were amazed to discover how many of us lived close enough to each other that it made sense to consider. Now, when three of us ride in to work together, we are effectively taking two unnecessary vehicles off the road. The carpool has the added benefit of reducing wear and tear on our vehicles, not to mention the savings in fuel costs.
• Congestion Pricing – Most drivers use the road as if it were a commodity they didn’t have to pay for. We know from basic economics that when you reduce the price of something, the demand for it increases. So if drivers perceive that they are not having to pay for the privilege of using a stretch of highway, they will think nothing of using as much of it as they want. Many localities around the country are now considering imposing tolls or fees on particularly congestion prone segments of highways. These tolls are graduated based on the time of day and day of the week. So the highest tolls would be imposed during morning and evening rush hours, while there might be no toll at all on Sunday. The city of London, England has had great success in using congestion pricing to reduce the number of vehicles coming into the city during weekdays. This is truly an economic decision: it forces drivers to compare the benefit of taking a particular trip to the cost. And before you leap to the conclusion that such congestion pricing amounts to economic discrimination, realize that possessing a driving license is a privilege, not a right. Collecting tolls directly supports the maintenance of roadways, bridges and tunnels, and reduces the tax burden for everyone.
• Mass Transit – Bus and streetcar service is widespread and convenient in Europe. It is not as popular in the US because our larger distances and suburban-style residential development have made the automobile the transportation means of choice for most people. But particularly as fuel prices increase, more and more Americans will be willing to consider public transit as a viable alternative to private cars for routine commuting.

We haven’t even touched on the related topic of urban planning and its effect on traffic volume. This addresses the fundamental reason we need to commute in the first place because it addresses where we live and work, the origin and destination of virtually all commutes. In a future blog posting, I’ll try to get to the second component of traffic flow, which is velocity. There are actually unexplored economic solutions to this part of the problem as well. All that is needed to get some of these ideas “on the table” is a little creativity and a willingness to risk being laughed at. I’ll give you a chance to laugh in a future column!