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Recent & Best of
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Tuesday,
June 30, 2009
Qwest
+ ESBI = Bull
- Most of my bills are paid off automatically - through my credit
card, or with an EFT from my bank. Consequently, I don't pay
real close attention to my bill on a monthly basis. But, I do
sort through them periodically. Recently, I was going through my
phone bills over the last six months. The charge for local
service and internet service runs about $60 a month. So, I was
ticking off the months - $60, $60, $60 - and I got to June's bill -
$75. Hmm. I looked over the bill, and found this on page
3: "Other Companies ESBI ETS Total
Charges $14.95," and a reference to page 5. So, I turned to
page 5 and it shows ESBI as the letterhead instead of Qwest.
Here is what is printed on this page:
The
charges on this portion of your bill are for non-telecommunications
services and products ... This portion of your bill is provided as a
service to ESBI."
I was puzzled, to say the least. I had just signed up for
DirecTV, and wondered whether the phone hookup was related to this
charge. It seemed unlikely that they wouldn't bill me directly
for all of their services. So, I got on-line and did a search on
ESBI (Enhanced Services Billing, Inc., although you wouldn't know that
from the bill nor from their web site!). I was deluged by web sites complaining about this
"service." I found nothing good. Nothing.
I did find a couple of newspaper stories that were superficial in this
regard. But, not one single positive comment about this company
nor about their "non-telecommunications" charges. FYI,
here are some of these sites:
It was too late to talk with a real person at Qwest, so I sent them an
e-mail (for which, I didn't get a reply for seven days!!). Then, based on
comments I read, I called the 800 number for ESBI that was on the
phone bill. The operator claimed that my stepson authorized the
charges. Of course, he didn't have any idea what this was all
about - based on the web complaints, I thought that was probably the
case.
The next day, I did call Qwest and told them of my complaint.
The operator there tried to inform me that they are required to pass
along bills like this and that mostly they are on the up and up.
I think she was just reading through a script and had no idea about
any of this. But, she was persistent about asking me if ESBI was
going to credit my account. I said I wasn't sure, but assumed
so. The Qwest operator decided the prudent thing to do was to
credit me directly. So, three cheers for her. With some
urging on my part, a block was placed on my line for "third party
billing" so this episode should be over. But, here are some
observations:
Third party
charges are obsolete.
The Qwest rep tried to pass this off on the deregulation of AT&T
back in the day. Maybe. Her comment was that this provided
customers a conduit for choosing a different long distance service,
and having this charge showing up on their regular phone bill. I
pointed out that I have a separate long distance service and they
charge me directly. Well, that's the way it is these days.
Besides, nobody can foist third party charges onto my electric bill,
nor my gas bill. So, the "regulated utility" argument
for these charges is silly.
Qwest must
benefit.
While the rep claimed that Qwest had no choice in the matter, it does
say on the bill that it is "provided as a service to
ESBI." And, I bet that ESBI pays for that service.
So, Qwest makes money here, without lifting a finger, and they can
always claim to be innocent in this scam.
Qwest does
benefit.
When I told the rep that I didn't want this to happen again - I have
had this phone line for 20 years and this is the first time a third
party charge has been made - she was reluctant to follow-through with
an offer to block these charges. She said that she "could
see if a block can be placed on this line." See what?
If Qwest was serious about the integrity of its customer service, they
should be willing to put blocks on these charges at the drop of a hat.
Qwest
inconsistent on customer service.
When I logged into my Qwest account, I was informed that I needed to
get a security code, because "Qwest values the privacy of
customer account
information." [It arrived yesterday, before the e-mail reply to
my original complaint!] Odd that they act so concerned about the
security of my account, but turn the other way on these bogus ESBI
charges. Which is it?
ESBI is a sham.
Although the Qwest rep claimed that these charges are usually on the
up and up, and somewhere I saw the claim that ESBI was one of the
larger players in this market, just take a look at their
web site to convince yourself that it is nothing but a sham.
Three pages - home, FAQ and customer service. No contact
information. No history. Only two questions on the FAQ
page and one of them directs the reader to the customer service page,
which is just a form to fill in. Warning!! Don't even
think about filling in the form, unless you want to be snared by their
scam.
ESBI really is a
sham.
When I talked to their operator, I was told that my stepson had
"authorized" this charge. But, the Qwest rep said that
I was the only authorized user of the line. So, how did ESBI
conclude that charging me was legit? Well, I don't think
legitimacy has anything to do with it, so they couldn't care less
about proper authorization. Conceivably, anyone who doesn't like
me could have signed me up for dozens of these phony-baloney services,
even going so far as to claim to be me.
How can ESBI
make money?
It isn't difficult to see how ESBI can profit from this scheme.
Even if they refund and rebate angered customers, I think that only
solves their legal liability. But, they still make money in two
ways - first, from those that don't catch on, and second, from the
temporary holding of money that will be later refunded. Consider
how easily this works . . .
Suppose that ESBI signs up about 65,000
people a month to bogus services, at $15 a pop. [Actually, it is
some other "company" that is doing the signing up; i.e., in
my case it was "Intelicom Messaging."] That will rake
in about $10 million. A month passes, and everyone is
refunded. Meanwhile, ESBI gets to keep $10 million a
month. If this rolls over every month, then this is a perpetual
holding. At an annual interest rate of, say, 5%, they'd make
$500,000 per year just from the temporary holding of this money.
If it usually takes two months to detect this fraud and get a refund,
their annual rake comes to double this amount, $1 million. If it
takes four months, on average, then they get $2 million. I doubt
that ESBI has very high operating cost - after all, look at their web
page! ESBI probably hires out operators from India to deal with
the refund issue, and may well be pocketing 80%, or more, of this
income.
The notion that ESBI is just a scam operation seems clear to me.
With a prompt refund policy, they may be able to keep their heads
above water, legally. But, it is still a scam. Florida
Governor Charlie Crist, when he was the state's Attorney General,
filed a motion
against Intelicom Messaging, and others, for fraudulent
practices. I don't know what became of that. On the other
hand, the FCC has ruled in favor
of ESBI in a complaint lodged against their billing
practices. I don't see how that is possible when, as I noted
earlier, doing a web search on ESBI will yield nothing but negative
comments.
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Saturday,
June 27, 2009
The
Crystal Forest Caves -
Off the west side of Horseshoe Mesa, about four miles down the Grandview
Trail, is a well-traveled route to the "Cave of the
Domes." I don't know where this name comes from, aside from
the obvious description of features in the cave that are small domed
rooms . . . While this
cave is
relatively well-known by regular canyon hikers, there is a group of caves not too far away from the
Domes cave, called Crystal Forest. There are three caves
here, and I don't know if each one is named, so I just refer to all
three as the "Crystal Forest Caves."
For the full story:
The
Crystal Forest Caves of Grandview
in the Hiking Grand Canyon section of the Kaibab Journal
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Saturday,
June 20, 2009
Beck
for Prez?
- As far as I can tell, Glenn
Beck is on a huge upswing
in popularity. I might entertain the notion that it is just
me. That is, because he is more popular with me, does that mean
he is more popular in general? Well, maybe. But, if he's
getting dumped on by Jon Stewart, Stephen
Colbert and the harpies at The View, he must be pushing somebody's
buttons.
I first saw Glenn Beck when he had his show on CNN. When he
showed up on Fox this spring, I was more dogged about catching his
show, and loving just about every minute of it. He is funny,
articulate and appropriately outraged by the nonsense that goes on in
our government.
He is quite the multi-faceted entertainer, and doesn't really seem to
miss a beat in selling himself to his audience. In early June,
he put together a tour covering six cities, including nearby
Phoenix. So, Cara Lynn, Eric and I headed down to the desert on
June 2 for his "Common Sense Comedy Tour." As a comedy
performer, I'd give him a B, but his content makes him a unique and
singular entertainer. And, he is funny.
So, the event was held at the Dodge Theater, where there is a giant
board that displays messages you can send via text. I tried to
do so, but the learning curve was too long for me to get on before the
show started. Still, a couple of the comments were some
variation on the theme, "Glenn Beck for President."
That got me to thinking . . .
One thing that distinguishes conservatives from liberals is that the
former are likely to distain political office. If you want a
smaller government that does less, you probably don't really want to
expend time, energy and effort to be a part of it. I mean,
wouldn't a libertarian basically run on a platform of, "I don't
want to do anything?" On the other hand, if you want
government to be bigger and do more, you might feel compelled to jump
into the fray so that you can help transform society into the image
you'd like.
I think that Glenn Beck might make an excellent president, but his
message belies any such ambition. He extols the virtues of
individualism, freedom and liberty. These tenets tend to work
against the notion that we need a leader to follow. And, it is
difficult to use this tack if you want to build yourself up to be a
leader. It just doesn't work.
Alternatively, consider a liberal. Like President Obama.
He tells us that he can fix the struggling economy. He can
create (or, save) jobs. He can transition us to a green
economy. He can stop global warming. He can stop
pollution. He can solve our health care system. He can . .
. well, he can do everything! That would seem to be the perfect
criteria for "leader."
In another vein, I decided to send a short note to Beck. To wit:
Dear Mr.
Beck,
My family and I recently had the pleasure of seeing your
Common Sense performance in Phoenix, although the 300 miles we
drove, round trip from Flagstaff, meant we returned home in
the early a.m. hours Wednesday! Great stuff!

You have made much of the curtailing of our economic freedoms,
and I couldn’t agree with you more. But, there is the
obvious (or, is it?) fallout from these restrictions, perhaps
best summarized by Milton Friedman in his classic,
“Capitalism and Freedom:”
"On the one hand,
freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of
freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in
itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an
indispensable means toward the achievement of political
freedom." [Chapter 1, page 8, 1982
University of Chicago edition]
When I first read this, many years ago, I was bowled over.
While economic freedom cannot guarantee political freedom, you
cannot have the latter without the former. Isn’t this
a point that you should also be making? Too many people
fail to see the power of Friedman’s argument. For
example, if the government mandates pay levels for private
sector employees, they automatically constrain how well these
individuals can operationalize their rights to free speech.
Or, consider a different example - if the government decides I
cannot get enough gasoline to drive to Phoenix, then I can’t
participate in a Tea Party and my voice is made the weaker, as
a matter of government policy. This insidious result
should frighten us out of our wits!
Indeed, Friedman pulls no punches in this book, as he begins
by critiquing the famous quote from JFK’s inaugural, “Ask
not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for
your country.” Writes Friedman:
"Neither half of
the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his
government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free
society." [Introduction, page 1, 1982
University of Chicago edition]
Perhaps it is time to introduce a new generation of Americans
to the insights of Milton Friedman.
Keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Dennis Foster |
While Milton Friedman passed away in 2006,
many have started to make special arrangements to remember the famed
economist on his birthday. Mark your calendars - the date is
July 31.
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Sunday,
June 14, 2009
Jicarilla
Point Petroglyphs
- I
had been to see the cool petroglyph panels below Jicarilla Point three
times - twice in 1981 and once in 1991. I haven't been able to
track down any photos from my 1981 trips, and I only have a scant dozen
that I took on the trip ten years later. In this digital age, I
have been doing a lot of repeat visits to special places like this,
partly with an eye to compiling a much fuller photographic record.
For the full story:
Jicarilla
Point Petroglyphs
in the Hiking Grand Canyon section of the Kaibab Journal
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Tuesday,
June 9, 2009
The
"Fairness" Dogma
- When I am teaching, I try to impart this little nugget to my
students - "I cannot treat you fairly; I strive to treat you
equally." As an example, I will sometimes talk about a
student whose car breaks down in Phoenix, meaning that they are unable
to return to school in time for an exam. Should I give them a
make-up test? What about the student who decided not to push
their luck, who also went to Phoenix, but returned to school a day
earlier, so that if their car broke down, they'd still have time to
get back to school? Or, what about a student that decided to
forgo a trip to Phoenix the weekend before a major exam? How
would giving a make-up exam be fair to the other students that took
proactive steps to insure that they were here? Well, there is
the rub. The student that missed
the exam argues that it is "unfair" that they are penalized
for missing a test for reasons "beyond their control."
Of course, the point is that we do have control over our actions, and
we must accept the costs of our decisions, even though we have an
incentive to try and shift those costs to someone else.
I do take into consideration serious medical conditions, but even here
it is a bit problematic. Some years ago, a student missed an
exam due to an auto accident that sent him to the hospital with a
fractured skull. Sounds like an easy decision on my part.
But, later I found out that the accident was his fault - he was
driving drunk at the time. So, I wish I could have changed my
decision on that one, but so it goes. Consequently, my policy on
missed exams is pretty simple and straightforward - no make-ups are
offered. Period. And, as a result, attendance for exams in
my classes is pretty much about 98%. So, the point here that I
try to make to my students is that I treat them all equally, which is
not fair. I am not sure that they really get it, but there are
plenty of examples of how government policy changes the rules of the
game and, in the name of "fairness" in fact is an exercise
in the opposite.
Grand Canyon
Hiking Permits.
I was up at the canyon on Sunday, May 31 to stop by the Backcountry
office and pick up a number for a place in line for the next day,
June 1. That is the first day that permits can be obtained for
overnight hikes this coming October, which, of course, is an excellent
time to hike in the canyon. I was at the office at 9:30 a.m. on
Sunday, an hour and a half after they opened. Nobody was in the
lobby, so I got to see a ranger right away, and I got number 71.
So, there must have been quite a few people there at 8:00 a.m.
On Monday, June 1, I was up there again, this time to actually get a
permit for October. I showed up at 9:30 a.m. and the three
rangers manning the office were up to number 30. I got served at
11:00 a.m. and got all the permits I wanted. Which is why people
show up in person. The alternative is to send a request to the
office. If you go through the mail, the postmark cannot be any
earlier than June 1, even though it takes days to arrive at the
office. Or, you can fax a request in, starting at 12:00
midnight, which is what a lot of avid hikers tend to do. Of
course, they suffer from two problems. First, they don't get
served ahead of those actually present and in the line. [In
fact, a couple of years ago, I was there on November 4th, to get
permits for March, and they still hadn't been able to go through all
the faxed requests.]
The other problem is that you can't tweak your written request like
you can do in person. For example, on the Sunday I went up to
pick up a number, I also got a permit for September. Since the
window for that month had been open for 31 days, I couldn't get my
first 25 choices! [Well, it was 25 variations on a simple plan,
but there was always some bottleneck in making each option
work.] So, while I got my 26th choice, you can't get this kind
of flexibility with a fax.
So, on Monday, I was sitting next to a woman holding number 77.
She made a comment about how next year all permit requests will have
to come in by fax, so that there is no advantage to those who are
there in person. Consequently, she deemed that this new system
would be "fair." I politely disagreed and commented
that 20 years ago I made a lifestyle choice to live in Flagstaff so
that I could maximize my ability to hike in the Grand Canyon. I
could have sought out other places to live, where I might maximize my
income, but that isn't what I wanted to maximize. So, I live in
Flagstaff, where costs are higher than average with a job that pays
less than average. Indeed, it took years of working part-time
just to get into a full-time teaching job. So, if the system
changes so that everyone who participates is given the same chance to
get a permit, that change disadvantages me. From my perspective
it is "unfair." I don't think that the park service
will be compensating me for 20 years of sacrificed income.
So, what is "fair?" It is not the equalization of the
chance to get a hiking permit. Equal is equal, and not likely to
also be "fair." Who will argue that this is
"fair?" Clearly, it will be those that are advantaged
by this change. And, will anyone look at such a biased
perspective and see it for what it is? I don't think so.
And, what would be "fair?" I have no idea, and I don't
think anyone else does either. [Well, to the woman next to me,
and the man across the table from me, I suggested an auction for
permits, which they both thought was unfair!!] What I do know, is that the
government makes the rules and we have an incentive to adapt our
behavior based on these rules. When the rules change, it negates
the choices we have made, and that is certainly unfair.
Some other examples of this process:
Canyon Forest
Village.
When the Forest Service considered a land swap along the border of the
Grand Canyon, the decisions made by a host of private economic agents
(e.g., to build a hotel in Flagstaff, Williams or Tusayan) were
negated and they faced the prospect of having their livelihoods ruined as a
consequence. Canyon
Forest Village would be built on land that no others could bid on,
favorably located next to the park. In reports I helped author,
we argued that this was patently unfair. While we all know the
risks associated with market dynamics - someone could decide to build
another hotel in these cities and compete away business from existing
firms. But, to now factor in the notion that the government can
step in and make arbitrary changes that ruin your business is
practically impossible to factor into rational
decision-making.
Holders of
Chrysler and GM bonds.
As I write this, some Chrysler bondholders have protested the
government's plan for Fiat to buy up a bankrupt Chrysler, because they
get less back on their investment than those that should be further
back in the creditor's line. The Supreme
Court will take a closer look at this deal. This arbitrary
rearrangement of the economic landscape will come at a severe price -
who will make long term investments in these firms if their rights can
be unilaterally disposed of by the government?
Parties using
Gold Clause Contracts.
In the 1930s, the Congress prohibited gold
clauses in contracts. These were popular when a lender was
afraid that the currency was being devalued. So, instead of
being paid back in currency terms, the resolution of the loan was
stated in terms of the value of some amount of gold.
Essentially, this is an inflation hedge. In one of the worst
decisions ever made by the Supreme Court, the Congressional Act was
upheld.
The problem with the government changing its policies and rules,
predicated on "fairness," is that they undo countless
rational decisions made by all of us. We respond to our
environment. We mold our behavior based on the incentives that
we face. "Fairness" is unlikely to have anything to do
with the political pressure for change exerted by special interests.
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Tuesday,
June 2, 2009
Shamans'
Gallery
- For some years, I have been thinking about a return to Shamans'
Gallery, so that I can take some digital photos. After my first
(and only) visit in 1996, I thought that this could be done as part of
a really long day trip from Flagstaff. Cara Lynn was interested
in going, so off we went on the Sunday before Memorial Day, 2009.

For the full story:
Tuckup
Trail to Shamans' Gallery
in the Hiking Grand Canyon section of the Kaibab Journal
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Wednesday,
May 27, 2009
 Self-Orienting
Maps, et al.
- This past Memorial Day weekend, Cara Lynn and I took a day trip
to see Shaman's Gallery (or, is it Shamans? or Shamans'? or, call it Gordon's
Panel). Anyway, on the road we were listening to the radio
and some commentator on NPR was whining about the demise of newspapers
and how they would miss the tactile
sense of holding the news in their hands, while sipping on their
latte. Give me a break! That got us to talking about how
innovations are, by and large, improvements. So, while I am not
inclined to sit down with my cup 'o joe and a Kindle,
I can imagine that innovations will continue apace and we will have a
suitable substitute for the "newspaper experience."
Some years ago, I had heard of paper
thin LCD screens that would allow for downloaded material into a
book that you could read as a book. [And, when you were done,
you can just clear the pages.] The technology goes by the name
of "electronic
ink," or "electronic
paper."
So, with our thinking caps on, we developed how this would work to
supplant newspapers. First, pick the newspaper size that suits
you. Then, hook up to the internet (hmm . . . can this be done
wirelessly?) and download whatever paper you want. Or, some
combination of papers. And, you can tailor the paper as you see
fit - sports first, or national news, maybe with a cartoon at the
bottom of each page, instead of all on one page. You can read it
as four pages, and hit scrolling buttons to advance to later
pages. Or, you can jump to the rest of the story you are reading
directly. At first, I doubt that this faux newspaper will really
feel like a newspaper, but over time, it may well resemble the real
deal.
And, that led us to another innovation: self-orienting
maps. As we were traveling along dirt roads, mostly unmarked, I
was armed with a topo map and
estimating our position by noting when we would meet up with
intersecting roads. Remarkably effective, although there are
more side roads than are shown on the old map! Well, the dilemma
here is that maps are oriented with north at the top and we were
driving south. I have almost always kept the map in its printed
orientation and made mental notes that roads on "map left"
were going to show up on my right, and vice versa. Yeah, that
gets confusing. But, on my recent spring break hike, I noticed
that Bill Ferris always held
his map oriented to his direction of travel. Then, he just
needed to read labels and numbers sideways and upside down.
After a while, I decided I liked this approach. So, on our drive
to Shamans Gallery, I decided to orient the map with south at the
top. That worked great, but we still had to contend with reading
information upside down.
But, we got to thinking about the newspaper idea and decided this
technology would also work for maps. First, it would be cool to
just download your map onto a standard sized sheet (bigger than 8.5 x
11, I would think). And (a drum roll, please), as you turned the
map to orient it in the direction you are traveling, the labels and
numbers would rotate with you! Sign me up. And, if you
could write electronic notes on your map (with a stylus), you can then
download it to your PC when you get home. Probably there are
plenty of other accessories that people would want on these
maps. Perhaps, I'll solicit ideas from the folks at the Yahoo
Grand Canyon group.
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Saturday,
April 25, 2009
Best
Foot Backwards
- This past March, I was able to start a fantastic spring break
hike through the Grand Canyon, accompanied by hiking buddies John
Eastwood, Bill Ferris and Chris Forsyth. Although I had some
hope that we could cover the intended route in eight days, there was
an extra day built into the schedule to account for the fact that we
were hiking on the north side of the canyon, off trail for all but one
day, and, except for a couple of river parties we saw, alone.
Early on the eighth day, as we were climbing up a ravine upstream from
94 Mile canyon, I fell and sprained my foot. Although in quite a
bit of pain, I continued to hike up and out of the ravine, where we
decided to make an emergency 911 call and my hike came to an
end. I wrote a story about this incident for the local paper
and it ran on
Thursday,
April 2. If you follow the link, you can read the on-line
version, which, for some odd reason, is identified as being published
on Friday, April 3), which is reprinted below, with my original title:
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A
Grand Canyon Adventure in 8 Days and 4 Minutes
by Dennis Foster
Hiking off-trail in the Grand Canyon isn’t necessarily
fraught with peril, but it is a challenge. From picking
the right routes, reading maps well, following previously
written accounts, and taking care in hiking through steep
terrain, you expect to get bumps, bruises, scratches, aches
and pains. In over thirty years of hiking in the Grand
Canyon, I have had many accidents, but never one that required
any external help. That was about to change.
It was the eighth day of a sweeping nine day hike through wild
and remote sections of the Grand Canyon, north of the Colorado
River and west of the popular South Rim Village.
Accompanying me were John Eastwood, Bill Ferris and Chris
Forsyth. That morning, we had made an early start up a
thousand foot ravine that would take us from a beach at 94
Mile Canyon to the broad and expansive Tonto Plateau. I
entered the ravine healthy and in good spirits, but exited
with a debilitating injury that would end my hike.
My accident occurred in an unassuming spot – no worse than a
hundred others we had been scampering up and down for more
than a week. I had tried to lift and push myself up past
two big boulders, but I didn’t have enough lift. I
rose briefly and then fell back. I could feel I was
going to fall back into a six foot deep slickrock trough, head
first. Somehow, I was able to whip my left leg down
behind me, using my left foot to brake my momentum. It
worked. I recall an instant of clarity when I was amazed
that my boot could bend so much, pushing toe to heel.
Then, I stopped and dropped to the ground in agonizing pain.
No apparent broken bones in my foot, but it hurt badly and was
beginning to swell.
I knew that I couldn’t stay in the ravine even if my hike
was over. John and Chris took possession of my pack and
we continued climbing some 700 feet to reach the top.
While this climb should have taken less than an hour, it took
me three, as I used my good foot, my hands, my rear end and an
occasional pivot on my left heel. Along the way, I would
drop to my knees in pain if that foot rolled a little bit to
either the left or the right.
Once out of the ravine, it took about a half hour to reach a
small saddle on the Tonto. Here, we decided it was time
to access the 911 emergency service on our SPOT satellite
personal tracker. Two hours later, a Park Service SAR
helicopter arrived. The crew – Bryce, Jessica and
Brandon – were professional and came prepared to help in any
way they could, including ample water for my companions who,
because of the hours lost due to my plight, were now racing
against the clock to get to a water source in Trinity Creek
before exhausting their own supplies.
Once suited up and strapped into my seat, I waved to my hiking
buddies. We were nearing the end of our hike. They
would reach the South Rim in the early evening the next day.
I would reach the South Rim in four minutes. The flight
was quite a surreal experience, as the landscape dropped away
below me and the temples and buttes that we had spent hours
walking around flashed by in an instant. The SAR crew
had expressed concern that the bumpy ride might cause me to
become nauseous. However, I found that I was more than
overwhelmed by the bittersweet nature of the moment.
In the late afternoon, I was having X-rays taken at the
Flagstaff Medical Center. I was lucky, as nothing was
broken in my badly swollen foot. Still, I am using
crutches and my recovery time will likely be ten days to two
weeks.
On my map of the Grand Canyon, showing all of my hikes, there
is a small gap keeping me from having a complete route on the
north side of the canyon, east to west between Nankoweap
Canyon and Kanab Creek. I tried to close this gap in
1984 and again in 1991. Both times, I turned back from a
steep climbing route I found to be too risky for me to
attempt. The hike I had just finished was meant to
bypass that climbing route. The gap remains.
Dennis
Foster has been on over 250 separate hikes in the Grand Canyon
since 1977, ranging from a few hours to ten days, and has
spent over 300 nights camped in its backcountry. |
There
are some details here that couldn't work their way into the newspaper
story, which I can raise here. First, as a matter of some
improbability, I just happened to take a photo of the spot where I was
about to fall. Chris had climbed
up through these rocks, and Bill was just about to do so. I was
about twenty feet behind, and had a nice view looking up the ravine,
so I snapped the picture to the right. If you click on the
photo, you can see a larger view, with the annotations. Or, click
here to just see the photo. As you can probably see, it
isn't really much of a spot. We had been hiking for about thirty
minutes, so were very fresh and a bit warmed up. We were
carrying a lot of water, but we were doing that every morning for the
last few days. The reason for my calamity was that I overreached
for a small protruding rock surface with my left foot. It was
just a bit too high, so that when I pushed off with my right foot,
there wasn't enough lift left in my leg.
I didn't hike too far from this spot before giving up on carrying my
pack. Chris had offered to continue on and drop his pack at the
top of the ravine and return to carry my pack up. In fact, he
and Bill hiked up quite a ways and then Bill shuttled their two packs
the rest of the way to the Tonto level. Meanwhile, John
decided to shuttle his and my packs until Chris returned. But,
he changed his mind on this score and decided to carry both packs at
the same time - mine strapped to the front of him, as you can see by
the photo. When we got to the top of the ravine, we were all
resting together and talked over the situation. Our best hope
was that, while sore, I would be able to continue hiking, even if only
slowly. We would hope to make the water in Trinity, and, with a
full night's rest, perhaps my foot would have improved
significantly. I was not hopeful on this score. I have
hiked on sprained ankles before, but this situation was quite a bit
worse. As I noted in the story, it took us about a half hour to
reach a nearby saddle, where we revisited the situation and decided on
the 911 call. Altogether, it had been about four hours after my
accident, so I think we gave it enough time to be sure. Still,
as long as I wasn't walking, I wasn't in any pain. I could sit
and rest and relax and feel just like normal.
When the helicopter arrived, we learned that they had gotten the 911
message about 20 minutes after we sent it out - the signal goes to a
facility in Texas and they have to track down the appropriate
emergency responders. Then, the folks at the Park Service had to
do some investigating on who we were and what circumstances we were
likely
facing
before sending out the copter. The pilot, Bryce, was from
Flagstaff and knew my colleague Doug Brown, and Doug's son, who was a
student of mine some years ago and with whom I have been on a couple
of hikes. Jessica was the flight operations manager and Brandon
was the EMT. Only later did someone point out to me that we were
not visited by the usual Park Service helicopter. Where was that
one? In another twist of irony, it was sitting on the tarmac at
an air show down in Phoenix, where Cara Lynn and Eric were for the
day! The NPS called her up, since she was listed as an emergency
contact on my permit. When I talked to her a short time later,
she took the photo to the left, of the NPS bird down in Phoenix.
Once on the ground at the South Rim, the NPS dispatcher, Della, gave
me a ride to the Maswik lodge, where I would wait for my sister, Sue,
and her
significant other, Tom, to come and pick me up and drive me back to
Flagstaff. Just to provide full disclosure, I have included a
photo of my foot, comparing it to my good one. This was taken
the next evening, and significant swelling would continue for some
many days.
Although I thought I would be back to normal in a couple of weeks, it
has taken
longer. For the first two days, I stayed at home and needed to
use both crutches to get anywhere around the house. Then, for
about five more days, I needed them only in the morning when I got
up. After moving around a bit, I found I was able to use just
one crutch to get around the rest of the day. I did that for
about five days, and then switched to just using my hiking pole for
light support and to keep from falling over while walking. About
two weeks after the accident, I stopped using the hiking pole, but I
still walked slowly and with a noticeable limp. It has now been
just over one month and I am walking at about 95% of my normal speed
and don't exhibit too much of a limp. But, I can still feel
soreness on the top of my foot, and won't try any jogging or hiking
for some time to come.
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Thursday,
March 12, 2009
Furlough
Fantasies - The
budget crisis is everywhere. Here, the legislature has been
looking to cut funding at the three state universities, including
NAU. As best I can tell, the administration is looking to cut
about 20% from the budget, this year or next year, or both. So
it goes.
There was an effort by the President's office to snag funds from a
variety of sources on campus (sort of like rounding up the usual
suspects in Casablanca). But, soon, the talk turned to
"furloughs." And, that got my dander up. Not
because I don't understand that we have to cut somewhere, but, rather,
because it is just a gimmick to accomplish pay cuts without saying
that there are pay cuts. That is the way government works (but,
a private firm that tried the same tactic would likely get hauled up
before some Congressional committee and slandered ad nauseam).
So, in the spirit of trying to help them get it right, I wrote this
letter, which ran in the paper on Friday,
February 27.
|
To the
editor:
In an
industrial setting, the use of a furlough to reduce production
and costs may be sensible. In the university setting it
is both an exercise in doublespeak, since classes will not be
canceled, and inefficient, which is probably not entirely
surprising.
What would
be efficient? A tax is the most honest and
straightforward solution. Call it the “Employment
Privilege Surcharge” and tack it onto the paychecks of
university employees. Here are some advantages:
*
Unlike furloughs, the tax can be fine-tuned to accomplish the
cost reduction necessary. It doesn’t matter to the
payroll computer program if the tax is 4% or 4.223% or 3.78%.
*
The tax will spread out the negative impact to employees
evenly over the rest of the contract year, versus the impact
of having to take a furlough day, or two, or three, in one
single pay period.
*
The tax can be graduated so that there aren’t any exceptions
to who must share in the pain. Punishing only highly
valued, and highly paid, employees is a morally bankrupt
policy.
*
The tax doesn’t require any bizarre soviet-style planning
process to identify and administer make-believe furlough days.
I don’t
want to have my income taxed, but the reality is what it is.
University administrators can ask that the pain be shared as
long as they continue to honor their commitment to discharge a
wide array of unsustainable programs whose continued financial
support saps the vitality of healthy and productive academic
units. |
The responses on the web fell into two broad categories - those that
didn't understand the issue that the furlough was just a pretend
arrangement and those that felt unduly snubbed by their being low wage
earners. Which means they haven't grasped the meaning of the golden
goose fable. I penned a response, as follows:
|
I
apologize if the issue is less clear than it should be.
The university administration is asking faculty to take
furlough days, hence cutting their/our pay. But, the
work requirements – classes taught, evaluations crafted and
scored, students advised, and research pursued – is
unchanged. Calling it a furlough is disingenuous.
A furlough applies to someone who doesn’t show up for work
and loses a day’s pay. They lose the income, but they
gain something in return – a day off. In the case of
faculty, we really aren’t hourly workers; we’re salaried
workers. We have a job to do, and we use the time
available to do the job. It doesn’t have to be just
Monday through Friday, from 8 am to 5 pm. If it was, we
could be furloughed for a day and not show up to work.
But, for us, the furlough is just a trick.
Interestingly, if a business tried this, they would get their
hats handed to them.
But, the
furlough idea is worse than false. It is also costly.
Somehow, a furlough schedule will have to be established.
Somehow, a “no work” policy will have to be enforced for
the furlough day. Somehow, these furlough days will have
to be spread out so that you don’t have all these cuts in a
single paycheck.
My
argument is that if the point is to pay us less, without any
reduction in our work expectations, then just do the simple
thing and tax us. Why is that rocket science? It
is easy to implement, it doesn’t have any enforcement costs,
and it doesn’t generate volatility in paychecks. I
understand that the university is getting less funding.
I understand that more will be asked and less will be given.
Why not just be honest and upfront about it, instead of
playing games with this idea of a furlough? |
I haven't heard anything through the grapevine about whether this idea
is being taken seriously by the administration. As Kurt Vonnegut
wrote, "So
it goes."
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Monday,
February 2, 2009
 Sunday
in Cathedral
- It is Super Bowl Sunday and the Arizona Cardinals are in it for
the first time ever. But, the weather is beautiful around here -
crystal clear skies and temps in the mid-50s. So, despite the
allure of hot wings, beer and endless hours of pre-game hoopla, there
was plenty of time for me to take a neat little hike in the upper
reaches of the Grand Canyon . . .
Read
the full story:
Day Hike
Down Cathedral Wash - Getting
to the river near Lees Ferry
in the Hiking Grand Canyon section of the Kaibab Journal
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Saturday,
January 31, 2009
No
Shingle Recession?
- We had two big winter storms this past December which left lots
of snow piled on the roof of my home. Not surprising, of
course. But, it was taking a long time to melt off, and in the
front, which is north facing, about a half foot, or more, of ice had
formed on the eave, which dripped down onto the walkway and iced up
every day/night. I have a heated line run through the gutter in
the front, and that has stayed clear. But, the slowly melting
snow and ice on the roof was getting under the eave and dripping down
into the area leading to the front door. A few businesses around
town suffered some roof cave-ins as a result of these icy conditions
and the paper ran a story about the dangers of letting ice dams
persist.
So, I decided that I should clear the ice off of the roof above the
front door. To do so, I had to start shoveling snow off the roof
in the back, clearing a section and letting it dry off before clearing
another section. It took me four days to work
my way up to the peak and down the north side. Although I tried
to be careful, I still ended up nicking and tearing some
shingles. Well, the roof is 18-19 years old, and at the end of
its designated life anyway, so that's bound to happen. But, one
icy spot in the front, which I tried to pry up, loosened up a couple
of shingles sections and those had to be replaced.
I really wanted a professional to do the repairs, so I called a firm
that I used to replace some shingles that blew off the roof back in
June of 2007. Over the phone I was informed that they
"don't do repairs anymore." Hmm, I wondered, even with
a recession well underway, they must be lucky to be able to just give
away this part of their business. So, I called another
firm. I got an answering machine, so left my name and phone
number. A few hours later, not having heard any reply, I decided
to call another firm, and left a message with the answering
service. That was on Monday, January 19th. Granted, that
is a holiday, but these firms are owner-operators, and there is a
recession going on, so I figured that they were probably working that
day. Doesn't that make sense?
Well, no reply on Monday, nor on Tuesday, and the weather forecast
called for some rain/snow on Thursday. So, Tuesday night I did
some web research on replacing shingles - not too hard, but I had to
buy all the tools necessary for the job, save a hammer! And, on
Wednesday morning, I was off to the Home Depot to get what I
needed. I had
high hopes of being able to match the shingles pretty well, but was
sorely disappointed. For such a large store, they only had two
colors of the 3-tab shingles I needed and one was white. So, I
got the other color (sage) and the tools I needed and did the repairs
myself. [Click on either photo to see a larger image.] Not
bad for a do-it-yourself job. Besides the big spot, where I
replaced two shingle sheets, I also had to replace a piece on the peak
of the roof and I did some sealant repairs in about ten places around
the roof.
I did have one snag along the way. The instructions called for
popping the nails out of the existing shingles in order to remove
them. OK, but the first one I pried up didn't have any
nails! I looked quite hard, but nothing here. So, I pried
up the shingle under this one and felt the other shingle pop.
When I looked, I found that the shingles were not held in place with
nails, but, rather, with staples. Aha, I thought, that's why I
found about twenty staples on the other side of the roof, where the
blown away shingles had been replaced - the guy that fixed the roof
left the staples just laying around a year and a half ago!
Ten days have passed since then, and I still haven't received a call
back from the two places I tried to get in touch with. All I can
figure is that their business model requires that they don't care
about a potential customer unless that customer calls at least
twice. But, I thought there was a recession going on, and these
guys certainly are not putting new roofs on new homes, since nobody is
building new homes! As an additional point of irony here, I have
just been telling my students in Money & Banking that during
economic downturns there is an increase in do-it-yourself activities
as people try to cut corners. But, now I'm wondering if there
isn't more D-I-Y because nobody else wants to work?
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Monday,
January 19, 2009
 Dismantling
Our Heritage
- We went up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for a day
trip. We had a few things we wanted to do. More on that
later. While up at Powell Memorial, we were dismayed to see that
the park service has finally gotten around to dismantling the
headframe to the old Orphan
Mine, shown to the right (click
any photo to see a larger image),
which is probably about fifty years old. It is a sad commentary
on the NPS, which extols the virtues of historic structures, but only
as long as they think that these structures are worth
preserving. For years, they have also wanted to tear
down the Thunderbird and Kachina Lodge. Thankfully, that has
not yet come to pass.
So, why were we up at the canyon? Many reasons . . .
Kolb Exhibit.
I wanted to see the exhibit at Kolb Studio on historic mapping of the
Grand Canyon. [Until
2/15/09, you can read more about this here - Mapping
the Grand Canyon. Later, visit their archives
to find out more on this exhibit.] These exhibits usually
last for many months, so I do have ample opportunities. But, we
missed out on this during our December
backpacking trip to Phantom Ranch. This day trip afforded us
the time to really peruse this exhibit. I give it 4.5 stars -
alas, no copies of Walcott's maps from the early 1880s were
included. An oversight, in my humble opinion. Also, it is
interesting to note that when Emory Kolb died, the studio was turned
into a bookstore for the Grand Canyon Association, ending its historic
use in favor of something else that the NPS endorsed!

Drive new &
improved Hermit Road.
I also wanted a chance to drive the newly reconstructed Hermit Road
(aka, West Rim Drive), which runs the eight miles between the Bright
Angel Lodge and Hermit's Rest. The road had been in very poor
shape for a number of years. I think that the park service
should have added a direct road from Hermit's Rest back to the South
Rim Village, so that hikers could access the trail here year round,
without having to rely on the awful
shuttle service. But, it was not
to be. The new road looks just like the old road, except it
isn't crumbling nor wavy. But, no wider than before! No
bike lanes! And, parking for the 2+ months of its being open to
the public is woefully inadequate. The photo, to the right,
shows parking at Powell Memorial, which is typical of the viewpoints
along this road. Wouldn't some angled parking here have doubled
the available spaces at little additional cost? Probably, but
that's not the way the park service thinks. But, there was one
major improvement, which gets my full support. The restrooms at
Hermit's Rest have been totally redone. Now, there are four
little building (see photo), each with two units. They are roomy
and include hand sanitizer dispensers. There are also some
vending machines here (drinks and snacks) and a water fountain that
works during the winter. A vast improvement over the older
facility, even though these are outhouses and not flush toilets.

Meal Ready to
Eat - a field test.
We also used this opportunity to try out some MREs that Cara Lynn got
from an old friend. MREs are "meals ready to eat" and
are used by the military. I tried one at home, but those are
rather ideal conditions. [Even so, I mistakenly added a package
of salt to my instant coffee. Bleech! All I can say is
that it
sure looked like a sugar packet.] Cara Lynn had a chicken and
noodles meal, while I had the beef enchilada. Very good, with
just a little bit of a learning curve on our part. The meals
heat up when some chemical pellets are activated by air and
water. Works well to generating a hot meal, although the staying
power of the "heaters" is not enough to really get your hot
drink up to speed. Still, I am impressed with the quality and
variety of items included. A slight breeze caused us to make
sure everything got tucked under something heavy. You can see
Cara Lynn's meal to the right. Yes, it included the
M&Ms. I would say that they are a bit too heavy for
backpacking purposes, but they were nice on this cold Saturday in
January. We ate at the picnic area by the Hermit trailhead, as
did three other groups of visitors. Too bad you can only drive
out here in December, January and part of February. You wouldn't
expect the shuttle bus riders to haul out picnic supplies during the
rest of the year. So it goes.
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Wednesday,
January 14, 2009
Clinton
Home is Historic? - The
Congress just passed
a bill that sets aside millions of acres as federally protected
wilderness. And, this little tidbit - Bill
Clinton's childhood home, which will get status as a
"national historic site." Such sites are administered
by the National Park Service. And, my question is, "Why
does the taxpayer have to bear this burden?" Bill Clinton
makes millions giving speeches and writing books. He can tap
into many more millions from donations from others. If he thinks
that his boyhood home deserves special protected status, why doesn't
he pony up the dough to make it so?
Recognize the home on the right? That is Mt.
Vernon. I'd like to think that everybody knows that this was
George Washington's home, but education being what it is today, I
can't be sure. I visited here a few years ago and was quite
pleasantly surprised to find out that it is operated and maintained
strictly with private funds. No taxpayer money is solicited, nor
accepted. As a consequence, the place is well preserved and it
is made incredibly accessible to the public.
Recognize the place on the left? That is Meteor
Crater, located about thirty-five miles from my home in Flagstaff,
Arizona. Like Mt. Vernon, it is also operated and maintained
without taxpayer funds. It was bought up by D.
M. Barringer in 1903. It has been preserved, used for
research, and open to visitors. Can anyone question the unique
nature of such a place? Need it be the taxpayer who supports the
administration of this site? Of course not. Kept in
private hands, it has been both preserved and enjoyed.
It may well be that many of the items on the list of wilderness sites
are worthwhile, but when something like Bill Clinton's home is
included, even if the cost is relatively low, it stinks up the whole
bill. I guess we really can't expect any "change" from
those greedy politicians that want someone else to pay for their toys
and goodies.
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Wednesday,
January 7, 2009
 Klaatu
Goes PC
- We went to see the remake of The
Day the Earth Stood Still last week. I give it three
quarters of a star, but I'm not really sure why. Maybe it was
just the neat twist of the alien/s having landed years earlier and
snatched some DNA to use to make a human that can be sent to us for
the purpose of interaction. Yeah, in the original, you have to
believe that Michael
Rennie was a human from another planet, as if that was the natural
order of things. Beyond that, there isn't anything about this
movie to recommend.
But, that is not why I am writing about this film. Instead, my
beef is that the film has stood the premise of the original on its
head. In the 1951
epic film, Klaatu has come to Earth to issue a warning to us not
to take our fighting, now that we have nuclear capabilities, beyond
our planet, which would threaten other worlds. [Hmm, sounds a
lot like the current Israel/Gaza conflict!] Although he
"came in peace," he was rude not to have called ahead -
maybe then he wouldn't have gotten shot at! Still, his character
was supposed to be naive about the specifics of our culture and a big
chunk of the film shows him getting to know us better. His only
demand was that he present his message to a diverse group that
represented all the various peoples of the Earth.
The new Klaatu (Keanu
Reeves) is, well, an idiot. He is supposed to know all about
us, and even seeks out another alien living among us for a
report. Yet, he doesn't seem to understand how to communicate
with us. Indeed, he doesn't really have a message to relay to
us. Instead, he is here to destroy us in order to "save the
planet." I guess you could say that he is a metaphor for
environmental extremism. If they hadn't played him so serious,
but, instead, more delusional (or, even insidious, like the villain in
the new Bond film, Quantum
of Solace) then I might have given this movie a full star.
After seeing the new version, I pulled out my DVD copy of the original
and watched that, paying closer attention to the message of the film,
because I was sure that it had been totally perverted by the
remake. And, that is certainly the case. I jotted some of
the key passages in Klaatu's final speech, which left me admiring that
film even more:
| "The
threat of aggression . . . can no longer be tolerated.
There must be security for all, or no one is secure.
Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the
freedom to act irresponsibly."
"[The robots'] function
is to . . . preserve the peace. . . At the first sign of
violence, they act automatically against the aggressor."
"The result is we live
in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that
we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more
profitable enterprises."
"It is no concern of
ours how you run your own planet." |
To my surprise, I have just discovered that Klaatu is a
libertarian! While the filmmakers were not trying to promote
this kind of interpretation, it is the inescapable result of how they
sought to operationalize their anti-war sentiments. Here is what
we get from the passages quoted above:
Limited
government.
This interplanetary association has only one purpose - secure
individual freedom from aggression. That is pure Ayn Rand
material. There isn't any aid and assistance to us, to help in
our dismantling of weapons. There isn't any interplanetary
definition of marriage. There isn't any common currency
standard. Nothing but just the protection of the individual from
force of violence. You can't get any more libertarian than that.
The state
doesn't regulate behavior.
They just don't care what we do, as long as we're not violent.
No social conventions to enforce. No behavior to
criminalize. A libertarian's dream world!
Free enterprise
is embraced.
I love the line about pursuing "more profitable
enterprises." It doesn't have to refer to making money, but
it explicitly allows for that outcome. And, the concept of free
enterprise is really the expression of capitalism. I doubt that
many viewers would walk away from the movie thinking that Klaatu's
message is that capitalism is best, but that's what he said.
A strict
enforcement of property rights.
The notion that the robot police force has a simple mandate, and that
it is carried out automatically, and, apparently, swiftly, means that
property rights are pre-eminent in this system.
A de facto
encouragement of economic growth.
Capitalism requires property rights, lest there is no trade, and
relies on voluntary transactions. The threat of force and
violence deter these transactions, so their elimination would sow the
seeds of dramatic economic growth and development.
So, while the new, politically-correct, version of this movie is a
stinker, turning Klaatu into a bullying socialist tyrant, the original
version gets five stars from me.
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Sunday,
December 14, 2008
Warming
Feud - In
late November, at a meeting of the Flagstaff City Council, two
members, Joe Haughey and Scott Overton, voted against new city rules
and regulations, aimed at builders, to reduce greenhouse gasses that
are, of course, the leading cause of the most dire problem we face in
the modern world - hysteria over global warming. At the meeting,
they both expressed skepticism about what Haughey called, 'this
global warming-climate change thing.'
Of course, this led to some disparaging letters, the first of which
was written by Bryan
Cooperrider. For the sake of completeness, and because it is
short, here is what he wrote: "According
to council members Scott Overton and Joe Haughey, the "science
for global warming is not entirely conclusive." Good grief --
these two should be the poster kids for why science education in
America needs to be strengthened! I challenge them to name one
credible scientist (no, Rush Limbaugh is not a credible scientist) who
says global warming is not happening. It is flat irresponsible for
elected officials to make such ignorant statements."
For years I have thought about jumping into this debate. But, I
don't have any expertise in global climate matters. I am just a
reasonably smart person, who can read and evaluate arguments.
But, it seems quite clear to me that the activists that are pushing this
agenda have used fear and intimidation to carry the day, and not a
careful examination of the science. Well, I couldn't resist
responding to Cooperrider's letter, so I penned the following, which ran
in the December
2nd paper:
To
the editor:
A recent letter writer challenged two members of the city
council to back up their skepticism about the dire
consequences of manmade global warming. I doubt, however, that
the writer actually cares to know about scientific skeptics,
much less a reasoned discussion/debate on this topic. Who are
the skeptics with scientific backgrounds? Pick up a copy of
Lawrence Solomon's fascinating book, "The Deniers,"
to read about some of them. From Dyson (flawed modeling) to
Wegman (who dismantled the famed "hockey stick") to
Akasofu (warming trends and CO2 level) to Solanki (the role of
the sun in warming) and Jaworowski (the meaning of ice core
data), it is clear that there is real scientific skepticism
and many unresolved questions. Like, how warm has it gotten
and what causes it? How well do we understand natural
processes that cause warming? How good are the models that
predict impending disaster? What should we do? Can we adapt to
warming?
Interestingly, the shallow activists hardly ever support
economic development as a "solution" to a worsening
environment, even though it is quite clear that the richer we
are, the more we are willing to protect and preserve the
environment.
The shallow activist falsely claims a scientific consensus,
that the only skeptics are conservative talk radio
personalities, and that we must radically change our
lifestyles, and living standards, to satisfy their
sustainability fantasies. This viewpoint is anti-science and
anti-reason and should be rebuked by anyone who is open to
learning more about how the world really works. |
I did not pretend to have special knowledge in this area, but felt
comfortable recommending a book about these "deniers."
Two of my colleagues actually made it a point to see me and comment
favorably on my letter. And, I also got a visit from Mr.
Cooperrider! He felt that meeting me was important and that I
had misread his critique. He claimed that the issue wasn't
"man-made global warming" but just "global
warming" itself. I told him that it was unlikely that the
council members were referring just to warming and that, while a bit
sloppy, most people mean "man-made" even if they don't say
it. I thought more about his argument and penned an e-mail to
him as a follow-up. In fact, I re-read the original Daily Sun
story, and in the second paragraph there is mention of the "doubt
by two council members about the severity of global warming,"
which didn't question the warming, but just whether it was a dire
problem or not.
Then, on December 9th, there was a letter
from Padraig Houlahan, who seems to be a pretty committed
socialist, and writes occasional letters and whom I know from our
association in the Coconino Astronomical
Society. He accused me
of arguing against global warming (which, I wasn't) and that if I was
going to accept the comments of skeptics, I should also accept the
argument of skeptics in economics. I replied on the web (you can
see all the comments to all these letters by following the hyperlinks
above) and tried to be civil and humorous. I took exception to
his notion that government is the solution: "I
will grant you that the government had done a great job in the housing
market, and is poised to finally restore efficiency to the automobile
industry. It has a well-managed pension plan called “social
security” and it is an excellent choice for the centralization of
all health care in the U.S. Wait a minute . . . I don’t grant you
any of those things. So, I will continue with my ongoing advocacy of
free markets (and, of capitalism), arguing the case that government
should be smaller and more limited and that markets should be freer."
His reply was not as courteous. I made another reply, as did he,
and I left it there.
There were a few more letters in the paper, on both sides here, and
the editor actually penned an editorial
on the matter. And, in today's paper, was a nice comment by David
M. Monihan, Jr. that, "Rush
Limbaugh . . . is a good entertainer, satirist and political
commentator, but he's not a scientist. The only people I've ever heard
refer to him as a scientist are liberals. That seems strange at first
but then they seem to consider Al Gore a scientist."
Right on, David!
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Tuesday,
October 7, 2008
Financial
Market Turmoil
- With the recent turmoil in financial markets, and given my
relative advantage in this area (I have been teaching a course in
"Money & Banking" the last four years), I asked the
editor (Randy Wilson) of the Daily Sun if he would be interested in an
editorial on the topic under their "Coconino Voices" banner,
which is an irregular platform for locals with expertise to spout off
about things they know something about. He was enthusiastic
about this, and even though I finished it off on Friday (10/3), he got
it on the main editorial page for Sunday.
While it has been a couple of days since then, surprisingly there are no web
comments on my opinion piece. That seems odd, although Randy
told someone else that he did expect to see some letters come in on my
editorial. We'll see. Still, my colleague Doug Brown, who
is quite the polar opposite of me insofar as politics and economics
goes, told me that he was asking his students to comment on my piece
as part of a homework assignment. So, that's good news and I'll be interested in hearing
how they react to it.
Controlling financial markets a fatal
conceit
'For the sins of the father
you, though guiltless, must suffer," wrote the Roman poet
Horace. Today's financial turmoil has its roots in the
Great Depression of the 1930s. We have been suffering,
and continue to suffer, the sins of our fathers. And the
suffering isn't over yet.
The real sin of the Great Depression era was the notion that
political control of the marketplace would curb
"capitalism's excesses" and distribute long-lasting
wealth more evenly. This experiment was a colossal
failure -- our economy went through the 1930s with an average
unemployment rate of some 15 percent. And, the sins of
this grand experiment continue to be visited upon us.
That's why there was a savings and loan debacle in the
1980s. That's why there are huge investment banks that
can't diversify their activities, putting them at greater risk
of collapse. Although much reform has taken place
recently, we have seen continued efforts to regulate financial
markets, from requiring firms to make risky loans (because
it's nondiscriminatory) to using oddball accounting rules for
valuing highly illiquid assets (mortgages), wrecking balance
sheets and casting a pall of uncertainty over credit markets.
Why do we care about credit
markets? Well, our economy runs more smoothly, and our
standards of living rise more quickly the more robust is the
credit market. The business world constantly faces cash
flow problems -- the outflow of expenses is hardly ever
matched, on a timely basis, with the inflow of income.
Farmers, for example, earn all their income at harvest time,
yet need to incur huge expenses months in advance if they are
to have a crop. Retailers do a huge volume of business
during the Christmas season, yet they have expenses to pay on
a regular basis throughout the year. A freeze on credit
will disrupt production, boost unemployment and can send us
into a recession. That is why there is so much concern
about financial markets today. We don't yet have a
recession, but that will not last if this problem is not
remedied.
Our most immediate problem is the sea of poorly priced home
mortgage debt. This also has roots to Great
Depression-era policy, when Fannie Mae was created, as a
government agency, to redirect capital to home building.
Years later, Fannie was demoted to the status of
"government sponsored enterprise," which combines
the worst of the political and economic world -- it is a
private firm, with private owners, but its debt is guaranteed
by the government, so it can ignore the normal constraints of
market discipline. Later, Fannie got a brother, Freddie
Mac, and together they own nearly half of the mortgage debt in
the U.S. They sold bonds to raise money to buy
mortgages, which they could pool together in order to sell
more bonds. It's actually a creative and innovate way to
promote liquidity in an otherwise illiquid market. But,
with no market discipline, and a keen desire to satisfy
political demands, these institutions have propelled us into
this current crisis. As Ron Paul wryly observed
recently, if Fannie and Freddie are the culprits in this mess,
wasn't it foolish of Congress to charter them in the first
place? Of course it was, but mostly you hear opinion
makers chattering about Wall Street greed, which is not the
root problem.
What of the future? Once the dust settles from this
current massive government effort to establish liquidity and
stability to financial markets, the task of restructuring the
market landscape will begin. And, that's when we will
see whether we have learned anything from history. The
worst thing that can happen, and as of right now, the most
likely thing to happen, is that there will be a new wave of
regulation, oversight and control. If we ratchet up the
regulatory state, we will guarantee yet another day of
reckoning as our children bear the sins of their fathers.
If you think this financial turmoil is the end of the story,
think again. We have yet to deal with the collapse of
Social Security, yet another grand experiment of the Great
Depression. That will be a calamity. And, then
there is the Medicare time bomb. When it goes off, I
shudder to think of the consequences. If change is
coming, it better come quickly and it better be the right
change. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that
Hegel was wrong when he opined that the only thing we learn
from history is that we don't learn from history.
Dennis Foster has a Ph.D. in economics, has taught money
and banking classes at the university level since the 1980s.
He encourages readers interested in the Great Depression to
read Amity Shlaes new book, "The Forgotten
Man." |
As you can note, the theme here is that there has been too much
regulation in this industry and that our current (and future!)
problems stem from these regulations, not from "greed" nor
from "poor oversight," hence the nod to Hayek
with the "fatal
conceit" reference in the title.
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Sunday,
August 31, 2008
Snowmaking
Immoral?
- I have often jousted with Marcus Ford, a fellow faculty member
at Northern Arizona University. Although our disagreements are
generally polite, it certainly isn't because we have a foundation of
mutual respect. On August 22, the paper ran a letter
of his, where he argued that snowmaking on the San Francisco Peaks, at
the Snowbowl ski lodge, was immoral. Despite the fact that the
Ninth Circuit Court had just ruled in favor of Snowbowl, Ford argued
that what was legal was not necessarily moral and raised the example
of slavery to make his point. An excellent example of
hyperbole. And, who will decide what is moral? Apparently,
Ford feels up to the challenge, since he decided that the city
council's selling of reclaimed water to Snowbowl was "a
mistake." I quickly penned a reply, which was published
in the paper on August 29:
To the editor:
The Ninth Circuit Court has ruled that using reclaimed water
for snowmaking at Snowbowl does not infringe on the religious
freedoms enjoyed by Native Americans, or others for that
matter. Although a letter writer contends that this decision
is immoral because it doesn't respect "the beliefs of
Native Peoples," such an argument is an exercise in
absurdity.
The court stated that,
"the sole effect of the artificial snow is on the
Plaintiffs' subjective spiritual experience." Is that a
sufficient reason for disallowing snowmaking? No, ruled the
court. The contention of the plaintiffs, and the letter
writer, would, in the opinion of the court, give each citizen
"an individual veto to prohibit the government action
solely because it offends his religious beliefs,
sensibilities, or tastes." And, even granting such a veto
is problematic as it clearly would "deprive others of the
right to use what is, by definition, land that belongs to
everyone."
A decade ago the same argument was raised in opposition to
sending one ounce of Eugene Shoemaker's ashes to the moon. The
moon is sacred and such an action was disrespectful, claimed
Navajo President Hale, totally ignoring the notion that there
may be six billion people that also have some feelings,
religious or otherwise, about the moon. That was exactly the
point made in the snowmaking case as decided by the Ninth
Circuit Court. The plaintiffs' views are hardly moral; they
are really just plain childish. But, then, so is the notion
that snowmaking is akin to slavery. |
I am not really a big fan of the Ninth Circuit Court, but they nailed
this one on the head. You can see their opinion here.
There is nice short write up about Shoemaker's ashes here
and you can read about former Navajo President Hale's remarks here.
The sentiment expressed by Ford is quite ghastly, yet he received
plenty of positive comments on the web. Follow the links, above,
to each of our letters to read web comments. I was heartened,
however, to note that his letter received a rating of 2.4 stars, based
on 32 ratings, while mine has received 2.7 stars, based on 55
ratings. Quite frankly, in liberal Flagstaff, that just doesn't
happen very often. But, there are a lot of people that are
passionate about being able to ski up on the peaks.
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Saturday,
August 23, 2008
 The
Five Ring Circus
- I
have never been much of an avid follower of the Olympics. I have
only seen bits and pieces over the years, although I do remember
catching some of the major events from time to time. This is
especially true of the summer version, when there is so much else to
do with my time, energy and effort. The winter version, on the
other hand, fills up dead space in my schedule.
So, since the games have begun in Beijing, I have tuned in a few
times, on a sporadic basis. And, what do I see? Well,
there is beach volleyball, some kind of handball version of soccer,
some kind of stick version of broomball, archery, more beach
volleyball, some "real" volleyball, water polo and some women's weight
lifting. I must say that I scratch my head and ponder exactly
what the Olympics are supposed to mean. And, then, there is the
issue of how many medal opportunities a participant may have - for
swimmer Michael Phelps it is quite high, while for a basketball player
it must certainly just be one. So, how do you compare the
performance of the two? Well, here are my suggestions . . .
Eliminate team
sports.
To my eye, the Olympics should be about individual achievement.
So, team sports should be tossed. No water polo. No
soccer. No hockey. No softball. Those might be
interesting games, but they should only appear in some other venue.
Exceptions:
Teams where the competition is not one-on-one, like rowing and relays.
Eliminate games
entirely.
I don't think chess is an Olympic sport . . . yet! But, tennis
is, and it shouldn't be. The Olympics are a competition, but not
one in a game. No tennis. No ping pong. No
badminton.
Eliminate
competitions based on judging.
Any competition where the participant must look up to see how they
scored among a set of judges doesn't cut it with me. There must
be rules for competitors, and some enforcement mechanism, but let's
just throw out all the "sports" that get scored. No
pommel horse. No rings. No synchronized swimming. No
diving. No trampoline.
Exceptions:
Change the gymnastics "competition" into truly athletic
events - who can jump the most pommel horses in one minute, etc.
Crown one
champion.
Whoever wins the decathlon, or some variation thereof, would be deemed
"the Olympic Champion." Score this as currently is
done, or come up with some alternative scheme that can produce an
overall champion that excels across many fields. The modern day triathlon
is really a better indicator of who is "best" than is
someone who wins nine medals in closely related competitions.
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Wednesday,
June 25, 2008
Taxes
and M orality
- When
the issue of sales taxes comes up in the local arena, I am constantly
amazed at how easy it is for supporters to make the argument that we
should support such a tax, or its expansion, in part because visitors
pay a sizable chunk of these taxes. Well, it happens everywhere,
but that doesn't make it right. How often have you traveled
somewhere and, upon inspecting your hotel room bill seen a line item
called "room tax?" It is the same principle - tax
people who are just passing through and make them help to pay for
local services which they aren't going to use! It is the
ultimate in taxation without representation. And, yet, it enjoys
such widespread political support. I have never heard anyone
raise the issue of the morality of such a taxing scheme. While
we are constantly barraged with issues of ethical behavior, how can
such a lapse go so totally unnoticed? The ballot measure to
raise taxes to help fund the bus system has been touted as a sort of
kinder and gentler tax since it is a sales tax and we get a lot of
visitors in Flagstaff, who really are never going to use the bus
system. So, it's like free money. I decided to address the
issue with this editorial. This comment ran on
April 27.
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Edit.
Board Sounding - Taxes,
morality and ethics: Voting 'no' only choice left
Taxes
represent the seizure of your wealth and income, which is used
to fund various governmental services. While there is a basic
immorality to forcing our compliance, it is ethical to have a
basic structure of government in order to protect individual
freedoms. What isn't ethical is to expand and grow government,
extending the reach of its coercive power, just because some
argue that it "makes sense." Most people believe
that the ends don't justify the means. So, for example, even
if you believe that particular residents should have access to
a bus system, it doesn't justify forcing taxpayers to pay for
this system. It is the hallmark of the lazy social activist
that individual freedoms can be so easily trumped by
government force.
Indeed, one particularly contemptible argument made in favor
of these taxes is that visitors will end up paying a
substantial share of these monies. Can we possibly think of a
more undemocratic process? To vote for taxes on others that
cannot vote has got to be not only unethical, but absolutely
immoral.
Two years ago, city voters rejected an attempt to make the
sales tax and transit tax permanent, and rejected an increase
in the transit tax. Despite that, the operating budget for the
city has risen from $80 million to $100 million. It seems that
the only check we have on insatiable, unsustainable and
unethical local government spending is to vote down pretty
much any tax proposal that requires our consent.
Dennis Foster has a Ph.D. in
economics, teaches at the university level, and is an avid Grand
Canyon hiker. |
My comment about "making sense" was
a retort to a letter published in the paper criticizing my earlier
stance on the bus system. The author of that letter, Marcus
Ford, and I have tangled in print over the years and will likely
continue to do so.
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Sunday,
April 20, 2008
The
Dirty Dozen - Such
is the title of a new book by Robert Levy and William Mellor.
[The image to the right is linked to the Amazon web page.] It is
the story of the "worst"
twelve Supreme Court decisions in the modern era, meaning since about
the Great Depression. Yes, way too many would otherwise come
from the first hundred years! Author Robert Levy was featured at
the Goldwater Institute
this past week as part of their "Who's Writing Now?" series,
which Cara Lynn and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend this
past Thursday.
Levy gave a fascinating talk to the crowd of one hundred, or so, out
on the patio behind the institute building. He pursued a law
degree in his mid-40s after having been a successful
entrepreneur. He clerked for Clint Bolick, who is currently the
director of the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at
Goldwater. Bolick said that Levy, now a senior fellow at Cato,
was the most unusual law clerk they ever had - during his lunch breaks
at the firm, he would be on the phone to his broker buying and selling
stock! And, apparently, doing quite well for himself. In
fact, the firm not only offered Levy a job, but put him on their board
of directors.
Levy was a very engaging speaker and had the crowd listening in rapt
attention. The stories of these cases, chosen in part from a
survey he and his co-author conducted among other lawyers, were
fascinating, if brief for this venue. Still he talked to us for
close to an hour and took questions at the end. Afterwards, we
got a copy of his book (not available at stores until May 1), and Cara
Lynn got Levy to sign a copy for us.
The book is great. The chapters can be read in whatever order
you wish. I started with some of the more peculiar
economics-related cases - Wickard v. Filburn (Congress can pass a law
that you can't grow wheat for your own consumption because it interferes
with interstate commerce!); the Gold Clause Cases (where a building
owner in Des Moines had to keep the rent on his 143,000 square foot
office building fixed at $23,000 from 1933 to 1993 because the
government ended the gold standard!!); Whitman v. American Trucking
Associations, Inc. (Congress can defer its legislative abilities to
unelected bureaucracies - in this case the EPA - who can establish
rules, determine penalties and adjudicate guilt!!!).
Why is it that these cases are unfamiliar to me? I am reasonably
intelligent and well-read. I guess that they just didn't make it
into the educational curriculum at the schools I attended, probably
because they are so crucial to the foundation of the current
welfare/nanny state mentality that so infects the body politic.
Yes, we did cover the Dred Scott case, but that didn't make Levy and
Mellor's book because it was an old case, and, of course, since
overturned by constitutional amendment. And, there is another
thing. Someone asked Levy if the notion that the constitution is
a "living document" was legitimate. Absolutely not,
was Levy's response. That notion denigrates the value of the
constitution, making it meaningless. Times do change, and the
framers constructed a method by which we can amend the constitution to
reflect those changes. This has been done seventeen times.
Yet, we have been inculcated with the notion that the "living
constitution" is some kind of special gift, when, in fact, it is
a curse. Two thumbs up.
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Thursday,
April 10, 2008
Sky
High Subsidies Unnecessary
- The
city council wants there to be more daily flights from our local
airport, into which we have poured millions of dollars to spruce
up and which the Feds have spent millions on runway improvements.
Probably not the best use of public funds, but its a done deal. But,
it gets worse. To "promote"
competition, the city has been willing to pay up to a million dollars to
guarantee passenger loads in order to attract another airline.
Alas, does anybody understand the principle of competition? It
seems not. So, time to speculate about what a truly free market
would look like. The
editorial ran on March 9.
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Editorial
Board Sounding: Privatize Pulliam Airport and let the
free market work
Although
there are a myriad of rules that apply to government airports,
what if Pulliam were privatized and competitively operated . .
. ?
A traveler
arrives at the airport to find plenty of parking, thanks to
the new J.W. Powell Parking Garage. Built in less time
than it takes to have a second reading on parking meters, it
provides wintertime travelers great shelter. Or, park in
one of the private surface lots, and save a few bucks.
Once in
the terminal you can check in at a computer kiosk, or with a
“flight agent.” They can help you with a reservation
on any one of the twenty flights scheduled for today, like the
Southwest flight to El Paso, or the Continental flight to
Denver. And, don’t forget that a new start-up airline
has a noon flight to John Wayne Airport out in California.
Flights
change daily. Airlines don’t need to contract to
provide a specific level of service for a specific period of
time. All they do is bid on landing and take-off
windows. Airlines publish schedules about a week in
advance, although some schedule particular flights up to six
months in advance. Some airlines have come, and gone.
Some successful travel destinations have been a surprise, like
the twice monthly flight to Lincoln, Nebraska.
Instead of
using taxpayer money to pay for airline service, let’s use
this opportunity to let the vibrant, creative and dynamic
forces of the free market work their magic. No, we
can’t? Yes, we can!
Dennis
Foster has a Ph.D. in economics, teaches at the university
level and is an avid Grand Canyon hiker. |
Shortly after this, the council agreed to put up $600,000 to get
Horizon Air to sign on for two (yes, 2!) daily flights to Los
Angeles. So far, Horizon plans to have one of these flights stop
in Prescott, lengthening the flight time. And, these flights
will be turboprops, not jets, which was the whole point of the runway
extension to begin with. The problem, of course, is that the
city wants the airline to sign a long-term commitment, which deters
true competition here.
Another
interesting aspect here is that the presumed purpose of this new
service will be to promote business growth in Flagstaff. That
is, if there is regular service to L.A., as well as to Phoenix (the
existing service), then new firms may be more easily enticed into
locating here. Not only does that seem absurd, but now there's
proof positive - Horizon is now touting this
service as "Flagstaff/Grand
Canyon," meaning that they will be catering to the tourist
market, not to business travelers. Who'd thunk it?
Certainly, nobody at City Hall!
Finally,
I decided to embrace Barack Obama's rhetoric by closing with his
oft-used refrain of "Yes, we can!"
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Thursday,
December 20, 2007
There
They Go Again
- Those
who read the local paper regularly may often get the feeling of deja
vu. Sometimes it is because they literally run the same story
twice, usually separated by a day or two. Indeed, one time, I
actually saw the same story three times - all exactly the same - in
the same week. Still, my comment today is on the newspaper's
editorial recycling. They don't run exactly the same editorial
more than once. At least, not to my knowledge. But, they
do recycle editorial content, usually without any additional insight
nor acknowledgement of new data. And, so it goes with their
editorial, "Rebalancing
Canyon access and natural experience critical,"
run in the Wednesday, December 12th paper. Once again we
are treated to the moans and groans of how crowded it is at the canyon
and how cars should be banned from the park. Aaargh! To
wit, I wrote a reply, printed in the paper on Tuesday, December 18:
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To the
editor:
In your recent editorial on Grand Canyon, it is noted that
many visitors are “disillusioned” by waiting in lines at
the entrance station and spending time looking for a place to
park. The conclusion that you reach – that cars should
be banned from the park and that there should be a bus and
tram system to shuttle visitors in and out – is illustrative
of the logical fallacy known as the non sequitur (“it does
not follow”).
The
correct lesson to be drawn from these visitor comments is that
inconvenience matters. It degrades the quality of the
visitors’ experience. A bus and tram system would not
only add wasteful spending (the additional parking, after all,
will have to be built somewhere), but will also add to visitor
inconvenience, further degrading their experience.
Luckily, park officials seem to
have grasped this point. They have already constructed
more stations at the south entrance, and plan to add parking
at the visitor center. These kinds of infrastructure
improvements should go a long way to alleviating congestion
problems at the canyon. |
Well, I tried to keep it short and to the point. I have
commented before on logical fallacies, and may make it one of my
missions in letter writing. The 'non sequitur' has always been a
favorite of mine, and it just amazes me how easily people will connect
up two disparate notions just because they are juxtaposed
together. And, so it was here. More galling was their
contempt for the fact that the park service is actually addressing
these issues. The editors may not like what the park is doing,
but then they should tailor the editorial appropriately.
Lazy. A few more observations:
Why
is visitation flat?
The editors suggest that, "annual
park visitation has been flat for nearly a decade, in part because of
its reputation for summer overcrowding." How do they
know this? Well, they don't. The mere act of writing (or,
speaking) it will make it true. After all, how can you survey
non-visitors? Certainly, some potential visitors may be off put
by stories of the canyon's congestion. But, most visitors are
first time (i.e., only time) visitors. I don't think the
canyon's "congestion" is likely to be a deciding
factor. Inability to get a room reservation, on the other hand,
may well be a deciding factor. Still, it begs the question of
why visitation is flat. I would suggest that potential visitors
are faced with lots of interesting choices for how to spend their
time. And, most "attractions" market themselves pretty
effectively. But, the Grand Canyon doesn't really do this.
It is not a destination. And, yet, it could be. But, the
people that run the park service hate the idea that anyone would come
to the Grand Canyon for any reason other than to genuflect upon the
rim. So, they have resisted each and every idea that would help
carve out the Grand Canyon as a singularly spectacular visit.
The Hualapai Tribe is doing a better job (but, they have a long way to
go) with their new Skywalk at the so-called Grand
Canyon West.
No,
it isn't at all like Disneyland.
The editorial contends that "Grand Canyon Village is a mass
tourism model no different than Disneyland, which has long shuttled
visitors from giant, outlying parking lots by bus and tram to its
entry gates." First of all, the parking lot at Disneyland
(the original one) was right in front of the gate to the park!!
Their transit options only developed over time. Secondly, the
draw of the Grand Canyon is . . . drumroll, please . . . the GRAND
CANYON!!! It isn't the village. Visitors have no reason to
wander around the village area. The Grand Canyon is huge -
practically the size of Delaware. And what visitors want is
access to the rim. There is no reason why the village has to be
so small, or so constrained to its current miniscule footprint.
It is an artificial scarcity that prompts wide-eyed urban planners
into conniptions of buses and trams for visitor access when it is
totally unneeded.
One more salient fact, unmentioned in the
editorial - Disneyland has parking for over 15,000 vehicles while the
South Rim area has but 2400 spaces, and the "need" for about
600 more!
For
those not in the know, the title for this essay is inspired by Ronald
Reagan's famous retort to Jimmy Carter.
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Sunday,
November 11, 2007
All
Quiet on the Western Front - In
late October, we drove up to the Grand Canyon to attend the second
annual Grand Canyon Hikers Symposium, sponsored by the Grand
Canyon Hikers & Backpackers Association. Great stories
all day long. On our way out of town, the sun was setting behind
the helipad, in Tusayan. We stopped and I was able to snag this
great shot of the helicopters at rest.

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Sunday,
October 14, 2007
 Nobel
Peace Politics Prize
- I am
sure that the question is being asked far and wide, if not across the
globe, then at least across the net - "How can it be that Al Gore
is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?" Exactly what has he done
to promote peace? I really can't think of a single thing.
Even a more broadly countenanced standard of
"humanitarianism" eludes the former veep. After all,
did he use the bully pulpit of his Vice Presidency to rail against the
genocide in Rwanda?
Well, no. Has he been touring the world raising consciousness
about the human tragedy of Darfur?
No, but maybe it's on his "to do" list.
Certainly, Al Gore is not in the same category as last year's winner, Muhammad
Yunus, who won for his pioneering efforts to create a
micro-loaning bank that has helped the desperately poor, in
Bangladesh, pull themselves out of poverty and, in making meaningful
productive contributions, raise the standard of living in their
localities. That is humanitarian. Indeed, the Nobel announcement
for Gore cites "[his]
efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made
climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are
needed to counteract such change."
Since everything that Dr. Yunus has been doing for the past thirty
years has been to help people increase their contribution to
"man-made climate change," one is left to wonder whether Dr.
Yunus' prize will have to be returned.
Upon hearing of Gore's selection, my spouse wrote to me and asked,
"Does the Nobel Peace Prize mean nothing?" to which I
responded, "Yes, it means nothing." Here's a list of
what is wrong with the Nobel committee's statement:
Measures
are needed to counteract changing climate.
No. Absolutely not. That is the point that is made, over
and over again, by Czech President Václav Klaus, most recently in a speech
before the United Nations.
Man-made
sources are significant contributors to climate change.
There is no evidence for this. Most of the warming that has
occurred over the last hundred years occurred before 1940, before
humans made any significant contribution to CO2 in the
atmosphere.
Al
Gore is helping to "disseminate" knowledge about man-made
climate change.
No. He is disseminating his own message, but that he continues
to duck debate proposals on this topic (see JunkScience
and DemandDebate) tells me
that he isn't interested in clearing the air on this topic.
So, let's call this prize what it really is - The Nobel Politics
Prize. Indeed, if Gore gets his way, in terms of a command and
control system that crushes economic progress and development, he'll
make Rachel Carson's contribution to world-wide
genocide seem like small potatoes. Which is probably what
we'll be eating.
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Saturday,
September 22, 2007
Although
it was a few years ago, my lunch with a California Condor, on a rocky
ledge in the Grand Canyon has just been added to the Hiking
Grand Canyon section of my blog.
Lunch
with Condor #19 - [November
11, 2004] It is Veteran's Day, and there are no classes, which
means I don't need to stick around in my office and can, instead, go
hiking. It was cool day, but not cold. There was sun
early, but quite a bit of overcast later. And, despite some
early missteps, it was a day to remember. . .
Read
the full story - Lunch
with Condor #19 in front of the Battleship
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Tuesday,
August 28, 2007
When
the Poor are Fat ...
- The Trust for America's
Health has issued its annual
report on obesity in America. I have no qualms with the
bottom line (pardon the pun) - it is getting wider all the time.
Why, just last week, I was having breakfast with Sue and Tom, my
sister and her mate. Tom had just returned from a three week
motorcycle cruise around a big chunk of the country and was noting how
many fat people he saw on his travels. I pointed out to him that
the three of us had just ordered four breakfasts (at our favorite
place - the Cracker Barrel), so we could split the order of pecan
pancakes. Well, none of us are obese, but we can each lose ten
pounds. Still, lifestyle is everything, isn't it?
One thing that interested me about the report is the
"connection" between obesity and poverty. "Eight
of the states with the highest poverty rates are also in the top 15
states with the highest obesity rates," according to the
report (p. 15). This observation should cause pause, not so much
about the problem of obesity, but about the definition of
poverty. It seems clear to me that we have defined poverty in a dysfunctional
manner if it can include people who eat too much. I thought
poverty meant that you didn't have enough income to properly feed,
clothe and shelter yourself. If poor people are fat, then they
are, ipso facto, not poor. There cannot be any other conclusion.
A huge problem with the tenor and tone of this report is its advocacy
for government involvement. The report was funded by a private
group, and, as best I can tell, it wasn't funded with any taxpayer
money. They seem to have a good handle on measuring the problem,
and suggesting ways to combat it. But, the report harps on the
role of government, even to the extent of providing a host of public
opinion survey results, showing how much people agree that the
government should be involved. Yeech. Some of their
proposals include:
--
"Restricting the sale of foods of poor nutritional value in
schools." [p. 45]
-- "Increasing the minimum food stamp benefit." [p.
45]
-- "Providing subsidies to farmers' markets to accept Electronic
Benefit Transfer cards." [p. 46]
-- Provide "subsidies for growing fruits and
vegetables." [p. 46]
-- "Encourage new building design that encourages use of
staircases rather than elevators or escalators." [p. 79]
-- Use "[s]tate and federal transportation dollars ... for mass
transit, sidewalk, and mixed use opportunities rather than be focused
on highway construction." [p. 79]
-- "The federal government should develop and implement a
National Strategy to Combat Obesity." [p. 93]
-- Require that "private employers and insurers ... ensure that
every working American has access to a workplace wellness
program." [p. 94]
-- "Provide No or Low Cost Physical Activity Opportunities ...
such as YMCAs." [p. 97]
There are many good ideas here, but using the government as the blunt
force instrument to operationalize them is a huge mistake. It is
bad enough that we have to use government to deal with a host of real
ills that afflict us. But, this notion that something so
controllable at the individual level must call into being a gigantic
bureaucracy and boatloads of regulations is just mind numbing.
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Monday,
July 23, 2007
Remembering
Peppyr - For
about a year, Peppyr had been feeling the ill effects of old
age. We celebrated her 15th birthday this month, with special
dog treats from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. But, her
worsening arthritis, the loss of some forty percent of her weight, an
increasing inability to stand, and a dramatic lessening of appetite,
led us to have her put to sleep this
past Friday. She was a great companion and the first dog I've
ever had. The sadness felt by Cara Lynn, Eric and me is
certainly a testament of how easily it was for us to project some of
ourselves onto her.
I have a great many fond memories of Peppyr. I took her hiking a
lot. I can still see her trying to hop up the steep steps on her
first hike on the Fatman's Loop at Mt. Elden. She was to the top
of Mt. Humphreys at least twice. We would often hike up, and jog
back, along the trails at Sandy Seep and the Inner Basin. Our
longest hike together was from the Inner Basin to the Mt. Elden
trailhead parking lot. We were both tired and sore for some
days afterwards.
She came along on many camping trips to the North Rim - Saddle
Mountain, Jumpup Canyon, and Crazy Jug were favorite spots to
camp. The photo, on the right, shows us looking over a benchmark
site above Hack Canyon in 2004. I am reasonably sure that she
was the first dog to walk across the old Navajo
Bridge, below Lees Ferry, as we happened by there right after the
new bridge opened for business (but, before the ceremony marking its
use). I also took her on some road trips - a couple of times to
visit family in Denver, and once on a trip to Fargo. But, mostly
we spent our time together hiking, especially in Flagstaff.
There are tons of humorous moments that I recall - like her chasing
after snowballs in the deep snow of the front yard. She would
stick her nose into the spot where the snowball had landed and try to
fathom what had happened to it. She never did catch the LED pen
light shining on the carpet. Nor, did she ever manage to catch
her tail, as I recall. Also, she was great at holding a dog
biscuit on her nose until I allowed her to lean over, let it slide
off, and eat it.
I got Peppyr from the Humane Society in August of 1992. She, and
two siblings, were the last of a large litter available for
adoption. Exactly what kind of dog she was, besides "Humane
Society Special," was unclear. She had a cool distinctive
white tip to her always-curly tail, and her paws looked like someone
had dipped her into white paint. The short hairs on her spine
would shoot straight up when she got into an attack mode, which wasn't
very often. She was very good at "fetch" but not so
good at "let go."
The decision to put Peppyr to sleep was not an easy one, but we'll
have many good memories to keep with us. During our final visit
to the Canyon Pet Hospital, I should also note that the reception
staff, the techs and our vet, Dr. Chris, showed us a great deal of
kindness, consideration and professionalism.
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Wednesday,
July 18, 2007
Looking
Glass Logic
- This past Sunday, the Arizona Daily Sun ran an editorial
titled, "Housing
options need price tags and full debate." The arguments
made were built on such a flimsy house of cards, that I decided to pen
a response and send it to them. As the main thrust of the
editorial was that the debate was over, insofar as government
involvement in the local housing market was concerned, I thought about
calling this blog, "Housing meets Global
Warming." As long as someone proclaims consensus,
apparently there must be one! The editorial concerned
recommendations made by a $100,000, city-funded, study (Nexus
Housing Study). Here's the letter:
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To the
editor:
Your
recent editorial on the housing “crisis” suffers from
three flaws. First, the notion that local workers are
underpaid “compared to the Phoenix market” is untrue.
Our total income is derived from both monetary and
non-monetary sources – living in Flagstaff conveys lots of
non-monetary benefits (e.g., our proximity to the Grand
Canyon). Those who stay here have decided that the trade
off is worthwhile, hence they are not “underpaid.”
Second,
the notion that we should have some target ownership ratio, or
that prices should represent some specific multiple of median
income, is arbitrary. If the average for the nation is
67%, it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that
some places are higher and some are lower. So, why is it
a “problem” that we have a lower rate? Let’s just
accept and embrace our diversity.
Third, the
notion that the “private market simply cannot solve the
problem” is untrue. The market has solved this problem
by efficiently allocating scarce resources among competing
ends. To the extent that our scarcities are made worse
by physical limitations, so be it – we have to live with
physical limitations!
However,
if our scarcities are worsened by ill-conceived political
regulations, then don’t blame the market if prices are high.
Blame all the people that want to impose unwarranted
constraints and restrictions on the use of land.
Imposing further restrictions and constraints will only
exacerbate the scarcities we face and continue to raise the
cost of living in Flagstaff. |
Some
additional notes:
The
"underpaid" class.
As noted, the editorial misses the point of what economists call the
"full wage" of any worker. By living in Flagstaff,
instead of Phoenix, workers trade off summertime highs of 115 degrees
(or, more) for wintertime lows that may dip below zero. They
trade off long commutes along congested highways, for short trips,
even across town. They trade off the desert for the
mountains. I have met people that don't want to make those trade
offs, so they move elsewhere. There is a constant rearranging of
equilibrium conditions to reflect these underlying differences.
Home
ownership rates.
Whenever I see someone point to an average and bemoan the fact that
"we" are below it, I just cringe. Averages are made up
of high and low numbers. Hasn't Garrison Keeler convinced us
that it is a pipe dream for everyone to be above average? So,
the national average is 67% (actually, it is 68.4%).
For the current year, across the fifty states, and D.C., the average
ranges from 45.5% (Washington, D.C.), 55.7% (New York) and 59.9%
(Hawaii) to 78.4% (West Virginia). In "principal
cities" the rate (for the U.S.) is 54.1%. Across the 75
largest metropolitan areas, the rate is lowest in New York City
(53.6%), Fresno, CA (53.9%), Los Angeles (54.4%) Honolulu (58.4%), and
San Francisco (59.9%) while the highest is in Indianapolis
(79%). Note that these are not city limits, but metropolitan
areas. Certainly, the rates would be lower inside of city limits
(except for Honolulu, where the city is the entire island of Oahu).
And, that is true for Flagstaff as
well. The metro area, in the 2000
Census, is more than double the population of the city (116,000
versus 53,000), and had an overall home ownership rate of 61.4%, while
the city had a rate of 48%. Essentially, this means that home
ownership rates in the local area, outside the city limits, are well
over 70%! While the editors of the local paper contend that
local workers, commuting from outlying areas is "inefficient and
... undesirable," there is no support for any such notion.
They must be asserting that all 116,000 local area residents should be
squeezed into the current city limits!
Another issue here, which hasn't been
addressed, is that Flagstaff is home to Northern Arizona University,
which has well over 10,000 students. This means that some demand
exists for rental housing, not for owner-occupied housing. This
will skew the results for home ownership rates. Having skimmed
through the Nexus report, I can't find any adjustment for this demand.
What about other places in Arizona?
Well, the 2000 Census gives home ownership rates for various places
around the state. The lowest rates are for Tempe
(51%), Sierra
Vista (52.2%), Tucson
(53.4%), Bullhead
City (60.3%), and Phoenix
(60.7%). The highest rates are for Apache
Junction (82.1%), Peoria
(84.3%), Gilbert
(84.9%), and Surprise
(88.3%).
Well, these are the largest communities of
our state. Some of the smaller places, and their home ownership
ratios can be accessed from this
web page (put an * in the search box to see a list of Arizona
places). Here are the stats for some of these communities (from
the 2000 Census) ranked from highest, to lowest, in terms of home
ownership rates:

Clearly this issue is not as cut-and-dried as the editors of the Daily
Sun would have us believe - "The time for arguing over whether
government should get involved in Flagstaff's housing crisis is
over." But, I think it is going to take more letters . . .
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Tuesday,
April 10, 2007
Saving
Places
- A bout with the flu, a week backpacking in the Grand Canyon,
and a boat load of grading have kept me relatively idle on the blog
front. Time to jump back in . . .
In the 1995
General Management Plan, adopted for Grand Canyon, the Park
Service planned to demolish
the Thunderbird and Kachina Lodges, which are located on the rim of
the canyon, between the El Tovar Hotel and the Bright Angel
Lodge. Why? I suppose the short answer is, "Because
they can." I think, though, that this proposal speaks to a
deeper character flaw in the people that run the NPS, in general, and
the Grand Canyon, in particular. They hate tourists. They
don't want people to go to the Grand Canyon, and, if they must come,
they don't want to stay near the rim. I guess that having people
really close to these magnificent views would somehow harm the canyon.
In the late 1990's, I circulated a flyer around during the Earth Day
celebration on the campus of Northern Arizona University, which asked
people to write to the superintendent to "Save the Kachina"
and to "Save the Thunderbird." OK, so it was a bit
tongue-in-cheek, since the nutjobs that attend these
"rallies" are not really interested in development that
promotes tourism.
Thankfully, the park service has been unable to carry through with
this part of its plan. So, the lodges remain. A few years
ago, while the Canyon Forest Village
proposal was getting the approval of our county Board of
Supervisors, the demise of these lodges was the focus of some
attention. The board decided that 900 rooms, at CFV, was enough,
but allowed for the possibility of future expansion, contingent upon
the removal of the Kachina and Thunderbird. Somehow, the notion
that tourists should stay overnight 7 miles from the rim, rather than
right on the rim, was thought to improve the quality of their
visits. Or, not.
Last week, there was a "listening session" held at the
Museum of Northern Arizona, where local park officials, including the
Superintendent from Grand Canyon, would hear what people had to say
about the parks. I wanted to attend, and actually planned on
it. But, the information on the timing of this session was
incorrect in the local paper, so, alas, I was unable to go and have my
voice heard. But, I am sure that all the usual suspects (i.e.,
local activists) did attend. In a follow-up article on this
event, in the local paper, former Grand Canyon resident, Bruce Aiken,
made some disparaging remarks about the Kachina and Thunderbird
lodges. So, I thought to pen a quick response, which ran in the
paper this past Easter Sunday:
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To the
editor:
In a recent article about conditions at the Grand Canyon, a
former inner canyon resident is quoted as saying that the
Kachina and Thunderbird lodges are “disgusting” and that
“nobody likes” them. I would beg to differ.
These two lodges are hardly eyesores. They are nestled
between the El Tovar Hotel and the Bright Angel Lodge.
While they do not suffer from an overabundance of
architecturally-stimulating features, I would challenge
visitors to carefully consider these two structures from a
nearby vantage point along the West Rim Drive. Looking
back at the South Rim, with the San Francisco Peaks in the
background, you’ll hardly notice these lodges. Their
façade of buff colored stone-like panels make them blend in
well with the Kaibab Limestone, the uppermost rock layer of
the Grand Canyon. They do not crowd the rim, unlike the
Bright Angel, nor do they dominate a point, like the El Tovar.
Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a better example of
“environmental sustainability” in the park.
I would bet that any visitor, staying at the Yavapai, or the
Maswik, or anywhere in Tusayan, would love to trade up to a
canyon-side room in either of these two lodges. With
occupancy rates in excess of 90%, it seems that plenty of
people like these rooms.
For
years, officials at the park have pursued a policy to demolish
these two lodges, to be replaced, not by another El Tovar,
but, instead, to be replaced by nothing. That would be a
crime. A crime not unlike ones committed by the Park
Service in the past, like when they destroyed the Grandview
and Summit, whose historical relevance was lost on officials
that seem driven to deter visitation rather than embrace it. |
In 2018 and
2021, these two lodges will be 50 years old, and may become eligible
to become historic
sites. It is not a slam dunk, and it is possible to get on
the list earlier, but I will bet that the park service will continue
to try to tear down these buildings before they can be officially
recognized as part of our history.
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Thursday,
December 28, 2006
The
Unimportance of Education
- For many years there has been an undercurrent of
dissatisfaction with public education. The basis for that
discontent is the inability to produce students that are truly
educated. In the grade schools, the pressure to pass students
through the system, without an education, can be somewhat tempered by
vigilant parents. And, the whole choice/voucher debate will,
hopefully, push the system towards more and more competition.
Education is, after all, a very personal and
individual quality. I often tell my students that I can't
"teach" them anything; that "teaching" is a
misnomer. I can talk; I can cajole; I can threaten; I can
entice; I can penalize; I can reward; I can even entertain. But,
I cannot "teach." What is really happening is that
students are learning. Or, not. I do try to help them,
but, it really has more to do with them than it does with me. I
don't take any credit for the A+ student, but, neither do I take any
blame for the F student. I provide them with the opportunity to
learn, and, then, I judge them accordingly. Indeed, my primary
task is to judge them, based on how they have demonstrated what they have
learned.
At the university level, where I "teach," we are constantly
under pressure from forces that work towards an erosion of our
educational standards for the students that we graduate. The
more robust the competition for students, and the less a financial
role that is played by the state, the more likely it is that these
forces will be effectively balanced by the desire, on the part of
students and parents, that our college degrees actually represent the
earning of an education.
Of course, there have been critics. The seminal work by Allan
Bloom, The
Closing of the American Mind, is a powerful indictment against a
system that places more value on self-esteem than on developing a
reasoning faculty in students. A recent essay by one of my
favorites, Arnold
Kling, laments the proliferation of "Wizard-of-Oz
diplomas" - ones that looks good on paper, but are hardly worth
the paper they are printed on.
At the university where I "teach" we are being quickly
propelled towards a world where all we do is give out Wizard-of-Oz
diplomas. Our president has said, over and over again, that
every graduating high school student in Arizona should go to
college. And, we are becoming blindingly focused on the
"retention" of these students, since every student in our
university means more money from the state and the feds. Now,
the public choice economist in me understands full well why the
president of a large state university would argue for more students
and argue for keeping them in school longer. What does dismay me
is that there aren't more (or, any?) voices out there questioning such
a transparent conflict of interest.
It wasn't too many years ago that the mindset of the administration
was much more focused on graduates that were well-educated. At
least, that was the case in the business college, where I work. [In the
education college, they don't seem to have focused on education for at
least a generation; for a prime example see one of my earlier blogs.]
The classes I am primarily responsible for, were described as
"weed-out" classes by a former dean. That probably
sounds rather impolitic, but the mindset was that our graduates would
be better-served with a diploma that actually means something about
the level of their education. A marketing student would call
this the "branding" effect.
But, now, that has changed. Our current charge is to
"produce diplomas." There is the addendum of,
"but, not by lowering standards," but that is just
disingenuous double-talk. The quality of our students hasn't
changed, in any appreciable sense, in many years. We don't
really have much in the way of an admission standard. And, they
are, by and large, the products of a pretty awful public secondary
school system. On average, the students I see don't know how to
write well, don't like to read much and are not inclined to
think. They believe that hearing me say something is equivalent
to their having learned something. And, we seem to be on the
crest of a wave that will validate this belief. I now tell my
students that there are two goals they may pursue at the university -
getting a degree and getting an education. One is easier than
the other. One presents the illusion of success. One will
short-change them in the long run.
I don't know how this will all turn out. I suspect that we will
delude ourselves that our standards have not fallen, while we watch
more and more skilled work being done abroad. There may be some
private sector responses that will help to alleviate this
proliferation of the Wizard-of-Oz diploma, but that requires students
pay again to get the opportunities that were missed the first time
around. Over the years I have been teaching, one suggestion that
I would make, that would likely raise the educational attainment of
students in a dramatic fashion, is to raise
the minimum age for college to 21, or 22.
If someone wants to go at 18, or 19, or 20, they can pay a premium for
that option. If they are very smart and test well, they can earn
scholarships to pay that premium. Otherwise, most of the
students I see really would be better off by making their college
years the ones from 22 to 25 rather than 18 to 21. After all,
the collapse of the social security system will necessitate later
retirement ages anyway, so why be in a rush to start a 40, or 50, year
career? It probably would be less of a burden on parents as
well, as they can insist that their children provide more financial
resources for their own college education. Well, it's just an
idea.
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Sunday,
November 12, 2006
Paycheck
- Sci Fi Econ
- One of my continuing interests is how economics is portrayed in
science fiction writing. I am a long-time fan of the sci fi
genre. I can remember reading a Scholastic Book, while in grade
school, about a robot that wanted to see in color. I was
hooked. I picked up many paperbacks throughout my high school
years, including the I,
Robot series, by Isaac Asimov. I've been an off-and-on
member of the Sci Fi Book Club for 30 years. [If it wasn't for
the required response cards, I would only have joined once!] I
can still vividly remember reading Asimov's Foundation
Trilogy
while I was in college.
As I pursued an undergraduate degree in economics, and, eventually, a PhD
in that field, I found myself intrigued by the representations of the
economic landscape in science fiction. From the bizarre, and
untenable - like the lack of money in Star Trek, and the entire
collapse of a planetary system, due to faulty monetary policy, in John
Brunner's Total
Eclipse - to the hopeful and inspiring - like Heinlein's rugged
economic individualism in The
Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
I have been compiling a folder of miscellaneous notes over the
years. I keep thinking that I might craft together a course on
the subject. Today, that interest jumps out onto my blog.
I just watched Paycheck,
for the umpteenth time. And, as I have so many times before, I
also read Philip
Dick's short story that is the basis for the movie. I like
to remind myself how they differ. The plot of the written story,
at its core, involves a coming revolution against a government that
has continually curbed individual freedoms. We don't really get
anywhere near the revolution, as the story concerns Jennings' search
to follow the clues he sent himself in lieu of his expected
paycheck. In many ways, the story and the movie are similar -
Jennings is a technical expert, hired to work on a secret project for
a private company, who has his memory wiped at the end of the job, and
who, now, must find his way through a world where people want to find
out what he knows.
And, yet, there is a fundamental difference between the story and the
movie - in the movie, the CEO is the evil character, and the business
is the vehicle for the destruction of mankind. In the book, the
CEO is a stalwart character, who is concerned about the destruction of
liberty by the government. Ah, that old Hollywood bias!
So, there is a nice passage in the story that highlights Dick's vision
of the future, at least insofar as this plot was concerned:
...The Security Police were looking for him ... It was only a
question of time before the SP found him, walking along the
street, eating in a restaurant, in a show, sleeping in some rooming
house. The SP were everywhere.
Everywhere? Not quite.
When an individual person was defenseless, a business was
not. The big economic forces had managed to remain free,
although virtually everything else had been absorbed by the
Government. Laws that had been eased away from the
private person still protected property and industry.
The SP could pick up any given person, but they could not
enter and seize a company, a business. That had been
clearly established in the middle of the twentieth century.
Business, industry, corporations were
safe from the Security Police. Due process was required
... If he could get back to the Company, get inside its doors,
he would be safe. Jennings smiled grimly. The
modern church, sanctuary. It was the Government against
the corporation, rather than the State against the
Church. The new Notre Dame of the world. Where the
law could not follow. |
Fascinating vision. But, I can't say that businesses will really
be able to fend off the intrusions of government, as portrayed in this
story. Still, we can dream. Dick's stories have been
regularly turned into movies, many of which are my favorites - e.g.,
Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and Imposter. For
those who want to know more, here are some links:
Philip
K. Dick Fans
A Life of
Fantasy
The
Hollywood Afterlife of Philip K. Dick
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Tuesday,
August 1, 2006
Smug
Localism
- The local paper ran a story about "buying local" put
out by the Christian Science Monitor, titled, "Buying
local may not always be best." I thought it was an
excellent piece, because it actually treated globalism proponents as
serious and reasonable!! That's a far cry from how this issue is
usually treated. I was going to send a quick e-mail to the
editor commenting on what a good story it was. But, there
appeared a few disparaging letters over the last week and the editor,
in his weekly column, pooh-poohed these views as
"contrarian." Well, so much for an enlightened
press. So, while I thought to write a letter in response, it
wasn't until another pro-local letter appeared, written by Becky
Daggett, the Executive Director of the Friends
of Flagstaff's Future, that I was motivated to respond . . .
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To the
editor:
Kudos for running the article, “Buying local may not always
be best.” It was both well-balanced and a refreshing
change. It underscored a central feature to our high
standard of living – specialization. We don’t strive
for self-sufficiency, because that makes us poor. It’s
really just a matter of common sense.
Of course, common sense seems to be in short supply at the
so-called Friends of Flagstaff’s Future. Their
executive director writes that, “each dollar spent at a
locally owned business recirculates at least three times …
versus a dollar spent with a chain store, which departs
immediately to corporate headquarters.”
That is patently false. Of each dollar spent, both
stores have to pay their employees and have to pay for the
goods they sell. Their employees live here, while the
goods they sell likely come from outside Flagstaff. The
only difference is that the profit of the chain store is owned
by the stockholders, only some of whom live here, while the
profit of the locally-owned store goes entirely to its owner.
How big a difference is that? Well, over the last year,
Wal-Mart earned a 3.5% profit margin on its sales. So, a
net of less than 3.5 cents on each dollar spent at Wal-Mart
flows out of Flagstaff, as compared to some locally-owned
store.
So, if you want to
buy local, please do so. If you want to feel smug and
superior about it, fine with me. Just don’t try
(again) to use the government to force me to have to shop with
you.
Dennis Foster
Flagstaff, AZ |
There are other issues here worthy of
mention.
Ad hominem
attacks show weakness for "localism" argument.
Both Daggett and earlier letter writer, Ned Barnett, attacked the
globalism argument by attacking the people who were representing the
argument. This is known as the ad
hominem fallacy. Why attack the argument when you can
question the arguer? Daggett's criticism was especially
egregious in this regard by whining that a buy-local critic works for
the Hudson Institute, which is
funded, in part, by corporations like Wal-Mart. She writes that,
"This could be why Mr. Avery takes a dim view of supporting ...
locally owned businesses." Isn't it funny how these smug
social activists cannot fathom the notion that researchers at
conservative think tanks (like Hudson) actually believe in what they
do?
What do we buy
locally?
Clearly, we are quite motivated to buy goods and services that cost us
as little as possible. Some may get satisfaction from shopping
at the local bookstore, versus the Barnes and Noble, but what they are
buying is a bundle of services we can label as
"ambiance." Generally speaking, services are most
likely to be provided locally, because it is costly for us to travel
elsewhere. Services like - lawyers, doctors, financial planners,
realtors, auto mechanics, insurance agents, and so on. Most of
these services are provided for by locally-owned firms (perhaps sole
proprietors) even if they are associated with regional, and national,
businesses. That is, my MetLife agent owns his own
business.
What is local?
Years ago, while serving a three month stint as the public member of
the editorial board for the local paper, the Arizona Daily Sun, I was
astounded that they (editors, reporters) didn't understand the concept
of a locally-owned franchise. That is, they thought any national
chain business must be run by the corporation. I tried to
disabuse them of this notion, but I can't say that I was wholly
successful. I pointed out that the local Sizzler was owned by a
second, or third, generation Flagstaff resident. Conversely, a
downtown coffee shop was opened up by a couple that had just moved to
Flagstaff six months earlier from California. Which is local and
which isn't? In fact, the California couple pulled up stakes the
following year and moved on to Colorado.
Beware the lazy
social activist.
At the end of my letter, I reference the use of government to curtail
our choices. The background for this was the decision by the
city council, a couple of years ago, to place size, and usage,
limitations on retail businesses, expressly to keep Wal-Mart from
locating a Supercenter in Flagstaff. There was a petition drive
to place the matter on the ballot, and voters overturned this
decision. But, I don't think that will satisfy these lazy social
activists from trying to use government to restrict our freedoms in
the future.
Some
related blogs:
Wal-Mart
Bashing -
Critiquing
the anti Wal-Mart movie, "The High Cost of Low Price."
Brown
v. Foster -
A comment on
a debate I had with a colleague about the anti Wal-Mart movie.
Final
thought - A remark from another colleague of mine, has lodged
permanently in my brain, and seems apropos for this piece: "Why
should I care about the Mom and Pop store? Mom and Pop have been
ripping me off for years."
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Saturday,
April 1, 2006
Plenty
of April Fools at Grand Canyon Trust
- Well, not just at the Trust. And, not just in
April. But, the recent efforts by a group called the Just
Transition Coalition, of whom the Grand
Canyon Trust is a member, will surely put other April Fool
pranksters to shame. However, it should be noted, that the JTC
did get an early start, and their hoax may not end any time
soon. Let's break it down ...
The
issue:
The Mohave
Generating Station used to pump out over 1500 megawatts of
power. But, not any more. Years ago, the Grand Canyon
Trust was a partner in a lawsuit against Mohave's owners, asking that
they be forced to clean up their pollution or shut down. [I
blogged on this in Lumps
of Coal for Christmas.] The clean-up costs amount to over $1
billion. And, the visibility improvements at the Grand
Canyon are likely to be zip - indeed, it will take an estimated five
years of scientific observations to determine if there is any net
benefit in visibility!
The
ripple effect:
As is typical in the coal-fired electric power industry, there was
only one supplier of coal for the Mohave plant, and that was from the Black
Mesa mine, located on the Navajo Reservation and operated by Peabody
Energy. As a consequence of the shutdown at Mohave, the mine
has also shut down, costing many hundred Navajos jobs that paid very
well ($70,000+, which goes a long way on the rez).
The
Just Transition Hoax:
The hodgepodge of environmental and social activist groups that form
the JTC issued a statement claiming that the value of Mohave's
pollution credits should not go to the owner, Southern California
Edison, but, rather, to the Hopi and Navajo tribes. They want
$20 million a year, for the next 20 years. Yes, Alice, we've
completely stepped through the looking glass on this one.
My characterization just barely scratches the surface in capturing the
bizarre nature of the JTC statement. Let's take a closer look at
that statement, at least at the one published in the Arizona Daily Sun
on March 20, 2006.
| For
years, the Navajo and Hopi people made major sacrifices to
enable the Mohave Generating Station to operate. The
people provided labor, coal, ... water and bore the burden of
pollution. |
One may be excused for
thinking that, based on this statement, there was no compensation for
these resources. Of course, that would be wrong. The
workers got paid, and paid well. The tribes got paid, for the
coal and the water, and paid well. And, at many hundreds of
miles away from the Mohave plant (further away than where I live in
Flagstaff), they didn't bear any "burden" of pollution.
| Now
that the facility has closed, we have a right to ask the
owners of Mohave to help us transition to a better future, to
repay the debt. |
Well, let's see ... the
groups of the JTC helped make it impossible for the plant to remain
open, and now they want to be "compensated" for that
action? To make matters even worse, these groups opposed
a plan to allow Mohave to continue to operate, at least
temporarily. And, there is no "debt" to repay - the
tribes did not lend any resources to Mohave.
| How
will the Just Transition Plan work? Funds secured from
the sale of pollution credits by the primary operators of the
Mohave Plant ... would go to the tribes for investment in
local communities through renewable energy development. |
One wonders why the
tribes haven't already spend funds for these kinds of
developments. Over the last 20 years, they have earned at least
$1 billion in royalties from their coal and water. Couldn't they
have put away $20 million a year for these purposes? Yes, they
could have.
| It
is time for a fresh plan to bring justice to Black Mesa and
economic development to a people cheated out of decades of
billions of dollars from lost coal and water royalties. |
I don't know how
spending $20 million, extorted from a company that has nothing to do
with the contract between Peabody and the tribes, brings
"justice" to people cheated out of billions of
dollars! This fanciful tale has not been endorsed by the tribal
governments, which have benefited greatly from the coal and water
royalties. So, maybe this hoax will die a deserving death,
sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, the April Fools at the
Grand Canyon Trust are most certainly busy working on some new scheme
to bankrupt businesses, impoverish hard working families and denigrate
the visitor industry in this region.
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For
more, go to the Random Fragments Archive Index
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