Category Archives: Web Article Review

mathy inflation hand waving headlines

Breitbart headline: Wholesale Inventories Rose More Than Expected, Pointing to Even More Inflation Ahead

Okay Breitbart, but couldn’t an increase in inventories indicate that supply is starting to catch up with demand, which would put downward pressure on inflation? Or it could indicate a sudden drop in demand, which would also hopefully put downward pressure on inflation, although maybe not right away, which could lead to the dreaded “stagflation”. Either way, this headline is either stupid or intentionally misleading. Either the logical relationship is the opposite of what they are suggesting, or there is no relationship at all.

In the actual article,

Economists had expected many businesses to go into liquidation mode to rid themselves of unwanted inventories in the first quarter of this year. Indeed, declining or decelerating inventories were widely expected to be a drag on GDP as well as a moderating factor on inflation. Instead, inventories have been building faster than expected, which will likely force GDP expectations and inflation to rise.

Wholesalers act as middlemen between producers of goods and retailers. The business requires speculation about future demand. A rising wholesale inventory generally indicates expectations for robust demand from consumers for goods. It can go awry, however, if consumer spending is weaker than expected and wholesalers are left with unwanted stockpiles of goods. For this reason, economists watch the inventory to sales ratio, which remains at a historically low level that indicates wholesalers have not built up big piles of goods in compared to consumer activity.

Breitbart

Let’s try to follow this convoluted logic. I don’t see why declining inventories would put downward pressure on inflation, unless businesses are expecting a big slowdown in demand in the near future so they preemptively stop ordering goods. We hear speculation that inflation and interest rate hikes could trigger a recession, but businesses tend to react to economic fluctuations rather than gamble on what they think might happen. At the moment, both supply and demand are picking up, but demand is picking up faster and causing inflation.

Inventory to sales ratio is at a historic low – this again would suggest demand is picking up and supply is still struggling, triggering inflation. This is logical – and the exact opposite of the headline, which is completely illogical! People who read only the headline or only skim the text (probably most people) are going to get the exact opposite of the right idea. I am going to stamp this as naked propaganda and shame on Breitbart.

“giant leap” for food prices

The “giant leap” headline is from the FAO, which is not usually prone to hyperbole. But their global food price index rose over 12% in March, and the grain portion of the index rose 17% while the vegetable oil portion rose 23%. These are not the annual rates of increase in March, which would be high. They are increases during the month of March, on top of steady increases since about summer 2020. Looking back at the index historically, there were shocks of similar intensity in the 2005-2010 period. This one is already bigger and longer, and those earlier periods resulted in a lot of unrest and mass migration pressure.

A rational response would be to increase food and development aid to countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. An irrational response would be to do nothing and wait for the rise of racist and nationalist movements that love to capitalize on a mass migration crisis.

the 1962 Single Integrated Operational Plan

This is just chilling.

A full nuclear SIOP strike launched on a preemptive basis would have delivered over 3200 nuclear weapons to 1060 targets in the Soviet Union, China, and allied countries in Asia and Europe;

A full nuclear strike by SIOP forces on high alert, launched in retaliation to a Soviet strike, would have delivered 1706 nuclear weapons against a total of 725 targets in the Soviet Union, China, and allied states;

Targets would have included nuclear weapons, government and military control centers, and at least 130 cities in the Soviet Union, China, and allies;

The National Security Archive

That is clearly insane. What secret plans to destroy everything human civilization has achieved in the last 10,000 years are on the books today?

tactical nuclear weapons

Center for Public Integrity has an article explaining how a war involving tactical nuclear weapons could play out. The problem, beyond the obvious horrible human and environmental toll they would take, is that they would likely be the link in escalation from conventional war to civilization-annihilating total thermonuclear war. Please no.

Had such an invasion ever come, the commanders in the field, given authorization to use nuclear weapons to avert defeat, would retreat after deployment. (Soviet plans for war were to specifically attack tactical nuclear sites.) The war would then either end in hours with an exchange of ICBMs, or with a ceasefire negotiated to prevent armageddon.

Defense intellectuals describe the steps between peace and thermonuclear oblivion through an “escalation ladder,” with the leadership of both countries at war taking actions that invite the other country to either escalate, by increasing the stakes and tensions, or de-escalate, by backing away from further conflict. Tactical nuclear weapons are the rung separating conventional battle from a nuclear war.

Soviet leaders developed their nuclear weapons and doctrine as a response to U.S. nuclear war planning, and awareness of U.S. nuclear deployments to Europe. Both the U.S. and USSR assumed that once tactical nuclear weapons were used, it was more likely that thermonuclear exchange, not deescalation, would follow.

Center for Public Integrity

So the strategy was to out-crazy the other side. We rolled the dice on that risky strategy and won, but roll the dice enough times and everyone on both sides will lose.

The best thing that could possibly come out of this horrible Ukraine war, once the dust settles, would be renewed arms control negotiations. I am not too hopeful for that because the world seems to be in a very cynical place right now.

body cams

I just finished up my third Philadelphia jury experience. I’m not going to give any details of names or locations, but one thing that struck me was the role of technology. This trial featured:

  • Instagram
  • Someone (allegedly) impersonating a delivery person
  • Selfies, which ended up in court
  • A (temporarily) purloined cell phone
  • Police body cam videos

Now, about those police body cams. We started hearing about them in the context of police shootings of suspects, but after seeing them in court I realized that they change everything. First, there is a world of difference between hearing the testimony of a police office about what happened on the scene, and seeing and hearing (although the audio was not perfect) it for yourself. For one thing, police are not masters of public speaking. For another, the incident they are describing happened months or even years before, and was just a few short minutes during one busy day. They may have responded to hundreds or thousands of similar calls since then. The body cam footage will even help the police officers themselves remember what happened on the scene before they testify.

EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2022

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has a new report out with projections through 2050. The graphs are worth staring at. Here are some takeaways for me.

  • Coal use has crashed from over 20% of energy consumption 10 years ago to around 10% now. The rise in renewable energy mirrors it, from less than 5% to nearly 20%. Natural gas also surged during this period to replace the decline in coal, from around 20 to 30+ percent. Oil just kind of bumps along in the 30-40% range. The projection in 2050 is something like oil 40%, natural gas 35%, renewables 20%, everything else less than 10%.
  • The carbon footprint of electric power generation a decade ago was greater than the transportation sector. It has declined significantly (I assume this reflects the substitution of natural gas and renewables for coal), and is projected to continue to decline. The carbon footprint of transportation and industry is projected to remain relatively flat.
  • The biggest gains in renewable energy are projected to come from solar. Solar is projected to grow regardless of changes in cost, whereas wind and other sources are shown as more sensitive to cost, meaning if cost is high their share stops growing. I assume this has a lot to do with the cost of solar being pretty low already.
  • They show solar energy and battery storage being used extensively to meet peak mid-day demand by 2050.
  • Somewhat disappointing and surprising to me, they show electric vehicles sales only slowly displacing a small portion of gasoline-powered (3%?) vehicle sales over the next 30 years. I hope they are wrong about this one.

I can imagine a past world where safe civilian nuclear technology had been used more widely over the last 50 years or so, and we are not in the climate mess we are in today. Maybe this is even a world where the proliferation of nuclear weapons is less prevalent, but I am not sure about that. This is not the world we live in.

I can imagine a near-future world where homes, businesses, industry, and vehicles are increasingly electrified, and electricity generation is increasingly shifted to renewables. I still think nuclear power might be able to play an important role in this world. But it does not seem like we are headed in the direction of this world, at least not quickly enough to avoid a major train wreck. I hope I am wrong.

Opossums

I like the little guys. They are not “immune” to rabies or Lyme disease, as some have claimed, but they seem to get these diseases fairly rarely. They can carry fleas and ticks because…they’re animals. Although one study suggested they like to eat a lot of ticks, other studies have failed to confirm this unfortunately. This article cites a number of good things about them, and then seems to reach an illogical conclusion that they are nonetheless pests. I don’t quite get it – yes, they have sharp teeth and might use them if they are really cornered, or if a house pet that doesn’t know any better attacks them. That’s about it.

While it’s true that opossums eat ticks, thereby potentially preventing some spread of Lyme disease, their good characteristics may be overhyped by some social media users. Opossum-control mechanisms vary by state, but most pest control experts recommend treating their removal in the same way as one would treat raccoons or skunks. After determining that an opossum has moved in, experts say to make the surroundings less appealing to them by cleaning up overgrown shrubbery and trees that they may use to hide in, clean up fallen fruit, and hide garbage cans, pet food containers, or other food sources. Secure home areas so that they cannot hide out under stairways or other nooks and crannies.

Snopes

This sounds like a pretty good prescription to remove wildlife habitat in general on your property. Anything that is not mown turf grass with maybe the occasional well-mulched tree is “overgrown” in the eyes of some (not mine).

Philadelphia census

The Inquirer has a decent analysis of U.S. census results for Philly. You have to subscribe the Inquirer to read it (which I have done maybe because I was shamed by one of those articles about the decline of local news? also since I don’t really watch TV I am aware of almost no local news unless I pay for it). Anyway, a couple highlights although the graphics are worth a look:

  • They provide the Gini index and change in the Gini index over the last 5 years or so. Income inequality has gotten worse, and Philadelphia proper is the worst in the Philadelphia metro area. They point out that this could be because the rich have gotten richer or the poor have gotten poorer, or both, but then they don’t dig into that any further.
  • The depressing statistic remains that Philadelphia is the poorest major city in the United States at over 20% of residents living in poverty. This is pathetic. They picked 10 “major cities” (not clear if these are counties or metro areas) – Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are the next poorest after Philly (go Texas!) and Chicago, New York and Los Angeles are 5-7 respectively, with San Diego and San Jose bringing up the rear (i.e., the best of the worst? or the best of the worst of the biggest?). So whatever the impression we might get in the media, the economy in California seems to be doing a bit better than Texas if poverty is the metric. The article points out that social benefits like food stamps are not considered (but maybe tax benefits like the earned income tax credit would be?) but doesn’t dig into it further.
  • About 2 of 3 Philadelphia residents were born in Pennsylvania, indicating people are not that mobile and we are not attracting new residents from elsewhere the way the sun belt cities generally area. They did not do this analysis by metro area, so including people from the New Jersey and Delaware might push this number even higher (and excluding people from, say, the northwestern tip of the state which is a 7 hour drive from here probably would not push it that much lower.)
  • Philadelphia has the second lowest percentage of foreign-born residents of the 10 cities (counties? metro areas?) studied. San Antonio had the lowest, so being near a militarized international border does not seem to correlate to attracting immigrants. Interestingly, Interestingly Philadelphia has the highest percentage of immigrants from Africa at about 11% of immigrants. Houston and Dallas are next, which again I wouldn’t have guessed. But I would keep in mind that in terms of sheer numbers, New York, LA, and Chicago may still have the most people in almost any category.
  • A majority of people over the age of 15 have never been married. This is interesting. Does this mean our city is particularly young (I don’t think so), particular groups are not getting married (I think so), or people are getting married later in life? To answer the last question, it would be interesting to know what age people tend to get married on average. I got married at 30, so if the average age were to be 25 or 30, what percent of people over that age have ever been married? What percent of people who are not married now will eventually get married? That would be an interesting number. 18% of all people over 15 are separated, divorced, or widowed (but if you want to know what % of people who get married eventually get divorced or separated, you would want to separate out the people who are widowed.) 50% of people who get married and don’t get divorced are going to get widowed – there’s a depressing thought. Or I guess it would be slightly less than 50% – I suppose a few couples go down together in car or plane crashes, sinking boats, fires/floods/building collapses, or the very occasional suicide pact. That’s sweet, now I feel better.

six simple things you can do to save the Earth…

The University of Leeds has an article (which I found through the Guardian) listing six things individuals can do to make a meaningful climate impact. My comments in brackets.

  1. “Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste.” [this sounds good]
  2. “Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year.” [I’m not a big clothes shopper, but even socks and underwear wear out faster than this. And my family’s economic livelihood requires me to not look like a complete slob at work. They also tell us to exercise, and that is going to wear out our footwear at least once a year. So I am not sure this is practical. What we can do is resist the fashion industry mind control telling us clothes are disposable, and just replace them as they wear out. We could move more towards mending clothes and shoes that wear out, but this is not a good use of time for busy people. I like the idea of taking more items to tailors and cobblers to be repaired, although this will likely not save money given labor costs in developed countries vs. low labor, material, and shipping costs in developing countries. We could also make it much easier to donate and repurpose old clothes. Right now shoving them in a trash bag is often the easiest thing for busy people to do.]
  3. Keep electrical products for at least seven years. [Again, I think we can just replace things as they wear out. Getting service and repairs on appliances is way harder than it should be, and getting good information to inform a repair/replace decision is also very hard. And again, donating/disposing of appliances and devices is hard. My basement is full of old things I know I am not supposed to put in the trash, but there are not easy pickup options and I have not had time to take them to the place I am supposed to take them, partly because I am a good-two-shoes who doesn’t drive much (see below).]
  4. Take no more than one short-haul flight every three years and one long-haul flight every eight years. [This is a tough one. I understand flights are a big problem, but I also think there is value in international peace and understanding to people traveling more, not less. Carbon offsets are out there, although I know they are not perfect – we need better information on how to access these and which programs can be trusted. Ultimately, I think this one needs to be solved by governments and scientists and industrialists – hydrogen fuel cells seem promising. High speed rail could solve the short-haul problem if our cowardly cynical politicians would let that happen. Driving those short and intermediate distances is not the solution – again see below.]
  5. Just don’t drive. [I am 100% on board with this, and unlike the vegetarian thing I practice what I preach. People say they can’t do this because of where they live, but I always urge people to think about where they might like to and be able to live in five years. That is a long-enough time frame to think about making a change, but short enough it is not the bulk of a person’s life. Of course, the supply of walkable places in the United States is extremely limited, and limited things that are in high demand are expensive, so the vast majority of people assume this is not a practical option even if they like the idea. Many people don’t like the idea because they have never experienced and can’t imagine a non-driving-based lifestyle. I am not talking about forcing people to change lifestyles – I am talking about our cowardly cynical politicians giving us a lot more choices.]
  6. “Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier.” [These are actually short-term investments that have a longer-term positive return. This is something we irrational, short-lived humans are not good at doing, but where there is free money in the future that can be shifted forward in time some government program or entrepreneur should be able to come up with solutions. We don’t do this because of failures of communication, innovation, or trust.]

So live somewhere you can make most work, school, and shopping trips on foot or by bicycle. Eat less or no meat. Replace stuff when it wears out, and think about repairing and/or donating rather than just junking. Work toward home energy efficiency. I don’t want to stop traveling, but I hope doing some of the other things will at least partially offset my travel impacts, and I can think about offsets to cover the rest. And then we need to improve our democracy and get rid of those cynical cowards!

why daylight savings time is unhealthy

There is a clear consensus that everybody hates setting the clocks ahead and losing sleep. There seems to be movement toward doing away with this dumb tradition and going towards all daylight savings time all year. But at least one scientist says the evidence points toward going all standard time all year.

  • There is evidence for increased strokes, heart attacks, and sleep deprivation during daylight saving time, the latter particularly affecting teenagers. There is also evidence of increased obesity, diabetes, cancer, lower income and higher health care costs in the western portions of time zones, where the shift in dawn and dusk is most pronounced.
  • The lack of morning light disrupts the body’s natural rhythms when we are trying to wake up.
  • Increased light in the evening makes it harder to fall asleep. This is particularly hard on adolescents and young adults, who have trouble falling asleep already for biological reasons and often have to wake up early for school, leading to chronic sleep deprivation affecting their already wacked-out bodies and minds.
  • Standard time is a better match for the natural rhythm of the sun, with the sun directly overhead around noon.

I would add that the time shift causes trouble in science and other technical fields, where we try to measure stuff over time and make sense of it. It also causes practical problems for people who have to travel or collaborate with colleagues across time zones (which is already challenging). Once I got a roomful of people together at 7 a.m. in Singapore for a meeting led by U.S. staff, only to find that the U.S. had changed its clocks the night before and the meeting was over. Those people were a little mad at me. I bought them doughnuts. A lesson learned there is to let your calendar software handle time zones and not try to do the math yourself. The U.S. is not even the worst – Australia has half-hour time shifts that are different in different cities not that far apart. The time shift is dumb, let’s just stop doing it.