Why driving a couple of miles might be more environmental than walking

here (via Steve Levitt):

If you walk 1.5 miles, Mr. Goodall calculates, and replace those calories by drinking about a cup of milk, the greenhouse emissions connected with that milk (like methane from the dairy farm and carbon dioxide from the delivery truck) are just about equal to the emissions from a typical car making the same trip. And if there were two of you making the trip, then the car would definitely be the more planet-friendly way to go.

Also, here's why plastic is more environmental than paper:

The making of paper can waste many thousands of gallons of water, as can the recycling of paper. The human and mechanical efforts and costs are very high, not forgetting the physical cost to loggers and those who work around the numerous chemicals. Plastic is, by comparison, efficient and low energy to produce, and, easily and efficiently recycled. Plastic reduces, recycles marvelously, and in that, is reused. After contrasting the efforts behind the making of paper and plastic, it is our unbiased opinion that plastic is indeed more beneficial to the environment, in that it is less harmful. The next time you are asked the dreaded question, "Paper or plastic?", you can answer knowing that you are making the informed choice.

Quote of the day

It is also notable that Mr. Obama situated Rev. Wright within what the Senator sees as the continuing black-white conflict and the worst excesses of racial injustice like Jim Crow. He dwelled on a lack of funding for inner-city schools and a general "lack of economic opportunity." But Mr. Obama neglected the massive failures of the government programs that were supposed to address these problems, as well as the culture of dependency they ingrained. A genuine message of racial healing would also have given more credit to the real racial gains in American society over the last 40 years.--WSJ editorial

The Obama Bargain

by Shelby Steele:

... bargainers have an Achilles heel. They succeed as conduits of white innocence only as long as they are largely invisible as complex human beings. They hope to become icons that can be identified with rather than seen, and their individual complexity gets in the way of this. So bargainers are always laboring to stay invisible. (We don't know the real politics or convictions of Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey, bargainers all.) Mr. Obama has said of himself, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ." And so, human visibility is Mr. Obama's Achilles heel. If we see the real man, his contradictions and bents of character, he will be ruined as an icon, as a "blank screen."

Thus, nothing could be more dangerous to Mr. Obama's political aspirations than the revelation that he, the son of a white woman, sat Sunday after Sunday -- for 20 years -- in an Afrocentric, black nationalist church in which his own mother, not to mention other whites, could never feel comfortable. His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a challenger who goes far past Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in his anti-American outrage ("God damn America").

No matter his ultimate political fate, there is already enough pathos in Barack Obama to make him a cautionary tale. His public persona thrives on a manipulation of whites (bargaining), and his private sense of racial identity demands both self-betrayal and duplicity. His is the story of a man who flew so high, yet neglected to become himself.

I don't have the gift of discernment, but I sense good in Obama that Steele misses. Of course, I could say the same thing about my least favorite president.

UPDATE: Caroline Glick is against bigotry and therefore against Obama. Hmmm.

Tar Heels drawing buyers in the last 24 hours

DISCLOSURE: I am short NCAABK.NORTHCAROLINA.

Closing the education achievement gap

at Freakonomics.

I think the same methods in education should be applied to my achievement gap in basketball. I feel much more comfortable on the football gridiron, baseball diamond, and tennis court. But I've always been awkward on the basketball court.

Some of its how much coaching I get, and how much my family/friend/community subcultures value basketball. But some of it is going to be my personality, my genetic makeup, and how much I care to improve.

I don't think it would be right to give me an affirmative action spot on an NCAA or NBA team, though. Do you? Do the "experts"?

UPDATE: The WSJ cites studies that find a large scarcity of skilled workers, as well as the the increase in overall employment created by filling the unmet demand of skilled workers. America is not producing skilled workers in high enough supply. Rahm Emmanuel, senior policy adviser to President Clinton and congressman from Illinois, says:

If we don't have a well-trained work force, it won't matter whether we put up walls or hammer out new agreements. Our workers' standards of living will continue to fall.

Quote of the day

But looking at government as whole, I would say it is like a 10-year-old boy rescuing an old woman from a fire that the boy started in the first place.--Arnold Kling

Fed starting to move beyond denial, even with 75 bp cut

Here are some excerpts from their statement today:

Inflation has elevated, and some indicators of inflation expectations have risen. The Committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters, reflecting a projected leveling-out of energy and other commodity prices and an easing of pressures on resource utilization. Still, uncertainty about the inflation outlook has increased. It will be necessary to continue to monitor inflation developments carefully.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; Timothy F. Geithner, Vice Chairman; Donald L. Kohn; Randall S. Kroszner; Frederic S. Mishkin; Sandra Pianalto; Gary H. Stern; and Kevin M. Warsh. Voting against were Richard W. Fisher and Charles I. Plosser, who preferred less aggressive action at this meeting.

The sooner the fed starts tightening back to realistic levels, the sooner inflation can be mitigated.

UPDATE: Agreement here and here.

Bear Naked Lenders

in today's WSJ:

The hard capitalist truth is that Bear's most senior managers have mainly themselves to blame. They bought their second or third homes with fabulous bonuses during the good times, and they must now endure the losses from Bear's errant investment bets. Bear took particular pride in its risk management, but it let its standards slide in the hunt for higher returns during the mortgage mania earlier this decade. There's no joy in seeing a venerable firm expire, but it has to happen if financial markets are going to have any discipline going forward.

UPDATE: Felix Salmon has a roundup of why BSC is trading well above $2.

UPDATE: Steven Davidoff highlights the collars around the stock, which afford bond holders voting rights.

Quote of the day

It is hard to be confident, however, that on issues of trade policy either Democratic candidate would act like the last Democratic president. Maybe the candidates’ records as legislators are not good indicators of what their policies might be as president. Maybe campaign rhetoric about Nafta is nothing more than that. But counting on it requires, one might say, the audacity of hope.--Greg Mankiw

UPDATE: Arnold Kling helps people understand what Greg is talking about:

Finally, the movement moves toward its logical conclusion: only buy products made in your own household. People give up computers, cars, packaged food, electricity, and plumbing. We go back to subsistence farming and hunter-gathering.

Quote of the day

Taxpayer dollars should be spent based on merit, not political influence.--Senator Jim DeMint

Obama votes against his plans and promises

What to believe?

UPDATE: Then there's this.

Links to past futures

here (via Tyler Cowen).

More here and here.

Quotes of the day

Enter the Fed, our new hedge fund of last resort.--Arnold Kling, commenting on the Fed bailout of Bear Stearns

Suppose that we define "Spitzer" as someone who believes in the aggressive use of political power. A Spitzer believes it is his mission to tell us what to do for own good. Is Barack Obama--who also comes from a Harvard Law School background, and who identifies the "audacity of hope" with government expansion--a Spitzer? Absolutely. Is Hillary Clinton--who sees the the state as a substitute for a village, making it also a substitute for the family--a Spitzer? Positively. Is John McCain--who Virginia Postrel describes as "an instinctive regulator who considers business a base pursuit"-- a Spitzer? Unfortunately, yes.--Arnold Kling

Performance: what sports fans love, but protectionists hate

(via Mark Perry).

Intrade lists Global Warming Contracts!

The announcement is here.

I asked for them at the end of 2006/beginning of 2007 (the post was on Jan 10 2007, but I think I requested them first). A conversation at Midas Oracle, a few months later.

The Contract Rules need more precise specification. While Intrade did use my suggestion of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies data to value the contract, I think Intrade must specifically state that the "J-D" January-December annual mean temperature series is being used, and on either the Global Mean Monthly data set, or else the Global-Land Ocean Temperature Index data set.

I personally prefer the latter, as ocean temperatures play a huge role in ice melts as well as other weather phenomena (e.g. hurricane frequency and intensity, even this political advocacy group pretending to be scientific says so). In any case, the two series are generally correlated well, so I have no strong preference which one Intrade specifies.

I used the latter of course, in working with Adam Siegel and the folks at Inkling Markets to create the very first Global Warming prediction market.

2008 Recession probabilites easing back down

DISCLOSURE: I am short US.RECESSION.08

Girls have a built-in neurological advantage over boys

reports Ryan Hagen:

... according to new research from Northwestern University and the University of Haifa. The researchers found that while girls can easily process language in the abstract, boys depend more on their senses. The upshot is that boys may need to be taught both visually and verbally, while girls can learn equally well through either means and presumably have an easier time with learning because of it.

I guess it's that half-a-brain v. whole-brain thing.

Quote of the day

Ferraro's remark is a sly way of referring to affirmative action, presumably because she thinks it will help Hillary with angry white ethnics in Pennsylvania's depressed coal and industrial regions. It would be repulsive coming from anyone, but its particularly rich from someone whose main qualification for the vice presidency was possessing ovaries.--Megan McArdle

I wonder if there was any inside information between Spitzer and Cramer

Jim Cramer trading on Eliot Spitzer's information would be illegal, of course, but not the other way around. Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Cramer's sadness captured at DealBreaker.

For Shame

When it comes to picking taxpayer pockets, no one -- not the trial lawyers or even AARP -- has it over the farm lobby. How's this for clout? Though last year was one of the best ever for farm incomes -- up 44% to $87.5 billion -- farmers are about to score the most lavish subsidies in American history.

The House and Senate are now ironing out differences between their bills, and it's all but certain that farmers will get about $26 billion over the next five years in subsidies. Soybean and wheat farmers are slated to receive higher price supports, though bean prices hit a 34-year high last year and wheat prices have soared to a new record.

All of this will be highly problematic for America's trade negotiators. Brazil has already won a World Trade Organization complaint against the U.S. for providing illegal subsidies to cotton farmers. That ruling allows Brazil to apply $4 billion in retaliatory tariffs on American goods. Several similar suits are pending against the U.S., and these complaints were filed before any of these latest hikes in price supports.

The giveaways are so large that the House version is the first farm bill ever that would raise taxes to pay for it -- by $14 billion, mostly on the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. This only discourages new foreign investment in the U.S. at a time when the weak dollar is already chasing it away. It's a sign of how insidious these welfare programs are that the Farm Bureau, traditionally an antitax outfit, recently signed off on the tax hikes in return for the subsidies.

And speaking of cashing in, Congress has also spurned the Bush Administration's sensible proposal to establish a $200,000 income ceiling in order to receive subsidies. Instead, full-time farmers will be able to earn up to $1 million per farm ($2 million for a married couple) and still be eligible for a USDA handout. That means you can be in the top 0.2% in income in the U.S. and still get a subsidy check from Uncle Sam. Yet Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, the Republican who helped craft the House bill, says with a straight face that the bill is "real reform and a real safety net for the farmer." Yes, thank heavens for that millionaire safety net.