Out of Control

A new study from the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education says that the state's growth management laws are actually encouraging sprawl!

Counties have adopted so-called "adequate facilities ordinances"--laws that require infrastructure to be in place before growth can occur. This is also called "concurrency".

But in many counties, the so-called adequate public facilities ordinances have become de facto building moratoriums because the needed infrastructure has not been built, said the center's report, which was underwritten by home-building industry groups.

Even worse, researchers said, the measures are diverting new housing from areas designated for development under Maryland's pioneering Smart Growth law, which was adopted a decade ago in an attempt to curtail suburban sprawl.

The article from the Baltimore Sun can be found here.

The full study can be found here.

I wish I could say I was surprised.

This December 2005 piece by CEI’s Marlo Lewis, Jr. if filled with good stuff.

Some nuggets:

Economists Robert J. Shapiro and Nam D. Pham estimate that Senator Byron Dorgan's (D-N.D.) "Windfall Profits Rebate Act of 2005" would reduce the shareholder value of oil company stock by as much as $122 billion … [T]he financial losses from "windfall profits" taxes would be widespread, because mutual funds and retirement accounts hold approximately $267 billion worth—about 41 percent—of oil company stock. …

Oil industry profits are large in absolute terms because the customer base is large. Oil companies sell astronomical quantities of fuel—the equivalent of about 230 million barrels of oil every day. The amount of money they earn per gallon of gasoline sold is relatively small—a profit of 9 cents per gallon in the third quarter of 2005. Although that is almost double the 5 cents per gallon profit they earned in the third quarter of 2004, it is still well below the 18.4 cents per gallon that the federal government collects in gas taxes, or the 44.5 cents per gallon that the State of New York collects. Oil companies achieve multi-billion-dollar profits by making modest returns on gigantic sales volumes—not by "gouging" their customers.
…

According to the Congressional Research Service, the "windfall profits" tax Congress enacted in 1980 diverted $79 billion from potential investment in energy infrastructure, reduced domestic oil production by as much as 6 percent, and increased petroleum imports by as much as 16 percent.

But wait, another mantra of the windfall tax pushers is “energy independence.”

Broad-based concern about eminent domain's use for economic development purposes has apparently led to the ouster of several local officials in Missouri according to the Institute for Justice and the Castle Coalition. An entire slate of elected officials that approved eminent domain condemnations for an upscale shopping center in Sunset Hills, Missouri (St. Louis County) were sent packing..

In the weeks leading up to the election, elected officials in the St. Louis suburb understood that eminent domain could cost them their jobs. A week before the polls opened, incumbent Alderman Robert Brockhaus said, “This election is starting to seem more like a referendum on eminent domain than it is an actual judgment on a candidate’s job performance.”

Apparently, "job performance" doesn't include decisions to bulldoze neighborhoods for upscale private developers.

Read the article here.

After three years of fighting, there are 180,000 dead in the Darfur region of Sudan. And yet the world’s leaders continue to dawdle:

The government in Khartoum has scuttled the UN's plans to take control of the troubled peacekeeping operations currently being led by the African Union, and NATO recently stated publicly that a force of its own in Darfur is ''out of the question." Meanwhile, refugee camps and humanitarian aid workers continue to be attacked, and the 7,000 African Union troops remain overstretched and ineffective.

But according to J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of the private security firm Blackwater, there is another option that ought to be on the table: an organization that could commit significant resources and expertise to bolster the African Union peacekeepers and provide emergency support to their flagging mission.

A few weeks ago, at an international special forces conference in Jordan, Black announced that his company could deploy a small rapid-response force to conflicts like the one in Sudan. ''We're low cost and fast," Black said, ''the question is, who's going to let us play on their team?"

Private security companies like Blackwater have thrived in Iraq, where the US military has relied on them for everything from guarding convoys to securing the Green Zone. But these companies recognize that the demand for their services in Iraq will eventually diminish, and Blackwater, for one, is looking for new markets.

Apparently Blackwater has no interest in offensive missions:

Today, private military companies are offering defensive services-they propose to secure refugee camps and vulnerable villages, guard humanitarian aid agencies and NGOs, or, depending on the requirements of the contract, assist peacekeepers like the African Union troops in Darfur.

Article here.

Related: My 2003 interview with Blackwater president Gary Jackson

If you thought building inspectors were bad, read about what's happening to restaurants in New York City. Chef Gabrielle Hamilton recounts the regulatory nightmares that have become rourtine since Rudy Guiliani thought he could revitalize New York City by inviting city regulators into every nook and cranny of local businesses.

During the Giuliani administration...Jaywalking, turnstile-jumping and peep shows in Times Square were no longer tolerated, and neither were restaurants that recycled the butter in bread baskets. Exhaustive unannounced inspections became the rule. Fines flowed into the city's treasury. Gone were the cartoonish, winking inspectors who enjoyed free meals at the restaurants they were supposedly scrutinizing; in their place were hard-working, computer-toting "public health sanitarians" with college degrees. You should not even offer these inspectors, who now work for the revamped and renamed Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, a glass of water during their visit.

One of the victim's of this new found regulatory zeal has been innovation.

What's been fascinating the city's chefs lately is a technique long used in France called sous vide, in which serving portions of seasoned and vacuum-packed food are submerged in barely simmering water. This long, slow and low-temperature cooking makes the food taste more intensely of what it should taste like, preserves its nutritional value and often creates a texture of unspeakable silkiness that everyone ought to experience.

Chef Hamiltion concludes:

If it were up to the sanitarians, there would not be known in this country a cheese with its distinguishing mold, a naturally yeasted loaf of bread, a country ham left to hang for 110 days from the barn rafters, and not even a perfect tomato, still warm from the day, unruined by the harsh environment of a perfectly hygienic 38-degree temperature-controlled walk-in refrigerator box.

Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say “what the drivers of politicians drive”:

"Since George Bush and Dick Cheney took over as president and vice president, gas prices have doubled!" charged Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), standing at an Exxon station on Capitol Hill where regular unleaded hit $3.10. "They are too cozy with the oil industry."

She then hopped in a waiting Chrysler LHS (18 mpg) -- even though her Senate office was only a block away.
…
At about the same time, House Republicans were meeting in the Capitol for their weekly caucus (Topic A: gas). The House driveway was jammed with cars, many idling, including eight Chevrolet Suburbans (14 mpg).
…
After lunchtime votes, senators emerged from the Capitol for the drive across the street to their offices.
Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) hopped in a GMC Yukon (14 mpg). Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) climbed aboard a Nissan Pathfinder (15). Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) stepped into an eight-cylinder Ford Explorer (14). Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) disappeared into a Lincoln Town Car (17). Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) met up with an idling Chrysler minivan (18).

Next came Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), greeted by a Ford Explorer XLT. On the Senate floor Tuesday, Menendez had complained that Bush "remains opposed to higher fuel-efficiency standards."

Also waiting: three Suburbans, a Nissan Armada V8, two Cadillacs and a Lexus. The greenest senator was Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who was picked up by his hybrid Toyota Prius (60 mpg), at quadruple the fuel efficiency of his Indiana counterpart Evan Bayh (D), who was met by a Dodge Durango V8 (14).

More here.

Related: Public Officials Tout Transit More than They Use It

Government offshoring is very, very rare.

This GAO report searches for offshore outsourcing in six government programs (four are federally-funded state-administered and to are federally-administered).

For the federally administered programs, the GAO found no offshoring at all. There was some offshoring in the other programs but the amount was still “relatively small.”

Related: Offshoring a Rarity in California

I've seen a lot of beautiful sunsets in my time, but this one could take the cake:

A proposal that could lead to termination — or “sunset” — of agencies and programs that fail to prove their worth every 10 years may make it to the House floor for the first time this spring.

The measure will likely come up for a vote during the first two weeks in June, said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The Bush administration-backed idea to create a Sunset Commission — whose recommendations would be voted on by lawmakers — has been bouncing around Congress for years and was the subject of a Government Reform subcommittee hearing in September. Bills to create the commission have been introduced in the House and Senate.

. . . .

In addition to the Sunset Commission, two other proposals would convene groups to recommend the elimination of agencies or programs:

• The Results Commission, which would evaluate a list of programs and agencies deemed questionable by the president.

• The Commission on the Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies, which would evaluate all agencies and programs except those in the Defense Department or any agency that solely administers entitlement programs.

Bills to create these commissions have been introduced in both the House and Senate.

More evidence of the success of China's market reform:

Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records.

"It's so different from the past when most young women would wear A- or B-cup bras," Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China's commercial hub.

"You...never expect those thin women to have such nice figures if they are not plastic."

The report, seen on the daily's Web site Tuesday, said that the Hong Kong-based lingerie firm Embry Group no longer produces A-cups for larger chest circumferences and has increased production of C-, D- and E-cup bras to meet pressing demand.

The Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology released a report last week saying the average chest circumference of Chinese women has risen by nearly 1 cm (0.4 inch) to 83.53 cm (32.89 inches) since the early 1990s, the daily said.

More here.

Related: Dog Size as a Proxy for Living Standards

Vaguely related: Boob ban averted

An opinion survey conducted for Colorado DOT (CODOT) finds very strong support for toll express lanes (TELs) in a survey of people within 2 miles of existing tollroads or planned TELs.

78% see TELs as a good way to reduce congestion on Denver area highways, and 66% approve of them as a means of facilitating traffic flow.

68% of those surveyed see tolling as a good way to finance extra capacity, whereas there is strong majority opposition to raising taxes to fund extra capacity.

More here.

Related: DC commuters prefer tolls to taxes

Related: Brits still support road pricing

What was your answer? What would a 100 people selected at random say? They’d probably offer an answer well above the correct one: 0.6 C:

Dr Hans Von Storch, a leading German climate scientist and fervent believer in global warming, is convinced the effect of climate change is being exaggerated.

"The alarmists think that climate change is something extremely dangerous, extremely bad and that overselling a little bit, if it serves a good purpose, is not that bad."

Why do the stories that reach the public focus only on the most frightening climate change scenarios? We decided to find out for a [would you believe?]BBC Radio 4 documentary.

Telling quotation here:

It's a difficult line for all scientists to tread, as we need something 'exciting' to have any chance of publishing... to justify our funding," one scientist wrote us.

Interesting article here.

If we simply divide Exxon Mobil's net income by sales, we discover that the company reported a 10.7% profit margin in the quarter. That's probably a bit above the U.S. industrial average, but it is hardly remarkable.

For instance, the nation's moist prominent critic of "oil profiteering" - Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly — works for a company (News Corp.) that reported a 10.2% profit in the fourth quarter.

If you're after big earners, check out Yahoo (a 45.5% profit margin), Citigroup (33.4%), Intel (24%) or Apple (22.7%).

Returns on invested capital over a longer time frame are even more telling. Analysts at Goldman Sachs found that returns on investment capital in the oil and gas sector from 1970-2003 were less than the U.S. industrial average over that same period. The oil industry would have to earn record profits for some time before it would produce above-average returns for its long-term investors.

Column here.

Those who are peeved about oil industry profits are often left unsatisfied when they ask who sets the price of gas and analysts reply “the market.” Many imagine some cigar-chomping fat cat gleefully setting whatever price he chooses, however:

World crude oil prices - and thus retail gasoline prices — are established in commodity spot markets. Exxon Mobil executives do not plot in back rooms to decide what to charge at the pump. Instead, Exxon Mobil's contracts with its own stations tie wholesale fuel prices to prices in the nearest spot market plus transportation costs.

Likewise, if you sell your house, who sets the price? Sure you could put your railroad-adjacent fixer-upper on the market for $20 million, but no one will buy it. If you really want to sell your house you’ll pay attention to what the market says the price is.

Related: What the Oil Execs Should Have Said

So says Felix Kramer, founder of The California Cars Initiative (CalCars):

A few small companies will start to offer services and products for converting hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius that currently get around 50 miles per gallon into plug-in hybrids that rely more heavily on electrical power and can get about 100 miles per gallon.

…

In general, plug-in hybrids have much larger battery packs than standard hybrids--in prototypes, the extra batteries fill up the space where spare tires now reside--and much smaller gas motors. The batteries can be recharged by plugging the car into any wall socket.
…

But conversion won't be cheap--at least initially. California's EDrive Systems will charge around $10,000 to $12,000 to install the extra lithium batteries needed to turn a standard Prius into a plug-in hybrid when its service begins later this summer.

At that price, and with gas at $3 a gallon, it would take around 160,000 to 200,000 miles of driving to break even. As a result, conversion services today are really being sold more as a luxury option or status symbol.

That means plug-in hybrid owners can look down their noses at regular “gas guzzling” hybrids:

But some groups are looking to the do-it-yourself crowd for a cheaper solution. Canada's Hymotion, which already converts fleets of hybrids for corporate customers, will charge about $9,500 for a kit aimed at consumers that it will start shipping in October. And Hymotion can convert more than just the Prius.

CalCars is working with independent inventors to bring the price of a DIY kit based around an open blueprint to about $3,000.

Article here

Rapidly escalating gasoline prices may speed the United States` transformation into a telecommuting nation, analysts say.

I think that’s overstating it, but this guy does make some good points:

'The average worker commutes 16 miles each way to work every day,' said John Gray of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. 'That adds up to more than 8,000 miles per year going to and from work.

'Companies will be forced to help ease the financial burden of higher gas prices or risk losing their workers to companies located closer to their homes or companies that offer primarily telecommuting.'

Once again, if we want to really expand telecommuting we’re going to have to win over more of our nation’s bosses:

A 2005 survey by Connecticut-based Business & Legal Reports asked employers what they were doing to help employees deal with high gas prices. Only 1 percent of the 499 respondents said their companies were allowing more telecommuting. And 6 percent encouraged workers to carpool or use public transportation.

Article here.

Some good news here.

The good news is that St. Cloud, Fla., reportedly was the first to launch a free citywide WiFi service. The bad news is service and coverage is so bad, few can connect to it and those who do, can’t stay connected for long.

An AP story quoted disappointed St. Cloud resident Joe Lusardi, who, after promised in-home coverage deteriorated, was told that in order to keep receiving “free” wireless service, he had to pay $170 (to the city of course!) for a special wireless bridge. Lusardi and others like him around this Orlando suburb are now realizing they and the town government do not share the same definiton of the word "free."

At first, a desktop computer in Lusardi's house could use the Wi-Fi network with no problem, but his laptop would only work outdoors. Even then it was too slow and unreliable, so he kept his $20 per month Sprint DSL service.

Now the desktop doesn't even work, and he's completely abandoned the idea of dropping his pay service and using the network
.
"It's just total frustration," Lusardi said. "I'm going to stay with the DSL and just forget it, because I don't think it's going to work. Very few people are going to use it, and they're going to say it's underutilized and they're going to shut it down."

St. Cloud is running headlong into the “commons problem” that free wireless creates—overcrowding of channels—one that I’ve personally experienced and discussed here last week. What’s telling is that service has begun to deteriorate with just 3500 users within 15 square miles. Do some quick math (233 users per square mile; 1 square mile = 640 acres) and this equates slightly more than 1 user per every three acres. If this level of density is causing congestion now, problems will get worse before they get better.

The Washington Post has an excellent case study of urban redevelopment in Bridgeport, Connecticut in today's issue. Unfortunately, it does more to highlight what's wrong with the process than what works, and the absurdity of eminent domain for economic development purposes.

Bridgeport began condemining property for a redevelopment project called Steel Point in 1999. It still remains undeveloped. Standing in the way, the article says, is a lone property, site of the home of Baseball Hall of Famer Henry O'Rourke (also the first man to get a hit in a professional game of the National League in 1876).

Which is why, when the city tore down the neighborhood six years ago, the bulldozers stopped at 274 Pembroke St. Hall of Famers are a rare commodity around here. "I don't want anyone 20 years from now saying: 'That house is not standing. Why didn't anyone do anything?' " said Michael Bielawa, one of the men who is trying to save it.

After years of fits and starts, Bridgeport is faced with a renewed effort to redevelop Steel Point:

It is into this climate that Daniel Pfeffer, president of Midtown Equities, the lead developer of the latest Steel Point project, has waded. Pfeffer's plan is the most gleaming of all the plans yet, with 11 towers mostly for residential use, an enormous hotel, a sprawling shopping village and even a heliport.

No one seems to be asking about the absurdity of one property standing int he way of a project so massive it would include 11 residential and mixed use towers, shoppoing plazas and a major hotel. Is a 1/2 acre of land that critical to the profitability of the project?

Obviously, its not. But that is what our approach to urban development, and its reliance on eminent domain, has brought--private developers expect the government to seize all other properties, consolidate them, and hand them over on a silver (usually highly subsidized) silver platter before they even break ground.

Thus, redevelopment is about mega-projects, not the incremental, block-by-block kind of investment that creates neighborhoods, community, a sound investment climate for private enterprise, and sustainable development. Even in this case, creative phasing and design could easily begin the project while the problem of the historic house is sorted out.

Oh, one more thing worth noting about Bridgeport: At one point it was one of the wealthiest cities in America. Since the decline of manufacturing, its become a hot bed of corruption, scandal and decline. When the developer and mayor first met, one-on-one, the developer expected to be asked for a bribe.

The closely-watched municipal wireless project in Philadelphia suffered another delay as the city council’s Committee on Technology & Information Services and Public Property & Public Works postponed Thursday’s public hearing on the city’s pending contracts with EarthLink until next week.

Observers believed that the committee was going recommend approval the four deals that cover the Wireless Philadelphia project with EarthLink, plus a fifth that involves the purchase of electricity to power the wireless antennas that EarthLink will mount on city light poles and other right-of-way through the city’s 135-square-mile area.

The postponement is the latest in a series of delays for the project. Wireless Philadelphia, the city-affiliated non-profit agency partnering with EarthLink, had originally hoped to consummate the deal in December. EarthLink has the right to pull out of the agreement if the city does not approve the deal by the end of its spring session.

While it had looked as if Philadelphia would be the first of the top 30 U.S. cities to launch a city-wide WiFi network, that distinction became Anaheim’s last week, according to Business 2.0.

While eyes have been on Philadelphia and Portland, Ore., Anaheim, which initiated its project after those two cities announced their own plans, managed to beat both to launch. Could it be because, of all the major municipal proposals thus far, Anaheim chose not to impose price controls, forced sharing or network neutrality, and in general, kept the city government as distant as possible from the business operation?

A new Census Bureau report chronicles more of the same:

Nearly every large metropolitan area had more people move out than move in from 2000 to 2004, with a few exceptions in the South and Southwest, according to a report being released Thursday by the Census Bureau. Northeasterners are moving South and West. West Coast residents are moving inland.

Midwesterners are chasing better job markets. And just about everywhere, people are escaping to the outer suburbs, also known as exurbs.
…
The Census Bureau measured domestic migration - people moving within the United States - from 1990 to 2000, and from 2000 to 2004. The report provides the number of people moving into and out of each state and the 25 largest metropolitan areas.

The states that attracted the most new residents: Florida, Arizona and Nevada. The states that lost the most: New York, California and Illinois.

Among the 25 largest metropolitan areas, 18 had more people move out than move in from 2000 to 2004. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago - the three biggest metropolitan areas - lost the most residents to domestic moves. The New York metropolitan area had a net loss of more than 210,000 residents a year from 2000 to 2004.

Article here.

Census report here.

Suburbanization is a global trend, for example:

only nine per cent of Britons live in the urban core; fully 43 per cent live in the suburbs. The movement that has been taking place since the 1920s has slowed and quickened at various points, but it has never reversed. Suburbanisation, or more precisely dispersed living, is the future.

Article here.

The opponents of video franchise reform are doing their best to point to everything but the obvious.

Local governments must retain control of the video franchise because without it:

* The city or town loses a valuable revenue stream;
* The city or town need to protect right-of-way;
* The city or town needs a say in local programming.

Local administrators are going as far as halting DSL infrastructure upgrades because telephone companies plan to use them to offer cable TV-like services. The DuPage (County, Ill.) Mayors and Managers Conference memoed member governments urging them to halt AT&T network upgrades until the franchise fee issues could be ironed out. Roselle, Ill., is one community that followed through, slapping a 180-moratorium order on AT&T’s Project Lightspeed deployment in the western Chicago suburb.

But all this hand-wringing fails to trump one obvious fact: cable prices drop when competitors enter the market.

Government employees won 61 percent of job competitions with the private sector last year, a sharp drop from 91 percent the year before, according to a report to be released this week.

The drop was due to Federal Aviation Administration employees’ loss of a job competition to Lockheed Martin in February 2005, said Robert Burton, acting administrator of federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget.

FAA’s outsourcing of 2,500 positions for flight service specialists, who provide pilots with flight plans and weather information, followed the government’s largest public-private job competition to date.

Job transfers began in October, following an unsuccessful court challenge by an employees’ union and appeals from Congress to wait until it decided whether to halt the transfer.

The 2005 totals are “a little skewed” by the FAA decision, so the new report will include a three-year average of job competitions won by government and industry, Burton said.

Full article here.

The Labor, State and Transportation departments earned top spots in an independent organization's rankings of the quality of agencies' 2005 annual performance reports, and Treasury jumped up significantly.

George Mason University's Mercatus Center released its seventh Annual Performance Report Scorecard on Tuesday, rating and ranking agencies on the transparency, public benefits and leadership evidenced in their performance and accountability reports. The ratings measure the quality of the reports, rather than agencies' success at meeting the goals outlined in them.

. . . .

The score card awards agencies up to 60 points, spread across 12 criteria designed to evaluate the performance reports for how accessible, readable and usable they are; their delineation of program outcomes and costs; and the extent to which leadership is demonstrated by justifying agency performance and making links between programs, goals and policies.

Agencies earning ratings of "satisfactory" or higher, with at least 36 points, were responsible for only 15 percent of the $2.45 trillion in fiscal 2005 noninterest spending, the report stated.

. . . .

"Given the paucity of links between outcomes and costs in most reports, it's tempting to conclude that vast swaths of federal spending are essentially 'faith-based' initiatives," said Jerry Ellig, a Mercatus Center senior research fellow and a co-author of the study. "Intentions and values, rather than systematic proof of actual outcomes, drive much of the support for these programs."

The full article is here, and the Mercatus study is here.

Years ago, traffic congestion prompted Dell to expand in Nashville instead of its home base, Austin. That scared local leaders into action and they embarked upon our nation’s most aggressive congestion-cutting plan.

Now some good news. Samsung just announced it would open a new chip plant in Austin. Although a variety of factors lead the company to choose Austin over other locations, mobility was one of the most important:

Samsung took awhile to decide on Austin, in part because of concerns about transportation. Samsung trucks its silicon wafers to Dallas before sending them by plane to South Korea for final processing, so congestion on Interstate 35 can cause costly delays. The company carefully studied Central Texas' planned infrastructure improvements, spokesman Bill Cryer said.

Article here.

Could also file this under “insourcing.”

A while back I interviewed (see p. 7) an exec from SAS, Samsung’s first Austin-based operation.

Toyota is considering four Southern states for the site of its eighth North American assembly plant, the latest move in an expansion that could soon make it the world's biggest car company, people involved in Toyota's decision said yesterday.

The states on Toyota's list include Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The factory, if approved by directors in Japan, would be its 15th in Canada, Mexico and the United States, and would probably open late this decade.

More here.

More on insourcing here.

Activists keep telling us how lousy Wal-Mart jobs are, but job seekers keep applying for them:

[Burlington, NC's] second Wal-Mart Supercenter will open Wednesday, after more than 4,000 people applied for the store's 400 openings, according to a statement from the company.

In Pueblo, Colorado a new WM is also set to open tomorrow and there 2,800 applied for 440 openings.

Chicago’s first WM isn't scheduled to open its doors until August 15, but already 2,800 people have applied for the 400 available jobs (sorry no link).

FLASHBACK: In Atlanta, nearly 5,000 people applied for 450 WM jobs; In Oakland more than 11,000 applied for 400 jobs.

And don’t let her smile fool you--this Mexican shopper is also being oppressed by Wal-Mart.

While Today’s Wall Street Journal endorsement of Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) Digital Age Communications Act (DACA) is getting buzz around the blogs, in keeping up the spirit of pressing for a ground-up overhaul of our nation’s telecom laws, let’s not let slip a piece that appeared Saturday in the Washington Times by Clyde Wayne Crews, Vice President for Policy and Director of Technology Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Crews suggests that, as with the Civil Aeronautics Board and the Interstate Commerce Commission in years past, changing market conditions have ended the need for the Federal Communications Commission.

In “Sunset the FCC,” Crews writes,

Public interest and airwave scarcity rationalizations have long justified telecom regulation. But in today's world, a large government bureaucracy inhibits new infrastructure development, options and freedom of speech. A study by economist Jerry Ellig finds government telecommunications regulation has cost consumers up to $105 billion annually in higher prices and foregone services.

Yet a pro-regulatory discussion dominates Washington. Every special interest wants something. Application and content companies like Google want net neutrality legislation forcing network providers to provide free access. The movie and recording industries want the FCC to institute a broadcast flag to guard against piracy. There are groups wanting the FCC to regulate content according to indecency standards, limit the size of media companies, and the list goes on.

Indeed, the telecom sector remains one of the most heavily regulated and taxed segments of the U.S. economy. That's why the most pressing business is to reform regulation by striking at the heart of the administrative burden. Instead of creating justifications for new laws that will out of date in a few years, if not months, reform needs a sunset agenda, a phaseout of the FCC.

Regulation of the communications industry wouldn't disappear without the FCC, but it would be more decentralized. States would continue to enforce consumer protection and rights of way laws; and federal antitrust rules remain. The Federal Trade Commission already has the authority to strike down the kind of vertical restraints of trade that some ear would occur without net neutrality legislation.

Provocative, to be sure. But the rapid pace of change may call for radical solutions. Likewise, in its lead editorial on DACA, the Journal says the bill’s main strength is that it sweeps away the outmoded regulations for “information services,” “telecom services,” “landline,” and “cable” that other bills are unsuccessfully trying to shoehorn into the new environment. For more about DACA, see Tuesday’s entry in the Progress & Freedom Foundation blog.

Meanwhile, Crews is dead-on in his observation that the FCC is has become the lobbying focal point for every industry segment that wants a regulatory break. As a result, we’re seeing a pattern of policy grown out of ad hoc compromise, not guided by principle.

As video franchise reform is debated in Congress and in state houses around the country, legislators seem keen on reaching compromises that retain a franchise “tax,” generally five percent, on video revenues. Even proponents of franchise reform seem to be resigned to accept the levy, despite that it is discriminatory, creates an unnecessary additional cost to broadband adoption, and stands to be more and more difficult to justify as alternate forms of video distribution using the Internet takes hold.

That’s why it was so refreshing to hear a city administrator call for outright abolition of franchise fees. In reply comments that received way too little coverage, Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle outlined a several compelling reasons to do away with video franchise fees as part of an FCC inquiry into the restructuring of the video franchising scheme.

City leaders do not believe that government should determine whether residents receive video content through established cable providers, growing competition from satellite television, or new concepts coming on line like internet protocol television (IPTV), or technologies on the horizon like Wi-Fi delivery of video content. Anaheim is supportive of maintaining open market competition in which any franchise fee is eliminated for consumers and a variety of service providers have an opportunity to earn customer support.

The current franchise system inhibits additional companies who might be subject to it from entering the marketplace and investing in infrastructure when they are challenged by the expense and difficulty of attaining enough market share to recoup costs. At the same time, companies that are clearly exempt from franchising, like satellite providers, flourish.

Franchise fees and many elements within franchise agreements, therefore, are merely an artificial intrusion by government into the consumer marketplace. Attempts to apply franchise fees and agreements to some providers, while exempting others, effectively eschews the market.

Therefore, eliminating these fees and impediments, Anaheim contends, will allow equitable competition amongst the variety of video service providers. In this way, and without local government interference, the various systems compete in price, quality and quantity and consumers decide which service provider they prefer.

Pringle then goes on to demolish the bromides about the importance local control and franchise revenue that local governments continue to put forth.

The market has changed, Pringle asserts. And imposing arbitrary taxes on one group of competitors hurts consumers and limits choice. The full text of Pringle’s comments can be found here.

An interesting Washington Post column, one of the founders of Greenpeace lays out why he supports nuclear power, and why.

Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is too volatile to risk building big baseload plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute for coal. It's that simple.

Nuclear power is no longer the bugbear it once was, it may really be the way of the future, and the key to using hydrogen as fuel. But we have to change how we think about it.

I just finished submitting comments to the EPA on their proposed standards for particulate pollution. Rather than focusing on how to address the real health threats from air quality and get the most out of the rules we have in place to address them, the EPA is pursuing particulate standards that are not supported by epidemiological standards of evidence.

You can read Reason's brief comments on the proposed rules here.

In a similar vein, my colleague Joel Schwartz finds similar problems with the science in the EPA's new toxics report. In his column (here) he says

Based on EPA's own estimates, air pollution even in the "most toxic" areas of the country poses a miniscule cancer risk. More importantly, EPA's cancer risk estimates are grossly inflated, because they depend on the false assumption that chemicals pose the same per-unit cancer risks at real-world trace exposures as they do at massive laboratory exposures.

And Joel also dissects (here) the latest research in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that particulates kill mice:

However, researchers have been unable to kill animals with air pollution at levels anywhere near as low as the levels found in ambient air. As a recent review of particulate matter toxicology concluded: "It remains the case that no form of ambient PM -- other than viruses, bacteria, and biochemical antigens -- has been shown, experimentally or clinically, to cause disease or death at concentrations remotely close to US ambient levels."

All three items are related because in each case activists, some researchers, and sometime the EPA, point to dramatic health impacts only by making extreme unrealistic assumptions or dropping standards of epidemiological research.

It's all about changing our thinking. Air pollution is dramatically different from what we thought 10 years ago--we are beating it, but too many are still stuck in the rut of "we're all gonna die!" and can't shift from finding the next crisis to working on getting results from the efforts we already have going.

Even denizens of the People's Republic of Santa Monica can appreciate the fruits of capitalism, even as they are denigrating or protesting it at the same time. This column by Frank Gruber in the Santa Monica Lookout probably illustrates this most of all.

Mr Gruber is justifying his choice to live in one of the densest (and most expensive) areas of Southern California by celebrating the choices available to him because of density--what he calls "grocery store urbanism".

His shopping rerolves around about a dozen places to get what he needs, neighborhood stores as well as regional and chains--Von's, Trader Joe's, Costco. At the same time, Mr. Gruber takes a swipe at Wal-Mart because it tries to put everything under one roof and limit choice (and costs).

Here are a couple of exerpts:

My wife and I had been talking about this, about how we had been strangely living like the proverbial French housewife, buying everything for dinner at a different store. We mostly use our car, of course, rather than a string bag to carry our purchases, but the list of stores is long. I suspect that the following list is familiar to many other Santa Monicans.

But a list like this is hardly unusual in Santa Monica. I have rarely been in any of these stores when they weren't crowded. Let's face it; the urbanites in Santa Monica obtain great pleasure from shopping, particularly for food. More Santa Monicans shop at Whole Foods than ever protested a development -- probably more than go to the beach. They worship at the church of Trader Joe's.

Wal Mart is decidely less fashionable and down scale. My guess is Santa Monicans would fill the streets with protester against a Wal Mart even as they embrace competitors Costco and Trader Joe's.

Reader/software guru Brad Hutchings with an interesting example of telecommuting’s productivity benefits:

I work with a guy in Kentucky who usually has evening plans, so he's done at 2pm Left Coast time. If I wake up and get started by 6am, spreading the morning chores through the morning, I can get 8 hours of collaborative time available with him. If instead I awoke at 6am to make it into the office by 8am, I would lose 10 hours a week. Working with Europe is a bigger hassle here. On standard office hours, everything with Europe has to be done by 10 am. Try getting anything done with India unless both parties have time flexibility!

Related: Satisfied workers more likely to have telecommuting option (bottom half of post)

My apologies for my short absence from this blog. I have spent most of the past two weeks “in the field” as it were, first at the International Security Conference (ISC)-West in Las Vegas, then at a policy forum at Microsoft in Seattle. Entries on both will come over the course on the coming days and weeks.

For starters, however, the two trips marked the first time since last fall I’ve had a chance to get out on the road and experience the dubious wonders of near-ubiquitous Wi-Fi the tech elite can’t stop gushing about. For me, however, the experience brought to mind two popular epigrams.

The first is an observation attributed to Yogi Berra, who, asked to comment on a popular New York night spot, said, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

The second is an old Borscht Belt joke about an exchange between two disappointed restaurant patrons: “The food is so bad here,” says one. “And in such small portions,” replies the other.

As a technology, WiFi is simply ill-designed for wide area, large-scale Internet connectivity. I have always wondered why so many cities were intent on pursuing it as a broadband solution. Now having experienced both municipal and commercial services, I’m still left scratching my head.

While most states are looking at legislation to rein in eminent domain, the city of Dallas may be supporting legislation to expand it! Current Texas law, apparently, prevents eminent domain from being used for private development.

City economic development director Karl Zavitkovsky "said southern Dallas properties the city might acquire would include abandoned properties, sexually oriented businesses and land uses that aren't consistent with a neighborhood."

"What it would not be is taking people's individual residences -- that, it's not," Zavitkovsky said. He told council members that the city would have specific criteria for the types of property it seized through eminent domain.

But, if legislation is passed allowing eminent domain for economic development purposes, what prevents cities from taking residences? What prevents cities from expanding the criteria for using eminent domain in the same way blight criteria have been used to water down thresholds so that almost any neighborhood could be seized?

Dallas currently wants to raise more than $1 billion for "infrastructure improvements", much of it targeting south Dallas. "We're going to have 40 of those (train) stations around Dallas," Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm said. "Think about the impact that could have."

As if the mere investment of public money (or private money) equates to successful redevelopment!

If there were any doubts that private property rights and economic freedom were in a precarious position, they were easily erased in a recent California appellate court decision in Wal Mart Stores, Inc. V. City of Turlock.

The City of Turlock passed an ordinance prohibiting big box retailers that dedicate 5% or more of their floor area to groceries. It was explicitly designed to keep out a Wal Mart superstore. The city cited its desire, through urban planning, to foster a particular neighborhood feel and character, and that certain businesses--Wal Mart--were inconsistent with that plan. Therefore, they can prohibit them to protect existing, neighborhood businesses and the plan.

The appellate court, in a 3-0 ruling, wrote:

We conclude that (1) a city may exercise its police power to control and organize development within its boundaries as a means of serving the general welfare, (2) City made a legitimate policy choice when it decided to organize development using neighborhood shopping centers dispersed throughout the city, (3) the ordinance was reasonably related to protecting that development choice, and (4) no showing was made that the restrictions significantly affected residents of surrounding communities.

Notably, in a the resolution banning super stores like Wal Mart, the resolution was explicit in its belief that the city can and should intervene to protect local businesses. One of the "findings" in the city's resolution, for example, was:

"WHEREAS the establishment of discount superstores in Turlock is likely to negatively impact the vitality and economic viability of the city's neighborhood commercial centers by drawing sales away from traditional supermarkets located in these centers."

What we see in Turlock, and simply validated by the California courts, is the "fatal conceit" in action. This is socialism writ communitywide--the city can script the entire community if it (re: a majority of council) wants to.

Of course, this in a logical and inevitable outcome of urban planning as it is currently practiced since it is by nature hostile to capitalism, dynamic (and organic) communities, and individual freedom.

Here’s Don Boudreaux:

Did you know that the modern federal income tax in the United States was a chief cause of alcohol prohibition here (from 1920 through 1933)? … [Prohibition’s repeal] had next to nothing to do with prohibition's ineffectiveness and almost everything to do with Uncle Sam's desperation, in the early 1930s, for additional tax revenue.

More here.

And from Jacob Sullum’s latest column:

How is a mugger different from the Internal Revenue Service? Both take your money, but the mugger doesn't make you fill out forms.

Every year the Tax Foundation calculates the cost of this added indignity. Since it's hard to put a dollar figure on annoyance and anxiety, the Washington-based think tank sticks to estimating the time involved in keeping records and completing returns: some 6 billion hours in 2005.

The group's analysts multiply these hours by the average hourly compensation for professional tax preparers or, for the share of taxpayers who file their own returns, the average hourly compensation for U.S. workers. The resulting figure represents the cost of complying with the federal income tax, which the Tax Foundation projects will be $279 billion this year.
…
Not surprisingly, compliance costs have increased as the tax code has become more complicated. The number of words dealing with income taxes in the Internal Revenue Code and IRS regulations rose nearly tenfold between 1955 and 2005, from 718,000 to more than 7 million.

Seems like a good time to visit the The Wine Commonsewer. He’ll give you tax advice and then sooth the pain with a nice pinot (actually he probably won't supply you with the good stuff but he can make recommendations).

MONEY Magazine and Salary.com researched hundreds of jobs, considering their growth, pay, stress-levels and other factors. What was the best job?

1. Software Engineer Why it's great Software engineers are needed in virtually every part of the economy, making this one of the fastest-growing job titles in the U.S. Even so, it's not for everybody.

Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability. If you've got them, though, you can work and live where you want: Telecommuting is quickly becoming widespread.

The profession skews young -- the up-all-night-coding thing gets tired -- but consulting and management positions aren't hard to come by once you're experienced.

Check out these figures:

Average salary: $80,500
10-year growth: 46%
Average annual job openings: 44,800

Computer IT analyst was another job that has apparently not been outsourced into oblivion. It also made the top 10.

List of the top 50 jobs here.

Keep this in mind:

The hours category showed a real shocker -- that extremely satisfied employees are putting in a lot more time at work than others. The most satisfied reported averaged 56 hours a week -- 11 hours more than the least satisfied group. Almost without exception, as satisfaction rose, workers reported putting in longer hours.

Some results from a MONEY magazine/Salary.com survey of 26,000 workers.

Another interesting bit:

Overall, 16 percent of respondents said they could telecommute any time they pleased, 28 percent could do so with their manager's approval and 55 percent were not allowed to.

Satisfied workers had more work-from-home options than other respondents, with only 38 percent saying telecommuting was never an option. Unhappy workers were least able to telecommute, with 70 percent reporting it was not an option.

The most stressed workers were also least able to telecommute, with only a third saying it was an option for them at work.

From a TCS Daily article of mine:

Telecommuting gives employees freedom to rearrange their work life to fit better with other aspects of their lives. Want to pick up your child from school or to exercise during the middle of the day? No problem. In fact, someone who finds it more pleasant to work out when the gym is less crowded might be more likely to stick to an exercise program.

Whole thing here.

… to leave:

When the tiny village of East Dundee landed one of the first Wal-Mart stores in the Chicago area 15 years ago, officials gave the retail giant a tax break as a welcome present.

Now it seems Wal-Mart Co. is planning to pack up its wares and leave the Kane County town. Apparently, however, it forgot to give notice to the village, its customers or even employees.

East Dundee officials were stunned to learn via a commercial real estate listing last week that Wal-Mart would vacate the 120,000-square-foot store at Higgins Road and Dundee Avenue by winter of 2007.

Losing the store would blow a huge hole in the village's budget. The Wal-Mart provided $365,000 of the village's $1.9 million in sales tax revenue for 2004-05, interim Village Manager Paul Nicholson said.

More here.

Which is worse?

Poll results here.

Another tax-time item: states ranked by how much dough they extract from their residents.

At the top of the list (on a per capita basis): Vermont, Hawaii, Wyoming, Connecticut, and Delaware.

Who needs an architect when you have he local city council to do all he work for you for free? Legislation sent to Maryland's governor will "finally" give southern Maryland communities the authority to regulate the size, bulk, height, and width of single family homes in order to slow the growth of so-called McMansions.

">The Maryland legislature is moving forward with a new law that allows cities to regulate the size, bulk, height, and width of single-family homes.

"If we wanted to preserve the particular character of our own little community, this gives us a little more opportunity to do that," said Carolyn Shawaker, mayor of Garrett Park.

The McMansion issue, however, is really about controlling other people's lifestyle and preferences through the political process.

Across the region, residents in older neighborhoods near the Capital Beltway have been wrestling over how to keep traditional houses from being torn down and replaced with larger structures that some say are out of character with surrounding structures. The debate often pits neighbor against neighbor, with one person's dream house being another's eyesore.

Last summer, the Chevy Chase Town Council unanimously passed a six-month building moratorium while it considered how to slow the pace at which houses were being torn down and replaced with much larger ones. The town's options were limited because only the council and planning board could establish maximum building heights.

The micromanagement of lifestyles and living standards is an inevitable outcome of shifting decisions into a political process where majority rules rather than individual preferences. When majority rules, that typically means that status quo (community character) is preserved at the expense of adaptation, flexibility, and organic community development.

What would Jane Jacobs think?

Joel Schwartz's latest, on EPA's toxics report, in TCS Daily.

New York and California have the most toxic air in the nation, according to a new EPA report widely covered by the news media.[1] But having the most toxic air doesn't tell us much. After all, no matter how clean the air is, somebody's air has to be the worst in the country on any given measure. What we really need to know is how bad EPA claims the air is, and whether that claim is credible.

Based on EPA's own estimates, air pollution even in the "most toxic" areas of the country poses a miniscule cancer risk. More importantly, EPA's cancer risk estimates are grossly inflated, because they depend on the false assumption that chemicals pose the same per-unit cancer risks at real-world trace exposures as they do at massive laboratory exposures.

The Washington Post reports:

U.S. states may find that what it costs them to provide medical care for retired state employees will dwarf how much they pay for their retirement benefits, according to a new report.

and

State and local governments now face grim choices, such as raising taxes, cutting spending or benefits or setting aside dollars now. . .

The article is based mainly on a new report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government. Given the crushing impact pension obligations are already having, the news emerging that medical benefit obligations are even larger paints a truly ugly picture.

A great piece in the Houston Business Journal defends Houston against those who criticize the city's lack of zoning:

So, almost 20 years [after voters rejected a city zoning ordinance], Houston remains as the poster child for land use abuse and the butt of running jokes from smart growth groups.

Well, I would submit that urban Houston has a particular style of zoning that works rather efficiently.

We frequently run stories about conflicts over commercial encroachment into inner-city residential neighborhoods.

Near downtown, well-heeled homeowners posted lawn signs protesting a planned dental clinic.

Out southwest, a civic group stalled construction of a hospital expansion.

Up the Loop, outcry from a single-family community threw up a roadblock to development of an apartment complex.

These are just three examples from recent months. Hundreds of such confrontations, most unreported, have taken place and continue to unfold since zoning was zapped nearly two decades ago.

In most cases, a resolution is reached through a process of compromise and accommodation.

It usually goes like this. One elected official, a city council member representing the district, brings parties to the table. After some give and take, an agreement is reached without input from a downtown cabal of zone-meisters.

While the system may not be perfect (and what zoning system is?) this grassroots approach to development seems to work as often as not in "The only major U.S. city without zoning."

Full article here.

According to a recent Pew Research survey, 9 percent of Americans are libertarian.

Who are these people?

Libertarians are much more likely to be male (59%) and young (33% are under age 30) than are any of the other groups.

And forget about the Red state-Blue state dichotomy:

almost six-in-ten Americans fall into one of the four ideological groups; 18% are liberals, 15% are conservatives, 16% are populists, and 9% are libertarians.

And the biggest group?

The remainder included people with a mixture of views, or who declined to offer opinions on several of the six questions in the test; this large non-ideological group (42%) is labeled the "ambivalents."

More here.

We often think of the welfare state as government programs and spending. Yet, regulation can have even more debilitating effects on the economy, investment and entrepreneurship. This is implied in an essay today in the New York Times.

The author is a Morrocan Fench national and novelist. The point he makes, however, is that France is paralyzed by a welfare state that has created an illusion of stability and security. This has created a gulf between leaders--who understand the need for change--and the public, who are so vested in the welfare state they are fearful of anything that might threaten their highly regulated world.

France lives today, more than ever, in a utopian fantasy. The gap between the political leadership and the people is enormous. The elites seem to speak to us of outdated concepts, far, very far from reality. France can't deal with its "foreigners" who have French nationality and does little to integrate them into society. Islam is the second religion of the country, yet France cannot speak intelligently to its millions of Muslims; it calls us all the "Muslim community" as if there were only one way to be a Muslim.

France knows that it needs to change its economic system, but each attempt is blocked, as it was this week with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's bid to encourage businesses to give jobs to young people by loosening the strict labor laws governing their hiring and firing. It's often said that the French are all grumblers, and that cliché is more than true.

While the students who have been in the streets are right to protest against the precarious life that awaits them, it's also true that the French are timid, even frightened of change, as we saw last year in their strong reaction against the entry of Turkey into an enlarged European Union. Turkey, long considered part of Europe, suddenly didn't qualify, in the French view, for the rights and privileges of the union.

The regulatory welfare state effectively politicizes all aspects of the economy, making entrepreneurship and dynamism almost impossible.

The same effects can be seen in local communities in America where zoning and urban planning has created the illusion of security and stability. So-called community "visioning", combined with a host of strict regulatory controls on land use, create static places that are resistant to the changes necessary to make them competitive and adaptable in a dynamic environment.

Just when you though WM’s image couldn’t get any worse:

Wal-Mart has filed a federal lawsuit over a warped version of its logo appearing on T-shirts and on a Web site with the word "Wal-ocaust" in blue over an Iron Eagle clutching a yellow smiley face.

Charles Smith, a 48-year-old computer repairman from Conyers, Ga., began selling T-shirts reading "I (heart) Wal-ocaust" last year, and he displays the more elaborate logo on his Web site.

When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. found out, it requested a cease-and-desist order, calling the phrase and logo tasteless. Smith responded with a federal lawsuit in March asking a judge to decide if he can continue.

Wal-Mart's recently filed countersuit says Smith "seeks to cloak his illegal commercial activities under the mantle of the First Amendment." It asks the court to dismiss Smith's complaint and stop him from displaying or producing the logo. It also seeks undetermined damages.

Article here.

My recent piece on this here.

A Virginia congressman announced plans Monday to preserve a nearly 200-mile, history-rich corridor that stretches along U.S. Route 15 from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello estate in Virginia to Gettysburg, Pa.

The proposed four-state National Heritage Area, known as the "Journey Through Hallowed Ground," includes 13 national parks, 47 historic districts and dozens of historic downtowns that played roles in the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

More here; thanks to Patrick Zilliacus for the tip.

When SUVs first emerged, SUV owners were often seen as fit soccer moms or footloose outdoor enthusiasts. But over the years, perceptions changed. Now we know (wink) that SUV owners are really terrorist-supporting defilers of the earth.

Might the public’s perception of hybrid owners be going through a similar (although less dramatic) evolution?

With politicians lobbing so many perks their way, hybrid owners were bound to develop the kind of “teacher’s pet” reputation that invites a backlash. Recently, South Park took aim at the smugness of hybrid owners. Virginia carpoolers have been griping about hybrids in the carpool lane for a while and now this:

When California allowed solo occupants of hybrid cars to use carpool lanes last year, many thought they were merging onto a narrow strip of car culture heaven.

But increasingly, hybrid owners say they feel like the victims of road rage.

Carpoolers accuse them of driving too slowly in order to maximize their fuel efficiency, and of clogging diamond lanes that were once clear.

Hybrid motorists even have a term for the ill will: "Prius backlash."

"There's a mentality out there that we're a bunch of liberal hippies or we're trying to make some statement on the environment," said Travis Ruff, a real estate agent from Newbury Park who drives a Toyota Prius. "People are a lot less friendly than when I drove a Mercedes."

Article here.

In this TCS Daily piece I cite a recent study which found that slender people in the Chicago area are concentrated in suburban areas, not in the urban core.

But now the lead author admits to errors in the study:

A small academic tempest followed news reports in February of a study from the University of Illinois at Chicago that seemed to refute a link between urban sprawl and personal spread. … When the report was called to his attention, [researcher Lawrence] Frank looked over its numbers and spotted an error; the study's lead author, Dr. Siim Sööt, had misinterpreted his own numbers. That was embarrassing, says Sööt, who revised the paper to say it "conforms with" previous studies.

Despite the error, Sööt said he still thinks his study shows that where one lives has less effect on obesity than education and income.

Article here.

In other words, the big-picture point I made in the TCS piece still holds:

Neighborhood design might make it a little easier or a little harder to stay in shape, but other factors, from education to income, are much more closely tied to good health. And ultimately, the key to healthy living is self-discipline, and that's something that can be practiced anywhere.

Since there’s a much stronger correlation between education and obesity than urban form and obesity, maybe fat-fighters should work on getting high school drop outs back to school.

And if there’s a bigger-picture point, it’s this: New technologies have long made life less physically demanding. From animal-powered carts to TV remotes, there’s always something new that let’s us get a task done easier and faster. What will we do with that extra time?

Some will head to the gym. Others will head the couch. That’s what personal choice is all about. Preserving that freedom of choice is (gasp) even more important than preserving slim waists.

With so much zero-sum thinking on the trade issue this Charles Wheelan piece offers some good points to keep in mind.

For example, point number 3: A richer India will make for a richer America.

How can a place that "competes" with American companies and replaces American workers make us better off by growing wealthier?

First, a growing Indian middle class will buy our products. The guy in Bangalore who answers questions about your Dell computer probably drinks Coke, uses Microsoft Word, and reads my column on Yahoo! Finance. (Okay, I can't prove that last one, but you get the point.) It doesn't matter what business you're in, having 300 million new middle class consumers in India is good for you.

Second, Indian firms will design and sell products that make our lives better. That's what happens when you unleash new human potential. Imagine the following scenario: Your child has just been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. The doctor sits you down and says, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the disease can now be treated successfully. The bad news is that the treatment was discovered by an Indian scientist, and the drugs are produced by a leading Indian pharmaceutical company." Actually, that's not really bad news, is it?

Third, at a minimum, Indian competition and outsourcing by American companies will lower the cost and improve the quality of all kinds of goods and services…Cheaper imports from places like India or China are just like a tax cut; there is more money left in your wallet at the end of the month. And they create American jobs, too, which is less intuitive and therefore often overlooked. If you save money on cheaper cotton towels, much of that extra cash is likely to be spent on American goods and services. A Canadian trade minister made this point to me once when he asked rhetorically, "Look, a DVD player used to cost $500. Now it costs $40. What are you doing with the other $460?"

Some gay outlets are praising WM:

[T]his week, the mega-retailer stood its ground and resisted calls from the American Family Association to refuse to sell the “Brokeback Mountain” DVD.

Wal-Mart even promoted the DVD in displays featuring the gay characters portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger.
…
Some will say that Wal-Mart is just greedy and knows a hot-selling product when it sees it. But the behemoth is uber-popular in the red states where the American Family Association and other so-called Christian groups hold lots of influence.

So, just this once, kudos to Wal-Mart.

More from the New York Blade here.

Might this signal a bigger shift?

Previously, Wal-Mart has refused to carry the George Carlin written political satire, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, and last year canceled special orders for Daily Show host John Stewart’s America.

Article here.

Related: Progressive Wal-Mart II

French President Jacques Chirac on Monday scrapped a planned youth job law that provoked weeks of protests, in a climbdown opponents celebrated as an unqualified victory.

More here.

From the profile France in the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom:

An over-regulated labor market and overly intrusive state remain the biggest drags on France's economy. France has striven to preserve its statist political economy culture by adopting protectionist trading stances. As a result, growth has remained sluggish (2.1 percent in 2004), the unemployment rate is persistently high, and France has violated the European Union Stability and Growth Pact's deficit limit for the third year in a row. Some progress, however, has been made. The government has reduced the long-term unemployment benefit cut-off period for workers under age 50 from three years to two and has weakened the 35-hour workweek mandate by allowing employers to offer workers a higher rate of pay for additional hours. In May 2005, the French people voted against the EU constitution. This, plus the anti-capitalist rhetoric of the campaign, makes it appear unlikely that further economic reform will occur in the medium term.

Whole profile here.

Charles Schumer says some videogames aimed at kids "desensitize them to death and destruction." But dire pronouncements about new forms of entertainment are old hat. It goes like this: Young people embrace an activity. Adults condemn it. The kids grow up, no better or worse than their elders, and the moral panic subsides. Then the whole cycle starts over. Here's how the establishment has greeted past scourges.

Read on, here.

Bob Manley was a land-use attorney in Cincinnati with a passion for cities and urban revitalization. I met him more than 15 years ago after he read some of my writings on enterprise zones. I recently asked him a couple of questions about the politics and reality of revitalizing cities. Below is his response which I thought included a richness we rarely see in public policy discussions these days.

Unfortunately, Bob passed away just a few days later (a just a week after I debated his partner at an eminent domain forum).

Sam

Dear Sam:

Robert E. Manley
Manley Burke
A legal professional Association
225 West Court Street
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-1098

Turns out that Sydney's apartment dwellers consume more water per-capita than those living in larger houses in low-density suburbs, blowing apart the myth that high density development reduces water consumption:

Residents of high-rise apartment blocks in Sydney's east consume more water than those living in low-rise houses in the west, a new study has found.

The research revealed Sydney's biggest water users per capita are the affluent residents of the northern and eastern suburbs, not the inhabitants of large homes in the western suburbs.

The findings contradict a view held by State Government planners that medium and high-density blocks are more water efficient than free-standing houses.

Academics at the University of NSW used figures from Sydney Water, the census, and the Department of Lands, and rainfall modelling from Australian National University to gauge water consumption across 140 Sydney districts and 1.5 million households. They found that while residents of the western suburbs used more water per household, residents of northern and eastern Sydney used up to 14 per cent more water per person. The suburbs with the highest per capita water use included northern Sydney, the northern beaches, the inner and central west and Sutherland.

Bill Randolph, of the the university's City Futures Research Centre, said the western suburbs used more water in total because more people lived in households there, but the biggest water guzzlers per head in Sydney were in the north and east.

"Traditionally when people think of western Sydney they think of big houses, high water consumption levels, McMansions and lots of kids, but when you allow for the fact that there are fewer people living in flats than houses, the consumption per capita is very similar."

(Hat tip: Wendell Cox)

MobileParking LLC has a service in which users call 800-PARK-123 to check parking availability and reserve spots at roughly 400 parking facilities in Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, among other cities. The Bowie, Md., company plans a nationwide launch of the service later this year when reservations will be possible at roughly 1,000 facilities around the country.

More companies and cities are letting drivers reserve parking spots online or by phone:

The services come as traffic is growing worse around the country and are meant to help ease the traffic tie-ups caused by drivers cruising for a parking spot on the street, where charges tend to be lower than garage rates. In downtown areas, based on studies from cities around the world, about 30 percent of traffic results from drivers searching for curbside parking spots, says Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. Besides using availability information or reservations to attract drivers to garages or lots, other efforts to reduce such tie-ups include raising the price of curbside parking or charging different rates during various times of the day.

Article here.

Donald Shoup study here.

No surprise that those with home broadband access are especially likely to be telecommuters.

Some more good news for the future of at-home work:

According to the latest estimates from Nielsen/NetRatings, the number of active U.S. broadband users who access the network from home increased 28 percent year-over-year, growing from 74.3 million in February 2005 to 95.5 million in February 2006.

Article here.

More good news here.

I have a new piece online:

Charles Smith has caused quite a stir selling shirts online. Corporate behemoth Wal-Mart wants to shut him down and now the two sides are locked in a legal battle over free speech. Why all the fuss? Smith's shirts depict the familiar Wal-Mart logo as well as well as the message "I [heart] WAL*OCAUST." Yes, Smith thought it clever to compare a seller of cheap products to the holocaust, one of history's most ghastly acts of mass murder.

Most discussion has settled on Smith's pathetic conflation of retailers and Nazis and whether Wal-Mart's claims of trademark infringement are legitimate (probably not). Yet there's another issue here—if Smith truly believes in the message of his shirt, then he's not so innocent either.

In Smith's view, Wal-Mart and the Nazis both spread destruction. Indeed these days many regard the biggest box as a destructive force that wipes out mom and pop businesses. But it wasn't long ago that America was even more frightened by the internet—the same diabolical tool that Smith used to sell his shirts.

BTW, what was WM thinking going after this guy in the first place? Smith should be able to sell his shirts and it seems like WM has no case on trademark infringement grounds anyhow.

What will come of this stunt? WM’s lawyers will turn Smith into a free-speech martyr and the company’s already damaged rep will suffer even more. After all, this falls neatly into the bully charge critics are always lobbing at the “Beast from Bentonville.”

According to a new study, many obese people don’t consider themselves obese:

The study included 104 white and black men and women, ages 45 to 64, who were asked to report their weight in pounds; categorize themselves as either underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese; and estimate how much they would need to weigh in order to be considered obese.

Based on the participants' body mass index (BMI), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers found there were 31 normal weight people, 40 overweight people and 33 obese people in the study group.

About 90 percent of the normal weight people and 85 percent of the overweight and obese people accurately self-reported their own weight and height, the researchers reported Tuesday at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology meeting in San Francisco.

However, just 15 percent of obese people correctly considered themselves to be obese, compared with the 71 percent of normal-weight individuals and 73 percent of overweight people who classified themselves correctly.

Article here.

In related news:

Many young children are too heavy for standard car-safety seats, and manufacturers are starting to make heftier models to accommodate them, according to [a Johns Hopkins study] on the obesity epidemic’s widening impact.

And in Las Vegas ambulance companies have responded to an increase in calls to transport morbidly obese patients by buying special ambulances capable of carrying patients that weight over 500 lbs.

[American Medical Response] recently put into service a $250,000 bariatric ambulance, which looks like its other 80 ambulances, but is extra-wide and has a larger gurney, a winch and ramps capable of loading up to 1,600 pounds.

Jacob Sullum has done a good job of pointing out that obesity-related deaths have been overstated, but I’m still inclined to think that obesity (and throw related things—inactivity, bad diet, etc.—into the mix) is a big problem. But is it as big a threat as, say, terrorism?

In this TCS Daily piece I chided the Surgeon General for mentioning obesity in the same breadth as terrorism. A reader responded, insisting that obesity is indeed a bigger threat. He noted that far more Americans die from obesity than from terrorism.

True of course, but for me the big issue is control. Except in extremely rare circumstances, you have control over whether or not you’re fat. You don’t have much control over whether a guy straps on a bomb, skulks over to you, and blows himself up. Moreover, terrorism has the potential to unleash large-scale death and even if obesity is an “epidemic” it’s one that each “victim” has chosen to contribute to.

Today WM announced

it would open more than 50 stores in distressed areas and help small business around those locations thrive once the discount chain moves in.

The world's biggest retailer, often blamed for driving mom-and-pop stores out of business, said it would offer business development grants to nearby companies and give them free in-store advertising as part of a new economic development program.

Wal-Mart will also hold seminars for minority and women-owned business owners on how to become Wal-Mart suppliers, as well as seminars for all surrounding small businesses on how to compete in a community with a Wal-Mart.

Article here.

There are other ways WM could build community support, say by refusing to participate in eminent domain abuses like this:

Alabaster, Ala., voted to condemn a church in August 2003 for the benefit of Colonial Properties Trust, which planned to build a 400-acre retail development anchored by Wal-Mart.

More here.

Reader Brad Hutchings was so inspired by the “Smug Alert!” South Park episode that he entered a Chevy Tahoe make-your-own-commercial contest.

Check out his handiwork