Category: Government

World Health Organization Praises Coffee, Reversing 1991 Warning

(p. A9) An influential panel of experts convened by the World Health Organization concluded on Wednesday [JUNE 15, 2016] that regularly drinking coffee could protect against at least two types of cancer, a decision that followed decades of research pointing to the beverage’s many health benefits. The panel also said there was a lack of evidence that it might cause other types of cancer.
The announcement marked a rare reversal for the panel, which had previously described coffee as “possibly carcinogenic” in 1991 and linked it to bladder cancer. But since then a large body of research has portrayed coffee as a surprising elixir, finding lower rates of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, neurological disorders and several cancers in those who drink it regularly.

For the full story, see:
ANAHAD O’CONNOR. “Coffee May Protect Against Cancer, W.H.O. Concludes, in Reversal of a 1991 Study.” The New York Times (Thurs., JUNE 16, 2016): A9.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JUNE 15, 2016, and has the title “Coffee May Protect Against Cancer, W.H.O. Concludes.”)

Government Land Use Regulations Increase Income Inequality

(p. A1) . . . a growing body of economic literature suggests that anti-growth sentiment, when multiplied across countless unheralded local development battles, is a major factor in creating a stagnant and less equal American economy.
It has even to some extent changed how Americans of different incomes view opportunity. Unlike past decades, when people of different socioeconomic backgrounds tended to move to similar areas, today, less-skilled workers often go where jobs are scarcer but housing is cheap, instead of heading to places with the most promising job opportunities, according to research by Daniel Shoag, a professor of public policy at Harvard, and Peter Ganong, (p. B2 [sic]) also of Harvard.
. . .
“To most people, zoning and land-use regulations might conjure up little more than images of late-night City Council meetings full of gadflies and minutiae. But these laws go a long way toward determining some fundamental aspects of life: what American neighborhoods look like, who gets to live where and what schools their children attend.
And when zoning laws get out of hand, economists say, the damage to the American economy and society can be profound. Studies have shown that laws aimed at things like “maintaining neighborhood character” or limiting how many unrelated people can live together in the same house contribute to racial segregation and deeper class disparities. They also exacerbate inequality by restricting the housing supply in places where demand is greatest.
The lost opportunities for development may theoretically reduce the output of the United States economy by as much as $1.5 trillion a year, according to estimates in a recent paper by the economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti. Regardless of the actual gains in dollars that could be achieved if zoning laws were significantly cut back, the research on land-use restrictions highlights some of the consequences of giving local communities too much control over who is allowed to live there.
“You don’t want rules made entirely for people that have something, at the expense of people who don’t,” said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

For the full story, see:
CONOR DOUGHERTY. “When Cities Spurn Growth, Equality Suffers.” The New York Times (Mon., July 4, 2016): A1 & B2 [sic].
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 3, 2016, and has the title “How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality.”)

The paper mentioned above by Ganong and Shoag, is:
Ganong, Peter, and Daniel Shoag. “Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?” Working Paper, Jan. 2015.

The paper mentioned above by Hsieh and Moretti, is:
Hsieh, Chang-Tai, and Enrico Moretti. “Why Do Cities Matter? Local Growth and Aggregate Growth.” National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper # 21154, May 2015.

“Entrepreneurs Can Appear in the Most Unpromising Environments”

(p. A11) Adam Fifield’s entertaining biography of the little-recognized Grant shows that entrepreneurs can appear in the most unpromising environments–such as within the dysfunctional bureaucracy of the United Nations.
. . .
While top-down planning is usually misguided in aid (and most everywhere else), it turned out to be suitable for the particular challenge of vaccinations. Unfortunately, the aid establishment learned the wrong lessons from Grant’s career. Instead of seeing him as an entrepreneur who saw a very specific unrealized opportunity to spread vaccination and oral rehydration salts, they viewed his success as vindicating top-down planning in general.
. . .
Those who came after Grant . . . seem to have developed even more of the paternalistic savior complex than he had–his counterparts today are the likes of Bono, Jeffrey Sachs and Bill Gates. But the condescending image of a powerful white male as the savior of helpless nonwhite children is thankfully a lot less acceptable today than it was in Grant’s time. Since 2000 we have witnessed the mainly homegrown economic growth of low- and middle-income countries surpassing that of rich countries–plus many other positive long-term trends from democratization to the explosion of cellphones. Aid alone cannot explain these large triumphs in poor countries. There is still room for humanitarian entrepreneurs like Grant to find new breakthroughs, but we can appreciate much more today that the poor are their own best saviors.​

For the full review, see:
WILLIAM EASTERLY. “BOOKSHELF; The Father of Millions; The Unicef breakthrough on vaccinations and oral rehydration salts is still cited today as one of the few successes in foreign aid.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Oct. 16, 2015): A11.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Oct. 15, 2015.)

The book under review, is:
Fifield, Adam. A Mighty Purpose: How Jim Grant Sold the World on Saving Its Children. New York: Other Press, 2015.

Franklin Was Appalled by the Boston Tea Party, But Was More Appalled by British Arrogance

(p. A13) When George III assumed the throne in 1760, Franklin was full of praise for his “virtue” and “steadiness.” Many American associates considered him somewhat sycophantic.
Mr. Goodwin’s assessment is gentler. “Franklin was a proud Briton, but he was not starry-eyed.” By 1770 he was frustrated by Britain’s “treatment of her American colonies as one giant farm and forest of raw materials.” His relations with Lord Hillsborough, secretary of state for the colonies, became venomous. Lord North, the prime minister, icily ignored him. Franklin began to produce anonymous satires rebuking British attitudes toward America.
The nadir came in December 1773, when word reached London of the Boston Tea Party. Incensed, the king’s Privy Council summoned Franklin to Westminster. He was already in bad odor for having leaked impolitic correspondence from the royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson. The Privy Council chamber was, on this occasion, packed with counselors and curious members of the public. Other than Edmund Burke, they were hostile. Franklin stood grimly motionless as the solicitor general pounded the table and subjected him to “an hour-long verbal assault.” The council roared approval as he accused Franklin of acting for “the most malignant purposes.” The American had “forfeited all the respect of societies and of men.”
The humiliation of Benjamin Franklin gratified the grandees of George III’s government, but the episode epitomized their arrogant maladministration. Franklin was hardly an anti-British zealot. He favored reconciliation and might have been an effective mediator had he been respected and trusted. Franklin was so appalled by the Boston Tea Party that he offered to personally repay the East India Co. That this rather Anglophilic colonial served as the Privy Council’s whipping boy demonstrates how obdurate the government had become.
Franklin’s revenge was served hot. He left England in March of 1775 under threat of arrest. Twenty months later he arrived in France, where his diplomacy would deliver a mortal blow to Britain’s American empire.

For the full review, see:
JEFFREY COLLINS. “BOOKSHELF; A Revolutionary Loyal to Britain; Franklin’s years in France resulted in military aid and recognition of American independence. His time in London? Slightly less successful.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., March 11, 2016): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 10, 2016.)

The book under review, is:
Goodwin, George. Benjamin Franklin in London: The British Life of America’s Founding Father. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

Perfect Reliability Is Not Worth the Cost

(p. B4) Say what you will about Plain Old Telephone Service, but it worked. The functionality of POTS, as it was known, was limited to making calls, and they were expensive. But many traditional phone companies offered 99.999% reliability, which allowed for about five minutes of downtime a year.
Today’s networks are far less expensive, infinitely more capable and nowhere near as reliable as the wired-to-the-wall phone, . . .
. . .
To some extent, contemporary networks suffer from inattention. The old phone system worked so well because regulators in certain countries like the U.S. said it had to, and enough money was set aside to fund an army of technicians and engineers to oversee it. That generally isn’t the case with modern, digital networks and IT infrastructure, and companies often neglect this nuts-and-bolts technology.
. . .
Underneath it all, the economics of falling prices carry a trade-off. Consumers get more for their money in the mobile, digital era, but that often leaves margin-stretched companies with fewer resources to invest in robustness and maintenance. Reliability is as much a function of business and risk management as it is about tech.
“I don’t know if people are sweating that detail as much as they used to,” said Mr. Bayer, previously CIO of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
. . .
Former NYSE Euronext Chief Operating Officer Lawrence Leibowitz told the Journal in 2013 the public shouldn’t expect market technology to function perfectly, a goal that would be too expensive to implement even if it were technically feasible.

For the full story, see:
STEVE ROSENBUSH and STEVEN NORTON. “Network Reliability, a Relic of Business?” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., July 10, 2015): B4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 9, 2015 and has the title “What We Learned From the NYSE, United Airlines Tech Outages.”)

Utilities Shifting Back to Fossil Fuels to Reduce Electricity Prices

(p. B1) KEADBY, England — A wind farm here, along the River Trent, cranks out enough clean electricity to power as many as 57,000 homes. Monitored remotely, the windmills, 34 turbines each about 400 feet high, require little attention or maintenance and are expected to produce electricity for decades to come.
“They’re very well behaved,” said Sam Cunningham, the wind farm’s manager, as she drove around the almost three-square-mile site.
The owner of the wind farm, the British electricity company SSE, has been betting big on turbines as well as other renewables for years, with multibillion-dollar investments that have made the utility the country’s leading provider of clean power. In theory, last year’s United Nations climate accord in Paris should have been a global validation of the company’s business strategy.
But instead of doubling down, the utility is rethinking its energy mix, reconsidering plans for large wind farms and even restarting a mothballed power plant that runs on fossil fuel.
The moves reflect the existential debate faced by many major power companies, as they grapple with real-world energy economics and shifts in government policy. The calculus for fossil fuels can be more favorable at a time when energy prices are low and countries like Britain are rethinking subsidies on renewables to keep electricity prices down.”

For the full story, see:
STANLEY REED. “Clean Power Muddied by Cheap Fuel.” The New York Times (Sat., FEB. 20, 2016): B1 & B5.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 19, 2016 and has the title “In Britain, a Green Utility Company Sees Winds of Change.”)

Taxpayer Funded Stadiums Fail to Bring Promised Economic Development

(p. C14) The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have been an epicenter of the U.S. stadium-and-arena boom, rolling out five major sports facilities since 1990 that together cost more than $2 billion.
Now, the neighboring cities are readying for a sixth: a 20,000-seat, $150 million Major League Soccer stadium to be built by 2018 in St. Paul about halfway between the two downtowns.
. . .
But taken with the other facilities that have a combined seat count of nearly 200,000, this latest project illustrates how the Twin Cities are an acute example of the rapid increase in stadiums and arenas in U.S. cities. These developments come despite a growing chorus of warnings from economists who say the stadiums are almost always poor drivers of economic development. Even when these facilities do spur nearby investment, economists and critics say the cost to the public is typically far higher than with traditional economic-development programs.
“I’ve lived in the Twin Cities since 1976, and have seen this proliferation of new sports stadia,” said Jane Prince, a St. Paul city council member who voted against the soccer stadium aid package. “I just don’t see the promised economic development occurring in conjunction with all of these.”
. . .
“There’s not one group that makes these decisions–it was two city governments, it was a legislature, it was sports owners,” said R.T. Rybak, the mayor of Minneapolis from 2002 to 2014. Mr. Rybak said he had long been critical of sports subsidies but he grudgingly helped craft the aid package for the Vikings stadium after the team was poised to move elsewhere.
That deal, and the others, he said, were “also driven by the increasingly crazy politics of sports economics,” in which teams want their own facilities, custom designed for their ideal crowd sizes.

For the full story, see:
ELIOT BROWN. “Twin Cities to Get Yet Another Stadium.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., March 23, 2016): C14.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 22, 2016, and has the title “In Twin Cities, How Many Stadiums Are Enough?”)

Government Elephant Ivory Bans Endanger Rare Helmeted Hornbills

Another unintended consequence of well-intentioned government policy.

(p. A3) BEIJING — Even as China, the world’s leading market for illegal ivory, promises to help safeguard elephants in Africa, a rare bird in Southeast Asia is in danger because its skull is being sold in China as an ivory alternative, conservationists say.
. . .
More than 2,000 helmeted hornbill skulls, or casques, were seized by the authorities in Indonesia and China in the past five years, according to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nongovernmental organization based in London. In some cases, Chinese citizens were caught trying to leave Indonesia with casques in their luggage.
. . .
China has joined the world in taking a stand against the trade in elephant and rhinoceros products. In September, during his state visit to the United States, President Xi Jinping pledged to “enact nearly complete bans on ivory import and export.”
But some conservationists worry that less celebrated but also threatened animals, including the helmeted hornbill, are being overlooked, becoming easy picks to meet the demand.
“Shifting to hornbill ivory is like grabbing a low-hanging fruit,” Yokyok Hadiprakarsa, the director of the Indonesian Hornbill Conservation Society, wrote in an email.

For the full story, see:
SHAOJIE HUANG. “Chinese Demand for Ivory Alternative Threatens Rare Hornbill Bird.” The New York Times (Weds., MARCH 23, 2016): A3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 22, 2016, and has the title “Chinese Demand for Ivory Alternative Threatens Rare Bird.”)

Suburbs Solved City Over-Crowding and Allowed Child Rearing

(p. C7) . . . , Adna Ferrin Weber, writing in 1899, had it right. “The ‘rise of the suburbs’ it is,” he wrote, “which furnishes the solid basis of a hope that the evils of city life, so far as they result from overcrowding, may be in large part removed.”
. . .
Joel Kotkin, in “The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us,” presents the most cogent, evidence-based and clear-headed exposition of the pro-suburban argument. In Mr. Kotkin’s view, there is a war against suburbia, an unjust war launched by intellectuals, environmentalists and central-city enthusiasts. In pithy, readable sections, each addressing a single issue, he debunks one attack on the suburbs after another. But he does more than that. He weaves an impressive array of original observations about cities into his arguments, enriching our understanding of what cities are about and what they can and must become, with sections reflecting on such topics as “housing inflation,” “the rise of the home-based economy,” “the organic expansion of cities” and “forces undermining the middle class in global cities.”
The essence of Mr. Kotkin’s defense of suburban expansion in the United States–with which he is most familiar and where the opposition to his views is better organized and much more formidable than elsewhere–is that suburbs now contain the great majority of residences as well as jobs. Suburban neighborhoods, he suggests, are as conducive to community living and as “green” as central-city ones. But his critique of conventional urban-planning wisdom goes further. He argues that central-city living is largely unaffordable by the middle class, let alone the poor; that central cities are becoming the abodes of the global rich, encouraging glamorous consumption rather than providing middle-class jobs; and that dense urban living in small, expensive quarters discourages child rearing, a critical concern for policy makers in many industrialized countries today.

For the full review, see:
SHLOMO ANGEL. “In Praise of Urban Sprawl; Dense urban living discourages child rearing. It is no surprise that there are 80,000 more dogs than children in San Francisco.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., May 21, 2016): C5-C6.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 20, 2016.)

The book under review, is:
Kotkin, Joel. The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us. Chicago: Agate B2 Books, 2016.

Imperial Passivity of the Holy Roman Empire Allowed Liberty and Diversity

(p. C7) On Aug. 6, 1806, an imperial herald decked out in full court regalia galloped purposefully through the streets of Vienna to a magnificent medieval church at the center of the city. Once there, he ascended to the balcony, blew his silver trumpet and declared that the Holy Roman Empire, an institution that had lasted for more than 1,000 years, was no more.
. . .
But because the empire never evolved into a viable nation-state, many scholars and politicians regarded it as a failure. The Germans in particular (including the great 19th-century historian Leopold von Ranke) blamed the empire for the fact that Germany remained a “delayed nation” that was only unified (through Prussian machinations) in 1871.
Yet it was precisely this lack of political centralization, Mr. Wilson argues, that provided the empire with its greatest strength. Imperial passivity meant that individual rulers and states were largely left alone to govern as they wished. And all subjects had the right to appeal to the emperor if they believed their rights had been trammeled upon. Jews, for example, were given imperial protection as early as 1090; and though forced to live as second-class citizens during much of the empire’s history, many viewed its dissolution as a catastrophe.
Political fragmentation also had cultural benefits. Unlike France and England, with their single capital and monarch, the Holy Roman Empire had numerous kings, courts and centers of patronage. The result was a remarkably wide distribution of educational and cultural institutions, one that is still observable in the former imperial lands. It was probably also no coincidence that both the printing press and Europe’s first mail service were launched within the fragmented empire or that the imperial territories experienced higher levels of economic growth than regions of Europe with more centralized control.
. . .
Though far from perfect, the empire lasted for as long as it did because it strove to provide the two things most hoped for in a state: liberty and security.

For the full review, see:
MARK MOLESKY. “The Strength of a Weak State; In the Holy Roman Empire, individual rulers and states were largely left to govern as they wished.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., May 21, 2016): C7.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 20, 2016.)

The book under review, is:
Wilson, Peter H. Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2016.