Government – Page 54 – artdiamondblog.com

Unused Electric Car Chargers Multiply Due to Federal Subsidies

“Any takers?: Two EV chargers sit unused in White Plains, MD.” Source of photo: http://metablognews.com/wp-content/plugins/rss-poster/cache/d6fff_MK-BP785_CHARGE_G_20111016172708.jpg Source of caption: slightly edited from print version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. B1) When McDonald’s franchisee Tom Wolf built his latest restaurant in Huntington, W. Va., late last year, he installed two chargers for all-electric cars so customers could juice their batteries while eating. So far, the charging station has been used a few times.
. . .
Across the U.S., such equipment is proliferating even though it is unclear whether plug-in cars will prove popular.
. . .
Fewer than 15,000 all-electric cars are on U.S. roads, says Plug In America, a group promoting the technology.
. . .
(p. B11) Charging equipment is popping up largely because of subsidies. As part of a $5 billion federal program to subsidize development of electric vehicles and battery technology, the U.S. Energy Department over the past two years provided about $130 million for two pilot projects that help pay for chargers at homes, offices and public locations.
. . .
Opinions vary on demand. J.D. Power & Associates expects all-electric vehicles will account for less than 1% of U.S. auto sales in 2018, or about 102,000 cars and light trucks. Including hybrids and plug-in hybrids the market share is forecast at 8%.
“The premiums associated with these products are still more than what the consumer is willing to bear,” says Mike VanNieuwkuyk, executive director of global vehicle research at J.D. Power.

For the full story, see:
JAMES R. HAGERTY And MIKE RAMSEY. “Charging Stations Multiply But Electric Cars Are Few.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., OCTOBER 17, 2011): B1 & B11.
(Note: ellipses added.)

“The Only Benefit of War Rationing”

(p. 538) The only benefit of war rationing, of which I am aware, is that an alert entrepreneur invented the bikini so as to conserve on the textiles that were then hard to come by for civilian use.

Source:
Shughart II, William F. “The New Deal and Modern Memory.” Southern Economic Journal 77, no. 3 (Jan. 2011): 515-42.

EU Costs Britain $238 Billion Per Year According to Congdon Report

“Nigel Farage has waged a 20-year campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A7) Strasbourg, France THE floor of the European Union’s cavernous and mostly vacant parliamentary chamber here is hardly known for its lively debates. At least not until Nigel Farage, the Brussels-bashing leader of Britain’s fastest growing political party, gets up to speak.

The vast majority of the European Parliament’s 754 members, as they process the torrent of rules and regulations that Europe bestows upon them, are not inclined to question why they are here. The pay and perks are generous for those elected to five-year terms in low-turnout elections throughout the European Union’s 27 member countries. And the mission — to extend the sweep of European federalism — is for most a shared one.
But for Mr. Farage, who has waged a 20-year campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union, Strasbourg has become the perfect stage to disseminate his anti-European Union message by highlighting the bloc’s bureaucratic absurdities and spendthrift tendencies as well as by mocking with glee the most prominent proponents of a European superstate: the head of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and the European Council president, Herman Van Rompuy. “I said you’d be the quiet assassin of nation-state democracy,” Mr. Farage has declared, as his target, Mr. Van Rompuy, squirmed in his seat just opposite, “and sure enough, in your dull and technocratic way, you’ve gone about your course.”
. . .
Last year, in net terms, Britain paid $16 billion to the European Union. But according to a recent study by the economist Tim Congdon, himself an Independence Party member, if the cost of regulation, waste and misallocated resources is included, the annual cost of membership rises to $238 billion a year, or about 10 percent of Britain’s economic output.
Perhaps the most egregious example of this profligacy is the spot where Mr. Farage has found fame: the European Parliament. As most of the legislative work is done in Brussels, the building is in use just three days each month. Analysts estimate that it costs taxpayers about $250 million a year to transport each month 754 members of Parliament, several thousand support staff members and lobbyists to this French city.
Mr. Farage lights another cigarette and shakes his head. “I just would like for my grandchildren to read some day that I did my part in saving my country from this lunacy,” he said with a sigh.

For the full story, see:
LANDON THOMAS Jr. “THE SATURDAY PROFILE; An Enemy of Brussels, and Not Afraid to Say So.” The New York Times (Sat., December 8, 2012): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date December 7, 2012.)

The Tim Congdon report mentioned is:
Congdon, Tim. “How Much Does the European Union Cost Britain?” UK Independence Party, 2012.
(Note: the report calculates a total cost of about 150 billion British pounds, which when converted to dollars is equal to the $238 billion reported in the article, at an exchange rate of about $1.587 per British pound.)

Does Washington Want “to Regulate Everything That’s Warm”?

“Mike Taylor displays a gas-log set at Acme Stove in Rockville, Md.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A8) Rett Rasmussen sells gas-log sets, which use a “dancing flame” design that his father invented more than 50 years ago to replicate a cozy wood fire.

They are just for decoration, he says. But as the season approaches for families to gather around the hearth–real or fake–Mr. Rasmussen and other makers of hearth products are having a flare-up with the Department of Energy. The federal agency says it has the authority to regulate the log sets as heating equipment, though it isn’t proposing any changes now.
The issue “just hit us out of left field,” said Mr. Rasmussen. His company of about 50 employees–Rasmussen Iron Works Inc. of Whittier, Calif.–has spent at least $20,000 to fight any regulatory change, he says.
. . .
Judge A. Raymond Randolph expressed sympathy for the industry, saying that an object is not a heater simply “because it makes the air around it warm.”
“I don’t understand that as a matter of pure English,” said Judge Randolph, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush. He added: “That’s like saying a match is designed to furnish warm air. It’s designed to furnish a flame.”
H. Thomas Byron, a Justice Department lawyer, said it was “rhetorical hyperbole” to suggest Washington wanted to regulate everything that’s warm. . . .
Mr. Rasmussen, who says the family business has struggled in the weak economy, monitors the case closely. “We’re alive and kicking, but it’s not what it used to be, and when you have to fight your government, it’s hard to see where it’s going to get back anywhere near where it has been,” he said.

For the full story, see:
RYAN TRACY. “Hearth Makers Get Hot Over Regulations.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., October 23, 2012): A8.
(Note: ellipses and bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the article was dated October 22, 2012.)
(Note: in the third paragraph “he says” appeared in the online, but not the print, version.)

“Planning Is Crap”

Source of book image: http://images.indiebound.com/636/044/9780807044636.jpg

(p. C8) As Mr. Wooten recounts, obstacles abounded from a municipality bent on redesigning New Orleans while the city was still in crisis. Neighborhoods from middle-class Lakeview to the devastated Lower Ninth Ward began to fear that the city they loved didn’t love them back.

“Planning is crap,” said Martin Landrieu, a member of a prominent local political family, at a meeting of Lakeview residents. “What you really need is the cleaning up of houses . . . . Where are the hammers and nails?” Yet five months after Katrina, a city commission called Bring New Orleans Back presented an ambitious plan to restore the city that included converting neighborhoods that had heavy flooding into green space. The commission also imposed a temporary moratorium on rebuilding there. Residents would have to show that their communities were viable or risk being planned out of existence; they were given four months.

For the full review, see:
CARLA MAIN. “After the Waters Receded.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., August 4, 2012): C8.
(Note: ellipsis in original.)
(Note: the online version of the article was dated August 3, 2012.)

DaVita Threw Out Medicine and Billed Taxpayer: Huge Medicare Fraud

I saw this clip broadcast on Wolf Blitzer’s “Situation Room” broadcast on 11/29/12 (if memory serves–it might have been the day before).
The clip shows the magnitude of the fraud, but also emphasizes that there were significant incentives for those who knew about the fraud to keep their mouths shut.
This is one huge case of over-billing, but over-billing happens all the time. Taxpayers could have used that money for other purposes. The opportunity cost is huge.

A link to the clip posted on CNN, is:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/29/company-accused-of-giant-medicare-fraud/?iref=allsearch
(Note: I believe the November 29, 2012 date in the image above is the date that Drew Griffin posted the clip to the CNN blog, not necessarily the date of the broadcast.)

AMA Resists the Democratization of DNA

The “Walgreens flap” mentioned below was the episode in 2010 when Walgreens announced that it would cell a genome testing saliva kit, but was pressured by government regulatory agencies, and withdrew the kit from the market within two days of the announcement.

(p. 119) . . . there will likely never be a “right time”—after we have passed some imaginary tipping point giving us critical, highly actionable, and perfectly accurate information—for it to be available to the public. The logical conclusion is that the tests should be made available. What’s more, the fact that they have been available has meant that democratization of DNA is real. Consumers now realize that they have the right to obtain data on their DNA. As a blogger wrote in response to the Walgreens flap, “To say that this information has to be routed through your doctor is a little like the Middle Ages, when only priests were allowed (or able) to read the Bible. Gutenberg came along with the printing press even though few people were able to read. This triggered a literacy/literature spiral that had incredible benefits for civilization, even if it reduced the power of the priestly class.”

The American Medical Association (AMA) sees things differently. In a pointed letter to the FDA in 2011, the AMA wrote: “We urge the Panel … that genetic testing, except under the most limited circumstances, should carried out under the personal supervision of a qualified health professional.” The FDA has indicated it is likely to accept the AMA recommendations, which will clearly limit consumer direct access to their DNA information. But this arrangement ultimately appears untenable, and eventually there will need to be full democratization of DNA for medicine to (p. 120) be transformed. Of course, health professionals can be consulted as needed, but it is the individual who should have the decision authority and capacity to drive the process.
The physician and entrepreneur Hugh Rienhoff, who has spent years attempting to decipher his daughter’s unexplained cardiovascular genetic defect and formed the online community MyDaughtersDNA.org, had this to say: “Doctors are not going to drive genetics into clinical practice. It’s going to be consumers …. The user interface, whether software or whatever will be embraced first by consumers, so it has to be pitched at that level, and that’s about the level doctors are at. Cardiologists do not know dog shit about genetics.”

Source:
Topol, Eric. The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. New York: Basic Books, 2012.
(Note: first ellipsis added; other ellipses in original.)

Personal Genomics Startups Struggle Under a “Circus” of Government Regulation

(p. 118) Government regulation of consumer genomics companies has been centerpiece (and the semblance of a circus) in their short history. Back in 2008, the states of California and New York sent “cease and desist” letters to the genome scan companies. State officials were concerned that the laboratories that generated the results were not certified as CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments) and that the tests were being performed without a physician’s order. All three companies developed work-around plans in California and remained operational but were unable to market the tests in New York.
In 2010, the regulation issues escalated to the federal level. In May it was announced that 7,500 Walgreens drugstores throughout the United States would soon sell Pathway Genomics’s saliva kit for disease susceptibility and pharmacogenomics. While the tests produced by all four companies had been widely available via the Internet for three years, the announcement of wide-scale availability in drugstores (which was cancelled by Walgreens within two days) appeared to “cross the line” and set off a cascade of investigations and hearings by the FDA, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the Congressional House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The FDA’s Alberto Gutierrez said, “We don’t think physi-(p. 119)cians are going to be able to interpret the results,” and “genetic tests are medical devices and must be regulated.” The GAO undertook a “sting” operation with its staff posing as consumers who bought genetic tests and detailed significant inconsistencies, misleading test results, and deceptive marketing practices in its report.
All four personal genomics companies are struggling.

Source:
Topol, Eric. The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. New York: Basic Books, 2012.

A Rising Tax Gathers No Rolling Stone

Source of book image: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Nhhn-YcP9IY/TjkQHfGGEeI/AAAAAAAAAVA/_jKMGRBm9Ac/s1600/life-keith-richards.jpg

(p. 289) The tax rate in the early ’70s on the highest earners was 83 percent, and that went up to 98 percent for investments and so-called unearned income. So that’s the same as being told to leave the country. … The last thing I think the powers that be expected when they hit us with the super-super tax is that we’d say, fine, we’ll leave. We’ll be another one not paying tax to you. They just didn’t factor that in. It made us bigger than ever, and it produced Exile on Main St., which was maybe the best thing we did. They didn’t believe we’d be able to continue as we were if we didn’t live in England. And in all honesty, we were very doubtful too. We didn’t know if we would make it, but if we didn’t try, what would we do? Sit in England and they’d give us a penny out of every pound we earned? We had no desire to be closed down. And so we upped and went to France.

Source:
Richards, Keith. Life. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010.
(Note: I first saw the quote on the back cover of: Journal of Political Economy 119, no. 1 (Feb. 2011).)
(Note: ellipsis added.)

FDA and ACS Wrongly Endorsed Sunscreen with Retinyl Palmitate

Some consumers let their guard down on medical issues, assuming that the government Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and large incumbent bureaucratic non-profits, like the American Cancer Society (ACS), will protect them—it ain’t necessarily so. Caveat emptor should remain the rule for consumers.

(p. 39) Of note, one of the reasons for the lack of updating the rules and acknowledging UVA rays has been heavy pressure from sunscreen manufacturers, which include Johnson and Johnson (Neutrogena), Merck-Schering Plough (Coppertone), Proctor and Gamble (Olay), and L’Oreal. Interestingly, in Europe products that provide solid UVA protection have been available for years. The concerns run even deeper because many of the products (41 percent in the United States) contain a form of vitamin A known as retinyl palmitate, which has been associated with increased likelihood of skin cancer. There are, however, no randomized studies, but biological plausibility and the observational findings of a rising incidence of basal cell (p. 40) carcinoma and melanoma, despite the widespread use of sunscreens. In mid-2011, the FDA finally unveiled some new rules about sunscreen claims.

This issue really hit home when my wife brought out a tube of Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Tough SPF 30 Sunblock. It claims “Broad Spectrum UVNUVB Protection” despite repeatedly failing UVA tests. But the real eye-opener is to find the American Cancer Society logo on the front of the tube with the message “Help Block Out Skin Cancer.” Now what is the American Cancer Society logo doing on the tube of Neutrogena? The fine print on the bottom reads: “The American Cancer Society (ACS) and Neutrogena, working together to help prevent skin cancer, support the use of sunscreen. The ACS does not endorse any specific product. Neutrogena pays a royalty to the ACS for the use of its logo.”

Source:
Topol, Eric. The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. New York: Basic Books, 2012.