Miscellany: 2/28/11

Quote of the Day

To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.

Francois Mauriac

Readership Drops to New Low

Granted, February is the shortest month, but my blog readership dropped to its lowest total in 9 months (no statistics available before last June), roughly half the level of just 4 months ago and down almost a third from last month. I'm puzzled because the posts I wrote over the weekend are very well-written but have gotten trivial readership. (It is weird, though: I get the definite impression someone at Fox News is reading my blog. There have been times I've heard after the fact clips on Hannity or Special Report where the discussions are uncannily similar.) I have largely lost my foreign following; for example, Denmark and Great Britain are my second and fourth ranking country viewers overall, but I didn't get a single pageview from either country last month.

I think every writer would prefer to see growing versus shrinking readership, but I would write the same blog without any readership, and I have relied more on organic growth of the blog than promoting it elsewhere. I did mention I may publish on a less frequent basis (which may have confused some readers). There are no short-term plans to change my daily publishing schedule, although I may serialize some commentaries or change the number and types of segments.

Obama Runs His Mouth on Public Sector Unions

I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed...We need to attract the best and the brightest to public service. These times demand it. We're not going to attract the best teachers for our kids, for example, if they only make a fraction of what other professionals make.  - President Obama, Remarks at DC Governor Conference

Pathetic. Unworthy of a legitimate President of the United States. I'm used to Obama creating straw men; it's a matter of intellectual laziness and lack of integrity. I have cited study after study that shows that public sector workers make comparably more, especially when you factor in benefits. There is nothing that Governor Walker (R-WI) is doing to infringe on worker rights. There are civil service worker protections. Public unions aren't being outlawed. They still have the right to petition the legislature and the governor, just like any other taxpayers. State teachers are hardly being paid "a fraction of what other professionals make"; as I argued in yesterday's post, the EPI study being cited has all sorts of methodological problems--it understates the relative costs of public pensions, retiree health care, and basically compares apples and oranges: it doesn't compare public vs. private school teaching compensation, within or across states, but it assumes that workers would be working in Wisconsin's largest companies and there is no value for the relative higher security of public employment (the layoff/termination ratio is a fraction of what occurs in the private sector, and that is a neglected factor in the grossly deficit EPI model). What Walker is attempting to control are the stealth benefit costs which go far beyond comparable benefits in the private sector. These are real costs that affect overall state resources given limited state revenues.

The public union and the government have mutually incompatible goals. The government is accountable to the people (voters). The government must live within the bounds of its revenues. The public union wants to maximize membership and provide more compensation for its members; it also negotiates/maintains a set of inflexible rules which restricts the employer in managing costs (and in fact require the employer to hire more resources). The fact is 37% of public sector workers are unionized (up from near-zero at the end of the 1950's). In contrast, private sector unions now have about 20% of the membership they held in the mid-1950's, and in fact the number of public sector union members now exceeds private sector union members.

We already see the results of the adverse effects of the heavily unionized auto industry (in the US), which cannot compete against more flexible Asian and European competitors. The idea that a similarly bloated public sector can compete in a global economy is simply a state of denial. Just as businesses saw the writing on the wall in terms of defined-benefit versus defined-contribution plans decades ago, but most states ignored the coming crisis of the largest generation starting to retire, we now see unions trying to retain the unsustainable benefits gained in the past. As I pointed out over the weekend, it's gotten to the point even if you convert new public sector workers to defined-contribution plans and other related reforms, you can see the public sector in California having to pay up to a third of revenue just to handle pensions over the coming few years--and maintain these contributions for decades. It's going to be a zero-sum game with current government operations. You can't hike growth-crippling, job-killing taxes on businesses and individuals just to meet unsustainable promises. Everybody has to share in sacrifice. It was not right for California, drunk with capital gain revenues during the Nasdaq stock bubble in 1999, to assume the gravy train was permanent and make promises to public sector workers that seemed to make sense then but now are threatening solvencies of municipalities or even the state. It's time for the unions to give back.

So listen very carefully, President Obama and unions: IT'S NOT PERSONAL; IT'S BUSINESS. I have multiple relatives in the public sector; I have worked in the public sector. It has nothing to do with the worthiness of workers. It has to do with shared sacrifice and the need of the public sector to do its fair share.

Taking on the Pro-Palin Wingnuts

My first response to a recent The Hill post was, "Who the heck is Tammy Bruce?" She seems to be some self-appointed pro-Palin defender media conservative, a former NOW leader, pro-abortion choice lesbian. (This ally may come as a shock to social conservatives, whom lionize Sarah Palin for knowingly carrying her Down Syndrome baby to term.) I have written several critical posts about Palin interweaving politically correct/victimization rhetoric, which REAL conservatives loathe with a passion: we believe in taking initiative and accepting responsibility; we realize that personal attacks come with the territory and in fact have been part of politics since the beginning of the republic; we also understand life isn't always fair. Ms. Bruce isn't doing Sarah Palin any favor by not letting her stand on her own two feet.  

Perhaps Ms. Bruce doesn't have a good memory of the 2008 campaign, but Sarah Palin had this to say: "You think this is just baby fat, right, from having Trig four months ago. No, it's some thick skin in there also." What kind of professional temperament, of not sweating the small stuff is a flame-throwing response to any imagined slight? Of going after her former brother-in-law state trooper as governor? Of going after a late-night comedian for a bad joke and implying he is a pedophile? Of calling fellow Republican Rick Santorum a "knuckle dragging Neanderthal" after Santorum questioned her decision to turn down a keynote address opportunity at CPAC? Is the feminist cause best served by advocating a gender-based double standard, that female politicians should be held to a lower standard of professionalism, that she shouldn't expect to put up with the same obnoxious, disrespectful behavior male politicians have had to deal with for centuries? 

Yeah, I know: Ms. Bruce will say that the issue is that Sarah Palin is being treated worse. Lady, the burden of proof is on you; I'm not conceding the false allegation which is little more than predictable feminist rhetoric. Look, there are scores of veteran female legislators and executives across parties whom have not been the lighting rod Sarah Palin has been. The issue isn't so much with Ms. Palin's gender as with her words and actions. I assure you if a male Senator (instead of Senator Boxer) had rebuked a general calling him 'sir': "General, I would appreciate it if you called me 'Senator'; I worked so hard to earn that title...", he would have been pilloried by me and other conservatives.

I don't have a Twitter account, but if we go by my blog readership statistics, my Twitter followers could probably have an annual convention in a phone booth. In fact, if someone asked Dr. Scamell (my dissertation chair) whether he thought I would have a Twitter account, Richard would probably laugh. "Ron write a message in 140 words or less? It takes him 1500 words just to introduce himself..." (If I do decide to create an account, I'll announce it in the blog.)

I'll simply reference a few of Ms. Bruce's provocative tweets. I don't think veteran politicians need me to defend them, but I wanted to comment, even if the targets choose to ignore Ms. Bruce.

First, Ms. Bruce goes after my favorite governor, Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ), by naming him "Mr. Smug", saying that his shtick is screaming at people, accusing him of being hypocritical by not also going after Obama, suggesting the only thing (overweight) Christie is good at is overeating fattening foods, and finally arguing that Christie is not even a very good Republican, missing the mark on litmus test issues like illegal immigration, gun control, etc.

I would pay for tickets to see Ann Coulter to go after Tammy Bruce; Coulter has made it she strongly supports Chris Christie for President (Christie has repeatedly stated that he is not interested in running in 2012) and doesn't support Sarah Palin except as a last resort opponent to Obama. Coulter is using her version of tact to suggest that Sarah Palin is very good at her current shtick of snidely blasting Obama via Facebook or Twitter and she can better serve policy reform from that standpoint. Why is Coulter backing Christie? For one thing, Christie does very well in poll match-ups against Obama; second, Christie is remarkably direct and articulate, particularly in dealing with self-indulgent teachers and other public servants oblivious to the idea of shared sacrifice in a tough global economy; third, Christie doesn't just talk the talk (like Obama), but he walks the walk. Other fiscal conservatives talk about spending and tax reform; Christie delivers, despite having to deal with a Democratic legislature.

The next point I want to make is that Christie, in discussing Palin's scripted persona, was not giving an unsolicited opinion (unlike Palin's spontaneous broadsides). In fact, Christie, in giving his constructive advice, was not saying anything others (including myself, repeatedly, in this blog) haven't already made. What Christie was referencing is not a matter of opinion but indisputable fact: Sarah Palin rarely lets herself getting booked into anything other than a softball interview (e.g., Sean Hannity). She knows that she did not do well in the national interviews, and any faithful reader to this blog knows that I was most appalled by her performance during the 2008 VP debate. Let's go to the video tape:

IFILL [moderator]: Who do you think was at fault [for the subprime meltdown]? I start with you, Governor Palin. Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?

PALIN: Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception there, and there was greed and there is corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that.

IFILL: Governor, please if you want to respond to what he said about Senator McCain's comments about health care?

PALIN: I would like to respond about the tax increases...

BIDEN: [McCain] did support deregulation almost across the board. That's why we got into so much trouble.

IFILL: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?

PALIN: I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again... And I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.

I'm just arbitrarily selecting a few of Palin's low-points, all but ignored in the media conservative rush to universally praise Palin's performance, allegedly putting Biden in his place.

First of all, Sarah Palin doesn't understand (at least in this debate) the concept of predatory lending. There's a distinction between risk-based lending, which is common in business, and predatory lending. An example of predatory lending is talking homeowners into taking out a dubious second mortgage, using their homes as collateral, misrepresenting the terms of the mortgage. It may be both the lenders and the customers were making unrealistic assumptions regarding the customer's future income, the future home resale value or interest rates and future reset points, but let me point out that the bank also had to take into consideration the risks of default and weigh the profit of making this loan against the possibility of having to repossess during a down cycle where write-downs of repossessed properties would more than offset any income from making the loan.  Now, what would be a legitimate point is if the GSE's (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) in the secondary market agreed to buy the loans, not doing due diligence, and effectively put the American taxpayer at risk for questionable loans. One could argue that the loans were imprudent, but that doesn't make them predatory. For example, many of the housing loans Sarah Palin is obviously referring to had little collateral down. It takes time to repossess a property, which may be underwater already and the occupants are living rent-free. It's the lenders whom are absorbing the cost.

More importantly, Sarah Palin was incompetently conceding a nonsensical Democratic talking point. She should have been talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying subprime loan notes, failures in bank regulation, both on the state and federal level, credit bureaus, the SEC, accountants, etc. She should have been talking about the real estate cycle. I'm not saying her populist angle on this wasn't shared by McCain. The solution was not to extend an incompetently managed regulatory house of cards but to regulate more effectively. I would have pointed out that there If I had been in Palin's place, I would have pointed out a key SEC mistake in late April 2004, which effectively allowed the investment banks to lower the amount on reserve (to cushion against investment losses). I would have talked about Democratic-sponsored housing policy that encouraged lending to lower-income/higher-risk people. I would have talked about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exposing the American taxpayer to half of the home mortgage market, marketing implicitly guaranteed mortgage securities without controlling for geographic risk (i.e., overheated regions like California, Las Vegas, and Florida, among others). I would have spoken about the need to return to the basics of saving 20% to put down on a new house and the responsibility of the Fed to review gimmicky loans.

But let's move on. In the aftermath of the Democratic Party Health Care Law, it seems like an obvious point, but it wasn't a good idea to let Senator Biden's assertions about health care to go unanswered, which to the average viewer implied that she conceded the point. I didn't find her extended discussion on tax policy that illuminating. In a debate, learn to be brief, and bring the fight to the opponent. If you want to emphasize a few points (like tax policy), save it for your closing argument, but don't let your opponent define you.

Then we move to the point where Palin makes it clear that she is in charge of the debate, not the moderator--something I don't think I've ever heard in any debate. But just as disturbing, she let Biden get away with calling McCain a reckless deregulator. In fact, domestic spending expanded under the Bush Administration, as did regulatory activity. And while she was at it, she could have pointed out that regulations are a de facto tax on business that costs the economy almost $1T a year--money that can't be invested in the economy and create jobs.

Going back to the Bruce criticisms of Christie, Governor Christie was pointing out that if Sarah Palin wants to be a political leader, it's going to take more fawning Hannity interviews. To the best of my knowledge, Hannity has never seriously questioned Palin on her tax and spend record in Alaska, her disingenuous statements on the Gravina Island Bridge, her embrace of earmarks as mayor and governor, the ethical issues (e.g., Troopergate, her family travel reimbursements, and the status of her PAC); in fact, he'll often suggest excuses in the phrasing of harder questions. In contrast, not only has Christie, unlike Palin, gone on all 3 major Sunday morning news shows to answer unscripted mainstream moderator questions, but he has gone in to personally face teacher union members angry with his policies. Contrast that with Palin's unwillingness to go on Letterman's late night show so he could offer an apology to her in person over an unfortunate joke.

Of course, Bruce's self-righteous broadsides aren't just limited to Governor Christie, but she throws a few grenades at potential 2012 Presidential rivals Mitt Romney and Mitch Daniels as well, suggesting that none of them have had to put up the kind of scrutiny Sarah Palin has (Well, now, Ms. Bruce managed to trash all 3 of my current favorite Republicans, all in one shot.) All three of these gentlemen can speak for themselves, but let me begin by pointing out that Mitt Romney has been very gracious over Palin's possible entry into the 2012 race, Daniels has not committed to a race, and Christie isn't running. It's rather pathetic that Bruce takes Christie's constructive suggestion as a personal attack on Palin.

Let's just say right now: Sarah Palin hasn't begun to take incoming fire from GOP opponents that she will get once she decides to enter the race:

There is one thing Sarah as not yet truly received: Republican criticism. And when there have been whispers of criticisms, she and her team freak out. Remember when Joe Miller demurred when asked on Fox News whether Sarah Palin was qualified to be President of the United States? Alaska's former first dude, Todd Palin, spit of[f] a fiery email to Sarah's attorney:

Hold off on any letter for Joe. Sarah put her ass on the line for Joe and yet he can't answer a simple question " is Sarah Palin Qualified to be President". I DON'T KNOW IF SHE IS.

Let me clear that up for you, Todd, and I will say it straight to your face: "HELL, NO!"

There are the ethics charges, her cronyism and failed appointments, the fact that she resigned from office (unlike Romney, Pawlenty, Daniels and others), her tax and spending (including alternative energy subsidies), her hypocrisy on earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere, her unelectability, her lack of experience and expertise on public policy, her temperament and poor judgment, her inability to work with a GOP-majority legislature, the current problems with her signature pipeline project,... Keep in mind unlike her competition, while her state disproportionately feeds off the federal tit, Alaskans not only don't pay a state income tax or sales tax but each Alaskan gets an annual dividend based on natural resource revenues. (Some 25 municipalities do have property taxes and 89 municipalities have sales tax; there are also miscellaneous excise taxes.) The other Republicans have had to cope with opposition legislatures and nontrivial income/property taxes and marginal natural resource revenues.

As for the other candidates not getting scrutiny, all of the candidates mentioned were elected in blue or purple states (unlike Palin). Romney has already been attacked by the DNC, there are opposition websites, etc. Romney's religious faith has been attacked by evangelical conservatives, he was accused of trying to buy the GOP nomination in 2008, and his position shifts were a major issue during the 2008 campaign. Daniels was the first GOP Indiana governor in 5 elections, and he has not shied away from controversy, implementing an executive order his first day in office putting aside public sector collective bargaining.

Political Humor

Moammar Khadafy is blaming Osama bin Laden for all of Libya's troubles. It's going to be awkward when these two guys meet in hell. - Conan O'Brien

[So much of Qaddafi's "big tent" philosophy for Middle East terrorists...]

An original:

• Qaddafi employs a number of virgin female bodyguards. I guess he figures if he's going to be martyred, he doesn't want to have to wait for his 72 virgins...

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

The Bee Gees, "Love You Inside Out"

Miscellany: 2/27/11

Quote of the Day  

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. 

I can assure you mine are still greater.

Albert Einstein

Sunday Talk Soup

I believe this is the third consecutive Sunday where I've had to lead off with a rant over Meet the Press. I'm getting tired of the uncritical or one-sided moderation by David Gregory. He did have Governor Barbour (R-MS) and one of my favorite Wall Street Journal columnists, Kim Strassel, on his roundtable, but to be frank, I had to bite my tongue as guest Lawrence O'Donnell, unchallenged, went on his class warfare pitch on resolving the national deficit and especially as AFL-CIO windbag Richard Trumka, without any pushback, was allowed to present his disingenuous "Wisconsin-public-sector-workers-are-undercompensated" propaganda.

Before proceeding, I have to reflect my observation of Haley Barbour's charisma and political skills. One of the things I admire about both Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee is their inclusive sunny, folksy Southern charm. (Of course, Bill Clinton does have a notorious temper, but his public persona is unabrasive and welcoming.) But I have to say that Haley Barbour may just be the quintessential Southern gentleman and a sleeper candidate for next year's GOP nomination for President. (I was amazed by how friendly Barbour was sitting next to Trumka; I don't think I would have been gently grasping Trumka's shoulder: Trumka would look like he was sitting next to a non-union dentist.)  Many people think of Mississippi as among the reddest of the red states (this is true from a national election standpoint), but like Texas before Bush, he was just the second Republican to win as governor in generations. Just like Huckabee, Romney and Pawlenty, Barbour has had to find ways to lead an opposition legislature, and unlike many public figures during Hurricane Katrina, Barbour's handling of the crisis was well-regarded. All that being said, Haley Barbour needs to address certain differences with Tea Party supporters and/or more libertarian conservatives like myself: crop subsidies, other forms of crony capitalism/corporate welfare (e.g., biofuels), and Kelo-style eminent domain abuses of private property rights. (We can expect partisan progressives to run their usual hypocritical attacks on his having been a lobbyist.)

I thought we had discussed enough about class warfare tax policies back in December. I have had the good fortune not to have to listen to Lawrence "I Am A Socialist" O'Donnell before. But O'Donnell can't avoid looking at where the money is and "thoughtfully" advanced the idea of steeper progressive tax rates for our consideration. There are a number of points to raise here: (1) we currently have a system that is biased towards consumption versus saving and investment; (2) we have a system where half of workers do not contribute to government overhead and operational expenses and hence have no vested interest in efficient use of tax revenues; (3) this revenue-based approach to the budget deficit assumes that all spending is meritorious and constitutes a net benefit over cost. 

I don't want to go into an extensive discussion here about the history of taxation, but let us remember that income taxes were not a major revenue source until the sixteenth amendment nearly 100 years ago: tariffs, a consumption tax, were the principal source of federal revenue because of the ease of assessment (income taxes were used on an interim base to fund war efforts). What I don't like when progressives start talking about consumption taxes is the immediate attempt to exclude lower-income people, net consumers of government goods and services, from paying a fee? It not only distorts the underlying market (if something is "free", why economize?) but it poses moral issues by encouraging undue dependence on other people.

The last point is that I think it's wrong for businesses and individuals to have to economize during tough times, but the government not only continues to spend despite a drop-off in revenues, but raises spending. The idea that the first thing progressives think of in terms of a budget deficit is "the other people have money: let's just take the money from them; we deserve it" is just a non-starter. The federal government is replete with redundancy; Barack Obama's example involving the oversight of salmon among various departments and agencies is just a start. Do we really need that many highly-paid federal managers? The idea that you should single out business and high-income individuals to pay more than a uniform tax rate so we can pay for redundant services is unconscionable... That's money that doesn't do a thing towards economic growth and jobs or efficient government services. We conservatives want to see government share in the cost burden of a tough global economy. The fact of the matter is that Obama has run three consecutive $1.3T or more deficits and has engaged in minimal cost-cutting...100M here, 17B there. Not to mention the fact that the well-to-do face steep progressive tax rates elsewhere (e.g., state and/or local).

Now as to Mr. Trumka. Where do we start? The misleading compensation comparisons. First of all, if you are going to compare teachers, you need to control for extraneous factors. You can compare English teachers, say, in public schools versus private schools in Wisconsin, and/or across states. But even if English teachers decided to leave the profession, say, to become pharmaceutical sales representatives, you cannot argue that the compensation of sales reps is the "real" value of English teachers. For one thing, salesmen are often compensated on a commission basis; most teaching contracts exclude the concept of merit pay. In fact, in many public sector occupations, one gets an automatic raise simply for teaching another year; it doesn't mean the teacher is more productive. The pay for sales reps also reflects supply and demand; among other things, sales reps may spend a lot of time on the road, often away from family and friends. When I started my computer programming career, I was working in San Antonio for a well-known insurance company. I later learned that I was making a third less than comparable work in Houston; the company felt that the quality of life in (then much smaller) San Antonio was worth a premium. 

In fact, union contracts ignore market demand. For example, there have been a series of teacher layoffs over the past 2 or 3 years; some former teachers are working hourly positions at retailers. They would jump at the opportunity for a mediocre middle-aged tenured Milwaukee teacher at a fraction of her compensation. In less than 4 years, I was making significantly more at a new career (which had little to do with my advanced degrees) than I ever made as a professor, and the same could be said for a number of my former students. In fact, I went on a campus visit to Providence College where they told me upfront that if they made an offer, it would pay several thousand dollars less than I made at the 3 state universities. Some of my fellow UH PhD candidates were offered several thousand dollars above what I ever made. The point I'm making is that I didn't go into college teaching for the purpose of maximizing my income.

But let's go a little more into the EPI study that Trumka is implicitly referencing that claims Wisconsin teachers are 5% underpaid. Jim Manzi, an MIT mathematics graduate and a Wharton School-trained statistician/doctoral fellow, persuasively argues that the Keefe study (referenced by Klein) is an artifact of  inadequate modeling (i.e., simply assumes away statistically significant variables). (We in information technology have a simple expression for this: GIGO (Garbage-In, Garbage-Out).) 

Andrew Bigg, who holds a doctorate from the London School of Economics and is conducting a study using the same data, points out 5 salient points: (1) whereas the studies are controlling for relative entity size, this means that Klein is using pay information relevant to the largest Wisconsin companies and hence cannot draw inferences to the full Wisconsin private sector (where compensation may be lower as a whole): it is unlikely that a teacher would alternately work at the largest companies but on a more distributed basis across the Wisconsin economy; (2) the benefits used in the studies are based on a multi-state basis; we already know that Wisconsin teachers actually pay a negligible percentage (<1%) of their pension costs versus a national average of about 5.7%; in other words, the Wisconsin state/local contributions towards pensions is materially understated in the comparison (and, as a personal aside, let's not even consider the point that many smaller employers don't have 401K plans or if they did, may have reduced matching funds during the recession); (3) there are differences between (disappearing) private sector defined benefit plans (which assume a riskless 4% Treasury return) versus a public sector 7.8% return: the point is, if those returns aren't met, the entity has to make up the difference--or, in plain Egnlish, the "real" pension costs of public sector workers are materially understated; (4) public sector retirees are able to buy into health coverage at a rate that doesn't reflect the higher costs of their age group; this means that the cost of retiree health care is materially understated; (5) the study assumes no value for the economic security benefit for public sector workers, whom are two-thirds less likely to be laid off or terminated than private sector workers. [There are various approaches to looking at this point. For example, in my case, I quote a higher billing rate for short-term assignments, because I have to factor in business/economic risk.]

Teacher Union Junk Studies 2.0

Teacher unions zealously guard their layoff principle of "last-hired, first-fired" and try to rationalize this patently unfair policy in a number of disingenuous ways. Marcus Winters of the New York Post writes that despite polls showing over 85% of New Yorkers oppose union-backed layoff policies, unions claim given studies showing incrementally improving teachers' performance over their first 5 years of teaching, less experienced teachers should be fired earlier. This is a preposterous leap of logic; it's like saying since a 19-year-old pitcher with a 110 mph fastball will be a better baseball pitcher in 5 years (knowing the league's batters better, developing more pitches, etc.), he should get cut from the team before an aging 44-year-old knuckleball pitcher. I remember hearing an anecdote about fellow lefty Sandy Koufax (he also batted right, we share the same birthday, different years): there was a conversation about how to pitch to a certain National League hitter (Willie Mays?); somebody mentioned that Sandy Koufax could always get him out with a high fastball, and the response was--who else had a high fastball like Koufax's? Fortunately, there are many statistics that can be used to judge a pitcher's performance: win-loss record, innings pitched, ERA, strikeouts, on base percentage, home runs/hits allowed, stolen bases/pickoffs, fielding percentage/assists, etc. In fact, there are some advantages to youth: quicker reflexes, greater speed, fewer injuries or quicker recovery time, etc. There may be comparable advantages to being a younger teacher: for example, he or she may have a similar cultural frame of reference (remember the teacher whom used rap to teach math?)

Winters points out that teaching longevity, advanced education degrees, and certification accounts for less than 5% of the variance in teacher performance. In fact, Winters cites one study which shows value-added test scores are a better predictor than longevity. His point is similar to one I've posted before in a different context. During my first semester of teaching at UWM, I was allowed to submit a wishlist of PC software for my office PC. When I saw the university-approved vendor prices, I remembered there were software ads in PC Magazine that offered significantly better prices (I don't recall the specifics, but prices seemed to be 15 to 25% better). First, I was given the typical bureaucratic response when I pointed out the cost savings: this vendor is like a supermarket running specials; we get great prices on some items, and they make up for it on other items we purchase. So I was made to feel like I was depriving the vendor of making a decent profit; what a terrible person I was trying to save the university some money! Second, when I persisted, they decided it would only be fair to open up my wishlist to multiple vendors--so I got punished for doing the right thing: as I recall, I didn't get my software for several weeks. My point, relative to Winters, was--if I can show you a better price/variable, it's an improvement over the status quo. On the other hand, the union (status quo) will predictably argue value-added test scores are not necessarily the best/most ideal predictor, and we should wait until the perfect predictor(s) are available before changing the status quo. You know, citizens of New York, if you let the unions get away with playing games like these, you deserve the mess you're in.

Winters has a tongue-in-cheek response in response to dysfunctional union behavior: let's have a layoff teacher lottery. (Who knows? Maybe if the lottery tags a $100K teacher, it'll save the jobs of two $45K teachers... We'll just tell Obama that we're spreading the salary money around...) Certainly a lottery would be fairer than systematically discriminating against younger teachers.

Political Humor

The King of Saudi Arabia is giving his people 37 billion dollars in pay raises and other benefits. He says it's not a "Stimulus package." That's true. It's more a "Please don't overthrow my ass package."
- Jay Leno

[The King said that unlike the US, the increased spending will be balanced by raising taxes oil prices on the American people. He thanked President Obama on his effective jobs program for Saudi oil workers.]

An original:

• Well, National Geographic has just posted a story that predicts a regional nuclear war could result in offsetting global cooling for a few years. North Korea's Kim Jong-il and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expect their nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize any day now...

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

The Bee Gees/Andy Gibb. "Our Love (Don't Throw It All Away". Written by oldest brother Barry, this song remains my favorite of the initial 6 consecutive Top 10 hits by the youngest Brother Gibb. I found the surviving brothers' tribute to their baby brother quite moving. I suspect Andy and Maurice must be singing in the heavenly choir...

Miscellany: 2/26/11

Quote of the Day  

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

Nathan Hale

Victor Davis Hanson, "On Teachers and Others":
BOTH THUMBS UP!

Dr. Hanson is a Stanford professor of classics. As a former MIS professor, I'm always intrigued by the stories of other academics. Any regular reader of this blog knows my first love is, and remains, philosophy, so in a certain sense I share a common ground with Dr. Hanson; he doesn't discuss in this essay whether others sought to dissuade him from a PhD in the classics--after all, there aren't a lot of want ad listings for credentialed classicists (i.e., ancient Greek and Roman writings). I suspect there are a limited number employed in liberal arts colleges and seminaries. In my case, I was told the only way I could make a living as a philosophy PhD was attrition of tenured philosophy professors. (In fact, many universities have abandoned Western Civilization courses in favor of politically correct ethnic studies or dubious-merit surveys of multicultural literature.) Dr. Hanson doesn't really describe the early 80's after achieving his doctorate, but as I recall, the economic recovery was slow in the aftermath of 21% interest rates, which broke the back of inflation.

He is clearly reflecting on the Wisconsin public sector collective bargaining kerfuffle which I have covered in multiple posts this week, and let us first dismiss the obvious objection that school teachers are going to make: there's a world of difference between teaching K-12 and universities, the amount of contact time is different (a typical class will meet 3 hours a week versus 5) and there are more class sections assigned. I'm not going to get into a food fight with high school teachers; let's just say I really was working over 70-hour week, no exaggeration, I had to put up with odd, sometimes doughnut-hole teaching schedules (a lot of night classes, some of them 3 hours long), and I was doing a lot of things like textbook reviews and unpaid university and professional services (including peer-reviewing conference and journal articles). We also have to hold office hours, and almost anyone in my discipline spent far more than the minimum prescribed by the university: among other things, I had to debug dozens of student computer programs.

In my case, I was also in the job market the last 3 years of my academic career. And unless you live in a place like Boston with over 30 universities, if you change jobs, it most likely requires moving to another state; all of this is a sinkhole of time (you have to locate prospective schools, there may be screening interviews at conferences, and if you get short-listed, campus visits where you make a presentation and meet with faculty, administrators, and/or students). I remember as I was finishing up my doctorate, thinking this is the last test I'll have to do, this is the last time I'll have to interview for a job, etc. I was living my dream; I still remember visiting Fr. Lonergan's office, the pungent smell of his pipe filling the office, classical music blaring from his stereo system (he loved Leonard Bernstein), discussing Aristotelian syllogisms, and it was like falling in love for the first time. It changed my life. [No, I've never smoked, and Fr. Lonergan would be troubled by my criticisms of unions, which he championed.]

What happened to me during my academic career as a professor I would not wish on my worst enemy. I will not discuss it in this blog or elsewhere, but it was a tragedy, not just for me but for the students I never had, for a discipline I truly loved. (I also loved going to conferences; it was like a grown-up Disneyland, meeting scholars whose articles I had read, browsing new research topics, discussing possible research projects with other academics, etc. I particularly liked talking to some of the European professors whom would cross the pond to attend...)

In any event, one of the reasons I mention this column is because Hanson at one point discusses probably the same recession marking the end of my academic career, when he mentions scores of resumes from candidates pleading for the type of opportunity he had almost come to take for granted. I do not envy his having had to deal with the unions, whereby even if you did not belong, you still had to pay your tithe for the dubious overhead of bureaucrats allegedly representing your interests (versus their own).

But I also enjoyed his tongue-in-cheek comparisons of the "stressful academic life" with the economic and physical risks associated with operating a small business like a farm, barely able to afford a high-deductible health care policy and putting doctor office visits and his first children's deliveries on his credit card.

As someone who has also been self-employed on multiple occasions, sometimes for bargain basement rates with no coverage of expenses or benefits, the entitlement class gets no sympathy from me; I am particularly unsympathetic about their commitment to save their jobs of their union representatives and executives, picking the pockets of the American taxpayer, seeing their responsibility as maximizing their take from hard-earned state and local tax revenues.

There was once an American President whom had these words to say, long forgotten in the subsequent class warfare politics of the Democratic Party that persists to this very day:

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

The Libya Crisis: Some Updates

French President Sarkozy showed leadership among the Western democracies by being the first leader to call on the Libyan dictator Qaddafi to step down and to call for the International Court of Justice to examine Qaddafi's orders to shoot to kill the current uprising. (I called on Obama to take similar actions days ago; I will point out that Obama earlier today called on Qaddafi to leave power.) I'm not as thrilled about Sarkozy's hands off policy over the point of military intervention. The issue isn't so much about the substance as the politics: I think that the possibility of force may mitigate what Qaddafi can or will do in terms of genocide of fellow Libyans; there has been open speculation over his possible use of deadly mustard gas stockpiles and a scorched-earth policy. In response to his concerns about any moves as being read as Western interference in African/Middle East affairs, it's difficult to argue that the unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Bahrain, and Libya is some Western conspiracy. Even Qaddafi himself hasn't made those allegations...

The UN Security Council issued a unanimous 15-0 vote to freeze Qaddafi's assets, bar international travel for the Qaddafi family, and referred allegations of crimes against humanity to the International Court of Justice. There are some additional disturbing allegations being made: "Several witnesses in Tripoli said forces loyal to Qaddafi had shot people from ambulances, used antiaircraft guns against crowds, and removed dead bodies from hospitals to try to obscure the death toll."

Los Angeles Times, "Day of Reckoning on Pensions": 
Thumbs Up!

A bipartisan group, the Little Hoover Commission, has determined that California's pension system is unsustainable. The editorial goes into more specifics, but the bottom line is that in the heyday of the Nasdaq stock market bubble in 1999, the California legislature made some overly generous changes (including retroactive benefits) in the pension system, increased the percentage of income available for pension, and (then, in what can only be described as collective legislative insanity) actually LOWERED the retirement age, even as actuarial trends showed longer lives and hence longer periods of pension payments. The state and/or local governments then increased headcount by nearly 40% and raised salaries up to 50-60% over the last decade. The top 10 of 80 public pension programs in California, as of last year, are almost a quarter of a trillion dollars underfunded. Current projections show that local/state contributions to make up deficiencies in pension performance may need to go up 40 to 80%, compromising a third or more of city budgets--and that's assuming a robust 8% return (over 2000-2009, the DJ total market actually slightly declined). And if the return is less than expected, the cities and state will have to make up the difference--not only that, but these elevated contributions will go on for at least 30 years.

In short, the cities and state of California are totally hosed. The Democratic Party, in its incestuous relationship with public sector workers, has written checks on the backs of the next 2 generations of lawmakers, whom are stuck in a zero-sum relationship between essential public services and pension benefits unparalleled in the private sector. 

It looks like the state courts are inflexible over the commitments to public sector workers; they say it's OK if you make benefits even HIGHER than they are now (!), but (in essence) a deal is a deal. Now it looks as though California is starting to take some long overdue changes in terms of revising benefits for new public sector workers and disallowing the game playing public sector employees can play just before retirement to artificially boost their pension benefit. But these won't help for the vast number of city and state workers.

You could hope that local and state unions will agree to rollback the unconscionable burden on the taxpayers and the implicit sacrifices of essential services. (All right: you can stop laughing now...) It looks like one of the things the commission is suggesting is capping and/or freezing the aggregate accruals.

I think the commission made the best they could of a bad situation; I give it credit for a sobering analysis.

But, for the local and state governments of California: to paraphrase the Soup Nazi: no federal bailout for you! Democratic politicians made promises they couldn't keep, but that doesn't make it the problem of American taxpayers...

Political Humor

A few originals:

• Hong Kong Customs recently intercepted a big shipment of cocaine headed for mainland China. We now understand why actor Charlie Sheen is so keen on Chinese briefcases...
• Embattled Libyan dictator Qaddafi claims that Al Qaeda-linked opposition leaders have recruited rebels by putting "hallucinogenic pills in their coffee with milk, like Nescafe". I think he's confused about the lab results that came back on his morning coffee...

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

The Bee Gees, "Night Fever". One of the iconic hits of the late 1970's...