Somewhat Reasonable

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Wireless communications have improved the lives of millions of people across the United States and the world. However, the rapid expansion of wireless services has brought growing pains: The electronic spectrum on which most communications are broadcast is a limited resource that is quickly filling up. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission regulates the spectrum and how these frequencies are distributed.

Wireless Spectrum Underutilized in the US 

Wireless spectrum in the United State is far less utilized then spectrum in other countries. According to the Technology Liberation Front, British consumers have 3.5 times the available spectrum as Americans; Japanese consumers have around 2 times as much. This growing lack of spectrum capacity has emerged due to the slow issuance of new spectrum by the FCC through competitive auctions and Congresses interference in voluntary transfers of broadcast spectrum.

Government Attempting to Move Away from Successful Auction System 

The competitive auctioning of wireless spectrum, when it has been allowed by the FCC has been an effective process; allowing for the creation of what is a thriving, competitive telecom market that gives U.S. consumers a wide array of products at reasonable prices. The next spectrum auction, expected to take place in 2014, will distribute portions of low-frequency spectrum that are highly valued by telecom companies. Currently, a large portion of the spectrum that is suitable for auction between 400 MHz and 3 GHz is held by the government and the FCC has been slow to issue the largely underutilized spectrum.

Despite the success of the competitive auction system, the Justice Department recently released a filing that strongly suggested to the FCC that it create new auction rules to ensure that all companies receive their “fair share” of wireless spectrum in the upcoming spectrum auction. “The Department concludes that rules that ensure the smaller nationwide networks, which currently lack substantial low-frequency spectrum, have an opportunity to acquire such spectrum could improve the competitive dynamic among nationwide carriers and benefit consumers,” wrote the Justice Department in the filing.

The new auction rules proposed by the Justice Department would effectively steer the new spectrum away from the two major networks of Verizon and AT&T, while providing the valuable spectrum space to smaller national networks like Sprint and T-Mobile.  Both Verizon and AT&T have voiced their concerns that the FCC’s new auction rules could result in a caps being placed on how much spectrum one provider could purchase, limiting their participation in the auction.

Reports Find Government Disdain for Market-Driven Auctions

Critics of the recent changes to the spectrum auction have noticed a trend towards increasing government control over the auction process. A Daily Caller piece pointed out that numerous DOJ and FCC filings have demonstrated a distaste for market-driven spectrum auctions and a preference for increased “preemptive and interventionist wireless regulation.” The Caller article points to two reports: the first, mentioned above, denies new spectrum to the largest providers; the second, its annual wireless competition report to Congress, refuses to acknowledge the successful private deployment of broadband.

Broadband development across the United States has been robust, creating wide internet availability at affordable prices. The market based system does not need reform; government control of the spectrum would undermine what has been a very successful system. The government has already badly botched the release of unused spectrum, slowly releasing usable spectrum while hoarding some of the best for itself.

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Among the greatest liars on Earth today is the international organization called Friends of the Earth (FOE). It has engaged in the most scurrilous fear-mongering for decades, along with Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the World Wildlife Fund, while all the time they pulled in billions in funding.

In May 2012, the Daily Caller noted that “The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on ‘climate change activities.’” The leading critic in Congress, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) asked at the time, “Which would you rather have? Would you rather spend $4 billion on Air Force base solar panels, or would you rather have 28 new F-22s or 30 F-25s or modernized C-130s?”

“Would you rather have $64.8 billion spent on pointless global warming efforts or would you rather have more funds put toward modernizing our fleet of ships, aircraft and ground vehicles to improve the safety of our troops and help defend the nation against the legitimate threats that we face?’

On May 9, I received an email from Friends of the Earth that repeated all the lies we have heard for years. Painting with a very broad brush that completely ignores the fact that the U.S. climate has always had highs and lows of temperature, FOE complained that “Last year the U.S. experienced record-breaking weather all over the country. But, the nightly news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC barely talked about what was fueling this extreme weather—climate change.”

What FOE failed to mention was a record that was set in 2012-13; as of May, according to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, the U.S. had its longest stretch in recorded history—2,750 days—without a major hurricane landfall. The many claims of “extreme” weather are classic fear-mongering. I might also add that, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, the number of wildfires is at a ten-year low. Glaciers are not melting and seas are not rising, unless a millimeter or two worries you.

“Climate change” is the replacement name for “global warming.” Climate is measured in centuries. The weather is whatever is happening anywhere in the nation on any given day. Around the world, however, there has been a significant increase in cold weather and many are still waiting for spring to arrive.

Typical of the hyperbole that is representative of the lies we have heard from so-called environmental organizations, FOE fumed that “the nightly news programs at the major broadcast networks have largely ignored what is fueling this extreme weather—climate change.” Citing a Media Matters for America study, FOE noted that “ABC’s nightly news program did only one segment about climate change last year. Meanwhile NBC’s news show did only four and CBS just seven segments to this critical issue.” Perhaps this is because these notably liberal news organizations have concluded it is not a critical issue?

It gets better, FOE was angry, saying “What’s almost worse is that when these networks have covered global warming, they have often treated climate change as a ‘two-sided debate’ rather than what it really is; an issue in which there is overwhelming scientific consensus.” These are people who do not want to have a debate because, based on the facts, they would lose. As for scientific consensus regarding either global warming or climate change, there is NONE. If anything, leading scientists around the world have been debunking global warming now for years.

One of the leading think tanks in the effort to end the global warming hoax has been The Heartland Institute. It has sponsored several international conferences in which scientists and others have offered papers and addressed the topic. I recommend you subscribe to its national monthly, Environmental & Climate News. Its managing editor, James M. Taylor, J.D., provides the latest information on the environmental organizations greatest villain, carbon dioxide (CO2).

Two recent dispatches by Taylor noted in one that “Climate models supporting predictions of rapid global warming during the next century have performed miserably predicting global temperatures during the past two decades”, citing a comparison of computer model predictions and real-world temperatures by climate scientist Roy W. Spencer. In another, Taylor noted that “New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, but global temperatures are not following suit. The new data undercut assertions that atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing a global warming crisis.”

Undismayed by the facts, FOE could only cite the taxpayer-funded PBS News Hour that “devoted 23 segments to covering climate change.” When the President is telling everyone that the climate is the greatest threat to the nation, PBS bureaucrats who know where the money comes from can be depended upon to broadcast his lies.

Ironically, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion by Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer on the same day the FOE email arrived. It was titled “In Defense of Carbon Dioxide.” Schmitt was an Apollo 17 astronaut and a former U.S. Senator from New Mexico. He is an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton University and a former director of the office of energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy.

“The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA’s and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

No wonder FOE is upset that even the mainstream media networks no longer want to report on a global warming that does not exist. There’s real science and there’s the fulminations and lies of Friends of the Earth.

[First posted at Warning Signs.]

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Sol Stern is a nice man. It’s too bad he’s deceiving himself and others about Common Core, an enterprise that essentially nationalizes U.S. education. He and Joel Klein write in the WSJ, in the latest pro-Common Core PR piece:

Conservative critics ignore how the Common Core Standards support teaching all students about the nation’s rich heritage of constitutional government, which is often overlooked in K-12 schools. For example, one of the Common Core’s reading standards [in English] for grades 9-10 calls for students to analyze and understand the arguments in “seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning.” How many American public schools do that today?

That sounds so great. Too bad there’s no evidence it’s true. Neither are most of the other things Stern and the hardly right-wing Klein want Americans to believe about centrally planned education.

If these fellows read Common Core, they would see no definition of “seminal U.S. texts.” For Stern, that term likely implies the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. To the average high school English teacher (who is lucky if she has any historical knowledge, because schools of education shudder at content) it is entirely open to interpretation.  This is how, over the past 50 years, we have become a nation where even a college degree does not improve civic knowledge and fewer than half of adults can identify the three branches of government. One of the two people (neither of whom has ever written standards or been a classroom teacher) who wrote the English Common Core has given a model lesson on how to treat the Gettysburg Address and Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. David Coleman instructs English teachers to not give students background information and to read the words without emotion. Ah, instruction in the “heart of American heritage.”

Furthermore, as one of the world’s top literacy experts has been screaming for years, it is entirely inappropriate to demand that English teachers teach history and civics, along with their other duties. Perhaps that’s why Common Core dilutes classic literature instruction, which research shows is crucial to preparing students for college. Funny, Stern and Klein didn’t mention that.

Yes, the Constitution and Federalist Papers are mentioned in a Common Core appendix of voluntary suggested readings. If suggesting such readings meant more students learning them, it would have worked by now, because that’s the system we have had.

But the biggest problem with the article is that it entirely sidesteps the evidence that Common Core was written by special interests and federally-funded non-profits in secret,; that it was pushed on states by the federal government before they even saw the final product; that its requirements are vague, meaningless, and of shockingly low-quality; that is an entirely unproven set of mandates untried anywhere in the world; that states are incorporating creepy data-mining on teachers and kids; and that the history of American education shows, as the Soviets did on a larger scale, that central planning breeds corruption and destitution.

[First published at Ricochet]

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Many friends of Heartland, including Lord Christopher Monckton, have drawn our attention to the 50-to-1 project. The project of Australian filmmakers is worth getting behind, and sharing with your friends. From the project’s website:

What if we could show you that trying to ‘stop’ climate change is 50 times more expensive than adapting to it?  And what if we could prove it using numbers and formulas accepted by the IPCC, CRU and other ‘consensus’ bodies?  Well that’s exactly what 50-to-1 does.

It’s also a big part of what Heartland does, with so many projects and publications it’s hard to keep count. It’s a lot, including our eight international conferences on climate change. Monckton has been a frequent speaker. And you can view them here.

The 50-to-1 guys need some help to get their video out to the public. It can be — in the words of the producers — a “game-changer and could radically shift the climate debate.” I have no doubt. Watch filmmaker Christopher Field explain:

The producers have lined up interviews with “climate realist” luminaries, including several who have spoken at Heartland’s climate conferences: Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Professor Henry Ergas, Professor Fred Singer, Anthony Watts, Professor David Evans, Christopher Essex, and Joanne Nova.

Again, the producers describe their important project:

50 to 1 cuts across all the noise and fury surrounding the ‘climate debate’ and gets right to the point:  Even if the IPCC is right, and even if climate change IS happening and it IS caused by man, we are STILL better off adapting to it as it happens than we are trying to ‘stop’ it.  ‘Action’ is 50 times more expensive than ‘adaptation’, and that’s a conclusion which is derived directly from the IPCC’s own predictions and formulae!

That statement is demonstrably true. We just need to get the message out there — before it’s too late. This project, part of the Lord Monckton Foundation, could use a boost. Check out the website and contribute a few bucks, if you can.

Check out other work by the filmmakers here and here.

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Earlier this month, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick announced that his state reached the goal of 250 megawatts of installed solar energy capacity. “When we set ambitious goals and invest in achieving them, Massachusetts wins,” said the governor. “The many businesses and homeowners who have taken advantage of cost effective renewable energy installations are helping to create both a safer and more prosperous Commonwealth for the next generation.” But if we look a little closer, it’s not clear that the Massachusetts push for solar is cost effective or makes citizens safer.

Governor Patrick and solar advocates typically quote capacity, but nothing runs on capacity. What’s important is actual delivered electricity. Photovoltaic solar systems only deliver significant energy for about six hours each day. Output is further reduced on cloudy days and days when snow covers the solar panels. Renewable Energy Massachusetts estimates electricity generated in Massachusetts to be 15 percent of nameplate capacity at best.

But actual solar-generated electricity may be much less than 15 percent. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, in 2011 Massachusetts solar generated only 4.8 megawatt-hours of electricity from 193 megawatt-hours of installed capacity at the end of 2010, or less than three percent of nameplate solar capacity. In 2011, solar facilities provided only one ten-thousandth of the state’s electricity. A single gas-fired power plant, the Mystic Generating Station in Boston, delivers more electricity in seven days than the annual output of all the solar panels in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts is not exactly the Sun Belt. According to the National Climatic Data Center, Boston enjoys clear skies only 27 percent of days each year on average, with 28 percent of days classified as partly cloudy and 45 percent as cloudy. At 42 degrees north latitude, Boston sunlight is also less intense than that received in southern states.

The Patriot Place solar facility was completed in 2010 with an expansion added earlier this year. The facility consists of photovoltaic solar arrays installed on the rooftops of several buildings of the Patriot Place retail and dining center, adjacent to Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. The system cost $4.3 million and provides about 1.1 megawatt-hours of electricity each year. The electricity output value is about $180,000 per year at a retail electricity rate of 16 cents per kilowatt-hour. Excluding government subsidies and assuming zero maintenance cost, the project will not break even on invested capital until about 2034

But massive government subsidies can make solar a good financial deal. Solar purchasers receive a federal tax credit of 30 percent of the installation cost, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Massachusetts provides an exemption for property taxes, sales taxes, and corporate excise taxes for solar facilities. Residential installations also receive a $1,000 income tax credit on solar panels. To top it off, Massachusetts law requires utilities to buy generated solar electricity at the premium price of 27 cents per kilowatt-hour, well above the 16 cents per kilowatt-hour retail rate and more than five times the wholesale rate for New England electricity. It all adds up to a lucrative wealth transfer from taxpayers to solar system purchasers and installers.

State and the federal governments have poured millions of dollars into Massachusetts-based solar cell companies, much of it lost down a green drain. Evergreen Solar, which provided most of the solar panels for the Patriot Place, declared bankruptcy in August 2011 after receiving $58.6 million in Massachusetts subsidies and $26.3 million from the federal government. Massachusetts-based Konarka Technologies and Satcon Technology both filed bankruptcy last year after receiving state and federal grants.

After providing tax dollars for solar and other renewables, Massachusetts citizens pay a second time in the form of higher electricity rates. The state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard law requires utilities to buy an increasing share of electricity from renewable sources or be fined. A 2010 study by the Beacon Hill Institute projected that Massachusetts green energy programs will cost state citizens almost $10 billion from 2010 to 2020, or about $1,600 in additional cost for each household.

Does Governor Patrick actually believe that solar cells make Massachusetts safer? Can solar installations stop the seas from rising or make the storms less severe? Contrary to claims by some, there is no empirical evidence that mankind can significantly influence the climate. But misguided government efforts, like solar initiatives and mandates in Massachusetts, provide only a tiny addition to electricity supply at high cost to citizens.

 [Originally published in The Washington Times]

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The sudden deluge of scandal which dominates the discussion around President  Obama’s administration at the moment has handed a golden opportunity to  Republicans. Yet if they aren’t careful, they’ll squander this opening  completely by allowing their intense dislike of the president to cloud their  judgment, missing the broader political lessons for the sake of personal point  scoring.

Personal scandals are personal. They are tied to defects and appetites, as in  the case of Bill Clinton, John Edwards, John Ensign, and a host of others. With  rare exceptions, such scandals begin and end with that individual, not with  their broader political philosophy. The American people intrinsically understand  that, and they distinguish naturally between failures of an individual variety  and of a party as a whole.

The scandals we are talking about in Washington today are not tied to the  individual of Barack Obama. While there’s still more information to be gathered  and more investigations to be done, all indications are that these decisions –  on the AP, on the IRS, on Benghazi – don’t proceed from him. The talk of  impeachment is absurd. The queries of “what did the president know and when did  he know it” will probably end up finding out “just about nothing, and right  around the time everyone else found out.”

Marco Rubio’s remarks the other day illustrate the right and the wrong way to talk about these  scandals. Decrying Chicago politics and a fractured Washington, the failure of  hope and change, is fine and good. But there’s a limit to it, and if done  poorly, the attacks imply that the problem here isn’t the statism, it’s the guy  at the head of it. In other words, that if Obama was really the ethically clean  reform-minded progressive technocrat he styled himself as when running for  office, things would be just fine. In effect, this partisan morality play  approach allows the Democratic Party an escape route which they shouldn’t have:  just firing a bunch of lower level people.

Here’s the hard thing Republicans have to do if they don’t want this crisis  to go to waste: they have to ignore their id, the temptation of the sugar high  of partisan point-scoring. They must willfully set aside Obama’s presence in the  fray, leaving the short term personalized attacks on the table, and go after the  much bigger prize. Obama isn’t running for office again. Liberalism is. Making  this about him is a short term boost to the pleasure center of the conservative  brain. Making this about the inherent falsehood of the progressive project will  help conservatism win.

The point is that these scandals cut at the core conceit of Obama’s ideology:  the healthy and enduring confidence of big government to be good government. As  technological capabilities advance and the scope of government expands, the  types of domestic scandals we’re seeing here are only going to increase in  frequency and invasiveness, with personal information shared more frequently,  easier for even low level bureaucrats to acquire and manipulate. At the same  time, Americans are becoming increasingly skeptical and cynical about their  public institutions, with their trust in the federal government at historic lows. They distrust the agencies and  bureaucrats even as the politicians of our age are investing more and more power  in them.

Today, the media, the Obama administration, and David  Axelrod are undertaking the task that conservatives could not: illustrating  with each passing day that the progressive approach to modern governance and  policy is inherently flawed and that vast governments are ripe for abuse. What  we are seeing from the IRS and the DOJ is not something new, nor does it  represent a perverse approach to benign bureaucracy: it is the inevitable consequence of an approach which puts mechanisms in place and then assumes they will not be  used for ill. You should expect government to go as far as it can, whenever it  can, in any ways that it can, toward the full exploitation of the power made  available to it. Expecting government to behave otherwise is to expect the  scorpion not to sting the frog.

The progressive answer to this is more rules and regulators, more agencies  and safeguards and accountability projects. Republicans should recognize this  intervention for the ridiculousness it is – creating more federal entities to  watch over federal entities – and focus their arguments instead on the only  solution which will actually work: removing power from the federal government  and returning it to the states or the people. The only way to ensure that  government doesn’t abuse a power is to make sure it doesn’t have this power in  the first place.

When this period of scandal draws to a close, if the idea still survives that  a more competent and ethical president would be able to effectively govern a $4  trillion bureaucracy, it will be a sign Republicans have failed. They can  succeed by ignoring the tempting bait of making this about the president they  despise, and focusing instead on the false philosophy of expansive government  which represents the true danger to the American experiment. Doing so will  require them to go against their own short-term viewpoint, so prevalent in  recent years, and look instead to the long game.

[First posted at Real Clear Politics]

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It’s hard to be a “public interest” group when private interests better serve the public.

Free Press, which effectively defines the “public interest”  as being against private interests in media, communications and technology, just  issued an anti-cable diatribe, apparently out of frustration that  so few people are listening to them.

In classic Free Press fashion, their new white paper is a solution  in search of a problem. They seek stricter neutrality regulation and bans  against usage-based broadband pricing. At core, they dream of a ‘public’  Internet largely devoid of any private (corporate) influence.

With that agenda in mind, they try to manufacture a problem in  their white paper: “Combating the Cable Cabal: How  to Fix America’s Broken Video Market.”

Free Press’ problem is reality. The facts show America’s video market is the most  vibrant and successful in the world. It’s nothing like the selective,  out-of-context, fact-challenged monstrosity Free Press attempts to paint.

America has more and better video content available, on more  technologies, from more providers, in more ways, on more devices, with more  viewing time options, than any other country by far.

America’s entertainment dominates the world market and is a leading U.S. export. America also dominates virtually every dimension of the Internet video marketplace.

If anything, America’s video market is among the most vibrantly competitive,  innovative, and value-added in the economy and the world. Like every industry,  it is far from perfect, but it certainly is not “broken” by any objective  measure.

Remember a few years ago, Free Press’ Save the Internet coalition was peddling the bogus charge that America had fallen behind in broadband in hopes of inciting government to intervene broadly in the competitive broadband  market.

Then, like now, Free Press’ claimed broadband “problem” was devoid  of reality.

Free Press selectively ignored that America is the only nation in  the world with a second national wire line network – and that cable in many ways  was much easier to upgrade to fast broadband capability than the more regulated  public telephone networks that are standard around the world.

Free Press also ignored that Europe’s early broadband speeds were  destined to hit a wall because European price regulation left no money for long term capital  investment in fiber optic networks.

And Free Press ignored that America was investing more in 4G LTE wireless broadband service than any other country, making America the world  leader in mobile broadband speeds.

Another bogus Free Press charge is that America’s private industry  is not working hard enough to promote universal broadband service. The reality  is that cable offers wire line broadband service to 93% of the country; wireless  offers it to 94%; and satellite extends the reach of cable and wireless  availability to 98% overall.

Recent NTIA numbers confirm that Free Press’ assessment here is way  off-base. NTIA recently reported that 98% of Americans have access to > 3Mbps, 94% to >10Mbps, and 75% to >50Mbps.

Free Press also ignores how technological change and competition  have transformed the American video marketplace and created a vastly superior  value proposition for the American consumer than ever before.

Free Press focuses on cable programming costs going up. However,  this ignores the natural competitive trend of quality programming migrating to  secure pay TV platforms, because of the decline in free over-the-air broadcasting, rampant video piracy and the deep decline in DVD sales. Thus this  is a natural technological and business evolution to protect valuable property,  not an exercise of market power.

Free Press also selectively looks at cable bills increasing in excess of inflation while ignoring the vast increase in value American consumers are enjoying. Consumers are getting: more video choices, better quality content,  more conveniently, over more  devices, in more places.

Compared to the high total cost of a family attending sports  contests, concerts, or plays; going to the movies in a theatre, or going out to  eat, the entertainment value Americans enjoy from their home pay TV provider,  whether it be cable, satellite or telco, is relatively the best available entertainment value for American consumers.

In sum, Free Press and others who want public networks and media to replace private networks and media over time have to recognize reality.

American consumers have spoken loudly with their hard-earned  dollars. Property-based, for-profit video models are vastly outperforming public not-for-profit models in the video market. It isn’t even close.

[First posted at the Daily Caller]

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On the 40th anniversary of the first televised U.S. Senate hearing into the Watergate scandal, it’s both disturbing and amusing to watch the wheels coming off the Obama “Hope and Change” wagon.

As President Obama’s narrowly-won second White House term begins with revelations of scandals that reek of abuse of power, the incumbent executive inevitably invites unfavorable comparison to Richard Nixon, the only U.S. President to resign from office under threat of impeachment and removal from office:  secret wars; privacy violations; cover-ups; vendettas against the press; refusal to release internal emails; and politicizing the IRS.  (“I’ll let you guys engage in those comparisons,” Obama told reporters in the Rose Garden in the rain on Thursday, May 16. “You can read the history and draw your own conclusions.”)

It’s amusing because this time, unlike during Watergate, the press has been on the side of the White House and until recently thought that the White House was on its side, too.

It’s disturbing because the major lesson the Executive Branch seems to have learned in the past forty years is how more effectively to stonewall, to cover up, and to attempt to manipulate the press and the public.

You can – and we trust have – read elsewhere in detail about the Obama administration’s attempts to cover up the fact that al Qaeda-related attacks took place or were broken up on the anniversaries of the September 11 attacks and of the killing of Osama bin Laden; the administration’s chilling investigations of the Associated Press; the IRS’s efforts to stifle opposition to the Obama re-election campaign; and the Holder Justice Department’s Nixonian refusal to turn over the functional equivalent of the Nixon White House tapes in the form of unredacted emails Congress has requested.

Suffice it to say that – four decades after Watergate – nothing much has changed when it comes to the abuse of Executive Branch power, and the famous dictum of Lord Acton remains true:  power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It’s been said that in a democracy the people get the politicians they deserve, so cynics may argue that the millions who voted to re-elect Barack Obama’s after seeing him in office for four years deserve what is now coming home to roost.  But the nearly equal number of people who voted otherwise can only recall with wistful sadness the response of Benjamin Franklin to the passerby who asked back in Philadelphia in 1789 what kind of new government the framers of the U.S. Constitution had come up with:  “A Republic, madam – if you can keep it.”

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Joseph Bast, President of the Heartland Institute and Dr. Herbert Walberg, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Heartland Institute discuss their book Education and Capitalism: How Overcoming Our Fear of Markets and Economics Can Improve America’s Schools on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the book’s release.

Their book argues unless myths surrounding capitalism go unchallenged, American society will not achieve meaningful education reform.   Since Education and Capitalism was published, all states have charter schools, totaling 5,000 nationwide, 10
states have tax tuition credits, several states are developing school voucher programs, and even more are considering Parent Trigger legislation.  However, there is still a lot of work to do.  We are paying astronomical costs for sub-standard education in a country that is supposed to have the greatest schools and universities in the world.   Privatization is a solution to high school costs because it increases competition, which enhances performance, and also accommodates for personal choice. There are many obstacles in the way of this solution, including: the power of special interest groups, public distrust of capitalism, and the fear of a painful or disorderly transition.  Unless these challenges are addressed,  meaningful change cannot be made.

[Subscribe to the Heartland Daily Podcast free at this link.]

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Uber, a tech start-up and on-demand transportation service, is under attack by anti-innovation regulation in Washington DC.  In December 2012, the DC City Council passed legislation that would allow Uber to operate in the capital city without intervention from unelected regulators, but they are now facing opposition from the DC Taxi Commission that will force them to discontinue their taxi services starting June 1st.

If the DCTC has its way, Uber will no longer be able to collect digital payments from DC residents, and they will have to hand over customer ride data to the DCTC, compromising privacy.  Perhaps most ridiculously, the Toyota Prius will be banned from the Uber fleet.  I’m not a fan of the Prius either, but these obstacles could prevent Uber from operating altogether in the District, costing jobs, eliminating consumer options, and making taxi drivers miss out on the extra business they gain from the app.

Mayor Gray’s appointee is doing a lot of damage to transportation options and ease in DC with these regulations.  I enjoy the Uber app because it allows me to pay seamlessly by credit card, and brings reliable transportation to wherever I am.  Uber TAXI is Uber’s low cost option, and it is a popular service because of this.  It benefits consumers and also independent taxi drivers, who can earn a little extra money by picking up Uber ride requests.

Fans of Uber are taking to Twitter to voice their dissatisfaction.  Check out #UberDCLove.

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Health policy economists are puzzled by a persistent slowdown in the growth of health care spending that seems to have started in mid-2005, and accelerated since then. The Wall Street Journal summarized it on Monday, saying, “The health [spending] growth rate has flattened out at about 3.9% over the last three years — a record low since the 1960s and down from the old normal of 6.2% to 9.7% in the 2000s.”

Economists thought at first that the slowdown in spending was due to the recession, when people didn’t have the money to continue to increase health care spending as much as in the past. But new papers published in the journal Health Affairs last week provide “evidence that the moderation [in rising health spending] is durable, and that it is structural — the result of permanent changes in the health system itself rather than the business cycle,” as the Wall Street Journal further explained on Monday.

These papers indicate a sharply reduced role for the recession in slowing the rise in health spending, and indicate a greater role for market choice, competition, and incentives. But even these folks don’t have the full story.

The Health Savings Account Revolution
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) were enacted into law in December 2003. Traditional, old-fashioned insurance involves a nominal deductible, leaving the insured to pay only the first $100 or $250 each year, with the rest covered by the insurance, perhaps with a modest, limited, co-insurance fee above the deductible. That structure creates the “third party payment” problem. With the insurance company paying for virtually all the bills, neither the patient nor the doctor bears any incentive to control costs. But they both decide between themselves what and how much health care to consume, and bill the insurer. Naturally, that makes health insurance very expensive.

The concept behind HSAs is to greatly reduce the cost of the health insurance with a high deductible, in the range of $2,000 to $6,000 a year, or more. The savings from that lower expense is then kept in the HSA to be used to pay for health care costs below the deductible. Whatever the patient does not spend from those HSA funds on health care he or she gets to keep, for future health care expenses, or anything in retirement. That creates full market incentives to control costs for all non-catastrophic health expenses, because the patient is effectively using his or her own money for such costs. Since the patient is now concerned about costs, the doctors and hospitals will compete to control costs.

The insight of the godfather of HSAs, John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, was that the health insurance savings from a deductible in this range would be almost enough to finance all expenses under the deductible for the year. After one healthy year, the insured would have more than enough in the HSA to pay for all expenses below the deductible.

Moreover, patients with HSAs would enjoy complete control over what health care to spend their HSA funds on. They don’t need to beg for the approval of a health insurance company to spend their HSA funds on the health care they want.

These are the reasons why the sick as well as the poor would still prefer HSAs. The sick would have complete control to spend their HSA funds on the health care they prefer. The poor would be fully covered and could pay themselves out of the health care savings they gain with HSAs.

Such HSAs and their incentives have proven very effective in controlling costs in the real world. Total HSA costs, including the savings to fully fund the HSA savings account to cover the deductible, have run about 25% less than the costs for traditional, old-fashioned insurance. Annual costs increases for HSAs have run more than 50% less, sometimes with zero premium increases for years.

These are the reasons why HSA accounts soared by 22% in 2012 alone, to over 8 million. Total savings and assets in the accounts zoomed by 27% to $15.5 billion. That is expected to increase by nearly three-fourths to almost $27 billion by 2015. That booming growth has continued since HSAs were adopted in 2003.

According to the National Health Interview Survey of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one fourth of the privately insured population is covered by HSAs, similar Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs), or other high deductible plans, which probably exceeds HMO enrollment by now. About half of those with private insurance obtained outside employer plans are covered by such high deductible plans.

The proof is in the pudding. As HSAs and similar plans have soared in the private market, health spending growth has plummeted. That is the result of market competition and incentives.

Obamacare: Somewhere Between High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Most who support Obamacare do so because of a principled belief that everyone should have access to essential health care. But even the Washington Establishment CBO, still dominated by career Democrats, projects that 10 years after full implementation, Obamacare will still leave 30 million uninsured.

But it is going to be much higher than that. Under the perverse incentives of Obamacare, tens of millions will lose their employer provided insurance because of the perverse incentives under the program. CBO reported in February that at least 7 million, and as many as 20 million, will lose their employer coverage. CBO estimated then that “in 2019 [5 years after Obamacare is implemented], an estimated 12 million people who would have had an offer of employment-based coverage under prior law will lose their offer under current law [aka ‘Obamacare’].”

That is because of a second problem caused by Obamacare. Obama promised us that Obamacare would reduce the cost of health insurance by $2,500 a year. But it has already increased those costs by $3,000 per year. That is because of the new mandated benefits and other regulatory burdens of Obamacare already coming online. Obamacare will also increase health care costs by driving up demand but reducing supply, and through new taxes applying to health insurance and health care.

For these reasons, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said last December that Obamacare (as Investor’s Business Daily later put it) “will likely cause premiums to double for some small businesses and individuals.” Former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin estimated in a study for the American Action Forum of 5 major cities that premiums would climb there under Obamacare by an average of 169%.

Many employers will prefer to pay the fine for not providing coverage than bear these cost increases. Moreover, employers can give their workers healthy raises plus Obamacare health insurance subsidies if coverage at work is dropped. That is why Holtz-Eakin estimated in another study for the American Action Forum that more than 40 million workers would lose their employer coverage under Obamacare. So much for another Obama promise that “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it. No one is going to take that away from you.”

Employer desperation to avoid the added costs of Obamacare will cause chaos in the labor market as well. To avoid the employer mandate that applies only to companies with 50 or more full time employees, employers are already replacing full time employment with part time employment paying lower wages and no benefits. Small businesses with less than 50 employees are already freezing hiring, and those just above 50 employees have already begun layoffs. Moreover, Obamacare’s employer mandate does not require employers to cover the family dependents of their workers. So employers have already begun a trend towards terminating that coverage as well.

President Obama told us during his State of the Union address earlier this year that “A growing economy that creates good, middle class jobs — that should be the North Star that guides all of our efforts,” and he has repeated that numerous times since then. But all of these labor market effects and the soaring costs of Obamacare will just mean still more declining real incomes for the middle class and for working people, and fewer good, middle class jobs, which have been the actual hallmarks of Obamanomics. That means another central promise by President Obama, repeated over and over, will continue to be violated, more and more.

The young and healthy will also take steps to avoid the high costs of Obamacare’s individual mandate. Under Obamacare’s regulation, any insurer they choose must take them no matter how sick and costly when they sign up, and charge them no more than anyone else. Consequently, many, including myself, will refuse to buy any insurance until they are sick with some costly condition such as cancer or heart disease. Then they will sign up for full coverage at no extra charge, until they recover.

The individual mandate, as well as the employer mandate, was supposed to prevent this. But individuals, like employers, can just skip the insurance and pay the penalty, at a savings of thousands of dollars a year. But why even pay the penalty? When it was put to a vote in Congress, your double talking, unserious representatives denied the IRS the authority to enforce the penalty by garnishment or seizure.

So the end result will be still millions more uninsured under Obamacare, probably in the end even more than there were without Obamacare. But as the young and healthy drop out of insurance pools, that will drive up the costs for those that remain still more, driving still more out, in a financial death spiral for private insurers. So if you like your health plan, you can keep it, until Obamacare drives your insurer out of business. At best, that will leave you only with a government monopoly, like the Post Office, for your health care.

Obamacare will soon be teaching seniors on Medicare what that means. While Democrats and President Obama talk a good game about Republicans wanting to throw grandma over a cliff by slashing Medicare, it is the Democrats and President Obama who have already done that, through Obamacare.

Obamacare already has slashed $716 billion over the next 10 years from Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals for the health care they provide to seniors, growing into trillions in future years. By the end of the decade, Medicare will be paying less for health care for seniors than Medicaid will pay for health care for the poor. That already often leaves the poor without access to essential, timely care, with many suffering worse health outcomes as a result, including premature death, as recent studies have shown. Seniors, do not ask for whom the bell tolls! As John Goodman recently explained on his health policy blog at ncpa.org, “One out of seven hospitals will leave Medicare in the next seven years, say the actuaries, and beyond that things just get worse and worse. Access to care will become a huge issue as waiting times to see doctors and enter hospitals grows…. From a financial point of view, seniors will be less attractive to doctors than welfare mothers.”

In other words, the government monopoly of Medicare will become an official, institutionalized means of denying health care to seniors, just like the government monopoly of Medicaid has become for the poor. And that is what the coming government monopoly of Obamacare will be soon enough, an official, institutionalized means of denying essential health care to everyone, just like socialized medicine in every other country.

Universal health care, indeed. Just another “progressive” delusion, if not outright lie. In a recent paper for the NCPA, John Goodman and I explain how universal health care for all can be assured through Patient Power, free market reforms, without Obamacare, no individual mandate, no employer mandate, at a savings of $2 trillion or more for taxpayers.

As Jon Roland of the Constitution Society has recently shown, the constitutional grounds for impeachment, “high crimes and misdemeanors,” really means violating your oath of office, especially by lying to the American people. Impeach Obama for Benghazi, for Nixonian IRS abuse, for illegal wiretaps of the press? No, impeach him for Obamacare, and the thoroughly wasted, trillion dollar, so-called “stimulus,” which are the biggest lies told in U.S. history.

[First published by The American Spectator]

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The reason that only one Black advocate has come before the Supreme Court since October is not racism – it’s simply that there aren’t many Black lawyers in America to begin with. This, however, hasn’t stopped those on the left from writing about the fact that in the 75 hours of oral arguments heard by the Supreme Court since October, only one of the advocates was Black. The point that they seem to be trying to make is, as one blogger put it, that “the Supreme Court rules over Black people, it doesn’t see or listen to them.”

While the number 1 is easy to latch onto for those seeking to preserve the perception of liberals as “friends” of the minority groups of America, in this context, it is statistically irrelevant.

Since October, a total of 120 different advocates have appeared before the Supreme Court. Of those, 108 were White, 4 were Hispanic, 7 were Asian, and, as we all know by now, only 1 was Black. In other words, in the October term, 90% of the advocates that appeared before the Supreme Court were White; 3% were Hispanic, 5% were Asian; and .8% were Black.

There are (according to the ABA) about 1,245,205 licensed attorneys in the United States. About 88% are White, which seems rather proportional to that particular group’s representation among the advocates heard by the nation’s highest court since October.

I’m afraid that pundits have been found reaching as to the meaning (if there is one) of this particular situation. The fact of the matter is that of the 1,245,205 lawyers in America, only 120 (.009%) had the privilege of arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States. It is incredibly unlikely that any attorney – even a great one – will ever get to argue in front of those nine justices. The fact that only one Black advocate came before the Court in the last term is irrelevant.

Of the approximately 1,095, 780 White lawyers in America, only .0099% of them appeared before the Court. When compared to the .0017% of the approximately 59,769 Black lawyers in America, the difference is quite trivial. Actually, a larger percentage of Asian attorneys (7 out of approximately 42,336) appeared before SCOTUS last term than that of any other race; but that wasn’t the headline.

The fact that people are trying to turn this number into an illustration of institutional racism is both troubling, and sad. But if the left really wants to take it up with someone, they should start with the current administration, seeing as how a large chunk of the attorneys who appeared before our Supreme Court were with the office of the Solicitor General – and not one was Black.

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A May 14 New York Times article by Eduardo Porter titled “For Insurers, No Doubts on Climate Change” has been getting quite a bit of play lately, judging from how often we’ve been pinged on Twitter about it. Correcting errors in the NYT’s coverage of global warming (alias “climate change”) would be a full-time job, but this one deserves to be called out.

Porter tells readers it is somehow important or significant that property and casualty insurance companies are repeating the unscientific claims and predictions of environmentalists about global warming. He mentions that those companies stopped funding The Heartland Institute because of our stand on the issue… though he doesn’t report that they only stopped last year when their identities were revealed by Peter Gleick as part of the Fakegate scandal. Did they oppose our stand before then? Apparently not.

Porter makes a key admission in this article that exposes the lie:

“And insurers can raise premiums or even drop coverage to adjust to higher risks. Indeed, despite Sandy and drought, property and casualty insurance in the United States was more profitable in 2012 than in 2011, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.”

No kidding! Everybody knows property and casualty insurers can raise rates and make more profits if they exaggerate the threat of global warming, and they do. Their reports aren’t science, they are advertising. Greenpeace might actually believe its propaganda on this issue. Insurers almost certainly don’t. How does a reporter not get this? Is Porter just stupid?

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Do you believe, as this administration wants you to, that our leaders don’t have a clue as to what is happening unless it appears as a trending topic on twitter?  According to White House press secretary Jay Carney, President Obama and friends have become aware of major scandals through the media, just like anyone else.

Jay Carney at a June 27, 2012 Press Conference

“I would only say broadly that the idea behind that thinking suggests that there was some grand plan behind the Fast and Furious program when, in fact, everyone knows the President did not know about this tactic until he heard about it through the media; the Attorney General did not know about it.”

Jay Carney at a May, 14 2013 Press Conference

On the AP Probe:

“Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the Associated Press,” Carney announced.

The president “found out about the news reports yesterday on the road,” he added.

On the IRS Scandal:

“Carney also said during his briefing that no one in the White House was had “knowledge” of the alleged targeting of tea party and other conservative groups until the White House counsel’s office was informed of the probe late last month. Later, the lines got a bit blurrier, as he said the White House was “not aware” of the IRS conduct.”

Jon Stewart wrote a Daily Show sketch about Obama’s blissful ignorance, joking that he probably found out that Osama Bin Laden was killed by watching his own address on TV.

As silly as that image is, how can anyone take the White House’s claims seriously?  This administration seems to know more about health care than private insurers or doctors, or more about guns than law-abiding firearm owners, but when it comes to the inner workings of their own government programs, they don’t know a thing.

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Host Steve Stanek interviews Dr. Keith Kantor, CEO of Service Foods, about whether or not the IRS should continue its major role in administrating Obamacare.

Revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative, libertarian, and constitutionalist groups for tax auditing could cause so much backlash that many aspects of Obamacare operations may be delayed or rolled back.  So says Dr. Keith Kantor, CEO of natural foods company Service Foods, who led a U.S. House of  Representatives advisory committee on health care.  Many of the committee’s recommendations were approved by the House but blocked in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

[Subscribe to the Heartland Daily Podcast free at this link.]

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The Minnesota Legislature may have finally agreed on how much solar power the state should be forced to use.

According to Minnesota Public Radio,

The Minnesota House and Senate have agreed to an energy bill that includes a 1.5 percent solar energy standard for investor-owned utilities.

The House version of the bill originally wanted investor-owned utilities to provide at least four percent of their power through solar generation, while the Senate bill wanted one percent.

The bill with the 1.5 percent compromise now goes back to the  House and Senate for final votes.

But really, any percentage of solar generation decided on politics, rather than markets, is likely to have economic consequences. Given how extraordinarily expensive solar power is compared to traditional energy sources, and how it’s expected to be for a long time, it’s unfair to force people to purchase it.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the levelized cost of electricity using solar photovoltaic technology is estimated to still be about 234% higher than the cheapest source by 2016, and that percentage is even higher for solar thermal. Although that’s an improvement, it actually comes in spite of the renewable energy mandates, not because of it.

As one green-energy executive explained, government subsidies (including mandates) allow companies to focus less on reducing cost. In this case, putting off the year the true cost of solar is competitive with traditional energy sources.

The free market is widely known to benefit both consumers and taxpayers. But if Minnesota’s solar industry truly aspires to scale-up and be an economically competitive alternative to fossil fuels, they too, should consider opposing this mandate.

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I’m no economist. But I was annoyed by a recent article in the Chicago Tribune reporting a new federal survey of hospital prices. I wanted Tribune readers to think a little more critically about that issue: why assume a hospital procedure should cost the same regardless of what hospital it’s performed at? Here’s what I wrote:

Is it a big deal if hospitals charge different prices for “the same procedure”?

Should it really concern us that different hospitals charge different fees for “the same procedure”? (“An acute gap in prices at hospitals,” May 9)

For starters, let’s acknowledge that the product/service may differ among hospitals. Would we be surprised that “a hamburger” costs less at McDonald’s than at Fuddruckers? Of course not. The products, indeed the entire eating experience, are different at the two franchises. It’s quite likely the experience of being treated for a case of “simple pneumonia” is different at Stroger Hospital than it is at Loyola Gottlieb Memorial.

Then there’s the question of demand: Given the choice, would you rather have your pneumonia treated at Stroger or Loyola? Even if the two hospitals started charging the same fee, it wouldn’t take long for the laws of supply and demand to increase the fee at Loyola.

Finally, there is the matter of who pays. To the extent any hospital may be overcharging for its services, it’s likely because patients don’t “shop around” for those services … because they don’t directly pay for them. Insurance companies or government (through Medicaid and Medicare) pay – and they pay whether we have our pneumonia treated at Stroger or at Loyola. Medicaid, Medicare, and insurance companies sometimes question a charge and refuse to pay all of it. That’s about the only price-pressure hospitals feel.

So how does President Obama’s health care overhaul fix this third-party payer problem? It doesn’t. In fact, by encouraging even more people to get Cadillac insurance coverage and discouraging the use of consumer-directed health plans that actually give consumers incentives to comparison-shop, the president’s plan will make this situation worse.

Diane Carol Bast
Palatine, Illinois
Submitted Letter to the Editor, Chicago Tribune, May 9, 2013

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It has been a difficult time for newspapers. The industry  has experienced serious challenges due to multiple factors going back at least  to the early 1960s when the three major television networks began their  extensive and widely popular evening news programs, with the likes of Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.

Recent Setbacks

The rise of the Internet over the last two decades has posed  a much larger challenge. More people were able to access more interactive news  sources, including the Internet editions of major newspapers, nearly all of  which were free in the beginning. Then there was Apple, with its  ground-breaking iPad which made accessing news sources more user-friendly. Newspapers  competed hard to design their own applications, which often required paid  subscriptions. Of course, Ipad has competitors now and many newspapers have  implemented paid firewalls for their Internet sites.

However, the Great Recession may have dealt the most  important blow to the print edition. The collapse of the housing market brought  a catastrophic decline in real estate and help wanted classified advertisements,  a key source of revenues. Added to this was a drop in overall business, which  also reduced advertising revenues.

Some large newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal,and The  New York Times claim they have gained circulation. However, looking beneath  the gross numbers provided by the Alliance  for Audited Media, it is clear that virtually all of the gains are in online editions, while print editions continue to decline. Even the online gains  may be overstated, because a print edition subscriber who is also an online edition subscriber gets counted twice for the same newspaper.

Smaller Press Runs

A review of the change in circulation in the nation’s 20  largest newspapers since 1998 indicates the depth of the losses. The year 1998  is chosen because newspaper circulations remained at high levels and the losses  to Internet editions and other media sources has not yet occurred.

From 1998 to 2013, the 20 largest newspapers lost more than 5 million of their 13.4 million weekday print subscribers, a loss of nearly  four out of ten subscribers (39 percent). At the same time, there were  substantial differences among the top 20 papers in their losses (Table).

 

Top    15 Newspapers in 1998: 1998-2013 Print Circulation Newspaper 1998 2013 % Change The Wall Street Journal      1,740      1,481 -14.9% USA Today      1,653      1,424 -13.8% The New York Times      1,067         731 -31.5% Los Angeles Times      1,068         433 -59.5% The Washington Post         759         431 -43.2% New York Post         438         409 -6.6% Chicago Tribune         673         368 -45.3% New York Daily News         723         360 -50.1% Arizona Republic         435         286 -34.3% Newsday (Long Island)         572         266 -53.5% Houston Chronicle         551         231 -58.0% Minneapolis Star Tribune         335         228 -32.0% The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer    B.         382         216 -43.4% The Denver Post         342         214 -37.5% San Diego Union-Tribune         378         194 -48.7% The Dallas Morning News         480         191 -60.3% The Philadelphia Inquirer         429         185 -56.9% Chicago Sun-Times         486         185 -62.0% Newark Star-Ledger         407         180 -55.7% The Boston Globe         471         172 -63.5% Total    13,389      8,185 -38.9% In thousands Source: Alliance for Audited Media & predecessor

 

Losers and Catastrophic Losers

All of the newspapers lost subscribers, but some lost many  more than others. The New York Post, a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, posted the  smallest loss, less than 30,000 of its 1998 subscriber base of 438,000.

USA Today,  Gannett’s unique national general-interest newspaper, experienced the second  smallest loss, at 13.8 percent. USA Today, also the newest newspaper  on the list (1982), is the nation’s second-largest newspaper and fell from a  circulation of 1.65 million in 1990 to 1.42 million in 2013.

Another Murdoch title, The Wall Street Journal, purchased in 2007, did a third-best in holding onto its print readership. The Journal retained its position as the largest daily newspaper in the nation, with  circulation dropping from 1.74 million in 1998 to 1.48 million in 2013. This  amounted to a small loss compared to other newspapers (14.9 percent). The  260,000 loss in actual subscribers was larger than the total current daily circulation of 10 of the top 20 US newspapers  (such as the Houston Chronicleand The Boston Globe).

The nation’s third largest newspaper, The New York Times, lost nearly  one-third of its print circulation between 1998 and 2013.  Even so, this was less than the loss rate of all but three newspapers (The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today).

The largest relative circulation loss was atThe Boston Globe, which saw a departure of nearly two-thirds (63.5 percent) of its  subscribers. This was more than double the losses by its owner, The New York Times.

Two other newspapers lost 60 percent or more of their  readers between 1998 and 2013.  The Chicago Sun-Times experienced a loss of 62 percent while The Dallas Morning News saw 60  percent of its subscribers flee. This huge loss is particularly notable, given  that the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is one of the fastest growing regions  in the world. For example, in Phoenix, which has also grown very rapidly, the Arizona Republic lost only one third of its readership, having taken advantage of the rapidly  expanding market.

Perhaps most disastrous has been the decline at the Los Angeles Times. For more than two decades, the LA Times had been the nation’s third or fourth largest newspaper,  following The Wall Street Journal, USA  Today and sometimes The New York  Times. This ranking was not much changed in 2013, as the LA Times was the fourth largest  newspaper.

However, over 15 years, the LA Times lost nearly 6 out of every 10 of its subscribers. In 1998,  the LA Times had 1,000 more  subscribers than The New York Times,  at 1,088,000. By 2013, print subscriptions at LA Times had fallen to 433,000. Over the period, The New York Times managed to secure a stranglehold  on third position, opening a nearly 300,000 subscriber lead over the LA Times. Should the losses at the LA Times continue at this rate, it could  be passed by both The Washington  Post and the New York Post within a couple of years (Figure).

In raw subscriber numbers, the LA Times losses were the most precipitous by far at 635,000,  compared to second largest loss at the New York Daily News at 363,000. The Daily News continues a long slide,   having been the nation’s largest newspaper for  decades to the 1970s. It is now the third-largest paper in the three paper New  York City market, having been passed by the New  York Post some time ago. The Daily News,  however, still leads the suburban Newsdayand Newark Star-Ledger.

Even Bigger Losses

Some of the larger declines in newspaper circulation are not  evident in the latest data. For example, The  San Francisco Chronicle experienced a drop of 65 percent in its  circulation from 1998 to 2012 (2013 data not available). The spectacular  decline of Detroit’s two metropolitan dailies has outstripped all of the others  over a longer period of time. In the middle 1980s, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News each had  circulations of approximately 650,000. By 2012, the Free Press had fallen to approximately 135,000 and the News to under 80,000. These drops were  much larger than the city of Detroit’s population loss. Now, the two papers  offer home delivery only three days of the week (Thursday, Friday and Sunday),  while subscribers are encouraged to use internet editions on other days.

Of course, over the last 15 years, a number of familiar  titles have been closed, such as the Rocky  Mountain News (Denver), the separate Atlanta Journal and Constitution (now  combined as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)  and the Cincinnati Post. The Seattle  Post-Intelligencer took the intermediate step of shutting down its  print edition, but retaining an Internet edition, which has remained a strong  presence online.

Where from Here?

There have been other changes as well. Virtually all of the US  broadsheets (the wide, familiar print format) are now printed in more compact editions, having been reduced from approximately 15 inches wide to 12 or even  11 inches wide (28, 30.5 and 38 centimeters). There are international format  changes, as well. The Times of London (weekday edition) converted from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004, while The Sydney  Morning Herald and Melbourne’s uniquely named The Age switched to tabloid format in March.

The communications business has changed  over  the past two decades. Newspapers have been trying to cope, but it seems unlikely that print editions will experience any resurgence. The open question  is whether the newer online strategies will save them from oblivion, but that’s  hard to predict.

[First posted at New Geography]

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No wonder the national debt is at nearly $17 trillion—and ticking higher every day. Polls repeatedly show most Americans believe that reducing the budget deficit should be a top priority, yet policy gets in the way of democracy and prevents practical solutions.

I’ve previously participated in, and reported on, various public meetings and hearings where the local citizens rally to draw media attention to their plight and plead with the government agencies that control their economic future.

Some of these stories include the Otero County Tree Party where hundreds of residents of a small mountain community, who live in fear of fires fed by overgrown forests—due to management designed to save the habitat of an endangered species—gathered to force the Forest Service to stop fighting them and start cooperating. I was honored to play a part in the Tree Party. They’ve had success! County Commissioner Ronny Rardin told me it would have never happened without the public outcry. Using a newly created County Compliance Program, non-violent people charged with a misdemeanor avoid jail time and do community service by cutting down selected trees and thinning the forest—saving money for both the county and the Forest Service, while saving the community from a wildfire’s devastation.

Hundreds of people gathered in an airplane hangar to protest the endangered-species listing of the sand dune lizard that could have severely hampered oil and gas extraction and ranching in the region and killed the economic base of local communities. I was one of the speakers at the rally. At the post-rally hearing, people waited into the night for the opportunity to express their opinion to the bureaucrats from the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). After an 18-month battle, the answer came back from Washington, DC. The sand dune lizard escaped listing, oil and gas development and ranching activities continue in the Permian Basin region of Texas and New Mexico.

Now, the people in the Permian Basin are joined by those in Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma to fight the proposed listing of the lesser prairie chicken—which would wreak similar economic havoc as the sand dune lizard listing (this time to a larger region). In February, I emceed the hangar-held rally and attended the public comment session manned by FWS staff. The comment period was cut off before everyone who wanted to could voice their opinion—leaving angry, unheard, citizens. Pressure has been put on Senators, as their constituents inundated their offices with calls asking them to use their weight to stop the lesser prairie chicken listing. As a result of the effort, on May 9, Senator Tom Udall’s (D-NM) office released a statement supporting the plan to prevent the listing of the lesser prairie chicken: Senator Udall “believes that the Five State Plan, if done correctly, can be a win-win solution resulting in habitat protection and regulatory certainty for the farmers, ranchers, and the oil and gas industry. Senator Udall continues to be engaged with the Administration to ensure the Five State Plan receives proper consideration and has every opportunity to succeed in its goal.”

On May 8, I drove 2.5 hours to attend a public meeting about a new management plan for federal lands in three New Mexico counties—it was the last of three such public meetings. The plan was outlined, but attendees were not allowed to ask questions or comment during the presentation. Maps lined the room’s perimeter. In short, myriad acts and laws have to be taken into account in the management of public lands including the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA)—just to name a few. By the time all of these layers of regulation are applied to nominated portions of federal lands, virtually all economic activity is prohibited or severely limited—including ranching/grazing, mining, and oil and gas extraction. Even recreational uses, such as off-highway vehicles (OHV), can be banned or severely restricted.

After the 2-hour session, I felt agitated and frustrated. In the brief public presentation, we were told that they were holding these meetings because NEPA requires public participation. However, unlike the other public meetings I’ve attended, no public comment was allowed at the meeting. Additionally, when attendees were instructed on how provide written comment, we were told that we were to offer only “substantive comments” on the data and/or the science—not to vote in favor of, or opposition to, the Resource Management Plan (RMP).

Following the meeting, I spent time with Bill Childress, the District Manager for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for the Las Cruces office and Dave Wallace, the Assistant District Manager. I pointed out that their format discourages public comment, as no average person is ever going to read the 500+ page document—or be able to offer comment on the science or the data. “That’s the way it is,” was the response.

Regarding the BLM’s comment process, Joanne Spivack, an activist fighting the closure of roads and trails to motorized use, told me: “The only thing that matters are comments that specifically challenge how the RMP analysis is being done. That’s what ‘substantive’ means. 99.999% of the public don’t understand what that means. It takes a firm understanding of the NEPA process to write a comment that can challenge the agency and lead to an appeal (and lawsuit). The only things we can submit that can be used for our appeals, or in a lawsuit, are our formal comments submitted by the deadline. Those comments must be based solely on what is in the written Draft RMP and its associated documents.”

With Childress and Wallace, another meeting attendee and I discussed the known oil and gas resources and the potential presence of rare-earth elements. The TriCounty RMP designates several ACECs (Area of Critical Environmental Concern)—which are essentially managed as “wilderness areas,” though ACECs are not designated by Congress. Childress and Wallace explained that the process of creating ACECs is at the discretion of the Bureau; it is qualitative not quantitative, and subjective. They told us that generally conservation groups nominate the ACECs. Spivack noted: “There is no place or time in the process for the public to oppose the ACECs.”

Surprise! The Wilderness Society’s website offers their “Wish List for the BLM in 2013”—which includes: “Designate Otero Mesa as an ACEC in the TriCounty RMP and initiate an administrative mineral withdrawal for the area to protect its innumerable natural and cultural resources.”

The proposed 198,511-acre ACEC for Otero Mesa includes the following potential resource-use limitations:

• Exclusion and limitations of new rights-of way,

• Closure to mineral sales and geothermal leasing,

• Closure to vegetation sales, and

• Limitation of vehicle use to designated routes.

Spivack explains it this way: “The RMP doesn’t have specifics about what will be banned, why or where. There are no facts, no analysis and no proof that an ACEC is needed. But the RMP lays the groundwork for future lock-downs, by creating ‘conceptual’ frameworks such as ‘desired conditions’ and by creating new designation areas like ACECs. The RMPs have vague wording about future restrictions, which could be imposed in order to ‘protect the values’ of the ACEC. The ACEC is a way of creating management ‘goals’ which trump multiple use. The ACEC is a blank check and can be used restrict any activity under any excuse they want to cook up.”

The Otero Mesa portion of the BLM managed lands has the potential for oil and gas resources, and rare-earth elements. Due to existing land-use restrictions—before the proposed RMP is even implemented—a company interested in developing the rare earths was required to do its minimal-impact exploration with 19th century technology: horses and hand tools. When the exploration was complete, a hand rake was used to erase the footprints and restore the land. A company executive reported: “The RMP has the potential to adversely impact future mineral development.”

Commissioner Rardin and all his fellow county commissioners in Otero County are excited about the potential economic benefit the rare-earth mining project could bring: $25 million in the first year alone. Rardin believes one of the goals of the RMP is to stop the mining project. He told me: “The BLM is taking away our ability to make a living. As long as I am commissioner, I will challenge them and look to properly use our lands.” In Otero Country—a county as big as the state of Connecticut with 62,000 residents, only 12% of the land is taxable. The potential for mineral extraction, including oil and gas, is important for the community—and the people want it. Locking up the resources constitutes a government taking.

Ranchers in the region feel the same way. Steve Wilmeth, a rancher from southern New Mexico whose family came to New Mexico beginning in 1880, wrote about these attacks on the culture and customs of the West: “Increasingly, Westerners are governed not by laws, but by policy and regulations. Local governance isn’t planning or crafting solutions for communities. Rather, local governance is defending itself against the latest project being driven by conservation cooperation agreements.” Regarding the policies to be instituted and policed by the agencies, Wilmeth, in The Westerner, writes: “There is no grassroots land planning in this debacle. This is an end-run legislative proxy. It is being engineered by the environmental brokers.”

Addressing the proposed ACECs, Wilmeth’s comments echo Spivack’s. He told me: “The BLM, by FLPMA authority, can designate ACECs. In the draft, you will notice they are intending to manage the Nutt Grassland ACEC (newly declared) as a Wilderness Study Area, as if it is being prepped for “Wilderness” status. FLPMA does not make that a mandatory action. So, we might not be immediately forced out of an ACEC, but the BLM, in their conservation cooperative action with environmental groups, is shaping and managing toward de facto wilderness without Congressional authority.”

In addition to his dawn-to-dusk ranching responsibilities, Wilmeth, representing the Council of Border Conservation Districts, the New Mexico Coalition of Conservation Districts, and the Doña Ana Soil and Water Conservation District; County Commissioners such as Rardin; oil and gas companies with a stake in the outcome; and OHV organizations are each working through the Draft RMP to address their opposition to this latest federal land grab and will have their comments in by the July 11 deadline. Will you join them? This may seem like just a New Mexico issue, but the same thing is happening in many locales throughout the West—where most states have a high percentage of federally managed land. I am sure readers could tell me similar stories from the surrounding states.

When the ranchers hate it; the county commissioners oppose it; the OHV folks are fighting it; and the miners and oil and gas companies can’t stand it—but, the environmental organizations in cooperation with the government agencies are for it—you know you’ve got a project that will stop all potential economic input. Once again, policy trumps growth and economic potential.

When Americans have to fight their own government for their economic survival, you know something has to change.

[First published at TownHall]

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         In an opinion piece, published by the Huffington Post, Professor Alex Glashausser attacked the position that banning so-called ‘assault weapons’ would infringe the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The professor points out that while “Prisoners have a right to food… the menu options… are meager,” so as to illustrate how “it is not unusual… for a right to be confined.” The Professor goes on to assert that “a citizen has no greater claim to a machete than a prisoner has to spaghetti.”

The problem with this analogy, of course, is that law-abiding citizens are not prisoners.

The professor then accuses the pro-gun lobby of defacing the Constitution in order to claim an unfettered right to keep and bear any kind of weapon they please, asking “Do ‘Arms’ include AR-15s? ICBMs? How about grenades…?” Glashausser finally asserts that the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms would remain in tact “as long as people are permitted some weapons — say, simple pistols, or maybe even stun guns.” Stun guns? Really?

Look, no one is saying that citizens should be allowed to walk the streets with a nuclear trigger in hand – that would be crazy. Gun owners simply want the freedom to own firearms that are within the scope of reason.

No, our first Amendment rights do not extend to the protection of slanderous statements, because slanderous statements can cause serious, sometimes irreparable injury. So the question becomes: What injury to innocent persons justifies the ban of an entire class of firearms from the homes and hands of law-abiding citizens? Now, before readers start screaming about mass shootings, let me point out that in 2011 (the most recent statistics available), rifles in general were only used in 323 of the 8,583 firearm homicides. That’s .03%. In fact, more than double that number (728) were punched and kicked to death in that same year. American citizens rightfully have a hard time believing that the motivations of gun control advocates are anything other than scoring political points, and gaining control over another aspect of civilian life. If loss of innocent life were truly the motivation of gun control advocates, they’d go after handguns, seeing as how they are used in the overwhelming majority of firearm homicides. But, that would be unconstitutional.  In fact, the Supreme Court indicated in the Heller case that weapons “in common use” for the purposes of self, and home-defense may very well be outside the scope of what Congress can prohibit. The fact is that the likelihood an innocent person will be injured or killed with a so-called ‘assault weapon’ is slim by any standard – let alone the standard that should be met before interfering with the freedoms of American citizens. Given the numbers, it would be quite hard to see how an ‘assault weapons’ ban could have a significant impact on gun crime and homicides. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported in 2002 that its task force on Community Preventive Services found “insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws (including the 1994 assault weapons ban) or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.”

There’s no denying that gun violence is a problem. But an ‘assault weapons’ ban won’t fix it. More aggressive prosecution and mandatory minimum sentences, however, would certainly be a step in the right direction.