Tweezed

The other day I needed to pull a splinter from my hand. I had to improvise on the removal because my tweezers were gone. A friendly, regretful TSA agent at Burlington International Airport had confiscated them a month ago. My tweezers were roughly 2 ½” long and pointed, so as to be useful in pulling splinters. The agent helpfully showed me a pair of blunt, useless tweezers and told me that if I had that type I could have gotten them through.

I didn’t take it up with him then, as I was in a hurry and not ready to endure whatever abuse the TSA dishes out to recalcitrant passengers, but let’s try a visualization exercise.

A man on a commercial flight stands up, pulls out a pair of 2 ½” long stainless steel tweezers, their wicked points glinting, and declares a hijacking. What happens next?

Here’s my most probable scenario. Chances are that everyone on the plane is already pissed off. They have fought traffic to get to the airport, endured petty humiliation as they partially disrobed at security, and probably waited in the plane for an hour and a half for a chance to take off. They know they have already missed their connections, so another bureaucratic kerfluffle isn’t going to cost them anything. There is the sound of a hundred seat belts clicking open, and then a feral growl from a hundred throats. There follows a brief period of mayhem, and the tweezer wielding hijacker is reduced to fist-sized chunks.

Perhaps you think that is extreme? Place yourself on that plane. You, along with every other inmate, are preoccupied with steaming, stewing resentment and thwarted plans. Then fate offers up a lightly armed hijacker, or even a heavily armed hijacker. You now have the opportunity, with a clear conscience, to literally rend the flesh and bone of some deserving moron. And you’ll be a hero. It’s like Christmas morning. Passengers will walk off the plane cheerfully whistling, sharing handi-wipes with complete strangers and tracking blood through the terminal.

A number of experts have pointed out that the two most effective deterrents to hijacking are now in place. First, locked and armored cockpit doors. Second, passengers with those 9/11 video clips in their minds, ready to fight dirty.

I don’t mind the whiteshirts checking luggage for bombs. In fact, I’ll join the chorus for better luggage tracking to make sure that a bag doesn’t get on a plane without a matching passenger. It might have the side effect of getting people’s bags to their intended destination. I’m fine with the prohibition of actual weapons on aircraft. I’ll put my broadsword in my checked luggage with my Leatherman. But tweezers? “Do what I say and nobody loses any nostril hairs.” I once had to go back to the luggage counter and put my multimeter in my checked bag because it had ½” long metal points on the wire leads. Oh...please.

Oh, and the one ounce liquids rule? Utter crock. Theoretically it prevents a would-be hijacker from concocting binary liquid explosives in his juice carton. In reality, it would take three hours under a fume hood with a temperature controlled cooling bath to produce the deadly explosive.

While I’m at it, let us keep our shoes on. We are the only nation on earth that makes people take their shoes off at airport security, thanks to that ding dong Richard Reid and his sweat-thwarted (and seat-mate thwarted) attempt at shoe bombing. I don’t want to give anyone ideas here, but a bomb you can fit in your shoe is a bomb you can fit in your underwear. Nude flying is only an option right now, but that is what it would take to assure absolute security.

Terrorism is a politically motivated crime: the use of violence to create fear in order to achieve a political goal. Its solutions lie first in political change and second in criminal investigation. Think of the classic standard of proof for murder: the suspect has to have means, motive, and opportunity. There is little we can do about means – the world is awash in guns and explosives. We can lessen opportunity, but it will always be there in an open society. The only sure way to minimize the risk of terrorism is eliminating the motivation. I should note the obvious - threats don’t work on people willing to die. People who have exhausted all normal channels of political change without success are most vulnerable to the appeals of violence. Promoting political reform, both here and abroad will make us safer in the long run. Cooperative international criminal justice efforts (with the emphasis on “justice”) will provide some near-term protection. In the meantime, barefoot, tweezerless airline passengers are so much security theater.

Oh, Holy (_____)

Time for a break from seriousness.

It is December, so we are being bombarded with Christmas music. It is usually in the form of aseptic background pap culled from elevator recordings and the backlists of has-been pop artists. As a rebuttal to this death-by-syrup I offer you a bit of auditory mayhem. It has to be my favorite rendition of any Christmas carol ever. This sound clip was gleaned from NPR's piece on the Annoying Music Show. Apparently it was a sincere attempt at an audition tape for a talent competition. Grit your teeth and hang in there - the song grows on you. The guy really swings for the fences. Just when you think it can't get any worse, or funnier, it does, right to the final note. Click on the link below and brace yourself.

Oh Holy Night

Self Made

I just read Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers. His theme is personal success and the predominance of situation over ability. His opening section deals with the odd fact that most professional hockey players in Canada have birthdays in January, February, and March. The process of becoming a pro hockey player in Canada seems entirely merit based. All kids have the same access to school hockey programs starting at an early age, and kids are promoted based on athletic ability from the Pee-Wee leagues up through college into the professional level. The secret is in the cutoff date for participation: January 1st. An unfortunate kid with a December 31st birthdate will end up facing off against some kid with a January birthdate in the same year. He will be almost a year younger at an age where even six months means a huge difference in size, strength, and motor skills. The early year kids dominate the later year ones and advance to the higher level leagues, where they get more and better coaching, more ice time, and more support. The vast majority of late year kids never catch up.

Gladwell goes on to explore the birth years and unique high school experiences of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the cohort of young men who ended up dominating the law firms of Manhattan, and the birth years of the robber barons of the 19th century. His conclusion is that talent is a necessary condition for success, but that the accidents of birth and youth are just as influential. His other observation is that pure intelligence or raw talent is less important than endless practice. Well, not endless – the number he cites is 10,000 hours, on average, to achieve mastery. The catch is that someone needs to have the opportunity to put in those 10,000 hours, unencumbered by other responsibilities and having access to the necessary facilities for 10,000 hours. You can’t become another Dave Brubeck if you can’t get your hands on a piano every day. Or, in the case of Bill Gates, access to a free computer terminal.

I now forget where I read it, but a poll showed that Democrats are more likely to believe that the circumstance of a person’s birth are a major determinant of success and Republicans are more likely to believe that personal ability is a major determinant of success. The more I read on the subject, the more it seems to me that circumstance dominates.

A number of researchers have done studies with duplicate resumes. In one study, resumes with African American sounding names on them got half the calls for interviews compared to identical ones with WASP sounding names. Another study used attached photographs to the same effect.

Your native country has an influence as well. Studies of social mobility, comparing changes in peak income by generation, show that a poor person in France has a better chance of out-earning his or her parents that a poor person in the U.S. or U.K. In fact, most European countries exceed the U.S. in upward social mobility.

This would all be just interesting fodder for sociological treatises, except that the belief in the triumph of individual talent informs government policy. The last thirty years of policymaking in this country has been based on an iron-fisted social Darwinism. Supply side economics, welfare “reform,” educational “reform,” tort “reform,” and the whole gamut of puritanical legalism we have endured assumes that personal virtue overcomes all. In a few spectacular cases it does, but for each John Edwards working his way up from poverty there are hundreds of George W. Bushes who got handed the whole package at birth.

The myth of pure meritocracy needs to be debunked, along with its partner, the myth of the self-made individual. We are all part of a deliberately structured society, restrained by it and dependent upon its benefits for our personal success. Understanding this, we need to set aside our egotistical American exceptionalism and observe how other countries structure their social, economic, and tax policies. We can pick the best cases and synthesize policies that allow all of us to achieve greater individual opportunity and social mobility.

A friend of mine told me how as a child he and his sisters would chorus “That’s not fair!” and his mother would respond “Life’s not fair.” At the time he thought it was a harsh thing to say, but now, he says, he realizes it was a blessing.

Northwest Passage

“Through cruel hardships they vainly strove
Their ships on mountains of ice were drove”

(From “Lady Franklin’s Lament,” a traditional British folk song)

The Northwest Passage has been pursued like the Holy Grail by mariners for centuries. Cabot, Hudson, Vancouver, Franklin, and others all tried and failed to find a water passage north of the American continent. The reason for failure was simple. Much of the water north of Canada is covered in ice year round. The reason for pursuing it was also simple. Prior to the Panama Canal the only way to get a boat around the continent was via the far southern tip of South America. Even with the Canal, freight from the northeastern U.S. or Canada had a long haul down into the Gulf of Mexico.

Note that I wrote, “had a long haul.”

Back in 1969 a specially equipped tanker rammed through the ice at an optimal time of the year, but that was a one-time experiment. Just this September an ordinary cargo vessel made the trip from Montreal out the St. Lawrence, north around Newfoundland, and west across the top of the continent to several towns in Nunavut. It wasn’t a government-sponsored experiment, but a scheduled commercial cargo delivery. There was an icebreaker standing by, but according to the captain they didn’t see “one cube of ice.”

This is novel and ominous. The water north of Canada has been impassable for eons and the Northwest Passage merely wishful thinking since Europeans first explored the Americas. The ice thwarted, trapped, and killed hundreds of sailors led by hopeful navigators. Now it’s just a boat ride.

Can we stop screwing around now and get serious about global warming?

Stimulus with payback

I recently received a call from Vermont’s congressional representative, Peter Welch. It was a robocall – Mr. Welch doesn’t kibitz with the Minor Heretic. The call invited me to participate in a telephone town hall discussion of economic stimulus and related issues. I couldn’t stay on the line, but I wrote Mr. Welch a letter on the subject. Here is the gist of it:

The most important thing I recommend is to invest in stimulus programs that pay back.

The best example is energy efficiency. Here in Vermont our efficiency utility saves us about $7 for every $1 we invest. Right now we are bleeding cash to oil exporting countries. Industrialized countries in Europe average about 40% lower energy use per person and maintain a standard of living as good as ours or better. We can do that. Even a 10% drop in oil use would save us over $27 billion a year. Add to any direct savings the follow-on savings in declining pollution and resulting health effects. Residential and commercial building retrofits would employ construction workers now being laid off by the housing bust. Those who study the economics of labor will tell you that the energy business is capital intensive, while the infrastructure business is labor intensive. Every million dollars we can redirect from energy expenditures will net us more jobs.

Part of that energy picture is transportation improvements. The present dip in motor fuel prices is a temporary reprieve. Trucking will not be an economical mode of cargo transport ten years from now. We desperately need to upgrade our rail system to replace road based transport for both cargo and people. Regional air transport is dying a slow death, and I’d wager that Burlington Vermont would be among the first to feel the axe when jet fuel prices jump again. It may seem archaic, but the New York State canal system, which extends into Lake Champlain, could move cargo between the Great Lakes and the Hudson River and along the Champlain/Hudson corridor at about 1/8th the energy expenditure of trucking.

Another example is addiction treatment. Law enforcement professionals will tell you that addiction treatment is ten times more cost effective than law enforcement and drug interdiction in lowering crime rates. Addiction treatment would offer dramatic long-term reductions in expenditures for law enforcement, public health, prisons, and public assistance.

Addiction treatment could, in turn, be part of a program of preventative health care. Ask anyone in health care and they will tell you that 90% of the pathologies they see are lifestyle related. It takes labor intensive, ongoing, personalized primary care to work on problems such as smoking, obesity, and poor nutrition.

As long as I am being prescriptive, I’ll offer some action items:

1. Establish an energy efficiency utility in every state, authorized to work on electricity, heating, and transportation.
2. As part of the 50-state efficiency program, establish grants and revolving loan funds to pay for efficiency upgrades. (Financing is a necessary condition for success)
3. As part of the above program, establish training programs for contractors in efficiency retrofitting.
4. Offer railroads a long property tax holiday on rail electrification, double tracking, and upgrades to existing railbeds for passenger service. (This option is essentially revenue positive because it sacrifices low-probability future revenue to expand an industry.)
5. Offer the Big 3 automakers loans to retool closed plants for self-propelled light rail vehicles, buses, and passenger vans.
6. Help municipalities design and build appropriate local transit systems. Public transportation starts at the local level.
7. Revitalize the New York State Barge Canal system with dredging and infrastructure upgrades, including intermodal terminals and financing for the construction of container barges.

8. Establish a national network of affordable/free addiction treatment centers. Treatment should be local, repeatable, and offer follow-up support.

9. Establish a national network of primary care centers, including the support of existing centers, to provide wellness programs, preventative care, and early-stage treatment for illness.

This list is, of course, far from comprehensive. There are plenty of opportunities for what the technical world calls value engineering – finding the least expensive modification that gives the biggest result.

So far the focus has been on supply side solutions in the form of infusions of capital into distressed financial institutions. This is inefficient and ultimately ineffective. We should be using demand side solutions that put money in the hands of ordinary people. Our focus should be the redirection of money from capitol intensive to labor intensive industries, reforming our regressive tax structure, and empowering labor to get its long-overdue bonus for the productivity increases of the past few decades. Take care of Main Street and Wall Street will take care of itself. The reverse is not true.

Another important point to remember when planning stimulus packages is that the financial industry isn’t really an industry. It doesn’t accomplish anything useful in itself, it only enables other industries to provide us with the goods and services we need. As such, any profit it makes is a drag on our real economy. The financial sector has expanded from a service function to an end in itself. It has ballooned into a combination casino and Ponzi scheme. It needs to go back to its socially useful function as a supporter of real industry. That will be a hard fight, because billions of (phony) dollars are at stake. Someone has to start by calling it what it is and pointing out where it should end up.