Alkahest my heroes have always died at the end

August 21, 2007

I’ll take a doll, some jacks and a dose of lead poisoning, please

Filed under: Social — cec @ 7:59 pm

In the wake of the most recent recall of toys from China due to lead paint, we find that the administration has been fighting the regulation of lead in imports.  According to McClatchy,

Consumer advocates say the Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children’s products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach.

The basic approach has been that the “market” will ensure that the products people want (and are willing to pay for) are available.  This implies that we have lead in children’s toys because people won’t spend money on higher quality toys.

I certainly don’t believe that markets are panaceas, but it is foolish to deny that they have the potential to adequately capture information regarding supply and demand.   In fact, some of the work that I’m doing right now involves the use of markets to capture information.

However, there are a few key factors in ensuring effective markets.  One of the most important is information.  A market can only be efficient if the participants are making informed decisions.

So, here’s my proposal.  Allow importers to bring in as many lead painted toys as they want.  The only requirement is that the amount of lead as compared to a recommended amount be printed in large print on the box.  The penalty for making false statements is for the manufacturer to be barred from the country and the importer’s/reseller’s CEO to be jailed for 5 years.  Ensure that themarket participants have adequate information and, like the disappearing trans fats in processed foods, you’ll see lead paint go away.

Okay, removing my tongue from my cheek, I do think that there needs to be limits/regulations on lead paint in toys.  But expecting a miraculous market to solve all of the problems, in absence of adequate information is just silly.

April 17, 2007

Duke LAX

Filed under: Personal,Social,University Life — cec @ 7:48 am

I never planned to comment on the Duke Lacrosse rape case, but one observation keeps running through my head and it’s probably best to get it out.

Back when I was in high school, I remember being told that, in a Shakespearean sense, tragedies were uplifting and comedies were depressing. That struck me as backwards for a while until I had watched/read more plays and understood that the tragedies, where the protagonist dies, often display the best elements of human character. There is nobility or love or honor in the characters as they face a universe that is, not hostile, but merely indifferent to the concerns of mankind. On the other hand, a comedy, where the main characters survive the play, often shows the pettiness of people: the bitterness, the backstabbing, the prejudice, the lying, etc.

With those two definitions in mind, I don’t think that you can call the Duke Lacrosse rape case anything but a comedy (again, in the Shakespearean sense). The key thing to remember when you see any of the coverage is that there were no good guys in the case. There were no heroes you could root for. The best you could do was to hope that justice would be served. Consider the participants:

  • Duke Lacrosse team. These are not the good clean cut boys that show up on television every few months. On campus, they are among the rowdiest of the athletes. They believe that they own the campus. They are generally the privileged children of parents in the north east. They grew up expecting everything and often got it. On the night the alleged event occurred, they were having a loud party that involved strippers and, probably, under aged drinking. According to public records, after the party one of the athletes composed an email to the rest which, while not illegal, was crude and disgusting and gives you a sense of what they might consider humorous.
  • The accuser. A woman who has been in and out (okay, mostly in) trouble with the law for well over a decade. Multiple arrests. Stolen property. False allegations in the past. Drug use. etc.
  • The police. For the most part, the police have gotten a pass in this one, but they are among the worst offenders. The investigating officers held a grudge against Duke students. One or both had arrest rates of Duke students that were much higher than the average. They generally went in with an attitude that the students must be guilty. They created a photographic lineup that was guaranteed to identify one or more Duke students as the alleged rapists, in violation of their own procedures. They accused staff of the university of being willing to destroy evidence – at times, they refused to actually tell staff what they were looking for in fear of the staff willfully destroying evidence.
  • The DA. The DA has gotten a lot of flack in the media and it is justly deserved. Nifong was running for re-election in a city with a large black population. He was running against a popular female attorney (whom had successfully prosecuted a very public murder trial) and a very well qualified black candidate. Nifong was concerned that if he didn’t score some points with the black community, he would lose the election. So he made horribly prejudiced statements to the media, he ignored exculpatory evidence and generally railroaded the students.
  • Duke Athletics. Here are a bunch of folks that knew the lacrosse (and other teams) were a problem waiting to happen. They had heard reports of general “bad behavior.” They knew about the drinking and the loud parties and never chose to do much about it.
  • Duke Administration. There were a number of ways the administration could have gone. The smart one would have been to: remind the public that these are allegations and not facts; tackle the general issue of the behavior of athletes; take no disciplinary action against the students for the alleged rape until after the prosecution was finished. This would have upset a large number of people, but it would have been a principled stand. Instead, the administration chose a middle course and upset everyone. They suspended the students, essentially presuming guilt. That upset all of the supporters of the athletes, but didn’t go far enough for those that wanted them expelled.
  • Group of 88. These were the faculty that came out against the students, assuming guilt based on the allegations. They endorsed a statement published as an ad in the Chronicle. These are faculty, they should know better than to presume guilt.
  • Other Supporters of the Alleged Victim. While not in the same position of responsibility at Duke as the group of 88, a number of people in the local community and nationally treated the allegations as fact. They assumed that just because a woman made an allegation, it must be true. After all, why would she make something like that up. Never mind that from the beginning, it was clear that all of the facts didn’t add up. They seemed to say that she was an underprivileged black woman, they were overly privileged white boys, of course they raped her. Other supporters harassed the students. They put up web pages with their names, pictures, home addresses and parents. Another person or group of people sent forged email to the students, the police or NCCU, trying to get the students in more trouble.
  • Supporters of the Lacrosse Players. If the supporters of the alleged victim and the group of 88 were bad, then you could at least hope that the supporters of the athletes were the good guys. You would be disappointed. While there were principled people saying that these are allegations and we should wait for the trial (if the case is brought forward), many of the supporters launched personal attacks against the accuser or the group of 88. Some of the more harassing and racist messages I’ve seen in a long time came from supporters of the players and was directed at the accuser and the group of 88.
  • The Media. The media, of course, did what it has been doing for years now – not just in Durham, but all over the country. They were quite happy to report what the participants said, but seemed disinclined to actually investigate what happened. Since Nifong was the person making the most statements at the beginning, it was the Nifong show. When Nifong finally realized he should stop making speeches to the press, the defense attorneys had the press to themselves. I recall very little real investigation by the media. Certainly none by the local television stations.

In short, the closest thing we got to a “good guy” in the whole mess was attorney general Roy Cooper. After Nifong recused himself, the AG’s office took over the case. They did their jobs. They spent three months quietly looking into the evidence and came to the conclusion that there was nothing to prosecute. If this had been a Shakespearean comedy, Cooper would have played the beneficent king that comes in at the end and makes everything right. And, as with any comedy, I’m left a little more depressed with the nature of mankind.

April 2, 2007

Copyright infringement on campus

Filed under: Social,Technical,University Life — cec @ 10:33 am

I can’t turn around anymore without hearing something new about how colleges and universities are public enemy number 1 with the copyright industry.  In early February, the Recording Industry Association of America released a top 25 list of the schools to which they have sent notices of alleged copyright infringement.  Right after that, they started announced that they would start suing students and that they were going to send “pre-subpoena” and “settlement” notices to campuses.

The “pre-subpoena” notices try to circumvent the normal process of data destruction that happens at any provider of internet services.  The service provider only needs the information for a short period of time, so after that time has passed, the information is automatically destroyed.  The pre-subpoena notices try to put a burden on universities to preserve data because they now know that the information is likely to be subpoenaed if there is a lawsuit.  To my knowledge, these are, at best, questionably legal and even with recent changes to the Federal Rules for eDiscovery are not likely to place a real burden on colleges.  You’ll notice that the RIAA hasn’t sent anything like a pre-subpoena notice to non-educational internet service providers such as Verizon and Time Warner.

The second new type of notice is a John-Doe settlement offer.  It is sent to a university and references an IP address and a time and alleges that copyright infringement occurred from that computer at that time.  No evidence is included.  The notice asks the university to forward these settlement offers to the students whose computers are referenced.  Students receiving these settlement offers can go to the referenced website, enter the case number, check the box that says they will sin no more and enter a credit card for absolution.  It’s like the selling of indulgences by organized crime.

Some schools have taken the position that they should not forward the notices, however, they are complying with the pre-subpoena notices above.  This seems likely to put their students at even more risk because they won’t be able to settle before being sued, however, you are purposefully keeping the information that will allow them to be sued.

While all of this has been going on, the copyright industry has been meeting with congress, decrying the evils of college campuses and what we aren’t doing (which incidentally is exactly what commercial ISPs aren’t doing).  There have been two recent, interesting outcomes from these hearings.  The first is that the copyright industry has been pushing campuses to install network devices that prevent copyright infringement, preferably by blocking all peer to peer programs.  Most colleges have refused to do this for a number of reasons: cost, lack of reliability, the potential to damage our safe harbor for “conduit” activities under the DMCA, and the fact that p2p programs have substantial non-infringing uses.  Congress is trying to remove at least one of these with a bill that would allow schools to apply for grants to fund copyright compliance programs – code for devices to block p2p.

The second item of note is that congress requested the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) produce its own top 25 list using the same methodology as the RIAA.  That list was released and we are on it.  Of course, as with the RIAA’s list, the MPAA can send however many notices to schools that they want.  Being on or off of the top 25 list doesn’t say anything about the amount of actual infringing going on, just how much you were notified about.  Both industries tend to focus on recent content: new music, new movies, new television shows.  Given the current state of music, it may actually be a complement to the taste of our students that we were on the MPAA’s list, but not the RIAA’s.

I suppose at this point I should note that I am not in favor of copyright infringement.  My main concerns are:

  1. Why is Congress and the copyright industry singling out academic ISPs?
  2. Copyright law, as written, does not meet the needs of consumers.

Colleges and universities should be treated like any other internet service provider.  This is how we are defined under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  Under the DMCA, as an ISP, we are given a number of safe harbors from liability, including a limitation of liability on any infringing activity for which we are a conduit.  That is to say, any activity that we did not initiate nor interfere.  If the RIAA or the MPAA or Congress wants to limit copyright infringement, then it should address the infringers themselves.  If they don’t want to do that, then they should address all ISPs equally, commercial and academic.  After all, the RIAA sued 18,000 people last year and only 1,000 of them were college students.

For years, copyright infringement was a subject that only conglomerations of copyright holders cared about.  The industries met together, balanced each others needs, wrote the rules together and then had congress sign off on what they wrote.  That worked pretty well up until the point that we had peer to peer filesharing.  P2P as a general technology fulfills one of the great promises of the Internet.  It breaks away from the old client-server model of computing allows all computers to become both client and server simultaneously.  This allows an individual computer to be a peer to what required a server before and completely changes how we should approach copyright law.

Copyright law was founded on the belief that you had to preserve the rights of an author in order to encourage progress.  This was extended to preserving the purchased rights of producers and distributors.  Now that all computers can be content distributors, copyright law needs to be updated.  You can’t hold a 17 year old kid to the same level of responsibility that you would a large commercial operation designed to print CDs/DVDs and sell them on the streets of New York.  We’re not talking about counterfeiters, we’re talking about average people.

Copyright law has been written to protect the profits of multi-billion dollar corporations.  It wasn’t written to protect the rights, or even the long-term interests, of citizens.  That needs to change and until it does, we will continue to hear about lawsuits, extortion and questionable tactics from the RIAA and the MPAA.

Oh, and to answer my earlier question, the RIAA and the MPAA are going after colleges because that’s where the greatest bulk of young people are.  They believe that if they can head it off there, then perhaps they can get a handle on the general p2p problem.  They also believe that they will get more traction in congress by beating up on colleges.  If the RIAA and MPAA went after all ISPs equally, then congress would see it as a question of the competing interests of two businesses and would probably decide that the DMCA struck a reasonable balance in terms of the limitations on liability.  But colleges and universities are seen as in loco parenti (surrogate, as opposed to crazy, parents), so we are responsible for the actions of our students.  However, we are also a business and can be compelled to install software or devices that would never be required of a student’s real parent.

March 9, 2007

The FBI’s national security letters

Filed under: Security,Social — cec @ 9:55 pm

Sometime in late September or early October of 2001, I received a call from an individual identifying himself as an agent of the FBI and asking for information about the owner of an email account from the place I worked.  He stated that he believed the account was relevant to a terrorist investigation. Of course, this was in the immediate aftermath of September 11th and everyone had security concerns, but I was also certain that I didn’t want to give away information to someone who shouldn’t have it. Following a fairly standard procedure, I requested his phone number, badge number and locale so that I could contact the FBI to confirm his identity. The agent gave me a lot of grief about this, noted that I was putting lives at risk by not immediately complying, etc., but I assured him that I would call right back.

I contacted the FBI and after quite a bit of checking, they confirmed he was an agent. The reason for the delay is that he was actually an ATF agent on loan to the FBI. So I called him back and asked what information he was looking for. It turned out that he was investigating an arms sale online. I was surprised that someone dealing in illegal weapons for terrorism would use their personal email account, but sure. I told the agent that if he would provide a subpoena or court order, I would be happy to respond. This generated another round of everyone’s favorite game, “do you want the terrorists to kill people?!” I apologized, but explained that it was my job to do otherwise. I never heard from him again.

Given the nature of the crime he described, the fact that I never received any valid order, that this seemed like a small issue relative to the claim of terrorism, and that he was on loan from the ATF; I can only conclude that, with the tint not even dried on his shiny new FBI sun glasses, he was overstepping his authority, and claiming a terrorism investigation, in order to pursue a standard, probably pre-existing, case. With that in mind, today’s report by the Investigator General regarding errors in the FBI’s use of National Security Letters (NSLs) comes as no surprise.

The USA PATRIOT Act removed any judicial oversight required for NSLs in order to ensure that they could be executed in a timely fashion. The law then prevented anyone receiving a NSL from mentioning it to anyone. So you have a secret, self-issued warrant for information, creating a situation ripe for abuse. The IG’s report indicates that these abuses were errors and lack of internal oversight. That may be, but it is also clear that there were many cases of over-aggressive investigators issuing NSLs (which are intended for investigations into terrorism) in cases which had nothing to do with terrorism. I guarantee that if the USA PATRIOT Act had been law when I spoke to my ATF agent, I would have received an NSL, turned over the information, and been unable to discuss the demand with anyone.

When the USA PATRIOT Act was passed, the administration basically asked the country to trust the executive branch by allowing it a surveillance tool that had no oversight, was self issued and would remain entirely secret. The IG’s report demonstrates that our trust was abused. However, I’ll go further and say that the concept of trusting the executive branch for activities undertaken without oversight (either judicial or congressional) is fundamentally un-American and a violation of constitutional principles as espoused in the Federalist Papers and other writings of the founders of this country. I hope that the IG’s report will encourage congress to rethink their blind trust in the executive branch under this, or any, administration.

February 28, 2007

immigration update

Filed under: Social — cec @ 9:39 pm

Back in August, I wrote a brief summary of a conversation I had with my mother on immigration as well as a longer summary of a great NY Times article on immigration.  In general, I don’t have a problem with immigrants.  I think that they add a lot to the country and they don’t cause nearly the harm to wages that people attribute to them.  While I wouldn’t accuse anyone of racism, it wouldn’t surprise me if xenophobia is behind most of the opposition to immigrants.
Interestingly, as this LA Times article discusses, two new California studies indicate a) that immigrants boost the wages of native born citizens by an average of 4%; and b) that immigrants have significantly lower incarceration rates than native born citizens.

Both studies should be considered when people advocate for a French-styled guest worker program.  The U.S. economy can absorb and is helped by a growth in the working population; and moreover, many of these workers are good-citizens (except for the fact that they are, really, you know – citizens 🙂 ).

February 19, 2007

I know he’s a professor of economics, but…

Filed under: Social — cec @ 10:49 pm

I know he’s a professor of economics, but does that mean Russell Roberts gets to lie in nearly every paragraph of his editorial, “Workers are fine with fewer unions?” I guess it does. Okay, in fairness, he may not be lying, but an editorial this bad means it’s either that or the author is incompetent.

I’m not going to tackle every single incorrect statement here, but there are a few that really stand out:

Cleaning people routinely earn $20 an hour, more than most cities’ so-called living wage.

Seriously?! There’s no way he’s serious about that. Apparently, cleaning people routinely earn $40,000 a year. Which, if memory serves, is near the median salary for an employee with some college. Neat trick. I suppose it’s possible that a cleaning company will charge $40k per year for an FTE’s worth of cleaning, but that is no where near the same thing.

My other favorite comment is:

A better way to increase wages is to make workers more productive. That lifts everyone’s standard of living.

That’s a lovely thought. Unfortunately, it’s complete BS. After WWII, until the early 70s, rising productivity did lead to increased wages. However, from the early 70s on, productivity has increased much faster than wages or even total compensation (wages plus benefits). During the past 30 years, productivity has nearly doubled and wages are, essentially, the same. Total compensation has only increased by about 40%. For a lot more information, see this post at Calculated Risk, in particular, this graph.

All of this brings me back to my original question.  Is he lying or just incompetent?

February 12, 2007

“Strapped”

Filed under: Personal,Social — cec @ 8:28 am

Last summer, while visiting my grandfather for his 80th birthday, I got into a discussion with my father about the state of the economy and the structural changes that had taken place which served to increase the gap between rich and poor. I noted that statistical measures of income inequality, such as the gini coefficient, were higher in the U.S. than in other industrialized countries; and that the there is less inter-generational class mobility now than there used to be. My father countered that there were several counter examples to that at the table where we were sitting – that all of his children were doing better than he had at our ages. That is true, but a cluster of data points does not make for a valid statistic and the facts are that mine is the first generation that is not likely to be significantly better off than its parents.

The thing that puzzled me most was that my father is living in the same economy I am, how could he not be experiencing the same economic anxiety and difficulty felt most people I know? At the time, I chalked it up to too much Fox News on his part, but now I may have a better answer. The book “Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead,” by Tamara Draut, examines a number of changes in the economy over the past 30 years and shows why these changes disproportionately affect Gen X.

Draut starts by examining the costs of education. She notes that over the past 30 years, the cost of college has increased faster than both the rate of inflation and wage increases. The result is that even though college is the “new high school” in terms of the minimum level of education needed to obtain a middle class lifestyle, fewer people can afford it without taking on a large amount of student loan debt. This loan debt plagues many people I know, even fifteen years after they graduated. Furthermore, the high cost of education, even an associates degree, keeps many qualified students out of higher education.

I mentioned that the cost of college has increased faster than wages. Draut takes this on as her second economic change that disproportionately affects Gen X. She cites a table from the National Center for Education Statistics (which used data from a variety of government sources) to show that almost regardless of sex and level of education (high school, some college, college degree), the median salary for people age 25 to 34 has fallen over the past 30 years. In some cases, e.g., college educated men, the decline has been minor; in others, e.g., high school educated men, it has been as large as 25%. The only group that has seen its wages increase are college educated women, for whom there are many more opportunities now than 30 years ago. Furthermore, there are fewer benefits including health care coverage or pensions.

Increased housing costs over the past 10 years have also disproportionately affected my generation. There are a number of changes in the housing market that are responsible. The most obvious is the dramatic rise in home prices and the corresponding increase in rents. However, other problems include the lack of “starter homes.” Most new developments are for mid-range to high-end homes. Given their school loans, which reduce the amount of money available to save for a down payment, along with the debt itself, many people in my generation find that they can’t afford a home until much later in life than their parents. If they can afford a home, they often can’t afford enough of a down payment to avoid Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI), which can eat up a several thousand dollars a year that could be used for savings or paying off other bills.

Increasing costs for housing, etc., combined with larger debt (and money spent to pay off that debt), combined with stagnant wages have a number of consequences. These include a greater reliance on credit cards, just to pay simple bill; and an increasing number of families that require two incomes just to stay afloat. These coping techniques are strained when a couple decides to have children. Draut shows that while many people in my generation want to have children, financial reasons often make them wait until later in life, i.e., it’s no longer affordable to have children at the same age our parents did. Part of the problem is that policies have not kept up with the changes in the economy. Moreso than in the 70s, today’s families need two incomes. There is no paid time off in this country for maternity/paternity. Your company (assuming it is large enough) does have to give you up to three months off for FMLA, but you have to use your own sick leave and vacation – assuming your job gives you those benefits. And when that time is up (assuming you could afford to take it), you have to find child care, which apparently comes in two types: good, but expensive centers, and cheaper, unregulated home care.

Throughout the book, Draut explains how various changes in the economy hurt young adults more than older. Along the way, she uses statistics to demonstrate that many of the insulting stereotypes that Gen X is labeled with are untrue (e.g., in spite of everything we save more than our parents did; we are more concerned with family than they were; etc.). For me personally, the book went a long way to explaining why my father does not feel the same level of stress about the economy that I do. It also explains my father’s point about my doing better than he did at my age – through dumb luck and supportive parents, I didn’t fall into any of the traps Draut describes. My parents ensured that I had no student loan debt; because I worked full time as a student, I never accumulated credit card debt; I majored in a field that is enough in demand that we don’t need two incomes to survive; K’s grandfather left her money that was enough to put a good down payment on a town home (i.e., one of the few starter homes still around); I have a job at a place known for good benefits; lack of debt has allowed me to take advantage of the retirement benefits available and to save extra on the side. Most of this was entirely out of our control and if even one of the above had not happened, we would be in the same boat as most other people in our generation: strapped.

In case you didn’t guess, I highly recommend the book.

February 5, 2007

The limits of education

Filed under: Social,University Life — cec @ 10:57 pm

There’s a saying about education (I would call it a joke, but it hits too close to home for that), the process of education is learning more and more about less and less until finally, you know absolutely everything about absolutely nothing. This is pretty close to the truth. For a period of time in the 90s, I was one of the world’s foremost expert on the subject of using artificial neural networks for image and video compression – talk about your niche subjects. If you read the titles of dissertations, they are all extremely specific. For the most part, PhDs are specialists and generalists are few and far between. In fact, I was once approached to interview at Sandia National Labs because I was one of the few PhDs they had a resume for who was a generalist (I turned down the interview since I had just started in my current position).

Given the nature of PhDs, I was amused by this article in the Washington Post about officers in the military with PhDs, advising on the war in Iraq. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t doubt that these officers are all very intelligent and are well qualified. But one shouldn’t assume that because the advisers have PhDs, they will be independent or will give you new ideas. Petraeus has found a set of educated advisers that will almost certainly confirm the ideas he already has – that’s probably why they were picked. It doesn’t mean they are right. You could just as easily find other officers with PhDs having entirely different ideas. The PhD is a credential. It does demonstrate that the officers are intelligent, but it doesn’t mean that their specialty is necessarily relevant.

February 2, 2007

more like this please…

Filed under: Social,University Life — cec @ 9:23 am

I mentioned several months ago how academic journals were mostly a scam perpetrate by the publishers on universities.  One of the things that I briefly discussed was how the entire editorial staff of the journal Topology had announced their resignation.  Well, 2006 wrapped up and the former editors of Topology have announced that they will create a new journal called the Journal of Topology (not very creative, but what do you want, they’re mathematicians, not writers).

The new journal will be published by a mathematics society and not Elsevier.  It’s cost?  About 1/3 or Elsevier’s: $570 for an annual, university subscription.

I like this – we need to see more stories like it.

January 30, 2007

Regulation vs Legislation

Filed under: Social — cec @ 9:12 pm

Last week, the president signed an executive order that changes the way that regulations are made. The order establishes a new standard for creating regulations: the agency must show that the market has failed to correct the problem. Most consumer advocates are upset by the move which will make it harder to regulate business that harm the public.

I agree that the order will end up harming the public; however, I also think that the president does have the right to issue the order. Our government is divided into three branches, two are relevant here: congress (the legislative branch) and the presidency (the executive branch). The executive is the only branch with a single outlook – that of the president. All of the executive agencies report to him through the cabinet.

The founders recognized that this singular position and outlook gave the executive branch much more vitality and an ability to act in a unified manner than any other branch. To guard against the president becoming king in all but name, they gave congress the power to legislate. The executive branch has the role of implementing or executing the policies of congress.

With the power to legislate, congress could craft very specific legislation that would require the executive to implement their policies in very specific ways. However, most legislation is not written that specifically, nor should we want it to be. In order to last for decades, legislation relies heavily on the executive rule making process. The rule making process within the executive branch dictates how the laws will be implemented. Rule making is much more flexible and can change more rapidly than could the original legislation. The rule making must still fill the original intent of the law (or the third branch gets involved); but within that context, it is very broad. In the IT area, we have found over the past 5 years or so, that rule making is more worrisome than legislation – after all, legislation is passed with ample representation. Rule making is largely at the whim of the executive in charge at the time.

So, the president, and therefore the executive branch, want to limit new regulations – in some cases, overriding the opinions of professionals in the departments that know the science, the economics and the facts better than the politicians. Should we be upset? Yes – good government depends on expert opinions and not political ideology. Is it improper? No. The fact is, elections do have consequences. If the country voted for a conservative who is more concerned with businesses than the public, then we shouldn’t be surprised when he puts limits on good government practices that favor the public.

Of course, liberals should highlight that fact come election time. We should note that Bush’s own administration produced a report showing that regulations save the country more money than they cost businesses:

A major feature of this report is the estimates of the total costs and benefits of regulations reviewed by OMB. Major Federal regulations reviewed by OMB from October 1, 1993, to September 30, 2003, were examined. The estimated annual benefits range from $63 billion to $169 billion, while the estimated annual costs range from $35 billion to $40 billion. A substantial portion of both benefits and costs is attributable to a handful of clean-air rules that reduce public exposure to fine particulate matter. Technical limitations in these estimates are significant and are discussed in the text of the Report.

Even this report is limited and given the political process involved in producing it, I suspect that it under-represents the benefits and over-represents the costs of regulations.

So here’s my proposal. We accept the fact that the Bush administration is going to interpret and implement federal laws with an eye to making things cheap for businesses at a cost to the public. Between limits on new regulations and attempts to limit torts, the public is getting the short end of the stick, and that needs to change with the next president. When the next president is a Democrat, we need to revise the executive order so that an agency only has to show that a proposed regulation is minimally cost effective (i.e., the cost is less than or equal to the public benefit) before it gets implemented.

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