The Trump Wall, In Context

In January 2018 President Trump requested $25 billion to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

In August, the Government Accountability Office warned that the project could cost more than estimated; but didn't quantify this, so we'll have to go with the figure given.

The US Federal Budget for 2018/19 is $4,407 billion. This is more than expected income so requires a deficit of $985 billion to make up the difference.

The US has a National Debt of $21,600 billion, implying $363 billion in interest charges in 2018/19.

 This chart is to visualise the relative size of the Wall's cost. The Wall is equivalent to 0.57% of the annual budget, or 2.5% of the deficit, or 6.9% of the annual interest on the National Debt.

Cancelling the Wall would make very little difference to the national finances. [UPDATE, 6.1.19: even less, if the current demand for $5.6 billion is agreed.]

The costs and benefits of unauthorised Mexico to US migration seem hard to establish. There are something like 10 - 12 million such migrants [correction: not all Mexican - see comment below] now residing in the US. If many of these represent cheap labour, then that is a benefit to employers; but the cheap labour force will pay little in income tax and may be entitled to supplementary in-work benefits, which is a cost to the State and in effect a subsidy to the employer. Also, wealthy Americans have many clever ways to keep down their tax contributions and are more likely than the average wage earner to put spare money into investments rather than personal expenditure. 

Whereas if restricting migration and foreign imports increases labour wages, then the American working class may be more self-sufficient in income, pay more in taxes and also be more likely to spend spare cash, stimulating demand. Perhaps this could help bring the budget into balance.

If allowed to proceed, the Wall would be one useful test of that theory.

Proportional Representation: Paralysis and Parasites

"I am a great enthusiast for a couple of almost unique pillars of US and UK democracy:  the first past the post principle in designating the winners of elections and the winner takes all notion of governance following the elections.  To anyone who finds these principles unexceptional, I must explain that they run directly against the operative principles of many if not most nations on the Continent, where progressive political theories stressing consensus and inclusiveness have given us executives and legislatures which are utterly incapable of being disruptive. What we get here in Old Europe tends to be coalition governments or power-sharing in which parliamentary majorities are hobbled together by distributing the spoils of office, assigning ministerial portfolios with utter disregard for policy coherence or the competence of the appointees. The stasis in policy results in voter apathy and works directly against the vibrancy of democracy."

- Gilbert Doctorow
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2018/12/20/donald-trump-orders-full-withdrawal-of-us-ground-forces-from-syria-the-establishment-howls-it-disapproval/

"Proportional representation - instead of voting for an MP, like we do in Britain, Weimar Germans voted for a party. Each party was then allocated seats in the Reichstag exactly reflecting (proportional to) the number of people who had voted for it. This sounds fair, but in practice it was a disaster it resulted in dozens of tiny parties, with no party strong enough to get a majority, and, therefore, no government to get its laws passed in the Reichstag. This was a major weakness of the Republic."

- BBC History
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/weimarstrengthweakrev_print.shtml

But the Alternative Vote, whose adoption in the UK the Labour and Conservative parties colluded to block, is not the same thing, and if we are to have a second referendum on anything, this might be one to consider:

https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2011/04/voting-reform-av-first-past-post.html

- I'd be interested to know of any simulations that might help us see the likely outcomes of an AV system. I don't think it would necessarily boost the LibDems - it depends on how they and other parties might reposition themselves and also what new parties might arise.

And after decades of Punch and Judy politics a more focused struggle for the centre might be beneficial.

Weekend Wonders: Amber

A tick grasping a dinosaur feather inside 99 million-year-old Burmese amber. (Image: Peñalver et al., 2017)
https://gizmodo.com/new-evidence-from-ancient-amber-shows-dinosaurs-were-pl-1821213048

When we look at amber we wonder at the creatures often caught up inside, changeless in their warm-coloured, luminous prison. It is the fossilised resin exuded by some plants to protect themselves, and first became abundant around 150 million years ago (mya), though the oldest animals found trapped in amber are some mites dating from 230 mya. In the science fiction film "Jurassic Park" the blood-meal of mosquitoes preserved in ancient amber is used to re-breed dinosaurs. (Insects generally are far more ancient than dinos - anything from 412-479 mya.)

Amber is still being produced today, but it takes millions of years to mutate from a sticky sap, through a hardened stage called copal, to the transparent-stone-like final condition.

The very earliest amber found so far dates from around 320 million years ago (mya) and was found in 2008 in an Illinois coal deposit. This was from the Carboniferous period (359 - 299 mya), long before the the age of dinosaurs (previously said to be 220 - 65 mya - though in 2012 another dinosaur fossil was found dating to 243 mya.)

The Illinois amber discovery is something of a mystery as modern trees and flowering plants came later, in fact many millions of years after dinosaurs first appeared. Until recently, the ancestors of flowering plants that produce seeds in protective ovaries (angiosperms) were believed to date from perhaps 160 mya. But before angiosperms there were gymnosperms (plants carrying seed without covers) such as conifers and ginkos, which started in the late Carboniferous period and so it may be one of them that produced that earliest amber.

Having said that, the emergence of flowering plants and angiosperms is being redated too: last year a scientific team produced a model of the earliest flower, from 140 mya; yet in 2013 fossil plant pollen was found from 240 mya and so angiosperms may have developed in the "Early Triassic (between 252 to 247 million years ago) or even earlier."

The Natural History Museum says that dinosaurs evolved in the Triassic (252-201 mya) when all the world's land mass was clumped together (Pangea); lived though the split in Pangea that created the North Atlantic Ocean; survived the still-mysterious mass extinctions at the end of the Triassic and became far more numerous and various in the Jurassic (201-145 mya); and saw the further splitting of landmasses in the Cretaceous period, and diversification in plants and insects (including the appearance of bees).

So we're still finding out when dinosaurs first saw (and presumably ate from) modern trees and flowering plants. Scientists used to think that dinosaurs never even got to munch grass - but thanks to analysis of fossilised dinosaur poo the origin of grass has been pushed back from 55 mya to 66 mya, and some of its cousins may be much older.

There they are, these specimens, frozen in time; yet our understanding of the past keeps changing.

________________________________________________________________________________
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber#Geological_record
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/pictures/120828-oldest-amber-animals-science-proceedings-arthropod-triassic/
https://www.livescience.com/48663-insect-family-tree-evolution.html
http://www.brost.se/eng/education/facts.html
https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/OI/Documents/March10Amber.pdf
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/carboniferous/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-discover-oldest-known-dinosaur-152807497/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowering_plant
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j24_2/j24_2_16.pdf
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131001191811.htm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40780491
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/when-did-dinosaurs-live.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae#Evolutionary_history

FRIDAY MUSIC: Creature Comforts, by JD

The brief lull between the Christmas festivities and the Hogmanay celebration merits a slightly unusual and different musical offering!

Never Mind The EU, Can The UK Parliament Be Reformed?

In yesterday's post, Dr North referred to a 1973 Newsweek article by Milton Friedman on "barking cats"; the link he gives is now "404: not found", but another copy can be seen here:

https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/friedman_images/Collections/2016c21/NW_02_19_1973.pdf

- and one paragraph stood out, for me:

"The error of supposing that the behavior of social organisms can be shaped at will is widespread. It is the fundamental error of most so-called reformers. It explains why they so often believe that the fault lies in the man, not the “system,” that the way to solve problems is to “throw the rascals out” and put well-meaning people in charge. It explains why their reforms, when ostensibly achieved, so often go astray."

The phrase "throw the rascals out" is often used in connection with the British electoral system, compared favourably with the EU where the electorate cannot dismiss a bad or incompetent Commission.

But does Friedman throw light on a problem we have with the UK Parliament, too?

When the overwhelming majority of MPs are Remainers, most of whom representing constituencies that voted clearly for Leave; and when many of those MPs in their several political parties are doing their best to oppose and subvert the results of a referendum which they repeatedly assured us would be decisive; and when they are visibly upset and angry if reprimanded by impertinent members of Question Time audiences who seem to think that this is a democracy; then should we adapt Mrs Thatcher's judgment* and say:

"The British Parliamentary system as a whole is fundamentally unreformable"?

For if their subversion (and the complex public relations assault they are using to scare, distract and confuse the voters) succeeds, they will call into question the legitimacy of their own power. This is not merely theoretical quibbling. To quote the Scottish play:

"Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate."

Even if it manages to put down revolt - and Government has such powerful tools these days - the relations between rulers and ruled will be deeply tainted.

This is now about more than the EU.

___________________________________________________
*"Statecraft" (2003), p. 321 - "Europe" in the original, not "The British Parliamentary system"

The Cure!

Repeat as required:

                                                                                                             Sackerson, 26.12.2018

Resisting our own creations

"In my broader study of the EU, two apparently unrelated tracts were of huge value to me. The first is one I have used many times, the Milton Friedman article on "barking cats", and the second is the study of the Tennessee Valley Authority by Philip Selznick, which led to the concept of "self-maintenance", the idea that institutions would always act in their own self-interests, even if this meant acting against the reasons for which they were established."

- Dr Richard North (http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87096)

And this is a problem for reification generally.

Once a human function - educating the young, caring for the sick, supporting the weaker and less fortunate - has been turned into an organisation, the thing has a life of its own and a desire to survive. It is a multicellular organism, composed of individual humans who each have their incomes and career prospects to consider. Attempts to steer it back onto its proper course are seen as threats, and can be opposed with the wealth and power of a great collective enterprise.

This is why liberty matters. In Britain, though not in many other countries, the citizen can teach his own children, and manage many legal aspects of his affairs without a solicitor, even representing himself in a court of law if he so wishes. The State may not like it, but it has to justify itself to the common man and keep its own behaviour within bounds, so long as judges maintain their independence.

That is the little flame that must be kept alight. Even if we ourselves may be cells in the body of the monster.