Regulation

Warren Buffett: Baptist and Bootlegger

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:30:00 -0500

In 19th-century America, there was a concerted effort to ban alcohol sales on Sunday. “Blue laws,” intended to protect the sanctity and sobriety of the Sabbath, were pushed by what seemed like an odd alliance: Baptists and bootleggers. Baptists backed the ban publicly on moral and religious grounds, while the bootleggers lobbied for the ban privately to boost their own bottom lines. Blocking legal alcohol purchases for even one day each week meant more opportunities for their illegal sales. Bans were enacted state by state, and many blue laws still exist (in Arkansas, Indiana, Minnesota, and Mississippi, for example), although restrictions have been steadily disappearing in recent years. Economist Bruce Yandle immortalized the phrase “Bootleggers and Baptists” in a 1983 Regulation magazine article of the same name, making the point that ostensibly opposing sides will happily collude when it serves their mutual interests. The old paradox continues in modern-day Washington. Politicians enrich their friends and allies—and sometimes themselves—by coming off as earnest “Baptists” for a worthy cause. Lobbyists for big corporate interests, by contrast, are widely considered bootleggers, no matter how nobly they cloak their arguments. This arrangement has created an opening for a third way: What if a capitalist could somehow manage to sound like a Baptist? Consider Warren Buffett. Often seen as a grandfatherly figure above the rough-and-tumble of politics, Buffett appears to be immune to the folly and excess of finance as well. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska, in a house he purchased in 1958 for $31,000. He made a fortune for himself and his investors at the business conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway through the humble-sounding approach of value-based investing. He uses folksy expressions: “You don’t know who’s swimming naked,” he said during the height of the financial crisis, “until the tide goes out.” He frequently takes to the nation’s op-ed pages with populist-sounding arguments, such as his August 2010 plea in The New York Times for the government to stop “coddling” the “super-rich” and start raising their taxes.  Buffett the Bootlegger But this image does not always reflect reality. Warren Buffett is very much a political entrepreneur; his best investments are often in political relationships. In recent years, Buffett has used taxpayer money as a vehicle to even greater profit and wealth. Indeed, the success of some of his biggest bets and the profitability of some of his largest investments rely on government largesse and “coddling” with taxpayer money. During the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, Buffett became an important symbol on television. He filled the role of fiscal adult, a responsible father figure in the midst of irresponsible Wall Street speculators. While pushing for calm and advocating specific market interventions in both public and private, however, he was also investing (sometimes quietly) so he could profit once his policy advice was implemented. This put Buffett in the position of being both Baptist and bootlegger, praised for his moral character while shaking his finger all the way to the bank. In the summer of 2008, when several investment houses and the government-sponsored mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac teetered on the brink of financial collapse, Buffett was “uncharacteristically quiet,” as the London Guardian observed. It was only on September 23 that he became a highly visible player in the drama, investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, which was overleveraged and short on cash. Buffett’s play gave the investment bank a much-needed cash infusion, making a heck of a deal for himself in return: Berkshire Hathaway received preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend yield and an attractive option to buy another $5 billion in stock at $115 a share. Wall Street was on fire, and Buffett was running toward the flames. But he was doing so with the expectation that the fire department (that is, the federal government) was right behind him w[...]

DFW Reason Readers: Come Hear Me Talk About Liquor Laws

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:34:00 -0500

(image) Tonight I will be talking about "Loony Liquor Laws" at a Liberty on the Rocks event in Euless, which is about midway between Dallas and Fort Worth. Among other examples of alcohol-control insanity, I will discuss Pennsylvania's "wine kiosks" (one of which can be seen on the right) and Texas restrictions on beer marketing that were recently overturned on First Amendment grounds. The event is open to the public and admission is free. Here are the details:

Liberty on the Rocks

8 to 11 p.m., Thursday, February 2

Pockets Restaurant

210 South Industrial Boulevard

Euless, TX 76040

817-858-0507

What's Going On with Google's New Privacy Policy?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:41:00 -0500

Last week, Google announced what Pablo Chavez, director of public policy for the company, called "the most extensive user notification effort" in the company's history, reports Politico. These notifications advised users to upcoming changes in Google's privacy policy—specifically, the consolidation of separate policies across services into one umbrella statement. Responses varied among tech bloggers and reporters. Some were upset: Mat Honan at Gizmodo was apparently so scandalized that he commissioned a visual realization of the true evil at the hearts of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The tech blog VentureBeat declared Google a goner. Critics charged that "by combining its services, Google makes anonymity more difficult" (VentureBeat), and that "every day, Google pushes harder to keep users inside its ecosystem, discouraging them from venturing elsewhere whenever possible" (Lifehacker). Members of Congress spoke out as well, as Infosecurity reports: Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), co-chairmen of the Congressional Bi-partisan Privacy Caucus, sent a letter on Friday to the FTC asking the agency to probe whether the lack of an opt-out provision in Google’s new privacy policy, which allows the company to track activities of users across most of its services, violates the company’s consent agreement reached last year over the Buzz social network. These are all serious charges, but they also fail to acknowledge that users can avoid data collection by signing out of Google while using search, YouTube, and other products; by creating multiple log-ins; by ticking the "off the record" option for Gchat; by disabling search history; and by tinkering with other options in their preferences. This also isn't the first time legislators have seen a problem with Internet user privacy and taken it upon themselves to flesh out the perfect set of regulations to keep user data private. In Reason's June 2004 issue, Declan McCullagh summarized a similar effort: Congress has convened dozens of hearings on Internet privacy issues, and in April 2002 Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) introduced his Online Personal Privacy Act. The now-defunct bill would have regulated how Internet service providers, commercial Web sites, and noncommercial sites supported by advertising or product sales collect information about customers. The legislation covered "personally identifiable information," including names, e-mail addresses, and numeric I.P. addresses. The catch, McCullagh explained, is that Congress’ April 2002 Online Personal Privacy Act and Europe’s opt-in mandates from the same time period are one-size-fits-all solutions to a problem that is lent complexity by the many different types of businesses that provide services—some of which they need to advertise—across a multitude of markets. Google argues that by consolidating user data, the company is more likely to provide search results and advertisements that are relevant to the user's needs. It's unclear yet where all this leads. Congress and the FTC may step in again, as they did with Google's Buzz fiasco from last year. Privacy observers may simply drop the whole thing after they see the upside to the new policy. Considering that implementation of the changes is still a full month away, we'll have to wait and see what happens. More from Reason on privacy.[...]

Sativex: Fast for Patients, Slow for Potheads

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:56:00 -0500

A Scientific American article about Sativex, a cannabis extract spray that the FDA may approve for treatment of cancer pain after clinical trials are completed in 2014 or so, assures us (citing "experts") that the product has "little potential for abuse": Because the drug is delivered through ingestion, rather than smoking, it would take much longer to have an effect — at least an hour, compared with the minutes it takes to get high after smoking marijuana, said Margaret Haney, a professor of clinical neurobiology at Columbia University. This means drug users seeking a high would be less likely to abuse it. "Smoking is a really effective way to get a chemical into the brain," Haney said. The mouth spray "is a far safer administration," she said. Actually, Sativex, which contains delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), is sprayed under the tongue or on the inside of the cheek and is meant to be absorbed through the mucous membranes of the mouth. Hence it has a faster onset of action than Marinol, a capsule containing synthetic THC that was approved by the FDA in 1985. "Following administration of Sativex (four sprays)," says Drugs.com, "both THC and CBD are absorbed fairly rapidly and appear in the plasma within 15 minutes after single oromucosal administration." By comparison, the effects of Marinol, which is absorbed by the gastrointestinal system, are felt after 30 minutes to an hour—similar to the lag for swallowed cannabis. Faster action is one of Sativex's advantages over Marinol, both because patients feel relief sooner and because they can more easily titrate their doses, taking an additional spray after 15 minutes or so if the initial dose proves inadequate. They can also avoid taking too much, which is hard when you swallow a standardized dose whose full effects may not be felt for hours. (A related issue with Marinol: It is processed by the liver, producing a THC variant that may compound any unpleasant psychoactive effects.) Sativex's manufacturer, GW Pharmaceuticals, brags that "the spray is quickly absorbed through the oral mucosa, is easy to use for patients and enables them to optimally adjust their dosage."  While it's still true that smoking (or vaporizing) cannabis delivers THC and other active ingredients faster than spraying an extract in your mouth, people have been known to "abuse" pot cookies and brownies, which make impatient cannabis consumers wait substantially longer for a buzz than Sativex does. A more plausible reason why Sativex probably won't attract many recreational users: Why go to the trouble of obtaining an expensive prescription drug when you can get more bang for your buck from the original plant? But that question also applies to patients, especially since vaporization, like an oral spray, avoids the hazards of smoking. Another possible advantage of marijuana is that its components may have a synergistic effect that can't be replicated by one or two ingredients. Not surprisingly, GW Pharmaceuticals, as channeled by Scientific American, sees that feature as a bug: While marijuana is a hodgepodge of about 64 different substances, Sativex is composed mainly of two ingredients: THC and another cannabinoid called CBD. The latter component is thought to ameliorate some of the side effects of THC, including the high that marijuana users feel. Notice that the "high," an elevation of mood that seriously ill people might actually welcome, is treated as an unwanted side effect. And how does GW Pharmaceuticals know that THC and CBD entirely account for marijuana's beneficial effects? Unimed, Marinol's manufacturer, thought THC was all that patients needed. In terms of marketing the drug to bureaucrats, however, GW Pharmaceuticals seems to know what it's doing. So far it has won approval of Sativex in the U.K., Spain, Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, and Canada for treatment of neuropathic pain and spasticity caused by multiple sclerosis. Although the distinctions drawn by the compa[...]

Reason.tv: LA Forces Condoms onto Porn Actors! (Nanny of the Month, Jan 2012)

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:24:00 -0500

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This month's killjoys are bent on making the Big Apple dry (or not?), and banning electronic (a.k.a. "fake") cigarettes from public places (wait, isn't the anti-smoking movement supposed to help addicts kick the habit?).

But the new year's top slot goes to the City of Angels mayor who's cracking down on those naughty devils in the adult film industry by mandating that actors wear condoms (what could possibly go wrong!).

Presenting Reason.tv's Nanny of the Month for January 2012: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa!

Approximately 1.22 minutes.

"Nanny of the Month" is written and produced by Ted Balaker. Opening animation by Meredith Bragg.

Go here to watch previous "Nanny of the Month" episodes.

Visit Reason.tv for downloadable versions of this and all our videos, and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new content is posted.

DFW Reason Readers: Come Hear Me Talk About Liquor Laws

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:56:00 -0500

(image) I will be talking about "Loony Liquor Laws" at a Liberty on the Rocks event in Euless, which is about midway between Dallas and Fort Worth, this Thursday night. Among other examples of alcohol-control insanity, I will discuss Pennsylvania's "wine kiosks" (one of which can be seen on the right) and Texas restrictions on beer marketing that were recently overturned on First Amendment grounds. The event is open to the public and admission is free. Here are the details:

Liberty on the Rocks

8 to 11 p.m., Thursday, February 2

Pockets Restaurant

210 South Industrial Boulevard

Euless, TX 76040

817-858-0507

L.A.’s Insane War on the Porn Industry

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0500

OK boys, strap on your rubbers, it's raining nonsense. The Los Angeles City Council voted 9-1 to require male porn actors to wrap their rascals and wear condoms when they're shooting. And when they're filming. The move is being closely watched by other filth hamlets looking to "protect" their citizenry from disease, pregnancy, and profit, and will ultimately force this long-standing pillar of entertainment away from L.A.'s safe and welcoming bosom. Pornography is not real life. It’s neither instructional nor realistic and neither end has ever been the purpose of good buggery videos. Porn is supposed to transport you to a naughty, secret garden where your privates are free to do as they wish in the confines of your own sinful clutches. You should be free from moral distraction when you've got a fistful of the one you love. Seeing a bratwurst wrapped in red latex? It's fine for a public service announcement in the food-preparation industry, but it's a real mood killer when you've taken matters into your own hands. The last thing you want to think about (other than gangrenous dying kittens) is how Indiana Bones is safe from Ginger Lynn's diseased temple of poon. It kills the moment! Porn actors are generously endowed, ready at the drop of a kumquat, with pristine, chancre-free knobs and buttons. A condom screams disease. Worse still, it triggers the evolutionary mechanism for disgust, and I don't know if you've tried rolling in the hay while sniffing bad lunchmeat, but it blocks your business from further arousal. Worse than the emotional scars and misfirings of your Speedo’s contents, the lucrative adult industry will find a home away from the hubris-and-hibiscus-scented streets of L.A., and maybe that's why the only dissenting vote came from San Fernando Valley councilman Michael Englander. Given that the valley is the epicenter of the industry, Englander probably has a few turns as a fluffer on his resume for all we know. No judgments! The porn industry has treated the Valley and greater L.A. well for decades—lube sales alone have funded many an after-school program in Van Nuys. For a city with an ongoing budget deficit and a pension crisis that will make Deep Throat look like a Disney movie, I wouldn’t be in a rush to chase out of one of Los Angeles’ longest-lasting success stories. If destroying fantasy, generating disgust, and killing jobs (and payroll taxes!) weren't reasons enough to rethink the ban, chew on this: Requiring condoms on male adult performers may well create a false sense of health and safety. Latter-day Long Dong Silvers will be perceived as having cleaner wieners and they'll then go out and ring the bells of whomever will have them when they're off duty (unless the city amends the ordinance requiring said studs to register their weapons whenever they're in use, on or off set). That will conceivably spread hepatitis A through Z; herpes simplex, complex, and multiplex; and worse to a number of falsely lulled receptacles. The condom nonsense is an example of the hostile business environment that consumes the great state of California like a mega-dose of chlamydia. It is a worthless distraction that will never have the intended effect of sterilizing an industry that already has every reason to keep its participants’ naughty bits clean enough to eat off of. If actors do wear state-mandated prophylactics, porn sales will suffer, and jobs will be lost. And just what do you think idled porn stars, too broke to buy rubbers by the barrel full, are going to do to while away the dull, boring hours between collecting unemployment checks? Kennedy is host of 98.7 FM’s Music in the Morning in Los Angeles and has an emotional allergy to latex.[...]

Elizabeth Warren Earns $429,000, Worth Millions but Not Part of 1 Percent

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:39:00 -0500

There's rich and there's really rich. As the poet and well-paid insurance executive Wallace Stevens supposedly once said, "There's a difference between appreciating art and owning it." So take pity on Harvard's Elizabeth Warren, the scold of the 1 Percent who is currently running for the Senate in Massachusetts after getting hosed by the Obama administration. Warren is widely credited with pushing for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would simplify credit offerings so that all of us idiots who bought houses we couldn't afford could blame somebody else. Faced with opposition from Republicans, Obama tossed Warren aside as the first hea of the CFPA. Buzzfeed reports that Warren, like Marie Antoinette and Bruce Springsteen, only likes to play poor: “I realize there are some wealthy individuals – I’m not one of them, but some wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios" she told [MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell]. Hard to see how Warren wouldn't be, by most standards, wealthy, according to the Personal Financial Disclosure form she filed to run for Senate shows that she's worth as much as $14.5 million. She earned more than $429,000 from Harvard last year alone for a total of about $700,000, and lives in a house worth $5 million. She also has a portfolio of investments in stocks and bonds worth as as much as $8 million, according to the form, which lists value ranges for each investment. The bulk of it is in funds managed by TIAA-CREF. More here. Making a ton of dough - she's well into the 1 Percent of income earners based on her salary alone - doesn't mean she can't understand with special care the problems of the rest of us. But it's worth pointing out that Warren is in fact out of touch with those for whom she claims to speak. She consistently says that folks "didn't know the deal" when they signed up for credit cards that charged interest on balances, mortgages that required monthly payments, or loans that charged interest. She is the embodiment of a paternalist (maternalist?) who thinks that jes' plain folks are dolts who are always getting screwed by mustache-twirling bankers that exist mostly in the imagination of Faulkner's Jason Compson. Hence, her longstanding desire to "simplify" the offerings of financial institutions down to a few types of loans, all of which can be read "by the average American" in a couple of minutes. It may be quaint for a Harvard prof to want to help the great unwashed, but if she seriously thinks that people overextended on houses and more because they didn't understand their credit terms, she's fighting the wrong battle and we'll all be the poorer for having fewer credit options. And for those of us who don't make $429,000 a year, or live in $5 million homes, or have as much as $8 million in stocks and bonds, that's not good. Hat Tip: Instapundit. Here's some vid of Warren commiserating with another honorary 99 Percenter, Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC:  [...]

Virginia Should Fight the Federal Health Care Takeover

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:30:00 -0500

If you're married to a gambling addict, you don't do him any favors by lending him money or telling the bank you were the one who blew the mortgage at the track. Likewise, Virginia should not enable Washington's addiction to big government, epitomized by the federal takeover of health care, by setting up a state insurance exchange. State lawmakers across the country are debating whether, and how, to set up such exchanges, which are encouraged by the 2010 federal health-care overhaul, or let the feds do it for them. The exchanges will act as clearinghouses where consumers can compare health insurance policies, a bit like the way you can compare travel deals on Expedia.com. Here in Virginia, legislators differ on whether the exchange should be an entity unto itself, or an arm of the State Corporation Commission. The correct answer is: neither. Virginia should not set up such an exchange at all. The commonwealth has nothing to gain by doing so, and a lot to lose. For one thing, the Supreme Court might rule the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional later this year. If so, then the money and effort to create the state exchange will have been wasted. And setting up the large bureaucracy required to run the exchange would cost a lot of money—perhaps tens of millions of dollars. Utah already has a small exchange that, as Kaiser Health news reported, "accepts any insurers and sets few rules." Yet it still costs $500,000 a year to operate. The other existing state exchange, in Massachusetts, was established thanks to a certain GOP presidential candidate whose name starts with R and rhymes with Omni. More comprehensive and intrusive than Utah's, it costs $30 million a year. As Virginia Democrats have argued about some of Gov. Bob McDonnell's transportation proposals, setting up a health-insurance exchange here would steal scarce resources from education, environmental protection, and public safety. Or Virginia could fund the exchange with a surtax on insurers—and drive up premiums as a result. Of course, the high court might rule in favor of ObamaCare. If that happens, then Virginia can always create an exchange later. But it still shouldn't. Any state exchange will have to abide by the Obama administration's directives. Virginia cannot create a free-market exchange that allows every kind of insurance and coverage plan. (Utah's exchange, which originally did essentially that, likely will not survive federal scrutiny.) To participate in an exchange, insurers will have to include a variety of mandated benefits. The Department of Health and Human Services has let it be known states can add more mandates than ObamaCare requires, or adopt a single-payer system, but they cannot have fewer. Those mandates will drive up premiums. And high premiums have discouraged consumers in both Utah and Massachusetts from buying policies through those states' exchanges, even though Massachusetts offers substantial subsidies. (Massachusetts provides "complete" or "substantial" premium subsidies for individuals making up to 300 percent of the poverty level.) An analysis by Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, for instance, notes that "high cost was the primary reason for non-participation" in Utah, and the Massachusetts exchange "has been unable to meet small employers' most pressing need: lower insurance prices." What happens if a state creates an exchange that Washington disapproves of? The federal government storms in and takes over. If Washington is going to dictate the terms, why should Virginia foot the bill? That bill almost certainly will be far higher than anyone has projected, and not just for the exchange. Far from "bending the cost curve down," ObamaCare is likely to drive health-care costs through the roof. This is precisely what happened under RomneyCare in Massachusetts: From 200[...]

Oklahoma Moves to Ban "Food or Products Which Use Aborted Human Fetuses"

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:37:00 -0500

A new Oklahoma bill would ban "the sale or manufacture of food or products which contain aborted human fetuses." Seriously. Oklahomans can thank state senator Ralph Shortey for introducing this vital bill. Shortey has also introduced some other unconventional bills, like expanding asset forfeiture against undocumented immigrants, attacking birthright citizenship, and even pandering to birthers. The entire bill (SB 1418) is posted below: AS INTRODUCED An Act relating to food; prohibiting the manufacture or sale of food or products which use aborted human fetuses; providing for codification; and providing an effective date. BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA: SECTION 1.     NEW LAW     A new section of law to be codified in the Oklahoma Statutes as Section 1-1150 of Title 63, unless there is created a duplication in numbering, reads as follows: No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients. SECTION 2.  This act shall become effective November 1, 2012. Obvious jokes aside, this bill is essentially a backdoor ban on embryonic stem cell research. The phrase "any other product intended for human consumption" is decidedly vague. After all people "consume" medicines, vaccines, and other therapies, so those treatments developed from embryonic stem cells could also be banned. This would stymie scientific research for embyronic stem cells, which have significant potential, like literally helping the blind see. Indeed, while Shortey admits he hasn't heard of any companies using fetuses in their products, he believes the media isn't focusing on the stem cell ban: People are thinking that this has to do with fetuses being chopped up and put in our burritos...That's not the case. It's beyond that.  There are companies that are using embryonic stem cells to research and basically cause a chemical reaction to determine whether or not something tastes good or not. The bill's inspiration came after Shortey read an email from the pro-life Children of God for Life, which claimed that PepsiCo was using embryonic stem cells to test its products. More specifically, HEK 293, a stem cell commonly used in research. Apparently, PepsiCo was partnering with Senomyx, a biotech firm, to test taste receptors. The Miami New Times has more on this R&D: The company is using isolated human taste receptors in the form of proteins to identify flavors and enhance them. Gwen Rosenberg, vice president of investor relations and corporate communications for Senomyx, described the process as "basically a robotic tasting system." She depicted rows of little plastic square dishes with hundreds of tiny indentations in each dish. A protein is placed in each indentation, then a flavor. If the protein reacts to the flavor, the results are charted. If the new flavor (of which the company has more than 800,000) is successful with the protein test, the company then conducts taste tests with (live) adult humans. In some respects, this bill is similar to Oklahoma's ban on Sharia law (which was just overturned). Both prohibit something many Americans are against (eating babies, Sharia law), while cloaking a more unpopular provision. While the ban on Sharia went viral, there was little mention of how that constitutional amendment would have also outlawed considering international law when deciding court cases: The courts shall not look to other legal precepts of other nations and cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia law. Reason on stem cell research. Ronald Bailey on how stem cells, unlike S[...]

Big Brother Is Now Your Diet Coach

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:30:00 -0500

A new federal effort called SuperTracker may sound like a program to keep extremely close tabs on suspected terrorists or other enemies of the state, but it isn’t—unless those enemies also happen to be healthy-minded consumers intent on dropping a few pounds. A product of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP ), SuperTracker is an online tool located at choosemyplate.gov that helps users set and maintain dietary goals. Create a user profile at the site, and you can track the calories you consume each day, record your daily physical activities, set weight management goals, and see how close you come to eating the USDA’s recommended daily allowance of dark green vegetables. SuperTracker, an expanded version of previous tools called the MyPyramid Tracker and the MyPyramid Menu Planner, debuted in December 2011. In its first month, it reportedly attracted more than 700,000 registered users. Any day now, then, we should expect to see either the end of the obesity epidemic or SuperDuperTracker, an even more intrusive and hands-on government effort to engineer our behavior. If you’re a betting man, bet on the latter. Indeed, the history of government dietary advice is a history of failure and escalation. It started in 1894, when Congress funded research efforts by W.O. Atwater, a professor of chemistry at Wesleyan University, to determine the nutritive value and costs of various foods. At the time, a typical working man required approximately 3,500 calories and .28 lbs. of protein a day to fuel his efforts according to Atwater’s calculations, and the average American family had only around $250 a year to devote to food. Food scarcity wasn’t necessarily a problem—Atwater spent two pages in his final report noting how much “valuable food” people were “throwing away”—but the project’s primary goal was to help consumers understand how to obtain the most nutrition for their dollar. We were a hungry nation back then. After Atwater’s pioneering efforts, a steady stream of government pamphlets and posters urged America to fuel itself more strategically, but ultimately, the country’s poor eating habits persisted. In 1941, alarmed at the fact that U.S. Army officials had found that approximately one in 10 draft inductees were unfit for service due to disabilities directly or indirectly related to nutrition, President Roosevelt organized the National Nutrition Conference for Defense. This conference produced the conceit of “Recommended Daily Allowances,” the specific number of calories one should consume each day, along with daily targets for nine essential nutrients too. Next came the National Wartime Nutrition Guide and its conceit of the Basic 7 food groups. Like Atwater’s 1894 report, the National Wartime Nutrition Guide was aimed at people who had little to eat—its purpose was to show how to “maintain good nutrition under rationing.” In the decades that followed World War II, however, it was America’s growing affluence rather than the USDA’s nutritional advice that made an impact on America’s diet. In 1940, families spent approximately 20.7 percent of their income on food. By 1980, that number had dropped to 13.2 percent. The daily number of calories the average American consumed was rising, and malnutrition and the diseases associated with it were no longer a widespread problem. Instead, obesity, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and tooth decay had emerged as the new health scourges to conquer. In the pages of The New York Times, the head of the USDA’s Human Nutrition Center warned that “killer diseases in epidemic proportion” were afflicting America, and that only “only far-reaching public health measures [could] control the contagion.” The [...]

How Much Is an Astronaut’s Life Worth?

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:30:00 -0500

If we could put a man on the Moon, why can’t we put a man on the Moon? Starting with near zero space capability in 1961, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) put men on our companion world in eight years. Yet despite vastly superior technology and hundreds of billions of dollars in subsequent spending, the agency has been unable to send anyone else farther than low Earth orbit ever since.  Why? Because we insist that our astronauts be as safe as possible. Keeping astronauts safe merits significant expenditure. But how much? There is a potentially unlimited set of testing procedures, precursor missions, technological improvements, and other protective measures that could be implemented before allowing human beings to once again try flying to other worlds. Were we to adopt all of them, we would wind up with a human spaceflight program of infinite cost and zero accomplishment. In recent years, the trend has moved in precisely that direction, with NASA’s manned spaceflight effort spending more and more to accomplish less and less. If we are to achieve anything going forward, we have to find some way to strike a balance between human life and mission accomplishment.  What we need is a quantitative criterion to assess what constitutes a rational expenditure to avert astronaut risk. In plain English, we need to answer a basic question: How much is an astronaut’s life worth? The Worth of an Astronaut The life of an astronaut is intrinsically precious, but no more so than that of anyone else. Let’s therefore consider how much other government programs spend to save people’s lives. Based on data from hundreds of programs, policy analyst John D. Graham and his colleagues at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis found in 1997 that the median cost for lifesaving expenditures and regulations by the U.S. government in the health care, residential, transportation, and occupational areas ranges from about $1 million to $3 million spent per life saved in today’s dollars. The only marked exception to this pattern occurs in the area of environmental health protection (such as the Superfund program) which costs about $200 million per life saved.  Graham and his colleagues call the latter kind of inefficiency “statistical murder,” since thousands of additional lives could be saved each year if the money were used more cost-effectively. To avoid such deadly waste, the Department of Transportation has a policy of rejecting any proposed safety expenditure that costs more than $3 million per life saved. That ceiling therefore may be taken as a high-end estimate for the value of an American’s life as defined by the U.S. government. But astronauts are not just anyone. They are highly trained personnel in whom the government has invested tens of millions of dollars (the exact figure varies from astronaut to astronaut). Some, such as former fighter pilots, have received much more training than others. Let us therefore err on the high side and assign a value of $50 million per astronaut, including intrinsic worth and training. Looking at the matter this way can provide some useful guidance for weighing risk against expenditure in the human spaceflight program. The issue is well illustrated by the case of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Deserters In January 2004, Sean O’Keefe, then NASA’s administrator, announced that he was canceling the agency’s planned space shuttle mission to save, repair, and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope, thereby sentencing the Hubble to death by equipment failure and eventual total destruction upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere due to orbital decay. According to O’Keefe, the February 2003 explosion of the space shuttle Columbia showed how risky such tele[...]

How to Make Meth Production More Dangerous

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:52:00 -0500

(image) State and federal restrictions on purchases of pseudoephedrine, aimed at curtailing illicit meth production, seem to have had two major effects (aside from inconveniencing cold and allergy sufferers): They have increased the share of the market controlled by Mexican cartels, which do not have to buy pseudoephedrine by the box at Walgreens, and they have helped make the "shake and bake" method, which is simpler and uses less pseudoephedrine, the leading process for domestic production. The upshot is a lot more do-it-yourself production for personal use, using a technique that is more likely to cause injuries because it involves combining volatile chemicals in a two-liter soda bottle that you hold in your hand. By 2010, A.P. reports, 80 percent of meth manufacturing busts by the DEA involved the shake-and-bake method. As a result, it says, hospitals in areas where meth is popular are seeing a surge in burns associated with incompetent meth production:

If the person mixing the noxious brew makes the slightest error, such as removing the cap too soon or accidentally perforating the plastic, the concoction can explode, searing flesh and causing permanent disfigurement, blindness or even death.

An Associated Press survey of key hospitals in the nation's most active meth states showed that up to a third of patients in some burn units were hurt while making meth, and most were uninsured. The average treatment costs $6,000 per day. And the average meth patient's hospital stay costs $130,000 — 60 percent more than other burn patients, according to a study by doctors at a burn center in Kalamazoo, Mich....

Larger meth labs have been bursting into flame for years, usually in basements, backyard sheds or other private spaces. But those were fires that people could usually escape. Using the shake-and-bake method, drugmakers typically hold the flammable concoction up close, causing burns from the waist to the face.

"You're holding a flame-thrower in your hands," said Jason Grellner of the Franklin County, Mo., Sheriff's Department....

"From what we see on the medical side, that's the primary reason the numbers seem to be going up: greater numbers of producers making smaller batches," said Dr. Michael Smock, director of the burn unit at Mercy Hospital St. Louis....

Indiana had 89 meth-related injuries during the 10-year period ending in 2009. The state has had 70 in the last 23 months, mostly from shake-and-bake labs.

There is little evidence that the pseudoephedrine crackdown has curtailed meth use, which peaked years before limits on the decongestant became common. Now it looks like drug warriors can't even claim that shifting production to the big Mexican suppliers reduced the local hazards associated with making meth. 

Previous Reason coverage of shake-and-bake meth here.

California Supreme Court to Resolve Questions About Regulating Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:59:00 -0500

(image) This week the California Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases that should help clarify the rules for supplying medical marijuana. In October the 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned Long Beach's licensing system for dispensaries, saying it conflicted with the federal Controlled Substances Act because it went "beyond decriminalization into authorization." In November the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that California's laws allowing medical use of cannabis do not bar local governments from banning dispensaries within their jurisdictions. The first decision made regulation of dispensaries legally problematic, while the second offered a straightforward way to avoid the hassle. The upshot was a boost for local bans. In Los Angeles, for example, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich is pushing a "gentle ban" on medical marijuana that would allow cultivation by patients and caregivers but prohibit over-the-counter sales.

If Poker Is a Public Health Issue, What Isn't?

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:48:00 -0500

In a front-page story published yesterday, The New York Times notes that the Justice Department's recent reversal concerning the reach of the Wire Act may encourage states to legalize online poker and other forms of Internet gambling. While the Times suggests the payoff for state treasuries will be modest, it also notes that legalization will help protect consumers: Supporters of online gambling say the current estimates may undercount how many people would play poker online. Many of the forecasts are based on how many people have played on illegal Web sites in the past. But placing bets on illegal Web sites requires a leap of faith — that the electronic cards are shuffled fairly, that other players cannot see your hand and that the Web site will pay you if you win. Legal, well-regulated Web sites, supporters say, would attract more players. In fact, the proposal to legalize online poker in Iowa is more about protecting consumers than about raising money, said State Senator Jeff Danielson, a Democrat from the Cedar Falls area who is drafting a bill. “We are not doing this to expand our state budget," he said. "Our purpose is to make sure every Iowan who wants to play poker has a fair game, has protections, and, if they win, is able to retain those earning in a fair and safe way." So far, so good. But the Times immediately adds that "Iowa has studied the potential impact of online poker on public health." In what sense is poker a "public health" issue? The 2011 study to which the Times refers, "Internet Poker: A Public Health Perspective," explains: Numerous studies have shown associations between problem gambling and a variety of adverse consequences or comorbid conditions including substance use and abuse, emotional and mental health problems, physical health problems, relationship difficulties, criminal behavior, financial problems, and loss of productivity… As with many other conditions, the adverse consequences associated with problem gambling behaviors affect not only the gambler but also the gamblers’ social groups such as family, friends, coworkers, and community members. In a recent survey, 22% of adult Iowans said they have been negatively affected by the gambling behavior of a family member, friend, or someone else they know. See? Heavy gambling, itself a "condition," may lead to health problems, and its consequences may affect other people. Hence poker is a public health issue. This sort of slippery reasoning is troubling, notwithstanding the fact that the Iowa report is a pretty evenhanded discussion of how legalization might affect gambling patterns. A concept of "public health" that is broad enough to encompass poker is broad enough to encompass anything. The phrase becomes synonymous with "public welfare" or “the common good," an empty vessel big enough to accommodate all manner of meddling. But while it is generally understood that different people have different concepts of public welfare or the common good, based on value judgments as well as facts, "public health" lends a quasi-medical, pseudoscientific patina to moralistic and paternalistic policies, making them seem like the products of empirical investigation and expert knowledge, not to be questioned by laymen. Add to that illusion of objectivity the assumption that "public health" threats require a government response (an assumption that stems from the field’s roots in fighting communicable diseases), and you have a pretty potent recipe for tyranny. For more on this theme, see my 2007 Reason essay "An Epidemic of Meddling," which cites gambling as an example of public health's wide reach. The idea that poker is analogous to malaria seemed novel in [...]

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