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A lot of Americans express unhappiness about their choices in the 2016 Presidential election.

Were things better in the good old days? I’m listening to Means of Ascent by Robert Caro. The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer describes Johnson as having promised American voters not to involve this nation in a real war in Vietnam, e.g., saying “We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves” prior to the 1964 election. Johnson also promised not to bomb North Vietnam. As soon as he was reelected, he sent in hundreds of thousands of “American boys” and also started the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign.

Today we complain about things that politicians might say to get votes. In 1948 Lyndon Johnson simply manipulated the vote count through fraud (1990 NY Times article summarizing this part of the book).

From the Means of Ascent:

“I have been unable to save much money in my life. I have been in politics, and in politics an honest man does not get rich.” —Sam Rayburn [one of the most powerful American politicians of the 20th century] (whose savings at his death totaled $ 15,000)

Some voters are upset that the Clintons have become one of the wealthiest families on the planet as a consequence of political “service” to the American people. Yet Johnson earned money for his family through exploiting his role as a Representative to get a valuable broadcast license and spectrum monopoly (Slate). After that, people who wanted to buy influence or favors from Johnson would simply buy advertising on the radio or TV stations that were technically owned by his wife. The dollar amounts were small compared to what the Clintons have obtained, but the connection between the money and the political position was similar.

Where today’s politicians have to ladle out hundreds of billions of dollars in benefits to a broad class of beneficiaries in order to get votes and campaign funds, Caro describes Johnson as corruptly steering government contracts to Brown and Root, whose executives in turn made sure that the company and its subcontractors funded the campaigns of Johnson and his cronies. This kind of straight-up corruption was actually a lot less damaging to the economy compared to our current system of paying for today’s votes with tomorrow’s trillions. From this one could argue that things worked better in the good old days, but not that the good old days featured less corruption.

Upset that politicians today are “lying”? While a Congressman in World War II, Johnson went into somewhere between 0 and 13 minutes of air combat as an observer in a U.S. B-26 bomber (see this story for how it might have been 0; Caro says 13). He did this for undisguised political advantage. He spun this into a tale of being in combat for at least three months on multiple missions. Think that politics drives U.S. military decisions? Johnson was awarded the Silver Star for being baggage on one flight; Caro says that the pilots and gunners on the flight were not awarded any medals.

The biographer loves his subject, but not enough to pretend that American politics in the middle of the 20th Century was clean, honest, or pretty.

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The world has been getting richer but Venezuela has been in the news lately for going in the opposite direction (Slate). It might be that the issue is as simple as a growing population and oil revenues that haven’t kept up (i.e., perhaps Hugo Chavez would be regarded as an economic genius if oil were worth $200 per barrel). Yet the things that Venezuelans voted for and implemented weren’t actually all that radical. They expanded their government’s role in allocating housing and food, for example, and subsidized various things that they thought everyone should be entitled to. This isn’t obviously different than what the U.S. government does, for example. I’m wondering if the rapid decline of Venezuela shows that a country’s economic prosperity is more fragile today than 50 years ago. Skilled workers can emigrate while using air travel and telecommunications to keep in touch with friends and family (see “Dumb towns getting dumber; smart towns getting smarter?” from 2006, regarding mobility within the U.S.). Capital is more mobile than in the past. If a country is only a slightly worse place to do business than competitors there can be a dramatic decline that wouldn’t have happened in the mid-20th century when most of these political ideas regarding the proper role of government were cemented.

Related:

• Hugo Chavez: Great politician; poor administrator
• Hugo Chavez’s legacy
• Piketty, Democracy, and Hugo Chavez
• A young woman who doesn’t support Bernie…
• Can a Hugo Chavez and Bernie Sanders supporter consistently advocate that a person marry for money?

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Friends have a 13-year-old and are afraid that if they let him build a gaming desktop computer that he will hide in his room until it is time for him to go off to college. They are hoping to hector him into agreeing with them that the real world and the social world of humans is more interesting than the virtual worlds created by the best minds of the game world. Their household currently is Mac-only, which the young man considers unsuitable for gaming. One of their ideas is that he can get a Windows laptop and then they can take it away from him if he overindulges. I’m wondering if there is a technological solution built into Windows 10.

This article contains screen shots of a non-admin user being limited to certain hours within a day and/or to a maximum number of hours per day. So does this one. The official Microsoft page also suggests that this can be done but apparently they didn’t have the energy to make screen shots. So it looks as though Microsoft has built in anti-addiction features.

That leads to the next question: Is it practical for a teenage gamer to be a non-admin user of a Windows 10 machine? He is going to build the machine with a friend whose parents are more liberal. Can he install everything that he needs and eventually turn over super-admin power to mom or dad? Will he have to bug them every hour for the next five years to come over and type the admin password? Will these devoted worshipers of everything that Steve Jobs might once have touched be able to execute their parental control role without thoroughly sullying themselves in the filth of Windows 10?

Related:

• TED talk about how kids who play video games do better on most cognitive tests (don’t forget also the Turkish Airlines video regarding TED talks)
• Recommendations for building a new PC

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I was chatting with an 18-year-old Canadian last month. He said that the drinking age in Quebec was 18, but 19 in most of the rest of Canada. He said “I couldn’t drink in the U.S., right? The age is 21?” I replied with “Yes, but you could have a machine gun.”

[I was skeptical of my own statement so I checked in with a gun-loving friend and it turned out to be true. In a typical state anyone can buy a machine gun as long as he or she is willing to pay an extra $200 for a “tax stamp.” However, my friend explained that there is a limited supply of fully automatic rifles available for private ownership. Consequently the young Quebecois would need to have about $20,000. The gun collector also explained that machine guns are not effective weapons: “most shots miss, and when you walk around with ammunition, you can only carry so much. The Army, for example, never uses their M4 rifles on full auto. They did in Vietnam and fired 50,000 shots per enemy soldier killed (true number).”]

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I was at an aviation convention last month. A married couple had recently sold a 70-person company, which they had founded and then managed for 15 years. What did they miss the least? “Managing people,” responded the wife. “About half were like family. They were great people and we miss them, especially assembly workers who were grateful just to have an air-conditioned workplace.” How could this then be the least-missed aspect then? “The middle managers were the worst. About half the employees were best at complaining, overestimating their value and competence, and making our lives hell.”

Also there at the convention was the manager of a group of Swiss engineers developing a new business jet. I asked if the American perception of Europeans working smarter than than harder and/or longer hours was accurate. Could they get this plane certified and out the door on schedule via superior competence and organization while working 9-5? The manager simply laughed. It was not a 9-5 job, apparently.

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The St. Lawrence river east of Quebec City is an important summer feeding ground for 13 species of whales (source). The most common place to start a cruise to see these whales is from the north side of the river near Tadoussac, Quebec. Unfortunately this is a 6-hour round-trip drive from the big airport in Quebec City and a 3-hour round-trip drive from the smaller airport at Charlevoix. If you’re touring around in a light airplane, however, you can land on the south side of the river, at the Riviere-du-Loup airport (CYRI), and jump in a taxi for 10 minutes to the Croisieres AML pier. It takes about one hour to steam out to the prime whale-watching area, but it would be a cool pleasant trip on a nice day.

On our June 2016 cruise we saw four fin whales (the world’s second-largest), a couple of minke whales (the smallest baleen whale), and a beluga. Blue whales arrive starting in July.

One caveat: If it is gusting 21 knots at the airport, as it was when we landed, it will be ugly out on the “river.” Our 250-passenger boat was tossed around as though out in the ocean on a slightly rough day.

Logistics: The folks on the ground at the CYRI airport don’t seem to answer the phone, even for Canadian Flight Service. They are open more or less normal hours, however, and you can get back to your plane without a call-out charge until at least 6 pm. The airport has full-serve fuel but you need to taxi up to the pumps. I didn’t see a tug on the field. If you don’t take fuel prepare for some reasonably hefty fees ($100). Taxi Beaulieu, 418-862-3111, is fast and efficient. The VIP lounge on the whale watch is a cozy nest with picture windows facing the bow; worth the extra $30 and includes beverages (though it could use a big fresh air vent). Pack your own sandwiches for the boat, whose food selection was described as “bad” even by the employees.

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Happy July 4th! We’re independent as a nation so in theory we get to decide what kind of nation we want to have. Today I want to understand an apparent logical contradiction.

A bunch of my Facebook friends fall into a category that I call “robot alarmists.” They believe that computers and robots are getting so sophisticated that at least half of the current American workforce will be unable to find any job at all. Thus they support a universal basic income (“UBI”). Here are some example posts:

Some variant of [universal basic income] is inevitable if civilization is to survive the invention of robots. However, there is a much deeper flaw here: the notion that consumerism itself can continue forever. It can’t, at least not with 10 billion humans trying to live like Americans.

Bring on the robotax 🙂 Since robots stand to boost profit at the expense of labor (what else is new?!), it stands to reason that buying a robot should be heavily taxed, with the proceeds going to the unemployed.

Labor shortages have been predicted since I was in college and here we are, short on jobs and money, but long on billionaires and robots. Even if they’re right, all it means is more demand pressure on creating robots to fill those jobs.

This is how they take over our world: it’s just too damn convenient, efficient and profitable to use them. And of course we will keep improving them because that makes them faster, better, cheaper yet! Until one day they break the tether and run… [over an article on a gas leak robot]

The only option left once you give all the jobs to robots… [over an article on UBI]

Because we just HAVE to go faster! And replace humans with robots. Right? Or is there some other logical reason why we NEED faster computers? I’m not coming up with any [over an article on microprocessor trying to stay on the Moore’s Law curve]

Central to the case for a UBI is the way it would help prepare us for a world in which the new technological revolution, driven by artificial intelligence and robotics, will, over time, transform the nature of work and the type and number of jobs. [UK Labour politician]

I would be more worried about about a collapse in the job market if I could find someone reliable to weed our yard for less than 3X the federal minimum wage or someone skilled in carpentry at less than 6X. But let’s assume that these folks are sincere. They believe that in the reasonably near-term, our society’s wealth will come from the robots that some citizens and corporations own plus from the labor of an elite group of workers who do things that robots cannot do.

Why do the same people then support current U.S. immigration policy and advocate for an increase in the number of immigrants on the same terms? The U.S. immigration system is not targeted at people with elite skills, high education levels, and high income in whatever country they’re living in now. Thus we are going to be bringing in people who cannot read and may not be able to speak or understand English. If the average American’s income will just be whatever robots produce divided by the total population as a universal basic income (minus any costs to administer the government handouts, of course), what would be the value to current U.S. citizens of increasing the denominator?

Suppose that the goal is humanitarian relief. Citizens of Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries do not have a good life in their home countries. We will bring them to the U.S., give them a universal basic income, and they can be happy going to Disneyland every day. If that is the goal, however, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to give a larger number of designated unfortunates a smaller “universal basic income” (“universal sub-basic income”?) that would enable them to live comfortably in a lower-cost-of-living part of the world?

In short, in the old days the argument used by advocates of immigration is that they would grow our economy (and tax base) by working. Today, however, the people who argue that we will have a vast surplus of human labor continue to advocate for immigration and a larger population of the humans most of whom they believe will be economic parasites of either robots or exceptionally skilled humans. How does that make sense?

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Chess nerds: What’s a good chess set to give to a family with an 8-year-old child who is learning? The “club” boards seem to have letters and numbers in addition to the standard squares. Are those necessary or helpful for someone who is learning? I don’t remember having that when my dad was teaching me how to play.

If the pieces are wood, is it more common to have the black pieces actually be black? Or just a dark brown?

The sets at Amazon seem to be mostly pretty cheap/crummy. I want to buy something that could potentially last a lifetime but at the same time is not so expensive that it has to be protected from children. The family doesn’t live in a McMansion so the set should fold up (i.e., the board should fold up and store the pieces).

[Separately, is learning and playing chess obsolete now that we live in a world of ever more sophisticated computer- and video-games?]

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From the New York Post: “Professor who donates sperm in city bathrooms has sired 22 kids.”

Some excerpts:

The 6-foot-2 CUNY Kingsborough math professor [Ari Nagel] has served as a sperm donor for dozens of locals, siring 22 kids over the past 12 years with 18 women of various backgrounds.

He will also offer his services in his home near Downtown Brooklyn, but mama wannabes are often more comfortable meeting in public.

Once a location is chosen, Nagel will go into the bathroom, pleasure himself while watching porn on his iPhone — “You can’t connect to Target Wi-Fi if you’re connecting to a porn site, so I use my cell service,” he says — and ejaculate into an Instead Softcup, a type of menstrual cup.

He then delivers the specimen to the woman, who goes into the ladies’ restroom and inserts it into her cervix.

Without the explicit legal protections afforded to sperm banks, what about post-conception litigation?

The first five women he worked with successfully sued him for child support, and nearly half of his paycheck is garnished for his offspring.

“I don’t know what’s more surprising: that five sued or that 17 didn’t,” Nagel says. “They were all well aware there was no financial obligation on my part. They all promise in advance they won’t sue.”

(Under New York family law, he actually should have lost close to 100 percent of his paycheck to the five plaintiffs. Assuming one child per mother, the first plaintiff would receive 17 percent of his pre-tax income, the second woman to sue would get 17 percent of the 83 percent remainder, etc. Due to the fact that child support is not deductible from income, Professor Nagel would quickly get to the poverty line from a combination of child support orders and federal, state, and city income taxes. Assuming that he starts with $100,000 per year, the first plaintiff gets $17,000 per year, the second $14,110, the third $11,711, and the fourth just $9,720 per year. The professor is now left with $47,458 of pre-tax income but close to $40,000 of that would go to pay taxes. The fifth plaintiff ought to get $8,068 but in theory the system is not supposed to reduce a defendant below the poverty line. Note that it may not be accidental that the first five women sued. Due to the difference in cash values assigned to children under New York law, the sixth and later women don’t have a claim worth pursuing against Professor Nagel. So it would be more accurate to say that 100 percent of the people who could have sued him and gotten something actually did sue.)

Related:

• “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage”

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“Possible Nurses Strike At Brigham And Women’s Hospital Averted” gives some insight into how much we’ll be paying for health insurance going forward:

On wages, the 52 percent of Brigham nurses who are not yet at the top step for seniority would see a 17 percent rise in wages during the three-year contract. Nurses who are at the top step, meaning they’ve been at the Brigham for 18 years or more, would see a 4.5 percent increase over three years.

 

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