What infrastructure did we build for the Americans added between 2010 and 2020?

by philg

From our Census Bureau:

  • U.S. population on April 1, 2010: 308,745,538
  • U.S. population on April 1, 2020: 331,449,281

That’s an increase of 22,703,743 people (unclear how many of the new undocumented Americans are included in this count by friendly government agents; see “Yale Study Finds Twice as Many Undocumented Immigrants as Previous Estimates”).

22.7 million is roughly the population of Illinois and Michigan combined. Those two states have 563,237 lane-miles of road (source). Were 563,237 lane-miles added between 2010 and 2020 nationwide? Here’s a chart from the U.S. Department of Transporation:

In case you’re wondering why you’re always stuck in traffic, the above chart shows that lane-miles have barely budged since 1980 while vehicle-miles actually traveled have grown by roughly 50 percent. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics offers finer-grained data: 8,542,163 lane-miles in 2009 and 8,785,398 lane-miles in 2019 (243,235 new lane-miles over 10 years, but essentially flat since 2014; the growth over 10 years was only 2.8 percent, less than half the 7.4 percent growth in population).

It is more difficult to get statistics on other elements of infrastructure, e.g., square footage of school buildings, capacity in water and sewer systems, capacity of the electricity grid, etc. But my sense is that none of these are being expanded at the same rate as population.

If roads, schools, water/sewer, electric grid, etc. remain constant while the population grows, doesn’t that mean we’re turning the U.S. circa 2030 into India circa 1990?

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IKEA spare parts

by philg

Back in 2012, I paid IKEA to deliver and assemble some furniture. That led to the following Facebook post:

“You didn’t build that” (Ikea came to assemble some stuff starting yesterday at 1 pm. They left at 9 pm and here is the state of affairs…)

The two guys returned today at 945. We will see how far they get! So far I have not had to do anything other than watch in amazement at how much work is entailed even for two experts.

Friend: I don’t get it. Been buying IKEA stuff all my life. Always put it together myself, never any missing parts and always quick to do. A couple of hours at most for a complex wardrobe. Maybe these professionals aren’t that at all; bunch of random guys plucked off the street to go put together stuff for people?

Me: The guys seem to speak Portuguese better than speak English, but I wouldn’t say that this impairs their ability to unbox and slam the stuff together. They have electric screwdrivers and they have done enough of these before that they need not refer to the instructions in most cases. On the other hand, they put a Besta wall system door on a Stuva kids’ bookcase.

Folks: To close out this epic tale… IKEA sent two Mandarin-speaking recent immigrants from China back to the apartment today with a few boxes of spare parts. They were able to fix the remaining issues that I had not managed to fix on my own/with friends. IKEA customer service is amazingly well trained. I would call them and wait in a phone queue for about 45 minutes. The person who answered would invariably make me feel like the most important customer in the world. They’d promise to call back or send someone out. They never did these things, but I didn’t mind calling again because I felt so good after every conversation.

(One thing that I did learn from the experience, after attempting to sit in a dining chair after the two-day visit of the Brazilian crew, is that there is apparently no translation into Portuguese for “torque that bolt down”.)

Currently I’ve got a set of six IKEA chairs and enough hardware for perhaps three chairs. M4 and M6 machine screws/bolts have fallen out over the years and were apparently thrown out by the cleaners. I found an IKEA replacement parts site where screws and bolts are sent out “within a few days” for free, but it seems to be only for customers in the Netherlands. [Update: the Google couldn’t find the corresponding U.S. page, but a reader posted it in the comment section below.]

A lot of IKEA hardware isn’t standard. Where does one find replacement bolts for out-of-production IKEA stuff?

Separately, we visited IKEA recently. The 68 governor’s orders so far here in Maskachusetts have been boiled down by IKEA to “wear a mask at all times, even when outdoors and more than 6′ away from anyone else”:

(I personally disagree with this interpretation of what our laws would be if the Legislature had passed these restrictions as laws. The very latest from MA is that masks are not required outdoors unless you’re closer than 6′ from another human.)

The good news is that you can “do your part”:

Looking up an item’s warehouse location requires waiting in line to use one of the terminals that hasn’t been decommissioned, thus forcing you to spend more time in a crowded indoor environment (but bandanas and simple paper masks will prevent viral transmission!).

The CDC says that COVID-19 is not spread via surfaces, but the restaurant is closed for three days per week for a good scrubbing:

You’ll wait roughly 1.5 hours in the middle of the afternoon to be seated for lunch at this restaurant, from which many tables have been removed and the remainder are mostly vacant:

They’ve made special multi-tray trolleys so that a single authorized person from each group can go up to the cafeteria line.

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How does shutting down water fountains prevent COVID-19?

by philg

One thing that I have noticed in the Shutdown States is that public drinking fountains are nearly always turned off or blocked off, e.g., in hotels, in government buildings, outdoors near playgrounds, etc. To the extent that this is explained, it is #BecauseScience and #StopTheSpread. But what is the science of COVID-19 spread via water fountains?

From June 5, 2020 (includes an actual “Rationale”!):

So the CDC said the risk was low as of June 2020. Has #Science changed? “CDC: Risk for catching coronavirus from surfaces is low” (April 12, 2021):

The risk for catching the new coronavirus from surfaces is low, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week in what some experts say is a long overdue announcement.

“People can be affected with the virus that causes COVID-19 through contact with contaminated surfaces and objects,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, M.D., said at a White House briefing on Monday. “However, evidence has demonstrated that the risk by this route of infection of transmission is actually low.”

“Finally,” Linsey Marr, Ph.D., an airborne virus expert at Virginia Tech, told The Times. “We’ve known this for a long time, and yet people are still focusing so much on surface cleaning.” Marr added that there is “really no evidence that anyone has ever gotten COVID-19 by touching a contaminated surface.”

If #Science v2020 and #Science v2021 both say that coronavirus is not spread via surface contamination, how does shutting down water fountains help Americans achieve superior health?

At Temple Karen (reform) in Washington, D.C.:

At the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina (“due to current state health and safety mandates”), April 26, 2021:

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Why aren’t vaccines available at highway rest stops?

by philg

We visited a friend’s 12,000 square foot house the other day in an all-white suburb of Boston (what I learned: don’t buy a 12,000 square foot house unless you want to pay about $75,000 every time it needs paint). After passing all of the Black Lives Matter signs put out by his rich white neighbors (they adore low-income BIPOC but will keep their one-acre zoning minimum, thank you very much!), we got on the state-run highway. During the 40-minute drive, every 5 minutes we passed a state-run sign urging us to get vaccinated. The person reading the sign, quite possibly a driver all by him/her/zir/their self, is told to visit a web site and begin a cumbersome appointment process, We also passed a couple of state-owned state-run rest stops in which health-promoting food, such as donuts, are available.

Wouldn’t it make more sense if the signs said “Get vaccinated right now at the next rest stop”? If the government wants people to do something unpleasant and, in the case of younger folks, quite possibly against their personal interest (since the median age of a COVID-19 death in Massachusetts was 82), why not make it easy? Add an incentive too: “free coffee, donut, and vaccine, next right”.

Given that the government itself owns these highway rest stops, why isn’t there a vaccine tent at every one?

(The Florida Department of Transportation runs similar signs, but the messages that we saw in April were all related to driving, e.g., “check your tire pressure” or “road work scheduled”, rather than coronapanic.)

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Can billionaires marry their children to avoid Joe Biden’s new estate taxes?

by philg

“Biden’s Capital-Gains Tax Plan Would Upend Estate Planning by the Wealthy” (Wall Street Journal, April 29):

President Biden’s American Families Plan would raise capital-gains taxes and end a rule that has been a cornerstone of estate planning for generations of wealthy Americans.

The change—increasing the top capital-gains rate to 43.4% from 23.8% and taxing assets as if sold when someone dies—would upend the tax strategies of the very richest households.

Let’s consider Jack and Jill Billionaire. Jill was the first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion manager hired by a successful Silicon Valley startup. Her shares in the company, purchased for $1, are now worth $1 billion. Jack and Jill have two children, Morgan and Parker. Jack and Morgan currently identify as male. Jill and Parker currently identify as female.

If Jack and Jill were to die from triple-mutant coronavirus during President Harris’s reign, their children would inherit only around $430 million ($1 billion minus 43.4 percent federal tax minus 13.3 percent California state tax).

The U.S. offers no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage (by Supreme Court ruling). There shouldn’t be any obstacle to Jack and Jill cooperating on a divorce then Jack marrying Morgan and Jill marrying Parker. South Carolina law, for example (from Wikipedia):

(1) A man with his mother, grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, stepmother, sister, grandfather’s wife, son’s wife, grandson’s wife, wife’s mother, wife’s grandmother, wife’s daughter, wife’s granddaughter, brother’s daughter, sister’s daughter, father’s sister or mother’s sister; (2) A woman with her father, grandfather, son, grandson, stepfather, brother, grandmother’s husband, daughter’s husband, granddaughter’s husband, husband’s father, husband’s grandfather, husband’s son, husband’s grandson, brother’s son, sister’s son, father’s brother or mother’s brother.

Jack and Jill might each be able to marry either child if both children identify as some gender that takes them out of the “son” and “daughter” categories.

Now, when the Grim Mutant COVID-19 Reaper comes for Jack and Jill, the kids inherit $1 billion rather than $430 billion.

[What if Jack and Jill have four children rather than two? There is no limit to the number of no-fault divorce lawsuits that an American can file. Jack and Jill can marry and divorce their children in succession, with a tax-free agreed-upon property division after each divorce.]

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University of Maskachusetts casts out three heretics

by philg

“‘It’s Been Devastating’: UMass Amherst Students Suspended For Not Wearing Masks Off-Campus” (CBS):

Andover parents Kristin and Scott are speaking out on behalf of their daughter. She along with two of her friends are freshmen at UMass Amherst. A picture posted on social media of the three friends not wearing masks outside was handed over to the university and that has landed them in serious trouble.

“There was a photo sent to the administration of these girls outside off campus on a Saturday. This is why they lost a whole semester of their schooling,” Kristin said.

Since their suspension, the students have been studying remotely at their homes. However, last week they were cut off from virtual learning. They were not allowed to take their finals, so parents say their kids’ semester was a total loss, both financially and academically.

“That negates this whole semester $16,000 of money and they have to reapply for next semester. But they missed housing registration,” Scott said.

UMass Amherst released a statement saying: “Students received a number of public health messages this semester that emphasized the importance of following public health protocols and the consequences for not complying, and those messages were also shared on UMass social media channels.”

The Instagram post that betrayed their refusal to observe all of the rituals of the Church of Shutdown all of the time:

(Maybe they can be replaced with masked BIPOC?)

Given the depicted weather it seems that these three might well have been vaccinated at the time the photo was taken.

Stockholm Syndrome among the other invulnerable-to-covid 20-year-olds:

Students on campus say the rules have been tight this year but for good reason. “Maybe a little harsh but like I understand it because you’re not supposed to be doing that,” one student told WBZ Friday night.

The spirited hippies of the 1960s who said “Don’t trust anyone over 30” have been succeeded by college students happy to do whatever Dr. Fauci (age 80, i.e., pretty close to the median age for a COVID-19 death in Maskachusetts) tells them to.

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We are very short staffed and no one wants a job right now

by philg

“Biden and Republicans Spar Over Unemployment as Job Gains Disappoint” (NYT):

The president said he saw no measurable evidence that a $300 federal boost in unemployment benefits was hurting the labor market, amid criticism from conservatives and business groups.

From a Mexican restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina (Biltmore Village, actually) last month. The sign on the door: “We are very short staffed and no one wants a job right now. … ITS THE NEW PANDEMIC! Most of us are working doubles everyday.. PLEASE BE KIND to the ones that did show up for their job today!!”

Is it better elsewhere in the nation? A friend owns a multi-state chain of restaurants. April 30, 2021 email from him:

It’s impossible to hire people right now. The people that want jobs and want to work have them. Everyone else is happy to collect unemployment, which, apparently, can still pay you damn close to what you were making pre pandemic. We post applications and get piles of responses. None show for interview. Turns out you have to approve you ‘applied’ not ‘interviewed to keep the checks flowing.

Anecdotally, it has been difficult to get Ubers and drivers say that their peers have quit to collect unemployment, welfare, etc. Uber XL pays enough to compete with Uncle Joe and therefore it is usually easier and quicker to get an Uber XL (minivan or pavement-melting SUV). We used Uber around Atlanta in mid-April and it was often slow to get any kind of ride, but 10 minutes faster to get an XL than a regular UberX. Example from a downtown location where, pre-coronapanic, you’d expect a regular Uber to be available in 2 minutes, not 12:

We’re currently fixing up a house in order to sell it. There are a lot of tradespeople happy to work, but only if paid in cash. They say that they don’t want to upset their unemployment benefits.

The New York Times did an analysis of the $600/week supplemental dole a year ago (“Workers in more than half of states will receive, on average, more in unemployment benefits than their normal salaries”):

Now that the supplemental dole has been cut to $300 per week, in theory working should pay a little more than not working. In practice, though, the American collecting unemployment can do some work for cash and end up with a higher spending power. Also, not working might be a lot more fun than working, depending on the job. Maybe at $300/week plus the standard unemployment check the overall lifestyle is better even if spending power is a little lower. If the unemployed person’s slightly lower reportable income results in lower prices for means-tested housing and means-tested health insurance, spending power might actually be higher.

What does the Bureau of Labor Statistics have to say? Americans have been increasingly averse to work starting in 2009 (see also Book Review: The Redistribution Recession):

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Discrimination against Asians not working as well as hoped

by philg

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! (official U.S. government web site on the subject) This is when non-Asian American say-gooders get to lump together nearly 5 billion disparate people under the all-look-same doctrine. Folks who grew up next door to Idi Amin in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia can celebrate their kinship with folks who grew up on Mangareva.

Let’s look at a story from last month… “Only 8 Black Students Are Admitted to Stuyvesant High School” (NYT):

Once again, tiny numbers of Black and Latino students received offers to attend New York City’s elite public high schools.

Only 9 percent of offers made by elite schools like Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science went to Black and Latino students this year, down from 11 percent last year. Only eight Black students received offers to Stuyvesant out of 749 spots, and only one Black student was accepted into Staten Island Technical High School, out of 281 freshman seats.

Over half of the 4,262 offers this year went to Asian students. … The percentage of Black and Latino enrollment at Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Technical High School has hit its lowest point in the city’s recorded history in the last 10 years, a trend that has accelerated during the last several years in particular.

The city’s new chancellor, Meisha Porter, called on the state to eliminate the exam in a statement Thursday. “I know from my 21 years as an educator that far more students could thrive in our specialized high schools, if only given the chance,” she said. “Instead, the continued use of the Specialized High School Admissions Test will produce the same unacceptable results over and over again.”

[Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir] and his partner in the initiative, former Citigroup chairman Richard D. Parsons, promised to shower test preparation companies with money to better prepare Black and Latino students for the exam.

Despite over $750,000 spent on test prep over the last two years, most of which was funneled to existing nonprofit programs across the city, their plan has not made a dent in the numbers.

Discrimination against Asians is legal (see Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard) and Asian success is, as the top NYC school bureaucrat says, “unacceptable” to non-Asians, yet the comparatively unintelligent non-Asians can’t seem to get their discrimination dials set correctly.

Given that attending college doesn’t help the average person learn (see my review of Academically Adrift), I wonder if discrimination against Asians will drive them to learn so much prior to age 18 that employers will hire them straight from high school. Isn’t that how professional sports sometimes work? The best players are hired before college graduation, right?

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Coronaplague in the Seychelles proves Dr. Jeff Goldblum’s theories?

by philg

From Coronaplague in India proves Dr. Jeff Goldblum’s theories?:

I wonder if this proves what Dr. Jill Biden, M.D.’s colleague Dr. Jeff Goldblum said: “Life Finds a Way.” The non-Chinese Wuhan-edition coronavirus was perhaps not a good fit for hosts in India, which is why, adjusted for population size, not much happened during Coronawave #1 (TIME: “health experts had predicted that India, with a population more than four times the size of the U.S., would quickly become the world’s worst-hit country”). But now the virus, with approximately 30,000 base pairs, has evolved.

From Wednesday, “Island paradise with highest vaccination rate reports world’s biggest COVID surge” (Yahoo News UK):

The Seychelles has suffered the world’s biggest surge in coronavirus cases – despite nearly 70% of its population having received a vaccine.

On Monday, the latest date for which figures are available, the archipelago’s seven-day case rate per one million people was 1,480, the highest in the world. It compares to the Maldives, the second highest, with 827 cases per million.

This comes despite 69.19% of people on Seychelles having at least one dose of a vaccine.

Health minister Peggy Vidot said: “Despite all the exceptional efforts we are making, the COVID-19 situation in our country is critical right now with many daily cases reported last week.”

Seychelles, with a population of about 98,000, currently has 1,068 active cases.

The BBC has reported the country’s news agency as saying a third of those active cases are among people who have received two vaccines.

Why is this interesting to those of us who aren’t planning to visit the Seychelles? I think it is a good window into what life in the Shutdown States (e.g., Maskachusetts, New York, California) will be like this coming winter. Everyone will be vaccinated and therefore the successful strain of SARS-CoV-2 will be whichever one can work its way around a vaccine-stimulated immune system.

Speaking of India, it does look as though the trend is following Farr’s laws (bell curve) and that the curve is flattening (either through heroic government and human efforts, if you think humans are smarter than viruses, or because this is how viral infections have worked for the past 3.5 billion years):

My latest thinking about coronaplague is that the Vietnam Wars, viewed from the American perspective, continues to be the best analogy. Technocrats in public health bureaucracies and state governors (except in FL and SD!) assure us with facts, figures, and charts that victory is within reach. We can be a few months away from victory for 10-15 years.

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Why not tiered real estate commissions?

by philg

From this blog in 2005:

People who sell $1 million condos often complain that paying a 6 percent standard (read “fixed by collusion” among realtors) commission is too much ($60,000 for what might only be a few days of work). Economists who have studied the real estate market, however, find that in some ways the commission is too low because realtors don’t work very hard to sell clients’ houses compared to their personal houses. In other words they sell a customer’s house relatively cheap so that it will sell quickly rather than work for many weeks to get the best price and 6% of the extra.

Why haven’t we seen anyone propose a commission structure that says the realtor gets a 25% commission… but only on the amount above the assessed value of the property? Your typical $1 million NY or Boston apartment is assessed at maybe $850,000 and could be sold for that price with almost no effort in a few days so the commission paid on such a sale shouldn’t be more than $1000. If a realtor could sell the place for $1.2 million via clever marketing, however, she should be entitled to a fat commission.

In the intervening 16 years, various Internet services have made it easier for owners to sell their own houses. We can assume that realtors add value, since most people still do hire realtors, but they’re adding value on top of an easy-to-establish base, e.g., 10 percent below the Zillow Zestimate. Presumably a “for sale by owner” (free) listing on Zillow could easily sell a house at 90 percent of its Zestimate. (5 minutes of marketing effort!) If so, the structure that would align sellers’ interests with agents’ interest is a commission that was 0 percent of the first 90 percent of expected value and 15-25 percent of the sales proceeds above that.

How can it still be case that an agent who does a terrible job, selling a house for 95 percent of its value, gets paid almost as much as an agent who does a superb job, selling a house for 115 percent of its value?

This is the kind of question I am pondering as we declutter and pack up for Jupiter, Florida!

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