Late middle age Democrats wanted to be led by the elderly, but now they want to be guided by children

by philg

My Facebook feed is a good indication of how Democrats aged 40-65 think.

In 2016, these folks yearned to be led by a senior citizen. They would have been happy with Bernie Sanders (77 years old) or Hillary Clinton (71), for example, tottering up the stairs to the White House.

In 2018, they were admiring Stormy Daniels (40) for her bravery and her attorney, Michael Avenatti (48), for his determination and possible Presidential candidacy.

These days, however, they post panegyrics to the wisdom of people young enough to be their children, e.g., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (age 29; “in the media mostly because she’s good-looking,” says an independent friend) and Pete Buttigieg (37).

This seems fickle to me. Google and Facebook don’t change their minds every few years about what age person they want to see in various roles within their companies. Why would passionate Democrats swing wildly between thinking that a senior citizen has the requisite life experience to be their leader and deciding that actually the most sensible choice is to follow the guidance of a 29-year-old?

[More worrisome to me personally: Why the apparent dismissal of those of us in, um, later middle age?]

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True cost of Tesla ownership can now be calculated

by philg

Tesla is offering leases for the Model 3. The stripper version (“Standard Range Plus”) is supposedly $39,500 to buy. It can be leased for $2,000 “down payment” plus $545 per month for 36 months and 12,000 miles per year. In other words, $600 per month.

What does a conventional sedan cost? US News says a Nissan Altima, which is about the same size as a Tesla 3 and has awesome ratings, is about $300 per month (depending on region). The Nissan comes with the added potential benefit of being able to buy the car at the end of the lease in the event that the value is higher than the predicted residual value (likely worth $1,000? Let’s mark it to zero for this analysis).

[Nissan fit and finish should be way better; UBS found that Teslas were well below average: “The car scored ‘below average’ on the fit & finish quality audit which looked at >1, 500 gap measurements,” UBS’ Colin Langan wrote in the note to clients. “The team also found the body-wind noise was ‘borderline acceptable.'”]

So Tesla costs $300/month more. What does it save in fuel (costs, if not CO2 emissions)? Let’s say that 1,000 miles per month are actually driven. The Nissan will consume 33 gallons of gasoline to go 1,000 miles (EPA combined), about $85 worth at current retail prices.

Electricity here costs 22.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (BLS). People say that the real-world electricity consumption of the Tesla 3 is 300 watt-hours per mile. So it would burn up 300 kwh to go 1,000 miles or $67.50 in electricity (but the Tesla Superchargers cost 31 cents per kwh so it would actually be more expensive than gasoline?).

It seems that the gas versus electricity cost is a wash. So the Tesla 3 costs $3,600 more per year to own than a comparable-size conventional sedan.

Maybe it is a better product? Consumer Reports gives the Tesla 3 a score of 65, with a mediocre rating for noise and a poor rating for ride quality (everyone who has been in our friend’s Tesla X, including the owner, says that our Honda Odyssey has a much smoother and quieter ride). The Nissan Altima rates 76 and actually did deliver its EPA-promised gas mileage in Consumer Reports testing. The only area where the Tesla seems to have beaten the Nissan was in acceleration, being about 2 seconds faster from 0-60 (given our average practical highway speed here in Boston of about 30 mph, the relevance of this number is unclear).

How about the autopilot? The Nissan puts virtual fences around the human driver, but does not attempt to drive. Consumer Reports liked the Tesla autopilot overall, but put in some caveats: “Some drivers may be frustrated by how the system operates, because too much pressure on the steering wheel will turn off Autopilot. So drivers must be careful to put some pressure on the wheel, but not too much. The system can be operated in many situations that it is not designed for. For instance, it can be engaged on a curvy back road with only a single lane marking. In such cases, it operates erratically rather than restricting Autopilot’s operation.”

Assuming that the autopilot actually did work perfectly all the time, then we could say that people are paying $300 for every 1,000 miles to have the autopilot drive for them. If it takes 30 hours to go 1,000 miles, it is a $10/hour system.

Finally, let’s look at the three-year cost to lord it over the neighbors with one’s all-electric virtue:

  • $10,800 in extra lease payments
  • $1,000 in expected trade-in value for a lease with the right to purchase (our 2014 Honda Odyssey was worth about $2,000 more to the dealer than agreed-on residual value)
  • $1,200 to install a charger at home (probably closer to $2,000 here in Massachusetts)

Grand total: $13,000 (enough to earn a pilot certificate and do a bunch of family trips in a flight school rental aircraft during those three years, yet I am willing to wager that plenty of Tesla 3 owners would say that they can’t afford aviation as a hobby!).

Related:

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Was there a golden age of religious coexistence?

by philg

“Religious Minorities Across Asia Suffer Amid Surge in Sectarian Politics” (nytimes), first three paragraphs:

The deadly attacks in Sri Lanka on Sunday highlighted how easily religious coexistence can be ripped apart in a region where secularism is weakening amid the growing appeal of a politics based on ethnic and sectarian identity.

In India, the country’s governing right-wing Hindu party is exploiting faith for votes, pushing an us-versus-them philosophy that has left Muslims fearing they will be lynched if they walk alone.

In Myanmar, the country’s Buddhist generals have orchestrated a terrifying campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country’s Rohingya Muslims.

(the reader who did not scroll to read the entire article would infer that Muslims were the victims of the recent sad events in Sri Lanka, according to the NYT.)

This is the “news” section of the paper, not “opinion.” There is an implicit factual assertion that there were some good old days of religious coexistence. Everyone in Asia had one of those “coexist” bumper stickers:

Is this assertion true? The “two-nation theory” that led to the partition of India (millions killed and/or displaced) started in the 19th century.

Has secularism “weakened” in the region since 1947 when 14 million people were displaced on the theory that Muslims should not have to live among Hindus?

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The politicians who lowered Stop & Shop workers’ market-clearing wages now support their strike

by philg

One of our local supermarkets is now crippled: “New England Stop & Shop strike enters ninth day, as stores sit empty and unstocked; With support from Warren, Biden and Buttigieg, 31,000 striking workers say the grocery giant’s proposals would mean more expensive health care and worse retirement benefits.” (NBC):

Stop & Shop’s parent company, Ahold Delhaize, reported profits in the billions but is asking workers to pay more for their insurance and cutting their retirement benefits, according to Erikka Knuti, spokesperson for United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which represents the striking workers.

Knuti said 75 percent of workers at Stop & Shop are part time, working multiple jobs and barely “cobbling together” a living wage.

On April 12, Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren visited her striking constituents.

“Do not cross the picket line,” Warren said, addressing potential shoppers. “Understand people on the picket line are not just fighting for their families. They’re fighting for all our families. They’re fighting for basic fairness and equality in this country.”

Since Warren’s remarks, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and former Vice President Joe Biden have also joined workers on the picket line.

As a proud former union worker myself, I can sympathize with these folks who work all day on their feet for low wages. (With proper planning, there are a lot of easier ways to make money in Massachusetts!)

But I’m wondering if the workers’ primary enemies aren’t the very politicians who are showing up to “support” them. What better way to lower the market-clearing wage for a low-skill supermarket worker than to open the floodgates of low-skill immigration? Forming a union and striking might bump the paycheck slightly, but it can’t undo the reduction caused by tens of millions of immigrants and their children competing for the same jobs.

My neighbors’ Facebook feeds are lit up with the virtuous recounting their heroic tales of driving to Whole Foods, for example, instead. Yet Whole Foods has fought unionization for decades and the founder compared unionization to herpes.

Given that Stop & Shop regularly hires and trains new workers, I don’t know why the stores are running on such a barebones level. What stops the company from hiring and training replacement workers? (this Obama Administration ruling?) How much training does a person who stocks shelves get?

Related:

  • “Labor Board Tells Boeing New Factory Breaks Law” (nytimes, 2011), in which central planners in Washington, D.C. determined whether or not a company could build a new factory in order to escape a union: “In what may be the strongest signal yet of the new pro-labor orientation of the National Labor Relations Board under President Obama, the agency filed a complaint Wednesday seeking to force Boeing to bring an airplane production line back to its unionized facilities in Washington State instead of moving the work to a nonunion plant in South Carolina. In its complaint, the labor board said that Boeing’s decision to transfer a second production line for its new 787 Dreamliner passenger plane to South Carolina was motivated by an unlawful desire to retaliate against union workers for their past strikes in Washington and to discourage future strikes.” (see also Licence Raj)
  • “20 women slept with me to get promotion” (life in an English supermarket)
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Another airplane that fights the pilot if one AOA sensor is bad: Cirrus Jet

by philg

In another triumph for American engineering, it seems that the Cirrus Jet‘s stick pusher activates if a single AOA sensor fails mechanically (FAA Emergency Airworthiness Directive 2019-08-51). The system isn’t quite as badly designed as the Boeing 737 MAX’s silent gradual pusher, but it is nowhere near as robust as the early 1990s design on the Pilatus PC-12 (Swiss engineering). An important difference is that it is obvious to the pilot(s) when the Cirrus system is operating and the disconnect button is right on the yoke (just the usual A/P disconnect button).

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Trump Presidency Crisis Continues: Stock market up only 33 percent

by philg

According to the New York Times, the crisis that began when Hillary Clinton failed to defeat Donald Trump on November 8, 2016 only intensified with the release of the Mueller report. Some recent items…

“It’s Not the Collusion, It’s the Corruption” (by David Brooks):

The first force is Donald Trump, who represents a threat to the American systems of governance. … The second force is Russia. If Trump is a threat to the institutional infrastructure, the Russians are a threat to our informational infrastructure. … The third force is Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. They are a threat to our deliberative infrastructure.

“The Mueller Report and the Danger Facing American Democracy” (Editorial Board):

But the real danger that the Mueller report reveals is not of a president who knowingly or unknowingly let a hostile power do dirty tricks on his behalf, but of a president who refuses to see that he has been used to damage American democracy and national security.

“In a Functional Country, We Would Be on the Road to Impeachment
Mueller laid out the evidence for members of Congress to take action against President Trump. Will they?” (Michelle Goldberg):

There are a lot of reasons Trump’s election remains a festering wound. It was a horrifying shock to many of us and, given his decisive loss in the popular vote, an insult to democracy. … It was probably naïve to think that Mueller could cut through such a thick web of falsity. But if anyone could have, it would have been him, the embodiment of a set of old-fashioned virtues that still ostensibly command bipartisan respect.

[The hero with “old-fashioned virtue” charged with uncovering Vladimir Putin’s puppet control of the U.S. government spent most of his time looking into which young women were paid to have sex with which older guys?]

“Mr. Mueller’s Indictment” (Editorial Board):

it turns out that Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors and investigators found “substantial evidence” that President Trump broke federal law on numerous occasions by attempting to shut down or interfere with the nearly-two-year Russia investigation. … In addition to pointing to possible criminality, the report revealed a White House riddled with dysfunction and distrust, one in which Mr. Trump and his aides lie with contempt for one another and the public.

“Mueller Hints at a National-Security Nightmare” (Joshua A. Geltzer and Ryan Goodman):

President Trump may claim “exoneration” on a narrowly defined criminal coordination charge. But a counterintelligence investigation can yield something even more important: an intelligence assessment of how likely it is that someone — in this case, the president — is acting, wittingly or unwittingly, under the influence of or in collaboration with a foreign power. Was Donald Trump a knowing or unknowing Russian asset, used in some capacity to undermine our democracy and national security?

The public Mueller report alone provides enough evidence to worry that America’s own national security interests may not be guiding American foreign policy.

“Mueller’s Damning Report” (Noah Bookbinder):

The fact that Mr. Mueller explicitly did not resolve whether the president engaged in criminal conduct only reinforces the need for Congress to consider whether Mr. Trump violated his constitutional obligations to the American people. … Congress and the American people have every right to insist that the individual who swears an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” has not abused his powers to protect himself or his associates from the reach of justice.

One thing that professional investors like to do when someone predicts forthcoming trouble for a company is ask “How’s the stock?” The implication is that the market is smarter than individuals and if a company is going to crash it should already be reflected in the price. (This kind of thinking took a beating in the Collapse of 2008!) Boeing seems like an obvious disaster, for example, but its performance is barely distinguishable from the S&P between October 1, 2018 (before the first 737 MAX crash) and the present. So the market isn’t too worried about Boeing even if most of us would rather buy a ticket on an Airbus.

U.S. stocks have been great performers compared to international peers since November 8, 2016. The S&P 500, for example, is up by roughly 33 percent (compare to 14 percent for Germany’s DAX). That’s seemingly inconsistent with the media’s portrayal of grave peril facing our nation and the need for every citizen to be outraged. Why do investors want to buy into a country that is controlled by foreigners who have an incentive to hold back the U.S. economy so as to limit American economic and military power?

If the NYT journalists and readers are convinced by their own hysteria, why aren’t they cheerfully (leveraged) short the S&P and preparing to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Switzerland once the big meltdown does occur?

Related:

  • Paul Krugman’s NYT prediction, Nov 9, 2016: “It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? … If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”
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A successful executive advises a woman beginning her career

by philg

A friend’s daughter is finishing up law school. Due to my not-so-secret double life as an expert witness working with big law firms, she asked me for advice as to whether to join one of three international firms that had offered her jobs. Her passion is white collar criminal defense (should be a growing field if the taxpayers keep investing in multi-year investigations that reveal nothing more than Americans getting paid for having sex and/or trying to minimize their tax payments):

Right now I am struggling because at [Firm A] they have an incredible white collar group that is small, extremely prestigious and also full of incredible women …

At [Firm B], I would just go into general litigation, and then I could put my hand up to get in on white collar projects, but it might be more difficult to specialize. They are also really committed to pro bono … It is also a litigation-forward firm (rather than dominated by the corporate practice) which I like too.

I assembled a group email panel of lawyers and business executives. Male perspective:

I wouldn’t rely on women. Female intrasexual competition is human nature (other species too). You are a young fertile woman. The women in management are aging, no longer as attractive, and no longer fertile. Maybe they voted for Hillary but their biological instinct will be to have you killed, not to help you take their places in the boardroom.

It would be an advantage to be the only women on a litigation team. There will be women on the jury and perhaps the judge will be a woman. The team will have to put you forward in order to forestall accusations of sexism. Whereas if there are 10 women on the team you could be at a back desk handing out documents. Maybe there are other good reasons to like [Firm A], but I wouldn’t give any extra points because there are woman running the show there.

Female perspective:

In my view, all else being equal, the woman factor might be a reason to chose [Firm A] over your alternative. However, most important is whether the role at [Firm A] is what you want and the environment/ team dynamics are the best route to your success/ achieving your goals.

For me, working with women vs men really doesn’t matter as long as I feel I am set up for success.

Working with “incredible women” may not be better for you than working with incredible men. What makes these women incredible? Is there a difference between “incredible women” and “incredible men”? And what does their being “incredible” mean for you?

As I think back to all the work situations I’ve been in with women vs men over the last 20 years, I can say that this is absolutely right: “their biological instinct will be to have you killed, not to help you take their places in the boardroom.” It takes a very accomplished woman who is not insecure about where she is in life to suppress that instinct. No matter how old she is. There are not many women that accomplished in the workforce today. If you find one to work with awesome. If not, no big deal.

Men are generally easier to deal with in my experience. They are less complex. With men it usually comes down to ego. If you don’t attack their egos, and keep your relationship professional, they won’t try to compete with you or cross any lines. To the contrary, they will see you as an ally and they will support you.

I also agree about the advantage of being the only woman on a team. It’s not just about being the only woman though, it’s about being good at what you do AND being different from your peers in a way that obviously benefits the team/company.

Example: I am the VP of North America [Widgets and Services], two levels removed from our corporate ([Fortune 500 company name]) CEO. I am the only female VP on [this] team and the only person in the company who understands [something that brings in a growing amount of revenue].

Next month, [the Fortune 500] will hold it’s investor day. 20 of our top institutional investors will be visiting along with the entire top executive team. My boss and his boss will be presenting to this group, as will the Presidents of every other division. I found out yesterday, that I too will be presenting. I am the only VP – level person from all of [the Fortune 500] who will be presenting and the only woman. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a President or SVP because I am the best they have and a woman to boot!

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Microsoft is out of step with Silicon Valley?

by philg

“Microsoft staff are openly questioning the value of diversity” (Quartz) quotes from an internal Microsoft discussion forum:

“Because women used to be actively prohibited from full-time employment many decades ago, there is now the misguided belief that women SHOULD work, and if women AREN’T working, there’s something wrong…. Many women simply aren’t cut out for the corporate rat race, so to speak, and that’s not because of ‘the patriarchy,’ it’s because men and women aren’t identical, and women are much more inclined to gain fulfillment elsewhere.”

James Damore was the Google heretic because he shared the company’s goal of increasing the number of women doing the dreary job of coding, but suggested that they go about the project in a different way. It seems that Microsoft is nurturing actual infidels who reject the entire religion of gender diversity. It is just one step from the above quote to the Harvard undergraduate who told us “I used to want to be an investment banker, but then I realized that I could just marry an investment banker.” (Presumably nobody could survive at the company after asking “Why would an intelligent person want to work 80 hours/week at Microsoft when having sex with two Microsoft employees can yield roughly the same spending power?”)

[Anecdote: Our suburb is packed with women who have elite professional degrees and yet work part-time or do no W-2 wage labor at all. These women worked full time for 5-10 years following the completion of their education and then, as suggested by the Microsoft infidel, decided to “gain fulfillment elsewhere”. Most of their current spending power is derived from the wages of someone else, either a current spouse or a person whom they sued for alimony and/or child support.]

Readers: Measured against the coastal elite pillars of faith, are these Microsoft programmers more severely deviant than were the Googlers who questioned the company’s diversity schemes?

Related:

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Reasonable to blame right-seat Labradoodle for the go-around accident?

by philg

A two-seat light sport plane crashes near the runway while a 13-knot wind is blowing. The 90-year-old pilot is killed. Who is to blame? Jasmine, the right-seat Labradoodle, according to the NTSB report. The probable cause:

The pilot’s decision to fly with his large dog in the two-seat, light sport airplane, and the dog’s likely contact with the flight controls during landing, which resulted in the pilot’s loss of airplane control and a subsequent aerodynamic stall when the airplane exceeded its critical angle of attack.

Without a cockpit video recorder, how exactly do we know this?

A witness, who was piloting another airplane in the traffic pattern, reported that, while he was on the downwind leg, he saw the accident airplane on final approach to the runway.

Based on available ground track and engine data, the airplane crossed the runway 27 threshold at a calculated airspeed of 48 knots. About 3 seconds later, the airplane turned right away from the runway heading, and the engine speed increased to takeoff power.

Given the ground track and engine data, it is likely that the dog contacted the aileron and/or stabilator controls during landing, which resulted in the pilot’s loss of airplane control and a subsequent aerodynamic stall at a low altitude when the airplane exceeded its critical angle of attack.

Does it make sense to blame Jasmine? She was manipulating the flight controls? Maybe. But wouldn’t a Labradoodle be more likely to push nose-down rather than grab the yoke with her teeth and pull nose-up? And the Labradoodle was also responsible for initiating a go-around by adding full throttle?

(Separately, as is typical with car accidents that kill humans, the supposedly inferior canine more or less walked away:

After the accident, the witness saw the pilot’s dog, who had been onboard the airplane, running out of the cornfield where the airplane had crashed. First responders were able to catch the dog, who was treated for minor injuries by a local veterinarian.

)

Related:

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Passover thoughts on slavery in Egypt

by philg

From lectures that I’ve heard by scholars of Ancient Egypt, U.S.-style plantation slavery was not common in that society. A person referred to as a “slave” in Ancient Egypt may simply have been subject to paying a 20 percent income tax, for example, that “free” citizens were not subject to.

As noted in Wikipedia, there is minimal support for the historical truth of the Exodus story in the (otherwise excellent) written records of Ancient Egypt.

Suppose that Jews were indeed once “slaves” in Egypt, i.e., subject to higher-than-usual taxes. How would they be doing in modern times? PwC says that Egypt has a personal income tax rate that tops out at 22.5 percent. Compare to Israel at 50 percent and the U.S. at potentially over 50 percent (broken up into 37 percent federal and 13.3 California state income tax, for example).

Is this sort of like the founding myth of the U.S.? We tell K-12 children in our government-run schools that we started at war against Great Britain because of cruel and high taxation yet now the UK has lower taxes than the U.S. in a lot of areas, e.g., for entrepreneurs whose total tax bill of 10 percent in the UK will be lower than their state tax bill alone in California.

Oh yes, as long as we’re talking about Britain and Passover, as the Labour Party would say… “Happy Passover to readers who are practicing Jewcraft!”

[Separately, what about creating a Shmura Cheez-It Matzah cracker? Everyone likes Cheez-Its, right? And they’re not all that bread-like.]

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