Immigration ABC's

In a light piece on the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood, ABC News leads with a mis-lead:

Had President Barack Obama been born two years earlier, his eligibility for the presidency may have been an actual problem for him.

The writer is attempting to grab attention by hinting that the relation of President Obama's birth year (1961) to Hawaii's admission year (1959) could have raised a consitutional issue about his eligibility to hold office. But as every kid born in 20th-century Hawaii has been told, we can grow up to be President. Per the Immigration and Nationality Act:

Sec. 305. [8 U.S.C. 1405] A person born in Hawaii on or after August 12, 1898, and before April 30, 1900, is declared to be a citizen of the United States as of April 30, 1900. A person born in Hawaii on or after April 30, 1900, is a citizen of the United States at birth. A person who was a citizen of the Republic of Hawaii on August 12, 1898, is declared to be a citizen of the United States as of April 30, 1900.

[While we're on the subject of mildly amusing asides, "ABC" is widely known in Asian immigration circles as "American Born Chinese", an acronym I first encountered in the 1970's.]

Stimulus Response

This summer I've done my part to stimulate the economy. Car repairs, several vacations, and multiple electronics purchases all put a dent in my savings account, but as a previous President advised, going shopping is my patriotic duty.

[Digression: the ex-President was mocked for merely talking about shopping, while his successor is lauded for passing out rebates on cars. One ($400 billion deficit) was a moron for spending too much, while another ($1.6 trillion deficit) is a genius. Good thing I got my MBA when I did; I don't understand postmodern economics.]

Some merchants are demonstrating how desperate they are for business by offering payment terms of three years or longer with no interest. (Only sign these agreements, dear reader, if you're absolutely sure you won't miss a payment, because the interest clawbacks are usurious.) So I've taken the merchants up on their offer and opened new lines of credit.

The most irritating step in the process is the "card activation". I called a toll-free number and was shunted to a live person who tried to conceal her Indian accent while she pressed me to buy credit-card insurance for a mere $9.99 a month. What's the point of saving on interest if you just give it back in fees? No, no, and no, I responded to ever more insistent questions that she recited from a programmed manual. Finally she gives up, activates my credit, and asks if I have any questions. When you want a conversation to end, don't do anything to prolong it. No. But thanks for allowing me to buy my new flatscreen TV.

Bing Boosted

Microsoft's search engine, Bing, has gained market share against its rivals:

Microsoft's search engine — renamed Bing as part of a June overhaul — ended July with a 8.9 percent share in the United States, up from 8.4 percent in the previous month, according to comScore Inc. Just before Bing's debut, Microsoft's search market share stood at 8 percent.

Google retained a commanding U.S. lead at 64.7 percent through July, down from 65 percent in June, comScore said. Yahoo's market share dipped to 19.3 percent in July from 19.6 percent in June.

Bing's boost isn't surprising. When Microsoft helpfully suggested that I upgrade my browser to Internet Explorer 8, the default search engine turned into Bing. I've manually changed it back to Google on our three PC's, but many users will hardly notice and go along.

Too Cheap

Dell builds good, cheap desktop computers. The Dell Dimension 4550 that we bought in 2003 is still chugging along. After I doubled its RAM to a now-paltry maximum of 1GB [per manufacturer’s specs, though others say it can be pushed to 2 GB], the Dimension is too slow to play the newer videogames and edit movies but is fine for web-surfing. The older members of the household find it to be perfectly adequate for most of their ossified needs.

The Dell Vostro 400 acquired in 2007 is significantly faster at 2.2 Ghz. Complaints about its speed by the gameplayers in the household were studiously ignored. Eventually the gameplayers sprung for a graphics card that seemed to do the trick.

One thing bugs me about the newer computer, though, that makes me reluctant to buy another Dell. The company no longer provides CDs or DVDs of the pre-loaded software. Instead, there’s a recovery section on the hard disk that the user supposedly can access by pressing cntrl F11.

There’s enough crud (of the electronic kind) that accumulates on the hard disk and causes the machine to slow noticeably over time, as well as freeze and crash. I’ve found over the years that, if I take the time to delete the entire disk and re-install the programs and data, the computer runs much faster. Last year I spent hours trying to access the recovery partition in order to do a clean re-install. No luck, and phone calls and e-mails to Dell didn’t do the trick.

Last week Windows XP became corrupted and the Vostro wouldn’t boot up. I won’t bore you, dear reader, with my false starts and amateurish workaround attempts. Eventually I sprung for a fresh copy of XP from Amazon, and after about eight hours the computer was up and running like new. I would have saved days and dollars if Dell had sent me backup disks. Yes, Dell builds good, cheap desktop computers, but there’s such a thing as being too cheap.

Weary of Pizzazz

Although California is among the bluest of blue states (Obama over McCain 61%-37% in the 2008 general election), Republicans are harboring hopes for 2010. The Chronicle quotes George Will:

"Although California is a blue state, it has had Republican governors for 30 of the last 43 years," he wrote. "The Republican revival nationally might begin here next year."

It’s no big secret why some may feel this way. After the Inauguration our problems weren’t solved; in fact they’ve gotten worse. Unemployment is over 10%, $20+ billion in State budget deficits have necessitated visible cutbacks in services (government offices are closed on Fridays), and individuals have taken huge hits to their net worth in real estate and financial assets. (Admittedly, the stock market recovery since March has improved investors’ mood to sour from panicky fear).

Unlike the Federal government, California can’t print currency, so further government expansion as a solution to its problems has hit a brick wall. Meanwhile, the private sector is shrinking as higher taxes and regulations have caused businesses to flee the State.

The high hopes of last year’s young and inexperienced dreamers have been tempered, if not dashed, by the real world. More government hasn’t made things better, and the party most closely identified with big government is dominant today but extremely vulnerable if conditions don’t improve.

However, generic conditions aren’t everything, we live in a personality-driven world. My personal tweet-takes on the candidates:

Jerry Brown (D) – State AG, former Oakland Mayor. Linda Ronstadt,‘70s tenure as Governor “Moonbeam.” Jesuit training, Lawyer. 2 years younger than John McCain.

Tom Campbell (R) – Business school dean, former Representative, socially liberal, economic conservative.

Gavin Newsom (D) – San Francisco Mayor, handsome jet-setter, 1st marriage to celebrity reporter, 2nd marriage to billionaire’s daughter. Gay-marriage advocate.

Steve Poizner (R) - State Insurance Commissioner, billionaire high-tech entrepreneur.

Meg Whitman (R) – ex-CEO of eBay, billionaire.

Republicans Poizner and Whitman have had outstanding success in business but lack a well-developed public image. In 2010 this may be an advantage to an electorate weary of pizzazz and eager for a resume with results.

Points of the Triangle

Tigerhawk posts on the health-care debate:

Pick any two of widespread or universal coverage, lower or at least stable costs as a function of national income, and a wide-open system with plenty of capacity and rapid innovation. All three are not genuinely possible, at least not in this lifetime. If we want a diluted version of all three, we should concentrate on incremental improvements at the margin within our current system. There is much that could be done to save money without changing its essential character or returns to technological innovation, and we should do those things first.

The author is clearly referencing the project triangle, a simple and useful template for viewing many undertakings.

From Wikipedia.

My quick take on the points of the triangle vis-à-vis the nation’s health care system:

Good – check. America has a large chunk of the world’s best doctors and hospitals. We have available the latest medicine and equipment. Thanks to the Internet, we also have a (fairly) well-informed populace, which helps not only in the treatment of disease but also in the promotion of preventive care.

Fast – check. The development of emergency-room and trauma-center protocols has been remarkable. For non-life-threatening conditions there can be delays of several months. For diagnostic tests (e.g., mammograms, colonoscopies) whose urgency is open to question, it has been our experience that doctors display good judgment in determining from other risk factors whether a patient should be moved up in the queue. But that’s just us.

Cheap – Are you kidding? In 2007 “total [health care] spending was $2.4 TRILLION in 2007, or $7900 per person. Total health care spending represented 17 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).”

[note: above link to nchc.org quote has vanished. Here's a link to updated statistics in 2011: "Total health expenditures on healthcare in the US reached $2.6 trillion as it grew 3.8% in 2009 and 3.9% in 2010."]

The majority of Americans have the majority of their health care expense paid for by their employers or the government. Most know that the current system is certainly not cheap, but, because of this cost-shifting (itself the source of additional waste), do not view health care as budget-bustingly expensive either.

However, for those who are not covered by insurance, a health event can be financially disastrous. To prevent such ruin to a minority of the population (that admittedly runs into the millions), we are proposing to re-make how we pay for health care from head to toe. The worry is that, if the government has too big a role in paying for health care, it could wreck the fast and good system that we do have, jeopardizing all.

Better to take incremental steps, such as handing out vouchers to people who can't afford health insurance and regulating more heavily (I grit my teeth to say this) the insurance companies to require them not to take into account pre-existing conditions when pricing their policies.

I know doctors who have long since passed the threshold of working out of financial necessity; they enjoy their work, take losses on Medicare and Medi-cal patients, and turn a profit because of higher private-insurance payments. If a single-payer system forces them into a loss position, many who can afford to will hang it up. And we’ll all be stuck in a system that will be less fast, less good, and still not cheap.


© 2009 Stephen Yuen

The Loveliness of Paris Streets

The compleat cyclist has 9 cameras, GPS, a computer, and a generator.

For those whom hard times make the prospects of a European trip remote, Google has begun extending its "Street View" to Paris and other European cities. For those who are fortunate to make the trip, turn off Maps and GPS. One of the joys of traveling to Paris is getting lost and dallying at a little cafe or museum not in the guidebooks. Progress isn't always progress.

Caltrain: Not What They Envisioned

Bay Meadows race track, next to Hillsdale station, has been torn down. New shops, residences, and offices will add hundreds to ridership.

Everyone I know who tries Caltrain likes the experience. The camaraderie with conductors and fellow passengers, the clacking of the wheels and tooting of the whistle, the luxury of snacking, dozing off, and feeling superior to drivers stuck on Highway 101, and the self-satisfaction from reducing one’s carbon footprint all contribute to the pleasure of commuting by train.

Satisfaction turns to horror about once a month when a train strikes a person or vehicle. And it’s even more tragic because many deaths are not accidental:

Caltrain had more suicides in 2008 — 12 — than any year in its history. From the launch of Caltrain in 1992 through 2008, 62 percent of the railroad's deaths were ruled to be suicides.

As a rider of twenty years, I’ve ridden on a train that struck an empty bus—no one was hurt—and another that killed someone. It makes little difference whether one is on the incident train or one following behind; one’s schedule is disrupted for a good part of the day.

When an accident happens, service up and down the line is halted for at least an hour. Many commuters have learned to adapt, but I’ve observed a decrease in the number of younger people whose jobs absolutely require them to start at a fixed time. Professionals and executives have colleagues or subordinates who can cover for them; junior workers who are trying to establish a reputation for reliability do not have such flexibility.

Caltrain suicides are especially difficult on the engineers and conductors, the former because they know they can’t stop 80-MPH tons of steel in time, and the latter who are first on the scene to assess the damage to flesh and bone. It’s a regular part of the job but surely not what they envisioned when they signed up. This year I’m making an extra effort to smile and engage the conductors in conversation (only if it appears they might welcome it, of course). © 2009 Stephen Yuen

Creating Tomorrow's Leaders

There are endless debates over which institutions belong in the top-ten or top-twenty list of colleges and universities. But there's only one criterion that matters: who do the best of the best want to mate with? With each other, of course.

The Ivy Connection is "a speed dating service only open to graduates of top universities." You make the grade if you're a graduate of these "Ivy plus" institutions:

Brown
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Harvard
Princeton
University of Pennsylvania
Yale
California Institute of Technology
Duke
Johns Hopkins
MIT
Northwestern
Stanford University
University of Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis

The Ivy Connection recently added:

UC Berkeley
Carnegie Mellon
NYU
Boston College
University of Notre Dame
Georgetown
UCLA

I realize times are tough, but UCLA? Once you cheapen your brand, you never get it back.

[OK, kidding, kidding.]

"Trauma" Makes It Nice

We’ve got to wait till September to see whether NBC’s new paramedic series, Trauma, will be a hit, but it’s already providing a much-needed boost to the San Francisco economy.

Penned by Dario Scardapane, the pilot is estimated to spend $7 million in San Francisco through the hiring of local crew, payment of local taxes, city services, and the patronage of local business.

The show will be expensive to produce. There will be lots of on-location filming, explosions, and action to watch on our new HD flatscreens (no, we haven’t bought one yet).

It doesn’t look like they’re too careful about watching their pennies: Justin Herman Plaza has been rented for the week for what can’t be more than a few minutes of air time. It must be nice to have a fat budget.

Why all the effort to put the injured in a rotor-less copter?

Jerking My Chain

I've made a political contribution only once--it was to a Republican candidate, and he lost--and I've regretted it. No, not the expenditure but the after-effects.

Every day I've been on the receiving end of junk mail, e-mail, and fundraising phone calls. Today's e-mail subject line was: "ObamaCare Equals Government Funded Euthanasia." I suppose I can see the chain of logic that gets you to that conclusion, but c'mon guys, tone it down and quit jerking my chain.

Toxic Waste Disposal in San Mateo County

The weekend handyman begins projects and, if he’s successful, finishes half of them. Whatever his completion rate, one consequence is the steady accumulation of containers of toxic chemicals, many with unreadable labels. After years of procrastination I went through the garage and storage areas on the side of the house and filled three boxes. Now, the hard part: where do I take them and how much will it cost?

The county website wasn’t very user-friendly; it appeared that different materials had to be trucked to different locations. Figuring out how to do the right thing was above my pay grade, so I called the number (650-363-4718) and left my callback information. Although the voice on the machine didn’t ask for it, I also left my e-mail address. Three days later an appointment arrived in my AOL inbox: 11:45 on Saturday at 32 Tower Road, San Mateo.

I placed partially consumed cans of latex paint, solvents, cleaners, pesticides, sealers, stains, and herbicide in the van. It still wasn’t certain which items they’d take, but this was one project that would be seen through. I was determined make more appointments at different addresses until the van was emptied.

It was a 15-minute drive to 32 Tower Road, in the hills close to the intersection of Highways 280 and 92. Various San Mateo County buildings were also there, constructed before expensive homes were built nearby. Well, those homeowners knew the neighborhood they were buying into.

The workers were dressed from head to toe in white, protected by goggles and gloves. After verifying my appointment, they took every bit of the trash. I offered to help. No, sir, do not step out of the van. Lawyers govern everything we do.

I was pleased with how it all worked out. Not only did I not have to make a trip to another disposal site, the cost was zero. Despite budget cuts and the expense of running the facility, that the service would be free (to residents, not businesses) should have been obvious; the county wants to minimize the temptation to dump toxics in the sewer. Lawyers and economists govern everything we do. © 2009 Stephen Yuen

32 Tower Road

Palpable Disdain

Let’s put aside the questions over whether a new national health care plan constitutes “socialism”, whether it will reduce or raise costs, or whether it will stifle innovation. These are all important issues, but I have another concern that is more mundane. Will this new government program work? On the basis of the government’s performance in other areas, no, it won’t….at least not for a long time.

Iraq: The 2003 invasion of Iraq took over a year to plan. Nevertheless, by 2007 it looked like the whole enterprise was going to be a dismal failure. Though military leadership and political courage turned the campaign around, the difficulties and delays make the Iraq war successful only under the rosiest of interpretations.

TARP: The Troubled Asset Release Program allows the Treasury to purchase up to $700 billion of hard-to-sell assets from banks so that banks can continue lending. Although there is only sketchy reporting of how the funds have actually been spent, it is clear that much has been misdirected:

Many U.S. banks that got federal bailout money misused it, a special inspector general overseeing the government's financial rescue program said Monday.

While most of the 360 banks surveyed said the Troubled Asset Relief Program money they got from Washington helped them make loans or avoid a drop in lending, 40 percent said they also used the money to shore up their capital to protect against losses, Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general, said in a report. However, TARP does not allow banks to recoup losses already incurred on troubled assets.

Cash-for-clunkers: the $1 billion program (CARS) to jump-start auto sales and retire older high-mileage vehicles was supposed to start on July 1st. However, procedures were only released yesterday, July 24th.

I wonder how many months we’ll have to wait after its signing to find out how the vastly more complex and costly health plan will work. The uncertainty and confusion will freeze a large sector of our economy as we try to recover from a deep recession. Only a political class that has never had to manage a new-product introduction and lazily leaves the details to be sorted out later could show such palpable disdain for those whom they purportedly serve. © 2009 Stephen Yuen

Caring, Justice, and Morality

The minimum wage goes up by 70 cents to $7.25 per hour today.

Tyler Cowen points out the benefit to employers for supporting an increase to the minimum wage though these same employers may already pay (well) above the minimum wage. And it’s not just the good publicity.

Note that I don't think that these employers are being dishonest in their support for "social justice" but I do think that it's easy to be in favor of the minimum wage when it doesn't cost you anything.

Indeed, these employers will benefit from an increase in the minimum wage because it will raise the costs of their rivals. This is why unions have typically been in favor of the minimum wage even when their own workers make much more than the minimum.

Good publicity, feeling good about yourself, and hurting your competitors. What’s not to like? I’d do the same thing if I were a businessman in that position. Yet it’s been known for decades that raising the minimum wage by fiat reduces the demand for labor, hence raising unemployment, especially among lower-skilled teenagers. This is yet another example of how individual actors will advocate their own best interest and reduce overall societal welfare.

I daresay we’ll see the same behavior and motivations manifested in the coming expansion of health care. Large employers, the vast majority of whom provide health care insurance for their employees, will support a mandatory health insurance or penalty tax on their competitors who don’t provide it. But the language will be all about caring, justice, and morality.

A Performance for the Ages

Unlike basketball and football, golf doesn't require one to be young to be played well. What Tom Watson did last week, however, was extraordinary. By finishing the British Open tied for first, he performed at the highest level of his profession over four days. Speaking as one who feels tired after 18 holes of casual golf, I can only have an inkling of the physical and mental demands that professional golf places on the 59-year-old Watson’s body.

Much has been made of his missed chances to make par and win the tournament on the final hole. I think it was his mind and body finally saying “no more”, evidenced by his painful bogey-filled performance during the four playoff holes. Chuck Culpepper of the LA Times writes:

From the man to watch across four days of 60-foot birdies and precise swings and savvy management, Watson became unwatchable in the playoff as his body went drained and his shots went awry. [snip] Surely, though, golf's ultimate turn of viciousness had to be that it took Watson, after four days of energy and vitality from one just seven weeks shy of 60, and then it left him out there for four last holes through which he suddenly looked absolutely 59 and completely sapped.

Falling just short showed Tom Watson to be mortal, not Superman. In a sense that cast into relief just how extraordinary his performance was.