Exponential spending, runaway inflation, and some eye candy

Mail 703 Wednesday, December 07, 2011

· Exponential spending

· Sources and sinks for CO2

· Lunar Eclipse

· Herman Kahn books available

Federal Expenditures per capita per GDP

Hi Jerry-

Your assertion that Federal Spending is growing exponentially is false, or at least is misleading.

The relevant statistic is not raw dollars spent, but instead is Federal Expenditures per capita per GDP, which has been almost exactly constant over the past century.

The real problem is that the private sector is collapsing. This collapse is in part due to poor governance at the Federal, State, and Municipal level.

Lets get the facts right. Only then will we get the solution right.

Best,

-Steve=

Federal expenditures rise essentially monotonically (with the exception of the two years when Newt Gingrich was Speaker and William Clinton was President). The doubling time has come down dramatically. I can recall when it was considered a crisis because the Federal budget was $100 Billion; that was in Lyndon Johnson’s day and the financing of the Great Society.

Meanwhile the federal debt has risen and rises monotonically. When we speak of “cuts” we talk of reducing the rate of growth of spending and the deficit. I fail to see how it is misleading to call this exponential rise of spending. We continue to spend more money than we have, and we pay it out to obtain services we do not need, or at least do not prefer. We continue to find new ways to take money out of the private sector in order to pay for government including exponentially growing pensions.

Of course the private sector is collapsing. All those who earn money must allocate that money, not to profitable investments, but to paying interest on mounting debts, paying pensions to retired bunny inspectors, paying for whatever whim the command economy is good for us: what else would you expect?

The facts are that we spend too darned much money on things we don’t need and often don’t want, and that trend continues upward monotonically; and if that isn’t ‘exponential growth’ then I do not think it is particularly misleading either. If we don’t get spending under control we will regret it. In fact we already do.

The Red Green Show

I’m afraid this recent Chaos Manor posting :

http://jerrypournelle.com/jerrypournelle.c/chaosmanor/#irony

exemplifies how Industrial strength bogosity is often substituted for

science in the climate wars.

The simple fact is that a computer glitch transposed red and green in the

Ibuku climate satellite graphics seen on Japanese TV . Industrial nations

continue to be CO2 sources and agrarian nations sinks.

Only constant vigilance can deliver your readers from the hacks who have

predictably tried to transform this simple error into a Fatal Flaw In The

Warmist Hoax.

Lord knows I’ve tried to put their shenanigans in perspective:

http://takimag.com/article/climate_of_here#axzz1Y2nc8fO1.html

—

Russell Seitz

Fellow of the Department of Physics

Harvard University

I had my doubts about all that. Thanks for setting the record straight. One thing about this place, we manage to get the facts right.

NSA Career

Jerry,

Came across this when I was helping my grandson research scholarships. Having worked for the NSA for 12 years, and one of it’s companion organizations for 9 years, I can tell you this is a pretty amazing deal. Perhaps your readers would be interested.

Stokes Educational Scholarship Program

Paid tuition ,Year-round salary, Work experience, Guaranteed employment

Major in computer science or computer/electrical engineering

Eligible to be granted a security clearance

GPA 3.0 or above; SAT 1600 or ACT 25

Work during summer for the National Security Agency

Agree to work for NSA for at least 1 ½ times the length of study upon graduation

www.NSA.gov/Careers http://www.NSA.gov/Careers

Tracy Walters, CISSP

Steve jobs said that he did not make Apple computers and electronics in general in the United States because the education system did not produce enough competent engineers to allow good design, manufacturing, and quality control. I do agree that a career in government service may be a good choice given the way our economy is going. Whether it is good for the nation to have more and more of the quality people we do have go into government jobs is something else again. At some point we have to start producing things. Creating wealth. And yes, I know, protecting the nation is important.

Lunar Eclipse

http://whoknew.news.yahoo.com/who-knew/lunar-eclipse-27509751.html#crsl=%252Fwho-knew%252Flunar-eclipse-27509751.html

Here it Central US we might be able to catch a glimpse, but those west of here have a better chance.

Harrah. I probably will not get up to see it, but some may want to.

Oath of Fealty

Dr Pournelle,

The business-as-city model you and Larry Niven proposed in Oath of Fealty may become reality: Honduras has passed and amendment to their Constitution enabling the government to create REDs, special development regions with their own legal personality and jurisdiction, their own administrative systems and laws, and the ability to negotiate treaties (subject to approval by a majority in Congress); see <http://chartercities.org/blog/191/a-new-city-in-honduras> for details.

—Joel Salomon

Oath of Fealty was begun in the 1970’s just after we wrote MOTE in GOD’s EYE. It was put off because Niven became obsessed with doing INFERNO, and became the out third best-seller. When we wrote it small computers had not been fully developed and the Internet had not appeared at all, but we managed to project enough high technology in the right directions to keep the story reasonably current; and the social problems addressed in Oath are going to be quite real. OATH offers a different way of high quality life, and I would not be surprised to see something of the sort evolve over time, On the gripping hand, I would have expected to see Todos Santos built and occupied by 2015.

: You can probably appreciate this

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/06/cancer-patients-welfare-work-tests

—

Harry Erwin

harry.erwin@btinternet.com

Indeed I can, Thanks,

Jerry

US military pays SETI to check Kepler-22b for aliens:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/06/seti_checks_out_kepler_habitable_exoplanets/

Quite prudent.

Ed

APOD: 2011 December 6 – Jupiter Rotation Movie from Pic du Midi,

Jerry

A movie of Jupiter – one full rotation, in all of its majesty:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111206.html

Ed

Subject: Globe slowly warming, insists ‘Hansen’s Bulldog’

From the article:

"It’s a case of making statistics show what you want it to prove in the first place," physicist and science author Dr David Whitehouse told us. "I don’t believe you can take away three big effects, and be sure the little effects you’ve got left are due to man."

"Statistics can be useful as a tool to discover things you couldn’t otherwise find. Or they can be used to prove things you want to prove. This looks like the latter."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/06/ramsdorf_foster_still_warming_no_really/

I would have thought that it is self evident that (1) the Earth began to cool around 1325 after the long Viking Warm period, and (2) it began to warm about 1800, and has continued to warm at about a degree a century ever since. There is a ripple variance caused by the solar cycle, and there is a larger warming/cooling cycle of about a 40 year period. We’re at the end of the cooling part of that, and we ought to see warming begin again. We’re watching. And we’re refining our methods for watching.

We know we are in an Interglacial Period. And I would presume that most people would rather see it warm than have the Ice come back.

Subject: Boffins: Japan was hit by ‘double-wave’ tsunami

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/06/merging_tsunami_japan_nasa/

It sure was

Gave Up Looking

Your comment on the email from "George" is correct; "given up looking for work" has nothing to do with the exhaustion of unemployment benefits. (AFAIK, the government does not even use any words like "given up looking for work," but I might be wrong on this point.) The reason I’m writing to you is to say that countless people who speak out on unemployment make George’s error, and this is "interesting" (massively annoying) because the government has been using a poll called the "Current Population Survey," or "Households Survey," to estimate the number of unemployed since the 1940s.

I find it hard not to think of errors like that one as deliberate, lying propaganda. Yes, I know, people don’t check the claims that they circulate, but I’m cantankerous, and besides, for all I know, this particular error may actually have originated as left-wing propaganda at some time in the past 70 years. I don’t know that it did, but it strikes me that way. I’ve heard people who really ought to know better make the error. Why would a person arbitrarily dream up a link between unemployment benefits and government estimation of the number of unemployed? Years ago, before I knew the answer, I didn’t do that. I *wondered* how the government came up with its figures.

The CPS (Current Population Survey) polls about 60,000 households in total, but only something like 40,000 in any given month. Once they call you, they ask you if you’d be willing to be polled for 18 months. If you say no, you’re not part of the survey. If you say yes, then you’ll be polled during something like 10 of the 18 months. (My figures might be a little bit off.)

The poll contains quite a number of questions. If I recall correctly, none of them has anything to do with unemployment benefits. With a little work, you can find it online at either the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Census Bureau. (The CPS is a collaborative project of those two.)

If you publish this, please don’t use my last name. Just identify me as "Bill M."

Bill M

How unemployment is measured

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a fairly nice website that documents how their data is collected — http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed — and you are correct that George was mistaken. Unemployment claims are not factored into the numbers. But it is something of a distinction without a difference. Until unemployed persons’ unemployment insurance runs out the government will continue to pay them to be unemployed. They will go through the motions of "actively looking for work" even if they are absolutely sure they are pumping a dry hole. Once the unemployment benefit runs out their answers to the BLS unemployment interviewers are likely to move them to the "discouraged workers" (non-unemployed) category. So unemployment insurance claims aren’t used to calculate the unemployment rate, but they might as well be.

Lee Haslup

I would be very doubtful of the information I got from interviews on subjects like this, and it would be expensive to verify it. What we do know is that we are paying people not to work, and it is proposed that we continue paying them not to work out of compassion. Those who do work are invited to spread the wealth around. In other times and places this has had certain effects on incentives.

If you pay people to be unemployed, you will find a steadily growing number of people applying for that job. The theory of unemployment  compensation was to be a means for making the transition easier. It was not to create the job of being unemployed. The demand for a free good has not real limits; pay someone enough not to work at a job he doesn’t want, and he will certainly prefer to be unemployed. From the view of compassion and fair play this may be the right result; but someone must pay for that compassion, and that person will question whence came the obligation to continue working in order to pay someone else not to work. That has an effect on the economy. For more details, study the command economies of the Soviet Union and the satellites. Eventually “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”  I recall on my visit to Moscow all the bottled water was bought up at the hotel almost instantly; but the manager of the hard currency store had no real incentive to get more brought in even though the sale was assured; and there was no bottled water, leaving us to drink tea or tapwater, or something stronger for the rest  of the week. So it goes.

Taxes and US debt

I make no claims of economic expertise, and I understand that our primary problem now is much too large a government, but restricting myself to taxes alone, I note that corporate tax is something of a sales tax. That means that we already have a tax in place that extracts payment from everyone (but many do not realize that), and that is only semi-progressive. I’m not really in favor of corporate taxes, just see the very small silver lining behind the corporate tax cloud. I’d rather have the economic growth we’d get if corporate taxes were eliminated.

As for the gargantuan debt the US is piling up, I suspect that in the end we’ll inflate our way through it. The politicians will not muster the courage, or risk the loss of their offices, to enact what it takes to pay off the debt. Instead, they’ll sidle into a solution by allowing inflation to reduce the debt. Inflation amounts to a tax on wealth, as opposed to a tax on income, and here, too, the rate is not progressive. Damned small silver lining, but still… Also there is no way to solve the problem of government extraction of too much of the GDP except by reducing the amount of government.

My hope is that I might be nimble enough with my investments to surf the inflation wave without wiping out. Meanwhile I’m heavily into gold.

Michael D. Biggs

Corporate taxes are not quite sales taxes, in that they fall on all corporate profits, not just goods to be sold to the public, but clearly if the corporation is to survive, it must collect what it pays as taxes from those to whom it sells goods or services. Thus a corporation tax is in a sense a sales tax, but it is not always seen as one. A direct consumption tax has a more direct effect. Rome tried sumptuary laws to limit conspicuous consumption. That sometimes worked. Often it did not.

  As to inflation, controlling it Is difficult. I have a German First Class postage stamp; it was issued at 3 pfennigs, and twice overprinted. The second overprint is for 3 mird millionen Marks. That is certainly inflation.

I also have a million Real note from Brazil. I think I got a little change when I used one to buy a newspaper. That, too, is inflation. Brazil now has that under control. We have not yet started to inflate; not real inflation of that kind. We may see it yet.

The decline of science

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I direct your attention to this article at RealClearMarkets discussing the decline of science, noting especially the modern problem of irreproducible results :

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/12/05/the_financially_driven_erosion_of_scientific_integrity_99401.html

"

While outright data fabrication does occur, it is rare. The bigger threat to scientific integrity is the temptation to cherry pick results as they are produced by a Darwinian horde of apprentices clamoring for admission into the guild. Failed experiments never get reported, the definition of failure sometimes including results that call a PI’s pet theories into question. Confirmation bias pervades the process much more so than in industry since the consequences of spending billions drilling a dry hole are severe.

But what are the consequences for publishing a paper with irreproducible results? What becomes of tenured PIs whose junk science leads us down blind alleys, polluting the literature while precipitating hundreds of millions of dollars in someone else’s losses?

They write another grant application."

Reading this, I am struck by an observation made by the comic strip "Clockwork comics", which despite it’s status as a fictional comic strip does an excellent job researching it’s historical material.

http://www.clockwork-comics.com/2011/05/05/more_genuine_pursuits/

Note the commentary at bottom — why did the Ottoman Empire’s science decline? While the standard explanation is that the Mongols destroyed their libraries, the modern interpretation is different; instead, it is believed that the Ottomans developed a scientific orthodoxy more concerned with protecting its own position and power than with objectivity. Result? It’s been almost a hundred years since the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and there is still very little original science of note anywhere in the Middle East. Outside of Israel, such scientists and engineers as do exist seem primarily used to copy cookbook recipes — much like your Codominium scientists.

Wahhabism is certainly no aid. But it turns out you don’t need religion as an excuse for imposing a mind-deadening orthodoxy. The desire of those who have already arrived to protect their rice bowl from young competitors is reason enough.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Science objectivity follow up

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Following up on my last missive regarding scientific objectivity, here is the issue of Science which the original article had referenced.

http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/data-rep/index.xhtml

As you can see, there is great concern over the fact that reams and reams of papers are being churned out and *none of it is reproducible*. I’m not quite sure how to fix it. After all, it’s not like money corrupting the process is anything new, but for some reason the machine seems to be breaking down when it wasn’t before.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

And to enter as a scientist you must generally incur lifelong debt. That can’t be good. Those with enormous debts have enormous incentives to find the results that produce more funding. Political funding follows. It is difficult to be independent if one is a bondsman. We are busily converting the entire educated class into bondsmen. Certain consequences are predictable.

Just right?

<http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepscicon-briefing.html>

—–

Roland Dobbins

Herman Kahn Books

Jerry,

Much to my surprise Mr. Kahn’s "Cold War" books remain in print. I found them on Amazon.com in paperback: "On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios", "Thinking about the Unthinkable in the 1980s" and "On Thermonuclear War"

I was unaware of "On Escalation." I will be adding it to my library.

His "Coming Boom" and "The Next 200 Years" are out of print.

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

As we reenter the world of deterrence and potential nuclear death, Herman is well worth reading again. One must think about the unthinkable, and paying bureaucrats to do it may not be the optimum way to keep the republic.