At UnHerd Aris Roussinos muses over whether Ukraine should consider compromising:

The Biden administration’s approach to the war has always been fundamentally sound: that Ukraine should be supported to negotiate, but only from a position of relative strength. Yet it is no good to belatedly observe, as US officials are now anonymously wont to do, that perhaps America’s top general Mark Milley was right in claiming that Ukraine’s greatest period of relative strength was last winter, following the unexpected success of the Kherson and Kharkiv offensives, when an overstretched Russia was on the ropes and seemingly willing to negotiate. True, back then, Ukraine’s star was ascendent and the planned offensive, then slated for the spring, seemed fraught with terrible potential for Russia’s leadership. Yet even then, Russia insisted on Kyiv recognising Moscow’s possession of the Ukrainian territories it had just abandoned, an impossible starting condition for talks.

and

Instead of public expressions of eternal support followed by private disavowals, Washington should not now promise Kyiv more than it can realistically expect to deliver, factoring in the possibility of a White House transition. Equally, Ukraine now needs to cut its ambitions to America’s cloth: it should abandon fantasies of carving a humbled Russia into ethnic republics, or bundling Putin into a dock in the Hague, and focus on what can be realistically be achieved over the course of the next year. Both America and Ukraine will need to compromise: Washington by delivering more aid over a longer timeframe than Biden is politically comfortable with, and Kyiv by lowering its goals to match its objective capabilities.

I don’t believe that Ukraine can compromise; continuing to demand a return to their pre-2014 borders is an existential issue for them. Equally existential for the Russians is continued control of Crimea and independence at the very least for the two Donbas provinces. That’s not a new development; Russia has maintained that view all along. Like it or not it’s not up to us to dictate the Russian interest.

It may well be that Ukraine will join NATO, just not in the way advocates had wanted but by federating with Poland. That may be the most viable alternative for the rump eastern Ukraine. Declaring that such judgments are up to the Ukrainians is meaningless noise. U. S. support is critical to Ukraine’s ability to continue at its present level although it could continue a guerrilla war essentially forever.

It’s a bit too rambling to excerpt and quote meaningfully but I found David Dayen’s analysis of the WGA-SAG/AFRTRA strike at The American Prospect interesting. As I understand his point it’s that reaching out to the federal government to break up Disney, Netflix, and Amazon will bring them to the bargaining table. Why those companies?

The report was intended for the eyes of the Biden administration’s antitrust enforcers. It recommends that Disney, Netflix, and Amazon be prevented from any further consolidation, and investigated for anti-competitive practices in streaming. It was a call from inside the industry to break the industry up. And the administration got the message. That may be the primary reason why the studios are backtracking.

and

There are other streaming platforms, but the WGA reasonably predicts that if Disney, Amazon, and Netflix are allowed to continue their practices, those other platforms will wither away or be bought by one of the Big Three, which Wall Street analysts have already begun to demand.

The three walled gardens have essentially recreated the state of the three major networks before the fin-syn era, the WGA explains. That brings us back to the issues in the writers’ and actors’ strikes: low starting salaries, little or no residuals, the inability to move a production from one walled garden to another, no recourse when the Big Three reduce investment, and rising fees for consumers, who are essentially trapped for their entertainment dollar. “Unless antitrust agencies and lawmakers prevent future merger activity by dominant firms and step in to preserve and protect the competitive environment for other streaming services, the future of content is in peril,” the report concludes.

It reminds me of the pre-1948 situation with the Hollywood studios. From Hollywood’s beginnings movie studios had run their own theater chains until the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Paramount Pictures. That, abetted by the unstoppable rise of television, resulted in the slow motion collapse of the Big Five studios over the next twenty years and the attendant increase in independent theaters and production.

Frankly, I’m skeptical. Disney’s annual sales are around $87 billion; Netflix around $32 billion; Amazon around $538 billion, only about $3 billion of which is streaming services. For Amazon streaming is a loss leader for its other segments. It’s hard for me to see how you justify splitting up Disney, Netflix, and Amazon without splitting up Google ($282 billion) and Apple ($384 billion), each of which in its own way is involved in stream and production, as well.

Quite to the contrary, my gut-level reaction is that the strike is a masterpiece of bad timing the participants will gain little and might lose a lot. Not only is Hollywood in competition with independents, the UK, Canada, and Australia for eyeballs but with China, India, and South Korea as well. There’s lots of content out there and the longer the strike goes on the greater the likelihood that Hollywood as we’ve known it may never return.

I wish the strikers well and don’t begrudge them a bigger slice of the pie but I think the pie may be shrinking.

At UnHerd Philip Pilkington laments that “the West” has “lost the plot”:

For more than a decade, our ability to form a coherent narrative about ourselves has been degrading. By “our”, I mean the West, which emerged in its current form in 1945 after three decades of war, desolation, and economic upheaval. The narrative that it told itself was crystalised during the Cold War: that the West would stand for liberty and freedom against the very live totalitarianism of the Soviet Union.

But this framework crumbled together with the Berlin Wall and the fall of communism. Overnight, a new narrative was needed, and it didn’t take long for one to emerge. The post-Cold War narrative formed in response to the Gulf War in 1990, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq aggressively attacked Kuwait, principally with an eye to seizing its oil reserves. The United States and a 42-country coalition intervened, the Iraqis were soon pushed back, and Kuwait was allowed to govern itself. Here was the seed of the new narrative: the West, having won the Cold War, would keep the peace in the new status quo.

concluding:

In both the UK and US, then, there is reason to think that we have no real coherent narrative. No one is sure where to go next or what to believe. And as three recent events have demonstrated, this noxious position is already causing serious dysfunction in our political culture.

noting stressors imposed on the present narrative, e.g. COVID-19, the destruction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline, Prigozhin’s brief march towards Moscow, the coup in Niger.

What should we think about each of those? We don’t really know. They’re shrouded in the fog of war.

While I agree with him that it’s darned hard to promote the image of yourself as a peacekeeper while going around starting wars everywhere, IMO the problem is even more basic than that.

The initial narrative is past its sell-by date. “The West” is and always has been a device for pursuing national interest. Although the concept goes back thousands of years earlier, in the late 1930s-early 1940s Britain promoted the us against them notion of “the West” to draw the United States into its war with Germany, an effort which proved successful. After the war “the West” was used to promote American national interest, this time against the Soviet Union.

But it’s a struggle to dredge a notion of “the West” from the euro, always an attack vehicle against the dollar, from the invasion of Iraq, or from U. S.-UK-French support of the removal of Moammar Qaddafi. We certainly weren’t keeping the peace and the images that have emerged from Libya make it difficult to see it as promoting liberty and freedom. Particularly the open air slave markets which did not exist previous to Qaddafi’s removal.

I strongly suspect that the connecting thread among the incidents Mr. Pilkington lists (COVID-19, the destruction of Nordstream 2, etc.) is interest but for the life of me I can’t see whose.

Meanwhile maybe we should return to an idea of U. S. interest that predates the promotion of the Anglo-French view of “the West” to one that is more natively American. We have interests that go beyond those of Europe and European interests are not necessarily ours.

When Jack and I set out on our morning walk this morning we saw many, many moms, dads, and their kids engaging in an annual ritual: the first day of school. In this neighborhood it is a commonplace for one parent, mom or dad, to accompany their child to school every day. Today was distinctive because in so many cases both parents were making the trek.

I remember my first day of school. I think I was five. My mom walked me to school to show me the way. I think that was the last time either of my parents ever walked me to school. I’m sure I remember my first day of school because it was the first time I had ever spent that much time without one of my parents. Nowadays nursery school or day care of some sort before the age of five is a commonplace but that wasn’t within my experience.

When my younger siblings started kindergarten walking them to school was my responsibility.

As Jack and I walked I asked one of the sets of parents whether they remembered their first day of school. Neither of them did.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Ray Tayekh recaps the 1953 Iranian putsch that overthrew Mossadeq:

After seven decades it’s time to set the record straight. Mossadeq was a Persian aristocrat who objected to Britain’s control of Iran’s oil. He led the nationalization charge and was instrumental in Iran’s reclaiming its national asset. He wasn’t democratically elected to his post but appointed by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He was stubborn and uncompromising, and he relished defying the great powers.

America became involved with Iran at Mossadeq’s instigation. Once negotiations over oil with Britain deadlocked, Mossadeq implored President Harry S. Truman to mediate the dispute. From 1951 until the eventual coup, a succession of American diplomats came up with numerous plans, all of which Mossadeq rejected. The U.S.-crafted compromise called for Britain to accept the principle of nationalization and for Iran to compensate Britain for the loss of its assets, which included the world’s largest refinery. Although London resented Washington’s evenhandedness, as a junior partner it had no choice but to agree. Diplomacy failed only because of Mossadeq’s obduracy.

To pressure him, Britain imposed an embargo on Iranian oil. Deprived of revenue, Iran’s economy cratered. The less money Mossadeq got, the more despotic he became. He rigged elections, disbanded Parliament, usurped the powers of the monarch, and showed little respect for the constitution.

His ruinous policies and dictatorial tendencies alarmed Persian power brokers. The shah was still too young and hesitant to take charge, but merchants, mullahs and military officers all began plotting against the prime minister. The clerical estate was critical to Mossadeq’s overthrow—something the Islamic Republic denies and Western professors whitewash.

By 1953 Iranians were asking the U.S. Embassy for support. Eisenhower seemed sympathetic because of Mossadeq’s increasing reliance on the Tudeh Communist Party. Eventually the Central Intelligence Agency dispatched Kermit Roosevelt to Iran to work with the horde of scheming Persians.

But the CIA didn’t create the opposition to Mossadeq. Lt. Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, one of Iran’s most distinguished officers, had already organized the military to overthrow the prime minister, mullahs were using their street muscle to organize demonstrations against Mossadeq, and merchants were closing their bazaars in protest.

All the while the monarchy as an institution still commanded popular support. America’s most essential contribution to Mossadeq’s removal was to get the shah to dismiss his prime minister. The monarch had the constitutional authority to do so but lacked the courage. Finally, on Aug. 15, after much American arm-twisting, Pahlavi fired Mossadeq. All the talk of a coup should note that once the shah issued his decree Mossadeq’s premiership was rendered illegal.

Tipped off by communist cells in the Iranian army, Mossadeq was waiting for the officer who delivered his dismissal orders. The officer was quickly arrested, and the shah fled the country. For Washington, the coup had ended. The State Department acknowledged that the “operation has been tried and failed and we should not participate in any operation against Mossadegh.” The CIA concurred: “Operations against Mossadegh should be discontinued.” Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s aide, told the president that the plan had failed and that “we now have to take a whole new look at the Iranian situation and probably have to snuggle up to Mossadeq if we are going to save anything there.”

In Tehran, the Iranians took command of the situation. The mullahs inflamed the streets with their sermons while the military gained control of the capital. Mossadeq went into hiding, only to turn himself in after a few days on the run. A stunned shah planning for a life in exile was summoned back to Iran. No one was more surprised by this turn of events than the spy masters at the CIA.

That basically comports with what one of the Iranian officers who participated in the coup wrote in his memoir. And it also is completely consistent with what I’ve been saying around here for the last 20 years.

It also explains why the revolutionaries of the 1989 revolution purged the military when they took over. They knew the threat was from the military not external forces.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal don’t understand something very basic about power companies:

The deadly fires in Maui last week are still being investigated, and there may have been more than one contributor. But one culprit that seems to be emerging is the tradeoff the local utility had to navigate between power grid safety and the government-mandated green energy transition.

Video footage points to fallen power lines as a possible cause of the deadly fires. Hawaiian Electric’s bonds and stocks have sold off this week as investors worry that the utility will be liable for fire damage.

and

Hawaii’s mandate was an especially tall order since only about 20% of its power in 2015 came from renewables. The islands lack large amounts of empty land to build solar and wind. They also lack natural-gas power that can ramp up quickly to back them up. Most of Hawaii’s power was derived from oil and coal.

To meet the government mandate, Hawaiian Electric embarked on a rapid renewable build-out, which involved heavily subsidizing rooftop solar and batteries and contracting for large-scale renewables at elevated prices. Oil can be an expensive fuel source, but decommissioning fossil-fuel plants prematurely wastes sunk capital.

Every dollar the utility spent on subsidizing solar and connecting renewables to the grid was one less dollar available for strengthening equipment and removing combustible brush. Despite rising fire risk from non-native grass, Hawaiian Electric spent less than $245,000 on wildfire projects on the island of Maui between 2019 and 2022.

Unless they are compelled to by mandate and enforcement power companies will never pursue resilience. It doesn’t add to the bottom line and needing to spend more money on maintenance actually bolsters their case for higher rates. Whatever your views on government there are some things which require government action and more resilient power distribution is one of them.

At Reason.com Emma Camp worries that hundreds of thousands of students disappeared from U. S. schools during the COVID-19 lockdowns and have never returned:

During the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a staggering number of students went “missing.” Kindergarten enrollment rates dropped, and students already enrolled in classes failed to log in for online learning.

From March to October 2020, the education nonprofit Bellwether estimated, as many as 3 million students nationwide went missing from classrooms. Another estimate from FutureEd, an education think tank, found a sevenfold increase in the number of students missing at least half a school year during the pandemic.

Once in-person school resumed, many students didn’t return to the classroom, nor did they register for homeschooling. No one knows exactly how to get them back.

According to the Associated Press (A.P.), California alone is missing more than 150,000 students, while New York is down nearly 60,000. In all, around 230,000 students in 21 states and Washington, D.C., are missing, which suggests that many more students are absent from classrooms nationwide. When the A.P. and Stanford University researchers analyzed data from pre-pandemic years, they found that almost no students were missing.

Where did the students go?

1. They’re being homeschooled
2. They’re truant
3. They’ve moved to other districts
4. They’ve left the United States
5. They never existed in the first place
6. All of the above
7. Other

I’m going for “All of the above”.

The irony of this post by Geoff Cooper at RealClearEnergy was not lost on me:

In the 15 years since the RFS was expanded, the amount of U.S. cropland has continued to shrink, grasslands and forests have increased, and the volume of animal feed grain and exports has risen—all while renewable fuel production has tripled.

How is that possible? Through innovation, greater productivity, and an unwavering commitment from American farmers and biofuel producers to use sustainable practices.

Farmers today grow nearly 20% more corn per acre than they did when the RFS was created. Thus, less land is required to produce the crops needed for renewable fuels. In 2022, farmers planted five million fewer corn acres (an area the size of New Jersey) than they did in 2007, but produced a corn crop that was 5% larger. Meanwhile, ethanol producers squeeze 10% more ethanol out of every bushel of corn than they did 15 years ago.

To me this illustrates that technological improvement is a two-edged sword, at least if your objective is to reduce carbon emissions. It doesn’t just result in better batteries; it also allows farmers to grow corn more efficiently.

That sounds like a good illustration of Jevons Paradox to me. Articulated more than a century ago, the paradox is that the more efficiently a resource is used (or produced) the more it will be used.

I had quite a bit of trouble in writing this post. To understand some of the problems I need to provide some definitions:

real means using constant dollars, taking inflation out of the picture
median means half are above and half are below
average or mean is determined by adding everything up and dividing by the number that you’ve summed
mode means the most frequently occurring number in whatever you’re counting
normal distribution means the median, mean, and mode are all the same
willingness to pay is a measure of demand

The problem that I had is that the figures I’m seeking are not readily available. What I was seeking was a graph of median college tuitions from 1970 to 2020 in real dollars. I’m going to need to use some anecdotal data.

This morning John Stossel’s op-ed in the New York Post, “Why college has become a total ripoff”, caught my eye. Naturally, he blames the high cost of a college education on the federal government:

It’s August. Many young people head off to college.

This year, fortunately, fewer will go.

I say “fortunately” because college is now an overpriced scam.

Overpriced because normal incentives to be frugal and make smart judgments about who should go to college were thrown out when the federal government took over granting student loans.

Why?

Because our government basically vomits money at everyone who applies.

If private lenders gave out the loans, they’d look at whether they were likely to be paid back.

I think that while government has played a role it’s not the only factor at work and I want to explain why. The TL;DR version is that college tuition has been rising very rapidly for a very long time, longer than the present round of student loans and (attempted) debt forgiveness.

I happen to know some of the following because I’m inquisitive and I talk to people. In 1960 the annual tuition at my elite alma mater was $600. By 1970 it had tripled to $1,800. It continued to triple roughly every 10 years: $5,400 (1980), $16,200 (1990), $48,600 (2000). Now it’s $62,391. Said another way over 60 years it increased more than a hundredfold.

Now let’s look at that in real terms:

Obviously, that’s a lot faster than inflation but inflation has played a role. It’s also clearly not just government action at work. If it had been, we’d see less regularity in the inexorable rise in inflation.

Now let’s look at real median family incomes over the same period:

Those are in 2021 dollars. Said another way in 2021 dollars the median family income was around $45,000 while today it’s around $89,000 dollars. Not quite doubled.

So, let’s recap. Inflation has rendered your dollar roughly equal to a dime in 1960. Median family incomes have roughly doubled. College tuitions have increased a hundredfold. Note that if median incomes had kept pace with inflation the median household income would be $450,000 today.

Here’s my interpretation of what’s happened. College tuitions have been increasing very rapidly for a very long time. That is driven by inflation and increased willingness to pay. Willingness to pay has increased become people have more money than they used to, because there’s a widespread and somewhat mistaken believe that the only way to get a good job is with a college education, as well as because the federal government has been throwing money at tertiary education. Basically, I think that John Stossel has the causality reversed. The government is throwing money at tertiary education because of voter demand and the increasing gap between college tuitions and median income.

I think that several things should happen. First, more strings should be attached to college loans. They should be restricted to majors that are likely to provide ROI. Second, we should deemphasize tertiary education in public discourse. It’s a lot less important than has been made out by opinionmakers. We need to reduce the role that the financial sector plays in the economy, referred to as “financialization”. And, finally, more policy should be directed at increasing median income. We can’t do that by increasing the number of workers in the country who can only get minimum (or sub-minimum) wage jobs. We need to produce more of what we consume.

I’m open to other suggestions. Increasing median income has been neglected for far too long.