The danger of war in one of the most dangerous parts of the world continues to escalate, largely ignored by the American media. For the first time in nearly 50 years Indian bombers have conducted operations deep inside Pakistani territory. At Project Syndicate Dr. Sudha Ramachandran declaims:

Pakistan’s support to militants and terror attacks in J&K through providing weapons, explosives and training is fuelling the violence. It has long fished in Kashmir’s troubled waters. The militarization of the conflict and Pakistani support to terrorists has weakened the possibility of a negotiated settlement.

However, the BJP government’s muscular handling and excessive use of force to deal with Kashmiri alienation cannot escape responsibility for the deterioration of the security situation in Kashmir as well.

India has sent a strong message to Pakistan to shut down anti-India terror factories on Pakistani soil. It must mobilize the international community to pressure Pakistan to shut down terror outfits.

Simultaneously, Delhi must put its house in order. The Modi government must address the turmoil at home. Sadly, it lacks the political will to deal honestly with Kashmiri grievances.

Indian military activity against Pakistan-based terrorists, supported by Pakistan’s military or secret service, bolsters the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the national elections to be held in India in April and May.

It’s understandable that American media would avoid the subject. It’s far, far away and there is no real role for the U. S. in the conflict other than that of nervous onlooker. The number of things that could go wrong in this exchange of hostilities is vast. Matters could escalate willy-nilly to a nuclear exchange between the parties. Any or all of Pakistan’s multiple insurgent groups could seize the opportunity. The Islamabad government could collapse and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists.

The story might receive more attention then.

This morning on TCM they showed The Harvey Girls. I watched just long enough for the tremendous ensemble number, “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” (1946’s Oscar for “Best Original Song”), one of the best ensemble numbers in the movies. One shot. Real people. The only things we see like that on the screen today are animated cartoons.

There are a lot of notable things about it. How frail and drawn Judy Garland looked. How solicitous her old friend, Ray Bolger, was of her. And Angela Lansbury, looking absolutely gorgeous as a dancehall girl.

I wonder how many people who saw The Harvey Girls in first run would have bet that Angela Lansbury would still be an active presence in the movies more than 70 years later? She had three credits in 2018.

In her Washington Post column Megan McArdle assesses the problems which Chicago’s next mayor must deal:

The city has been underfunding its pensions for decades, with dire results. Chicago’s pension plans collectively have only about a quarter of the assets they’ll need to pay benefits, one of the worst funding ratios in the nation. To put that hole in dollar terms, Chicago is about $28 billion short of what it needs, even under relatively favorable assumptions about future returns, or about $10,000 for every man, woman and child living in the city.

The problem could have been even worse. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who chose not to seek a third term, has managed to halt what had been a free fall in funding levels. But while emergency action may have stabilized things, the patient is still on life support, with radical surgery still needed. Within a few years, pension contributions are projected to suck up more than 20 percent of the city’s budget. And Chicago can’t count on much help from the state, which is dealing with its own, equally severe case of pension underfunding.

From the moment the next mayor takes office in May, she will face fierce pressure. And the rest of the country will be watching, because what’s happening in Illinois is merely the earliest and most extreme manifestation of a quandary that will soon be dominating the public conversation in many states: how to pay for retirement promises to public employees without entering a fiscal death spiral.

Compared with the private sector, oversight for public-pension managers has been almost criminally lax, and the methods that many funds use to calculate their pension liabilities has been preposterously optimistic. The shoddy accounting allowed generations of politicians all over the country to curry favor with public-sector workers by offering them ever-fatter pension packages, gaining immediate benefit while deferring the political cost of paying for all those benefits until much later.

Later is now arriving. Cities and states have to figure out how to pay for all the promises made by their elected predecessors, and none of the choices are good.

Chicago isn’t a poor city like Detroit, unable to pay for its pensions (or much of anything else). It has a robust housing market, and both its per capita and median household income are within striking distance of New York City’s. Moreover, Chicago would seem to have plenty of unused taxing capacity, since the tax burden on its higher-income residents is relatively low compared with that of similar cities.

It helps to know more about the subject upon which one is commenting. Chicago has higher property taxes and sales taxes than either New York or Los Angeles. It does not have the authority to levy a city earnings tax or even if it could to levy a graduated income tax. It might levy a transaction tax on commodities trades but the commodities trading business already has one foot out the door. That would probably be the last straw. No, Chicago is completely at the mercy of the state of Illinois and the state has not shown much inclination to give the city a hand.

Basically, Chicago will continue increasing fees, sales taxes, and property taxes while cutting back on the services it provides, thereby driving people out. The first to go will be the most portable. We’ve already reached the point where those leaving are those who are most desperate.

This morning the editors of the Washington Post propose their own program to reduce carbon emissions:

WE FAVOR a Green New Deal to save the planet. We believe such a plan can be efficient, effective, focused and achievable.

The Green New Deal proposed by congressional Democrats does not meet that test. Its proponents, led by Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), are right to call for ambition and bold action. They are right that the entire energy sector must be reshaped.

But the goal is so fundamental that policymakers should focus above all else on quickly and efficiently decarbonizing. They should not muddle this aspiration with other social policy, such as creating a federal jobs guarantee, no matter how desirable that policy might be.

And the goal is so monumental that the country cannot afford to waste dollars in its pursuit. If the market can redirect spending most efficiently, money should not be misallocated on vast new government spending or mandates.

On the point of not attempting to accomplish objectives only tangentially related to reducing carbon emissions, something a mentor of mine called “having too many oars in the water”, the editors and I are in complete agreement.

Since this was only the first of what they promise to be a series of editorials there are only hints of their complete plan but I think we should infer measures to ease a short term transition from coal to natural gas accompanied by a carbon tax.

One of the ways of assessing the competing plans is by trying to figure out what would happen if the program were to be completely successful, check the assumptions, and then figure out what is likely to happen.

For example, while the lack of details for the “Green New Deal” proposed by Congressional Democrats makes it hard to assess, I think we can make draw some basic conclusions. So, for example, if it’s completely successful it will

1. Sharply reduce carbon emissions in the U. S.
2. Reduce global carbon emissions
3. Root out the last vestiges of an industrial economy from the U. S.
4. Given everyone a good job and
5. Fund the program just by issuing credit, something about which its proponents have no concern because they believe that we can issue credit to ourselves indefinitely without risk

What I suspect is more likely is that we would

1. Reduce carbon emissions in the U. S. somewhat
2. Increase global carbon emissions by transferring industrial production overseas where carbon emissions per unit of production are higher
3. Root out the last vestiges of an industrial economy from the U. S.
4. Lose enough jobs to render a very high percentage of the American people unemployable
5. Fund the program by borrowing and paying interest on that increased debt, thereby increase interest paid on the debt about five fold, making it the highest federal budget item, crowding out other priorities

If the editors of the Washington Post’s plan is completely successful it would

1. Reduce U. S. carbon emissions somewhat
2. Reduce global carbon emissions slightly

which would be rightly criticized by those who are worried that too much carbon in the atmosphere will render the world uninhabitable as not nearly enough. It’s more likely that it will

1. Reduce U. S. carbon emissions nominally and
2. Increase global carbon emissions as industry is offshored

A lot depends on your assumptions. If you think that carbon emissions are roughly equal on a per capita basis, the WaPo plan will be more effective than if you believe (as I do) that emissions increase geometrically with income. A lot depends on what you think a carbon tax would actually do. If you think (as I do) that unless adopted worldwide (something for which there is no prospect) and with steep import duties it would offshore industrial production, the carbon tax would be counter-productive.

Also, has anyone recalibrated the effects of the European carbon tax taking into account what we now know about the efficiency of automobile diesel engines or lack thereof? I think the present estimates are based on inputs rather than outputs. We do know that the Europeans offshored a lot of manufacturing to China just as we did.

All right Jupiter landing deniers, check out Alex Berezow’s plan at the American Council on Science and Health to reduce carbon emissions:

1. Start building Generation IV nuclear power plants right now. Not next year. Not tomorrow. Right now. They are meltdown-proof and the best source of carbon-free energy on the planet. Research suggests that the entire world could be on nuclear power within 25 years.
2. In the meantime, phase out coal while embracing natural gas. Natural gas burns cleaner than coal. If you object to this, then do #1 faster.
3. Upgrade our energy infrastructure with a smart grid, smart meters, better capacitors, and better transmission lines. All of this is necessary if we want to rely at least in part on solar and wind. (But solar and wind aren’t really necessary; see #1.)
4. Invest in solar and fusion power research. Current solar technology is too inefficient. The breakthrough we’ve been seeking in solar hasn’t happened yet, but it could. Similarly, fusion is theoretically the best source of energy (even better than nuclear), but scientists haven’t figured this one out yet. It turns out that recreating the sun on earth is kind of hard.
5. As our energy infrastructure improves, electric car technology will improve along with it, making fossil fuels largely obsolete. (Airplanes might always need fossil fuels, though, much to AOC’s chagrin.)

You may notice that bears a much closer resemblance to proposals I’ve made here than it does to the “Green New Deal”. He’s more optimistic about electrical vehicles than I am. There’s little reason to believe that battery production can be scaled to the level that would be required. As proof I would submit the present rate of increase in production which is actually quite slow. I would also add that it takes about 20 years for the entire vehicle fleet to turn over and at the present rate at which EVs are displacing internal combustion engine vehicles we’ll have the same mix of vehicles as we do now forever. In other words to make a dent in the present fleet not only would you need to produce a lot more EVs, you’d need to buy EVs for everybody so that adoption would be hastened.

I’d prefer that the nuclear power generation be done with small, modular reactors which would remove other objections to nuclear but all in all I think that’s a pretty good plan. And it’s possible which is an enormous advantage over the Green New Deal.

I largely agree with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s take on Michael Cohen’s testimony yesterday. I didn’t pay close attention and he has credibility problems.

Here are my observations:

1. Democrats already think that Trump is a racist, conman, and cheat.
2. Even if he were provably not a racist, conman, or cheat, many Democrats would be ready to impeach him.
3. Republicans need much more evidence to remove him from office.
4. The testimony didn’t provide it.

We return now to your regularly scheduled programming.

I find myself in material agreement with Nicholas Kristof’s take, expressed in the New York Times, on the failure of the talks between President Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim:

President Trump was right to walk away from his summit with Kim Jong-un rather than accept a bad nuclear agreement, but the outcome underscores that he was bamboozled last year at his first summit with Kim. Whatever genius Trump sees in the mirror, “the art of the deal” is not his thing.

At this meeting, Kim apparently sought a full end to sanctions on North Korea in exchange for closing only some nuclear sites. That was not a good deal, and Trump was right to walk rather than accept it.

“Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that,” Trump said, adding: “Sometimes you have to walk.”

and also find myself wondering what the implications of that failure may be:

Still, there are significant risks ahead. The most important is that North Korea may return to testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, for that would mark a huge escalation of tensions and renewed concerns about brinkmanship and war.

I think that domestic politics will largely determine what happens next. If North Korea can maintain a low profile, we’ll probably go back to ignoring North Korea. If North Korea resumes its truculence and testing, things won’t go nearly so well. We don’t have any more carrots to offer and the only stick we have left is war.

IMO these talks were worth conducting but were doomed to failure. When you’re worried about your neighbor’s dog biting you or your kid you don’t talk to the dog—you talk to the neighbor. Two party talks are now and always have been futile. If the dog keeps snarling and trying to jump over the fence, the neighbor shouldn’t be surprised when you shoot the dog. There are no police to call.

As I have said before my preference would be to ignore North Korea, possibly treating its occasional missile test over international waters as opportunities to test our anti-missile technology, but, if it actually uses its nuclear weapons against us or our allies or attempts to sell its technology, shoot to kill.

In her latest column at the Washington Post Megan McArdle puts in her two cents about “reparations”:

There are a lot of objections that can be raised to reparations, starting with the price tag, which would run into the trillions. Slavery was a great moral wrong, but its primary victims are now dead and cannot be given recompense. Their descendants still live, of course, but how do you justify taking money to pay them from the descendants of immigrants who arrived long after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery? And how do you identify who exactly is entitled to payment, especially given the later influx of immigration from Africa and the Caribbean?

Yet these objections are addressable — not perfectly, but well enough. The biggest problem is the sociological one: How do we pay reparations and still call ourselves “one nation”?

Let’s talk about the injustice point for a second. How do you justify forcing the concert violinist Sarah Chang to pay reparations to Kamala Harris? Ms. Chang’s parent are immigrants and any notion that she has received advantages as a consequence of slavery is absurd. It’s equally absurd that Kamala Harris, most likely less than one half of sub-Saharan African descent and whose parents were immigrants from Jamaica and Pakistan was penalized by U. S. slavery.

On the other hand over the last 30 years we’ve had four presidents whose families were involved with slavery in various different fashions. The Bushes were indirectly involved with the slave trade, Bill Clinton’s ancestors fought for the Confederacy, i.e. to preserve slavery, and Barack Obama had ancestors who held slaves. Contrast that with my own situation. None of my ancestors owned slaves or were involved with slavery in any fashion. My ancestors were abolitionists and fought in the Civil War to abolish slavery. Two of my great-great-grandfathers died of the privations they experienced during the war, blighting their families for generations after. I think I’ve paid in full.

Where would reparations stop? Believing that only blacks have been the victims of historic wrongs is a misreading of history. American Indians. Consider the Irish and the Jews. Consider Catholics.

And then there’s the pesky problem that reparations are arguably illegal, cf. Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 and Amendment 5.

Longfellow’s poem says it well:

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,–act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Let’s address today’s problems today and provide a hand up to those who need it rather than calling for payments to people who don’t need help by virtue of their presumed membership in a group, some of whom can, indeed, use help in the imagined resolution of ancient wrongs. One crime does not cancel out another.

Speaking of Illinois politics, the ratings agency Fitch found Gov. Pritzker’s budget, relying as it does primarily on wishful thinking, completely inadequate in dealing with the state’s fiscal problems and is warning Illinois to expect another downgrade in its credit rating. Illinois’s present credit rating is just two points above junk, the lowest in the nation. The Tribune reports:

Fitch Ratings said in a news release Tuesday that the plan Pritzker presented last week “would not materially address the state’s structural budget issues in the current fiscal year or the next.” The warning comes four days after S&P Global Ratings panned the new Democratic governor’s spending plan for the budget year that begins July 1, calling it “precariously” balanced.

Like S&P, Fitch took issue with Pritzker’s plan to stretch out pension payments to lower short-term costs while extending the state’s funding deadline by seven years. The administration says it’s part of a multifaceted plan that also includes infusing cash into the severely underfunded retirement systems by selling state assets, issuing bonds and dedicating revenue from a proposed graduated-rate income tax plan.

Shifting the state from its current flat-rate income tax structure to one where higher earners pay higher rates would require voters to approve an amendment to the Illinois Constitution. That can’t happen until November 2020 at the earliest.

In the meantime, Pritzker has proposed raising about $1.3 billion in new revenue through a series of taxes and fees — including licensing fees from legalized sports betting and recreational marijuana — to help close the state’s estimated $3.2 billion deficit.

Borrowing more money at high interest rates is a mug’s game. Given Illinois’s declining population is means that ever fewer Illinoisans will be struggling to make ever higher interest payments. Gov. Pritzker has presented a short range plan for increasing taxes and a long range plan for attracting people to Illinois. He needs the reverse—a short range plan for convincing people to stay in Illinois and a long range plan to increase taxes, mostly through a vibrant, growing economy.

He can’t do that without aggravating the people who put him in office which is how we got where we are.

Meanwhile, at Forbes Elizabeth Bauer presents her plan for dealing with Illinois’s pension problem. It consists of three steps:

1. Provide a benefit to new employees which is both fair, financially-sustainable, and fully funded from Day One.
2. Reform benefit provisions for existing participants to reduce liabilities in a fair and responsible manner.
3. Deal with legacy debt.

Only the first step can be accomplished without amending the state’s constitution and that step is bitterly opposed by the state’s public employees’ unions.

Said another way we are very unlikely to see anything material done to fix Illinois’s fiscal problems during Pritzker’s term of office.