Category Archives: News commentary

The House Appropriations Committee released its proposed economic stimulus package yesterday, which has supposedly been endorsed by President-elect Obama. Much of it is not within my area of expertise, but the parts that are seem very unlikely to promote any economic stimulus.

If spending money is all that is needed to revitalize the economy, then all the government needs to do is dig holes and fill them up. Unfortunately, too much of this stimulus package does little more than that.

I am not convinced that increased federal spending will help at all, but I am convinced that it won’t help unless that spending goes for things that are truly needed. Projects that are not needed or used will not produce any “multiplier effects,” which means the stimulus will be small and short-lived. Projects that are heavily used will produce multiplier effects that not only make the stimulus more effective, they make it last longer.

The best sign of such multipliers is whether people are willing to pay for projects out of user fees. In such cases, the feds might be able to jump-start projects, but the best way would be to offer loans to be repaid out of those user fees, not grants. This will also minimize the long-term effects of deficit spending, which in the long run could dampen any benefits from the initial stimulus.

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A new study concludes that Google’s servers emit 7 grams of CO2 for every search. Since burning a gallon of gasoline releases about 8,880 grams of CO2 into the atmosphere, you can calculate your car’s Google-equivalent by dividing your car’s miles per gallon into 1,269 (8,880 divided by 7).

My 1986 Mazda still gets about 33 miles per gallon and I do about 40 Google searches per day, which is the equivalent of driving my car a little over 1 mile. Of course, I probably visit at least 20 web sites for every Google search I do. If each of those web servers generate as much CO2 as Google, that means my Internet usage is equal to driving 20 miles a day.
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Should we tax the Internet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

Phoenix opened its $1.4 billion light-rail line for business on Saturday, December, 27. Thousands of people lined up to ride it during the first four days, when it was free.

Flickr photo by Phxwebguy.

Some riders were treated to a little extra excitement when light-rail trains were involved in several collisions with automobiles. The first accident took place on December 2, when Phoenix Metro was testing the system. The second collision happened on the day after it opened to the public. The car’s driver, apparently an illegal alien, fled the scene on foot.

But it was the third collision, less than a week later, that raised the most eyebrows. A pickup truck had stopped at a light-rail crossing for a train to go by. After the train passed, the crossing gates lifted, the light turned green, and the pickup tried to cross — only to be hit by a train going in the other direction. Apparently Metro still has to get the bugs out of its crossing gates.

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Anyone listening to the major broadcast networks — NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS — might be convinced that nearly all economists are united behind Obama’s proposed economic stimulus proposals. Just about all of the reports I have heard exclusively quote economists who think such a fiscal stimulus will be a good thing.

In the blogosphere, however, the debate rages between economists such as Paul Krugman, who think that the bigger stimulus, the better; and those such as Tyler Cowen, who remain unpersuaded. Many of the latter question whether a stimulus will work at all. Others think a stimulus might work in theory but that Congress is too likely to turn it into a pork fest for it to have any positive effect on the economy.

Update: Two more lists of stimulus skeptics can be found in the New York Times economix blog and a John Boehner press release. Plus David Brooks (who I pan in another post) expresses his skepticism for reasons that are more practical than technical.

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The company that tried to sell “Diesel multiple units” to the nation’s transit industry is officially out of business. The company’s bumpy history was noted here a couple of weeks ago.

In retrospect, it is hard to believe that a railcar manufacturer could have failed after a more than a decade in which the transit industry furiously spent well over a hundred billion dollars of the taxpayers’ money on various rail transit schemes. This is especially so considering that RTD, Colorado Railcar’s “hometown agency,” ordered a record-breaking $187 million worth of light-rail cars from Siemens. But Colorado Railcar only managed to sell its product to two different transit agencies, one in Florida and one in Oregon.

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