links for 2008-07-02

• Economic spillovers from international environmental cooperation - Vox EU
• Dispelling the Myths of Summer - NYTimes.com
• Too Soon to Breathe Easy - Dennis Lockhart - FRB Atlanta
• The Return of Thomas Malthus - The Current
• Chinese Origins of Interrogation at Guantánamo - NYTimes.com
• Magic Mushrooms' Transcendent Effect Lingers - Scientific American
• Why Bonus Depreciation is Not Necessarily a Good Idea - Understanding Tax
• Why Bonus Depreciation Seems Like a Good Idea - Understanding Tax

Comments

[Easily Extracted Oil is Running Low]

"His specific theory -- that population increases geometrically while food supplies increase only arithmetically -- was eventually proven wrong..."

Using oil powered machines, and oil based fertilizers allowed a small number of people to produce all the food the world needs. Unfortunately, oil is not a renewable resource. I suppose we could switch to electric tractors, with electricity provided by solar, wind, nuclear, etc... A lot of resources will be needed to make the transition. Coal, oil shale and such could provide the fertilizer precursors, but this will also require a lot of resources to extract. This means more hours worked per unit of food.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/business/02jobs.html?hp&pagewanted=print

July 2, 2008

Deepening Cycle of Job Loss Seen Lasting Into '09
By PETER S. GOODMAN

Experts say the troubles dogging the economy will be stubborn, leaving in place a combination of tight credit and scant job opportunities perhaps well into next year.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html?hp&pagewanted=print

July 2, 2008

China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo
By SCOTT SHANE

An interrogation class at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was based on a 1957 study of Chinese Communist techniques used to obtain confessions, many of them false, from U.S. prisoners.

[American exceptional?]

[anne]

http://www.cbpp.org/7-1-08health.htm

July 1, 2008

New Georgia and Florida Health Plans Unlikely To Reduce Ranks of Uninsured
By Judith Solomon

This year, Georgia and Florida — states in which the percentage of people who are uninsured is well above the national average of 18 percent — have enacted legislation aimed at decreasing the number of uninsured residents. Georgia created new tax breaks for high-deductible health plans, while Florida will allow private insurance companies to sell "bare-bones" policies offering limited benefits. These initiatives, which differ markedly from the comprehensive health reform plans that Massachusetts and Vermont enacted in 2006 (and that 13 other states have been considering),[1] share some key characteristics:

Neither approach provides a targeted subsidy to help low-income people, who make up the bulk of the uninsured, afford coverage. About two-thirds of uninsured Americans have incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line ($35,200 for a family of three); three-quarters have incomes below 300 percent of the poverty line ($52,800 for a family of three).[2] Most of these individuals cannot afford coverage without subsidies to help pay for it.[3]

Neither plan is likely to lead to an appreciable increase in the number of people with health coverage, since neither includes the subsidies needed to make coverage affordable.

Many people who do get coverage through these initiatives will be underinsured. Many could face high out-of-pocket costs and have problems paying their medical bills....

[anne]

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1051327.html\

July 1, 2008

Budget Deal Will Do Real Damage to Health Care - The choice is clear: Increase taxes or let the impact fall on children and the elderly

Late last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was close to closing a deal that would expand medical care to millions of Californians who lack health insurance.

That deal imploded, and now both he and state lawmakers are about to violate a basic tenet of the health care profession: "Do no harm."

Faced with a $17 billion deficit, the governor and state lawmakers are considering cuts that would likely drop tens of thousands of children from the Medi-Cal program, the state's version of Medicaid.

They also are considering restricting adult eligibility requirements for Medi-Cal, hurting families trying to transition from welfare to work.

Elderly patients would also take a hit. As part of a 10 percent cut scheduled to take effect today, the state plans to reduce payments received by pharmacists who serve Medi-Cal patients....

[anne]

http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/07/rubin-more-counter-narcotics-success-in.html

July 1, 2008

More Counter-Narcotics Success in Afghanistan's "Opium-Free" North
By Barnett R. Rubin

Health Warning: This post may contain irony. Readers impervious to irony should consult other blogs.

UNODC * just published this year's World Drug Report, ** warning about rising heroin production in Afghanistan, but congratulating itself and its drug-warrior allies for the "fact" that "the problem is much localized. Most cultivation (80 per cent) took place in 5 southern provinces, which are the most unstable."

This just in, *** from Afghanistan's stable, "opium-free" north:

"The bazaar sits on a small island in the river Panj, a narrow expanse of shallow but fast-flowing water that is all that separates the Badakhshan region of Tajikistan from the Afghan province of the same name. On either side loom the Pamir mountains, a range of high peaks that cuts the region off from the rest of the world.

"When the bazaar opened about five years ago, the hardy Pamiri people of Tajikistan rejoiced that they would now have contact with people on the Afghan side of the river from whom they had been cut off for decades – by the Soviets, by war, and by ruined economies.

"Some boasted happily that Tajikistan would soon be able to share its technical know-how with its Afghan brothers.

"That know-how has since flowed both ways, although not as the optimists hoped.

"The unprepossessing frontier bazaar squatting on the river Panj has become one of the largest arms-for-drugs trading centres in the world."

But opium cultivation is way down in Badakhshan! And Tajikistan is opium-free! I'm sure that any remaining problems can be dealt with through a robust eradication program in Helmand. (Please see health warning above.)

* United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

** http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/unodc-launches-2008-world-drug-report.html

*** http://www.iwpr.net/?p=arr&s=f&o=345486&apc_state=henh

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/washington/02military.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

July 2, 2008

Afghan Death Toll Up as Iraq’s Falls
By MARK MAZZETTI

The latest data on combat deaths suggests that the Taliban have reclaimed some parts of Afghanistan.

[Huh?]

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

July 2, 2008

U.N. Warns of Food and Security Crises in Afghanistan
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE

GENEVA — The United Nations coordinator of relief efforts called Tuesday for a new international plan for Afghanistan, warning that humanitarian problems there were getting worse as a result of soaring food prices, declining security and increasing civilian deaths.

“It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the humanitarian situation is not only serious but deteriorating,” said John Holmes, the United Nations deputy secretary general and relief coordinator. He had just returned from a four-day trip to Afghanistan. “I think we need to put together a new humanitarian action plan there. We need to mobilize more resources.”

Six months ago, the United Nations appealed for $81 million in food aid for Afghanistan, and Mr. Holmes said the organization had been preparing to appeal for $300 million to $400 million more in food aid for about 4.5 million people, about 14 percent of the population, and for seeds and fertilizer to try to increase local food production.

“The needs really are very great,” he said, adding that Afghanistan’s worsening conditions resulted partly from the global surge in food prices and the effects of a drought that has affected major food-producing areas and threatens to cut the wheat harvest by 40 percent.

Against that backdrop, Afghanistan has to cope with refugees returning from neighboring Pakistan and Iran who have needed food and other aid to resettle.

Mr. Holmes also cited declining security as a factor....

[Oh....]

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/business/worldbusiness/02real.html?hp&pagewanted=print

July 2, 2008

Wanted: Skilled Workers for a Growing Economy in Brazil
By ANDREW DOWNIE

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — For almost any nation other than China or India, achieving more than 5 percent growth a year is hard. Doing it without skilled labor is even harder.

But that is the challenge facing Brazil, the B in the BRIC economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China — today's version of economic tigers.

After years of boom and bust, the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is projecting a period of sustained growth, with the gross domestic product increasing 5 percent a year, from now to 2010, and about 3 and 4 percent annually for the decade after.

But many companies and economists, including some inside the government, say the dearth of highly skilled labor, particularly engineers and tradesmen, will jeopardize those goals, and Brazil's economic and political rise.

"The lack of availability of technical ability may be a constraint on growth, no doubt about it," José Sergio Gabrielli, president of Petrobras, the state-run oil company, said in an interview. "It is a big challenge for the country."

The engineering shortage here is spreading across industries. The lack of civil and construction engineers threatens infrastructure projects; areas like banking, aircraft manufacture, petrochemicals and metals are all competing for the same top graduates. In the booming oil and gas industries, companies are turning to foreign labor because there are not enough qualified Brazilians to go around.

"Some of our big clients in the oil and gas sector have 40 to 50 job openings and they can't fill them," said Paulo Pontes, managing director of Michael Page International, a leading headhunting firm.

"When we asked companies what the careers of the future were, seven out of 10 of them were in engineering. That shows the reality of what is happening today."

A study by the National Confederation of Industry last September found that more than half the 1,715 industrial firms polled could not find the skilled workers they needed. Of those, 69 percent said the lack of a qualified work force resulted in inefficiency; 36 percent said it led to lower quality goods; and 25 percent said it made acquiring or assimilating new technologies more difficult.

That reality is leading thousands of Brazilian companies into the education business. Some teach basic literacy and arithmetic to janitors and manual workers. Other more advanced courses help factory and production line workers better understand math, science and composition. And major companies are increasing the amount of on-the-job training they give to engineers and professionals.

"We are planning to invest $11 billion this year and $60 billion over the next five years just in organic growth projects," said Maria Gurgel, director of human resources planning and compensation at Vale, one of the world's largest mining companies. "The people behind these projects are geologists and engineers whose specialties are in ports, railways and mines. Those are the areas where we have shortages. We need to give them specialized training. It would be difficult to grow" without them, she said.

Today, companies like Vale, Petrobras, and the petrochemical firm Ultrapar spend millions of dollars on their own training programs....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/us/politics/01evangelicals.html?ref=politics&pagewanted=print

Obama Courting Evangelicals Once Loyal to Bush
By JOHN M. BRODER

Senator Barack Obama is engaged in an intensive effort to reach out to conservative, born-again Christians.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/us/politics/24muslim.html?hp&pagewanted=print

June 24, 2008

Muslim Voters Detect a Snub From Obama
By ANDREA ELLIOTT

While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02obama.html?hp

July 2, 2008

Obama Seeks Bigger Role for Religious Groups
By JEFF ZELENY and MICHAEL LUO

ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that if elected president he would expand the delivery of social services through churches and other religious organizations, vowing to achieve a goal he said President Bush had fallen short on during his two terms....

[Oh werll....]

[kharris]

Malthus was right about population pressures and living standards for all of human history up to his own era, and then was wrong. As DeLong argued back in the late 1980s, liquidationist thinking was a reasonable explanation of US business cycles from the Civil War to around WWI, because railroads were such a large factor in capital expansion, and railroad investment showed many of the qualities assumed for all capital investment in liquidationist thinking. Liquidationist thinking simply didn't fit the case of the Great Depression or subsequent recessions.

So, if Malthusian and Liquidationist thinking did have merit in particular periods, what are the odds that, perhaps in some modified form, they might have merit again? Does the housing binge fit Liquidationist assumptions? Does oil fit the Malthusian model? This is not a question about the precise details of either view - those are now antiques. Is the underlying logic of either view useful today?

I guess this is a request to elevate the Malthusian article from daily links treatment to a full post, on which smart people can comment and thereby enlighten me.

[anne]

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/07/caught-off-guard-by-recent-iraqi.html

July 2, 2008

"Caught off guard by recent Iraqi military operations, the United States is using spy satellites that ordinarily are trained on adversaries to monitor the movements of the American-backed Iraqi army, current and former U.S. officials say."

* http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-intel2-2008jul02,0,5769615.story

-- Asad AbuKhalil

[anne]

While humanitarian conditions in war-torn Somalia keep worsening, what is as bothersome is that conditions in Ethiopia, which invaded and occupied Somalia with our support in December 2006, keep worsening. That Ethiopia is at war and occupyig Somalia however is never mentioned when the problems in Ethiopia proper are discussed in United Nations reports. (Much the same occurs in coverage of Afghanistan.)

[Julio]

"Faced with a $17 billion deficit, the governor and state lawmakers are considering cuts that would likely drop tens of thousands of children from the Medi-Cal program, the state's version of Medicaid."

California, one of the largest economies in the world, faces a budget deficit so gargantuan, so incomprehensible, that it might have to be measured in Iraq-months instead of Iraq-weeks.

No wonder children will go without medicine.

[anne]

Julio:

"California, one of the largest economies in the world, faces a budget deficit so gargantuan, so incomprehensible, that it might have to be measured in Iraq-months instead of Iraq-weeks.

"No wonder children will go without medicine."

Save for Massachusetts and possibly Vermont, there continues to be erosion of health care insurance coverage private and public. There are 29 states with budget shortfalls for 2009, and 3 anticipating shortfalls in 2010. The estimated total shortfall for 2009, was $48 billion as of June 30, 2008. So, there is reason to worry about continued erosion of health care benefits and reason to wonder how the coming Administion will change the prospect. *

* http://www.cbpp.org/1-15-08sfp.htm

[ddt]

Oil Is Steady Near $144 After Reaching Record on U.S. Supplies
By Robert Tuttle

July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil futures were steady after rising to a record above $144 a barrel in New York as a U.S. government report showed an unexpected decline in inventories.

Supplies dropped 1.98 million barrels to 299.8 million last week, the lowest since January, the Energy Department said yesterday. Analysts in a Bloomberg News survey had predicted the report would show a 500,000 barrel rise in inventories. Prices also climbed as the dollar weakened.

``We dropped about 2 million barrels on crude and most everyone was looking for a slight build,'' said Addison Armstrong, director of market research at TFS Energy LLC in Stamford, Connecticut. ``That leaves us somewhere around 7 to 8 percent below normal on crude stocks.'' ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJxSXFA4M0UM&refer=home