Month: August 2009

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes, "If you want to talk about robots for the military…"

Sweet. Mark Rutherford explains:

The humanoid BEAR (Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot) can locate victims in a mine shaft, battlefield, toxic spill, or earthquake-damaged structure. And then it can lift them up and then carry them over long distances to safety, according to the manufacturer Vecna Robotics. And it does this without risking any more lives (PDF). The challenge was to enhance search and rescue while reducing the time military, police, and emergency response personnel have to risk their lives each day. More than half of the Medals of Honor earned by medics are awarded posthumously, according to Vecna.

by Patrick Appel

A professor writes:

There are many reasons for the rising cost of higher education; here are the ones I think are key (and that need to be part of the discussion):

1.  State support of public universities have plummeted. As recently as the 1970s states provided from 40 to 70% of the cost of big state universities.  Now they are virtually all below 30% and some well under 20% (e.g., U Colorado).  Public universities are now state-assisted at best. The difference is made up in tuition.

2. As the knowledge driven economy pays folks with skills more money in the market place, top faculty in many disciplines cost a lot more than they once did:  Chemists, neuroscientists, engineers, law professors, business, and so on.. all can make lots of money in industry, outside universities.  But universities drive innovation and new markets, so they need to have folks at the top of the game training the next generation in these fields (and creating new products, see 3 below).  If faculty in these fields are not paid amounts that at least approach competitive salaries outside academia; higher education will become like secondary education –not attracting the best which may well lead to an outcome of US higher education being middling internationally instead of near the top.   Given the knowledge-driven economy, this would not be  good.

3.  The US invests in basic, translational, and much applied science research (in all fields –from math to nursing to biochemistry to kinesiology to public health etc)  in universities.  Although the federal government is a big financial player here, universities have to provide the infrastructure. Science is like football, you think it's a money maker (tickets, TV rights are like big government grants), but the cost of being big enough for all that may mean you end up in the red.  This is a fundamental policy question.  How should this country do science, train scientists and generate the knowledge and ideas that lead to new products and successful market competition?   Currently, we  do it through universities in a loose freestyle that is open-ended and highly generative. But we could do it in some top-down (perhaps seemingly less wasteful) focussed way, but we really have to know what we are doing.  (think soviet 5-year plans, they could have been great if the planners were prescient).

4.  Health care is itself a big factor.  Universities are typically self-insured and they provide among the best health care in the country, for all their employees.  This is a cost that is skyrocketing, just as it is for every other business. I would love to see the rise in tuition plotted with the health care costs removed!

5.  Schools now offer more and bigger financial aid packages.  The tuition listed is the list price.   At most privates, a very high percentage pay a discounted rate (the rich subsidize the less well off).  At most big state schools, a substantial proportion  get a discounted rate. People need to plot the average tuition paid! not the the list price.

6.  Finally, there are lots more students.  But I do not think this is the big one.

Another professor:

29% of any tuition increase at my university is allocated to financial aid (almost all of this in the form of grants).  So if we increase nominal tuition by $100, we only actually see about $71 of it, as we give $29 back to the students.  If we need to raise revenue by 4%, we need to raise nominal tuition by nearly 6%.  I'd be interested in whether the graph tracks the "sticker price" on tuition (equivalent to the $100 I just described) or the actual average tuition paid ($71) .  My guess is that actual tuition paid has risen at a much, much lower rate than that shown by the graph.  For those with the ability to pay full rate who don't have the scholarly chops to get aid based on their talents, tuition increases have been very large. But for those with talent and need, my guess is that the top-tier universities provide steep discounts.

A parent:

I think that modern medicine and changing social norms (getting married later, multiple marriages and mixed families, etc.) in all socioeconomic groups, the wealthy even more so, has led to a step change in the age of parents. This means that a upper-middle class parent sending their 18-year old to college might be 55 or 60 now; when I went off to college almost all of my peers had parents under 50.  So today's couple will have been in the workforce for maybe a decade longer, which translates to higher incomes to offset education costs.

by Chris Bodenner Part of my duty as a Dish under-blogger is to complement our all-star guest-bloggers, such as Hanna Rosin (whose writing I happen to admire immensely – a compliment not required). In that spirit, I’d like to build on her earlier ode to catblogging and fupenguins.com: Bonus anteater after the jump:

(Hat tip: My Confined Space)

by Patrick Appel

While admitting that there may still be rough waters ahead, Free Exchange notes that the government bailouts have earned a nice profit on paper:

The government essentially bet that markets were beset by panic, and that once fear subsided banks would find themselves in better conditions and healthy enough to earn their way out of insolvency. At this point, even AIG is telling the government it will eventually be able to repay its assistance. This doesn't mean that the government couldn't have crafted a better solution to the crisis, but it does suggest that those bemoaning the high cost of the bail-out and basing their estimates on worst case scenarios involving no repayments were way, way off base.

At least we did a much better job than Germany.

by Patrick Appel

There is lots of commentary on the unsurprising news that Obama is reappointing Ben Bernanke, but less explanation why Obama needed to do this months before the Fed Chairman's term is up. Building off a post by Tim Fernholz, Ezra Klein takes a stab at it:

[T]he OMB is coming out with big deficit numbers today, which could rattle the markets and be used as a cudgel against health-care reform. To prevent that, the White House scheduled the Bernanke announcement for the same day. Fed chairmen may be insulated from politics, but the people who choose them sure aren't.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

Your post on Crist was spot-on and you owe no explanation. He was obviously implying that he "asked" God to protect Florida from hurricanes and that God complied. This whole thing is an obvious ploy for Jewish votes in Florida [Crist is running for Senate next year]. Where Crist really screwed up was announcing/showing the prayer note. These are not supposed to be read or broadcast. Each year they are removed and buried on the Mount of Olives. This was said when Obama's note was removed and published last July:

"The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them," he told Army Radio. The publication "damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves," he said.

Another writes:

Before Crist regaled real estate agents with the story of his prayers, or displayed his written prayers to press photographers, did he pause to consider Christ's teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:5-6?

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward."

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

Hmm. Which reward is Crist really after?

by Chris Bodenner

First the certificate, now circumcision.

by Patrick Appel

Dawkins new book is being serialized by The Times. The first article, published yesterday, takes on creationists:

[G]rudgingly in some cases, happily in others, thoughtful and rational churchmen and women accept the evidence for evolution. What we must not do is complacently assume that, because bishops and educated clergy accept evolution, so do their congregations. Alas there is ample evidence to the contrary from opinion polls. More than 40 per cent of Americans deny that humans evolved from other animals, and think that we — and by implication all of life — were created by God within the last 10,000 years. The figure is not quite so high in Britain, but it is still worryingly large. And it should be as worrying to the churches as it is to scientists. This book is necessary. I shall be using the name “historydeniers” for those people who deny evolution: who believe the world’s age is measured in thousands of years rather than thousands of millions of years, and who believe humans walked with dinosaurs.

by Patrick Appel

Juan Cole is right:

Although administrations do break laws, I think if Congress had had the courage and the energy to actually enact clear statutes on torture, the CIA interrogators would have been much better served. The 2005 McCain amendment was so watered down and so easily interpreted away as to produce the opposite of the effect intended; and then McCain himself went on to defend torture in order to curry favor with the far right in his presidential bid. Bush vetoed the last attempt at better anti-torture legislation in spring of 2008. The Democrats may only have a brief window through November of 2010 to get effective and unambiguous legislation on the books.

by Chris Bodenner

Ryan Streeter wonders why the "choice generation" – known for scrutinizing and customizing their tech-laden world – does not apply that same individualism to healthcare reform:

One possible explanation is that the details of intelligent healthcare reform—namely, reform that optimizes the role of choice—are too difficult to understand or haven’t been explained adequately or both. Another is that young people place a higher value on fairness and equality than choice, at least with regard to this issue. […] A third possible explanation is that choice just doesn’t matter as much in healthcare. People just want the assurance of insurance. They don’t want to shop the same way they shop for mobile phones or TVs. But they only value that assurance up until it means radical government oversight and expense, and older people simply have more experience understanding what increased government means for their own taxes and quality of life. […W]hile I suspect that all three play a role, if I were a betting man, I’d put money on number one.

A simpler reason is that millennials are the healthiest people at the moment, and thus insulated from the direct and myriad implications of reform – and healthcare in general.  Which relates to why millennials like myself  "just want the assurance of insurance."

(Hat tip: KHN's Kate Steadman)