Month: May 2014

by Jonah Shepp

Jared Bernstein argues that we can’t have it both ways:

[T]here are three reliable ways to help or “lift” the bottom: subsidies that increase the poor’s economic security today; investment in their future productivity; and targeted job opportunities at decent wages. The first two are more closely related than you might think, because researchers are discovering that anti-poverty consumption programs such as nutritional and income supports have long-lasting benefits to children in families that receive them. None of these three approaches are free.  …. All of the above — the expanded earned-income tax credit, universal preschool, job-creating infrastructure — will take more tax revenue, and much of that new revenue will need to come from those at the top of the wealth scale.

Douthat objects:

1) I don’t think even Bernstein believes that it’s actually impossible to improve the situation of the poor without directly raising taxes on the rich.

What about, to pick two ideas favored by various thinkers on the left and right, a one-two punch of criminal justice reform to reduce incarceration rates and urban upzoning to lower the cost of living and working in wealthy cities? Both would probably improve opportunity for the poor and the lower-middle class; neither would require a higher top marginal tax rate or massive new public outlays. Do these kind of ideas just not count?

2)  It’s possible to favor increasing redistribution along something like the lines Bernstein suggests — through an expanded earned income tax credit, for instance — while disagreeing that we need a higher top marginal rate or a Piketty-style wealth tax in order to do it. Given that our existing tax code, like the zoning policies mentioned above, has a heavy pro-rentier and pro-rich bias, why couldn’t we start by cutting or capping existing tax subsidies — for expensive homes, for expensive health insurance, for being a wealthy taxpayer in a high tax state — and put that money to work first? This would involve “new revenue,” in a sense, but you wouldn’t have to raise tax rates (as we already just did) in order to get it, and you would be redistributing unearned, effectively-subsidized riches rather than just hacking away more indiscriminately at the idle and entrepreneurial alike.

by Jonah Shepp

Analyzing Russia’s most recent announcement that it will withdraw troops from the Ukrainian border, Linda Kinstler stresses that, even if it’s true, the Ukrainians are still sitting ducks:

[I]f Russian troops do retreat to their “usual garrisons,” plenty of Russian forces will still be well within striking distance of Ukraine. There are multiple Russian bases along the Ukrainian border, so for troops to move back to their permanent stations might not mean all that much as far as de-escalation goes. “It seems that [Putin’s] agents are having more problems [in eastern Ukraine] than they bargained for, and he is now perhaps looking to minimize his overexposure,” said Stephen Blank, senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. “But the fact of the matter is they could withdraw five miles and then they could come right back.” Russian forces, Finch says, “are not that far from the Ukrainian border to begin with. For them to turn around wouldn’t be that big of a move.”

Even more dangerous, as Ukraine discovered in Crimea, was the presence of Russian soldiers on their soil. Dmitry Gorenburg draws lessons from that experience:

First of all, having Russian bases on the territory of one’s state makes an invasion much easier to carry out. Russian naval bases in Crimea were used as a beachhead for covertly moving Russian forces into Ukraine. Since the number of troops actually based in Crimea was significantly lower than the maximum of 25,000 agreed to between Russia and Ukraine in the 1997 treaty that regulated the status of the Black Sea Fleet, Russia could even claim that the increase in the number of Russian troops in Crimea did not violate the relevant treaty.* This precedent should be a concern to Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and other states with Russian troops stationed on their territory.

Second, former Soviet states need to watch out for Russian agents and collaborators working in their security and military forces. One of the reasons for the ineffectiveness of Ukraine’s military and security response in Crimea and subsequent covert activities in the country’s east is that that Ukraine’s secure communications channels are almost certainly compromised by Russian agents. Most other former Soviet states most likely have similar problems, though perhaps not to the same extent.

Meanwhile, Sarah Chayes examines how corruption left Ukraine militarily unprepared for Russian aggression:

Chronic underfunding “enhanced the role of the human factor” in choosing among operational priorities. Ostensibly outdated equipment was sold “at unreasonably understated prices” in return for kickbacks. Officers even auctioned off defense ministry land. Gradually, Kyiv began requiring the military to cover more of its own costs, forcing senior officers into business, “which is…inconsistent with the armed forces’ mission,” and opened multiple avenues for corruption. Commanders took to “using military equipment, infrastructure, and…personnel [to] build private houses, [or] make repairs in their apartments.” Procurement fraud was rife, as were bribes to get into and through military academies, and for desirable assignments.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian factories kept on turning out high-quality materiel that was exported for cash to China, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Russia. The results have been on display for the past two months: helicopters and armored vehicles immobile for lack of fuel or missing parts; soldiers in Crimea turning in their uniforms for promises of a Russian salary five times the paltry $200 per month Ukraine was paying. Ordinary citizens donating some $2 million to the defense budget by texting 565 on their mobile phones.

Previous Dish on Ukraine’s strategic vulnerability here.

by Patrick Appel

Andrea Thompson summarizes the bad news:

Greenland’s glaciers are more vulnerable to melting by warm ocean waters than previously thought, a new study of the topography of the bedrock under the ice finds. This clearer picture of the underpinnings of the miles-thick ice sheet, along with other recent studies that suggest parts of Earth’s polar regions are not as stable as once thought, could mean that current projections of future sea level rise are too low.

The new Greenland findings, detailed online May 18 in the journal Nature Geoscience, come on the heels of an announcement by the same group of researchers at the University of California, Irvine, that some of the largest and fastest-moving glaciers of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet have entered a phase of “unstoppable” collapse.

What this means:

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone contains enough ice to add another 10 to 13 feet of sea level rise, and the Greenland Ice Sheet contains enough to contribute another 20 feet.

Ryan Avent uses the new findings to discuss how “to calculate the present value of future benefits from reduced emissions today”:

Unfortunately, peeling apart how people actually discount benefits centuries or more in the future is very hard. But a fascinating new NBER working paper uses a clever approach to take a crack at it.

The authors exploit an oddity in British real estate: Britons buying a home may either purchase what is known as a freehold (which means they own the land outright) or a leasehold (which means they “own” it for the duration of the leasehold). But leaseholds aren’t like your standard rental contract; they often grant ownership for periods between 80 and 999 years. The authors reckon that by finding the premium paid for freeholds relative to super-long-dated leaseholds on otherwise identical properties, they can come up with an estimate of how distant benefits are actually valued in the market.

Remarkably, they find that people pay a premium of 10%-15% less for 100-year leaseholds and 5%-8% less for leaseholds of between 125-150 years. Only for leaseholds of 700 years or more do they detect no difference in price. On the whole, they reckon, a discount rate of about 2.6% appears to apply out well beyond a century. Oddly enough, people are willing to part with real money now in exchange for benefit flows accruing well beyond any reasonable expected lifespan.

That won’t make it any easier to generate the political support for meaningful action to slow climate change. But it does make it harder to justify delay based on the fact that people simply don’t care much about the distant future.

by Jonah Shepp

Scientists gave a rabbit a tiny, wireless pacemaker:

A rabbit’s beating heart has been regulated using a tiny pacemaker that beams in energy from outside its body. It is the first time this kind of wireless energy transfer has been demonstrated in a living animal. If such wirelessly powered medical implants can work in people too, it would reduce the seriousness of the procedures required to get them fitted.

“Our device is small, so it will be much easier to deliver into the body,” says Ada Poon of Stanford University in California, who led the team that implanted the tiny pacemaker. Being fitted with a pacemaker currently requires surgery plus another operation when the battery eventually runs down. So Poon and her colleagues outfitted a rabbit with a pacemaker that has no battery and is just 3 millimetres long.

Olivia Solon explains how it works:

The system works on the principle that waves travel in different ways when they come into contact with different materials.

This is highlighted by the fact that you can hear the vibration of train wheels if you put your ear to the railway track much earlier than you would hear the train with your ears. It involves using a flat, credit card-sized power source positioned outside of the body over the device that can interact with the body’s tissue to induce propagating waves that converge on a micro-device implanted in the body.

The 2mm-long microdevice consists of a power harvesting coil, integrated circuits, electrodes and fixation structures. Such devices can be used as “electroceuticals” to strategically stimulate or silence nerves to treat a range of conditions including Parkinson’s, depression and chronic pain. The same devices could also be used to strategically deliver drugs or monitor vital functions deep inside the body. Power could either be delivered directly from outside of the body or the power could be sent to periodically recharge small, embedded batteries.

Cassandra Khaw looks at where this development could lead:

Poon believes that her work could lead to programmable microimplants like sensors that monitor vital functions, electrostimulators that alter neural signals in the brain, and drug delivery systems that apply medicine directly where needed. All without the bulk of batteries and recharging systems required today. Her endeavours could also help expedite the development of medical treatments that utilize electronics instead of drugs. Stanford Neurosciences Institute director William Newsome said that “the Poon lab has solved a significant piece of the puzzle for safely powering implantable microdevices.” So far, the wireless charging system has been tested in a pig and also used to power a pacemaker in a rabbit. The next step is human trials. Should those prove successful, it will likely take a few years before the system is authorized for commercial usage.