Scientific American has a great podcast, especially for those of us who believe in whacky theories like evolution, climate change and gravity. Tom Friedman has some great perspectives on why dealing with climate change is a good bet, even if the theory is wrong. To the doubters, he argues that our national security depends on a renewable energy source which, whoops, is what solving the climate change issue requires too.

Listen HERE.

Takeway quote: “Change your leaders, not your lightbulbs.”

Also, the interview with Jerry Coyne on evolution and creationism is worth a listen.

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I think this is the third installment of the Ranter Index. It could be #4 though.

• 340,000: barrels of oil burned by the US military per day [1].
• 0.2: grams of CO2 produced by each Google search [3].
• 140: grams of CO2 produced by traveling one kilometer in a car that meets latest EU emission standards [3].
• 36: average CEO pay as a multiple of average worker’s pay in 1976 [2].
• 131: average CEO pay as a multiple of average worker’s pay in 1993 before legislation requiring CEO salaries of public companies to be published [2].
• 369: average CEO pay as a multiple of average worker’s pay in 2008, 15 years after the legislation to correct the “problem” [2].
• 525 million: total cost in dollars of all robberies in the US in 2004 [2].
• 16 billion: total cost in dollars of all robbery, larceny-theft, and automobile theft in the US in 2004 [2].
• 24 billion: total cost in dollars of bogus insurance claims in the US in 2004 [2].
• 350 billion: total cost in dollars estimated by the IRS of underreporting on taxes in the US [2].
• 600 billion: total cost in dollars of employee theft and fraud in the workplace [2].

Sources:

• 1. “Rubber Tracks Make Military Vehicles More Efficient, Durable, Quieter”, Treehugger, Dec 15, 2008.
• 2. Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational, pp. 17, 195–96.
• 3. Powering a Google search, Official Google Blog, Jan. 11, 2009. These figures from Google are in response to an article in the Sunday Times (London) which said that it took 7gms per search and cited research of Harvard physicist Alex Wissner-Gross. Unfortunately for the Times, Wissner-Gross emphatically states that he never even studied Google but did calculate that every second one spends online generates 200 milligrams of CO2, but that’s total for all aspects included and doesn’t consider search specifically. Wissner-Gross runs the CO2 Stats website

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I always hear people say that passenger rail in America should not get subsidies and that if it can’t sustain itself in the open market, it shouldn’t exist. Actually, I could agree with that — if the playing field were even and automobile and truck traffic weren’t so heavily subsidized. So here are a few little figures to contribute to that debate:

• 60: percentage of the 53.3 billion dollars the government spends each year that is covered by gasoline taxes and fees and vehicle registration fees.
• 60: percentage of costs on Amtrack covered by passenger fees according to a 1997 Cato Institute study.
• 14: percentage of damage caused by trucks paid for by the taxes and fees on trucks.
• 150,000: miles of railroad track in the US currently (approx).
• 429,883: miles of railroad track in the US in 1930.

How many miles of track might we have today and what might the relative ticket prices be if our streets and highways were not so heavily subsidized? Or what level of subsidy is appropriate for maintaining infrastructure? Those are open questions, but let’s not pretend that passenger rail subsidies are abnormal and some supposedly free-market highways system is normal.

Sources:

• “America in Motion,” Lorraine Moffa and Nigel Holmes, American History, vol. 43, n. 6 (Feb 2009), pp. 42–43.
• “Amtrack Subsidies:This is no Way to Run a Railroad,” Stephen Moore, on Cato.org

Popularity: 9% [?]

Four Nobel-winning economists and over 280 other economists just posted a letter arguing that the best studies suggest that the gas-tax holiday is a bad idea that will lead to windfall profits for the oil companies, will encourage consumption and provide little relief to consumers. One thing I didn’t hear on the news report or on their site, that I also object too, is that it provides a tax break to everyone, whether they need it or not. Bill Gates gets the same break as Joe Schmoe. Why should Bill get a break on gas? Makes no sense.

Hillary Clinton just denounced the Nobel-winning economists’ advice as elitist talk and said she won’t be throwing her lot in with economists. Bill Clinton was criticized as a closet Republican because he hired the best economists he could find and tended to follow their advice whether it fit his ideology or not. Some people say he went too far, but one can make a good argument that part of the reason that the economy was so strong under Bill was because, less than most presidents, he didn’t play politics with the economy. Apparently, Hillary would rather adopt ill-advised policies that will do little or no good for working people rather than taking the tough road and doing what makes sense.

By the way, if you have a car that gets 20mpg and commute 40 miles per day, the gas tax holiday will save you 36 cents per day. Most people could save that much by using cruise control and checking tire inflation. For the people who can’t afford gas, this won’t fix it. If you really want to help working class people, give them a transportation subsidy, which can be used for gas or mass transit, and phases out as income rises, so that people who make more than a certain amount don’t get the subsidy. That way, unlike Hillary and John, my plan does not give a tax break to Bill Gates. Nothing personal Bill, I just don’t think you or Steve Jobs (or The Ranter for that matter) need the $0.18 per gallon tax break (assuming the oil companies don’t just skim that profit).

Popularity: 18% [?]

No, it won’t take you 40 minutes to read my blatherings. That’s not the best 40 minutes you’ll spend. Rather, you’ll spend it watching the videos below.

Every once in a while, something comes along that is jaw-dropping. And over at TED.com it comes along so often, that they have a whole category for stuff that is jaw-dropping. And it is. I’ve been a fan of William McDonough for a long time (see my review of Cradle to Cradle), so I wasn’t surprised to find that his TED video was awesome. But I had never even heard of Hans Rosling, co-founder of Doctors without Borders, sword-swallower (really) and poverty researcher. I’ve never seen anyone with a similar ability to make statistics as gripping as the climax scene in an action movie.

» Watch the videos... »

Popularity: 14% [?]

I’ve been meaning to look this up for a long time: what is middle class or, more appropriately, what counts as middle income? My thought was that middle income should be plus or minus one standard deviation from the median. But I was just saved the trouble of doing the research, because I’m listening right now to an interview with sociologist Claude Fischer, co-author of Century of Difference: How America Changed in the Last One Hundred Years, economist David Henderson, editor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics and Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project.

Henderson started it all off by saying that he defines middle income as the middle 60% of households (so, in other words, he calls the bottom 20% lower income and the upper 20% upper income). That seems like a good definition. So, before I reveal the numbers — answer quick — are you middle income?

Why do I ask? Two reasons:

1. Politicians are always talking about helping the middle class, but never telling us who they actually mean by that.
2. Most Americans, no matter what they’re income, like to think of themselves as middle income. When you poll people who are in the 95th percentile, they will typically say they are middle income. Of course, if they score in the 95th percentile on, say, a grammar test, they will not tell you that they are middle of the pack on grammar issues. But with income, it’s different.

So then, here it is: you are middle income in America if your household income (so not your personal salary) is between $20,000 and $97,000.
Of course, there are a lot of variables. Where you live makes a big difference. California median household income is $70,000 for a family of four.

Anyway, an interesting hour on the idea of Middle Class on Forum on KQED. In theory, starting tomorrow that broadcast should be available in the Forum Archives for February 18, 2008.

I have to say that I find the numbers a bit surprising because if memory serves, the bottom end hasn’t risen much in the last 15 years, whereas the top end has. I remember back in the late 1980s when $85,000 put you in the top 1% and 114,000 dollars put you in the top 1%. I remember this, by the way, because of a multi-day argument with a doctor friend of mine who insisted that he couldn’t possibly be in the top 1%.

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Somehow, I think this one fact says something essential about Americans and why we believed that Reagan would lower taxes, increase spending and balance the budget.

• 62% of American workers expect to receive a pension upon retirement
• 41% of American workers actually have a pension plan

Life just doesn’t work that way people.

Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute, 2007 Retirement Confidence Survey, cited in “In the Vanguard”, summer 2007.

Popularity: 10% [?]

First some facts. Paper production is the second-largest use of fresh water in the world (presumably after agriculture). Paper production accounts for 11% of all fresh water used. Paper production is the single largest contributor to cutting forest and makes up a huge portion of the volume poured into our landfills. Changing to narrower margins, using .75” instead of 1” as the default, results on average in a savings of 4.7%. In 2004, when Americans used eight billion tons of paper, changing to narrower margins would save 380,000 tons of paper (yes, that’s a lot less than 4.7% but there are many uses of paper that are not affected by changing the margins, such as grocery bags).
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Popularity: 11% [?]

I’m always telling people that historically speaking, real estate has never been a good investment. Now, I don’t really invest because 1) I don’t have any money and 2) I have the worst sense of timing anyway. So good investment/bad investment is generally irrelevant, but I do like to track social trends and lately, whenever I diss real estate, people get a little nervous.
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Though it’s over a year old, I just came across a post where Phil Greenspun asks Philip Greenspun’s Weblog » Why can’t we buy a Chinese house at Walmart?
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