So Which Is It: High Energy Prices Or Low?

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Ex-President Obama may have understood next-to-nothing about climate and energy policy, but at least he understood (I think) that the main idea that he was advocating was to reduce usage of fossil-fuel energy through the method of intentionally forcing up the price of same.  Obama's principal "plan" for climate and energy policy was what was euphemistically called a "cap and trade" system -- in other words, a system of putting artificial government-imposed limits on how much fossil fuel could be produced or used (the "cap"), and then letting markets exchange the remaining artificially-scarce supplies (the "trade").  With demand the same and supplies reduced, the price would necessarily have to go up, and probably by a lot, thus forcing rationing and impoverishment on the people.  Here is a link to the famous 2008 video of Obama, in the early part of his first campaign, admitting the obvious with the famous line, "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."  He doesn't mention gasoline prices in that particular video, but obviously the consequence would be the same.

And upon his election, Obama wasted no time in trying to put the "cap and trade" (i.e., intentionally higher prices for energy) idea into effect.  Before there was even Obamacare, there was the so-called Waxman-Markey "American Clean Energy and Security Act," otherwise known as the "cap and trade" bill.  Do you remember it?  It was introduced in the Congress on May 15, 2009.  In the grand tradition of progressive efforts to use legislation to remake the world unto perfection (see also, Obamacare and Dodd-Frank), this one was a good 1400 pages long.  It provided for forced "emissions cuts" starting in 2012, rising to 17% (against a 2005 base) in 2020 and 42% by 2030 (and on up from there), and for an unbelievably complicated system of permits and trading for everybody from manufacturers to utilities.  The bill passed the House by a close vote of 219 - 212 (all Republicans opposing and a few Democrats defecting).  But then it got to the Senate, where it died.  Under Majority Leader Harry Reid, it was never put to a vote.  I guess Reid knew that he didn't have the votes, although the Democrats had 59 seats at the time.

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Goodbye To Obamacare

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Obamacare!  It was supposed to usher in a new era of healthcare nirvana.  Universal "coverage"!  Better health!  "Bending the cost curve"!  "Affordable" care!

Have you noticed that you haven't been reading much about Obamacare recently?  Yes, there was a blip of press mentions last year, when the Republican Congress was making some failed attempts at full repeal of the Act.  (See my coverage here from September 27, 2017.)  And since then, mostly radio silence.  So, was universal "coverage" in fact achieved?  And, what happened with the health results?  And with the famous "cost curve"?  I'll bet you don't know.  Could it be that the press just doesn't report things that are unfavorable to the official narrative?      

And now, rather suddenly, it looks like Obamacare may be on its last legs.

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Can You Tell Witness Tampering When You See It?

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On Monday, a party identifying itself as the "Government" (aka the Mueller special prosecution team, led in this case by one Andrew Weissman) filed a motion in the D.C. District Court seeking to have the pre-trial release of Paul Manafort revoked, and thus to have Manafort thrown in the pokey pending his trial.  Up until now Manafort has been in something called the "Pretrial Services Agency's high-intensity supervision program," sometimes euphemistically referred to as "house arrest."  Here are links to the Motion and to a supporting Declaration by an FBI agent named Brock Domin.  However, I suspect that those links may not work for you unless you subscribe to the federal "PACER" system for online access.  

So what are the grounds for seeking to lock up Manafort at this time?  According to the Motion, Manafort has been engaged in what they call "attempting to tamper with potential witnesses while on pretrial release," which they say is a violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1512(b)(1).  And what does the alleged "attempted witness tampering" consist of?  Get ready for this:  It seems that Manafort attempted to (and in one case did) get in contact with a few of the dozens of prospective witnesses in his case, and to talk to them about their prospective testimony.  Imagine that!  Did you know that that was even a crime?

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Are The Residents Of New York City Public Housing "Poor"?

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Following up on yesterday's post, I thought it might be interesting to take an in depth look into the question of whether typical residents of New York City public housing are or are not "poor."  It turns out to be not such an easy question to answer.  Here is the nub of the problem:  These are people who are provided by government with resources of value far in excess of the amount deemed to constitute the federal poverty "threshold."  In the official measures, these additional resources are not counted, and the recipients are therefore, for the most part, deemed "poor."  But should the additional resources be counted?  If these resources don't count toward alleviating poverty, why again do we provide them?

First, consider a profile for a typical New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) family.  NYCHA in 2017 reported the "average" income of its resident families as $24,336, and the average monthly rent as $509.  The $24,336 is slightly below the 2018 federal poverty threshold for a family of 4, which is $25,100.  Thus it is likely that about half, or somewhat more, of NYCHA families are said to be "in poverty."  But of course, the $24,336 does not include any increment for the implicit subsidy of the NYCHA apartment.  How much is that?  Because it is not paid in cash, there are different ways to value it.  One way would be to take the annual HUD operating subsidy to NYCHA, which is about $2 billion, and the forgiven NYC property taxes, which would be at least $500 million, and divide that up among the 170,000 +/- NYCHA apartments.  That is basically the methodology used by Mr. Early in his study discussed in yesterday's post.  That methodology would give you an implicit subsidy of about $15,000 per year per NYCHA apartment.  But that is a very low-end way of looking at it.  At the high end, you could value the NYCHA apartments by looking to what comparable apartments in their neighborhoods are currently renting for.  By this alternative methodology, many NYCHA apartments -- particularly those now located in fancy Manhattan neighborhoods, and those lining the Lower East Side waterfront -- come with annual subsidies in the range of $50,000 and even $100,000 per apartment.

So, just to make a case that draws out the contrasts, consider a 4 person family with the average NYCHA family "income" of $24,336 living in a water view apartment that comes with a $100,000 annual subsidy by the second methodology.  Add in that it is highly likely that such a family would also receive other government benefits:  Medicaid (that costs about $10,000 per beneficiary in New York, so $40,000 for this family), food stamps, heating assistance, clothing assistance, school lunches, Pell grants, cell phones, EITC, etc.  The full package likely costs the taxpayers well in excess of $150,000 per year.

So, is this family "poor"?

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Some Real Information On Poverty And Income Inequality

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On numerous occasions on this blog, I have pointed out that the government's data on poverty and income inequality are systematically fraudulent.  For starters, they define "income," for purposes of determining both poverty and income inequality, in a way to arbitrarily exclude well over a trillion annual dollars of government transfers and benefits, leading to results that are entirely misleading.  And then those intentionally misleading results are used to advocate for yet more government programs and transfers, all of which will again be excluded when measuring poverty and inequality in the next round.  For a few examples of my previous posts on this subject, see here, here and here.  If you have time, I would recommend reading those for background.

What I have not previously done is attempt to go through all the uncounted government programs and quantify the effect that including them would have on the reported rates of poverty or income inequality.  One reason I have not done that is that it is a lot of work.  Another reason I haven't done it is that even correcting for all the omitted government programs would only be a start at the project of getting a handle on the real rate of poverty in the United States, that is, poverty in the sense of actual physical deprivation.  Even if all government benefits and transfers get included in the "income" of the recipients, and the statistics for poverty and income inequality get corrected accordingly, there would still be very large amounts of resources available to the "poor" that would remain uncounted.  The most obvious example would be the unreported illegal economy (estimated in this 2011 study at approximately $2 trillion annually, or about 12% of the economy, which is even more -- almost double -- the amount of uncounted government benefits).  And then there's the provision of resources by families and extended families.  Nevertheless, doing a study to figure out what the quantitative effect of including all these previously-excluded government benefits would be on the poverty and inequality statistics is certainly a worthwhile project.

And thus into my mailbox this week floated exactly such a study, by a guy named John Early at the Cato Institute.  The study is titled "Reassessing the Facts about Inequality, Poverty, and Redistribution."   Although I only got it this week (in the snail mail), it has a publication date of April 24.  Early is identified as a former assistant commissioner in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which probably is a good indication that he knows how these numbers are put together (although the income and poverty numbers come from the Commerce Department rather than BLS).

So first, John, could you give us a list of some of the government benefits and handouts that are excluded when the government measures "poverty" and "income inequality"?

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How Is It Going With Mayor De Blasio's Efforts To Reduce Homelessness?

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For twenty years, from 1994 to 2013, we had Republican mayors in this most Democratic of cities. OK, Bloomberg (2002 - 2013) didn't maintain the Republican label consistently; however, he was a successful businessman with at least some common sense.  And Bloomberg's predecessor Giuliani wasn't perfect either.  Anyway, at least those two tried a little.  Then in 2013 we elected the far left progressive Bill de Blasio, with the soaring promise of more and yet more government spending on social programs to bring newfound equality and social justice to all.  At the top of de Blasio's agenda were the issues of "affordable housing" and "homelessness."  I've had a long series of posts on the folly and idiocy of de Blasio's "affordable housing" efforts.  (See posts accumulated under this tab.)  For today, let's check in for an update on how it's going with "homelessness."

First, the starting point.  The Coalition for the Homeless -- a leading advocacy organization for more spending to reduce the problem -- put out a big summary in late 2012, toward the end of Bloomberg's tenure.  Bottom line:  the number of "homeless" was put at 43,000:

Last night, more than 43,000 homeless men, women and children went to sleep in New York City municipal shelters, including an all-time record 17,000 children.

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