Author: bmagnus

Today is the anniversary of what is debatably the single saddest day in my lifetime.

Two years ago today, 19 nut-cases hijacked 4 airliners full of people and fuel. They destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, killed about 3000 people — an astonishingly low number considering the time and place — and took away our innate sense of security.

The occasion was commemorated in New York City as well as other places with moments of silence.

Around the world wreathes were laid, prayers were said, names of the dead were spoken, commemorative gardens and art exhibits were opened, blood drives were conducted, parades were marched, school children sang patriotic songs, heads of state gave speeches denouncing terrorism. In addition, nations were put on alert, and there were calls for curtailing civil liberties in the name of the War on Terror.

Closer to home, a local mini-mart chain was giving away free deluxe car washes.

Clearly that’s what it’s all about. Moments of silence and car washes.

Yesterday morning, I heard a brief interview with 3 members of the United States Travel and Tourism Promotion Advisory Board. The purpose of this board is to come up with ways to encourage international travel to the United States. They have been given a $50 million marketing budget by the President. Members include the heads of regional convention and tourism boards, hotel company executives, airline executives, and Commerce Secretary Don Evans. Some of these men are also members of the World Travel and Tourism Council. Although it does not surprise me that I was not invited to join this prestigious committee, I would like to offer my ideas on the subject. As usual, free advice is often worth what you pay for it.

First, I’d like to point out to the esteemed gentlemen that the majority of travel and tourism in the United States is done by people who already live in the United States. Sure, maybe it doesn’t bring “new” money into the system when someone from Iowa makes a trip to Chicago, but that person does spend money on food, hotel, activities, and collectors spoons that they would not have spent in Iowa. Furthermore, the kinds of things that keep us Americans from traveling are exactly the kinds of things that keep international tourists away.

Next, get the Department of Homeland Security to stop issuing warnings that say nothing more than Look Out! Speaking as an American, I don’t mind legitimate warnings, but most of what we hear is nothing more than vague scary stuff. We don’t want to hear “Orange. That is all.” We want something we can think about and maybe act upon. The few times there have been specific warnings — for example, recent warnings that there might be another hijacking or airliner bomb, or 2002’s warning that banks in the Northeast might be targeted — were met with no change in the terror alert level. To further complicate matters, genuine threats were met with no change; why didn’t the Washington area get an orange or even red alert when they had sniper problems? In short, we need something to “Look Out!” for, even if it’s a little vague, and we need regional alerts. People in other countries really do look at the terror levels before buying plane tickets.

Another thing you could do to encourage tourism is to stop treating everyone at the airport as a potential terrorist. There, I have said it. I don’t think most of us mind going through the metal detector. However, a lot of us are beginning to think that some small minority of screeners like to deliberately humiliate us through invasive searches and gratuitous confiscations. It is apparent that the list of prohibited items for carry-on luggage varies by screener and airport, regardless of what the official Federal list may say. Furthermore, now that it is perfectly legal for the TSA to break into our luggage and search it, have they found so much as a single bomb or vial of anthrax? Guns and ammo don’t count; it’s legal to pack those in checked luggage. Have we done adequate screening of the screeners to make sure they aren’t using this golden opportunity to steal from honest passengers?

Prescreening has been widely sold as an idea that will prevent unnecessary searches and speed up the security line. Nothing could be further from the truth. As long as it is suspected that people will bring weapons onto aircraft, the security line will stay where it is, and everyone will have to go through it. Today, we find out that the proposed prescreening system will color code travelers — color coding worked so well for the DHS — and rate them according to perceived security risk. Green passengers may board immediately; 8% will be rated yellow and get further screening; 1% to 2% will be rated red and not allowed to fly, maybe even get arrested, and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. Now think about that. A Boeing 747-400 can carry up to 568 passengers. If 1% of passengers are designated code red non-flyers, that is an average of 5 on every single flight. On a busy holiday weekend, Chicago’s O’Hare airport has over 1 million travelers. Do they have room for 10,000-20,000 detained code red non-flyers at the airport? A single terminal at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport accommodates 12.8 million flyers annually, an average of 37,000 every single day. That’s 370 code red non-flyers every single day from a single terminal. Double these numbers if you suspect the number of code red non-flyers will actually be closer to 2%.

That is just the practical consideration. Don’t forget the Civil Liberties considerations. Groups from the American Conservative Union to the ACLU are concerned. The TSA spokesman says “Not only should we keep passengers from sitting next to a terrorist, we should keep them from sitting next to wanted ax murderers.” The ACLU director replies “You could be falsely arrested. You could be delayed. You could lose your ability to travel.” What is the criteria for arrest anyway? Having an outstanding parking ticket? Having the same name as someone who is a criminal? Even victims of identity theft could find themselves spending their vacation not at a resort, but in jail. Is there the possibility this could be used in a politically expedient fashion? Yes.

So then, Secretary Evans, esteemed members of the Board, if you would like foreign tourists to come back to the United States, you had better do something about Americans traveling within our borders. They are not a captive audience.

Do you remember George Bush the First on the campaign trail in 92, expressing amazement at the technological marvel known as the supermarket scanner? His son’s administration is every bit as “in touch” with the American People as he was.

The War on Terror: This week we will pass the 2 year mark, and frankly the only real progress is being able to color code our semi-rational fears. We’ve arrested a bunch of people, browbeat some into plea bargains that are very likely of the “I can’t prove I didn’t do it, so can I at least go minimum security instead of Federal Asspounding Prison?” variety. We have consolidated a bunch of Federal agencies into a Medusan mess known as the Department of Homeland Security. We squandered the opportunity to meaningfully upgrade airport screening and instead gave them even more authority and even less accountability. Oh, was accountability only for school districts? Have no fear, we will know more tonight at 8:30 Eastern.

Afghanistan: We really took care of Osama there, didn’t we? Oh, right, we never found him. Well, we got rid of the Taliban. Sort of. We stood up for the human rights of women. In retrospect. But we did install a friendly government and Karzai is doing a great job. If he were the Mayor of Kabul, he would be doing a fabulous job. Unfortunately his grip on the rest of the nation is somewhere between tenuous and non-existent.

Iraq: Somewhere between the shifting reasons for being there and our shifting target for getting out lies Blood and Oil. Ironically, modern Iraq was created at the end of World War I when the British decided it would be bloody handy to carve out some nice oil producing region of the Ottoman Empire and install a nice friendly regime there. The Americans have arrived 85 years later with the same failed plan and are telling us how wonderfully it is working. Furthermore, if anything is going wrong, it is the fault of the pesky people who actually live there! Never mind the fact that almost everything they had 6 months ago is destroyed — except for the oil, and it turns out that won’t really be enough to pay for everything.

World Trade: The Administration wants free and fair trade, except when it comes to agricultural products, steel, and Iraq reconstruction. In those cases we will subsidize farmers for producing more than could possibly be needed, illegally tariff imported steel to protect long since closed uncompetitive steel mills, and award billions of dollars in contracts without any bidding and without any effort to involve the people already there. No, we’re too busy mucking about in Chinese monetary policy.

Civil Liberties: The PATRIOT Act has come under such fire that Ashcroft had to do an old fashioned road show. Several state and local governments have decided not to comply with PATRIOT. Some entities have decided that the easiest way to comply with potential search warrants under the act while still protecting the privacy of patrons is to keep as few records as possible. Congress has had to seriously reconsider some provisions and potential expansions. Ted Koppel has had enough.

The Economy: Oh yeah, the economy. The President himself says “We’ve got positive growth, which is good.” He goes on to assert that home ownership is good, it’s a shame there are so many people out of work, and kittens are cute. Just kidding, he said nothing about kittens. He does seem to be under the impression that somehow the changes in labor rules (there is still time to write your Congressman) which will reduce the number of people eligible for overtime and allow the insidious practice of “comp time” will result in more people getting overtime pay. I guess I’d have to get an MBA for that to make sense. The truth is that this country is losing jobs and this plan — like the tax cuts that were supposed to have already saved the economy — will make it worse. However, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has good news for the 2.7 million people who permanently lost jobs in manufacturing: we will need 1 million new nurses in this country over the next 10 years. This figure, as announced on CNBC, will be of great comfort to their children.

No wonder the President’s approval rating is down.

I probably watched too much television as a kid.

There was an episode of Fantasy Island that I remember where a psychologist is trying to figure out what makes “bad girls” tick. The suave and slightly magical Mr. Roarke — whose perfectly pressed white suit had not yet been supplemented with post “Wrath of Khan” chest baring shirts — gives her a potion and admonishes her to only take 3 drops at a time. Her newly released Inner Bad Girl is such a hit that her Good Girl self is kidnapped by Bad Boys who decide that if a little of this potion makes her Bad, even more will make her even More Bad — in a Good way of course. At this point she becomes completely uncontrollable.

Regulation and Deregulation are much the same way. A little is probably a good thing, but too much makes things uncontrollable. Most regulation happens because a clearly bad situation has arisen. For example, Texas has a state law saying landlords have to change locks between residents on their rental properties. A common sense thing that reputable landlords have always done had to be made into a law because some landlords weren’t doing the right thing. Whenever I see a particularly odd law, I remind myself that some legislative body thought it was important enough to draw up, vote on, and get somebody to sign.

This is in contrast to various laws that had unexpected consequences. For example, when the Social Security Number was invented, nobody thought it would be used as a universal identification number. In fact, the law prohibits using it in this way. By way of a more recent example, the No Child Left Behind Act states the lofty goal of improving performance in every sub-group of every school. Failure to do so has Federal implications. However, this does not allow much flexibility to the few truly excellent public schools, who must somehow surpass the extraordinary each year. By not providing a baseline performance other than “better,” they fail before they begin.

Regulations made by various government agencies are a slightly different animal. Since these agencies are not elected, and are often difficult to reign in, they sometimes seem to make rules just for the sake of making rules. Some of these rules will have clear valid reasons, others will be compromises between multiple points of view, some will be indirect political favors, and some will be nothing more than a wild hair. Some of these will indeed be so egregious that Legislators or the Courts will step in.

With many sources and years of regulation, it is easy to see how the rules can get very complicated and perhaps even contradictory. In addition, it can be expensive to figure out what the rules are and comply with them. The fundamental idea behind Deregulation is that by taking away unnecessary rules, it will be easier to do business. Theoretically this can even create jobs. The truth is that deregulation is just as prone to unintended consequence, abuse of authority, and political intrigue. Not only does deregulation tend to “throw the baby out with the bath-water,” it tends to rewrite rather than revise regulation.

Two prime examples are playing out in Washington as we speak. In the wake of August’s massive blackout, calls for reform are being answered with Bush’s original proposed Energy Policy, drilling in the Arctic and all. Congress is not amused. They asked specifically how drilling holes in the ground up in Alaska was going to keep power on in the lower 48 and as nearly as anyone can tell did not get an acceptable answer.

The other current example of bad deregulation deals with a law you may never have heard of called EMTALA. That’s the law that says (if I may oversimplify) that Emergency Rooms have to see anyone who comes in regardless of insurance, and that specialists have to be on call to help patients. The one main problem is a grey area: hospital owned clinics. Does a hospital’s off-site clinic fall under the same rules as the main campus? Rather than simply clarify this issue, the rules will be gutted. As a patient, you will risk becoming a human pinball if you have the wrong kind of insurance, or the wrong kind of injury, or simply come in at the wrong time of day. Because this is a “rule” amended by the Bush Administration, it will be very difficult to overrule, but not impossible.

Maybe you’d better not have a medical emergency after November 10, 2003.

In Iraq, we have over 280 dead American soldiers. At the current rate, we could be talking about the grizzly spectacle of a “300 Casualties Special” on whichever news show has the guts to be so tacky by the end of September. This figure does not include British casualties, the people killed in the UN blast, journalists, humanitarian aid workers, or Iraqi civilians. Things have gotten to the point that the United States has admitted that just maybe the time has come for the United Nations to get involved. We might even let France get involved.

We have $1.7 Billion (with a B) and counting in assorted Iraq related contracts to Halliburton. You remember Halliburton, right? That little oil services company Vice President Dick Cheney used to be the CEO of? Bechtel, a little engineering company Caspar Weinberger and George Shultz have been associated with, stands to earn another cool Billion in Iraq.

Speaking of money and Iraq, depending which source you like, it might cost $1 Billion a day to continue occupation of — oops, I mean rebuilding — Iraq. Or it might take $1 Billion a week, a figure that at least is close to Pentagon estimates of $4 Billion a month. Alternatively, the whole job might take another $11-15 Billion. People actually in Iraq seem to think this estimate is downright modest, suggesting it will take “tens of billions” to properly do the job. It seems like it might be more efficient to pick numbers out of a hat. The idea of making Iraq pay these expenses with oil proceeds is sounding more ludicrous by the day.

Both the Bush Administration and the Blair Administration in Britain are having to answer tough questions about how they got us into this mess. Both men may yet be punished in the voting booth.

On the National front, we have a potpourri of interesting economic news. The United States buget deficit has reached such proportions that even the IMF is concerned, saying that the people in charge are too optimistic and don’t have a plan. Granted, the IMF is a big fan of “fiscal austerity,” high taxes, and devalued currencies, but the actual criticisms are valid and undenyable. Some armchair economists insist that we have to make a choice between deficit spending and job creation, yet somehow we managed to create lots of jobs and eliminate the budget deficit in the 90s. As if that isn’t bad enough, it turns out that most of the current actual growth in the American economy can be attributed to defense spending — and it isn’t resulting in job creation. Hmm, at least defense spending in the Cold War put people to work. Are we now selling $600 toilet seats to Iraq? Oh, but wait, one theory posits that the reason new jobs aren’t happening has nothing to do with manufacturing jobs moving to foreign nations (try saying that with a straight face while looking at this), but is rather because us darned Americans are so efficient.

If it weren’t for the lives and money at stake, it would be enough to make you give up trying to understand it.