Why Did Greece's Economy Collapse?

One set of economists blame the Greek Great Depression from 2008-2016 on declining demand for Greece's exports and bad fiscal policy. Productivity then fell because product capacity sat idle. They argue that reducing government spending and taxing labor more heavily relative to income from property would have helped considerably. I am mildly skeptical but can evaluate the claims very well because I don't have access to the body of the pay per view article.

The Greek economy experienced a boom until 2007, followed by a prolonged depression resulting in a 25 percent shortfall of GDP by 2016. Informed by a detailed analysis of macroeconomic patterns in Greece, we develop and estimate a rich dynamic general equilibrium model to assess quantitatively the sources of the boom and bust. 

Lower external demand for traded goods and contractionary fiscal policies account for the largest fraction of the Greek depression. A decline in total factor productivity, due primarily to lower factor utilization, substantially amplifies the depression. Given the significant adjustment of prices and wages observed throughout the cycle, a nominal devaluation would only have short-lived stabilizing effects. By contrast, shifting the burden of adjustment from taxes toward spending or from capital taxes toward other taxes would generate significant longer-term production and consumption gains.

Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Loukas Karabarbounis, Rohan Kekre, "The Macroeconomics of the Greek Depression" NBER Working Paper No. 25900 (May 2019).

Hearsay In Civil Cases

In my opinion, in non-criminal cases, the United States should follow the lead of the United Kingdom which repealed the hearsay rule in Section 1 of the Civil Evidence Act of 1995, which says:

Admissibility of hearsay evidence. 

(1) In civil proceedings evidence shall not be excluded on the ground that it is hearsay. 

(2) In this Act— 

(a)“hearsay” means a statement made otherwise than by a person while giving oral evidence in the proceedings which is tendered as evidence of the matters stated; and 

(b) references to hearsay include hearsay of whatever degree. 

(3)Nothing in this Act affects the admissibility of evidence admissible apart from this section. 

(4)The provisions of sections 2 to 6 (safeguards and supplementary provisions relating to hearsay evidence) do not apply in relation to hearsay evidence admissible apart from this section, notwithstanding that it may also be admissible by virtue of this section.

Sections 2 to 6 of the Act provide some minor procedural nuances to admitting hearsay and encourage judges to be skeptical of it when it is appropriate to do so. 

Affordable Housing Policy Principles

Affordable housing is a big, complex, multifaceted issue. Here are some of my observations and principles that go into addressing it.

Local Land Use Measures

The single most important factor is to remove impediments to market means of making affordable housing available. 

Do not let the best be the enemy of the good. Establish a baseline bare minimum that would work for people like soldiers or refugees or students or scouts at a jamboree or college, and allow anything that means those basic requirements even if it is cramped or not terribly nice on a permanent basis.

The single biggest impediment to that is local government land use regulation and urban planning. For example:

* Allow house owners to construct accessory dwellings and rent them to unrelated people (I use the term "house owner" to refer to people who own houses, as opposed to "home owners" who own houses in which they live).

* Allow house owners to rent rooms in houses to unrelated people.

* Allow multi-unit dwellings (e.g. duplexes, town houses and row houses, flats, condominiums, residential co-operatives, apartment buildings) to be constructed almost everywhere that is not open space, farm land, or in heavy industrial areas. Limit building height primarily based upon available residential fire response resources and structural limitations.

* Foster a healthy market in owned multifamily housing without succumbing to the woes to the time share markets. Make it easier to convert rented housing and single family homes to owned multi-family housing.

* Greatly reduce minimum square footage per occupant requirements in building codes to allow for tiny homes, micro-apartments, dormitory style housing, etc.

* Allow housing that does not have individual bathrooms and kitchens for every family so long as these resources are available collectively.

* Do not impose parking requirements in places where public transportation (in the public or private sector) is reasonably available, even if it currently isn't heavily used for both residential and commercial uses. If a commercial area is served by transit and has access to basic retail needs, don't require any parking and leave that to the marketplace. An apartment which is not within easy walking distance of a bus stop or intracity rail stop could have parking requirements waived if it has some retail options within walking distance and has a commitment to provide a shuttle to get residents to high frequency bus stops or intracity rail stops.

* Remove purely aesthetic building code requirements. In general, regulate building approaches and building form only when absolutely necessary for non-social, non-aesthetic reasons and allow variances where the concerns motivating requirements are mitigated in an alternative way. Allow prior variances to serve as precedents for future variances.

* Don't add unnecessary requirement that add long term costs without advancing health or safety.

* Remove building code prohibitions on manufactured housing (both fully manufactured and substantial component assembled) if safety and health concerns are addressed in an alternative manner.

* Do not unduly restrict short term rentals that do not include maid service (i.e. other than motel/hotel/air bnb situations). For example, have many and substantial areas where single occupancy hotels, weekly kitchenette suites, motels converted to residences are allowed, and Japanese style pod hotels).

* Allow public, non-profit, and private property owners (including churches, public buildings, schools, warehouses, theaters, retail establishments, etc.) to make their spaces available to shelter the homeless.

* Allow public, non-profit, and private property owners provide protection to housing arrangements that amount to camping (sleeping in tents for prolonged period of time, sleeping in a car, living in a cabin or storage unit or garage or shed without its own plumbing), if lenient requirements for water,  sewer and trash service needs are met at a collective level, and protect the security of those arrangements as much as possible from private and government intrusion.

* Do not adopt rent controls, or price controlled, means tested "affordable housing" designated units.

* Do not prohibit the construction of housing mixed with commercial uses.

* Disfavor private land use restrictions that emulate zoning laws but are even less flexible. In general, encourage HOA level activity that is as minimal as possible. Never require an HOA or special district where it isn't absolutely necessary. If a party wall or maintenance cost sharing agreement can do the job, do that instead. Small democracies function the most poorly.

* Reduce harm in evictions related to loss and destruction of personality, and by providing reasonable notice for longer term leases and in foreclosure on landlords.

* Use proportionate development impact fees and tap fees and utility set up fees to encourage infill development.

* Structure environmental laws to favor brown field development.

* Weaken the political NIMBY power of busy body residents and develop a sense of non-entitlement to regulate neighboring land uses.

* Provide means of insuring habitability that can benefit undocumented tenants.

* Create significant and multiple areas where sex offenders, people on probation and parole, half-way houses, group homes, foster homes and the like can be located without overwhelming any one area.

Community Level Measures 

Consider community level and tax based ways to promote affordable housing:

* Create a focal point for potentially homeless people to get information they need when they need it (e.g. in connection with evictions).

* Adopt tax and labor law rules that make including housing in a compensation package.

* Establish incentives in terms of how local governments collect revenue and how responsibility for financing government services is allocated between levels of government so that local governments do not have incentives to discourage the construction of housing or the construction of affordable housing. Colorado's Gallagher Amendment, sales tax financing of local government, and local property tax financing of public schools are all counter to these objectives.

* Maximize the amount of housing stock and especially affordable housing stock where it is feasible to live without owning a vehicle due to non-private automobile transportation offices and the nearby availability of retail and employment opportunities. This can be combination of bicycle and walking friendly landscapes, bus and intracity rail service, private shuttles and car pool arranging, taxis and Lyft and Uber, motor vehicle sharing (i.e. short term rental), scooter/bike rental, and delivery services.

* Establish prompt and affordable ways to landlords to repossess housing/camping leased to short term tenants when occupants/tenants default.

* Encourage mixed use development that reduces the amount of travel needed to obtain essentials.

* Make good educational options available without undue regard to residence location so that housing prices do not become gatekeepers for access to good schools.

* Address the serious problems of HOA managed communities by minimizing association level activity where possible.

* Encourage "outsourcing" and disaggregation of components of the package that comes in a house. For example, postal address drops, secure storage (like safe deposit boxes), storage units instead of a basement or garage, separately rented or owned parking or vehicle storage, rental spaces for group meals and cooking special meals and gatherings, low cost cafeteria stye and co-op style eating options, study spaces, micro-business office and workshop spaces, love hotels, bath houses, and neighborhood scale short term rental options when guests are in town in lieu of guest rooms.

* Welcome immigrants as a way of reinvigorating declining neighborhoods.

* Disfavor land use regulations that tend to discourage mixed income communities.

* Take advantage of municipal scale advantages for services like broadband internet access.

* Provide public spaces in addition to libraries and parks where people can just "be" without paying anyone any money during the day.

* Decriminalize private charity like offering food assistance.

* Facilitate access to financing for modest income home buyers.

* Reduce delays (and to a much lesser extent costs) associated with new housing construction.

* Improve the accuracy and detail of projections regarding market demand for housing, so developers build what is needed.

Individual Level Measures

* Make housing a right without regard to ability to pay. Make housing first the presumptive norm, and provide for other needs second.

* Eliminate waiting lists for housing assistance.

* Structure housing assistance programs and financing in a manner that encourages metropolitan area/regional cooperation, rather than competition and passing the buck.

* Provide much stronger support to foster kids aging out.

* Provide personalized, non-bureaucratic support for needs that lead to vagrancy like substance abuse issues, mental health issues, traumatic brain injury and developmental disability, medical problems, criminal records, lack of social skills, poor budgeting, and lack of employability. As much as possible this should be categorical rather than means tested. Much of this can be addressed via universal health care.

* Where public housing is built, don't over concentrate it, create defensible space and access for low income tenants, and anticipate the need for a suite of supportive programs and systems beyond the default levels since this population will likely need a helping hand to get back on its feet. Avoid long term tenancies in publicly owned housing, preferring housing assistance if necessary. 

* Create housing assistance eligibility rules that have incentives to keep families together rather than fracturing them apart.

* Decriminalize drugs so that harm reduction and treating it like a public health problem is possible, while removing the money and danger of black market activities.

* Decriminalize prostitution for similar reasons so that sex workers aren't exploited by pimps, customers and law enforcement, and otherwise subject to the woes of the criminal world.

* Create a right to a job where anyone who presented themselves can receive guaranteed employment by the day at minimum wage in whatever pursuit the program manager can identify that applicants are qualified to do, even if it is somewhat make work.

* Make available subsidized or guaranteed loans for start up costs like first month's rent and security deposits and down payments.

* Subsidize and support the ability of workers to relocate to places where there are more jobs or higher paying jobs for people with their skills. For example, transportation and moving costs, facilitating school transfers, helping people sell houses at fair prices, terminate leases without penalty and find subtenants or replacement tenants.

* Strengthen the right to substitute economically comparable tenants or borrowers.

* Don't so strongly favor ownership over renting that people who are economically better off renting are pressured to buy. Some people need job mobility, have insecure incomes, and have poor credit, that makes home ownership ill advised.

How Should We Protect Long Range Aircraft Without Air To Air Combat Capabilities?

A recent incident calls attention to a potential gap in U.S. capabilities, even as other capabilities of the U.S. military are grossly excessive to the need.

A P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft experienced an "unsafe" and "irresponsible" intercept by a Russian fighter jet over international waters on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Navy. 

The P-8A was intercepted by a Russian SU-35 "three times over the course of 175 minutes" over the Mediterranean Sea, the Navy's Sixth Fleet said in a statement. While "the first and third interactions were deemed safe" the second "was determined to be unsafe due to the SU-35 conducting a high-speed pass directly in front of the mission aircraft, which put our pilots and crew at risk." 

The P-8A crew reported traveling through wake turbulence caused by the Russian fighter flying in the path of the Navy aircraft. 

The Navy's statement said its aircraft was operating "consistent with international law and did not provoke this Russian activity." The intercept was estimated to have lasted 28 minutes.

According to a June 5, 2019 report from ABC News.

The U.S. military has many fairly long range aircraft with little air to air combat capabilities. The C-5 and C-17 transport planes, myriad kinds of tanker aircraft, the P-3 and P-8 naval patrol aircraft, the B-1, B-2, the B-52 bombers, the E-4B command post, the C-32A executive air lifter and the Navy’s E-6B command post, the C-2 Greyhound aircraft carrier delivery aircraft (if they are still in service), as well as a variety of small VIP transport planes.

There are also all sorts of long range commercial aircraft that could sometimes need protection from potentially hostile military or terrorist controlled aircraft.

But, none of the fighter aircraft outfitted for serious air to air combat duties, the F-15, the F-16, the F-18, the F-22 and the F-35, have particularly long ranges and all have very high hourly operational costs. So, for those aircraft to escort long range aircraft without much in the way of air to air combat capabilities, one must either add tanker aircraft to the aerial caravan to refuel the escorting fighter aircraft along the way (adding yet more cost per hour), or one must hand off duties from one or more fighters serving as escorts to the next, based from aircraft carriers or land based air force bases along the way, which may prove problematic if there aren't enough friendly bases available (not really a problem in the Mediterranean where this incident occurred, but potentially a problem elsewhere).

Now, their ranges aren't all that short. F-15 (1,221 miles), F-16 (2,002 miles), F-18 (1,466 miles), F-22 (1,839 miles), F-35A and F-35C (basic and carrier versions 1,380 miles), F-35B (STVL version 1,035 miles). 

But, fighter aircraft ranges are extrapolations based upon traveling at full cruising speed (very fast) times the number of hours it can remain aloft with a load of fuel. Also, the more heavily armed a fighter is, the shorter its range. Also, those ranges are cut in half if the fighter has to leave from and return to the same base be it an air force base on land, or an aircraft carrier.

Another problem is that long range aircraft typically fly more slowly for far more hours. 

An F-35 is going to have considerably fewer hours aloft that aircraft often thought of as long range, because its range is partially related to its 1200 mile per hour maximum speed. But, while a P-8A has a range of 1,380 miles, about the same as an F-35, a P-8A has a cruising speed of 509 miles per hour and a maximum speed of 564 miles per hour. So, it can stay aloft for four hours at a time if that fits its mission, while a typical fighter aircraft probably can't. Similarly, a C-17 has a cruising speed of 518 miles per hour, and a range with a normal cargo load of 2,785 miles, double the range of most available fighters, with a number of hours aloft relative to the fighter aircraft that is even greater.

But, an effective escort aircraft needs to stay close to the aircraft it is escorting at all times. Burst of speed could be useful for an escort aircraft, but ideally, it could cruise very efficiently at speeds similar to those of the aircraft it is escorting.

The most simple expedient is to mount external fuel tanks on fighters where air to ground bombs would otherwise be attached to expand their range at the cost of the stealth that is a key feature of the F-22 and F-35. 

But, the question is whether there is a need in our fleet of jet fighters for a purpose built, long range air to air combat aircraft designed to escort other aircraft without those capabilities.

Closely related is the question of how important supersonic aircraft speed is in 21st century air to air combat. Historically, "dog fighting" as air to air combat is known, often involved one plane shooting another down at short range with slug throwers (i.e. big bullets) or very short range unguided missiles, neither of which could very meaningfully track of target. So, an ability to maneuver with agility and to be faster than opposing fighters was critical to getting in position to make a shot and to staying out of the cross-hairs of an opponent.

But, these days, air to air combat is designed on the assumption that fighters fire long range guided missiles to shoot down enemy aircraft. The paradigm is one shot, one kill, with the first fighter to see its opponent taking it down, ambush style, with a long range missile that destroys the enemy aircraft just moments before that aircraft knows that air to air combat is underway. 

As a result, many countries with limited budgets for their air forces have decided to mount state of the art avionics and long range guided missiles on aircraft that aren't supersonic and aren't particularly agile either, but the speed and agility drive up the cost of a fighter aircraft tremendously (and also require far more skilled pilots who regularly engage in very expensive training), without adding proportionate capabilities when the idea its to fire a long range missile at an enemy aircraft as soon as it shows up on the fighter's long range sensors.

Even in the old days, one of the preferred tactics of fighter aces was to emerge out of cloud cover into a strike position and immediately destroy enemy aircraft just moments before it knows that a dog fight is in progress.

Then again, that kind of tactic isn't very well suited to the kind of situation mentioned in the most recent incident (which has happened quite a few times with Russian and Chinese aircraft in the last few years). In those cases, the enemy aircraft are intentionally menacing the U.S. or allied aircraft with the purpose of sending a message without actually firing a shot in anger.

Ideally, a long range escort fighter could be effective in that kind of setting, warding off the enemy fighter that gets too close, without actually having to fire a shot in most cases. In this situation, stealth is counterproductive (potentially making external fuel tanks less problematic), but traditional dog fighting capabilities of maneuverability and speed might be valuable after all.

Another thought that comes to mind is how drones could be used to address this need. Drones should generally be able to secure greater range with otherwise comparable capabilities since they don't have to carry a pilot and related life support equipment. A drone in an escort situation can have  some level of direction from the escorted aircraft. Drones can more easily use suicidal tactics without the accompanying loss of life if necessary (e.g. ramming an enemy aircraft rather than firing upon it). And, one can also imagine a much shorter range drone or squadron of drones that rides piggy back on the escorted aircraft until called to duty for a short engagement when actually needed, before returning to a mounted position if the engagement ends successfully.

Yet another option would be to fit these long range aircraft that aren't designed for air to air combat with upgraded avionics and long term missiles so that they can defend themselves, perhaps not with the agility of a purpose built fighter, but sufficiently to make them more than sitting ducks when engaging with enemy fighter aircraft. If they had this capability, enemy fighter aircraft might afford these long distance planes more respect.

It is likely that one of these general approaches is much better than the others in the situations they would be trying to address on some of the key metrics for evaluating the options. But, determining that in an unbiased fashion would as a practical matter be very difficult when internal defense department and Congressional politics are in play.

Then again, maybe too much investment in air to air combat capabilities doesn't make sense. This is a very expensive capability for something that has actually happened only twice, in incidents involving the U.S. mlitary, in the last twenty years. Maybe our military should devote more resources to frequently needed capabilities and less to capabilities like air to air combat, blue sea naval warfare, and amphibious assaults, that almost never actually happen.

The Gallagher Amendment Does More Harm Than Good

One of the hidden but important contributors to high housing prices in Colorado (which disproportionately hurts the less affluent, even though superficially the tax break for residential real estate would seem to reduce housing costs) is the Gallagher Amendment. This state constitutional provision in Colorado intentionally undervalues residential real estate for property tax purposes and overvalues non-farm business property for property tax purposes.

As a result, residential development increases demand for local government services more than it increases tax revenues, while business property increases tax revenues more than it increases demand for services. Retail businesses which not only pay high property taxes but also pay sales taxes over perform in generating tax revenue relative to local government service costs even more.

This creates strong incentives for local governments (which are the primary regulators of land use) to use land use regulation powers, like zoning laws, to lure new retail development away from existing developments in predatory rent seeking behavior (leaving losers with dead malls and storefronts), encourages local governments to allow other kinds of development of businesses in their territory, and discourages local governments from authorizing zoning for residential development, especially affordable housing which generates the least tax revenue while imposing the highest costs for local government services.

Therefore, local governments statewide all have strong economic incentives to allow less affordable housing to be built than they would in a world without the Gallagher Amendment. This limits the supply of housing generally, and affordable housing, in particular, which drives up the cost of housing in Colorado.

The Latest Front Range Rail Plans Are Underwhelming

 The latest plan is to build a 173 passenger rail route more or less along I-25 from Fort Collins to Pueblo. 

Speeds would likely be around 80 miles an hour, which is similar to the A-Line from downtown Denver to Denver International Airport. 

Charles Albi, the former Colorado Railroad Museum Director. . . . says acquiring land to build a new rail line would be extremely costly and difficult, so state officials will likely have to convince BNSF to let them use the existing line. 

"It's not like back in the day where you had wide open prairie, and you could build anywhere you wanted," he says. 

Similar routes exist between Milwaukee and Chicago, and in the Pacific Northwest between Seattle and Eugene, Oregon. 

"People talk about the great trains in Europe and in China. There's a reason for that. Population density. And we're getting to that point," says Albi. 

CDOT officials do not have a price tag for the project yet, and say the earliest we could see it in place would be 2023. 

It's also unclear how it will be funded.

From here.

At 80 miles per hour, before considering time lost to load and unload passengers at stops along the way, running parallel to a highway with large portions that have a 75 mile per hour speed limit, this is a very expensive project that is better off not done at all. Heavily subsidized buses along the line of existing Bustang service would be a better deal and provide similar service time and quality.

I am not saying that high speed rail isn't worth considering. 

The corridor from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs has enough population density to support a passenger rail line (although it does not make sense along the low traffic and already very fast stretch from Colorado Springs to Pueblo). Flying is very hard to make competitive at those distances due to time spent going to and from airports to final destinations and security and boarding delays. But, to be an attractive alternative, a front range passenger line needs to be able to go much faster than 80 mph and needs a dedicated rail line that doesn't have to interface with roads and highways or with other slow speed trains on existing tracks.

If you spend what it takes to get speeds of 140 mph to 220 mph, which is the current state of the art for high speed rail, the improved service would divert a lot of I-25 traffic, and would add value in the connections between Colorado's big Front Range cities.

Political debate often doesn't include much communication.

The struggle is real.

Today in the Colorado and U.S. Supreme Courts

Today In the Colorado Supreme Court

In decisions here and here, the Colorado Supreme Court holds that a criminal defendant who is convicted can always appeal on the ground that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, without any penalty for not raising this issue in the trial court.

In a water court case (from which there is an appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, of right), the Colorado Supreme Court determines what a party must show to be a prevailing party under a clause of a settlement agreement awarding attorneys' fees to a prevailing party seeking to enforce the agreement. The official syllabus of the decision explains that:

The fee-shifting clause at issue provided that the prevailing party in an action to enforce, by any means, any of the terms of the settlement agreement shall be awarded all costs of the action, including reasonable attorney fees. Here, the plaintiffs’ claims, in substance, sought relief based on allegations that the defendant had breached the terms of the settlement agreement, and the defendant responded by arguing that it was the plaintiffs’ claims that were inconsistent with that agreement. In these circumstances, the court concludes that the plaintiffs’ claims constituted an effort to enforce the terms of the settlement agreement. Indeed, consistent with this conclusion, the plaintiffs themselves had asserted a claim for fees pursuant to the fee-shifting clause at issue. 

Accordingly, the court holds that the defendant, as the prevailing party on all claims below, is entitled to recover his attorney fees pursuant to the settlement agreement’s fee-shifting clause.

In a case imposing fines on a corporation for failing to have worker's compensation insurance in place the Colorado Supreme Court holds that "the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on the government imposition of “excessive fines” applies to fines levied on corporations. . . . [and] the proper test to assess the constitutionality of government imposed fines requires an assessment of whether the fine is grossly disproportional to the offense for which it is imposed[.]" The Colorado Supreme Court remands the case to determine if the fine was constitutionally excessive when applying that standard.

The business in question failed to have worker's compensation in force for its four to ten employees at a time with under $50,000 a year of payroll for a total of 1,698 days in three distinct, lengthy gap periods over seven years, or which it was fined $841,200 (fines of $250 to $500 per day), during which no actual claims went unpaid. This amount exceeded the firm's annual gross income and allegedly lapsed because the business thought someone else was taking care of it when they weren't actually doing so. It holds that the trial court must determine if the $250-$500 fine is disproportionate to the harm caused by one day of not having worker's compensation insurance in force, without regard to the aggregate amount of the fine.

The analysis of when constitutional provisions apply only to individuals and when they also protect corporations is interesting as an exposition of legal theory on a hot legal issue. The core test is that a protection should apply to corporations when a guarantee is against certain government overreach, and is a constitutional immunity appropriate to a corporate body[.]" One justice dissents in part, arguing that the total amount of the fine, rather than the amount imposed for each offense, should be considered.

Today In The U.S. Supreme Court

In Azar v. Allina Health Services, the U.S. Supreme Court holds 7-1 (with Kavanaugh not participating) that the federal government improperly adopted a policy in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, when the statute was unclear regarding whether a formula created before Medicare Part C was adopted needed to include both Medicare Part A recipients and Medicare Part C recipients, or just Medicare Part A recipients, in determining the amount that should be paid to hospitals. Including more recipients causes hospitals to receive less money under the formula. The federal government adopted a rule saying that the formula does include Medicare Part C in 2004, then repealed it and adopted a new rule effective prospectively only in 2013 that included Medicare Part C in the formula. But, then, it included Medicare Part C in the formula for a 2012 calculation when neither regulation was in form. The policy decision to include Medicare Part C in the formula retroactively as well as prospectively was held to be a de facto regulation adopted without the required notice and comment period.

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court holds in Taggart v. Lorenzen, that a "court may hold a creditor in civil contempt for violating a discharge order if there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the creditor’s conduct." This is an objective standard. A party’s subjective belief that she was complying with an order ordinarily will not insulate her from civil contempt if that belief was objectively unreasonable. It held that "subjective intent, however, is not always irrelevant. Civil contempt sanctions may be warranted when a party acts in bad faith, and a party’s good faith may help to determine an appropriate sanction. . . . Under the fair ground of doubt standard, civil contempt may be appropriate when the creditor violates a discharge order based on an objectively unreasonable understanding of the discharge order or the statutes that govern its scope." The 9th Circuit decision which was reversed had held that "a 'creditor’s good faith belief' that the discharge order 'does not apply to the creditor’s claim precludes a finding of contempt, even if the creditor’s belief if unreasonable.'” The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected a proposed strict liability standard.

In Fort Bend County v. Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court holds unanimously that the requirement that the EEOC consider a discrimination in employment claim and issue a letter authorizing the victim of the discrimination to sue is not a jurisdictional requirement, so it can be waived the party that allegedly discriminated in litigation by failing to object to the claim on that ground.

In Mont v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court holds in a 5-4 decision that the deadline to punish a criminal defendant for violating the terms of parole is tolled by time spent incarcerated prior to trial on new charges for crimes allegedly committed while on parole, if the pre-trial incarceration period is ultimately converted to time served credit against a sentence for that crime even if that conversion happens after the deadline for sanctioning the parole violation has expired.

Decriminalization Of Simple Assault, Adultery And Promoting Sexual Immorality In Colorado

There are a some common law criminal offenses which have been decriminalized in Colorado.

Adultery

Until recently, adultery was a crime, even though there was no punishment that could be imposed for violating it. Before its repeal is read: 

Any sexual intercourse by a married person other than with that person's spouse is adultery, which is prohibited.

But, that crime has now been repealed by House Bill 2013-1166. This removed the ambiguity associated with having a crime that has no punishment, which was an outlier in the criminal code.

The language that was repealed, which effectively stated that adultery was decriminalized in Colorado, was probably adopted in 1971 in Senate Bill 1971-263, § 1. The adultery statute was previously codified at C.R.S.1963, §§ 40-6-501, 40-9-3, but it is a bit hard to tell if those versions had a criminal penalty attached.

It is actually a crime to bring a tort claim in Colorado based upon adultery (which is a "heart balm" tort). And, adultery per se cannot be considered in divorce or child custody cases either. This criminal statute, sponsored by my state house representative (Daniel Kagan), which I agree with, was repealed effective August 7, 2013, by Public Law 2013, Chapter 59, § 1 (House Bill 2013-1166).

House Bill 2013-1166 also repealed the much more dubious and problematic crime of "promoting sexual immorality" which had been a class 2 misdemeanor. It had previous criminalize providing hotel rooms or apartments to unmarried people who will have sex there. It stated:

(1) Any person who, for pecuniary gain, furnishes or makes available to another person any facility, knowing that the same is to be used for or in aid of sexual intercourse between persons who are not husband and wife, or for or in aid of deviate sexual intercourse, or who advertises in any manner that he furnishes or is willing to furnish or make available any such facility for such purposes, commits promoting sexual immorality. 

(2) "Facility", as used in this section, means any place or thing which provides seclusion, privacy, opportunity, protection, comfort, or assistance to or for a person or persons engaging or intending to engage in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse.

Simple Assault

Also, Colorado back in 1994 removed from the definition of assault, what used to be the core offense of simple assault, i.e. causing bodily injury (other than serious bodily injury) with an intent to cause bodily injury (other than serious bodily injury) to someone other than a first responder, without a deadly weapon.

It isn't entirely clear what the motive for this was other than to decriminalize minor, common conduct, which was done effective July 1, 1994 through House Bill 94-1126. I don't have legislative history easily available that goes back that far.

To the extent that the conduct constitutes fighting in a public place outside of an athletic competition, this can constitute "disorderly conduct". And, to the intent intended to annoy, harass or alarm, it can constitute "harassment" or perhaps "hazing". There are also some specialized circumstances where it is still a crime (based upon relationships or location). But, the general crime has been reduced and is now merely a tort or municipal ordinance violation.

Disorderly conduct (a class 2 misdemeanor) still includes the following:

1) A person commits disorderly conduct if he or she intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly:

(a) Makes a coarse and obviously offensive utterance, gesture, or display in a public place and the utterance, gesture, or display tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace ...

(c) Makes unreasonable noise in a public place or near a private residence that he has no right to occupy; or 

(d) Fights with another in a public place except in an amateur or professional contest of athletic skill; or 

(e) Not being a peace officer, discharges a firearm in a public place except when engaged in lawful target practice or hunting or the ritual discharge of blank ammunition cartridges as an attendee at a funeral for a deceased person who was a veteran of the armed forces of the United States; or 

(f) Not being a peace officer, displays a deadly weapon, displays any article used or fashioned in a manner to cause a person to reasonably believe that the article is a deadly weapon, or represents verbally or otherwise that he or she is armed with a deadly weapon in a public place in a manner calculated to alarm.

Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-9-106.

This statute, together with the menacing statute (which is basically what used to be called "assault" as opposed to "battery" at common law), however, does criminalize a lot of conduct related to guns and other deadly weapons that doesn't directly cause bodily harm. The menacing statutes states:

(1) A person commits the crime of menacing if, by any threat or physical action, he or she knowingly places or attempts to place another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury. Menacing is a class 3 misdemeanor, but, it is a class 5 felony if committed: 

(a) By the use of a deadly weapon or any article used or fashioned in a manner to cause a person to reasonably believe that the article is a deadly weapon; or 

(b) By the person representing verbally or otherwise that he or she is armed with a deadly weapon.

Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-3-206.

Harassment, which is a class 3 misdemeanor in cases that are not hate crimes, is:

(1) A person commits harassment if, with intent to harass, annoy, or alarm another person, he or she: 

(a) Strikes, shoves, kicks, or otherwise touches a person or subjects him to physical contact; or . . . 

(c) Follows a person in or about a public place; or . . . 

(2) Harassment pursuant to subsection (1) of this section is a class 3 misdemeanor; except that harassment is a class 1 misdemeanor if the offender commits harassment pursuant to subsection (1) of this section with the intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that person's actual or perceived race; color; religion; ancestry; national origin; physical or mental disability, as defined in section 18-9-121(5)(a); or sexual orientation, as defined in section 18-9-121(5)(b). . .  

(8) This section is not intended to infringe upon any right guaranteed to any person by the first amendment to the United States constitution or to prevent the expression of any religious, political, or philosophical views.

Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-9-111.

For purposes of the harassment statute, physical contact includes spitting on someone. People v. Peay, 5 P.3d 398 (Colo. App 2000).

Hazing, which is a class 3 misdemeanor is defined as follows:

(2) As used in this section, unless the context otherwise requires: 

(a) “Hazing” means any activity by which a person recklessly endangers the health or safety of or causes a risk of bodily injury to an individual for purposes of initiation or admission into or affiliation with any student organization; except that “hazing” does not include customary athletic events or other similar contests or competitions, or authorized training activities conducted by members of the armed forces of the state of Colorado or the United States. 

(b) “Hazing” includes but is not limited to: 

(I) Forced and prolonged physical activity; 

(II) Forced consumption of any food, beverage, medication or controlled substance, whether or not prescribed, in excess of the usual amounts for human consumption or forced consumption of any substance not generally intended for human consumption; 

(III) Prolonged deprivation of sleep, food, or drink. 

(3) It shall be unlawful for any person to engage in hazing. 

(4) Any person who violates subsection (3) of this section commits a class 3 misdemeanor.

Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-9-124.

So, for example, punishing someone in the face, in private, when it doesn't involve a child, an "at risk" adult, a pledge, or a domestic partner, is not a crime unless there is an intent to "annoy", "harass" or "alarm" which seems unnecessarily narrow in terms of plausible intents that should be criminal to me. 

For example, punching someone in the face, in private, with an intent to obtain retribution for a perceived slight, wouldn't seem to be covered by this statute.

Commentary

Personally, I think it would make more sense to decriminalize the non-violent offense of pure petty larceny, than to decriminalize than to decriminalize intentionally causing bodily injury with an intent to do so. But, Colorado's general assembly, in its wisdom, has disagreed. 

Daily Life In China Is Weird

In China, witch hunting starts in kindergarten. Here is an excerpt from a recent Chinese government report:

Having carried out a close investigation of the 35 young children in this class, we have not discovered evidence that any of them were involved in blackness or evil. 

Chinese tax dollars at work.

Wave after wave of campaigns like this one to "sweep away blackness and eliminate evil", that come and go the way fads and Internet challenges do in the U.S. are just one of many mays in which daily life in China is really weird, often with ominous undercurrents that can destroy the lives of a few chosen scapegoats or whole communities of people. Some of the other ways that China is weird include the following:

* Its social credit system that systemically harasses people for offenses as minor as not sending your mother a birthday card.

* Its tortuously circuitous press that offers almost only propaganda, where no one can afford to be honest with anyone but their closest family and friends in securely private settings.

* Its massively censored internet that is always inventing new bizarre euphemisms to evade censors.

* It excess supply of urban men who are spoiled only children (not uncommonly a second generation of only children), whose struggle to find spouses leads poor rural farmers to procure mail order brides from Southeast Asia and India, and leaves the nation tempted to start a war so it can find something for them to do.

* Its routine use of abortions pretty much as birth control with little or no stigma attached.

* Its legions of thirty-somethings making decisions that in the U.S. would be reserved for septuagenarians with decades of seniority in business or politics.

* Its business deals awash with corruption and sex parties.

* Its rural areas with poverty and grass roots legitimate non-partisan local government democracy juxtaposed against sprawling cities with endless wavs of rural migrants swept their by economic circumstances juxtaposed against an ultra-wealthy class that is fused with the political leadership and makes its fortunes with bold corruption and government abuse fueled business deals.

* Its huge expanses of high speed rail lines that run half empty because few people can afford tickets.

* Its seizures of homes and businesses with almost no notice and no compensation to build railways or high rises.

* Its high rise apartment and office buildings that go up in a week or two with whole massive cities with millions of people rising from almost nothing in a matter of a few years. 

* The common practice of kidnapping foreign executives with impunity as a means of debt collection and contract negotiation, almost like the vestigial practice of debt collection via "body execution" in the common law tradition, or practices similar to China's by labor unions in France.

* Its sudden secretive executions of business people for alleged corruption.

* Its spooky totalitarian campaigns to force ethnic minorities in its inland hinterlands like Tibetans and Uyghurs to assimilate into the Han Chinese majority with colonization campaigns designed to destroy their ethnicities, bans on speaking their own languages, and unannounced and unacknowledged seizures of people who are taken to "reeducation and labor camps" when there is the slightest hint or suspicion that a person might not be fully assimilating.

* This is a country that persecutes pretty much harmless, slightly heterodox minority spiritual movements like the Falun Gong.

The thing is, this isn't pre-Cold War Albania or today's North Korea or Uzbekistan or Brunei. It isn't a bizarre little enclave removed from the larger world. 

This is the world's most populous nation, with more than a billion people (although India is catching up fast and will surpass it soon). 

This is a nation that has seen year after year after year of economic growth of 10% or more that is no longer a poor third-world nation. 

This is the place where a huge share of the world's manufactured goods, from party dresses than can be purchased direct from China in the U.S. for $6, to processed chickens, to smart phones, to most of the inventory at Wal-Mart is made.

This is the country which has purchased more U.S. Treasury bonds than any other single bond owner in the world which is at this moment lending money to the U.S. so that its deficit spending can provide relief to U.S. farmers who are being put out of business by Chinese tariffs on their soybeans and other products in retaliation for multiple rounds of U.S. tariffs (paid for almost entirely by Americans, both formally and in terms of economic incidence) on their goods.

It isn't clear how much of this madness facilitates its breakneck economic development, and how much is merely a hinderance that is overcome, as a reasonably socially cohesive society with hundreds of millions of well educated and/or managerially skilled people who a reaping the benefits of being able to borrow technology that already exists instead of inventing it from scratch are using to the fullest.

This is a country that in making huge foreign investments in Central Asia and Africa.

Once upon a time, in the mid-20th century, its political and social system was vaguely modeled upon that of the Soviet Union. But, those days are long gone. China's unique economic, legal, political and social system bears only a remote relation to the Soviet and civil law and traditional Chinese monarchy's traits that it has synthesized into a novel authoritarian capitalist state. It does business with many countries organized on a culturally and politically Western model with mixed economies that have unapologetically capitalist roots tamed by democratic socialist institutions, and has adjusted its own practices enough to be compatible with these economies at a business level, but very little about it is Western, and even the Western business practices that it has submitted to have something lost in translation in a Chinese context.

The Death Penalty Divide Continues

New Hampshire has overridden the veto of its Republican Governor to become the 21st U.S. state to repeal the death penalty.

Alabama has carried out another execution, a ritual described in great deal at the link. Four justices had voted to grant certiorari in the case, which was what is necessary to grant it. But, the other five refused to stay the execution, in a gross defiance of U.S. Supreme Court tradition. So, the man was executed and the case became moot.

Quote of the Day

The best part of going to a therapist is when you finally break down and say "Doc, I never sleep properly. I wake up feeling uneasy, weary, disoriented and unbalanced. I spend my days in a mild, apprehensive haze, and for that pedestrian anxiety I'd otherwise be grateful, except for the fact that at certain moments I am gripped with the certainty that the universe is not simply chaotic and random, but actively hostile to consciousness, and may perhaps feed on and delight in our suffering", and she says "Yeah, that's a pretty normal feeling."

- Alex Fenaughty (April 11, 2019 Facebook post).

An Ordinary Felony Case

Usually, I write about unusual or exceptional criminal cases when I write about the criminal justice system. This post recounts the course of an utterly pedestrian and typical, albeit more serious than average, felony case in the Colorado courts.

On April 28 of [2018], Lakewood police responded to the 5400 block of W. 3rd Avenue after receiving a report of a structure fire. When they arrived, they found a large barn and tons of hay were on fire. Lakewood police, with the help of the Denver Police Department, were able to get a handful of horses out of the barn while West Metro Fire worked to extinguish the blaze. In total, seven horses were killed. 

At the same time, seven other locations around the neighborhood were set ablaze, including: two dumpsters, a car, a motorcycle and the space under the stairs of an apartment where 20 people lived and were asleep. 

[Earnest Sunday Maynes, 38] was arrested in May 2018 and charged with first-degree arson, second-degree arson and animal cruelty. 

On April 4, 2019, he pleaded guilty to two counts of arson, eight counts of aggravated animal cruelty and one count of criminal mischief. He had five prior felony convictions.

He was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison.

From 7 News.

Note Re The Sentence: 

A 25 year sentence for a violent felony like this one in Colorado, entered following about one year of pre-trial incarceration, is likely to result in about 18 more years of incarceration (75% of of the sentence for good behavior while in prison, with credit for time served so far), making him about 56 years old when he is released, followed by 5 years of parole, making him 61 years old when his sentence is completely served if he successfully completes his parole sentence (something that is not at all a sure thing).

A May 28, 2018 news report linked above notes that:

A West Metro Fire spokesperson confirmed that Maynes was arrested Sunday night, though he has had a warrant for his arrest since early May. . . .  Court records indicate Maynes remains held on a $500,000 bond. He has two prior convictions on felony menacing charges and convictions on destruction of private property and petty theft, according to court records.

An April 8, 2019 news report discussed the potential sentence he faced after his plea bargain:

He . . .  could face anywhere from eight to 34 years in prison. Because of his prior felony convictions, he is not eligible for probation.

What is typical about it?

* The crimes involve an overall pattern conduct that has been uncontroversially consider criminal for as long as there has been an organized criminal justice system in common law countries, although the exact charges did not have exactly that form at common law.

* The charges bear a reasonable resemblance to the conduct and include most of the most serious charges that could have been brought, but not every conceivable charge that could have been filed under the circumstances.

* The arrest was made by local government employed police officers not long after the crime was committed. A warrant was issued for his arrest within a week or two of the crime (possibly within a matter of days) and he was arrested within a month of the time that the crime was committed.

* The charges were filed by a local district attorney in a state court.

* The defendant was an adult male under the age of 40 (he was 38 years old) with a long prior felony record (five prior felony convictions in the twenty years since he was 18 years old, some of which were, no doubt, spent in jails and prisons).

* The defendant in this crime committed in a predominantly Anglo white suburb of Denver was himself white Anglo man.

* No death penalty charges were filed.

* He was not charged with or sentenced based upon habitual offender sentence enhancing provision of Colorado's sentencing laws, even though he was probably eligible for a sentence under those provisions which would have been a de facto life sentence without a possibility of parole.

* No serious concerns that he did not actually commit the crime have been raised in the case.

* The case was resolved with a guilty plea after a lengthy period of pre-trial incarceration.

* The sentence imposed was not particularly close to either the low end or the high end of the sentence authorized for the crimes to which he pleaded guilty, even though they were not exactly in the middle of the range of the permitted sentences either.

* The sentence imposed for these serious felonies with typical of sentences imposed for that kind of conduct and those offenses in the United States, in general, and in Colorado, in particular, and as is typical, the sentence for these serious felonies was much longer than it would have been in most our jurisdictions in the world.

Quite A Few People Have Serious Genetic Risk Factors But Most Don't Know It

Universal genome testing for health purposes could lead to early diagnosis of serious conditions and more targeted treatments when risk factors produce the expected problems.

In an unselected population of 23,713 participants who underwent clinical exome sequencing as a part of the Healthy Nevada Project (HNP) in Northern Nevada (Renown Health, Reno, Nevada) from March 15, 2018, to Sept 30, 2018 (Table S1) we find a 1.26% carrier rate for expected pathogenic and likely pathogenic genetic variants in (FH: LDLR, PCSK9, APOB), Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer (HBOC: BRCA1, BRCA2) and Lynch Syndrome (LS: MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, PSM2) with over 90% of carriers undetected under current medical practice. 26% of carriers were found to have advanced disease with 70% first diagnosed before the age of 65. Less than 20% of all carriers had any documented suspicion for inherited genetic disease in the medical record and upon direct follow-up survey under 40% of carriers had family history of relevant disease. A population preventative genetic screening approach for patients under 45 may improve outcomes.

From here.

Quote of the Day

It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

- Unknown, via Candace Ellman. 

Will GM Merge With Ford?

Apparently, the optimal number of major U.S. automakers is one. GM and Ford are might need to merge, which would make it the largest in the world and the dominant U.S. automaker. Actually, this is purely speculation with no actual rumors from either company based on what seems to make sense. The article portrays GM as the stronger company and Ford as very troubled.

Alternative History: What If The U.S. Accidentally Nuked NC In 1961?

An alternative history story exploring this little "what if" could be quite interesting.

A New Plan For Oberlin College's Future

Why Was Change Needed?

My alma mater, Oberlin College, has been having trouble fulfilling its budget needs and has been sagging in academic ranking. A major initiative has looked at solutions summed up in a final "One Oberlin" report.

What was the bad news that motivated these big changes (sources omitted, not in quite the same order and categories as in the original)?

Key facts about Oberlin’s budget: 

o Without change, Oberlin’s cumulative deficit would have reached $162 million in 10 years beginning in FY2018 Note: This projection has already been mitigated by cost reductions underway during FY2019. 

o Reductions of $11.1 million in the baseline budget are planned from FY2020 to FY2024 across the institution through the regular budget process — including the equivalent of 25 faculty FTE through attrition. Yet these reductions alone will not balance our budget. For this purpose, attrition includes both the decision to not replace some faculty members who leave Oberlin or retire, as well as the elimination of some vacant visiting professor lines. Cutting through attrition does not mean that all faculty hiring or replacement will end; similarly, the normal channels of faculty hiring and alignment will allow reallocation of replacement positions as needed. 

o 83% of annual operating revenue comes from student tuition and fees. 

o In 2016-17, Arts & Sciences realized net revenues of $23.9 million after direct and indirect costs, while the Conservatory lost $11.1 million.   

o Arts & Sciences students bring in, on average, $10,000 more in tuition revenue per year than Conservatory students. Note: The Conservatory provides more financial aid per student in order to effectively compete for students with other top conservatories.  

o Revenue loss based on lower costs of OSCA model yields a negative financial impact to Oberlin of $1.9 million per year. Note: Includes foregone student revenue, less program management costs if they reverted to the College. 

Key facts about employee costs: 

o Employee compensation — all faculty and staff — makes up 63% of Oberlin’s budget. 

o The average salary for Oberlin’s Arts & Sciences faculty is 11.3% less than peers with whom we compete in recruitment, the Sweet 16. 

o Adjusted for inflation, faculty and A&PS have forgone $5.5 million in total compensation since 2017 through salary freezes and benefits cuts. Note: Difference is based on projections of budgetary impact if there had been typical raises and no change in benefits during those two years.  

o Oberlin’s average hourly staff wage is 34% higher than the average of four other Northeast Ohio liberal arts colleges (Kenyon, Dennison, Ohio Wesleyan, and Wooster). Note: These colleges represent similar institutions within the same region. 

o Health care benefits cost $9,849 per year for each faculty and A&PS employee; health care benefits cost $16,984 per year for each hourly employee. 

Key facts about students: 

o In 2018, almost 80% of students admitted to Arts & Sciences who listed music performance as their primary interest enrolled somewhere else. 

o 38% of our prospective students showed a strong interest in business. 

o 42% of returning students have a strong interest in global public health.  

o 91% of students admitted to the Conservatory listed career preparation as very or extremely important. 

o Oberlin Arts & Sciences students secure career-related jobs by graduation at roughly half the rate of their liberal arts college COHFE peers. 

What Will Change?

Some of the most notable changes proposed (as paraphrased by me) are as follows:

1.  Reduce the size of the music conservatory by 100 students and increase the size of the arts and science division by 100 students (since arts and sciences students generate much more revenue per student). This would also increase the competitiveness of the conservatory program, potentially making it more prestigious. The Conservatory is currently operating at a big, per student, deficit.

2. Hire some post-graduate fellows from top institutions to teach in the conservatory, because they can be quite good but are cheaper than tenure track faculty.

3. Increase music offerings for arts & sciences students (and remaining conservatory students) to make that more of a draw with resources freed up from reduced conservatory enrollment.

4. Add concentrations in business and in global health that would be more of a draw to potential students.

5. Increase interdisciplinary activities as a draw to potential students and faculty, and a way to react more quickly to a changing environment within academia.

6. Improve career services offerings, and the orientation of the college towards helping graduates develop careers as a draw to potential students. Ultimately, the implied hope is also that more students will "do well" instead of only "doing good" and that this will increase future donations to the endowment.

7. Improve winter term offerings so that 25%-30% of students stay on campus, some of which would involve ExCo (i.e. student taught class options, expanding an existing program in the college while keeping costs down). This would be accomplished, in part, by offering two credits of regular college credit for some options and, in part, by providing better options. This would be in part a draw for new students, in part a community building effort, and in part a way to utilize campus infrastructure resources and teaching capacity more efficiently.

8. Consolidate administrative functions currently incurred at the department level into multi-department divisions within the Arts & Science division in order to reduce administrative expenses.

9. Improved winter term offerings, reduced department level administration, and an increased arts and sciences enrollment, and increase music offerings for arts and sciences students, is intended to demand more teaching capacity from existing faculty than they currently provide (in lieu of laying off faculty). Professors will be expected to work harder, but they will stay employed.

10. Significantly reduce the amount of administrative and hourly staff (almost everywhere but career services) while integrating them with each other better, and significantly reduce the above market compensation paid to hourly staff right now. Compensation for faculty would probably be increased somewhat.

11. Reduce the amount of building space used by 20% by utilizing the rest more efficiently (especially by reducing boundaries between departments and departmental administrative space) and phasing out the least desirable buildings that drain the college's resources.

12. Increase the amount charged as rent to student co-ops so that there is not a net financial subsidy of them. The increase would be about $3,220 per 590 students who dine in co-ops, with a somewhat smaller increase for those who dine in co-ops but don't live there, and a somewhat larger increase for the 180 who both live and dine in co-ops. The data indicate, contrary to conventional wisdom, that co-op students are, on average, are more affluent than the average Oberlin student. Co-ops are significantly less expensive than ordinary dorm and dining service options: "In 2018-2019, to dine in a co-op costs $3,900 a year ($4,330 less than campus dining service). Living in a co-op double and dining in a co-op costs $8,730 ($7,608 less than living in a campus dorm and dining in campus dining service); living in a co-op single and dining in a co-op costs $9,900 for the year ($6,438 less)." Some of this savings arises from the labor provided by co-op students, but quite a bit of the savings, it turns out, comes from subsidies from the institution via below cost rents for the spaces used by the co-ops.

Analysis

Of Oberlin's nearly 3,000 students, nearly 2,400 are enrolled in the College of Arts & Sciences, a little over 400 in the Conservatory of Music, and the remaining 180 or so are enrolled in both College and Conservatory under the five-year Double-Degree program. Allocating double degree students 50% to each division, the planned cut in the size of the Conservatory's student body is about 20%. The increase in the size of the College's student body is about 4%. The targeted total enrollment would remain unchanged.

Admission to the Conservatory will become much more selective almost immediately, the student to faculty ratio in the Conservatory will fall, and career services will improve, as the changes are phased in over four years. Oberlin is currently ranked 7th in the nation for its music program (ahead of John Hopkins, the University of Southern California, Yale, Northwestern University, Carnegie Mellon, Indiana University, Bard College, Shenandoah University, and UCLA). The only institution which is not purely a music program (and the only institution which is not in a major coastal city) that is ranked higher is the University of Rochester (which is ranked 5th). It isn't unthinkable that Oberlin could rise to the number five spot with this change.

The increase in arts and sciences enrollment risks lowering admissions standards, but the clear intent of the plan is to mitigate that risk by upping the college's game in terms of new draws to the college that address several of the biggest factors that data shows has been causing prospective students to choose other schools instead of Oberlin in terms of curricular options. A 4% increase in comparable quality admissions yields is not unrealistic with some significant data driven changes in the college's offerings. Ideally, the changes will strengthen the attractiveness of the college even more and will allow it to become more selective again, something that has been slowly declining over the last couple of decades.

The plan has earned wide consensus support from faculty and other interested constituencies, and I am inclined to agree that this is a solid plan for dealing pro-actively with a gradual but serious crisis facing the college in a way that builds on the institution's strengths without compromising its core values, and with only completely unavoidable pain. (I am also struck, as someone who was highly involved in the student-faculty governance system while I was at Oberlin at how similar that system is now to what it was then.)

This is a better plan than what would have been the easiest and less thoughtful option - to decrease enrollment across the board to make it possible to lay off more faculty and increase endowment funds per student, continue to cap faculty pay, and to reduce financial aid in the college of arts and sciences (increasing tuition in either the college or the conservatory, and reducing financial aid in the conservatory, is largely foreclosed by market forces).

Some Automobile Industry Predictions

* I predict that within ten years, the automobile manufacturing company Tesla, will offer a plug in electric vehicle which, like the Chevy Volt, has a fossil fuel powered back up generator to charge batteries when charging stations are unavailable.

* I predict that within ten years there will be very strong regional differences between countries, states, and smaller the country or state sized regions, in rates of electric vehicle utilization, because some areas will develop a robust networks of electric vehicle charging that makes electric vehicles more attractive creating a "virtuous cycle" of increased electric vehicles use, while other areas will have only anemic networks of electric vehicle charging facilities which will lead to a "vicious cycle" of little investment in vehicle charging facility networks because there is little demand for them.

* Currently, the market share of the U.S. automobile companies for cars and light trucks (GM 17.1% (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, Jiefang, OnStar, Wuling, Baojun), Ford 14.4% (including Lincoln) and Tesla 0.7%) is 32.2% of the market as of 2018. A list of world automobile manufacturers current and defunct is here.

Toyota is 14.0% (Japanese) (also Lexus)
Chrysler-Fiat 12.9% (Italian) (also Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Maserati and Lancia)
Honda is 9.3% (Japanese) (also Acura)
Nissan is 8.6% (Japanese) (also Infiniti)
Hyundai-Kia is 7.3% [1] (South Korean)
Subaru a.k.a. Fuji Heavy Industries 4.0% (Japanese)

Volkswagen Group 3.3% (German) (also Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Seat and Cupra)
Daimler a.k.a Mercedes 2.1% [2] (German) (also Smart and Maybach)

BMW 2.1% (German) (also Mini and Rolls-Royce)

Mazda 1.7% (Japanese)
Jaguar Land Rover 0.7% [3] (Indian)
Mitsubishi 0.7% (Japanese)

Volvo 0.6% [4] (China) (also Lotus)
Porshe 0.3% (German)
Other 0.1%

Market Share Percentage By Region

Japanese 38.3%

U.S. 32.2%

Italian 12.9%

German 7.6%
South Korean 7.3%
Indian 0.7%

China 0.6%

Total sales: 17,274,250

Even treating Chrysler-Fiat as American, the U.S. market share would be 45.1%.

Of course, these statistics conceal as much as they reveal. Many "foreign cars" are mostly made in the U.S., Canada and/or Mexico. Likewise, each of these companies generate profits for shareholders from myriad nations. And, essentially all of the employment generated from selling and maintaining "foreign vehicles" in the U.S. is U.S. based. In the case of Chrysler-Fiat, unlike the other companies, a lot of the design and upper management employment is also U.S. based.

[1] Hyundai Motor Company was founded in 1967 and it, along with its 32.8% owned subsidiary, Kia Motors, and its 100% owned luxury subsidiary Genesis Motor, altogether comprise the Hyundai Motor Group. Kia in turn is a minority owner of more than twenty Hyundai subsidiaries ranging from 4.9% up to 45.37%.

[2] Daimler has small percentage ownerships by Chinese car market Geely 9.7%, French car maker Renault 1.54% and Japanese car maker Nissan 1.54%.

[3] Formerly U.K. owned Jaguar Land Rover and formerly South Korean Daewoo are subsidiaries of Indian car maker Tata.

[4] Swedish firm Volvo is a subsidiary of Chinese car market Geely.

There are a number of companies which sell only luxury cars or sports cars often including a small number in the U.S. market such as Ferrari (Italian), Pagani (Italian), Aston-Martin (U.K.), McLaren (U.K.), and Koenigsegg (Sweden).

French car maker PSA (with the Citroën, Peugeot, DS, Opel and Vauxhall brands) and Renault, Japanese car maker Suzuki, and Czech car maker Skoda are almost entirely absent from the U.S. market.

Bugatti, which was French, went out of business in 1963. Saab, which was Swedish, went out of business in 2012.

I don't have a good prediction regarding how this market share will change over time, as I can see forced working in the direction of greater than lesser U.S. market share. I do predict, however, that at least one additional country other than Japan, Italy, South Korea and Germany will export a greater than 1% share of U.S. cars and light truck within ten years.

Twelve Sins Of Economics As A Discipline

What does economics as a discipline do poorly?

1. Fails to make clear that maximizing efficiency and aggregate output are not the only or most important goals for economic policy.

2. Fails to clarify the extent to which there are important differences between GDP and aggregate well being.

3. Fails to clarify the extent to which different components of economic theory are more or less strongly validated empirically (e.g., to explain the high levels of inaccuracy involved in macroeconomic models).

4. It overemphasizes the importance of monetary policy.

5. It overemphasizes the value of mathematical models (especially in macroeconomics).

6. Fails explore the pervasiveness of price discrimination in a laissez faire economic system and the implications of this realty.

7. Focuses too much on theory and too little on a descriptive account of how the economy, in general, works in reality. This has many dimensions to it.

8. It fails to develop a sound understanding of how important classes of business transactions are conducted in reality.

9.  It underemphasizes economic history and comparative economics.

10. Fails to adequately develop the interplay between culture, technology, policy and access to resources in economic development.

11. It underemphasizes the importance of economic decision making not made in markets conducted in price denominated transactions; in particular underemphasizing decisions made within households and families, within large firms, and between firms acting in an oligopoly context.

12. Fails to sufficiently explore the ways in which a rational actor model of economic decision making is flawed in systemic ways, and the implications of these facts.

There are some people who are economists who don't fall prey to any one of these particular shortcomings, but the discipline as a whole has these biases and introductory economics instruction has these flaws.