Gongol.com Archives: March 2019
March 1, 2019
The initial estimate of America's 2018 GDP growth is in, and it's 2.9%. That's not a bad figure. But it's also not the 4% that the President promised over and over in his campaign. It was a false promise, and that's why it deserves scorn and why he deserves criticism for making it. 4% annual growth could only be sustained by substantial improvements in labor productivity, and that's pretty hard to see happening without other structural changes taking place. ■ President Trump isn't the first to make this false promise, either: President Obama relied on unrealistic growth projections of 4%, too. ■ Wishing doesn't make these things so. And temporary sugar highs (like a big tax cut) can bring about a short-term spike in GDP growth, but sugar highs are no way to run an economy. ■ Voters need to have more modest expectations: Presidents don't have magic wands to make the economy start or stop. And politicians need to be vastly more modest about the promises they make, for the very same reasons. And that, in the end, is why anyone who makes these false promises ought to be scorned publicly.
Colorado's former governor (John Hickenlooper) and Washington's current governor (Jay Inslee) are entering the race for President. To this, the American public ought to say: Send in the governors! No, really: Send us lots and lots of governors. Bush (43), Clinton, Reagan, Carter...all governors. It's solid training ground for future Presidents. ■ Being a major-city mayor is also probably decent practice for the Presidential role. But, generally, a governor's desk is the closest thing we have to an Oval Office simulator. ■ Senators want to talk about policy. But keep in mind that most United States Senators oversee offices of a few dozen staff members. Governors are the chief executives of their entire states -- and even a modestly-sized state like Iowa has around 50,000 employees -- and the governor not only oversees those employees, but also has to navigate the expectations of a state legislature and the oversight imposed by a state judicial branch. The orders of magnitude are different, but the roles of governor and President really aren't that different. And there's little room for amateur hour at the top.
Official stats: Trust, but verify?
The deference paid to "official" sources is a main reason people misperceive a "liberal bias" in the news media. It's not so much that many reporters are letting their politics bleed through -- it's that we've been conditioned to trust sources that by nature have a pro-government bias.
6 months after a tragic fire, Chicago still doesn't have answers
Why were ten little people killed in a house fire? They still don't have answers.
Why are so many public places so loud?
It's such a widespread problem that those rare restaurants and pubs where people can easily converse are notable. The Bravo restaurant chain seems like one of those places where sound was consciously managed by design. The traditional Irish pub concept seems like a place where evolutionary adaptations have dampened sound. With the Baby Boomers moving into an age when hearing problems become more prevalent, it will be interesting to see whether more places consciously design around managing ambient noise.
Expansion planned for Central Iowa Shelter and Services
They ran beyond capacity during cold-weather incidents this winter, and obtaining some flexible space for use in high-demand situations would be a worthy thing for them to do. On one hand, it's too bad the demand is such that they need to expand. But on the other, it's good to see a community-level response.
A loose affiliation of people who want to stake out a new political identity around "a new, revitalized liberalism" (of the broad sense, not the left-right one).
Implied value of the Chicago Cubs: $2.15 billion
The Ricketts family is buying the last 5% of the team from the Tribune interests, and at $107.5 million for 5%, then that would imply $2.15 billion for the whole enterprise. A real punch in the gut for people who owned Tribune shares back in 2007, when the company was taken private.
NASA hitches its wagon to commercial spaceflight providers
SpaceX is testing a crew-ready rocket and capsule that should permit American astronauts to get into space without depending on the Russian space program
