Not coming up: "pie for all"

Normally around this time of year I start thinking about progress on the "Six Delicious Years" of pies from Ken's awesome book, as well as planning new any interesting creations for the new year.

However, this year I think it's important to begin with a recipe that will not be posted on this blog: "Pie for all."

In a previous post I suggested that I'd make a pie that all people, regardless of food allergy, food philosophy or food restriction could share. I thought I was onto something with a diabetic-friendly apple pie in a vegan sorghum crust, and then I discovered the concept of fructose intolerance. Meanwhile, stricter interpretations of "locavore" and "Kosher" create incompatible restrictions for anything but a purpose-built farm. And, committed to pie-making as I am, No.

Also, that generally unoffensive apple pie would probably be very bland. With the ingredient list determined by what it cannot have, it's likely that the filling would include only apples, cinnamon and cornstarch. Because any allergy or rule gets a veto, no one's personal interests or taste could make much a stamp. Stifling creativity and accepting a "good-enough" pie is very much opposed to the goals of this baking blogger.

I think I've found the deeper lesson in all of this: hospitality is a deeply personal thing, and my "pie for all" plan is impersonal by design. Rather than asking what a guest wants and needs, my hope was to eliminate consideration of the specific guest in favor of a generic "one size fits all" dessert. Instead, discussing likes, dislikes and restrictions should be viewed as an important part of the process itself. A tasty dessert should be an end in itself, but a means of facilitating engagement and discussion. This process need not, and should not, have to wait until the pie leaves the oven.

There is, perhaps, a larger lesson in all this. Any attempt to make a "universal" rule is bound to fall into either blandness or get caught up in incompatible restrictions from various quarters. Consider the UN Anti-Blasphemy Resolution, to a Western audience such ideas are patently ridiculous, such ideas are throwbacks to the days before the Enlightenment made us aware that mixing church and state is bad for both. But to countries that base their legitimacy on a particular faith, blasphemy is no less a threat than corruption and authoritarian movements are to Western democracies. Personally, I fall on the Western side of this debate, but the larger point is that one rule is not sufficient for the entire world.

New Tire Sonnet

Be what you are, loyal commuting bike
And wear that thin racing rubber no more
Slick and fast and thin but indeed unlike
The touring tires your frame truly adores
Enjoy, embrace, and roll with new Michelin
Ignore foolish poets who might conflate
Absent friction with love to their chagrin
One two five psi will oft deflate
A Trek seven hundred yearns for a trail
With rack and panniers for food and for tools
Fast commuting instead just seems so pale
The province of lazy, dimwitted fools
Poor Jack sang quite well of living your call
My bike, take heed before we take a fall

I recently gave up on the tube-eating 700x23mm tire I've been using since the spring. On a bike with a lighter frame, or if I didn't have my panniers above it, or . . .

The point is, there are almost always reasons to continue to pursue a solution that doesn't quite work. As an engineer with academic ties, I see it most often in young students who feel they have to enter the field because they are "smart", and who spend their undergraduate years miserable because they are overworked and uninterested. Worse yet are the graduate students who do the same. Should I ever be directly responsible for such poor lost souls, there will be a periodic viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas, or at least Poor Jack, to drive home the point that there are things you should only do because you're called to them.

Also, I'd been hoping that a couple recent shifts in my professional situation would lead to a "I AM THE PUMPKIN KING!" kind of moment. Alas, nothing ever works out like it should. So until then I'll transfer my existential angst to my favorite mode of transportation.

Apple-raspberry mini-pie

Technically, a "mini-pie" is a tart, but this is a pie blog. However, instead of a traditional extra-thick tart crust, this one had a very thin rolled whole wheat pie crust. It's a good one to serve for the mildly gluten intolerant, since there's no top and the filling can be easily separated from the crust.

Ingredients:

1/4 recipe whole wheat crust

2 large apples, peeled and chopped
1 cup raspberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 T cornstarch

Procedure:

Roll out the crust until it's very thin, then line a tart pan, preferably heart shaped, with it.
Preheat the oven to 350F
Combine fruit in a small bowl.
Mix the sugar and cornstarch in a smaller bowl.
Stir the sugar mix into the fruit.
Scrape into the crust-lined pan.
Bake 20min, or until the raspberry juices bubble.

Tee shots on a log par 5

There are two major issues fighting their way through Congress right now that have the potential to substantially reshape American society. The first is Heath Care Reform, which has become Health Insurance Reform, with the almost solitary metric being number of people covered. The second is climate legislation, which is being predictably watered down.

Many bemoan the perceived loss of the opportunity to engage in truly wholesale reforms. Certainly, no one would design our current health care system from scratch. It's hard to see how anyone could defend a distribution network that forces people to stay with employers for fear of bankruptcy if/when something goes wrong. Especially when that system is pretty likely to bankrupt people anyway. Unless, of course, they are over 65 and happen to fall ill in the ways that are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America. Of course, one of the fastest growing industries in the US and Japan involves producing more health care options for this lucrative set. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but her father is profit.

Clearly, it would be in society's interest to change the incentives. Pay doctors salaries, instead of fees, and award bonuses for the number of days their patients are healthy and able to work. Ban, or at least heavily restrict, prescription drug advertising to help funnel drug company profits into research, not television. Set prices for medical procedures so insurance companies have to compete on quality and efficiency, not hospital networks. Set malpractice limits so that doctors and hospital administrators have an incentive to do autopsies and further develop best practices.

However, one man's waste is another's income. The "fee for service" model employs legions of billing clerks, and I dare anyone to push for reforms that reduce employment today. Prescription drug adverts pay for a lot of what's left of today's new television programming, and if you think newsrooms are shrinking now, just wait until they don't have Merck and Pfizer as sponsors. The struggles between hospital networks and insurers has generated a market which the established players can easily dominate. And seriously, find a Democrat who will stand up for actual tort reform.

On the climate side, the story is much the same. The current system digging up and burning our fuel has an impact similar to wrapping a refrigerator in cellophane while someone else plays with the thermostat. It's hard to say how big the effect is, especially over short time scales, but it's noticeable in the long run. Ocean acidification, on the other hand, is a very real and easily measured problem. So are the health impacts of mountaintop removal, smog and the odd coal ash flow in a river. Never mind that entire civilizations are built on a set of resources that might last another couple hundred years if we don't need too much more of them.

Alternatives exist, but no one will pay their capital costs until there is a clear and consistent policy that makes it worthwhile. This is not hard, a simple $.01/ton carbon tax on fossil fuels, especially one that was indexed to inflation, would be enough to get things started. But in the US especially we try to cajole good behavior without directly imposing costs, mostly through building codes and the CAFE standards. It does look as though the current bill before the Senate might start to change that. Maybe.

The point here is to remember that big changes happen slowly. We're dealing as a country with a few systems that developed mostly accidentally over the last century. We've finally begun to face them in a serious way, but that century for habits, beliefs and interests to become ingrained will not change overnight. Today's legislation is the tee shot on a long par 5. A hole in one would be nice, but aim for the fairway. Make sure the next debate is about how to finish out, not whether or not to play.

Blog action day!

So it's Blog Action Day, and this year's topic is climate change. Okay, there's an issue with serious pie-making capacity implications. Honestly, nothing else really matters if we screw this one up too badly.

There's a great article over at Grist about why this debate is so often portrayed as a liberal/conservative fight rather than one over science and other policies. Short version, climate is the ultimate externality. In modern society, EVERY transaction involves a carbon cost, even reading this blog, and so EVERY transaction must be subject to external regulation to insure that the cost of that transaction is born fairly.

As such, there will be an impasse for as long as people can get away with it. That day, however, seems like it might not be far away. Galhran points out that quite a lot of "gun butter" is about to go into making the Navy a more sustainable force. The Coast Guard, looking forward to being called into help with the flooding, changing storm patterns and general humanitarian disaster that is a changing climate, is actively engaged with the global community on the subject.

There are a lot of small things we can all do to help out, whether we're worried about changing temperatures, ocean acidification or just saving money (and thereby sticking it to the current US administration!). You can support the Pickens Plan, and help ensure that the US "poops where it eats" in terms of energy generation (note, I think this is a very good thing). Ride a bike to work, the store or, especially, the gym. Turn lights off, and replace old bulbs with CFL's and LED's when possible. Look into Smart Grid efforts and see what you can do to support local efforts in this direction.

The scientific debate on climate change, and carbon emissions in general, is over whether the status quo is only McDonald's every couple days, or as bad as a diet of hot dogs and slurpees. Either way, we could do better, and there are plenty of good reasons to take these steps for personal and national economic gain. So, think Green! Or, if you prefer, think Cheap! The world you save will be your own.

Guns as butter?

First of all, I should begin with a thanks to Oppenheimer, von Braun, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and others for their efforts to build and field weapons that have finally ended major war between nation states. Despite ongoing and widespread civil wars and border conflicts in the developing world, there is a growing list of countries that do not fear invasion or even widespread bombing because they can provide a credible threat of nuclear retaliation. That is no small thing, and those of us who live under a comfortable nuclear umbrella should be thankful.

However, that does not mean large military forces are unnecessary. ICBMs and nuclear bombs might keep major combat to a minimum, but they do nothing to prevent, as former Marine Corps Commandant Krulak put it, the "stepchildren of Chechnya" from reaping havoc. The solution to this problem is often referred to as finding a Comprehensive Approach, one that integrates the military, diplomacy and economy of a state or international body to direct the course of a nation or state abroad.

This is known as "armed social work", in the 1990's as DIME, more recently as COIN, and here I'll call it "Guns as Butter." In the typical guns vs. butter model, social work, economic development and primary education are social goods that compete with the military for public funds. Most conservatives argue heavily in favor of buying "guns", as these provide security, as opposed to the wishy-washy notions of a Great Society. However, the primary application of our "guns" since WWII has been to try and spread "butter" across the rest of the world. The irony of this is not lost on organizations such as the Center for Complex Operations, but the magnitude of the problem prevents much laughter.

To be fair, this model has its domestic applications as well. The recent fight over the F-22 is a great example, as almost every defense of the program included the word "jobs" and only a resolute few claimed there was a military need for thirteen more of the jets. Most defense contractors publish advertisements citing how widespread their sourcing is for major weapons systems, clearly to encourage Congress spread a little "gun butter" around their districts. Militarily, a supply chain that stretches across CONUS is much more vulnerable to attack, or even natural disaster, than a centralized one. Socially, this is invaluable for providing demand for technology workers around the country.

This post is not a criticism of this arrangement. Certainly, I have and continue to personally benefit from it to a large degree. However, we're in a bad fiscal position, and this is unsustainable. David Brooks suggests that this is The Next culture War. I certainly hope so.

Looking back on a big year

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." --Philip K. Dick.

This is my 100th post, and it's about a year since the "Firing of the Bazooka", when Secretary Paulson pulled Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into federal receivership. Seems like a good time to reflect.

Marketplace from American Public Media has a great series of stories about what we learned from the collapse of Lehmann Brothers. They highlight the fact that an almost blind faith overtook much of the world, and especially the United States, that assumed a steady and reliable rise in asset prices. Paul Krugman refers to this as Panglossian Economics, wherein we believed complicated mathematical models that showed we lived in the best of all possible worlds. As long as we believed, it worked.

But then we stopped believing that banks, their customers and other counterparties could meet their obligations. To save off disaster, the Federal Reserve "printed" $1.2Trillion in one day, and drove interest rates to zero. This wasn't enough, and the US Congress authorized the Treasury to almost explicitly nationalize the financial system by handing over $700billion to "save" the financial system. In other words, we stopped believing in the banks, but we didn't stop believing in the government or its money. And so we find ourselves engaged in a sort of "extend and pretend" period, were we hope that asset prices start rising again, and with it a return of the good days.

For those who hoped the crash and last election would lead to fundamental changes, this is kind of disappointing. A sizable majority, however, absolutely depend on their 401k's, pension plans, and property value to continue living without family or charitable support. The historically minded are certainly worried that having watched one cherished institution fail, the strength of belief in others is weaker. Certainly, there were large increases in stock prices in the early 1930's, as investors badly wanted to believe that things were better, but people could still not pay their mortgages. Sound familiar?

The reality, such as it is, is that we aren't ready to stop believing in most of the systems that delivered prosperity since the 1950s, or 1980s. In some ways, this is very good, since the social dislocation involved in ending that belief is scary. In others, it blinds us to the need to move past "extend and pretend" to a discussion of what a sustainable future looks like.

I'm fundamentally an optimist. Means and opportunity occasionally meet to provide for interesting projects that show an alternative approach to our current lifestyle. Micheal Pollan is optimistic, cautiously, that we're on a course to start addressing problems in our food system. There's a robust and civil debate about the purpose and nature of the military at the US Naval Institute blog that tries to reconcile the US fiscal situation with its strategic posture.

Oil prices are rising again, and electric vehicles are all the rage. Michigan is trying to retool to make items for public transit (you may enjoy the irony). Farmer's markets are doing very well and bicycles are steadily gaining popularity as a commuting tool. Civility is breaking out in more and more quarters. And there's a new season of the FIRST Lego League underway. The future's so bright I've gotta wear shades.

Blueberry Jam Pie with Sour Cream Topping

Sometimes, you don't have 5hrs to bake and cool a pie. So what to do? Well, you make some fresh blueberry jam, toss in a partly-baked crust, and then make a little sour cream topping and toss it in the freezer to quickly chill it, and then the fridge to cool it long enough for the whipped cream to set.

Ingredients:

1 whole wheat crust

"jam"
1.5lb blueberries
2T lemon juice
1/3 cup sugar mixed with
2T cornstarch

topping:
8oz cream cheese
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
3 T granulated sugar
1/4lb blueberries

Preheat oven to 375F. Roll out the crust into a 13" circle and gently place into a 9 1/2" deep dish pan. Line the crust with foil, fill with pinto beans and place in the oven for 10min.

Toss the berries and lemon juice in a non-reactive saucepan. Heat over medium heat until the berries begin to simmer in their own juice. Bring to a boil stirring continuously, then stir in the sugar/cornstarch. Cook, stirring some more, for about 2min, and scrape into the baked crust.

Place the crust into the fridge while you make the topping. Whip the confectioners sugar and cream cheese together until smooth. Stir in the remaining sugar, sour cream and blue berries.

Cover the cooling "jam" with the topping and place in the freezer for 15min. Move into the refrigerator and let sit as long as you can stand, at least 45min, preferably 1-2hrs.

Summer fruit season and prosperity

We're in the thick of summer fruit season, so there's plenty of baking going on, but the last few have been straight out of Ken's awesome book. There's not much pressure to come up with innovative recipes when so many delicious ones are right there.

As such, it's an interesting time to contemplate the financial crisis. The most recent Planet Money podcast featured a panel discussion of "financial innovation", and whether or not it's a good thing or a bad thing. The most obvious answer is "it depends," although I generally agree the last twenty five years, generally the age of massive consumer credit, have been a net negative. Most interestingly, one of the members pointed out that just as there was a need for serious innovation, namely, as the predicted subprime collapse, there hasn't been any innovative way to turn things around. In fact, the rate of introduction of new products has slowed considerably (I think, but can't find a source).

Instead, we've got a lot of talk about new regulations. Just as in the 1930's, when the opportunities for financial innovations slacked off, the opportunities for government innovations rose. This actually teaches an important lesson about innovation: it follows opportunity, not need.

My most creative baking comes not when I am lacking time and resources, but when I have plenty of the first and interesting ingredients. This is why I post more recipes over the winter and early spring, during the sailing off-season, and when the normal fruits are supplanted by ones that I hadn't thought to use before. Financial innovation, and its attendant systemic risk, always has and always will follow the same pattern. Macro economists believe that good monetary policy can lessen the impact of this, and perhaps they are right, but central bankers are human, and no human is truly independent political pressure. Supply-siders will claim that regulation is itself the problem, ignoring the history of financial bubble bursts going back to the early days of modern banking. Keynesians and those farther left believe that if only regulation were done correctly, by the correct people, disaster could never happen. All ignore the fact that people are fallible, often greedy, and only work to the best of their ability when there is a clear reward, be it a massive bonus, the satisfaction of a job well done, or a delicious pie.

So, financial disasters happen because any system that provides prosperity for a lot of people relies on assumptions that are not always true. The same can be said of transportation, electrical grids, and fruit farms. Policy prescriptions that include naming a "systemic risk regulator" or otherwise trying to prevent disaster provide a false sense of security that encourages people to buy into systems whose risks they do not understand in the hope that some powerful, disinterested party is watching out for them. That party will never, can never, be as powerful and disinterested as the legislation demands, cf. Madoff and the SEC. Instead, let's try not to forget that to everything there is a season, and as individuals, companies and governments separately prepare for both a large harvest and a long drought.

Yes, this is much easier said than done. But at least I think it's saying the right thing.

Pie-friendly podcasts

This is a shameless promotion and thanks to the producers of my two favorite podcasts, The World's Technology Podcast and Common Sense with Dan Carlin.

The first is the only tech podcast I've heard that really focuses on technology as a human endeavor, not a bunch of gadgets. Clark Boyd hosts and produces the show, which includes stories of interest from the BBC, PRI and longer versions of interviews than could run on the radio. It very intentionally doesn't cover things like new versions of fake-fruit company products, but if you want to know what people are doing to influence their world, and those actions affect others, this is the show for you. Also, it has bagpipes.

The second is a political commentary show hosted by the "moderately radical" Dan Carlin. As a former TV newsman at LA's ABC affiliate, he knows all about the absurdity that is big media today. As a student of history, with an excellent history podcast as well, his perspectives take the long view. Some of his policy prescriptions are a bit outlandish, but they are well argued and supported.

I generally listen while baking, but I'd be happy to replay them for anyone who comes over for a slice.

Do we need more STEMs?

"Brakes squeak, and other stuff."

This was written by a customer at a bike repair festival where I was a volunteer. Most customers were asked to write their complaints on a card, or hang around and wait for the one or two people who were screening the bikes. Most customers wrote about a part that was causing a problem, such as a chain, tire or handlebars, or nothing at all. We had a couple people, myself included, who would answer verbal questions of those willing to wait for us, but these were generally people with very specific requests that involved high quality bicycles.

When I hear calls for more Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) teaching in grades 1-12, I often think of that day, especially that quote. I think the hope is that more of those students will be able to maintain their own bikes, or at least be able to explain what they need more clearly. Similar hopes haunt IT help desk workers, car mechanics, and others who make our complex economy work.

However, this is a blog about baking as much as policy. With the exception of mulberries, stems are just annoying compost once they've served their role attaching fruit to plant. As a professional "STEM" educator, I find myself very much in agreement with an Ohio State professor who put it well: "I can teach mathematics to someone with mechanical ability much easier than I can teach mechanics to someone with mathematical ability." One the best bike mechanics I know has a degree in anthropology. At the same time, it's hardly a safe bet that someone with a mechanical engineering PhD can change a tire or brake pads.

On top of this, we engineering professionals are not the only ones who wish students had a stronger background in our field before leaving high school. English programs around the country now sic graduate students on first year undergraduates to try and break them of habits learned on teh intertubes & txt msgs, and to teach basic grammar that was never learned. Text analysis, knowledge of history and even basic geography are all skills that are badly needed by all citizens of a republic.

To answer my question,"yes." But that does not mean we should flood the schools with math teachers, science text books and a battery of standardized tests. Mathematics is a language, not magic. Engineering is an art form that serves a purpose; its practitioners are not coldly rational so much as aware that reality can't wait to prove them wrong. Technology is often thought of in terms of gadgets, but it is the sum total of human endeavor, and must be understood in that context. Science, ultimately, is nothing more than that which we have not disproven yet.

The critical failing of most STEM education is that it teaches in terms of "right" and "wrong" answers to simple questions. The professional scientific and engineering world is full of "better" and "worse" solutions to very complicated problems. Ironically, this lesson is best taught in history, shop and home economics classes in high school. Good stems are needed to get good fruit, but it is important to remember that STEM is a means, not an end.

First Junket Report: CCO 2nd Annual Conference

A couple members of the Pie Cabinet traveled to Washington, DC for the Center for Complex Operations 2nd annual conference. It was quite an event, and if anyone from that organization reads this, I'd like to have you over for pie.

There was lots of interesting material, consisting of singleton speakers and panel discussions, on the "3D's", Defense, Diplomacy and Development. I remember getting into aerospace engineering when the "3d's" meant dull, dirty and dangerous, the kind of work that should be handed off to unmanned systems. Had I any doubt that the passion for a Revolution in Military Affairs was dead, it's been settled.

Two broad themes seemed to emerge from all of the discussions: (1) the importance of adaptability and (2) the growing militarizarion of foreign policy.

These are not fundamentally opposed, actually they're quite complementary in our system. Militaries throughout history have been major sources of innovation, since the concept of "maneuver" applies to technology and doctrine just as much as the movement of engaged units. Today, the US DoD runs five undergraduate institutions (USMA, USNA, USAFA, USCGA, USMMA), four War Colleges (USN, USMC, USAF, US Army), and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA with satellite campuses nearly everywhere (this may not be a complete list). Not to mention the hundreds of rigorous academic courses taught by officers around the country in ROTC programs, and schools for everything an enlistee might have to do. Slightly outside the DoD are "Centers of Excellence" such as the Center for Naval Analysis and RAND corporation whose exact job is to keep smart people on call to solve tough problems. Also, and it was argued more importantly, all but its very tip-top is run by career professionals who are largely promoted on merit, regardless of administration. Obama got lots of kudos for keeping Gates, and the relative smoothness of DoD's actions vs. State, Treasury and other departments' speaks to the problems that come with the Spoils System (thanks President Jackson!).

On the civilian side, we have the US State Department and USAID. The performance of State tends to improve as an administration goes on, but every four or eight years its top people, and I think it's the same number of people as DoD despite having only ~10K people at Foggy Bottom, you get a fresh bunch of leaders who probably don't like the policies of their predecessors. The result has been a more ossified legalistic culture below the appointee ranks, since promotion depends not on ability and initiative but conforming to established rules. The middle and upper level management of State is run by former FSOs who've had to deal with this their whole professional lives, making it very difficult for them to culturally adapt to a changing world. On the other hand, Provincial Resconstruction Teams (PRTs) made up of enthusiastic youngsters with a clear mandate to do what is necessary to accomplish their "hearts and minds" mission are credited with a lot the success in parts of Afghanistan and Iraq. The resemblance to Roman military engineering teams shouldn't be overlooked.

As a result, USAID is trying to formalize this quasimilitary approach to development assistance. Specifically, several speakers spoke of a more "expeditionary" USAID; one that would relate to its grantee NGOs and in-country employees as a theater commander setting goals for deployed companies and batallions. Details of this arrangement, which scares the crap out of the NGO community, have not been finalized yet.

To the extend that US policy is designed to improve the capacity of states to exert their writ and for their people to become prosperous, this militarization is appropriate, according to several panelists. The chief obstacle to development in much of the world, especially the places where the US is deploying more aid, is security. Development projects have a mixed record at best, but they always fail when security fails. Whomever is officially in charge of the project needs to acknowledge that, and adopting cultural aspects from the most dynamic of government departments (scary, isn't it) can only help break a beaucratic logjam. Militarized need not mean jack-booted, but must include a fundamental recognition that "the enemy gets a vote, too." --paraphrased from a general during the COIN debate in 2005ish

Unfortunately, formally implementing these lessons will require action from Congress and an end to much of the Spoils System. On top of that, a paradigm shift is needed in the thinking about development aid and perhaps even the definition of prosperity, governance and security. Knowing that lots of smart people have decided to find solutions makes me hopeful that they'll succeed. But Mark Twain's commentary on the denziens of the Hill is as true as ever.

Berry delicious oatmeal

The pies for this week (yes, two, there's that much fruit about this time of year) are Apricot-Blueberry, straight out of Ken's incredible book. One or both may find itself involved in chariable fundraising, I'll keep you posted.

However, an earlier recipe involved using less than a full can of sweetened condensed milk, and we've got a lot of berries on had. Following this blog's pattern of using pie leftovers for breakfast, here goes:

Berry Delicious Oatmeal:

Ingredients:

3 Cups water
1.5 Cups "traditional" oatmeal
.5 Cups black raspberries
.5 Cups blueberries
.25 Cup (I think) sweetened condensed milk

Procedure:

Bring the water to a rolling boil in a medium saucepan. Place the can of milk next to the burner, this will make it easier to pour later.

Slowly add the oats, stirring continuously.

Reduce heat, watching for boil-over.

After a couple minutes, pour in the milk and stir.

When the oats have about 1min to go, add the berries and stir.

Serve warm.

Deflationary stimulus and stimulating taxes?

A friend recently send along a link to the latest quarterly review from Hoisington Investment Management.

The point it makes that of the conditions required for inflation, essentially that there is a desire to invest and increase economic capacity, we currently meet none. Meanwhile, empirical evidence cited (and yes, we're always a little suspicious of that) suggests that US government spending does not have a Keynesian multiplier significantly different from zero. In other words, most government spending does not increase economic activity so much as shift it from private to public expenditures.

How does this work? Consider the demographics of graduate school enrollment. It grew even during the boom year, as students with technical degrees were largely faced with the choice between grad school and investment banking (there were exceptions, like chemical engineers). Now, IB isn't much of an option, although government planning might bring it back. Goldman's sure doing well.

However, for most of those students, grad school has largely become industry R&D on the cheap. The government has piled into the game, and now quite a lot of projects that used to go on in places like National Labs, Bell Labs, Xerox Parc and at drug companies now goes to people making 30-60% for the first few years of their careers. Government sponsored research into the energy industry has, according to the President, reduced solar cell prices by something like 80% in twenty years. This shifts the aggregate supply curve to the right, making economic activity cheaper.

In normal times, that's a good thing. Productivity goes up, inflation stays under control. In times like these, government research spending is actually deflationary. Ask Japan. On the other hand, if the Henry-Waxman climate bill actually does anything to increase the costs of emitting carbon, it will spur private sector investment, since it will be cheaper for large companies to plow money into the private economy than the government.

Shifting the AS curve left is an inflationary move. We're entering a deflationary cycle. We've got simultaneous climate, energy and debt problems to solve, and we the taxpayers own a car company that we really want to make money selling small cars.

Wild black raspberry and zante current pie

The day after we picked a whole lot of wild black raspberries, the local supermarket had a 1lb box of zante currents, basically tiny fresh seedless grapes on the clearance rack. The box was damaged, but the fruit looked fine, so home they came, visions of culinary adventures dancing in our heads. They taste kind of like extra-sweet concord grapes, and so blend very nicely with the tartness of the raspberries.

Ingredients:

1 whole wheat double crust
1lb zante currents
~1lb wild black raspberries
2/3 cup + 2T sugar
3T cornstarch

Procedure:

1) Roll the crust into a deep dish pie plate, preheat the oven to 400F

2) Mix the fruit and most of the sugar together. Stir the 2T sugar and constarch in a small bowl. Slowly and gently mix the cornstarch into the fruit mixture.

3) (If you have a pie bird, this is a good recipe for it) Pour the fruit mix into the pie shell, cover with the top crust. Poke a few holes near the edge to see pie juices bubbling through.

4) Bake for 25min, reduce oven temp to 375F and bake another 25min or until juices bubble thickly at the edge.

Grilled Wild Black Raspberry Pie

This one stretches the definition of "pie" considerably. But, it is made from a pizza crust, it doesn't fit other categories well, and I, the pie maker, made it. More importantly, it's extremely tasty.

It started when I had one more pizza crust than toppings while making grilled pizzas last night (incidentally, if you have vegetarians at a BBQ, this is the way to go. Also, great way to make pizza during the summer without heating up the house). I also happened to have more wild black raspberries than I know what to do with, and a bit of brown sugar.

Ingredients:

on the grill:
1 roughly fist sized ball of pizza dough
1 cup wild black raspberries (other berries should work)
2-3T brown sugar

after grilling:
1T butter, melted
~1T powdered sugar for sprinkling
2 scoops ice cream

Procedure:

Let the grill cool a bit after grilling the pizza, so that you can hold a hand over the coals for about 7s. A good way to do this is enjoy the grilled pizzas and a tall beverage while the grill is covered.

Carefully mix the berries and sugar in a bowl.

Stretch the dough ball into a rough circle 12" across (probably best to use a rolling pin)

Place the berry mix in the middle, fold up the crust around it, and place on the grill. Cover, let sit about 5min, and roll onto the opposite side, wait 5min or so, and then cook the remaining two sides.

Place the baked pie-tube on a plate, pour and smear the melted butter over the top. Sprinkle with powered sugar. Serve immediately with two scoops of ice cream and two spoons or forks.

Someone pointed out to me recently that I must have been busy, since nothing happened here for a couple months. Well, I don't know if I'm less busy, but there's some things going on in the world that I'm having trouble sorting out. Read on, if you wish, and swing by for a slice if you care to discuss.

Harry Shearer had perhaps the best insight into the recent Palin resignation on last week's "Le Show": "The crucial difference between . . . politics and showbusiness is that in politics you have to read your negative reviews and answer your critics." This, I think, is the real difference between those politicians who we say get bad press, and those who we think are media darlings. There's plenty of articles and opinion pieces critical of the current US president, but he's very good at elegantly ducking tough questions. Watch a White House press conference some time, this guy is good. Also, his team is good, and by spreading ownership of major initiatives around, it seems like half of the Hill is figuring out responses to criticisms as fast as they come out.

Consider, as an alternative to this rather elegant criticism anechoic chamber, the family-friendly sitcom. In these series, when offense is given, it is typically the responsibility of the offender to deal with the hurt feelings. If there is mutual offense, then per our Western Humanist value set, all parties are responsible restoring harmony. Occasionally, there are characters who come along to show that there are people who don't share these values, and they are roundly condemned and held as an example of what not to do. If you feel like I'm describing a Fox News or MSNBC broadcast, you may be on to something.

Is it terribly surprising, then, that a generation of people used to watching conflicts resolve themselves in favor of the character with whom they identify have problems with civil discourse? That they would have trouble believing that it's important for people with whom they identify (say, likable politicians who come on TV after the sitcoms) to engage with people who don't share those common values? These canned conflicts remind me of canned pie filling, overly sweet with all of the flavor beaten out of them. Other periods in history have had their problems, and you will never hear me say that any particular technology "ruined" humanity (although coal-fired power plants are doing their darnest right now). This, however, is the problem of our age in the United States today.

I could be completely wrong. Certainly, despite having an uncomfortably close view of the transition of the GOP from the "elites" to the "Right," I don't have all the answers. Ted Koppel put it well in a Talk of the Nation appearance when he described an "Age of Entitlement", all people have the ability to choose a news outlet that presents everything from their point of view. As a frequent reader of the BBC, Economist, and Reuters news services and NPR station member, I want my information presented with a Western Humanist slant that is extremely cautious about saying which side it "right" (with the exception of the self-professed "mouthpiece of global capitalism" that ironically argues very well for certain social programs). I will not get into the post-modern nihilistic navel-gazing and question if my view is necessarily better because, frankly, wisdom comes not from reinforcement of beliefs but questioning and learning the limits of them.

This is a painful process. Human history, and the fall of representative governments especially, is full of people turning away from the pain in favor comfortable mediocrity (read The Challenge and Promise of a Catholic University for a lot good essays on the subject). It can't be made less painful, but a good pie makes it easier to sit down to deal with difficult issues, just promise to be civil about disagreements at my table.

Mulberry-Rhubarb Pie

Mulberry trees are common throughout the temperate zones of the world, having spread from south and southeast Asia on the decks of British ships to many places around the world. Their fruit is very delicate, a bucket of mulberries will quickly crush the bottom layer into juice, which has severely limited their commercialization. They do show up in processed form as juice, wine or coloring extracts. However, if you are lucky enough to live near a stand of them, they are effectively free for the taking as long as they are bearing fruit, generally throughout the early summer.

Being very sweet on their own, it's helpful to add something tart to give a pie a more full-bodied flavor. Citrus might work, but that's a winter fruit, and we're all about being seasonally appropriate here. The obvious choice is rhubarb. The combination works remarkably well with the whole wheat crust.

Ingredients:
1 double-crust worth of whole wheat crust
4 cups mulberries
3 cups rhubarb
3/4 cup + 2T sugar
2T cornstarch

Procedure:

Roll out the bottom crust into a 13" circle and place into a 9.5" deep dish pie pan. Preheat the oven to 400F.

Combine the fruit and .75C sugar in a bowl, carefully stir to mix (the mulberries are delicate, so don't push them too hard). Combine the remaining sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl, then mix carefully into the fruit mixture.

Pour carefully into the pie pan, add a lattice top, and bake for about 40min. The pie is done when the juices bubble thickly, I've had to add an aluminium heat shield to the rim at about 30min.

Let cool thoroughly.

Value vs. Utility

Money, according to the experts, is a "means of exchange and a store of value." Less obvious, however, is the relationship between "value" and "utility". Around the time Lehman collapsed, a friend of mine asked "What is capital?", because it seemed to be something the banks needed badly, but we were having a heck of a time defining (yes, we know that in that context it consists of money that can be used to pay for losses). Pie making gives one quite a bit of time to let the fore-brain wander, and it finally came to me that the problem we face today is reconciling the difference between "value" and "utility."

Someone on a radio program, I think it was Talk of the Nation, a while back described the difference between the macro economist's view of capital and the business community's (and most of the country's) view by comparing a clay and Lego dinosaur. In both cases, the "value" of the parts is one dinosaur's worth of stuff, providing the "utility" of play to a dinosaur-loving child. The modeling clay dinosaur is easily reconfigured, providing utility in the event of the loss of small amounts of clay, but it has a nasty habit of staining carpets and you can't make good horns with it because they droop. Thus, the Lego dinosaur is probably more popular with parents who have carpet, and kids who want more realism. However, while the "value" of both is the same (1 dino), the "utility" of the Lego dino is more fragile and more difficult to achieve.

Much like a complicated bond or derivative contract, the Lego dinosaur's utility to the "investor" (young child) depends on the "issuer" (assembling parent) completing several steps and all of the parts being in place. If, however, the "regulator" (cleaning parent) is used to dealing with modeling clay, it is very likely she will expect modeling-clay like utility from the same value of investment (this is fundamental flaw of assuming regulations based on historical data can handle new products). But what if a part is lost? Or, perhaps worse, the "investor" decides that airplanes are more fun than dinosaurs?

In the first case, there is a measurable loss of value. In the clay case, there is less overall dinosaur, but in the Lego case it's hard to say if there is much of a dinosaur left if certain critical pieces go missing. In the second, clay is easily reconfigurable, but specialized Legos, much like a car factory, are not. Thus, the kid with the Lego dinosaur had better keep liking dinosaurs, otherwise the "issuer" and "regulator" are in trouble.

The guest on NPR explained that most economic models tended to assume we were collectively playing with clay models. When suppliers are largely interchangable, barriers to entry are low, and the amount of equipment ("capital" in the microeconomic sense) required is minimal, this is largely true. For example, a good metal shop can be reconfigured from making parts for trailers to making snow shovels pretty quickly. More complicated products, like cars, require far more specialized equipment, and so there is a tendency to do everything possible to keep the dinosaur together, since it has value in terms of jobs in politically sensitive areas that greatly exceeds its utility.

What does this mean? I'm not quite sure. I think this is the gist of George Soros' argument about a in confidence leading to the bursting of "super bubble." The whole point of a market economy is to let people decide how to value the things they use, and while this system is fairly robust to government interventions, laws and subsidies do not create usefulness. Which means, ultimately, they cannot preserve value.

Apple Pizza Pie

This is one of those recipes that reflects this blog's "waste not" mentality. I mixed up too much yeasty water for pizza dough, and decided to make a yeasty apple pie.

It starts with the sweet yeasty crust (makes two):

Ingredients:

Combine in a glass measuring cup:
1Cup warm water (~120F)
1/2 t dry yeast
1/2 t sugar
Let sit until frothy on top.

Combine in a bowl or food processor with dough setting:
3 1/3 Cup white flour
2T sugar
1t salt
3T butter, cut into small pieces
Mix until well blended

Add the yeast mixture to the flour while mixing, mix until the dough cleans the side of the bowl. Mix another 30s in processor or knead 5min. Allow to rise for about an hour in a warm, sealed and greased container, like a plastic bag or bowl covered with plastic wrap.

The Pie:
Place a pizza stone in the oven, cover with a layer of cornmeal and preheat to 375F
In a large bowl, combine:
5 Granny Smith apples, peeled cored and sliced thin
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 t cinnamon (fresh ground)
Allow to juice while rolling out the crust to a ~13in circle. Transfer to a pizza peel covered with cornmeal. Arrange the apples to cover the crust evenly, leaving a small part of the rim uncovered. While the oven is still heating, combine in a small bowl:
1/2C brown sugar
1/2C flour
pinch of nutmeg
3T butter, cut into small pieces
Mix until it resembles fine gravel, then spread over the apples. Carefully slide the pizza pie into the oven, bake for about 40min, until the topping turns golden, remove, slice and serve.

The sexiest mode of transport?

A young woman with whom I frequently discuss bike-commuting issues complained about the amount of honking she hears from drivers who, she suspected, are trying to tell her to get out of the road. I said that I hardly ever got honked-at, and we speculated about whether it's related to our routes (possible) or riding styles (which are very similar), and came to the conclusion that someone, perhaps us, ought to arrange for PSA's during Michiana Bike to Work Week encouraging better driver behavior.

This weekend I rode about 80mi (130km) to and from a small lake for a regatta. I didn't wear a shirt to avoid getting too sweaty before spending the day sailing (yes, I enjoy my low-carbon lifestyle). I was honked or shouted at by several cars full of young women, and only once by an older couple who I assume wanted me off the road.

So, why is the physically fit female cyclist in lycra shorts getting honked at? Probably the same reason the shirtless young male one did. The drivers are expressing appreciation, not anger. A couple years of using our glutes to commute has had more than just health benefits.

Thus, the correct PSA is quite possibly a picture of me from 2006, when I was an unhealthy 225lb, and today, now that I'm down to 185lb. Results fairly typical, given the metabolism boost. Perhaps not as good as $4/gallon gasoline, but if you need a reason to ride . . .

Lighter Sweet Potato Pie

This could also be called "Crossroads and Lighthouse Pie", and was baked to celebrate the recent commencement exercises at Notre Dame. We here at Pie and Policy believe there is nothing more anti-pie than identity politics, and so we offer deep-dish support to those who seek and encourage constructive engagement.

Now, off the soap box and into the kitchen.

Ingredients:
1 whole wheat crust, rolled as thin as possible

~2 C baked sweet potato flesh, not skins

1/3 C brown sugar
1/8 T cinnamon
1/8 T nutmeg

2 whole eggs
2T butter, melted
7/8 C 2% milk -> put the butter in the cup measure and fill the rest with milk

Procedure:

(1) Get the crust into a standard 9" pie dish. Preheat the oven to 350F.

(2) Puree the sweet potato in a food processor, add the sugar and spices and blend some more, then add the eggs, butter and milk. Process until smooth.

(3) Pour the puree into the pie shell, and place the center rack for about 45min. Once the sides have start to puff a little and the center is still a bit wiggly, pull it out. Let cool for a couple hours before serving.

Reinventing Foreign Aid, Essay #5

This is a summary and commentary on the fifth essay in Reinventing Foreign Aid

Solutions When the Solution Is the Problem: Arraying the Disarray in Development

by: Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock

The authors describe how the classic problem of development aid is "getting to Denmark", i.e. reaching the point where a developing state has the same level of public services as the European country. In this light, the Washington Consensus, a popular view among large aid providers, is that the problems of the world are "needs" like food, healthcare, security, etc. The solution is some kind of "supply", and the means of providing the supply is the "civil service". In countries with a well established Weberian bureaucracy, this model works fairly well, and was in fact established due to political pressure to break up local political machines by providing a counter-balancing influence.

In development work, there are two types of government programs where this sort of effort works: non-discretionary, transaction intensive services like drivers licenses or mail delivery, where strict rules can be set for a broad population without ill effect. The other is in discretionary, non-transacting services like central banking and trade policy. Here, "10 smart people" can meet and determine the rules that govern how certain transactions will proceed without directly guiding those transactions.

However, this model fails rather spectacularly for discretionary, transaction intensive services like teaching, medicine and infrastructure maintenance. Here, local knowledge is required, as each decision made by the teacher, doctor or road worker must be the correct one for the individual student, patient or pothole. Because these require an educated, as opposed to simply trained, class of people who can think through problems, no one set of rules can cover all decisions.

Thus, when local knowledge is difficult to acquire, the best solution for an aid program is adopt a model that, with as few transactions as possible, empowers local experts to meet the needs in their communities. If this sounds an awful lot like the ongoing debate about federal vs. state vs. local control of school curricula in the United States, that's because it is the same problem, and the solution is not in the setting of rules, but that dynamic tension.

There's a broader question here about the need for greater empathy and engagement by service providers with and in the lives of recipients. Rational solutions only apply to rational problems, and some people just love their chickens (see the link). Providing services requires a level of trust proportional to the required expertise of the service provider. In most western societies, there is a strong tradition of accountability between civilian and state, but this has taken a long time to build up, and we cannot expect it to happen overnight abroad. The variety of institutions that accomplish largely the same thing in different countries speaks to the messy series of compromises required to get to Denmark.

Rethinking interventions at home and abroad

The "poverty trap" figure in my post on Dr. Easterly's Introduction to Reinventing Foreign Aid was difficult to make. How does one express the goals of foreign development assistance without sounding chauvinistic? The answer: one can't. If our way of life isn't better, we have no business interfering with theirs. So why are we talking about the right way to evaluate ways to improve schools in Kenya when we don't have a good means of doing so in the US? It looks an awful lot like development aid is something we developed-country denizens can impose on others, but not ourselves.

Consider three attempts to make society better:
(1) The "war" on drugs
(2) Agricultural aid and subsidies
(3) Microcredit financing

(1) The history of the drugs trade bears a striking resemblance to the history of planned economies and foreign aid. It starts with a good idea to improve the lives of people in one country by using the power of the state (Prohibition/drug bans, socialism/Great Society). The Planners forget important details about circumstances, and maintaining the intervention becomes politically untenable in powerful nations (Prohibition is repealed/"medical marijuana", Regan and Thatcher are elected). So the Planners shift their focus abroad, where the consequences (violence and corruption, stagnation and corruption) are felt by people who are far away. Now food is being destroyed in Columbia, we're using the latest Virginia class submarines to track drug boats, and people in England are sniffing more roach poison. Oh, and the two largest threats to United States security are now paid for largely by cocaine and heroin sales. Progress!

(2) Many attempts to jump-start agricultural economies in southern Africa involve someone with an economics PhD carefully explaining that subsidies are a bad idea for farmers. Assuming efficient markets otherwise, these distort prices, create dependencies and encourage inefficient practices. Like, say, those used in the famously productive EU and US (in fact, no market is less efficient that food). Malawi bucked the trend and now grows enough to export. Meanwhile, Indian farmers who did largely embrace US farming, but not subsidizing, practices are committing suicide in large numbers as their debt burdens become unsustainable. Highly subsidized farms in the US are starting to show their own problems with sustainability as well, while urban agriculture gains popularity in both the US and Venezuela. All agriculture, like politics, is local. Planners would do well to enable more Seekers.

(3) Microcredit lending began as a sort of venture capital for the poor. When it is seen as an aid program, intended not to benefit the issuer but "the recipient's community," it becomes another hand-out because loans are issued based on need, rather than ability to repay. On the other hand, if used judiciously, the same principle of enabling (financing, training and otherwise supporting) profit-Seekers works quite well in Silicon Valley, Bangladesh and probably even New York. Yes, that link is right, a Bangladeshi bank/charity is now trying to help people, and make a few bucks, in New York City.

The upshot of all this is that any charitable activity intended to be a lifeline can quickly turn into an umbilical chord and a tether. Refugees in a not-too-bad camp, welfare recipients and trust fund kids (think Paris Hilton) have little incentive to improve their lot, but every so often an individual emerges who wants to live better. To the extent we can keep her safe, provide food during a famine and do our best to ensure good governance and opportunities around the world we're doing well. Beyond that, I don't think we should be planning her future, whether she lives in Nairobi or Nashville.

Reinventing Foreign Aid Essay #4

This is the fourth summary and commentary on the essays in Reinventing Foreign Aid

It Pays to Be Ignorant: A Simple Political Economy of Rigorous Program Evaluation

By: Lant Pritchett

Dr. Prichett lays out a simple linear model that attempts to describe why so few aid programs ever receive rigorous evaluation using randomized trials. He assumes, based on a dozen years at the World Bank, that any new intervention has a set of rational supporters whose primary goal is to see their project receive as much funding as possible. As such, they must convince three groups to support the intervention: (1) core supporters, who have a low threshold for necessary efficacy because of either altruism or a personal stake (such as a production or delivery contract) in the intervention; (2) a "middle" group that reflects the general public, who are asked to give up their own wealth to pay for the intervention; and (3) hard-headed economists who have fairly high requirements for the efficacy of the programs they support and will only accept scientifically sound, randomized trials as evidence.

The "savvy activist" with enough money to start a program must decide between conducting a rigorous trial or the classic "pilot and promote" approach to convincing people to support her. The decision of which to do depends on a number of factors, most importantly the activist's best guess as to the actual effectiveness of the intervention and the general public's level of altruism. For a very effective program that yields large marginal gains for additional money, such as vaccinations or Mexico's "PROGRESA" program, it makes sense to perform a rigorous evaluation. For many aid programs the benefits are harder to see in a rigorous evaluation, and so the largest gains in support come from spending resources promoting the results of a pilot program. If one assumes a relatively low level of altruism among the general public, then almost no programs will meet its standards for efficacy as measured using rigorous evaluations. Thus, the most rational choice for nearly all aid advocates is to spend evaluation resources on advertising, since promotional activities increase both public interest in aid and that particular program.

The last third of the article is devoted to the very strange relationships that can develop between coalitions of savvy activists pushing different interventions and objectives. Tacit agreements often arise in such cases to prevent widespread publication of unfavorable rigorous test results, although the promoter of a more effective program might try to undercut others' support by leaking results. However, this "betrayal" inevitably comes back to haunt the leaker, and so a sort of code of silence develops and the message expressed is that aid is good and the world needs more of it.

This essay is my favorite so far in the book. I would absolutely love to get Dr. Pritchett and Nassim Nicolas Taleb together for pie and coffee sometime. I think Dr. Pritchett is a little too excited by the possibilities of models and graphs, but he includes a compelling narrative to explain how the aid community views evaluations. Dr. Taleb is perhaps the best living antidote to intellectual hubris, having spent much of the last few years predicting the financial crisis by pointing out the inherent flaws of trying to impose mathematical rules on things as fickle as people. Both seem to share a passion for exploring how people live in an uncertain world by embracing that uncertainty rather than trying to hide it behind equations or grand ideas. Anyone who can help me arrange such a meeting gets a slice or two, possibly even a whole pie to take home. Plus, I make coffee in a French press, and have a bean grinder that's waiting for a worthy occasion.

In a previous post, I suggested that randomized trial evaluation is a tool for agencies such as the World Bank, USAID or CARE that need to generate substantial public support, including senior bureaucrats and academics who are, presumably, hard-headed economists. To the extent these organizations need a way to determine which "Seekers" to reward, the more their internal funding allocation is governed by hard-headed economists the better. But in order to pay them, and engage in world-wide development and aid efforts, a large public outreach is required. As such, it is in the interest of program advocates to find powerful spokespeople such as Bono or Madonna.

Smaller organizations that rely on core supporters alone are much more free to implement any intervention they have developed. If that program is, say, a school for slum-dwellers from Nairobi or an NGO that delivers medical supplies directly to hospitals in war zones, then the good done is obvious to the few altruistic supporters needed. In that case, associations with other aid organizations should be approached with caution, since a larger organization has a built-in mandate to do the most good possible with its budget, rather than accomplish the goal of the smaller organization. For example, maybe the school should accept some nearby villagers instead of just kids from the slums, who tend to be drug and behavior problems, thus raising test scores and the partner's efficacy rating. Or perhaps the medical NGO could carry more than just life-saving supplies and run a vaccine dispersal while it's in country, since vaccines are good and the larger partner is under pressure to promote them everywhere.

The enemy of all Planners is accountability because few programs scale very well, while Seekers must embrace it because their smaller support base is often personally involved, if only to do things like fundraising or explaining where the organization fits in the aid/development/relief world. The World Bank seems to have employed two of its fiercest critics who have published literally volumes about the need for it to change dramatically with little practical effect. A small NGO, on the other hand, needs to keep its core supporters excited and involved with a constant sense of purpose, otherwise it has to shut down. This narrative-instead-of-quantitative accountability does not scale well, but then very few programs do, so how should one evaluate those that stay small? The next essay in the book discusses how this problem ought to be framed in development circles, where the Planned "solution" has often become the problem.

However, the need for an independent, small-scale evaluator who travels with little more than clothes, a baking mat, rolling pin and pie plate is increasingly obvious. I'd love to start or support a video blog along the lines of the Hulu show Cooking up a Story devoted to traveling to places that receive aid and seeing if it is getting easier to make pies. While a good postmodernist might reject "scientific" evaluation and master narratives, pastries transcend such philosophical issues and get to the heart of whether the program is doing good. At the very least, a poorly performing program would have a hard time explaining why I should should stop making pies (or maybe waffles).

An effective opposition forming?

The GOP would appear to be re-energizing itself: as seen by MSNBC, or GOPUSA.

In our kitchen, we firmly believe that a good opposition is the key to good governance. Towards that end, here's a juicy target for a party that wants to pretend it favors small government: redundant organizations, such as ARPA-E. Don't get me wrong. I love, and engage in, government basic research, but DoE's got several national labs, an SBIR group, and a good relationship with the NSF. Want innovative energy research, check out the National Renewable Energy Lab.

Actually, there's quite a bit of room to play with this kind of concept, and play off the President's speech at George Mason University:

Only Government can come up with a program to remove old, polluting cars that actually pollutes more than leaving them on the street!

Only Government can promote a "green" fuel source that causes massive starvation, hurts US and international security and has higher carbon emissions than gasoline. (Iowa's heading away from the GOP anyway.)

Go a step further on the "personal responsibility" angle for energy and environmental issues. Accept that most of us see "drill here, drill now" as a big government solution because the land is all owned by the government, there are pretty stringent laws limiting liability of drillers, and energy extraction is practically synonymous with corruption and degradation outside of places that make money from it. Encourage your younger candidates in the Northeast to be seen commuting on bicycles once in a while, show off "griesel" campaign vehicles in California, and turn down the heat a little at the office. Maybe even encourage private investment in space-based solar power. You can "out-green" the Democrats without subsidies, and convince skeptical voters that your party offers more than pretending it's still 1950 until the oceans rise, crops fail and we can't afford the Navy that ensures steady delivery of hydrocarbons anymore. With the Dems saving the Big Three and getting a populist home mortgage modification program rolled out, they're getting most of the suburbs that don't mind Adam and Steve (Iowa and Maine, for instance). Don't let them have everyone who is skeptical of bureaucrats addressing the massive challenges we face, but wants to support people who have the will try to solve them.

Pie-friendlier modes of transport

Whenever your pie making blogger reads the Economist, he finds himself writing in the third person. The problem of urban and suburban requires quite more creative solutions than have been put forward so far, since hauling large amounts of metal for every person is more energy and space intensive than most cities can sustain in the long run. The best one put forward so far is electric bicycles. These have several advantages:

(1) Less energy used hauling unneeded structure (no trunk or backseat)

(2) Easier battery replacement/upgrade (since it's smaller and easier to access)

(3) Smaller parking lot requirements (also known as bike racks)

(4) Simpler recharging infrastructure (standard plugs run to the bike racks)

Most families will continue to need access to a chemical-fuelled car for longer trips or heavier loads than an electric vehicle can handle. Trying to deny this is foolhardy, but encouraging younger office workers and students to ditch their cars for electric bikes should be much easier.

Reinventing Foreign Aid Essay #3

This is the third summary and commentary on the essays in Reinventing Foriegn Aid

Use of Randomization in the Evaluation of Development Effectiveness

By: Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer


Like Banerjee and He, Duflo and Kremer advocate using randomized clinical trials to evaluate aid programs where ever possible. The reason they give is that this technique is the best choice for avoiding omitted variable bias. They compare the technique to other popular methods of generating the "counterfactual", or what would have happened had the program not been used, such as Difference-In-Difference (DD). They argue, using data taken from various education programs studied in Kenya, that these techniques tend to overestimate the benefit of aid programs.

As an example of how to properly evaluate programs, they examine the costs and benefits of three education interventions: teacher training, free textbooks and deworming treatments. These interventions where assigned randomly to schools throughout northern Kenya, and student test scores were used to evaluate the benefits. They found, counterintuitively, that the deworming treatments were both the cheapest to administer and had benefits that spread to other nearby schools, as breaking the chain of infections resulted in healthier students overall. They also cited the success of the PROGRESSA program in Mexico as an example of how to use randomized trials to evaluate a pilot program.

They conclude that if the goal of a pilot program is to test scalability and cost-effectiveness, then aid programs need to be treated more like prescription drugs. For these, randomized trials that use a sample of the entire likely recipient population have proven to be the most effective means of determining both safety and effectiveness. Instead of a systematic means of picking the recipients of aid programs, such as one per polity or "most needy", a random distribution across all eligible aid recipients guards against accidentally or intentionally omitting variables when evaluating programs.

The authors go on to discuss several factors required for effective randomized trails:

(1) A large pool of potential recipients, such as small villages or individual students.

(2) A politically acceptable means of randomly distributing the aid. This is often enabled by budget constraints and the need to "pilot" aid programs.

(3) An independent, or at least reputable, group with plenty of funding to perform the evaluations.

(4) Clear and believable metrics that define benefits and costs.


In other words, randomized trials are a good tool for development aid Planners, groups like the World Bank or CARE, to help them decide which new ideas they should roll out in a large way. They are not necessarily the right ones for "Seekers", to use Dr. Easterly's term, who generally aim to solve specific local problems that do not have a large potential recipient base. A criticism that can, the authors admit, be made against this approach is if it is so effective, why isn't it used to evaluate health and schooling programs designed to help the poor in developed countries? The answer lies partly in the implicit arrogance of development aid being something we can impose on other societies, while most forms of development and economic planning, as well as many forms of educational evaluation, are viewed askance in the developed world.

The next essay discusses the political economy of aid evaluations, which will explore this problem more deeply. Smaller aid programs with narrow scope also need some form of independent evaluation, and I think that's where a travelling pie-maker would fit in nicely. Now to work out the logistics of the Sustainable Baking Travel Blog.

More bicycle poetry

Twenty three millimeters
One two five PSI
A pain to put on
But pure joy to ride
The cold rain does sting
My hands start to burn
Seems no effort needed
to make the wheels turn
Each bump I can feel
But friction, good bye
Twenty three millimeters
One two five PSI

I recently replaced the rear tire on my Trek 700 with the smaller, higher pressure "racing" tire. The effect is poetry in motion.

The 1 Page Development Report

[I'll get back to the Reinventing Foreign Aid commentaries soon, the third essay requires me to do some extra background reading on statistical methods.]

I attended a memorial yesterday for the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide held by the local Rwandan diaspora. It was a beautiful, touching and long service to help both the healing of the survivors and to ensure that no one, least of all the children of the diaspora, ever forgets. The keynote speaker was Steven Kinzer, author of A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It.

"The Man Who Dreamed It" is the very intelligent, charismatic and controversial Paul Kagame. Kinzer reported some 30hrs of interviews with the new President of Rwanda, including asking him why, of the all the millions of pages of reports written on how to develop Africa and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the place was still such a mess. In typical Kagame fashion, he replied "I reject the premise of your question. Everyone knows how to develop Africa, but no one has been willing to do it. You don't need reports that could circle the continent, you just need one page."

Kinzer: "Okay, what, in your opinion, should go on that one page?"

Kagame: "It all starts with one fundamental thing. Without this nothing else matters, so don't even try."

Kinzer: "And that is?"

Kagame: "Security, internal and external. If people are not safe they will not leave. What good is building a school if the army is going to come steal the windows and doors? You must have security to start, otherwise the rest is meaningless."

Kinzer: "Once you have security, what comes next?"

Kagame: "First health, because if people are unhealthy they can do nothing. After that is education, because we live in a knowledge economy. Next is infrastructure, good roads, airports, internet so people can do business. After that you must have a good business environment because it is your entrepreneurs who will bring prosperity. And all of this must be administered by a government that is honest and not corrupt. There, one page, but no one has had the will to implement it before now."

The "now", of course, is Rwanda itself. The ethnic tensions tracing back to the Belgian practice of clearly defining Hutu and Tutsi are still there, simmering under the surface. Among the diaspora, anger at those who participated in or did not intervene in 1994 and before then is palpable, as well it should be. In Rwanda, these feelings are directed not at abstract concepts like "countries" and far-away people, but rather at their neighbors. Paul Kagame, and most everyone in Rwanda today, knows that it is only the advancing prosperity of the country that keeps everyone looking towards the future rather than looking to settle the scores of the past.

Can this development be sustained? Only time will tell, and the sharp reductions in global trade we're seeing today can't help. The history of "Jewels of Africa" in the 20th century is not good, but here's to hoping that the lessons of history can be learned and, more importantly, implemented.

A couple good CNN commentaries

I really appreciate this commentary by John Feehery. David M. Walker suggests one means by which we'll see everyone's slice of the pie get smaller.

I subscribe to the GOPUSA listserve. Not exactly sure how that happened, but it's any interesting source of news and commentary that I don't see elsewhere. Occasionally, it's even intelligent. The big topic over the last couple weeks has been the "T.E.A. Parties" going on around the country. Decried by many left-leaning sources as "astroturf", fake grass roots, I think these are very real local efforts and exactly the sort of consequence one expects from Capitalism Hitting the Fan. Let me explain, via personal narrative:

[rant]
I was offered a job recently that would more than double my household intake. In addition, the work is awesome, practically the definition thereof. In terms of my long term career goals, it's hard to imagine a better place to spend 3-5yrs. But I can't responsibly take it. It would involve moving to a higher-cost of living area with a much higher state income tax. Between the high taxes on income, food and transportation and the high rents, I would actually lose money my first year, break even the second and maybe be able to start saving in the third. Sure, rents are high, but mortgage rates are down to 4.75% or lower, so clearly it's the time to buy. Sure, if I could save the money required for a down payment on one of the overpriced houses in the region, but I can't realistically think of saving substantial amounts for another couple years, longer if kids end up in the mix. But now, despite forking over about 60% of my enlarged income to the government directly or through rental payments to cover property taxes (plus any landlord's income/corporate tax), there's a huge deficit that will hurt me and my kids for the rest of our lives in higher taxes, inflation and less private capital available. Worse than that, a huge chunk of that money is going to prop up housing prices and thus keep me from increasing my disposable income by buying one. Meanwhile, the Fed is taking steps to inflate away my meager current savings, just as the collapse of equity markets means my expectation of future expenses grows to include family members who have or will be retired soon. Even now, what's my biggest expense: taxes. And what do I get from them? A steadily declining sense of prosperity as roads crumble, schools fail and our unsustainable energy, food and water infrastructure start to show cracks.
[/rant]

All this from me, a pretty reasonable guy. I get a very strong "third century Rome" feel from these discussions. The infrastructure required to maintain the core of the empire has become more of a burden than the people (me included) are willing or able to bear. I have a lot of hope that the burden can be lessened by a steady reduction in consumption, and a slow but steady decentralization of things like energy and food production. But I'm still going to miss the chance to work on the really cool stuff.

Politicians who can address the feeling that we're living in a collapsing house of cards ought to do well in 2010.

Pineapple Strawberry Pie

It couldn't please me more than to bring you this recipe (in High Level Cooking Language):

Ingredients:
group 1:
2Cups pineapple
2C strawberries, hulled and halved
1/2 C sugar
2 after-dinner mints, crushed
1T lemon juice

group 2:
2T cornstarch
2T sugar
maybe some nutmeg


other stuff:
Crumb topping (pick any from this site)
Whole wheat crust

Proceedure:

preheat oven to 400
combine group 1 in a bowl
roll out the crust and place in a deep dish pie pan
mix group 2 in a small bowl and add to the fruit mixture
place in the pan, smooth
place pan in oven for 30min
add crumb topping
bake another 30min
let cool overnight

Enjoy!

Of bread and recipes

I take cooking seriously. I was raised to believe that all should be welcome at my table, nursed on stories of rivals meeting at the chuck wagons in the old west, the story of the unending milk jug, the numerous stories of angels and deities testing the ancients by visiting the huts, tents and manors to see if the occupants were willing to give their best for strangers. It is an act of love, and I try to always treat it with the respect it deserves.

This is doubly true of bread. The staff of life has been around as long as civilization. To bake it is to step into that stream of history. It is also the only food that lives in our kitchen and dies in our oven to feed us and our guests. The kindest thing ever said to me came from a friend who waved a piece of wheat bread I'd baked at us and said, "This is you." I was touched. I still am.

So, when two friends of mine sent me a loaf of Cozonac at Christmas, I had to ask for the recipe. The idea of cross-country bread breaking is too rich a symbol to pass. What they sent, however, was more of a lesson than I anticipated.

The recipes on this blog follow a style common in American texts on cooking (at least that's as far as I've read). Recipes are precise, to be parsed, lexed and assembled by the user, who is admonished in the introduction to follow the recipe exactly, at least the first time. I consider a recipe on this blog successful if it is so clear and easy to follow that you do not need to contact me to make something exactly as delicious as I did. Food, according to this method, is at its best as exact reproduction. Each recipe is discreet, a self contained particle of information that need not interact with the world, a concept with a finite basis of support.

My friends opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about the transformation of dead grains, sterile eggs and milk that will not nourish a young creature. By first inspiring me to make Philo-crusted Pear Apple Pie, they started the hunger that lead me to this recipe. Try to parse it. The ingredients list doesn't map perfectly to the instructions, which themselves are not easy to follow. I had thought this was a translation error. The grammar of the piece wasn't very good, and clearly reflected that English is the author's second language. I appreciated the knowledge that was conveyed, albeit imperfectly, and posted my own version in High Level Cooking Language (HLCL).

But I was wrong. The cozonac recipe they sent had the same structure. The grammar was perfect and both of them, especially Magda, are fabulous writers (if they give me permission I'll post the recipe here). The ingredients did not map perfectly to the directions. The directions could not be parsed into distinct steps "from wheat to eat." I could not bake that bread without engaging creatively with the recipe. Had I not been making it close to midnight on Good Friday (Gegorian calender), I would have engaged with them by calling and asking what the "missing" steps were, and the conversation would certainly have flowed beyond that. Better still would have been to be in the kitchen learning directly, and thus be able to hold their baby, seen their Church, entered their world. Cooking is not compiling. The recipe is not "perfect" because it is not meant to be a distinct particle of information, available for exact reproduction. It should connect people, be an analog process with infinite support, a wave (maybe a cosine wave since the loaf kind of collapsed in the middle).

Happy Easter!

Pie-friendlier climate legislation

On the plus side, we now have a serious climate bill in Congress. On the downside, it suffers from the problem that the EU, and indeed all governments have when dealing with a social problem: laws do not work. Making any desired activity illegal generates a black market, encourages corruption and inevitably results in selective enforcement that targets the politically weak. When you add to the mix a problem as complicated as climate change, setting emissions targets, temperature targets or even sea level targets is foolhardy. We have fairly good estimates for what amounts of carbon dioxide will cause different levels of calamity, but we don't have a good system of forcing anyone to stay within their limits.

Actually, we do, but we'd like to avoid FDR-style stimulus if possible. Cap and trade promises to be as much of a boondoggle as the CAFE standards. Essentially, they were an attempt to drive production of fuel efficient vehicles without bothering to stimulate demand for them. Cap and trade without very strong enforcement and carbon costs that track inflation will have the same effect.

How about an alternative: a carbon tax. Sure, don't call it that, but a slowly phased-in tax that guarantees certain sources of energy will lose economic value over time will drive efficiency and alternative source investments. So, as a start, I'm a big fan of the "Gush-Up" idea funded by a slowly increasing gasoline tax at the slow but steady rate of $.05/yr. Here's how it could work:

Assume gasoline sales will be at least 90% what they were last year. That allows $5.9billion to be spent on the program this year. Lop off another 5% for program administration, and you have $5.6billion for a "bottom up" car company stimulus this year.

The $5.6billion would then go to boost the trade in value of old, heavy cars. I recommend a formula along these lines:
Boost = (Gross Vehicle Weight)*(Age-10)

As the program gets advertising (part of the administration budget), there will hopefully be a surge of people coming in to buy cars. While the tax is regressive, it will have a much larger benefit for poor communities that have been keeping old, polluting cars around because they could not afford to replace them. It should also ease the strain on infrastructure as lighter vehicles replace heavier ones. The fact that it would not provide enough funds for everyone to trade in their vehicles right away would help smooth demand from year to year.

Thus, with gas prices going up steadily, the owners of old gas guzzlers will have an incentive to go buy an updated vehicle. To the extent they can get credit or cover the remaining cost of a new car, it benefits the auto manufactures directly. Otherwise, it raises the price of newer trade ins, allowing people who want to trade in their older Honda Accord on a new Chevy Malibu to do so more easily. Given the heavy US government investment in GM and Chrysler, it makes sense to arrange the "pilot" program to favor their dealerships.

Making Aid Work, in a Pie Friendly Way

The second in the series of summaries and commentaries on the essays in Reinventing Foreign Aid


The problem with aid, according to Easterly and seconded by Banerjee and He, is that the planners, funders and managers of aid programs are not accountable to the recipients. This leads to the classic problem of socialism, persistent misalocation of resources. Addressing this in a way that does not involve simply giving money to poor people requires a mechanism to create transparent accountability.

Banerjee and He propose treating aid interventions as medications, and subject them to randomized trials. Historically, this data-driven approach has encountered 4 major objections:

(1) Research is an expense that reduces the efficiency of aid giving

(2) Conducting these studies is very slow and so hinders the roll-out of new aid programs.

(3) There are so few projects for which there are randomized clinical trials we would not be able spend the current aid budget on them. This could result in smaller aid budgets, since funds would move to other priorities.

(4) Adopting this will limit projects to ones that have easily measured objectives.

Banerjee and He have clear responses to the first three, and I think we start seeing role of PMCIN in #4.

Response to #1:
If efficiency in terms of (money to recipients)/(money donated) is the primary goal, then we should give people money directly. The World Bank spent an average of $1.4billion per year administering the $21.6billion in loans it made between 1994 and 2001. This does not include the cost of administering large projects within the recipient country, both legitimate and due to corruption.



Response to #2: Milton Friedman makes a blistering critique of the Food and Drug Administration's approach of "no sales until proven safe" for new drugs for this same reason, preferring instead an to put risk decisions in the hands of affected individuals. Waiting for long and complex trials of life-saving drugs to approve their use for terminally ill patients leads to more deaths if the drugs work as expected, and if not the terminally ill would not be all that adversely affected. Development aid, however, is different, since the "patient" is not an individual who is choosing between bad and worse, but a community with little power over the type of aid offered. Therefore, spending two or three years testing pilot aid programs rigorously is a small "loss" compared to the years wasted on improper programs that are rolled out quickly.

World Bank and Asia Development Bank are the only large aid organizations that publish data on the performance of their programs. In general, the share of a project funding by the World Bank increases slightly if its performance, as measured by the WB, improves. On the other hand, programs that were initially having doing well were generally less well funded by the WB. The ADB's funding model seems to reward failure, as higher funding generally indicates poor initial and changing outcomes. In other words, the larger the portion of the project's pie from one of these agencies, the smaller that pie is likely to be. Of course, the measure of pie size itself depends on the banks.

Response to #3: It's hard to imagine a statement that better expresses the perversity of the incentives in the aid community. It happens because the easiest measure of work done is money spent. How well or efficiently that money is spent gets into a separate and longish debate over the meaning of those terms, which is what we are discussing now.

In terms of aid today, very few projects have a rigorous study of their effectiveness, leading to an impression that few programs can handle rigorous study. While the slice of the aid pie devoted to clinically tested programs is pretty small, if these programs were scaled up worldwide they could consume most of the existing aid budget. The remainder, according to Banerjee and He, could be used to provide direct food subsidies, a suboptimal but occasionally necessary approach. I would argue instead for development of non-governmental relief capacity, since disasters cannot be budgeted in advance and capacity requires maintenance, for both equipment and recurrent training of personnel.

Response to #4: The authors do not suggest a concrete solution to the objection that imposing an ethos of rigorous testing on aid programs will lead to a "teach to the test" mentality in the aid community. The comparable debate in education, however, is instructive. The paradigm must change from one in which descions are made based on human intuition to one in which an impersonal process determines who is "right."

A more positive statement of this approach is that it moves the debate about aid away from "which programs do we like most?" to "what outcomes do we want to seek?" Different organizations will probably adopt different standards to judge their effectiveness, and it will be up to donors to decide what level of objectivity and risk they want to fund. This is a far better situation than the conditions laid out in the US's Millenium Challenge Account, which requires governance and market reforms in the recipient country that are beyond the means of the poorest nations on Earth.

Simply knowing that an evaluation is coming tends to improve performance, c.f. kids who brush their teeth extra hard before a trip to the dentist. Supporting this new paradigm is going to require a widely accepted, unambiguous measure of prosperity that is relevant around the world. Further, the application of this test should be funded entirely separately from the aid program, preferably by an organization with no more overhead than a rolling pin and a deep dish pie plate. I think I'm gong to start a travel blog.