Political Gene Expression

Yes, Virginia, Big Government is stupid

A story circulating (I’ll place a caveat on whether it is true or not, there have been many false rumors that have come out of this whole Katrina mess) about 400,000 MRE shipped in from England to feed the NO victims are set to be destroyed by the FDA. The reason? Here:

It is perfectly good Nato approved food of the type British servicemen have. Yet the FDA are saying that because there is a meat content and it has come from Britain it must be destroyed.

But that is not the only indignity:

Food from Spain and Italy is also being held because it fails to meet US standards and has been judged unfit for human consumption.

And Israeli relief agencies are furious that thousands of gallons of pear juice are to be destroyed because it has been judged unfit.

Yes, big government is stupid.

Gloria Steinem - Living in a Parallel Universe

In a newspaper editorial for the Guardian on September 13, 2005 Gloria Steinem writes:

It's hard to travel or send words out of the US now. How can any American expect to be welcomed in the rest of the world when we have imposed the narcissistic and disastrous George Bush on it?

What is she talking about? On Tuesday, either the US became a police state overnight and clamped down on the communication and travel infrastructure or the infrastructure was damaged in some fashion that prevented the proper functioning of communication and transportation, perhaps by Katrina and Ophelia.

Now to the best of my knowledge neither of these conditions is true, so the probability that Gloria is living in a world of her own construction or some parellel universe reaches near certainty.

Ethnic segregation in the UK

Today's Sunday Times has a major article here about the alleged trend towards self-segregation of ethnic groups in the UK, though as the article points out, it is a bit more complicated than that. The article features the views of Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, who is expected to make a speech later this week urging reversal of the trend. Sorry, Trev, but it's easier said than done.

Lessons Learned?

So, our Dear Leader made an important announcement last night:

"Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort."

Many of us have doubts about whether our President can process prior information which led to disasterous outcomes, such as putting a horse show judge in charge of a critical Federal agency.

The lesson that we all would take from such a blatant display of cronyism is that qualified people need to be in charge of critical functions. Has the President learned the same lesson?

Let's see - what is Karl Rove's background that makes him qualified to lead a rebuilding effort? All I see is a political operative extraodinaire. Granted he's better qualified in cronyism that Michael Brown, but I see nothing to indicate expertise in administration, engineering, disaster reconstruction, or anything at all that pertains to rebuilding a city.

So, has the President not learned the lesson about putting unqualified people in critical positions? Perhaps, or it just might be that Rove really is qualified for the task before him and it's the public that hasn't yet learned that the mission isn't rebuilding New Orleans, rather it's strengthening the cronyism network tied to the Republican Party. Really, how plausible is it that a man can repeatedly fail to learn lessons that we all see as elementary. No, the game is deeper - too many of us are simply too innocent, or willfully blind, to even see the lessons that are learned and acted upon.

Dependency Ratios: Don't Panic!

Population forecasts have a poor track record. For much of the 20th century demographers were predicting doom: either population would explode, or it would collapse; either there would be too many young people, or not enough; too much work to do, or not enough to go round.

None of these scenarios materialised. The population forecasts usually proved wrong; and even when they were right, market economies were flexible enough to adjust to demographic circumstances.

Currently the great scare is about the ageing population. The poor struggling taxpayers will be crushed under the burden of old people, as life expectancy increases, and not enough children are being born to maintain the workforce. In more technical language, the concern is that dependency ratios will rise to unacceptable levels.

I commented on all this a year or two ago, and on re-reading my old post I find little to alter. But some recent discussion on another website has prompted me to do a bit more delving into the statistics. [See note 1 for some useful online sources.]

First, the meaning of dependency ratios. As usually defined, the dependency ratio (DR) is the ratio between the non-working-age population and the working-age population itself (conventionally taken as aged 15-64 inclusive), usually expressed as a percentage. For example, if 10% of the total population is aged 0-14, and 20% is aged 65 and above, then the working age population is 70%, and the DR is [(10+20)/70] x 100 = approx. 43%. In principle, the DR can exceed 100%, though this is rare.

Here are some DR figures from various sources. The figures after 2005 are projections, and therefore not to be entirely trusted, though figures for 2025 are unlikely to be badly wrong:

...............2005 2025 2050
USA......... 51.... 62
UK............52.....59......70
Japan...... 47..... 67..... 87
Germany.. 49...60.....77
France..... 54....64..... 76
World ave. 58...53
SSAfrica.....89...72
LatAmer....59...49

A few points stand out from this table:

a. The major developed countries at present have similar DR’s, slightly above or
below 50%.

b. Contrary to common assumptions, DR’s in Japan and Germany are currently lower than in other developed countries.

c. DR’s in less developed countries are relatively high, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

d. DR’s in developed countries are expected to rise over the next 50 years, while DR’s in less developed countries are expected to fall.

The DR reflects previous population history as well as current birth and death rates. A ‘bulge’ of births like the post-war Baby Boom has very long-term effects. Initially the DR is high because there are a lot of dependent children. When the birth rate falls, the DR also falls. But if the low birth rate continues, and life expectancy is high, the DR will eventually rise again as the ‘bulge’ cohorts reach retirement, before falling again as they die off. There are also ‘echo’ effects when the bulge generation itself has children, and so on. In developed countries the post-war Baby Boom generation is now reaching retirement age, so DR’s are rising. The increase in the DR is expected to be especially sharp in Japan, as a high birth rate in the 1960s was followed by a sharp downturn in the 70s. As I pointed out in my previous post, Japan (and to a lesser extent Germany) are facing a triple whammy: low birth rates, high life expectancy, and a large ‘bulge’ working its way through.

But how serious is all this? What level of DR is ‘acceptable’?

Consider a very simplified population model. Suppose each woman has 2 children; infant mortality is zero; and everyone lives to the same fixed age and then dies. Suppose also that the same pattern has always existed and there is no immigration or emigration. The population will therefore be distributed evenly over all age groups up to the fixed age of death, and the DR will be determined by this age. For example, if the fixed death age is 65, the DR will be 15/50 = 30%, if it is 70 the DR will be (15+5)/50 = 40%, if it is 80 the DR will be (15+15)/50 = 60%, and if it is 90 the DR will be (15+25)/50 = 80%.

Although this is a very simplified model, it gives an approximation to what we might expect in developed countries. We expect a reasonably stable population, we want low infant mortality, and we want to live to a ripe old age. In the developed world infant mortality is already very low, and life expectancy at birth is between 70 and 80. Most deaths occur in old age. From the simple model we might therefore expect current DR’s to be between 40% and 60%. If average life expectancy rises to 90, which is probably around its natural limit, the DR would be approaching 80%. [Note 2]

DR’s in less developed countries are generally higher. In traditional agricultural societies infant mortality is high, but women have many children. There are relatively few old people, but at any one time there are likely to be about as many children as adults alive, so DR’s are about 100%. This pattern is still often seen in sub-Saharan Africa.

An intermediate pattern can be seen in early-modern England. Between 1540 and 1850 the DR never fell below 60%, and in the early 19th century rose to about 80%. [Note 2] By 1901 it had fallen to 60%. It declined to a low point of 43% in the 1930s, but rose again to 59% in the 1950s, with the Baby Boom, and has been falling since then, to its present level of 52%. [Note 3]. I don’t have long-term figures for other countries, but in all the major developed countries the DR has fallen since the 1960s. Dependency Ratios in developed countries are now at historically low levels.

The prevailing DR of around 50% is the result of unique historical circumstances, and we should not necessarily expect it to be sustained. In particular, attempting to maintain it by encouraging high immigration would be short-sighted. As immigrants are usually young adults, the immediate effect would be to reduce the DR, but it would soon increase again as the immigrants had children (especially as they tend to have high birth rates). Eventually the immigrants would themselves grow old, and DR’s would be back roughly where they started, but at a higher level of population. In densely populated countries like Japan, the UK, and the Netherlands this would cause serious problems. Even at present rates of immigration and population growth in the UK, the countryside is rapidly disappearing under concrete.

Of course, the DR is based simply on the numbers of people in given age groups, and does not tell us how many people are actually working. The following table, based on ILO figures, shows selected economic activity rates. The EAR shows the proportion of people who are ‘economically active’, which means working or seeking work in the labour market. It therefore excludes those who are in full time education, retired, disabled, housewives not in the labour market, etc. The ILO figures show the proportion of economically active people among all people aged 15 and above, including the elderly. (EARs relative to the entire population, including under-15s, would be lower.)

...................1950 1970 2000
USA............ 43..... 43.... 51
UK.............. 46..... 46.... 50
Japan......... 44...... 51....54
Germany... 48...... 46....50
France........ 46..... 43... 45

It will be seen that these EARs are all within a fairly narrow range. Except in France they have slightly increased between 1950 and 2000. Since the proportion of children (not counted in these figures) has also fallen, the number of ‘dependants’ supported by each ‘worker’ has in fact fallen substantially. Yet over this period the average length of full time education has increased, average retirement ages have fallen, and life expectancy has increased, all of which might be expected to reduce the EAR. So what is going on? Part of the answer may be that the post-war baby boom is distorting the EAR as well as the DR. But the other obvious factor is that the proportion of women who are economically active has increased, for example from 24% to 48% in the case of the US. A lower birth rate means that more women can work.

I have not seen any projections for EARs beyond 2010. What is clear is that there is still scope for EARs to increase. Elderly (but healthy) people are capable of doing some paid work. Even a reversal of the trend towards early (pre-65) retirement would make a significant difference to EARs. For example, in Germany at present less than 30% of men and 10% of women between 60 and 65 are still working. I believe it will be possible without major disruption to maintain EARs at around 50% throughout the period to 2050, [note 5] after which the problem of the elderly ‘bulge’ will begin to ease. So there is no need for panic.

Of course, part of the concern about the ‘ageing population’ is not just about the number of old people, but the cost of supporting them. It seems to be assumed that old people, on average, are a great burden on the taxpayer, and far more expensive than children.

The question of economic transfers between generations raises conceptual, ethical, and statistical problems. I may devote another post to these, but here I will say only that the cost of supporting old people is often overstated. It is not legitimate to assume that the cost of public pensions falls on current taxpayers. This is only justified to the extent that pensions have not been adequately funded by the contributions of the pensioners during their working life, whether explicitly though pension schemes or through equivalent general taxation. So far as the costs of health and social services to old people are concerned, I have been looking at the figures for the UK, and I find that the average cost per head of old people is considerably less than the cost of public expenditure on children and young people. Fifteen years or so of education does not come cheap. But this is a big subject and I may return to it.

Note 1: For European figures see here source

For Japan see here: source.
For the USA and global comparisons see here:
source
For ILO data on EARs see here: source

Note 2: As mortality in old age is bound to be skewed, the median age at death will be somewhat below the mean, so the DR will not quite reach the level implied by mean life expectancy.

Note 3: Based on E. Wrigley and R, Schofield: The Population History of England, 1541-1871, p.443-5. Wrigley and Schofield use a threshold of 60 rather than 65 for old age, so I have deducted 5% from their estimated DR’s for comparability with other figures.

Note 4: Based on D. Coleman and J. Salt, The British Population, p.545.

Note 5: for example, in Japan the projected 2050 DR of 87% corresponds to a population of about 57m aged 15-64, 36m aged 65+, and 14m aged 0-14. With these proportions it would require about 80% of the working age population to be economically active to produce an EAR of 50% (on the ILO basis). This could be achieved for example by an activity rate among the working-age population of 90% for males and 70% for females, which does not seem unfeasibly high. It would allow both men and women to spend on average 5 years in post-15 education, and women to spend a further 10 years in childcare.

Housing the Refugees

The sense of immediate emergency following the Katrina catastrophe has now subsided a bit and an issue rising to the top of the priority list is where should the refugees go so that they can get on with their lives. I've read two recent posts on this issue. From the Right, comes Rod Dreher's suggestion:

I got to thinking, though, that some smart people ought to look into a government program to resettle willing New Orleanians in the small Plains towns that have been emptying out for more than a generation. It might not be feasible -- after all, what would these folks do for a living? -- but on the other hand, it just might work. Anywhere you have a critical mass of folks, you are going to have a local economy. Hundreds of thousands of people have nowhere to go and nothing to lose. The government is going to have to do something for them anyway -- why not offer to stake willing pioneers with money to buy or renovate a house, and start a small business in one of these dying rural towns?

And from the Left, (well really from Marginal Revolution) comes Kevin Drum's post:

The United States government already operates a program that would enable low-income families to pay the rent for these units. The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program currently serves about two million families throughout the country. It enables participants to occupy privately owned units renting for up to, and somewhat above, the local median rent.

News for Rod, those dying rural towns are dying for a reason - the lack of opportunity. Shipping thousands of urban poor to rural towns and expecting them to buy local businesses and revitalize the town with their urban sophistication and Joie de vivre is a plan completely divorced from reality.

As for the MR/Drum suggestion, there is already a reluctance amongst landlords to accept Section 8 tenants because of the problems they typically cause. Now what's happened in many people's perceptions of the tragedy is an association of all refugees with the horror stories that focused on the Superdome refugees and the transformation of New Orleans into a war zone. However, 80% of the city evacuated without incident and those people have also lost their homes. These refugees are already being associated with the criminal perception as this account makes clear:

I personally overheard employees there stating that they wish they could choose who from New Orleans would be allowed to stay in Baton Rouge. They went on at length about all the "criminals" from New Orleans and that they were happy when they heard some of those in the Astrodome stating they would be staying in Houston.

Let's face it - this is going to be a tangible issue for local communities. A horrible disaster doesn't wipe away the horrible criminals who were a part of the New Orleans community - the nature of these criminals isn't transformed by moving to a new location. Of course there is Razib's point:

my point is that there are higher order effects when you concentrate individuals of type x in a small spatial region. For example, if you have have 9 crack addicts, and 90 non-crack addicts, a situation where you distribute the crack addicts among evenly among 3 groups of 30 (so 30 non-addicts and 3 addicts per group) is I think preferable to throwing the 9 into one group of 30 and leaving the other 2 groups crack-addictless. The synergistic effects of greater numbers of socio and psychopaths is a definite cost.

about dispersal which certainly mitigates against a negative cultural norms developing within a concentrated population of criminals but really, there is little to gain for communities that accept refugees, other than feeding their sense of compassion to those in need, and as more stories like this start to hit the public consciousness:

A Hurricane Katrina evacuee staying with a Plano family was arrested Tuesday and accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, police said. . . .

"As heart-wrenching as these evacuees are, and as wonderful as it is to see the outpouring of support, when we invite anybody in our home, we have no idea what their background is," Ms. Donovan said. "As parents, if we open up our home, we need to put up conditions and boundaries. We need to not leave our children alone."

the issue of refugee settlement may likely become a NIMBY issue. Sure, the compassion for these refugees will still exist, but that will be counterbalanced by the baggage many of the refugees bring with them, some have criminal tendancies, others are drug addicts or drug addled, while still others have some form of social dysfunction. What's been fixed in the public mind is the graphic dysfunction we witnessed in New Orleans post-Katrina and the 80% who evacuated are now unable to disassociate themselves with that perception.

I think that both of these plans have as much likelihood of success as having "Compassionate Conservatives" (ie Tom DeLay winning his district by only 38,000 votes) inviting the refugees to settle in their swing congressional districts or of liberals inviting the refugees into their communities, (ie Georgetown residents voting against building a subway stop in their enclave thereby making it more difficult for all of D.C.'s residents to have easy access to the neighborhoods.) I can just imagine liberal pundits going to work at their newspapers and having to be surrounded by new communities of refugees.

The plan with the largest chance of success is for the Feds to buy out the New Orleans property owners for fair marktet value fairly quickly. Those who were smart enough to be insured will be financially restored to pre-Katerina asset levels, and those without insurance will still be compensated to a degree and have to live with the consequences of their insurance decisions. There is no "do over" on this insurance question. On top of the asset payouts I'm sure there will be disaster payouts for all, renters, students, etc, to cover immediate living expenses, like the $2,000 debit cards announced a few days ago. Now, while the balance sheet of the refugees is restored their income statements are in tatters. The absorptive capacity of only a few local cities is not sufficient to provide employment, education, daycare, health care etc for the majority of refugees. Dispersal is the key to getting people on their feet again as quickly as possible. Give the refugees the financial means to restart their lives and let them come to accept that there is no going back. Rather than labeling the refugees and slotting them into special programs give them the means to blend in with their neighbors and to move to which ever cities they prefer.

Finally, the Federal Government should keep title to all of the property it buys in New Orleans and refrain from putting it back on the market after the debris is bulldozed away. Consolidate the property into a park, or better yet, a protected marine environment.

Related: The Economist and Reuters.

If you rebuild it, they will come???

I knew this shit about New Orelans' population not recovering was going to be popping out of the pipline. The fact is, a half a million people should not be living at the mouth of a delta regularly on the path of hurricanes! The French Quarter can stay, it's above sea level, but the rest shouldn't be propped up for the sake of bureaucrats who have an interest in the perpetuation of particular urban conurbations. Cities aren't alive, people are. The fact is that scattering New Orleans' population is probably good for the people who used to live in that city. First, the culture of the town was nasty, the corruption and murder rates tell the tale. Second, hurricanes aren't going to go away, no matter how sturdily you rebuild. People need to move past this mystical Living Cities mentality, cities come alive from the bottom up, not by executive fiat (as the hundreds of urban renewal projects often find out). The same reality applies to the hollowing out of the heartland, we aren't a nation of family farms anymore. Deal with it.

Addendum: Let me make something clear, I think gene-environment correlation and gene-environment interaction are crucial. I think that New Orleans has problems with social capital (due to a variety of factors) on an individual level, but I also believe that the concentration of these individuals in one place creates an environment that exacerbates the baseline traits. Scattering the poorer residents of the city across the country will at least mitigate some of this. It might result in social headaches in other parts of the country, but since the environmental milieu will not be as favorable to the expression of social pathologies the cost vs. benefit is a no brainer. And from what I can see the impact on most places throughout the country excluding Houston and Baton Rouge will be mild enough that we can neglect it.

Addendum II: People who complain about racial segregation (residential) should also oppose the re-population of New Orelans. The city was 70% black. At least temporarily the scattering will result in more integration in this country.

Related: Jack Shafer agrees. A guy on "Talk of the Nation" on NPR is prattling about the loss of "richness and diversity" if people don't come back. We're going to hear a lot of that in the next few weeks...I don't know if common sense will overwhelm this pap.

Update: OK, the guy who loves richness and diversity edited a book titled Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, Gender and the Sociology of Disasters. One caller stated that rebuilding NOLA is "moronic." Hallelujah brother!

Update II: My reference to gene-environment correlation or interaction shouldn't be meant to imply that I think gene-non-gene dynamics are all that is at work, my point is that there are higher order effects when you concentrate individuals of type x in a small spatial region. For example, if you have have 9 crack addicts, and 90 non-crack addicts, a situation where you distribute the crack addicts among evenly among 3 groups of 30 (so 30 non-addicts and 3 addicts per group) is I think preferable to throwing the 9 into one group of 30 and leaving the other 2 groups crack-addictless. The synergistic effects of greater numbers of socio and psychopaths is a definite cost.

Update III: David agrees. Keep spreading the meme!

Update IV: Steve weighs in. Randall from last week.

Catholics are Christian too you know

The Houston Chronicle has an Astrodome evacuee weblog. Check this out:

Houston-area clergy representing Catholic, Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths gave mini-sermons today for evacuees in the Houston Astrodome and surrounding shelters, which housed 25,000 people....

Aren't Catholics Christian? Obviously she meant Protestant, but this is an issue I've noted among evangelicals and southerners. It's like contrasting Hindu mythology vs. Christian beliefs. I am stickler for this sort of point because if we lose control of what "Christian" is we'll never be able to really address religious pluralism in this nation in an informed manner because people will just talk past each other. On a basic level this is just sloppiness, people who make this mistake know that Catholics are Christian, but they come from backgrounds where Protestants are the real Christians (I said background because I've talked to atheists of evangelical origin who slip up and make this error).

Since When? - Dogs Before People!

I can sympathize with animal rights advocates who campaign for the well-being of animals, but when I see a chartered bus transporting dogs out of New Orleans while there are still hungry, ill and suffering people in the Superdome I think that concern for the welfare of animals is misplaced.

On Septermber 1, this bus is transporting dogs out of New Orleans.

Meanwhile, on September 3, we learn:

The last 300 refugees at the Superdome were evacuated Saturday evening, eliciting cheers from members of the Texas National Guard who had been standing watch over the facility for nearly a week as some 20,000 hurricane survivors waited for rescue.

For people to have to endure longer periods of suffering in the hellish environment of the Superdome in order to bring dogs to a more comfortable environment is unconscionable.

Thanks to Randall Parker for the tip.