The Future of the Single Family Home

The future of the single family is home is looking bright.  Futurist Joel Kotkin explains how the Smart Growth crowd is getting is wrong.

A Big Thanks to Katherine Kersten

Katherine Kersten, occasional Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist, was our guest speaker this evening at the monthly meeting of SD49 Republicans (SW Metro).  She discussed her study for the Center of the American Experiment on the state's educational achievement gap.  Sobering stuff.

Doomed to Fail: the Public Urban Food Forest

Where to start with this one.  I assumed it must be a joke.  But no, the City of Seattle municipal government is literally trying to recreate the Garden of Eden on 7 acres of bare ground in the City.  Billing the project as the nation's largest public food forest, the City is spending $100,000 to plant trees...for food...for the public.

How will it end?  I have my money on the future homeless encampment burning the trees for firewood before they can mature enough to bear fruit.

Daniel Hannan on Post-Modern Lawmaking

Great video from Daniel Hannan, another one of his 1 minute speeches before the European Parliament.  This time, he calls attention to the EU trying to create jobs by decree, while destroying jobs through its every action.

Follow the Money: Politics and Environmentalism Part 3, Tides Edition

Building on the first two parts of this sequence ([1] and [2]), I take a look at the relationships between the Tides Foundation, Minnesota environmentalists, and state Democrats.  (In Minnesota, the Democrats belong the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL).)

The San Francisco-based Tides Foundation and the associated Tides Center work to promote progressive causes, including issues such as "environmental sustainability."  Examining the Foundation's IRS 990 forms for the years 2008 through 2010 reveals some interesting Minnesota connections.

In 2008, an election year, the Tides donated to, among others, three Minnesota groups including the Democratic party-related political groups Alliance for a Better Minnesota (Education Fund) and WIN Minnesota, along with the environmental group Conservation Minnesota.

As Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) documented in a compelling graphic, $ millions flowed from WIN Minnesota to the Alliance for a Better Minnesota in the last election cycle to influence the governor's race.  Among the Directors of WIN Minnesota  is Alida Messinger, a Rockefeller heiress and ex-wife of current DFL Governor Mark Dayton (the 2010 winner).  As MPR also documents, Ms. Messinger is one of the state's largest DFL political donors.

At the time of Tides' 2008 donation to Conservation Minnesota, one of its directors was Bill Grant, who now serves in the Dayton Administration as Director of the Division of Energy Resources.

In 2009, a non-election year, Tides made another donation to WIN Minnesota, along with donations to the Minnesota environmental groups Fresh Energy and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) for the Tides' Tar Sands Campaign.

At the time of the 2009 donation, the MCEA was headed by Interim Executive Director Paul Aasen.  Mr. Aasen now serves in Gov. Dayton's cabinet, as Commissioner of the Pollution Control Agency.  Then and now, Fresh Energy was headed by Michael Noble.

In 2010, another election year, the Tides made another donation to MCEA for the Tar Sands program and more donations to the Alliance for a Better Minnesota Education Fund and WIN Minnesota.

Today, Alida Messinger and Michael Noble serve together on the board of Conservation Minnesota's Voter Fund political arm.

The donations I've discussed total a mere $335,000 over those three years, a drop in the bucket to the $48 million Tom Steward documents in his Follow the Money series.  But these donations do reveal some interesting interconnections (the Iron Triangle) between a leading national progressive foundation, and local DFL party and environmental non-profits.

Expect more "connect-the-dots" work in this space.

Magna Carta on Display

The Minneapolis Star Tribune carries a wire report in the Sunday Travel section on the Magna Carta.  A 1297 version of the document is on display at the National Archives in Washington, DC.  If you are going to visit the imperial capital this summer, add a stop to your itinerary.

Tom Steward is Following the Money on Rochester TV

The Freedom Foundation's Tom Steward is featured in this Rochester TV news (KTTC-NBC) piece following up on Tom's three-part report covering the influence of out-of-state foundation money on Minnesota energy an environmental policy.

The Emperor of Vanished Kingdoms

The Wall Street Journal weekend edition has a great interview with British historian and author Norman Davies on the fate of nations.

What is Going Right for the Midwest

Two recent pieces worth reading tout the success/prospects for our Midwestern and Great Plains region.  Over at New Geography Joel Kotkin and the Sagamore Institute look at the prospects and history of the Great Lakes region.
At City Journal (California edition) Brian Calle asks "What Does North Dakota Know That California Doesn't?"  The real boom is in traditional energy, not "green jobs".

Follow the Money: Politics and Environmentalism, Part 2

Drilling deeper into my post yesterday about the seams between the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party and the state's environmental non-profits, this post will go in depth on the activities of the Conservation Minnesota Voter Center/Voter Fund, the political action arm of the environmental group Conservation Minnesota.

According to data available at Minnesota's Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board's website, the Conservation Minnesota Voter Fund raised over $120,000 in 2010 and spent over $166,000 on election activities (including in-kind contributions and unpaid bills).

Of the money raised, the largest single contribution ($50,000) was from Rockefeller-heiress Alida Rockefeller Messinger, the first wife of Minnesota's DFL Governor Mark Dayton.  The next largest contribution came from the national League of Conservation Voters at $35,000.  Taking the bronze medal was the Governor's aunt, Mary Lee Dayton, at $25,000.  Board members Darby Nelson (former DFL state representative), Nancy Gibson (controversial Co-Chair of the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota  Resources) and Lucy Rogers (founder and board member of the Federal PAC Wait a Minute), all made contributions.

In 2010, the Wait a Minute Project raised less than $4,000 from individuals, with Alida Messinger contributing $2,000.  It supported DFL candidate Maureen Reed in her unsuccessful bid for the 6th District Congressional seat nomination.  In 2008 the Project supported DFL candidate Elwyn Tinklenberg in his unsuccessful bid for that same seat, which was won both times by Michelle Bachmann. 

The Conservation Minnesota Voter Center/Fund's board also includes, among others, Alida Messinger (as Vice President), Michael Noble (Executive Director of the Minnesota non-profit Fresh Energy), Gene Merriam (former DFL state senator), Frank Moe (former DFL state representative), and Judy Johnson (former Plymouth mayor and Republican candidate for state senate).

In 2010, the fund endorsed a total of 33 candidates for state legislature, including 8 Republicans.  If the idea was to gain credibility and get credit as a bipartisan operation, well, words are nice but cash is King.

Of the $166,000 spent by the Voter Fund in 2010, over $77,000 went to reimburse the Voter Center for its efforts.  According to its 2010 IRS Form 990, the Voter Center, in turn, made a $50,000 grant to Conservation Minnesota.  This arrangement works out well for the environmental non-profit.  Money raised for political purposes is used to support staff and overhead at the parent non-profit, freeing up other funds to be used in the core mission.  Of course, taking political money may imply some support for party or causes not related to that core mission.

A total of $15,050 went to party units, with $14,000 of that amount going to Democrats.  More than $33,000 was spent on Google ads to defeat Republican Tom Emmer, Mark Dayton's opponent for Governor, despite the fact that the Fund did not endorse a candidate in that race.  Of the remainder, less than $5,000 went to support endorsed candidates, and all 11 were DFLers.  Not one penny, in cash or in kind, went to support endorsed Republicans. 

But then again, all 8 endorsed Republicans won, anyway

Follow the Money: Politics and Environmentalism, Part 1

Today's excellent feature on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) follows the money circulating through Democratic-Farmer-Labor-friendly independent political action groups in the state.

The MPR piece focus on two groups, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM) and WIN Minnesota.  Both supported the narrow victory of current Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Governor Mark Dayton, whose campaign committee is named "Mark Dayton for a Better Minnesota."  These groups are supported financially by members of the Dayton family, including the Governor's ex-wife, Alida Messinger of the Rockefeller family, and the Governor's aunt, Mary Lee Dayton.  MPR's graphic does a good job tracking the $ millions sloshing back and forth amongst these groups.

But casual observers of the Minnesota political scene will be confused by this sentence in the MPR piece,

"All major players in DFL politics, from unions to environmental groups to community organizers, either support ABM financially or are involved in key decisions on Democratic talking points, spending on campaigns and public policy priorities."

What, what, what?  Environmental groups?  I thought that they were just trying to save the planet!  Well it turns out that, while the planet remains unsaved, Minnesota environmental groups are deeply involved in state DFL politics.  A close examination of reports filed at the state's Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board shows just how much.

We pick up the story in 2008, with the formation of the "Vote Yes Minnesota" political action fund, which led the campaign to pass the "Clean Water Legacy" amendment, a constitutional amendment that raised sales taxes to fund environmental and arts projects.  Vote Yes was led by Ken Martin, now the Chair of the state's DFL party.  Vote Yes raised and spent $3.7 million in getting the amendment passed.  Among the contributors to the fund were Alida Rockefeller Messinger ($1,000,000) and Mary Lee Dayton ($250,000) along with other members of the Dayton family (the future governor donated $6,000).

Curiously, among the expenditures made by Vote Yes in 2008 was one for $1,500 to the Alliance for a Better Minnesota for "research/polling."

Jumping ahead to 2010, we find Ken Martin now as the head of the WIN Minnesota organization and its 2010 Fund political contribution arm.  WIN's biggest contributors included Mary Lee Dayton ($250,000) and Alida Messinger ($500,000).  In turn, WIN donates to ABM, Putting Minnesota First, and other political groups.  As I noted back in May, both ABM and WIN received money in the past from the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, as did Minnesota environmental non-profits Fresh Energy and Conservation Minnesota, among others.  In 2010, Tides also donated to the national Clean Water Action, the national Sierra Club, and the Rockefeller Family fund, where the son of Mark Dayton and Alida Messinger, Eric Dayton, sits on the board of trustees,

During the 2010 race, a number of environmental groups were active politically.  RE-AMP member Clean Water Action Alliance assisted a number of candidates, nearly all Democrats, through its Clean Water Action Voter Education Project and Clean Water Action Independent Fund.  Alida Messinger had donated $15,000 to the Project in 2008 and $35,000 in 2006.  In 2006, 2008 and 2010, the Project in turn donated funds to Putting Minnesota First, another political action group that supported DFL candidates.  The Sierra Club (RE-AMP member) also contributed to Putting Minnesota First in the two most recent election cycles.

Clean Water Action and the Sierra Club also belong to the state environmental coalition Minnesota Environmental Partnership (MEP).  Fellow MEP member Conservation Minnesota is another group with a political action arm, the Conservation Minnesota Voter Fund.  Two of its largest contributors, in both 2010 and 2011, were Alida Messinger and Mary Lee Dayton.  Conservation Minnesota Voter Fund's biggest vendor during the 2010 election was the Conservation Minnesota Voter Center, whose board members include Alida Messinger (Vice President) and Michael Noble, Executive Director of the RE-AMP and MEP member organization Fresh Energy.  For its part, the Conservation Minnesota Voter Center lets us know that, "When it is time for elections, the Conservation Minnesota Voter Fund provides information on candidates across the state."  The Voter Fund shares the same board of directors as the Voter Center.

The Fund endorses candidates for office, mostly Democrats, of course.  In 2008, the fund endorsed 21 Democrats, 4 Republicans, and 1 Independent.  In 2010, the Fund disbursed $15,050 to party units, $14,000 of which went to the DFL.  The remaining $1,050 went to Republicans, with $550 of that amount donated after the party swept the 2010 Legislative elections.  The Fund worked against the election of Mark Dayton's opponent in 2010, spending more than $33,000 on Google ads to defeat Republican Tom Emmer.

The Sierra Club's political activity in 2010 was a more modest affair, spending a little over $10,000 to support DFL candidates.  The group had been more active in 2008, raising and spending more than $25,000.

Putting Minnesota First offers a strange example of the confluence of the various parts of the DFL coalition.  In 2010, it spent only $57,000 on DFL candidates, but its contributors list makes for interesting reading, nonetheless.  As noted above, both the Sierra Club and Clean Water Action contributed, as did several unions and Planned Parenthood.

I hope you are not too dizzy after pinging around the world of DFL campaign finance.  Just keep this analysis in mind the next time you are tempted to donate to save the polar bears.

Minnesota Public Radio is Following the Money

Better late than never.  Two years after Minnesota's last election for Governor, Minnesota Public Radio is tracking the money that helped to defeat Republican candidate Tom Emmer in a recount-close race.  MPR focuses on two groups, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota and WIN Minnesota, that together spent $5.2 million in electing Mark Dayton as Governor.

Alert readers of this space will recall that back in May, we tracked some of the money to these groups from the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation.

MPR's main story does a good job naming names and establishing facts.  These groups are turning their attention this year to getting the DFL party back in power at the state legislature.  We need to ask ourselves whether we will allow out-of-state monied interests to determine who governs this state.

The Daily Caller is Following the Money

The Daily Caller is following the money on the U.S.-based foundation-led campaign against the Canadian Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.  A $7 million annual effort coordinated by the Rockefeller Brothers fund.  Complete with "smoking gun" PowerPoint presentation.  In a 48-page slide deck, guess what word doesn't appear:  "science."

What's Next for the American Dream?

Walter Russell Mead continues his a series of essays to see what is over the horizon for the American Dream as the "Blue Social Model" continues to collapse.

• Part 5
• Part 4
• Part 3
• Part 2
• Part 1

California: Heading to Greece by Way of Detroit

At least, that's what the editors of the Orange County Register think.  The editors cite these two related pieces, that are also worth checking out:

• Detroit: The Triumph of Progressive Public Policy (Mackinac Center)
• Power Blackout Shows California is Third World (Cal Watchdog)

A Glimpse of One Possible Future

Nothing is set in stone.  But peeking into the future, any number of outcomes to our current crisis are possible.  The New York Times' magazine surveys life in today's Greece and how the Greeks are coping (or not) with their version of the crisis.

Most Important Statistic of the Day

Lending support to the thesis in Charles Murray's new book Coming Apart (now at No. 13 in the New York Times' list of nonfiction bestsellers), the New York Times itself reports the shocking statistic that for women under age 30, most births occur out of wedlock.

Please explain, again, why this subject is taboo?

The Most Important Conversation in America: the Future of the American Dream

For my money, the most important conversation in America is one largely going on behind the scenes.  While the Republican presidential candidates pummel each other into un-electability, the National Debt races to $16.4 trillion, and mass unemployment has reached Depression-era longevity, a few brave people are trying to figure out "What Comes Next."

Let's start with Charles Murray's important book Coming Apart, (yes, I said it) which documents how the elite of America have physically separated themselves from the rest of America over the past 50 years, while pollster Scott Rasmussen has documented how the elite have more recently separated themselves philosophically.  Left-wing critics of Murray accuse him of "blaming the victim."  In reality, they are engaging in "shooting the messenger," as most of Murray's book consists of carefully documenting the very decline in the fortunes of the middle- and working-classes his liberal critics have been complaining about for decades.
 
If  the current version of the American Dream is slipping away for so many, what comes next?  New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offers some insights, as he both defends Murray's work and offers a helpful critique.  Douthat wrote last week,

"The crisis in working-class life Murray describes is arguably our most pressing domestic problem.  But we are not going to address it by gut-renovating our welfare state to fit a libertarian ideal, or by dramatically expanding the same state in pursuit of an unattainable social democratic dream.  What we can do instead is take modest steps, in areas where culture and economics intersect, to make it easier for working-class Americans to cultivate the virtues that foster resilience and self-sufficiency."

Douthat goes on to offer ideas on how to "make work pay," help families, fix immigration policies, and rethink crime and punishment policies.

For his part, Bard College professor Walter Russell Mead offers his own prescriptions for reviving the American Dream for the middle- and working-classes.  Included are ideas on the expansion of the personal service economy (think "mass luxury"), more and better-focused educational opportunities (more customized training to match existing job opportunities), more individual control over health care, and new worlds of self-employment.

The work of Murray and Mead has sparked an important debate about how we should be promoting economic growth and provides a needed contrast to the "Creative Class" ideas of Richard Florida, which dominate so much of the conventional wisdom of economic development and urban planning types and focuses exclusively on developing the new elite class.

I am looking forward to this debate playing out and I urge others to follow it.  What comes from this discussion will have more impact on American Life in the next 50 years than anything said by candidates in the 2012 election.

Glenn Reynolds on the "Occupy" Syllabus

The InstaPundit, Glenn Reynolds has a column in today's Wall Street Journal about "Occupy" classes popping up on college class schedules.  He takes this "teaching moment" to create a syllabus for such a class, teaching the real lessons of the Occupy movement.

Watching the Occupy movement unfold last year, I too thought that important lessons were being learned, just not the ones the protesters sought to impart.  Watching these kids re-learn the lessons of 5,000 years of civilization, as they tried to create new societies with functioning economies, police forces, rule of law, etc. was hilarious.

Part 2, Tom Steward is Following the Money on Green Non-Profits

Over at the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota.

Forget Peak Oil, Is It Time To Plan For "Peak People"?

Today's Notable and Quotable feature in the Wall Street Journal excerpts from this Doug Saunders column in the Toronto Globe and Mail.  As Mr. Saunders explains,

"The world is on the threshold of what might be called 'peak people.'  The world’s supply of working-age people will soon be shrinking, causing a shift from surplus to scarcity.  As with 'peak oil' theories–which hold that declining petroleum supplies will trigger global economic instability–the claims of the doomsayers are too hyperbolic and hysterical.  These are not existential threats but rather policy challenges.  That said, they’re very big policy challenges."

File this item under "problems solving themselves."  For decades we've heard how the biggest threat to the world is overpopulation.  Now that the future has arrived, we are facing a near-term shortage of workers.  This is good news to the unemployed and underemployed and every demographic group whose wages have stagnated.  Unfortunately, so much of our policy anticipates just the opposite problem.

On the Radio (Podcast now available for download)

The Late Debate with Jack and Ben.  Podcast available here (download February 13).  Talking about Tom Steward's latest investigation, natural gas in Puerto Rico, and plastic bags, banned in San Francisco.

Tom Steward is Following the Money

The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota's Tom Steward is following the money, tracing the effects of $48 million of national foundation money on the energy policy of Minnesota.

The Regulatory Hammer

Hard on the heels of the bizarre call for science and regulation to, at last, join forces and produce "freedom," comes today's front page piece in the Sunday Minneapolis Star Tribune Opinion section, headlined as "String of crises has one solution:  More regulation."

I suppose were are just seeing the fulfillment of the old cliche:  if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Every failure, perceived or otherwise, in the private sector gives voice to those who clamor for more regulation.  More curiously, every failure of government also ends in a call for more regulation.

As is de rigueur amongst the political class, Mike Meyers begins his piece with the ritual denunciation of Republicans, conservatives, and Christians.  I think we've reached the point where we can dispense with this boilerplate, substituting with a set of initials, like LOL, IMO or OMG.  RDORCC would do the trick, I think, and save precious column inches for the argument proper.

Or perhaps I'm missing something deeper here.  Maybe in my nearly half-century of attempted communications, I've missed an obvious, and highly effective rhetorical technique:  insult your readers for paragraphs on end and they will be more receptive to changing their minds and adopting your position.  Remind me to try this sometime.

After his RDORCC, Mr. Meyers next recites the litany of "right-wing" failures:  Wall Street (big Obama donors), the Housing Crisis (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), the BP oil spill (big Obama donors) and so forth.

But we already know what the result would be if Mr. Meyers and Shawn Otto got their wish for an all-powerful, well-funded and empowered regulators:  California.  In the Golden State, the public is protected from free coffee and donuts while ice cream requires a two-year waiting period.

Unfortunately, resources are not limitless, regulators cannot be omni-present.  So vigilance against hardware store giveaways and vintage soda fountains has meant that large swaths of California have returned to a feral state, as Victor Davis Hanson has documented in his native Central Valley.  Dr. Hanson observes,

"It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate.  Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant."

Before someone issues the next mindless call for "more regulation," can we have a rethink of the existing regulatory state?  A good start would be this essay by Philip K. Howard in the Wall Street Journal on "results-based" regulation.

A False Dawn on the Economy

There was much celebration in the political class and elsewhere over the latest batch of unemployment figures.  But as I watched the debate over the falling unemployment rate versus the shrinking labor force, I was reminded of a line from the Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction.

In the movie, Harvey Keitel (Winston Wolfe) is helping gangsters John Travolta (Vincent) and Samuel L. Jackson (Jules) out of a jam.  At one point, when the situation is looking up, but not quite resolved, Keitel cautions the gangsters against celebrating prematurely with a choice but obscene metaphor.

I believe we are at that point with the economy:  everyone wants to celebrate our being out of the woods, but there are signs that we are still far from okay.

Walter Russell Mead notes that gasoline consumption has fallen.  Mead is referring to this graph from the Energy Information Administration, which some analysts believe foretells another recession.

Businessman Martin Taylor has an opinion piece in the Financial Times (registration required) headlined, "False dawns and public fury:  the 1930s are not so far away."  Taylor argues,

"Forget the icy weather: the financial markets are signalling that spring is coming.  Equities are rallying and credit spreads have narrowed.  Yet look around, if you can bear to.  Similarities with the interwar period–a time of persistent false dawns–are multiplying ominously."

Even the New York Times is searching for, but not really finding, any signs of recovery.

For now, I will be keeping the Champagne on ice.

The political class vs. the people

Each year, the folks at the left leaning Pew Research Center conduct a poll of the general public on what policy issues are among their priorities.  Finishing first and second again this year among the public are the "economy" and "jobs."  Finishing last, again, this year is "global warming."  Finishing next to last this year is "campaign finance."  These last two are obsessions of the political class, aka The People Who Know Better Than You Do.

Just another data point showing the disconnect between the voters and those who would rule over us.

Microloans at Work

A report from Minnesota Public Radio.

Science Versus Democracy

I've added a new essay reviewing (deconstructing, actually) a recent talk given by local author Shawn Otto.  Sorry about the formatting, the problems that appear on the page do not appear in the editor tool.

"Regulation + Science = Freedom"

Or so said Shawn Otto yesterday at the University of Minnesota.

What Makes People Happy?

As John Stossel points out, it's not bigger government.  Quoting economist Philip Booth,
"In fact, the bigger government is, the less happy societies tend to be.  There is a direct relationship, stripping everything else out, between the government allowing people more freedom and well-being increasing."

Read the whole thing.

Charles Murray on the New Upper Class

This go round, it's Time magazine.  To be clear: "the rich" and "the upper class" are not the same people.

Q&A with Charles Murray in WSJ

Go here for a Q&A with Wall Street Journal readers and Charles Murray on his book Coming Apart and America’s Growing Class Divide.

The Overhyped Honda Hybrid: A Modern Parable

By this point, most everyone has heard about the woman in California suing Honda Motors over the mileage in her Civic Hybrid.  But just about all media reports miss the main point of the story.

About a month ago, I first heard the details of this story on National Public Radio.  A group of car buyers sued Honda, claiming the automaker "promised" 50 miles per gallon fuel consumption on their Honda Civic Hybrids, but that the actual mileage came in at a lower level.

Now even I--who buys a new car exactly once a decade, like clockwork (including a Honda product)--know that the MPG number on the sticker is just for comparison purposes, "your mileage will vary."  But some take that number literally, and they sued Honda, and their lawyers were looking to settle for something along the lines of $100 each or a $1,000 coupon.  At this point the story could have been about the need for tort reform, how plaintiffs get the shaft, while the lawyers get the cash millions, etc.

However, one Heather Peters opted out of the class action and took her case to small claims court in Torrance, California, where the maximum judgement is $10,000.  In the event she was awarded a near-maximum $9,867.  Now this story could have gone in any number of directions:  (1) a consumer protection triumph for the little person, (2) corporate greed meets its match, (3) runaway "justice" in an increasingly decadent California, or any number of other tired storylines.

But then we would miss the real lesson here.  In the original NPR story we learn a lot of interesting details.  Ms. Peters reports that the Civic Hybrid would get, on a good day, only 41 to 42 MPG, and now she sees something closer to 30 MPG.  (For Honda's part, they claim the 50 MPG figure is the only one the EPA will let them display.)

Six years ago, Ms. Peters bought her 2006 Civic Hybrid for $24,000, a premium of $8,000 to $9,000 over the price of a regular Civic, which MPR quotes at $15,000 to $16,000, at the time.

A Honda engineer did the math on the gas cost and as reported in the LA Daily News,

"the difference in cost to Peters, between the estimated mileage and her claimed mileage, was about $140 a year, or $800 to $900 since she purchased the vehicle."

Holy Smokes!  That is the real story: you pay $8,000 extra, to save, at best, $140 a year?  Even if you kept the car for twenty years, you would only get back a third of the premium you paid!  Even worse, as the commenters to this UK Daily Mail story on the case pointed out, regular gasoline Honda Civics can get up to 40 MPG.

The real scam is not that Honda over-hyped the mileage figure.  The real scam is that the hybrid option does not begin to pay for itself.  What the buyer gets instead is the self-satisfaction that comes with conspicuous non-consumption.  What author David Owen would call the Prius Fallacy, the hybrid owner demonstrates their ability to pay a luxury price for an option that will not, in fact, save the planet.

The modern parable to be found in the Peters story is this:  "all that is green is not gold."  So many of the claims behind "green" or "climate-friendly" products turn out to be vastly over-hyped.  Caveat Emptor

Makers vs. Takers

A useful column from the InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds Makers vs. Takers, and how these days the Takers are winning. 

Jevons Paradox and The Fallacy of "Benign Consumption"

This weekend's Wall Street Journal has a piece by author David Owen on "the Prius Fallacy: Pretending that more 'benign' consumption is good for the environment."

It has some wonderful illustrations of the Jevons Paradox, or how more efficiency leads to more, not less, consumption.  It's short and worth reading through, but here are a couple of choice quotes,

"A favorite trick of people who consider themselves friends of the environment is reframing luxury consumption preferences as gifts to humanity.  A new car, a solar-powered swimming-pool heater, a 200-mile-an-hour train that makes intercity travel more pleasant and less expensive, better-tasting tomatoes—these are the sacrifices we're prepared to make for the future of the planet.  Our capacity for self-deception can be breathtaking."

and

"Even when we act with what we believe to be the best of intentions, our efforts are often at cross-purposes with our goals.  Increasing the efficiency of lighting encourages us to illuminate more.  Relieving traffic congestion reduces the appeal of public transit and fuels the growth of suburban sprawl.  A robust market for ethanol exacerbates global hunger by diverting cropland from the production of food."

As for "reframing luxury consumption preferences as gifts to humanity," I developed a whole business plan using that theme.

Magna Carta To Be Back on View

The only copy in the U.S. of the Magna Carta will soon be soon be back on view at the National Archives.  The great document has been undergoing restoration and will be on public display Feb. 17th.

Sierra Club took $26M from natural gas...

...to fight coal plants.  As reported in Politico.

• The Hill's coverage.
• The Sierra Club's response
• The original story in Time

Libraries are Rebuilding America from the Bottom Up

In building on this site's theme of "Rebuilding America from the Bottom Up," we come to the, perhaps unlikely, subject of libraries.

Over at New Geography, Michael Scott writes about "How Libraries and Bookstores Became New Community Centers", an encouraging sign in our post-literate world.   As a "third place" in addition to home and work, Scott writes that libraries and bookstores serve a role "vitally important to the social fabric of communities because they facilitate the healthy exchange of ideas and provide a public venue for civil debate and community engagement."

Libraries and bookstores have been around for thousands of years, and like every other institution, are having to re-invent themselves for a new, digital age.  In a less remembered episode from the gilded age, steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie gave away millions of dollars of his fortune to fund the building of Carnegie libraries across the country.  At one point, Carnegie was responsible for creating half of the nation's libraries.  His thought was that, by providing greater access to knowledge, members of the working class could improve their economic status.  Carnegie himself was an immigrant and self-made man and wanted to give others the chance to achieve the success he had.

The libraries themselves were often a marvel of architecture.  Here in Minnesota, the 1904 Carnegie Library of Little Falls is an excellent example of the genre,

At the other end of the size spectrum, but no less an exquisite example of architecture, are the "Little Free Libraries,"

(Photo: Minneapolis Star Tribune)
The "brainchild of Stillwater, Minnesota, native Todd Bol," Little Free Libraries are small, wooden neighborhood kiosks where local residents can exchange books.  The size of birdhouses, these mini libraries have sprung up around Minnesota and other states and provide the same sort of community gathering place that Scott describes, except at street level.  As reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, one user raves,

" 'We live in a neighborhood where you can spit on the next residence, but that still doesn't mean you talk to them.  These people across the street stopped and talked to us for the first time ever by the library.'

"That's a common occurrence, according to Bol, who now lives in Hudson, Wis.  He came up with the idea two years ago and started the nonprofit company Little Free Library with his friend Rick Brooks of Madison, Wis.

" 'What we have found is that the neighborhood starts to feel like it's theirs,'  Bol said.  "The neighborhood starts taking care of it.  People come together to talk about literacy, education—community things that we define so well but lack so much.  There is such polarity these days that this is a little common place that we're comfortable with.' "

So far, no government grants, just volunteers.  A great, private-sector community idea.

These honor system "take a book, leave a book" boxes, costing only a few hundred dollars, are rebuilding America one street at a time.