More gas ('scuse me)

Kent Moors was on the KD/PG Sunday edition, which I caught from the web later in the day on Sunday (http://kdka.com/video/?id=40898@kdka.dayport.com, http://kdka.com/video/?id=40899@kdka.dayport.com). He said a couple of very interesting things, which I hadn’t heard before (although one I had suspected). He said that US refineries are currently operating at 85%, which was actually up some from earlier in the year. I had thought (and I keep reading from other sources) that the refineries were maxed out. But in fact oil companies are creating an artificial shortage, to drive the price of gas up just a bit more.

Moors mentioned that several of the big oil companies are vertical companies, meaning they control the oil fields, the refineries and the distribution of the refined oil (the gas we put in our cars). He speculated that their cost for a barrel of oil was actually around $75 (what they charged themselves). I had always thought this was the case, so it was nice to hear Dr Moors verify it. So these bigger oil companies (probably Shell, Exxon, BP, Sunoco and others) could give us a break, but they would rather make a profit now.

Moors also said that he expected worldwide demand to jump in ’08 and ’09, and the supply we see now would start to dry up. I assume that means we can expect to see a sharp rise in the price of gas. I believe Moors mentioned that he thought the Asians would be willing to pay more for gas than we would, but I don’t remember if he described what would happen as a consequence of that.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton literally says that she doesn’t want to listen to economists, because they give you “Elite Opinions”. More than a few people have already drawn the comparison to George Bush. Apparently Mrs. Clinton said, on one of the network morning news shows, that a lot of people don’t understand what she is proposing. I think I do, it is the gas tax holiday combined with a windfall profits tax on oil companies. I haven’t looked to see what constitutes a windfall profit, but I think Mrs. Clinton will find forty nine Republicans and Barack Obama voting against her in the Senate, leaving the tie breaker up to Dick Cheney… Hmm, wonder how he would vote? In a perfect world, the Republicans would support Clinton’s plan, just to watch it fail. But there is a chance the windfall profits tax would hurt the oil companies, so I doubt that will happen. Clinton still gets to portray herself as the champion of the little guy, the poor white trash who never got themselves much book learnin’. That must kill Obama.

How many dollars a gallon?

The national Sunday morning news shows focused on Obama and Clinton, because of the recent Reverend Wright resurgence and the upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. However, the KD/PG program and the Post Gazette Forum section focused on the price of gas. That’s not surprising, now that our primary has gone by, we can and are more interested in every day matters. The Post Gazette’s piece, by a CMU professor named Lester Lave, was both pretty interesting and sort of a “no duh” sort of piece. He began by giving a reasonable sort of over view of the US’s recent history of gas consumption, the missed opportunities to improve mileage standards and the unfortunate fashion of buying SUV’s (as one owner put it , because everyone else has one). He mentioned that Europeans are much more efficient consumers of energy, in their buildings, their industries and their transportation. He also made the statement that they do not suffer in their standard of living, something that many of us simply might not believe.

He made some policy prescriptions as well. The first was to raise mileage standards and the second to educate consumers. Of course, Congress simply has not shown the will to raise the CAFÉ standards and especially with “An Inconvenient Truth”, those who are willing to be educated (and even many of those who aren’t) have learned quite a bit. Dr Lave’s last suggestion is one that has in fact been made many times, but may be getting closer to being enacted. Instead of enacting a gas tax holiday, Dr Lave proposes going the European route and enacting a gas tax nightmare – four dollars a gallon tax. According to Dr. Lave (and I believe him, by the way) Europeans are paying $8.50 a gallon. Before the wealthy white readers throw up their hands and say “What about the poor people?” (many of whom may not have cars), remember that tax revenue can come back to targeted groups. Dr. Lave suggests exempting the $20,000 of income from the Social Security tax, paid for the gas tax revenue. I think the earned income credit could be adjusted upward as an alternative, for example. The EIC is a great way to help the nation’s working poor, too, because it costs employers nothing, so it doesn’t impact prices (the way the minimum wage might). Now, I would hope a four dollar a gallon tax would be phased in, say a dollar a gallon every six months. The oil companies would scream bloody murder because their profits would go down with the decreased gasoline use. But they helped get us in to this problem, and they wouldn’t disappear, they’d just have to get use to smaller profits. And the tax revenue could also help fund research on alternative fuels.

I myself have decided that bringing a folding bike on to a PAT bus is a practical impossibility. I may still try a few trial runs after July first (when I am sure there will be few or no Schenley students on the morning bus). But I have already ordered a cheap electric bike (from Walmart). It’s due to arrive in about a week. Actually, its not so cheap, it will take, in my estimate, a year to pay for itself in lower gas consumption. And it is recharged from the house electricity, so I am helping the coal burning electric companies (although not a whole heck of a lot). However, arriving to work not totally drenched in sweat is an appealing idea, and perhaps my presence on the road will give a few more people the idea that they too could occasionally abandon their cars and find some sort of two wheeled transportation.

Free for all market

I’m probably getting this wrong, but it seems like the Republicans, in their haste to strike out and set up their own policy on health care, are actually undermining the shaky, crappy system we have now. I believe I have read that John McCain’s proposal ends the employer based tax deduction for employer based plans and instead offers a tax credit to everyone – $2500 for individuals or $5000 for families – to buy their own health care coverage. That’s fine as far as it goes, but employer based health care plans offer health insurance companies pools of healthy people (they are working, after all) to insure. Even the spouses and children tend to be healthy (they live in the United States and are not destitute, since mom and/or dad are working). It seems likely to me that if individuals or families get the tax credits, employers will stop offering health insurance to their employees, letting the employee take on the burden of finding a health insurance plan to use the tax credit with. I’ve criticized the proposals of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama because I believe we need a single payer health care plan, because I believe we need to dismantle the health insurance industry. I didn’t think the Republicans would be the ones to take the first steps to actually do that.

It's a gas, gas ... gas

So apparently US refineries are working at full capacity. This, much more than the supply of crude oil, whether at home or abroad, determines the supply of fuel here. This is what the boring veteran of the Reagan *and* Clinton administration's said on the PBS news hour last night. If there is a gas tax holiday, and the price of gas drops (say, to $3.25), and lots of Americans plan a farewell tour this summer, what do you think will happen? Gas stations will run out of gas. Right now, the supply of gas is inelastic, that is, it is fixed. It is fixed at the level we are getting right now. Hillary Clinton’s gas tax holiday combined with a windfall profits tax might be revenue neutral (although it may also cost money or make money, it all depends how the plan is set up). But I doubt President Bush would sign it into law, and in fact I doubt the republicans would let it get out of the Senate. John McCain’s plan may have a chance on both counts, which means we may see the price of gas rise a little slower, and yet the oil companies will get a lot richer faster. But the republicans will have done something to help the common man.

Reverend Wright redux

I hadn’t planned to stay away so long. I was somewhat downtrodden about Obama’s loss in our state, although it was expected. I am also somewhat disappointed that people (including me) are not interested in issues, preferring to speculate who would be more fun to have a beer with, the black guy or the old lady. Well, I have looked at the candidates’ websites, but not taken the time to actually read their policy proposals.

I had planned to write something on Sunday, but my wife wiped it out when she went to read her email.

Still, I am a bit inspired tonight, after watching the news about Obama’s press conference. Pundits and the like were annoyed that Obama had not done more to distance himself from Reverend Wright when those YouTube videos had first surfaced a couple of weeks ago. Obama had instead offered a complex statement about how he rejected the statements as edited, but understood the man. I can understand this idea. After all, Reverend Wright had no control over these videos, presumably edited from the church’s DVD.

But now Reverend Wright has embarked on what seems to be a speaking tour. Now the Reverend has complete control over his own words, even whether to say anything. And he is speaking up a storm, saying things that African Americans are perhaps like to agree with or at least understand, but that may chill or annoy white voters. Louis Farakhan (spelling?) is one of the great thinkers of the 20th and 21st centuries. The US government is using AIDS to try to wipe out African Americans. Now, I would give Mr Farakhan his due, as a highly successful leader, but I suspect there are a lot of people who are as intelligent, and no small number more intelligent than him. And while the US government has a shameful record in using African Americans as guinea pigs in some experiments, the notion that the government is both smart and stupid enough to use Aids as a weapon against anyone is sheer fantasy.

So of course Mr. Obama did not say anything until now. He has to respond now, and he responded in a way that leaves no room for doubt, that makes it clear Obama shares the values of his white constituents with regard to African American radicalism. Some of his African American supporters may be a little disappointed, but they likely understand why Obama has to say that.

I had thought the first African American President might be someone like Colin Powell or Condi Rice. Like Margaret Thatcher, who did not have to prove anything about whether she was tough enough for the job, so too a Colin Powell would never be mistaken for a radical. But Barack Obama surprised me. It did not seem to be an issue with him. He convinced enough people that the number of people who felt the country was ready for a black President went from 50% to 75% over the last year (according to Meet the Press). But now the Clinton’s are trying to tie labels on him, radical, Muslim, weak. Now, I don’t think Obama’s lead of maybe a hundred and fifty delegates is a sufficient reason for Hillary to drop out of the race. But I am beginning to be convinced that her willingness to do the Republicans work for them and go negative is a reason for her to drop out.

I guess we’ll see.

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day.

It is actually an accident that I rode my bike from the house today. My wife insisted I wait for the plumber this morning. I had taken my car to the mechanic yesterday with a lit “check engine” light. My mechanics, though, are pretty busy, and did not look at it yesterday. So with no car, I grabbed the folding bike at 10:00 and took off for the bus. I lasted all the way to Centre and Aiken (from Negley and Hampton) on the 71A, before it looked like too many people were going to get on, and make exiting difficult. That’s better than previously on that bus. The bike does tuck neatly under the front seats (where we are supposed to let the elderly and infirm sit). But it has to come out again, and that is a problem if too many people are on the bus. So we’ll see what the future holds.

Last comment before we pull the lev ... push the button.

John MacIntire (whom I probably ought to link to) makes a pretty good point in his latest post. Since we are all pretty sure Obama is going to win the nomination, if you are voting for Mrs. Clinton, you might ask yourself why? Are we sure Obama is going to win? Well, even when he lost primaries, he didn't lose by much. Apparently the Clinton's are pretty sure of a win in Puerto Rico. But when Obama does try to campaign in places, he is able to narrow Mrs Clinton's lead. So she didn't win by that much in California and New York, or even New Hampshire. Basically he is not likely to lose his lead, and probably will improve on it before the convention.

So do we think she should stay in the race? Well, we know that if she does, its not issues she is going to be talking about. She will be looking for any mud to sling at him, and he will be forced to do the same. Which will then happen again in the fall, when the Republicans go after the Democratic nominee.

MacIntire's point, in other words, is that a vote for Hillary is a vote for John McCain. And while I might not agree totally with that, there is a point there. Pundits keep talking about democrats coming together at the convention. Maybe we should do that now.

When good answers go bad

Chad Herman of TWM commented about how Obama’s answer in the debate about Iranian nuclear weapons was so much less satisfying than Clinton’s. I think it was Washington Week in Review that picked up on this same answer, albeit from Mrs. Clinton. They noted, as did Mr. Hermann, that Mrs. Clinton’s answer indicated an expansion of US policy in the Middle East. They went on to say what a bad idea that would be. Mrs. Clinton was talking about intervening in conflicts between Iran and anyone else. Presumably that would also include conflicts between other players in the region, such as if Libya and Egypt have a dustup. The problem is that the Middle East has seen what happens when we get involved in the area. Under Bush we brought just enough firepower to further wreck Afghanistan and Iraq, but not enough resources to fix either country. Granted, we did bring enough resources to make corrupt officials fabulously wealthy, but we better skip over that.

On this particular point of distinction, I would say Obama gave a reasoned response about how he wouldn’t let Iran get nukes in the first place, but if they did he would deal with the situation at the time based on the circumstances. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was talking about expanding the US’s role in the region at a time when our popularity is at an all time low. I don’t see how that could be good for us, at least not until we take steps to re-establish our credibility.

Barden and Obama

I had wrote that I would wait until Monday to post again, but stuff has happened I want to say things about. So first, for the third time, let me direct you to Nicholas Kristoff’s Thursday column and the comments.

I noticed that no one in the Burghospree picked up on Don Barden dropping his pledge of $3 million dollars assistance for the Hill. I guess that was because the story broke on a Friday afternoon and everything else happening around town is more interesting. I was surprised that the One Hill people were even moderately sympathetic to Barden. I’ve lost track of who all was supposed to commit money to the community, I just remember that it is not going to be the City or the County, and now, apparently, Don Barden.

I kind of like David Brooks. As a conservative, he seems more human than many. But Brooks is capable of being a partisan whenever he chooses. In his last few columns he has bee savaging Barack Obama, and did so again today on the “Meet the Press”. One of his complaints is that Obama made a promise to remove all the troops from Iraq in 16 months, in the debate. It fell to Michelle Norris, who was also on MTP, to point out that Hillary Clinton made the same promise in the debate, albeit in her own words. Brooks had praised Obama earlier in the year, and now acts disillusioned, as if he might ever have voted for or supported Obama.

I will say this, it seems to me that Obama is getting frustrated and tired in this campaign. He is acting human. But we always knew, or should have known, that Obama is human. He is intelligent, a good, occasionally great speaker and seem perfectly capable to be the President. But he slips sometimes. He slipped in using the words “bitter” and “cling to” in San Francisco. I personally think he was frustrated that he had not made more progress in Pennsylvania. He may have done it intentionally, to give the media a story about how his gaffe cost him the win in Pennsylvania, but he was only back 5%, or something. But that would be a silly calculation, and it seems easier just to be careful and try hard.

A troll on 2PoliticalJunkies gave an address for a couple of YouTube snippets. In those clips, you see Obama speaking, mentions Hillary Clinton, and then casually reached up and scratches his cheek. With his middle finger. We know this happened and the audience was the intended target because they give a Fox Sitcom type of whooooo. Like I said, Obama human and probably frustrated. And showing that he lives in Chicago.

I still intend to vote for him.

Thinking about things ...

In my last post, I recommended Nicholas Kristof's Thursday column. I also recommend the comments, where people sort of, sometimes agreed with Mr Kristof, but almost always then said "except for me".

I'll have something more to say here on Monday.

two different issues...

I think this is a bad time for a local political scandal to break, right before the presidential primary. It’s come out that Pat Ford met with executives of another billboard company (Liberty Pacific Media, not Lamar) in 2006, and that their understanding was that he agreed to allow them to set up two new billboards, one downtown and one on the north side, both without the public hearing process, even though city code stated bill boards could not be put in those locations. They met on Mt Washington (where I never go anymore). Mayor Ravenstahl apparently put in an appearance at that meeting, although he now says he does not remember discussing bill boards, especially on the north side or downtown. Those two executives from Liberty Pacific donated $12,500 each to Mayor Ravenstahl’s reelection campaign a month later. The billboards went up, were sold to a different media company, and then came down. Granted, this would have likely come out soon, but I can’t help but think that Mr. Ford’s loud protest of having been framed on Monday likely sped the media’s investigation along (as I suggested might happen in my previous post). Now Our Mayor finds himself being dragged (further) into this mess.

On the national front, I have to take issue with something Hillary Clinton has said repeatedly, including again last night. She claims 35 years experience in politics. Now, consider an analogy. I don’t know what Dr Starzl’s wife does for a living (or if he is even married). But assume she is a doctor, but not a surgeon. She has lived with the man thirty some years (say), and listened to his tales of transplant surgery, met the operating room nurses, but has never performed a transplant. Would you want her doing your liver transplant?

Granted, Mrs. Clinton was an unusually active first lady, in Arkansas and in the White House. She did extensive work on children’s and women’s issues in both places. But I would trust her a lot more if she described herself in a more complicated way, maybe as the ultimate insider *and* outsider. She was there while the decisions were being made, she met a lot of everybody, national and international, but she didn’t make the decisions that pissed people off. She could say she is coming to the office as a newcomer who happens to know where the bathrooms are.

But Hillary has dumbed her message down, saying she has 35 years of experience. When ABC brought up the bitter and cling to remark in the debate last night, Hillary took the low road, describing her faith and her roots instead of trying even a feeble conciliatory remark, to say something like how we should move past that. That’s why I didn’t blame Barack a bit when he brought up the “bake cookies” remark she made in 1992 a little while later, while Hillary stood there, visibly angry, practically shaking.

They have both taken shots at each other, it is true. But Barack has pulled off making it seem like defensive moves on his part, because in polls, on the question of trustworthy-ness, he is ahead of her by twenty points.

Nicholas Kristof had a very interesting commentary in today’s NYTimes. I personally believe he is looking at cognitive dissonance in our choices of presidential candidates. It dovetails reasonably well with the book I was pitching during the Mayoral race in the fall, "The Political Brain" by Drew Westen.

doth protest too much ...

Any lawyer will tell you, if you get pulled over by the cops or if they knock at your door, don’t say anything, in the case of a criminal investigation don’t answer questions or in the case of a traffic stop don’t argue with them. If you have to say anytihing in a criminal investigation, just ask to contact a lawyer. Pat Ford clearly has not absorbed this idea. He is persisting in trying to defend himself in the media. He is blaming the Housing Authority, specifically A Fulton Meachem for tryingto smear him, as well as claiming that bloggers threatened him (specifically Bram Reichbaum). Well, if a blogger lies about something, it is likely to come out eventually. The problem is, if Mr. Ford lies about something, and the media investigates, it is likely to come out now. It is reasonable for Mr. Ford to ask what conflict of interest he had as executive director of the URA and chairman of the board of the Housing Authority. It is *not* reasonable for Mr. Ford to assert that Mr. Meachem was trying to block an audit of the Housing Authority if no one else has heard of this attempted audit. According to the PG, the Vice Chair of the Authority said she had no knowledge of an attempted audit or any attempt to resist it. Also apparently Mr. Ford had previously agreed to leave the Housing Authority board, and then changed his mind. I myself have no idea of the timing here, whether it is related to Matt Hogue’s charges of inappropriate finances at the Authority.

On the other matter, the gifts of ties, cigars and a surround sound system, Mr. Ford claims that the surround sound gift retails for $215, below a $250 threshold for the state. Well, hell, you could get a $250 laptop, with printer and wi-fi, if you got in line at Best Buy, probably by midnight, for the sale on last year’s Black Friday. If Mr. Ford can demonstrate $215 is the price for his system, he should in fact be in the clear. But it is not the media he needs to convince (as least not yet), it is a State Ethics Board. Regardless of the value of the system, it ought to be declared, just to make sure Mr. Ford does not go over any yearly maximum, and in the interest of good government.

In a month a that saw the city-county merger plan and the Act 47 hearing, and will see the primary election, Mr. Fordhas to work hard to keep the spotlight on himself, and in doing so is begging reporters to dig into his personal life. If he lays low, lets the Ethics Board do his job, he could get away with the best possible result. But he seems detirmined to argue with the cops, to fix it.

Billboard scandal, go away ...

I thought the billboard issue was resolved. Sure, Ruth Ann Daily (who apparently doesn’t like any billboards) wants it taken down. Given the cost apparently already sunk into the project, I think Lamar would fight that as hard as they could. Otherwise, though, Friday saw a suspension of the Lamar law suit against the city council members, as well as Lamar agreeing to suspend construction and submit to public hearings. And I have no idea where the public will come down on this. On the one hand, the public does not seem to mind LED billboards in general. On the other hand, an LED billboard would clash with the old fashioned motif the city has created on Grant Street. On a third hand (?) New York’s Times Square has embraced lighted advertising for how long? My only stake in this issue is that the process needed to be followed, and now it is. Of course, that partially constructed billboard is a problem, in that if it does have to come down it will be a big punishment for Lamar. Frankly I am ok with that too, but I don’t think it will go that way.

Meanwhile, we hear from Char that Pat Ford wants to fight this thing, or at least complain about his treatment. I think he is making a mistake (probably the latest in many). Right now, the atmosphere in Pittsburgh is that small gifts are in fact ok. Surround sound systems may be problematic, but the whole neckties and cigars thing is probably fine. At least fine enough that he will escape indictment, although I suspect he will lose his job.

In this town, though, the corporations realize that we are far from Harrisburg, that Philly is likely to grab a lot of the attention, and that while the farmers in T part of the state don’t like us, they are inclined to leave us alone, as long as we don’t ask them for anything. So in that spirit the State Ethics Board is likely to give Pat Ford a token investigation and ultimately just a reprimand, to avoid having to look into Luke Ravenstahl, who has his own sets of gifts he has not documented. But if Pat Ford kicks up all sorts of trouble, all bets are off.

Actually, I would like to know how many Steelers, Pirates, Penguins or golf course tickets/admissions have been given to the Mayor and by whom, how many times someone else has picked up the tab for dinner and who they are, all sorts of things. But unless Pat Ford has inside information about mobsters from Youngstown hanging out with the Mayor, the State Ethics People will not likely broaden the investigation to include Ravenstahl. The most Ford could do is embarrass/irritate the Mayor, and make his suspension permanent, but without pay. So I guess I am saying that all the roads I see lead to Ford being gone.

Near the end of an interesting week...

Hey, spring is in the air, the Pens are in the playoffs, the Presidential candidates are in town off and on, and ... mumble mumble there is a city government scandal mumble.

What? I expect most of the public, even the voting public, has not heard about the LED billboard business. The people most likely to pay attention, besides democratic committee persons all over the city, are probably the people who had likely voted for Mark DeSantis. In other words, people neither Lamar nor the Mayor have to worry too much about. Still, the Mayor just got done endorsing City/County merger, so he doesn’t want his national image tarnished. If the State Ethics Board does a reasonable job, Pat Ford will probably be linked to a series of low level corrupt practises, not enough for any real charges but enough to have him removed from this city’s government. So the Mayor wants to be seen as getting out on the right side of this issue.

Meanwhile, I don’t go downtown, so I don’t see these things. I read that the billboard in question is almost finished. Lamar will be able to present the city with a fait accompli, a billboard that is ready to go, maybe today. That’s probably why they filed a lawsuit against the five city council persons that is almost totally without merit, to provide an excuse for them to ignore the zoning board’s order to suspend activity. I predict the city will refuse to provide electricity for the billboard for maybe a week, and then let them go ahead and advertise. What would be nice would be if the Mayor found an appropriate punishment for Lamar’s role in this. Providing some level of free advertising for the city’s human and social service non-profits would do nicely, but I have my doubts this Mayor would do that (free campaign advertising is more his speed).

Speaking of the Mayor, as I said, he is trying to get out to the right side of local issues, the side of championing the rule of law and the interests of the people. But if the Mayor hadn’t been interested in asserting his power, or in making the city more developer friendly, or in being a 27 year old, maybe none of this would have had to come up. Mayor Ravenstahl understands that modern politics is all about making connections and raising campaign funds. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that good politicians do those things so they can also spend some time helping people.

Will a judge in the court of common pleas throw out the Lamar suit today? I don't think the Lamar lawyers would care, except they want the five city council people to post bond, something Lamar can take home if they are forced to abandon the billboard.

Just another average, ordinary day in the 'burgh

Pittsburgh bloggers have started to spontaneously utter the phrase “This is extraordinary” in increasing numbers of posts and comments. Well, I have anyway. Lamar Advertising is currently refusing to halt construction on the downtown LED billboard, though I grant you that might change anytime. When asked about it at the Zoning Board of Adjustment hearing, Lamar’s attorney’s said the council members who appealed the permit would have to go to Common Pleas Court and post bond. Presumably this somewhat enigmatic response referred to Lamar’s lawsuit against the five City Council members.

Well, there is apparently a hearing tomorrow for this lawsuit. It is possible some things will be resolved then. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lawsuit wasn’t thrown out, although it is also possible that the four council persons who filed after Dr Dowd might have to withdraw their appeal from the ZBA. On the other hand, Lamar’s argument that private conversations between council persons constitutes a plot against Lamar is ludicrous on it’s face.

Some commenter’s on other blogs have argued City Council is wasting everyone’s time with petty and unimportant issues. It would be nice to see City Council discuss crime or how to improve the business climate in the city. But these issues, the billboard and take home cars, are important because they get to the heart of the Ravenstahl administration’s style of governing. We learn that we do not know how many take home cars there are because some city employees park them near by there homes in city lots, and are not on the list for take home cars. And of course we now know that Lamar got a foot in the door with billboards years ago, and Pat Ford guided their fortunes over the years. And that George Specter objected years ago and was ignored. By tackling these issues now, Council will have a firm precedent for how to address the bigger problems.

Gifts? ...We don't need no gifts ... I don't have to show you any stinking gifts

It's probably just me, and there's no direct quote, but it seems to me that there is an air of wistfulness about our Mayor as he says he was aware of the gifts and Vlasach did not offer him any gifts.

The week goes on ...

It’s interesting how much things have changed in the last couple of months. The Mayor’s, or perhaps his administration’s, indiscretions have moved from being stupid, frat boy class to closer to indictable political favoritism. The City Council has gone from one of its do-nothing phases to a more confrontational with the Mayor, activist phase. And everyone seems to be acknowledging that Act 47 should have always, or at least should now include a provision for debt relief and for the under funded pensions.

At last night’s Act 47 hearing, called for a few months ago, it is reported that all the players acknowledged the city’s long term problems, and no one made a more than qualified call for an end to oversight status. The Mayor has stopped asking for an end to oversight himself, instead leaving it up to the state (i.e. leaving them with the blame if the City goes right back into deficit). Apparently the Mayor did say that if the city does remain under Act 47 oversight, we need a new plan, one that tackles the debt and pensions. Doug Shields argued that the City has met the criteria to exit oversight status, but he acknowledged we would be right back where we were in 2003, with deficits approaching. He wants the legislature to allow the city to tax non-profits, and wants help with health care costs and the pensions. Others argued for a new Act 47 plan, one that seems to deal with our real situation.

Just because people in this region have faced reality doesn't mean the State Legislature or Governor are. It is possible that the recent call for City/County merger will play well in Harrisburg, despite (or maybe because of) the lack of details for the plan. Meanwhile, I think the Governor is busy trying to get a win for Hillary in the primary.

Meanwhile, a story has broken that Pat Ford turns out to be a close friend of a Lamar executive (h/t to the Comet). The Ravenstahl administration is looking more and more like “lil’ Bush”, which ironically was some commenters’ nickname for Mark DeSantis. The timing of the Trib’s release of this story, the day before the Zoning Board hearing on the billboard and the day after Lamar filed suit about that appeal, could not be more perfect. I can feel Richard Scaife's delight at the City’s anguish. I feel a little bad for Pat Ford, but he seems to have picked up a Dick Cheney-like disregard for procedure and accounting rules. At the very least, he probably needs to be a salesman for some private sector company, preferably as far as possible from public money.

I assume this means the appeal hearing before the Zoning Board will go well.

Our own everything including the kitchen sink, not Hillary's

So a lot happened last week. And a lot is going to happen this week. Last week George Specter issued his opinion on the electronic billboard. And what an interesting opinion it was. Mr. Specter opined that Ms Tymoczko (the Zoning Board of Adjustment director or administrator) acted appropriately in her decision to approve the permit the billboard, because of the 4 year practice of allowing vinyl billboards to be swapped with electronic ones. However, he split the difference, also opining that a variance would have been required for this electronic billboard by the Zoning Board (which had not happened). So he stated the practice should stop in the future.

How does that affect the appeal filed by Dr. Dowd, which was joined by several other council members? I think over all it strengthens it. All that has to be stated is that since the billboard is not up yet, the rules established by Mr. Specter’s opinion call be applied retroactively. We now know that Lamar received special treatment, which they really should not have reasonably expected, so they should be blocked, or at least forced to renegotiate. By the way, I am not a lawyer, so that is nothing more than my uninformed opinion.

A few minutes later, in an odd bit of timing, the Nordenberg committee released its report on City County Merger, only five months late. I’ve only scanned the report, but there does not seem to be a whole lot of specifics. I notice that Yarone Zober and a deputy county manager, Kathleen McKenzie, were the vice chairs of the Nordenberg committee. That might explain the vagueness of the report and the timing of its release. Another interesting part to this issue is Our Mayor’s conversion to the religion of merger, as of the day of the release of the report. You really do wonder if the Mayor is getting instructions from Rendell or Onorato or both. First, hours before Ravenstahl endorsed Hillary Clinton, he was saying he didn’t even know if he was a super delegate. Now he says he started to take merger seriously only in the last couple of weeks. These were the same weeks where Council learned how to be assertive. I believe Our Mayor is looking forward to getting rid of City Council, and was letting them know that (my opinion). If true, it is a pretty short sighted view. I hope the Mayor makes up and starts to play nice with Council, though, starting tomorrow. Council is likely to stay in existence well past the 2009 election. I think they will vote for merger when the issue comes up, but if the progressive coalition holds together, they can let the Mayor know that they will decided vote by vote whether to continue supporting the merger. This is not something coming from outside, so Council will now have the option of being petty without endangering State money essential for the City’s survival.

Speaking of outside State money, the Act 47 hearing is coming up Tuesday, I believe. I guess my invitation or public notification got lost in the mail or went to an old address. Seriously, the only reason I know about this was from a tangential mention in a story about city firefighters wanting to get in some early negotiations on contracts. But I really wonder if the removal of Act 47 will be the Mayor’s reward for having endorsed Mrs. Clinton. My fantasy is that the State people will say we need a whole new five year plan, where we need to act like grown-ups, with a real capital budget, not some ephemeral chunk of the operating budget that is a faux surplus. They would also say we need to hit the non-profits harder for money, and apply it to the debt and under funded pensions. In turn, the State would match the additional revenues from the non-profits as admission that they had a role in our problems. We probably wouldn’t wipe out the debt in five years, but we might reduce it by a quarter.

That, as I say, is my fantasy. Reality will probably be the State cutting us loose from Act 47, with praise from Democrats and threats from Republicans. And my God have mercy on our souls, because Wall Street will not.

Chad, not the Alltel guy, not hanging.

I just noticed that my name comes right before Chad Hermann’s on the Tube City Almanac’s blog roll for Pittsburgh.

Bram at the Comet posted about Chad’s four volume analysis of Obama’s speech on race. Like Bram (I assume), I wanted to wait until Chad had finished before posting about it. But today was one of the days where I leave CMU a bit early to go to the Southside to prepare and/or review taxes. So I couldn’t post at 4:30.

I rather like Bram’s comparison of Chad to Ahab. Personally I feel like I read a work by Melville going through the four parts of Chad’s criticism of Obama. After all, Obama’s speech was pretty long to begin with, and to reprint it and criticize it, sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph....with repeated declarations that Obama is lying, or obfuscating or whatever, over and over. We get it, you don’t like the way the man talks.

Bram posits four overarching themes for Chad’s four volumes, including this one at number four: “The speech was not written as well as it could have been.”. But really I think there is one theme running through Chad litany of criticisms. Obama could not have listened to Reverend Wright for twenty years without being influenced by him, without having developed a hatred of the white man as deep as the Reverend’s. By which Chad is saying that the Civil Rights movement is over, should be declared dead. Any further progress needed by anyone is the responsibility of that person. Dress neatly, pay attention in school, read books, speak clearly and without colloquialism. In other words, behave like a white person. Take responsibility. It’s not that there is institutionalized racism, it’s that white people don’t hire African American’s who act black. So as long as you have children out of wedlock and don’t have a proper family structure, you are responsible for your own situation and should not ask white people for help (much less demand it).

But as I say, Chad seems to believe Obama is a fraud because he won’t take a side and either say Wright is absolutely wrong or say that Wright is in fact right. In other words, Chad is angry at Obama because Obama won’t end his own candidacy. Obama is the first African American to be the front runner in a presidential primary. To reach that position, Obama must have constituencies in both the African American and the white communities. And he can’t let either constituency stare at the other one too long, think too hard about how much that different skin tone next to you has a different life. But Chad seems to want Obama to either say to the black faces in the crowd to grow up and take responsibility or to say to the white faces that its their fault so many blacks are poor. Instead, Obama makes a speech that hints at both, but lets both sides off the hook too. Because that’s what you do in a presidential campaign, you talk, and you try to make it sound fresh and new (like it’s the first time an African American has been the front runner in a presidential primary).

Whatever Obama's personal beliefs on race are, he seems to want to project a balanced view, allowing for the views of both African-Americans and whites. I actually disagree with Obama that the United States has made great progress towards equal rights, I think a fair amount of segregation has simply transformed into ossified ghettos. But regardless, to accept Chad's position that Obamais a fraud, we have to agree that his mind is so weak as to be influenced by twenty years of Sundays with Reverend Wright. My feeling on that is that Obama has been African American all his life, he almost certainly developed some ideas before moving to Chicago (albeit in Hawaii, Indonesia, Los Angeles, New York and Cambridge). Just like many, many undergraduates have read Marx and Lenin and only a few have become radicals, so too Mr Obama could listen to the Reverend Wright (whom I believe is only occasionally as dramatic as Youtube would have us believe) and not be turned into foaming at the mouth bomb thrower.

It ain't over .... till it's over ...

The younger step daughter is now asking me to convince her to vote for Obama. Maybe she has heard the pundit talk about how Hillary can't win. My wife is talking about it too. My wife (and maybe my step daughter) took the online quiz that is going round emails, that identifies which presidential candidate you most closely identify with. I did too. Both my wife and I turn out to identify more closely with Obama.

But I will tell you I am not convinced yet that Obama is the best candidate. I think he would make the better president, because of his speaking ability. That’s an important skill for a president who wants to convince people things are all right. It’s also an important skill if you want to set a nuanced agenda, if you want to start a dialogue about African American poverty that might end in legislation to help persuade factories to locate nearer to cities, and/or might help shore up inner city K-12 schools.

But I believe Hillary Clinton would want to follow through on those issues too, and would want to pursue universal healthcare and economic issues as well. In fact, on Washington Week her proposals for addressing the foreclosure crisis were described as more aggressive than Obama's, ie, more liberal. Obama, in this campaign, has held himself a bit above the fray. He has occasionally attacked Hillary directly, but mostly in debates where she has had an immediate opportunity to fire back. I don’t know if this is a natural role for him, I don’t know if he wouldn’t be more comfortable taking direct shots at her down and dirty (Chicago style?). I have read, on more than one occasion, that he is very ambitious. You have to say he has the talent to back that up, although he had some good luck in being a newcomer to national politics just when people wanted a sense of change, someone they could believe would be different because he hadn’t been around long. So I don’t know if things actually turn against Obama if his ambition won’t kick in and cause him to drop into mudslinging.

But what I think of is how Mark DeSantis decided to run a clean campaign and compete with Mayor Ravenstahl on the issues. I guess he did that, although I will take a shot and say that the most important issues had a way of disappearing from his website as new press releases came in, and you literally had to remember or have a cache of the article’s URL to retrieve it a week or two later (I won’t go into the inadequacy of Ravenstahl’s website, especially since it was adequate enough, he won). Still, you would have to say that DeSantis won in the neighborhoods where computer ownership and use is probably highest, in Squirrel Hill, Shadyside and Oakland, the university districts. So I guess DeSantis did compete on the issues, and won in the neighborhoods where the news isn’t just a sound bite. It wasn’t enough. If DeSantis had gotten mean, and continuously brought up the Mayor’s mini-scandals, which were no more and no less than the truth, maybe more working class Pittsburghers would have thought twice, if DeSantis had adequetely proven Ravenstahl a liar. Maybe Ravenstahl would have been giving the concession speech after the election.

That’s where I am worried Obama will be, either in a month or two or next November, conceding. Rising above is all very well. Giving a great speech on race is great. I don’t want Obama to be Dick Cheney, but sometimes you gotta be willing to throw an elbow, just to show it can happen. Is he willing?

A date fast approaching ...

So I have started to mention this April 8th hearing with the State’s Economic Development people, a hearing to see if the city can get out of Act 47 status. I have only seen mention of it in one or two places, and the only one I can remember is about the Firefighters trying to get contract negotiations going out ahead of it. I assume, but don’t know for sure, that Dennis Yablonsky will be at the April 8 hearing, like I assume that the Mayor and Council President will be there. Past that I know little, and can’t find mention of it on the State Economic Development website.

So what I hope would happen then and there is that the State’s people would note that the City has not addressed it’s debt and pension problems, and the Mayor’s own budget projections show us in deficit in a few years. The State would propose a new five year plan, with some State money for pensions and debts, and perhaps higher taxes in the city and also the county. Or one of the new Council persons would stand up and ask for that. Or something.

What I fear that what will happen is that, as a reward for the Mayor's pledging for Hillary Clinton, Dennis Yablonsky will find that the City has made sufficient progress and our Act 47 status should be rescinded. If so, we had better hope the next President is a Demoocrat, perhaps we had better hope it is Hillary Clinton. Maybe then the City will get some block grants, although who knows if it would be enough to keep up with the public safety union’s pillaging of the City’s coffers, not to mention the no bid sweetheart deals that will become the norm.

I believe that's pronounced "quiche"

Well, just a quick post. So City Council and the Mayor have made public their disagreements, more or less. Council is looking at implementing elements of the Act 47 five year plan now, even as the clock is running out. The new Council persons – Burgess, Kraus and Dowd – might be trying to fulfill some of their campaign promises. Jim Motznik seemingly makes no secret of his plan to punish his fellow council members (and himself), with a resolution that alternately praises past and current Mayors for exceeding the parameters of the Act 47 plan and then expresses puzzlement that Council is referencing Act 47 in some current legislation (and goes on to reduce the funding for Council staff, and transfer it to public safety equipment).

My sympathies are with the newer members of Council. It is hard to fault attempts to reduce expenses in the city’s budget. That said, it is true, as some blog commenters have noted that the Council is now distracted by this issue, away from crime or potholes or other issues. I’m not sure what daily Council attention to crime would achieve, unless they have some ideas to share with the police on how to prevent or solve crimes (talk about micromanaging the city’s operations).

There is a meeting of the State’s Economic Development people here on April 8th. It was called for by Council, to see if the city could exit distressed status. Personally I would like to see another five year plan, this one addressing the issues of the city’s under-funded pensions and the city’s long term debt, instead of an exit. Here’s hoping someone has the courage to stand up and say something.

Not that Obama speech again?

My wife exclaimed this morning “not that Obama speech again? Can’t they let it go?”, as we watched the Sunday morning talk-fest. But as I watched “Meet the Press”, something that had been rattling around the back of my brain was pulled to the front. Peggy Noonan, in New York City, was talking about how Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons, or at least the snippet’s shown on youtube and news programs, are far outside “the mainstream”. The rest of the panel included the editor of Newsweek Jon Meechem, NBC’s chief political correspondent Chuck Todd and the columnist Eugene Robinson.

Now, I don’t know Peggy Noonan’s background, but given the fact that she is now a reporter of sorts, doesn’t she know the terrible poverty that many, I believe most, Afican Americans live in today? Or that that poverty is a direct result of the centuries of racism in the county? We may be to the point where white suburbanites claim not to be racist, where business people actually want to hire African Americans because it would demonstrate their company’s commitment to diversification, where Universities also want to admit minority students for the same reason. But the poverty that has been created in the inner cities and in poor rural communities has become self sustaining. Poor parents can’t get jobs because they aren’t qualified and don’t have needed experience. So the neighborhoods they live in have a lousy tax base and the schools suffer. The kids don’t get educated and see their parents not working, and so do not believe they will get hired anywhere. And they are right, no one will hire minority kids fresh out of school who can’t read well. And the cycle perpetuates itself. It surprised me that Eugene Robinson (the token African American) didn’t point this out, but maybe he knew no one would hear him.

Not to say things haven’t gotten better, there are now African American millionaires and an African American middle class (although there was some of that even in the heyday of segregation). But, as the line goes, the poor still can’t buy a job. Somewhere I heard a number that 30% of African Americans agree with Rev Wright, and believe there is a white conspiracy to keep them down. Listening to Peggy Noonan, I don’t blame them.

Of course, as Mr. Obama says, for African Americans to point at whites and say, ‘You deserve 9/11 for all the bad things you have done’, that is not productive. It is no more productive for whites to tell African Americans that all their problems are their own fault. But that doesn’t mean I know anything more about it than that. Peggy Noonan did say one somewhat intelligent thing; that in making his speech Mr. Obama had moved into uncharted territory. Indeed, if we do try to start a dialogue base on Mr. Obama’s speech, we will be also be in uncharted territory.

I also saw Heather Arnet and the Rev Ricky Burgess on the KP/PG thing, with Ken Rice (with a deep, worried looking furrow on his brow) and Dennis Roddy. They were speaking as Clinton and Obama supporters respectively. Arnet was first out of the gate (so to speak), she talked for quite a while, about healthcare and how good Hillary is. Ricky Burgess tried to get a word in edgewise a few times, and when he finally did get a chance to speak he also went on for a while. His focus was a bit more abstract, about how Obama could be the leader who could unite the country. Although I don’t remember him mentioning race specifically, that was certainly the subtext.

As surrogates for their candidates, Arnet and Burgess bore an eerie verbal resemblance to them. Arnet was somewhat more practical and specific, and Burgess more theoretical and global. Disappointingly, though, I didn’t feel any issues were resolved. Burgess did bring up the Obama campaign argument that if Obama has the lead in pledged delegates, he should be declared the winner. Arnet countered that Hillary had won “must-win” states for democrats, and the super delegates should take that into account. Dennis Roddy pointed out that the contests so far have been (largely) limited to democratic voters. So Obama’s lead is in democratic voters, and Clinton has won contests in important states only in voting with other democrats. Since all these contests have so far involved only democrat party voters, they really say nothing about the electibility of the candidates at all. Again, I don’t know what should happen, but it is possible (if dangerous) that the only fair thing is to let this go to the convention with two candidates.

Obama's Philadelphia speech

Barack Obama gave a speech today in Philadelphia, a specch about race relations, in an effort to address the problems that had been raised by the video clips of his pastor that have circled the internet and every news program. His speech did more than just confirm his condemnation of Rev Wright (although in fact he also embraced the anger of Reverend Wright), it also used that as a jumping off point to confront race directly. Obama says that he has heard things from Rev Wright that he (Obama) disagreed with, and I believe Obama would disagree that angry rhetoric would help a particular racial issue (as a tactical matter). But I also believe Obama would understand the rage, since he has surely encountered prejudice against himself while in school in the US. Even as he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, that very fact in and of itself indicates how blacks are viewed even in the most elite segments of society.

But Obama seems to want us to understand he does see the same world we do. He talked about how bad things are in black neighborhoods, how the under-funded and thus understaffed and under-equipped schools can not provide black kids with the education needed to compete, and thus they can not get jobs to provide for families (and both kids and adults may turn to crime). We, as a nation, have made strides, but clearly not enough. He even mentioned blacks own complicity in some of their problems, and the possible negative effects of welfare. But he also talked about how lower and middle class whites have suffered recently too, seeing their wage stagnate, their credit card and home equity debt go up, and just recently seeing their home values start to tumble in many places. He talked about how we are not confronting the issues of race, not even during tense times of clear differences like during the OJ trial or Katrina. We know there are problems but no one wants to talk about them for fear of saying the wrong thing. But Obama did talk some about them, positioning them as mutual problems, things we need to take responsibility for so that we can turn to other quality of life issues like education, health care and jobs.

So I thought it was a good speech and I urge everyone to read it. I might reprint it as a post. The other interesting thing is that this speech provided Obama with an opportunity to make a pitch to Pennsylvanians. He gave this speech now, in this state. He gave working class white males something to think about for the next four weeks. Hillary might find that some of her support here fades. The goofy way the democrats allocate delegates, proportionally, guarantees that neither candidate will have enough delegates by the convention to clinch the nomination, but it appears Obama will have more than Clinton. I sortta hope now that Clinton doesn’t get the nomination. She is beginning to remind me of John Kerry, and I am getting a bad feeling about that.

Adult supervision?

I have only been really following local politics since last January, the start of the primary season. I got that Dowd flyer and then a visit from Dowd and I started reading blogs that focus on local politics yada yada yada. But I am aware that past City Councils and past Mayors have had conflicts, perhaps even epic conflicts. We’ve had character Mayors and character Councilpersons, and Tom Murphy well and truly overstayed his welcome, after having been the darling of the progressives initially. All of which is to say that I won’t say what the current Council is doing is amazing and unlike anything we have ever seen before! But it is different from last year, and kinda important. Right now City Council seems to be trying to teach the Ravenstahl administration how to fight like adults.

Anyone reading this blog knows about the Mayor’s misadventures in the last year or so (unless you’re here to crib on your pysch homework). I won’t go into detail about last year, but I will say that since the election the issues have changed in tone. The Pittsburgh Promise was probably not the Mayor’s choice in timing, but the way the sign has been handled, the Penguins community benefit agreement that isn’t and now the dust up over take home cars … all on the Mayor or his staff.

Commenters at the Burgh Report are complaining that fussing about the sign is a distraction from the city’s real problems. There’s a point there, but the thing is that if the decision making process is ignored in this case, where else will it be ignored when slight variations from the exact wording of city code can be found? Real money is made in development, in building and advertising. Trade unions and the developers have a big stake in this. Pittsburgh could become a very development friendly town, as long as you donate to the right campaign. Pat Ford and Our Mayor could become the “go-to” guys, spending time in sky-boxes and expensive restaurants galore. They could come to dominate the PG’s “Seen” section.

And if City Council loses this fight, if it comes to pass that development can be green lighted with just a signature or two instead of those pesky hearings and public comments, the people of this city will … what? Rise up in revolt? Sue the city? Run developers out of town on a rail? Naw, people won’t care. There be some whining from the People’s Republic of Squirrel Hill, and the Popular Front of Shadyside (not to mention the Grand Duchy of Highland Park), but that’s all. In fact, the micro-attention of the local press on the Presidential race has already sucked the public interest out of the local fight.

I’ve already commented a bit on the sign issues, but my own attention was caught by City Council's meeting on take home cars. Ricky Burgess is spearheading that effort, and has already compromised in his efforts to limit the number of take home cars. It was decided that the public safety departments could keep their take home cars, and Burgess was only looking at Parks and Recreation, Building Inspection and Public Works. Two points caught my attention in the coverage of the meeting. First, George Specter, who (as far as I know) still has not rendered an opinion on the LED sign or more particularly the city’s process in approving it, had immediate if vague opinions on Council ability to control the number of take home cars. Quote: “But Solicitor George Specter said it is his "very strong opinion that this bill violates the separation of powers doctrine between council and the mayor." He called it "an unlawful imposition on the mayor's executive powers."” The PG also reported “Mr. Specter said council's right to legislate policy doesn't mean it can manage departments. "It's kind of like obscenity -- where you call it like you see it -- when you cross the line into micromanagement of operations," he said.”

I don’t know if Specter said anything more specific, the PG may have just used the sound bites, but if he didn’t, then Specter has picked up a trick from Pat Ford. He can’t specify when Council has stepped over the line, he only knows it has. So Council better rein itself in, and not try to tell the Ravenstahl administration how to spend money on anything. A good tactic, since it leaves Council wondering if the city lawyer will defend them on anything, or whether the city lawyer will turn around and file suit against them.

The other thing that caught my attention was the report that Kevin Quigley’s take home car was reported as having just under twenty thousand miles put on it in the last year. Maybe the PG made a mistake, maybe that is Quigley’s work and home vehicle, but if not … Quigley must be using this Chevy Avalanche to take very expensive family road trip vacations in, maybe to Florida or at least some Atlantic coast beach. A few times. Scott Kunka (City Finance Director) said that eliminating the take home cars would worsen the city officials’ response times in emergencies (since personal vehicles move slower than city vehicles?), but I can’t see how your response time is improved if you are out of town. It was Kunka, by the way, who used the “Pirate of the Caribbean” defense for city. Agreeing the Act 47 five plan had itself mandated a reduction of the take home fleet down to 29 (from the 83 in 2003 and also still), Kunka called the Act 47 plan “"a global, sort-of, road map."” . Bruce Kraus noted it is a law.

Other bloggers and myself have noted Ravenstahl’s similarity to the current President, for example when Ravenstahl would lie to the press, get caught, then refuse to apologize for it. Well, now we can add Ravestahl’s attempt to create a Unitary Mayor, someone who can ignore process and act as he pleases. At least Bush has the excuse that there might be constitutional reasoning and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for his behavior. Mayor Ravenstahl should be belt tightening since the city is in Act 47 status. Instead he is pushing back against any legally required restrictions on his administration’s behavior. And everyone is distracted by the primary.

Please don't let me be misunderstood

Patrick Dowd revealed his strategy today for addressing the maneuver made by the Parking and Zoning Board Authorities to allow an LED sign to be placed on the Grant Street Transportation Center. Dr. Dowd has filed an appeal with the Zoning Board, triggering a hearing on April 10th.

This strategy has several interesting facets. First, there is a question of whether the non-binding resolution in Council a couple of weeks ago could have actually done anything. How much authority does the Mayor have over the Authorities? They have their own boards, they are quasi state related, it may be that this would be the time the Mayor would discover the limits to his own authority. Second, this move has triggered a hearing, so the questions about the Authorities’ process will be brought before the very people who have created and participate in that process. Third, the Authorities (first, at least) will have to consider the legality of the issue, the very thing requested from George Specter. Specter certainly still has an opportunity to render an opinion, but he may also find himself defending that opinion before a board or even a court. Fourth is that if the issue does ultimately end up in Commonwealth Court, the Court has the capacity to compel the Authorities to perform some action, such as to reopen the process.

On the down side, I think it is a shame that this issue has to be taken outside of council. The Mayor is not the only elected representative of the people, and I think it might be important for Council to say something about this situation, even if it is just a non-binding resolution expressing dismay that the process was bypassed. There’s danger too for Dr. Dowd, who has staked out a position; a position arguing that the city needs to follow its own rules. I hope that the Mayor will realize he let Pat Ford go too far I this case, but I fear that someone will whisper in the ear of the snow plow driver to ignore Dr. Dowd’s street.

The city needs a parliamentarian, someone who can express an opinion on the rules of the game. Mr. Specter, the city's lawyer, currently finds himself in a difficult position, where if he renders opinions that the city has done the wrong thing, he will have trouble then defending the city in court, if it comes to that. Mr. Specter needs to concentrate on finding defenses for the actions of city officials, and someone else, possibly in Mr. Specter’s office or outside, needs to be responsible for suggesting the truth of the matter. Otherwise I can only suggest that the state ethics board set up a permanent outpost on Grant Street, because we are going to need it.

Couldn't happen here ... could it?

Chris Briem posted about the potential bankruptcy of Vallejo, Ca and how it relates to a possible Pittsburgh bankruptcy. Like Chris, I myself wonder if the state would step in and prevent the city from declaring bankruptcy. And the question of how bond debt versus the pension obligations would be viewed is also quite interesting.

What also interests me is how Our Mayor does not admit that the city is vulnerable. He admits the city has financial issues, but talks about them as if they are a thing of the past. The city has no capital budget, instead having a $99 million savings account from which to spend for everything discretionary for the indefinite future. The Mayor states that he will not borrow for the next five years, to avoid taking on any new debt. Yet the Mayor see no problems worth discussing in this situation, much as the President see no problems, just something “interesting”, in the idea of $4 a gallon gasoline.

My memory is that while the Mayor has not talked extensively on this, he has stated that he is in favor of exiting Act 47 status. There is a hearing coming up on the city’s status in about a month, and I expect the Mayor will talk more about it then. I believe we are in the last year of the Act 47 five year plan.

The city’s current financial situation is stable but dangerous. If all the city had to do was make the minimum payments on debt indefinitely, we might be all right. But apparently there are health insurance concerns down the road, and probably a balloon (large) payment on debt. And the credit market is drying up, making borrowing to refinance or even just meet large payments much more difficult. And that is without talking about the issue of the under-funded pension.

If the city did go into bankruptcy, whatever federal administrator would examine what the city tried to do to avoid it. (S)He will see that the city tried to exit Act 47 status, which would eliminate a number of taxing powers granted to the city through Act 47. (S)He may see a firefighters contract negotiated early, ostensibly to help the city leave Act 47 status. The firefighters say they will not take advantage if the city returns to normal status, but I find that really hard to believe

For that matter, federal bankruptcy people would see a Mayor who has repeatedly made questionable ethical decisions and appears willing to spend fairly freely to appear to be responsive to the people (on paving software, new salt trucks and a Ford Explorer for himself, for example). The only time recently the Mayor has mention belt-tightening was in response to the question of whether the Housing Authority is overspending on itself. The Mayor does not give the impression of someone looking for ways for the city to save money, except perhaps in the sweetheart deals being made with campaign contributors (to quote Bill Murray “Well that’s what I heard, anyway”).

Bad commenter ... bad

This post was caused by the “a-ha” moment in turn caused by this NYTimes piece. In may in fact be closer to a “well, duh” kind of thing, but at least it is in keeping with the title of this blog.

There has been a little talk about Barack Obama elevating the level of political discourse. Of course we all know about the surrogates for campaigns (like the Swift Boaters) and conservative (and a few liberals on) talk radio. But Obama’s efforts also do not seem to have filtered down to the internet and blogs. There seem to me to be a fair number of posts created just to provoke a reaction, and other posts which while containing new information, contain provocative statements. And this happens even more in comments, with people just agreeing with a slanted and nasty post, or disagreeing in a disagreeable manner, which results in several disagreeable retaliatory comments.

As far as I can tell most of us (in this region of the country) are amateurs at this. We know what we know, we are as well educated and/or as smart as we are. BTW, I have always felt that education and intelligence are less directly related than they ought to logically be, and that a poorly worded comment could still be very insightful. But often enough comments with extreme positions, conservative or in support of orthodoxy, are poorly worded and not insightful and can be left to stand on their own.

I don’t know what can be done about nasty posts and comments. I try to respond to most comments on my own blog. If there are blanket statements like that all unions or even one particular union is greedy, I will try to challenge it, although I try to be respectful. I know it makes for more enjoyable blog reading when you totally trash some one or some group. However sinking to that level essentially robs you of any claim to intellectual creditability. The best you can hope for if you are Ann Coulter, for example, is to have a louder microphone.

Not to say I have not been guilty of this myself on occasion. After the mayoral election I was following links on Early Returns of what blogs around the city were saying, looking for some outside my usual circle. I can across one young woman’s blog, where she favored Ravenstahl over DeSantis, and said why (mostly the residency thing, plus the city appears to be doing well under Ravenstahl). I commented at length on her blog, and couldn’t help myself in taking a couple of cheap shots in terms of questioning how informed she was (and really her intelligence). She fired back a comment no nastier but quite shorter than mine. I ended up apologizing because I felt an apology was appropriate (the young woman was being sincere in her assessment, and DeSantis’ website was hard to navigate, yada yada topic for another post), but the point is that few of us are immune to the temptation to be nasty (few of us in politics, none of us overall). Still, the moment where I find myself saying “I am laughing at you stupid conservatives” has got to be the moment I hang it up.

I am reminded of an acronym (or initialism?) that I saw for the first time recently: WTFWJD.

If you don’t get it, I won’t be the one to tell you.

Regional Indicators Redux

I had meant to post on the Pittsburghtoday.org/regional indicators site actually yesterday, but hadn’t mustered the effort and time to do so. Then this morning I heard sort of second hand that some of the people at UCSUR (University Center for Social and Urban Research, which apparently maintains the site) were concerned that I was declaring the site difficult to use (at least for me, which shouldn’t mean that much). So I took a second (and third) look at the site and discovered what I had missed before. When you click on one of the broad indicator types, like transportation or healthcare, it brings up a submenu of three or four items, with a graph showing Pittsburgh’s position with regard to the benchmark average. The submenu titles are in black fonts; I had never noticed that if you place the pointer on they turn a color (yellow for transportation, red for healthcare, etc). In other words, I hadn’t realized the submenu titles are clickable, leading to more data. That’s because I am have myself programmed to recognize quickly that items with the familiar blue color and underline are hyperlinks. Pittburghtoday.org has something more fancy, which defeats dinosaurs like me.

Mind you, just a little looking around made me wish there might be more levels of data, and maybe there are. I just don’t have time right now to find out. But I plan to play around with the site and see what I can find. I might say something about it here.

Meanwhile, the inspiration for my wanting to post on this yesterday was that the PG had another Pittsburgh 250 opinion piece, this one from Paul O’Neill about the Pittsburghtoday site. I am very impressed with O’Neill, even though I commented last Sunday on how I thought he might have driven George W crazy when O’Neill was Secretary of the Treasury. Anyway, I’m not sure how to take O’Neill’s piece in this past Sunday’s PG. He uses the example of medical data to show how patients might be smart consumers of medicine (or perhaps how employers might be smart consumers of health insurance), and then admits that particular level of data is not yet on Pittsburghtoday.org (D’oh!). Still, I don’t doubt that Mr O’Neill has it on his to do list, to add that data to the site, and that it will be done.

As I mentioned, I think that a Pittsburgh data compilation site is a really valuable idea. I don’t know that it should be limited to just data, or maybe it could be part of a group of linked sites, including sites that list restaurants and link to reviews, sites that link to housing lists, etc. Obviously a lot of that is on the PG website, and can be searched on either internally to that site or externally through Google (I should also mention the Trib website as well, having a lot of the same information as the PG site). The more of that that Pittsburgh can get together to resent to the outside world, the better. It is not enough in this day and age to be the “city with a doorway”. We need to be the city with an information highway on and off ramp (which, thank goodness, we do not have to rely on PennDOT to provide).

five hundred invoices ...

So I re-watched the KDKA report about Matt Hogue’s allegations against the Housing Authority. One concern, obviously, is that Matt kept electronic copies of invoices. The fact that he did so for whistle blowing purposes is a point in his favor, but the fact that he went to a news organization instead of the city, county or state is a concern. Still, going to a news agency ensured no Enron-like shredding of documents and wiping of hard drives and backups.

I took some notes while watching, but I realize that didn’t make much sense. There are apparently some 500 to 700 invoices in Matt’s stack. Still, during the broadcast there were a few interesting highlights, like spending 45,000 for a band at a Housing Authority reception? Detailing a car, and apparently being invoiced twice in one day for that one car? Spending just under 2 grand for Housing Authority lapel pins. Now, I noticed that the quantity for the lapel pins on the invoice was 1,000, so you can’t say the price was inflated. But you might ask why the Housing Authority needs a thousand lapel pins.

Matt and a Housing Authority resident mentions how a lot of repairs aren’t being made, and that HACP complains it doesn’t have the money or manpower to make repairs. Well, I glanced at a PG story or two on the HACP and at the HACP’s budget report on the HACP website. The budget, by the way, is described as back in the black (it was apparently in the red for some time period). The HACP maintains it has cut spending by “closely monitoring contract expenditures, reducing housing assistance expenditures within the Housing Choice Voucher Program and eliminating vacant positions whenever possible”. So any maintenance positions that had not been filled were eliminated, and that salary money, which was budgeted last year, was not spent. Except as the Authority saw it was saving money and going to come in under budget, some managers in the Authority may have approved expenses they might have nixed in the past. Remember, the entire Authority police force went to the city police, but I am assuming the Authority is only contributing a fraction of their former salaries.

Then there is the part about how the Authority is raising the rent it charges and saying it will force some residents into the regular housing market. Given the possibility some Authority employees are treating themselves to expensive toys, that now seems fairly obnoxious. I will say I fear the city has set the standard, and this sort of thing could be happening all across city government. Grown-ups need to step in.

So who polices the Authority? The city, who appoints the board? The State? The Feds? Whomever, they need to have their accounting practices reviewed and revised right quick. And not by Pat Ford, some professionals need to step in.

Issues ... or not?

There has been much punditry about how we should be paying attention to issues in this primary season. Of course, there are many accusations that people who support candidates (other than the favorite of whatever pundit we are reading or listening to) are doing so mindlessly, without any understanding of the candidate’s political stands. I myself had advocated looking at issues in last year’s Mayoral election, and so far to me it looks like I might have had a point. But in the race for President, I am thinking that the candidate’s stands on issues might not be that important, unless the stand is for immediate invasion of Canada.

As I have mentioned before, I am fairly persuaded by the arguments of the author Drew Westen (The Political Brain), that people chose candidates to support based on emotions, first impressions, and their own party history; and then the people rationalize their choices later. Particularly in choosing legislators this would seem to be a bad practice, but not one we are likely to see curbed anytime soon (especially if pundits and bloggers just yell at people for making bad choices). But when you think about it, what does the President really do? What sorts of things go into making a good and successful President?

Well, the President does not make policy, at least not by himself. Mostly Congress makes laws that guide policy, like directing Medicare to start a system that offers prescription drugs to senior citizens or reduce the tax rate on long term capital gains to 15% (from 35%?). Both those laws were proposed by the President but enacted by Congress. The President does negotiate treaties like the Kyoto Accord, but the Senate has to ratify them (which it didn’t). What the President does have by him or herself is the power of the “bully pulpit”, a guarantee that unless (s)he is really boring and stupid, (s)he can have the lead spot on the national news with whatever information (s)he wants to get out. That is something few if any other politicians can count on. The President is our “Cheerleader in Chief”, someone who can help the economy, if (s)he is persuasive, by convincing us things are going well and we should get out and spend (which spending can, by itself, improve the economic picture). Kind of ironic, considering what the current President did at Yale.

I would argue that the candidate’s current positions, such as Obama’s health plan without mandates and McCain’s desire to make the Bush tax cuts permanent to avoid a de facto tax increase, are not that important right now. If the President could make tax cuts permanent, Bush would have already done so. Presumably McCain knows the limits of the presidency and is just pandering to conservatives. And if conservatives are the rational realists they claim to be, it won’t help McCain with them. Obama's health plan could emerge from Congress with mandates, and I susupect he would not veto it on that basis alone.

What we should really be asking ourselves is what we think about the character of
the two men who are now the presumptive nominees. They will appoint department heads, do we think they will do a good job? They will represent the United States during crisis, and try to persuade us that they are controlling the situation, which do we think will be more convincing and persuasive?

I think I will try to take a look at the specifics of each man in my next post, maybe on Sunday.

Regional indicators

My issues with being able to post during tax season continue, though I am no less worked up about things. My car is a mess, and I am sure most people would side with my wife in saying that it is my own fault. I knew there was a good chance the electrical system would be unreliable when I bought the car, it had been in a flood according to the vehicle history. But right now the radio is fighting me, which is annoying. It needs a code when the battery dies (which happens frequently, because it is an aftermarket battery that is the wrong size for the car). I usually try to put the code in while I’m driving, and have often flubbed a number (of the four digit code). I found that if you hold in the band button, the blank code display will come back. Except not this time. Errrrrrr. I will have to go out, probably now, un-hook the battery, and wait for the capacitors to discharge.

The KD/PG Sunday edition was interesting and frustrating today. It was on the Pittsburgh Regional Indicators thingie, the pittsburghtoday.org website. They had John Craig and Paul O’Neill on, and Stacy Smith and Samantha Bennett were the hosts. Stacy Smith sometimes has a problem with coherence, and today was one of those days. I don’t think he prepares as much as he should (he does work a couple of different jobs), and he had trouble asking questions and finding follow-ups that made sense. He also made the statement that I believe makes Chris Briem cringe, that Pittsburgh has more young people leaving than any other area besides New Orleans (I believe Chris Briem attributes local population decline to our disproportionately older population, and their natural tendency to shuffle off this mortal coil). Samantha Bennett only asked a couple of questions (she was there because among her hats is the PG web editor cap), and was not able to save the half hour, to her frustration. John Craig and Paul O’Neill were also not able to rise past the general sense of confusion. By the way, Paul O’Neill does not seem the CEO of a manufacturing concern, his mannerisms seemed a bit fey and he struck me more like a playwright or a professor, a very, very smart playwright. I say this only because I could see it driving George Bush crazy, this fey guy disagreeing in a really smart way with the conservatives in Bush’s cabinet.

It’s a shame the discussion went nowhere, because I think a regional indicators website could be very valuable to our area. Mind you, I am not sure our regional indicators website is the one to be valuable, because I have trouble with it every time I look at it. It is suppose to compare us with other comparable areas, like Detroit or Kansas City or Minneapolis, but I can never bring the comparisons up. If it’s not easy to use on a casual basis, it will be hard to attract many users.

But it could be (in the abstract) useful by providing information, both negative and positive. For example, we don’t want to encourage a Latino oriented business to locate here, at least not now, because it would surely fail. But it does encourage us to think about what sorts of businesses should think about locating here. Paul O’Neill noted that Pittsburgh is ahead of most reference cities in both the healthcare and education industries. He suggested both are recession proof, and that may be true. However, I have a feeling that we all are thinking healthcare may contract here soon, as a large number of patients simply die off, because they are so old. Education should be around for a while, though. Carnegie Mellon is a nationally ranked school (whose students have nothing but contempt for Pittsburgh). But Carlow, Chatham, RMU, Point Park and to some extent Pitt are more regional schools, and their fortunes may be tied to the regional economy. Still, I could see both consulting and internet businesses considering Pittsburgh, because of the large number of professors here, and the reasonable cost of living. In fact, it’s too bad University of Phoenix didn’t start out as Pittsburgh University instead. We have the infrastructure (I believe) to handle an online university here, and with online it doesn't matter where you are.

There's more to say (I guess I had too much build up) but in the interests of actually getting this posted ...

Policy, anyone? Anyone? (Bueller? Bueller?)

David Brooks brings up a point about the Democrats in his NYTimes column today. Because the Democrat party presidential aspirants are so alike (at this point), there’s not much discussion of policy going on. Which is a problem, because there is likely to be some when the nominee is chosen. For example, what would happen if a Democratic President made good on that pledge to withdraw troops within sixty days? Brooks brings up the hue and cry the military and conservative politicians would raise. Kind of defeats the whole “unite the country” thing, Ms Clinton or Mr. Obama.

My first question is, what would happen to the people who stayed behind, waiting their turn to leave? Even if we were able to get all our people out without huge casualties or a last stand, and the private contractors got out too, what then would to Iraq? How would Americans feel watching a civil war in this country we were supposed to “liberate”, watching thousands die and a strong man come in. That would be an interesting polling question: “would you favor staying in Iraq if the alternative was genocide?”

The Democrats have long and loudly proclaimed their support for the troops. But I can see a debate moderator asking the Democrat nominee to explain to the families of a slain soldier or to a soldier with amputated legs or what have you how the Iraq invasion and occupation was “worth it”. I don’t think it would be any good to just blame Bush (even if that might well be accurate).

I was never fond of the “you break it, you bought it” metaphor, but I don’t think you can really get away with “you break it, you bought it, you can take it back five years later”. Anyway, the Democrats have seethed and ground their teeth at what they described as Republican incompetence in running the war. Maybe they should take a crack at running it before they toss it out.

I didn’t even get to Brooks’ discussion of the deficit.

Something a bit different

Mike Woycheck is something of a legend in what has come to be called the Burghosphere. The administrator of the very useful Pittsburgh Bloggers website, he also works at the Pittsburgh Technology Council. He sent me (and I am sure many other bloggers) an email telling me about a competition the PTC is running, and asking me to post about it. Since it is late and a school night (so to speak), I am going to take the lazy way out and simply post what he sent me. Check out pghbloggers and the PTC websites as well for more (or at least differently laid out) information.

EnterPrize is Pittsburgh’s premier business plan competition for technology startups. This year, the Pittsburgh Technology Council hosts eight workshops and three networking events, beginning February 20 with a workshop, “Developing the Idea” taught by Chris Allison. Through three phases of competition more than $80,000 will be awarded. Participants will get plenty of feedback through a coach and comments on their plans from judges and will have many, many networking opportunities to meet potential funders, advisers and peers.

The goal of the competition is to help stimulate economic growth in southwestern Pennsylvania and support local technology entrepreneurs.

You can find more information about the competition, including a registration form for entry, via the website link below:

http://www.pghtech.org/Events/enterprize.asp

Background Information:



EnterPrize is divided into two categories - new business and existing business. What defines a "new business?"

· The team has an idea for an innovative product or service with which they intend to start a company.

· The company does not exist.

· The company is nothing more than an idea.

· They have no employees (founders are acceptable).

· No money has been raised.

· The company is not incorporated. (NOTE: If it is incorporated, its only purpose was to create a shell - the company is not conducting any business).

The company has not experienced Substantial Business Activity:

· Payment of wages or salaries

· Receipt of research grants, development contracts or other sources of revenue

· Receipt of equity or debt financing from outside the Founder's immediate family

* Founder's activities, such as research, prototype development, establishing beta sites (other than for paying customers), licensing necessary technologies, will not be considered Substantial Business Activities.

Definition of an Existing Business Category:

· The company is less than three (3) years old.

· The company has less than twenty (20) employees.

· The company has less than $1 million in annual sales.

· The company has raised less than $500,000 in capital since its inception.

The company is experiencing Substantial Business Activity:

· Payment of wages or salaries

· Receipt of research grants, development contracts or other sources of revenue

· Receipt of equity or debt financing from outside the Founder's immediate family

* Founder's activities, such as research, prototype development, establishing beta sites (other than for paying customers), licensing necessary technologies, will not be considered Substantial Business Activities.

Some of our members who have participated in EnterPrize over the years include: Vivisimo, Plextronics, Agentase, ALung Technologies, LogicLibrary, RemComm, Staffing Direct Business Solutions.

Opinion 250 ... and 1 (1 more opinon, that is, not 251 years)

I gotta hope that the Post Gazette is saving the better for later in its Opinion 250 series. Chad Hermann’s (bless him) piece in last Sunday’s Forum section was a fairly vague indictment of the current Mayor and Chief Executive (and UPMC). That’s something we bloggers have gotten used to doing, but I actually think we should really try to be as exact as possible (given our circumstances) if we want to complain, otherwise we risk sounding like cranks. Meanwhile, David Caliguiri today takes Chad to task in the next installment of the series, saying that Chad was guilty of just talking about the problem instead of doing anything about it (I guess Chad was supposed to lead charge against the barricades). But Caliguiri’s own prescriptions for action are extremely troubling. His suggestion for problems with our pension funds and Port Authority is to spend more money; for the pension funds to specifically go to Harrisburg and demand more money (for PAT he says we should “plan” how to fund additional projects). And Caliguiri thinks “Our outdated tax structure needs to be reformed”, a euphemism for reducing the taxes of the city and the region. So, let’s see, we are going to tell the legislature to give us money for our pension funds, probably tell them they have to pay for an Oakland connector for the trolley, er, subway and then tell them to reduce our taxes.

Now, I understand there is a state component to pension funds, and you would think it would have special obligations to an officially designated “distressed” city. But we need to live in a real world. We have the largest per capita state legislature in the country, which means that each legislator is has to be careful because even a small group of disgruntled voters could have an impact. Yet we have few legislators in the city proper; people like Jim Ferlo and Lisa Bennington have districts that stretch far into rural areas (Ferlo’s district makes it to Armstrong County). Harrisburg is unlikely to listen to Pittsburgh if we bluster about how they have to give us more money and take less from us. That’s why it was so important to elect Mark DeSantis Mayor. If Pittsburgh were seen as trying to reform itself first, it would have carried more weight when we started making demands. Instead, we still have a Mayor who has ordered his department managers not to talk to Council or the media unless they have permission from Yarone Zober.

Both Hermann and Caliguiri think actions speak louder than words, and I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, I have little more than words to offer. The people who have the ability to take action, our elected officials, are fairly content to just talk about problems and spend money we don’t have. Meanwhile, the best I can do is look at our problems and try to find the inconsistencies in what our leaders have said.

Green lawns versus carbon footprints

Once again I have been absent from blogging. This will probably be a trend through tax season (I worked six hours today, for example), but I will do my best. Below is a bit of inspiration.

There is an individual who has been a gadfly of sorts on the blogs' Antirust and the Burgh Report, a suburbanite who trumpets the clear superiority of the suburbs over the city. I don’t think I am going to name him, but you might recognize these ideas. The houses in the city are chimneys; the heat rises within them, it is both wasteful and uncontrollable and the attics are saunas. Of course there is the crime, even with all our police (who are, of course, corrupt) murders happen spontaneously and constantly, and people only pretend to care. Our streets are totally un-navigable and confusing. Our public officials and the city’s unions are totally corrupt and just praying for a city county merger so they can use that to jack up their wages. Oh yeah, and we waste huge amounts of energy with street lights.

By contrast, in the suburbs there is very little crime (what little there is is probably caused by city people who got lost and wandered into the suburbs). There’s no traffic, so driving is fuel efficient and more pleasurable. There are stores close by that are clean and well stocked, and movie houses with movies people enjoy watching, as opposed to pretentious symphonies and ballets in the city. The government employees in the suburbs are polite and helpful. And the houses in the suburbs were made recently with modern, quality materials by builders who take pride in their work, so everything in the suburbs is fuel efficient.

Or maybe not. The NYTimes had a story Saturday about how suburbanites are coming to realize that their lifestyle may not fit in with environmental beliefs. The giant size of many suburban houses and the total reliance on cars work against the most basic tenets of sustainable living. Now, to be fair, my family lives in a sixty year old city house, and we have not done as much as I would like to add insulation. And I am still working on adding a bike into my commute in a way that actually reduces how much gas I use (right now I use the bike to make my commute quicker time-wise). And the story describes how some features of suburbs allow you to do things that would be much more difficult in the city, such as adding a wind turbine that is tall enough to actually do some good.

But the graphic attached to the story really spells out the situation. Using Atlanta as an example, houses in that area that are attached (which you see in cities) use much less energy than larger stand alone suburban houses. And per unit, apartment buildings use the least amount of energy. Still using Atlanta, the graphic also shows that the further out counties produce much more carbon dioxide emissions than the city and near suburb counties.

Pittsburgh has an interesting mix of types of suburban communities, which I suspect is true in many places (such as Cleveland). The city is not just ringed by wealthy suburbs filed with people who cynically fled the city’s high taxes (although there are at least a few of those suburbs … I’m looking at you, Sewickley). Places like Rankin and Duquesne could just as easily be in the city, and boroughs like Verona and Blawnox could be mistaken for spread out versions of Bloomfield or Greenfield. Pittsburgh’s rust belt heritage means that when the steel and other industrail workers started moving out of the city in the fifties, sixties and seventies, they tied the fate of the suburbs where they settled to their jobs. Which could be part of the reason why Pittsburgh (and Allegheny County) has such an elderly population. Pensions have probably been so battered by the downsizing of the manufacturing sector; area retirees really need the low cost of living here (and can’t afford to move where its warmer).

But regardless of all that, there is growing evidence that our post war migration to suburbia is a big part of our energy appetite. The article describes how many communities are taking steps to reduce energy consumption. But the most effective step might be a reverse migration. As Jed Clampett would put it “Y’all come back, you hear”.