Outfits on both the political left and right in the U.S. have been beefing up their digital news coverage of America’s statehouses, where lawmaking is both meaningful and sometimes quick. Just such political action was spotlighted in last week’s New York Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/us/michigan-democrats-right-to-work-lgbtq-guns.html) on the Michigan legislature after last November’s electoral sweep of the state by Democrats. Elections do matter. Reapportionments matter. Judicial choices that oversee balloting matter. Yet coverage in the state capitals has rarely been a media strong suit–particularly in the broadcast sector–and that’s only gotten sparer as the nation’s daily newspapers have withered. (A good, mostly-neutral national roundup of what does appear can be found at pluribusnews.com.) One reason the action at this level of government can be brisk is that many legislative sessions have compressed calendars, a vestige of when America mostly had part-time, citizen legislators. If the states are the U.S. laboratories of democracy in the federal system–an aphorism that Washington too often ignores–it’s a shame not to know what they’re cooking up.
Is Modi Chasing Away His Brightest?
Pundits are pointing to new trade potential with India as the U.S. works to disengage with much of the Communist Party-linked economy in China, but one American “export” opportunity isn’t getting enough attention: enrollment in post-secondary education.
U.S. universities, for all their widely discussed flaws, nonetheless have long been a draw to talented or wealthy foreigners. This inflow suffered mightily during the Covid pandemic, but now has resumed from most of the world (less so, China). In some cases, not only is there a “pull” to attend in America, but a “push” to escape sub-par conditions at home. India appears increasingly to be in the latter camp, and this is true even in graduate-level programs where it has famously top schools.
The reason, according to scholars here and there, is more pervasive interference in academic and intellectual affairs by the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi. The problems were laid out last fall in this article by historian Ramachandra Guha. The impact was flagged last week at a Council on Foreign Relations symposium by Prof. Lisa Mitchell of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of South Asia Studies, who noted an “explosion of applications” from Indians to U.S. programs.
The evidence at the application stage is still anecdotal–Mitchell reports a doubling at her base from past years–and even the matriculation data from last fall aren’t catalogued nationally. But the Modi effect, both from the outside on India’s institutions as well as from nationalist intimidation on the inside, has been increasingly felt. That could explain a jump to 102,000 Indian graduate students in the U.S. for the 2021-2022 term, after a string of declines pre-pandemic, to 85,000 in 2019-2020. (The trend in the smaller numbers of undergraduate is more mixed, though the most recent total of 27,545 is a high.) These figures come from the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors database.
“I’m hearing from many that there’s a feeling that India’s top universities are being destroyed (especially programs in the Humanities/Social Sciences) through political appointments of Vice Chancellors and harassment of faculty, and that universities are ceasing to be sites for the free exchange of ideas,” Prof. Mitchell emailed me.
The latest enrollment count, when it emerges, will tell an important story, as will the applications that can lead to attendance starting later this year. It is possible that graduate interest in the U.S. diminished in the U.S. from 2017 because of President Trump’s hostility to many visa-dependent employment opportunities, and has now jumped back up with perceptions of more openness. But elite Indians have all the while enjoyed access to Institute of Technology campuses (IITs) and other premium-flight options at home leading to international careers. If more choose to study–and discourse–in America instead, it is our gain and India’s loss.
–March 7, 2023
Should Your New Road Hog Be EV?
The New York Times’ climate crew produced this moral guide for prospective purchasers of Ford’s mainstay F-150 pickup truck–go electric or not? The battery-powered Lightning model, it happens, weighs 6,000 pounds or nearly 50% more than the gasoline counterparts, and that raises various issues explored in the article: Not just whether EV power needs negate the sparing of (direct) carbon emissions, but also the safety implications from when the big boys bash into humans and other objects. (Also, not noted: Heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear on roads and whatever “all terrain” they cross.) The Times gets into the “life-cycle emissions” per mile, and concludes the Lightnings “end up just as polluting as some smaller gas-burning cars.” Whether this calculation takes into account the upgrading of the electricity grid and alt-energy sourcing that will be necessary to accommodate a full fleet of American EVs in the future is not clear. Or, whether such infrastructure is even in the cards. There’s a lot to the all-electric boom that is uncertain, even as many underestimate the efficiency gains that are being made in internal-combustion engines. (Lighter materials on vehicles, such as the aluminum frames on all F-150s now, are another advancement–unless you are bothered by a new Bloomberg investigation into some Brazilian sourcing misery.) Ultimately, the quandary of how paragons of sustainability should transport themselves and their cargo comes down to this, the Times quotes: “Consumers should think about buying the highest-efficiency vehicle that still meets their needs.” At present, alas, they seem to need more and more. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/17/climate/electric-vehicle-emissions-truck-suv.html
Title IX’s Ticket to Training Camp
The big business of college sports in the U.S. is for the better or worse, and has many causes and consequences. One reason that the two highly commercial features of most programs–football and men’s basketball–are such big tickets is that they not only carry their own ever-heavier weight but also that of most of the other team competitions, including those for women. For half a century, federal “Title IX” strictures have been requiring schools to aim for equitable treatment of the two sexes in athletic as well as other activities. As the weekend’s New York Times article shows, this has had an unexplored and rather awkward result: The American campuses have become a training ground for the world’s female athletes, many of whom go on to compete in the Olympics for their home nations. In most of those countries, there is no comparable level of facilities and training available to women, particularly, and not with college attached. They don’t have Title IX, and they don’t have big-money spectator sports like football and March Madness to provide for such support. Now, what you make of this depends on whether a) you’re bothered by college sports being more about “Inc.” than “B.A.”; b) you think bringing in star athletes benefits everyone involved with the school; and c) you don’t care where the recruits come from or whether they go back there. (It’s a financial double-whammy: foreign students on scholarships are getting a free ride on what would typically be an institution’s highest tuition charges.) Maybe, on some level, this still amounts to a premium American “export.” It is probably not what the authors of Title IX envisioned.
A Tale of Montauk’s Camp Hero
This personalized recollection from the retired Hamptons publisher Dan Rattiner in the current issue of his old magazine, Dan’s Papers, sets the historical scene for one of eastern Long Island’s most unusual preserves: Camp Hero near Montauk Point. Now an ocean-facing state park on nearly 280 acres, it was a secretive military base during the middle decades of the 20th century, as Rattiner describes. What he leaves out of his tale is its crucial final years as U.S. government property, and how it almost was sold for luxury residences during one of the South Fork’s early boom periods. At the time, the new Reagan administration was driven by budget director David Stockman’s wish to unload surplus parcels to the highest bidders. As often happens, local officials and representatives protested–including in this case Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, a key Republican ally of the White House. That proved decisive, and after extended and complex negotiations, the land was turned over to the state of New York in 1985. Several years later, the onetime Montauk Air Force Station was opened to the public, mostly “as is,” as Camp Hero. Ironically, given its brush with resort-type development, the site first became host to an early “worker housing” project of the town of East Hampton, which includes Montauk. Camp Hero Estates, as the 27 units were called, repurposed base housing into bargains for lucky winners of a lottery, though rubs soon were apparent. Not paradise, it turned out, but not to be a parking lot, either.
SEE: https://www.danspapers.com/2023/02/inside-camp-hero-montauk-military-past/
Will State Pensions Pay Off?
This Bloomberg article captures the growing worry about state pension promises, and the resistance to reforming them, such is evident on the streets of France. In the U.S., we call these benefits Social Security, and efforts to contain its taxpayer cost are said to touch the political “third rail.” The authors here speculate that only the privileged will someday enjoy their retirements. Will this include government employees? In a new article at Discourse Magazine, I discuss the threat even to these paydays posed by unfunded plans at the state and local levels. Too much is being expected in most places, and too little is being contributed. It’s time to be “thinking about tomorrow.”
How a Good Retirement Risks Becoming Just for the Privileged
Popular discontent with the idea of having to work for longer is building as state pensions feel the strain.
Socialized Medicine a Dream? NY Is Nearly There
Vermont notably tried a form of socialized medicine a few years back and had to give up on the program for fiscal reasons. But the dream endures and New York State is coming close to realization: This New York Post article reports how 9 million residents are due to participate in Medicaid this year, per the governor’s budget. That’s 45% of the population, and a growth from 5.2 million in 2012, when New York was already at the forefront of the federal-state program for the poor. Add those relying on Medicare for the elderly and easily more than half of New Yorkers have government medical coverage. (Termination of the official pandemic “emergency” on May 11 may retard the number somewhat, as supplemental eligibilities end.) Some will see this as a positive development for public health, although as my December article for Discourse detailed, there’s reason to think part of this enrollment is a scam. Whether New York, which is losing its bigger income-earners, can continue to pay these bills is another matter.
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40 Years Later in $alt Lake City
The snow in Park City, Utah, was the best in decades for an end-of-January ski trip that also inspires these observations:
*Utah was a cheaper and sleepier alternative to Colorado mountain resorts when I started going there 40 years ago. It has ceased to be that, for the most part. And not just at luxurious Deer Valley (which doesn’t miss a beat now–$17 a day to leave your shoes in a secure basket). Even after the Sundance Film Festival leaves town, Park City is replete with costly shops and restaurants along with several of the old honky-tonks. Some of the fine dining is a disappointment, including the long-favored Riverhorse, which is put in the shade by the newer Firewood.
*Tourist areas of Mormon-influenced Utah no longer have quirky liquor laws that years ago had you joining “clubs” at an eatery (for an extra fee) to get a drink. But the state still has a monopoly on wine and spirits sales, and the official store in Park City has all the marketing charm of a county jail.
*The ski canyons have always enjoyed under-an-hour access to Salt Lake City airport, which has helped to foster the boom in expensive homes that underlies the commercial upgrades, but the airport itself is now one of the busiest I remember. The fast-food outlets often have lines 10 people long at many hours of the day. But there are still some seemingly provincial gaps: on a Thursday morning, I could not find a Wall Street Journal at any of the news-and-sundry shops…and got blank stares when I asked.
*For all of the gathering sophistication, the local TV news programs out of Salt Lake City are amateurishly folksy and littered with ads that are worse still. There must be higher-quality local programming but I could not find it on the cable.
*Simple population growth–better than doubling in Utah over these 40 years–explains much of the change a longtime visitor apprehends. But a youth culture–the youngest median age among the 50 states–is part of the dynamism. That combines with a bent for outdoor sports (Salt Lake wants to host another Winter Olympics after managing it in 2002) to occupy attention…and space. The ski mountains seem to sport more competitions than ever. That’s great unless you have a $200+ day pass and one of your favorite runs is roped off.
In so many ways, the price of popularity is rising in the Wasatch Range.
A Chinese Banquet Where I Needn’t Eat My Words
Along about 2012, I began telling audiences in Greater China that I thought the GDP growth trajectories of the U.S. and the PRC would cross. These were groups composed mostly of family business principals who were making good coin off China’s rise, and had they not been enjoying a nice meal from the business magazine I was editing, they might have hooted me out of the hotels instead of just being bemused. After all, this came shortly after China had outshone the world during the Great Financial Crisis and America was seen as past its shelf date. But for lots of reasons, especially the declining return on investment that the Chinese economy was experiencing even during apparent boom years (h/t to Michael Pettis, then a professor there), I didn’t think those gains were sustainable. And I also didn’t buy the gloom still then surrounding the U.S. system. Well, it took a decade but as this story from Reuters and others this week confirms, Chinese growth fell short of the U.S. in 2022. And that’s by the Communist Party’s own statistics (3%), which are always suspect, while Washington’s number (3.2%) is more believable. Of course, there were the Covid lockdowns in Xi Jinping’s realm, so yes, it was an extraordinary year there. But no more extraordinary, I’d argue, than the conjured growth of many previous years–not just in the official figures but in the state-directed capital rushes plus the housing speculation
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driven by the population’s desperate search for a return on its savings. Many expect a snapback in Chinese GDP in 2023. I think it will exceed what comes out of a recessionary U.S., but with all that weighs on China–Xi’s dictatorial rule, a now-declining population, and a shunning by much of global business–I wouldn’t count on meeting so many puzzled stares after dinners around the Mainland anymore.
Nonfiction: Populace Asked to Pay for Public Spending
It’s remarkable how often contemporary Danish politics has mirrored the action in “Borgen,” a serial drama from that country that has been popular with American streaming audiences. If only the U.S. could learn something from a recent attempt at sane governing by the real-life female prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. Faced with expected increases in Denmark’s military budget–largely to respond to a new European security emphasis after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine–she is asking her nation to make a tradeoff: Give up an annual holiday, the centuries-old Great Prayer Day, in order to raise additional tax revenue from the expected commercial activity in its place. Imagine, a politician suggesting you (not just “the rich”) pay for some new expenditure! As this New York Times report notes, the idea faces opposition from various labor and leftist elements, as well as clergy. Frederiksen has a parliamentary majority but, as Borgen watchers know, the Danes govern through layers of loyalty. As we here look forward to another national holiday on Monday–because New Year’s falls on one of our (historically religious) Sundays–might we think of at least not continuing to add days off to the American calendar?
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Tim W. Ferguson 