Deconstructing a Case for Re-use of Building Materials

I hate waste, so I’m usually tempted by articles about recycling or reuse. The NY Times has this magazine-length one in print today, primarily about efforts to take down a Dutch office tower but salvage the parts. The theme is that building materials and demolitions account for a huge swath of the carbon footprint, among other blights. The story’s reporting was funded by left-of-center foundations as part of the Times’ “Headway initiative…exploring the world’s challenges through the lens of progress.” Thus alerted, what I looked for were economic considerations to what’s called “circularity,” or the effort to maintain the usability of things or at least their recyclability. It’s an important element of what’s broadly known as sustainability. Surely, the junking of building interiors and exteriors is a glaring example of the contrary. Anecdotally, it seems that each time a high-end New York City restaurant fails, the new tenant operator has to rip out the wonderful decor and replace it with an even costlier look. This kind of debris constitutes not only “half of all waste in the Netherlands,” as per the Times, but big chunks of landfill in housing-mad places like Long Island. (Just wait until the current crop of McMansions comes down!) The efficiency question for an economist, however, is whether the cost of disposal–even with all of the externalities such as pollution figured in–exceeds that of an alternative, “sustainable” model. We know that currently most recycling programs for consumer products do not meet that test. In the long Times piece, I found one reference to this aspect: a 2012 study by McKinsey & Co. for a British environmental foundation that argued E.U. manufacturers could save $630 billion a year from design-for-reuse. A breakdown that applies such analysis to case-at-hand scrutiny would be useful. Instead what I read here were more ideological appeals to a “sharing” economy with less ownership prerogatives. That’s an interesting but, in my view, more fanciful concept than getting the highest return from scarce resources in our moment on this planet.

How to Recycle a 14-Story Office Tower

Buildings are responsible for nearly 40 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. In Amsterdam, they are trying to create a blueprint to do something about it.

When New York Emptied ‘Excess’ Jail Cells

For some time, many libertarians have joined reformers on the left in pushing various decarceration measures, out of conviction that too many people are behind bars in America and that this is both unjust and excessively expensive. In the last five years or so, this cause has led to changed policies in major jurisdictions, including New York State. A combination of pandemic-related releases and legislated shifts in procedures has appreciably held down the count in the state’s prisons and jails. Correspondingly, rates of many street crimes have begun to take off. Conservatives who have mostly resisted these changes see a direct connection, and Republican candidates are blaming majority Democrats for bringing on a wave of victimization. The Manhattan Institute think tank has long hewed to a law-and-order line and could be expected to back this criticism. But it should be said that its fellow Charles Fain Lehman has taken a careful and measured approach to the issue, as shown in this new paper on the parole system’s part in the recent policy drama. His co-authored analysis of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “Less Is More” revisions (a perfect titling of the reformist spirit) cannot hope directly to link legislation to crime, except anecdotally, but it does pose rather clear circumstantial evidence. Supporters of individual rights against state lockup powers cannot ignore the potential, and probably real, consequences of helping the many–that it has released the relative few to wreak havoc on us all. Lehman suggests changes to reach a better result.

Is Less Always More? The Unintended Consequences of New York State’s Parole Reform | Manhattan Institute

On July 10, 2021, an unknown assailant barged into the boarding-house room where 47-year-old Heather Majors was sleeping and attacked her with a hatchet, slashing her more than 30 times. Rochester, New York, emergency responders were called to the scene, but Majors’s injuries proved too…

Frequent Fliers, Please Report to the Counter

One acid test of the sincerity of those who want to seriously reduce carbon emissions to arrest climate change is whether they will support reasonable-cost nuclear power. The rapid onset of new atomic plants would be one way actually to come close to net-zero in emissions without drastically changing first-world lifestyles. The alternative acid test is whether these climate advocates will honestly address how those lifestyles would need to change absent a nuclear fallback. This New York Times article, buried in the Oct. 8 print edition, caught my eye because it hints at how much and whose flying would need to be curbed to meet international aviation targets now set for 2050. The key passage: “The richest 20% of people worldwide take 80% of the flights….The top 2% of frequent fliers take about 40% of the flights.” You’re going to have to stop those folks from doing so (either commercially or on private jets) if you’re serious about “equity” and about keeping fossil-fuel aircraft within these tight limits. This stands to be an interesting test for the economy, for democracy and (not least) for compliance. Europe is leading so far on this aviation campaign but the U.S. is now committed as well. After we get the skies worked out, we can tackle cruise ships and yachts.

Nations Agree to Curb Emissions From Flying by 2050

The agreement, years in the making, is a milestone in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes worldwide.

Consultants Fuel Costs of the College Cream

If one strained to find a core example of what has driven the widely-lamented rise in premium enrollment costs at America’s prestige universities, there’d be no better source than the rising-revenues chart of this Economist article on the big 3 U.S. management consultancies. This three-cylinder engine generated better than 10-fold nominal growth in the decades from 1990 to 2020, and if anything the rate of increase quickened in the last five of those years. Those billions of bucks, in turn, led to the recruitment of thousands of consultants fresh with degrees from these very universities. Of course, the trio of McKinsey, BCG and Bain are far from the only lucrative salary and bonus draws on elite American graduates–Wall Street and Big Tech are famously hungry for smarts and pedigree as well–but they are symptomatic of a rich-and-richer strain in the economy. The consultancies are getting more frequent scrutiny of their practices, which prompts the (also elite) Economist’s nonetheless sympathetic accounting. These “practices” offer high-priced hand-holding to executives of the world’s biggest outfits, and arguably more: Operating conditions are changing faster than internal managements can handle, the story goes. Distilled intelligence is thus vital. A friend who works at the Big 3 and can laugh at their efforts to demark supposedly novel concepts in charts and lexicon, nevertheless argues that the pandemic shocks really did call for outside help. Maybe, but 2020 was only the last year of this steep fee incline. Who knows how the industrialists of old adjusted, on their own, to electricity and the light bulb when Harvard produced only gentlemen.

Where next for management’s consiglieri?

Forget the scandals. McKinsey and its peers are more powerful than ever

Fed’s Mary Daly Misses a Labor Component in Price Rises

It fell to me to ask the obligatory question about the strong dollar at this appearance of San Francisco Federal Reserve president Mary C. Daly at the Council on Foreign Relations today, and she gave the obligatory response that the currency’s forex value is not one of the Fed’s mandates. She elaborated a bit in the quotation in this Reuters account. {A previous version of this item said she is a Fed governor–she currently is not on its policy-making committee, as she was in 2021; Fed regional bank presidents rotate out of those voting slots.]

Of more substance, if not news value, was her discussion as a labor economist of the reasons the Fed, among other Washington policymakers, miscalculated the onset of persistent inflation coming out of the pandemic. She cited a couple of factors: an inability to foresee the sluggishness of supply forces, both in the U.S. and internationally, in pulling out of the Covid-19 disruption; and an underestimation of how strong demand would be, especially for goods, as Americans began to stir again. She made no mention of the role that fiscal subsidies–some of which continue under “emergency” edicts–played in discouraging labor-force participation. The drawdown of that labor force was something Daly nonetheless cited as a “worrisome” damper on future economic health–she even made a joking reference to a “quit to find myself” mentality among some who left jobs. Might the fact that so many bills were deferred or diminished have something to do with that?

Fed knows how to fight inflation, will seek to do so ‘gently’ -Daly

San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly on Tuesday said the U.S. central bank has the tools and the knowledge to bring down high inflation, and will use them, even as it tries to find the “gentlest” way to do so.

If Only Your 401(k) Was in the NFL

Trillions of dollars of nominal global wealth have been wiped out in the current bear market for stocks and bonds. But, as this Bloomberg item notes, there’s at least one major exception to the asset-price declines: pro sports franchises. For reasons Gerry Smith describes here–and others such as Mike Ozanian and his crew at Forbes have long chronicled–the valuations of even poorly performing (and managed) clubs continue to escalate. In an age when inequalities are immediately suspect, this ought to raise hackles, because owning a team is definitely a rich guy thing. Yet as many (including myself) have been noting for years, municipal and state governments often fall over themselves to extend more inducements (subsidies) to these same sports barons to locate their wares in those sponsoring jurisdictions. At its root, this is a bread-and-circuses syndrome very much implicating the local populations but also the chorus of marketers (including supposedly neutral news media) that lend themselves to the endless promotion. Maybe, as redistribution (not to mention reparations) becomes an everyday talking point among the political class, a certain sector of rank and privilege might attract attention that, for once, it doesn’t seek.

TV Has Turned Pro Sports Into a Recession-Proof Investment

Four US professional sports teams are for sale with one more on the way. Why this could be just the beginning of a sports deal bonanza.

Price of Practicing Journalism Is a Narrow ‘Social’ Window

Yesterday (9/8/22) I attended a panel discussion at the International Press Institute’s “World Congress” on the escalating dangers to journalists, including social-media assaults. The group at Columbia University included Washington Post editor Sally Buzbee and others from international publications, and none was too sure how to combat what all agreed were increasingly organized attempts to intimidate a free press. Newsrooms have long had to handle potentially-violent cranks–one reason most stopped allowing easy public access–but today’s online threats and various personal invasions, including doxxing, have taken on a more sinister cast. They especially seem targeted at women. It’s apparent that social media is a particular vulnerability, and yet, as this summer article from the UK’s Media Gazette explores, those platforms also are thought a necessary way of reaching and expanding audiences. The New York panel could only conclude that enhanced training of staff (freelancers, too?) to avoid undue exposure, and bullet-proofing of coverage against bogus claims of “fake news,” are the most ready remedies. Surely anyone entering hard-news reporting or commentary needs to reconsider any past or present appearances online and limit them to what is their public, professional face. This is a sacrifice, if you can call it that, as basic as not receiving gratuities through their work–part of the calling of journalism.

Social media now an ‘active danger’ for journalists but remains ‘integral’

Press Gazette looks into the complications of reporting on Twitter and elsewhere amid a number of journalist spats on social media.

A Yen to Visit Japan? But Wait

Tourism has taken off again in Southeast Asia, post-pandemic, offering economic relief in particular to Thailand. But it remains stricken in nervous Japan, where Covid rates have recently spiked. Japan has bumped up the total admissions to 50,000 daily and broadened the entry beyond tour groups, but is still requiring individual visas from the U.S. and other countries where it previously waived the requirement. This is an especially vexing policy when the yen has fallen to a 24-year low against the American dollar, providing an opportunity to visit a normally very costly destination at reasonable expense. (That’s largely because Tokyo’s central bank is keeping interest rates low when other countries are tightening to contain inflation.) Always venturesome Australians are also frustrated by the travel limits, as this report from their major broadcaster suggests. The quirky Japanese attitude toward foreign blights has long been a characteristic (a charm?), leading to a bizarre hosting of the Olympics last year, and overall wealth leaves the nation able to remain stand-offish, even at great cost to some industries. At least the domestic population is not subject to tyrannical lockdowns, as in China.

‘We don’t need a babysitter’: As Japan suffers its worst COVID-19 wave, strict rules are keeping tourists away

Japan, which was praised for keeping its coronavirus cases and deaths largely under control earlier in the pandemic, is experiencing its most severe coronavirus wave so far and has become a hotspot for the virus in East Asia.

Maybe the NY Times Is Enough for Its Ilk

The New York Times must be self-conscious about covering, as it does in this piece today, the seeming troubles of the Washington Post. That’s because the two media giants are essentially selling a similar product–international news and opinion aimed at an established if left-of-center audience. Thus they are direct rivals. This article’s target is Fred Ryan, whom owner Jeff Bezos put in charge of the Post, with the suggestion that his short-sightedness is partly responsible for the company’s drift since 2020 into loss-making. (The Times frequently boasts of its own robust results.) No doubt there are many causes of whatever ails the Post, but unmentioned here is the likelihood that the target audience has grown more reluctant to spend as much time, and money, on media that aren’t fundamentally painting a different picture. Since 2020, many a Post subscriber may have decided that the Times (which of course has a big Washington bureau and national political staff) will suit them well enough. Whereas the Wall Street Journal, which is still growing, offers a distinct focus on business and a right-of-center commentary section, the Post is just second fiddle. A version of this challenge is faced by other ambitious “newspapers” such as the Los Angeles Times–if the New York Times with its sweeping geographic reach can offer coverage and punditry that satisfies the regionalist in you, why add another course that tastes much the same?

Frustrations Mount at Washington Post as Its Business Struggles

With digital subscriptions and digital advertising revenue stagnating, the company is on a pace to lose money this year.

Climate Push Has But Marginal Utility for Economics

Another Zeitgeist piece from the New York Times today denigrates traditional economics, which is to say the price mechanism for allocating resources. This time, it’s about climate and carbon, and the target of sorts is Nobel laureate William Nordhaus, long a favorite among left-of-center economists. Nordhaus, you see, early on proposed a carbon tax to discourage use of fossil fuels. That’s still the method most favored by market-oriented advocates of a greenhouse-gas policy, though it hasn’t mustered a political majority in the U.S. because it would make the middle class (and everybody else) pay more for gasoline and energy-based products. But now activists on the climate front have dismissed such an approach as merely fiddling at the edges when emergency measures are necessary. Grants and loans for alternative energy were instead the thrust of the big Biden-Manchin compromise spending package just passed. And it sounds like more regulatory measures are just around the corner. Heather Boushey, a redistributionist who has the climate file on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, “says the field is learning that simply tinkering with prices won’t be enough as the climate nears catastrophic tipping points,” the Times reports. “So much of economics is about marginal changes,” she is quoted directly. “With climate, that no longer makes sense, because you have these systemic risks.” Sorry, Dr. Nordhaus and all you other dismal (and “marginal”) scientists, Washington has serious work to do.

Pace of Climate Change Sends Economists Back to Drawing Board

They underestimated the impact of global warming, and their preferred policy solution floundered in the United States.