CAFE

Chrysler head Lee Iacocca said this in 1986 when Ford/GM lobbied the Reagan Administration to lower (“CAFE”) fuel efficiency standards: “We are about to put up a tombstone that says, ‘Here lies America’s energy policy’. CAFE protects American jobs. If CAFE is weakened now, come the next energy crunch, American car makers will not be able to meet demand for fuel-efficient cars.”

If CAFE is weakened now, come the next energy crunch, American car makers will not be able to meet demand for fuel-efficient cars.” Well, the rest of the world kept on truckin’ as he suggested, and have more efficient fleets (see chart). If the US fleet were 30% more efficient, US gasoline consumption could fall by 40 billion gallons per year (~1 billion barrels). For context, the US imports 0.36 billion barrels of crude per year from Venezuela, and 0.62 billion from the Persian Gulf. The US just increased fuel efficiency standards, but it will take time to make an impact.

Tea party and cultural capital

Can the tea party be explained as the proletariat of cultural capitalism?

It’s perplexing. When unemployment is high, and the rich are getting richer, you would think that voters of average means would flock to progressives, who are supposed to have their interests in mind — and who historically have delivered for them...

In analyzing these polls in the United States, I see clearly that voters feel ever more estranged from government — and that they associate Democrats with government. If Democrats are going to be encumbered by that link, they need to change voters’ feelings about government. They can recite their good plans as a mantra and raise their voices as if they had not been heard, but voters will not listen to them if government is disreputable...

In earlier periods, confidence in the economy and rising personal incomes put limits on voter discontent. Today, a dispiriting economy combined with a well-developed critique of government leaves government not just distrusted but illegitimate...

On the way to work today...

...I saw a homeless man playing a banjo. On the way up the elevator today, a woman said "I buried my father last Saturday."

NYT

"When energy efficiency sullies the environment"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/science/08tier.html?_r=1&src=dayp

"The new humanism"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/opinion/08brooks.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Dad said....

..we'll see what Americans do with Libya and Egypt after democratic elections now that their "puppet state" is gone...

Krugman

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opinion/07krugman.html?hp college degrees are over, white collar jobs are easier to outsource than manual labor (besides assembly lines)