Dollars For Change

In August and September of last year, my best friend Katie went to South Africa to volunteer for an organization that helps children in a small village called Kurland. She helped teach kindergarten children, and during her stay there, developed an idea to start a non profit organization. She worked with children who were underfeed and HIV positive, and for them she wanted to make a difference. Her organization, Dollars for Change, asks that every American donate one dollar in order to make a difference. If this were to occur, she explains that three hundred million dollars could be raised to help end world poverty. Most people in the world live off of less than one dollar a day. (You can look up her web site on myspace.com or Dollarsforchange.org). She rattled off several startling statistics that really made me think. First, the United States is one of the only Western nations who does not give 0.7 percent of their GNP to help end world poverty; a promise which we had made in 1975 during the G8 Summit. The 0.7 percent of country’s GNP goes to things like education, medicine, food, women’s rights ect. The money we do give only helps countries pay off current debt. World poverty encompasses 40 percent of the world population, and none of those people live in the United States. Therefore, her question and mine search for an answer as to why the U.S. does not do more? Where is world poverty on the agenda, and why can’t the U.S. live up to the amount of money other nations give to help the problem?

Although I am very compassionate and interested in Katie’s purpose, I have to wonder what will really make a difference regarding world poverty. It seems that so much of the money donated to countries like those in Africa are lost in translation, and so little of it actually makes it to the people who need it. So, what can be done? Does it start in the U.S.? And by this I mean that until our own poverty levels are lowered, will be people be willing to dish out more money to other countries? Or is it up to the government to stop spending so much on war and start spending those dollars to make a change elsewhere?

Downtown Logan

There was an article in the Herald Journal on Feb 22 about some city planners talking about revitalizing downtown Logan. Stephen Goldsmith, a planning director, mentioned that it is the people, not necessarily the aesthetic beauty of buildings, that gives cities their vitality.

Jane Jacobs in chapter 19 said that “A city cannot be a work of art”. Goldsmith advocated that instead of building “authentic-looking Gap or Barnes & Noble” stores, we could instead build drinking fountains or anything that would create a sense of belonging or attachment to downtown Logan. Apparently, this would have the effect of revitalizing downtown Logan, helping small businesses, and providing an atmosphere of community togetherness.

But as was mentioned in the newspaper article, it is hard for downtown Logan to compete with “urban sprawl and strip malls”. Would it or is it ever a good idea to create some sort of policy regarding the revitalization of downtown Logan? And who will benefit from these policies, those that live on the south end of Logan, or those on the north end? Is it in the public interest to do this?

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives

Cost-Benefit Analysis Vague in Preventing-Global-Warming Policy?

Obviously global warming becomes quite a hot topic in the world nowadays. Struggling to get some knowledge about this, I cannot help thinking: while we draft those policies to prevent or slow down continued warming, do we really have clear ideas of the cost and benefit within? It seems to be very difficult to balance between the two, not to say how to maximizing the net benefit when making a counter-global-warming policy or strategy.

We certainly have become aware of the cost, say, cost of joining the Kyoto Protocol, but the benefit seems hard to defined – to ensure the temperature status quo or cooled down, and how much? And it has to wait years to be seen. What if the earth just continues warming regardless any possible efforts to restrict greenhouse gas emission?

So, I think, why don’t we try to change an angle to look at the global warming? Instead of fearing and fight to PREVENT the warming trend, why not just admit the fact and change our policy strategy on adapting to the consequence of a warming world? Wouldn’t it be more effective and economic to find out the problems of global warming and ways in adapting to it? We should try to do what we could on out understanding and at bearable cost, but it would be work of more than one generation. Like Ryan said in class, maybe we cannot care too much about the next generation. Maybe they can find another planet to live in? Who knows.

Economists and Greenhouse Emissions

A case before the Supreme Court this term concerns whether or not the EPA has authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the provisions of the Clean Air Act. Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson says EPA clearly has that authority. Others disagree, including two lower courts. Some excellent economists disagree as well. Here is their amicus brief. It is worth reading because it is a nice piece of policy analysis.

Their money-quote is the following:

Our conclusion is that regulation of carbon dioxide under
Section 202(a) is likely to bring with it a number of adverse
consequences. This does not mean that policies to control
greenhouse gases should be rejected out of hand. Rather,
our view is that the use of the regulatory mechanisms afforded
by Section 202(a) is insupportable and that there are
other more cost-effective policy options for addressing
GHGs that should be considered instead. In particular,
economists generally consider incentive-based mechanisms,
such as carbon taxes or marketable permits for carbon reduction,
to be much more likely to yield net benefits than would
performance-based standards, such as those proposed by petitioners
before the agency. Accordingly, EPA’s decision not
to regulate under Section 202(a) was reasonable.

EVERY BODY HAS TO MIGRATE TO NEW BLOGGER!!!

It looks like everyone will need to register on blogger again and get a google account to post here.

The process is pretty simple just try to login under old blogger, and it will tell you to convert to new blogger. Choose a posting name and password and click login and you should be able to post again.

How frustrating, why a mass migration wasn't possible I don't know, but hey I don't program code or have any say so I guess we'll just have to do it there way.

IPPA Website

From: Thompson Ayodele

To: Randy Simmons

Sent: Thu Feb 15 11:07:10 2007

Subject: IPPA Launches A new Website



Dear Friends of IPPA,

The Initiative for Public Policy Analysis, a public policy think-tank

which promotes the institutions of free society, has launched has

redesigned its website.



The new website URL is: www.ippanigeria.org



The new website is designed to reflect various feedbacks sent to us over

a

long period of time. The current website clearly gives more information

about IPPA and what we do and various key areas that IPPA has focussed

on

ince its inception.



Sincerely



Thompson Ayodele

Executive Director

Initiative for Public Policy Analysis

P.O.Box 6434

Shomolu,Lagos

Nigeria

Email:thompson@ippanigeria.org

Backup: thompsondele@onebox.com

Website: www.ippanigeria.org

(Sorry it took a few days to get this up, new blogger made me very angry and I had to walk away a couple of times.)-ryan

The Mall Shooting

The tragic event last week at Trolley Square, where an 18 year old male entered the mall and gunned down five patrons and wounding several others is quite alarming. This is another reason why the Second Amendment is very valuable. In this certain case an off-duty police officer was able to respond and save countless lives. However what if the off-duty police officer was not there? My point is that concealed weapons permits are invaluable. In certain situations where life threatening events are occurring and one must defend themselves the need for a weapon is critical. An example that the CCP (Conceal Carry Permitt) has saved me was when I was purchasing gas late at night in West Valley after returning from a Kempo Lesson at a friends Dojo off of 3500 South. I had finished pumping gas and proceeded to pay for my gas and buy a drink and some other goodies. I noticed a 4 large men of polynesian descent sitting on a park bench near the entrance. As I approached the door, one of the men confronted me and asked me for my wallet. I said "no" and he said "my friends over there say yes" pointing at the other three men. They looked pretty intimidating. However, I responded if you try to take my money you will spend the night in the hospital. He looked at me strangely. I walked past him briefly displaying my Glock .45 semi automatic pistol on my right hip from under my shirt. I continued in, paid my bill, telling the clerk what had happened. I called the police and filed a report with West Valley Police. Had I not had my weapon, I probably would have been assaulted and who knows what weapons they were carrying. I could of just given my wallet and called the police and been another victim.

I believe firearms are a crucial part of a democracy not only ensuring our freedom from tyrranical governments but also for defense. The ability to defend oneself from harm is a natural freedom.

Affirmative Action by Brooks Larsen

According to Munzer, we try to understand the knotty
problems of policy rather than propose simple,
universal solutions. This concept of policy made the
discussion by Stone about affirmative action more
interesting. Affirmative action policies are meant to
address the problem of discrimination, mainly geared
toward African Americans.

In Stone’s chapter on equality and the equitable
distribution of resources, affirmative action is
mentioned as an example of a policy in which a fair
process is generated regarding resource distribution.
But creating a fair process with affirmative action
becomes a struggle in perpetuity because of the
conflict between group and rank-based distribution.
Group-based distribution of resources sounds a lot
like simple universal solutions which policy analyst
are supposed to avoid. The problems associated with
group-based distributions have to do with reverse
discrimination, such as occurred in Bakke v. Regents
and with the distribution of resources to those
minorities who have not necessarily experienced
discrimination.

Based on these problems, rank-based distribution seems
to be the better solution to affirmative action
policies but even these distributions are not without
their problems. The main problem seems to be the
criteria used to determine distribution. In one case,
the University of California had established new
admissions criteria in order to maintain diversity
among students. In other cases, criteria changed as
problems and situations have defined or guided them.
So apparently the trick is to find criteria that will
not be so susceptible to change and that will allow
distribution based on rank to be effective in the
allocation of resources. But admittedly, this is not
an easy task.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/bridgeproject/criteria/newcriteria.html

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/affirmativeaction.htm

(This is Brooks Larsen's Post, we couldn't get it to show up under his User ID so I put if up for him)

Climate Change Update

Apparently the ocean won't rise as much as we thought it would!

As long as we are talking about climate change The International Panel on Climate Change is releasing its findings. Click here to read it in the New York Times.

If you pay attention to the article you can see the dynamic that Bob is talking about.

As a side, if this climate change stuff pans out where's the new Utah going to be?

Science, Policy Analysis, and Cause Advocacy

Global warming, or global heating as some now want to call it, is a perfect example of the difference between positivism (the objective application of the scientific method) and advocacy veiled by 'science.' Check out the two following links for two great example of this (the Al Gore v. Michael Chrichton debate):

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=305034&type=World

http://voluntaryxchange.typepad.com/voluntaryxchange/2007/01/index.html
under title 'Climatologists are Worried'

I think the top link is a better example of how to be persuasive when writing an analysis.