Blessed by the Potato

A bit of a strange article in the Globe says that: “Mr. Cowen believes that overcoming stagnation will require an increase in the social status of scientists relative to other professions, so that our best and brightest will not prefer law or finance or view university science and math as a prerequisite for careers in medicine or dentistry.” I don’t think the social status of scientists is the problem, unless that’s code for “paying them better and revamping the career path.”

Now, I could probably get behind a “science tax” but I don’t think it has a snowball’s chance in hell in the real world. Heck, it would probably be counter-productive, and lead to public outrage against science.

So aside from paying them better, what do you think could be done to “raise the social status” of scientists?

The election is coming up soon in Ontario, and I still haven’t made my mind up about who to vote for.

I’m mixed on the Liberals and Dalton McGuinty. Though he has some good ideas over the years, the execution has been terrible. Coming out of the horrible Harris years, Dalton came to power on the promise that he’d fix the PC’s mess without raising taxes. That lasted what, a month? Ok, so he had to raise taxes (and unlike Harper/Flaherty, did seem to put forward a case for that being justified). Except instead of just owning up to it and raising income taxes or sales taxes, or even doing something truly innovative like bringing in a carbon tax, the Liberals brought in the Ontario Health Premium: a regressive tax that is very visible: what is it, 9 years later and that one still sticks in people’s craws; a less visible hike in the existing income taxes would have been both more progressive and may even have been forgotten by now. And no one was fooled into thinking that he kept his no tax increases promise.

Bringing in electronic medical records is a brilliant idea hailed by many in the medical and research communities, and solutions are being sought to digitize medical records all over the world. The execution became one of the province’s biggest scandals (e-health). Something called academic detailing is another neat idea: taking the tricks of the pharmaceutical sales trade and applying them to improve health outcomes, promote evidence-based care, and control costs. It involves sending educators out to provide short on-site visits with physicians, giving them information on proper prescribing practices and evidence-based medicine updates. Yet I don’t think it ever got very far — that document I linked is from 2009, and at the end of that year a new health minister came in and I haven’t heard anything about it since.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the Guidelines Advisory Committee. There we had a case of a small organization building up in the early years, in this case building human capital with specialized knowledge, tools, and training in its small staff, only to have that thrown away for apparently no reason (the GAC was well-regarded both in Ontario and internationally, and was cheap). Provincial funding was cut in 2008 and the GAC was enveloped by an independent non-profit organization. Then the Excellent Care for All Act was passed in 2010, and all of a sudden there was a legislated need for someone to do exactly what the GAC had been doing just a two years before. Yet rather than resurrect the GAC (which still existed within that non-profit, maintaining the expertise and human capital), the government started from scratch, giving the mandate to the Ontario Health Quality Council (now renamed Health Quality Ontario).

Promoting green energy is a good idea, but the solar FIT program has been unsuccessful because administration issues are preventing projects from getting approval, and the rate offered may have been too lucrative. The smart meter program should not have been introduced at the same time as a general hike in electricity rates, as now people associate the TOU pricing with the higher prices. Dalton made a commitment to reduce coal emissions, but has dragged his feet on getting a new nuclear plant constructed to replace the coal generation (the plant should have been an excellent infrastructure project to get the economy going in 2009, and instead it hasn’t even been decided on yet!).

Another example is the court system (this one also includes Harris): the administration systems around our courts are ludicrous. So there was a push to computerize some of the bookings. A privatized system seems to have worked, but rather than expand that one to the rest of the court system, the government is starting a new “e-court” program from scratch.

Lots of good ideas and good intentions, but the outcomes have left much to be desired. So I’m left feeling disappointed in the provincial Liberals, but disappointment from my government is nothing new. Still, that’s worlds better than how I remember the Harris years (insanity from the top, privatizing anything and everything, and deterioration in health care and education while strikes were constant). And the new crop of PCs leave little to consider as alternatives.

I encourage you to watch Jon Stewart’s interview with former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm

JS “The big idea floating around right now is that we must do everything we can for corporations…”

JG “Everything that’s happening to this country happened in Michigan first, because we never came out of the 2001/2002 recession. Everybody now is scratching their heads ‘how do you create jobs in this global economy?’ It’s not by the solutions that are being proposed by many, just cut taxes and cut government. Just as an example from the laboratory that is Michigan, I cut taxes 99 times in my two terms as governor… cut a lot of taxes, cut government more than any state in the nation, cut employees, cut spending. We were 48th in the country in terms of size of government by the time I left office. And you would think that with all those tax cuts, all that government reduction that we would be #1 in employment, right? If that were the solution. But, alas, we were #1 in unemployment for many years in the past decade. Why? Something else was going on. […] Those old theories were not applicable…”

JS “That’s what I was trying to say yesterday […] you could offer 0% tax rate to corporations, like Apple, but that still doesn’t mean they’re going to make their iphones, the parts, anyplace but China… don’t you think these corporations begin to look at us like a desperate suitor? […] What are we supposed to do?”

JG “…No state has the ability to compete against China […] the only thing that worked in Michigan, and the reason why in 2010 things started to turn around […] because the Obama administration gave us the opportunity to partner with the private sector to compete with federal grants and [targeted] state incentives and partner with universities […] it was only through that investment that we were able to go.”

In short, tax cuts do not work to stimulate the economy. Tax cuts do not work to create jobs. It’s been demonstrated again and again. So it’s with great dismay that I see one of the three main parties in this Ontario election put out their “jobs plan” and the central pillar is: tax cuts. Never mind that this was already a party with ridiculous notions (e.g.: the gutting of public education alongside the promise of money for religious schools; tax cuts alongside huge spending promises in their latest platform, yet while also promising to somehow balance the budget).

The NDP may be a good alternative in terms of policy (I honestly haven’t read their platform in detail yet), but they just don’t seem to have a chance in this race. While I’ve been critical of the Liberals at the beginning here, I think I will vote for them again. The problem is that their ideas are still the most closely aligned with mine, and I don’t see a strong alternative — though I am disappointed, they are still the best option before me. And, to be fair, I haven’t given them credit for the things they have managed to do right (sometimes in just one try!).

Sometime this week I’ll go through the NDP platform, but at this point I think I know which way I lean.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is creating a new policy to guide physicians in dealing with CAM. There’s a bit of an uproar over the document, even down in the states. There’s a fair bit of good commentary around the web so I won’t get too far into it here, especially since there’s only a few days left on the consultation period. I did agree with the bit about using “their” word, allopathic, right in the title of the document. It framed the discussion all wrong right from the beginning.

My somewhat rhetorical questions for the College on the policy:

• If the College is willing to allow physicians to recommend CAM therapies on weak evidence of a chance of improvement then they should equally allow placebos. If the College currently has an ethical objection to physicians prescribing placebos, it should examine why the same rationale does not apply to CAM.
• The current regulations are quite rigorous for prescribing medications that have good evidence of safety and efficacy but which have not yet received Health Canada approval for use in Canada. Why is it much harder to prescribe a drug that does have some evidence than a CAM therapy that has none?
• The College permits in the policy draft physicians to associate with for-profit CAM clinics, even to offer such services themselves. Why is that not a considered a conflict of interest?

Note that I wasn’t able to quickly dig up the College’s current policy regarding prescribing of placebos, but I doubt it’s looked upon favourably.

Also note that in general I’m not all that hard-line on CAM, but though there may be a place for it, it’s not in the CPSO.

Was just at Canadian Tire and saw all the back-to-school stuff out for sale, and realized that this is the first time I won’t be going back to school in September! :(

A member of the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster — a competing “fake” religion to the true quasi-religion of Potatoism — has won the right to wear a holy collander in his ID photos.

Some Prius owners sell their used cars for a profit, hopefully putting to rest for good the belief that hybrids are somehow doomed to face higher depreciation.

Michael James comments on cap-weighting vs. fundamental weighting. I wonder not only if fundamental indexing can provide enough return to cover the costs, but also if they’re not trading one problem for another. One example of the problems with cap weighting is that when you get big bubbly stocks like Nortel back in the day, those stocks end up taking up huge proportions of a cap-weighted index, and the more over-valued those companies get, the bigger their share in the index! But that problem of lack of diversification doesn’t seem to be fixed by fundamental weighting from a 1-minute look at the two indexes: instead of having giant stocks, now we have giant sectors, with the fundamental index putting a 45% weight on financials, when the cap-weighted index was already a pretty hefty 30%.

Scott Adams puts out some quasi-serious ways for the US to get out of its budget crisis. For the carpool lane one, that’s actually a pretty good idea. Thanks to an experiment with hybrid cars, we know that being able to travel solo in carpool lanes is actually a valuable feature some people are willing to pay money for. You see, at one point LA (among other cities) gave a special sticker to hybrids to allow them to use the carpool lanes, as an incentive to get people to drive cleaner cars. Then, the quota for that program was hit and they stopped giving out the stickers. But the stickers were good for a few years and most importantly transferable, so what you saw happen is that cars with HOV stickers went for a premium over comparable cars — a few thousand dollars, perhaps as much as $4k. And that’s just for a few years of HOV access. So maybe there’s a group of people out there willing to pay on the neighbourhood of $1k/year to get solo HOV access, let’s ballpark it at 1% of a metro area’s population. Across a few major cities, that could hit a billion in tax revenue. Yes, a drop in the bucket for the problems facing the US budget, but a start. [And also, perhaps at the wrong level of government]

One of the Ford annoyances in Toronto commented on closing libraries, saying “And my constituents, it wouldn’t bother them because they have another library two miles one way and two miles the other way.” I’m all for eliminating waste in the city budget, but I’ve got a soft spot for libraries (and not only because Wayfare’s a librarian). Being no more than “two miles” (3.2 km) is about right — his ward is only about 6 km across, so assuming there are at least two libraries in it, that’s not far off. But 3 km is a long way to be from a library. Remember that the biggest users of libraries are not driving: the poor, the young, and I guess the cheap. Toronto has 99 libraries. Is that too many? It’s tough to say, but Toronto has 625 elementary schools (public, catholic, french catholic — not counting other private ones) and 135 high schools. Approximately one library branch per high school sounds about right to me. I’ll also just quickly say that the branches are more than just a place to check out books, so they are important to maintain, and maintain throughout the city.

I heard again recently the bit of reassuring spin from CMHC that they’re totally cool because the average equity of their mortgage portfolio is 45%. And note that that includes equity gained by price appreciation. To me, that average is nearly meaningless because it doesn’t break it down regionally, or bin it by equity. The defaults occur at the margin, and if the distribution of equity/LTV is large, then there will be plenty of people put underwater by even a modest correction that trouble will follow. Just for a point of comparison I tried to look up what a similar figure from the US would have been and found that in 2007, Fannie Mae’s average equity of the mortgage portfolio was 41%. That does not make me feel reassured that things are that much better here in the great white north, land of the conservative banks. I’d do a post on the “Canadian Moral Hazard Corporation” except it’s been done (with that exact title in several places). Maybe I’ll dig into Genworth later in the summer if I find some time (that one I can at least short if it comes up particularly spotty).

“Environment Canada now even has media officers in Ottawa tape-recording the interviews scientists are allowed to give.” Oh! I think I found where we can cut back on the budget!

Corning reported results and it was pretty much what I expected: display glass is facing troubles, but the company is expanding its other business lines to (partially) compensate. Given the price it looks like the display issues may be priced in, and allow for some upside if/when the other business lines grow enough to be meaningful. Still no position, but with it under $16 I’m becoming more interested, and have put in a bid at $15; let’s see what happens.

Cool random thing I learned: Saturn has two moons that share an orbit: Janus and Epimetheus.

In my riding, both this election and last, 58-59% of people voted for either NDP or Liberal (the centre/centre-left parties). Last time it was 40% Liberal, so the libs got it. This time, 34% Liberal, 25% NDP, splitting the vote and letting the cons take it. The same for my parents’ riding: 49% lib, 10% NDP last time; 40% and 18.5% now, splitting the vote just enough for a con to sneak in. As you may already know from previous discussions on electoral reform, I prefer STV to PR, but nonetheless, have a read of the comparison b/w FPTP and PR at Fair Vote Canada.

Anyway, as you may expect I was disappointed by the con majority result. To be fair, I’m a curmudgeonly cynical old spud who’s managed to find fault with every government at every level, but Harper enjoys a special level of asswaditude. I had a list of things I didn’t like about the Harper government as long as my arm going into this but I think my discontent can be best summed up by one thing: a contempt for data.

The day after election day and naturally the papers are full of articles with titles like “what can we expect from a Harper majority” and I can’t help but think “who can possibly know?” It’s been a pretty ad hoc government so far, and the implementation of most of the election promises were explicitly not even going to be attempted for years. Likewise with the “now that the cons have a free hand with their majority…” articles: were they really all that constrained by the minority status of their government before?

Anyhow, as much as I’d like a better system than FPTP, I have to say how impressed I am with Elections Canada. This was the second year I’ve worked the election, and the procedures put into place for our elections seem quite well designed. The paper ballot system is elegant and nearly fool proof: there’s no conspiracy-theory allegations of manipulating the machines, and hardly any opportunity for failure. The votes are hand-counted at the end of the night in full view of candidate’s reps and any members of the public that care to audit the process. We usually have a count within an hour or so, and accurate ones at that: I’m not aware of a recount ever overturning the initial count. A small army of temporary workers are employed so that polling sites are well-distributed for convenience, and generally there are less than 300 electors per poll site so the counting job at the end of the night is not too onerous (I had about 200 yesterday, and it was a busy day with good turnout). There are many features in the process to ensure the sanctity of the vote: that the ballot put in the box is the ballot the elector was given, that only the elector marked the ballot, that it is anonymous, etc. It’s also well-designed to allow said army of temporary workers to carry it out: simple instructions, every document and envelope is numbered for reference, and flowcharts and checklists to follow to make sure everything is done right. After all, a great many workers are doing it for the first (and only) time, and even the experienced ones only do it once every few years, so it’s essentially always training day.

Personally, it was a good experience. Some decent pizza money for a day of moonlighting. It felt good to interact with people and feel confidently competent at a job. One of the downsides of research is that often I’m doing something no one else in the world has ever attempted before, and I’m in competition with the ones who have, so I have few resources to seek help or even confirmation if I’m doing something right — if there even is a right way. There’s a lot of trial-and-error-and-disappointment involved, which makes it hard to ever be sure I’m doing something right. And even though I’m a smart cookie, on the grad student/scientist scale I’m of somewhat average intelligence/competence. So it was a nice pick-me-up to be the one who knew what was going on: even my CPS was turning to me for help with procedures and to help solve problems (and she said I should be a CPS next time around). It’s also a nice motivator to remind me that clerical work and customer relations is not really what I want to do with my life.