On Violence

 ‘Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent’

Mayor Salvor Hardin - Isaac Asimov (The Foundation Trilogy)

Or, as I have observed here and here, starting a war is a mug's game.

We Can't Afford (Fill In The Blank)

I have previously revealed my annoyance at the idea that we can't afford doing what needs to be done because of the deficit. This is the "Oh, we're too poor" complaint. My usual response would be "balderdash!" I may change my response to "malarkey!" That's a good word, too.

I just came across a really well done blog that examines many issues similar to the ones that I address in this blog. It's always reassuring, even if it is true that the other author does it better than I do.

Here's a link to an essay entitled "Dam The Economists."  John, the author, points to the Hoover Dam, built at the height of the Great Depression and summarizes the continuing economic benefits to the country.

His point is similar to the one I make here , where I point out that the Great Depression was also an era of Grand Undertakings.

More On Collision

Now we know a bit more about the collision between USS San Jacinto, an Aegis Cruiser and the nuclear submarine USS Montpelier. Montpelier came to periscope depth about 200 yards or less directly ahead of San Jacinto.

At that point, collision was inevitable. The Navy's report disclosed nothing about the damage to Montpelier, but revealed that San Jacinto's sonar dome was "completely depressurized."

The ships had been operating together in an antisubmarine exercise in the Atlantic. What this incident tells me is that both ships are extraordinarily quiet.

Typically, investigations of such collisions put the onus on the submarine to be sure there is no surface ship in the vicinity before coming to periscope depth or surfacing. But what if the surface ship is extremely quiet? Was San Jacinto operating too slowly to be detected? Were the two vessels communicating? Why did San Jacinto not detect the submarine when it was less than a mile away? Lots of questions.

As for the sonar dome, that will be an expensive repair. One of the challenges the Navy faced with the large multi-mode sonar installations beginning with the AN/SQS-26 series of sonars was that the self-noise of water rushing past the dome reduced the sonar's sensitivity. The problem was the steel "window" surrounding the transducer. In 1976 my ship, USS Patterson, received one of the first inflatable rubber sonar domes. This was not a simple modification.

I expect repairs to San Jacinto will prove to be expensive and time consuming.

Collision At Sea

"A Collision At Sea Can Ruin Your Whole Day"

Old Navy Saying

Let's hope there was no serious injury or loss of life. There will be damage to one or more careers, but that is only one of many hazards in a hazardous profession. I wish the Captains and their crews well.

North Carolina Wind

A little more than three years ago, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill completed a nine-month comprehensive study of coastal wind energy.

The study's conclusion: "North Carolina is well positioned to develop utility scale wind energy production and it is the opinion of the project team that the State should pursue it aggressively."

That was in the summer of 2009. Here is a link to the study - click on "Full Study." If you don't have the time or patience to read it (it's 378 pages), just look at the illustrations and maps. Especially the maps at the end of the study. The map on page 370, for example, shows Bayboro as a possible interconnection substation.

Has the State pursued wind energy production aggressively? No.

Why not?

Could it be because in 2010 the North Carolina State Legislature was taken over by a political party that has:
1. No interest in any kind of energy but petroleum, natural gas and coal?
2. No interest in freeing the US from  petroleum imports?
3. No interest in reducing carbon emissions?
4. No concern over sea level rise?
5. No interest in economic development in Eastern North Carolina?

How about all of the above?

It looks like any push for coastal wind energy development will have to come from the people of Eastern North Carolina working together in their own interest. In the present political climate, neither Raleigh nor Washington is likely to pick up this challenge without a strong push from us.

Pot

I confess. I have never smoked a joint - or whatever they are being called these days. For that matter, I have never smoked a cigarette. Not once.

Doesn't mean I never smoked tobacco. I used to smoke a pipe and an occasional cigar. Gave that up thirty-five years ago. The smoke irritated my eyes and didn't do much good for my chronic sea sickness. Not great for a ship captain.

I always thought alcohol was the most dangerous drug. But I drink alcoholic beverages.

I did my best to keep alcohol off my ship. And marijuana. And other illegal drugs.

In my years at sea, I never saw a sailor who was unable to perform his duties because he smoked marijuana on liberty. But there were many times I saw sailors unable to get the ship underway because they were drunk when they got back to the ship.

I went to college in a state with statewide prohibition on the sale of distilled beverages. But very cleverly, the state had a tax on illegally sold beverages. That's called having your cake and eating it, too.

Interesting article in today's New York Times about marijuana laws. It seems the states of Washington, Oregon and Colorado have provisions on their November 6 ballots to legalize marijuana. The one in Washington might even pass.

Lawmen are among the supporters of legalization.

It's worth a look.

Seventy Years Ago: Battle Of Cape Esperance

Guadalcanal: October 11, 1942. US Marines have a tenuous foothold about three by five miles on the north shore of Guadalcanal, including the growing airbase at Henderson Field, operating the "Cactus Air Force." Repeated Japanese efforts to dislodge the Marines have been unsuccessful.

The Japanese planned another major attempt to recapture Henderson Field for 20 October. They moved two Infantry Divisions, totalling 17,500 troops, from the Dutch East Indies to Rabaul in preparation for delivering them to Guadalcanal. From 14 September-9 October, numerous Tokyo Express runs delivered troops from the 2nd Infantry Division as well as General Hyakutake to Guadalcanal. Warships were used so they could be in and out of Guadalcanal before daylight, when US aircraft could attack effectively.

For two months, Japan owned the sea at night and the US by day. Japan's planned land offensive was driven by the need to protect Japanese ships from US air. The Japanese Navy promised to support the Army's planned offensive by delivering the troops and equipment to the island and by bombarding the airfield at night.

In the meantime, Major General Millard F. Harmon—commander of United States Army forces in the South Pacific—convinced Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley—overall commander of Allied forces in the South Pacific—that the Marines on Guadalcanal needed to be reinforced immediately if the Allies were to successfully defend the island from the next expected Japanese offensive. Thus, on 8 October, the 2,837 men of the 164th Infantry Regiment from the U.S. Army's Americal Division boarded ships at New Caledonia for the trip to Guadalcanal with a projected arrival date of 13 October.

Ghormley  ordered Task Force 64 (TF 64), consisting of four cruisers (San Francisco, Boise, Salt Lake City, and Helena) and five destroyers (Farenholt, Duncan, Buchanan, McCalla, and Laffey) under U.S. Rear Admiral Norman Scott, to intercept and combat any Japanese ships approaching Guadalcanal and threatening the convoy.

Shortly before midnight, October 11, Admiral Scott's force of four cruisers and five destroyers encountered Japanese Admiral Goto's force of three cruisers and two destroyers near Savo Island. During the ensuing melee. Scott lost one destroyer sunk and one cruiser and one destroyer damaged. Admiral Goto lost one cruiser and three destroyers sunk (including two of the convoy destroyers), about 400 killed and 100 captured.

During the sea battle, the Japanese convoy managed to land most of their troops.

It was a far better outcome for the US than the battle of Savo Island two months earlier, but the US Navy still did not know how much better Japanese torpedoes were than our own. Nor had they learned the full extent of Japan's advantage at night using superior optical equipment and well-trained crews.

Those lessons were yet to come. But radar worked better this time.

And the victory was good for morale.

Meanwhile, Across The Pond....

On economics blogs this week, the big news has been the latest World Economic Outlook published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The heart of the report:

"The main finding, based on data for 28 economies, is that the multipliers used in generating growth forecasts have been systematically too low since the start of the Great Recession, by 0.4 to 1.2, depending on the forecast source and the specifics of the estimation approach. Informal evidence suggests that the multipliers implicitly used to generate these forecasts are about 0.5. So actual multipliers may be higher, in the range of 0.9 to 1.7."

Multipliers? What's that about?

It is a dispute as old as the formal study of economics. Say and certain classical economists contended that government spending will have no effect on the economy as a whole. Government spending will "crowd out" private spending. There is  thus no "multiplier" from government fiscal measures that will improve the economy. In the long run the economy will fix itself.

"In the long run," economist John Maynard Keyenes quipped, "we will all be dead."

In recent years, the dispute has manifested itself in arguments over how big the multiplier is. Some have said, if it exists, the multiplier effect is very small. Not long ago the IMF official position was to that effect.

The new report says, in effect, "we were wrong."

Why is this important? Because the position of the IMF and that of some other powerful commentators has been that countries must reduce debt, even when their economies are experiencing little or no growth. The new insight: contractionary policies contract economies.

Duh.

Economist Kate McKenzie explains here. Australian economist Bill Mitchell explains here. Mitchell summarizes:

"1. The IMF is incompetent not because its staff are stupid but because the staff use the wrong models and operate in a make-believe world.
2. The world economy is enduring on-going stagnation because there is not enough spending.
3. Monetary policy – whether it being normal interest rate management or the aytpical operations such as quantitative easing – will not resolve a situation where the non-government sector is intent on not spending and the government is intent of pursuing fiscal austerity. The obsession that the policy watchers have with “what is the central bank going to do” is revealing but a waste of time.
4. Fiscal policy activism is desperately required and most nations should introduce new stimulus programs, targetted at direct job creation, to kick-start spending in their economies and provide some optimism to the private sector. This will also allow national income growth to occur, which, in turn, underpins the current desire of households and firms to reduce their precarious levels of debt (following the neo-liberal-inspired credit binge)."

Bottom line: now is not  the time to obsess over deficits and balanced budgets. Now is the time to put idle productive capacity to use by government spending.

I have said this before, but of course no one is paying any attention to me. Maybe some will listen to the IMF.

The core issue: "Who benefits and who pays?"

Related process: "blame the victim."

Chorus of the wealthy and the powerful: "There is nothing the government can do to fix the economy and it's all the president's fault."

Go figure.