Quotulatiousness

July 11, 2013

Call it what you like, it’s still (petty) abuse of power and position

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:18

BBC News Magazine collects a few euphemisms for bribes:

If you are stopped by traffic police in North Africa the officer may well ask you to sponsor his next cup of “kahwe“, or coffee. In Kenya you might be stopped by traffic policemen and asked to contribute to “tea for the elders” (“chai ya wazee” in Swahili). But in Turkey, the police would rather you give them “cash for soup”, or “chorba parasi” — soup is traditionally eaten at the end of a night of heavy drinking.

[. . .]

The phrase “a fish starts to stink at the head” (balik bashtan kokar) comes from Turkey, reminding us that petty bribes at street-level are often matched by greater corruption at the top of organisations and institutions. Mexican officials looking to earn a kickback for arranging a business deal will demand they are given “a bite” (una mordida), while their Columbian counterparts are said to “saw” (serrucho) off a part of a government contract for themselves.

[. . .]

Large-scale corruption has its own vocabulary, often created by the media. The “cash for questions” scandal involving British politicians comes to mind, as well as the Italian “tangentopoli” (“bribesville”) scandal in the early 1990s. Combining “tangente” meaning kickback, and “-poli” meaning city, the term referred to kickbacks given to politicians for awarding public works contracts.

July 6, 2013

Matt Ridley on the “shale cornucopia”

Filed under: Business, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:15

It’s a big deal. A really big deal:

A new report (The Shale Oil Boom: a US Phenomenon) by Leonardo Maugeri, of Harvard University, sets out just how astonishing this second shale revolution already is. After falling for 30 years, US oil production rocketed upwards in the past three years. In 1995 the Bakken field was reckoned by the US Geological Survey to hold a trivial 151 million barrels of recoverable oil. In 2008 this was revised upwards to nearly 4 billion barrels; two months ago that number was doubled. It is a safe bet that it will be revised upwards again.

The big reason for the upwards revisions is technology rather than discovery. Thanks to faster and cheaper drilling (which means less-rich rocks can be profitable) and things such as “zipper fracturing”, where two parallel wells are drilled and alternately fractured to help to release oil for each other, the oil recovery rate is rising from 2 per cent towards 10 per cent in places. Gas is now nearer 30 per cent. Well productivity has doubled in five years.

Now the Bakken is being eclipsed by an even more productive shale formation in southern Texas called the Eagle Ford. Texas, which already produces conventional oil, has doubled its oil production in just over two years and by the end of this year will exceed Venezuela, Kuwait, Mexico and Iraq as an oil “nation”.

[. . .]

Mr Maugeri calculates that at $85 a barrel most shale oil wells repay their capital costs in a year. He estimates that even if oil prices fall steadily to $65 in five years, shale oil production will treble in the US because of increasing productivity per well and the easing of transport bottlenecks. By 2017, he thinks, America will be producing nearly 11 billion barrels a day [correction 11 million], equal to its previous peak in 1970. It would need much less in the way of imports. US oil imports peaked at 60 per cent in 2005 and will be below 40 per cent this year.

Internationally the effect is very different for oil compared with gas. Gas is costly to export by sea, requiring liquefaction. This roughly doubles the cost of it, meaning that America’s cheap shale gas boosts its economy at home, and gives it a competitive advantage in attracting energy-intensive industries. (US gas prices are a third or a quarter of what they are here.) Mexico, too, is benefiting because of having a land border with America and pipelines.

[. . .]

There would be losers. America’s falling appetite for imports may hit Nigeria and Angola harder than the Middle East because of the types of oil they produce, while Canada and Venezuela, whose tarry oil sands are high-cost, would also suffer if oil prices fell. But every oil producer would eventually feel the effect of this falling US demand, so there is no doubting the downward pressure on world oil prices that this revolution is likely to cause.

November 19, 2012

Rethinking US immigration policies

Filed under: Americas, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:21

Steve Chapman on the need of both the Democrats and the Republicans to come up with more realistic approaches to solving the illegal immigration problem:

Both sides also agree that a balanced, two-part approach is in order: stricter enforcement and improved border security on one hand and a pathway to legalization on the other. It’s an excellent plan — except for that first part.

To say we need more enforcement to seal the border is like saying we should re-invade Iraq. In the first place, we’ve already ramped up enforcement in every way imaginable. In the second place, it hasn’t solved the problem — and in fact has largely backfired.

[. . .]

G.K. Chesterton wrote that “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” Enforcement enthusiasts think the same is true of their preferred option. From them, you would think every migrant sneaking across the Arizona border only had to get by an unarmed attendant sitting in a folding chair and playing Angry Birds on an iPhone.

In fact, the southern border increasingly resembles the Berlin Wall. Border security has become the poster child of big government programs that conservatives typically abhor. It never succeeds, and every failure becomes the rationale for additional funding.

September 20, 2012

Of course they’d say that…

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:20

NBC News reported that the US State Department has “No secret plan to invade Canada”. But they’d say that even if they did have such a plan (and let’s be honest, they must have thought about it, especially during the Trudeau years):

The U.S. and Mexico are not secretly planning to invade Canada, a State Department spokeswoman confirmed to laughter during a daily press briefing.

Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was taking questions from journalists about its activities Tuesday, which included a meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mexico Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa.

She was asked about “a signing ceremony” with Espinosa — what was being signed and why was the ceremony not open to the press.

“I think it’s an update on Merida, but I will get that for you,” Nuland reported, referring to the Merida Initiative to fight organized crime.

The journalist asked, “This isn’t some secret thing … to invade Canada or something like that?”

Amid laughter, Nuland replied: “No, no, no. It’s not anything classified.”

It’s also one of the things that military staff do: prepare plans for all kinds of potential conflicts. Canada had a plan to invade the United States, for example.

Update, 22 September: For your further reading pleasure, why not go through the actual 1935 invasion plan document?

September 13, 2012

Submarines for the drug trade

Filed under: Americas, Law, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:26

The drug gangs in south and central America are becoming quite sophisticated in their attempts to get their products to the eager US consumer. One of the more technological developments is the drug-running submarine:

Despite losing nearly a hundred of these vessels to U.S. and South American naval forces (and dozens more to accidents and bad weather) the drug gangs have apparently concluded that the subs are the cheapest and most reliable way to ship the drugs. It’s currently estimated that over 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States leaves South America via these submarines or semi-submersible boats.

Most of these craft are still “semi-submersible” type vessels. These are 10-20 meter (31-62 foot) fiberglass boats, powered by a diesel engine, with a very low freeboard, and a small “conning tower” providing the crew (of 4-5), and engine, with fresh air and permitting the crew to navigate. A boat of this type was, since they first appeared in the early 1990s, thought to be the only practical kind of submarine for drug smuggling. But in the last decade the drug gangs have developed real submarines, capable of carrying 5-10 tons of cocaine that cost a lot more and don’t require a highly trained crew. These subs borrow a lot of technology and ideas from the growing number of recreational submarines being built.

[. . .]

The submarines that have been captured have, on closer examination, turned out to be more sophisticated than first thought. The outer hulls are made of strong, lightweight Kevlar/carbon fiber that is sturdy enough to keep the sub intact but very difficult to detect with most sensors. The hulls cannot survive deep dives but these boats don’t have to go deep to get the job done. The diesel-electric power supply, diving and surfacing system, and navigational systems of captured subs was often in working order. It was believed that some of those who built these boats probably had experience building recreational subs. The sub builders also had impressive knowledge of the latest materials used to build exotic boats. It had already become clear that something extraordinary was happening in these improvised jungle shipyards.

Ecuadoran police found the first real diesel-electric cocaine carrying submarine two years ago. It was nearly completed and ready to go into a nearby river, near the Colombian border, and move out into the Pacific Ocean. The 23.5 meter (73 foot) long, three meter (nine feet) in diameter boat was capable of submerging. The locally built boat had a periscope, conning tower, and was air conditioned. It had commercial fish sonar mounted up front so that it could navigate safely while underwater. There was a toilet on board but no galley (kitchen) or bunks. Submarine experts believed that a five man crew could work shifts to take care of navigation and steering the boat. The boat could submerge to about 16 meters (50 feet). At that depth the batteries and oxygen on board allowed the sub to travel up 38 kilometers in one hour, or at a speed of 9 kilometers an hour for 5-6 hours. This would be sufficient to escape any coastal patrol boats that spotted the sub while it moved along on the surface (its normal travel mode). The boat could also submerge to avoid very bad weather. The sub carried sufficient diesel fuel to make a trip from Ecuador to Mexico. There was a cargo space that could hold up to seven tons of cocaine.

July 11, 2012

Mexicans not willing to suffer increasing death toll to support American war on drugs

Filed under: Americas, Government, Law, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:03

Jacob Sullum on the recent election result as a sign of repudiation for American drug policy:

Early last year, when the death toll from Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on the cartels stood at 35,000 or so, Michele Leonhart, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told reporters in Cancun “the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs.” The results of last week’s presidential election, in which the candidate of Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN) finished a distant third, suggest Mexican voters are no longer buying that counterintuitive argument, if they ever did.

Even if “the fight against drugs” were winnable, it would be an outrageous imposition. Why should Mexicans tolerate murder and mayhem on an appalling scale (more than 50,000 deaths since Calderon launched his assault in December 2006), not to mention the rampant corruption associated with prohibition, all in the name of stopping Americans from obtaining psychoactive substances that their government has arbitrarily decreed they should not consume? That sort of arrogant expectation is becoming increasingly untenable.

Mexico’s incoming president, Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has promised continued cooperation with U.S. drug warriors. But during the campaign, he and the other two leading candidates all said controlling violence, as opposed to seizing drugs or arresting traffickers, would be their top law enforcement priority. Pena Nieto has reiterated that commitment since the election, saying his success should be measured by the homicide rate.

July 2, 2012

Meet the new boss … of Mexico

Filed under: Americas, Government, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:47

After more than a decade in opposition, Mexico’s equivalent of the Natural Governing Party* has returned to power:

Mexico’s old rulers claimed victory in a presidential election on Sunday, ending 12 years in opposition after a campaign dominated by a sputtering economy and rampant drug violence.

After pledging to restore order and ramp up economic growth, Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had a clear lead over his rivals in exit polls and a “quick count” conducted by electoral authorities.

Although his main rival said it was too early to concede defeat, the 45-year-old Pena Nieto delivered a late-night victory speech to cheering supporters, and a senior electoral official said the PRI candidate’s lead was “irreversible”.

“Mexicans have given our party another chance. We are going to honor it with results,” a visibly moved Pena Nieto told followers packed inside the PRI headquarters in Mexico City.

* For non-Canadians, the joke about the “Natural Governing Party” is that the Liberal Party of Canada had been effectively the permanent government in Canada for most of the 20th century, with only a few isolated interruptions by the Progressive Conservatives (aka the Forward-Backward party).

Update: The Economist has more:

The return of the PRI is not welcomed by everyone. The party ran Mexico for seven uninterrupted decades until it was ousted from the presidency in 2000. Back then few expected that the “perfect dictatorship”, as the PRI regime was dubbed by the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, would return to power just 12 years later. But the television-friendly Mr Peña ran a professional campaign and faced weak opposition from the fiery Mr López Obrador and from Ms Vázquez, whose poor result is in part a verdict on Mr Calderón’s disappointing six-year term in office.

Many have predicted that a close result would lead to a challenge by Mr López Obrador, who lost the 2006 election by less than 1% and mounted a months-long blockade of Mexico City’s main thoroughfare to protest that result, which he claimed (with thin evidence) was fraudulent. This year’s race looks to be nothing like as close as that of 2006. But if Monday’s final results show a narrower gap, Mr López Obrador’s committed followers could yet take to the streets again.

Election day provided some ammunition for a challenge, with evidence of cheating by some parties and cock-ups by the electoral authorities—though the scale of both was unclear. There were reports of voters in poor areas being offered upwards of 500 pesos ($38) to hand over their voting cards, which prevented them from casting their votes and perhaps enabled someone else to cast them instead. The PRI featured most often in such reports. A ban on political advertising after the end of the campaign on Wednesday was flouted by the Green Party, a formal ally of the PRI. The Greens illegally sent text-messages and recorded phone calls to many people (including your correspondent) on the day of the election, urging them to vote for their candidates.

June 19, 2012

EU’s Barroso spurns advice from Canadian “nobody”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Europe — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:22

The EU is not taking Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s advice gracefully. In fact, they’re not taking it at all:

Maybe it was the 35 C heat here on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. Maybe it was the pressure of the crisis he faces back home.

Whatever it was, when I asked European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso here Monday why Canada should risk its financial good name to bail out European banks, Barroso blew a diplomatic gasket.

“We are extremely open and we are engaging our partners but we are certainly not coming here to receive lessons from nobody,” he harrumphed.

That “nobody” is apparently our PM. How dare a mere Canadian politician offer criticism of the European Union, the greatest political achievement of mankind?

In Barroso’s eyes, the fiscal crisis in Europe is not even Europe’s fault. It is the victim in all of this. For that reason, the rest of the world ought bail it out, even though, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has noted, the so-called euro area of 27 countries is the single largest and wealthiest economic unit in the entire world.

Harper has told Barroso just that, saying that if Canada — or anyone else — is going to kick in to a US$430 billion pool administered by the International Monetary Fund, then Europe is going to have to release the chokehold it has had on the IMF.

And of course, no negotiation with the EU is complete without some hard-to-misunderstand threats from the Eurocrats:

But Barroso wasn’t finished. In the middle of his tirade, he trotted out a thinly veiled threat that a Canada-EU free-trade deal was at risk unless Harper comes to his senses and sends Canadian cash to the continent.

“We are trying to conclude an important agreement on trade with Canada. Why? Because all the other parts of the world look at Europe as a source of possible growth for them. And, in fact, they also have an interest. The sooner the situation is stabilized in Europe, the better for them,” he said.

April 4, 2012

The “Three Amigos” are not all that friendly at the moment

Filed under: Americas, Cancon, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:56

A report on the “Three Amigos” meeting where President Barack Obama hosted President Felipe Calderon, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the White House:

Obama’s neglect of our nearest neighbors and biggest trade partners has created deteriorating relations, a sign of a president who’s out of touch with reality. Problems are emerging that aren’t being reported.

Fortunately, the Canadian and Mexican press told the real story. Canada’s National Post quoted former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson as saying the North American Free Trade Agreement and the three-nation alliance it has fostered since 1994 have been so neglected they’re “on life support.”

Energy has become a searing rift between the U.S. and Canada and threatens to leave the U.S. without its top energy supplier.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned Obama the U.S. will have to pay market prices for its Canadian oil after Obama’s de facto veto of the Keystone XL pipeline. Canada is preparing to sell its oil to China.

Until now, NAFTA had shielded the U.S. from having to pay global prices for Canadian oil. That’s about to change.

Canada has also all but gone public about something trade watchers have known for a long time: that the U.S. has blocked Canada’s entry to the eight-way free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an alliance of the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Peru, Chile, and Singapore. Both Canada and Mexico want to join and would benefit immensely.

So much for Canadian whingeing, right? Those snowback hosers are never happy. Relations with Mexico must be in better shape, yes? Uh, no:

Things were even worse, if you read the Mexican press accounts of the meeting.

Excelsior of Mexico City reported that President Felipe Calderon bitterly brought up Operation Fast and Furious, a U.S. government operation that permitted Mexican drug cartels to smuggle thousands of weapons into drug-war-torn Mexico. This blunder has wrought mayhem on Mexico and cost thousands of lives.

It’s fortunate for President Obama that the press is generally careful in their reporting … careful, that is, to avoid blaming Obama wherever possible.

Update: Ace has more on the unusually assertive Canadian position.

December 31, 2011

The “Reverse Pelzman” Effect

Filed under: Americas, Bureaucracy, Economics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:35

A semi-serious discussion of a real-world experiment in getting rid of driving licenses:

Those of us who are econ geeks will know about the Pelzman Effect. Regulations that supposedly make us safer (say, seatbelts or cycling helmets) don’t actually make us safer as behaviour changes to take account of the new safety. Almost as if there’s what we consider to be an acceptable risk to take and reducing it in one manner just allows us to be silly in another so as to maintain that risk we’re comfortable with. What I didn’t know (but better econ geeks than I might have done already) is that there is a Reverse Pelzman Effect.

Exploiting an interesting natural experiment, the authors of that paper are able to show that we should abolish driving licences. The various States of Mexico found that bribery was impossible to avoid when attempting to gain a licence. So, to varying degrees, they changed their issuance system, some deciding simply not to have them any more. So, of course, death rates from car accidents went up, didn’t they?

Erm, actually, no, they didn’t. Those places that didn’t bother with licences any more, allowing absolutely anyone at all to get in and drive, saw no change in such death rates any different from those that had now (well, hopefully) incorruptible issuance systems.

December 20, 2011

Steve Paikin asks whether we should legalize drugs

Filed under: Americas, Law, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 14:06

December 2, 2011

“There is no prophecy for 2012. It is a marketing fallacy”

Filed under: Americas, History, Randomness — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:14

The BBC attempts to debunk the “2012 is the end of the world” notion that the Mayans are supposed to have predicted.

The date marks the end of one of the periods of roughly 400 years into which the Mayan calendar is divided.

Mexico’s National Institute for Anthropological History has also tried to counter speculation that the Maya predicted a catastrophic event for 2012.

Only two out of 15,000 registered Mayan texts mention the date 2012, according to the Institute, and no Mayan text predicts the end of the world.

“There is no prophecy for 2012. It is a marketing fallacy,” Erik Velasquez, etchings specialist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told Reuters.

November 5, 2011

George Jonas: A plot too crazy not to be true

Filed under: Media, Middle East, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:37

The alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador is too unrealistic for Hollywood, but George Jonas says it’s also too crazy not to be real:

If someone came up with an outlandish plot in which two Iranian agents, acting on behalf of government circles in Tehran, scheme with Mexican drug lords to blow up a Saudi ambassador on American soil, would a California screenwriter buy into it before a Virginia intelligence analyst, or would it be the other way around?

Place your bets.

[. . .]

Iranians are smart. If they weren’t smart, we wouldn’t have to worry about them building bombs. Do smart people come up with stupid plots? Not plausible. And look at the amateur pitch. Here’s a story that not only sounds like a B-movie, but is unveiled at a press conference that looks like a poster for a low-budget diversity flick: An African-American Attorney-General (Holder) flanked by a male Caucasian FBI Director (Robert S. Mueller) and a female Caucasian Assistant Attorney-General for National Security (Lisa Monaco) with a male Asian-American U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Preet Bharara) hovering in the background. It’s early Hollywood multicultural chic. All that’s missing is the line “Coming to a theatre near you.”

This amuses the intelligence analyst. “The trouble with Hollywood-types,” he says, “is that they’ve manipulated reality for so long, they can’t even recognize it when they see it. Does your friend think Holder and Mueller and Monaco and Bharara are from Central Casting? Hello! They are who they are. Life has caught up with multicultural chic. It imitates art — or at least imitates Hollywood.”

My spook friend goes further. “Yes, it’s a stupid plot and that’s why it rings true to me,” he says. “Most true stories of international intrigue sound like B-movies.”

September 23, 2011

Mexico to try market solution to drug wars

Filed under: Americas, Economics, Government, Law — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:54

Jesse Kline reports on the sudden conversion to drug legalization on the part of the Mexican government:

The United States imports a majority of it’s cocaine from Mexico, which has been embroiled in a brutal war among rival gangs for control of the lucrative trade.

Over 42,000 people have been killed in Mexico as a result of gang violence since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006. Not a moment too soon, it appears the President is starting to recognize that the current approach to dealing with illicit drugs is not working.

“We must do everything to reduce demand for drugs. But if the consumption of drugs cannot be limited, then decision-makers must seek more solutions — including market alternatives — in order to reduce the astronomical earnings of criminal organizations,” Calderon said in a speech in New York.

Using the term “market alternatives” is a key choice of words. The reason organized crime has so successfully dominated the trade is the blanket prohibition on drugs, forcing the market underground. The same thing happened in the United States when alcohol was made illegal during Prohibition.

The solution to removing the criminal element from the drug trade is the same one that solved the problem with booze: legalize it. Allow drugs to be produced by private industry in a regulated environment. After all, gang violence has become more deadly than the substances they’re peddling. And we don’t see beer companies shooting each other for control of distribution networks.

July 26, 2011

ATF sting turns into arms pipeline for drug gang

Filed under: Americas, Government, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:51

Operation Fast and Furious may have been intended to work as a trap for gun smugglers but appears to have become a reliable source of guns for Mexican gangsters:

Congressional investigators examining a gun-trafficking sting investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious have identified 122 weapons linked to the operation that have been recovered at crime scenes in Mexico, according to a report they are expected to release Tuesday.

The report, which offers new details about the operation, lists 48 occasions between November 2009 and February 2011 in which Mexican authorities found one or more such weapons, based on internal e-mails of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, whose Phoenix office set up the operation. It was compiled by the staffs of Representative Darrell Issa of California and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the two Republicans leading the investigation.

“The faulty design of Operation Fast and Furious led to tragic consequences,” the report concludes. “Countless United States and Mexican citizens suffered as a result.”

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