Kelo vs. New London revisited

Remember the case of Kelo vs. New London? Briefly, it was a case in which homeowners including Susette Kelo sued their municipality to stop it from taking their homes using the power of eminent domain. The city wanted to raze the homes and redevelop the area, making it shiny and new to complement the anticipated Pfizer pharmaceutical research facility. After all, one musn't allow the shabby dwellings of the peasantry to mar the image of success and corporate uniformity that one is trying to project:

So, the politicians picked a 24-acre lot and sold it Pfizer for $10, adding on special tax breaks. Also, state and local governments promised $26 million to clean up contamination on the lot and a nearby junkyard. But Pfizer executive David Burnett thought New London needed to do some more cleaning. "Pfizer wants a nice place to operate," the Hartford Courant quoted Burnett in 2001. "We don't want to be surrounded by tenements." The old Victorian houses in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood next door did not match Pfizer's vision - a high-rise hotel or luxury condominiums would be more fitting.

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Run from actively managed securities funds

Dan Solin at Huffpo has repeatedly pointed out the folly of paying an investment "expert" to manage a securities fund. His advice goes against the grain; innumerable books, magazines and websites pretend that if you want to grow your investments, you need to pay someone to actively manage them. As Dan Points out in this post, the great majority of fund managers hyperactively stir your investments (which costs you money for all these transactions) and the fund typically does less well than passively managed index funds that cost a fraction of the cost of actively managed funds to maintain. Vanguard, for example, is a prominent company offering many passively managed funds that cost less than 1/10 as much to maintain as actively managed funds. After pointing out new statistics showing the follow of active management, Dan offers this hypothetical conversation that you should have with the next investment professional who offers to help your funds "grow," for a fee, by wheeling and dealing securities for you:

Broker: I recommend this [hyperactively managed] stock [or bond] fund. You: You get a commission if I follow your recommendation, right? Broker: Of course. You: Based on data from both Morningstar and S&P, your recommended fund is likely to underperform a low cost index fund of comparable risk, right? Broker: Yes. You: Is this a farce or a con? Then hang up.

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More to the peak oil story

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled "The Unspoken Reality of 'Peak Oil'", in which I tried to convey the scale of the problem we face. "My main motto never changes, the era of low oil prices is over," said Dr. Fatih Birol who is the Chief Economist for the International Energy Agency (IEA). Now we have even more confirmation that peak oil has arrived. Today, the IEA released their 2009 version of the annual World Energy Outlook, in which they attempt to forecast supply and demand through 2030. And once again, the IEA continues to forecast that there will be plenty of supply, if only we can muster the needed capital investments. Unfortunately, the needed capital investments are enormous:

The capital required to meet projected energy demand through to 2030 in the Reference Scenario is huge, amounting in cumulative terms to $26 trillion (in year-2008 dollars) — equal to $1.1 trillion (or 1.4% of global gross domestic product [GDP]) per year on average. (p.43)
As if that weren't bad enough, the release of the report has been almost completely overshadowed by yesterday's Guardian which has alarming allegations from two different whistleblowers within the IEA

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Whence school leadership?

At ASCD Leadership, Tom Hoerr asks a string of easy-to-understand questions, all of which lack easy answers. The topic is school leadership--how will we recruit the next generation of people to lead our schools? Here's the main problem:

Each week I read about the impending shortage of school administrators. There aren't enough people choosing to pursue administration, and the attrition rate of those playing a leadership role is too high.
Under the reasonable assumption that maintaining quality school leadership is one of the most critical jobs in the entire country (even more important than being a Wall Street Banker who earns 100 times the salary, I would maintain), why hasn't more national attention been focused on this problem of recruiting the best and the brightest to become school leaders? Perhaps it's that too many of us only give lip-service to the need for quality education. Tom is the principle of New City School in St. Louis. He is also a friend, at least in part, because he is a thoughtful person whose opinions I respect. ASCD is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that represents 175,000 educators from more than 135 countries and 58 affiliates. According to the website,

Inservice is the ASCD community blog—a place for educators to gather and share ideas. We hope it will promote the kind of exchange that happens in inservice meetings, where educators discuss how best to support their students. We want it to be a resource for everyone who cares about and serves education, learning, and teaching.

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The three reasons to have slavery, based on the Bible

If you thought that no one would dare try to defend slavery, as presented by the Bible, think again. I found this video on Slate; it is an animated (and speeded-up) version of a real-life "Biblical slavery" apologist. Listen for a minute or two, if you can stand it. Note the comment following the video: "Brilliant! So, where can I sign up to be a "biblical" slave...?"

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