
Def: Not prepared in advance; impromptu, a few unrehearsed comments, ad hoc, on the spur of the moment, an extemporary lecture, with little or no preparation or forethought : an off-the-cuff remark.
Ryan Moore
Ken Brockland
Michael Thomas
It may sound noble to say, “Damn economics, let us build up a decent world” – but it is, in fact, merely irresponsible.
With our world as it is, with everyone convinced that the material conditions here or there must be improved, our only chance of building a decent world is that we can continue to improve the general level of wealth. The one thing modern democracy will not bear without cracking is the necessity of a substantial lowering of the standards of living in peacetime or even prolonged stationariness of its economic conditions.'
- F. A. Hayek
This article is the lesser of two very nearly Yellow journalist articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today. Yellow journalism was coined to describe the ability of Pulitzer and Hearst to stoke up a war with
Summary: There is a fault line that threatens all the central
I do take some simplifying liberties with this article, which overall, I thought was a good case study of the argument, even if I don’t understand why this is such a hot topic now.
There were two 4.1 and 4.3 quakes in February and May respectively in
The problem with retrofitting and making building codes higher is dealt with in the article. The section begins with the all too common phrase “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Mr. Hand cites the fact that money spent on extra concrete is money that could be spent on Policemen. He also points out that
Mr. Hand gives us this dichotomy: “Precautionary or coolly utilitarian”
I, personally, hate dichotomies. They are simplifications useful in theory, but create terrible results when repeated as fact. I also react to the use of the word – “coolly” which seems to suggest that utilitarianism is the lesser of the prudent virtues described here. That somehow planning for a 8-point Richter-scale earthquake is justified in aims of being prudent, while using cost-benefit calculus is the think only a theoretician would do. Mr. Hand gives us “Developers are fighting it tooth and nail, the almighty dollar is driving everything!” (in the mouth of a construction consultant in
Again, Mr. Hand contradicts this without drawing the specific comparison. He tells us that Budweiser has made the investment to make its building quake proof. This makes sense only if they think that the risk is sufficient to justify the cost (not to mention they did it without government command). This reality exists without raising the building code. I get back to my example from Mr. Hand’s article where he talks about the baseball stadium. He tells us that the stadium is not built up to the highest letter of the code (he leaves this hanging, so we assume that he suggests it should). The picture I have in my mind is the whole of
Like I said, Mr. Hand presents both sides of the story, but in an article meant for Sunday July 3rd readership, it seems we would have had time to present the economic side of the argument a little more clearly. The yellow journalistic part of this sells papers, sure, but it leaves the public in general with misinformation about the roles of economic cost benefit analysis in deciding city planning. Leave these decisions to the private corporations, when the earthquake hits, feel confident in that at least your supply of beer will be safe, even if you don’t have a baseball park to go to.
that was me.