My Latest Web Document
Over 400 Examples of Critical Thinking and Illustrations of How to Mislead With Statistics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/MisleadWithStatistics.htm

Animated  Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010) ---
A Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010)

USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/
The published national debt is a lie
Here's the real federal debt ---
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/about/our_national_debt

In September 2017 the USA National Debt exceeded $22 trillion for the first time ---
http://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/national-debt-surpasses-20-trillion-for-the-first-time-in-us-history

Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE 

One reason is that many billionaires can afford to pour lots of money into high risk ventures. When's the last time you heard about a high risk (think Silicon Valley) venture in Europe?

Wikiquote from Wikipedia --- https://www.wikiquote.org/

Excellent, Cross-Disciplinary Overview of Scientific Reproducibility in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ---
https://replicationnetwork.com/2018/12/15/excellent-cross-disciplinary-overview-of-scientific-reproducibility-in-the-stanford-encyclopedia-of-philosophy/

[Researchers] are rewarded for being productive rather than being right, for building ever upward instead of checking the foundations.---
Decades of early research on the genetics of depression were built on nonexistent foundations. How did that happen?
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/waste-1000-studies/589684/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20191022&silverid-ref=NTk4MzY1OTg0MzY5S0

Bob Jensen:  My take on research validation or lack thereof is at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
You must watch this to the ending to appreciate it.

And nevertheless conclude that the optimum amount of restriction of immigration is zero point zero, zero, zero? Amazing. Economics are generally skeptical models that yield corner solutions ---
https://www.econlib.org/do-you-talk-about-it-in-open-borders-yes/
Jensen Comment
To the list of questions I would add "Do your talk about the Tragedy of the Commons?"
The problem with open borders is somewhat related to the economic problem of "The Sharing of the Commons" where giving everybody the right to use a free resource leads to everybody losing that resource. At what point will allowing billions of people share in the free medical care, free college, and other scarce resources ruin it for everybody ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Open immigration can’t exist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure healthcare and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global ---
Paul Krugman
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/724654-open-immigration-can-t-exist-with-a-strong-social-safety-net

History will prove former President Donald Trump was correct about Mexico one day funding an impenetrable wall --- to keep out over 2 billion starving green immigrants seeking to enter Mexico from the north.
Bob Jensen

Some Fatherly Words of Wisdom from Jack Bogle, Founder of Vanguard Investments, to My Sons ---
https://jborden.com/2019/06/16/some-fatherly-words-of-wisdom-from-jack-bogle-founder-of-vanguard-investments-to-my-sons/

Milton Friedman:  The Lesson of the Spoons ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/08/spoons-are-in-aisle-9.html
Chopsticks would be even better

The Young Left’s Anti-Capitalist Manifesto: Its goal is to remake our economic system — and the Democratic Party ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-young-lefts-anti-capitalist-manifesto/

I have a complaint about America today, and it is simple: we don’t love business enough ---
Tyler Cowen
https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2019/Klingbigbusiness.html

The Amazon Rain Forest Is Nearly Gone ---
https://time.com/amazon-rainforest-disappearing/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=20190914&xid=newsletter-brief
Amazon rainforest fires: Everything we know and how you can help ---
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/amazon-rainforest-fire-whats-happening-now-and-how-you-can-help-update-indigenous-tribes/
There Are More Fires Burning in Africa Than Anywhere on Earth ----
https://time.com/5665794/africa-forest-fires-amazon/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=20190901&xid=newsletter-brief
If forests go up in smoke, so can carbon offsets ---
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/13/20859156/forests-fires-carbon-offsets-amazon-california

"In Praise of Cheap Labor," by Paul Krugman, Slate, March 21, 1997 ---
https://slate.com/business/1997/03/in-praise-of-cheap-labor.html

Corruption in general has a deleterious effect on the readiness of economic agents to invest. In the long run, it leads to a paralysis of economic life. But very often it is not that economic agents themselves have had the bad experience of being cheated and ruined, they just know that in this country, or in this part of the economy, or this building scene, there is a high likelihood that you will get cheated and that free riders can get away with it. Here again, reputation is absolutely essential, which is why transparency is so important. Trust can only be engendered by transparency. It's no coincidence that the name of the most influential non-governmental organization dealing with corruption is Transparency International.
A Conversation with Karl Sigmund:  When Rule of Law is Not Working
https://www.edge.org/conversation/karl_sigmund-when-the-rule-of-law-is-not-working

Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street and one particular U.S. Congressional Committee stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poors rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors. Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide. Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal. Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted. Momma always said: '"Sniff the chocolates first Forrest." Things generally don't pass the smell test if they came from Wall Street or from Washington DC.
Forrest Gump as quoted at http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.sport.tennis/2008-10/msg02206.html

It is not that machines are going to replace chemists. It’s that the chemists who use machines will replace those that don’t ---
Derek Lowe

Gallup: Americans Say No. 1 Problem is 'Government,' No. 2 is 'Immigration' ---
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/survey-americas-no-1-problem-government-no-2-problem-immigration

"If you open the borders, my God, there's a lot of poverty in this world, and you're going to have people from all over the world. And I don't think that's something that we can do at this point."
Bernie Sanders
https://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-says-he-does-not-support-open-borders-2019-4

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum ---

Augustus De Morgan

Prior to 1980 what was unique about the year of his birth in 1871?
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/De_Morgan.html

Also see
 

Hermann Weyl born in Hamburg, Germany. He wrote, "One may say that mathematics talks about the things which are of no concern to men. Mathematics has the inhuman quality of starlight---brilliant, sharp, but cold ... thus we are clearest where knowledge matters least: in mathematics, especially number theory." ---
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Weyl.html
Also see Mathematical Analytics in Plato's Cave
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm#Analytics

Georges Simenon wrote nearly 200 novels. Hitchcock telephoned one day and was told, "Sorry, he’s just started a novel." "I’ll wait,’ came the reply
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/if-only-georges-simenon-had-been-a-bit-more-like-maigret/

12 inspiring quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.---
https://www.businessinsider.com/inspiring-martin-luther-king-jr-quotes-2017-1

21 outstanding Warren Buffet quotations ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-21-best-quotes-2019-2
Also see
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-25-best-warren-buffett-quotes-in-one-infographic/

The Atlantic:  The Swiftly Closing Borders of Europe ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/12/europe-france-italy-immigration-border/578179/

Italian Minister tells NGO Italy doesn’t want migrants: “Our ports are closed!” ---
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/12/italian-minister-tells-ngo-italy-doesnt-want-migrants-our-ports-are-closed/#.XB6WCZMs_Xo.twitter

The enemy is fear
We think it's hate
But, it's fear
Gandhi

13 of the (alleged) most famous last words in history ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/famous-last-words-in-history-2017-10

21 of Michelle Obama's most inspiring quotes on work, success, and relationships ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/michelle-obama-most-inspiring-quotes-advice-becoming-2019-1

19 unforgettable quotes from legendary Marine Gen. Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis, who quit as Trump's defense secretary ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/general-mattiss-best-quotes-2016-11

Here are the Ten Best Pieces of Advice from 2018 Commencement Speakers ---
Click Here

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because it's been fertilized with more bullshit.
Anonomous

The Lucretius Problem is a mental defect where we assume the worst case event that has happened is the worst case event that can happen ---
https://www.fs.blog/2015/04/lucretius-problem/

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
Aristotle

The Economic Ignorance of Bernie Sanders ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/08/09/the-economic-ignorance-of-bernie-sanders

Walter E. Williams --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Williams
Walter E. Williams:  Fraud in Higher Education ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2019/12/04/fraud-in-higher-education-n2557348?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=12/04/2019&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

A left-wing journalist just added to the staff of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., once celebrated Hugo Chavez's leadership in Venezuela, claiming that "his brand of socialism achieved real economic gains." . . . In 2013, Sirota wrote a lengthy defense for Slate on Chavez's reign in Venezuela shortly after the dictator's death, which he called an "economic miracle."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bernies-new-speechwriter-applauded-chavezs-economic-miracle

Also see
https://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle/

In Defense Of American Excellence ---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/11/in-defense-of-american-excellence.html

om/2019/12/09/ig-report-fbi-fisa-carter-page-trump-media/

The Atlantic:  Public Housing Becomes the Latest Progressive Fantasy ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/public-housing-fundamentally-flawed/602515/

Describing the FBI’s actions as “gross incompetence and negligence,” the Justice Department’s inspector general laid out his findings on the bureau’s probe into Trump campaign links to Russian election meddling ---
https://www.ozy.com/presidential-daily-brief/pdb-255365/?utm_source=pdb&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=December%2012%2C%202019&variable=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&utm_term=OZY#article255837

However the IG concludes the investigation itself was justified at the beginning
 

University of Pennsylvania
Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax will raise $1 trillion less than expected and slow the economy, study finds ---
https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2019/12/12/senator-elizabeth-warrens-wealth-tax-projected-budgetary-and-economic-effects

Jensen Comment
As of December 12, 2019 those of us in New Hampshire are being bombarded with television advertisements for Bernie Sanders and none (as far as I can tell) from Elizabeth Warren. It would seem that she's already conceded to losing to Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary. Maybe she's concentrating her money on the larger and more important states. Bernie is still being very ambiguous about how he will finance his socialism takeover of the USA. He's less ambiguous about spending plans ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Bernie_Sanders

Bernie probably stands the least chance of defeating Trump because his political positions are the most radical of all the Democratic Party presidential candidates. His new alliances with AOC and Omar probably hurt rather than help his quest to defeat Trump.
The latest Quinnipiac University Scientific Poll found that any of the 2020 Democratic Party candidates (including Bernie Sanders) will almost certainly clobber Trump in 2020 ---
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/all-top-democrats-beat-trump-in-new-quinnipiac-poll-67668549781

Blast from the Past
August 25, 2016:  New Quinnipiac University Scientific Poll shows we're 'starting to hear the faint rumblings of a Hillary Clinton landslide' ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/quinnipiac-poll-clinton-trump-landslide-2016-8

Warren’s history of consulting, fundraising haunts bid to shame Buttigieg ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/732894-warrens-history-of-consulting-fundraising-haunts-bid-to-shame-buttigieg?utm_source=c-pm&utm_medium=c-pm-email&utm_term=c-pm-GI&utm_content=4_IBzIGwv_cPJlMRU4kb7RWtLkQ..A

The Atlantic:  Democrats Have Failed to Prove Their Case Against Trump ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/republicans-trump-impeachment/603439/

Will the last one leaving New Jersey please turn off the lights! ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/will-the-last-one-leaving-new-jersey-please-turn-off-the-lights

Mariana Mazzucato --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Mazzucato
Ted Talk: What is economic value, and who creates it?
https://www.ted.com/talks/mariana_mazzucato_what_is_economic_value_and_who_creates_it?utm_source=recommendation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=explore&utm_term=newest-talks-1

Victoria Falls Dries Up to a Trickle ---
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Drought-Victoria-Falls-Climate-Story-Twist
There are now six natural  Wonders of the World rather than seven.

Illinois town posts job opening for town clerk … for Democrats only ---
https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2019/12/14/illinois-town-posts-job-opening-democrats/

Detroit's voting roll has 511,786 voters registered
Detroit only has 479,267 residents of voting age & eligibility
There are 2,503 dead voters & even one voter born in 1823
This is how Democrats are going to try and take back Michigan from Trump
Charlie Kirk
https://twitter.com/charliekirk11

Comey: ‘I Was Wrong’ — FBI’s FISA Abuse ‘Was Not Acceptable’ ---
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/12/15/comey-i-was-wrong-fbis-fisa-abuse-was-not-acceptable/

The Atlantic:  The FBI Needs to Be Reformed ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/fisa-process-broken/603688/

Vermont composting rules could kill off the state’s small poultry farmers ---
https://reason.com/2019/12/14/why-is-vermont-treating-its-sustainable-poultry-farmers-like-garbage/

As Big Milk Moves In, Family-Owned U.S. Dairy Farms Rapidly Fold ---
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/01/11/509135189/as-big-milk-moves-in-family-owned-u-s-dairy-farms-rapidly-fold
Jensen Comment
In New Hampshire millionaires help save the small farms that are unsustainable (think hobby farms). But Vermont's high taxes on everything discourages millionaires from moving into Vermont. New Hampshire has relatively high property taxes but attracts wealthy retirees by not having a general  income tax or a sales tax. New Hampshire is probably the weirdest bluish state in the USA. Vermont is royal blue and the cheering home base of socialist Bernie Sanders. Compare population rates of change at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_population
Vermont is an illustration of how high taxes and high regulations may make economies unsustainable.

US Trade Deficit With China and Why It's So High ---
https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-china-trade-deficit-causes-effects-and-solutions-3306277

Significantly lowering the trade deficit is probably impossible:  Neither Republicans nor Democrats offer a solution other than to yell critically at each other uselessly ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/china-negotiating-fact-of-the-day.html
Why is lowering the trade deficit impossible?
Because China owns over $1 trillion of USA debt, and it's futile to bite the hand that feeds your insatiable need to borrow more

China is Nowhere Close to Being the World's Leading Economy:  When it comes to national wealth, the U.S. has a big lead over China, possibly as much as three times greater.  ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/china-isnt-close-to-being-the-1-economy.html
The USA lead will be reduced slowly as long as China keeps increasing its global capitalism.
Sanders and Warren may speed up the economic decline of the USA by taking tens of trillions from our capital markets with new taxes to fund green initiatives, free medical care, college for all, guaranteed annual income, reparations, housing subsidies, free food, open borders, etc.

Bad news for Trump — 60% of Americans say the surging stock market doesn't affect them ---
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ft-peterson-poll-60pct-of-americans-see-no-effect-of-stock-market-2019-12-1028748177
Their ignorance will be revealed when and if the stock market crashes by 80% or more. Don't they know successful capital markets keep unemployment so low and consumer spending so high?
Tens of millions of jobs, including jobs for new graduates, will be adversely affected by the crash. Home values will plummet. Pension funds will evaporate. Inventories of consumer goods will disappear.

Exhibit A is what's happened in Venezuela.
The biggest worry for Democrats is that enough voters understand the importance of a record-setting economy. But there is a worrisome number of voters who do not understand the economy.
Economics is mainly the study of how to best cope with scarcity.
 

NY Times:  How to Get Americans to Love Capitalism Again
There are better solutions than wealth taxes, ‘Medicare for all’ or universal basic income
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/opinion/america-capitalism.html
Jensen Comment
The young socialists in the Sanders-Warren voting base don't want to save capitalism and are willing to gamble with the USA economy.

Sanders has proposed a whopping $97.5 trillion worth of new government spending over the next decade ---
https://reason.com/2019/11/07/elizabeth-warren-wants-to-raise-taxes-by-26-trillion/

Jensen Comment
And that excludes a lot of spending that's almost impossible to estimate such as the health care, free college, guaranteed income, etc. for millions of new citizens that might flow across his open borders initiative that he's promoting side-by-side with Omar.

U.S. Poverty Levels Fall To Pre-Recession Low ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/09/13/us-poverty-levels-fall-to-pre-recession-low-infographic/#4c9a8e963d45

History's Largest Mining Operation is About to Begin ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/20000-feet-under-the-sea/603040/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=politics-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20191218&silverid-ref=NTk4MzY1OTg0MzY5S0

MIT:  Keynes was wrong. Gen Z will have it worse.---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614892/keynes-was-wrong-gen-z-will-have-it-worse/

The new “third world debt crisis” (over $55 trillion)
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/the-new-third-world-debt-crisis.html

The Atlantic:  Cool It, Krugman ---The self-sabotaging rage of the New York Times columnist
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/review-paul-krugman-arguing-with-zombies/603052/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20191219&silverid-ref=NTk4MzY1OTg0MzY5S0

On Drawing the Wrong Lessons from Theory: The Natural Rate of Unemployment ---
https://everydayecon.wordpress.com/2019/10/09/wronglessons/

The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/the-bridge-natural-gas-in-a-redivided-europe.html

2,700 Miles of Brazilian Beaches are Threatened by What Appears to be Venezuelan Oil ---

https://graphics.reuters.com/BRAZIL-OILSPILL/0100B4ST2L9/index.html

One Town in China makes 60% of the World's Plastic Christmas Trees ---
https://qz.com/1773502/the-history-and-sustainability-of-christmas-trees-explained/
Jensen Comment
Do the world a favor by using the same tree every year rather than adding it to the world's over supply of discarded plastic. We keep our little trees up all year --- year after year.

Why Are Young People (71%) Leaving Long Island In DROVES?

https://longislandweekly.com/why-are-young-people-leaving-long-island/

China Paid Millions to Left-Leaning U.S. Publications to Publish Propaganda, Reports Says ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/731727-china-paid-millions-to-left-leaning-us-publications-to-publish-propaganda-reports-says-special?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=1Cugtgg08BDw-1AwBlaN1Qmmriw..A

If 58 airports are not playing sports events it's because CNN is paying $100,000 to each airport to play CNN programs ---
https://warroom.org/cnn-pays-58-airports-100000-each-to-play-channel/
Jensen Comment
Evangelical stations should offer a higher amount than this relatively cheap price.  How much more will advertisers pay for this added exposure?
This does not include the restaurants and bars inside airports. Can you imagine how much it would cost CNN to get sports bars to turn off sporting events in favor of watching CNN lambaste Republicans?
 

The U.S. Dept Valuation Puzzle ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/the-u-s-public-debt-valuation-puzzle-uh-oh.html

You Are Not Allowed to Stand for the National Anthem if You're Wearing These New Nike Tennis Shoes ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/732998-nike-celebrates-not-standing-for-national-anthem-with-new-kaepernick-shoes-special?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=1Cugtgg08BDw-1AwBlaN1Qmmriw..A

When wearing these shoes you should also wear Kaepernick's "Police-as-Pigs" Socks ---
https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/kaepernick-made-prior-statement-police-pigs-socks

Report: Defense Contractors Hiding Behind Shell Companies are “Ripping off the Pentagon" ---
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/report-defense-contractors-hiding-behind-shell-companies-are-%E2%80%9Cripping-pentagon-106531

Life Expectancy --- https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

In developed nations it's creating pension fund and medical losses (think Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid). I don't know anybody who thinks the current Medicare program in the USA is sustainable without huge changes. Some of the 2020 Presidential candidates are proposing these huge changes ---
http://benl8.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-radical-populist-budget.html

From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on December 17, 2019, 2019

A nearly $1.4 trillion spending agreement released Monday would fund the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year, permanently repeal a number of health-care-related taxes and raise the legal age for purchasing tobacco products to 21. If passed, the legislation would permanently repeal the so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost employer health insurance, which never took effect, and a tax on medical devices that was scheduled to resume in January.

Jensen Comment
The current $1.4 trillion spending of the federal government seems downright puny compared to the $20+ trillion proposed annual spending of Sanders and Warren for green initiatives, Medicare-for-All, free medications, free college, guaranteed annual income, reparations, housing subsidies, free food, open borders, etc. The most misleading thing is when they say the rich folks and corporate taxes will pay for the added spending. How will Amazon, Walmart, and the other companies raise the cash to pay these trillions in taxes? Surely not by raising prices tenfold!

Jensen Comment
These resorts have what is becoming an ever larger problems for cost accountants.

First is the tendency for accountants to provide analyses that help management make a decision of deciding when to reduce labor costs with increased captial investment such as when a warehouse must decide on how much labor to eliminate with robots. For ski resorts snowmaking does not replace labor --- it actually increases labor costs along with huge investments in water sources and equipment to make snow.

Second the expected life of the snowmaking investments is becoming very uncertain for each batch of snow. First there's the short-term investment in the new snow itself. Today from my desk I'm watching Cannon Mountain Ski Resort. It's replacing the snow that was made over the past three weeks that was melted away by a devastating rain before there were ever any skiers on that new snow. In other words, a lot of money is spent on what is akin to playing a slot machine. You must pull the lever daily to make new snow without ever knowing when and iff you will get your money back.

Third the expected life of snowmaking investments is becoming very uncertain for all batches of snow because warmer and warmer weather is expected each and every year..

But these smaller (and larger) devices won’t be able to stand up to climate change forever. They work by spraying microscopic ice balls and water droplets into the cold air, which combine, freeze and then descend as snow—though this “snow” is formed of pellet-like particles, not flakes. Low outdoor temperatures are essential to the process. If it’s not cold enough—ideally around 2.5 degrees Celsius—the machines simply cease to work properly.

In a warming world, Zermatt has invested in Snowmaker because it can function even when it is warm outside. The behemoth creates a vacuum inside its large tank that encourages water to evaporate. With evaporation, energy is expended, which cools the water and helps to form tiny snow crystals. Snow can be taken to the highest, coldest parts of the resort once it is ready.

Still, most snowmakers do rely on cold weather. That’s why some resorts continue to buy more and more of them, so that they can pump out huge volumes of snow, quickly, during the ever-narrowing windows of subzero temperatures.

“It’s been busy,” admits Ian Jarrett, vice president at US-based HKD Snowmakers, which manufactures snowmaking machines. In the northeast US, where HKD is headquartered, skiing is a popular pastime—but one potentially hampered by dwindling snow in the early part of the season. Resorts say they have no choice but to turn to snowmakers because many of their customers choose to visit at traditional times, around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Automation has also helped to ensure that snow guns only run when it makes sense to do so. “The snow guns on the fully automated side can start and stop, and adjust themselves based on temperature,” explains Jarrett.

But about 900,000 liters of water are still needed to put a foot of snow on one acre of land. Acquiring this resource is another constant headache for resorts. Since the 2018–19 season, for example, Seven Springs ski resort in Pennsylvania has installed 1,500 meters of 50-centimeter diameter piping to bring water from a 681-million-liter uphill lake down to its snow-generating machines.

Fourth, the article mentions how there are many indirect societal externality costs that accountants are not good at measuring.

And yet the skiing industry as a whole has faced scrutiny because of the emissions associated with flights, road travel and the large hotels that host holidaymakers. A return flight from London to Geneva, for example, pumps the equivalent of 0.24 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. The energy expended on snowmaking only accounts for a few percent of the total footprint of the ski industry, says Michael Rothleitner at Schneezentrum Tirol, a Swiss firm that researches new ways to make snow product and management more efficient.

The bottom line is that there's a tremendous challenge for "managerial" accountants to become better and better at helping management make more complicated decisions as climate change, technology, and other factors become more complicated in the 21st Century.

Research Opportunity of Cost Accountants:  Variations in Day Care Center Expenses

Jensen Comment
My untested hypothesis is that many organizations (unlike Boston University) avoid operating day-care centers because of the liability that arises from loss or damage to a child. Day-care services are more commonly run by small businesses (think of a family home) where there's very little to sue if a child is lost or damaged.

Here's an expense sheet for a day-care center ---
http://www.nelsonandriley.biz/pdf_Files/DC_helpSheets.pdf

The research I would like to see is to compare filled in expense sheets like the one above for a large number day care centers classified by number of children ranging from very small to very large.
It would be nice to compare whether the day care center is an independent corporation of part of a larger organization such as a business firm, college, hospital, church, etc.
It would also be nice to see the variation in terms of such thing as population of the service area (e.g., Boston versus Franconia, NH).
It would be interesting to see variation in terms of states (because states vary greatly in terms of punitive damage awards and other litigation costs).

Research should be collected regarding liability insurance coverage variations and costs.

For example see
https://generalliabilityinsure.com/daycare-insurance-california.html

One problem with daycare liability exposure is that courts often sympathize with poor plaintiffs even when the defendants really did little, if anything, wrong. This is analogous to an obstetrician paying for medical malpractice insurance. An obstetrician is likely to be sued for every defective baby she or he delivers even when the delivery was perfect and the baby was defective. Juries are especially sympathetic when the plaintiff is very poor relative to the defendant.

Threat to California’s credit grows from troubled $1 billion state accounting program ---
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article238474128.html

A growing number of California state agencies are missing budget deadlines because of a $1 billion accounting program that has major problems remaining unaddressed despite its escalating cost, according to a new state audit.

Up to 62 state government departments missed an October 2019 deadline to submit financial statements to the State Controller’s Office, up from 48 for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, according to the audit published Tuesday.

Those delays threaten the state’s ability to produce its annual financial report on time, which could undermine California’s credit, potentially driving up borrowing costs by billions of dollars, according to the audit.

Continued in article

Just When You Think the News Could Not Become More Weird ---
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/florida/fl-ne-moorish-sovereign-citizens-trial-175-million-tax-fraud-20191217-sca4awrdrrbl5dfosq2zzjbdx4-story.html

Jensen Comment
I remind you that this is the same agency (IRS) that audited Trump's tax returns over the years.

What Is the Political-Economic Agenda After Piketty?
https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/12/what-is-the-political-economic-agenda-after-piketty.html#more

. . .

 

Piketty’s Second Book’s Suggestion About a Political-Economy Research Agenda: This second book, Capital and Ideology, suggests a political-economy research agenda—two political-economy research agendas in fact.

The first political-economy research agenda is to understand what happened to the center-right. The center-right was, around 1980, transformed from a center-right that sought to make social democracy more productive into the "merchant right" described by Piketty. In the process, it transformed itself in country after country from a political movement aimed at representing those who expected to gain from a growing market or mixed economy to a movement that aims at representing those who think they have something to lose from economic or structural change, or simply from the passage of time or the widening of opportunity. To some degree this transformation reflected deceasing optimism among targeted potential voters: the end of western European and Pacific rim catch-up "supergrowth" and the coming of high unemployment in Europe starting in the 1980s and stagnation to Japan starting in the 1990s made many people no longer expect to gain from the market. The original hope was that a pruning-back of the less efficient pieces of social democracy and a small widening of inequality to improve incentives for entrepreneurship and enterprise would reinvigorate growth, and restore the confidence of those who had hoped to be winners but found out that it was not so. But the diagnosis was faulty. The rise in inequality did not restore growth. And hence the focus shifted to one of seeking to punish those whom social democracy had unjustly enriched, and allowed to think that they were above their proper station.

But this is only the case to some degree. This is not a full explanation by any means of the rise of politicians like Viktor Orban or Boris Johnson or Donald Trump or Marine Le Pen, or of their inability to find a set of coherent and growth-boosting policies to substitute for—or even complement—their focus on the internal and external enemies of those who are fully and properly Magyar, English, American, and French.

The second political-economic research agenda is to understand what happened to the center-left. It was, around 1980, transformed from a center-left that sought more upward mobility, more social insurance, and a strong labor movement to one whose core is those rich via education and professional status, and which focuses on issues more of cultural liberalism than of political-economic social democracy. Piketty sees the center-left as, to a great degree a prisoner of its own success. The big winners from post-World War II social democracy were those from modest backgrounds for whom full employment and low-cost education opened up opportunities. education and high-income possibilities to the people who in the 1950s and 1960s came from modest backgrounds. These winners continued to support and vote for the center-left. But their interests and visions were different: the transformation of the Labour Party from Clement Attlee to Tony Blair in Britain, for example. Once again, there is considerable truth in this story that Piketty tells. Once again, it is very far indeed from being a complete or a satisfactory explanation.

It is very much worth noting that the policy recommendations found at the end of Capital and Ideology seem less attuned to the argument of the core of the book and more attuned to the argument of Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Near-confiscatory taxes on plutocrats to finance the distribution of substantial financial nest eggs to working-class young adults seems tailor-made to unwind some of the social power of plutocrats and set in motion a virtuous cycle by which their ability to maintain the 5% per year rate of profit that supports their wealth is undermined by a loss of that wealth and leads to a future decline in their ability to work the levers of the rent-seeking society in their own interest. But in Capital and Ideology the central political-economic problem is not that plutocratic wealth exercises a form of hegemony and undermines the ability of the public sphere to engage in practical reason. In Capital and Ideology the central political-economic problem is that the center-left and the centre-right have become unmoored from the economic interests of those whom they represent or ought to represent: declining into a form of neofascism on the right, and to a focus on cultural issues rather than economic mobility and equitable growth on the left. The democratic people still have the power to command policies in their economic interest. But the transmission belts by which that power is transmitted through political parties and into government policy are broken. Fixing that would seem to call for political, ideological, and organizational reform, not for high tax rates and a universal basic income that could, in any event, never be implemented until after successful political, ideological, and organizational reform.

In Addition: And we should not miss sight of the very important facts with respect to inequality between economies and societies. Today we stand at the end of a forty-year period in which global inequality has been decreasing not because countries' economies have been drawing closer together in relative wealth but because the two overwhelmingly most populous countries of China and India hav been successful in moving from poor to middle-income status: on a logarithmic scale, Chins and India were only one-seventh of the way from Ethiopia to the United States in the late 1970s, and they are three-fifths and two-fifths of the way today.

Updates on Medical Insurance

Joe Biden Vows to Give Taxpayer-Funded Obamacare to All Illegal Immigrants in U.S. ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwGCGtjlPQwKppkFwvsWhGNlMXs

Obamacare's Individual Mandate Ruled Unconstitutional (the requirement that individuals must have health insurance) ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/health/obamacare-mandate.html
Health insurance can now be dropped in favor of buying a Smart TV or a new car

Bob Jensen's Tidbits Archives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm 

Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals

Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:

Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm

Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Enron --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm

Rotten to the Core --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

American History of Fraud --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm

Bob Jensen's fraud conclusions ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on corporate governance are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance 

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

·     With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier

·     With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams

·     With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR

·     With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave  --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen

What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?  ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm

Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

Bob Jensen's threads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/