Ways the U.S. Government Could Use Free Money

Right now, the U.S. Government can borrow money at zero cost; the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bills is hovering around the inflation rate. In fact, some days it is less than the inflation rate, meaning the government can make money by borrowing. We could do all sorts of things with that free money, like build a high-speed rail network or a few hundred new community colleges. Republicans, however, would not allow those investments. But how about this idea, as explained by Mathew Yglesias:

Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon is out today with an ambitious plan to try to stimulate the economy by facilitating large-scale refinancing of so-called underwater mortgages. This is important because one way that low interest rates can help in a weak economy is that people with mortgages on their homes take advantage of the opportunity to refinance and boost their disposable income. This channel hasn't worked very well during the current crisis because lots of homeowners are "underwater." That means the underlying asset they own—the home—is now worth less than the amount they owe the bank for the loan that bought them the home. . . .

Merkeley's proposal is to set up an entity—comparable to the HOLC of the New Deal—whose purpose is to borrow a gigantic sum of money from financial markets at today's ultra-cheap US government cost of funds, and then buy up all the outstanding underwater mortgages that are out there. Then the new entity will offer each underwater homeowner one of three refinancing options: 1) A plan that keeps your monthly payments roughly constant but shortens the life of the mortgage; 2) A plan that cuts your monthly payment by just extending a new full-length loan at a lower interest rate; 3) A plan that cuts your monthly payment a lot by in effect extending the life of your loan. The logic here is that individual household needs vary. . . .

How to pay for this? Well if you read the plan you can see the detailed explanation, but the main component is simply that we'll be exploiting the gap between the federal government's extremely low cost of funds and the very high rates that a lot of underwater homeowners are currently stuck with. You can offer households a much better deal than they currently have while still lending at a profit.

The only cost would be the losses through default, and since the government has lots of ways of getting people to pay money they owe, those ought to be modest.

I think this is a great idea. Nobody is getting anything for nothing; people with underwater mortgages are just getting the same chance to refinance that many people with above-water mortgages are already taking, and they still have to repay every cent of the loan. The government might even make money (as they made money on many parts of the banking bailout). Of course, all of this means that Republicans in the House will kill the whole plan, since they can't stand the thought that the Democrats might do something to actually help ordinary Americans. Or am I too cynical? I would certainly amaze me to see the parties work together on such a simple, helpful idea.

Prizewinning Photos of Earth from Space

Above, phytoplankton blooms around the Swedish island of Gotland; below, the Mississippi River along the Arkansas-Tennesse border. More at National Geographic.

High Speed Rail and a New Union Station

Amtrak has long-term plans to upgrade its northeast corridor tracks for real high speed trains, a project that I whole-heartedly endorse. Travel time from Washington to New York would be cut to 94 minutes, down from 160 minuted today. This would require upgrades to all of the major rail stations from Washington to Boston. An early-stage plan for Union Station in Washington has just been released, and it is quite ambitious, with a preliminary price tag of $7 billion. The  heart of the plan is the addition of 6 new tracks for high speed trains, and the platform and corridor space to handle more people.

Union Station is roughly the southeast corner of the booming NoMa neighborhood, which means that its rail yard now occupies very valuable space. The plan envisages building a whole complex of office or retail buildings over the yard. The sale or lease of the space would, I assume, earn back a couple billion of the total cost. Meanwhile the station would be greatly expanded, adding more retail and restaurant space.

As you can see from this rendering, the old facade and front hall of the station would remain intact, and most of the new construction would be behind it, in the area now occupied by platforms and the yard.

If only we could have back the hundreds of billions squandered in Iraq; think of the investments we could have made in America with that money.

State Street, Dover, Delaware

Today.

Yes, America

Your government really did invent the internet.

And while I'm on the subject, let me toss out a random list of other things invented by governments in the 20th century:

• jet engines
• communications satellites
• rockets that can put satellites in space
• antibiotics
• high speed trains
• digital computers
• nuclear power
• limited access highways (like U.S. Interstates)
• national parks

The Many Uses of Tissue from Human Corpses

Lots of news this week about the market in human tissues:

Inside the marketplace for human tissue, the opportunities for profits are immense. A single, disease-free body can spin off cash flows of $US80,000 to $US200,000 for the various non-profit and for-profit players involved in recovering tissues and using them to manufacture medical and dental products, according to documents and experts in the field. . . .

 Human skin takes on the colour of smoked salmon when it is professionally removed in rectangular shapes from a cadaver. A good yield is about 5500 square centimetres. After being mashed up to remove moisture, some is destined to protect burn victims from life-threatening bacterial infections or, once further refined, for breast reconstructions after cancer. The use of human tissue “has really revolutionised what we can do in breast reconstruction surgery”, explains Dr Ron Israeli, a New York plastic surgeon. . . .

 A significant number of recovered tissues are transformed into products whose shelf names give little clue to their actual origin. They are used in the dental and beauty industries, for everything from plumping up lips to smoothing out wrinkles Cadaver bone — harvested from the dead and replaced with PVC piping for burial — is sculpted like pieces of hardwood into screws and anchors for dozens of orthopaedic and dental applications. Or the bone is ground down and mixed with chemicals to form strong surgical glues that are advertised as being better than the artificial variety.

It's hard to say that any of this is bad, except for the element of deception involved in getting permission to use the tissues. Isn't the furtherance of human life a better use for corpses than burying them in the ground?

Today's Reason to Love Your Government

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has taken a strong stand against the existence of mermaids.

 --Will Oremus at Slate

Alfons Mucha's Slavic Epic

This cycle of twenty enormous paintings occupied Mucha for 18 years, from 1910 to 1928. As art they interest me a only little. What really strikes me is the narrative of European history they present, so different from the France-centered narrative that dominated my education. Above, The Slavs in their Original Homeland: Between the Turanian Whip and the sword of the Goths. "Turanian" means, roughly, Persian, and it refers to the dominance of eastern Europe by Scythians and Sarmatians in the classical era.

The Celebration of Svantovit. Svantovit was the Slavic god of war, also associated with the sun. This is a late romantic fantasy bearing little resemblance to life among the ancient Slavs.

The Introduction of the Slavonic Liturgy: Praise the Lord in Your Native Tongue. Old Church Slavonic, as we call it now, was the first written Slavic language, devised in the 9th century by Byzantine missionaries under Saints Cyril and Methodius to aid in converting the Slavs.

The Bohemian King Přemysl Otakar II. Ottokar II, who has the magnificent epithet The King of Gold and Iron, was king of Bohemia from 1253 to 1278, as well as Duke of Austria, Duke of Carinthia, and Duke of Styria. The listing of the medieval rulers of Bohemia as Slavic is questionable, since they spoke German and were related to the Carolingians. Medievalists will be glad to hear that Ottokar issued Charters of Privileges to at least 30 new towns; he was also a notable friend of Jews.

The Coronation of the Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan as East Roman Emperor. Stefan Dušan (1308-1355) was probably the most powerful of all Serbian leaders, conqueror of a large empire in the Balkans and defeater of the Turks on several occasions. He also issued what is remembered as the first major law code in a Slavic language.

The Aftermath of the Battle of Grunwald. The Battle of Grunwald was fought on 15 July 1410; an alliance of Polish and Lithuanian nobles defeated the Teutonic Knights.

After the Battle of Vitkov Hill: God Repesents Truth, not Power. The Battle of Vitkov Hill (July 14, 1420) was part of the Hussite Wars. Jan Hus was a Bohemian religious reformer whose teachings are often seen as a forerunner of Protestantism. He harshly criticized the institution of the church, which declared him a heretic and called for a crusade against him. Hus defeated the first crusading forces and captured Prague, where his people were besieged by a large crusading army. Vitkov Hill was an outlying part of the defenses, and on this spot the defenders launched a sally that surprised and routed a much larger force, effectively breaking the siege. Mucha was very much interested in the Hussites, and they also figure in two other paintings.

Petr Chelčický at Vodňany: Do Not Repay Evil with Evil. Petr Chelčický (c. 1390-1460) was a Bohemian religious thinker and pacifist, who called for the use of nonviolent non-compliance in establishing the true church.

Defense of Sziget against the Turks by Nicholas Zrinsky. The fortress of Sziget blocked the route of Turkish armies advancing toward Vienna. In 1566, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent besieged the fortress with a huge army, intending to take it quickly and march on the Hapsburg capital. But a force of 2,300 Hungarians and Croats defended the castle for months; 20,000 Turks died, including their Sultan, and the Turks did not threaten Vienna again for more than a century. The defense of Christian Europe against the Turks still looms large in the Slavic conception of their history.

The Last Days of Jan Amos Komensky in Naarden. Komesnky, or Comenius as he is usually known in English, was one of the leaders of the Moravian Brethren in the 17th century and an early promoter of universal education. List of all the paintings here, with historical links; you can find all the images here.

Fountain of Sand

Aside from the inflatable, bouncy Stonehenge, my favorite of the works I've seen from the "Cultural Olympiad" is this fountain that actually spouts sand. It was created by an entity called Frieze Projects.

Thought for the Day

To the universe belongs the dancer --
He who does not dance, does not know.

--The Acts of John (a gnostic "gospel")

Horn Corals

450 million years old.

Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun

Ambassador to England from the King of Barbary, 1600. By an unknown artist.

Today in NoMa

Working today in the neighborhood known as NoMa (North of Massachusetts Ave.), Washington's boomtown. The amount of construction going on is staggering; we could see seven construction cranes from our site, and two giant basement excavations.

The noise was amazing, hard to hold a conversation for most of the day.

There are also scattered remnants of the old neighborhood, reminders of the run-down, semi-wasteland this was 25 years ago.

I was fascinated by the view through this little window, in the wall of a mostly demolished building.

The sense of energy in this neighborhood is very strong -- no recession here, and no sense of despair about urban decay. Instead, rebuilding on an epic scale.

A Hole in Mars

This Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter photo shows a crater with a hole in the bottom; the hole is about 35 meters (115 feet) across and seems to open into a cavern 20 m (66 feet) deep. This hole is on the slopes of the Pavonis Mons volcano.

Temple of the Night Sun

In El Zotz, a second-rank Maya center, they built a temple that expressed their intention to join the top tier of city states:

Some 1,600 years ago, the Temple of the Night Sun was a blood-red beacon visible for miles and adorned with giant masks of the sun god as a shark, blood drinker, and jaguar. . . .
The sides of the temple are decorated with 5-foot-tall (1.5-meter-tall) stucco masks showing the face of the sun god changing as he traverses the sky over the course of a day.

The shark mask (above) represents the sun rising from the Caribbean; it set in the west as the jaguar. Archaeologist Stephen Houston, lead excavator, thinks that the temple expresses the connection between the sun and royal power. The sun masks were painted red, to make them stand out more.

Butterflies

Swallowtails are swarming in the garden today.

The Spy

Most sunflowers point their faces toward the sun, which means away from our windows. But this one seems determined to keep an eye on events in our dining room. If not actually break through the screen and join us.

The Southwest Ecodistrict Progresses

There is now a complete draft plan for the "Southwest Ecodistrict" in Washington, DC. As I said before, this ghastly wasteland, so close to the Mall, well served by Metro and commuter trains, is a prime opportunity for some sort of new development. There is a lot to like in the new plan, too. Tenth Street, now barren and ridiculously wide, would become a tree-lined street with small parks and market stalls, creating a fun way to walk from the Mall to the Potomac waterfront. The wound created by the Southwest Freeway would be partly closed by building condominiums right over top of it.

Banneker Park, at the south end of Tenth Street, would be redeveloped. Maryland Avenue, now a scary ravine, would become a pleasant urban boulevard extending from the new Eisenhower Memorial across the district. Some of the dead space around the horrid Federal office buildings would be sacrificed to enlarge the buildings, so that there would be 2 million square feet of new office space. 

L'Enfant Station would be remodeled into a bigger, more pleasant "multimodal transportation hub."

What I dislike most about the plan is its notion of putting two blocks of solar panels over top of the Southwest Freeway, part of their scheme to make the plan "energy neutral." There are just better ways to use scarce, valuable downtown space.

Foraminifera

Foraminifera are tiny marine organisms whose complex shells make up most of the rocks we call limestone. Because they are so common and diverse, they are often used to date sedimentary rocks. The Forminifera Project has a web site designed to assist scientists in studying and classifying them, and it also has a gallery of pictures of the pretty ones.