I’ve got a piece in today’s New York Post that points out some inconvenient truths about the body scanners now installed at airports across the country. Building on Jim Harper’s excellent post, body scanners are not being installed because of a well-reasoned risk analysis.

As Timothy Carney pointed out in the Washington Examiner, this is a sop to the companies that make the body scanners. The machines don’t work as well as advertised – a March GAO Report determined that it is not certain the technology would have found Farouk Abdulmutallab’s suspicious package, and that a cost-benefit analysis needed to be conducted before spending $340 million each year to run the labor-intensive equipment.

The same report found that cargo screening was a weak spot that ought to be addressed, but it took terrorist cargo bomb plots to get the TSA to momentarily escape the clutches of regulatory capture and tend to this threat. The British have been much more candid about the limitations of this technology as applied to low-density explosives, noting that the scanners probably wouldn’t have stopped the 2006 liquid bomb plot at Heathrow.

Of course, you can always opt out of the body scanners in favor of a groping on par with the one that motivated my colleague Penn Jillette to report his sexual assault to the police.

You could opt out entirely. TSA Director John Pistole says you won’t fly, but if you publicize your objections, the TSA may try to fine you $11,000.

Keep a stiff upper lip. I’m sure that this will all be much smoother and less invasive when TSA screeners unionize.

GM’s long-rumored initial public stock offering will take place Thursday and self-anointed savior of the U.S. auto industry, Steven Rattner, is pretty bullish about the prospect of investors turning out in droves. 

I’ve been saying for a while that I thought the government’s exposure [euphemism for taxpayer losses] in the auto bailout was in the $10-billion to $20-billion range.

But since investor interest has pushed the initial price up from the $26-to-$29 per share range to the $32-$33 range, Rattner now believes:

[T]his exposure is in the single-digit billion range, and arguably potentially better.

I won’t argue with Rattner’s numbers. After all, they affirm one of my many criticisms of the bailout: that taxpayers would never recoup the value of their “investment.” My bigger problem is with Rattner’s cavalier disregard for the other enduring—and arguably more significant—costs of the auto bailouts.

Rattner is like the foil in Frederic Bastiat’s excellent, but not-famous-enough, 1850 parable, That Which is Seen and That Which is Unseen. Rattner touts what is seen, namely that GM and Chrysler still exist. And they exist because of his and his colleagues’ commitment to a plan to ensure their survival, along with the hundreds of thousands (if not millions, as some “estimates” had it) of jobs that were imperiled had those companies vanished. (For starters, I very much question even what is seen here. I am skeptical of the counterfactual that GM and Chrysler would have disappeared and that there would have been significantly more job loss in the industry than there actually was during the recession and restructuring. But I’ll grant his view of what is seen because, frankly, the specifics are irrelevant in the final analysis).

For what is seen, Rattner admirably admits of a cost. And that cost is not insignificant. It is anywhere from $65 billion to $82 billion (the range of the cost of the bailout) minus what is being paid back and what investors are willing to pay for GM shares—in the “single-digit billion range,” as Rattner says. But Rattner is willing to stand by that trade-off, claiming his efforts and the billions in “government exposure” were a small price to pay for saving the U.S. auto industry, as it were. It’s merely a difference in philosophy or compassion that animates bailout critics, according to this position.

No. Not so fast. All along (quite contemptuously in this op-ed, which I criticized here) Rattner has been unwilling to acknowledge the costs that are unseen. Those unseen costs include:

• the added uncertainty that pervades the private sector and assigns higher risks and thus higher costs to investing and hiring (whom might government favor or punish next?);
• the diversion of resources from productive to political purposes in the business community (instead of buying that machinery to churn out better or more lawn mower engines, better to hire lobbyists to keep Washington apprised of how important we are or how this or that policy might be beneficial to the national employment picture!);
• excessive risk-taking and other uneconomic behavior that falls under the rubric of moral hazard from entities that might consider themselves too-big-to-fail (perhaps, even, the New GM!);
• growing aversion to—and rising cost of—corporate debt (don’t forget what happened to Chrysler’s “preferred” bondholders in the bankruptcy process!);
• the sales and market share that should have gone to Ford or Honda or VW as part of the evolutionary market process;
• the fruitful R&D expenditures of those more disciplined companies;
• the expansion of job opportunities at those companies and their suppliers;
• productivity gains passed on to workers in the form of higher wages or to consumers as lower prices;
• the diminution of the credibility needed to discourage foreign governments from meddling in markets, often to the detriment of U.S. enterprises.

The list goes on.

 Yet, Rattner, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the economy remains stuck in the mire, speaks triumphantly of the successful auto bailout. But nobody ever doubted that taxpayer resources in the hands of policymakers willing to push the bounds of legality could “rescue” GM from a fate it deserved. The concern was that policymakers would do just that, leaving behind wreckage to our institutions not immediately discernible. But anemic economic activity, 9.6 percent unemployment, and a private sector unwilling to invest is pretty darn discernible at this point.

Rattner should take off the tails, put down the champagne flute, and acknowledge what was originally unseen.

According to the Boston Herald:

The state’s health insurance connector — the highly touted agency that aims to bring cheap medical care to the masses — has turned into a legal pit bull by aggressively going after a growing number of Bay Staters who say they can’t afford mandated insurance — or the penalties imposed for not having it.

The Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority is cracking down on more than 3,000 residents who are fighting state fines, and has even hired a private law firm to force the health insurance scofflaws to pay penalties of up to $2,000 a year.

All told, more than 7,700 people have appealed state fines for not having health insurance, according to connector spokesman Richard Powers. The agency has hired several private attorneys at $50 an hour to hear many of the appeals, and some 3,150 of them have been denied — and the losers told to pay up.

The connector has also hired the Hub law firm Bowman & Penski — at $125 an hour — to defend itself against 13 lawsuits filed by fed-up taxpayers who insist they can’t afford state required insurance premiums or the escalating fines.

For more on RomneyCare, see “The Massachusetts Health Plan: Much Pain, Little Gain.”

At Compensation Cafe, Stephanie Thomas explores some of the “nonsensical implications” of a misnamed bill that’s a high Obama administration priority in the lame duck session:

Let’s assume that John and Jane have identical characteristics (education, work experience, etc.) except for gender. ABC Company makes offers of employment to John and Jane on the same day, for the same position, for the same starting salary: $45,000. Jane accepts the offer, but John negotiates the salary, and ends up with $50,000. Under the current equal pay laws, there’s no problem; John is earning more because he negotiated and Jane did not. Makes sense, right? Under the Paycheck Fairness Act, ABC Company would be guilty of gender discrimination.

Here’s another example. Assume that Sam and Sally have the same education, work experience, etc., and are both hired by WidgetCo on the same day. WidgetCo sets Sam and Sally’s starting salary at $2,500 more than they were making at their previous job. Sam was earning $37,500 at his previous job, and Sally was earning $36,000; their starting salaries at WidgetCo are $40,000 and $38,500. Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? Under the Paycheck Fairness Act, WidgetCo would be guilty of gender discrimination.

One final example. Assume that Brad and Bridget both work for Alpha Inc., have the same job title, same level of responsibility, etc., and they are both earning $100,000 per year. Brad asks for a 5% raise, but Bridget doesn’t ask for a raise. Brad gets the raise and ends up earning more than Bridget. Again, no problems here, right? Wrong — under the Paycheck Fairness Act, Alpha Inc. would be guilty of gender discrimination.

“Making matters worse, under the new law, damage awards would be uncapped, and class-action procedures loosened. Bring on the trial lawyers,” notes a Chicago Tribune editorial. For more on this very bad bill, check out the papers and presentations from a panel last week put on by our friends at the Hudson Institute. Earlier here and, at Overlawyered, here, here, etc.

Matt Yglesias plumps for monarchy, based on — what else? — human nature:

[I]t seems inevitable in any country for some individual to end up serving the functional role of the king. Humans are hierarchical primates by nature and have a kind of fascination with power and dignity. This is somewhat inevitable, but it also cuts against the grain of a democracy. And under constitutional monarchy, you can mitigate the harm posed by displacing the mystique of power onto the powerless monarch. We follow the royal family with fascination, they participate in weird ceremonies, they have dignity, they symbolize the nation, we all talk about them respectfully, etc. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister gets to be just another politician. Admittedly the one who’s most important at this given moment in time. But that’s no reason not to jeer at him during Question Time. He’s not the symbol of the nation who’s owed deference. He’s a servant of the people and people who feel he’s serving them poorly should say so.

Dignity and power?

Dignity, sure. I admit, I am fascinated by dignity. I delight when formerly servile people regain it. I love, without apology, the dignity of being an American, under which our “weird ceremonies” happen chiefly of our own volition. I love the dignity of the immigrant shopkeeper — she might not have much, but what she has is hers, she’s worked for it, and she knows it. I love the dignity of a good book, a well-baked loaf of bread, or Dvořák’s Ninth. I love the dignity of suburbia, and of bohemia. I’ve known them both, and what they have in common is this — large stretches of time in which you are left to your own devices. That’s dignity.

But power? In a wide swath all around it, power destroys dignity. That’s not just an unfortunate side-effect. That’s the whole point of power. That’s what it does. It’s telling that Yglesias manages to praise power unstintingly — but only among a group of preposterous twits who’ve long ago stopped wielding any significant power themselves. Except, evidently, the power to fascinate the power-hungry.

Is it human nature to love power? Maybe for some. Indeed, I could hardly explain otherwise the continued presence of coercion in the world. Thinkers far greater than I have come to the same conclusion, so let’s just leave it at that.

Not everyone, though, is quite so keen on power. As Ravi Iyer, Jonathan Haidt, et al. have recently suggested, one self-identified group — libertarians — has a high degree of skepticism regarding authority, tradition, and conformity. Self-described libertarians place a high value on individualism, personal choice, and reason, even sometimes at the expense of other values, like emotion or community. In short, when we see a king, we don’t say “Wow!” We say — “Why?”

Even if you’re not a libertarian, it’s probably a good thing that someone is out there asking that question for you. That’s particularly so if Yglesias is right, and if most humans are hard-wired to idolize. Even a few false idols can be pretty costly. Having people around who encourage us to see them can do us a lot of good in the long run.

As I’m sure I don’t have to point out, the mistrust of kings, of those so-called gods on earth, runs deep in the American tradition. As Thomas Jefferson put it:

[T]he mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god.

Modern science is increasingly finding that humans aren’t equal in a positive, descriptive sense. You and I are emphatically and obviously quite different, from the genetic level on up. Modern political experiments have shown that we should not try to make ourselves materially equal by rearranging society, either. The results of all such projects have been atrocities.

But claims about human equality really do shine in one area. They say, as Jefferson did, that your notions of the superior man are probably delusions, and that we should be aware of our embarrassing tendency toward them. Personally, I’d no more bow to the queen of England than I would to the doorman at the Ritz-Carlton. They both have fancy clothes, and a retinue of servants attending them, and time-honored traditions that they uphold. Bully for them. But also for our power to place them, at least once in a while, on the same level.

The current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education features a story by a professional ghost-writer of college student papers. One passage in particular caught my eye:

it’s hard to determine which course of study is most infested with cheating. But I’d say education is the worst. I’ve written papers for students in elementary-education programs, special-education majors, and ESL-training courses. I’ve written lesson plans for aspiring high-school teachers, and I’ve synthesized reports from notes that customers have taken during classroom observations. I’ve written essays for those studying to become school administrators, and I’ve completed theses for those on course to become principals.…

This is of course the weakest of anecdotal evidence and no one should take it as gospel (particularly the seminary students who apparently also contract out papers to the same ghost writer). But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it’s true—that ed school students are the most common consumers of fraudulent papers. How could we explain that?

There’s no reason to believe that future teachers are any more ethically deficient than their peers in other fields, so that’s an unlikely explanation. Could it be that ed school students are less well prepared for college? Certainly it’s an uncomfortable truth that the SAT scores of those applying to ed school (both undergraduate and graduate) consistently rank below those of applicants to most other college programs. But it is also widely acknowledged that the academic standards of ed schools are commensurately below those of other college disciplines, so future teachers shouldn’t have any more difficulty completing their assignments than students in other fields.

But there is one way in which education is fundamentally different from every other college discipline: it’s the only one whose students will go on to work in a government monopoly industry. Not only is the hiring process of public school systems less focused on identifying candidates’ academic excellence, there is evidence that it is actively hostile to excellence (e.g., that principals are less likely to hire top-scoring candidates from elite colleges than candidates from less rarefied institutions). What’s more, compensation for public school teachers is generally a function of time served (over which teachers have no control) and degrees conferred (over which they do). This has created demand on the part of teachers for graduate degrees—not necessarily for the acquisition of advanced skills, but for the diplomas themselves, which amount to valuable cash prizes.

Again, we can’t know from a single ghost-writer’s experience if ed school students systematically cheat more in college than their peers in other fields, but we certainly shouldn’t be surprised if they do. We’ve organized education in this country in a way that decouples skill and performance from compensation, and instead couples compensation to the mere trappings of higher learning (e.g., masters degrees). We’ve created a powerful financial incentive for existing and future teachers to cheat. Maybe not such a good idea.

Hat tip: Bill Evers.

If you travel by plane, you either hate the Transportation Security Administration, or will soon do so. The TSA has unveiled a new security pat down which is about as close to a strip-search as you can get while still wearing clothes.

With a metal knee replacement I invariably set off the TSA metal detectors. I can avoid a pat down by using the fancy new imaging machine where it is available. But this machine images everything on the body, and that means everything. The explicit nature of the pictures is reflected in the nick-name which I’m told TSA employees have applied to the machine. Let your mind wander, but imagine a crude term about measuring the male genitalia.

The other alternative is to accept the pat down. Until recently TSA employees used a hand-held wand to check for metal and did a limited hand check. The new system eschews the wand and replaces it with searching hands climbing up the inside of the thighs — all the way up.

The only saving grace for me is when veterans do the check. When they realize that I have an implant and go through the check weekly and sometimes daily, most of them take a more relaxed approach. But the newer, and often more determined to do everything by the book, employees really mean it when they announce that they are about to check my thigh.

Like never before, the new procedure has set off public protests. And anger could increase at Thanksgiving, when so many more people will be flying. No one wants airplanes to be hijacked, but few people believe that the current system does much to safeguard us. At least, much of what is done today looks to be “Security Theater,” meant to reassure rather than actually do improve security.

One possible alternative would be for airports to take back control of the process.  Reports the Washington Examiner:

[Rep. John] Mica, one of the authors of the original TSA bill, has recently written to the heads of more than 150 airports nationwide suggesting they opt out of TSA screening. “When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees,” Mica writes. “As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law.”

Private security personnel obviously could mimic the TSA’s worst practices. But if there were multiple actors providing security services competition would encourage airports to look for improved techniques which would cost less, waste less time, and create less embarrassment.

The vast majority of the TSA personnel with whom I deal are polite and friendly. Most actually are working, though it’s not clear their activities always benefit the public. But they all seem to lack a sense of irony.

I enjoy wearing my Cato t‑shirt with the P.J. O’Rourke quote about giving to power to government being like giving car keys and whiskey to a teenage boy. I receive a lot of admiring comments on it–including from TSA employees. Today it happened again, at Washington Dulles. As I was waiting for my regular TSA-provided fondling experience down below.

It’s no knock on the individual employees to point out that the TSA as an agency is a perfect example of what P.J. was warning against. Give Barack Obama & Co. this power and we are likely to lose our money, freedom, and dignity.

I’d like to believe we’ve entered a new political era in Washington, but I’ve worked through too many “new eras” to believe that this one is really new. But a popular uprising about TSA de facto strip searches would be a good start.