Right-to-work laws provide job seekers the right to work for an employer whether or not they choose to join the union. Twenty-three states have right-to-work laws, with Indiana enacting its legislation yesterday. Research has found that as a group, right-to-work states have enjoyed more rapid employment growth, better job preservation, and faster recoveries from recession.

A recently released study from Cascade Policy Institute examines the impacts right-to-work legislation would have on Oregon. The study is consistent with the vast majority of peer-reviewed research in finding that if Oregon were a right-to-work state, we would see improved employment and income growth. For example, if Oregon enacted right-to-work legislation this year, in five years, the state would have 50,000 more people working than if it maintained the status quo. Similarly, in five years, Oregonians would have $2.7 billion more in wage and salary income by enacting right-to-work legislation.

The study is Fruits, E. and Pozdena, R. J. (2012). Right-to-Work is Right for Oregon: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Economics Benefits From Enacting a Right-to-Work Law. Cascade Policy Institute.

In desperation I asked Fermi whether he was not impressed by the agreement between our calculated numbers and his measured numbers. He replied, “How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your calculations?” I thought for a moment about our cut-off procedures and said, “Four.” He said, “I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”

Sounds like a quip from Big Bang Theory, huh?

Turns out, one can draw an elephant using four parameters, and use a fifth to wiggle the trunk.

Mayer, Khairy, and Howard (2010). "Drawing an elephant with four complex parameters." Am. J. Phys. 78.

In related news, a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, estimates that it takes at least 24 million generations for a mouse-sized animal to evolve to the size of an elephant.

According to The Brattle Group’s analysis, the imposition of tariffs will “slow the growth in domestic demand for photovoltaic systems by homeowners, commercial establishments and power producers, resulting in substantial job losses.”

The study, commissioned by the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE), examined the impacts that imposing a 50% tariff or a 100% tariff would have on the U.S. solar industry through 2014.

According to the study, a tariff of 100% would result in:

• Consumer losses between $698 million and $2,620 million.
• The elimination of 16,917 to 49,589 American jobs over the next three years.

However, in several cities, water and sewer rate increases were considerably higher. For instance, Portland had one of the biggest increases at 9 percent.

The study also identified those cities with the most expensive and the least costly water and sewer rates.

The five cities with the highest water/sewer rates in the United States in 2011:

• Atlanta, Georgia
• Seattle, Washington
• Newport, Rhode Island
• San Francisco, California
• Portland, Oregon

And the lowest rates:

• Biloxi, Mississippi
• El Paso, Texas
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Chicago, Illinois
• Greenville, South Carolina

In a press release, the U.S. Green Building Council announced its 2011 list of top 10 states for LEED-certified commercial and institutional green buildings per capita.

The press release notes that the District of Columbia leads the nation, with more than 31 square feet of LEED-certified space per person in 2011. This caused one LEED-accredited architect on USGBC’s mailing list to remark:

Oh, and since I’m in a quibbling kind of mood, considering this organization is entirely based on the accuracy of its metrics, someone needs to remind them that DC is not a state. The disparity in its score alone should be an alarm that this is not an apples to apples comparison.

Per capita?

As far as useless statistics go, “square feet of LEED-certified space per capita” is right up there with “strip clubs per capita.”

No, I take that back.  ”Strip clubs per capita” is a useful statistic for some people.  It signals the opportunities a tourist might have to visit an adult entertainment establishment, if that’s his or her thing.

But “square feet of LEED-certified space per capita?” I am willing to bet you’ll never hear a tourist say, “A few friends and I are going to Washington, DC next weekend, and I hear that the nation’s capital has the most square feet of LEED-certified space per capita in the US. I can’t wait to check out some green buildings while I’m in town.”

Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair of the USGBC provides his explanation for one of the year’s silliest statistics: “Looking past the bricks and mortar, people are at the heart of what buildings are all about. Examining the per capita value of LEED square footage in these states allows us to focus on what matters most—the human element of green buildings.”

And, with that bit of bafflegab, we present the first nominee for the Year’s Silliest Statistic.

Yes, yes, I know, correlation is not the same as causation.

Nevertheless, the figure demonstrates that the city appears to have sacrificed road maintenance in favor of alternative modes of transportation.

The figure above shows Portland’s paving backlog has grown by more than 500 miles since 1999.  By 2008, Portland had a backlog big enough to pave a two lane road from Pioneer Courthouse Square to San Francisco.

(I have tried to see how much the Portland’s paving backlog has grown under the current mayor. However, it seems that the city’s transportation bureau has either stopped counting or stopped reporting the backlog.)

A press release issued by the mayor’s office explains, in part, why the transportation bureau must cut its budget:

In the face of lower-than-projected gas tax receipts, the Bureau of Transportation must make permanent, significant cuts to match expenditures to revenues. Impending cuts come on the heels of a decade of transportation cuts for the city.

Notice that the problem is lower than projected gas tax revenues.  The problem is not less money. The problem is less money than expected. It’s a bit like someone booking a cruise because they are expecting a raise only to find the raise didn’t come through.

Despite the lower projections, last year Portland saw the highest gas tax revenues in more than a decade, due mainly to a six-cents-a-gallon gas tax hike that went into effect statewide in January 2011. Going forward, according to financial documents issued in November 2011, the city projects ever increasing gas tax revenues over the next five years.

It seems that Portland’s transportation bureau does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Even worse, some of the bureau’s biggest spending commitments have nothing to do with maintaining or improving streets:

• Last year, the mayor set aside $8 million from new state gas tax revenue every year for 20 years (a total of $73.5 million), starting in 2013, to help fund the Sellwood Bridge rehab.
• Over the next two years, the mayor chose to put $16 million of that new gas tax revenue into building new sidewalks.
• The transportation bureau is also on the hook for $1.3 million a year for the Eastside Streetcar.
• On top of that, the mayor has put the city in hock for $3.5 million a year (beginning in 2013) for debt service on the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail line ($3.5 million a year, starting in 2013, for a total of $55 million).

If your experience is the same as mine, you’ll find that the personal results aren’t especially useful or interesting.  I did a search for the term “Twitter Google.” One of the top results was a two-year-old picture of a laundromat.

Nevertheless, the Internet has been all … well … atwitter about what the Guardian newspaper has called a “warping” of search results.

Soon after the changes to Google search started showing up, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) wrote to the Federal Trade Commission, requesting the FTC investigate:

Google’s changes implicate concerns over whether the company prioritizes its own content when returning search results. Incorporating results from Google+ into ordinary search results allows Google to promote its own social network by leveraging its dominance in the search engine market.

On the other hand, some law scholars writing on the Forbes blog, have a hard time seeing any antitrust issues right now:

Amidst all the antitrust hand-wringing over SPYW [Google's "search plus your world"] and Google’s decision to “go it alone” for now, it’s worth noting that Facebook has remained silent. Even Twitter has said little more than a tweet’s worth about the issue. It’s simply not clear that Google’s rivals would even want to participate in SPYW. This could still be bad for consumers, but in that case, the source of the harm, if any, wouldn’t be Google. If this all sounds speculative, it is—and that’s precisely the point. No one really knows. So, again, what’s to argue about on Day 3 of the new social search paradigm?

The Washington Post reports that the FTC, has expanded its sprawling probe into alleged anticompetitive acts by Google to include the company’s newest search results. Regarding the investigation, a FTC staffer said, “Nothing would be off the table.”

On the other hand, in Oregon, the state economist laid out some optimistic and pessimistic scenarios.  Here’s the pessimistic scenario (which, to be fair to Bernanke, the Oregon state economist did not think would be the most likely outcome):

At the same time, the housing market experiences a more severe correction with prices falling more than 20 percent by early 2007 and larger drops in housing starts and related residential consumption (construction, building materials, home furnishings, etc.). With foreign demand weaker, exports are also softer. Businesses react by slowing investments and consumers pull back spending. Both profits and the stock market soften in 2005 and further in 2006. Oregon businesses follow suit and slow down hiring to reflect the slower economic activity. The scenario does not result in a recession.

Two out of three ain’t bad.

According to NPR, in the 1970s, the Supreme Court ruled that broadcasters could be punished for airing sexual and excretory expletives during prime time when children are more likely to be watching. But that was then and this is now. Then, a handful of TV networks were the sole purveyors of TV fare, and now there are hundreds of TV channels.

The NPR report did not mention that the case involved George Carlin’s famous “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” In that case, a father complained to the FCC  that he had heard the routine broadcast while driving with his young son.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Supreme Court’s decision is the appendix to the decision, which includes a verbatim transcript of Carlin’s routine (scroll down to “Appendix”).  Here’s the beginning of the routine:

Aruba-du, ruba-tu, ruba-tu. I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can’t say, that you’re not supposed to say all the time, [']cause words or people into words want to hear your words.

Some guys like to record your words and sell them back to you if they can, (laughter) listen in on the telephone, write down what words you say. A guy who used to be in Washington knew that his phone was tapped, used to answer, Fuck Hoover, yes, go ahead. (laughter)

Okay, I was thinking one night about the words you couldn’t say on the public, ah, airwaves, um, the ones you definitely wouldn’t say, ever, [']cause I heard a lady say bitch one night on television, and it was cool like she was talking about, you know, ah, well, the bitch is the first one to notice that in the litter Johnie right (murmur) Right.

And, uh, bastard you can say, and hell and damn so I have to figure out which ones you couldn’t and ever and it came down to seven but the list is open to amendment, and in fact, has been changed, uh, by now, ha, a lot of people pointed things out to me, and I noticed some myself. …

Apparently the Court added the appendix to make the point that the routine was readily available, therefore banning it from the airways during primetime would not unduly limit accessibility:

The Commission’s holding does not prevent willing adults from purchasing Carlin’s record, from attending his performances, or, indeed, from reading the transcript reprinted as an appendix to the Court’s opinion. On its face, it does not prevent respondent Pacifica Foundation from broadcasting the monologue during late evening hours when fewer children are likely to be in the audience, nor from broadcasting discussions of the contemporary use of language at any time during the day. The Commission’s holding, and certainly the Court’s holding today, does not speak to cases involving the isolated use of a potentially offensive word in the course of a radio broadcast, as distinguished from the verbal shock treatment administered by respondent here. In short, I agree that on the facts of this case, the Commission’s order did not violate respondent’s First Amendment rights.