The End of Neoliberalism and the Rebirth of History by Joseph E. Stiglitz – Project Syndicate

by John W Rodat on January 17, 2023

The End of Neoliberalism and the Rebirth of History by Joseph E. Stiglitz – Project Syndicate:

The End of Neoliberalism and the Rebirth of History
Nov 4, 2019. For 40 years, elites in rich and poor countries alike promised that neoliberal policies would lead to faster economic growth, and that the benefits would trickle down so that everyone, including the poorest, would be better off. Now that the evidence is in, is it any wonder that trust in elites and confidence in democracy have plummeted? At the end of the Cold War, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a celebrated essay called “The End of History?” Communism’s collapse, he argued, would clear the last obstacle separating the entire world from its destiny of liberal democracy and market economies. Many people agreed.

Doubtful though. More likely, just the opposite.

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County Level Population Changes in New York State

by John W Rodat on September 2, 2021

The bigger a county’s population in New York in 2010, the faster the growth to 2020 – not only was the number of the increase bigger, the rate of growth was bigger. 

Translation, New York City and the surrounds got bigger. Some upstate urban areas got bigger. Most of the rural rural areas lost population. That wasn’t that the growth slowed. The population declined.

Here’s my visualization.

Tagged as: Census, Demographics, New York, Population

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SNAP Data for New York

by John W Rodat on September 2, 2021

This visualization shows trends and related data for New York’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It’s the old Food Stamps program.

I did this for Feeding NYS. Their version is here.

Click through it. Among other things, you’ll see some interesting long term trends and some extraordinary spikes during COVID-19. It’s granular to the county/New York City level. We’ll update fairly often,

 

 

 

Tagged as: Food, SNAP

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Medicaid Enrollment “Blips”

by John W Rodat on February 16, 2021

Updated Medicaid enrollment tracker (through last May) today and found some interesting and perhaps related “blips.”

For about four years, there had been a slow decline in enrollment for all age groups under 65. In March of last year as COVID-19 slammed New York, that reversed, especially among those 21-44. Not surprising and consistent with job loss data.

In contrast, what had been an almost astonishingly steady increase in the population of elderly Medicaid enrollees, also reversed – and declined. The March figure was 740 K. By May, it had fallen to 732 K.

Unsurprising, but interesting nevertheless

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Full NYS Medicaid Enrollment Tracker is here: https://www.publicsignals.com/health-care-data/

Tagged as: COVID-19, Medicaid

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What if Last Week’s Stock Market Tumble Wasn’t Due or Not Entirely to Coronavirus?

by John W Rodat on March 2, 2020

My friend Tom Fiddamon (@tomfid), a System Dynamicist of the first order, just published Stock markets and coronavirus – an endogenous perspective – MetaSD.

His summary point is:

Coronavirus may indeed be the proximate cause of this week’s decline, in the same sense as the straw that broke the camel’s back. However, the magnitude of he decline is indicative of the fragility of the market state when the shock came along, and not necessarily of the magnitude of the shock itself. The root cause of the decline is that the structure of markets is prone to abrupt losses.

That’s true as it stands. However, supply chains are a classical subject of System Dynamics study, with lots of research, it’s been ten years since the last decline, and one wonders about the effect of a decade’s further supply chain tightening, has had on accentuating and accelerating, the current upset. 

And, I wonder as well when an usually low level of confidence in government, especially public health leadership has had on accentuating and accelerating, the current upset. 

Tagged as: Epidemic, Market, System Dynamics

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In this day and age? Really?

by John Rodat on November 14, 2019

Was recalling for a colleague a couple of local government projects I’ve worked on the past few years: in two consolidation cases, three of the four municipalities involved had hand-written budgets. Not even a spreadsheet.

Gotta say, their arithmetic was meticulous though.

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Yeah, we know about lying with statistics

by John W Rodat on October 26, 2018

“It is easy to lie with statistics, but it is easier to lie without them.”

Frederick Mosteller (1916-2006)

Tagged as: QOTD

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Supremes Opera

by John W Rodat on October 15, 2018

Despite their philosophical differences, Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Ginsburg, both opera buffs, were reportedly great personal friends. So we shouldn’t be surprised, that Derrick Wang, who teaches both music and law, has written an opera about them, Scalia/Ginsburg. Can you imagine a libretto (the script) with a couple hundred legal and operatic footnotes? Can you imagine a comedic opera with footnotes? Well, there you go.

Yesterday, we joined friends (he, a lawyer of course) to see Opera North’s production of Scalia/Ginsburg at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH.

Short version? Scalia (Derek Jackenheimer) has died and faces “The Commentator,” (William Meinert) who I took to be an unsympathetic St. Peter or his representative, labeled as a “celestial bureaucrat.” Who comes to Scalia’s defense? Why, Ginsburg (Emily Misch), of course.

Scalia/Ginsburg was both wonderfully entertaining and a reminder that when acting in good faith and with personal civility, people at different points on the political spectrum can deal honorably and warmly with one another.

If you get a chance to see Scalia/Ginsburg, do so. It’s fun.

Tagged as: Opera, Supreme Court

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Congratulations to the Town of Brookhaven, NY

by John W Rodat on June 19, 2018

Congratulations to the Town of Brookhaven, NY, to Supervisor Ed Romaine, and to the elected and staff leadership of local villages and participating school districts for winning New York’s first Municipal Consolidation and Efficiency Competition (MCEC).

Here’s the Governor’s announcement of the winner

In New York’s municipal sector, this was an unusual competition in that it was “winner take all.” The State will be providing funds of nearly $20 million for a large, complex, and multi-faceted effort to produce substantial operational efficiencies, financial savings, and tax reductions. Among other components, the plan includes:

  • Consolidation or dissolution of at least 24 special improvement districts
  • Consolidation of tax collection services
  • Consolidation of Department of Public Works operations within the villages
  • Consolidation of third-party billing for the nine Town ambulance districts
  • Construction of a Regional Ash Monofill and Ash Recycling (EAR) Facility
  • Establishment of a shared information technology platform for consolidated and cloud-based services and cyber-security
  • Town-wide records storage and archive management

With the Laberge Group leading with Ben Syden and Nicole Allen, and with Tim Maniccia as a team member, we worked with Brookhaven’s leadership, the leadership of local villages and school districts, dozens of staff to help coordinate the process, conceptualize, detail, and write the plan. My focus was on on tax-related services, information technology, ambulance services, and – of course – running a lot of numbers. Earlier, we had helped Brookhaven prepare the documentation that enabled it to be a Competition finalist.

An integrated part of the proposal was the dissolution of the Village of Mastic Beach, which the Laberge staff and I worked on separately, including estimating the property tax effects. By population (estimated to be 14,760 in 2016), Mastic Beach was the largest village in New York to have dissolved. That was completed at the beginning of this year. Eight incorporated villages remain in Brookhaven.

For you folks outside New York, there are only two local governments in the State (New York State and the Town of Hempstead) which have larger populations. Yes, except for New York City, Brookhaven, with an estimated population of 486,599, is larger than all the cities in New York State. By area, Brookhaven is the largest town in the State.

This was a gratifying project to work on. Seeing these projects come to fruition will be even more so.

Tagged as: Consolidation, Efficiency, Information Systems, Town

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Boom and Bust in the Supply of U.S. Air Force Pilots

by John W Rodat on May 7, 2018

This past fall in San Antonio, I was part of a small group of former Air Force pilots briefed on the current pilot shortage.. Now the issue is written up in Foreign Policy: 

USAF pilot shortage: What’s Driving the U.S. Air Force Pilot Shortage?

Folks in the System Dynamics (SD) community are quite familiar with this kind of boom & bust cycling. We’ve seen it many times in many sectors. Typically, there’s a common structure to systems that produce it. In fact, it’s so familiar to the SD community that we even have a game to teach and learn it. Pilots would enjoy it. Air Force pilots, in particular (at least the ones that I know) would want to use the real stuff: It’s called the “Beer Game.”

The Foreign Policy article emphasizes the effect of airline pilot demand, which may be an influencing factor here. However, one of the key SD lessons is that boom and bust cycles can and do occur driven entirely by factors inside of a system.

If the Air Force hasn’t already done so, they need to consider this crucial issue from a System Dynamics perspective. And, I’d examine the historic patterns in Naval aviation as well.

Tagged as: Defense, Military, System Dynamics

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