​In parts 1 and 2 of this series of columns, I presented data on the long-term rapidly rising costs of tuition and fees at U.S. public colleges and universities: 225 percent increases in real terms from 1984 to 2014, versus 25 percent in median family income, which measures folks’ ability to pay.
These increases have led to average student debt of $29,900 for 69 percent of graduates and parental debt of $37,200 for 14 percent.  As federal student aid rises, colleges raise their charges to absorb the new money available.  Student debt now totals $1.67-trillion, a large part of our total public and private national debt, which long ago passed sustainable levels.
I explained the money is going to administrative bloat, emphasis on research over teaching, and paying excessive compensation all across campus.  Aggregate numbers of administrators rose by 2012 to almost one per university faculty member.  But no one seems to know in the aggregate who these people are or what they do.  Yet, they are paid better than folks in comparable positions outside academe. 
For faculty, research tends to crowd out excellence in teaching.  And university professors’ pay is as bloated as for administrators.  Compensation bloat is not a problem in our community colleges, nor among graduate teaching, grading and research assistants and adjunct faculty.  They are part-time and poorly paid.  As a Nevada Regent, I observed all these phenomena.
The key problem of higher education is the same as for K-12 public education and the rest of the public sector: The enterprise is run for the benefit of the employees, not for the benefit of students, other clientele, taxpayers and families paying the bills, nor for the public interest.
Twelve years ago, in a major article for the Chronicle of Higher Education, I pointed out that higher education – and all education, health care and the whole public sector – suffer from “cost disease”.  That is the problem of showing no gains in productivity over long periods of time and little business model innovation because they do not really embrace opportunities made possible by technological progress.  Competitive sectors of the economy necessarily embrace all this.
In that article, I attributed the problem to the cost-plus budgeting methods used in higher ed and the public sector in general.  That is, they start with the previous year’s budget and plug in increases for “maintenance” (inflation and scheduled cost increases), “head counts” (more students) and “enhancements” (often noneducational mandates of dubious merit), while ignoring needs for real gains in productivity (more output for fixed or reduced total inputs).
I noted: “The rest of the world doesn’t work that way.  It works by continuously doing more with less [or the same amount] – not just more with more.”
Having served six more years as a Regent since I wrote that and four years as Nevada Controller, I now recognize that attributing the problem to a budgeting structure was too kind.  In fact, it’s the people in higher ed and politics that are responsible.
Begin with faculty, administrators and Regents – the vested interests.  They actively embrace the cost-disease-causing budget model and mentality.  Search their proposed budgets in vain for incorporation of productivity gains and business model innovation.  When I wrote the article, those groups were beginning to discuss online and other new educational delivery methods.  But the Chancellor and administrators assured us those methods would yield cost increases, not savings.
When the Governor’s proposed budget goes to the legislature, higher ed sends more people to influence legislators than does any other part of state government I’ve observed.  This reflects the administrative bloat discussed above.
Instead of suggesting that such a turn-out means higher ed’s administrative budget should be cut, legislators are overwhelmed.  In recent years, due to budget constraints, they have cut state funds and maneuvered higher ed into increasing the tuition, fees and “self-supporting” funds charged to students.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The Coronavirus recession is already causing businesses to more aggressively embrace new technology and business models to cut costs – and even some of the public sector to do the same.
Next time: How new bypass institutions and methods fostered by the recession will force public education to adapt or die.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD and PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net

​In part 1 of this series of columns, I presented data on the long-term rapidly rising costs of tuition and fees at U.S. public colleges and universities: 225 percent increases in real terms from 1984 to 2014, versus 25 percent in median family income.
These increases have led to unaffordability of public colleges for many folks and to average student debt of $29,900 for 69 percent of graduates and parental debt of $37,200 for 14 percent.  Student debt now totals $1.67-trillion, a large part of our total public and private national debt, which long ago passed sustainable levels.  As federal student aid rises, colleges raise their charges to absorb the new money available.
I explained that the money is going to administrative bloat and emphasis on research over teaching.  Also, it’s paying excessive compensation all across campus.
Finally, I noted that the aggregate numbers of administrators rose by 2012 to almost one per university faculty member.  Despite diligent efforts in eight years as Nevada higher education Regent, I couldn’t get definitive administration figures for Nevada or any of its institutions.  The system and institutional administrations claimed they don’t keep such data.  As the Church Lady said, “How convenient.”
Quillette magazine quoted Todd Zywicki, a George Mason University law professor and author of the paper, “The Changing of the Guard: The Political Economy of Administrative Bloat in American Higher Education.”  He said: “The interesting thing about the administrative bloat in higher education is, literally, nobody knows who all these people are or what they’re doing.”  Administrator titles include, for example, Health Promotion specialist, Student Success Manager, Senior Coordinator and Student Accountability Manager.
Quillette adds, “Often, executives and administrators at colleges and universities are paid significantly more than those in comparable positions with comparable duties.”  A 2017 audit at the University of California (UC) found the Senior Vice President for Government Relations was paid $130,000 per year more than each of the three highest paid state employees in comparable positions.
The audit also concluded UC, “amassed substantial reserve funds, using misleading budgeting practices, providing its employees with generous salaries and atypical benefits, and failed to satisfactorily justify its spending on system-wide initiatives.”  As a Regent, I saw the same problems in Nevada.
When I was Controller, I was the eleventh highest paid state employee with “controller” in his title (not including air-traffic controllers).  The first nine such positions were all in higher education.  The tenth was my deputy, whose salary, like mine, was set by statute.
For faculty, Quillette notes their research “often finds itself in direct conflict with the education of students in terms of allocation of funds and time, as well as what skills the university looks for in candidates, i.e., strong emphasis on research capabilities rather than educational prowess.”
The article illustrates this point with a quote from a University of Oklahoma professor whose department chairwoman told him, “To get tenure, you need a book or a series of articles.  If you have great publications but lousy teaching, you’ll still get tenure.  If you have great teaching but not-so-great publications, you won’t get tenure.”
It adds, “universities … focus more on research, which increases the institutions’ financial gains and standing, and less on what should be their primary goal: the education of students.”  I observed this, too, as a Nevada Regent.
I also saw that full-time university faculty compensation is as bloated as administration, both in salaries and benefits.  This happens in great part because universities reference their institutional “peer groups” to justify compensation.  These groups typically include mainly aspirational peers that rank higher than they do.  Also, because there are few if any similar jobs in other sectors for comparison.
Compensation bloat is not a problem in our community colleges.  Nor among graduate teaching, grading and research assistants and adjunct faculty; they are part-time and poorly paid.
The key problem of higher education is the same as for K-12 public education and the rest of the public sector: the enterprise is run for the benefit of the employees, not for the benefit of students, other clientele, taxpayers and families paying the bills, nor for the public interest.
More next time, including explaining the dynamics of all this.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD and PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com. 

Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net

​After 32 years, the Dodgers finally won another World Series, their seventh, beating the Tampa Bay Rays 4-2.  There was such great hitting, so many great plays and other highlights, I was overwhelmed.
Remember, I became a Bums fan in 1957, before they left Brooklyn.  That was due to Topps #400 card in the 1957 baseball card set, which I got in my first nickel pack – the famous Dodgers’ Sluggers card that was Topps’ first stars card.
The irony was that my first card, bought in a penny pack a week earlier, was the Bobby Thompson card that hooked me on the hobby and sport.  Thompson, of course, hit the (second) “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” in 1951 to rob the Dodgers of the pennant.  After decades of frustration, the Dodgers finally won their first Series in 1955, against the despised Yankees.
Moving to Los Angeles in 1958, they won in 1959, when I had grown up as a fan.  They won again in 1963 and 1965, behind Sandy Koufax, the greatest left-handed pitcher ever.  And in 1981, with perhaps the best infield ever.
But the most memorable Series win was in 1988, when Kirk Gibson, limping on two injured legs and thus really only able to swing with his arms, hobbled to the plate as a pinch-hitter with two out in the ninth inning of the first game.  He ran the count to 3-2 and then awkwardly homered for the win.  He limped slowly around the bases and was unable to play the rest of the series, which the Dodgers won 4-1.
Gibson and Thompson’s homers are generally considered the most memorable moments in baseball history.
The Dodgers now have the most Series appearances of any National League team, 21.  Although they’ve been the dominant NL team since 2013 and appeared in three of the last four Series, this was their first Series championship since 1988.  That makes this one sweet, but even more so for the memorable performances and character of nearly every member of this team.
Shortstop Corey Seager, the unanimous winner of the Series’ Most Valuable Player award, hit .400 and eight clutch homers in the National League series and against the Rays.
With stellar fielding, hitting and base-running, Mookie Betts showed why the Dodgers paid megabucks to land him in the off-season.  What an inspiration with at least three great catches!  And Clayton Kershaw won two games and found redemption after frustrating post-season losses the last seven years.
Justin Turner was pulled late in the game because he had tested positive for Corona virus.  Before that, his hitting was awesome, but fans will remember most the play in which he dove in the dirt to tag out one baserunner between third and home, and then still down, whirled and threw out another runner at third base.  Max Muncy, Will Smith and Joc Pederson put up great batting numbers or key monstrous homers.
Cody Bellinger got things started with a big homer to score the team’s first Series run; and he robbed the Atlanta Braves of a homer in the National League series. Also credit starter Walker Buehler, who was completely dominant in his game; ace relief pitcher Julio Urias: Kike Hernandez, Chris Taylor, Austin Barnes, A.J. Pollock, Kenley Jansen and half-a-dozen other relievers, and of course manager Dave Roberts.
No one will forget the steely determination that led them to win three in a row in the National League series after being down 3-1.  Although they gave away Series game four in the last inning, they were steely-eyed and determined in the other games – real men.
***
Monday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas, my favorite, swore her in at the White House.  President Trump gave a fine speech.
Also Monday, I received a copy of the book The Essential Scalia, a compendium of writings by perhaps America’s greatest jurist.  It includes a warm forward by Justice Elena Kagan, one of his ideological opponents and great friends.  Class!
I began Monday with a trip to my back surgeon’s Nurse Practitioner, who relieved me of my back brace and cane.  What a prelude to today!
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA) has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.  
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net

Progressives, liberals and other critics of market capitalism make particular criticisms purporting to show why it’s unfair to workers and consumers, leads to unreasonable inequalities in incomes and wealth, is unsustainable, locks in the poor to generations of poverty, etc.
They are simply wrong, as I’ll show today for the consumer/producer relationship.  In later columns, I’ll address the other criticisms.  My analyses show capitalism is in fact the greatest economic engine for enriching individuals and societies and fostering fairness, freedom, human flourishing, and wellbeing.
Starting with the relationship between consumers and producers, the capitalists commit the unpardonable sin to the critics of making profits!  That is simply predatory and unfair, and the producers should lower their prices until profit is eliminated.
The fundamental fact of which the critics are simply ignorant or from which they hide is that market exchanges on average benefit consumers more than producers.  No one forces a shopper to buy a bunch of cilantros.  He does it of his own free will because he values that ingredient more than the money it costs him.  So, in the exchange with the grocer, each gets more value than he gives.
In technical terms, every voluntary exchange yields a producer surplus – the profit – and a consumer surplus – the consumer’s gain in value of the purchase versus the price he pays.
But more than pedestrian purchases in common equilibrium markets, there are high profits producers make from invention and innovation.  That sticks more in the craw of leftists than profits from daily exchange.  From John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford to Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, aggressive and creative entrepreneurs who disrupted existing production and marketing regimes made huge fortunes.  That’s obviously greedy and unfair.
Or maybe not. Innovation and disruption create wealth, which again is shared between producers and consumers.  Consumers buy in part because they can’t get enough of the value created by innovation and disruption.  And in fact they get almost all of it.
That may be hard to believe when Bezos and Gates are jointly worth about $250-billion, even after giving away gobs and making a few bad investments.  But long ago it became clear to me by considering now ubiquitous products such as word-processing and spreadsheet applications.  Just after the Fall of Rome, when I was starting out as a consultant and expert witness, I needed many large, complex spreadsheets.
I had a stable of assistants working by candle-light on butcher or ledger paper with pencils and hand calculators.  Because the calculations for each cell typically depended on calculations for previous cells, each spreadsheet had to be done twice, simultaneously by two munchkins to assure their accuracy.  Each human computer would work about 15 minutes, and then they’d stop and compare the values they computed.  If they agreed, they’d both proceed to the next 15 minutes.  If not, they had to backtrack and find and correct any errors before they could again move forward.This was truly tedious and time-consuming, and the spreadsheets were so large that each one took hours.  Plus, the quality and extent of the analysis was limited because I couldn’t run sensitivity cases to see the effect of changing a key value or parameter.
When some brilliant entrepreneurs invented computer-based spreadsheets and subsequent generations of them, the munchkins were relieved of their drudgery and I could create the basic spreadsheet in 45 minutes or less. Accuracy was improved, and I could run endless variations and sensitivity cases so my analyses were robust and definitive.
The cost for each case and turnaround times were greatly reduced.  So, the value to me and my clients was huge.  Multiplying that value by many billions for the number of people doing similar exercises almost daily, the net consumer value of the spreadsheets for which they paid very modest prices greatly exceeded the hundreds of millions or even billions reaped by application creators.
In fact, in 2005-06 Yale economist William Nordhaus, later a Nobel laureate, did extensive research to quantify the producer and consumer benefits from such innovation.  He concluded that, “Innovators were able to capture about 4 percent of the total social surplus (value) from innovation.”  Consumers got the other 96 percent.  ‘Nuff said.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at Ron Knecht@aol.com.
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net

​Associated Press ran an article last weekend in which Democrat Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, with no basis whatsoever, accused President Donald Thump of “voter intimidation.”  Also, of using a “dog whistle” to lure Trump voters to voting locations and disregard Nevada’s poll watching laws.
Ford’s comments followed Trump’s statements at his first presidential debate with Joe Biden in which the President implored his supporters to “watch very carefully at the polls.”
Trump “wasn’t talking about poll watching.  He was talking about voter intimidation,” Ford alleged.  Ford said Trump’s comments were threatening because Trump also declined to denounce white supremacists or commit to a peaceful transfer of power. 
Ford added, “I do not appreciate, frankly, a rehashing of what we saw during the Civil Rights era where folks were intimidated from exercising their constitutional right to vote.”  Ford’s office said it hadn’t prosecuted anyone for voter intimidation since he took office in early 2019.
Trump has been encouraging his supporters in Nevada to do careful poll watching since a Sept. 12 rally in Minden where he accused Democrats of attempting to rig the election.  He has implored his supporters to “watch very carefully,”
“I hope you’re all going to be poll watchers.  […]  Because with you people watching the polls it’s going to be pretty hard to cheat,” Trump added.  Nevada law allows monitoring of polling places as long as the monitors don’t talk to or interfere with voters.
Ford’s parade of horrors is made from whole cloth, especially because Trump’s concern with possible election cheating is not at all new in Nevada.  Democrats and their labor union allies are said by Republicans and others to bring ineligible voters by the busload in Clark County.  But Clark Republicans have been completely ineffectual at proving or otherwise countering it.
When Democrats call something a “dog whistle,” it means they have absolutely no evidence because it’s not true.  That term is a classic Big Lie, or put another way: their own dog whistle.  They want their supporters and the lamestream media to adopt the conclusory allegation and not worry about evidence, which they don’t have because the claim isn’t true.  But it works.
Their claim Trump wouldn’t denounce white supremacists is also false.  Trump has denounced them numerous times in the past.  The idea that a person should have to repeat such a point on demand or be held as not having answered it is ridiculous.
The question about a peaceful transfer of power is also ridiculous, first because Trump has said and done nothing to seriously call that into question.  Democrats and their allies in the lamestream media simply made the unfounded accusation and then flogged it endlessly.  But they don’t put the same questions to Democrat candidates, or hector them the same way.
Ford did not go to the Democrats and media’s favorite club of labeling Trump a racist without any basis at all, or little evidence.  Thank goodness.
Maybe that’s because Biden has a lot of racist baggage himself.  Remember his statement about Barack Obama?  “… the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
Or: “In Delaware … you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”  And of course, “Well, … if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
Democrats, progressives and other leftists have long used techniques such as the Big Lie and little lies, Guilt by Accusation, endless ad hominem attacks, identity politics, and generally all kinds of aggression and divisiveness.
Generally, Republicans and conservatives eschew such rot in favor of facts, numbers, analyses; focus on principles such as original intent of the Constitution’s founders; and what’s in the real public interest of maximizing aggregate human wellbeing and fairness to bring us all together.
For his attack on Trump, we should conclude Ford is a liar (Big and little), a hater and an abuser of his official power as he attempts to intimidate Trump poll-watchers from exercising their legal rights.  And when Democrats allege a dog whistle, that’s exactly what they’re using.
In another column, I’ll address the “racist” epithet.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.  
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net

​Usually, when we think of the most fundamental things – here, democracy, capitalism, culture and even civilization itself – we assume they are mostly fixed and unchanging, except maybe for the better.
That allows us to make choices about consumption, investing, marriage, children, planning for the future, and other activities reasonably, not by guessing.
The extraordinary events this last year have called these assumptions into question.
Consider our form of government.  By “democracy,” we mean republicanism: most importantly the rule of law; choice of key government authorities via election; constitutionally limited government; individual rights and liberty; etc.  Current riots, looting, arson, theft, assault and even murder by Antifa, Black Lives Matter and their allies threaten our form of government, as well as the capitalist economy, to the point they put civilization itself at risk.
This threat is so great it tends to obscure the extreme differences offered by this year’s state and national elections – the greatest in 160 years.  These radical differences have been developing over half a century in government, economics and education.  So, they should be less surprising than they are.  But they have emerged and come to a head so fast that they shock us.
And what happens if the results of the coming elections so displease the anarchists, nihilists and their ilk that they fly into a cosmic rage seeking to incinerate all of us?
The slow growth and resulting damage to our economy and human wellbeing, however, has been developing the last 30 years and became manifest over the last decade.  Very slow long-term growth and its consequences, while devastating in many ways, is something we’ve been trying to adjust to as the new normal since the Great Recession.
The economic damage from the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting shutdowns of so much activity and life are another matter, with unknowable and likely devastating consequences, perhaps even in the long run.  Such an overwhelming one-time shock is unknown in our experience but for two world wars in the last century.
The economic and cultural damage and social disorientation from even those two wars was slower to develop and less uniformly destructive to our economy than the shutdowns.  Likewise, the pandemic of a century ago was less damaging and disorienting because state and local governments did not hugely over-react to it the way they have this one.
Economically, we’re well into uncharted waters.  Mapmakers of old often labeled such areas with warnings such as: “Here there be monsters.”  Our present circumstances have that feel.
While the economic prospects are a giant threatening void, the cultural outlook allows for some hope and optimism.  Yes, this year’s symphony, opera and dance seasons are cancelled, but major league, college and high school sports are trying to cobble together something.
On the other hand, beloved restaurants continue to fail in droves.  Candy dances, sidewalk and park fairs, and rodeo too.  But we can also take small comfort as many baseball fans long have in the words, “Wait ‘til next year.”
The cataclysm has not done as much damage nor interrupted literary and intellectual matters, and even the enjoyment of music and art at home, in good part because technology contributes to their continuity and access.  On the other hand, many folks no longer look primarily to religion for much hope.
So all this is scary and disorienting, even as the Pollyanna’s of the world occasionally lob water balloons of hope and optimism.  We also console ourselves with the notion that it can’t stay this bad or continue in negative directions forever.  Right?
Well, we hope right.  But the current political, economic and cultural damage were each unimaginable a year ago --- let alone all three in concert.  Moreover, history shows that continuous progress in them was lacking for thousands of years before it began 250 years ago.
Economic growth was long essentially nil.  Politically, man exploited man as a rule, not an exception.  Culture was usually as poor as economics and politics.
When civilization’s lights went out with the fall of Rome’s empire, the Arthurian Legends arose to give the people some small hope.  I hope the fragility of democracy, capitalism, culture and civilization do not now require a similar comforting myth.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com. 
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net

​A month ago, I wrote the first part of this column, which recounted important parts of the history of commercial nuclear power in America.  Then, I took four weeks off for major, major back surgery.  Now I’m back to suggest what the future of nukes might be if we can learn from the experience of that past.
There are two key lessons of our nuclear power history that should guide our approach to this technology in the future.  First, public health, safety and environmental regulations of this technology and any matter should be governed by a social cost-benefit principle that is more honored in the breach than the observance by our regulation.
Consider the problem of expected radiation leakage from a major pipe in a nuclear plant.  Factors such as thickness of the pipe’s walls, its shape and length, support and restraint systems, the nature and details of its connections and the volumes, temperatures and pressures of water in the pipe will determine the probability and amount of leakage.  Changing those specifications for those factors can change the maximum expectation of leakage at any time or the cumulative leakage over time.
Each such change has costs and benefits.  The cost can be determined by cost engineers and the benefit by other scientists.  When regulators propose a change in any of the factors, the cost-benefit principle requires that they consider the expected costs to the expected benefits.  If the expected benefits exceed the expected costs, then the change should be adopted; otherwise, not.
Unfortunately, that has not been the practice.  Instead, regulators have generally asked whether the proposed increase in safety engineering is technically feasible.  So, in sum, nuclear safety requirements are excessive – and new proposed plants are uneconomic.
The second factor exacerbates this first one.  It takes as much as a decade to design and build one of these wonders.  When an energy company proposes to build one, it presents a conceptual design for regulators to approve.  With that approval, it proceeds, including fleshing out the details as it proceeds.
But at the same time regulators are continuously considering and adopting more regulatory measures.  A big problem arises when regulators seek to apply new standards and information to a part of the plant that has already been built.  The question then becomes whether the builders must retrofit the plant to the new standards.  In the first part of this column, I gave a particularly expensive example.
In short, if regulators remedy these problems by adopting the social cost-benefit principle and being very parsimonious about requiring retrofit, commercial fission power will again become economic.  Then fission can again become an important part of our energy future.
There are two more important aspects that will help make it so.  In 1977, President Jimmy Carter ordered an end reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel.  This involves separating out plutonium and other high-level waste products from the uranium.  The uranium can then be reprocessed and reused.  This approach could provide enough nuclear fuel to satisfy our needs for another century or more.
Right now, the standards that would be applied to reprocessing and recycle are unknown.  However, if we committed to the social cost-benefit principles and few retrofit requirements, the nuclear fuel cycle would become economic.  France is already proving this option in commercial use.
The other question is what type of nuclear plants would we build in the future?  The answer is that other countries and energy firms have continued to develop them.  So, we would have a wide variety of options, up to 2,000 megawatts-electric (MWe).
A very interesting option is the use of small and modular units, as small as 30 MWe.  The modular option would reduce costs via economies of scale and shorten lead times to first operation.  In addition, such units would make a good complement to solar and wind power that is being built.
The opposition to nuclear in general has been and remains ideological and based on ignorance and fear.  I’m not the only former nuclear opponent who has come around over the years as we have learned more from experience and research.  Our good fortune is that a nuclear future is still available.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com. 
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net

In 1977, I completed my masters project in civil engineering at Illinois on power generating economics, emphasizing nuclear power but covering other major technologies too.  It showed that, in general, nukes weren’t then the life-cycle least-cost choice.  Clean coal was.
Ironically, a paper I presented at an American Nuclear Society meeting summarizing the nuclear/coal comparison won an award as the best student paper on power generating economics.  Even though I was already known as a leader of the environmental and consumer opposition to Illinois electric utilities’ proposed nuke plants and rate increases.
I dropped out of grad school because that study led to a job as a Commissioner’s Senior Advisor at the California Energy Commission.  It also fueled a career as an expert witness on utilities, energy, economics, finance and policy.  With power generating economics being my first major area of expertise, I accumulated small partial credit over two decades helping stop a dozen nuclear units proposed around the country.
Today, I tell folks that, if there were an organization named Former Nuclear Opponents for the Resuscitation of the Fission Option, I’d be founder and president.  How’d I get from there to here?
Even though I was politically active in utility and energy matters, I remained a serious objective analyst, essential for an expert witness.  In particular, I studied closely the costs of nuclear plants, which were increasing in the 1970s and 1980s at stunning and sustained rates.  Some other very good analysts were also studying that problem, and often testifying for utilities opposite me.
I proposed the hypothesis that regulation was increasingly requiring mitigation of environmental and public health and safety externalities of the technology.  The costs were being internalized.  In a sense, that was correct.  But it missed two fundamental points.
In 1984, as the principal economist at the California Public Utilities Commission, I toured the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, then nearing completion, as I was preparing my proposals for ratemaking treatment of that plant.  In nearly every corner of the building, I saw a jumble of structural beams and other elements that looked like a mess.
I asked about that, and the engineers explained that the building had originally been designed and built to a 0.35g earthquake lateral acceleration specification.  However, during construction, they learned that a major fault was closer to the plant and shallower than previously thought.  So, federal regulators required them to retrofit the building to 0.85g standards.  Thus, the mess.
Retrofit rang a bell for me.  In 1973, as an assistant engineer at the City of Urbana, the crusty old public works director told me the environmental and other amenities I wanted to see in our neighborhoods were cheap and easy.  I was stunned; he always seemed like Dr. No on those matters.  But he explained that 100-year storm sewers, bikeways, underground utility lines, etc. were easy if they were designed into the subdivision from the start.  The problem with putting them in existing neighborhoods is that retrofit is very difficult and extremely costly.
I also further considered cost internalization processes upon returning to graduate school at Stanford in 1987.  I learned the key principle of regulation is that one should increase mitigation requirements (such as reduced radiation levels) until the benefit from the last increment of mitigation (such as greater reduction of emissions) exactly equals its cost.
Since costs of each increment of control or mitigation rise as more stringent levels are required and the value of benefits fall as mitigation levels approach 100 percent, controls added up to that equality point produce net social benefits.  Beyond that point, the social costs exceed the social benefits of each measure, and thus those measures are socially wasteful.
But American environmental, public health and safety regulation don’t adhere to this fundamental principle.  Instead, requirements are often set to technically achievable levels, regardless of whether they are economic.  This problem is extreme for nukes because they have a long design and construction period – and regulators require retrofit late in the construction process to new standards adopted during construction.
The combination of excessive standards and retrofit convinced me that nukes would be economic (and environmentally beneficial) if we got public policy right.  More next time.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com. 
Ron Knecht

775-882-2935
775-220-6128
 
www.RonKnecht.net

​Editors note: This article was written by the late Orlis Trone in March, 2009. It is as pertinent today as it was back then, so we are reprinting it.

America’s institutions of learning OUGHT to be the sanctuary of academic freedom, where the principle of “the free flow of ideas” reigns supreme and the mind is esteemed as inviolable. Sadly, however, and to the detriment of America as a free nation, the freethought-killing pestilence of socialist ideology has established absolute power over the nation’s academic delivery system, and has done to it what absolute power does, corrupted public education ABSOLUTELY. The socialist take-over of the schooling of America has altered the objective of the classroom from education to “RE-EDUCATION,” the goal of which is to inculcate in students an allegiance to socialism and a loathing for American culture. Before our eyes, we are witnessing an ideological mind-grab by way of academic indoctrination. Radical professors like Ward Churchill, who despise everything that this country stands for, are indicting America by criminalizing American history, that is, by rewriting it to read like a “rap sheet.” It is through the reeducation of their students that socialist instructors aim to reinvent America as a socialist society. Freedom of speech was the first casualty of socialism on campus. Since its advocates attained dominance there, they have declared academic censorship against all expressions of pro-American opinion. Any student who attempts to defy their directive is subjected to ferocious acts of “in-your-face” intimidation and is hounded into silence under withering assaults of socialist derision. The title of David Horowitz’ book, “One-Party Classroom,”—written specifically to oppose the foregoing state of affairs—captures the picture perfectly. The academic years of life are the anchoring years of thought-formation, when students are gathering and assembling the contents of their learning into values to live by. That is why the mind-masters of socialism see the campus as “made to order” for the implantation of socialist sentiments. The cadre of political activists they indoctrinate on campus, in turn, indoctrinate “the masses.” The masses, that virtually shoulder-lifted Barack Obama up to the pinnacle of political power, serve to warn that the pestilence of socialism has metastasized from the classroom out into every nook and cranny of American society. But be assured that socialist ideologues are not resting on the laurels of their conquest of the campus. Rather, they are now working to stir up “class consciousness” in the mood of the masses, and to parlay that mood into political authority over the life of every American citizen. Every Republican needs to understand that the greater causal agent of our recent defeat was THE MASSES, the progenies of socialist indoctrination. For that reason—and for the survival of our two-party system—we must reinstate the sovereignty of academic freedom so that the principle of “THE FREE FLOW OF IDEAS” will, once again, reign supreme in the classrooms of America—from grammar school to high school to college. 

​The web site of Nevada Humanities (NH), a nonprofit institution that receives substantial public monies and federal tax exemptions, emphasizes its commitment to equity:
“Nevada Humanities is committed to equity and inclusion in everything we do.  Nevada Humanities believes that diversity, equity, empathy, respect, connection, and participation are the building blocks to a just and thriving society.  We are committed to the equitable treatment of all people in every aspect of our organization and its activities, and in our understanding of who participates in – and has access to – the humanities. “
By including equity among diversity, empathy, etc. and referencing participation and access of all people, the statement is clearly political, not academic.  And it favors equal outcomes, not the common definition of equity as fairness of process, opportunity, standards, etc.  That is, in fact, now the case for many social activist groups and legal and academic usages, not just NH.
The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines equity primarily as: “justice according to natural law or right[,] specifically: freedom from bias or favoritism.”  There are two secondary meanings.  First, financial equity related to money, property, risk interest, common stocks, etc.  Second, a system of law that supplements, aids or overrides common and statutory law.
Another definition comes from Microsoft’s Bing: “the quality of being fair and impartial.”  It also has similar and short versions of the common financial and legal traditions.  The financial and legal traditions reflect the primary meaning of justice according to natural law or right and according to freedom from bias or favoritism – that is, fairness..
So, the primary and secondary meanings of the term remain what we thought they were and have been for 700 years.  However, progressives, who increasingly have taken over academe (including law schools), jurisprudence, the nonprofit sector and much public policy, have long engaged for their own special-interest purposes in concerted broad efforts to shift the meaning of the term and others ultimately to their opposites.
That’s rhetorical abuse, including terms like “social justice”, “sustainability” and even “the public interest” in the mouths of progressives.
In the legal realm, Robert Longley, with over 30 years in municipal government and urban planning, argues:
“Equality refers to scenarios in which all segments of society have the same levels of opportunity and support.  Equity extends the concept of equality to include providing varying levels of support based on individual need or ability.”


This statement shows expressly the propensity of progressives and other leftists to conceive of society, governance and law in terms of identity groups – “segments of society” – plus human activity and transactions as being between such identity groups, not individuals or firms.  In short, it’s purely political.
It also focuses on activity, relations and transactions as generally mediated or conducted by government, with the assumption that government should control production, distribution, consumption and nearly everything else.  It expressly hints at the Marxist principle of from each according to his ability to each according to his need.
Sadly, with the rot that has taken over academe and the appointment of Clinton and Obama judges, this very perverse mischief and destructive nonsense has gotten traction in academic law and jurisprudence.  A 2016 paper from the Stanford Social Innovation Review shows a similar distortion has become endemic in some philanthropy and public health dogma.
Almost all progressive projects have used long-term disingenuous attempts to twist fundamental concepts to support their goals.  Their goals are in fact predatory on the real public interest of maximizing aggregate human wellbeing and fairness among individuals.
As I have written before, and contrary to the collectivists, history shows the following promote human wellbeing and fairness: individualism; the rule of law; constitutionally limited government; separation of powers between national, regional and local units; separation of functional powers at each level of government; individual sovereignty and personal liberty; individual rights, not group entitlements; strong property rights; and high levels of economic freedom.
NH’s web site details how its mission evolved over 50 years from a meritorious focus on classical academic subjects of history, philosophy and literature to political activism.  Groups like NH are entitled to their views and pursuit of them, but not to public dollars to support their politics, any more than, say, libertarians.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), has served Nevadans as state controller, a higher education regent, economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.

Ron Knecht

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