CAFE standards...reminiscing when i could smoke at cafes.

So the vulture in chief is picking a fight over mileage standards. If this goes according to script, next we'll have the outrage followed by the lawsuits and then injunctions followed by slight policy changes etcetera etecetera until the jackals finally find some policy the courts can abide by. It's a hell of a way to make policy these days. Go straight to the courts until they put policy on the edge of legality and hope it doesn't teeter too far one way or another. It's not the most efficient way to govern but it sure does make the lawyers happy.

So these mileage standards are accused of being too harsh. These hyenas say that they make cars too expensive for American consumers. Easing these regulations will let automakers make more affordable cars that are newer and safer for Americans to buy and drive.  So it's all about SAFETY. Aren't we living in a brave new economy? Everybody's working who wants work. Mr vulture in chief has been working hard for all Americans to get them the jobs they need, right? He's even got the new unemployment numbers to prove it. So why aren't we buying new cars? Why aren't we working hard at all these newly created jobs and buying cars? These new jobs are nice enough, but I imagine Americans who get them still can't afford a new car, or at the least can't afford to risk the commitment of taking out a long term loan to buy a new car when they feel that this economy is still shaky and uncertain and not nearly as bright as we are being led to believe.  Or maybe we're not driving as much?

But we are driving as much and more. The jackals say that we're getting such great mileage that there's no reason not to take a road trip to Vegas. Why fly to sin city when driving's just as cheap? And the jackals say that's not safe; they need to make mileage worse to keep Americans off the road and safe from accidents. Of course if that's true they could motivate Americans to drive less by raising the federal gas tax that's been sitting there at the same level since the nineties.  Wouldn't that be more efficient? Raise that and spare us from months of outrage and lawsuits.  But this is about safety right?

If these standards continue, we'll likely be driving ever lighter cars. An efficient way to raise mileage is by reducing a car's weight, but lighter cars are less safe. Who doesn't want to feel safe behind the wheel of a tank made of American steel? I certainly don't. I'd be afraid of every accident killing some poor American who can't afford a tank. What a way to die? Imagine telling that to peter I died because the guy who hit me was rich enough to buy a Humvee. Still I respect heavy traffic like trucks and buses. You have to respect them they could kill you. I still say the sound of a semi passing is the sound of death calling me. And so lower mileage equals heavier cars and safer American roads?

This is such a weird story.  I'm not at all sure how to understand this situation. Thirty-six percent of university students and forty-two percent of of community college students are food insecure. Yes that is a problem, but it's a problem that's been so persistent for so long that it's a cliche. I've always imagined hungry students would be edge cases of a sort. Students who have a high enough potential for future earnings after graduation would certainly suffer the exchange of present hunger for future bounties. So this statistic means that all these students believe it's a safe bet to go hungry today, to get fat tomorrow.

Given that then I can see a few ways to analyze this. First let's ignore every student who is correctly evaluating their future earnings potential. I'm sure they're all nice enough people but they'll turn out just fine.

Some of them are wrong; they should definitely quit school and get jobs. I imagine they're just mistaken, people are particularly bad at self-evaluation. Hell I think I'm the smartest one in the room about seventy percent of the time. I know I'm wrong because I only spend about eighty percent of my time alone.  So these students are wrong. They'll suffer for it then hopefully move on and lead good lives despite making it to graduation.

What if most of them are wrong? What are they suffering for? Of course they don't know that they're wrong about the future, but surely if other better opportunities were available they would take them, right?

This economy is good--unemployment is at record lows--and if the vulture in chief is right it's just going to get better. Maybe they think graduating will put them in a perfect position to take advantage of a coming boom.

Of course recessions have been cyclical for most of my life and according to my watch we're about due for another one.  Perhaps the economy isn't exactly as good as it seems, or more likely the jobs available are so bad that if they're going to be hungry  anyway they might as well stay in school. It wouldn't make any difference either way and besides they could just get lucky things may just work out fine for them.

Of course they couldn't all possibly be wrong, right? I'd rather live in the world where every student who stays in school despite having to deal with the challenge of finding enough to eat is right about their futures. Certainly we don't live in that world, but at the least we're lucky to not live in it's opposite that would be chillingly apocalyptic. Imagine that all these students are betting on a future where their present sacrifice pays off with future wealth are wrong. In fact their future will force them to face the challenge of catastrophic climate change or rampaging epidemics from antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.  They may look back fondly at the days when they could reliably get the help they need to feed themselves while earning a piece of paper that proves their expertise in obscure literature. Or maybe they'll just look back fondly at their days of merely being food insecure as they slowly starve.  But that couldn't possibly happen, right?