Category: Uncategorized

Mailvox: in defense of Ann Coulter

RC still believes Miss Coulter was correct to attack libertarians as “cowardly frauds”:

Your article was interesting, but never addressed the substance of Ms. Coulter’s presentation. You offer several examples that purport to contradict her statements.

Let’s look at one:

“It is worth noting that in some states, such as Washington, all marriage-related information was kept at the county level until 1968. And yet, civil society somehow managed to settle these issues without devolving into total chaos.”

What’s missing? The fact that there was never previously a major societal push by homosexuals to attack the millenia-long history of traditional marriage. Somehow you fail to identify and address that significant departure from world and US history that you purport to address.

What else is missing? Never have historically bedrock institutions of morality like mainline religious denominations been so tolerant – nay supportive – of aberrant social behavior such as homosexuality.

There are a plethora of arguments and examples that could be given along these lines, all having to do with the current breakdown of societal mores and values at a level unprecendented since perhaps Roman times.

Don’t you see the difference? I think Ms. Coulter was completey correct in her wry observations concerning Libertarians. Hopefully you will, too.

Do I see the difference? No, I see a conservative who didn’t acknowledge a single one of the errors in Miss Coulter’s article that I pointed out. Of course, RC is clearly a historical illiterate with no clue what he’s talking about, given his assertion that “the current breakdown of societal mores and values” is unprecedented since Roman times. He should read Boccaccio, Solzhenitsyn, or the history of the Spanish Civil War if he wants to see what a real breakdown of societal mores and values looks like.

American culture is filth, but it is a mistake to confuse the media’s Hollywood version of it, very much skewed by its gay Jewish perspective, for the reality. In the real world, the quarterback didn’t dump the pretty blonde cheerleader at prom in favor of the ugly Barbara Streisand wannabee, every school bully isn’t a self-hating homosexual, everyone doesn’t want to move to New York City*, and a crack team of Jewish commandos didn’t win the war in Europe.

In any event, the column sufficiently demonstrated that Coulter is very poorly situated to be labeling anyone, let alone libertarians, as “cowardly frauds”. As Paul Gottfried noted in “The Mainstreaming of Michelle Malkin“, it’s only a matter of time before a fame-driven media whore learns to dance to the crack of the party establishment’s whip. No doubt Dana Loesch will be the next to look beautiful in chains.

“A recent syndicated column by Michelle Malkin indicates what happens to interesting conservative commentators when they sign on as GOP flacks: They become predictable Republican mouthpieces and attack dogs against the Dems…. As a Republican journalist and media entertainer, Michelle is following in the well-trod path of others such as Ann Coulter. Like Michelle, Ann started out as a very feisty rightwing news commentator, but unlike Michelle, Ann could be devastatingly witty as well as edgy. But she, too, succumbed to various pressures and became a sharp-tongued version of Sean Hannity rather than remaining a figure of the traditional right.”

The explosive growth of atheism… in prison

Atheists often like to erroneously claim that Christians are more likely to be imprisoned than atheists. Both Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have made this bizarre, and irrelevant, appeal to atheist “morality”. But these arguments are inevitably based on nothing substantive, and more importantly, they are belied by actual prison statistics. While the USA doesn’t keep comprehensive statistics related to religion, the UK does, and it’s here that we can see the actual facts of the matter.

What is interesting is that it appears atheists have become significantly more criminal since I found the 2002 statistics when writing TIA. (Since then, the UK Ministry of Justice has gotten its online act together and it’s much easier to find the relevant annual statistics.) In the seven years between 2002 and 2009, the number of imprisoned High Church Atheists rose 475%, from 0.17% of the England and Wales prison population to 0.84%. That’s still fairly small, of course, but it’s worth noting that it is a larger percentage of the prison population than is represented by any of the following religions and denominations:

Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Quaker, United Reformed Church, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Christian Scientist, Coptic Christian, Greek/Russian Orthodox, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seven Day Adventist, BaHai, Jain, Pagan, Rastafarian, Scientologist, Zoroastrian.

That’s only a partial list, as I left out about an equal number of more obscure denominations and religions. It was also the second-fastest rate of growth, surpassed only by the agnostic population, which increased 812% to 0.64% of the total prison population.

However, as I pointed out in TIA, the correct comparison between Christians and atheists is not between all Christians and self-identified High Church Atheists, but rather between all Christians and all No Religion atheists, less agnostics. It is easy to demonstrate why this is so, the inevitable Atheist Dance notwithstanding, given the correct definition of an atheist as “one who believes that God does not exist” rather than “one who calls himself an atheist”. This assertion is supported by the action of the atheists at the British Humanist Association and their census campaign, which asserts that is an individual’s identification with a religion – or presumably, identification with a specific appellation – irrespective of the extent of their religious belief or practice is not the appropriate concept to measure. And while one could argue that “no religion” is not perfectly synonymous with “belief that God does not exist”, it is safe to assume that most, though not all, no religion individuals are practical atheists even if they are not inclined to call themselves atheists. It is also in keeping with the practice of Richard Dawkins, the British Humanist Association, and many vocal atheists to consider “no religion” a form of atheism.

The reason this matters is that is the Low Church atheists of the No Religion variety who make up 33.1% of the prison population, more than twice the 15% of the general population. (The 15.1% number is from 2001 and will likely be around 20% in the 2011 census; I will update the numbers accordingly when they become available.) The statistical overrepresentation of no religion atheists in prison is surpassed only by Buddhists (0.3% general, 2.2% prison) and Muslims (2.8% general, 11.9% prison).

So, keep this in mind the next time that an atheist attempts to claim that atheists are more moral or less criminal than Christians. All they are doing is cherry-picking the most intelligent subset of the atheist population and comparing it with the entire intelligence spectrum of the Christian population. Since low IQ tends to correspond highly with criminal behavior and imprisonment, it should come as no surprise that self-styled Atheists are less likely to be found in prison than no religion atheists.

Fred on evolutionism

As any fully sentient human must be, Fred is an evolution skeptic:

Evolutionists espouse the mechanistic and deterministic view, though more as metaphysics than science. Selective pressures, plausible though not measurable, defined, or confirmed, push evolution in certain directions. Much of it is wonderfully questionable, but we will pass over this. The evolutionist, again meaning the sort for whom evolution must explain all human behavior, falls into difficulties when he considers humanity.

Consider morality. For the evolutionist, everything must be explained in terms of maximizing the production of offspring so that, for example, honesty serves to promote cohesion in hunting bands, making them more efficient and therefore having more children. Right and wrong do not exist, nor Good and Evil, as these have no meaning within evolutionism unless they can be tied to fecundity.

Which leads the evolutionist into logical swamps. I have asked such people why I should not make a hobby of torturing to death the genetically feeble-minded. In evolutionary terms, killing them is a good idea, as it reduces the diversion of resources in maintaining them and raises the average intelligence of the group.

How they are killed has no evolutionary importance, and in any event executing them with a blowtorch would consist merely in substituting certain chemical reactions for others: Pain has no existence in physics.

Of course if I actually did such a thing, the evangelists of scientism would be horrified. They are not immoral. They just can’t explain why they are not.

I now await with no little pleasure the predictable attempts to redirect the discussion from the obvious problems with evolution to religion, creationism, and intelligent design in lieu of actually attempting to defend their “theorum”. Note to the insufficiently read: “theorum” is the word for a a statement that has been not proven on the basis of previously established statements, but one that credentialed midwits would like you to accept at face value.

Newsflash: government aid proves inadequate

It is shocking to discover that pumping $19 billion (nearly one year of its GDP) into aid for Afghanistan has achieved next to nothing in the way of substantive results in light of how providing financial resources to unproductive, low-IQ, semi-civilized populations has worked so well in the United States over the last 50 years:

After a thorough two-year review of U.S. aid efforts in Afghanistan, the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee emphasized, “The unintended consequences of pumping large amounts of money into a war zone cannot be underestimated.”

Much of the aid effort was premised on the assumption that development would foster stability. Young men with jobs wouldn’t plant roadside bombs. Communities with growing economies would reject the Taliban. This assumption was based on the modern prejudice that bad behavior has material roots. Give people money and jobs and you will improve their character and behavior.

In Afghanistan, as elsewhere, this assumption seems not to be true. A conference of experts brought together last year in Wilton Park in Britain concluded that there is a “surprisingly weak evidence base for the effectiveness of aid in promoting stabilization and security objectives” in Afghanistan.

Violence doesn’t stem from poverty. It stems from grudges, tribal dynamics and religious fanaticism — none of which can be ameliorated by building new roads. The poorest parts of the country are not the most violent. Meanwhile, the influx of aid has, in many cases, created dependency, fed corruption, contributed to insecurity and undermined the host government’s capacity to oversee sustainable programs.

To put things in perspective, what the USA has done is the equivalent of someone giving Americans an additional $1.36 trillion every year for 10 years. Perhaps the greatest irony is that this attempt to replicate the War on Poverty on an international level was actually labeled “Smart Power”. Such an appellation highlights the supremely clueless arrogance of the government bureaucrat, where there is no such thing as a policy failure, even completely predictable disasters are put down to nothing more than the disappointing result of an improper implementation.

Card-carrying Red Faction members would do well to note that this grand distributional debacle was not the result of the evil Blue Faction running amok again, it was the enthusiastic policy of “national greatness conservatives” of the sort you are hoping will rescue you from another four years of the SSO administration.

Unpossible!

This would appear to be a timely article. However, this piece on prospective profit repatriation in the NYT must be a shameless lie. It’s simply not possible for there to be vast dollar balances sitting there in overseas accounts, remaining unused. After all, as we learned from Henry Hazlitt, “Because we have permitted the British to sell more to us, they are now able to buy more from us. They are, in fact, eventually forced to buy more from us if their dollar balances are not to remain perpetually unused. So as a result of letting in more British goods, we must export more American goods.”

Some of the nation’s largest corporations have amassed vast profits outside the country and are pressing Congress and the Obama administration for a tax break to bring the money home. Apple has $12 billion waiting offshore, Google has $17 billion and Microsoft, $29 billion…. “For every billion dollars that we invest, that creates 15,000 to 20,000 jobs either directly or indirectly,” Jim Rogers, the chief of Duke Energy, said at the conference. Duke has $1.3 billion in profits overseas.

We must, must we? Note that these are nominally American organizations that are doing precisely what the free trade champion claims that the British ones could not do. Furthermore, note that these offshore funds are not the result of imports, but rather exports. So, in addition to the loss of jobs due to imports, we’re actually seeing them lost – or at least delayed – due to supposedly beneficial exports.

This is a negative aspect of free trade that I do not believe was ever anticipated by either its historical advocates or its critics. And it underlines Ian Fletcher’s point that there are problems with free trade that go very far beyond simple matters of conventional protectionism and tariffs.

It is remarkable to see the likes of Rogers claim that each billion brought back would create 15,000 jobs, given his apparent failure to notice that if that were true, exporting that billion must have already cost a similar number of jobs. Of course, he’s incorrect about the relationship between repatriated profits and jobs, since the 2005 tax incentive that brought $312 billion back into the USA did not generate between 4,680,000 and 6,420,000 new jobs. What actually happened is that total employment increased to 2,383,000 in 2006, just barely more than the 2,268,000 increase in the year that preceded the repatriation program.

Note to the intrepid free trade advocates: This is the sort of post where it is perfectly appropriate for you to trot out your boilerplate arguments in support of free trade as if no one who studies economics has ever heard them before. They’re not necessarily going to be any more convincing than they were when you were erroneously presenting them as if they had anything at all to do with the arguments that Henry Hazlitt made in Chapter 11 of Economics in One Lesson, but they will at least be potentially relevant here.

This should not, however, be interpreted as an indication that I am inclined to pay any more attention to them now than I did previously.

Are the neocons losing Red Faction?

Ross Douthat defects in the New York Times:

Rubio is the great neoconservative hope, the champion of a foreign policy that boldly goes abroad in search of monsters to destroy. In the Senate, he’s constantly pressed for a more hawkish line against the Mideast’s bad actors. His maiden Senate speech was a paean to national greatness, whose peroration invoked John F. Kennedy and insisted that America remain the “watchman on the wall of world freedom.”

Paul, on the other hand, has smoothed the crankish edges off his famous father’s antiwar conservatism, reframing it in the language of constitutionalism, the national interest and the budget deficit. (As Matt Continetti noted in The Weekly Standard, “Whereas Ron Paul criticizes U.S. interventionism in tropes familiar to the left — anti-imperial blowback, manipulation by neocons, moral equivalence — Rand Paul merely says America doesn’t have the money.”)….

The country is weary of war, but the story Rubio tells, with eloquence and passion, is still tremendously appealing — the story of a great republic armed and righteous, with no limits on what it can accomplish in the world.

This is a story that many conservatives — and many Americans — want to believe. Once, I believed it myself.

But that was many years and many wars ago, and now I think Rand Paul is right.

One unmentioned factor here is that Rand Paul is an native American. Marco Rubio is not. He may have grown up in the United States, but he is a Cuban raised in a community that has been agitating for the USA to overthrow the Castro regime for decades. So, it should come as little surprise that Rubio is so content to ignore the American national interest in favor of the latest neocon cause du jour. Because neocons, regardless of their background, have limited allegiance to the national interest, they see the nation primarily as a means rather than an end.

As I have pointed out in the past, it was always mistaken to conflate neoconservatism with Jews and the Israel First lobby. They are merely the most obvious example of what would be more accurately be described as Neoconnery, (there is nothing conservative about it), and is a concept that is as old as the Roman Republic. Back then, when Rome ruled over the Mediterranean just as America rules over the Atlantic and Pacific, foreign nobles would come to Rome and offer promises of allegiance, troops, and gold in return for a Rome-supported crown. These Friends of Rome were the neocons of their day.

On the one hand, it is encouraging that even the moderate conservatives are beginning to respond to the geostrategic and financial realism of the Red Faction’s libertarians. On the other, it is depressing that even bankruptcy isn’t enough to slow down those like Rubio, who talks a good game but appears to see America as little more than a tool to serve foreign interests.

Those who deny that transnational freedom of movement will tend to ultimately work against the interests of human liberty would do well to pay attention to the way in which the foreign policy positions of second- and third-generation immigrants tend to diverge from those leaders whose families are more rooted in the nation. Consider: would any other British leader have intrigued so shamelessly to manipulate the USA into World War II as the half-American Winston Churchill? All great powers are tempted by the neocons of their day. And history indicates that most eventually succumb to the temptation, and as a result, follow the predictable trajectory of decline and fall. It is far from the only factor in national decline, of course, but it is an easily recognized one.

On a stylistic note, full credit to Douthat for referencing John Quincy Adam’s 1821 Independence Day address. Read it and mourn for an America that post-Americans like Marco Rubio have never known and would trample upon in their Wilsonian pursuit of “national greatness”.

America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity…. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.

WND column

In defense of libertarians

I am always intrigued when conservatives, many of whom genuinely believe themselves to be devoted to human liberty, make a point of attacking its most principled and consistent advocates. So, it was amusing to read the anti-libertarian arguments recently presented by Ann Coulter, whom I rather like and whose work I have praised in the past.

But even the finest minds are capable of making mistakes from time to time, and in such cases, who is better suited to provide correction than a fellow WND commentator and “prominent Christian libertarian”? While I can’t speak for Ron Paul or any other libertarian but myself, it should not be difficult to point out where this illustrious pillar of the Republican media establishment has gone awry in her attack on libertarianism.

Mailvox: a free trader defends Hazlitt

Much to his credit, Jake sets aside his “nations don’t exist” position long enough to attempt a courageous defense of the second aspect of Hazlitt’s case for free trade, which consists of an argument against using a tariff to establish a new industry. I have to commend Jake for taking the time to put in this effort, as I vastly prefer to see those who disagree with me honestly attempt straightforward defenses of their positions than to watch them skulk away in stubborn silence. Quotes from my post are in bold while Jake’s words are italicized.

1. The tariff grants $5 in domestic benefit for a domestic cost of $4.25.

It’s all the same. The $0.75 spent abroad is going to wind up buying American exports sooner or later. The only alternative is that they take the $0.75 and bury it, burn it, or otherwise not “cash in” their claim on American goods or resources. This “worse case” scenario amounts essentially to our trade partner “giving” the USA sweaters for nothing but green pieces of paper. Hardly a calamity for the US. I think this is what is happening to account for the oft-mentioned “trade deficit”, basically we’re importing cars, electronics, oil, food, etc and paying nothing but paper money for them. We’ve gotten away with this for a long time because of the Dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, foreign nations want dollars not only, or even primarily, for the American goods they can buy, but because every dollar they hold is a base on which they could pyramid more fiat money of their own. I agree this is a bad thing (long-term) and represents a serious disadvantage to domestic manufacturers, but the problem is the monetary policy, not trade. And cutting foreign trade won’t fix our problem or raise our living standards.

It’s not all the same. Jake has made the same error here that Hazlitt made in his primary argument, specifically errors #3 and 4. It’s not just a long-term issue, it is an immediate and more pressing short-term issue as well. Since it is a fact that the money may not come back to the United States for at least 35 years, the purported exports simply do not exist and their benefits cannot be assumed during the expected career of the average worker. And frankly, it should be deeply embarrassing for anyone with Austrian pretensions (referring to Hazlitt here, not Jake), to fail to recognize the massive importance of the TIME ELEMENT in economic transactions.

2. By positing a 50,000 loss of jobs in other industries, Hazlitt is assuming that labor productivity is the same in all domestic industries…. And more importantly, there is no reason to assume that the loss of domestic consumption could not be replaced with foreign consumption.

If exports are going to increase to offset the reduction in domestic demand brought about by a tariff increasing prices then we’re still going to be importing something in exchange the exports. We have to remember that a tariff on imports also harms exporting industries as they find it harder to sell their goods abroad. Also, even if domestic industries can find new markets abroad to offset reduced domestic consumption it will obviously be at a lower profit (else why wouldn’t have have already been exporting in larger quantities?).

Jake repeats his first error here and compounds it by committing new ones. It is totally incorrect to assume that all import tariffs are met with an immediate and equal response with tariffs on exports from other nations. The USA is not about to slap a tariff on Saudi oil simply because the Saudis decide to tax the import of American automobiles. This is the result of either willful theoretical blindness or complete ignorance of the existing and easily verified difference in tariff rates that now exist between countries. Nor must the exports necessarily be at a lower profit, for as Adam Smith pointed out, manufacturers first attempt to sell domestically because it is easier, not because it is more profitable.

3. It is incorrect to state that “the new tariff on sweaters would not raise American wages”

Well it’ll certainly raise wages in the sweater industry, but I don’t think that’s what Hazlitt is getting at here. Rather, he’s saying it will also lower wages in other industries that are harmed by the tariff either through reduced domestic demand for their products or reduced international demand caused by the reduction in trade a tariff brings. My reading of Hazlitt was that wages in the protected sector would rise (obviously) at the expense of wages in all other areas and general living standards. All we can say about the impact of the tariff on net is that because we’re reducing the division of labor and specialization we’d expect a negative net result.

Of course that’s what Hazlitt is saying. But both Jake and Hazlitt are incorrect, because the domestic division of labor is not being reduced, it is being expanded. Jake didn’t even address the point I made about higher wages in the new industry necessarily driving average wages higher. Even if we accept Hazlitt’s incorrect assumptions about jobs being lost, he is simply incoherent on the issue. If 50k sweater jobs replace 50k non-sweater jobs and the new sweater jobs have higher wages than the jobs they replace, average wages will obviously rise.

4. It is simply false to claim that “tariffs reduce wages”…. Even if he was correct and 50,000 jobs in the sweater industry were exchanged for 50,000 jobs outside it, the order in which those jobs would necessarily be gained and lost means that wages would go up.

But I think there would be a reduction in other industries as I discuss above. As well as a increase in the cost of living, which translates into a reduction in real wages.

Jake thinks wrong, as I show above. Moreover, he erroneously concludes that a second order effect must outweigh a first order effect.

5. The fact that American sweater manufacturing is less efficient than English sweater manufacturing does not mean that it is less efficient than any other American industry.

If it were true that American sweater manufacturing could be more efficient than alternative uses of capital within the US (even given still more efficient international production) then why would the tariff be needed? Wouldn’t entrepreneurs freely choose to divert capital from the less efficient US industries into sweater manufacturing if this were the case?

Because the relevant comparison is between the various efficiencies between the sweater-making industries and not between the efficiencies of the various domestic industries. It’s also useful to remember that entrepreneurs seldom operate outside their areas of expertise. It doesn’t matter how much more profitable it might be to make wireless tablets than tablecloths, as the average textile manufacturer is not going to start trying to compete with Apple simply because the profit margin is better in the tablet industry.

6. There is no paradox. Hazlitt’s assertion that a tariff “must” reduce real wages is simply incorrect and he repeats his error about assuming that production in the sweater industry will be less efficient than in other domestic industries on the basis of its inefficiency in comparison with English sweater manufacturing.”

Hazltt doesn’t say there’s a paradox, he says: “Only minds corrupted by generations of misleading propaganda can regard this conclusion as paradoxical.”

He DOES say that the tariff will divert resources into less productive ends and there I think he is right regardless of your assertion to the contrary. As I said in response to 5. If more efficient/productive uses of capital were available we wouldn’t need a tariff to get capital moving towards those uses, it’d happen spontaneously. This is (obviously) not to say that conditions under a free-market represent the perfect allocation of resources, but that it does continuously trend in that direction and that there is no alternative source of information on which one can argue that the market outcome is, in fact, sub optimal. In other words, if the market says the best use of resources is to import British sweaters and export grains, cars and technology then that may not be the absolute optimum perfect approach, but it is the best approach anyone has at that point been able to find, and those who say they know a better way, but require coercion and taxation to get there, are probably self-serving.

Very well, I accept that I should have simply pointed out that there is no paradox and no one actually believes there is a paradox. Hazlitt has erected a straw man. But Jake is still wrong as the spontaneous movement of capital he posits isn’t going to happen because the fact that American sweater-making might be more efficient than American widget-assembling is irrelevant so long as American sweaters can’t effectively compete on price with imported English sweaters. He is merely repeating his earlier error in point 5. Moreover, he doesn’t even attempt to defend Hazlitt’s erroneous statement that a tariff must reduce real wages.

As for the accusation that anyone who doubts that the international free market is the best approach anyone has been able to find is “probably self-serving”, that is simply an invalid ad hominem argument that is irrelevant, and in my case, incorrect. I absolutely benefit from the present US free trade regime and am nevertheless presenting an intellectual case that would be to my material detriment if it were to be adopted as US trade policy. As always, the facts are what they are and the truth is what it is regardless of whatever anyone happens to believe them to be. While there are many genuine reasons to be deeply concerned about the ability of any government to implement restrictions on free trade in a manner that is a net benefit to the entire nation, this does not change the fact that the foundations of international free trade ideology are riddled with flawed assumptions and false logic.

Fukushima in Nebraska?

Don’t look at me for any explanations. I don’t know anything about it, someone just shot me a link about a reported news blackout concerning reported flood-related problems at a nuclear plant in Nebraska earlier this month.

A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.

According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a “no-fly ban” over the area.

Given the way in which the Japanese government and nuclear agency blatantly and unapologetically lied about the full extent of the damage to the Fukushima reactors, I tend to doubt the US government is going to be any more inclined to give out accurate information of what happened or did not happen at Fort Calhoun. But at least we can safely assume that whatever the problems might actually be, they are less catastrophic than what happened in Japan unless Nebraska also experienced an earthquake and subsequent tidal wave.