The United States Postal Service is losing money at an alarming rate — an estimated $14 billion next year.  As a “semi-independent federal agency,” the USPS is mandated to be “revenue-neutral”, meaning it must pay for its own operation without additional taxpayer support.  Right now they’re failing their mandate, to the tune of approximately $125 per household per year.

The Good Old Days

The postal service used to be a surprisingly profitable enterprise for Uncle Sam.  In fact, during the first few years of the new millennium, the USPS could be counted on to add a billion dollars a year to the bottom line.  A profitable government agency?  Sounds to good to be true, but it was reality not even that long ago.

But of course people were pissed off about the cost of stamps and all that.  Government loses money and they’re incompetent and inefficient.  Government makes money and they’re greedy, monopolistic and corrupt.

They can’t win.

What Happened?

The postal service is suffering from both high legacy costs, from union-guaranteed retiree benefits, and over-capacity.  In many ways, the situation is similar to how the domestic auto industry looked a few years ago.  The car companies were saddled with a heavy burden of retiree pension and healthcare costs, and had the capacity to produce nearly double the vehicles the market was ready to consume. The USPS has similar legacy obligations and an impressive but underutilized delivery network.

And like the car industry, competition certainly played a role.  The domestics used to lament they were getting beaten by the Europeans at the top of the market and by the Japanese and Koreans at the bottom.  Services like FedEx and UPS are beating the Postal Service at the top of the market, and email and texting are beating them from the bottom.

Fixed legacy costs aside, the system is built to handle a volume of mail it will never see again.  In terms of the raw volume of mail delivered, the USPS peaked around 2005, when it delivered roughly 210 billion pieces of mail.

Projections place future demand somewhere in the ballpark of 150 billion.

How Much Should a Stamp Cost?

Let’s pretend for a moment that all 165 billion pieces of mail (we’re not down to 150 billion just yet) were simple letters.  Stamps cost $0.44.

To make up the projected $14 billion shortfall, how much would the USPS have to charge? Surprisingly, it would only take a $0.09 increase per piece of mail.  That would make stamps $0.53.  Not so bad right?

(This of course falsely assumes demand remains static in the face of rising prices, and does not factor in externalities like the pollution caused by running the world’s largest vehicle fleet.)

The Post Office Plan

In response to the sharply lower demand for their service, the Postal Service has announced plans to cut $20 billion in costs by 2015.  The plan includes:

• Closing more than 3,700 post offices
• Closing 250 mail processing centers
• Slowing delivery of first class mail
• Stopping Saturday delivery
• Eliminating up to 120,000 jobs

Of course, these painful but necessary measures have been roundly criticized by nostalgic citizens, certain businesses, and even members of Congress.  Like I said, they can’t win.

If I Was in Charge?

What would I do if I was in charge?  Probably all of the above, plus:

• Charge more.
• Charge even more for unsolicited junk mail.  In the Internet world, we have strict federal CAN-SPAM regulation for email, and email isn’t even made out of trees.
• Simplify the menu.  With the dozens of options and add-ons, it’s really confusing.  For packages, there should be two choices: Slow or Fast.  Pick one.
• Hire people who want to work there.  Every post office I go to, with the notable exception of Zephyr Cove, is a miserable experience.  You run the largest logistics operation on the planet; it’s very cool.  Yet most postal workers I encounter seem like they hate their lives and their jobs.
• Connect with ecommerce.  The real winner of online shopping was UPS, but it could have been you.  Aggressively go after their business.  Strike up deals with big ecommerce sites and eBay.
• For certain types of mail, I would slow delivery even further.  Maybe I only delivery Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Or maybe just Wednesdays.  I mean if someone is sending something via “snail mail” how urgent can it be?  I could probably check the mailbox once a month (or less) without any dramatic decline in my quality of life.  And I imagine I’m not alone.

Should the USPS be Completely Privatized?

It probably will be eventually, but there’s something idealistically democratic in the fact it costs the same to mail a letter across the street as it does to the middle-of-nowhere-North-Dakota.  I kind of like that.

Now is it worth $125 a year to me?  Definitely not, so let’s make sure they get back to breaking even soon.

-Nick

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Yesterday the Occupy Wall Street attempted to shut down several west coast ports, including Oakland, Portland, and Seattle.

Why?  Because they think it will somehow hurt Goldman Sachs, which owns a minority stake in a shipping company.

I can appreciate the sentiment, because we all want to stick it to Goldman, but the logic is flawed on several counts.

First, what doesn’t get shipped today will get shipped tomorrow.  You might delay a tiny fraction of cash flows for a small subsidiary company of the evil empire, but you’re not going to bring capitalism to its knees.  Remember the idiotic campaign a couple years ago to not buy gas on a certain day?  Same idea.

Second, the small amount of pain you might inflict on Goldman (if any), comes with tremendous collateral damage to real American workers — the truck drivers and longshoremen losing wages as a result of your protest.  And what about the wholesalers, distributors, retailer workers, store owners, delivery drivers, shelf-stockers, and small-business men and women who were depending on those shipments. Who’s being greedy now?

What does Occupy hope to accomplish by throwing a stick in the cogs of commerce?

Like it or not, shipping and trade creates a ton of jobs.  Even if you think corporations are evil, they still account for the majority of employment in this country.  Employment is good, right?

Not quite sure how employment can be good and desirable, yet employers are bad.

By definition, ports create value.  Otherwise they wouldn’t exist. And the beautiful thing is if you don’t want to buy what’s in those containers, you have the freedom not to.

I’m sickened by the images of protesters getting beaten and pepper-sprayed by police.  We all are.

But let’s channel that energy into something productive.  Create something of value — a viable alternative, a political platform people can get behind — instead of trying to destroy the value others have created.

-Nick

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Although the Occupy Wall Street movement hasn’t made any official statements on taxes, I think it’s pretty safe to assume they would support higher tax levels on the rich.

With the huge tax drama playing out in Congress, it seems inconceivable that the top federal income tax bracket was 50% as recently as 1980.  And in the “good old days” of the 1950s? Over 90%.  Hard to believe, but after a certain level of income, $9 out of every $10 you earned would go to Uncle Sam.  And so the argument goes, if we want to encourage hard work, why “punish” top earners with such a heavy tax burden?

But that was 90% — a far cry from the not-even-40% proposal that caused Fox News to make like the world was ending.

I believe this fearmongering is pure silliness if not downright irresponsible.  Here’s why:

Nobody likes higher taxes, but there’s no way a 4 percentage point increase in the highest marginal tax rate induces large-scale economic catastrophe.

Let’s say I’m a small business owner (Full disclosure: I am) who wants to grow my business above and beyond the $250,000 mark.  Every $100 after tax I earn over that today would net me $96 if the tax rate was raised tomorrow.  I’m still $96 better off than I was!

Obviously there is a point of diminishing returns, but I think it’s crazy to say business will suddenly grind to a halt if we ask high earners to pay a small percentage more.

Side Note: this ignores non-financial motivation that I would argue is really important too.  Intrinsic motivators like independence, mastery, building something valuable, or simply helping people clearly play a role in business decisions.  Consider Norway, where taxes are sky high, yet they have more entrepreneurs per capita than we do.  An attractive tax environment can encourage business growth, but let’s not pretend it’s the  only factor.

Class Warfare?

Occupy Wall Street claims to represent the bottom 99% of America, who they feel are grossly underrepresented.  Here’s the thing: they top 1% definitely have it good, as the data will attest, but they only have 1% of the votes.  If your representative is catering too much to the elite at the expense of the 99%, it seems like it would be pretty easy to find majority support to fire him.

Are the rich paying their “fair share”? Are the poor?

• The top 1% of tax payers pay 38% of all federal income tax.
• The top 10% account for 70% of all income tax receipts.
• The bottom 47% pay no federal income tax.

Shows all taxes, incl. federal, state, local, sales, property, etc.

On the flip side of the tax debate is how the money gets used.  According to a recent poll, Americans believe $0.51 of every tax dollar is wasted.  Congress doesn’t just have an ugly budget problem, they have a huge perception problem.  Perception is reality, and the perception is that they are incredibly poor stewards of our hard-earned dollars.

Occupy Wall Street has some legitimate beef, but they have a perception problem too.  Even as they claim to be the 99%, they’re being viewed as an ultra-liberal fringe group.  Let’s be real: most of the 99% are too busy working to go camp out and protest.

Will Occupy Wall Street be dismissed as a bunch of vocal hippies with no lasting influence on the national discourse?  Or will they list some concrete goals and gain more centrist support?

Homer’s flat tax proposal:

The debt crisis explained, with a healthy dose of f-bombs:

-Nick

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Income Inequality:

Occupy Wall Street thinks the American middle class is disappearing.  And they’re right.

Pay for top executives has risen 7 times faster than that of their workers.

That’s great if you’re the CEO, but most of us aren’t.  In fact, after adjusting for inflation, real household incomes are down 10% over the last 10 years.

In defense of CEOs, running a huge corporation is far more complex today than it ever has been in the past.  Think about the pace of change, globalization, emerging technologies, the speed of competition.  A good CEO is worth more today than ever before.

Also, no company exists in a vacuum.  It’s each company’s goal to hire the best talent out there for the best price.  By definition, CEOs aren’t overpaid; they’re paid exactly what the market has decided they’re worth.

What’s bad about income inequality?

Too much income inequality is the stuff revolutions are made of.  Seriously.  Remember “let them eat cake”?  It didn’t end well for the people with the cake.

What’s good about income inequality?

A certain amount of income inequality is important.  There’s a sweet spot where innovators and hard workers are rewarded and lazy idiots who make poor choices aren’t.  The trick is everyone has a different idea of what level is best, and not surprisingly, your income level might influence your opinion.

Income equality is typically manipulated on a macro level with limits to employee compensation (which is dumb — let companies pay their people what they’re worth) and “progressive” taxes, which I’ll discuss tomorrow.

-Nick

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Why Occupy Wall Street?

Wall Street is symbolic of our larger economy.  That’s why news tickers show the minute by minute movement of the Dow.

Despite providing mechanisms for growing companies to raise money with IPOs and hire more employees, Wall Street is easy to hate.

Despite giving average citizens an opportunity to earn an average 10% annual return for the past 100 years, Wall Street is easy to hate.  Why?

Here’s my theory: It’s far away (unless you’re in NYC), it deals with volumes of money unfathomable to normal people, and it’s incredibly complex.  Far too complex for any regulator to regulate.  On top of that, Wall Street firms nearly collapsed the economy and were deemed “Too Big to Fail”, receiving billions in bailout money with no oversight or recourse.  Read The Big Short.

One of the biggest non-bailout complaints about Wall Street is over their obsession with short-term profits, seemingly at the expense of long-term viability.  Although this strategy seems to work out for the investors over the long run, if you don’t like it you can put your money elsewhere.  My initial returns with peer-to-peer lending at Prosper.com are “beating the Street.”

Wall Street is a market, subject to the same laws as every other market.  If enough people are pissed off enough to stop doing business with them, they’ll have no choice but to change.  Which leads me to corporate greed.

Corporate “Greed”

I put “greed” in quotation marks.  Are corporations inherently greedy?  Am I greedy to want a larger percentage of online shoe sales to flow through ShoeSniper.com, even though I can buy groceries and pay my bills today?

Corporate profits have rebounded sharply from the valley of the recession, yet high unemployment persists.  This means that companies have found ways to operate more efficiently.  They’re lean and mean.  Does that make them greedy?  I find it interesting we demand lean operation of our government, but vilify corporations for putting it into action.

Corporations exist to serve customers.  Without customers, they make no money, and cease to exist.  And then everybody gets laid off — not a good situation.  If you think certain corporations are too greedy, don’t do business with them.  Maybe they’ll change their practices or maybe they won’t miss you at all.  But again, if enough customers hit the road, they’ll have no choice but to care.

Calvin explains corporations. (Click to expand)

What does Occupy Wall Street want to see happen to address perceived corporate greed?  Should companies be forced to hire more people even if they don’t need them?

What makes Goldman greedy and Apple benevolent?  One sells shiny products you can touch and the other sells a complex host of financial services, but I assure you both firms are out to make as much money as they can.

-Nick

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Occupy Wall Street, you have our attention.  Now what?

I’ve been closely following the month-old Occupy Wall Street movement.  If you haven’t heard about it, a group of mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore demonstrators decided to camp out in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan to express their disgust with the current state of political and economic affairs in this country.

True story.

Without any central leadership, Occupy Wall Street has inspired related protests and demonstrations all across the country.  Will this group become a major national influence like the Tea Party, or will their lack of a clear message usher them quietly from the spotlight?

So what’s all the fuss about?  Where the Tea Party had a very clear and concise message that was easy to get behind (Government is inefficient, expensive, and ineffective, and we’d be better off with less of it), it’s hard to tell what exactly Occupy stands for.

We know they are against corporate “greed”, they’re pissed off about high-unemployment, they’re sick of politicians catering to the super-wealthy, they’re anti-war, and they’re upset about the growing income inequality in America.  And, in one point of agreement with the Tea Party, they’re vehemently opposed to the bailout money given Wall Street with zero accountability.

But it’s one thing to be pissed off — even rightfully so — and an entirely different thing to offer up viable solutions that enumerate exactly what you’d propose to do differently.  Occupy Wall Street has yet to put forward any concrete “demands” or official policy requests.

My brother shared some data the other day that explains why the group is so upset. This week we’ll explore some of the numbers and what’s behind them.

Unemployment

With 26 million Americans unemployed (9%) or underemployed (another 8%), this is a huge issue.  If I’m running for office, I would speak to these people because they probably have some extra time on their hands to go out and vote.  Our corporations (good for them) have figured out how to make money with less people.  Our school system has left people saddled with debt and poorly equipped to handle the demands of our new service economy.

Endemic high unemployment is a trademark of failed economic policy, but I’m not ready to say our current 3-year spike qualifies us a failed state just yet.  Recessions come and go and even though this is a stubborn one, I believe it too will pass.  The difference is this one was almost entirely caused by Wall Street’s manipulation of complex financial instruments, and they got off better than scot-free.  Should you be angry?  Absolutely, it’s sickening.  But it’s over; we’re not getting our money back.

Politicians all have their own plans to “create jobs”, but historically government jobs programs have had lackluster success.  Instead they should focus on building a business environment that is competitive on the global stage, investing in promising new technology, and encouraging smart regulatory and growth strategies.

Yes, in some ways, the system is rigged against you.  But it’s no ones’ “fault” you’re unemployed; not Wall Street’s, not Obama’s, not Bush’s.  No one owes you a job; you have to earn it.  Take some personal responsibility.

One thing’s for certain: you’re not going to find a job playing the victim and camping out in the financial district.  Learn what skills are in demand.  Not everyone gets to work their dream job, but companies will always need workers.  Or, create your own opportunities or freelance.

You can bitch and moan (and again, even rightfully so), but that doesn’t change the past or the near-term reality.  Defeatist?  Yeah probably.

So what is Occupy Wall Street’s answer to the problem of high unemployment?  Who knows?  Unemployment is such a complex macroeconomic figure, no amount of Occupation (pun intended) is going to fix it overnight.  If someone had the magic bullet for long term, uninterrupted job growth I imagine they’d be pretty popular.

-Nick

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I’m flattered, really I am.  But maybe we could make some sort of financial arrangement?

On four occasions this year, CNN has published similar content right after I did.  They should start citing my site as a source so I can say “as featured on CNN.”

1st Example – Judgment Day May 21st

My post: Judgment Day May 21st (posted on March 18th)

Their post: Billboard Battle Over Judgment Day (posted April 15th)

This one’s not super-convincing because it was a big news story and lots of people were talking about it.  And there was a month in between.

2nd Example – People Quitting Facebook

My post: An Experiment: A Week Without Facebook (posted June 13th)

Their post: Facebook Loses Millions of Users (posted June 14th)

Not exactly the same content but a strange coincidence.

3rd Example – SkyMall

My post: 10 Best SkyMall Products (posted February 11th)

Their post: SkyMall Fascinates, Entertains Travelers (also posted February 11th)

The same day!

4th Example – Southwest

My post: Why Southwest Business Select is a Ripoff (posted January 7th, but written on January 5th)

Their post: Southwest’s Rewards Makeover “Very Big” (posted January 6th)

OK so they released their post to the public first, but mine was written before that.  My article makes no mention of the new Rapid Rewards point system, but they go out of their way to explain how the new system benefits Business Select customers.

UPDATE Example #5 – The Cost of College

My post: Is College Worth It? (posted June 23rd)

Their post: My Degree Isn’t Worth the Debt (posted June 24th)

Come on!  And really, the picture of you in the John Deere t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, holding up a fish was the most professional photo you could find to send to CNN — for an article on how you’re not making as much money as you hoped?

-Nick

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Yes.

There has been a lot of discussion lately on the rising cost of tuition and the piles of student debt that is crushing recent graduates, but the fact remains higher education is an excellent investment.

It will remain so until employers stop valuing college degrees.  And I don’t see that happening anytime soon.  You can watch as many Khan Academy videos as you like, but no employer will treat that education — however excellent it may be — as the equivalent of a 4-year degree (at least yet).

Some facts:

• The average student debt is $24,000.
• Over a lifetime, the average college graduate with a bachelor’s degree will earn nearly $1 million more than their counterparts with only a high school education.
• The unemployment rate among college graduates is 4.5%, which compares very favorably to high school graduates (9.7%) and those with no high school diploma (14.6%).

I guarantee you Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are the exceptions to the rule.  If you want to work for a living, college is clearly the way to go.

Now is your high-priced liberal arts education worth it?  Probably not.  You can hang out in the Quad discussing gender roles in the 12th century French feudal system until the cows come home, but unless your dream job involves working at Medieval Times, it may not be the best use of your time or tuition dollars.

In the marketplace for workers, employers value education.  But more than that, they value skills.  They’re asking, “How will this candidate help my company?”  For many positions, a college degree is simply part of the screening process.  But it’s only the price of entry; it may get you in the door but after that you’re on your own.

Every now and then you hear stories about people suing their schools because they couldn’t find a job.  Take a little personal responsibility.  It’s not the school’s fault employers don’t see you as a valuable worker.  Imagine how much less valuable you’d be without your education (see numbers above).  And now you’ll forever be known as the person who sued their school, and who’s going to want to hire that baggage?

To be sure, the education system is broken.  The idea of an ivy-walled university as a repository for knowledge is 1000 years old.  The world is a very different place but education is making changes as the market forces it to. (A little too slowly for some.)

Tuition hikes are here to stay, as long as people keep paying.  It’s supply and demand.  Instead of saying education is overpriced today, maybe it was just under-priced before, relative to it’s value in society.  As the price of school draws closer to it’s value and perhaps beyond, that’s when you’ll see sweeping changes in both education and company’s hiring preferences.

-Nick

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I was at softball when the news broke, and I didn’t hear about it until I got home.  Not on the TV or any news site, but from Facebook, which is where I first hear about most breaking news these days.

Originally this was going to be a post collecting my favorite one-liners about bin Laden’s death, including:

• “The girl married her Prince. The bad guy is dead. It’s a real Disney weekend here on earth.”
• “Bin Laden: International Hide and Seek Champ, 2001-2011.”
• “I just hope Osama didn’t make any Horcruxes.”
• “Bin Laden: Hey, where are my 72 virgins? It smells like burning…”

And then I thought the jokes really weren’t that funny in light of the thousands of men, women, and children who have died because of this man and his organization.

So then I thought I might address all the people who are embarrassed by their fellow citizens celebrating bin Laden’s death.  To a certain extent I’m on board with the whole “eye for an eye leaves the whole blind” bit, but I’ve got to believe the world is better off with one less mass murderer.

You’re only kidding yourself if your initial reaction wasn’t somewhere between “good riddance” and “it’s about time.”  You don’t have to call it “justice,” or celebrate in the streets, but let’s not play these holier-than-though-turn-the-other-cheek games.  Here’s a guy who would kill you and your family and everyone you care about without a second thought.  You’re not going to sit there with a straight face and tell me you wish he was still alive to carry out more acts of terrorism.

But then I sent a note to my friend and former marketing assistant, Wasio, who lives in Pakistan, to get his thoughts on the news.  I found his response very interesting, and you can see how a simple change in geography impacts the reaction.

Hey Nick, It’s good to hear from you.

Certainly it is a big news, however the reaction was not as anticipated. Let me explain it as briefly as I can.

There were three broad categories of reactions.

Shocked: Finding Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad is as good as a criminal taking refuge in the White House. Abbottabad is close to Islamabad and the whole area is surrounded by military installations, structures, training grounds, intelligence network and 24 hours, 365 days surveillance both land and air. Finding Osama there, right in the middle of it, is a huge shocker. I guess about 15 to 20 % people are shocked at the news.

Celebration: A lot of people are celebrating this news. The newspapers as well as TV channels are claiming the end of evil and the beginning of solutions to all our terrorizing problems. But this is still a small faction comprising of Urbanites. I’ll put it up about 20% of total population.

Outrage: Most of the Pakistanis are outraged at this news. I say this because majority believes that Osama Bin Laden is already dead and Obama is just trying to claim the credit of killing him in order to get re-elected in the upcoming elections. Our assassinated leader, Benazir Bhutto, had claimed in an interview to CNN back in 2007 that Osama is already dead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TeYyHt3JZ4

Also, our military is network is quite sophisticated. Nothing goes around without their knowledge. They have full knowledge of who is where and practically know everyone in and around Islamabad. Majority of the outraged population believes that US has browbeaten Pakistan Army into conducting this night operation to claim some success after a decade of search, two countries attacked and billions of dollars spent that could have given a new life to US economy. The major points of outraged are as follows:

- Lack of photographic evidence

- Body thrown into sea instead of shown to media which is unlike previously caught Al-Qaeda members

- Osama caught living in an area for several months which is a military heaven; it is “Lal Masjid” (Red Mosque) episode all over again which is considered a rigged military episode by President Musharraf in order to remain in power longer.

- Foreign office said that Pakistani forces did not took part in the operation. If so, then how and why did they allowed US forces to conduct operation despite the raging anti-US feelings ever since Ramond Davies issue? (This is one of the primary reasons that is also connected with Drone Attacks).

- Osama being killed in Abbottabad, an area so close to Indian side of Kashmir, means India is now at a whole new level of media uproar claiming that Pakistan is a safe heaven for terrorists and been sending terrorists and arsons from Northern areas of Pakistan to destabilize Kashmir and hurt India. This episode is a diplomatic disaster for the slowly mending ties between the two nations.

- A lot of other conspiracy theories are circulating, all pointing at the possibility that Osama is already dead, this is a new drama of CIA that has gotten Pakistan military involved in an attempt to shame the military in the region as well as to its own people, claim success and get Obama re-elected.

After losing roughly 32,000 citizens in the past 8 years to terrorists attacks, bomb blasts, drone attacks and military operations; a consistently losing economy, a loss of nearly $70 billion to economy due to war on terror, puppet leaders who require approval from Washington to get elected in elections, repeatedly reinforced anti-US feelings and several other factors … I think it is natural for majority to feel anger at the episode. Even our military knows the mood and none of the spokesperson have given any statements about the whole episode.

Whether Osama really was there or not, in both cases Pakistan losses on both internal and diplomatic fronts.

If he was there, that means Pakistan is safe heaven for terrorists, that even the most wanted person in the world can hide right in the middle of the nation’s most military filled area and stay there for months and that such people can safely train more terrorists who then go to Kashmir, Waziristan and Afghanistan to conduct terrorist operations.

If he wasn’t there, that means Pakistani leadership as well as Army are slaves to US, that they can allow a drama to be conducted for US elections and easily compromise sovereignty to exchange for few dollars, that honor is for sale while inflation stays on 13%, fuel now costs 10 times that it did a decade back, electricity prices get raised after every 2 months, personal coffers of politicians are bursting while average Pakistan is barely surviving on money that is equivalent to 30 US cents a day. This just reinforces the whole Zionist theory all over again.

Sorry if this isn’t the response you are were expecting, but I am trying to put forward ground realities of what is happening out here. For the American citizens this is time for some long due celebrations, I am hoping that finally everyone can rise with a new vigor and revitalize the economy :)

See, a perspective from the other side of the world is far more interesting than more twitter jokes.  Wasio is a freelance writer and blogger in Karachi.

-Nick

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In the wake of the recent Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor trouble, there has been a lot of discussion about the future of nuclear energy and its safety.

I found a couple interesting graphics.  The first shows the relative radiation of different events:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/ (opens in a new window)  Fascinating really.  I had no idea.

The second shows the relative death rate per TWH of various energy sources:

For the same amount of energy produced, coal power kills 4000 times as many people as nuclear power.  In developing countries, coal is even deadlier.  In China, for example, air pollution from burning coal kills half a million people a year — a rate 18 times higher per TWH than in the US.  Data and further details here.

Nuclear is scary because it’s complex and hard to understand.  And we never hear about it until something goes wrong.  To be sure, the occasional meltdown is tragic and devastating, but these events make news for the same reason plane crashes do.  They’re spectacular and horrific and deadly — and extremely rare.

The data show that even with several well-publicized disasters, nuclear energy is among the cleanest and safest we have, yet contributes only a small fraction (5.9% in 2008) of the global energy supply.  Based on this, a cleaner and healthier future will have more nuclear power in it, not less.

-Nick

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