A Comparison of Defense and Welfare Spending in the United States and the United Kingdom, 1946-1976

One of the most important and absorbing questions of our time is whether governments should extend or retrench their efforts toward assisting people who do not seem to be able to make it on their own. Those who believe that governments should expand their programs to help the needy argue that a compassionate and affluent society has both the ability and the responsibility to do so; those who believe that governments have already pushed too far and too fast argue that the advance of the welfare state must be halted. Closely related to this basic disagreement is the question whether society must sacrifice in one area in order to build in another, that is whether one government program must come at the expense of another. Those who argue that governments should do more for their less fortunate people tend to believe that high levels of defense spending are a hindrance to expanding welfare programs. Conversely, those who believe defense needs are under funded generally feel that welfare expenditures are a limitation on national security

A Comparison of Defense and Welfare Spending in the United States and the United Kingdom, 1946-1976

One of the most important and absorbing questions of our time is whether governments should extend or retrench their efforts toward assisting people who do not seem to be able to make it on their own. Those who believe that governments should expand their programs to help the needy argue that a compassionate and affluent society has both the ability and the responsibility to do so; those who believe that governments have already pushed too far and too fast argue that the advance of the welfare state must be halted. Closely related to this basic disagreement is the question whether society must sacrifice in one area in order to build in another, that is whether one government program must come at the expense of another. Those who argue that governments should do more for their less fortunate people tend to believe that high levels of defense spending are a hindrance to expanding welfare programs. Conversely, those who believe defense needs are under funded generally feel that welfare expenditures are a limitation on national security. This essay focuses on this warfare-welfare dichotomy by measuring and comparing warfare and welfare expenditures over an extended period of time in two countries: The United States and the United Kingdom. The main object of this essay is to show the long-term trends of warfare and welfare spending in these two countries in order to determine 1) whether either or both are rising or falling, 2) whether welfare expenditures are inversely related to defense expenditures, and 3) whether the welfare-warfare experience in a foreign country comparable with the United States can offer important insights into our present predicaments and help us anticipate certain problems we might face in the future. The United Kingdom was chosen for comparison with the United States because its defense policies and expenditures have closely paralleled ours for the past 30 years and because American welfare expenditures have tended, usually with a lag of about 20 years, to follow those of Great Britain more than any other country. England is, moreover, our Mother Country in more ways than one, and Americans have readily related to such comparisons in the past. The base year 1946 was selected because United Kingdom welfare expenditures are available in a complete series only since that date and yet 30 years is a sufficient time frame to measure both long and short term trends

Business Employment Dynamics: Tabulations by Employer Size

The gross job gains and gross job loss statistics from the BLS Business Employment Dynamics (BED) program measure the large gross job flows that underlie the quarterly net change in employment. In the fourth quarter of 2004, employment grew by 869,000 jobs. This growth is the sum of 8.1 million gross job gains from opening and expanding establishments, and 7.2 million gross job losses from contracting and closing establishments. The new BED data have captured the attention of economists and policymakers across the country, and these data are becoming a major contributor to our understanding of employment growth and business cycles in the U.S. economy. Following the initial release of the BED data in September 2003, the BED data series expanded in May 2004 with the release of industry statistics. The BLS then began work on tabulations by size class. The production of size-class statistics is a complex task involving several economic and statistical issues. Although it is trivial to classify a business into a size class in any given quarter, it is difficult to classify a business into a size class for a longitudinal analysis of employment growth. Several different classifications exist, and many of these possible classifications have appealing theoretical and statistical properties. Furthermore, these alternative classification methodologies result in sharply different portraits of employment growth by size class. In this article, we discuss the alternative statistical methodologies that the BLS considered for creating size class tabulations from the Business Employment Dynamics data. Our primary focus is on four methodologies: quarterly base-sizing, annual base-sizing, mean-sizing, and dynamic-sizing. We discuss the evaluation criteria that BLS considered for choosing its official size class methodology.gross job gains; gross job losses; business employment dynamics; size-class statistics; dynamic-sizing

Weathering rate, nutrient supply, and denudation in forested watersheds, southwestern Idaho batholith

Biogeochemical data from four small watersheds in the Silver Creek study area, southwestern Idaho, provide the basis for: 1. An estimate of chemical and erosional denudation rates (CD and ED), 2. an estimate of plagioclase weathering rate, 3. a rational basis for estimating the rate of nutrient supply to soil from mineral weathering, and 4. an evaluation of the impact of clearcutting on the nutrient budget in a coniferous forest. The watersheds are located in the Idaho batholith, and soils are formed on coarse-textured quartz monzonite parent material, are shallow, and exhibit minimal profile development. Multi-aged stands of ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir comprise the overstory. Contemporary denudation rates for four watersheds average 235 kg ha⁻¹ y⁻¹, equivalent to 8.9 mm per 10³ years. Modal CD rates slightly exceed ED rates, although mean ED exceeded CD over the 11-year period of study. Percent rock out cropping in the watersheds is positively correlated and volume of soil accumulated is negatively correlated with the probability that ED exceeds CD in any given year. Chemical weathering of plagioclase averages 267 kg ha⁻¹ y⁻¹. Preferential weathering of anorthite results in its selective depletion relative to albite based on net export of Na and Ca in streams. This is supported by data indicating relative enrichment of albite in the soil compared to fresh rock. Rates of cations released during chemical weathering exceed amounts retained in the ecosystem. The amounts retained represent a realistic estimate of potential supply rate from weathering. Plant uptake and biomass increment provides the largest sink for nutrients released from weathering, thus time-variant growth dynamics strongly influence nutrient supply rates. Cations retained on new exchange sites formed during clay formation from weathering provide a sink for less than 2 percent of the cations retained. Under present stand conditions in Silver Creek, approximately half the K, Ca, and Mg released from weathering is retained in the ecosystem. Clearcut logging and slash burning caused small, but statistically significant increases in dissolved N losses of approximately ten times natural rates over a 4-year period. Dissolved transport of other elements was not increased. Small increases in sediment transport of K, Ca, Mg, N, S, and P occurred 3 years following harvest. Large losses resulting from bole removal ranged from 4 percent of total ecosystem N to 21 percent of available K. Rates of replacement from precipita tion, primary mineral weathering, and N₂ fixation are sufficient to restore the ecosystem to the nutrient status prior to harvest in 50 years

Lake Characteristics Influencing Spawning Success of Muskellunge in Northern Wisconsin Lakes

We determined the physical, chemical, biological, and land use characteristics that distinguish northern Wisconsin lakes with self‐sustaining populations of muskellunge Esox masquinongy from lakes where stocking is required to maintain populations. Lakes that supported self‐sustaining muskellunge populations were characterized by fewer shoreline alterations and by spawning habitats with softer, organic‐nitrogen‐rich sediments. Lakes that required stocking had extensively developed shorelines. The direction of water level change during the spawning period, percentage of spawning area sediment covered by woody debris, number of deadfall trees per kilometer of shoreline, and percentage of shoreline that was totally developed were the most important variables for classifying the level of muskellunge reproduction a lake could support. A linear discriminant function correctly classified 83% of the lakes with self‐sustaining muskellunge populations and 89% of the lakes requiring stocking to sustain or enhance muskellunge populations. Lake managers wishing to use muskellunge stocking programs to reestablish self‐sustaining populations should critically review each candidate lake by considering our model and that of Dombeck et al. (1986).Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141695/1/nafm0834.pd

Identification of Brush Species and Herbicide Effect Assessment in Southern Texas Using an Unoccupied Aerial System (UAS)

Cultivation and grazing since the mid-nineteenth century in Texas has caused dramatic changes in grassland vegetation. Among these changes is the encroachment of native and introduced brush species. The distribution and quantity of brush can affect livestock production and water holding capacity of soil. Still, at the same time, brush can improve carbon sequestration and enhance agritourism and real estate value. The accurate identification of brush species and their distribution over large land tracts are important in developing brush management plans which may include herbicide application decisions. Near-real-time imaging and analyses of brush using an Unoccupied Aerial System (UAS) is a powerful tool to achieve such tasks. The use of multispectral imagery collected by a UAS to estimate the efficacy of herbicide treatment on noxious brush has not been evaluated previously. There has been no previous comparison of band combinations and pixel- and object-based methods to determine the best methodology for discrimination and classification of noxious brush species with Random Forest (RF) classification. In this study, two rangelands in southern Texas with encroachment of huisache (Vachellia farnesianna [L.] Wight & Arn.) and honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa Torr. var. glandulosa) were studied. Two study sites were flown with an eBee X fixed-wing to collect UAS images with four bands (Green, Red, Red-Edge, and Near-infrared) and ground truth data points pre- and post-herbicide application to study the herbicide effect on brush. Post-herbicide data were collected one year after herbicide application. Pixel-based and object-based RF classifications were used to identify brush in orthomosaic images generated from UAS images. The classification had an overall accuracy in the range 83–96%, and object-based classification had better results than pixel-based classification since object-based classification had the highest overall accuracy in both sites at 96%. The UAS image was useful for assessing herbicide efficacy by calculating canopy change after herbicide treatment. Different effects of herbicides and application rates on brush defoliation were measured by comparing canopy change in herbicide treatment zones. UAS-derived multispectral imagery can be used to identify brush species in rangelands and aid in objectively assessing the herbicide effect on brush encroachment

Influenza surveillance among children with pneumonia admitted to a district hospital in coastal Kenya, 2007-2010

Background: Influenza data gaps in sub-Saharan Africa include incidence, case fatality, seasonal patterns, and associations with prevalent disorders. Methods: Nasopharyngeal samples from children aged <12 years who were admitted to Kilifi District Hospital during 2007–2010 with severe or very severe pneumonia and resided in the local demographic surveillance system were screened for influenza A, B, and C viruses by molecular methods. Outpatient children provided comparative data. Results: Of 2002 admissions, influenza A virus infection was diagnosed in 3.5% (71), influenza B virus infection, in 0.9% (19); and influenza C virus infection, in 0.8% (11 of 1404 tested). Four patients with influenza died. Among outpatients, 13 of 331 (3.9%) with acute respiratory infection and 1 of 196 without acute respiratory infection were influenza positive. The annual incidence of severe or very severe pneumonia, of influenza (any type), and of influenza A, was 1321, 60, and 43 cases per 100 000 <5 years of age, respectively. Peak occurrence was in quarters 3–4 each year, and approximately 50% of cases involved infants: temporal association with bacteremia was absent. Hypoxia was more frequent among pneumonia cases involving influenza (odds ratio, 1.78; 95% confidence interval, 1.04–1.96). Influenza A virus subtypes were seasonal H3N2 (57%), seasonal H1N1 (12%), and 2009 pandemic H1N1 (7%). Conclusions: The burden of influenza was small during 2007–2010 in this pediatric hospital in Kenya. Influenza A virus subtype H3N2 predominated, and 2009 pandemic influenza A virus subtype H1N1 had little impact

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Streambank Stabilization Techniques for Reducing Bank Erosion on the Upper Clark Fork River, Western Montana

Lateral channel movement on the upper Clark Fork River of western Montana has resulted in loss of valuable agricultural land and delivery of sediment and mine tailings into the river. In spring 1996, we initiated a study to evaluate the effectiveness of streambank stabilization treatments to reduce the potential for bank erosion. The treatments implemented in this study focus on the use of native riparian vegetation to stabilize banks instead of traditional hard treatments such as rip rap. This study examines the effectiveness of 21 different bank stabilization treatment combinations for reducing bank erosion on a large river system. The treatments incorporate coir (coconut husk) fabric, conifer revetments, log barbs, rock barbs, rock toe stabilization, coir fascines, willow (Salix spp.) and red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) fascines, willow cuttings, containerized seedlings, mature shrub transplants and rock rip rap. Treatments were installed in fall 1996, spring and summer 1997, and fall 1998 on 24 reaches totaling 1,740 m (5,708 ft) in length. Typical sites are on the actively-eroding, concave side of channel meanders and consist of 5-ft. tall, nearly-vertical banks. 140 permanently-monumented cross sections have been monitored before construction and after the construction for all treatments, after ice events in 1997 and 1998 for treatments established at that time, and after peak flow events in 1997 and 1998. A total of 100 bank surface profiles have been monitored by total station and changes in streambank surface volume have been calculated. Survival rates of various vegetative treatments were also monitored, and costs of construction for each individual treatment were calculated from detailed monitoring of construction activities.The 1996-97 and 1997-1998 bankfull discharge ice event caused little erosion. However, the 1997 flood event, rare in its volume and duration, caused substantial erosion of treatment and control banks. 1997 and 1998 flood-caused erosion rates varied between treatments. First year survival was high for mature transplants (100%), containerized seedlings (90%), and vertically-planted willow cuttings (88%). Second year survival was also high for mature transplants and constainerized seedlings, but survival rates dropped drammatically in the second year for vertical willow stakes. Cost of various treatment implementation ranged widely from a low of $5.58/ft to a high of$82.29/ft