Minneapolis St. Paul Airport Satisfaction Up from 20 to 2.

This article expresses surprise that MSP airport jumped so high in a JD Power survey.


I was only surprised that it was so low last year! Here's why. I've been traveling through MSP between Asia and hometown Wisconsin for the better part of 20 years. MSP has many advantages:


1) It can handle winter weather. It has enough plows, de-icers, and the like and I've never once been delayed (unlike ORD, Denver)
2) It is right-sized for the traffic. I've never been in a holding pattern coming into MSP (unlike JFK, DTW, ORD, SFO, LAX)
3) It is among the best US immigration and customs entry point. Speedy, efficient, even for int'l visitors. It took me 30 minutes from the door opening on the flight from Tokyo to connecting gate. A similar experience in DTW on a relatively slow day took 90 minutes. Don't even get me started about JFK or LAX!
4) The terminal connections are easy to navigate, shops are friendly, food is even OK. You can even get a nice shoe-shine from some of the best shoe-shiners in the business!
5) Drive up and parking are relatively easy.
6) It is full of friendly Minnesotans!
7) You can get a drink on Christmas day (unlike Detroit)


Perhaps check-in and TSE security could perhaps be a bit better,  but you can probably say that about any airport these days.


So maybe you are all to hard on yourselves! I don't think I've been just lucky each trip (I'm not that lucky!). More likely, the criteria JD Power uses in their survey are not the true indicators of quality. Additionally there is probably too much variance in the test sample year on year.


But if you want to aim higher don't let me stop you! Singapore Changi Airport is actually far superior with Hong Kong Chep Lap Kok airport not far behind.

All You Need to Know about Climate Change

Nice summary linked above. Putting aside "Climategate," which basically requires a do-over of the underlying data, computer analysis, and theoretical underpinnings of climate science before policy recommendations affecting the planet can be re-tabled, here are the key points:

Climate Changes. Short term trends don't trump the long term trends. We need to be prepared.

We are in a 400 year warming trend, with the most recent dip being the 1860's mini-ice age. Since the industrial revolution started about the same time, this is part of the confusion why the misinformed think human activity is causing warming.

Human activity accounts for less than 0.3% of all green house gases. About 1/3 of that is CO2, with the rest being gases like methane, and various nitrous oxides. Eliminating all of it would have no impact on the other 99.7%, which is naturally occurring.

The best available data suggests that atmosphere is at a lower level of CO2 today than historical norms.

Data also suggest that temperatures were 2C higher in the Medieval Warm Period, peaking in about the year 1200. This warming period was a golden age for many cultures - end of the European Dark Ages, Peak of Angkor Wat, Pre-Columbian Americas, Mongols (though you might not think that if you were Chinese to the south!) and on and on - I'd guess due to better crop yields around the world.

Of course, we shouldn't pump more pollutants into the atmosphere. Pollutants are inefficient waste. Clean coal is better than unclean coal. Nuclear Power is better than that, so long as you can deal with nuclear waste. Solar, Tidal, Geothermal, Hydro-electric, micro-power generation all all becoming better and lower cost with technology each day. Efficiency is also good for business.

Any of the above does not require any global treaties, Co2 carbon credits, cap and trade, UN committees, IPCC, nor even regulation on whether to use mercury-laden light bulbs vs. incandescent ones. Free market profit incentives, including your own utility bill, have done more to drive down emissions than any committee. Even better gas mileage cars (with all those electronics that make it possible that everyone is so worried about now) are driven mainly by consumers looking to economize - not government mandated fleet mileage requirements.

Human-caused global arming hysteria and fear mongering is completely unnecessary. Any attempt to impose change that take away individual freedoms due to such hysteria is morally reprehensible. Worse than carrying out the death penalty on someone who has an iron-clad DNA-based alibi.

2-degrees of Separation from Wasilla

I met a woman from Wasilla in, of all places, a coin laundry at the hotel I'm staying in. She knows Sarah Palin personally. Her comment? Sarah is the genuine article. She is highly respected as former mayor and for her work as governor by a significant majority in Alaska. No surprise really, but interesting to hear it from someone with first hand knowledge.

Krauthammer Right Again

I can't really say it any better and won't even try!

There is no substitute for executive experience. Clinton and Reagan both had it.

I know from my own career that academic smarts aren't enough but that real experience with real people is a great teacher. You make a lot of mistakes along the way but that's life!

And if you can't do something yourself, find the people who can. It is guaranteed there is always someone better at something than you are.

Why are Health Care Costs more in Minnesota than in Hong Kong?

I am personally receiving some significant medical treatment and anecdotally I'm seeing costs in the USA as much as 20% to 3 times higher than for the very same thing in Hong Kong. To be fair, I am at one of the best medical centers in the USA and I came precisely to get the very best treatment. I don't begrudge the doctors a premium for that. But I also was in Hong Kong's very best hospitals being attended to by some of the leading doctors there as well, with the first doctor diagnosing my condition within 15 minutes, even though there are less than 5 such cases in HK per year and it is not his specialty.

But here are some comparisons from actual invoices:

Item USA Hong Kong

Lipid Blood Test $102 $64

Chest CT Scan w read $486 $450

Heart ECG $140 $80

Generalist Visit $200 $100

Specialist Consult $400-600 $200

Specialist report MRI   $794 $400

A full 7 day inpatient stay at one of HK's leading hospitals cost me about $8200. A similar experience in US, on an outpatient basis will cost about $2000 more plus my hotel/lodging costs. I'm also told that in Hong Kong costs can be even less at other clinics and hospitals.

There does seem to be more duplication and additional testing in the US. I had one consultation that will cost me about $400 that was perhaps not necessary as it didn't tell me anything that the other doctors didn't already have in hand.

Another difference is that when I ask the doctors in USA about the costs of the tests, they don't typically know. In Hong Kong all the doctors and nurses know the costs and will tell you up front.

Assuming about 15% of the US economy is health care ($2 Trillion), a productivity gain of just 10% would save something like $200 Billion a year. That would pay for all of ObamaCare with money left over and no tax increases for anyone. It seems to me that malpractice reform, incentives to lower costs of drugs, and perhaps even work to improve administrative efficiency at clinics and hospitals could achieve this. Market forces require the private sector to drive efficiency (think Lasik). Why not health care?

Here's the view from my room at the hospital in Hong Kong. Not bad!

The Road to Serfdom

Hayek's writings are getting attention again - although you'd think the following would be obvious:

"We have a basic choice to make: either each of us chooses for ourselves (classical liberalism) or government chooses for us (or to put it otherwise, we all choose for each other)."

If the latter, the historical experience observed by Hayek in the 1930s is:

"Government allocation of economic resources led in the short run to budget deficits, in the medium run to inflation and monetizing the debt, and in the long run dictatorship that imposed a standard of values on society (and totalitarian impulses designed to brainwash people into to subordinating their own preferences to the preferences of the collective). A corollary is that when government allocates resources, rent-seeking and influence peddling become endemic to the system of trying to get your needs met rather than someone else’s."

We are seeing the problem now. The solution must be a trend to smaller government that is less likely to take away your choice.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Gung Hei Fat Choy as they say in Hong Kong! Time to pass out red packets for good luck, have some oranges, and look forward to the year of the Tiger!

Also a good time for some thoughts on various topics for the new year:

Whatever you say about Obama, he's cool. The concert the other night at the White House just oozed it. I like that.

Obama should meet with Dalai Lama and continue to support Taiwan's legitimate defense. US should be vocal about the reasons why. Perhaps tie it too lack of trust in China's support for a non-nuclear Iran. PRC will not respect US weakness. Only strength.

It's the policy stupid! American's are smarter than some people think. The problem with lefty policies isn't that they aren't explained well. The problem is that they stink. Intelligent, thinking Americans - like the majority of the Tea Party movement are wise to it.

Good luck to Bill Clinton. Good thing US health care and health care innovation is the best in the world.

Did you catch the news about Ms. Kissel the murderess in HK? She gets a re-trial but no sympathy. She had it all but murdered her banker husband anyway. She admitted to it as well. She is not a victim. She is a killer.

Go Go Goldman Sachs - great company in an important industry. Make no mistake: Investment Banks are part of the infrastructure that allocates capital efficiently. This is a pre-requisite for jobs and innovation. If Goldman's investors or customers have a problem with that, they can take their money elsewhere. Regulators need to ensure fairness without killing the engines prosperity.

When will unions start caring about the customers they serve? I've had to deal with unions in the New York recently and what a bunch of selfish cry babies. The best solution is simply to go where there are no unions. I can get stuff done at a fair price and timely fashion. This is good for everyone.

You know what? I support Michelle Obama's latest project American's are too fat. It's not healthy and it is bad for society as a whole. I wouldn't have branded it about child obesity - childhood nutrition is a better label I think - but the concept is good.

America needs to stop thinking we're so superior. I know a generation of Indian and Chinese students who will kick your ass academically and with hard work. Better still let them all immigrate to the US and become steeped in American values - a lot of them would help us kick global ass (in a good way too).

No Joe Biden you did not win Iraq. First of all, Iraqi's won it. Second it was Bush administration policy. The most you can say is that Obama kept Sec Def Gates.

An increase in jobless claims is not a reduction, even if the rate of increase of claims was lower.

Climate change is not the same as weather. Even if we don't know for certain if temperatures are going up or down or the degree of change caused by human activity, what we know for certain is that climate will change. Warming is probably better than cooling, since it leads to higher crop yields, more biomass, and has been the source of improvements in the human condition every time. But how to deal with change? One tried and true method is free-market capitalism. Works every time and doesn't require involuntary massive wealth changes. As for island nations such as the Maldives that might be under water? Well where were humans the last time the Maldives were underwater? Not there anyway. Or if you want to build where there is land below sea-level, hire some Dutch guys. They have 500 years experience.

Chavez, Mugabe, Stumpy in Iran, and all the apologists for same - I have no time for you. Your incompetence speaks for itself.

As for Greece. What were you thinking? Nobody else in the Euro zone owes you anything. Issue some bonds, cut spending, and raise the retirement age.

Does anyone know what 5th amendment (i.e. Miranda) rights exist prior to entering the USA, i.e. before you get past the immigration officer? Is it different for US citizens vs. visitors? I suspect there aren't any such rights until after you get through to baggage claim, although while on a US flag carrier (e.g. the flight) you might have such rights.

Sarah Palin: nice notes. At least you don't need a teleprompter to talk! No different than David Letterman's little blue note cards.

And what evidence that Obama and team are so "smart"? Articulate doesn't equal smart. Inability to deliver is evidence of not being very smart, well at least not very clever.

There you have it! Happy year of the Tiger everyone