11.7.14 Congressional Calculations

“What do you get when put 100 women in Congress?”

No, it’s not the first line of a joke, but a reference to the mid-term elections. Given the results of Tuesday night, the number of women in the House will increase to 80 and the number in the Senate will increase to 20. Which means that, when the 114th Congress begins on January 3rd, it will be the first in U.S. history with 100 women. Compare that to just 30 years ago, when there were only 25 women in Congress. In addition, the 114th will feature the first black woman Republican (Representative Mia Love of Utah), and the youngest-ever woman (30-year-old Elise Stefanik, Representative from New York). Pretty impressive stuff.

Which raises a question: how well are various demographic groups represented in Congress? Well, if you assume that the House and Senate are equal in value, and you do a little research and number crunching, you can calculate what we call the CRI, or “Congressional Representation Index,” for any group. For example, Asian Americans now hold 13 House seats (out of 435 total) and 2 Senate seats (out of 100), which equals 3% of the House and 2% of the Senate, for a total of 2.5% of the total Congress. Seems pretty low. But when you factor in that Asians are only 5% of the total U.S. population, you realize they hold exactly half the seats they should (2.5% v. 5%), which means Asians get a .50 CRI. Other groups have it worse. For African Americans (13% of population), there are 43 Representatives (10%) and 2 Senators (2%), for a .46 CRI. For Hispanics (16% of population), 35 Representatives (7%) and 3 Senators (3%), yields a paltry .35 CRI. And, worst of all, Native Americans are only 1% of the U.S. population, and they have only 1 Representative and no Senators, giving them a .11 CRI.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, there’s this: 343 Representatives are White, as are 93 Senators. Which gives Whites control of 86% of Congress. And, since they are 65% of the U.S. population, Whites enjoy a CRI of 1.32.

Taken all together, it means the following, math-o-demo-graphically speaking: 2/3 of Americans (White) are way overrepresented in Congress, while 1/3 (Non-White) of Americans get only half, or much worse, of the representation that they should.

And finally, what does it mean, math-o-gender-graphically speaking? Well, to answer the question we started with, 80 Representatives and 20 Senators equates to 19% of Congress. And Women are 51% of the population. So when you put 100 women in Congress, you get a CRI for Women of just .37.

Versus a CRI for Men of…1.65.

Look at it again: .37 versus 1.65. Representationally speaking, each Man in America is 4.5 times more influential than each Woman.

See? It’s not a joke. It’s just math, and it’s not very funny.

2.23.07 Heinous Hybrids

A blind man can tell you that hybrids are dangerous.

The National Federation of the Blind has complained to Ford, Honda and Toyota that their hybrid cars are so quiet that blind people can’t hear them.  Now, of the 4900 pedestrians killed by cars last year, exactly none were blind people killed by hybrids.  But hybrid technology is extending to urban transport (Scania is testing hybrid buses in Stockholm) and overnight delivery (FedEx is testing delivery trucks in Denver).  Something must be done to make these things louder; how long before someone gets hurt by this menace?

And then there’s ethanol, which is proving to be a threat to the American way of life.  Beginning this season, the IndyCar Series will race on 100 per cent ethanol. And the American LeMans Series will race on a 10 per cent ethanol blend.  Even NASCAR is considering switching over.  So what’s wrong with that?   Some folks believe that, as the “corn basket to the world”, the US can’t grow enough corn to satisfy the need.  Cattle ranchers, chicken farmers and pig producers have all testified that if ethanol production increases, they won’t be able to feed their stocks.

Thank goodness Congress has stepped in.  House bills 161 and 587 aim to repeal tax incentives for producers of ethanol.  If you are a “large” producer of ethanol (sales of $1Million or more; ExxonMobil sales are $377Billion), don’t expect any more handouts from Uncle Sam.  Hopefully that will slow down this worrisome trend.

Here at quickSilver, we’re sticking with our good old Saab (27 MPG) and Land Rover (12 MPG).  Honest American gas guzzlers.