No miracle on the Hudson

by | Jan 16, 2009 | Conflict and security, North America

We instinctively grope for religion and invoke God to help us try and explain major accidents and natural disasters. ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ ran the headlines as pictures of Flight 1549 in the river were beamed round the world. New York Governor David Paterson said the city was ‘blessed’.

To make matters worse the media then insist on thinking through all the worst case scenarios:

The landing occurred shortly before 3:30 p.m., just as ferries on both sides of the Hudson were “crewing up” for the afternoon rush hour. That allowed them to get to the plane almost instantly. At the same time, the river — one of the world’s busiest waterways, frequently plied by ferries, barges, tankers and cruise ships — was apparently clear enough of shipping traffic to allow the plane to set down without hitting anything.

So given the potential of the accident to be five, even ten times what it could have been it’s not surprising that we think in terms of miracles. The truth is rather different.

This accident was no miracle but an example of tremendous physical skill and great composure of the pilots. But skill and composure can’t explain how fortunate the 148 passengers were, in exiting safely from the aircraft. Well no, but the landing was executed by a veteran pilot who runs a safety consulting business on the side:

The pilot in Thursday’s landing was Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, a former fighter pilot from Danville, Calif., with more than 40 years of flying experience. He founded Safety Reliability Methods Inc. to apply advances in safety systems, some of them based on “studies of high-risk, high-performance environments such as aircraft carrier flight deck operations,”

And here’s why training is so crucial:

Jason Goldberg, a pilot for American Airlines who has flown other Airbus jets, said the pilot — identified as Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III — had to slow the plane for landing without stalling, which could have caused the nose to hit the water first, potentially breaking up the plane.
“Dead-sticking an airplane in the Hudson without hitting anything in downtown Manhattan is an unbelievable job by this pilot,” Goldberg said. “It took tremendous physical skill and great composure. The guy is a hero in my book.

More on cash incentives for AIDS prevention

by | Jan 15, 2009 | Africa, Economics and development

Last May I wrote about a World Bank scheme to pay Tanzanians to test negative for sexually transmitted infections (a proxy for HIV/AIDS), and about the positive effects on health of Mexico’s Oportunidades conditional cash transfer programme (South Africa’s pension scheme has also had beneficial health impacts, as have programmes to pay US drug users not to inject).

A new study by Rebecca Thornton lends further support to the idea that financial incentives should play a part in HIV prevention. In a randomised trial of over 2,000 Malawians, she gave some participants money in return for testing for HIV and finding out their results. Those receiving the cash were on average twice as likely to turn up to be tested as those left empty-handed. Even pretty small sums, amounting to a tenth of a day’s wage, had a significant effect on the likelihood of getting tested.

Unfortunately, Ms Thornton also found that being tested didn’t have much impact on sexual behaviour (though several other studies have found that knowing you’re HIV-positive makes you less likely to indulge in unsafe sex). Still, cash incentives could be used to persuade the reluctant to adopt other preventative measures, like male circumcision, condom use or, as the World Bank hopes, to find their own ways of staying negative.

H/T Chris Blattman.

Flattering crap banks

by | Jan 14, 2009 | Global system

According to the Telegraph, the government is considering setting up a ‘bad bank’ to take on the toxic assets that continue to drag down the UK’s financial sector.

One option is for the government to ‘buy’ all their crap at some unspecified price. Sounds like a good deal, no?

Well actually: no. Not if you’re a British bank. The problem, you see, is that this would make you own up to how bad things really are. And that would never do.

As the Telegraph report, “if banks have not written down the value of their assets aggressively enough, they may have to suddenly crystalise new losses when assets are sold to the Government.”

I remember when it was OK to feel smug as the Japanese suffered through a decade in which their ‘zombie banks’ refused to own up to the extent of their losses (see this post for more).

Now, it seems, we’re in the same position. Simply shovelling money at our financial overlords/parasites is not enough – we have to make them feel good about themselves, however badly they’ve screwed up…