Of hurricanes, vines and externalized costs

Hurricane Update

Michigan does not get to experience many hurricanes. We are too far north, too far inland.

Beryl was an exception.

My little slice of heaven got about 3.5" of rain, which was plenty.

A friend near I-94 about 25 miles south of me texted me that he had received over 5" of rain.

Hurricanes are not like pop-up thunderstorms. EVERYBODY is blessed with LOTS of rain. Pop-up thunderstorms paint with mascara brushes while hurricanes paint with power-paintrollers.

The corn farmers are very happy. Having abundant soil moisture when the corn is tasseling is a make-or-break for good yields. Illinois was looking pretty dry before Beryl and she probably saved more than a few farmers from bankruptcy.

Vines

I spent part of today cutting/clearing vines from orchard trees and lilacs and gooseberries etc.

It occurred to me, admittedly not for the first time, that vines can out-compete more productive plants because they do not have to invest resources into stems that are structurally capable of supporting their own growth. They "steal" that from the host they are scrambling over.

The economists call this "externalizing costs". The classic example of "externalizing costs" would be of a firm that pumped out septic tanks but rather than paying to dispose of the bio-hazard waste in a responsible way, they find a lonely stretch of road and open the sill-cocks and dump it where John Q. Public will drive over it and breath the septic dust.

Economic success involves externalizing as many costs as possible and internalizing as much profit as possible. 

Strangler Figs are a special kind of vine. The seeds deposit in cracks where stems depart from the trunk and the baby Strangler Fig parasitically wicks away nutrients from its host. They grow down from the top and throw a network of stems over the host. The stems root in the soil and the host can no longer send nutrients up to its own crown. The host dies and as it rots, the Strangler Fig sponges up the nutrients the host spent hundreds of years accumulating.

That seems grossly unfair.

But how is it any different than the Government taxing the Oil and Coal industries to subsidize as-yet unproven Solar and Wind energy?

How is it different than taxing plumbers and electricians and road pavers to pay-off the student loan debt of unemployable college graduates?

How is that different than public education unions maintaining employment levels in the face of collapsing student numbers by "discovering" epidemics of autistic kids and transgender kids who need very high levels "professional" support?