Should we get rid of the National Weather Service
Posted on August 21st, 2007 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, environment, Forecast Watch, hurricane, National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, politics, science, subsidies, Technology, United States, weather forecasting services, your moneyDespite dire predictions from the National Hurricane Center, no hurricanes hit the U.S. last year. This year they are again predicting as many as 10 hurricanes, up to five of them hitting the U.S.
A new study by Forecast Watch, a company that keeps track of past forecasts, found that from Oct. 1, 2006, through June 30, 2007, the government’s National Weather Service did very poorly in predicting the probability of rain or snow. Comparing the National Weather Service to The Weather Channel, CustomWeather, and DTN Meteorlogix, Forecast Watch found that the government’s next-day forecast had a 21 percent greater error rate between predicted probability of precipitation and the rate that precipitation actually occurred.
In looking at predicting snow fall from December 2006 through February 2007, the National Weather Service’s average error was 24 percent greater. “All private forecasting companies did much better than the National Weather Service,” the report concludes.
The government doesn’t do any better with forecasting temperature. For the largest 50 cities in the U.S. over the last year, ForecastAdvisor.com ranks the National Weather Service’s overall predictions for high and low temperatures as well as precipitation as dead last among the six weather forecasting services they examined.
I’d want it shut down regardless of its ability simply because it’s government run. This data just gives practical reasons to getting rid of it. The worst part is that their crappy service undermines the rest of the industry because they have the unfair advantage of being able to subsidize their business with taxpayers money.
7 Responses to “Should we get rid of the National Weather Service”
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August 22nd, 2007 at 8:29 am
A few scattered thoughts:
A lot of this information is already recorded/needed by the military. If I am already paying for this data to be collected, I would certainly like access to it.
Supposing the National Weather Service shutdown, would the gov’t have to purchase data from AccuWeather in order to continue providing flood, lightning, hurricane, tornado, snow, fog, etc. warnings? What if collecting this data wasn’t profitable for AccuWeather? Guess we’d be back to subsidizing somebody to collect this data.
How does their crappy service undermine the industry? The government runs tons of substandard social services, but their private counterparts still flourish. The free market works both ways. If consumers deem the free data/reports worth less than paid for reports, they will choose the latter.
Oh and FOX picking on the Weather Service, gimme a break. How about complaining about our most expensive social service, the military. No comment on how much they spend everyday compared to predicting the weather.
I did a quick google of “Forcast Watch” and found this interesting quote on their website: “We proudly count AccuWeather and CustomWeather as satisfied clients.”
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:56 am
Lots of things the military does aren’t actually done by the military. Everything from weapon design to feeding the troops and providing shelter. It’s all contracted out to the private MIC industry. Given that the private industry seems to have already proven itself more efficient why would you want to have the government do it? As for paying for it implying you should have access to it… we pay for the NSA… they don’t give out their info. We paid for the F-22 Raptor development through Lockheed Martin… we don’t even get to know its actual abilities let alone the blueprints.
AccuWeather and the other companies already collect that info. There are plenty of private companies interested in using these preexisting businesses. And the government would have it’s pick of the field. The companies would compete for the business and assuming there aren’t any backroom deals the government could get a better price. It’d be a big contract so the weather companies would be interested in providing all the services they wanted. If zero companies provided the information then fuck it. I don’t want the service, I don’t want the taxation.
??? They cheat the system. Thats how. Like asking how God would have an unfair advantage vs man in creating life. God controls the system they play in. The government controls the system the private companies play in. Some program doesn’t actually work? No problem, money will fix it… raise taxes… increase the debt… print money. It undermines the market because the government can at any point change the rules or increase funding by stealing from the public. How well does private health services do in Canada? At one point Quebec had it illegal to buy health insurance for medical procedures covered by the public health plan. Many parts of Canada still go out of the way to make it difficult for private health firms to compete. It’s not a free market. Name some industries you think are ’successfully competing’ with the government and I’ll show you companies being subsidized directly or indirectly by the government. What you describe is not a free market. The US has the facade of free markets but is heavily regulated and subsidized. Also the data isn’t “free.” That’s an absurd claim. Like Michael Moore calling socialized single payer healthcare free. It’s paid for by the government… who gets money through taxation of its people, debt (taxation of its future people) or by printing it (inflation tax).
Why does that matter? Pointing out a waste is pointing out a waste. The size doesn’t matter. The messenger doesn’t matter. Plenty of people complain about the military and MIC. Should we only complain about the most egregious wastes of our money at any one time? Who cares about $1m for 2 lock washers? It was only something like 3.9e-5% of the total funds spent.
Alright… I’m assuming you are implying they fudge the facts to please their customers. The National Weather Service could just as easily be a customer. They provide quality assurance and comparisons… if they say X is more accurate than Y, without more data I’m going to have to take their word for it.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Weather data would hardly be deemed as ‘classified’ information, unless maybe in some kind of war time corner case. If private companies can adequately provide this information at a cheaper price, then fine, let the government purchase weather data instead of collecting it themselves. Maybe the tipping point for initial startup cost has passed for this industry and the government doesn’t need to front the money for the infrastructure.
Industries with government competition (albeit somewhat indirectly) include education, water, garbage, insurance, news, weather, etc. Yes, the government gets to cheat because they make the rules, so I shouldn’t have used the term ‘free market’. However even the government has to answer to the people (analogous to shareholders) when it acts too irrationally. So I do think carefully chosen subsidized programs (by a democratic government) have a place competing in an otherwise free or open market.
The rest of my comment were really just a cheap shots. The FOX article struck me as a sensationalist non-news item considering the magnitude. (And really, who doesn’t enjoy complaining about an incompetent weatherman.) Also Forcast Watch may very well be a reputable company. I just found it amusing that Fox quoted them as an implicitly independent watchdog source. The statement from their webpage that I quoted struck me as a conflict of interest considering their endorsement of AccuWeather.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:10 pm
education, water, garbage, insurance, news, etc. Union laws, regulations, licenses, taxes, sanctioned monopolies. Take your pick. Some of those are actually private but given monopoly to a jurisdiction. If I want private schooling or water or garbage I still have to pay the taxes on them which makes it so only those with extra cash and desire will be able to purchase those services.
Even if you take out the government as an explicitly player it’s not a free market. If the government regulates in any way it’s no longer free.
That is not accurate. A government is a monopoly. If they don’t allow you, you can’t simply choose a new one. Shareholders can sell off their share of the company if they don’t like what is going on. Modern governments actively work against the people, manipulate them, spread propaganda to keep the people ignorant. People don’t have the time to track down all the bullshit the government does. It’s not possible or practical. As for subsidizes and democracy. Subsidizes implies taxes and taxes are issued with the threat of force and therefore invalid. I give no legitimacy to something which is coerced from me at the barrel of a gun. And democracy is tyranny of the majority. Two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. Many of our founders despised democracy. Thomas Paine thought it was as bad or worse than a monarchy. If you meant a republic… fine… but you should choose your terms more carefully.
Non-news? The potential savings of $882 million for a service apparently ranked at the bottom in the business? A healthy business with decent competition (not that I care). That is hardly insignificant.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:55 pm
“only those with extra cash and desire will be able to purchase those services.” (BTW how do you do that block quoting thing?) This is most certainly true, but I was only trying to point out that businesses can operate despite competing (unfairly or not) against government run or supported counterparts. As far as paying taxes on possibly unused social services, I think that is another debate that I would probably agree with you about.
Government monopoly… ok, so I expressed that too literally. Both companies and governments exist for the general good of its investors/citizens. Mechanisms exist in both for people to decide how to achieve this. If the US government wasted trillions of dollars on something enough people disagreed with, new officials can be elected to cancel further spending. In the meantime, waste, manipulation, deceit, etc. occur, but this is not limited to government. Do you know the internal operations of each company in your 401K plan? Remember Enron?
As you pointed out, this analogy is flawed in that we don’t get to opt-out of government. My point was only to suggest that the government isn’t completely immune from market pressures. (However indirectly.)
Sweating the small stuff:
Dictionary.com seems to agree that common usage of ‘democracy’ includes ‘elected representatives’, but you are correct, I am referring to a ‘republic’.
Not to dicker over numbers, but $882 million is 0.0315% of the $2.8 trillion federal 2007 budget. It is an appreciable amount of money for sure, but I think there are bigger fish to fry. FOX called this program out because they knew it would strike a nerve with its audience, not because it was a (relative) black hole of government waste. For that would have been truly newsworthy for the citizen who cannot track everything the government spends money on.
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:43 pm
to do blockquoteing you put [lessthan]blockquote[greaterthan][lessthan]/blockquote[greaterthan] with [greaterthan] and [lessthan] being “>” and “<” respectively.
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:03 pm
oh good. i was too proud to ask how.