Readers Respond on the State of the Middle Class

By DAVID LEONHARDT

The next major step in our story on the plight of the American economy - part of The Times's Agenda series - is to examine the causes. As I noted in the initial post, median family income in this country is lower today than 12 years ago, a stretch unlike any other since the 1930s.

On the most basic level, the causes are a slowdown in economic growth and an increase in income inequality: the pie is growing more slowly, and a large share of the gains is going to a small portion of the population. But that statement is as much an accounting statement as anything else. It doesn't explain the forces driving the changes.

More than 700 comments have been posted on that post, and many of these addressed underlying causes. Below, we are excerpting a selection of those comments, because we assume that most readers did not have time to read hundreds of them.

I am also using the responses to help me write a survey I'm send ing to a range of economists asking them to discuss what they see as the most important causes. Some may rank causes or put them in different buckets of importance. Others may use the survey as inspiration to write a few paragraphs laying out their views.

In coming days and weeks, we'll be posting the survey itself and then the economists' responses. Other Times writers will also be posting items on these issues. And we welcome continued reader feedback at every step.

Here is a sampling of those reader comments:

“Most of the income gains seen in my lifetime have been created by families going on afterburners - sending the other adult out to work. Now, we are seeing families going backwards, but that may be a good thing. But we will need to learn to get by on less, especially if competition by foreign workers accelerates.” â€" jstewart58

“Interesting that this appears on the same page as the article about Caterpillar. Is it really necessary for them to freeze wages when they are making record profits? You can bet that the upper echelon of company officers will not have frozen wages. There are many hard issues that contribute to the problem, global wage competition, automation, poor education, but these are exacerbated by actions taken by companies like Caterpillar.” â€" Oh Please

“Population growth in the USA as well as in Europe has slowed considerably. One of the options is to liberalize immigration, which will attract talented people as well as wealthy people from other countries. This will result in economic growth by the new immigrants spending money by opening new businesses and improving employment prospects for locals.” â€" VGM

“I have a theory the middle class aren't making more because the Government is taking more. Publish that chart and prove me wrong.” â€" Richard

“People working in manufacturing industries that lacked strong unions were always poorly compensated. It's just that now there are very few industries that are unionized and the pressure to compensate employees has declined across the board.” â€" Ross Williams

“Shouldn't you use an income number that captures the value of benefits received by Households? With health care costs increasing at a much faster rate than inflation, health care (and health insurance), is eating up wage/income gains … Employees need to understand that money spent on them - whether wages or benefits - is fungible from the standpoint of the employer. Ignoring these in-kind benefits overstates the share of income that goes to the top and understates the amount that goes to everyone else.” â€" Joel Pond

“Since WWII, the idea that one is solely responsible for their own success has widely taken root and the generations since have increasingly failed to acknowledge that success is the product of both individual initiative/hard work AND opportunity. The first generation that had the privilege of combining hard work with unprecedented levels of opportunity was the baby boomers and, speaking very generally, they seemed to forget the opportunity component as they rose through the professional ranks of business and government. This explains policies that reward the haves while eroding the opportunity (education, health care, higher minimum wages, pensions) that allows have-nots to use their individual initiative to pull themselves out of the lower classes.” â€" Dan

“I would like to know what happened in the Clinton years (and before) that led to the rise in income as well as the surplus at the federal level in those years, and why that is, or isn't, possible now.”â€" mennenster

“The uncomfortable truth is that America's economy has progressed beyond blue collar jobs and is now a service economy. Our biggest export is knowledge (in the form of technology, patents, business, etc), and is no longer ‘stuff.' So it is slightly misguided to blame manufacturing companies that don't pay workers higher wages, because these companies are no longer in industries where their workers can demand a premium.”â€" Austin

“Tax cuts for the rich have turbocharged inequality, beginning with Reagan and culminating with Bush II. To afford these tax cuts, we've cut everything else that helps the middle class, especially really great public schools.”â€" Carol

Wheelies: The Clooney Roadster Edition

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

In which we bring you motoring news from around the Web:

-Gooding & Company will sell George Clooney's 2008 Signature 100 Tesla Roadster at its Pebble Beach Auction on Sunday, Aug. 19. Mr. Clooney bought the car, No. 0008, when Tesla introduced the Roadster as a high-performance electric sports car. With only 1,700 miles from new, Mr. Clooney's Tesla Roadster is finished in Obsidian Black Metallic over a premium, two-tone leather interior. The Tesla's estimate of the car's value is $100,000 to $125,000. Mr. Clooney has selected a nonprofit organization that he helped found, the Satellite Sentinel Project, as the beneficiary of his sale proceeds, the auction house said. (Gooding)

-Less than a week before he was to become the design chief of Opel/Vauxhall, Dave Lyon left the parent company, General Motors. Mr. Lyon was to succeed Mark Adams, who G.M. appointed to be the new global design director for Cadillac and Bu ick. An Opel spokesman confirmed Mr. Lyon's sudden departure without elaborating. Mr. Adams will remain Opel's design chief until a successor is found, the spokesman said. (Autonews)

-BASF, in its Global Automotive Color Trend Report, predicted brown, blue and green would be trending in the next five years as preferred vehicle colors. Consumers want more choices than just silver, white and black. Still, silver, white and black will make up 50 percent to 80 percent of all car colors. (USA Today)

San Francisco Considers a User Fee for Drivers

By JIM MOTAVALLI

It is not uncommon for people to grumble about paying highway tolls. But a stronger public reaction seems likely if a proposal to tax drivers for the miles they travel, perhaps using GPS technology to collect the data, ever becomes regional law in Northern California.

The concept is under study by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional agency covering nine counties in the San Francisco Bay area. But agency officials, possibly in response to an uproar over privacy concerns, point out that it is merely one idea among many being considered. A similar concept has been floated in Florida.

The idea of drivers paying for their vehicle miles traveled, or V.M.T., sounds fairly radical, but it was actually endorsed by a bipartisan Congressional commission in 2009. The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission recommended that the federal government switch from a gas tax model to what it called a mileage-based usage fee by 2020. The switch “more accurately aligns the costs and benefits of the surface transportation system to those who are using it,” the group said in a statement. But this was one more bipartisan commission whose ideas weren't enacted.

Randy Rentschler, a spokesman for the regional commission, said in a telephone interview that the V.M.T. proposal was a small part of long-range planning updated by the agency every four years. He said the concept of a highway use fee was included as a result of lobbying from environmental groups.

“We said we'd take a look at it,” Mr. Rentschler said. “But it's way too early to say if any plan would track people's mileage with GPS. That's one way it could work.”

Mr. Rentschler acknowledges that a mileage fee will not be universally popular. “We know that people don't pay the full cost of driving - that's obvious,” he said. “But when we introduce measures to pay for such costs, they frequently resist. We also know that a fee plan like this could reduce traffic congestion and raise a considerable amount of revenue to pay for transportation-related programs that people say they want.”

The commission's staff will prepare a report on the various proposals, including the V.M.T. fee, by December.

TransForm, a transit advocacy group in the Bay Area, is one of the groups that lobbied the commission to include the mileage proposal. Stuart Cohen, the group's executive director, said in a telephone interview that inflation had eroded the value of the flat gasoline tax, resulting in “billions of dollars in unfunded transportation needs.”

A user fee, he said, was fairer than raising revenue through a sales tax that was also paid by nondrivers. “It's better than paying for roads through taxes on toilet paper and groceries,” he said.

Would a highway user fee unfairly impact low-income commuters? Mr . Cohen said the tax could be made equitable with relief for drivers below certain income thresholds. “A concept like that could be popular and supported in the Bay Area,” he said.

Privacy issues are raised because a GPS-based system could also collect information on when and where drivers traveled. “I don't want to minimize the privacy concerns, but tracking people is the last thing we care about,” Mr. Rentschler said.

“We'd like to see it happen first in the Bay Area, where we are more likely to do it right, with low-income provisions and revenue going to alternative transportation options,” Mr. Cohen said. “It will percolate as an idea here more than it will in, say, Texas.”

Head Turners and Heartstring Tugs at the St. John\'s Concours

By PAUL STENQUIST

PLYMOUTH, Mich. - The 2012 Concours d'Élégance of America at St. John's played under bright sunshine on Sunday, which served well to showcase several hundred gleaming classic and specialty automobiles on display. The event, formerly held at Meadow Brook Hall, was relocated to the Inn at St. John's in 2011.

I have always found that automotive exhibitions of this caliber - entrants included half a dozen Duesenbergs, nine classic Packards and 17 prewar European automobiles - put me in subjective mode. Most of the cars at St. John's were near perfect, but wandering the vast grounds, I was drawn to certain automobiles. Some evoked memories of machines owned or coveted; others were inextricably tied to days long gone and tugged at my emotions.

Of course, the judges viewed the show objectively, and they ultimately decided which machines were best. All manner of awards were bestowed, but there were also the best of the best . Here, perhaps to avoid an international incident, the judges named a best European, a 1933 Delage D8S, and a top dog American, a 1933 Chrysler Imperial Phaeton with body by LeBaron. I saw both cars, and they were gorgeous machines, but neither stopped me in my tracks.

The beat-up remains of a racecar did. It was an aluminum-body 1965 McLaren M1B, and, according to the owner, Therese Antonelli, the prototype for that maker's highly successful Can Am racer. And, more importantly, at least to me, the great Bruce McLaren had driven it.

Ms. Antonelli said her father, Tony Antonelli, had bought the car after seeing it offered in a Detroit newspaper classified ad 40 years ago.

The second stopper was Lori Porter's 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire. The Starfire was a General Motors study in excess, and as a teenager, I wanted one very much. My dad had an ordinary Oldsmobile that I beat up on weekends, but the Starfire, with stainless steel trim on its flanks, was the Olds mobile of Oldsmobiles, a star of a car.

“They weren't shy about the exterior or interior,” said Tony Swan, one of the judges, as he critiqued the car.

Then there was the car that came dressed in plaid: Al Gidding's 1929 Willys-Knight Model 66-B Plaidside Roadster. The car was notable for its Knight engine, with sleeve valves, rather than poppet valves, controlling intake and exhaust. But what stopped me was its plaid paint job, a factory option meant to help move the automobile off the showroom floor and a look reminiscent of some slacks I owned in the 1970s. Mr. Gidding's car is one of only nine known to exist, so it can be assumed that plaid didn't help.

Along the way, there many more: a 1983 Jaguar XJR-5 GTP racecar that I had photographed at a Connecticut racetrack almost 30 years ago; Joe Moch's 1963 Ferrari SWB California Spyder, in red, of course; and Jim Moore's 1969 Porsche 911T racecar, which was still warm after having competed in a vintage r oad race the day before.

But perhaps most fascinating was the 1911 Mercedes Model 50 Maythorne five-passenger touring car of Pamela and Scott Isquick. Mr. Isquick bought the car 57 years ago in England after participating in the Silver Jubilee Rally of the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain. He and his wife have driven the car 65,000 miles since then. Among the first of Daimler's cars to wear both the three-pointed star and the Mercedes name, the Model 50 was a milestone for the marque.

The Fed Should Stop Paying Banks Not to Lend

By BRUCE BARTLETT

Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform - Why We Need It and What It Will Take.”

The Federal Open Market Committee, the policy-making arm of the Federal Reserve, meets Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss what, if anything, it will do to stimulate economic growth. There is widespread speculation that it will adopt further “quantitative easing” and inject more money into the economy.

It has done this twice before: between November 2008 and May 2010, and between November 2010 and June 2011. The expected new effort has been labeled QE3.

Many economists, however, are doubtful that more of what hasn't worked already will do any good. Some suggest that it is time for the Fed to think “outside the box” and do something different.

In a Wall Street Journal commentary on July 22, Alan S. Blinder, the Princeton economist and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, suggested that lowering the interest rate the Fed pays banks on their reserves would force them to lend more and thus stimulate growth.

To explain why this is potentially important, it is first necessary to explain something about the relationship between the Fed and the banking system.

Typically, when the Fed wishes to stimulate growth it increases the money supply. It buys Treasury securities from banks and credits their accounts at the Fed. All banks maintain accounts at the Fed, just as people have accounts at commercial banks. When the Fed credits their accounts, they have more money to lend.

Banks must maintain a certain level of required reserves in the form of vault cash or balances at the Fed as a percentage of their deposits, in order to provide adequate liquidity. Rese rves over and above those required are called excess reserves.

Historically, banks held as little in the way of excess reserves as possible, because this was money that could be lent immediately, upon which no income was earned. One way income on excess reserves could be earned was by lending them to other banks overnight, through what is called the federal funds market.

The interest rate charged on such overnight loans is called the fed funds rate and it is essentially controlled by the Federal Reserve, which routinely adds or subtracts reserves so as to meet its target rate. Since Dec. 16, 2008, the target fed funds rate has been between zero and 0.25 percent.

Under normal conditions, such a low fed funds rate would be more than adequate to create a considerable amount of new lending. Since the rate is the basic cost of money to banks, they would make a profit even if they made loans at a 1 percent interest rate.

But rather than make loans, banks in stead are simply sitting on the money, so to speak. According to the Federal Reserve, they have $1.5 trillion in excess reserves. This is extraordinary. It is as if individuals took $1.5 trillion of their savings out of stocks, bonds and every other income-producing financial asset and put it all into non-interest-bearing checking accounts back in 2009, and just left it there.

Economists have puzzled about this phenomenon for years. They note that historically the Fed never paid interest on reserves, but in October 2008 it began doing so. Moreover, the Fed pays interest on excess reserves as well as required reserves. Originally, the rate was 0.75 percent to 1 percent, but since Dec. 17, 2008, it has been fixed at 0.25 percent.

This may not sound like much, but keep in mind that interest rates on United States Treasury securities with maturities of less than two years are currently less than 0.25 percent. The effective fed funds rate is also lower than 0.25 perce nt. In recent weeks, it has been as low as 0.13 percent. Compared with these rates, a riskless return of 0.25 percent looks pretty good.

There is no consensus view on why market interest rates are so low. A lack of demand for loans by businesses is thought to be the key reason. With the gross domestic product growing at only a 1.5 percent rate in the second quarter, businesses have no difficulty meeting the demand for goods and services without having to invest or expand capacity.

Moreover, nonfinancial corporate businesses have more than $1.5 trillion in financial assets available to them, according to the Fed's flow of funds report. This is money they could invest tomorrow if they saw any need to do so.

Another possibility is that the economy is experiencing de facto deflation; that is, a falling price level. While this is not evident in the consumer price index, economic theory nevertheless suggests that this may be the case.

That is because theory says that the real (inflation-adjusted) interest rate is relatively stable. A recent Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis study says the “natural rate of interest” historically has been about 2 percent. So if banks are satisfied with a market interest rate of 0.25 percent or less, this suggests that the economy may be experiencing a deflation rate of about 2 percent. (The rate of deflation is added to the market interest rate to yield the real rate.)

If this is true, it explains why the economy appears to be suffering from tight money despite low nominal interest rates and a vast amount of excess reserves in the banking system. Deflation has a paralyzing effect on business activity because downward pressure on prices causes profits to be squeezed.

Indeed, the International Monetary Fund has lately warned of the danger of deflation, and The New York Times reports that China is now suffering from it. There is also evidence of deflation in the United States in dai ly price data collected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Under these conditions, which economists call a liquidity trap, monetary policy is impotent because the Fed cannot reduce nominal interest rates below zero.

However, the Fed can penalize banks for holding excess reserves by charging them interest rather than paying them interest. This has been done in other countries. From July 2009 to July 2010, the central bank of Sweden charged banks 0.25 percent on their reserves, and on July 5 the central bank of Denmark announced that it would begin charging an interest rate of 0.2 percent on reserves.

In effect, this reduces the real interest rate received by banks and thus, ironically, would ease monetary policy and encourage bank lending.

No one thinks the Fed is ready to follow Denmark and Sweden. However, economists speculate that the Fed may be ready to reduce the 0.25 percent rate paid on reserves and see what happens. It would be a mov e in the right direction.

Products to Alert Parents of a Child Left in a Car Seat Found to Be Unreliable

By CHERYL JENSEN

A study released Monday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that certain devices sold to consumers to alert them that a child had been left in a car seat were not reliable on their own as measures to prevent heatstroke.

Heatstroke is the leading cause of non-crash-related deaths in vehicles for children under the age of 14, according to N.H.T.S.A. On average, 38 children die of heatstroke each year because they have been left in hot cars.

The safety agency commissioned the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to evaluate aftermarket products that promised to warn caregivers of a child left in a car seat.

When researchers began the study in late 2011, they identified 11 such products on the market and selected three that used technology to sense the presence of a child in a car seat.

The study found the products to be “inconsistent and unreliable” in the way they performed as a sta nd-alone method to address child heatstroke deaths.

Researchers said the manufacturers were aware of the results and in some cases were working on new versions of their products to try to overcome the limitations.

The agency has been promoting child safety in a media campaign, “Where's baby? Look before you lock.” For more information, visit www.SaferCar.gov/heatstroke.

For the first time, the agency said, it decided to evaluate products sold to car owners (PDF). Two products, the Suddenly Safe Pressure Pad and the ChildMinder Smart Pad, placed a sensor under the padding of the child restraint. The third product, the ChildMinder Smart Clip System, replaced the chest clip of the child restraint.

Researchers evaluated how the products performed in a variety of circumstances, to see what would happen if the sensor pads were placed incorrectly or if liquids like apple juice that might cause systems to short were spilled o n them, and to see whether the products worked with cellphone interference.

As part of the evaluation, eight children, from newborns to 2-year-olds, were buckled in using the products.

Researchers evaluated whether the devices notified caregivers as they walked away from the vehicles and measured the distances at which alarms sounded.

Kristy B. Arbogast, one of the study's authors, said: “The results showed that none of these three devices we tested were completely reliable and consistent in their function and ability to detect children. The devices required considerable effort from the parents to ensure smooth operation and often that operation was not consistent.”

During simulated commuting trips, the researchers found, some devices turned off or on, or beeped, which led to concerns about driver frustration and distraction.

The administrator of N.H.T.S.A., David L. Strickland, said the devices were well intended, but given their limitation s and inconsistencies, “at this time, they are not ready to be the sole countermeasure” to make sure that parents do not leave their children behind in a hot car.

If parents want to use them, he added, the devices should be just one part of their routine. The agency urges parents to take several precautions, including placing a cellphone, purse or briefcase in the back seat to serve as a reminder that a child is in a vehicle.

Station Wagons Celebrated at 2012 St. John\'s Concours

By LARRY EDSALL

PLYMOUTH, Mich. - Is the station wagon, the automotive symbol of the postwar baby boom and the drive to suburbia, making a comeback?

Certainly not in new car showrooms.

General Motors, the last of the Big Three to manufacture a full-size, rear-drive, three-row station wagon, ended production more than a decade ago. The wagon had been supplanted in the American family fleet by the minivan and sport utility and crossover vehicles.

Still, when Detroit celebrated its Motor City heritage here last weekend at the Concours d'Élégance of America at St. John's, the traditional wagon and its cultural role were showcased in a feature class, Jet-Age Station Wagons.

As part of the feature, two Wake Forest University graduate filmmaking students, Chris Zaluski and Sam Smartt, provided a sneak peek of their documentary, “Wagonmasters.” A Fortune article written by Alex Taylor III in February 2011 inspired the film, w hich is about the station wagon and its role in American society.

In the article, Mr. Taylor lamented an announcement by Volvo that it would stop selling station wagons in the United States. As with so many others of a generation, who grew up in the “way back” seat of a three-row wagon, Mr. Taylor noted that he had even taken his driver's license road test in a large Plymouth wagon.

(For this reporter, it was a 1960 Chevrolet wagon in which I moved from “way back” to the driver's seat on my 16th birthday.)

The filmmakers did draw on some family inspiration: Mr. Smartt recalled his childhood as a passenger in a 1986 Mercury Colony Park wagon, while Mr. Zaluski grew up in a wagon-free existence. Still, they both thought it would be worthwhile to collect other stories and to look at American history, as Mr. Zaluski put it, “through the rear window - looking back while moving forward.”

After some 80 hours of filming from coast to coast and six months of editing, they have nearly finished production of “Wagonmasters,” which they hope will make its official debut at one of the major film festivals this fall or next spring. (The movie trailer is not yet available, but several vignettes the filmmakers have produced can be viewed on the www.wagonmastersthemovie.com Web site.)

While the filmmakers were looking for stories, Concours d'Élégance of America committee members were seeking the best surviving station wagons of the 1950s and early '60s to array before show judges and the estimated 10,000 people who attended the event.

Working with car clubs and automotive restoration experts, the committee assembled a baker's dozen, from 1957 Chevrolet Nomad, Oldsmobile Fiesta and Mercury Voyager wagons to a 1961 Chrysler New Yorker. Included was one of the six 1959 Cadillac Broadmoor Skyview wagons specially built for the Colorado mountain resort.

The '61 Chrysler, owned by John and Lynne Cote of Guilf ord, Conn., was judged the best in class.

While station wagons may not be making a comeback, classic car collectors seem to cherish them.

Jonathan Klinger, spokesman for the classic car specialist Hagerty Insurance, did a quick check of the corporate database and discovered that Hagerty clients have added classic station wagons to their collections at the rate of 4 percent a year for the last four years.

“They are great cars, and they have a lot of appeal at car shows,” Mr. Klinger said.

“And,” he added, “everyone has a story about growing up in one.”

Motorsports: Jimmie Johnson Nets Fourth Brickyard Victory

By JERRY GARRETT

Jimmie Johnson dominated the Nascar race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, and when he took the checkered flag, it gave him a historic fourth victory in the Brickyard 400.

His teammate Jeff Gordon, who finished fifth, is the only other Nascar driver to have won the Brickyard race four times. The race has been held annually since 1994.

Michael Schumacher won the United States Grand Prix, a Formula 1 race that has been discontinued after a short shelf life, five times on Indy's road course. The only others to have won as many as four races on Indy's famed 2.5-mile Brickyard oval are A.J. Foyt and Rick Mears, the top champions of the Indianapolis 500.

“I'm proud to be able to join such racing legends,” Johnson said afterward. “These were my heroes and people I looked up to my entire life.”

Though Johnson had all the power he needed to dispatch his competition, he barely had enough fuel to f inish the job. His Chevrolet ran out while on his victory lap and needed to be pushed back to Victory Circle.

Kyle Busch finished about a quarter-mile behind Johnson for second place. Greg Biffle was third, and Johnson's Hendrick teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr., fourth. Earnhardt took over the Nascar Sprint Cup season points lead because the previous leader, Matt Kenseth, crashed in the late going while battled for 21st place. (ESPN)

Here are other recent motorsports news items:

- Lewis Hamilton, the McLaren driver, held off the Lotuses of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean to win Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix. Though Hamilton led most of the way, one or both of the two Lotuses hounded him throughout. Sebastian Vettel, driving for Red Bull, was fourth, followed by the championship points leader Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari. Alonso pushed his points total to 164 â€" a solid 40 points ahead of the Red Bull driver Mark Webber, who finished eighth. (Autosport)

- The Honda rider Casey Stoner rode away from Jorge Lorenzo's Yamaha and his Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa to claim victory in Sunday's United States Grand Prix motorcycle race at Laguna Seca Raceway in California. The top trio seemed to be in a race of their own, as the rest of the field competed well behind. Lorenzo maintained his championship points lead, although the finishes of Stoner and Pedrosa closed the gap. (Autosport)

-Antron Brown out-ran Spencer Massey in a good old-fashioned side-by-side drag race in the Top Fuel finals of the National Hot Rod Association's Sonoma Nationals on Sunday. Massey was quicker off the line and had a higher top speed, 332 m.p.h. to Brown's 318, but Brown won the measurement that mattered - he was first to the finish line timing lights by about six inches. That calculated out to .012 of a second on the clocks. Massey and Brown are now tied atop the season point standings. In other classes of competition, Johnny Gray won Funny C ar, Allen Johnson Pro Stock and Eddie Krawiec Pro Stock Motorcycle. (N.H.R.A.)

-Audi came out on top after a grueling twice-around-the-clock duel with a pair of BMWs in the 24 Hours of Spa, in Belgium, the fourth round of the Blancpain Endurance Series. The Team Phoenix entry co-driven by Andrea Piccini of Italy, and the Germans Renè Rast and Frank Stippler, were first to the checkered flag, ahead of the WRT Audi R8 of Stephane Ortelli of Monaco and Christopher Haase and Christopher Mies of Germany. Third place when to the Vita4One Racing BMW trio of Greg Franchi of Belgium and Mathias Lauda and Frank Kechele of Germany â€" despite the BMW's last-lap tire failure. It was the third major endurance victory for Audi in 2012 following success at the Le Mans 24 Hours and the Nürburgring 24 Hours. Though the race began and ended in bright sunshine, it was plagued by periods of heavy rain that brought out the safety cars for long periods. (Planet LeMans)

Theater Review Economics

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

In addition to covering economics, I also write theater reviews for the Arts section. And as some of you may know, we have an odd little tradition in theater criticism, in that we (almost) never publish a review until after a production's official opening night. I've long wondered about whether it makes good business sense for productions to enforce this embargo.

While reviews run after opening night, they're rarely based on a viewing of the actual opening night performance; the curtain generally falls much too late for critics to meet their deadlines for the next day's paper. Instead, critics usually are invited to attend one of the preview performances after the show has already been “set” or “frozen” - that is, after the director and rest of the creative team have decided not to make any more major changes.

The time between freezing and opening varies, but it's generally somewhere from a couple of days to a week.

I've been especially curious about review embargoes lately because summer theater productions usually have very short runs, and should theoretically want reviews published as early as possible - well before the show closes, anyway. Most of the shows I review during the rest of the year have pretty short runs, too, including some productions that last less than two weeks.

I understand the desire to turn opening night into a big event to magnify press attention, as is done with the openings of big, star-studded movies and their sumptuous red carpets.

But for a vast majority of theatrical events, little attention is paid to the opening-night parties and such. Even when publications do run photos of the pomp and circumstance of a play's opening night - if Scarlett Johansson is starring in the show, say - that coverage usually appears in news articles and Us Weekly spreads, not critical reviews.

Eager for the persp ective of those who have money on the line, I called two longtime producers for their thoughts.

The first was  Roger Berlind, a phenomenally successful theater producer who has won 18 Tonys and mounted 80 Broadway shows since 1976, four of which are still running. (Another, “Annie,” opens in November.)

He noted that when he began producing shows, critics attended on opening night and wrote a review for the late edition of the next day's paper, since deadlines were often later then. He didn't sound all too thrilled that the policy had changed.

Today, he said, producers and press reps encourage the big critics to come a day or two before opening night, even though attending earlier is an option, because the show continues to improve up through the opening night even after the show is set. He said he worried that if critics were able to publish as soon as they saw the show, more of them would rush to see the production as early as possible because “cri tics are extremely competitive.” That rush would place pressure on the cast and creative team to polish the performances earlier.

“Then you'd have to back up the entire process starting with the first day of rehearsal, and I don't think that would be productive,” he said. “It's expensive to go through the rehearsal process already.”

I understand Mr. Berlind's concerns about critics' wanting to come early, but I doubt many critics are going to want to see shows earlier than they see them now (when, again, they see them at the invitation of the production after the performance has already been “set”).

Three reasons: 1) Just like anybody else, critics don't like seeing bad shows, and a show is likely to be worse earlier in the run. 2) It doesn't seem fair (or beneficial to the health of the arts scene upon which critics make their livelihood) to review an unfinished product. 3) A review of a performance that occurred before the show was frozen is not all that useful to readers, since it won't accurately reflect what the show will look like for the duration of its run.

I also called Emanuel Azenberg, another longtime producer who has produced or managed 81 Broadway shows and has received nine Tonys (including this year's Special Award for Lifetime Achievement). His take is that concentrating as many reviews as possible on the same day limits the damage they can cause, both to ticket sales and morale.

“You have to either benefit from the critics or overcome them,” he said. “You might as well do that in one day.”

Allowing critics to run their reviews as soon as they see the show, he said, would be “like getting operated on every day.”

“Let's assume you have opening night on Thursday,” he said. “But on Tuesday The New York Post runs a review saying it doesn't like it. It's very depressing, and you still have to give a performance that night. Then on Wednesday you see The Daily N ews doesn't like it either, and you still have to give two performances that day. You see? Every day you'd be facing a sniper. Right now you have one terrible day called the opening, and you read everything on Friday morning at the same time and then you deal with it.”

Even if shows stick to the industry-enforced embargo for the foreseeable future, I wonder if pre-opening-night silence is sustainable. Now that ordinary theatergoers can blast their opinions through message boards, Twitter and other social media during previews, advance opinion is harder to contain. Perhaps theater companies will break down and allow the “legitimate” reviewers to write earlier, too.

(Mr. Berlind said that yes, it's easier for audiences to disseminate their opinions during previews, which he thinks “can be destructive to the process.” But, he said, “nobody pays much attention to the bloggers anyway.”)

Already the review embargo strictures seem to be breaking do wn for other forms of entertainment. Movies and TV shows have traditionally enforced review embargoes, but according to a recent Variety article, some TV shows are now embracing earlier coverage.

I should note, by the way, that while reviews for the big Broadway shows almost always run the day after opening night, reviews for smaller shows often run a little while after the opening, depending on how much space is available in any given day's paper. But even so, you would think smaller plays would want to give newspapers the option of running the review as early as possible, given the opportunity for earlier buzz.

Perhaps there are some other factors specific to theater economics that I haven't considered that justify the traditional review embargo. Readers?

Hyundai Jumps Ahead of Settlement With Latest Recall

By CHRISTOPHER JENSEN

The move by Hyundai over the weekend to recall about 200,000 of its 2007-9 Santa Fe crossovers for an air bag problem stemmed from an unlikely source: the proposed settlement of a lawsuit seeking class-action status.

As part of the settlement, owners will have an unusual fallback, if a federal judge approves it: Hyundai will buy the vehicles back if they cannot be fixed, Robert B. Carey, a Phoenix lawyer who filed the suit, said in an interview.

Since 2006, Hyundai has recalled almost 1.3 million vehicles for air bag malfunctions, but this is the first time it has done so as a result of a settlement, a spokesman, Jim Trainor, wrote in an e-mail.

The settlement is to be filed in the United States District Court Central District of California by Aug. 17. Mr. Trainor declined to comment on the settlement, saying it would be inappropriate because the judge had yet to approve it.

However, Mr. Trainor said, regardless of whether the judge approved the settlement, the Santa Fe models will be recalled.

Hyundai says it will fix a software flaw that could result in the front passenger air bag being turned off if a person of “small stature” is seated there.

The defect could increase the chance of injury in a frontal crash, Hyundai said in a report (PDF) to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on its Web site.

The issue is the so-called advanced air bag system required by the federal government since 2006.

The systems are designed to minimize the chance of a person being injured by an air bag. Sensors detect the severity of the crash, the seating position and the occupant's size. A computer adjusts the force with which the air bag deploys depending on the input.

In addition, if a small child were seated there, which safety experts discourage, a warning light would say the passenger air bag was deactivated.

The thrust of the suit filed in 2009 is the assertion that some Hyundai advanced air bag systems were defective and turned off the passenger air bag when a person weighing as much as 120 pounds was seated.

Two of the named plaintiffs are a couple from Ohio who own a 2006 Sonata. The wife weighs “less than 120 pounds,” according to the suit.

The two others are a Texas couple whose 117-pound daughter's head hit the windshield in a frontal crash. The suit says the injury occurred because the air bag did not deploy. Mr. Carey said she was wearing a seat belt.

However, the suit also asked to represent “all persons who currently own or lease a 2006â€"9 Hyundai vehicles with an occupant classification system in the front passenger seat.”

It says those vehicles include, but are not limited to, the Sonata, Tucson, Tiburon, Santa Fe, Elantra, Accent and Azera.

According to Mr. Carey, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, the suit was neve r certified. The lawyer added that the parties went directly into settlement discussions.

In an interview, Mr. Carey said he wanted the Sante Fe crossovers fixed, but it was Hyundai's idea to do so with a recall through N.H.T.S.A.

Mr. Carey said the details of the buyback would be included when the proposed settlement was filed.

While the complaint asserted virtually all Hyundai models from 2006â€"9 had defective air bag systems, only the Santa Fes were being recalled as a result of the pending settlement.

In an e-mail, Mr. Carey wrote that as the case progressed “more robust data” were available and “further information indicated that some of those cars did not have a problem.”

Mr. Carey said he believed “the settlement addresses all vehicles with a problem.”

How to Cut Skilled-Labor Costs

By NANCY FOLBRE

Nancy Folbre is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

To import or to outsource? That is the question. Recent discussions of expanding access to H1-B visas highlight the tensions between employers in the United States in search of highly skilled employees and highly educated American citizens who face increasingly stiff competition in the global labor market.

Much of the discussion about expanding H1-B visas focuses on whether there are particular areas of “skill shortage” despite persistently high unemployment.

The more fundamental question is how much American employers can cut their costs either by importing highly skilled workers or exporting highly skilled jobs.

The answer is, a lot.

Since the 1990s, the global supply of skilled labor has greatly expanded and the technology for using this labor wherever it is has greatly improve d. Why hire a more expensive employee when a cheaper one is available? Why pay taxes to educate and train highly skilled workers when other countries (and their families and taxpayers) will do that for you?

The disruptive impacts of globalization initially hammered workers without much education. Many workers holding college degrees remained optimistic about the benefits of international trade, celebrating improvements in their own purchasing power.

Now, my students can decide for themselves if lower prices will compensate them for reduced opportunities and lower wages. More than half of recent college graduates in the United States are either unemployed or are working in a job that doesn't require a bachelor's degree. Entry-level wages for employed college graduates were lower in 2011 than in 2000.

The current global recession isn't the only cause. The economist Richard Freeman provides an extraordinarily clear account of what he calls “The Great Doubli ng” of labor supply resulting from structural changes that brought China and India more directly into the global marketplace.

Rather than relying merely on low-wage competition, China and India, like many developing countries, invested heavily in higher education and scientific training. While college graduates represent a small occupational elite within their large labor force, their absolute numbers are high compared with those homegrown in the United States.

College students in the United States who major in science, technology, engineering and mathematics â€" often referred to as STEM fields â€" definitely face better prospects in the labor market than others do. But even they need to be aware of intensified competition down the road.

Many software engineers and others in the information technology field feel particularly aggrieved about the effects of the H1-B visa program. The computer scientist Norman Matloff, who maintains a Web site on the topic , asserts that it enables employers to hire younger and less expensive workers, leaving many highly skilled, older programmers in the lurch.

Workers with H1-B visas have a strong incentive to remain with the employer for whom it was issued in order to obtain a green card, allowing permanent residence in the United States, in a timely fashion. As a result, they have relatively little bargaining power.

Professor Matloff, who favors extensive changes to the H1-B visa program, also warns of the growing impact of outsourcing on jobs for computer science majors. Further, he observes that high-tech companies insisting that there is a shortage of STEM workers with advanced degrees in the United States don't seem willing to invest much in increased financial support for graduate education.

Maybe college students should seek jobs that seem less vulnerable to global competition, in fields like health sciences. But I just read an article about health care companies sen ding jobs overseas that gave me palpitations.

The economist Alan Blinder asserts that high educational requirements can make a job more rather than less “offshorable.” Most large American companies have already figured this out â€" but it's not clear how many college students have.

I hate to be the one to break the news.

Reviewing the Acura ILX

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

In Sunday's automobile section, Lawrence Ulrich reviews the 2013 Acura ILX, a new compact sedan that comes three ways. He finds one of these versions, the 2.4L, very appealing, though it is not available, strangely, with an automatic transmission.

Although the ILX is a deluxe makeover of the Honda Civic, most people would never guess they're related. The Acura's fine road manners recall the slightly larger Accord-based Acura TSX.

Drop in the TSX's 2.4-liter engine, which feels stronger than its 201-horsepower rating, and you have an under-the-radar sport sedan, a touch lighter and faster than the ever-reliable TSX. The base price is $30,095, about $5,000 more than you'd spend on loaded versions of everyday compacts.

Read the entire review, check out the slide show, and share your thoughts on the Acura ILX in the comments.

After Recalls, N.H.T.S.A. Keeps Its Investigation Open

By CHRISTOPHER JENSEN

In an unusual move, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it planned to continue an investigation that led to two big recalls this week from Ford and Mazda.

Ford is recalling over 421,000 Escapes, while Mazda is recalling about 217,500 Tributes.

The issue involves a defect in the cruise control cables that could make the small crossover vehicles susceptible to unintended acceleration. They are mechanical siblings.

Typically, the safety agency concludes an investigation once a recall has been announced, but not this time.

“N.H.T.S.A.'s investigation into this issue remains open, pending the agency's review of the documents provided by Ford in its recall action,” an agency spokeswoman, Karen Aldana, wrote in an e-mail.

Ford and Mazda say they are cooperating.

Allan Kam, a former senior enforcement lawyer for N.H.T.S.A, said in an interview the decision to keep the invest igation open indicated investigators had unanswered questions.

Mr. Kam suggested investigators would want to know more about the hazard and might be trying to determine if the recalls should have happened sooner.

Ms. Aldana, the agency's spokeswoman, declined to comment further.

A Ford spokeswoman, Marcey Zwiebel, wrote in an e-mail, “We believe we have acted appropriately in our reaction to the information and data that was available to us.”

One thing that interests the agency is a technical service bulletin (PDF) the automaker sent to dealers late in 2005.

The bulletin is cited in the July 17, 2012, N.H.T.S.A. document announcing the Escape investigation. (PDF)

The service bulletin refers to repairs for a different recall in 2004. The 2004 recall (PDF) involved a problem with the accelerator cable on 470,000 Escapes and 121,000 Tributes from the 2002-4 model years.

The 2005 service bulletin gave dealers revised repair instructi ons and warned of the possible damage to the adjacent cruise control cable.

The nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, which had asked the agency to investigate the Escapes, contends Ford should have known in 2005 there was a safety problem and carried out a recall.

The Center said Ford should also have checked all the vehicles that had the 2004 accelerator-cable repair to make sure the cruise control cable had not been damaged.

Ford said it was not aware of the stuck-gas pedal hazard at that time, Ms. Zwiebel wrote in an e-mail.

“While we had some anecdotal knowledge from our dealers in 2005 that they had to replace speed control cables because of damage during the accelerator cable repairs, which led us to issue an updated dealer bulletin to explain the proper repair procedures, we were not aware at the time that the damage they reported could potentially lead to a stuck throttle condition,” she wrote.

When the agency opened its investigation it noted it had 99 complaints about unintended acceleration from Escape and Tribute owners.

Many of those complaints are from 2011 and 2010.

Under federal regulations, after discovering a safety problem, manufacturers have five working days to notify the agency of a recall. Failing to do so can result in civil fines of no more than $17.35 million.

The automakers plan to fix the Escapes and Tributes basically involves raising the engine cover, according to the report (PDF) filed with the agency.

In an interview, Clarence Ditlow, the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, said Ford and Mazda should be required to carry out a more expensive repair: replacing all the cruise control cables to make sure they have not been damaged.

\'Big Government\' Isn\'t So Big by Historical Standards. It\'s Also Shrinking.

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

While Washington debates whether big government is holding back the economy, it's worth keeping a couple of facts in mind: Government has been shrinking steadily for two years, and compared to the size of the overall economy, government is actually slightly smaller today than it has been on average in the postwar era.

Here's a chart showing the annualized percentage change in gross domestic product (blue) and the percentage change in total government spending and investment (red):

The overall economy has been growing for 12 quarters. Government spending, on the other hand, has been falling for eight quarters. That decline has been driven primarily by state and local spending, which has been falling for 11 quarters.

In other words, without the drag of shrinking government, the growth rate of the overall economy (which is measured as consumer spending + investment + government spending + net exports) would be faster. That is even before you consider how public layoffs ripple through the private sector as unemployed workers curb their spending.

Indeed, the shrinking government labor force is another factor worth noting when thinking about the role of government in the economy. While President Obama has been pegged as a big-government politician, the total number of government jobs has actually fallen under his presidency. Federal payrolls have risen a little bit, but not enough to fully plug the steady leak of layoffs at the state and local level.

Finally, to help you further put the size of government in perspective, consider that government spending relative to the size of the overall economy is actually slightly below its long-term, postwar average.

In the second quarter of this year, government spending (technically called “government consumption expenditures and gross investment”) represented 19.5 percent of the overall econ omy. Since 1947, the earliest date available, government spending has averaged about 20.2 percent of the economy.

For context, note that during Reagan's administration, government spending represented 20.7 percent of the country's gross domestic product, just above the country's longer-term average.

It is perhaps no wonder, then, that much of President Obama's liberal base is unhappy that the federal government has not done more to stimulate growth, even as his conservative critics decry socialism.

Mazda Follows Ford With Recall of Tributes

By CHRISTOPHER JENSEN

Mazda says it is recalling about 217,500 Tributes from the 2001-6 model years as well as some from 2008 to fix a problem with the cruise control cable that could lead to unintended acceleration.

The recall is related to Ford's recall Thursday of about 421,000 Escapes from the model years 2001â€"4 with the 3-liter V-6 engine for the same problem. The Escape and Tribute are mechanical siblings.

Mazda informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of its plan for a recall on Thursday evening, Tamara Mlynarczyka, a Mazda spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail.

The recall is to increase the clearance under the engine cover to eliminate the chance that the cruise-control cable could be damaged.

The Mazda recall covers some different model years than the Escape because Mazda used the same engine cover from 2001 through 2008, while Ford changed the design in 2005, Ms. Mlynarczyk wrote.

In other act ion:

-Some 11,500 owners of the 2013 Ford Escapes with 1.6 liter, 4-cylinder engines being recalled for a fire hazard are receiving some unusual treatment. Ford is offering to pay dealers up to $300 to pick up the vehicles, carry out the recall and then clean and fuel them.

The last time Ford offered such service was in 2004 when it recalled the 2005 Ford GT supercars, Marcey Zwiebela, a Ford spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail. In that action about 280 vehicles were recalled. (PDF)

What the two recalls share is Ford's unusual warning that owners stop driving them until they are fixed.

Ms. Zwiebel wrote that such perks were not going to be a routine recall policy, but she said, “we have the flexibility to take these types of actions when we think they are appropriate.”

- Michelin is recalling almost 800,000 truck tires in the United States because they could suddenly lose air, the manufacturer has told the safety ag ency.

The tires were sold under the BF Goodrich and Uniroyal brands and were produced at Michelin's plants in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Fort Wayne, Ind., according to a letter from Michelin posted early Friday on the agency's Web site. (PDF)

Michelin said the tires were sold as replacements for commercial light trucks and heavy-duty vans. Michelin told N.H.T.S.A. it was not aware of any death or injury claims.

Those would include vehicles like the Ford E350 vans, sometimes used as airport shuttles.

In its letter, Michelin said it began investigating “several instances of tread/belt endurance issues” in March.

By earlier this month, Michelin said it was aware of 143 claims of tire failures because of belt separation and concluded a recall was necessary.

The tires being recalled are: BF Goodrich Commercial T/A A/S LRE in 235/85/16 and 245/75/16 sizes; and the Uniroyal Laredo HD/H LRE in 235/85/16 and 245/75/16 sizes.

Michelin described the recall as voluntary, however, under federal regulations once a manufacturer is aware of a safety problem it has only five business days to inform the agency of its plan for a recall or face civil penalties.

- Kawasaki says it is recalling about 13,000 Concours 14 model motorcycles from 2008-12 because of a rear-brake problem.

In a report posted Friday on the agency Web site (PDF), Kawasaki said small stones or other road debris could become trapped in the rear brake mechanism causing it to drag. This could cause the brake to heat up, “potentially leading to rear brake damage and lock-up and failure.”

New Figures Put Recession and Recovery in Focus

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

The second quarter is in the spotlight Friday, but there's an interesting sideshow, too: revised gross domestic product numbers for 2009, 2010 and 2011.

The annual update of older numbers shows that 2009 was a little better, and 2010 a little worse, than the government estimated when it crunched the numbers last summer.

But the latest revisions also underscore that on the whole the recession was much worse, and the recovery much slower, than we understood at the time. The chart below compares the first estimate of quarterly growth, released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis one month after the end of each quarter, with the latest figures published Friday. (The numbers for 2008 were not revised Friday; the comparisons for that year are between the original estimates and the bureau's most recent revisions, which were published last summer.)

The pattern is obvious, but it's worth underscoring the magnitude: T he changes have erased more than $800 billion from the three-year period, roughly the annual economic output of the Netherlands.

As I wrote last summer, the early estimates have never been particularly reliable. They are concocted from comprehensive data, samples and educated guesswork, and then gradually refined.

But the march toward accuracy is painfully slow. The chart below shows the difference, in percentage points, between the new quarterly estimates and the B.E.A.'s prior estimate. For 2009, 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, that's the annual revision published last summer. For the more recent quarters, it's the estimate published four months after the end of the quarter.

As the chart shows, it's not just more recent quarters that are still jumping around. Some of the largest changes date back to 2009, for the mundane reason that the B.E.A. has only recently received comprehensive information on spending by state and local governments, and it turns out that the bureau's earlier estimates were much too low.

There are similar explanations for all the changes, but the bottom line is that we tend to overestimate how much we know about the health of the economy, or about its recent history.

Taiwan\'s Progress on Health Care

By UWE E. REINHARDT

Uwe E. Reinhardt is an economics professor at Princeton. He has some financial interests in the health care field.

Several years ago I wrote “Humbled in Taiwan,” a commentary for The British Medical Journal.

The piece was prompted by a conversation between a health services researcher and the head of health information technology of Taiwan's Bureau of National Health Insurance, which administers Taiwan's single-payer national health insurance system. By that time, virtually all of Taiwan's claims were billed electronically.

In that conversation, the bureau's head of health information technology lamented that some hospitals and physicians in Taiwan still failed to submit fully completed claims forms for encounters with patients within 24 hours of the encounter.

Twenty-four hours?

In the United States, claims settlement for medical procedures under private heal th insurance can take up to three months; it takes about three weeks for Medicare. As I noted in my commentary for The British Medical Journal, “private health insurance companies in the United States count themselves lucky if high-priced actuaries can tell them in the middle of the year what the carrier ultimately will have to pay the providers of health care for services rendered in the previous year.”

Since 1995, Taiwan's 23 million people have enjoyed universal, comprehensive health insurance coverage under its single-payer national health insurance system, which is financed by a mixture of payroll contributions from employers and employees and government subsidies.

The system is administered by the Bureau of National Health Insurance, whose administrative budget absorbs less than 2 percent of the system's total spending for health care benefits. Over all, Taiwan spends about 6.9 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, compared with close t o 18 percent spent in the United States. (More detail on the genesis of the system and its modus operandi can be found in this article in Health Affairs and on the bureau's Web site.)

About two weeks ago, I attended the Europe-Taiwan Health Dialogue, held in Taipei. That two-day conference was sponsored jointly by Taiwan's Department of Health and the European Health Forum Gastein, whose European Health Forums are among the leading platforms for discussions on health policy and are attended by participants from around the world. (My travel to the conference, to which I was invited as an academic expert, was underwritten by the Department of Health.)

As an American, I found myself humbled again by a presentation, “Information Technology and Patient-Centered Care â€" the Case of Taiwan,” delivered by Dr. Min-Huei Hsu, director of the Medical Informatics Center of Taiwan's Department of Health.

Dr. Hsu's presentation brought to my mind a chapter on health information, which, as chairman of the New Jersey Commission on Rationalizing Health Care Resources, I wrote for the final report published in January 2008. In that chapter I sketched out the vision for a 21st-century health information system for New Jersey that had emerged from discussion among the commissioners.

Alas, more often than not, the work of such commissions amounts to howling into the wind in our latitudes. It certainly did in that case.

But, in Taiwan, I saw much of such a system in place and fully operating, and mused how long it might take New Jersey, and much of America, for that matter, to come this far.

In Taiwan, the Department of Health, the very active Bureau of Health Promotion, the Centers for Disease Control and other governmental administrative functions are linked in a network that allows a select set of professionals access to its database, under strict controls to secure privacy. Clinics, hospitals and pharmacies are also linke d to this central database.

Among other things, this data system allows the guardians of public health to detect quickly the incidence of certain illness that may be infectious, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

Now in its third year is a clinical interface among health care facilities that already includes half of Taiwan's 500 hospitals. By 2016, all Taiwan's hospitals and 20,000 clinics where physicians practices are to be on this electronic medical record system.

This data system allows physicians in one hospital or clinic to get access to an individual patient's medical record, but only under strict conditions of privacy. The record includes hospital discharge summaries and medical records from outpatient visits, including prescriptions, lab tests and digital images. Such data-sharing among clinicians in different health care facilities or systems is rare in the United States. Again, roughly half of Taiwan's 500 hospitals are already l inked in this way, in the system's third year.

To access a patient's file requires that the physician has an authorized digital signature to do so and, more important, that the patient has swiped his or her own, personal electronic smart card through the specialized card reader on every physician's desk, thus authorizing the access.

That card reader has slots for both the patient's and the physician's electronic smart card. It links patient and physician directly to the data center of the Bureau of National Health Insurance at the very time the encounter takes place. Thus it allows the bureau to track health care use virtually in real time and also to monitor the behavior of patients given to excessive doctor shopping.

Touring a rural area, we saw mobile clinics on wheels, equipped with imaging devices (mammography scanners, sonar scanners and X-ray machines) for general check-ups of rural populations in remote areas. In front of the mobile clinics sat youn g technicians with laptops, linking to the Bureau of National Health Insurance data center both patients and physicians, with the latter also having access to the patients' medical records.

The information network also includes electronic kiosks in hospital lobbies; about half of Taiwan's hospitals now feature such kiosks. Using a secure identification card, a patient can make an appointment with a doctor or review her own medical record, including results from tests or scans. To find more about what the test results might indicate, she could use electronic links to explanations. Finally, since all medicines are bar-coded, she might consult the kiosk about the specifics of drugs prescribed for her.

Currently in the field are pilot studies for a national tele-health project for long-term care.

I am sure that there are pockets here and there in the United States with similarly advanced health information technology. Kaiser Permanante, for example, is bound t o be as advanced and perhaps even more so. The Veterans Administration is known for its electronic health information system. Some larger health systems and academic health centers may also have highly developed intra-system information systems.

But I wonder how many Americans today can walk up to a multifunction kiosk, find their own medical records, make appointments with doctors and learn there about lab tests and prescription drugs. I wonder how many American doctors today can reach their patients' complete medical records across different health care facilities and systems.

I do not want to romanticize Taiwan health care. Like any health system, it has its share of problems, all the more so because, at only 6.7 percent of G.D.P., the system is underfunded by at least a percentage point or so, using international standards.

I also am persuaded that Taiwan needs a larger supply of doctors. Nor would even Taiwan's health experts assert that their health i nformation system is perfect. It remains a work in progress.

But a national health system must be judged not only by the level of health care it delivers, but by what it offers its citizens for the money they spend on it â€" by its cost-effectiveness, in professional jargon.

In the United States, the Business Roundtable concluded in a 2010 study that given its high level of spending on health care, the American system shows a 23 percent value gap relative to what Europeans spend and get in return, and a 46 percent value gap relative to spending in Asian countries, including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

At its best, the American health system probably is unrivaled in the world, staffed by highly trained and hard-working doctors and nurses. For the most part, it boasts luxurious health care facilities.

Oddly and sadly, however, the United States has yet to harvest the full benefits of modern electronic health information. Our nation's engi neers and entrepreneurs design smart hardware and software for health care, but we do not seem to use our own products as smartly as do many other countries.

Wheelies: The Customer Knows Best Edition

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

In which we bring you motoring news from around the Web:

-Three Chevrolet models received high marks Wednesday in a J.D. Power & Associates study of how much consumers liked the new vehicles they bought. The Sonic subcompact, the Volt compact and the Avalanche pickup received the highest scores in their respective categories in the annual J.D. Power Apeal survey. Even so, the overall score for the Chevrolet brand came in below average. J.D. Power surveyed over 74,000 new-car owners from February to May, measuring the owners' opinion of styling, performance and design of 2012 model year cars and trucks. (Detroit Free Press)

-The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that 7,630 people died in traffic accidents in the first quarter, up 13.5 percent from the period a year earlier. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled jumped significantly, N.H.T.S.A. reported. In 2011, it noted, f atalities were down in all four quarters, based on its statistical projections. If the projections for the first three months are realized, the agency said, “it will represent the second largest year-to-year quarterly increase in fatalities since N.H.T.S.A. began recording traffic fatalities (1975).” (N.H.T.S.A.)

-Lincoln released pricing for its redesigned 2013 MKZ sedan on Wednesday, which goes on sale in the fall with four trim levels: Premiere, Select, Reserve and Preferred. The base level Premiere starts at $36,800, and the automaker will not charge extra for a hybrid engine. Each trim can be had with the base turbo 4, a 300-horsepower V-6 or a hybrid powertrain. The Lincoln hybrid is priced the same as the turbo 4 at each trim level. (Car and Driver)

-Mercedes-Benz said on Tuesday that its Beltbag restraint device for rear-seat passengers was to go into production in a coming model. The Beltbag, which features an inflatable seat-belt strap, can be used in the same way as a conventional seat belt. Once crash sensors detect a severe front impact, the device deploys and “inflates the multilayered belt strap with Velcro seams to nearly three times its normal width,” the automaker said. It was previewed in the 2009 Mercedes-Benz Experimental Safety Vehicle. (Mercedes-Benz)

-Eight Toyota plants in North America have been recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency for their energy performance, the company announced Wednesday. The plants achieved a 10 percent reduction in energy intensity through the Energy Star Challenge for Industry program. (Energy intensity is measured relative to efficiency improvements in process and equipment.) Collectively, Toyota said, the eight factories had reduced energy intensity by almost 24 percent from the baseline. (Toyota)

A Sharper Picture of Recession and Recovery

By ECONOMIX EDITORS

The second quarter is in the spotlight when the gross domestic product figures are released on Friday, but there will be an interesting sideshow, too: revised numbers for 2009, 2010 and 2011. We'll have a look at them here on Economix.

$176,000 for a Dodge Dart?

By JIM KOSCS

Delving into the history of the Dodge Dart for my collecting feature in this Sunday's Automobiles section, I spoke to a cross section of owners that represented the Dart's sheer reach and appeal, whether its driver was a schoolteacher or a drag racer. Two people I interviewed represented those extremes.

The Dart's affordability and reliability gave it a reputation as a “schoolteacher's car” according to Phil Donatiello of Brick, N.J. “I was one of them,” he said. Mr. Donatiello still owns a 1972 Dart sedan that he and his wife, Lenora, bought in 1978 to replace their 1964 Dart two-door hardtop. For 14 years, the two teachers commuted to Brick Memorial High School, a two-mile round trip. “The Dart was always reliable, even though the engine barely got warm on the short commute,” Mr. Donatiello said.

He bought a Mercury Cougar in the early '90s, but kept the Dart as an occasional weekend driver and car-show entry . “Everywhere I go with the Dart, people ask about it,” he said.

At the other end of the spectrum were the 50 Darts specially built in 1968 for N.H.R.A. Super Stock drag racing. Powered by race versions of the company's formidable 426 cubic-inch Hemi V-8 engine, the Darts, along with 50 similarly equipped Plymouth Barracudas, so clearly dominated the Chevys and Fords in their racing classes that the N.H.R.A. created a special class just for them.

One such drag car sold for a princely $176,000 at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Ariz., in January. Others have sold for even more, according to Craig Jackson, the chief executive of the auction house, who owned one of those specially built Darts. “Some are still being raced competitively,” he said.

For perhaps one-tenth of that price, if not less, a hobbyist with an itch to scratch can acquire a very nice Dart coupe or convertible, as Brian Wiprud, featured in an accompanying article, did with a 1967 model. But he offers some cautionary words for anyone who thinks a reliable, durable car can remain so without extra care.

Most Darts simply ran their course as transportation devices and entered retirement the way most cars do, destined to be scrapped and recycled or compacted in landfills. But given their popularity during their production years, Darts remain relatively plentiful.

“In many parts of the U.S. - and the world - where road salt isn't used, thousands of Dart and Dart-based cars are still on the road,” Richard Ehrenberg, tech editor for Mopar Action magazine, wrote in an e-mail.

Writing for Mopar Action, I've learned of a Dart enthusiast community on which owners rely for finding parts or solving technical issues. Those considering a purchase of a classic Dart would be well advised to consider joining the Slant Six Club.

Ben Deutschman, who runs the club from his home in New Jersey, introduced me to several of the Dart owners w ho appeared in this weekend's article. The club was originally intended for owners of Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth vehicles powered by the slant six, an in-line-6-cylinder engine that earned the nickname for the way its engine block leaned over toward the passenger side to allow for a low hood line. The club welcomes all cars from those brands, whatever engine powers them down the road.

To learn more about the world of Darts, two vast online resources, Allpar.com and Valiant.org, both edited and managed by David Zatz in New York City, are great starting points.

G.M. Participates in a Test of Smart-Grid Features in Master-Planned Community

By PAUL STENQUIST

On Tuesday, General Motors and its OnStar division announced they would partner with Pecan Street Incorporated to conduct a smart-grid demonstration project in Mueller, a master-planned community roughly three miles from downtown Austin, Tex. The Chevrolet Volt will play a key role.

The project, supported b a $10.4 million grant from the Energy Department and more than $14 million in matching funds from project partners, is intended to test an integrated clean-energy smart grid in a 700-acre urban neighborhood developed on the site of a shuttered airport. Although Pecan Street is at the helm of the test operation, it also includes researchers from the University of Texas, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles will play an integral role in the demonstration. “Electric vehicles represent a significant addition to a home's energy profile, and u nderstanding that impact and how consumers use and charge their vehicles is critically important,” Brewster McCracken, executive director of Pecan Street, said in a media release.

Kara Colt, a spokeswoman for G.M., wrote in an e-mail that 60 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are in use within the test community of 600 homes. Of those vehicles, 55 are Chevrolet Volts, comprising what G.M. calls the greatest concentration of Volts in the world. Ms. Colt added that in addition to the $7,500 federal tax credit extended to buyers of certain plug-in hybrid and purely electric vehicles, Mueller residents received a $7,500 rebate from Pecan Street on their Volt purchases. Those leasing a Volt for three or more years, meanwhile, received a $3,000 rebate.

The demonstration has many components, including smart appliances used in conjunction with home-management systems and smart electric meters; energy storage technologies that optimize the use of solar power; clean e nergy distribution; and green building construction. For G.M. and OnStar, determining how those technologies interact with and support electric-vehicle charging is of particular interest.

“The partnership provides us with a unique opportunity to observe charging details with many real customers in a concentrated setting,” Nick Pudar, an OnStar executive, said in the media release. “We're gathering information from families' vehicles throughout this community to find out the direct impact the Volt has on the grid and how to get drivers the lowest-possible charging rate.”