Categories
free market politics

The best summary of the Wisconsin mess

Reason‘s Tim Cavanaugh sums up the problem the Wisconsin public sector unions have

 

One picketing government worker blames Ohio taxpayers for acting like victims:

“What I’m seeing here today is that management is trying to be seen as the victim here, but they sit across the table and negotiated these deals just like us,” said Lawrence McKissic, of Twinsburg, who was at the Statehouse on Thursday. McKissic is an IT specialist for the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation in Garfield Heights.

“My concern as a state worker is that we would be unilaterally taken out of collective bargaining and it is being done without any word or input from the union or the employees,” he said. “They’re just trying slam this through this committee.”

McKissic refers to “management” as if he’s calling out a cabal of plutocrats rather than the people of Ohio, who will have to take up the slack for whatever new benefits accrue to the vital IT specialists of Garfield Heights. I think this is where the pro-union movement will find its limit. Outside of Detroit, Hollywood and what’s left of the newspaper industry, when you say “union” you almost always mean “government employee union.” In the private sector they expect results. The hard truth is that where public sector unions are concerned, there are no bazillionaires to point to on the other side of the bargaining table.

 

That’s really the crux of it. The public sector unions don’t have as much to bargain with since there are no profits to split with “management.” The state is in difficult financial shape, the money has to come from somewhere. Unions telling everyone that they can’t suffer these payments are essentially telling everyone else that they should suffer instead. We’ll see how long the union can sway public opinion…

 

Oh, and another related post made me laugh. I saw a posting in a blog that said, “Obama wasn’t elected by ‘big money’ so he should give more direct support to the union in Wisconsin.” Excuse me? The AFL-CIO isn’t “big money”? The public sector unions are among the largest, and most powerful lobbying organizations out there. Anyone that thinks that this is a battle for “the little guy” is out of their minds…

Categories
free market politics

Oh those wacky Greeks

Remember when Greece’s financial situation became untenable? Remember how the government tried to cut back costs because they ran out of money? We all laughed and jeered at the reaction the Greeks had to this, mass strikes, protests, etc. It was clear to everyone that some things had to change, but the public sector in Greece essentially said that everyone else should sacrifice, not them.

 

Man, was I glad I didn’t live in a place like that. So imagine my sadness when I read about the issues in Wisconsin. The administration is trying to cut into the deficit they have by lowering costs. They want the public sector folks to contribute to their own retirement packages and pay some of their own health insurance premiums. Keep in mind that those payments would still be half of what the typical private sector employee has to deal with. What was the reaction? Mass outrage from the public sector. There have been comparisons of the governor and Hitler (by the teamsters I think) and teachers comparing him to Stalin. No really… The democrat lawmakers have fled the capital to prevent the bill from coming to a vote.

 

Once again, the message is, “Our benefits are sacrosanct, even if they are far better than the private sector. Cut something else.” Someone else should pay instead of us, even if they’re only being asked for a small concession. In most places, it is the public sector workers that are bankrupting the state, I’m sure it is the same in Wisconsin. I’m hopeful that this display will further turn the voters against the public sector unions, but I’m not sure that the idea that the state does not have unlimited funds will sink in until the government gets shut down…

Categories
freedom politics

Foreign policy chickens coming home to roost.

So Tunisia started it, who knows when it will end. Egypt is rioting, Yemen is demonstrating, and Jordan is tense. Pop quiz, what do Saddam Hussain, Mubarak, Ben-Ali, Salah, and the Shah of Iran all have in common? That’s right, they are, or were wildly unpopular rulers that were supported by the US government. So far, Iran has been the worst case scenario as far as how they have responded to the US after the leader was deposed. Our befriending of Saddam was mostly due to the ongoing strife that supporting the Shah and the shenanigans that brought him into power brought on.

If Egypt does wrest control from Mubarak, some interesting things are going to be put into motion. Here’s another question, what are Egyptians supposed to think of a US government that just told them that they shouldn’t want to be out from under Mubarak? For the record, Biden really is an ass and should not be allowed to speak in public. Would it really surprise anyone if the general populace in Egypt does not trust the US after having propped up the instrument of their repression for 30 years?

The reasons why people don’t like the US are many and varied, but it can’t be denied that “A friend of my enemy is my enemy” enters into people’s thinking. I don’t know how many times people in Yemen asked me why my government, supposedly in the land of the free, continued to support some of the worst autocratic rulers in the world. I couldn’t really tell them the truth, that US politicians and policy wonks considered those rulers adequate for keeping the rabble under control. It would just confirm their suspicions. I heard a joke over there, it went like this:

 

George Bush convenes a press conference and announces that as part of the war on terror, 100,000 Arabs will be killed, and 1 doctor. A member of the press asks the president, “Mr. President, why are you going to kill one doctor?” Bush then leans over to Rice and says, “See, I told you that no one cares about Arabs…”

I have heard several variations on that joke. Sometimes it is one Israeli, sometimes it is one American. In all cases, it is clear that people are interested in the single person over the 100,000 arabs.

I’m glad to see that the Obama administration is following a more nuanced treatment of Mubarak, Biden notwithstanding. With any luck, good old Hosni will be convinced to depart and let Egypt get on with the political evolution that has been stunted for these 30 years. Will things get ugly and complicated in the middle east? Undoubtedly. Will the folks at State and the leaders in this government learn any lessons about planting time bombs in foreign governments? I’m sure they won’t. SIgh….

Categories
economics politics

The best way to think about macroeconomics

Russ Roberts, the host of the Econtalk podcast, just put up a really good post about the limits of knowledge. Here’s an excerpt:

 

Suppose the economy does well this year–growth is robust and unemployment falls. What is the reason for the improvement? Will it be because of the natural rebound of an economy after a downturn that has lasted longer than people thought? The impact of the stimulus finally kicking in? The psychological or real impact of extending the Bush tax cuts? The psychological or real impact of the November election results? The steady hand of Obama at the tiller? All of the above? Can any model of the economy pass the test and answer these questions?

The reason macroeconomics is not a science and not even scientific is that the question I pose above is not answerable. If the economy improves, there will be much talk about the reason. Data and evidence will be trotted out in support of the speaker’s viewpoint. But that is not science. We don’t have a way of distinguishing between those different theories or of giving them weights to measure their independent contribution.

 

The macro economy is just too complex for us to be able to suss out the reasons that things happen with any sort of exactness. When we look at an end result like employment, GDP, or the stock market we naturally try to figure out “the reason” for that thing to be the way it is. There is no single reason, there is no single vector that can explain an aggregate result. It’s like seeing shapes in clouds. A pattern emerges, but there isn’t any one thing controlling it.

Macroeconomics is inevitably apologetics for a particular policy track. Anyone spouting it inevitably feels as though the government can in fact steer the economy. They never seem to ask themselves the question that if the government can control stuff like that, why didn’t they stop the bad stuff from happening? The fact that government officials can’t see things coming and then promise to fix things later should make people wonder.

 

 

 

You can read The Test: “” from Russ at that link.

 

Categories
culture politics

Richard Nixon, Laugh In, and political campaigns

Here’s a great piece talking about the impact of Nixon’s “Sock it to me?” utterance on Laugh In. I had no idea that the writing for Laugh In was so supportive of the Nixon administration, and conversely, I didn’t know how much Nixon hated the Smothers Brothers. This blog piece has some great clips in it, including the above mentioned gag. There is also a bit of Nixon playing piano on the Jack Parr show, and a clip of some of the ending jokes from laugh in. I’ve only ever seen bits and pieces of Laugh In. I’m sure that a lot of it would look dated now, but it does look like they had a good time…

 

 

The Comedy Writer That Helped Elect Richard M. Nixon – WFMU’s Beware of the Blog: “”

(Via .)

Categories
freedom politics

In defense of third party candidates

Back in 2008, I wrote about my difficulty with the presidential candidates. I lamented that i couldn’t see much difference between the coke and Pepsi parties or who was running for president. I caught some flack for that but I think that history has borne me out. Spending is way up, that was expected, but Gitmo is still open, we’ve doubled down in Afghanistan, not only is habeas corpus still being denied in the “War on Terror” but now the administration is targeting US citizens for assassinations, drone attacks continue farther and farther away from combat areas, etc. We’re on the brink of the Fed ramping up the printing presses and the specter of awful inflation leading to a possible zombified economy kind of like Japan’s has been for this past decade. I would have fully expected all this from a republican administration too.

 

So if Democrats are going to act very similarly to republicans, what is the option? Most people simply held their noses and voted for the candidate that bothered them the least. Our current political climate is a direct consequence of that type of voting. Bush was so bad that he destroyed his party’s “brand” even among many that usually voted republican. Obama got many, many votes simply because he wasn’t Bush. The trouble is that those folks voted for a party that they didn’t agree with on a lot of things. The democrats took their convincing victories as backing their agenda instead of understanding that a big chunk of folks were voting against people moreso than voting for them. So the dems took advantage of their control and passed stuff that a big percentage of people that voted for them didn’t like. Outrage, anger, etc. have followed.

Here’s a startling idea, instead of voting against someone, why not vote for someone? That was my decision last election and it really freed me from guilt about my vote and angst over the two party system. My alternative was not to vote, and i didn’t like that idea. Instead, I found a party that is anti-war, pro gay rights, anti-war on drugs, and believes in well understood paths to prosperity. It also makes you promise that you will never use coercion to further  political aims. You can read the full platform here. Stumping for my particular favorite party isn’t why I’m writing this. My main goal is to get people thinking about what they are actually voting for. It turns out that there are other parties that may more closely match your views of the world. If your views don’t match the big two parties, you do a great disservice in not making those views known. If you persist in voting for the big two, you will only embolden them to keep doing what they have done. The best way to voice your displeasure is to vote for someone that shares your view on the world. Peruse the list here and see if there’s a party out there that more closely matches your views and go out and vote!

 

Categories
economics politics

Putting things into perspective (military spending)

CATO’s Christopher Preeble makes a lot of sense in his post about Gates’s proposels for trimming down the military.

 

“Gates claims that the U.S. military needs to grow because the world is becoming “more dangerous.” More dangerous than what? The notion that a few hundred al Qaeda ragamuffins and their Taliban allies poses a greater threat to Americans than a nuclear-armed Soviet Union is absurd on its face, and yet we spend more on our military today than at the height of the Cold War.”


The plan to cut down on waste by shutting down the Joint Forces Command in Hampton has gotten the predictable responses from the local politicians. The senators, house members, the governor, and the local politicos are unanimous in declaring that the closing of that command will be disastrous to the national security of the nation… oh, and it will adversely affect the local economy too. If military spending is going to be cut, things will have to go away. And guess what Virginia, states that have a heavy military presence are going to get things cut. Trying to make the case that everyone else in the country needs to support this base because Hampton will suffer is absurd. The fact that no one mentions the unfairness of this arrangement galls me. It’s one thing if the base actually does protect us in some way, but when the military itself considers it expendable, that should tell us something.

I suppose that this base actually did something at least. There are several senators and congressmen pursuing projects that the military has explicitly stated that they do not want and will not use. This doesn’t stop politicians from trying to waste our money for their voters. The building of an alternate engine for the joint strike fighter and the C-17 airplane are conspicuous in their egregious waste of money. These are projects that will not be used, but politicians are pushing them to create jobs in their districts. It’s akin to paying people to dig holes and then fill them in again.


I need to stop reading the news, all of this makes me sick.

Categories
politics technology

Net neutrality paranoia

Once again, the specter of government regulation of the internet rears its head under the banner of net neutrality. Once again, people seem to have their stories confused as to why this is an important topic. We are told that corporations are plotting to give priority to certain types of information speed-wise over others. The networking companies claim this is the only way they can efficiently use their networks, by separating VOIP, streaming video, and email from each other and then charging people for the bandwidth they actually use. Somehow, this is supposed to lead to them filtering information so that people only get what the corporations want them to get.

Tell me that doesn’t sound paranoid, go ahead. It also doesn’t make any sense. It actually does make sense from the networking end of things to give different types of traffic different priorities, but let’s ignore that for a second. Are the companies greedy or not? Do they try to make as much money as possible, do they try to outdo their competition for subscribers?

My question is this, who would subscribe to a service that blocks content? Or to put a different spin on it, how long would it take for a company to advertise that they do not block content or restrict speeds regardless of content? Do you think that would give them a competitive advantage?

See, that’s the thing, net neutrality laws are totally unnecessary assuming that there are at least a couple of companies actually competing for subscribers. As long as one company offers non-discriminatory speeds, all of them have to. As long as one of them does not restrict content, none of them can. I say go ahead Comcast, try to implement some content filtering and see what happens. Verizon/cox/everyone else will be licking their chops waiting for your ex-customers.

On the other side of things, allowing congress to get a foothold in the workings of the internet is a very dangerous precedent. Would you want Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, or Jesse Helms mucking around with the internet? No? Then you can’t allow Pelosi, Franken, and Frank mess with it either. Leave the internet alone. We will be taken care of, not because the companies want to, but because they have to in order to survive and beat the competition.

Categories
economics politics

A sobering perspective

I subscribe to a financial news service, one that is aligned along the ways I think about the economy and has more than a little Austrian econ flavor. Anyway, one of their commentors was discussing all of these countries with all of their financial issues. He pointed out that huge debts and deficits are common during times of war. Wars are expensive and there is a lot at stake. Sometimes, you have to deficit spend just to keep the barbarians from breaking down the gates.

Here’s the thing, the wave of budget problems, enormous deficits, and ballooning debts sweeping across countries had almost nothing to do with war. Countries seem to be running themselves into the ground by just doing business as usual. That should make everyone pause and question what the government should really be doing, and yet that doesn’t seem to be happening to any great extent.

Yes, the US is fighting a war, and it does have a big effect on our bottom line. But what about Ireland? Greece? California? What excuse do they have? What excuse do the people living there have? Will the US be able to cope with a war AND ballooning deficits and debt? We’ll see, but seeing how some of the European nations have fared doesn’t make me real optimistic…

 

Categories
freedom politics

Extra-judicial

I’m not using the prefix of extra to mean larger, in this context, it means outside of. I have written before about the administration’s use of predator drones. Like I said, there is an argument to be made about pursuing folks that are actively fighting the US forces beyond the combat zone and doing away with them. I don’t buy them, but the arguments can be made. Where I have a real issue is when US citizens are targeted, ones that are not actively fighting the US. The administration has OK’d the killing of this American for inspiring the underwear bomber. There has not been a trial, there is no indictment, there is no jury. Did we gun down Tim McVeigh when we found him? No. We didn’t even kill Sadaam when we found him. Maybe this guy deserves to die, but surely we shouldn’t allow the executive branch to execute whomever they think they should. If Dubya had done this, there would have been universal outrage, and it would have been warranted. The current president is getting a free pass and I have no idea why.

I was happy to see a modest protest about this though. There is what looks like a transformer or phone circuit box on the right as you go over the Key bridge into Georgetown.  On it has been spray painted an image of a predator and the word “extrajudicial.” I doubt most people understand or care, but I am glad to see it. I am glad that there are some people that are bothered with the power that had been seized by Dubya and is now being wielded by Obama. I wish there were more…