Category: politics

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politics

Vegas, and a modest proposal

Gambling was a blast the first time I went to Vegas. I hung out at the Roulette table and had a pretty long run. Eventually, I ran out of chips and the thought “I need more chips” crossed my mind. It took several minutes to remember that those chips were actually money. That isn’t by accident, the casinos know exactly what they are doing.

In the same vein, I’m getting sick and tired of hearing “The federal government” will pay for program x, y, and z. I would like a law passed that would require all government employees to substitute the phrase “The American taxpayers” for “The federal government.” It sounds like a minor thing but I think that it would have some significant effects. Instead of hearing senators say “The federal government will provide a subsidy of $4500 for older cars,” we would have “The American taxpayer will provide a subsidy of $4500 for older cars.” That does sound different, doesn’t it? I want politicians, members of the press, and political hacks on all sides to stop deceiving themselves and others. I want them to stop playing games when it comes to spending money. Be truthful when talking about spending our money!

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politics

California, trend setter and cautionary tale

The budget mess in California is a sight to behold. They are the poster child for spending run amok. Well, they still aren’t as bad as the federal government, but there’s a big difference between states and the feds. The states are not allowed to print money in order to pay for their expenditures.

I hear that the state legislature of California has come to an agreement on what to do with their budget. I’m always amazed at how government programs suddenly become “essential” when it comes time for cuts. Things worked OK before the program started, but we are told that all hell will break loose if it is cancelled. The problems in CA can be boiled down to this; it is very easy to add spending but it is very difficult to cut it. Even the compromise that they have worked out depends on CA jumping out of the recession quickly. They rationalize that they can afford this budget in the future. Of course, they don’t want to acknowledge that they can’t afford it now.

I do hope that the powers that be can navigate the tremendous amount of debt that has been accumulated, both in budgetary matters and with the central bank. I’m hopeful, but not optimistic.

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free market freedom of choice medical politics

Something has to give

I’m trying to keep up with the whole health care reform thing, and it’s making me question my sanity. I thought that the pressing issue was how much our health care cost, but now it seems like “coverage” is the big thing. The real problem is how we imagine health care should be. The ideal coverage doesn’t cost us anything and treats everything. Clearly, that can’t happen.

I got this comparison from Penn Gillette of all people… Imagine that we had “food insurance” that worked the same way as our health insurance does now. Do you think that the prices of food would rise if there wasn’t any incentive to look at how expensive things are? If our insurance covered everything (and what good is insurance if it doesn’t?), we would buy the best food all the time. In addition, all of the people that made food would make more and more expensive food. In other words, the good things about a market would get turned on it’s head and we’d have ever increasing costs instead of competition driving prices down.

I do think that the price we pay is way out of whack, but I don’t put the blame on greed, I put it on the fact that our incentives are all screwed up. If you wanted to get philosophical, you could claim that greed is what causes people to want services at either no cost or very little cost to them… but I would never do that.

We need insurance to be more like our home insurance or car insurance. Those policies do not cover everything, they are there for catastrophic losses. The typical health insurance tries to be exhaustive. What ends up happening is the worst of all worlds. We end up paying for our health care in installments AND we get the high prices from the screwed up system. Yes, we should insure against really bad things happening, but we have gone overboard in insulating ourselves from the cost of things, our current system is the result.

Needless to say, the 1000 page monstrosity that is being worked on up in DC is nothing more than doling out favors and scoring political points. I am very certain that whatever comes out of that process will cause prices to go up even more, our quality of service to go down, or some other really bad outcome. The political process is not a very good tool for problems like this, look at what it has already done! If more people would realize what has happened, we wouldn’t be turning to the same people that screwed us up in the first place.

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freedom of choice politics

Beware any corporation that supports legislation that will cost them money.

Wal Mart is support new legislation that would require employers of a certain type to provide health insurance to their employees. Shouldn’t they be fighting that? After all, it is one of the things that is supposed to make them monsters. Yes, in their ideal world, they would not have to offer anyone health insurance at all. So why are they supporting this legislation?

It’s easy, this will hurt their competition (and potential competition) more than it will hurt them. The government will, in effect, strengthen Wal Mart’s position in the retail sphere. Yes, it will cost Wal Mart money, but it is the only way to make their competition incur costs that will hurt them. Usually Wally World is unable to dictate what costs places like Target and Costco have to deal with, but with the federal government’s power to regulate employee benefits, the way is opened to inflict damage to their competition.

This goes on all the time. Legislation that is supposed to help people ends up hurting by limiting competition. In reality, this is a way for congress and big companies to work together. The big business gets protection and the legislators get cheap political points. Sigh…

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economics politics

What? Why didn’t he think about this before?

I really can’t believe Obama said this…

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Umm, why didn’t you think of that before pushing through that so called stimulus and all of those bailouts? I would use a well known saying involving a pot and kettle, but I don’t want to be accused of being a racist. Where does he think all this debt came from? And more importantly, why didn’t he worry about this BEFORE taking on all of that debt? Unbelievable…

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politics

A political joke

What do you call a Republican that is pro-choice, supports Obama, and supports civil unions for homosexuals? ? A Democrat. Zing!

This is what strikes me the most about Arlen Spectre defecting to the democratic party. These days, the only thing that separates dems and republicans is a fondness for different policies. There are no longer any philosophical differences on the nature of government. It is assumed that the president “runs” the country, it is assumed that the “direction” of the country comes from DC.

I think this is worse news for the republicans than for the democrats. There is enough support for the policy direction of the democratic party that they can float along with no problem. The republican agenda has been uncool for some time, and is quickly falling by the wayside. With any luck, this is the beginning of the end of the republican party’s social conservatism as a political force. They have long since abandoned any claim on being the party of fiscal conservatism. For a long time, that was the main identity of republican politics, then they hitched their wagon on social conservatism. That was a long term tactical error that may well end the Republican party.

While my ideal political party would have a platform of fiscal conservatism and an emphasis on civil liberties (I actually think they are the same thing), I would be happy with some politicians that had no other platform than responsible fiscal policies. We need some resistance to the current republican/democratic fetish of spending money without thinking of the consequences. In short, we need a real alternative to business as usual in the political sphere.

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freedom politics

An immigration issue

A guy named George from Ghana found me on facebook. He is one of several people that have come across my profile while looking up things like “feedom” and “free market.” It’s gratifying to have other people with similar outlooks get in touch with me.

He is an advocate of free markets and freedom in general and uses those ideas to try to help people in his country. He is currently working for a company called “Save the Village.” If I understand correctly, the idea is to foster economic development in villages in order to keep them viable.

In any case, George was invited to go to a conference put on by the Mackinak Center for Public Policy. They are an organization that promotes free market thinking in Michigan. Talk about a tall order… Anyway, they are an organization that encourages liberty, freedom, etc.

Here’s the thing, George was refused a tourist visa to come to the US. Why? Because he’s not married… I’m familiar with visa issues for people in Yemen and I can kind of understand the State department’s wariness about letting the wrong person go to the states. I had never heard of not being married as a reason for being denied entry into the US before.

It sounds as though they are worried that he won’t come back to Ghana. They have deemed that he does not have enough “ties” to guarantee his return. The fact that he works to promote the long term viability of village in Ghana and the fact that he was attending a conference to promote freedom and economic liberty wasn’t enough for him. He needs to be married. The irony of being denied a visa to the US to attend a conference on liberty is sickening…

Categories
economics free market politics

Hate to say I told you so

GM is looking for more money. Let them go into bankruptcy already. People are going to get fired in any event, we should allow the things that are worth something to be sold and the rest go away. Why are we being saddled with keeping this failed corporation alive?

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economics free market freedom politics

Two sides to everything (pt. 2)

I don’t want anyone to think these are the only reasons that people would be for or against the stimulus bill. There is always the possibility of stupid partizanship. I’m ignoring the possibility that people are for it/against it simply because of who proposed it. There are also an infinite number of variations on what Ihave written, but I’m trying to paint with large strokes in order to simplify. I’ll admit to having a little trouble with characterizing the group that is in favor of this “stimulus” bill, but I will try anyway. Please correct me if I’m way off…

At their best, the people that are in favor of this bill are worried about the general public’s welfare and believe that the government has the power to make sure that everyone is cared for. There is a deep belief in the power of the government to work for what is right and true. Underneath this belief, there seems to be the usually unsaid understanding that all things economically flow through and come from the government. If the government doesn’t do it, it won’t happen. They believe that morality should be the basis of government and that no “good” person could really be against a government made this way.

At their worst, the people that are in favor of not only stimulating the economy but in all of the other things that are in the bill are technocrats. They believe that they know what is best for everyone in this country. Underneath this belief is the understanding that people at large can’t be entrusted to take care of themselves. Not only are people stupid, but they should be actively discouraged from doing what they think is best. Somehow, even though they are stupid, they are still the technocrats burden and must be cared for…

Once again, the more extreme view is pretty out there, but they do exist. How often have we heard the phrase, “They should be sterilized?” I know, that is usually said in jest, but it points to a deeper feeling of “We are in the right and they are insignificant.”

Don’t jump on me, I know there’s a wider spread, but these seem like they are the two extremes of the people that favor this bill.

I do have some big problems with even the best case scenario I’ve outlined above (the worst case I won’t even dignify with a critique). First, I don’t see any evidence that the government has “our” best interest at heart. That is tied up in my second issue in that the government keeps changing. Even if we were to elect a government that is pure in word and deed and had perfect foresight, that government would change. I think it is telling that the people that have the above belief only have it when the “right” people are in office. No one ever seems to connect the dots in the fact that if a government has the power to do good, it also has the power to do evil. I worry about the power, if they don’t have sweeping power, it matters much less who is in charge.

The third thing that I don’t like is that there have been governments based on the principles outlined above. They have been formed with the stated goals of equality and justice and have all been nothing but evil. The Soviet Union, Red China, North Korea, etc. What needs to be emphasized is not that the wrong people were in charge, but that people like that will always be drawn to lead governments like that. While I don’t think that our government is in danger of becoming like those, I am very worried about those types of people being drawn into the government because of all of the power they can wield.

This isn’t a left/right or republican/democrat thing. This is all about what people believe when it comes to the government’s role in our lives. I’m willing to bet a lot of people don’t give it much thought and I’m also willing to believe that the majority of people in this country believe in what I have described above. I’m just hoping to make my point and tell people why I am against this and not be seen as an uncaring person or a partisan hack…

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economics freedom freedom of choice politics

Two sides to everything (pt. 1)

This bailout business is comical. Both “sides” can line up economists that agree with them. All of them have models and historical facts and figures to make their case. Unfortunately, macroeconomics isn’t something that can be proven. i wouldn’t be surprised if both sides were right some of the time.

This event is not so much about competing schools of economics, but of world views. I’ll start with the “side” that I’m in because I understand it pretty well.

Resistance to this bailout goes well beyond the idea “It won’t work.” At their best, people who do not want this bill passed believe that everyone should spend their money the way they see fit. People should be free to labor for what they think is important with a minimum of burden from outside influences like the government. This means keeping the tax levels low, and therefore keeping government spending low. Not everyone will do what we like, but c`est la vie, everyone is different and we can’t expect them to do our bidding. They don’t believe that this “stimulus” will work because no one can steer an economy. It is built on what is done by everyone in it as opposed to being directed from above. If things are left to themselves, the entire economy may look like it’s going up or down, but that isn’t really important. Allowing people to have the freedom to react to their world is paramount. There is a coherent, logical form of economics that says that this type of arrangement would allow for the most widespread prosperity not only in this country, but worldwide. History would seem to bear them out. While it’s true that there has never been a government like this, the opposite has been tried with disastrous results.

At their worst, the people that oppose this “stimulus” believe that the real motivation for it is slavery. Massive spending is the first step to higher taxes, and being forced to work without remuneration is in fact slavery. Think about it, if the government taxes you at 8.3 percent, that means that you would work for an entire month without seeing any money. It might be OK if they then spent it on things you agree with, but these people would never admit to that, plus, if they wanted it, they wouldn’t need to have the threat of incarceration to pay for it. In reality, people are generally taxed at much higher rates already and if taxes are not paid, you go to jail. In these people’s eyes, the current bill is simply the latest effort to force people to live and work in a way that the political elite want them to.

Like all extremes, the worst version of this view is a little kooky although it’s hard to argue against the slavery definition. One thing that needs to be emphasized is that just because someone is against this bill, it does not mean that they want people to suffer. They just have different priorities in how our labor should be spent. I’m somewhere closer to the first, or best case scenario in my own outlook, but I can sympathize with people who have the second. I’ll try my hand at the “pro” side to the bill in the next post.

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