The Obama Administration's "Money for Everyone" Program

So Mr. Obama has shown that he is in favor of a great many government spendings. He is going to cut taxes for the middle class (when our gov't debt is already spiraling), but that's great, he's pro-middle-class. He's going to bolster education money, medicare, and state infrastructure development, as well as increase unemployment benefits--that's great, though, he's helping the poor and unemployed. In traditional New Deal Liberalism, the rich would pay for all this, and 80% of us would walk away happy, not thinking about whether what we had just pulled was highway robbery--we'd be too busy counting our free money.

But not this time. Mr. Obama does not discriminate--he is not anti-rich, like many of his predecessors, no. Mr. Obama is in favor of not only the current almost-$1Trillion bailout for gigantic finance companies, car companies, mortgage companies, and the like, but he wants more. So these big-businesses, which had far-from-optimal business plans, inefficiency, corrupt practices, and crappy products, are now getting big paychecks--large chunks of which are going to this year's bonsuses for the incompetent CEO's that run the places.

So if Obama's not targeting the rich with these taxes, who's getting targeted? Well, the rich are being targeted--but only some of them. The only people that are going to end up paying for this are those whose businesses are chugging along fine--the successful. It is those who were smart enough, tough enough, dedicated enough to keep from taking a crippling blow from the economy that will be punished. And for those who have suffered and are right on the edge of collapse, too bad--higher taxes, higher minimum wage, higher benefits required. Someone's got to pay for it, right?

But we have reached such a bone-headed age in our history that it is no longer the rich that are forced to pay for the poor, but the successful that are forced to pay for the failures, the clean that are forced to pay for the corrupt, the brilliant that are forced to pay for the incompetent. Success--not wealth--is the new dividing line between those that pay and those that receive. No longer does our society reward those that worked hard, that kept their noses clean, that had good ideas, that were clever--no, we punish them for their success with higher taxes, and we reward the foolish and the incompetent with bailouts, with tax breaks.

So now, we've got the stupidest incentive structure that I can think of. And here's the awesome part: when it all falls apart, we'll blame the Free Market, we'll blame Capitalism, we'll blame Greed, we'll blame Money, we'll blame the owners of those successful companies. We'll hail our politicians for saving us, hail them for punishing the owners of those companies, hail them for telling us that they are fixing things, but the evil capitalists keep breaking things. And we'll listen. And we'll vote for them.

The Draft, and the 13th Amendment

After arguing for a long time over the draft, I've come to the side that the draft is not only a civil rights disaster, but is probably unconstitutional. I cite Amendment 13 of the US Constitution:


"Amendment XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. "

The "nor involuntary servitude... shall exist within the United States," seems a pretty damn clear violation of this amendment to me, unless you're one of those crazy feminists that think all men over 18 are definitionally rapists (thus allowing the draft under the punishment clause, in this case for being a man).

And there are still a whole lot of Vietnam Vets, drafted, that are missing legs, that suffer PTSD, that are otherwise miserable and traumatized. I have begun to wonder how they might fare in a class-action lawsuit against the United States of America on the grounds of forcible violation of their 13th amendment rights. In fact, I'm starting to wonder: why the hell haven't they sued the US yet? Or have they, and some court decided that "well, the draft really isn't involuntary servitude, it's more of an involuntary shipping you off to the jungle to get shot?" Any lawyers around, please comment--I'm very curious.

God Damn Hippies

So, to quote one of my favorite free thinkers, Eric Cartmen, "God damn hippies!". The citizens of Boston are all for the preservation of your rights as an American when it comes to the war on terror and illegal wiretaps amid all the other wonderful things the Bush administration has been called out on. And this is part of being a hippy that I'm fine with. What is absolutely unacceptable however, is that they have taken a page from Bush's book and are using public health concerns to push their restrictive agenda in much the same way as the executive branch has done with terrorism. Recently a law was passed that will make it illegal for cigarettes to be sold on college campuses and even more devastatingly that smoking will be illegal in all indoor work spaces come next Monday, Dec 22, 08. These may even sound reasonable. We all know the dangers of smoking and even problems of second hand smoke. However, the clause about "any indoor workspace" includes bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, around 700 establishments total will have to rethink their business plan.

This is an atrocity. America in my eyes is about freedom of the individual, to be able to do things that other people don't agree with so long as your actions aren't trampling on their rights. If someone chooses to never smoke out of concern for their health, or to avoid other people smoking, that is perfectly reasonable. Bars, restaurants, and nightclubs have never been required to let people smoke, it is a choice the owner/manager makes to attract certain clientel and people then have the choice to patronize these establishments based on the environment they are looking for. With the number of bars in this town finding a suitable choice, no matter what your preferences, should not have been a problem for anyone. I refuse to waste my own or your time pontificating about second hand smoke and why in a private establishment it isn't infringing anyone elses' right to make healthy decisions. Either you agree with me or you are too paternalistic to be reasoned with.

Taking that paternalism to a whole new level we have the wonderful world of college, where everyone, young and old, is a dependant of the system, subject to restrictions on freedom of speech, and a myriad of other depressing restrictions. It turns out all the paternalistic coddling that goes along with preventing underage drinking doesn't do shit, so why is changing where you buy your cigarettes going to change anything? Well, it wont. It will just make students who do smoke go out of their way and further inconvenience them. Should be also make students get std checks and submit paperwork everytime they want to fuck? Right now it is a witch-hunt for smokers, I have no idea where they will turn next.

In short, dirty hippies are getting their way and undermining exactly what America stands for. They overlook one very important fact of life and it only contributes to the problems we are going to have over the next few years. That fact is that people need to take personable responsibility for their actions and that their actions do in fact have repercussions concerning their reputation. Reputation and responsibility, two of the most important factors in being a useful human being. Dictating choices for people lets them abdicate their own responsibility over little things like this but sets a trend that is remarkably dangerous. On a similar note, people understand that reputation is important. Look at the international community and the way they view the States right now because of President Bush and his recent tactics. Traveling abroad has recently become much less fun. If someone understands the cost benefit analysis of smoking and their reputation and decides that relaxing with a smoke is worth whatever social ramifications come with it, I sure as hell hope that they are smart enough to make that choice for themselves. I choose to try and keep an optimistic outlook on life, that people are inherently awesome, creative, intelligent beings. Look at all that we have accomplished in the last 5, 10, 100, 1000 years. Those advancements were not made by having one hivemind making everyone's decisions for them, they came from thousands and millions of people all working as autonomous, responsible entities. To see what happens when you let paternalism run a society, look no further than the church; it was known as the dark ages. I, for one, sure as hell would rather live in a society defined by statues of David, theories of helio-centrism and Higgs-Hosons, whether I think they are worthwhile or not, than one defined by Malleus Maleficarum.

On the Market

A friend told me that the internet punditry was telling him that "deregulation" was to blame for some of the recent stock crashes and financial institutional tankings. He asked for my free-market alternative explanation.

Problem is, I agree. But not in the way that much of the punditry would like. Regulation's a tricky thing. When you put regulation down, you place an arbitrary restriction on a system, and the system adjusts to compensate. Think about putting a rock down in a river--it flows around. That's problem one--changing regulation forces changes in the economy. But the second problem is weirder--often, regulation causes perverse incentives or weird economic effects, and more regulation is slapped down on these perverse incentives/ weird economic effects to try to prevent them from happening. A good example is in rent control. Large cities have huge swaths of zoning/safety/health/fire regulation--as well as large property taxes on landowners--for residential buildings in the city. With all these regulations and taxes, the landowner incurs a higher cost, and thus raises the rent. With these increases in rent, poor people can't afford rent, and become homeless. Many city governments deal with this by using rent control--they force rent to go only so high. In most models, they control middle-class or upper-class rent; but wherever they control the rent, it causes some apartments to no longer make money, and thus not rent out. Sometimes, the costs are just higher than the government-approved rent. These apartments won't be used, which reduces the supply of apartments. Without an independent change in demand, prices everywhere go up--the poor get hurt hardest. So then the government started subsidizing the rent for these guys... it keeps going. Anyway.

When you have this massive, complex structure of regulation on a system, suddenly stripping some away is clearly going to create problems. The first problem is that an economy does not change as seamlessly as a river--when you yank the rock back out, the system has to adjust, and sometimes that adjustment is violent. But the other side is that if you yank out some of this regulation, th problems caused by other regulations become manifest, in ways that are extremely complex and difficult to predict. I'm not even going to pretend to know exactly what regulated-market problems caused the recent tank--I've heard a lot of jabber on it, and none of it has made sense.

But if this is an adjustment, then a bailout won't help in the long-term--the new equilibrium is one with fewer financial institutions, fewer investment banks, more modest loaning and investment policy. Bailouts to get these guys back on their feet won't magically create a new equilibrium--it's just a use of tons of energy to force them away from the equilibrium.

Looking for the Stalemate

So we small-government folks often talk about the "stalemate" situation in government, usually between the executive and the legislative branches, but more ideally with even a legislative branch too divided to do much. One of my favorite bloggers, Divided We Stand, is dedicated to just this idea.

Why stalemate? Why not a united government? Well, we generally think a mandate to do wild and crazy partisan things is bad. Itl eads to lots of spending, and new government institutions that don't go away, and use decades of bureaucratic politics to control more of your money and your life.

Look back to the 1990's, we say: people were pretty thrilled. We had a balanced budget. Why? Because a divided government couldn't add new spending to keep up with the growing economy. We had a massive economic boom. Why? Because a stagnation of regulatory behavior meant confidence in long-term stability for investments, and investor confidence rose. Congress was popular. Why? It did nothing at all.

So I say: Seek the stalemate in the next eight years. Put away your idealism--you don't want to hand a junior senator a mandate and a veto-proof majority in congress; a lot will happen that you're going to regret later. You're drunk and lonely, and she's attractive, but there's no one-night-stand in the presidency, only marriage.

For the sake of stalemate, I say vote for Mr. McCain. Don't stress too much about his domestic policy--he won't get to do any of it in office; the Democrats will block him. His foreign policy? Much like Mr. Obama's, except not stupid.

Want to feel good about your government in the next 4 years? Seek the stalemate.

Getting the Great Depression Right

The Great Depression was one of the toughest economic times in US history, and we should be clear that we should never want it to happen again.

Sadly, most of us have taken away the completely wrong lessons from the Great Depression. Most of us think that FDR's New Deal had a positive effect on the economy... that continued to crash for nine years after he got into office. The Washington Post has a wonderful article describing five ways that government interventionism worsened the Depression and prevented a recovery--and why we must now be weary of getting into a similarly suicidal mindset.

In short:
1) Protectionism won't make it better, promise. See: China of the 1950's-1978, Argentina and Venezuela now. Also, when you raise tariffs, so will everyone else, and your paltry exports will drop to zero.
2) Punishing the stock market whenever it turns down scares companies away from risk-taking (that is: investment).
3) Jacking up taxes during a downturn doesn't stimulate the economy, seriously.
4) When the government tries to run the economy, the rich retreat and sip martinis, watching it all crash down.
5) "Bold, persistent experimentation" will scare the crap out of anyone trying to invest capital. Companies like environments that are going to stay the same, markets that are going to stick around, regulations that are not going to come out of the woodwork and make their operations arbitrarily difficult without warning.

The Artistic Value of the Cum Shot

So, I came across this fairly amusing article about a porn star who is also working on a law degree. Apparently the reason she has embarked on this unusual career path is because she wants to campaign for worker protection- specifically for STDs:

According to a recent study Traci cites, for example, the rates of Chlamydia infections alone among adult film actors are about fifty-seven times higher than what state officials consider epidemic proportions. And she can vouch for the problem firsthand. “I haven’t seen a dick with no bumps on it in a long time. It’s gross.”

Fighting for increased health and safety rights and other legal protections for adult film performers has been a major part of Traci’s life for the past few years, and is part of the reason she decided to go to law school in the first place.

I've run across the idea of condom-only porn before, but objections have included (mostly jokingly) the artistic value of the cum shot. And again, I reveal myself to be a libertarian of convenience... I wouldn't be that averse to porn producers having to screen their actors for STDs/using condoms if it meant that the mastrubatory fantasies of teenage boys would no longer have to include a strange burning sensation after the act...

:)

Though I think part of the problem is that the actors in the porn industry don't have that much power. Would this be less of an issue if porn production were legal in more states? If the whole thing weren't questionably legal in many places?

I hope so, because I prefer my porn herpes free. And angry kitten friendly.

What do You Know About Drinking?

Apparently our lawmakers are under the impression that our college professors are wholly inept at being able to decide whether or not students are ready to drink at 18--or whether it might help our binge drinking problem. After all, they're stuffy professors in ivory university towers.

Want an Awesome President?

Want someone that would be willing to call the Europeans "girly men?" A Republican that will carry California? Looking to laugh at a presidential campaign instead of cry?

Arnold Schwarzenneger for President.

Seriously: the "Native-born only" clause in the US Constitution is actually pretty silly for a country built by the tired, sick, and downtrodden immigrants of Europe (even, perhaps, its bodybuilders) and other illustrious regions of the world. I understand the point in the past was that European nobles couldn't show up and take power in the US, even if the US people were foolish enough to want it, but it's a rather antiquated piece of supreme legislation that we could really do without.

Back to our humble roots

Exciting news- LA has decided that banning new fast food restaurants in poor neighborhoods is an awesome idea. This is such a silly idea that even William Saletan, the hopelessly bleeding heart liberal who writes Slate's Human Nature blog, thinks it's a terrible idea. Somewhat adorably, he says:

I assumed this idea would go nowhere because we Americans don't like government restrictions on what we eat. You can nag us. You can regulate what our kids eat in school. But you'll get our burgers when you pry them from our cold, dead hands.

How did the L.A. City Council get around this resistance? By spinning the moratorium as a way to create more food choices, not fewer. And by depicting poor people, like children, as less capable of free choice.

The thing that actually made me angry, like a kitten denied a cheeseburger, though, was the response one of Slate's XX Factor bloggers, Amaka Maduka had to say in response-

Shouldn't a poorer neighborhood have the option of an actual organic market or a restaurant that offers fresh ingredients? The higher cost of these healthier foods isn't necessarily prohibitive either; it may just mean that families will be exchanging quantity for quality. That means smaller portion sizes and a healthier meal.

(Luckily, at least her colleague has a bit of sense) But it's exactly this kind of condescending and rather misguided attitude that makes me glad I don't identify as liberal. Do people honestly think that at a time where businesses like Whole Foods are struggling to make a profit because their food is so expensive, organic markets are suddenly going to set up shop in poor neighborhoods? Seems highly unlikely. I mean, I eat like a hippie*, and I still try to avoid shopping at Whole Foods. I hardly think people who lack parental lifestyle subsidies would make a decision different from mine.

*No, really. My favorite food these days is Greek Quinoa and Avocado Salad. And I never eat fast food.