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August 19, 2008
Bureaucracies & The Laws They Hate
Exhibit A of how bureaucracies exist to perpetuate their own power, and how large companies use regulation to entrench their own positions.
HB1227 was supposed to require existing cab companies to prove that new entrants would harm the public interest (although one would assume that one or the other going out of business would prove the point far better). But the PUC has already ruled - bizarrely - that a company needs to hire an attorney for its approval hearing.
The Rocky has it right: "An entrepreneur shouldn't need much more than a safe vehicle, clean driving record and a hefty policy of liability insurance to start hauling fares. Indeed, Castle Rock wondered why a corporation owned and operated by one person could not be represented by its owner before the PUC."
But bureaucracies must justify their existence, and existing companies are far better poised to work rules - any rules - to their advantage. What's astonishing is that a bill with clear language could be overturned by a regulatory agency chartered and created by the legislature.
The average citizen already finds himself subject to dozens of governmental layers. Does anyone really think that one created for single-payer health insurance would be any different?
August 07, 2008
(Not) Lost in Translation II
Rima Barakat Sinclair also found time to opine on Iraq during her candidacy. In the past, at the Big Tent Event on April 10, and at a subsequent Colorado Federation of Republican Women's meeting, Mrs. Barakat Sinclair has expressed admiration for the salutory effects of the regime change on Iraq's women, and the opportunities they now enjoy. She also - at a Colorado Jewish Republicans meeting in June of 2008 - expressed gratitude for the service and good works of an injured Iraqi veteran who spoke there.
However, in the chat session with Al-Arab Al-Yawm, she responded quite differently to a question from an Iraqi expatriate who had returned to the Middle East. Here's his question:
Ms. Rima ... Being an Iraqi I would like to ask you questions that have been so long in the minds of Iraqis for more than five years. Being an American, and in the vicinity of (American political kitchen) I returned to the region convinced that the US desired a return of Iraqi rights, which are still waiting, hoping for the dream of freedom. How is it that America & Britain are unable to find a solution to Iraq's security crisis, economically and socially? Was it the scheme of the freedom promised by the Iraqis that the price of the blood of thousands and thousands widowed and orphaned thousands and displaced millions? Did the U.S. administration expect the events that took place in Iraq? Are things, in a nutshell, in Iraq as expected and planned by the U.S. government, or was what has happened and is happening in Iraq not an unthinkable shock when I returned preparing to enter Iraq? If the purpose of the occupation of Iraq was to find weapons of mass destruction (across continents), then where can't America eliminate the weapons of mass destruction that kill Iraqis daily, in numbers increasing with the growing militia sources, and the processing of enough simple weapons to destroy dozens of Iraqis?
And here's her answer:
When reality contradicts propaganda and theory, logic gives you an honest answer. You have found the answer to your question yourself. What happened and is happening in Iraq does not constitute a surprise. In 1994, Dick Cheney, George Bush's current Vice-President, predicted the expected consequences for Iraq if U.S. troops entered the country. What was said then is achieved today, knowing that Mr. Cheney is still one of the foremost supporters of starting a war against Iraq. He is today also one of the most zealous advocates of waging war against Iran under the same slogan, "weapons of mass destruction" and "protecting Israel."
This amazing video shows that in 1994, Dick Cheney understood the consequences of invading Iraq: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I.
And here, Mrs. Barakat Sinclair provides a transcript in mixed Arabic and English.
No attempt to defend the invasion. No attempt to defend America's performance. An outright attack on the integrity of a sitting Vice President in a foreign newspaper. Tell-tale quotes around "weapons of mass destruction" when obliquely referring to Iran's nuclear weapons program.
In other parts of the chat session, Mrs. Barakat Sinclair is quite fulsome in her praise of America's protection of free speech and civil liberties. The Constitution completely and correctly protects Mrs. Barakat Sinclair's rights as a citizen. I leave it to the reader to judge the use she's putting them to, and her fitness for office.
August 06, 2008
(Not) Lost In Translation
More from Rima Barakat Sinclair's big adventure, the email chat session with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm . The following is a translation of one of her answers to a question from a reader, and consists entirely of her own words:
We are aware that the Arab media influence on Western society is limited, and we also know that the Arab issues are not fairly covered in the western media. There are many Arab American organizations that provide activities aimed at the definition of truth and justice the Palestinian cause.
The source of activities in non-Arab countries, which were founded some 20 years ago, has remained limited within the point of view and vision of the founding members of those organizations. Most have focused their efforts in Washington DC, leaving their influence on public opinion and American media deflated.
There are several factors affecting the ability of Arabs to launch publicity campaigns to explain the issue and win the American people to their side. One of them was the lack of interest by Arab tycoons or companies in producing films or television program available for worldwide sale. This is the reverse of the actions taken by a number of wealthy Jewish supporters of Zionism like Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch. So media campaigns advocating for Arabs or Muslims in America are limited to the efforts of individuals or small enterprises that suffer most from financial difficulties and limited distribution.
The reality of a Western media hostile to Arab and Islamic issues will not change as long as Arabs are only waiting for the West to see the "right," one day, without developing an integrated effort to deliver their message. A dialogue of religions is needed, and part of the Divine message is that the powerful should have compassion for the weak.
Ideally, morality starts with tolerance of others and self-understanding. If people applied this principle in their own lives, it would solve many of their problems. What applies to individuals applies to relations between nations. But reality dictates that the strong decide what is "right." It is the duty of the victim to remind the strong that he didn't consider the effects of his unjust abuse. Therefore, it remains important that one talk with a strong knowledge of his thinking and point of view. This does not mean forgetting or abandoning the right.
The Saudi Madrid initiative has received wide and positive media coverage, especially by the one rabbi invited to the conference. And since Saudi Arabia began and will continue this initiative, it is preferable to encourage religious scholars and Islamic institutions to study and support such initiatives, instead of having the positive reaction only or participating in conferences organized to discuss Islam by non-Muslims.
Well, at least it isn't the weird paranoid theories about McCain and Obama conspiring to turn Jordan into a holding cell for Palestinians.
Note also the purpose of the interfaith activity. Some of us have been called some pretty nasty names for bringing this up. Some of us are owed an apology. None of us expects one.
On the other hand, it does have that bit in it about the Jews running the media. It might be a little more convincing if she had found some actual Jews. Maxwell, yes, but Murdoch & Black, no.
You know, one time I was in Johnstown, Pa., site of the flood, for work. I took the afternoon off and went to a local very minor league baseball game. Of course, I was wearing the yarmulke. So two guys come down, sit on either side of me, and say, "You're not from around here, are you?"
Frequently, those words, directed towards someone wearing a yarmulke are quickly followed by, "and would you please go back." In this case, it turned out to be a couple of local yiddin who worked sports for the local radio station and newspaper. They wanted to let me know about the minyan.
"So," I said, "it's true. We really do control the media."
Back then, it was funny.
UPDATE: The newspaper has been named, and it has been made clear that all the indented comments are Mrs. Barakat Sinclair's own.
July 31, 2008
How a Campaign is (and isn't) Like a Startup
As a result of the campaign, I've been invited to chat with the local IDEA Cafe, basically a support group for aspiring and recovering entrepreneurs. Since it's a decidedly non-political group, I'll be talking about process, rather than policy. Basically, a campaign is a startup, and the campaign and entrepreneurs probably have a lot to learn from each other.
How so?
Well, for one thing, you had better have done your research before you start running. Your product is a combination of positions and proposals. (To some extent, your product is also your positioning relative to other candidates, but more about that later.) If you think you're going to have time to do research and refine the product once the campaign is underway, good luck with that, as they say. Part of a campaign is working on and refining message, but the basic product, and the principles underlying it, had better be settled before you start to run.
Probably the piece of the campaign that people are most familiar with is the marketing aspect - segmenting the market, and then trying to position yourself into (and your opponent out of) favor with those juicy segments. Here's where your brand - i.e. party - can either help or hurt. Trying to get yourself in front of as many voters as possible also matters, and there are free forums and so-called earned media that are less available to entrepreneurs, by virtue of the process.
And then, there's funding. Like any good enterprise, a campaign needs to show the prospect of a return on an investor's money in order to raise funds. And like any good pie of investors, the target group can be divided into more and less risk-averse. The great risk-takers will help fund the petition drive. But many folks won't contribute until you're past the primary.
Here again, the value in funding a candidate can vary from race to race. An investor in a candidate in a safe district might be seen as looking for access once the person's elected. A contributor in a close race is looking to boost that party's prospects for control. A candidate in a more difficult district can still raise money by broadening the theater: after all, votes in his district count towards state totals on things like ballot initiatives and Senate and Presidential races. And every candidate can sell the longer-term, multi-cycle business of fighting the battle of ideas in the trenches.
And then there's the Exit Strategy. Campaigns usually have a series of well-defined exit strategies; they're called, "elections." Although, if you think of the operation in terms of a political career, and not just one campaign cycle, then it more closely resembles and ongoing operation. The problem is that way, way too many candidates and politicians do exactly that...
Continue reading "How a Campaign is (and isn't) Like a Startup" »
July 08, 2008
Quick Hits
In advance of tonight's candidate forum, a couple of quick hits.
On the way into work yesterday, I heard a PSA, featuring Gov. Ritter, about his, "New Energy Economy." All about the beauty and cheapness of wind and solar? Maybe a little bone about nuclear? No, instead he went on for 30 seconds of my otherwise valuable time telling me to unplug electronics when I leave the house. Because there's always time to reset the TV, DVD, cable box, laptop, printer, and clock when you get home.
This isn't the New Energy Economy. It's the No Energy Economy in the land of the permanent crisis. Someone get that man a cardigan and a faux fireplace.
...
Then, after walking a precinct, I was headed back to the car when the local precinct-ress I was walking with said hello to a neighbor. The neighbor volunteered that she was a "big Obama supporter," and naturally, I asked why.
"His honesty."
I resisted the temptation to ask exactly what it was he had been honest about.
...
And this morning, I see where the G8 has agreed to cut greenhouse emissions. The G8, and Europe in particular, and great at making these promises. Keeping them is another matter, where the US, the rapacious, enviro-hating, pave-the-world US, has actually come the closest to hitting its Kyoto targets.
...
And finally, this morning, I happened to wake up early, and caught a little bit of a sports talk show reminiscing about old ball parks. The old ball park I remember was Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. It was one of the earlier multi-purpose parks, but because it was older than the 1960s cookie-cutters, it still had a little charm to it. It was open at one end, which made field goal kicking a challenge at times. And it was a neighborhood park, with local houses clearly visible over the center-field fence.
I saw my first MLB game there - Reggie Jackson's debut as an Oriole. But my most vivid memory was from a game just after college. The Mariners were in town, and I had seats along the right field line. And there were Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey, Jr., teammates, hanging out during BP, enjoying the moment.
...
See you this evening.
July 03, 2008
Paleo-Peak-Oil
Over at the phenomenal Paleo-Future, we find this, from Our Friend the Atom:
The coal and oil resources of our planet are dwindling, yet we need more and more power. The atomic Genie offers us an almost endless source of energy. For the growth of our civilization, therefore, our first wish shall be for: POWER!
This was published in 1956.
But even if you do disagree, and believe that we're only a few corn stalks away from going back to horse-carts and coal-fired steam engines, go take a look at the site. It's fascinating. Yes, I've already told Lileks about it.
June 30, 2008
Of Initiatives Referred and Unreferred
Tonight, Andrew Romanoff and Ken Gordon will be hosting volunteer parties for their Tabor-to-Unions initiative. Sen. Gordon apparently suppressed an urge to write an email detailing the many problems with the political system:
It's annoying that we have to fight elections for our cause
The inconvenience--having to get a majority
If normal methods of persuasion fail to win us applause
There are other ways of establishing authority
and went with something more positive and a little less dyspeptic.
In any event, these are the same folks who are pushing a series of referred measures to severely limit the initiative process here - now that they think they've got a permanent majority in the legislature. Every Democrat on the stage at the CHUN forum voiced this view - opposed to the initiative process on principle, but they'd make an exception in this case. Even my Republican opponent chimed in with the view that the initiative process was flawed - that's what legislatures are for.
And Lois Court noted that, "Representative government is a terrific idea - we should try it sometime," an line echoed in Romanoff's email announcement of the meetings. Nobody has yet asked her what she thinks of recent State Supreme Court rulings, I suppose.
This is a conscious power-grab on the part of the Democrats - they want to remove constraints on how much they can spend, and remove your ability to check that spending through initiatives. I don't think either will pass, but the fact that they're trying tells you a lot about their theories of power.
June 24, 2008
"The Cure" in Arizona
It turns out that there's more than one way to go in health care reform. While the lefties promote statist solutions such as single-payer health care and minimum-coverage mandates, others are forming organizations based on individual rights, personal freedom, and free-market reforms.
Consider the initiative to amend the Arizona constitution to preserve our basic rights to spend our money and make our health care choices for ourselves. It's called Freedom of Choice in Health Care, and their website details their philosophy.
What's key here is that they're willing to make the case not only on a pragmatic, free-market basis, but also on a Constitutional one:
From our right to free speech in the First Amendment, to our right to bear arms in the Second, to our overwhelming approval of the importance of property rights, in Arizona, we believe that acting to protect our liberty is not just an option, it is an obligation.
It's an inspirational group, and it deserves your support.
May 19, 2008
The Life Cycle of a Political Party
Why does a political party exist? To win elections? Or to promote ideas?
The fact is, the Republican party has ceased to do the second because it has effectively abandoned its efforts to do the third.
The question is, therefore, should it continue to do the first?
A fair number of Republicans, some of them recent candidates traumatized by public disaffection for the Iraq War during the last election cycle, believe that the party is dead, and should be put out of its misery as quickly as possible.
Others believe that, since the party has basically abandoned efforts to hold the government to its limitations under that obscure statute known as The Constitution, it can no longer address the critical issues of the day, and deserves the same fate as the Whig Party. The Whigs, incapable of producing a coherent philosophical position about slavery, found itself quickly put out of business, replaced by the Republicans, who knew exactly where they stood on the issue.
Statewide, the party leadership made a number of catastrophic mistakes, practically scripted to damage the brand, split the membership, and leave it in minority status. Aside from Ref C, which cost the party is claim to be the low-tax party, it also failed to confront campaign finance "reform," which created loopholes big enough to drive a truck through - loopholes all of which were conveniently located on the left-hand side of the road.
These mistakes left the party defenseless against attacks it was practically begging the Left to launch.
Some commentators are taking the "worse is better" approach to electoral politics. This has a soft form - lose an election badly enough to shake up the membership - and a hard form: lose badly enough to collapse the party entirely and leave room for a more principled replacement. The first is a reckless gamble, the latter a childish approach to politics that would throw away the eminently salvageable political machinery of generations.
The problem is, either one of these alternatives will leave a vacuum (which nature and justice abhor) giving over massive majorities to the Democrats. We've subjected the country to the tender mercies of the Democrats a few times in history, and the results haven't been stellar. In reverse chronological order, they've resulted in an intractable welfare state (LBJ and the Great Society), massive economic mismanagement (FDR and the Great Depression), temporary abandonment of the rule of law (Woodrow Wilson and WWI), and the dismemberment of the country (Buchanan and the Civil War).
The election laws aren't favorable to third parties, and it could take several election cycles before a new party established itself. And crushing electoral defeats can lead to decades of self-doubt and disintegration (see Democrats 1972 to 1992). In fact, the party could simply limp along in minority status for decades, decades that the country simply no longer has the luxury of. It's done so before.
The fact is, instead of cynically rooting for disaster, we would be better served to begin rebuilding the party brand now. We should be looking for candidates who stand for something, rather than being happy with the, "well, we're better than them" line, which has been played out for several elections.
We should be looking for candidates who can begin pushing the Constitutionalist ideals which the rank-and-file expect it to. We should be supporting those candidates.
April 22, 2008
The Unions and '68
Indirectly, the unions helped elect Nixon. Oh, sure, they spent $10,000,000 or more in 1968 dollars to elect Humphrey, and did turn around Michigan and a couple of other northern states. But what they did in Chicago was brutal.
Everyone blames Daley for the police and the situation in Grant Park. In fact, White makes it clear that the police acted properly over the first three days of the convention. The real brutality only occurred after the convention, when they stormed the 15th floor of the hotel, and took out their frustrations on the McCarthy kids, who had had nothing whatever to do with the SDS-organized mayhem outside. That wasn't shown on TV.
A telephone strike meant that the video from outside couldn't be transmitted live for broadcast; a taxi strike, coupled with Mayor Daley's refusal to let the TV trucks park on the sidewalk outside the convention hall, meant that the tape couldn't even be transported reliably.
Today, the riot would have been televised live, and the nomination and acceptance would have been televised later. As it transpired, Humphrey's acceptance speech was broadcast at the same time as the riot videotape, helping to give the impression that Humphrey was being installed as nominee by bayonets and tear gas.
And the unions were the reason for that.
Dems and ballot initiative voters, take note.
More Thoughts On 1968
One other incident, right at the end of the campaign, shows some of the differences between 1968 and 2008.
One of Nixon's fundraisers was an Asian lady who took her role as "insider" a little too seriously. Apparently believing that she was somehow empowered to speak for the campaign, she set about sabotaging the Paris peace talks by claiming Nixon wasn't going to be bound by the outcome.
There is no evidence that Nixon was anything other than horrified to find this out, and not just for the political implications. Both parties - with the exception of Eugene McCarthy, who didn't really want the job - tended to avoid outright criticism of the war or the President, and to avoid anything that could interfere with the conduct of foreign policy up to the election.
Humphrey found out about this mischievous Nixon fundraiser - and sat on the information. He believed that Nixon couldn't have countenanced this behavior, and that it would be unfair to use it against him. Meanwhile, the Nixon camp knew it had no plausible or persuasive response should Humphrey choose to go public.
Compare that Al Gore's behavior in 2000, panting to get news of an ancient DUI, leaked to him by a partisan judge in Maine, to the press before the weekend news cycle.
Humphrey had labored in Johnson's shadow, unwilling to publicly criticize the war or the negotiations until October of 1968. To the extent that there's a parallel in 2008, John McCain has at least avoided that trap, supporting the effort while making clear his differences with the administration on its conduct in Iraq.
Contemplate '68
So in my copious free time, I've been reading Teddy White's The Making of the Presdient 1968. 1968 has always seemed to me a bit mysterious as well as a bit of a turning point itself. How did Nixon get the nomination when he was only one of a list of names in 1967? How did Humphrey win without entering any primaries? Why did Romney lose in 1968, while Romney...lost...in 2008? And given the evident political parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, what lessons can we draw 40 years after the fact?
White wrote a series of these books, the most interesting being 1960 amd 1968, as they were actually in doubt. By 1968, having established a reputation for trustworthiness, White had unprecedented access to the inner circles of all the campaigns. Their trust in White's probity was well-placed. And while White was clearly a liberal, he was no leftist, and was eminently fair to all the candidates.
The election was framed by two things: Vietnam and violence. The Dems tried to portray "law and order" as a racist issue, and in George Wallace's hands it was. But student violence and radical violence had competed with racial violence since 1965. While some nostalgic for "action" may want to "Recreate '68" here in Denver, there's no atmosphere of violence from which to draw, making their success in that wanton endeavor fairly unlikely. The violence in the streets in Chicago was of Tom Hayden's and Rap Brown's making, not Eugene McCarthy's. Republicans expecting mayhem-filled streets here this summer, take note.
A couple of things stand out in comparison to 2008. We may complain about the length of the primary season, but in fact, the campaign was just as long then as it is now. Nixon was planning in December 1966 for the 1968 race, and he pretty much knew who his opposition would be: Reagan, Rockefeller, Romney, and Charles Percy of Illinois. (I had forgotten about Percy, but then, who hasn't?) The difference was that much more of the race was in the hands of power-brokers, much less in the hands of regulars. So much more took place behind the scenes.
Even then, Romney knew by January that he was done for, after the famous "brainwashing" statement, which showed him to be naive in foreign policy. Simply keeping his mouth shut would have been enough. Americans in time of war will tolerate silence on foreign policy if it means not undermining the present administration. They won't tolerate naivite. Take note, Barack.
Mitt reprised some of the mistakes of his father, George. While never having a gaffe of "brainwashing" proportions, he still appeared to see the political campaign as a marketing campaign, which is something different. George, too, had tried to use polls to wrap up delegates in 1967, as Mitt had used them to create an Iowa-New Hampshire strategy. In both cases, a candidate with more apparent weight ended up looking more attractive.
Parallels between McCain and Nixon can only go so far, however. Nixon had campaigned tirelessly in 1966 for Republican congressional and senate candidates, building a base of support and favors owed that came back to him in 1968. McCain poked his finger in the party's eye at just about every turn over the last few years, showing constancy mostly on the war.
They both, however, have campaigned as centrists. Liberals and consevatives will both scoff at this description of Nixon, but in fact, in 1968, he needed to chart a course between the Scylla of a liberal Rockefeller, and the Charybdis of a conservative Reagan. Rockefeller and Reagan apparently came to an understanding that if together they could get enough delegates to deny Nixon the nomination, they would then fight it out on the convention floor between themselves.
In the end, failure spelled the end for Rockefeller. Having lost twice, he ended up as Tom Dewey without the nominations. For Reagan, it was probably a blessing. With Goldwater's shellacking in 1964, another conservative loss in 1968 could have devastated the movement.
Nixon's centrism brings us to the other misunderstood - and deliberately distorted - aspect of Nixon's 1968 campaign, the "Southern Strategy." Reporters of the day and Democrats ever since have assumed that this was a racist strategy aimed at denying Johnson and then Humprehy the south. In fact, the south had been lost to the mainline Democrats even in 1964, and the threat to Nixon's carrying those states wasn't Hubert Humphrey but the overtly racist George Wallace.
Nixon determined not to out-Wallace Wallace, to run a non-racist campaign to deny Walalce the border states. He campaigned as the sane unifier in the border states, sending the message that a vote for Wallace, however cathartic, was a vote for Humphrey. It worked, but it was neither racist nor an appeal to latent racism, as today's lefty revisionists would have it.
The Democratic meltdown at the Presidential level in the South was so complete that it led White to extend the trend into the future, projecting a Democratic party that would become captive to the blacks in the south, the unions in the north, and the campus radicals elsewhere. Democrats, take note.
That Humphrey almost came back to win the election, losing by fewer than 500,000 votes nationwide was a testament to the power of Vietnam as an issue. When news of an apparent breakthrough in Paris became public, people felt they no longer needed Nixon, and almost handed Humphrey the election. Harris actuall had Humphrey up 43-40 going into the weekend.
By Monday, however, it was apparent that the breakthough was illusory, and the public swung back to Nixon. Had the election been held only a few weeks later, Nixon would likely have won by millions. Had it been held only a few days earlier, he would have lost. With the motivation for the breakthrough coming from Andrei Gromyko, it's hard to escape entirely the conclusion that this was an attempt by the Russians to manipulate the US elections to their advantage.
April 13, 2008
Another Run at '31
The Democrats are now in the process of repeating all of the mistakes of the Great Depression.
Pushing for a war on inflation, seeking to increase uncertainty in the housing market, allowing a $2 Trillion tax increase in three years, threatening to go full Smoot-Hawley, and now pushing for artificially inflated wages and artificial - and extremely temporary - job security.
The UFCW Local 7 has introduced a whole raft of ballot initiatives for this fall. While they're the political equivalent of an F- economic grounds, their underlying political agenda is unmistakable.
First, the economics. Ben Bernanke's been taking a beating recently, and on some counts, he deserves it. But this is a scholar of the Great Depression. I'm probably one of the bloggers you'll see who's actually read any of his scholarly papers on the Depression. Bernanke notices two great contributing factors to the Depression: the US's late abandonment of the gold standard, and the stickiness of wages.
One of the dirty little secrets of the Great Depression is that if you had a job, it wasn't so bad. That's because wages often staid at pre-crash levels, even as more of them were being paid by soup kitchens. Why were wages sticky? That is, why, instead of lowering wages, did companies keep them high, even to the point of failure? Because Herbert Hoover wanted it that way, believing that high prices meant prosperity.
These labor initiatives: no firings without specific cause, forcing small business to pay for health insurance, and forcing businesses to match the inflation rate, are the economic equivalent of begging for unemployment. Sure, if you've got a job it's not too bad. But try getting one when the cost of hiring keeps going up relative to everything else.
The cynic will say that this is all part of the plan. Well, it is. First, the unions have seen their membership drop off the edge of a cliff. The majority of their membership is now comprised of public employees, and people are beginning to question the propriety of paying taxes to support a naked political agenda. The unions need to prove that they still have some political muscle.
Another, little-mentioned aspect of their initiatives is that it would let anyone bring suit for alleged corporate wrongdoing. Historically, you actually have to have been hurt in order to have standing in a civil suit. This obvious sop to the other Great Democrat Constituency, the trial lawyers, would be another avenue for corporate shake-down artists to raise the cost of doing business, and to fund their own personal and political cash flow needs from the hard work of others.
Inflation-indexed wages will have yet another perverse effect. Such a rule would act as a subsidy to inflation, both promoting and limiting the incentive to fight it. Which means that pensioners, retirees, and those on fixed incomes will find their own savings stolen from them. Which will become an excuse for another big tax increase to fund those generous retirement programs we've rashly promised our teachers and other public servants.
Today's economy is more inter-connected, more diversified, more entrepreneurial, and more resilient than in was in 1930, which probably means that we'll end up looking more like Japan in 1990 than the US in 1930. But that doesn't mean that the damage to hopes, dreams, and security won't be real.
March 25, 2008
Campaign Finance Dialogue
Finally, someone over at PoliticsWest.com who actually answers your questions. Nancy Watzman and I are engaged in a discussion about campaign finance reform. She's for it, and so am I. But I'm for reforming in favor of freedom, and she's in favor of more restrictions.
Follow the fun here.
March 12, 2008
Mark Udall, Natural Gas, Iran, and You
Mark Udall - a good, patriotic American - is a threat to national security.
OK, not all by himself, and not any one of his positions, but as part of a Democratic Senate majority, and as a combination of his policy views.
Consider:
- He has repeatedly opposed expanded gas production on the western slope
- He has voted against an additional 700 miles of fencing along our border with Mexico
Why is this a threat to national security? Because Iran is almost certainly plotting to disrupt our supply of natural gas from Mexico, And because they may well be trying to insert operatives directly into the United States.
Todd Bensman of the San Antonio Express-News, wrote the series, "Breaching America," and appeared as a guest on Backbone Radio with John Andrews and me. Well, he's back, with a story about Iran establishing a presence in Nicaragua, now run by Venezuela-friendly and decidedly US-unfriendly Danny Ortega.
Make no mistake, this is no humanitarian mission. This is exactly from the Soviet playbook - promise aid to establish a reason for being there. In this case, the aid amounts to a ridiculously ambitious project with little-to-no economic reason for being. Send a high-level delegation, with ministers of electricity, or whatever, providing cover for intelligence operatives. (Note that one of the delegation members is the Iranian Ambassador to Venezuela, also a likely intelligence agent.)
With completely ineffective border security, the Iranians will soon be in terrific position to start slipping agents across borders. And there aren't a whole lot of borders between Managua and El Paso.
More immediately, they may already have tried to blow up the main Mexican pipeline. Or, they may have gotten the idea from that attempt, and want to do it right this time.
If it were an oil pipeline, it might matter less. Oil is easily shipped all over the world, so there's a world market for it. Natural gas is difficult and expensive to ship across oceans, and the US has also resisted building LNG terminals. This means that there is, at best, a continental market for natural gas. And it also means that the best defense against any disruption in supply is...a good, reliable, local supply.
Mark Udall's policies leave us both more vulnerable to an attack, and more vulnerable to the effects of that attack.
March 11, 2008
Old New Deal
Home sick yesterday with something that even weapons-grade Mucinex wasn't helping, I saw a part of a speech where Barack Obama proposed his "solution" to the higher education "crisis." This is a paraphrase, but not much of one:
I'll make college education affordable for every American with a $4000 tax rebate payable towards tuition. We're going to invest in you. But in return (There's always an, "in return." -ed.), we're going to require you to invest in us by volunteering in the Peace Corps, the VA...
I'd give it about half an hour before every college in the country raised tuition by about, oh $4000. Repeat after me: subsidies either raise prices or create surpluses.
But the really insidious part is that public service requirement, couched as, "investing in us." "Us" being the government and government programs. Obama is proposing to take more of your money, transfer it directly to liberal universities, many of whom already get your tax money or have endowments the size of small countries' treasuries, and then claim the first two years of your kids' working lives doing make-work projects for the government.
Now, if "us" meant the country, then going out, getting a job, and doing research in alternative fuels or new drug therapies, possibly nanotech. Notice what else is missing from this list: the CIA, FBI, the military.
But then, making money or defending the country aren't nearly as appealing as ticking off allies.
Progressively more expensive. Progressively more intrusive. Progressively more restrictive.
February 06, 2008
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
You know, if the Democrats actually cared about the homeless as something other than a political bludgeon, they'd stop trying to create more of them.
Just as New York is phasing out a 60-year experiment in rent control, Democrats on the House Committee for Local Government are proposing to let local governments here try it. I know it's a basic principle of history that nobody ever learns anything, but really, people, nobody's memory is that short.
As with most populist measures, predicated on the notion that I can get the government to get someone else to pay my bills for me, this scheme would only prolong the pain. By keeping rents down, mortgages would have to decline more to reach the historic averages. And with more people selling, and fewer places for them to move into, well, they'd either have to move farther out, or find a bridge with indoor plumbing.
All together now: subsidies create surpluses, price controls create shortages. There's no shortage of gasoline, because the price floats. There is a shortage of gasoline at $1 a gallon. There's also a shortage of bread at 10 cents a loaf, and Maseratis at $5000. Rent controls create housing shortages, because developers aren't willing to build as many apartment complexes when they'll make less money on them. Rent controls reduce the return on such a project, and make other projects more attractive by comparison.
There's never a good time for this sort of intervention, but right now, what's driving it is the number of foreclosures, and thus the number of people involuntarily entering the rental market, driving up rents at the same time that housing prices fall. Now one way to measure how out of whack the housing market had gotten is to compare rents to mortgages. Nationally, mortgages were 43% higher than they should have been, given historical averages. So some combination of house price declines and rent increases is necessary to get the market back into whack.
The irony is that, as bad as things are here compared to 2006, they're not that bad compared to the rest of the country, contrary to what you might have read. The Wall Street Journal shows that Denver's housing inventory actually decreased 3.8% compared to last year, one of only two markets to show a decline. We have 5.7 months supply on hand, tied for fourth-best in the nation, and prices declined a modest 1.8% year-over-year (6th-best nationally, with the 3rd-lowest decline). Denver's 3.71% delinquency rate is below the national average of 3.98%.
All of which means that, while there might seem to be enough of a glut now to absorb any price controls, in fact, we're likely to start feeling that pain a lot sooner than we think.
Even the bill's prime sponsor, Rep. Weissmann, admits that rent control is a "failed economic policy," but puts forth his measure as a nod to local zoning control. But every Democrat on the committee voted for it, save one (who's married to a landlord and developer, so she rightfully recused herself). Makes you wonder exactly what political forces pushed the House leadership to bring this thing to committee.
Progressively more intrusive. Progressively more expensive. Progressively more restrictive.
February 03, 2008
Substitute for Achievement
Arlen Specter is the reason some people will vote for Ron Paul on Tuesday. Well, that and the belief that the Civil War was optional and that we turned lower Manhattan into a set for Capricorn One so that we could pay Halliburton to visit the apocalypse on Baghdad.
But today, Arlen Specter is the poster boy for the claim that, "Politicians need activity; it's their substitute for achievement." And that too often that activity comes at the expense of our liberty, time, and money, and at the expense of important things like the defense of the realm.
First of all, Specter is just wrong, wrong, wrong when he claims that football has an anti-trust exemption. It doesn't. Competing leagues come up from time to time, and the USFL won an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL. (For damages of $1; tripled to $3; would that John Edwards had been the plaintiffs' attorney on that one. Maybe he could have used his cut to go Dutch at Goodwill with Mark Steyn on that coat.)
Secondly, any taping was a violation of a league rule, not a law. Sure, we all saw Joel Fleischman take down "Twenty-One," but that was actual fraud, misrepresentation of cheating as competition. This isn't the Black Sox or even Pete Rose putting down bets on the Reds. And nobody's claiming that the league fed the Rams' game plan to the Patriots or gave them a wiretap on Mike Martz's line to the booth. I don't recall Specter convening hearings when the NBA ref was found betting on games, although maybe someone in Congress did.
Specter claims that the public has the right to be sure that the games aren't being compromised by cheating. Oh, please. Someone ought to hog-tie him and use him for a fumble drill out at Redskins' Park and he'll see what cheating looks like.
Still, it's sad that Roger Goodell thinks that the fact that NFL discovered and investigated these rules violations on its own is any sort of help at all. The Army discovered and investigated the Abu Ghraib abuses itself. That didn't stop the New York Times and certain Soros-funded arms of the Clinton Campaign (or is it the other way around? Hard to know who you're campaigning against sometimes, as Obama might say.) from turning it into a bludgeon to undermine support for the war, the troops, and the administration, in some order of importance.
Good grief. Has the Senator no respect for our most important national holiday?
January 13, 2008
Preview of 208
With the 208 Commission due to report just in time to prevent opposition to its recommendations form forming, it's worthwhile remembering the socialist mentality of those seeking to "reform" the system:
Mayor Thomas M. Menino embarked on a highly public campaign yesterday to block CVS Corp. and other retailers from opening medical clinics inside their stores, an effort that exposed a rift between Menino and the state's public health commissioner, a longtime ally.
Menino blasted state regulators for paving the way Wednesday for the in-store clinics, which are designed to provide treatment for sore throats, poison ivy, and other minor illnesses.
The decision by the state Public Health Council, "jeopardizes patient safety," Menino said in a written statement. "Limited service medical clinics run by merchants in for-profit corporations will seriously compromise quality of care and hygiene. Allowing retailers to make money off of sick people is wrong."
So allowing retail health-care providers to make money off of sick people is "wrong?" I guess that wold include primary care physicians, their nurses and employees, hospital ERs, and doci-in-a-box clinics are "wrong" to make money. Non sequiturum delinda est.
I particularly like this quote, towards the end of the article:
Still, members of the commission said clinics inside retail stores might only exacerbate long-standing problems in the healthcare system. Dr. Paula Johnson, a board member and physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said episodic visits to a drug store clinic could defeat efforts to provide patients with a reliable continuum of care.
In other words, our lack of a solution to the problem could be precluded by their solution.
January 07, 2008
Granite State Predictions
I've never been a fan of over-emphasizing the horse-race quality of primaries and elections. There's something that seems lacking in a from-a-distance, by-the-numbers analysis, sort of like looking at a profitable company and failing to notice that their CFO and CEO have both resigned to spend more time with their money families.
Nevertheless, here we go.
For the Republicans, I think Romney helped himself a lot last night, maybe enough to pass McCain. That's important, because Michigan is up next, and it's shaping up as a titanic struggle between the two main Republican political families there, one for Romney and the other for McCain. Rudy misjudged the overall dynamic of the campaign, and I'm afraid that the third-place finish for him is going to hurt rather than help. Look for Thompson to move up a little on the outside here, too. He also did well last night, and it's clear that he's surprised a lot of people, myself included, by the time he's spent over the years thinking closely about the issues.
For the Democrats, Obama's energy and sunny disposition win over a tired-sounding Hillary. (This may also hurt McCain, since they're both looking for independents to help them win, and should also serve as a big, red, flashing neon sign for Republicans who think McCain can beat Obama in November.) Hillary's Crying Game is going to hurt her, not because it reminds everyone of Ed Muskie, but because it reminds everyone of...her. Like having her 2nd-grade phonics teacher, or whatever it was, materialize out of nowhere in Iowa, it looks staged. Bill may have been good at charming the country, but his choices of proteges have suffered by the comparison. Edwards may even come in second again, but since he is as phony as she looks, it's unclear as to whether that helps him enough in the event of an Obama stumble in Nevada or later on.
In the meantime, once again, today we got a reminder that this country is at war, and it appears to have had virtually no effect on either side. This is bad news for Hillary, and may, unfortunately, be good news for Huckabee when the race heads south.
Refighting the Civil War
Those of you with long memories, that is, those of you who can remember back past the Iowa Caucuses a few months ago, will recall that Ron Paul tried to make the case to Tim Russert that we - that is, the Union - need not have fought the Civil War. He argued that the slaveowners could have been bought out. He claimed that the War engendered race hatred that took 100 years to overcome. And he claimed that Lincoln left the Constitution permanently disfigured by his conduct.
Well.
Paul's argument isn't right. It isn't even wrong. It misses so many fundamental facts of life in 1860 that it could only appeal to that narrow slice of the electorate whose civics education ended in 12th grade, but who actually remember what they were taught. You can't be completely ignorant and make an argument like this. Less than a year out of college, I tried to make this same argument. It says something about RonPaul that on just about anything outside of economics, he sounds like a refugee from a college debating society.
Lucky enough to be a Virginian, I know something about Lost Causes, and one of the lostest of causes is arguing with someone about religion. So I know better than to get into a spitting match with a RonPaul supporter. Especially one with a Google Machine powerful enough to scare up lots of quotes about how the South just wanted to be "Let Alone."
Buying out the slaveowners was an idea that had been seriously considered as late as the Washington Administration. (By,"seriously considered," I mean more seriously than Daniel Webster and Henry Clay batting the idea around over beers at the Old Ebbitt Grill, falling suddenly and uncomfortably silent when John C. Calhoun walked in.) Prior to that, South Carolina and Georgia threatened to walk out of the Consitutional Convention in 1787 and form their own country then, if slavery weren't protected. As Joseph Ellis points out in his leftish but still superb, American Creation, by Jefferson and Madison's time, slavery had already become essentially undiscussable.
The South had been relying on increasingly demanding Fugitive Slave Laws, passed and enforced at the, ahem, Federal level, as the physical support for this crumbling Peculiar Institutions. It had developed a complex racial justification for slavery, far more responsible than Union blues for sharecropping and the Jim Crow laws which stifled racial progress in the South.
No, the point of the cotton photos was that the western territories, where Lincoln understood that slavery could not be allowed to spread, could support a slave economy, too. By 1860, the battle was over slavery in the territories. With Lincoln refusing to issue any new public statements, the one candidate who was waging an active campaign on the issue, Stephen Douglas, was so unpalatable to the South, that the fire-eaters led by William Yancey torpedoed the Democratic Convention rather than let him be nominated. He then proceded to finish under 10% in most Southern states. Perhaps RonPaul forgot this fact, because it appears that Douglas didn't even appear on the Texas ballot.
The South chose disunion, because it believed by 1860 that life without slavery was inconceivable. It relied on federal support for slavery where it could (fugitive slave laws), and denied federal authority where it might limit (the territories). The slaveowners didn't believe in being compensated for an economic loss, because by 1860, slavery was as much a social as an economic issue.
One of the reasons I'm a Burkean Conservative rather than a Randian Libertarian is that Burke got what the libertarians miss: that people form societies, and are motivated by ideas and passions that have nothing whatever to do with economics. It's one reason liberals and libertarians are so ill-equipped to lead the country in the War against Jihadism, because if you can't even get the motivations of your own countrymen right, what chance do you stand in comprehending why healthy young men plow airplanes into the Pentagon?
And in the end, this debate isn't really about the Civil War, is it? It's about the current War against the Jihadis. Because if the Civil War was optional, then pretty much any war is.
November 08, 2007
Our Inefficient Constitution
There is nothing new under the sun. Whenever the Left senses it's got an all-too-transient political advantage, it bemoans that thing called, "The Constitution," standing in the way of all the good they could do, if only permitted to work their will, unrestrained. Paul Campos presents the latest example in his November 6 column for the Rocky.
First, the structure of the national legislature is wildly undemocratic. What exactly is the justification for, in this the Year of Our Lord 2007, giving a senator from Wyoming approximately 70 times more power per voter represented than one from California?
In an era in which almost all of the most important political decisions are made at the national rather than the state level, the structure of the Senate essentially gives senators from small states a license to steal federal tax dollars for the benefit of their sparsely populated fiefdoms.
And, as Levinson the political scientist demonstrates, they are exceptionally good at doing so. Hence we get $50 million bridges to nowhere, economically and environmentally insane subsidies for various farming and ranching interests, and so forth.
In fact, states were and remain the basic political unit of the American republic. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 is one of the Foundational Laws of the United States precisely because is sets forth the rules for the creation of new states on an equal footing with existing states, and the law that once a state is a state, its boundaries are fixed. (Those of us from Virginia, while we don't exactly miss those western counties, don't exactly like the way they got their own "independence," though.) Of course, if your goal is to eviscerate Federalism, by making "all the most important political decisions ... at the national level," the only logical thing to do is to erase distinctions among the states.
In fact, the notion that smaller states are grifters, living off the largess of the larger states, is more than passing strange. Back in 1912, Woodrow Wilson was making the same arguments for demolishing federalism on the grounds that the larger states had rigged the system in their favor.
It never seems to occur to Campos & Co. that the real problem here isn't the "power" of the small states, but the fact that the Federal government has arrogated the right to dispense all sorts of favors that by right it oughn't be dispensing. The problem isn't the pigs, it's the trough. (Don't worry, Prof. Campos. Senator and Representative Salazar will be able to continue (or resume) collecting their farm subsidies.)
Second, the structure of the Constitution makes it very difficult to undertake any kind of serious legislative reform. Not only do both houses of Congress have to agree to exactly the same statutory provisions for a bill to become law (a requirement that, as Levinson points out, isn't found in many bicameral legislative systems) but in addition the Constitution gives one person - the president - the power to veto legislation for any reason he (soon to be she) likes.
These extremely high barriers to legislative action can be defended on the basis of various ideological preferences (most notably the view that, in general, only rich and powerful people should be able to get laws passed). But Levinson's point is that hardly anyone even bothers, because the structural features of the Constitution are treated as if they were equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics, rather than products of political choices made 220 years ago, and that are ripe for revisiting, given that the world has changed somewhat since the 18th century.
In fact, I suspect nobody even tries because the "high barriers to legislative action" have been successfully circumvented by outsourcing the legislative function to the executive. You're subject to far more Federal regulation - from the size of the airbags in your car to the water flow in your toilet - than you are to Federal laws.
The barriers to legislative action are intended to drive the country towards consensus, to make sure that action isn't taken without the consent of a broad swath of the governed. What this has to do with the "rich and powerful," isn't clear, any more than the year has to do with the appropriateness of federalism.
Third, Levinson points out that the Constitution gives us no way to get rid of an incompetent president, prior to the next election. This, under present circumstances, seems like an especially unfortunate oversight. He suggests the president should be subject to removal at any time, on the basis of a two-thirds vote of the legislature (he's careful to point out that such a procedure needs to be structured so as to allow the president's party to retain the office for the rest of the president's term).
This sounds like a call for more Wilsonian "progressivism." Wilson would have been happy to make the President subservient to the Congressional majority, which would certainly be the natural outcome letting Congress replace the President at will. So in addition to erasing state boundaries, Campos would accelerate the erasure of the boundaries between branches of government.
In short, Campos doesn't seem to like any of the mechanisms built into the Constitution specifically to make sure that power stayed distributed broadly throughout the Republic, safeguards that are the reason we've been so stable for so long. They get in the way of "efficiency," but then, opposition always does.
Progrssively more poor. Progressively less free.
October 29, 2007
Stealing Our Retirement
How much is that proposed property tax increase really going to cost you?
About three months of your retirement.
Proponents claim that the average Denver homeowner will only have to pay $62 a year.
Well, I happen to be Mr. Average Denver homeowner, I own a house valued at $255,000. I'm just over 40, which means I have about 30 years to go until I'm supposed to retire. Make that 30 years and 3 months.
Let's assume that the city government is never, ever, even under the threat of waterboarding, going to let me have this money back. They'll ask nicely, if they must, but the Light Rail Tax will follow the Coors Field Stadium Tax (Wait Till Next Year!) as the night follows the day, and, to mix metaphors, we'll end up having to pry our money loose from their cold, dead hands. This means that even if I'm able to sell my house somewhere down the line, the buyer, rational man that he is, will reduce what he's willing to pay by the after-tax amount of this tax he'll take on, as long as both he and the house shall live.
As for the amount of the tax itself, it's not going to stay constant at $62 (or about $46.50 after tax, since it's a deductible expense, at least until Charlie Rangel gets his glummies on the tax code). My house will, over time, appreciate in value. Let's call it about 4% a year, a pretty conservative number, all things considered. I bought a condo in 1989 at the top of the DC housing market, watched it decline about 30% in value, and then rebound to over double its low point. This condo appreciated at about 3% a year, and condos don't do nearly as well as houses over time.
Finally, remember that I'm going to be investing this money, too. About 8% a year is a good, solid guess, assuming that I'm not buying T-bills with it and that we don't have to live through 1930-31 again.
Put all these numbers together, and you get $8560 post-tax, inflation-adjusted. Thirty years from now, I've paid off the mortgage, and all other things being equal, $2900 in current dollars is a reasonable amount to live on.
That's three months of my retirement - and yours - that the Denver City Government wants to take from us.
Progressively More Expensive. Progressively More Intrusive. Progressively More Restrictive.
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