A romp through contrary ideas of government's role

Woke up around 2 and couldn't sleep, so I came down and broke out some Ted talks.  This morning, what appealed to me were the government ones that showed a view contrary to mine:

• Mariana Mazzucato: Government -- investor, risk-taker, innovator

I'll grant that government funding and support has pushed advances in many fields.  However, the market-shaping that government does is inappropriate, driven mainly by bureaucratic and political interests; there are only so many good examples of innovation because government has been involved in every aspect of our lives!  The negatives and unintended consequences of so much intervention far outweigh the positives.  I believe we would be much better off without some of our current technology (including space and medicine and computers and atomic energy), growing at a pace that is supported by voluntary investment.

I'll agree, too, with the proposition that government-funded innovations and research should yield a return.  There is no excuse for privatization of resources that have been forcibly taken from taxpayers.  Of course, I recommend a slightly different take: the results of these investments should be made available to all, without restriction, rather than being employed privately by anyone, neither in a company boardroom nor in a government office nor in a military base.

• Michael Sandel: Why we shouldn't trust markets with our civic life

He's totally focused on the market of dollars and cents.  That's the market I trust the least.  So I guess I agree with him there!  But there are other markets that make appropriate foundations for our "civic life."

I was going to add this comment, but Steve already did... and I couldn't resist the prompt to expand on it:

• Steve Gottschalk

  Oct 21 2013: There is a prevalent assumption in this talk that the only kind of market there can be is a monetized one, which is a bit like saying age is the only way to measure a child's progress.

  • Nick Vahlkamp

    Nov 8 2013: your comment is completely opaque. could you elaborate? Markets mean money in this here USA.
    Are you referring to indulgences from the 10th century?

    • Trent Larson

      I believe he is talking about a broader meaning of market, eg. "one of the many varieties of systems... whereby parties engage in exchange" (Wikipedia). Any social exchange becomes a market, so we can talk about the market for singles to find a good time and even a mate; for students to find a fitting educational environment; for workers to find an appropriate job; for social change-makers to find fertile ground for their ideas; and even for children to find the place where they will be loved and accepted. All these are exchanges, and I think we'd agree that there are many more dimensions than raw money that influence these trades and implicit contracts.
      
      This is my complaint with Sandel's talk as well: he only discusses the market of money/currency... meaning, in the USA, the system of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Treasury (and the supporting laws regarding tracking, lobbying, etc). I believe that particular market is rather unjust... so I guess I'd agree with him on that one. But there are so many other motivators that drive people to exchange their time and attention and effort, and it would be great if we paid more attention to those markets... markets which will always be voluntary... markets which give genuine, lasting rewards to the participants as opposed to artifacts generated by organizations.
      
      And I'll go further: I trust the aggregate choices driven by our common humanity much more than I trust the military-industrial-financial complex that currently serves as our civic governance in the US. I believe that we can build civil systems based on these other markets, contracting with one another rather than with a police-enforced government. (Unfortunately, I also believe it'll take a few generations.)

Financial Collapse: It's both Wall Street AND Main Street

Lawrence Lessig is promoting the film Inside Job.  I'm glad; it looks like it'll be informative (and hopefully not just emotional).

However, Lawrence says, '... it is crazy—literally crazy—to point to "the losers" as the cause,' where "the losers" are everyday people being bailed out by government programs.  No, it's not crazy: a large part of our financial mess is due to a culture of greed in America, one where people are looking for quick, high returns without looking at the underlying process.  Stocks, securities, banks, and even government bonds all have some kind of risk.  It is unreasonable (an unsustainable) for our society to expect to close their eyes and give their money without understanding the businesses.  There is no guarantee of the future in any aspect of life, and there is definitely no way for everyone to get rich quick.

The only way to build a stable life is to work hard, be committed, and learn constantly.

OK, so not everyone who has lost is guilty.  But it is the prevailing culture in America... or it has been of late.  Let's hope we put that period behind us, rather than blaming some easily-identified targets and leaving it at that.

I don't buy the "Buy American" motto.

I just got a note from a relative with a long article about buying American-made products first, and finishing with: "buy as many articles as possible that are made right here in the USA!"

I disagree.

I do agree with buying things locally first... and not just because of the money. When your community works together and trades together, not only do you support your local resources, you increase the bonds of trust and cooperation, both of which can help you in the future.

However, once you get outside your "community" (maybe 5-20 miles?), you might as well be dealing with another country. Unless they're someone you plan to do business with again, you're just dealing with another anonymous supplier, so you're not building any meaningful relationship. Any why not support workers in other countries? I love how Americans have helped build up communities and infrastructures in other countries just because they need the help... and the very best way to get aid to our brothers and sisters worldwide is to buy their goods, rewarding their work. (Now, many of these products actually help corrupt governments instead of communities, so you've got to be smart about buying internationally as well. Dunno how. It's all hard.)

So, no, I don't buy the "Buy American" motto.

PS: Note that when you're a business you do create long-term relationships with people located further away, so a business "community" may be much broader. But it's still about the relationships.

Help Audit The Fed

There are currently bills in both the House and the Senate to audit the Federal Reserve. It should work transparently, seeing as how it controls our money supply. I hope you support this idea. If so, please take the next 5 minutes and call your congress-people (or call the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121) and ask them to support this legislation and maybe even co-sponsor it.

The Federal Reserve has absolute control over our money supply. Whether or not it's good to have them as a central bank, there is no reason that they should be working in secret. (In fact, not too long ago they stopped publishing one of the measurements of our money supply, one which has been accounting for an increasing share of the total.)

There's also a petition you can fill out, which will be passed along. But your quick phone call will do even more to help.

And spread the word.

support for First Amendment is poor (but improving)

The First Amendment Center published their 2008 survey results about American's knowledge and opinions of the First Amendment.

Beware: they are frightening! People have very little knowledge of their freedoms, but worse of all they are willing to give up many of them. Thankfully, if you look at the numbers for the past few years, the trend seems to be improving (from my 2-minute scan of the data), though the improvement is very slight. This is not very encouraging news.

(Thanks to the Deseret News for their op-ed warning about American's attitudes.)

Hey, Feds: solve our problems!

I am more and more disappointed in our federal governmental situation, but only partly because federal politicians seem to think they need to avoid every crisis and solve every problem in society: I see more and more evidence like this "Presidential Challenge" that shows how many people really believe our national government could and should impose it's will to try and fix every injustice. (Disclaimer: the one about bin-Laden really is a valid project.)

All I can do is sigh.

untrustworthiness

Two news items today showing why the state is not to be trusted:

• an individual's personal information was illicitly accessed after he was mentioned by a presidential candidate
• the Treasury Department is hiding exactly how much they're paying to a financial agent for help with the bailout, despite being "committed to transparency"

I never understand why people feel it helps to pass bills with extra safeguards or to set up regulations "the right" way; with the national state as large and unwieldy as it is, there's no way to ensure that things will be done even as promised in writing.

Senator Bennett on health care (and the money crisis)

Attended an early-morning health-care speech with Senator Bennett.

First mentioned the money crisis (at someone's request):

• story about Cannon-Grant and their struggle to get money to avoid bank crash in 1893 money crisis
  
• Andrew Jackson destroyed Hamilton's national bank, resulting in a bunch of money panics (eg. 1893), so the Federal Reserve restored our national bank
• He is in the banking committee; calls to his office were 493 to 1 against the bailout; the 1 call was a car dealer who wouldn't be able to make payroll.

Then talked about a federal bill to address health care:

• Ron Wyden asked Bennett to co-sponsor Healthy Americans Act (AKA the Noah's Ark bill); core of agreement is that Republicans must give up bias against universal health care ("every American insured"), and Democrats will allow markets to run the system
• tax code affects this somehow... dictates something about 16(?) % of GDP...
• person putting up money is different from payer
• changes tax laws so that payer controls spending: employee can change HMO
• government will subsidize up to 400% of poverty
• every individual must have coverage (he says we already do with mandatory emergency service)
  
• employer gives money to employee tax-free
• feds must create a minimum standard of insurance for people to meet; cannot be proscriptive because it won't improve with time (and everyone will want in); plan must be actuarial equivalent to average federal employee plan
• won't address medicare yet
• HMO, fee-for-service, concierge plan, whatever; just cannot provide less service than federal plan
• very poor may benefit since those who help them navigate the bureaucracy could get paid
• best health care: Seattle, Rochester, SLC
• greatest cost control factor is quality
• story: daughter graduated, went to work idealistically at nursing home, called him complaining about medicare manager
• story: doctor would proscribe wrong procedure so that they could pay for right one
• story: Michael Leavitt & wife needed colonoscopy; hospital couldn't tell costs until after breakdown; got price easily (at half the cost) in Utah
• prediction: next president will be a senator (and will know the cloture rule)
• will give the money to medicaid recipients
• by CBO, will be revenue neutral for first 2 years and save money after that; other say it'll save 1 trillion in 10 years

This talk was very informative, and I got a sense Senator Bennett is one of those politicians with integrity (though I won't make a final judgement based on one talk :- ).

My own comments:

• It was interesting to hear about the constant money crises without a national bank. I'll have to see if that's true; it seems to be worse WITH a central bank and national management! Anyway, at least it looks like Senator Bennett has tried to understand the history of the system, and really thinks there is a crisis where government intervention is necessary for our security (rather than totally a knee-jerk reaction to Bernanke et al).
• He talked about Heber J. Grant's efforts to get money to ensure their bank would not fail, but he seems to miss the fact that his exemplar made things work without even asking for government assistance. He worked hard and almost failed, but succeeded at the last minute with his own creativity and persistence, which is what should be happening. Some will win; many will lose.
  
• I still don't like the idea of forcing every American to have health insurance, even if we currently struggle under some emergency laws. It's more government encroachment: suddenly, everyone will be forced to pay a certain amount to the government; nobody will be free to choose where to put their money and how much risk and responsibility to take over their own lives. It's best to roll back some of our current, overly protective laws.

Unfortunately, the way this is presented and the way they're planning, I'm willing to bet that this initiative (or something with a similar universal mandate) will pass. This is the age of government absolutism! It can leap over crises with a single bound! Speak loudly enough and I'm sure it'll be able to fix your problems, too (... for a small fee for everyone else... at least until the next administration...).

The Lives Of Others

Of course our ever-expansive military is going to monitor our lives, and here's how it's begun. It is expected, given the expansive powers they've been granted. But it's worth mentioning, along with the names of the two people who are bringing it to light: Adrienne Kinne and David Murfee Faulk. Thank you both for following your conscience.

And yes, I recommend The Lives Of Others; it's a story that draws you in, it's well done aesthetically and emotionally, and it really makes you think about the impacts in our lives. It's only a matter of time before a department or an individual will use this power improperly. Is this still a good trade-off for our safety? (Hint from the article: "the success stories underscored for her the waste of time spent listening to innocent Americans...")

Supreme Court is assuming unconstitutional steps to affect international relations

Roger Pilon wrote the forward to this past year's Cato Supreme Court Review. The last paragraph is a good summary (supported by the 10 preceding pages): I understand it to mean that the Court's intervention in some recent rulings mean they're taking jurisdiction over laws regarding foreigners in a way that is not authorized by the Constitution. (Furthermore, he says they are making improper rulings about wartime powers, which seems appropriate to me, but I must not understand it all. That part starts at the top of page "13", though it shows as page 7 if you read it in the PDF format from my link.)

two great graphics regarding the federal budget and bailouts

• The 2009 federal budget
• This year's federal rescues and expenditures compared
  

The annihilation of limited government is upon us.

This is a very sad time for me, and it's a watershed moment for America. After all the problems with large banks, the federal government has stepped in to save some of them and is about to do a whole lot more since last week's volatility. It's incredibly disheartening to see how far we've fallen from the ideals that have kept us free.

I am writing this note to publicly declare that I do not approve of the federal government's actions to save the banks. It realize that there would be catastrophic consequences if they did not, and our whole system as we know it might collapse in a way that could even surpass The Great Depression. That condition could take decades to overcome, and we would be a very poor country in the meantime... meaning that we would learn what true poverty is really like. I would absolutely choose that course because we would come out as strong a nation as we ever were, having kept our individual freedoms and responsibilities and learned valuable lessons about individual security and trustworthiness in the process.

However, what we are choosing instead is to try and ensure safety by subverting the basic rights of individuals to choose their own actions and live through the consequences. We're replacing our old ideals with a system where the government has all power to do as it wishes with any aspect of society. Even if this bailout plan isn't implemented, the fact that it is being seriously considered means that most of our politicians feel they can exert this power over our lives if they perceive a big crisis coming. There are no longer any limits; the only way now to limit what government does is to make front-page news and garner general public outrage so that a majority of politicians are motivated to act. American government has lost its moral compass.

So the future is bleak: our livelihood is subject to the whims of politics; we will be less free to make contracts with one another; and society in general will be much less prosperous and powerful because of the myriad ways that government force can stop associations and limit our range of actions. If people thought there was uncertainty from actions of irresponsible banks and traders, wait to see how much more uncertain will be everyone's future now that we have an all-powerful national government.

I suppose we've been headed this way for a while. It's incredibly sad to watch it happen in front of us, and to know we will have diminished power over our lives starting next week.

How many executive orders have presidents written?

I was curious how many executive orders George Bush has written compared to other presidents. (I got the counts from the "disposition tables" that go back to Hoover.)

There were 5075 up to Hoover; as of June 28 we have 13466.

268 George W. Bush
363 William J. Clinton
165 George Bush
380 Ronald Reagan
319 Jimmy Carter
168 Gerald R. Ford
345 Richard Nixon
323 Lyndon B. Johnson
213 John F. Kennedy
481 Dwight D. Eisenhower
893 Harry S. Truman
3466 Franklin D. Roosevelt
995 Herbert Hoover

Don't choose McCain! (Or Obama, of course.)

I wrote the following to my siblings, most of whom will probably vote for McCain because they think he's a much better choice than Obama.

---

John McCain is no saint, you're right about that. I understand that he has shown personal integrity in some areas and deserves respect as a soldier, but that doesn't translate to integrity in the rest of his life, and it definitely doesn't mean he understands anything about good government. I won't address specifics of his personal life; I'll only say that I don't believe he holds the same values as I do when t comes to commitment to families. When it comes to political office, it's all about money for your friends: he was actually reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee (as one of "The Keating Five") for manipulating things on behalf of some of his rich friends, and he's still doing things specifically to benefit his corporate contributors. The current mode of "free enterprise" in federal government means that they hire private contractors with our tax money; heck, they've even started calling government departments "corporations", such as the Millenium Challenge Corporation. McCain is a poster-child for this egregious cronyism, and although I'm afraid of more government control in socialist policies, I'm as much (or more afraid) of government passing on government function to corporations. Is corporate socialism better than public socialism? We've already got corporations "investing" in lobbyists because it's a good ROI (see last paragraph); and it's crazy how the biggest recipient group for earmarks isn't local government or public institutions, it's for-profit companies.

But that's not even the worst part about McCain: he has somehow been able to pass the infamous "McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act" which restricts free speech about our politicians. That's right: the FEC is now ruling on cases and saying what people can and cannot say about politicians. The most direct consequence of this is that it keeps incumbents in power; that's why this is also called the "Incumbency Protection Act". Don't expect to see many more decent political leaders like Reagan in this system where people like him are getting into power and subverting basic rights to keep it.

I know, I know: it's all about money to keep your friends' corporations healthy, and then keeping yourself in power so you can keep up the good work. Everybody's doing it! Obama may even be a worse choice than McCain. But in case you feel that McCain at least has the benefit of being closer to your political ideals, beware that he says the same kinds of things when it comes to government control, which is why he's often called a "RhINO" (Republican In Name Only) (google it).

Although Republicans and Democrats present themselves as competing political parties, they are really two squabbling factions of the same political machine when it comes to the national government. If not redirected, they will attain the same kind of state that make us recoil when we think of the USSR or China. Who cares if we live in a two-party, democratic totalitarian state vs. a one-party, communist totalitarian state? We still have one of the best political systems on the earth, and the American people and media are still best equipped to live freely and discover and reject most corruption as it happens. But nowadays, the choice of most people is to go along with the current people in power, voting for the lesser of two evils. I understand the reasoning, and I know how you often have to make compromises on particular issues to get to a better place when working in groups, but that doesn't translate very well to choosing good leaders. I hope to bring more people to my side: we really have to fight the political status quo and change course. Otherwise, I'm afraid our children will have a hard life: they'll not only have a real mess on their hands when it comes to their own livelihood, they'll probably find themselves ruled by some very bad system because we couldn't keep this one going. This year, is our president going to come from one of the two main parties? Yep, and the same will probably happen in 2012. Heck, maybe we can never turn them around. But if there is any chance to avoid further statism, it's going to be by getting large numbers of people to join us and do something other than perpetuate the current system and it's candidates.

Spread the word! :- )

growing earmarks in Congress

This story about earmarks in Washington is illuminating, and scary.

"More than 11,000 of those "earmarks," worth nearly $15 billion in all, were slipped into legislation telling the government where to spend taxpayers' money this year", and in spending bills for the 2009 budget year that starts Oct. 1, "the House committee alone has 23,438 earmark requests before it".

Holy cow.

"Rules forbid lawmakers from raising campaign funds from congressional offices, but members and their aides sometimes find ways to skirt them."

Well, duh.

I don't care what anyone says: when you get that much power (and money) flowing through one organization, it's going to be very advantageous for masses of people to work the system any way they can. The article says that "earmarks can do a lot of good"; who cares when you've created a system that pays people very well to twist it for their own ends? Even after we work to make Congress' money transparent (which I highly recommend), we will continue to have a huge organization with all kinds of power that people can trade in ways other than their bank accounts.

Unlimited government is bad government, plain and simple. And we are not limiting the growth of the US government. I believe this is the most important politicial issue of our time in this nation.

Here are 4 government watchdog groups they mention in the article:

• Center for Responsive Politics
• Citizens Against Government Waste
  
• Sunlight Foundation
• Taxpayers for Common Sense
  

unemployment and welfare: government costs and a non-profit approach

Bill Drayton, the founder of Ashoka in the 80s, reported the following statistics in his short acceptance speech:

"The payroll taxes have gone from 1% of federal revenues to almost 40%...
It costs us about 40 million full-time equivalent jobs. We have about 70 to 80 million full-time people equivalent who would like to work who are not, which is 10 times the official unemployment rate." (More good info here.)

It is so good to find someone of his stature recognizing the drag this creates on our society. (Can you say "wet blanket"?)

Even better, he's chairman of Get America Working, a non-profit aiming at helping all Americans work. Fantastic! (While I'm at it, he also mentioned Youth Venture that is training youth "change-makers".)

history of health insurance in the US

Health Insurance in the United States is one of the best summaries I found for a history of health insurance here.

Interesting tidbit: In 1958, nearly 75 percent of Americans had some form of private health insurance coverage.

Destitute poverty in America: hunger

The following are from How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America from last August. I'll work to get information directly from the US census and other sources, but it was a challenge to find some of the hunger numbers from their poverty section; that information was retrieved from other sources referenced by the article.

• "There were 37 million poor persons living in this country in 2005"; that's 12.6%. ("This number has varied from 11.3 percent to 15.1 percent of the population over the past 20 years")

OK, fine. I want to help everyone make it out of poverty. But I'm not going too far out of my way and I don't want any government intervention for many of that number:

• 42% own their own homes
• 36% own a computer
  

I grew up without those things; it's not a crisis if you're at that level.

The worst hardships are when it is difficult to keep adequate food, clothing, and shelter. Those are the people with immediate needs that I really want to help with money and direct assistance.

Food:

• No data at all is shown for malnutrition; I'm guessing it's too small for measurement. "The intake of nutriments is very similar for poor and middle-class children and is generally well above the recom­mended daily level. For example, the consumption of protein (a relatively expensive nutriment) among poor children is, on average, between 150 percent and 267 percent of the RDA."
• "For example, two indicators of undernutrition among the young are "thinness" (low weight for height) and stuntedness (low height for age). These problems are rare to nonexistent among poor American children." "The World Health Organization standards assume that even in a very well-nourished population, 2.3 percent of children will have heights below the "stunted" cut-off levels due to normal genetic factors."
We're at 2.6%.

• "Some 1.8 percent of all households [and 6% of poor] report they "sometimes" did not have enough food to eat during the previous four months, while 0.4 percent [and 1.5% of poor] say they "often" did not have enough food."
• "13 percent of poor house­holds with children report that their children sometimes or often did not have enough food to eat during the past four months."
• "For example, across the whole U.S. population, in a given month, one child in three hundred will skip a meal because of the family's lack of money for food. One child in a thousand will go a whole day without eating for the same reason."
  

I'll have to compile info from clothing and shelter another time.

People need help. It's very sad for kids to skip a whole day of food, and it looks like abut 78,000 go hungry for a day in any month. Sad.

But the story is a far cry from the widespread destitution that some people preach: .1% of kids go a day without food. Think of how far we've come! Don't try and let anyone convince you that our government has to get involved and force their solutions to fix this "emergency".