Ok, I have been trying to take a break from boring you all to death with economics, but here's an interesting article that is very critical of the financial reform bill. Since there is no chance in hell that I will be reading that 2000+ page bit of legislation, I will be taking his word (and the words of others) for it when he says that there are no measures that actually attack the problem of a lack of transparency. From what I have read elsewhere there will be increased reserve requirements, but what does it matter if you have to hold 20% or 30% of what is lent out if you have no idea of the true value of those assets?
I was relieved to see that none of these new regulations take place immediately, and also that they weren't so harsh as to cause a second crash in the market, but from what I have read, it really seems they could've made the bill 1/10th as long (so normal Joes could actually READ IT!) and twice as effective. It sounds like they are just going to make the new Minerals and Management Services for banks :\ Let's pray for a competently drawn up hierarchy with minimal conflicts of interest.
PS: Can someone please propose a maximum of 500 pages on any bill to be voted on? This is really absurd. If it's too long for me to even be willing to read, how are the legislators supposed to read it, digest it, and decide if the ENTIRE thing is worth voting yes or no on. Break it up into smaller chunks!
PPS: I'm still reading Crisis Economics, and that book just keeps getting better! GO GET IT!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
New Cold War... no, not because of the suburban spies
With the capitalist markets of the West on the verge of perpetuating their own crash, and with China gaining new supporters and growing bolder by the day, we are looking at a New Cold War; this time, between the capitalists and state-capitalists, and things are not looking to be in our favor. We are facing an opponent with comparable technology, better education, more citizens, fewer rules, cheaper labor, a more stable economic model, less civil unrest, dangerous friends who do not like us, and whom we are funding with the interest on our debt and a vast trade imbalance.
What happened in the last cold war? There was a lot of military posturing between countries only loosely established to be enemies, covert missions, secret pacts, and (the only real benefit) a space race! Back to the present time, it appears, at least for now, that China is mostly satisfied with an economic takeover, leaving the majority of the military posturing and secret pacts to their neighbors and friends. But where is our parallel to the space race? The last space race created NASA whose accomplishments filled us with a sense of security, pride, and optimism as we put a man on the moon. It also brought countless innovations to the public market (memory foam, velcro, scratch resistant lenses, long distance telecommunications, etc.). But where is our space race, you ask? We have all the other traits of two fundamentally incompatible models, but where's the urgent goal and peaceful form of competition?
The next urgent technology race and matter of national security is freedom from oil! Rather than spending millions on providing internet to the remote towns in S. Dakota, let's setup a 'get us the hell of of oil' science association (GUTHOOOSA). Let's draw some completely unattainable line in the sand, say reduce our oil per capita oil consumption by 50% by the year 2025, and let's achieve the impossible! Projects could include individualized solar or wind powered hydrogen production units that would be distributed to gas stations across the country. We could do the same thing with bio-diesel generators, along with a network of collection agencies to gather used oil from fast food restaurants (yes, you can make bio-diesel with that). Also, now that the government has a controlling interest in some of the major car companies we could steer them toward the technologies we plan to develop, to take some of the gamble out of the game. Some companies such as BMW already have a hydrogen fuel cell car FOR SALE and waiting for the supporting infrastructure, but most others are waiting to see which technologies will catch on. We can take out that mystery and get a head start on developing the market for both the cars and the machines that facilitate the transition.
Other projects could include various forms of energy capture such as vibrational energy capture, new applications of solar energy capture such as solar paint, see if we can extract power from photosynthetic plants. The possibilities are endless and I'm sure the best are yet unimagined, which is the whole point of having a NASA-like entity at the core of the operation. With NASA on a hiatus of sorts, we could keep many of those scientests and engineers on staff, as well as use NASA research facilities. Manufacturing could be done by under-utilized portions of the auto industry, distribution and services could possibly be privatized, and jobs would be coming out of the wood works!
The reason I want to bounce this idea off of everybody is, I don't know if the conservatives think this is too much like the Tennessee Valley Authority - which I'm under the impression you don't like because Reagan was against it in the 60's - even though it was created by a Republican, dutifully served its purpose of creating jobs in the recovery from the Great Depression, secured waterways and produced electricity in the Tennessee Valley, and after much deregulation and introduction of competition it has become a profitable entity. I honestly have a very difficult time forecasting what conservatives will and will not like. Do you guys like NASA for that matter, at least old school NASA? I'm kind of under the impression this could ONLY work if a popular Republican were to propose it.
If you know of a better way to bolster American pride, generate jobs, kick start a generation of technology, and show off the power of capitalism, I'd like to hear it.
What happened in the last cold war? There was a lot of military posturing between countries only loosely established to be enemies, covert missions, secret pacts, and (the only real benefit) a space race! Back to the present time, it appears, at least for now, that China is mostly satisfied with an economic takeover, leaving the majority of the military posturing and secret pacts to their neighbors and friends. But where is our parallel to the space race? The last space race created NASA whose accomplishments filled us with a sense of security, pride, and optimism as we put a man on the moon. It also brought countless innovations to the public market (memory foam, velcro, scratch resistant lenses, long distance telecommunications, etc.). But where is our space race, you ask? We have all the other traits of two fundamentally incompatible models, but where's the urgent goal and peaceful form of competition?
The next urgent technology race and matter of national security is freedom from oil! Rather than spending millions on providing internet to the remote towns in S. Dakota, let's setup a 'get us the hell of of oil' science association (GUTHOOOSA). Let's draw some completely unattainable line in the sand, say reduce our oil per capita oil consumption by 50% by the year 2025, and let's achieve the impossible! Projects could include individualized solar or wind powered hydrogen production units that would be distributed to gas stations across the country. We could do the same thing with bio-diesel generators, along with a network of collection agencies to gather used oil from fast food restaurants (yes, you can make bio-diesel with that). Also, now that the government has a controlling interest in some of the major car companies we could steer them toward the technologies we plan to develop, to take some of the gamble out of the game. Some companies such as BMW already have a hydrogen fuel cell car FOR SALE and waiting for the supporting infrastructure, but most others are waiting to see which technologies will catch on. We can take out that mystery and get a head start on developing the market for both the cars and the machines that facilitate the transition.
Other projects could include various forms of energy capture such as vibrational energy capture, new applications of solar energy capture such as solar paint, see if we can extract power from photosynthetic plants. The possibilities are endless and I'm sure the best are yet unimagined, which is the whole point of having a NASA-like entity at the core of the operation. With NASA on a hiatus of sorts, we could keep many of those scientests and engineers on staff, as well as use NASA research facilities. Manufacturing could be done by under-utilized portions of the auto industry, distribution and services could possibly be privatized, and jobs would be coming out of the wood works!
The reason I want to bounce this idea off of everybody is, I don't know if the conservatives think this is too much like the Tennessee Valley Authority - which I'm under the impression you don't like because Reagan was against it in the 60's - even though it was created by a Republican, dutifully served its purpose of creating jobs in the recovery from the Great Depression, secured waterways and produced electricity in the Tennessee Valley, and after much deregulation and introduction of competition it has become a profitable entity. I honestly have a very difficult time forecasting what conservatives will and will not like. Do you guys like NASA for that matter, at least old school NASA? I'm kind of under the impression this could ONLY work if a popular Republican were to propose it.
If you know of a better way to bolster American pride, generate jobs, kick start a generation of technology, and show off the power of capitalism, I'd like to hear it.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
comic relief
Haha, when you can't bang your head against the wall anymore, ya gotta have some comic relief :P http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gurd72bTiYs&feature=popt00us11
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Plausibility
Long post today, because I have literally lost sleep in the last couple of weeks over what will happen here in the months that follow. There will be a political riff in November, and the economic consequences need to be considered. Along with countless articles online, I have been reading Crisis Economics by Nouriel Roubini (aka Dr. Doom), one of the first economists to blow the whistle on the upcoming crisis back in 2006, and in fairly accurate detail. I'm still reading, but at this point I would highly recommend the book. Chapter two gives a brief but in depth review of economic theories and the theorists behind them. He runs through where we came from, what we've learned, where we've failed, and where we are presently. Right now we are at a truly incredible moment in history where there are two main schools of thought with completely opposite conclusions vying for credibility. I will attempt to outline the two here.
The Austrian school of economics preaches against unsustainable debt, and against government intervention. They argue that debt begets more debt, and government intervention will only lead us down the path of ever increasing debt which will eventually lead to a collapse of our system. Looking at our history of government intervention, it is hard to argue that this observation is incorrect. We see increased debt, masked by inflation and the break from the gold standard, and increasingly lax fiscal and monetary policy since the Great Depression. To prove its modern applicability, this most recent bust could be attributed to Greenspan's federal reserve keeping interest rates too low for too long in reaction to the 2001 tech bust, leading to money being too easily available, an excessive lending boom and a speculative bubble in real estate, then before we've recovered from that recession we catapult into stimulus for the next recession. It's never ending!
So, if these Austrians are so on the ball, why don't we do what they recommend: cut spending, raise taxes, and bring down the debt?
At the core of the Austrian school of economics is the concept of "creative destruction." This term is used to describe the need for economies to be torn down and brought up from the ground, having filtered the weak links out. In other words, the Great Depression was the correct reaction to our over speculation prior to that bust. The difference being that rather than using government money to stimulate the economy, we should be left to slowly crawl out on our own. This to me, is the truly logical solution. The weak perish, the strong survive, and we come out of the flames with a smaller, leaner, more efficient economy... oh and by the way there is NO limit to the number of allowed casualties. The economy comes back when it is deserving. Logical, but totally lacking in regard for society, and lord knows where that would leave us politically. We have enough turmoil without the depression.
The Libertarian school of thought is the same, but is in denial of the inevitable destruction caused by the deflationary spiral. For an excellent illustration of just how much deflation spirals on itself, take a look at Ireland, the first of the European countries to enact the austerity measures similar to those recently agreed upon by the rest of Europe at the G20 meeting in Toronto. Here's what's going on RIGHT NOW: Ireland enacted austerity measures 2 years ago (around the same time we started stimulus), and now their unemployment is up to 13.7%, they're still in a recession, their credit rating crashed, wages were cut, and what's worse is their debt as percentage of GDP has more than doubled from roughly 25% to 80%. As a basis for comparison, our debt has risen from roughly 65% to 90% since the beginning of stimulus in 2008, only the last 10% coming during Obama's term, but that number continues to grow. We're both at similar debt/GDP ratios and both are still rising, but we're no longer in a recession, have falling unemployment, and have a good credit rating... oh and we started at a much higher debt level. Ireland vs the US may be apples to oranges, but this is something to consider.
So if the Austrians are right, but have a far too painful remedy, and the Libertarians are just Austrians who are fooling themselves, what's the other option? The other main school of thought on the table is Keynesian economics. Keynesian theory is that in the presence of a crisis, the government should swiftly step in with stimulus targeted at restoring aggregate demand and supplementing liquidity to halt the recession. This stimulus needs to stay in place until confidence has been restored to the system, the recession has been transformed into stable growth, and business as usual is restored. As the recession turns to steady growth, the stimulus should be pulled back gradually to manage inflationary forces. The debt accrued during the stimulus period is slowly repaid during a period of steady inflation, during which time the value of the debt has been gradually decreasing, and more importantly the GDP has been growing.
The problem with this school of thought is judging the duration and severity of the stimulus required. It's like planning a hike across the desert and trying to decide how much water to bring. Too much and you get weighed down, too little and you die of dehydration, and the main problem is that you have no idea how large the desert is. That is the situation we're staring at right now (a good analogy which shows my skepticism of common sense simplicity). Also, Keynesian economists are lousy at judging how to pull back because they're afraid of freaking out the market which has grown dependent on their government safety net. Then when the next recession hits, we're still reeling in debt from the previous one! This is where the infinite inflation scenario comes from.
What Roubini says is that both schools are correct, and it's a darn shame that they fight rather than talk with each other. There is a time and a place for both. During recovery it is critical to stop the fall of the market and encourage growth the way the Keynesians know how to do. Then there should be a firm, but not premature transition to Austrian austerity as the economy flourishes. This cooperation of the two schools is the best possible solution... but improperly timed may be the worst. The WORST possible solution is an attempt at Keynesian recovery, only to be stifled by Austrian austerity at the first sign of the recovery. Then you get Keynesian debt and Austrian "creative destruction." ... Yes, OH SHIT indeed! The worst of both worlds. That is why the treasury and Fed remained firm just prior to the great depression, that is what happened in Japan during the lost decade (except they still held onto some of the stimulus, resulting in stagflation rather than all out depression... almost as bad), and that is what it looks like we're about to do.
Which brings me to the title of this post. In November there is very likely going to be a shift of power, largely due to paranoia and the "common sense" rebellion against the "socialist" Obama administration. The primary purpose of this post is not to convince the conservatives that Obama is doing the right thing. 1) That's a futile effort, and 2) I don't know if he is or isn't, because Keynesian theory isn't money magic, it largely depends on how you spend the money and how you exit the recovery strategy. My point here is to present the two realistic schools of thought, their respective advantages and drawbacks, and to at least introduce the possibility that a) Obama is at least aware of both sides of the argument and went with the more commonly believed school, b) we could possibly be doing the right thing already, and c) that the premature switch from one school to the other could potentially be catastrophic. You may not BELIEVE all of that, but it should at least be plausible.
The Austrian school of economics preaches against unsustainable debt, and against government intervention. They argue that debt begets more debt, and government intervention will only lead us down the path of ever increasing debt which will eventually lead to a collapse of our system. Looking at our history of government intervention, it is hard to argue that this observation is incorrect. We see increased debt, masked by inflation and the break from the gold standard, and increasingly lax fiscal and monetary policy since the Great Depression. To prove its modern applicability, this most recent bust could be attributed to Greenspan's federal reserve keeping interest rates too low for too long in reaction to the 2001 tech bust, leading to money being too easily available, an excessive lending boom and a speculative bubble in real estate, then before we've recovered from that recession we catapult into stimulus for the next recession. It's never ending!
So, if these Austrians are so on the ball, why don't we do what they recommend: cut spending, raise taxes, and bring down the debt?
At the core of the Austrian school of economics is the concept of "creative destruction." This term is used to describe the need for economies to be torn down and brought up from the ground, having filtered the weak links out. In other words, the Great Depression was the correct reaction to our over speculation prior to that bust. The difference being that rather than using government money to stimulate the economy, we should be left to slowly crawl out on our own. This to me, is the truly logical solution. The weak perish, the strong survive, and we come out of the flames with a smaller, leaner, more efficient economy... oh and by the way there is NO limit to the number of allowed casualties. The economy comes back when it is deserving. Logical, but totally lacking in regard for society, and lord knows where that would leave us politically. We have enough turmoil without the depression.
The Libertarian school of thought is the same, but is in denial of the inevitable destruction caused by the deflationary spiral. For an excellent illustration of just how much deflation spirals on itself, take a look at Ireland, the first of the European countries to enact the austerity measures similar to those recently agreed upon by the rest of Europe at the G20 meeting in Toronto. Here's what's going on RIGHT NOW: Ireland enacted austerity measures 2 years ago (around the same time we started stimulus), and now their unemployment is up to 13.7%, they're still in a recession, their credit rating crashed, wages were cut, and what's worse is their debt as percentage of GDP has more than doubled from roughly 25% to 80%. As a basis for comparison, our debt has risen from roughly 65% to 90% since the beginning of stimulus in 2008, only the last 10% coming during Obama's term, but that number continues to grow. We're both at similar debt/GDP ratios and both are still rising, but we're no longer in a recession, have falling unemployment, and have a good credit rating... oh and we started at a much higher debt level. Ireland vs the US may be apples to oranges, but this is something to consider.
So if the Austrians are right, but have a far too painful remedy, and the Libertarians are just Austrians who are fooling themselves, what's the other option? The other main school of thought on the table is Keynesian economics. Keynesian theory is that in the presence of a crisis, the government should swiftly step in with stimulus targeted at restoring aggregate demand and supplementing liquidity to halt the recession. This stimulus needs to stay in place until confidence has been restored to the system, the recession has been transformed into stable growth, and business as usual is restored. As the recession turns to steady growth, the stimulus should be pulled back gradually to manage inflationary forces. The debt accrued during the stimulus period is slowly repaid during a period of steady inflation, during which time the value of the debt has been gradually decreasing, and more importantly the GDP has been growing.
The problem with this school of thought is judging the duration and severity of the stimulus required. It's like planning a hike across the desert and trying to decide how much water to bring. Too much and you get weighed down, too little and you die of dehydration, and the main problem is that you have no idea how large the desert is. That is the situation we're staring at right now (a good analogy which shows my skepticism of common sense simplicity). Also, Keynesian economists are lousy at judging how to pull back because they're afraid of freaking out the market which has grown dependent on their government safety net. Then when the next recession hits, we're still reeling in debt from the previous one! This is where the infinite inflation scenario comes from.
What Roubini says is that both schools are correct, and it's a darn shame that they fight rather than talk with each other. There is a time and a place for both. During recovery it is critical to stop the fall of the market and encourage growth the way the Keynesians know how to do. Then there should be a firm, but not premature transition to Austrian austerity as the economy flourishes. This cooperation of the two schools is the best possible solution... but improperly timed may be the worst. The WORST possible solution is an attempt at Keynesian recovery, only to be stifled by Austrian austerity at the first sign of the recovery. Then you get Keynesian debt and Austrian "creative destruction." ... Yes, OH SHIT indeed! The worst of both worlds. That is why the treasury and Fed remained firm just prior to the great depression, that is what happened in Japan during the lost decade (except they still held onto some of the stimulus, resulting in stagflation rather than all out depression... almost as bad), and that is what it looks like we're about to do.
Which brings me to the title of this post. In November there is very likely going to be a shift of power, largely due to paranoia and the "common sense" rebellion against the "socialist" Obama administration. The primary purpose of this post is not to convince the conservatives that Obama is doing the right thing. 1) That's a futile effort, and 2) I don't know if he is or isn't, because Keynesian theory isn't money magic, it largely depends on how you spend the money and how you exit the recovery strategy. My point here is to present the two realistic schools of thought, their respective advantages and drawbacks, and to at least introduce the possibility that a) Obama is at least aware of both sides of the argument and went with the more commonly believed school, b) we could possibly be doing the right thing already, and c) that the premature switch from one school to the other could potentially be catastrophic. You may not BELIEVE all of that, but it should at least be plausible.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
You've Got to be Kidding Me: Part 2
Part 2 of the "You've Got to be Kidding Me" series is brought to you by the phrase, "It's common sense!"
Don't bite the hand that feeds you, common sense, don't count your chickens before they've hatched, common sense, bring both a jacket and sunscreen when visiting San Francisco, common sense. For a whole heaping pile of great common sense, I recommend the book of Proverbs, but in matters of politics and economics, common sense is frequently misleading. For some examples, let's play a game. I'll list some applications of common sense, and you tell me which ended disastrously.
1) If you're the president you should be able to get a blow job without causing a scandal.
2) To boost production at home and get us out of the Great Depression the US encouraged "buying American" by increasing taxes on imports and subsidizing American production.
3) In order to protect our oil interests we defended Saudi Arabia, once the threat was over we came home.
4) Sadam Hussein is killing innocent people, may be harboring terrorists and Bush says they have nuclear weapons, so we should go to war with Iraq.
5) The free market caused this financial crisis, the state-capitalists were unharmed except by their dependence on free market countries, so logically state-capitalism is the wave of the future.
6) Reagan believed in small government, cut taxes, brought down unemployment and got us out of a recession, so we should do what he did.
7) Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house and is keeping an eye on them, so we should all sleep well at night.
We can discuss answers to the quiz in the comments section, but the short answer is they're all bullshit. Matters of economics and politics are RARELY simple enough to just apply common sense. Furthermore, common sense should only be accepted from experts. For example, my area of expertise is integrated circuit design, so ideas like cascoding for better supply rejection may sound like jibberish to most, but is common sense to me. Why on earth would we rely on common sense solutions from people who have NO background in topics that are equally complicated!?! That's retarded.
Sarah Palin has no background in international politics, has no background in economics, has no experience in politics at the national level, and has limited local and state level experience. Granted, her experiences in the past 3 years have given her a crash course in all of those topics from her Republican mentors, but that provides at best a shallow one sided perspective on all of those topics. WHY does anybody think her common sense has any application to squat beyond being a mom, being a businesswoman, and having big hair? It's not just her I have a beef with, I'm talking about her whole following of "common sense conservatives," who share the same vain perception that their unqualified opinions somehow carry some weight in matters that affect the nation. Meanwhile, they are free to hide behind the fact that they'll never be in a position of real influence and can happily speculate and say, "see, I told you so!" all they want. The truly sad thing is they are so uninformed that they don't even know if they SHOULD be saying "I told you so!"
Sounds like a lot of harmless speculation, and should be treated as such, but the result in this case is civil unrest. Everybody thinks they know better than the president, and the conservatives cater to their skepticism. It's important for voices to be heard, and if something really is afoot, blow some whistles and find some hard evidence, but the conservatives have crossed the line by portraying Obama as a socialist terrorist threatening our way of life, and with accusations of conspiracy behind EVERY action. Paranoia has been spread to the point where there are local militias sprouting up, politicians threatening "second amendment remedies" (aka armed rebellion), and even a facebook group praying for Obama's death which has over a million members!
I already thought our first black president would likely be assassinated, but with the conservatives portraying him as a terrorist, the man IS going to die, particularly if he wins a second term. Conservative reporting has gotten downright irresponsible and dangerous. Domestic civil unrest is already on the rise and the atmosphere is such that the Department of Homeland Security has issued this warning to all local law enforcement agents to beware of Rightwing Extremists. The new rightwing recruitment strategy is basically to say, "yes, whatever you're skeptical about, you're right! You're too smart to be fooled by this terrorist president, fight with us like minded patriots to defend our way of life!" This partially explains why within the rightwing there are so many denunciations lately. "Oh, most of us do believe in intelligent government regulation, do not support armed rebellion, are not racists, aren't extremists, blah blah blah." There are so many denunciations because there is no definite rightwing agenda, it's basically just whatever the individuals comprising the group pulled off the top of their common sense heads. Yet their conviction is so strong that it's just a matter of time before someone thusly convicted goes all second amendment on the president.
Common sense conservatism is baseless, ridiculous, and dangerous. REAL common sense ought to tell them don't take common sense solutions from amateurs, too vain to realize their baseless opinions are meaningless... EVEN IF THAT AMATEUR IS YOU!
In other news, I highly recommend reading the Rolling Stone article on General McChrystal. The full text is far more valuable than any reports or analysis I have read on the topic. Great article.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you, common sense, don't count your chickens before they've hatched, common sense, bring both a jacket and sunscreen when visiting San Francisco, common sense. For a whole heaping pile of great common sense, I recommend the book of Proverbs, but in matters of politics and economics, common sense is frequently misleading. For some examples, let's play a game. I'll list some applications of common sense, and you tell me which ended disastrously.
1) If you're the president you should be able to get a blow job without causing a scandal.
2) To boost production at home and get us out of the Great Depression the US encouraged "buying American" by increasing taxes on imports and subsidizing American production.
3) In order to protect our oil interests we defended Saudi Arabia, once the threat was over we came home.
4) Sadam Hussein is killing innocent people, may be harboring terrorists and Bush says they have nuclear weapons, so we should go to war with Iraq.
5) The free market caused this financial crisis, the state-capitalists were unharmed except by their dependence on free market countries, so logically state-capitalism is the wave of the future.
6) Reagan believed in small government, cut taxes, brought down unemployment and got us out of a recession, so we should do what he did.
7) Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house and is keeping an eye on them, so we should all sleep well at night.
We can discuss answers to the quiz in the comments section, but the short answer is they're all bullshit. Matters of economics and politics are RARELY simple enough to just apply common sense. Furthermore, common sense should only be accepted from experts. For example, my area of expertise is integrated circuit design, so ideas like cascoding for better supply rejection may sound like jibberish to most, but is common sense to me. Why on earth would we rely on common sense solutions from people who have NO background in topics that are equally complicated!?! That's retarded.
Sarah Palin has no background in international politics, has no background in economics, has no experience in politics at the national level, and has limited local and state level experience. Granted, her experiences in the past 3 years have given her a crash course in all of those topics from her Republican mentors, but that provides at best a shallow one sided perspective on all of those topics. WHY does anybody think her common sense has any application to squat beyond being a mom, being a businesswoman, and having big hair? It's not just her I have a beef with, I'm talking about her whole following of "common sense conservatives," who share the same vain perception that their unqualified opinions somehow carry some weight in matters that affect the nation. Meanwhile, they are free to hide behind the fact that they'll never be in a position of real influence and can happily speculate and say, "see, I told you so!" all they want. The truly sad thing is they are so uninformed that they don't even know if they SHOULD be saying "I told you so!"
Sounds like a lot of harmless speculation, and should be treated as such, but the result in this case is civil unrest. Everybody thinks they know better than the president, and the conservatives cater to their skepticism. It's important for voices to be heard, and if something really is afoot, blow some whistles and find some hard evidence, but the conservatives have crossed the line by portraying Obama as a socialist terrorist threatening our way of life, and with accusations of conspiracy behind EVERY action. Paranoia has been spread to the point where there are local militias sprouting up, politicians threatening "second amendment remedies" (aka armed rebellion), and even a facebook group praying for Obama's death which has over a million members!
I already thought our first black president would likely be assassinated, but with the conservatives portraying him as a terrorist, the man IS going to die, particularly if he wins a second term. Conservative reporting has gotten downright irresponsible and dangerous. Domestic civil unrest is already on the rise and the atmosphere is such that the Department of Homeland Security has issued this warning to all local law enforcement agents to beware of Rightwing Extremists. The new rightwing recruitment strategy is basically to say, "yes, whatever you're skeptical about, you're right! You're too smart to be fooled by this terrorist president, fight with us like minded patriots to defend our way of life!" This partially explains why within the rightwing there are so many denunciations lately. "Oh, most of us do believe in intelligent government regulation, do not support armed rebellion, are not racists, aren't extremists, blah blah blah." There are so many denunciations because there is no definite rightwing agenda, it's basically just whatever the individuals comprising the group pulled off the top of their common sense heads. Yet their conviction is so strong that it's just a matter of time before someone thusly convicted goes all second amendment on the president.
Common sense conservatism is baseless, ridiculous, and dangerous. REAL common sense ought to tell them don't take common sense solutions from amateurs, too vain to realize their baseless opinions are meaningless... EVEN IF THAT AMATEUR IS YOU!
In other news, I highly recommend reading the Rolling Stone article on General McChrystal. The full text is far more valuable than any reports or analysis I have read on the topic. Great article.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
full docs
For your speculative enjoyment, check out the actual documents regarding the 6 month deepwater drilling moratorium: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar's report on the safety of deepwater drilling, and Judge Martin Feldman's ruling. I'm still making my way through the docs myself, but it seems to me the argument is less about the new safety regulations and whether there needs to be an immediate hiatus to retrofit the rigs with new safety measures, and is more about the arbitrarily placed 6 month time frame. That I can buy, but will weigh in some more after reading.
UPDATE: Ok, so the verdict has a handful of very legitimate complaints with the DOI report.
1) The data reviewed by the panel of experts was different from what was presented in the report because the threshold of "deepwater" was changed from 1000ft to 500ft, which is somewhat justified because that's the threshold at which floating rigs must be used. However, just the use of floating rigs shouldn't be in question, but rather the effects of drilling in deep water that causes equipment failures and restricts access.
2) The report does not defend the need for a 6 month moratorium in particular, and as such was deemed to be arbitrary. Furthermore, the panel of experts never saw this recommendation and more than half do not agree with it. It would make more sense to halt drilling on rigs until new safety standards are met on a case by case basis. That argument would be highly defensible, would not be arbitrary, and would be supported by the panel of experts who do believe in the tightened regulations.
3) Legal precedent says that the moratorium is only appropriate if the threat of injury is certain rather than hypothetical, which it is not. However, if I read the verdict correctly, it is also defensible if the threat is irreparable and far outweighs the harm done to the affected party. It sounds to me the defense just made the wrong argument.
The less legit arguments in the verdict:
1) The possible damages in the absence of the moratorium are not properly described... has the judge not been watching the news? The risk is a repeat of what is happening now.
2) The report is case specific to the Deepwater Horizon disaster and there is no link to the rigs being affected by the moratorium... really? They use the same technology, the operators all have identical emergency protocols, and I don't see how the judge can argue they are unrelated and at the same time agree with the panel of experts that new industry wide safety standards must be implemented. That makes no sense. Need new safety standards for all... but totally unrelated...
3) Drawing the parallel to a car crash or an airplane crash is inappropriate. This is more akin to a recall like with the Prius brake pedal incident. Safety faults have been established, fixes have been mandated, operation should not resume until these requirements are met. The main point being that this is not just operator error or a unique defect, this is an industry wide safety failing with a developing technology.
4) Studies showing statistically significant numbers of mechanical failures exclusive to deep water operations are irrelevant... Are you KIDDING ME!?! With the particular example he gave, there was a 7.5% chance of failure in deep water. That means if there are 100 deepwater rigs, there's a chance 7 of them will have pipe cutting errors, and it only takes 1 error to be potentially catastrophic. How is that not significant? Furthermore, is this REALLY the sort of thing you want to roll the dice on and assume was an isolated incident?
I agree that the moratorium as it was defended should not be upheld, particularly the arbitrary 6 month aspect, but I am calling shenanigans on all four of those last points. In order for an appeal to be accepted the 6mo standard should be changed to a case by case adherence to the new safety regulations, the risk of injury should be very strongly presented, and it needs to be made clear that this is akin to a recall and just as safety regulations should be applied to all rigs using this technology the moratorium should apply to all rigs using this technology.
As a side note, I have been trying to find data on how many commercial drilling platforms and exploratory platforms use the same technology and share the same risks, to see how statistically significant this leak is. I have found it is VERY hard to find data as this blogger suggests, and there really aren't answers available on the internet. The map seems to indicate there are only 5 rigs at the 5000ft+ depths, but hundreds at 500ft+. It would seem to me the definition for deep water should not depend on the use of floating rigs, but rather the impact of the increased pressure and inaccessibility at the greater depths. While increased safety standards may need to be implemented on all floating rigs, the moratorium may only be applicable to a small number of rigs that really are at risk, and I hope this change is considered for the appeal.
Monday, June 21, 2010
You've Got to be Kidding Me: Part 1
Wow, so many things in my Dad's last round of comments, a few of which drive me nuts and I want to talk about. I'll spread them out over a few posts so we can stay focused.
What is with the conservatives latching onto, and demonizing the most OBSCURE liberals!?!
#1 Saul Alinsky, a man who revolutionized the methods of community organization is now under attack by the conservatives because Obama is a student of his teachings. Why would you NOT want your president to be a strong community organizer? Oh yea, because he's organizing communities against what you like. But seriously, who had heard of this guy before the 2008 election? It seems the only people who are really studying his tactics right now are the TEA Party! The fact of the matter is that he is the creator of a tactic which can be used for either side, so why exactly is he the new conservative anti-christ?
Aside from his modern applications, what exactly do the conservatives hate about him so much? Is unifying poor communities to help them better their situation such a detestable cause? Other causes being attributed to him are the civil rights and the anti-Vietnam war movements. While some of those organizers may have used improper versions of his tactics, he was intentionally not involved with these young groups because he thought their tactics like flag burning and aimlessly rebelling against middle-class America were counter-effective and idiotic. And all things said and done, if his tactics had been followed, those movements would have been non-violent, effective movements for honorable causes and probably would be remembered in a more favorable light. Where exactly is the beef with Saul Alinsky, other than the fact that a guy on the other side is intelligent enough to be using his tactics successfully?
#2 George Soros, survivor of the Holocaust, investment genius, self-made billionaire, and major philanthropist, is another totally random and undeserving whipping boy of the conservatives. His life and career are nothing short of inspirational. Over the course of the last 30yrs he's donated over $6 billion to organizations promoting democracy in eastern Europe, desegregating South Africa, ending poverty in Africa, setting up internet infrastructures for Russian students, scientific research grants, etc. The list of worthy causes he has supported seriously goes around the block. So where's the beef? From 2002 to 2004 George Soros became the LOUDEST (that link is not just for reference, I highly recommend reading exactly why he was against Bush, because his points and predictions were unequivocally correct) voice in the battle to get Bush out of office. While not donating any money directly to the campaign, he did donate $18 million to groups supporting the Democrats.
Going back to his investment portfolio, while being well diversified, he is heavily invested in oil, and that has been the source of much recent criticism. But name a major industry and there's bound to be some rich dude heavily invested in it. The fact that he's well invested in Petrobras, the industry's fastest rising star, run by Brazil, one of the fastest growing nations in the world, should be NO SURPRISE. It's what you call smart investing, not a conspiracy. The theory is that he is Obama's puppet master because he wants the oil spill to cause a moratorium on off shore drilling so that the rigs will be sold and leased to Petrobras. Further evidence they site for this is that the government has already given Petrobras a $2 billion of tax payer money to purchase drilling equipment. The truth of the matter is... well, just hit the link, it's bogus on so many levels and already well debunked in that link. Not only was it the equivalent of a dealership lending you money to buy their product, it's COMPLETELY unrelated to either Obama or Soros.
I believe the disconnect between libs and cons in this is the differentiation between a puppet master and an unintended beneficiary. George Bush's puppet master was Karl Rove, the man who engineered his career, stood as his primary senior adviser, and had the power to say yes or no on critical issues. Bush's unintended beneficiaries were Osama Bin Laden and China. Through Bush's actions and policies concerning Iraq, more people rallied behind Al Qaeda's causes and our economy was left badly injured and vulnerable to the political pressures of the East. I don't think anybody would argue Bush was in bed with Osama and China, but they're the unintended beneficiaries. Big difference.
I find both of these cases to be absolutely absurd, but if you have more information than I do, please FACT CHECK IT FIRST, then let me know.
Major gripe #2 to come soon.
What is with the conservatives latching onto, and demonizing the most OBSCURE liberals!?!
#1 Saul Alinsky, a man who revolutionized the methods of community organization is now under attack by the conservatives because Obama is a student of his teachings. Why would you NOT want your president to be a strong community organizer? Oh yea, because he's organizing communities against what you like. But seriously, who had heard of this guy before the 2008 election? It seems the only people who are really studying his tactics right now are the TEA Party! The fact of the matter is that he is the creator of a tactic which can be used for either side, so why exactly is he the new conservative anti-christ?
Aside from his modern applications, what exactly do the conservatives hate about him so much? Is unifying poor communities to help them better their situation such a detestable cause? Other causes being attributed to him are the civil rights and the anti-Vietnam war movements. While some of those organizers may have used improper versions of his tactics, he was intentionally not involved with these young groups because he thought their tactics like flag burning and aimlessly rebelling against middle-class America were counter-effective and idiotic. And all things said and done, if his tactics had been followed, those movements would have been non-violent, effective movements for honorable causes and probably would be remembered in a more favorable light. Where exactly is the beef with Saul Alinsky, other than the fact that a guy on the other side is intelligent enough to be using his tactics successfully?
#2 George Soros, survivor of the Holocaust, investment genius, self-made billionaire, and major philanthropist, is another totally random and undeserving whipping boy of the conservatives. His life and career are nothing short of inspirational. Over the course of the last 30yrs he's donated over $6 billion to organizations promoting democracy in eastern Europe, desegregating South Africa, ending poverty in Africa, setting up internet infrastructures for Russian students, scientific research grants, etc. The list of worthy causes he has supported seriously goes around the block. So where's the beef? From 2002 to 2004 George Soros became the LOUDEST (that link is not just for reference, I highly recommend reading exactly why he was against Bush, because his points and predictions were unequivocally correct) voice in the battle to get Bush out of office. While not donating any money directly to the campaign, he did donate $18 million to groups supporting the Democrats.
Going back to his investment portfolio, while being well diversified, he is heavily invested in oil, and that has been the source of much recent criticism. But name a major industry and there's bound to be some rich dude heavily invested in it. The fact that he's well invested in Petrobras, the industry's fastest rising star, run by Brazil, one of the fastest growing nations in the world, should be NO SURPRISE. It's what you call smart investing, not a conspiracy. The theory is that he is Obama's puppet master because he wants the oil spill to cause a moratorium on off shore drilling so that the rigs will be sold and leased to Petrobras. Further evidence they site for this is that the government has already given Petrobras a $2 billion of tax payer money to purchase drilling equipment. The truth of the matter is... well, just hit the link, it's bogus on so many levels and already well debunked in that link. Not only was it the equivalent of a dealership lending you money to buy their product, it's COMPLETELY unrelated to either Obama or Soros.
I believe the disconnect between libs and cons in this is the differentiation between a puppet master and an unintended beneficiary. George Bush's puppet master was Karl Rove, the man who engineered his career, stood as his primary senior adviser, and had the power to say yes or no on critical issues. Bush's unintended beneficiaries were Osama Bin Laden and China. Through Bush's actions and policies concerning Iraq, more people rallied behind Al Qaeda's causes and our economy was left badly injured and vulnerable to the political pressures of the East. I don't think anybody would argue Bush was in bed with Osama and China, but they're the unintended beneficiaries. Big difference.
I find both of these cases to be absolutely absurd, but if you have more information than I do, please FACT CHECK IT FIRST, then let me know.
Major gripe #2 to come soon.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Laziness
(Having just heard a story about Mike's sister being too lazy to calculate the gas needed for a trip): "Haha, that's funny, I was just going to write a post on laziness, but have put it off because I want it to include research rather than my own opinions." "...so you're procrastinating writing a post on laziness?" "...yes, but for research! ...like those Japanese whaling vessels, I know... haha alright, point taken, I will post whatever I've got immediately after this call." So here it is, with updates coming soon:
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Continuing on a series of more behavioral than political topics, I'd like to talk about laziness, particularly in the US. I feel like an old curmudgeon when I condemn the young people for being lazy, but when it comes to being mentally lazy, there's no generational threshold.Here's a funny video that got me thinking, "Are American's actually stupider than people in other countries, or are we in a habit of mental laziness?" I don't think stupidity happens over night, you have to condition your brain to be lazy for years. How on earth did we accomplish this? A series of cultural trends:
1) Lack of Biological Incentive: Kind of obvious, but the middle-class American lifestyle just doesn't have the same survival requirements that the hunter gatherers or farmers had. Our incredibly efficient society allows us to put our energy into our families, careers, art, hobbies, health, any number of things, but more often than not we're lazy slobs and just do nothing with it.
2) Negligent Parenting: Smart kids with negligent parents have got to be as rare as honest politicians. I don't mean negligent in the sense of not providing food, love and shelter, I mean neglecting to put in the time or effort to provide structure and build character. The kids are intelligent and may become good at what they do, but without parental guidance (or some very strong alternative adult influence) children rarely find their own way to activities that promote critical thinking, awareness and learning. All you good parents with lazy kids, don't worry, it's probably one of these other causes, but do examine what kind of an influence you are having on them.
3) Entertainment: How come educational shows stop being promoted past toddler years? After you've outgrown Sesame Street and Dora, there are really only a handful of shows that are both entertaining and educational for teens and adults. You have to be a tad eccentric to be one of the few people watching the news, Discovery Channel, History Channel, or National Geographics as a teenager, and even those channels are mostly garbage now. National Geographics has become the Armageddon theories channel, history channel is the aliens and Nazis channel, discovery channel lies to me all the time, and the news is, well... the "news." It's a sorry state of being for an activity we pour so many hours into.
On top of that, tying back to my second point, how common is it for parents to need some sort of trade system, where if a child spends x amount of time reading or exercising outdoors they're allowed to play video games for x hours? And that's just the responsible parents. It is HARD to get kids to be productive, and few parents go through the effort.
While I'm griping like Andy Rooney, and the Alvin Greene story is still in the news, I'd like to say, damn you MTV! *shakes fist like an old curmudgeon*. I have hated your "rock the vote" campaign for as long as I've been aware of its existence. "Go out and vote kids, it's cool. Doesn't matter if you know NOTHING, it's important that you exercise your right as an American." WHY do we want your opinion counted if you don't know ANYTHING about what you're voting for!?! "Do you know anything about politics?" "No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night." It really should be disturbing how many more people have a highly informed opinion on Crystal Bowersox vs Lee DeWyze, but have no idea about either Barbara Boxer or Carly Fiorina, yet there will likely be a pretty good voter turn out this election season. I am terrified that Alvin Greene may have legitimately won the Dem primaries in SC, I don't care WHAT the reason. Anyway, I'm straying from the point, I digress.
4) Acceptance without Evidence: Once we're on the right path to actually learning something, how many of us blindly accept whatever we're told, rather than looking for evidence? I've already written a post on this problem, so I won't belabor the point. One related issue that drives me nuts is students who blame poor grades on bad teachers. Most classes come with a book, READ IT! Most things can also be found online, LOOK IT UP! Unless the professor is teaching ground breaking material, the information is out there, FIND IT! Yes, a good teacher can be a great help and inspiration, but seriously, stop with the excuses. Those who want to succeed will succeed.
That's all for now, hopefully more scientific stuff soon to follow, but my first point really sums up my disappointment; we live in a time and society with nearly limitless access to knowledge and opportunity, but so many of us squander it. It wouldn't be that bad if we could keep our laziness to ourselves, but its effects manifest themselves everywhere. Our laziness makes us look like/become ignorant idiots, and our culture celebrates it. Very depressing :\
Honestly, the posts are coming more slowly because the more I write the more research I do, and the more research I do the more depressed I get. This is a truly sad state we're in globally.
~Yasu
Monday, June 14, 2010
Portraits of Insanity
Upon gazing into the eyes of a dying sperm whale that had been harpooned just yards away, Captain Paul Watson, now founder/leader of Sea Shepherds, had this to say, "I saw something else in that eye – it was pity and not for himself but for us – that we could kill so thoughtlessly and so mercilessly and I realized that the reason the Soviets were killing Sperm whales was for spermaceti oil used for lubricating machinery and one of the uses was in the construction on inter-continental ballistic missiles for the purpose of exterminating mass numbers of human beings and that is when it struck me that we, the human species are insane. " ...This coming from a man who is also known for being the complete lunatic who rammed a Japanese "research" vessel in the middle of the Arctic Ocean! His words struck me though. He's right. We are completely insane. His side is insane, the other side is insane, we're all effing INSANE! And how many cases can you look at both sides and say, "you're both insane, why are you doing this?"
The Gaza flotilla incident: Palestinians/Hamas vs Israelis, I'd tend to favor Israel in this case because they were attacked in what should've been a routine search, but I favor the Palestinians in COUNTLESS other skirmishes. It's NEVER ENDING!
Conservatives vs. Liberals: One side is racking up a GINORMOUS debt and deficit, and passing outrageously liberal bills in health care and environmental protection. On the other side we've got downright McCarthyism-style propaganda against EVERYTHING the liberals are doing, with no consideration for facts, history, or constructive criticism. If one side can believe Obama, and the other can believe Glenn Back, we're clearly in a polarized madhouse.
American Culture in General: Divorce rate, adolescent suicides, obesity, debt/over spending/over consumption, destruction of the environment, poor work ethic, poor education, increased welfare, gangs, Hollywood, television, propaganda, partisanship, war mongering, weapons trafficking, drugs, racism, religion, hypocrisy, etc. WTF are we DOING!?!??!
The oil disaster: Why is BP, with their safety record, even allowed to operate in the US? Why do we drill so far offshore just because the rigs are ugly? Why is everyone upset Obama doesn't look pissed off enough and is wearing too nice of close on his visits to Louisiana? How come other deep sea drilling companies weren't brought in to replace BP, who has clearly proven their ineptitude? Who told everybody this was the end of fishing and crabbing in the gulf? Fishing might be amazing with the death of surface predators and the temporary lack of fisherman. Could be the best year of fishing ever once this is cleaned up.
Less depressing things like graffiti: Graffiti is art by the masses, it's fresh, it's brave, but it's illegal because they didn't pay to put it up. Art collections are only what a handful of rich people consider to be art. Billboards are not art yet we're all forced to see them like gigantic visual SPAM, and some graffiti is treasured art if it's in the right location... or done by cavemen or Banksy... o.O?
etc. !!!
I think if I ever make a photography book it'll be on exactly this, "Profiles in Insanity, evidence of our culture. Photos and commentary by James Yasuhara" I think it'll be a slightly less depressing version of that scene in "The Fifth Element" where Lula reads the video encyclopedia chapter on "War." Can't wait. In the mean time, where is the hope for humanity? Where is the good in what we do? Why do we push on through what has to be considered insanity? And where do you fit in? What's your contribution to our collective insanity?
~Yasu
The Gaza flotilla incident: Palestinians/Hamas vs Israelis, I'd tend to favor Israel in this case because they were attacked in what should've been a routine search, but I favor the Palestinians in COUNTLESS other skirmishes. It's NEVER ENDING!
Conservatives vs. Liberals: One side is racking up a GINORMOUS debt and deficit, and passing outrageously liberal bills in health care and environmental protection. On the other side we've got downright McCarthyism-style propaganda against EVERYTHING the liberals are doing, with no consideration for facts, history, or constructive criticism. If one side can believe Obama, and the other can believe Glenn Back, we're clearly in a polarized madhouse.
American Culture in General: Divorce rate, adolescent suicides, obesity, debt/over spending/over consumption, destruction of the environment, poor work ethic, poor education, increased welfare, gangs, Hollywood, television, propaganda, partisanship, war mongering, weapons trafficking, drugs, racism, religion, hypocrisy, etc. WTF are we DOING!?!??!
The oil disaster: Why is BP, with their safety record, even allowed to operate in the US? Why do we drill so far offshore just because the rigs are ugly? Why is everyone upset Obama doesn't look pissed off enough and is wearing too nice of close on his visits to Louisiana? How come other deep sea drilling companies weren't brought in to replace BP, who has clearly proven their ineptitude? Who told everybody this was the end of fishing and crabbing in the gulf? Fishing might be amazing with the death of surface predators and the temporary lack of fisherman. Could be the best year of fishing ever once this is cleaned up.
Less depressing things like graffiti: Graffiti is art by the masses, it's fresh, it's brave, but it's illegal because they didn't pay to put it up. Art collections are only what a handful of rich people consider to be art. Billboards are not art yet we're all forced to see them like gigantic visual SPAM, and some graffiti is treasured art if it's in the right location... or done by cavemen or Banksy... o.O?
etc. !!!
I think if I ever make a photography book it'll be on exactly this, "Profiles in Insanity, evidence of our culture. Photos and commentary by James Yasuhara" I think it'll be a slightly less depressing version of that scene in "The Fifth Element" where Lula reads the video encyclopedia chapter on "War." Can't wait. In the mean time, where is the hope for humanity? Where is the good in what we do? Why do we push on through what has to be considered insanity? And where do you fit in? What's your contribution to our collective insanity?
~Yasu
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Economic Pandas and Earned Success
"Earned Success" is a term Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), author of the new book "The Battle" and recent guest of The Daily Show, uses to promote the benefits of the free market, and I must say, I love the concept. His theory is that people are not made happy by their income level (money doesn't buy happiness), but rather by their level of earned success. This idea is ancient wisdom and is intuitive to the point of being obvious, but is still meaningful and thanks to Mr. Brooks is well backed by data. A quick example is that a person who's just won a million dollars in the lottery will be less happy and feel less successful than somebody who has built a company from the ground up and earned their first million dollars. Simple, yay, go free market!
The ultimate point of the theory is that by giving away money (welfare/entitlement), we are stripping citizens of their right and incentive to earn their own success, and thus their equal right to pursue happiness. Furthermore, the best system is one which gives the most incentive for earned success, which is almost by definition the free market. Very interesting idea.
A Lengthy Aside to Present Some Background Junk: The free market is survival of the fittest for economics. It's a ruthless trial by fire, and even in nature we no longer play by those rules. We provide a safety net and rules to ensure fairness, particularly in cases such as invasive species and over hunting, where we're the primary cause of a species's failure. When goats started eating all the grass in the Galapagos, destroying the food source and population of the tortoises, we killed every last goat on the islands to rescue the species. When the very aggressive snakehead fish were introduced to America we poisoned entire ponds in an effort to kill them. Right now we're doing everything we can to eradicate the tamarisk tree from the shores of the Colorado River as it absorbs as much as 30% of the river's water, water we need to survive. We also take measures to reverse the rules of natural selection in some naturally occurring cases (*cough* PANDAS!).
The whole of economics is a human invention, so it's harder to point to the unnatural culprits. For the sake of argument, I might say the invasive species of economics are corporations who outsource to countries where labor is cheap and working conditions are unregulated (or a few generations ago, the slave traders), or those who hire illegal immigrants. The commercial fisher equivalent would be companies commanding fleets of employees and are so large that they affect the rules by which we all play (monopolies, major corporations particularly before unions, special interest groups). And the poachers are any company that takes advantage of the unwitting (sub-prime lending, ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes). Then there are those who are the pandas of society who are just incapable of surviving, which leads us back to the topic at hand...
The Topic at Hand: Luckily, Mr. Brooks has saved me a lot of arguing and filled me with much faith by saying, "The free enterprise system needs rule of law, and it needs a smart government with good regulation. That's a fact, anyone who says that you either have to have pure socialism or pure free enterprise isn't living in the world." Excellent, he's not Rand Paul, and supports a view of the free market that I can find a lot of common ground with. On to "Economic Pandas." Who are they and what to do with them?
The liberal solution has been to throw money at the whole lot of them, because it is very hard to differentiate between pandas, the parasites and the SIY group. This is apparently not that effective, as it has been the solution for decades and poverty persists in large numbers. The conservative solution appears to be "earned success." Fantastic... how do we do that? How do you motivate a panda to stop being a panda? Sounds a lot like the "give a man a fish, feed him once, teach a man to fish, feed him for life" theory. How do you force underachievers to achieve? Set up non-profit career training and development centers? Already being done, minimally effective, but perhaps their ineffectiveness is due to the fact that the pandas already receive funds, cutting their motivation to participate. Then put a time limit on the funds. Already being done, but only in certain applications, could be spread across the board. Hmm, maybe starting to get somewhere.
I obviously do not have the answer to this problem, but does there exist any real proposed alternative to welfare beyond "cut them off"? I hear a lot about giving them the incentive, but what about the means? And to what extent should this be available? If it's too easy to take advantage of, people may opt for these programs over some state schools. Crime may also be a more attractive option, so I would suggest making prisons even less appealing. In my head, there could be court ordered enrollment, a forced repayment schedule after completion of the program, and reduced spending on living standards in prisons (ie: if they consume 2000cal/day make it 1500cal/day, and cut progressively by security level. Requires research obviously).
I have been unable to find any real proposals relating to promoting earned success. Send me a link if you know of one. Has anybody read "The Battle," and is there a proposal in there? Anyway, the idea sounds compelling, let me know what's out there. Thanks
~Yasu
The ultimate point of the theory is that by giving away money (welfare/entitlement), we are stripping citizens of their right and incentive to earn their own success, and thus their equal right to pursue happiness. Furthermore, the best system is one which gives the most incentive for earned success, which is almost by definition the free market. Very interesting idea.
A Lengthy Aside to Present Some Background Junk: The free market is survival of the fittest for economics. It's a ruthless trial by fire, and even in nature we no longer play by those rules. We provide a safety net and rules to ensure fairness, particularly in cases such as invasive species and over hunting, where we're the primary cause of a species's failure. When goats started eating all the grass in the Galapagos, destroying the food source and population of the tortoises, we killed every last goat on the islands to rescue the species. When the very aggressive snakehead fish were introduced to America we poisoned entire ponds in an effort to kill them. Right now we're doing everything we can to eradicate the tamarisk tree from the shores of the Colorado River as it absorbs as much as 30% of the river's water, water we need to survive. We also take measures to reverse the rules of natural selection in some naturally occurring cases (*cough* PANDAS!).
The whole of economics is a human invention, so it's harder to point to the unnatural culprits. For the sake of argument, I might say the invasive species of economics are corporations who outsource to countries where labor is cheap and working conditions are unregulated (or a few generations ago, the slave traders), or those who hire illegal immigrants. The commercial fisher equivalent would be companies commanding fleets of employees and are so large that they affect the rules by which we all play (monopolies, major corporations particularly before unions, special interest groups). And the poachers are any company that takes advantage of the unwitting (sub-prime lending, ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes). Then there are those who are the pandas of society who are just incapable of surviving, which leads us back to the topic at hand...
The Topic at Hand: Luckily, Mr. Brooks has saved me a lot of arguing and filled me with much faith by saying, "The free enterprise system needs rule of law, and it needs a smart government with good regulation. That's a fact, anyone who says that you either have to have pure socialism or pure free enterprise isn't living in the world." Excellent, he's not Rand Paul, and supports a view of the free market that I can find a lot of common ground with. On to "Economic Pandas." Who are they and what to do with them?
Welfare and government assistance programs are appropriate for people who are either disabled, or have the drive to succeed and may or may not have the skills to succeed (the economic equivalent of the sick, injured, and young. "SIYs" for short). Aid can help those who are legitimately unable to provide for themselves, or may give others in this group the push they need to succeed. They are not the pandas. Then there are the people who could succeed but prefer to mooch off the system (ie: I know a guy who was in Iraq who is now perfectly healthy but continues to claim post traumatic stress so he can smoke weed and play video games all day). These are the parasites, the fix is simple but not easy: identify them and STOP giving them money! Problem solved. Then there are those perpetually in need of assistance because they have neither the skills nor the drive to succeed, and/or have god awful money management that is perpetuated by this economic safety net. These are the economic pandas, and are the hardest to help.
The liberal solution has been to throw money at the whole lot of them, because it is very hard to differentiate between pandas, the parasites and the SIY group. This is apparently not that effective, as it has been the solution for decades and poverty persists in large numbers. The conservative solution appears to be "earned success." Fantastic... how do we do that? How do you motivate a panda to stop being a panda? Sounds a lot like the "give a man a fish, feed him once, teach a man to fish, feed him for life" theory. How do you force underachievers to achieve? Set up non-profit career training and development centers? Already being done, minimally effective, but perhaps their ineffectiveness is due to the fact that the pandas already receive funds, cutting their motivation to participate. Then put a time limit on the funds. Already being done, but only in certain applications, could be spread across the board. Hmm, maybe starting to get somewhere.
I obviously do not have the answer to this problem, but does there exist any real proposed alternative to welfare beyond "cut them off"? I hear a lot about giving them the incentive, but what about the means? And to what extent should this be available? If it's too easy to take advantage of, people may opt for these programs over some state schools. Crime may also be a more attractive option, so I would suggest making prisons even less appealing. In my head, there could be court ordered enrollment, a forced repayment schedule after completion of the program, and reduced spending on living standards in prisons (ie: if they consume 2000cal/day make it 1500cal/day, and cut progressively by security level. Requires research obviously).
I have been unable to find any real proposals relating to promoting earned success. Send me a link if you know of one. Has anybody read "The Battle," and is there a proposal in there? Anyway, the idea sounds compelling, let me know what's out there. Thanks
~Yasu
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
UPDATE: American TurmOIL
Here are a couple of interesting examples that go along the lines of what I was talking about in "American TurmOIL." As the world is getting stared in the face by a possible double-dip recession, state-capitalistic Brazil just posted a 9% economic gain in the past 3 months! Also, remember Dubai's Burj Khalifa tower? It used to be more appropriately named the Burj Dubai tower, but in light of Dubai's economic crash, they renamed it after a neighboring prince of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
This may not sound like a big deal, but to give the battle some background, the Al Nahyan family and Dubai's ruling family, the Al Maktoum family, have fundamentally differing economic philosophies. Both families are aware that they will not be able to surf the wealth of oil forever, and have made efforts to diversify their economies. Dubai has done this by inviting free-market principles into their country and developing real estate. Abu Dhabi has diversified by setting up a sovereign wealth fund (SWF). SWFs are basically huge pools of government surplus that is set aside for the purpose of investment and may be drawn from for stimulus. Since SWFs are controlled by the state, they are a common tool of the state-capitalists. Again, we see state-capitalism vs free market, and who needed the giant bailout and had their tower renamed? The free market guys.
The reputation of the free market is taking a hit big time, all over the world, yet somehow here in the US, where we should be laying low a bit until things blow over, we have this ridiculous resurgence of free-market purists, even though it was our unregulated private sector that initiated this global bust! And getting back to oil, even the guys who HAVE it and are soon to be rich off of its high demand, are moving away from their economic dependence on it, because they know they're going to run out of the stuff in the relatively near future! Yet HERE we're protesting regulations designed to ween us from our oil habit, and our SOLUTION is to drill more oil... the oil we don't have. That they have and they're running from because it is a dwindling commodity... Unbefreakinlievable. My brain is seriously going to fall out of my face just thinking about the stupidity.
We're idiots. That's got to be it. My next post will expand on this a bit, but hopefully more from a human standpoint than an American standpoint.
This may not sound like a big deal, but to give the battle some background, the Al Nahyan family and Dubai's ruling family, the Al Maktoum family, have fundamentally differing economic philosophies. Both families are aware that they will not be able to surf the wealth of oil forever, and have made efforts to diversify their economies. Dubai has done this by inviting free-market principles into their country and developing real estate. Abu Dhabi has diversified by setting up a sovereign wealth fund (SWF). SWFs are basically huge pools of government surplus that is set aside for the purpose of investment and may be drawn from for stimulus. Since SWFs are controlled by the state, they are a common tool of the state-capitalists. Again, we see state-capitalism vs free market, and who needed the giant bailout and had their tower renamed? The free market guys.
The reputation of the free market is taking a hit big time, all over the world, yet somehow here in the US, where we should be laying low a bit until things blow over, we have this ridiculous resurgence of free-market purists, even though it was our unregulated private sector that initiated this global bust! And getting back to oil, even the guys who HAVE it and are soon to be rich off of its high demand, are moving away from their economic dependence on it, because they know they're going to run out of the stuff in the relatively near future! Yet HERE we're protesting regulations designed to ween us from our oil habit, and our SOLUTION is to drill more oil... the oil we don't have. That they have and they're running from because it is a dwindling commodity... Unbefreakinlievable. My brain is seriously going to fall out of my face just thinking about the stupidity.
We're idiots. That's got to be it. My next post will expand on this a bit, but hopefully more from a human standpoint than an American standpoint.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Unhealthy and Careless
Sorry for the long break. I was out on vacation, then out sick for a couple of days. Feeling like death made me think I should get a post out on health care before it's completely irrelevant. So many points, so little time:
1) Did we have time for health care reform? No, not that year. I think we wasted too much time on health care rather than really working out what we were doing with the economy. I think more consideration could've been spent on what kind of bank reforms if any should be put into place, and also what the possible ramifications of a fall in the Euro would be, and how to prevent one. We got seriously blindsided by the PIGS problem which should've been completely foreseeable. Much like the American TurmOIL post, I would argue that this is a mistake that is a matter of national security. Aside from the money lost by not focusing on the economy, if the cost estimates are not exactly correct, we could be facing increased debt, decreased economic productivity, or both. Our economy has to be the priority in this case and it wasn't.
2) Do we have the money? This is a two part answer because we are attempting to do two things: make the system more efficient, and increase coverage. Yes, we needed to do it from a financial standpoint to make the system more efficient and cut waste in the years to come. No, we cannot afford to, at the same time, risk expanding coverage to 100% of Americans. I don't think very many people actually believe we'll save money by doing this, and even so, it should've first been tested to be a more efficient system, THEN maybe have it forced upon everybody if necessary. The big variables that I think the government may not be correctly accounting for are how private insurance companies, drug companies, and hospitals will react to the changes. Their economic predictions thus far give me little optimism for their ability to forecast through the duration of the implementation of the bill. There are far too many variables and too slim a margin for profit.
3) Partisanship: holy cow, this was THE WORST case of partisan bickering I have ever seen. The dems with their overwhelming numbers managed to pass a bill that I think completely lacked any sort of democratic process, and I blame both sides equally. Had the Reps had more constructive criticism than "start over," I think they could've gotten a lot more in the bill, and America could've had a superior health care bill. The Dems obviously had the numbers and in the absence of constructive criticism pushed the bill through in what should be considered an illegal pace. The bill is SO long that I would not even consider skimming through it, and it was supposed to be read and voted on in 72hrs!?! Come on. Surely this will set a new precedent and define a new method for the exclusive use of stacked Senates. Fooliboosting? Haha, sounds like a naming contest in the making :P
4) What's in the bill? Honestly, who knows!?! I have a great page that'll do side by side comparisons of different proposals, but I seriously still have no idea what's actually in the bill. I also have this more user friendly but outdated timeline. But knowing how it was, how it is, and how it should be are all far beyond my knowledge of the health system. Feel free to comment if you know better.
5) What's NOT in the bill? Conservatives, feel free to chime in here, I forget what major beefs the Reps had with the bill, but from all the articles I could find only 6 real ideas posed by Reps made it into the 1000+ page bill. That's a pretty poor showing.
Conclusion: No time, no money, no consensus... but seriously, who didn't see this coming? Did anyone watch the elections!?! Obama ran on the platform that he was going to radically change health care to make it affordable, available, and mandatory for all. I wasn't a fan of it then, and I'm not now, but it's something everybody should've at least expected.
Well, think this post is long enough without the rant about over-population, and longer unhappier lives. Additional RELEVANT!!!!!!! !!!!! !!!1!! !!!!!1! ... !!!! insights are welcome.
1) Did we have time for health care reform? No, not that year. I think we wasted too much time on health care rather than really working out what we were doing with the economy. I think more consideration could've been spent on what kind of bank reforms if any should be put into place, and also what the possible ramifications of a fall in the Euro would be, and how to prevent one. We got seriously blindsided by the PIGS problem which should've been completely foreseeable. Much like the American TurmOIL post, I would argue that this is a mistake that is a matter of national security. Aside from the money lost by not focusing on the economy, if the cost estimates are not exactly correct, we could be facing increased debt, decreased economic productivity, or both. Our economy has to be the priority in this case and it wasn't.
2) Do we have the money? This is a two part answer because we are attempting to do two things: make the system more efficient, and increase coverage. Yes, we needed to do it from a financial standpoint to make the system more efficient and cut waste in the years to come. No, we cannot afford to, at the same time, risk expanding coverage to 100% of Americans. I don't think very many people actually believe we'll save money by doing this, and even so, it should've first been tested to be a more efficient system, THEN maybe have it forced upon everybody if necessary. The big variables that I think the government may not be correctly accounting for are how private insurance companies, drug companies, and hospitals will react to the changes. Their economic predictions thus far give me little optimism for their ability to forecast through the duration of the implementation of the bill. There are far too many variables and too slim a margin for profit.
3) Partisanship: holy cow, this was THE WORST case of partisan bickering I have ever seen. The dems with their overwhelming numbers managed to pass a bill that I think completely lacked any sort of democratic process, and I blame both sides equally. Had the Reps had more constructive criticism than "start over," I think they could've gotten a lot more in the bill, and America could've had a superior health care bill. The Dems obviously had the numbers and in the absence of constructive criticism pushed the bill through in what should be considered an illegal pace. The bill is SO long that I would not even consider skimming through it, and it was supposed to be read and voted on in 72hrs!?! Come on. Surely this will set a new precedent and define a new method for the exclusive use of stacked Senates. Fooliboosting? Haha, sounds like a naming contest in the making :P
4) What's in the bill? Honestly, who knows!?! I have a great page that'll do side by side comparisons of different proposals, but I seriously still have no idea what's actually in the bill. I also have this more user friendly but outdated timeline. But knowing how it was, how it is, and how it should be are all far beyond my knowledge of the health system. Feel free to comment if you know better.
5) What's NOT in the bill? Conservatives, feel free to chime in here, I forget what major beefs the Reps had with the bill, but from all the articles I could find only 6 real ideas posed by Reps made it into the 1000+ page bill. That's a pretty poor showing.
Conclusion: No time, no money, no consensus... but seriously, who didn't see this coming? Did anyone watch the elections!?! Obama ran on the platform that he was going to radically change health care to make it affordable, available, and mandatory for all. I wasn't a fan of it then, and I'm not now, but it's something everybody should've at least expected.
Well, think this post is long enough without the rant about over-population, and longer unhappier lives. Additional RELEVANT!!!!!!! !!!!! !!!1!! !!!!!1! ... !!!! insights are welcome.
btw, I know this post is lacking a lot of sources, I may add them in the future, but if you want some, just ask for them. Sorry, still a little exhausted from being sick.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Pass It On
Oooh man, still no word from BP other than "going as planned." I did however watch CNN bash Obama and BP for quite some time yesterday, and happened to see a guest scientist on the show who was trying to explain how this top kill mud pile thing works, and why it's not actually terrifying that they stopped pouring mud for a bit (in a sentence or two). It flew right over the host's head, but I'm pretty sure I got the gist of what he was attempting to explain. The basic idea is that the mud is getting shot down the pipe to overpower the pressure of the oil in hopes that the hydrostatic forces of the mud and oil will reach equilibrium... buh? Yea, that's actually more words than he used, and if you're like Campbell Brown you're asking, "so why doesn't the oil just come flying out again once you stop pouring mud?"
Sciency Junk! :D If I'm not mistaken, this system loosely resembles the fundamentals of the hydraulic press in reverse. The weight of the ocean and ocean floor is pushing down on a reservoir of oil which has a very narrow escape route. The pressure at that route is not that great in comparison to the weight of the ocean floor, but still immense as we've seen. If the ocean floor SINKS say an inch, then the oil in the pipe must RISE by that same inch multiplied by the ratio of the surface area of the oil reservoir divided by the surface area of the hole in the pipe. HUGE multiplier. The distance the oil has risen is multiplied by the cross sectional area of the pipe, which equates to a MASSIVE volume of oil! And if I'm not mistaken the velocity has the same scaling factor.
If you can start to push that stack of oil back down, it works like a hydraulic press where it requires less force over a greater distance to push the larger mass a small distance. Due to the narrowness of the tube, it's conceivable that the force needed can be provided by just the mass of the mud pile in the pipe. If that mud pile gets large enough, then the system will reach equilibrium. They pumped for HOURS before taking a break, so there's a lot of mud the oil must fight to come back out. This means it won't come flying out all at once, but will slowly accelerate because the pressure of the oil remains the same, but as more mud comes out less mass is being used to force the oil down. Interesting o.o
I would assume they paused to take a measurement to estimate how much further they need to push the oil down, and also to refill on mud. If the length of the pipe is shorter than the calculated required length of mud, then they may as well try something else. But so far everything is "going as planned."
Unrelated Tax Junk: Check out this article by Derek Thompson. He had a great article on Hillary's comment about raising taxes. Good perspective and intelligent comments too! I weighed in on a few of them, and you should too!... but Dad, try to keep it brief on other people's posts! Here's the link: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/hillary-clintons-unfortunate-defense-of-higher-taxes/57427/?success#toggleBio
Have a good weekend!
~Yasu
Sciency Junk! :D If I'm not mistaken, this system loosely resembles the fundamentals of the hydraulic press in reverse. The weight of the ocean and ocean floor is pushing down on a reservoir of oil which has a very narrow escape route. The pressure at that route is not that great in comparison to the weight of the ocean floor, but still immense as we've seen. If the ocean floor SINKS say an inch, then the oil in the pipe must RISE by that same inch multiplied by the ratio of the surface area of the oil reservoir divided by the surface area of the hole in the pipe. HUGE multiplier. The distance the oil has risen is multiplied by the cross sectional area of the pipe, which equates to a MASSIVE volume of oil! And if I'm not mistaken the velocity has the same scaling factor.
If you can start to push that stack of oil back down, it works like a hydraulic press where it requires less force over a greater distance to push the larger mass a small distance. Due to the narrowness of the tube, it's conceivable that the force needed can be provided by just the mass of the mud pile in the pipe. If that mud pile gets large enough, then the system will reach equilibrium. They pumped for HOURS before taking a break, so there's a lot of mud the oil must fight to come back out. This means it won't come flying out all at once, but will slowly accelerate because the pressure of the oil remains the same, but as more mud comes out less mass is being used to force the oil down. Interesting o.o
I would assume they paused to take a measurement to estimate how much further they need to push the oil down, and also to refill on mud. If the length of the pipe is shorter than the calculated required length of mud, then they may as well try something else. But so far everything is "going as planned."
Unrelated Tax Junk: Check out this article by Derek Thompson. He had a great article on Hillary's comment about raising taxes. Good perspective and intelligent comments too! I weighed in on a few of them, and you should too!... but Dad, try to keep it brief on other people's posts! Here's the link: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/hillary-clintons-unfortunate-defense-of-higher-taxes/57427/?success#toggleBio
Have a good weekend!
~Yasu
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Top Kill
Well, wasted all my time this morning responding to post comments, so no real post today. Just wanted to cross my fingers for BP's Top Kill operation. Hopefully this works, but if not, I will likely bust out my fluid dynamics book and submit a fix recommendation :P I really wish they published reports on why the first few attempts failed, and had more available data on the pressure, velocity, and volume being emitted. Would make it easier to propose a fix. It seems to me the problem is they're trying to overwhelm the oil with brute force, and not taking advantage of laws of fluid dynamics. If the velocity of the oil is the problem, then reverse funnel it, and use rods to make the flow more turbulent. If the pressure is the problem, do the opposite and use the fundamentals of hydraulic systems to stop it. If it's a combination of the two, then uses both techniques. I'm a fan of an hourglass shape filled with arrays of steel rods to first reduce the pressure (bernoulli's equations), then reduce velocity with the rods. Anyway, the brute force methods I've been seeing do not look to be very effectively using mechanical advantage over this thing. But much like the economy, it's easy to speculate from the sidelines. Good Luck BP!
Resisting the urge to do a point by point comparison on how this is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from the hurricane Katrina crisis. Simply put, Katrina was a failure to put the square block in the square hole, levee technology has been around since before Jesus! Obama's crisis is a failure to make somebody else do something that's NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE! Oh the incompetence.
Resisting the urge to do a point by point comparison on how this is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from the hurricane Katrina crisis. Simply put, Katrina was a failure to put the square block in the square hole, levee technology has been around since before Jesus! Obama's crisis is a failure to make somebody else do something that's NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE! Oh the incompetence.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
American TurmOIL
Here's a long one, primarily influenced by "The End of the Free Market" by Ian Bremmer. Don't worry, it's not what the title sounds like, and is actually very pro-America. GO BUY IT NOW, IT'S BRILLIANT!
Why Real Patriots Hate the Environment: It's time to wake up people (hahaha, what a hilariously overused, quaint phrase. Thanks Palin)! Global warming is a myth, it's largely disputed in the scientific community, it's a conspiracy run by the Emerald Cities, CCX, Al Gore, AND OBAMA! It's actually caused by a shift in the gravitational poles of the earth as prophesied by the late great EDGAR CAYCE! (Nobody's saying that, I'm just fascinated by Cayce) Oil drilling is perfectly safe, we're not actually causing ocean temperatures to rise, we're not in the middle of a mass-extinction event, and don't need to start doing everything in a more sustainable manner...
WHEN in the history of EVER was there an ANTI-environment campaign on the scale that conservatives are running today!?! This is ludicrous! Who's spreading this garbage? (that'll likely be my next post :P) Oh well, that's never going to convince anybody, so how about this: Reducing oil consumption is a matter of economic and national security! Two terms that speak clearly to all conservatives :D
Junk Stolen From Ch3 of "Free Market": The emergence of state-capitalism (read the book!) has brought about the rise of National Oil Companies (NOC)! How big are they? NOC's control 52% of the present market and 88% of all known reserves. They ARE the future! Aside from NOC's being vastly larger than private sector oil companies, they also have different motivations. Private industries are concerned with profit, whereas the NOC's use their natural resources as bargaining chips to achieve the political goals of the nation.
What does this mean for the future? As the present wells run dry and our dependence on oil grows with our population, we become vulnerable to the political whims of those controlling the NOC's. For example, Venezuela has repeatedly threatened to cut off our oil supply, and they're our third largest supplier! Oil prices are going to go up as the supply goes down, and then who gets rich, and what do you suppose they'll do with their new found wealth? Well when oil prices peaked back in 2008 Russia started a conflict with Georgia, and Iran started firing off test missiles. Also, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, China gets oil for weapons in Iran, and traded oil for nuclear programs in N. Korea! THAT is the trading power of oil. Forget dollars!
So which NOC's are the most powerful, and who owns them? Saudi Aramco, Russia's Gazprom, China's CNPC, Iran's NOC, Brasil's Petrobras, Malaysia's Petronas, and Venezuela's PDVSA make up the "new seven sisters" of oil. We have good relations with Saudi Arabia, bad relations with Iran and Venezuela, we have very shaky relations with Russia and China, and Malaysia and Brasil largely keep politics out of their oil (not to be feared or relied too heavily upon).
So which NOC's are the most powerful, and who owns them? Saudi Aramco, Russia's Gazprom, China's CNPC, Iran's NOC, Brasil's Petrobras, Malaysia's Petronas, and Venezuela's PDVSA make up the "new seven sisters" of oil. We have good relations with Saudi Arabia, bad relations with Iran and Venezuela, we have very shaky relations with Russia and China, and Malaysia and Brasil largely keep politics out of their oil (not to be feared or relied too heavily upon).
Our massive reliance on oil will necessarily fund nations who would love to see us fall! Despite claims to the contrary, we're NOT a socialist state, and because we love our free market so much, we will NOT be able to get in on this NOC game. Our only chip on the table is that we are and must continue to be vital to the survival of all other economies through our top notch educational institutions, innovative products, and massive consumption (...of things that don't rhyme with soil). The ONLY way to take control of our destiny is to reduce the bargaining power of oil by massively reducing our dependence on oil for energy, production, and gasoline.
One glimmer of hope resides in the fact that these NOC's are not operated as well as private multi-nationals and largely use the profits for political gain rather than for investing in new rigs and fixes. This hurts their productivity, but also limits the supply further by blocking access to other companies who could more efficiently extract the oil. This could help or hurt, depending on who is failing and who picks up the slack.
Short Term Junk: Cap and Trade will necessarily cause electric bills to "skyrocket," but if oil goes over $100/barrel again or even $200/barrel, what do you think is going to happen to our bills? Byproducts of cap and trade include cleaning our environment, developing green technologies, and Al Gore gets rich. Byproducts of continuing our reliance are we destroy the environment, lose our position as a global super power, and start speaking Chinese.
One glimmer of hope resides in the fact that these NOC's are not operated as well as private multi-nationals and largely use the profits for political gain rather than for investing in new rigs and fixes. This hurts their productivity, but also limits the supply further by blocking access to other companies who could more efficiently extract the oil. This could help or hurt, depending on who is failing and who picks up the slack.
Short Term Junk: Cap and Trade will necessarily cause electric bills to "skyrocket," but if oil goes over $100/barrel again or even $200/barrel, what do you think is going to happen to our bills? Byproducts of cap and trade include cleaning our environment, developing green technologies, and Al Gore gets rich. Byproducts of continuing our reliance are we destroy the environment, lose our position as a global super power, and start speaking Chinese.
Case rested. Conservatives, please, stop with the kill the planet campaign. Archaic Libertarian greed at the moment will cause our downfall in the future, a flaw I'll likely write about soon.
~Yasu
...btw, I gave oil drilling a hard time earlier, and would like to clarify. Just because there's a disaster now doesn't mean drilling won't be a good idea once we resolve safety issues. If the anti-oil stigma is similar to the anti-nuclear stigma following Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, it will only exacerbate the problems I just outlined. It's not a popular opinion right now, but I hope and believe oil drilling should make a comeback much faster than nuclear did :\
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Crazy Uncle Il
N. Korea, wtf mate? Is Crazy Uncle Kim Jong Il ACTUALLY going to start a war, or does he just need a nap? WHO wants to start a war right now!?! That's crazy expensive! We can't afford this right now. Not to mention it's like getting in a fist fight with your girlfriend. If we lose or even struggle we're going to look like idiots, and if we beat them up too badly we'll look like bullies. They've got way too many soldiers and not near enough funding. Do they even have laser guided long range missiles? Our military budget is 11x their entire GDP, come on!
In the case that the Glorious Leader actually gets his Glorious Battle what happens? Hillary Clinton just returned from her visit with China, and it seems China could care less what N. Korea does. Why? 1) They're good trading partners, China accounts for about half of N. Korea's foreign commerce, provides them with around a ton of oil, and stands to gain more from S. Korea's withdrawal from the N. Korean market. 2) N. Korea will likely go to the Chinese for help, not with battle, but with weapons and supplies, and China will give it to them because we've been making HUGE weapon sales to Taiwan since the end of the Bush administration. Why would we DO that!?! ...well because China supplies weapons to Iran... dang.
End result, we lose a ton of money in the war effort, China makes money, our gigantic war budget is thinned out in battles around the world (with two allies of China), and our relations with China are worse than ever. And did we mention when N. Korea shut down their nuclear weapons facilities they signed them over to China in exchange for oil? If I had my Glenn Beck black board out we'd be looking at bubbles indicating that China gives weapons to Iran for oil, then exchanges that oil with N. Korea for their nuclear program! "Nuclear World War, yea, that's greaaat." <--that's my patronizing Glenn Beck voice.
I'm going to wrap this up before I go too far off the deep end. Bottom line, doesn't look good for N. Korea, but looks almost as bad for us.
In the process of trying to keep posts short, I think I may just be stating the obvious. I'll limit future posts to topics or viewpoints that are less widely spread. Thanks for reading.
~Yasu
In the case that the Glorious Leader actually gets his Glorious Battle what happens? Hillary Clinton just returned from her visit with China, and it seems China could care less what N. Korea does. Why? 1) They're good trading partners, China accounts for about half of N. Korea's foreign commerce, provides them with around a ton of oil, and stands to gain more from S. Korea's withdrawal from the N. Korean market. 2) N. Korea will likely go to the Chinese for help, not with battle, but with weapons and supplies, and China will give it to them because we've been making HUGE weapon sales to Taiwan since the end of the Bush administration. Why would we DO that!?! ...well because China supplies weapons to Iran... dang.
End result, we lose a ton of money in the war effort, China makes money, our gigantic war budget is thinned out in battles around the world (with two allies of China), and our relations with China are worse than ever. And did we mention when N. Korea shut down their nuclear weapons facilities they signed them over to China in exchange for oil? If I had my Glenn Beck black board out we'd be looking at bubbles indicating that China gives weapons to Iran for oil, then exchanges that oil with N. Korea for their nuclear program! "Nuclear World War, yea, that's greaaat." <--that's my patronizing Glenn Beck voice.
I'm going to wrap this up before I go too far off the deep end. Bottom line, doesn't look good for N. Korea, but looks almost as bad for us.
In the process of trying to keep posts short, I think I may just be stating the obvious. I'll limit future posts to topics or viewpoints that are less widely spread. Thanks for reading.
~Yasu
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Whose News
I'm having a bit of a hard time figuring out how to limit the length of my posts while still presenting something meaningful. Until I figure out how to do that I think I'll do a few short thought pieces.
How much do you trust your news source?
Sure, your newspapers and stations are owned by rich dudes with agendas, and all independent organizations have their purposes as well (and don't even get me started on those garbage propaganda emails, oy), but the REAL misinformation in the media is your own internal bias. YOU WILL FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR! Think about that. Your preconceptions dictate what you find to be credible. Questioning yourself, and finding REAL credible sources for things you already believe is the hardest part of research, but is the only way to really know anything is true.
For instance, I know I listen to more liberal outlets, and every now and then some things sound fishy. Recently the liberal media has been attacking Rand Paul, mostly for being the TEA Party's first major success in the primaries. When I heard he was against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, of course I was skeptical. I checked it out, watched the videos (his words exactly), and turns out the man is NOT a racist, he's just a laissez faire Libertarian who's not used to getting grilled on national television. He believes private businesses should have the right to deny service to whomever they choose, should have no affirmative action, no mandatory wheel chair accessibility, and probably believes in monopolies too. Doesn't make him a bigot, makes him a very backwards economist.
The point is, we're all predisposed to think opposition news is garbage and needs to be fact checked, but how many of you check the things that you're predisposed to thinking is credible? Work on that.
~Yasu
"If you're young and have a heart you're a liberal. If you're older and have a brain in your head you'll be a conservative." ~My very wealthy real estate agent
Friday, May 21, 2010
Taxes and Benefits
Taxes taxes taxes. Today's post has been inspired by a conversation some co-workers were having as I strolled into work (only 15mins late today!). The convo go cut short because we all had to get back to work, but here's the basic gist of what I think the two opposing sides were saying.
ALL OPINION, totally void of facts!... well almost:
Both sides agree that taxes should be "fair," but how they define fair is vastly different. Should the rich pay more because they can, and its only because of their forced generosity that our country is able to operate? Should we all pay the same amount because the poor receive more benefit while paying less taxes, and as an incentive to be a productive member of society, should those who have earned their fortunes be allowed to keep them?
In short. Yes.
Flat taxes that affect all people equally are almost by definition fair. The amount of taxes charged is proportional to the value of the goods or services provided, regardless of who is receiving it. If I buy a car I'll be taxed just as much as if a millionaire buys that same car. There's some equality.
So, where is the fairness in taking more money from society's most successful... just because they're more successful!?! Shouldn't success be rewarded, should there not be an incentive to be the wildest success you can be, and innovate yer a$$ off all the way to the bank? And isn't America the land of opportunity where your place in society and your success is determined by your talent and hard work?
Yes and Yes.
Furthermore, aren't the rich less likely to cash in on government funded programs? They have private schools, purchase their own health insurance, purchase their own homes and home insurance, live in gated communities, don't go to prison (guilty or otherwise, cuz their lawyers cost a TON!). Rich people basically just need police, military, road and park maintenance, and need illegal immigrants out, which isn't even being done. So why is it that they provide the largest share of tax dollars to programs they won't use?
Argument 1: Earlier, unless you disagreed with me, we answered Yes and Yes to providing incentives to succeed, and to America being the great land of opportunity. I say the two are self-reinforcing; America has provided the incentive for working hard by giving you that framework in which you can succeed and become rich, and because America is great, we are obligated to give back to her and KEEP her great with a portion of the wealth she has given us the opportunity to make. Tadah! Born into another country, into another family, Steve Jobs might be revolutionizing the world of riveting grommets into sneakers. And honestly, born into the wrong family in THIS country he might be revolutionizing the world of janitorial services. Success is not just the product of talent and hard work, but also environment, and dues should be paid.
Argument 2: I make a good amount of money and pay taxes accordingly, and I still have WAY more than I need to get by. I enjoy life, spend as freely as I want on my vacations, and have some fairly nice stuff at my place. People who make more than me, no matter how high their taxes, STILL MAKE MORE THAN ME! And I make less than half the $250k Obama threshold of wealth. Still there are so many rich people who donate money to charity or starving children funds or to the warm fuzzy make me feel good about myself funds, whatever, but they bitch like hell about being over taxed! As if any of those causes should come before the needs of the country. Traditional American beliefs say, 'honor your God, Family, and Country and in that order'. Not 'honor yourself, family, shelter animals, the whales, African orphans, breast cancer, and save some for your country.' How many conservatives do you know who fit this description? How many of them are on the "bring America back to its roots and core values upon which it was founded" bandwagon? To continue the theme from the Arizona post, they follow the most traditional of American values, GREED!
Ok, so if I'm lucky maybe half of you are in agreement that we owe some money to the government, but why do the rich owe more than the poor? They don't, but like any family this country needs X amount of dollars to get by, and it's sure not getting it from the people who need government money just so they can get by. Equal payment from the members of this country would be the equivalent of a father demanding equal payment for bills from his wife, children, infants, pets (haha, though in this analogy each adult, child and pet would have an equal vote in how the household is run and opperated :P ...ignore the absurdity there, cuz for better or worse, that is actually how America is run.).
ALL OPINION, totally void of facts!... well almost:
Both sides agree that taxes should be "fair," but how they define fair is vastly different. Should the rich pay more because they can, and its only because of their forced generosity that our country is able to operate? Should we all pay the same amount because the poor receive more benefit while paying less taxes, and as an incentive to be a productive member of society, should those who have earned their fortunes be allowed to keep them?
In short. Yes.
Flat taxes that affect all people equally are almost by definition fair. The amount of taxes charged is proportional to the value of the goods or services provided, regardless of who is receiving it. If I buy a car I'll be taxed just as much as if a millionaire buys that same car. There's some equality.
So, where is the fairness in taking more money from society's most successful... just because they're more successful!?! Shouldn't success be rewarded, should there not be an incentive to be the wildest success you can be, and innovate yer a$$ off all the way to the bank? And isn't America the land of opportunity where your place in society and your success is determined by your talent and hard work?
Yes and Yes.
Furthermore, aren't the rich less likely to cash in on government funded programs? They have private schools, purchase their own health insurance, purchase their own homes and home insurance, live in gated communities, don't go to prison (guilty or otherwise, cuz their lawyers cost a TON!). Rich people basically just need police, military, road and park maintenance, and need illegal immigrants out, which isn't even being done. So why is it that they provide the largest share of tax dollars to programs they won't use?
Argument 1: Earlier, unless you disagreed with me, we answered Yes and Yes to providing incentives to succeed, and to America being the great land of opportunity. I say the two are self-reinforcing; America has provided the incentive for working hard by giving you that framework in which you can succeed and become rich, and because America is great, we are obligated to give back to her and KEEP her great with a portion of the wealth she has given us the opportunity to make. Tadah! Born into another country, into another family, Steve Jobs might be revolutionizing the world of riveting grommets into sneakers. And honestly, born into the wrong family in THIS country he might be revolutionizing the world of janitorial services. Success is not just the product of talent and hard work, but also environment, and dues should be paid.
Argument 2: I make a good amount of money and pay taxes accordingly, and I still have WAY more than I need to get by. I enjoy life, spend as freely as I want on my vacations, and have some fairly nice stuff at my place. People who make more than me, no matter how high their taxes, STILL MAKE MORE THAN ME! And I make less than half the $250k Obama threshold of wealth. Still there are so many rich people who donate money to charity or starving children funds or to the warm fuzzy make me feel good about myself funds, whatever, but they bitch like hell about being over taxed! As if any of those causes should come before the needs of the country. Traditional American beliefs say, 'honor your God, Family, and Country and in that order'. Not 'honor yourself, family, shelter animals, the whales, African orphans, breast cancer, and save some for your country.' How many conservatives do you know who fit this description? How many of them are on the "bring America back to its roots and core values upon which it was founded" bandwagon? To continue the theme from the Arizona post, they follow the most traditional of American values, GREED!
Ok, so if I'm lucky maybe half of you are in agreement that we owe some money to the government, but why do the rich owe more than the poor? They don't, but like any family this country needs X amount of dollars to get by, and it's sure not getting it from the people who need government money just so they can get by. Equal payment from the members of this country would be the equivalent of a father demanding equal payment for bills from his wife, children, infants, pets (haha, though in this analogy each adult, child and pet would have an equal vote in how the household is run and opperated :P ...ignore the absurdity there, cuz for better or worse, that is actually how America is run.).
So who's it going to come from? That's right. It sucks, but that's how it is. Should rich people get a medal of honor or a Christmas card for keeping this country afloat? Absolutely. Does it suck that it gets taken without their permission? Definitely. Would they give it to the government if they had the choice and the government asked nicely? Probably not, that's why the gov takes it. Should they get more say in how the country is run because they're the ones paying for it? No, because it's a democracy of equality, but the cool thing for them is that they DO get more say because the rich control the media and sponsor support efforts for bills they believe in. So congratulations rich guys, you are skewing democracy :D INCENTIVE! For those of you rich folk who don't own TV stations, not to worry, there's a good chance they will also support defending your wealth.
The big gripe: "Ok, I'll pay your blasted taxes because I have to. But for God's sake spend it wisely man!" Just as every family needs X number of dollars to get by, every family also has Y dollars WASTED! How do you determine which tax dollars fund X and which fund Y? Ohoo, that is a much longer blog than I care to attack today. But do consider two things when paying them and you may at least sleep better at night:
The big gripe: "Ok, I'll pay your blasted taxes because I have to. But for God's sake spend it wisely man!" Just as every family needs X number of dollars to get by, every family also has Y dollars WASTED! How do you determine which tax dollars fund X and which fund Y? Ohoo, that is a much longer blog than I care to attack today. But do consider two things when paying them and you may at least sleep better at night:
First, the reason we have the largest economy is because we are the largest consumers in the world, and the reason we are the largest consumers is because we have the largest middle class. The more people we can shoulder up into the middle class, the better off we'll be. The welfare reform laws of 1996 were made to ensure that it's not an enabling crutch, though welfare-type spending has been and will continue to escalate in down times and with the expansion of the government.
Second, the taxes we contribute have been voted on by elected officials, so do your crying to your local representatives and contribute money to battle further tax bills and spending bills, your opposition will do the same, and hooray for democracy. But until your side wins it's your duty as a citizen to pay the taxes owed. DO NOT go crashing your private plane into the IRS building. If he spent as much paying for a good lawyer and some taxes as he did on that plane he crashed, he might be better off than dead. Chronic tax evader, not martyr, don't be that guy!
Sentimental Aside: My family fell on hard times and needed a hand once, right after the divorce. I don't dare ask my mom for the details, but I know we received at least some government assistance. That help was enough for my mom to keep us fed, get on her feet, and decades later she, my sister and I are both very productive members of society and paying back into the funds from which we borrowed, with interest. This may not be the norm, but the poor should have a chance to succeed just as much as the rich, and to some extent the welfare programs ensure that right. Even if only 1 in 5 end up succeeding, we'll still come out ahead (my taxes alone likely pays back in a year what my mom received in total, and my mom pays about the same), and will have at least given everyone a fair chance to succeed.
Conclusion: Yes, taxes are necessary, it's unfortunate but the rich have to take the brunt of it without the benefits (truly taxation without representation :\ ), but it goes to a good cause that indirectly benefits the rich as well. In broad general terms I am SURE there is plenty of government and waste and ways to fix it, but until then keep in mind that the "rich" have more than they need, money doesn't buy happiness, and crying about how things ought to be doesn't buy happiness either. That's it for now, perhaps we can attack what is and is not necessary in a later post.
There will be a post on greed coming soon I'm sure, but I would like to finish the economics book I'm reading first to make it more insightful.
~Yasu
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Anarchy in the BK (Thailand)
So, once again, the news has dictated the post. Bangkok, Thailand... oh man. This is very sad :(
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-20/thai-army-moves-to-enforce-curfew-after-ending-protest-assault.html
http://www.lfpress.com/news/world/2010/05/19/14005151.html
For those of you who haven't been following at all, check out these links to get caught up. (I apologize in advance for using so many wikipedia links as references, but for large breakdowns of Thai politics (in English), this is really the most comprehensive way to go):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8004306.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaksin_Shinawatra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhisit_Vejjajiva
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-20/thai-army-moves-to-enforce-curfew-after-ending-protest-assault.html
http://www.lfpress.com/news/world/2010/05/19/14005151.html
For those of you who haven't been following at all, check out these links to get caught up. (I apologize in advance for using so many wikipedia links as references, but for large breakdowns of Thai politics (in English), this is really the most comprehensive way to go):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8004306.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaksin_Shinawatra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhisit_Vejjajiva
Recent Junk: The most recent series of developments were first the red shirt protests were pushed back by the military using non-lethal weapons, red shirts fought back, held their ground, responded violently, live ammunition was then used in response, and likewise the red shirts responded with explosives and tactics learned from an unnamed foreign support force. After a round of bloodshed, both sides backed off, talks were held, and PM Abhisit agreed to hold a new election. Hooray. The red shirts intended to hold their ground until the election, and somehow during an interview with The New York Times a red shirt general was shot in the head by a sniper... crap. The red shirts go crazy, protests increase in violence, the elections get canceled, live rounds are used on red shirts who are burning tires and setting up barricades in the streets, death toll reaches 37, a curfew is imposed, the protests were forcibly broken up, and now entire buildings are being burned down. City Hall and Central World shopping center, have both been completely destroyed. There is straight up anarchy in Thailand right now, death toll up to 74, and 1700 injured! :( The rebel leaders have been captured, but when fighting idealists, there's always new leaders to replace them.
Speculative JUNK: This is a bit of an aside, but who's in this fight right now? Red shirts and the military. Yellow shirts and other shirt groups have been mostly silent and completely non-violent. So, if a red shirt general gets shot in the HEAD by a SNIPER, who do you suppose did it? The red shirts were all going to go home after the elections right? Instead, Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol, a defector, was shot in the head, everyone went nuts, and surprise, the elections got cancelled. Come on, who stands to benefit from this? 95% odds Abhisit called in the order to avoid elections, 5% chance it was the foreign reinforcements on the Red Shirt side being anarchist war mongers. Anyway, no way to confirm, so moving on.
Opinionated Junk: There are clearly fundamental problems with Thailand's democratic government structure which has been a work in progress since 1932 and was radically changed during their last crisis in 2006. Since the start of the prime minister position in Thailand, only a handful of them have left office due to an election. The majority leave by a military coup or their version of impeachment! The reason military coups are so common is because the military is too closely tied in with politics. The senate is largely controlled by the military and only half the members get voted in, the others are appointed.
There's good reason for citizens not to trust their government leadership. The red shirts' original cause was to support a more representative election (their champion was banished, the party disassembled, and their enemy voted in under suspect circumstances). That's a worthy cause that has devolved into total anarchy. I don't promote much international interaction, but I do think that because we are democracy's flagship and Thailand is a floundering democracy, we should at least speak out for peace. I know it seems to be US policy not to promote peace in countries without OIL, but we should do SOMETHING.
Hillary Clinton starts an Asia tour today which includes China, Japan, and South Korea. She will likely discuss Thailand at all three locations, but it would be a very impressive move on her part (and great for her career) to actually VISIT Thailand in this time of need. It is dangerous right now, but the people do have limits. The Thai people are very respectful of foreigners, and also of their king. In all the chaos, the palace has gone untouched out of respect. An American ambassador could speak directly to the people from the palace as a guest of the king and be fairly safe. There would be no need to choose sides, just have them stop the anarchy. It wouldn't be that hard for a respected unbiased party to convince a nation primarily made of peaceful Buddhists to step back and realize the damage they're doing to their beloved country, and that this is NOT the way to achieve a democracy. Also, since the government had already agreed to a new election previously, it would only be reasonable that they could again agree to such a thing if the red shirts just go home. If Hilary doesn't want to or can't do it, send Bill or Jimmy Carter. We have several big names in peace negotiations who have dealt with far worse in the middle east. I think stopping this is well within our power. We could help them restructure their government too, but that may be pushing it.
We've spent trillions on wars in oil rich countries and imposed democracies, can we spare a plane ticket and a few hours of face time for peace in a struggling democracy? It's so simple, I don't know if our reputation can afford NOT to send someone. But who knows, maybe we're too late and a visit is now unnecessary. Maybe the red shirts will return to the countryside defeated now that their leaders have been captured, and the dispute has been resolved violently... :\
Hope to have some uplifting news soon, but probably not the next post. I have some ideas I want to get out soon.
Opinionated Junk: There are clearly fundamental problems with Thailand's democratic government structure which has been a work in progress since 1932 and was radically changed during their last crisis in 2006. Since the start of the prime minister position in Thailand, only a handful of them have left office due to an election. The majority leave by a military coup or their version of impeachment! The reason military coups are so common is because the military is too closely tied in with politics. The senate is largely controlled by the military and only half the members get voted in, the others are appointed.
There's good reason for citizens not to trust their government leadership. The red shirts' original cause was to support a more representative election (their champion was banished, the party disassembled, and their enemy voted in under suspect circumstances). That's a worthy cause that has devolved into total anarchy. I don't promote much international interaction, but I do think that because we are democracy's flagship and Thailand is a floundering democracy, we should at least speak out for peace. I know it seems to be US policy not to promote peace in countries without OIL, but we should do SOMETHING.
Hillary Clinton starts an Asia tour today which includes China, Japan, and South Korea. She will likely discuss Thailand at all three locations, but it would be a very impressive move on her part (and great for her career) to actually VISIT Thailand in this time of need. It is dangerous right now, but the people do have limits. The Thai people are very respectful of foreigners, and also of their king. In all the chaos, the palace has gone untouched out of respect. An American ambassador could speak directly to the people from the palace as a guest of the king and be fairly safe. There would be no need to choose sides, just have them stop the anarchy. It wouldn't be that hard for a respected unbiased party to convince a nation primarily made of peaceful Buddhists to step back and realize the damage they're doing to their beloved country, and that this is NOT the way to achieve a democracy. Also, since the government had already agreed to a new election previously, it would only be reasonable that they could again agree to such a thing if the red shirts just go home. If Hilary doesn't want to or can't do it, send Bill or Jimmy Carter. We have several big names in peace negotiations who have dealt with far worse in the middle east. I think stopping this is well within our power. We could help them restructure their government too, but that may be pushing it.
We've spent trillions on wars in oil rich countries and imposed democracies, can we spare a plane ticket and a few hours of face time for peace in a struggling democracy? It's so simple, I don't know if our reputation can afford NOT to send someone. But who knows, maybe we're too late and a visit is now unnecessary. Maybe the red shirts will return to the countryside defeated now that their leaders have been captured, and the dispute has been resolved violently... :\
Hope to have some uplifting news soon, but probably not the next post. I have some ideas I want to get out soon.
Update: sad start for my blog, good day for AZ.
Corrective JUNK: Dang, one post in and I'm already having to withdraw outrage. Lesson learned for the future: research everything to death... hard to do when you're reading full original texts as research. Oh well, I'll get this figured out eventually.
Recently an amended version of SB1070, HB2162, has been signed into law (http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/laws/0211.htm). This new bill corrects the "lawful contact" line to make it clear that questioning can only occur during an already legal stop. Also there's further language changes specifically intended to discourage racial profiling. Sounds like some very good fixes, that just might make this bill legal. Furthermore, AZ is one of the states where a driver's license is evidence of legality, which is good news. As someone who frequently forgets or loses his drivers license, I can understand how Latinos would still be discriminated against, but the discrimination is much less extreme. (Also, if you ARE someone who forgets your DL often, you probably know your DL number, and with another form of photo ID, say a debit card with photo on it, you're in the clear! Crisis averted.) I'd say the remaining inconvenience might be worth the $2.7B price tag. Sounds to me that unless this law leads to excessive enforcement of minor crimes (eg: J-walking, littering cig butts, etc.) for the purpose of having cause for questioning a persons legality, things should be ok. We'll see how enforcers choose to use this law. Though I standby my outrage at the original bill, my outrage has been quelled thanks to the amendment.
Thoughts? Is this enough of a fix? Is the left ready to rescind objections? How much more fair do you really expect federal corrections to be and still be effective? What does this still say about the willingness of the bills original supporters to sell out our civil rights?
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Arizona: Individuals vs Americans
With so much going on, it's hard to decide where to start... luckily the news decided it for me. Today President Obama again condemned the Arizona Immigration Law Amendment - Senate Bill 1070. Unlike the health reform bill it's only 17 pages long, and changes are highlighted in blue for your convenience. I highly recommend you check it out: http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf
Factual Junk: Section 2b states that an officer of the law who makes lawful contact (unlawful would be like trespassing to apprehend without a warrant) with a person they believe is an illegal immigrant, must attempt to get verification of their immigration status. There has been some "confusion" from proponents of the law saying there has to be a previous infraction as well, such as a traffic violation. There is nothing like that in this section of the bill, only in Section 4e which only applies to the illegal smuggling of immigrants.
Opinionated Junk: [A relevant aside: I'm keeping this clearly labeled because I think News channels with opinion commentators should more clearly label their programming by removing the "NEWS" bit from their title/logo while that program is on.] The debate is NOT about whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay in the US. Both sides AGREE they should not be allowed, and there needs to be tighter regulations. There should be no finger pointing as to why it's a problem, because it's been a problem through several administrations. End of story, bi-partisan agreement. Hooray.
The debate is over civil rights and racial profiling.
Shocking revalation: As an INDIVIDUAL I believe in profiling, and I bet you do too. Hear me out. Do you think it's anyone's effective use of time to be stopping Granny Smith at the airport for additional screening? NO, there's no reason to think she's a terrorist, stop wasting time on her, and use it being more effective. What about Jihad Janes? If we could observe mosque activity, the way we observe online "chatter," then that risk goes way down too. So why are we all candidates for additional screening? For our nonsensical sense of fairness. Ok, still not convinced? How about this example a high school teacher of mine once gave me. Imagine the crime were not plane high jackings, but rather brutal anal rape and murder in dark alleys (yes, this is EXACTLY what my teacher said), and say the vast majority of these criminals were not Muslims, but rather short Asian men. You're walking home one night walking by a dark alley with a short Asian man sitting there. What do you do? Does your liberal civil rights side say, "Oh, don't be silly, there are billions of short Asian men out there, don't run or prep your pepper spray or you might offend him." He gets up and starts toward you, "Oh this is strange, but I must not judge, he might just ask me for change. Don't offend him." HELL... NO! You, the individual, starts walking as fast as your legs will carry you, because you're thinking, "Gee, there've been a lot of brutal anal rape murders in alleys like this one, and he looks a lot like all the other guys who are doing it. I'm gonna run like hell." And there's no shame in that. This is how busting drug dealers works (young men standing idley on corners), this is how busting prostitutes works (scantily clad women walking aimlessly on the streets). The international airport in Tel Aviv, Israel (super dangerous area) doesn't screen everybody, only "suspicious people". What's suspicious? It's at the discression of the screener *cough profiling*, and their system WORKS!
So, why do you (liberals) feel like an Unamerican bigot if you see a Muslim park a large white van with tinted windows and think, "terrorist maybe?"
Because, as AMERICANS we believe in equal rights and civil rights, we do not condone discrimination or profiling, it's one of the things our forefathers believed in, it's been redefined and fought for by great men and women before us, and it's what makes America great. As AMERICANS we have the individual right to run like hell if we feel endangered, but we CANNOT set up discriminatory laws or practices. And there's the rub.
So tell me this, why, when we're faced with the possibility of death and attack, do we maintain composure and remember who we are and where we come from, but somehow Arizona forgot this over elevated crime rates and a poor economy. "Patriots" are pushing for this bill to protect our "freedoms", and supposedly 2/3 of all Americans support this law that legalizes the discrimination of Latinos. Coincidence that the passage of this bill happens to coincide with the largest financial crisis in decades? The most convincing reason I've seen for cracking down on immigration is FAIR's (Federation for American Immigration Reform) statistic that illegal immigration in AZ alone costs them an additional $2.7B! I can't find info on whether this is true or not, but it doesn't matter for the point I'm making.
Again, as an INDIVIDUAL, yea it makes sense, get 'em out. As an AMERICAN, is that the price tag put on our values? We say, "I don't care if I die from preventable terrorist attacks, but $2.7B!?! Let's get to profiling!" The modern day "Patriots" are saying we need to do this to defend our country and our rights from illegal immigrants. I say the only American value they're defending is GREED.
Proposal: The thing I hate most about gripes is when there's only complaining and no proposed solutions. In this case it's fairly straight forward and unoriginal, but requires some patience :\ Let's do this legally at the federal level. We can keep better track of immigrants or make more stringent entrance regulations. Set up all drivers licenses to contain citizenship information, so when a person is stopped (for a good reason), it will become immediately obvious whether they are illegal or not. Also, crack down on employers; there are any number of ways (many of which are already being done) to crack down on illegal immigration. There is now sufficient pressure on Obama to make this the next item on his agenda (and it is obviously related to the economy), so thanks AZ for lighting that fire... while setting us back decades in civil rights. Let's see what happens.
Thanks for reading. Tomorrow's post likely to be on Anarchy in Thailand, so stick around.
~Yasu
haha oh man, the number of quotes that could be taken out of context in this thing are ridiculous! Good thing I'm not famous.
Factual Junk: Section 2b states that an officer of the law who makes lawful contact (unlawful would be like trespassing to apprehend without a warrant) with a person they believe is an illegal immigrant, must attempt to get verification of their immigration status. There has been some "confusion" from proponents of the law saying there has to be a previous infraction as well, such as a traffic violation. There is nothing like that in this section of the bill, only in Section 4e which only applies to the illegal smuggling of immigrants.
Opinionated Junk: [A relevant aside: I'm keeping this clearly labeled because I think News channels with opinion commentators should more clearly label their programming by removing the "NEWS" bit from their title/logo while that program is on.] The debate is NOT about whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay in the US. Both sides AGREE they should not be allowed, and there needs to be tighter regulations. There should be no finger pointing as to why it's a problem, because it's been a problem through several administrations. End of story, bi-partisan agreement. Hooray.
The debate is over civil rights and racial profiling.
Shocking revalation: As an INDIVIDUAL I believe in profiling, and I bet you do too. Hear me out. Do you think it's anyone's effective use of time to be stopping Granny Smith at the airport for additional screening? NO, there's no reason to think she's a terrorist, stop wasting time on her, and use it being more effective. What about Jihad Janes? If we could observe mosque activity, the way we observe online "chatter," then that risk goes way down too. So why are we all candidates for additional screening? For our nonsensical sense of fairness. Ok, still not convinced? How about this example a high school teacher of mine once gave me. Imagine the crime were not plane high jackings, but rather brutal anal rape and murder in dark alleys (yes, this is EXACTLY what my teacher said), and say the vast majority of these criminals were not Muslims, but rather short Asian men. You're walking home one night walking by a dark alley with a short Asian man sitting there. What do you do? Does your liberal civil rights side say, "Oh, don't be silly, there are billions of short Asian men out there, don't run or prep your pepper spray or you might offend him." He gets up and starts toward you, "Oh this is strange, but I must not judge, he might just ask me for change. Don't offend him." HELL... NO! You, the individual, starts walking as fast as your legs will carry you, because you're thinking, "Gee, there've been a lot of brutal anal rape murders in alleys like this one, and he looks a lot like all the other guys who are doing it. I'm gonna run like hell." And there's no shame in that. This is how busting drug dealers works (young men standing idley on corners), this is how busting prostitutes works (scantily clad women walking aimlessly on the streets). The international airport in Tel Aviv, Israel (super dangerous area) doesn't screen everybody, only "suspicious people". What's suspicious? It's at the discression of the screener *cough profiling*, and their system WORKS!
So, why do you (liberals) feel like an Unamerican bigot if you see a Muslim park a large white van with tinted windows and think, "terrorist maybe?"
Because, as AMERICANS we believe in equal rights and civil rights, we do not condone discrimination or profiling, it's one of the things our forefathers believed in, it's been redefined and fought for by great men and women before us, and it's what makes America great. As AMERICANS we have the individual right to run like hell if we feel endangered, but we CANNOT set up discriminatory laws or practices. And there's the rub.
So tell me this, why, when we're faced with the possibility of death and attack, do we maintain composure and remember who we are and where we come from, but somehow Arizona forgot this over elevated crime rates and a poor economy. "Patriots" are pushing for this bill to protect our "freedoms", and supposedly 2/3 of all Americans support this law that legalizes the discrimination of Latinos. Coincidence that the passage of this bill happens to coincide with the largest financial crisis in decades? The most convincing reason I've seen for cracking down on immigration is FAIR's (Federation for American Immigration Reform) statistic that illegal immigration in AZ alone costs them an additional $2.7B! I can't find info on whether this is true or not, but it doesn't matter for the point I'm making.
Again, as an INDIVIDUAL, yea it makes sense, get 'em out. As an AMERICAN, is that the price tag put on our values? We say, "I don't care if I die from preventable terrorist attacks, but $2.7B!?! Let's get to profiling!" The modern day "Patriots" are saying we need to do this to defend our country and our rights from illegal immigrants. I say the only American value they're defending is GREED.
Proposal: The thing I hate most about gripes is when there's only complaining and no proposed solutions. In this case it's fairly straight forward and unoriginal, but requires some patience :\ Let's do this legally at the federal level. We can keep better track of immigrants or make more stringent entrance regulations. Set up all drivers licenses to contain citizenship information, so when a person is stopped (for a good reason), it will become immediately obvious whether they are illegal or not. Also, crack down on employers; there are any number of ways (many of which are already being done) to crack down on illegal immigration. There is now sufficient pressure on Obama to make this the next item on his agenda (and it is obviously related to the economy), so thanks AZ for lighting that fire... while setting us back decades in civil rights. Let's see what happens.
Thanks for reading. Tomorrow's post likely to be on Anarchy in Thailand, so stick around.
~Yasu
haha oh man, the number of quotes that could be taken out of context in this thing are ridiculous! Good thing I'm not famous.
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