April 18, 2005
Oh, the irony
In all my derisive comments about how much I dislike the government, I do believe it has a legitimate role. That is to protect citizens from fraud and their rights being infringed by others. In today’s world, the threat of identity theft is rampant and growing. This is a problem that the government has been watching, and as the government is known to do, they’ve got their regulatory pen ready and waiting to write ever more intrusive laws to combat it.
If only they could police themselves…
Computer-security flaws at the U.S. tax-collection agency expose millions of taxpayers to potential identity theft or illegal police snooping, according to a congressional report released on Monday.
The Internal Revenue Service also is unlikely to know if outsiders are browsing through citizens’ tax returns, because it doesn’t effectively police its computer systems for unauthorized use, the Government Accountability Office found.
Good to know… Maybe this can be a new defense for citizens accused of tax evasion. It’s times like this that I wonder if I should just stop filing.
The odd part about this is that this will be nothing more than a mention and headline in the news. If a private company, dealing with financial information, was this lax about security, you’d see individuals screaming for their heads, and the company would go belly-up very quickly. It’s quite likely that the executives could be facing prison time for something like that. But in this case, I don’t think you’ll hear a peep. After all, the government is benevolent. It’s those evil corporations we need to worry about, right?
An IRS spokesman declined to comment further.
Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat, said the Judiciary Committee will consider whether additional measures are needed to strengthen computer security.
Hmm… The IRS has its mouth shut, and our elected representatives are going to “consider” whether security needs to be improved. Yep. These are the guys I want protecting my identity.
If Conyers wants to consider something, how about the FairTax? If individuals don’t have to file tax returns at all, then we don’t have to worry about people gaining access to our information.
April 15, 2005
Don’t Worry… Be Happy…
Many people who now know me don’t understand some of my personal history. I have long been one who doubted myself, who was unable to interact well in social situations, and have had many bouts with depression. Back in high school, I was always upset about the fact that I didn’t really “fit in”. I was not a popular person, and mainly took the attitude that my job was to show up, get good grades, and get out. To this day, there is only one real lasting friendship I take from the entire period of my life prior to college.
Through those years of battling personal demons, I have learned a lot. Above all, I’ve learned that my biggest enemy was not the outside world, it was my own outlook on life and myself. In college, I did something I had never thought I would do. I joined a fraternity. Normally I had regarded fraternities as elitist little clubs, for people who valued their self-worth by their relation to a group. However, one of the students in my dorm joined a house, and invited me up on a Saturday night. There were no real parties going on, just guys hanging out, shooting pool, having a few drinks. At that time, I decided to rush the house, because I realized that unlike many of the people I’d interacted with at other houses, these were the type of people I’d like to hang out with.
That decision was the first step towards who I have become as a social being. Living, day in and day out, with 50 other guys really forces you to interact. It forces you to deal with yourself, and with other people. It forced me to look at the flaws in my own person, and the way I handled myself around other people, and fix them. The first year was a very hard adjustment, but a necessary one. Ever since, some of the friends I made in that house will be my friends for life.
After college, I was faced with another reality. Life is hard! You may get a great job making good money, but bills and taxes certainly take their cut, and fast. Personal matters, losing a job, having to deal with medical issues in the immediate and extended family, watching national tragedies like 9/11, all take their toll. I can say that the last four years of my life have included some of the tougher times than I think I ever want to undergo. Of course, that’s balanced by many wonderful things, like my marriage, my sister’s marriage and baby, personal growth in my new job, and the exciting upcoming move to Atlanta into a beautiful house.
In this life, above all, we must be flexible. Good things will happen, and bad things will happen. Some are in our control, and some are not. The realization that all of this is expected in life, has been what has allowed me to actually become a happy person. The people who know me now think that I’m one of the more laid-back people they know. I have a great response to stress, in that I try not to allow myself to become stressed. I certainly don’t let the world pass me by, but I see my role in my life as grabbing the tiger by the tail and hanging on for the ride.
The people I see around me who are unhappy, however, seem to have a lot of traits in common. They constantly worry about things beyond their control. They obsess over the bad things in their lives that happen, and don’t take action to sieze control of the good. They let their own happiness be defined not by themselves, but by those around them. Above all, they believe the world should conform to their expectations.
Recently I read a post on one of Scott Scheule’s personal blogs that stopped me cold. From some of his other writings, I think Scott dealt with personal demons much bigger than mine. In this post, he quoted something by psychologist Albert Ellis. As Scott points out, Ellis’ theory was that human misery stems from irrational beliefs. He posted a list of what Ellis considered to be several of the main irrational beliefs that lead to misery or neurosis. Reading that list, I see all the things I used to do wrong. And all the things the unhappy people around me still do wrong. So now, I present that list to all of you. Enjoy.
Twelve Irrational Ideas That Cause and Sustain Neurosis:
1. The idea that it is a dire necessity for adults to be loved by significant others for almost everything they do — instead of their concentrating on their own self-respect, on winning approval for practical purposes, and on loving rather than on being loved.
2. The idea that certain acts are awful or wicked, and that people who perform such acts should be severely damned — instead of the idea that certain acts are self-defeating or antisocial, and that people who perform such acts are behaving stupidly, ignorantly, or neurotically, and would be better helped to change. People’s poor behaviors do not make them rotten individuals.
3. The idea that it is horrible when things are not the way we like them to be — instead of the idea that it is too bad, that we would better try to change or control bad conditions so that they become more satisfactory, and, if that is not possible, we had better temporarily accept and gracefully lump their existence.
4. The idea that human misery is invariably externally caused and is forced on us by outside people and events — instead of the idea that neurosis is largely caused by the view that we take of unfortunate conditions.
5. The idea that if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome we should be terribly upset and endlessly obsess about it — instead of the idea that one would better frankly face it and render it non-dangerous and, when that is not possible, accept the inevitable.
6. The idea that it is easier to avoid than to face life difficulties and self-responsibilities — instead of the idea that the so-called easy way is usually much harder in the long run.
7. The idea that we absolutely need something other or stronger or greater than ourself on which to rely — instead of the idea that it is better to take the risks of thinking and acting less dependently.
8. The idea that we should be thoroughly competent, intelligent, and achieving in all possible respects — instead of the idea that we would better do rather than always need to do well and accept ourself as a quite imperfect creature, who has general human limitations and specific fallibilities.
9. The idea that because something once strongly affected our life, it should indefinitely affect it — instead of the idea that we can learn from our past experiences but not be overly-attached to or prejudiced by them.
10. The idea that we must have certain and perfect control over things — instead of the idea that the world is full of probability and chance and that we can still enjoy life despite this.
11. The idea that human happiness can be achieved by inertia and inaction — instead of the idea that we tend to be happiest when we are vitally absorbed in creative pursuits, or when we are devoting ourselves to people or projects outside ourselves.
12. The idea that we have virtually no control over our emotions and that we cannot help feeling disturbed about things — instead of the idea that we have real control over our destructive emotions if we choose to work at changing the musturbatory hypotheses which we often employ to create them.
(From The Essence of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. Revised, May 1994.)
April 14, 2005
There is a much simpler answer
Finnish Engineering Students Protest High Numbers
Interesting link. As an engineer, I was drawn into the field by the fact that it is a hard major, which self-limits the number of people interested in engineering. That leads to a relatively high annual salary, to compensate the additional work and worth of the job. But, much like the glut of business majors in the late 80’s, and the hordes of students going into Computer Science in the late 90’s, things can get out of whack. It seems such a thing has happened in Finland. So, as Europeans are wont to do, they protest the government!
Finland’s 40,000 engineering students walked out of their classes Wednesday to put pressure on the government to reduce the number of engineering places.
The students argue there are too many of them competing for too few jobs now that the technology boom has ended.
The boom in the latter half of the 1990s and the rise of Finish mobile phone maker Nokia sparked a surge in the number of places for engineering students at Finland’s polytechnics.
“When the (technology) bubble burst, not a single step was taken backwards. The same numbers (of engineering students) are still taken in even though there is no work for them,” said Sampo Hakli, chairman of the Finnish Union of Engineering Students.
Of course, in a centrally-planned system such as exists in Finland, this is completely reasonable. After all, if the government is tasked with determining how many engineers there should be, you can blame the government if they make the wrong choice.
Or, you could rely on a time-honored, time-tested law of nature to determine the same thing. That law is the law of supply and demand. It appears that such a law is officially dead in Europe. Supply and demand seems to have taken a back seat to central planning. Perhaps if those central planners had a brain in their skulls, it might work. But alas, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
C’est la vie, right? It’s only the economic demise of a continent…
$*#&$&*(@!
Wow, I wonder what Blogger is going to do with this title. I, however, personally consider the above title to be the universal symbol for tax time. Last night I made out that $2899 check to the IRS, and although I try very hard to keep from swearing on the blog, this topic makes my blood absolutely boil.
Lately I’ve seen the quote come up, several times, from the movie Dazed and Confused:
Okay guys, one more thing. This summer, when you’re being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth of July brouhaha, don’t forget what you’re celebrating..and that’s the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn’t want to pay their taxes. – Ms. Stroud
Oddly enough, she actually said this as criticism of those slave-owning, aristocratic white males! So, in the tax day spirit, let’s examine.
First, the use of the terms slave-owning and aristocratic can be immediately thrown out. If it were a bunch of slave-owning aristocrats fleeing a free society, or even a bunch of slave-owning aristocrats fleeing a government that wanted them not to be slave-owning aristocrats, it would make a difference. But the Brits weren’t asking us to end slavery, nor were they trying to crush our aristocracy. So both terms are simply thrown in for emotional effect.
Next, white males. In the 18th Century, white males were the political establishment. In fact, I should say white land-owning males, to be even more specific. But again, this isn’t news. It’s not like Britian was trying to threaten the white male power structure with their policies. So using the term “white males” was just another emotional appeal to people living in the 1970’s, rather than 1770’s.
But the general sentiment is correct. The influential people in the colonies at that time did not want to pay taxes to the Crown. And for that, it seems they had good reason. The rallying cry was “No Taxation Without Representation.” That sounds nice, but historically the “representation” is different than the true problem, which is that the taxation was not serving the people who were being taxed. Many groups throughout history have not pushed for representation, as long as they were benefiting from the largesse.
King George III was implementing taxes and regulations from across an ocean. Those taxes and regulations were not for the colonists’ benefit, mind you, but made specifically to further the agenda of the British Empire. The colonies were effectively self-governed, but intrusion from an overbearing government, without anything in return, made them realize something: they could do it better without England.
Any time a government has gotten drunk on its own power, and more interested in continuing its reign than in serving the public, they will sell votes with tax dollars. For the colonists, the Crown was seizing their tax dollars, yet doing nothing to try to buy their vote, as they could not vote. The tax dollars were used to try to appease the British citizenry.
The reason I say “$*#&$&*(@! Taxes!” is simple. I believe the tax burden placed on me is far above and beyond the necessary level to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For myself, I believe that government has become destructive to those ends. Government has become more interested in self-preservation, and to achieve this, they are buying votes with my tax dollars.
I am not be a slave-owner (nor were my ancestors). I’m not an aristocrat. I am a white male, but consider that irrelevant considering the changes in this nation over the last 200 years. But I understand why a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn’t want to pay their taxes. It’s the same reason I don’t want to pay mine.
$*#&$&*(@!
Wow, I wonder what Blogger is going to do with this title. I, however, personally consider the above title to be the universal symbol for tax time. Last night I made out that $2899 check to the IRS, and although I try very hard to keep from swearing on the blog, this topic makes my blood absolutely boil.
Lately I’ve seen the quote come up, several times, from the movie Dazed and Confused:
Okay guys, one more thing. This summer, when you’re being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth of July brouhaha, don’t forget what you’re celebrating..and that’s the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn’t want to pay their taxes. – Ms. Stroud
Oddly enough, she actually said this as criticism of those slave-owning, aristocratic white males! So, in the tax day spirit, let’s examine.
First, the use of the terms slave-owning and aristocratic can be immediately thrown out. If it were a bunch of slave-owning aristocrats fleeing a free society, or even a bunch of slave-owning aristocrats fleeing a government that wanted them not to be slave-owning aristocrats, it would make a difference. But the Brits weren’t asking us to end slavery, nor were they trying to crush our aristocracy. So both terms are simply thrown in for emotional effect.
Next, white males. In the 18th Century, white males were the political establishment. In fact, I should say white land-owning males, to be even more specific. But again, this isn’t news. It’s not like Britian was trying to threaten the white male power structure with their policies. So using the term “white males” was just another emotional appeal to people living in the 1970’s, rather than 1770’s.
But the general sentiment is correct. The influential people in the colonies at that time did not want to pay taxes to the Crown. And for that, it seems they had good reason. The rallying cry was “No Taxation Without Representation.” That sounds nice, but historically the “representation” is different than the true problem, which is that the taxation was not serving the people who were being taxed. Many groups throughout history have not pushed for representation, as long as they were benefiting from the largesse.
King George III was implementing taxes and regulations from across an ocean. Those taxes and regulations were not for the colonists’ benefit, mind you, but made specifically to further the agenda of the British Empire. The colonies were effectively self-governed, but intrusion from an overbearing government, without anything in return, made them realize something: they could do it better without England.
Any time a government has gotten drunk on its own power, and more interested in continuing its reign than in serving the public, they will sell votes with tax dollars. For the colonists, the Crown was seizing their tax dollars, yet doing nothing to try to buy their vote, as they could not vote. The tax dollars were used to try to appease the British citizenry.
The reason I say “$*#&$&*(@! Taxes!” is simple. I believe the tax burden placed on me is far above and beyond the necessary level to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For myself, I believe that government has become destructive to those ends. Government has become more interested in self-preservation, and to achieve this, they are buying votes with my tax dollars.
I am not be a slave-owner (nor were my ancestors). I’m not an aristocrat. I am a white male, but consider that irrelevant considering the changes in this nation over the last 200 years. But I understand why a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn’t want to pay their taxes. It’s the same reason I don’t want to pay mine.
April 13, 2005
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire
I have a simple rule when blogging. If I’m blogging about a story that doesn’t quite feel right, I try to avoid it. I got bit a while back by the story regarding unemployed Germans being forced into “sex work”. If there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s being wrong. If there’s a second, it’s being taken for a fool. So when I see a story that looks a little fishy, I try to make sure it’s legitimate before spouting off.
Well, I almost got caught again. Everyone heard about the Wendy’s Finger Food story. I made my usual rounds at Snopes.com, couldn’t find anything fishy there. Then saw that in addition to the San Francisco Gate, it was being reported by the AP, and showing up everywhere. It was starting to sound more and more legitimate. It seemed about time to throw my own thoughts into the ring.
But something still seemed wrong. They determined that all the workers at that Wendy’s still had their fingers. Had a worker where the chili was made lost a finger into it, you would have to think that it wouldn’t go unnoticed. After all, I’m sure if a worker next to me in a food processing plant started screaming hysterically, blood spurting out all over the place, I’d probably tell somebody. And that somebody, to save his own ass, would probably make sure that batch of chili wasn’t shipped out, as an employee losing a finger would make this easy to trace.
That leaves deliberate tampering with the chili. Deliberate tampering, bringing in a finger from another source and tossing it into the chili, would have to be responsible. Such an action requires two things, access to a finger and a motive. Which, of course, brings up this story:
Anna Ayala dropped her claim because it “has caused her great emotional distress and continues to be difficult emotionally,” said her attorney, Jeffrey Janoff.
Ayala, 39, claimed she found the 1 1/2-inch long fingertip on March 22 while dining at a Wendy’s restaurant in San Jose. She later filed a claim with the franchise owner, Fresno-based JEM Management Corp., which her attorney had said was the first step before filing a lawsuit.
Court records show Ayala has a history of making legal claims against corporations, including a former employer, General Motors and a fast-food restaurant. She acknowledged receiving a settlement for medical costs a year ago after claiming that her daughter was sickened after eating at a Las Vegas restaurant.
So, we can’t prove access to a finger. But we can show a history of motive. Either this lady is very, very unlucky, or she goes lawsuit-shopping. Now, I’ve never tried to find a severed finger on the black market, but I’m sure such things can be arranged.
Motive 1: Woman plants finger in food to sue for damages.
Motive 2: Disgruntled employee plants finger to embarrass employer.
Evidence doesn’t point towards Wendy’s or their suppliers. Evidence points to the lawsuit-shopping lady. Employ Occam’s Razor: Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred. Now let’s expose this fraud for what she is.
April 12, 2005
news
Nothing much to comment on today. Brad is away so I wanted to see if this would spark any comments -
Cat Hunting. Not mountain lions or panthers, but little ol’ felis domesticus (or something like that)
Or maybe…
Lastly…
“We Are Idiots”
Terry Shiavo protest. Third picture down. I love the expression on the girl’s face in front of the guy with the sign when she realizes what it says.
April 11, 2005
What should we do about Taiwan?
Jonathan Wilde, of Catallarchy, recently posted on a story detailing the Chinese military buildup of amphibious forces capable of deterring the US and invading Taiwan. The original story, in the IHT Online, posits that the new military buildup is leading to a much greater likelihood that China will initiate hostilities, especially as they’ve passed an anti-secession law to allow China to force Taiwan into line if they move too hard for independence. The original story states:
“They are building their force to deter and delay our ability to intervene in a Taiwan crisis,” said Eric McVadon, a former military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. “What they have done is cleverly develop some capabilities that have the prospect of attacking our niche vulnerabilities.”
Japan, America’s closest ally in East Asia, and China’s rival for regional dominance, is also watching China’s buildup. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi echoed Bush by warning Europe against removing the arms embargo. A think tank affiliated with Japan’s Defense Ministry criticized China’s increased military spending and warned it was rushing to prepare for possible conflict with Taiwan – an assertion China sharply denied.
Specifically, they refer to Chinese defensive abilities that would force America to be unable to respond quickly enough to halt such an invasion, which for a country of 1.2 billion people, would be over pretty quickly.
While Jonathan Wilde hasn’t moved to stake a position on how involved the US should be in this matter, there is a lot of talk in the comments section about the US furthering our support for Taiwan, or using Taiwan as a bargaining chip in our dealings with China and North Korea. I propose that we do the one thing that politicians rarely choose: we do nothing.
From the original story, it states that China is making this buildup to “deter and delay our ability to intervene in a Taiwan crisis”. I don’t think so. I think they are making this buildup to lessen America’s bargaining power in the situation, so that they can heavy-hand Taiwan into behaving nicely. They know that Taiwan’s current bravado is buttressed by the fact that Taiwan is expecting full American support. But if China can prove to Taiwan that the support will not be there, or not be effective, Taiwan needs to step back from the brink.
Let’s take a look at this rationally. China has no motive, and no benefit to be gained, from invading Taiwan. The only time where this would change is if Taiwan outright declared independence, and then China would be forced, by the unwritten rules of international power politics, to rein in Taiwan. But they don’t want to have to do that. Taiwan is a major trading partner. They’ve just begun direct commercial flights between Taiwan and the mainland. Taiwanese companies are already investing in China for the same reasons that worldwide countries are doing so, because it’s economically in their interests to do so. This is especially true for Taiwanese companies, because the shared culture and language make the cost of entry much lower than for a similar American company.
China is beginning the process of economic liberalization. They see the writing on the wall, and they know communism can’t last. The old hands of politics are trying to constrain liberalization to keep their power, but they’ll be dying off in the relatively near future. The 1.2 billion other people in China, spurred on by their first tastes of freedom and a growing ability to see what’s really happening in the world through the internet, won’t be held down too much longer. The current state is going to crumble, much like Russia did a little more than a decade ago.
So what do we do? The same thing we’re doing now. Keep our pledge to support Taiwan as a hedge against Chinese action. At the same time, hold our “one China” policy, and work the diplomatic channels to ensure that Taiwan doesn’t fly off the handle and declare independence. I believe that this situation will solve itself, barring any outright stupidity from any of the major players. Let’s sit back and watch it happen.
Low income housing
I live in Boston, MA.
Over the past 6 months, new townhouses (a huge development) have been constructed in a nice area of the city. It is in the South Boston section, which is one of the most sought-after areas.
I have recently learned that all of these townhouses will be part of a low income housing development. These are beautiful townhomes, substantially nicer than most of the other homes in the area. And they are being allocated for subsidized housing.
I have a problem with this on many different levels. First, Boston is an expensive place to live. I have been in the process of trying to purchase a condo for six months. Currently, a one bedroom condo in the South Boston area is running about $350,000. This is for a one bedroom, on bath condo of about 900 square feet. Not as nice as the townhouses currently being built for the low income development. I spoke to someone who is familiar with this low income development. Apparently some of these individuals will be paying as little as $100 per month for rent, with the rest subsidized by the goverment. Which is my second complaint. So my tax dollars are paying for someone to live in a nicer place than I do?
The last development went up across the bay from South Boston. On the water. Townhouses on the water, with running trails and parking. These would sell for almost a million dollars. But they are reserved for government subsidized housing. So all I have to do is not make any money, then I can live in a really nice place?
April 10, 2005
The honeymoon is over…
I can’t say that I’ve been following California politics that closely as of late, considering that I think the state is going to Hell in a handbasket and I’m scrambling to get out. I was around, passing out petitions 2 years ago to see the end of Gray Davis, who seemed to only act 3 months after a crisis had erupted, and always to do the one thing that would make it worse. At the time, I wanted to vote for Tom McClintock, but ended up tossing my vote Ahhnolds way, since he was the only Republican that was actually electable in California.
I’ve watched as Arnold’s popularity has stood firm, through the lame attacks on his “girlie-men” comment, to watching the local Indian tribes fighting him tooth and nail to install casinos in LA (which, for the record, I’m not entirely against).
But now he’s pissed off the 800-lb gorilla, the California Teachers Association:
“We have a message for Governor Schwarzenegger,” Stewart says, standing on a school campus. Cismowski, who is also a National Board Certified teacher, says: “Keep your promises to our schools.” “And our kids,” Stewart adds, reminding the public that the governor borrowed $2 billion from our schools last year and now refuses to pay it back as promised. Stewart ends the TV ad by saying, “Governor Schwarzenegger, you ought to take your promises on education as seriously as we do.”
The new CTA radio ads, in English and Spanish, include concerned parents delivering similar messages about the governor’s broken promises. “We passed a law to guarantee minimum funding for our schools, but the governor thinks he can ignore it,” one parent says in a radio spot.
CTA President Kerr concludes in one radio ad: “The governor talks about reform, but parents and teachers know what his plan really means is breaking his word to our schools and our kids.”
This time, he’s going up against a group with money, political clout, and emotional appeal. After all, he’s trying to destroy childrens’ educations!
As I’ve said, I haven’t followed the politics closely enough to say whether Arnold’s doing the right or the wrong thing here. But I think we can clearly see one thing: the honeymoon is over. We’ve now hit a point where his “star power” isn’t going to save him anymore. More than likely, he’s going to get steamrolled by the California liberal machine, or actually stand up for himself and lose his next election. After watching him a while, I’m inclined to believe the latter.
Arnold has now truly achieved a level of legitimacy that I don’t think even he expected. He’s no longer the famous movie star, beloved by the public as their “Governator”. Now, he’s just another politician, and the gloves are off. The test has finally begun.
April 9, 2005
Why didn’t I think of that?
Ahh, the snooze-button morning routine. It’s as American as baseball and apple pie. Well, maybe not, but a heck of a lot of us do it every morning. But that may soon change:
A 25-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology student has invented a revolutionary alarm clock that makes sleepyheads find it to quiet it.
Designed to overcome abuse of the snooze feature on most alarm clocks, Gauri Nanda’s “Clocky” falls to the floor and rolls away on the first push of the snooze button.To turn it off, a person must get out of bed and find it.
Someone is going to become very rich, very soon. And I may be buying this product once it’s commercially available!
April 7, 2005
Is Kofi actually listening?
As previously mentioned, the UN Human Rights Commission is a joke. When the US has been kicked off the commission for such nations as Libya, Cuba, and the Sudan, it shows that the henhouse is being guarded by foxes.
Thus, the headline on Yahoo! this morning, Annan: U.N. Needs New Human Rights Body, gave me pause. I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, Kofi Annan was beginning to realize what a precarious position the UN is in when the USA rumbles about removing it’s support for that body. Or at the very least, that he’s trying to appease us as a way to wag the dog about the Oil-For-Food scandal. Either way, regardless of the motivations, I thought we might be witnessing a Good Thing. And then I read further:
As part of a package of reforms unveiled last month, the secretary-general proposed a human rights council to replace the present commission. The new council would be a permanent body, possibly on a par with the Security Council.
…
Council members would be elected directly by the General Assembly by a two-thirds majority and fulfill specific human rights criteria, according to the proposed reforms.
As astute readers have already noticed, one crucial point is missing from this proposal. They compare the new body to the Security Council, but no mention is made of the fact that the Security Council has 5 permanent members. Specifically, they mention that members would be elected by a two-thirds majority.
Let’s look at this. There are 191 member states of the UN. To halt election of the United States to the Human Rights Commission would take only 64 votes of those 191. Now, let’s look at the list of member states. Think we can find 64 countries that hate us on that list? I’d say that wouldn’t be too hard.
What’s the real effect of Kofi Annan’s proposal? To create a much more powerful UN Human Rights Commission, that is just as equally corrupt, with the same lack of oversight, as the one we have now. I’ll pass on that, thankyouverymuch.
April 6, 2005
The mechanics of wealth creation
You’ve all heard the misnomer of “trickle-down economics”, used to both disparage the theory of supply-side economics as well as capitalism in general. This is typically used by the people that believe that the rich and powerful got to where they are by exploiting and stealing from the rest of us. Or, for those who believe that labor, by itself, creates value. There’s just one fatal flaw, it doesn’t account for wealth creation.
Wealth creation, to those who don’t understand economics, is a foreign concept. And if you start to think about it, that is not a surprise. After all, how does one create wealth? If I own a farm, take the nutrients of the land to grow a crop, and sell it to you, have I created any wealth? Or have I simply used my labor toiling the land to produce a product that you want to buy?
But to look at it realistically, let’s consider a factory owner. This factory owner knows that if he builds and sells 1 million widgets, at a profit of $1.50 each, he will earn $1.5M. He marshals his labor force, builds his million widgets, and at the end, rather than paying the profits to himself and distributing to his employees, he selfishly keeps the proceeds. Dastardly, eh?
Now, let’s assume that instead of taking those profits and distributing them as wages, he takes $500k for himself, gives $500k to his employees in their yearly raises and in hiring new employees, and invests the final $500k in new tooling for his factory. That new tooling allows him to produce his widgets for $3.50 less, and to produce 20% more during the year. To sell the added inventory, he drops the price by $2 to entice buyers.
What has he done? He has increased his profits (with the same profit margin), from $1.5M to $1.8M. At the same time, each of his buyers have his product in their possession, plus $2 that they can spend elsewhere. And 20% additional buyers have had the chance to purchase a product that may not have been available or affordable before. It sounds to me like he has created wealth.
That, of course, is only the first half of the equation. To show why supply-side economics naturally follows from this, we need to move further.
Suppose that we live in a Keynesian world, where government spending and redistribution is rampant. In such a world, the businessman’s $1.5M profit is reduced to $800k by taxes. The businessman, in a competitive environment, pays out the same $500k to his employees, and keeps $300k as his own salary. The additional money is not used to grow the business, increase his output, or reduce his costs.
But, you say, that money goes into the pockets of consumers, who will use it to spend, thus increasing the market for the businessman’s products. And this is true. However, the businessman has not invested in his business, and thus, these added consumers will need to spend that $700k on his products at current prices, so rather than having a product and two dollars, at best they have a product. But since there is certainly some loss in the function of government, it is likely that only $400k of that original 700 will even see the hands of those it is intended for.
Compare the two scenarios. In the first, you have more money, more products, more jobs, and a better outlook for everyone. In the second, you have a better outlook for a few of the downtrodden, no more money, no more products, and no more jobs.
From a purely utilitarian viewpoint, it is easy to see that in the short term, you may improve a few people’s lives through a redistributionist scheme. But in the long term, it is wealth creation that drives the ever-increasing standard of living in our world. And wealth creation takes available capital; capital which is unavailable in a redistributionist state. This isn’t news. To figure this out isn’t rocket science. Yet so few people in this world understand it?
The rationale for supply-side economics is not to give to the wealthy, hoping it will “trickle down”. It is to further a system of capital investment, which will create a rising tide to lift all boats.
April 5, 2005
The death knell of reality TV
So Britney and house-hubby Kevin are getting their own reality show.
I have a feeling it’s going to be just like Newlyweds, with Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachay. Minus the class and intelligence, of course.
Featuring what UPN bills as “exclusive, never-before-seen private home videos” of their “personal love story,” the six-episode series is scheduled to premiere later this season.
Are those “private home videos” of the Paris Hilton variety? That just may save this whole idea!
Microeconomics for the moron class
Here’s a little rule. I sincerely hope that the readers of my blog already understand this, but in case they don’t:
If you are in a position where interest rates are at historic lows, not seen in almost half a century. If, at the same time, you are looking to buy a house, and need to make a choice on what type of loan to get. If, at this time, all signs, media, and rational thought point towards interest rates rising in the near future, DON’T GET AN ADJUSTABLE RATE MORTGAGE!
You would think this is common sense. But according to a USA Today writer (via Yahoo!), a growing number of people are being bit by their rising ARM rates:
Borrowers who used short-term ARMs to buy homes they couldn’t otherwise
afford may find themselves unable to make the higher payments, says Barry
Glassman, a financial planner with Cassaday & Co. in McLean, Va.Despite the risks of a big upward adjustment, ARMs are more popular than
ever. More than 36% of mortgages had adjustable rates last week, according to
the Mortgage Bankers Association. That’s the highest since the trade group began
tracking adjustable-rate mortgages in 1990.Economists say rising rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have stoked
the popularity of ARMs.
Well, the first problem is that people are using ARMs to buy houses they can’t otherwise afford. That’s a bad idea in the first place, since any increase in rates means that the home you can barely afford becomes the home you can’t afford. As a general rule, I think people in our society are far too heavily leveraged for their own good. People don’t understand the simple fact that you cannot live in an instant gratification lifestyle forever. You shouldn’t be living one paycheck away from poverty. You shouldn’t be buying a home that you can’t hope to afford, and if you are looking at homes out of your price range, you should shop for cheaper home prices, not game the interest rate market and increase your leverage with an ARM.
The second problem is that rising fixed rates are actually leading to an increase in people choosing ARMs. Rising fixed rates tell you one, and only one thing: ARM rates will slowly rise to match, and will most likely increase to above current fixed rates. If you choose an ARM because you think fixed rates are going up, you’re just making it harder to convert to a fixed in the future.
When rates are extremely high, and you expect them to drop, you choose an ARM to take advantage of dropping rates, instead of sticking with a high fixed rate. When rates are extremely low, and you expect them to rise, you lock in a fixed rate as soon as you possibly can, and stay far away from an ARM. And if you’re in a state like now, and you think rates might drop from their present point, you choose a fixed rate because rates don’t have a lot of room to drop, but have plenty of room to rise.
I think the economic illiteracy in this country is staggering. I am amazed by the fact that in public schools, having a microeconomics course is not a standard part of education. And I can’t say I’m amazed, but I am sometimes saddened to watch as people (myself included at times) allow emotion to trump logic in their economic choices.
Life’s lessons are hard. I’m still digging myself out of the credit card debt I’ve racked up in the last few years. I am constantly making myself depressed when I realize I can’t do some of the things I want to do, because I need to make elimination of that debt a priority. But I understand that to get myself and my life ready for the next set of challenges (little rugrats), it needs to happen. At the very least, I understand that the answer to getting out of this hole isn’t a bigger shovel. And my credit card debt pales in comparison to housing costs, so digging a hole there is infinitely more dangerous.
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Great post Brad. I linked it to my post on The Fair Tax (I’m illiterate on how the trackbacks are supposed to work).
Comment by Stephen Littau — April 19, 2005 @ 7:02 am
I hope this’ll be another nail in the IRS’s coffin…I’ll not hold my breath just yet.
Comment by Robert — April 19, 2005 @ 11:27 am