tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-130932082024-03-05T06:29:53.898+00:00Finance: History and PolicyThis blog will show that financial history is both intrinsically interesting and of crucial importance to many aspects of public policy, ranging from Social Security to construction to macroeconomic stability.Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.comBlogger302125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-52547102134145924132023-11-12T13:55:00.001+00:002023-11-12T13:55:19.917+00:00The College Curious Need New “ESG” Ratings<p>The publication of <a href="https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/11/college-rankings-can-still-get-better/" target="_blank">this two-parter</a> by the Martin Center reminded me that I had drafted something on the topic of college ratings but dropped it. Here it is for your edification and "enjoyment":</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Those
interested in attending, or sending their children, to university must decide
if the time and monetary investment is worth it and, if it is, where to spend
their precious dollars. Strident claims by presumably knowledgeable government
officials that student loans should be wholly or partially forgiven suggest
that many students made the wrong decision and shouldn’t have gone to school at
all, or at least not majored in Oppression Studies at Woke U. Some of the “college
curious” may have decided on emotional or other irrational grounds based on
family history or an affinity for certain sports, while others were undoubtedly
led astray by college rankings.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The
notion that colleges and universities can be confidently ranked from top to
bottom smacks of deep intellectual hubris. Even the bond rating agencies
attempt only to lump securities into classes based on risk of default and often
get even that wrong, as anyone who lived through 2008, 1997, 1982, and so forth
may recall. To ascertain that institution X is a smidge “better” than Y, the
rankers rely upon small changes in various quantitative metrics. Because
administrators’ careers and tuition rates often depend upon rankings, those
quantitative metrics </span><a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2022/10/13/why-the-u-s-news-college-rankings-are-subject-to-cheating-and-how-to-fix-them/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">have
been manipulated or even concocted</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">, most recently by
Columbia University, the shenanigans of which were exposed by a whistleblower
who believes that college </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/16/columbia-whistleblower-us-news-rankings-michael-thaddeus"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">rankings
are essentially worthless</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">. Before making any decisions, the college-bound
at least need to realize that a more highly ranked school may simply be better
at gaming the ranking system, at being dishonest in other words.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In
addition, properly interpreting many metrics requires context that is not
easily quantified. A school with a high 8-year graduation rate (as </span><a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2023-college-guide/national-1/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">measured</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">
by the <i>Washington Monthly</i>), for example, may have an abysmal unreported
4-year rate, suggesting that it is adept at bilking students for more tuition
than expected by making it difficult for them to graduate on time but easy for
them to eventually get a degree, perhaps by making courses challenging but
pressuring faculty to relax the requirements for students making up incompletes
or retaking classes who appear ready to bail. A relatively low graduation rate,
by contrast, might indicate that a school is trying to maintain standards and
willing to fail out students to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Most
importantly, major rankings never include arguably the two most important
metrics, learning (what students know/can do upon graduation minus what they
knew/could do upon admission) and lifetime earnings. Some measure purported job
placement rates and even initial salaries but those skew toward schools with
sticky reputations, usually hoary institutions that continue to attract the attention
of recruiters from high paying firms because they presumably produced quality
graduates in the past. Most of the college curious, however, care more about
lifetime earnings than initial salary. Moreover, the trajectory of earnings
provides more information about the quality of a school’s ability to educate,
rather than to merely train or signal the employability of, their students
because it proxies the original stated goals of higher education, which is to
cultivate lifelong learning and independent thought, both of which remain
essential to a robust private economy and a vibrant civil society.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I
first called for such metrics over a decade ago, in a book (<i>Higher Education and the Common Weal:
Protecting Economic Growth and Political Stability with Professional
Partnerships</i>, 2010</span>) <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">so
controversial it could only be published in India and is already out of print. Universities
do not want to track systematically the careers of graduates, at least those
unlikely to make big donations, or to measure learning because such information
might expose their individual and collective weaknesses. Once informed of the
industry’s overall ineffectiveness, fewer people would opt for “higher”
education in the first place and many others would attend less expensive, but
pedagogically equivalent, institutions. That, of course, would tend to dampen
tuition, or at least its rate of increase, forcing universities to invest more
in pedagogy (and its crucial cognate, research) and less in sports complexes and
complex administrative systems. Rest assured, then, that the college curious
will never know with certainty which schools are most likely to increase both
their ability to earn a living and their ability to positively impact the
social sphere.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Rankings,
however, do not have to be so rank. To better aid those interested in attending
college, a disinterested third party could create a grading system focused on
three major cognates of lifetime learning and social and economic achievement.
I call it “ESG,” not for the thoroughly debunked environmental, social justice,
and corporate governance investment grading system recently popular in Woke
circles but for intellectual <b>e</b>nergy, <b>s</b>ocial engagement, and university
<b>g</b>overnance.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Intellectual
energy refers to the atmosphere on campus, including the number of outside
speakers and respectful attendees of their talks (not anti-intellectual
protestors). Contrast Hillsdale College, where I recently spoke to over two
score faculty and economics students on a balmy weeknight during Homecoming,
with another midwestern college of similar size where during an otherwise
uneventful week only a few students turned out on the same subject (the
economics of slavery) and had to be bribed with “extra credit” to sit physically
in the room while investigating their social options later that evening on
their phones.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">By
social engagement, I mean old-fashioned civic engagement and well-informed,
dare I say research-based, attempts to ameliorate social problems. In other
words, schools should be judged not on the extent that they encourage mere
virtue signaling, which signals only iniquity and an anti-intellectualism
unbecoming any institution devoted to “higher” education. Universities should
be judged on the extent that they encourage students to engage in <i>rational
action</i>. Society needs the energy, verve, and long-term outlook of its youth
but is not aided by inducing young people to slavishly follow fads ginned up by
the Left, or the Right for that matter. Universities should inculcate responsible
free speech by directing students to research, write, and orally defend their
positions before protesting or engaging in other direct action.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The
quality of a university’s governance should be assessed by the checks and
balances that it incorporates to ensure that it keeps its promises and does not
distort its record. As the </span><a href="https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2021/01/the-ways-in-which-colleges-legally-silence-troublesome-scholars/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Martin
Center</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> has shown, some schools have forced out tenured
non-Woke professors by threatening the budgets of noncompliant departments and
members of promotion and tenure committees and by employing non-disclosure
agreements in unethical, if not illegal, ways. If accreditors will not
discipline, an outside rater should expose such schools because they cannot be
trusted to administer donations in line with </span><a href="https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/resource/seven-stories-of-donor-intent-violations-in-higher-education-giving/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">donor
intent</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">, let alone to put the interest of students first
during </span><a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/covid-hurt-student-learning-key-findings-from-a-year-of-research/2022/11"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">public
health</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> or other emergencies.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The
college curious need quality university quality ratings like “ESG” because
often they do not (yet) have the intellectual tools needed to properly assess
the claims that college admissions officers and marketing materials make. Few,
for example, understand the implications of public choice theory or its
application to public and private university administrators. They do not realize
that the beautiful school with the great reputation and super sports teams may
be run to serve the interests of administrators, coaches, and, to a lesser
extent, faculty, not students. Such institutions of course claim to be
student-centered but do not credibly commit to putting students first in any
but the most cursory fashion. They may be highly ranked but in the “ESG” system
sketched above would be graded low.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In
fact, most of America’s colleges and universities would receive a failing “ESG”
grade, at least initially, because most have repressive intellectual
atmospheres where mindless Woke virtue signaling prevails, implicitly supported
by faculty cowed into submission by the ouster of outspoken opponents of the
status quo enabled by poor governance practices. FIRE and College Pulse join
forces to </span><a href="https://www.thefire.org/college-free-speech-rankings"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">rank</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">
universities on 13 free speech metrics. The rankings are relative, though, not
absolute. The fact that the University of Virginia ranks sixth best suggests
that the rankings only gauge speech prohibitions and do not measure positive
campus intellectual energy (the E in my “ESG” rating) because a recent Heritage
</span><a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/the-dangerous-dei-bloat-virginias-public-universities"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">report</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">
reveals that Virginia’s universities are “</span><a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/09/report-virginia-universities-drowning-in-dei-policies/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">drowning
in</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">”
DIE (diversity, inclusion, and equity) administrators and policies, and that
UVA is the second worst offender.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Presumably, though, to
attract more students from a </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/looming-enrollment-cliff-poses-serious-threat-to-colleges/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">shrinking
pool</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> some universities will reform to achieve a higher “ESG” grade. Indeed,
some new institutions with stronger “ESG” bona fides </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2021/10/getting-serious-about-a-parallel-university-system/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">have
formed</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> and a few incumbents have reformed their </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1040993"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">cultures</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> rather than joining
the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/07/has-college-gotten-easier/594550/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">race
to the bottom</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> taking place in standards. American higher education remains sick,
perhaps chronically ill, but by exposing its rotten parts while highlighting
those institutions that remain true to the industry’s original mission of
helping students to become independent thinkers capable of adding value to both
the economy and society, it could improve outcomes without further ballooning
the national debt.</span></p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-22914828521484343442023-11-10T14:36:00.000+00:002023-11-10T14:36:09.455+00:00Let's Ban Professional Sports *2nd Amendment SATIRE*<p>NB: Tried this at several satirical websites but some of the humor was too high brow. I mean who jokes about the Ninth Amendment?</p><p>The government should ban sporting events forthwith because they encourage the consumption of alcohol and other inebriates, gambling, harming animals, idleness, and violence. It doesn’t matter that millions of Americans love to watch sporting events live or on television because sports are not explicitly protected by the Constitution, they divert resources away from BIPOCs, and they emit literally tons of carbon into the atmosphere. </p><p>Anti-sporters like myself have never played or watched any professional sport in our lives, but we know everything there is to know not to like them and that is sufficient to call for a ban. Millions of Americans just like me wonder how long policymakers are going to allow this, this, this genocide to continue. It has got to stop and here is why. </p><p>First, while like-minded allies long ago managed to curtail alcohol sales late in games, all that did was to induce people to start drinking earlier. Now, we’ve discovered via a thorough investigation conducted on Tik Tok, fans show up in the parking lots of sporting events hours early so they can get drunk, gorge themselves on animal products, and likely fornicate too. </p><p>Some might say that impaired driving, not alcohol or drug use per se, kills people and that responsible drug and alcohol use isn’t hurting anyone. Those people are idiots. We don’t have any reliable statistics, but we know that literally millions of babies have been killed by drunk or high sports fans. (Yes, some of those babies may have been squirrels but squirrels are people too!) </p><p>Namby-pamby types will also claim that gambling doesn’t hurt anyone, except the losers, but they knew what they were getting into. But gambling is an addiction, just like drinking and drugs. Again, we don’t have statistics, but we heard an anecdote about a baby run over by a guy checking his phone to see if “da Iggles” covered the spread. We don’t know what that means exactly but we know it is about sports gambling. </p><p>As for harming animals, footballs, we learned on Wikipedia, are made from pig skin. The thought of all those skinless hogs running around somewhere just makes our blood boil. There must be some pretty cold cows out there, too, because baseball gloves and balls are made from cowhide. We’re told that every time a baseball touches the ground, it gets replaced. That’s a lot of baseballs and although cows are pretty big that must be a lot of harmed cows. </p><p>The idleness and violence go hand-in-hand with drinking and gambling. How many trillions of dollars are wasted each year as people watch some guys pat each other’s butts and smash poor balls, or each other? Again, nobody is tracking these things but it is obvious that it is a giant waste. </p><p>It is equally obvious that professional sports are bad for the environment. We can’t find it right now, but we once saw a study that claimed that up to half of global warming is caused by lacrosse alone. </p><p> If people worked instead of wasting their precious time on professional sports, America could easily afford to pay reparations to BIPOCs and other oppressed groups du jour. The athletes themselves would have to get real jobs too, thus providing even more support for the economy. And taxpayers could stop subsidizing sports stadiums and increase subsidies for worthy things, like NPR and carbon pipelines. </p><p>Banning professional sports might sound unconstitutional. Didn’t the government have to pass an amendment before it banned alcohol? Yes! I’m an expert because I have read the Constitution all the way through, except for the boring and confusing parts, almost three times. One approach would be to convinces states to ban sports. Start easy, like the Dakotas, which don’t have any sports, except maybe for rodeos. </p><p>Then California because while policymakers there like drug use, they don’t like carbon emissions and need money to pay reparations. The leagues will then lose a lot of their teams and won’t be able to afford to defend themselves in other state legislatures. Then the federal government could step in under the interstate commerce clause. I couldn’t actually find an amendment saying this, but I have it on good authority that the greatest president of all time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, packed the Supreme Court full of the greatest justices of all time and they all agreed that the Constitution doesn’t mean what it says, it means what they say it means, and they said it means the federal government can do whatever the heck it wants if it affects the economy in any way. If you don’t believe me, ask Farmer Filburn. </p><p>There is an amendment that bothers us, though, the Ninth. It seems to say that people have a bunch of other rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and, taken with the Preamble, suggests that the government ought to leave people to do what they want for the most part. Hardly anyone ever mentions that amendment, though, so we’re guessing it was really about slavery. </p><p>In sum, we don’t like sports though we know nothing about them but we feel that they are bad and are willing to concoct evidence and twist reality to convince a slim majority of our fellow Americans to join us in banning them. </p><p>Robert E. Wright is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and a part time satirist who loves sports and also firearms, which are explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution yet under assault in Massachusetts.</p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-57951514672885086882023-08-15T23:46:00.006+00:002023-08-15T23:46:39.098+00:00Worker Productivity Through the Ages<p>NB: 100% sure I wrote this but I don't recall when or why! Found it on my Google Drive. Pretty sure it isn't published anywhere.</p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Worker Productivity Through the Ages</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Productivity is generally defined as total output divided by total input, which can be stated in terms of time or some unit of currency. If output increases (decreases) while input stays constant, or if output increases faster (slower) than inputs, productivity rises (falls). Productivity is related to, but should not be confused with, efficiency, which is the expected input divided by actual input needed to achieve some level of output, often stated in percentage terms by multiplying by 100.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Despite its simple definition, productivity remains so difficult to meaningfully measure that economists generally treat it as a residual by lumping the productivity of different types of workers into total factor productivity (TFP), the portion of increases in output not explained by increases in inputs (more formally, Y = A*K*L, where Y is total output, A is TFP, K is capital’s share of input, and L is labor’s share of input) </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/4Oos" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Comin 2008)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Increases in TFP can usually be linked to specific technological advances, as Shackleton does for the USA after 1870 </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/sPez" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Shackleton 2013)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Economists generally dislike measures of worker productivity, however, because most merely measure the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">efficiency</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> of individual workers, while others compute averages instead of the productivity of the marginal worker, i.e., the last worker toiling to complete some task. For over a century, economists have argued that marginal analysis trumps the analysis of averages or other central tendencies. (Harry Jerome, “The Measurement of Productivity Changes and the Displacement of Labor,” </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">American Economic Review</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> 22, 1 (March 1932): 32-40; George Stigler, “Economic Problems in Measuring Changes in Productivity” in NBER, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Output, Input, and Productivity Measurement</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961], 47-78.) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In short, productivity measurement remains inherently contextual, varying with the question the measurer seeks to address as well as the physical realities of different workplaces and spaces </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/GDOw" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Sena 2020)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Measurements appropriate for one time and place may prove entirely inappropriate, or downright impossible, for another. Even simple measures of labor productivity, like output per unit of time, can depend crucially on raw material input availability, incentives to work, market demand, and seasonality. Output quality must also be considered, especially when concepts like minimal acceptability are unavailable or inappropriate. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This section, “Worker Productivity Through the Ages,” provides important examples of the changing contextuality of productivity from humanity’s origins through the Neolithic Revolution to ancient historical civilizations and the modern productivity revolutions in agriculture, communication, manufacturing, and transportation, to the recent domination of labor share by construction, government, and knowledge workers.</span></p><p><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Prehistoric Productivity</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Early humans (hominins) coevolved with their technologies to the point that modern humans themselves could be considered the first general purpose technology (GPT-HS). It appears likely that evolution by means of natural selection drove early humans to use productivity gains – perhaps from technologies like fire or other ways of denaturing/predigesting food </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/py7k" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Sanfelice and Temussi 2016)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, stone tools </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/ZeM7" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Semaw et al. 2009)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, and trade – to biologically purchase bigger, more complex brains capable of developing yet more sophisticated technologies or of producing existing technologies more efficiently </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/8YC0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Ofek 2001)</span></a><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/UFKm+D6VH" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Wilson 2020)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. The medium of purchase was calories and the other nutritional inputs needed to grow and fuel brains, which are biologically expensive </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/UFKm+zp9Z" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Kotrschal et al. 2013)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/UFKm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> While the precise timing and mechanisms remain unknown, hominin encephalization certainly occurred over several million years as average brain volume grew faster than body weight, from 440 cc to over 1,300 cc. From impressions left on fossil craniums, scientists know that hominin brains also grew more complex as human-technology coevolution occurred </span></a><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/nStr+5HNX" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(</span></a><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/fUtT" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Rightmire 2009</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">; </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/nStr+5HNX" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Gunz et al. 2020; </span></a><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/JZ6E" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tarlach 2020</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">; </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/nStr+5HNX" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Price 2021)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Except for stone and bone tools and hearths (fire pits), most early human technologies left little or no direct evidence in the archeological record. Although measuring stone or bone tool production productivity in the modern sense will remain impossible, scientists have estimated manufacturing </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">efficiency </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">by modeling the ratio of waste rock to useful blades, or length of cutting edge to original stone mass, after reconstructing the knapping or fracturing process employed. Some conduct experiments by knapping rocks themselves using the same tools and techniques that early humans did, and comparing the results to archeological data taken from ancient lithic quarries and tool manufacturing sites </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/aKmr" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Schlanger 1996)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Scientists have generally found gradual increases in raw material efficiency over lithic technological evolution </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/l6OO+SVI3" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Castañeda 2016; Muller and Clarkson 2016)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Other specialists have performed similar experiments on bone tools </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/i4I5+pVXh" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Karr 2015; Karr and Outram 2015)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. The complexity of stone and bone tools has also been quantified and shown to have increased over time </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/6iWZ" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Perreault et al. 2013)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, as exemplified by lithic miniaturization, or the production of microliths – very small stone tools with high cutting efficiency by weight </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/YFZP" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Pargeter and Shea 2019)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Similarly, while scientists will never know with certainty how long it took early humans to start or maintain fires </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/7WfC" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Alperson-Afil 2017)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, they can discern which fuels were used. Iron Age farmers in northwestern continental Europe, for example, used all available fuel sources: dung, peat, and wood </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/wupd" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Braadbaart et al. 2017)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. The efficiency of hearth construction </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/qqRI+JCxk" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Black and Thorns 2014; Graesch et al. 2014)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and hearth placement in caves and manmade structures </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/05xw+8BXY" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Kedar et al. 2020; Kedar et al. 2022)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> has also been measured by comparing experimental to archaeological data </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/2Uot" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Brodard et al. 2016)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Measuring the productivity of hunting and gathering remains fraught because the amount of time it took to acquire sufficient food, clothing, and tool materials was undoubtedly partly a complex function of the ratio of the human population to target species and the intensity of trade networks </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/Row7" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Deino et al. 2018)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Scientists presume, however, that more complex technologies increased productivity by making it easier/faster to harvest animals as well as sundry vegetable materials like fruits, nuts, seeds, and tubers. The ability to haft stone points, for example, allowed early human hunters to more effectively kill large game animals starting half a million years ago </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/mq4z" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Wilkins et al. 2012)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, while the ability to create cordage from animal sinews or vegetable matter allowed them to make better clothing, carry packs, mats, huts/homes, and even boats </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/2GhU" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Hardy et al. 2020)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Indeed, new evidence suggests that over 40,000 years ago some human groups regularly caught pelagic fish (e.g., tuna), implying both deep sea boating and fishing technologies </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/zsjp" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(O’Connor et al. 2011)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Such improved technologies rendered early humans more productive, freeing their time to develop yet more complex technologies, plus cultural goods that both displayed and aided their conceptual prowess in ways too complex and distant to be disentangled </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/LiXX" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Wadley 2013)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. </span></p><p><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Productivity Gains During the Neolithic Transition to Agriculture</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Early humans were productive enough to survive and spread across most of the Old World </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/Row7+mN05" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Deino et al. 2018; Gunz et al. 2009)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Although population estimates vary, genetic and ecological studies indicate that early humans clearly were less populous than humans today </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/Row7+mN05+806A" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Huff et al. 2010)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Adoption of agriculture, the domestication and deliberate production of numerous plant and animal species, drove additional technological changes, like those associated with small-scale metallurgy and manufacturing </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/f4D8" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Moorey 1999)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, that eventually made higher human population levels possible. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Scientists still do not fully understand, however, why the Neolithic Revolution, the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, occurred when and why it did </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/jtQU" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Weisdorf 2005)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> because farming initially meant more work, higher incidences of disease, and increased mortality </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/rVTx" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(de Becdelièvre et al. 2021)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. It increasingly appears that small groups grew into farming over time instead of transitioning in large numbers in a single generation as sometimes supposed. Herding and hunting were complimentary activities, as were fishing and farming, suggesting that mixed subsistence strategies could sustain growing populations until agricultural productivity in the richest agricultural areas improved due to learning-by-doing, increased climatic stability </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/uSR9" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Matranga and Pascali 2021)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, and perhaps improved property rights </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/CgAH+1ap1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Bowles and Choi 2019; Bowles and Choi 2013)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. </span></p><p><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Measuring Productivity in the Ancient Historical Era</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The ancient Chinese, Greeks, Indians, Mayans, Mesopotomians, Persians, and Romans invented several crucial new general purpose technologies, including writing </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/ME8m" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Bywater 2013)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and mathematics </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/CaJR+B6JG" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Boyer and Merzbach 1993; Cuomo 2005)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, that increased productivity directly and also led to new or greatly improved specific technologies </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/ReW8" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Krebs 2004)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. The Romans, for example, developed or improved boats, wheeled vehicles, water-lifting technologies, and watermills, among many other technologies </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/RIJf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Greene 1990)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, while the Greeks invented coins, a mechanical astronomical computer, and napalm, among other things </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/fO8G" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Freeth et al. 2021)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Although all flourished during golden ages, typically periods characterized by high levels of economic freedom </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/wXYX" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Bergh and Lyttkens 2014)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, none of those civilizations experienced the sustained, across-the-board increases in TFP associated with modern economies. Indeed, many collapsed politically and economically for reasons not fully understood </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/WNFE" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Tainter 1988)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Some may have succumbed to the sunk cost fallacy, clinging to old habits and habitations even after they became environmentally untenable </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/f07c" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Janssen and Scheffer 2004)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Others appear to have suffered from the increased power of rent seeking institutions that constrained property rights and thus limited incentives to innovate </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/0Shb+Y0s9" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Westermann 1915; Bó et al. 2015)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Productivity in the Age of Economic Revolution</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">After the demise of the ancient civilizations, the productivity of agricultural workers stagnated, though subject to intermittent reversals and shocks like the Black Death (Jonathan Jarrett, “Outgrowing the Dark Ages: Agrarian Productivity in Carolingian Europe Re-evaluated,” </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Agricultural History Review</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> 67 (2019): 1-28.) Introduction of the heavy plow around 1000 AD, for example, allowed for more extensive cultivation in Northern Europe that aided nascent urbanization and hence economic specialization, long considered a driver of non-agricultural productivity increases </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/mc5g" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Andersen et al. 2016)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Starting in Holland in the seventeenth century, rapid increases in agricultural productivity freed up farmers, and especially their children, to work in emerging or rapidly growing industries, including those in the trade, transportation, industrial, and communication sectors. Eventually, those sectors also shed workers as technology-induced productivity increases rendered their labor unnecessary </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/E5RP+LpmH" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Ville 1986)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">gricultural productivity increases stemmed only in part from mechanization </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/t47L" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Collins and Thirsk 2000)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, productivity increases in which were often driven by competition between small farm implement manufacturers </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/EkHa" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Binswanger 1986)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. At first, productivity increases derived mainly from improved techniques and seeds </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/EkHa+ql5o" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Olmstead and Rhode 2008)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, as well as productivity improvements in fencing, ditching, and draining </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/GDOw+IZs5" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Baugher 2001)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Although it proved difficult to compare agricultural productivity internationally, slower agricultural productivity growth clearly constrained economic, especially industrial, development in twentieth-century Europe </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/twOQ+CbuI" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(O'Brien et al. 1992; Cosgel 2006)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and elsewhere </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/NnaJ" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Baumol 1987)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Countries with robust increases in agricultural productivity, like the USA, by contrast, also experienced rapid increases in industrial productivity </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/kp4x+6RG3" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Broadberry 1994; Broadberry and Irwin 2004)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Following Marx and others </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/yUqJ" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Shantz et al. 2014)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, many scholars have assumed that industrialization, especially under the so-called “scientific management” principles of Frederick Taylor and his disciples </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/mcCi" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Gilbreth 1914)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, alienated and de-skilled workers, turning them from GPTs into the appendages of machines. Evidence of large scale de-skilling over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries remains scant </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/YWw9" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Form 1987)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, though deskilling may cycle </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/8vCm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Sabel and Zeitlin 1985)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, increasing when disruptive new technologies proliferate rapidly but declining over time as workers learn to troubleshoot and fix the machines they tend and feed with raw materials or data </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/HGgm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Form and Hirschhorn 1985)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Just as productivity increases freed agricultural workers to move into industrial jobs, productivity increases freed industrial workers to move into government and service jobs and to morph into “knowledge workers” who rely on the power of their brain rather than their brawn.</span></p><p><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Difficulties Measuring the Productivity of Knowledge and Government Workers</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In the second half of the twentieth century, knowledge workers came to dominate labor share in leading economies like that of the USA </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/phu6+Ynjp" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Drucker 2018; Cortada 2009)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Government workers, including direct employees and contractors, also became an increasingly large percentage of the workforce in many countries after World War II </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/utUm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Light 2019)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">To this day, it remains difficult to measure the productivity of knowledge workers </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/2Uot+DzPK" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Ramírez and Nembhard 2004)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, in part because worker inputs cannot be easily discerned. Engineers, for example, may be physically present at work but mentally absent </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/hzwk" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Jones and Chung 2006)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Ditto financial services providers </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/E5RP" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Zieschang 2018)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Construction industry productivity also fluctuates due to mental inattentiveness to measurements and plan details </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/2VSE" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Motwani et al. 1995)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Measuring the productivity of nurses also remains difficult because of the mixed physical-mental nature of their jobs and the necessity of maintaining quality of care standards above all </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/eP2S" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Nania 2006)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Measuring the productivity of knowledge workers who work in, or for, government remains notoriously difficult, but almost everyone concedes it is relatively low </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/ljDP" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Bouckaert 1990)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> due to the nature of bureaucracies and compulsory monopolies </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/WAXi" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Haenisch 2012)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In some specific contexts, knowledge worker productivity can be estimated </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/RU9p" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Iazzolino and Laise 2018)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> or deduced from efficiency, utilization, or quality measures </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/RU9p+Cg7x" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Al‐Darrab 2000)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Trends in management productivity can also be deduced from changes in the productivity of factory workers or other laborers whose productivity can be more directly assessed </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/fdya" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Goldman 1959)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Moreover, knowledge worker productivity usually varies strongly and positively with compensation and other incentives </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/9ryZ" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Kaufman 1992)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Their productivity is also positively associated with educational level </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/8JP7" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Rangazas 2002)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, age </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/vevk" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Burtless 2013)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, and healthy sleep patterns </span><a href="https://paperpile.com/c/31ryma/5CeL" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Nena et al. 2010)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">References</span></p><p><a href="http://paperpile.com/b/31ryma/Cg7x" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-indent: -22pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Al</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">‐</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Darrab, Ibrahim A. 2000. “Relationships between Productivity, Efficiency, Utilization, and Quality.” </span><span style="color: black; 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Schoville, Kyle S. Brown, and Michael Chazan. 2012. “Evidence for Early Hafted Hunting Technology.” </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Science</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. https://doi.org/</span></a><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1227608" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-indent: -22pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">10.1126/science.1227608</span></a><a href="http://paperpile.com/b/31ryma/mq4z" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-indent: -22pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></a></p><p><a href="http://paperpile.com/b/31ryma/UFKm" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-indent: -22pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Wilson, Bart J. 2020. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Property Species: Mine, Yours, and the Human Mind</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Oxford University Press.</span></a></p><p><a href="http://paperpile.com/b/31ryma/E5RP" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Zieschang, K. 2018. “Productivity Measurement in Sectors with Hard-to-Measure Output.” </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Oxford Handbook of Productivity Analysis</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. https://doi.org/</span></a><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190226718.013.6" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190226718.013.6</span></a><a href="http://paperpile.com/b/31ryma/E5RP" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></a></p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-53599522622263633562023-08-15T16:14:00.009+00:002023-08-15T16:14:48.825+00:00How the New Deal Subdued Private Charity<p> N.B. Another belated entry from FreedomFest. Gave a PPT instead of this speech on this one. Would copy the slides but I always found that difficult. So here is some text on the matter, which melds ideas from my forthcoming Liberty Lost (on nonprofits) with my almost finished New Deal ms.</p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If you think you have it bad today, exactly 90 years ago the U.S. was in the depths of the Depression and there was a progressive Democrat in the Oval Office pushing through a set of radical policies that dramatically and permanently transformed America, largely for the worse. His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his policies were collectively called the New Deal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One of the many awful things to come out of FDR’s New Deal, which was a sort of proto-Great Reset, was the crowding out of private charity. Although private charity in America remains robust compared to other countries, it’s a shell of its former glorious self because of policies implemented by FDR.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Alexis D’Tocqueville famously pointed out that Americans loved to associate together to overcome problems. Other foreign visitors and contemporary legal scholars tracking court cases and precedents were similarly amazed at Americans’ ability to self organize.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Many early voluntary associations were little more than informal clubs but the most significant ones formed corporations, what we today called nonprofits. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The split between for- and nonprofits corporations began in England back in the day but the distinction became clearer in the early national period of the U.S. due to a dispute over the Bank of North America or BNA.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Some people wanted the BNA to provide services to the community instead of just its stockholders and depositors. After an extensive public and legislative debate, it was decided that “moneyed” corporations had no such obligations unless explicitly stipulated in their charters. Nobody would invest in institutions that sought to achieve non-monetary goals or that could be influenced by outside parties, a point proven when a Massachusetts life insurer later found it difficult to secure equity financing when its charter stipulated large payments to a charitable hospital.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">People who wanted to pursue broader goals were welcomed, however, to form non-pecuniary corporations to pursue those ends. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And they did.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">My forthcoming book, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Liberty Lost</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, puts some concrete numbers on the size of America’s Third Sector. By tracing charters in state statute books, I can say with certainty that the various U.S. states between 1800 and the Civil War allowed the formation of over 15,000 nonprofit corporations, or about 1 per year for every 100,000 Americans.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Additional nonprofits chartered by general acts of incorporation are not included in that figure because they are much more difficult to track but they also likely numbered in the thousands.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Nonprofits included everything from charities, religious and secular, to marching bands and armed militia units. Many nonprofit schools also formed, as did fraternal organizations, scientific institutes, agricultural and medical societies, and abolitionist groups.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Even within the charity category, the range of services voluntarily provided was enormous, and literally cradle to grave, with charities devoted to helping pregnant women, postpartum women, infants and young children, and older children who were orphaned or simply unwanted.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Various nonprofit clinics helped people throughout life deal with health problems, from rotten teeth to abscesses and cancer, and deficiencies of food and fuel. Nonprofit hospitals helped the very sick to die and various fraternals made sure that members received proper burials and that their surviving spouses and children received some monetary aid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">During and after the Civil War, the nonprofit sector grew ever larger and broader. Progressives worked to replace parts of the Third Sector with government institutions, like mental asylums, by arguing for economies of scale and more uniform treatment, at least at the state level. They made some progress nationalizing services traditionally provided by the Third Sector but not until the Great Depression and New Deal was private charity truly assailed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The New Deal’s overall agenda was to replace individual autonomy and initiative with federal government programs so that FDR would have the patronage leverage necessary to win re-election in 1936, 1940, and 1944. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">New Deal critics like Garet Garrett and E.C. Harwood saw the New Deal for what it was, a major step toward state socialism and collectivism but the New Dealers won the battle for hearts and minds, a major theme of my forthcoming book </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">FDR’s Great Reset: The Collectivist Miseries of the New Deal</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">so most Americans were inculcated with the notion that FDR saved America and its economy, especially those worst off, who nobody else could or did help.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In fact, while the recession that began in August 1929 was caused by the business cycle, the subsequent downturn was due to the Federal Reserve’s bungling, that damnable tariff, and high wage policies. The New Deal prolonged the downturn, especially in employment, and squelched the bounce off the March 1933 nadir with unconstitutional power grabs like the NRA and its wretched Blue Eagle.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Iconic pictures of long lines of unemployed men waiting for soup and stale bread were caused, in large part, by the New Deal’s destruction of America’s traditional social safety net, the ability to work for room and board, with minimum wage laws.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Part of the New Deal’s disinformation campaign included bashing America’s Third Sector, especially the charitable component, as ineffective in the face of the greatness of the Depression. In 1938, for example, WPA researchers dug up the fact that Mrs. James John Roosevelt, one of FDR’s ancestors, had asked the New York Common Council to aid unemployed seamstresses in 1851 because QUOTE all assistance from Charitable Societies is withdrawn UNQUOTE. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The withdrawal occurred but the New Deal friendly factoid excluded crucial context: charities stockpiled funds during relatively good years, like 1851, so they would have ample resources for relatively bad years, like 1857. That strategy also helped to mitigate free rider problems because if a worker was unemployed during a depression, it may not have been the worker’s fault but if a worker was unemployed for an extended period in good times, it probably was the worker’s fault for not taking the ubiquitous room and board option.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In part because they had stocked up on assets during the Roaring 20s, nonprofits did a tolerable job during the Depression. Most fraternals continued to pay promised benefits and charities continued to fulfill their missions. New England, which had long since developed the deepest charity network in the nation, held up particularly well.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If that seems incredible, keep in mind that the Depression was pretty sweet if you remained employed, as 3 out of 4 Americans did even at the worst point. Real wages, that is nominal wages adjusted for deflation, were high and assets were dirt cheap. Many could afford to increase their charitable contributions, and did.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The biggest threat to charities was not the Depression, but the New Deal’s large tax increases, which of course fell hardest on those most able to donate to charities. Later, charities were able to fight back by securing tax deductions for charitable contributions but they had already lost much ground to Uncle Sam. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The New Deal did not directly attack charities like it did for-profit corporations but it clearly favored some over others, like FDR’s charity, the Warm Springs Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which raised much money starting in 1934 thanks to celebrity endorsements from Mickey Rooney, Lucille Ball, and others. Even staunch Republicans like Robert Taylor were forced, by the terms of their Hollywood contracts, to pitch in too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The misinformation campaign surrounding Social Security was particularly intense. New Dealers noted that 50 percent of the elderly lived in poverty in 1935 without noting that most of those received additional assistance from families, charities, and/or local governments. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The percentage of Americans aged 65 or older who were institutionalized indeed doubled during the Depression, but only from 1.5 to 3 percent, a level lower than that recorded in 1910. The system of private security, which included saving for superannuation via a prudent mix of investment in real estate, insurance, and securities, bent but did not break. The New Deal simply assumed it away, as it did much else in the name of the national “emergency.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The ramifications of this sea change are still being felt today. Many churches, for example, allowed the government to begin providing relief and in the process reduced demand for their services, pun very much intended. They still passed the hat to fund their own activities but no longer stood as bulwarks against community deterioration as Uncle Sam crowded out an estimated 30 percent of religious charity.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Instead of combatting incursions like Social Security and poor relief, leaders of secular charities also caved to the New Deal. Some even liked the idea of turning over the most costly problems to the federal government so they could concentrate on more niche issues. But of course that led to a decrease in contributions because many donors found their new missions less important.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">What everyone seems to have forgotten is that nonprofits are the most democratic means of alleviating social problems. Instead of voting for politicians who then do what they want, which often means aiding their re-election campaigns, individuals vote with their time and dollars in a voluntary system. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The most important and effective charities thrive while the ineffective ones fail due to lack of funds. That induces them to compete with each other for donor dollars instead of currying favors from politicians and bureaucrats, as many do today to secure government grant money. That makes them mere appendages of government instead of independent expressions of the will of donors and the strength of volunteerism, which is exactly what New Dealers wanted.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">To regain some liberty, the American people need to not just shrink federal spending, they also need to step into the resulting vacuum with privately funded charities and other nonprofits organizations. And as they did in the 1780s and periodically thereafter, they need to remind people that for-profit corporations thrive only when they are allowed to earn profits and not turned into the unwilling vehicles of government policymakers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I argue that maintenance of a vigorous system of voluntary association is one of the many unenumerated rights that should be, but currently isn’t, protected by the Ninth Amendment. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But I’ll save that discussion for another time and place.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Thank you!</span></p><p><br /></p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-18046539435835550812023-08-15T16:07:00.003+00:002023-08-15T16:07:45.139+00:00It's a Trick Question! Who Is More Important, Smith, Marx, or Keynes?<p> N.B. I started this speech before realizing it was a panel session! Made many of the same arguments in the discussion at FreedomFest Memphis 2023.</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Obviously, the question is a trick or trap because the clear winner is Alexander Hamilton. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I realize that might be a dangerous proposition to espouse at a libertarian convention but several other</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> classical liberal scholars, like Richard Salsman, also have lauded Hamilton’s grasp of economics.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In fact, I learned just yesterday that Salsman has an article on Hamilton as economist forthcoming in</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Independent Review</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Interestingly, except on international trade, Salsman makes different points from what I will here today. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The difference between Hamilton’s advocates and critics is that his advocates have actually studied </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">what Hamilton said and did in its totality and do not simply follow old canards, most of which stem from attempts to leverage Hamilton’s genius for partisan gain.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">So please keep an open mind. You can find minute documentation of all of this in several of my books</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and articles as well as those of Salsman, financial historians Richard Sylla and David Cowen, and </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">international trade economist Doug Irwin.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">One might protest that Hamilton was not an economist but in fact he was one heck of an economist </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and was able, as Treasury Secretary, to test many of his ideas in the real world. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He was, in that respect, more of an empirical or scientific economist than most, who were mere scribblers or, worse, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">professors</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The mature Hamilton, as Treasury Secretary, was not so much a critic of Adam Smith </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">as he extended some of Smith’s ideas to new realms. Aaron Burr assassinated him before he could</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> formalize his ideas but nevertheless he made numerous key contributions in the areas of asymmetric </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">information, particularly moral hazard in bailouts and corporations; international trade, specifically in </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">what would later be called Harberger Triangles; administrative efficiency; the economics of slavery;</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and the limits of sovereign debt.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Hamilton was long gone before Marx or Keynes came along but he sure as heck was no communist </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and he debunked the notion that deficit financing could smooth out the business cycle before Keynes </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">revivified it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Smith infamously disdained corporations due to their high agency costs. Instead of trying to squelch </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">corporations in America, Hamilton sought ways to reduce principal-agent problems within corporations </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">by authoring at least four corporate charters, three for banks and one for a manufacturing company, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">with built in checks and balances. They proved incomplete in the case of the manufacturing company </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">but the problem was corrected and the banks did extremely well.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Three of those charters moved the country towards general incorporation statutes by showing it was </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">possible to create a joint-stock company, with limited liability and entity shielding, without a formal state </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">charter. Although adopted slowly, general incorporation helped to ensure that America’s economy </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">remained open access and entrepreneurial.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Hamilton believed in economic freedom, including the right to form non-profit voluntary associations to </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">alleviate social issues and what we now call sound money. He was responsible for defining the US </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">dollar in terms of gold and silver and ensuring that bank notes and deposits were convertible on </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">demand into specific amounts of precious metals. He also helped to ensure that inconvertible bills of </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">credit or other forms of fiat money issued by state governments were made unconstitutional.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In terms of the moral hazard involved in bailouts, Hamilton in 1791 and 1792 developed what would </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">later be called Bagehot’s Rule, which states that the lender of last resort should lend freely at a penalty </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">rate to all who could post sufficient good collateral. That rule stops panics by protecting solvent </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">borrowers but denying subsidies to insolvent ones.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Hamilton was an abolitionist, pushing to rid New York of the peculiar institution, which he understood </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">was profitable for enslavers but ultimately bad for economic growth and development. Had he lived, he </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">almost surely would have written an analysis like that of Hinton Helper by the mid-1820s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">His views on the national debt and international trade are perhaps the most important to discuss </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">because they are so often misunderstood.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Unlike Smith, who deprecated all state debts, Hamilton was a debt realist. He held that governments </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">should borrow to fund wars and other major state functions, like the acquisition of territory. During </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">peacetime, it should repay its previous borrowings to the extent possible, borrowing on net if </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">necessary during downturns but simply to fund normal government operations, not to stimulate the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">economy. Debt repayment could hurt the economy, so it should not be rapid but rather aided by growth in population and productivity. And any increase should be linked to new taxes to mute the “borrow and </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">spend” habit that politicians find so alluring.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In short, Hamilton did not believe in a large, permanent national debt as his critics claim by eliding his </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">correct assertion that the national debt is a blessing QUOTE if it is not excessive UNQUOTE. He even </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">detailed what he meant by an excessive national debt and I’m chagrined to report that the US national </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">debt has been excessive by Hamilton’s measure since the great bailouts following the Global Financial </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Crisis of 2008.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The national debt helped the economy, he correctly noted, because it helped to create loyalty to the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">new government, thus unifying the country and reducing policy uncertainty. It also helped by providing </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">businesses and banks with a liquid security in which they could safely stash cash. The market for </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">government bonds helped the development of markets for corporate bonds and equities, which </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">provided entrepreneurs with external funding options outside of the banking system.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Critics also like to claim that Hamilton implemented a protective tariff though the notion has been </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">exploded by numerous scholars, including Dartmouth’s Doug Irwin. Hamilton put in place a revenue </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">tariff carefully geared toward maximizing government revenue by charging a higher rate on luxury </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">items, like imported liquor. Hamilton infamously taxed domestic whiskey production in part to </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">discourage domestic liquor production.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Confusion arises because later protectionists used and abused Hamilton’s Report on Manufacturers to </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">claim that Hamilton was a protectionist. He was not. His Report was didactic, explaining the options </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">open to Congress. So he discussed rather than espoused so-called infant industries. In his discussion </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">of the relative costs and benefits of protective tariffs and bounties, he clearly noted that tariffs created </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">two deadweight loss triangles while bounties created only one, which is what international trade </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">textbooks still argue.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Hamilton understood that taxes of all types should be minimized because of the distortions and tax </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">wedges they cause. But the national debt had to be serviced and paid down. Hamilton preferred </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">revenue tariffs over other types of taxes because they were relatively easy to collect at ports of entry </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and were embedded in prices. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">As the federal government learned twice in the 1790s, internal taxes threatened liberty and </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">insurrection but they had to be established lest tariffs failed to produce the needful during war or </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">economic downturn. Tariffs indeed served as the government’s largest peacetime revenue stream, with </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">excise taxes like the whisky excise a close second, until implementation of the income tax in the 20th </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">century.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In sum, Hamilton extended Adam Smith to the real world of policy and passed with flying colors. The </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">other two guys aren’t even close as Marx wanted to enslave all to the state and Keynes wanted to </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">deficit finance to smooth business cycles and to a large extent has gotten us into the excessive debt </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">mess we are currently in.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-69009330384327789662023-08-07T14:09:00.001+00:002023-08-07T14:09:14.695+00:00US Debt Closer to Junk<p> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Sirs,</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-37dc1b00-7fff-c27f-6092-894332851d1d"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I channel through policy historian Robert E. Wright from the Great Beyond to warn that the recent debt downgrades by Mr. Fitch is much too sanguine. America’s debt today should be rated closer to junk than to top notch. The situation is not quite as dire as when I accepted General Washington’s request to serve as the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, but reforms akin to those that I implemented in the early 1790s must be made lest the nation’s public credit be impaired further.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A dozen years ago, Mr. Poor also downgraded the nation’s public securities a notch, leaving only Mr. Moody to assure the public that nothing is amiss. All of the Big Three credit rating agencies, it must be observed, inflate the scores of all but the most pathetic securities lest they face challenge. Given the power of the executive branch of the national government to tax, regulate, and otherwise control private entities and persons, rest assured that Messrs. Poor, Moody, and Fitch tremble at the notion of making public their true views of America’s current creditworthiness.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In my time, the prices of public debt obligations served as a reliable guide of creditworthiness. I watched proudly as my fiscal policies, though the subject of partisan controversy, steadily raised the price of public obligations from a few pennies on the dollar to above par. American economic independence from Britain was definitively achieved when the yields on its bonds dipped below those of the Mother Country, in Britain’s own markets no less.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bond prices then were internationally comparable because stated essentially in gold or silver. Today, with the globe awash in bills of credit (“fiat money” as currently fashioned), they convey less information about creditworthiness and more about relative inflation expectations and the ability of some nations, like the United States, to force debt on their own citizens and on other governments. Creditworthiness is thus more subjective today, but still amenable to analysis.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I once stated that America’s national debt would be a blessing and a cement to the Union and it long proved a net benefit. The government’s ability to borrow large sums relatively quickly and cheaply saved the country from recolonization in the 1810s, being ripped into two by a massive insurrection in the 1860s, and being dominated by evil foreign powers in the 1940s. Yet despite those exertions it remained so easily manageable that it was completely paid off in the 1830s and could have been again in the 1910s if a great war had not interceded.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In the same breath that I extolled the virtues of public credit, however, I warned that the national debt could become excessive and hence a net burden. It became excessive following the government’s unwarranted bailout during the Global Panic of 2008, which triggered the downgrade by Mr. Poor. The Great Pandemic of 2020 occasioned another burst of unwarranted borrowing and the capitulation of Mr. Fitch.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I say unwarranted because both episodes broke rules that I laid down as Treasury Secretary and that were followed even by my Virginian political rivals. Firstly, during panics government money should be employed to make loans only to private parties willing to pay a penalty rate and able to post sufficient collateral. Due to my untimely death, this rule has come to be associated with one Mr. Bagehot. Whatever the attribution, adherence to the rule stymies panics by assuring solvent businesses that they can obtain gold if necessary while not subsidizing insolvent concerns. The technique of flooding the market with bills of credit and lending capital to commercial enterprises encourages nothing but profligacy in private business and extravagance with the public purse.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Secondly, the Treasury should never borrow money to stimulate the economy or to transfer resources from one citizen to another, or from the citizens of this nation to those of another. It should borrow only for emergencies, like just wars, and when tax receipts prove insufficient to service the debt during an unexpected downturn in trade. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Although I sought to establish a national government larger and more vigorous than the one sought by my political rivals, even I am appalled by its current size and scope and am amazed that the legislative and judicial branches have allowed the executive to gain control of the public purse. America must restore its balance through legislation and court decisions before the republic is lost to an oligopoly of placemen and sycophants.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Thirdly, governments should never borrow money without also raising a tax sufficient to service and retire the resulting debt. In addition to putting creditors at their ease, such a policy minimizes the incentive of politicians to borrow and spend, which creates the illusion that they have provided some benefit without a cost.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Until America follows its unwritten fiscal constitution and grows out of its current debt burden, Treasury’s debt will remain closer to the junk status of the 1780s than to the AAA status my policies elevated it to in the 1790s, regardless of the letters assigned to it by the likes of Messrs. Fitch, Poor, and Moody.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Mr. Hamilton chose to channel through Robert E. Wright, a senior faculty fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, because of his authorship of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One Nation Under Debt: Hamilton, Jefferson, and the History of What We Owe</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (2018).</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-90382920687804289672023-03-31T19:45:00.000+00:002023-03-31T19:45:04.461+00:00Joe B<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Sing to the tune of Dolly Parton's "Jolene")</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B, Joe B, Joe B, Joe B</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-1b35a097-7fff-2369-e5fe-a7026190ba3e"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m begging of you please don’t take our liberty</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B, Joe B, Joe B, Joe B</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please don’t take it just because you control our country</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your cunning is beyond compare</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With nasty patches of snowy hair</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With Tom Cruise sunglasses your eyes hidden</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your smile is like the breath of the Grinch</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your voice is hard like a thunderstorm</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And we cannot compete with your F-16s</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At major public events you do sleep</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And there is nothing I can do to keep</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From crying when Twitter bots defend your name</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I can easily foresee</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How easily you can take our liberty </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But you don’t know what it means to everybody</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B, Joe B, Joe B, Joe B</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m begging of you please don’t take our liberty</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B, Joe B, Joe B, Joe B</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please don’t take it just because you can</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You could have your choice of trans-men</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But we can never have liberty again</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the only thing for us</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had to write this song for you</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our life, liberty, and happiness depends on you</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And whatever you decide to do</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B, Joe B, Joe B, Joe B</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m begging of you please don’t take our liberty</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B, Joe B, Joe B, Joe B</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please don’t take it even though you can</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe B, Joe B</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-55383947348343974652023-01-21T14:33:00.000+00:002023-01-21T14:33:41.668+00:00California's Reparations Conundrum<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The state of California and some of its municipal subdivisions currently contemplate paying reparations to their Black residents. This reparations measure is not for chattel slavery per se, as slavery was historically illegal in California dating to its admission to the union in 1850. Rather, it is a supposed recompense for creating slavery-like conditions that activists ascribe to under-elaborated injustices of California’s past. It is reparations for repression, in other words. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sums being discussed, </span><a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/01/san-francisco-reparations-panel-now-recommending-5-million-for-each-black-resident/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$5 million per person in the case of San Fran</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/ca-reparations-task-force-eyes-500000-each-for-decedents-of-slavery/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">half a million per person</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by the state’s reparations task force, are as budget-busting as they are eye-popping. The state’s estimate alone comes out to $500 billion if only 1 million of California’s 2.25 million Black residents are found eligible.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that the repression claims are true and the sums suggested are just. Let’s also stipulate that California can fairly discern </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/california-reparations-task-force-talk-eligibility-rcna61656" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">eligibility reasonably well at reasonable cost</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. That still leaves the huge question of who should pay the big bill?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Certainly not current taxpayers, who had no control over the racial injustices of California’s past. Moreover, because cash is fungible, any federal grants to California and its guilty subdivisions would risk exposing the taxpayers of other states to a liability for any reparations program. As a practical matter, California’s proposed reparations scheme could not be implemented without unfairly confiscating tax dollars from potentially tens of millions of people who played no part in the state’s alleged wrongs.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it is also not clear that current California taxpayers should have to pay for reparations either, through any combination of increased taxation or decreased government services. They did not create the repressive laws and policies and many opposed them, to no avail.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Besides, two wrongs do not make a right. Who’s to say that in a generation California taxpayers won’t legitimately claim to have suffered repression by being forced to pay for sins they did not commit? Moreover, given California’s admission of its own guilt in the enacting of a reparations program, who could trust it to administer such a large transfer of wealth?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">That leaves three sources of funds: the guilty governments themselves, the political parties in power, and the politicians and bureaucrats who voted for and oversaw the harmful laws, and the judges who failed to overturn them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Forget the third option as individual policymakers are well shielded legally. Individuals could also claim that they were just following orders from their parties or their bosses, which holds up better in civil than criminal cases.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">If political parties were held solely accountable, they would have to claim bankruptcy and fold because donors would disappear and they would not have sufficient assets to cover the costs. So score one for making the political parties culpable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the state government itself is to pay, it does own assets like roads, parks, buildings, and the like, that could be sold to the highest bidders. Unfortunately, though, California’s most recent estimate of its capital assets (p. 44 of its 2020 </span><a href="https://www.sco.ca.gov/ard_state_acfr.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Annual Comprehensive Financial Report</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) reports a mere $137 billion.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps if culpable cities pitched in all their assets, too, enough could be raised but California and its major municipalities all have other creditors whose interests would obviously be adversely impacted by such a drastic move. And, again, two wrongs don’t make a right.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The only real remedy, it seems, is to declare California a failed state, make it a territory, and allow it, or parts of it, back into the Union after it ratifies a constitution that ensures its people a republican form of government, incapable, by design, of ever inflicting such damage on anyone ever again.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6deae78d-7fff-0805-f588-8e49b4e77319"><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-74992068135012417262022-12-31T00:24:00.001+00:002022-12-31T00:24:13.889+00:00SD Needs Real Reform, Not Con D Virtue Signaling<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A rational, Christian response to a mugging is to aid the victim while ensuring the perpetrator never repeats the crime. South Dakotans know this, which, along with Constitutional Carry, is why crime hasn’t spiked here as in so many other places across the nation. A small majority of South Dakotans, however, have voted to change the state constitution to join California and New York and allow medical mugging to continue.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-eea0d08b-7fff-7831-2ee0-7c8a5fb3c1ce"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I gather that supporters of Constitutional Amendment D (CAD) voted to help poor people with big medical bills, and use other Americans’ money to do it. What a deal! But Medicaid expansion really does not help the poor any more than reimbursing a mugging victim does, especially when the mugger goes unpunished, poised to strike again. It’s virtue signaling at best and at worst a capitulation to Big Sick Care.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Medicaid expansion under CAD will aid healthcare providers (HCPs), i.e., the perpetrators of the problem, the very institutions that pushed hard for </span><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/South_Dakota_Constitutional_Amendment_D,_Medicaid_Expansion_Initiative_(2022)" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">expansion</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Yes, HCPs should earn enough to induce them to provide healthcare services, which everyone needs to some extent or another. But do not forget that HCPs already get what a competitive market would pay them and a whole lot more besides. For a full explanation and proof, see Sean Masaki Flynn’s 2019 book, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Cure That Works</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flynn points out that US healthcare, and unfortunately South Dakota’s too (after showing some promise before implementation of Obamacare), is much too expensive. There are no real prices, just negotiated settlements with insurers or governments. And the fee-for-service model creates a panoply of perverse incentives, including a predilection to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">treat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> symptoms but not to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cure</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the underlying causes of illness. It’s more sick care than healthcare.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early in 2022, my adult son was hospitalized in Sioux Falls for several days. The HCPs thankfully did not kill him, but they did not fix him either. He is still getting bills for services that may or may not have been rendered. (He is no doctor and barely remembers his emergency stay.) He was then earning a little too much to receive Medicaid yet his total cost was in the thousands. Under CAD, Medicaid would have chipped in for him but somebody else earning just over 138 percent of the federal poverty line would be in the same situation as my son, facing huge bills for “services” that may only serve the HCPs.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If South Dakotans really want to help the poor, and everyone else, with their medical bills they should compel HCPs to compete on the quality-adjusted price of their services. Then people can shop around for the best deal instead of committing themselves to pay big, convoluted, unknown bills, often for little or nothing in return.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, such a radically commonsensical policy would run afoul of current federal regulations but some cities and states routinely declare themselves “sanctuaries” where federal laws do not apply. South Dakota has a long history of bucking widespread strictures on divorce, interest rate caps, residency rules, trust funds, and the like. Why not burnish that reputation for policy innovation by offering the country an example of a competitive healthcare system that, as Flynn shows, will be much cheaper and better than the one currently mandated from Washington, DC?</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-69661227091571744972022-12-26T15:21:00.001+00:002022-12-26T15:21:13.423+00:00A Universal Basic Christmas?<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By age 4 or 5, I loathed Santa Claus because I noticed that he gave more and better toys to my poorly behaved rich playmates than to me or my little brother even though his production (slave labor?) and transportation costs (lichen for his reindeer) were </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">de minimis</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and subsidized with literally tons of milk and cookies. Not long after, upon hearing Cheech and Chong’s already </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_and_His_Old_Lady" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">classic 1971 bit</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “Santa Claus and His Old Lady,” I unearthed the conspiracy behind the silly jolly old elf stories. Christmas gifts weren’t magical manna, they were part redistribution scheme, part potlatch, and part savings ploy. At least the consumerist vision of Christmas was, and remains, voluntary.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-3185ba24-7fff-dd85-c93f-e7c478efb4ba"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But now circulating is another implausible legend about economically free gifts, Universal Basic Income or UBI for short. This new legend means Christmas cash for everyone, in equal measure. (It is usually assumed to come once a month, but it could come just on Christmas, or be conceived of as a Christmas present paid in monthly installments.)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I fear that Americans are being subtly conditioned into accepting UBI through repetition of lies and half truths. As I have noted </span><a href="https://financehistoryandpolicy.blogspot.com/2022/12/ubi-pilot-is-another-false-frame.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">elsewhere</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, many in the media now label any old welfare program a “UBI pilot” and then tout how it helps its recipients, as if it were not already bloody obvious that extra cash always helps people. The stories, like </span><a href="https://abc7news.com/ubi-universal-basic-income-california-sf-program/12607304/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this one</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from ABC News in San Francisco, also typically claim that recipients spend all their newfound wealth on “necessities,” as if cash isn’t fungible. The reporters are either morons, or think that their readers are.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While images of poor children having extra socks and other necessities under the Christmas tree may warm your heart as much as it does their feet, adults and even precocious children know that those resources came from somewhere. When the source is voluntary charitable donations, the real spirit of Christmas is fulfilled.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Under a real national UBI, however, the transfers become involuntary. As Aleksandra Przegalinska and I explain in </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Debating-Universal-Basic-Income-Alternatives/dp/3031175123" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Debating Universal Basic Income</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Palgrave 2022), while everyone receives equal UBI payments, the money has to come from somewhere, and in most proposals that somewhere is the middle and upper classes, who end up paying more in taxes than they get from the UBI program.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exceptions arise only when a government is blessed with something akin to magical manna, like the oil royalties that Alaska and Iran use to fund their respective UBI programs. Few governments have access to such cash cows but there is one great untapped source of revenue available to all governments – increased government efficiency.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the U.S. government, for example, were to end its massive subsidies for the health and higher education sectors, return to systems of </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/a-way-out/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">private instead of social security</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and scale back its bloated administrative state, it could implement a UBI worth 15 percent of GDP without raising taxes any further. </span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ironically, if Uncle Sam were to bestow such a Christmas present upon the American people, instead of presenting them with more inflation and debt like </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/23/politics/house-vote-spending-bill/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Congres just did</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it would unleash so much economic growth that a UBI would no longer be seen as necessary. But this frigid Christmas, most Americans would settle instead for a giant lump of coal.</span></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-40425034325938134092022-12-24T18:31:00.002+00:002022-12-24T18:31:32.797+00:00"UBI Pilot" Is Another False Frame<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">America’s airwaves, blogs, and podcasts are awash with praise for, and criticism of, so-called “UBI pilots.” The problem is that none of the pilot programs, which multiplied like bunnies after the Covid scare began to subside a year ago, can rightly purport to inform the debate over the likely costs and benefits of the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">universal</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> basic income policy (UBI) currently pushed by proponents in the US and around the globe. Journalistic misrepresentation, whether due to economic illiteracy or incentives to promote Woke causes, threaten to pollute the policy debate over real UBI proposals.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-bc2e9521-7fff-4eee-a047-34db38c67bbf"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Journalistic misrepresentation of economic policies is not entirely new but has become more prevalent in the 21st century due to declining educational standards and perverse incentives. For example, Wilma Soss (1900-1986) in Columbia University’s journalism school in the early 1920s received a solid grounding in economic and political history and theory that allowed her to forecast changes in the macroeconomy and to provide solid investment advice to millions for a quarter century (1957-1980). Her educational preparation stands in strong contrast to the weak, ideological fare spoon fed to most journalist students in the early Third Millennium AD, especially in economic matters.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soss faced a better set of incentives, too. Her employer, NBC, did not force her to accept corporate sponsorships, which allowed her to build audience loyalty through trust. Listeners did not always agree with what Soss said on her weekly “Pocketbook News” show, but they knew that she only said what she believed. Today, by contrast, most corporate journalists have incentives to write frothy clickbait or regurgitate partisan talking points.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soss knew, and experts today agree, that most income transfer programs are not UBI because they are not universal in the sense of being paid to everyone. San Francisco, for example, rightly calls its $1,200 monthly stipend </span><a href="https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/the-city/universal-basic-income-programs-in-san-francisco-for-you/article_7d86aa9e-66c1-11ed-b2e1-7345ee46ca3d.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guaranteed Income for Transgender People</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or G.I.F.T. for short, because it’s just a welfare program for low income transgenders.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conflating UBI with welfare causes two confusions that muddle policy discussions. On the one hand, the conflation increases opposition to actual UBI proposals on false grounds. A truly universal transfer program not limited by need (or subject to gender or other tests), for example, would not necessarily entail the creation and funding of yet another huge government bureaucracy.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the other hand, UBI “pilots,” even the few that are not means tested, provide false support for a national UBI because they are miniscule in scale, of limited duration, and funded by manna from heavenly donors. Analyses of their outcomes invariably focus on that which is seen, which is people who are better off because they have higher incomes. But that misses that a permanent largescale UBI would have to be involuntarily funded by someone.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pilots cannot tell us how net UBI payers, those whose taxes increase more than their respective monthly stipends, would react to UBI politically or economically. They are also too short to tell us what will happen to education, employment, or birth rates. Pilot participants tend to stay employed and in school because they know the extra cash flow will soon cease but they might drop out if they believed the money was permanent.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some pilot principal investigators have analyzed results as rigorously as the current state of social scientific inquiry allows. Others, though, clearly seek to score ideological points by claiming that recipients spend every extra dime on education and clean water. Opponents claim that the extra money just fuels alcohol, drug, and gambling addictions. In fact, money is fungible so the focus should be on how consumption patterns change as incomes increase, but economists do not need transfer pilots to study that.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately, one’s stance on UBI should not come down to the purported results of pilots, most of which come nowhere close to testing the policy that UBI proponents push. Instead, it should come down to one’s values. Should public policies support individual liberty or government collectivism? If the former, urge the government to bolster voluntary transfer programs. If the latter, why not skip UBI and go right to socialism, the results of which are well documented from long experience at scale?</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-85395073214616183782022-10-27T13:57:00.000+00:002022-10-27T13:57:10.738+00:00Positive Quarterly Real GDP During Recessions<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three months ago, many scholars, including myself, </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/is-america-in-a-recession/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">argued</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that two consecutive quarters of shrinking inflation-adjusted GDP met the government’s technical definition of recession. A third negative number would have sealed the deal for sure but the estimate for the third quarter, which is weak but positive, muddies matters.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-376f8bbc-7fff-171a-212f-9067fd52b222"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268122002906" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recent study</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> shows that the U.S., U.K., and Swedish governments produce overly optimistic GDP growth estimates in election years. Even if the numbers are not subsequently revised downwards, the slight growth should not be interpreted to mean that the American economy is in the clear. Housing prices are </span><a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/17/home-asking-prices-tumble-at-record-pace-as-mortgage-rates-surge/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">plummeting</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> while core inflation remains high enough to make further </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/inflated-hopes-and-burst-bubbles/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">interest rate hikes likely</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Real wages</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> continue to lag and most businesses warn of </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2022/08/20/expect-layoffs-at-half-of-us-companies-according-to-new-survey/?sh=2fe888c62fe0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">impending layoffs</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> or hiring freezes.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So only something of an economic miracle will prevent the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) from declaring a recession during the Biden administration. A look at the history of its semi-official pronouncements suggests that a quarter of GDP growth will not prevent it from calling the start at the beginning of 2022. In fact, the longest NBER-defined recessions since World War II had one quarter of positive growth embedded in them.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See how the blue line (real GDP) goes above the black line (zero) in the grayed area (NBER recession) during the 1949 recession in the official St. Louis Federal Reserve chart of percent change in real GDP below?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 239px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="239" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/SXVHAlYgC2vxQFkF2LPKkt-TOdJnImG4ut44lYqs1DYsV7yTnvXejaDWFP_Hzapxh61t02Yx9t5pZDFPjgwnYhdA-I-qsb-HYVp9W7fZGyEJfiC4mIh4Xkh4wNBohozXLe9b5ufagFLjTaIlJbPDzC1qkPAYb4W-QVkqN559KpbEE7qaUTtnuP4Xeg" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That is not unusual. It happened again in the 1960 recession:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 240px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="240" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/cmPbxd4rw5M8nJGp4i8trKb_OBv_mAN785Qz9OrRittj1vjhqdHMd1rae_T0q4XP5_p6HJRdRPEJN-ANNuhi9mKgSD0PDAqASqt9_qtoFSUQBgkMCrQSuJuH8Em63DR4pbz39PleSkEamUKczx2yStXbneUC5zZlWlL8olwfjdaQjJOn9PrADCpOLQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And again in 1970, 1974, 1982, 2001, and 2008, i.e., in all of the nation’s longest postwar recessions:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 237px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="237" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/UbgBHSoo3lKxjMVbFJEB_l2Tqj9bc2AyZxwd4gt5prmkSEr6bhj2EDs7XBvEGrHi_CdIOfZEYStnQ12OsikCun46jsWjvz0zQhTOG1mjLf_IiuKdaA_bm8QUyawq_BHDwZbpq7rOC0n32OKqhs7z-3WB4ROQfCbMl4P5uCowePOzsGhqYT9P-mMxrA" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 239px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="239" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/MH_ci7n-_WjeUtiC0yrJfL515di5WBE1DI1TuF1xW_Zf5ACSW7ntdckrv8kuPXwFPhJa6Que0_jfyHfAkcuwJDh-LWcnIwVqpQbsEPfjZLKTmbwskptwPYOUQEFBjPkoe3UMRLP-i0p6VkFJKgaJdVxAriK3EC5vT9K1o02G8F_h6-NXFmx5S_R-pQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 237px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="237" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/kSdsmZJ-vh33hRssp5-q868ae9qtQRZwvISnCDbNgFpGWyEjcN-uGK9QFct4kScMRIem-NUCUc60z0-SImP8ZTkZCEeh9ntAje62wsfXqQ1xXmUdJVnAxSZSFQssMhcJo-AWBy68AIlEPam3K59FbNZLBO647joXs3KMHDqOx-VuCHuTMz2r5kgQRQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 239px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="239" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/m7PlN9o7adGjXrH9gVvYNSs263rlYhaqII5shphVICH6RUzAOXTvbSUk7PA8nKaVsvL_xG8wjSPALL2ksqgzVg4Bhoc5VfI3mJvtHpoIAnUULNFqFaz7jMV1J5czP1H8x0_kzrtnFJicz0CAynN8MApLvEI8atz31sGxmaLPicJZfyDD0nGvJ_0Dag" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 235px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="235" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/d82Koq5zvZHRYZUpW5Hor5xLRw_lbzY_Q0l9zjoTDjVwPJOCzJQ0l_A5ICXTv3SoBq0M3VFlMNb_yHYksThRJyX7TXYXpMzJGi24Xpka3YMdKU94dPtu2u-mO17ekDDUIOlIj6fMcfSvdkOm_Fr5lmT6lIT9kr9EJ56lzbDqLMLqCDle36UIYkSm5g" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So don’t let a positive GDP number fool you into thinking the US economy isn’t in a recession. Some call a positive quarterly reading during a recession a dead cat bounce, others a double dip. What you call it doesn’t matter: the only economic thing “</span><a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/16/joe-biden-insists-us-economy-is-strong-as-hell-as-he-munches-an-ice-cream-cone/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">strong as hell</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” right now, besides double dip ice cream sales in the vicinity of POTUS, is fear itself.</span></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-20831703328081363272022-09-13T14:52:00.006+00:002022-09-13T14:52:51.220+00:00Peace Through Money?<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The launch of</span><a href="https://thecoinoffering.com/crypto/peacecoin/"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peace Coin cryptocurrency</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> was
not the first time somebody thought to equate peace with money. It might,
though, be the</span><a href="https://www.peace-coin.org/#!/message"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">last</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">While the cost of
everything seems to be going up these days and people purportedly are “watching
their pennies,” Americans still hate loose change – which is one reason why so
many prefer paying by card or crypto to avoid cash altogether.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In the 1950s, though,
credit cards remained rare and many sellers refused personal checks. People
tended to pay in cash, so lots of coins jingled in pockets and pocketbooks.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To legendary public
relations pioneer Wilma Soss (1900-1986), who hosted the weekly nationally
syndicated radio show “Pocketbook News,” coins meant something, practically and
symbolically, and could mean more. Informed by her PR career, Soss tried to
advance the cause of world peace through money.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We do not mean that Soss
suggested that governments pay foreign soldiers to desert or defect, as the
U.S. did during the Vietnam War with its</span><a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R1172.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="background: #F8EEFF; color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chieu Hoi Program</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">, or as </span><a href="https://www.wilx.com/2022/03/06/i-didnt-want-fight-ukraine-offers-russian-soldiers-5-million-rubles-pardon/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ukraine did</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> at the beginning of the
Russian invasion in February of this year. Rather, Soss wanted to put the word
“Peace” back on U.S. coins, many of which circulated abroad, hoping that the
message would truly help in getting people around the world to realize that
Americans cared deeply about peace too—albeit peace through strength. Convinced
of the importance of the message, she ran a pro bono PR campaign to promote the
idea.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Soss was old enough to
remember (and fondly) how the </span><a href="https://www.moderncoinmart.com/1922-silver-peace-dollar-bu.html"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">U.S. Mint issued Silver Peace Coins after World War I, minting
them from 1921 through 1928, and for a brief time in 1934 and 1935</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">. The impetus was a genuine one: to commemorate the end of
the Great War, the war to end all wars. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Fervent hopes for a
lasting peace were dashed by the Second World War. As the Cold War intensified
in the late 1950s, Soss thought it high time for the U.S. Mint to mint peace
once again.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Accordingly, in February
1958, Soss urged her radio show listeners to send her postcards if they agreed
with her that the word peace should be included on U.S. currency. “Everyone
wants American dollars,” she explained, “let’s show everyone Americans want
Peace.” The response from her audience, which then numbered in the hundreds of
thousands, was large and heartfelt.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.pressherald.com/2015/07/06/margaret-chase-smith-on-10-bill-a-movement-grows/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Margaret Chase Smith</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">, U.S. Senator from
Maine and the descendant of former treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase, took
notice. In March, Smith introduced a bill to put peace back on pieces of
America’s metallic money.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">How did Soss pull off
such a coup? She had learned from the best of the best, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reichenbach"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Harry
Reichenbach</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">, one of the fathers of modern PR. She also was
a skilled communicator, with a degree from Columbia’s journalism school (Class
of ’25) and several years of reporting experience before she entered the PR
world. By the 1950s, she had embraced a new career in shareholder activism, in
addition to financial journalism. As detailed in a biography I coauthored with
Bucknell’s Jan Traflet,</span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Americas-Forgotten-Investor-Movement/dp/1958682306/"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><i><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fearless: Wilma Soss and America’s Forgotten
Investor Movement</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (All Seasons Press,
2022), Soss was a passionate advocate for enhanced corporate governance
practices, widespread financial literacy, and many other causes, like world
peace.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Impressively, Soss
managed to get a peace money bill (the Chase bill) introduced into Congress.
Unsurprisingly, though, it never passed.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">As he left the Oval
Office in </span><a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">January 1961</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
explained that the nation’s leaders had fallen under the sway of a
military-industrial complex geared for war, not peace. Soss eventually realized
that, calling on her listeners in 1968 to pray for “peace on earth” as war
raged in southeast Asia despite implementation of the hush-hush Chieu Hoi
Program of pacification. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Although she believed
that “world trade is better than world war,” Soss, like many Americans,
believed in peace through strength. So she could not countenance disarmament
even in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the gold dollar gave way to its
flimsy paper simulacrum, the only message of which, she believed, was weakness.
Putting peace back on money no longer made sense to her. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">With physical coins already
relatively rare and </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="https://www.popsci.com/technology/digital-currency-us/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">possibly soon extinct</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">, more likely due to the adoption of central
bank digital currencies than the rise of cryptocurrencies like Peace Coin,
Americans should look for other ways to express their desire for world peace.
Mutually beneficial trade, in dollars but also financial investments, goods,
and services, remains the best way to conjoin interests in favor of peace.</span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-18088593716385299042022-08-15T16:34:00.003+00:002022-08-15T16:34:31.820+00:00Plague of Plagues<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a little known fact that bubonic plague killed </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Americas-Forgotten-Investor-Movement/dp/1958682306" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">over 100</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> San Franciscans between 1900 and 1902, in part because public health officials and the mayor botched the response, first by imposing a quarantine based on race, then by denying the extent of the epidemic to keep the city’s economic boom going. Several later waves took fewer lives but tarnished the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_for_San_Francisco" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Golden City’s</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> image.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-e43872f3-7fff-4367-021f-4cf8453fa409"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This bit of epidemiological history is of interest in its own right but also for its effect on the life of Wilma Soss, the subject of my new book </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Americas-Forgotten-Investor-Movement/dp/1958682306" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fearless</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (with Jan Traflet). Born in San Francisco in 1900, PR pioneer and media maven Soss later quipped that the earth shook when she was born. We found no evidence of an earthquake that day but the plague helps to explain why Soss was in Brooklyn with her maternal grandparents that fateful day in </span><a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/events/1906calif/18april/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">April 1906</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when her birth city first shook and then burst into flame.</span></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-45666165408817249542022-06-27T18:44:00.001+00:002022-06-27T18:44:46.870+00:00Harnessing Defection: The Untold History of Paying People to Stop Fighting<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfortunately, wars are again all the rage. It’s difficult to find good political economy commentary on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, possible incursions into Taiwan by the CCP, and the like because military history, and its buddy economic history, were casualties of university culture wars decades ago. Few people study the “</span><a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00003011" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sinews of war</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” the connection between economic and military outcomes, anymore because it just doesn’t fit easily into Woke U curricula. That’s a shame because perspectives from military economic history could help policymakers to make better policies, ones that lead to less blood and treasure being spilt.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-37b5bb37-7fff-9fc6-a898-6e665842e5cf"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anybody conversant with the writings of </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/product/best-of-frederic-bastiat/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frederic Bastiat</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> knows that wars, or in other words lots of broken windows and shattered lives, hurt the economy. But sometimes wars have to be fought nonetheless. The United States used to have </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/why-declare-war/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">substantial checks</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> against entering into hostilities without due cause. Today, not so much, which makes winning the many armed conflicts it enters as cheaply as possible more important than ever. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many of America’s recent military victories have been </span><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/pyrrhic-victory-meaning" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pyrrhic</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in that it (arguably) successfully achieved objectives, but only at tremendous cost. One might object that the country’s “safety” or “freedom” are priceless, but if those same objectives had been achieved more cheaply by other means, resources would have been freed up to achieve </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">additional</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> national security objectives. Inefficiency always lurks, an unseen but substantial additional foe.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Consider, for example, the recent decision to send $40 billion in arms and ammunition to Ukraine. Maybe it will bring an end to the war by signaling to Putin that America means business. Maybe it will just prolong the conflict. Maybe prolonging the war is what some Americans want. If that is the case, $40 billion might just be the first of many installments totalling hundreds of billions and perhaps eventually trillions of dollars. If that sounds like an exaggeration, remember inflation runs rampant and that the U.S. spent over </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-taxpayers-spent-8000-each-2-trillion-iraq-war-study-2020-2" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$2 trillion</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and over </span><a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$2.3 trillion</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> prosecuting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How else might the United States have spent the $40 billion it sent to Ukraine? Well, $40 billion divided by the 280,000 Russian soldiers is over $140,000 each. Could America have ended the war by offering money directly to Russian soldiers to defect to the West? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recent history suggests yes, though what one researcher recently called “</span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/download/60061374/milinsub_PSQ201920190719-126961-1juncwc.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">an analytical blind spot</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” makes making the case more difficult than perhaps it ought to be.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In March, Ukraine offered Russian soldiers </span><a href="https://www.wilx.com/2022/03/06/i-didnt-want-fight-ukraine-offers-russian-soldiers-5-million-rubles-pardon/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5 million rubles</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to lay down their arms and additional funds, in the </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-offers-1m-russian-soldiers-who-defect-top-grade-weapons-2022-4" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">millions of dollars</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, for turning over military equipment when they surrender. The offer was not easily disseminated to Russian troops, however, and was not widely perceived as credible. Plus, it would mean living in Ukraine during and after the war. Nevertheless, the incentives worked in at least one case, when a Russian turned in his tank for </span><a href="https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/russian-soldier-gets-10k-from-ukraine-in-money-for-tank-deal" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$10,000</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to one of the few </span><a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD0773488" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">studies</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> focusing on past attempts to harness defection, promises must be communicated to enemy troops in credible ways and the total compensation, including amnesty and future region of residence, must be adequate, while remaining credible. The U.S. could make a more credible commitment than Ukraine to pay what is promised, plus provide a path to a more attractive U.S. or EU citizenship. With Ukrainian help, it might have a better chance of using fancy technology, like leaflets dropped from drones, to get the offer in front of Russian troops with the lowest morale.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">History provides additional examples of harnessing the power of defection to weaken opposing armies.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the U.S. Civil War, Union general </span><a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/benjaminfbutler.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Benjamin F. Butler</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> offered slaves working on Confederate fortification projects military protection and paid work if they defected to the North. </span><a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/fort-monroe-and-the-contrabands-of-war.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hundreds of them</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> soon fled to Fort Monroe, the strategic Union stronghold at the confluence of the James River and Chesapeake Bay in Virginia that Butler commanded. Although technically “contraband of war” owned by the Union military, the slaves knew they were better off working for the North than the South. The British had employed a similar strategy during the American Revolution.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The number of “contraband” runaways swelled during the Civil War to the point that although the vast majority of slave conscripts had been relegated to non-combat roles in the Confederate Army, their shift from working for the South to working and fighting for the North helped </span><a href="https://daily.jstor.org/did-black-rebellion-win-the-civil-war/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to speed the Union’s victory</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Armies need cooks and ditch diggers as much as they need generals.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Victory might have come more quickly, and cheaply, if Lincoln had considered paying poor white Southerners not to fight rather than paying much richer plantation owners for their slaves. </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Desertion_During_the_Civil_War/-BhsaaPGzA0C?hl=en&gbpv=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many poor Confederate soldiers deserted or defected anyway</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Some 6,000 of the so-called “Galvanized Yankees” joined the Union Army and were dispatched to the West to fight Indians and protect transportation routes to the Pacific states.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Defection (going over to the other side) and desertion (fleeing military service) have both influenced the course of many military conflicts, including the </span><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13518046.2013.779877" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Russian Civil War</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1918-22), the </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Desertion/kzXRDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spanish Civil War</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1936-1939), the struggle for </span><a href="https://web.s.ebscohost.com/abstract?site=ehost&scope=site&jrnl=08993718&asa=Y&AN=120270961&h=XQXDdMb77ERrNXgb%2fRu2CEdbFjpAo0jJklosiJ%2f8gfS0XQE%2fMq2LSGgpg1eaU337klXyw9n5u5iv5%2bIwyUHh7w%3d%3d&crl=c&resultLocal=ErrCrlNoResults&resultNs=Ehost&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d08993718%26asa%3dY%26AN%3d120270961" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Slovenia</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Stalin_s_Defectors/rygmDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soviet Union</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> during the Second World War, and the wars for the Korean peninsula, Southeast Asia, and hundreds of millions of </span><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14682745.2018.1539079" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hearts and minds</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> worldwide during the Cold War. Various forms of military insubordination, including desertion and defection, also played major, if still </span><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629395.2018.1499216" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">somewhat murky</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, roles </span><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402390.2013.847825" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">during</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/download/60061374/milinsub_PSQ201920190719-126961-1juncwc.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arab Spring</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In many cases, no payment was needed to induce conscripts to flip, or at least stand down. In some instances, however, the </span><a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD0773488" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">United States</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> employed seldom studied strategies designed to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">induce</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> enemy defection and desertion during the American Revolution, the Philippine insurgency, and the Vietnam war, among other conflicts. The </span><a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R1172.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chieu Hoi Program</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> allegedly resulted in “the defection and neutralization of over 194,000 VC/NVA” in Vietnam between 1963 and 1971. In the Philippines, the Economic Development Program (EDCOR) promised rebels who surrendered themselves and their arms amnesty, land, and agricultural capital on the underpopulated island of Mindanao.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other nations have also paid poor soldiers to sit out conflicts that did not directly affect their personal interests. Most famously, though vastly outnumbered, British Colonel Robert Clive won the Battle of Plassey in the Bengal section of India in 1757 in part because a rich Hindu known as the Jagat Seth (“banker to the world”), </span><a href="http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h38-br3.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">paid about a third of the enemy soldiers to not join the fight</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It helped that the soldiers were headed by a traitor who had been promised a leadership spot if the British prevailed and that the loyal Indian troops did not manage to keep their </span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Plassey" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">powder dry during a timely downpour</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">British attempts to pacify rebels in Malaya proved less successful than they might have, however, because their promises to help defectors “to regain their normal life” were too vague. That was a shame because, as one </span><a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD0773488" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">study</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of defection inducement strategy noted in 1971, “defection saves human lives on both sides.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All is fair, they say, in love and war but what strategies will be most likely to work cannot be known in advance because many factors are at play, including an unknowable critical mass or tipping point at which military units dissolve via mutiny or surrender, as Iraqi </span><a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB222.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">units</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> did during </span><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?16769-1/iraqi-soldiers-surrendering-kuwait" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">both</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraqis-surrendering-in-hordes/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gulf</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> wars. National histories, religious and </span><a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny/cp/2010/00000042/00000003/art00005" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ethnic divisions</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and customs may play a role too. Some </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GNKZRQI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">500 U.S. soldiers of Irish birth</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, for example, defected to the side of their fellow Catholics during the Mexican-American War (1846-48) and took up arms against their former comrades. Apparently, switching sides is a </span><a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA521992" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">well-accepted practice</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in Afghanistan but punishable by summary execution in other places, including the former Soviet Union, which employed “</span><a href="https://web.p.ebscohost.com/abstract?site=ehost&scope=site&jrnl=08993718&AN=73944472&h=PXWTTkPSTZjsfpeZTwHd%2bNOzGtNO1bJDJR0VToH4wMSDdhy2QX%2bpzy3CJ41ZMy63KIXBevd51CVmSLgBf52DIw%3d%3d&crl=c&resultLocal=ErrCrlNoResults&resultNs=Ehost&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d08993718%26AN%3d73944472" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">blocking units</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” to dissuade deserters.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In short, we cannot know if paying Russians not to fight in Ukraine would work without actually trying it. Perhaps Russian conscripts are not as demoralized as claimed, or, maybe, knowing what happened to the families of deserters and defectors in </span><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546553.2016.1194270" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chechnya</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2000-2005), they fear too much for the fate of their families. Of course policy success or failure will occur at the margin but on its face a $140,000 average payment seems like it would be a sufficient trigger as, despite the recent inflation, it remains a good chunk of cash, even for most Americans.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The point here is that U.S. policymakers did not even have a discussion about defection because too many self-proclaimed experts, many beholden to interests within the military-industrial complex, pound on the save Ukraine at any expense </span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/04/28/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-request-to-congress-for-additional-funding-to-support-ukraine/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mantra</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> coming out of the Roosevelt Room. It’s like Covid policy censorship all over again. And that </span><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bodes%20ill" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bodes ill</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for America’s national debt, national security, and national sanity.</span></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-31622933042458510992022-06-26T15:50:00.000+00:002022-06-26T15:50:05.808+00:00Deregulate Everything!<h1 style="text-align: left;"> Deregulate
Everything!</h1><p class="MsoTitle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">By Robert E. Wright
for Porcfest, somewhere in New Hampshire, Community Tent, 1 pm, 23 June 2022</h3><h1><o:p></o:p></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">One big knock against
gun control regulations is that criminals don’t obey laws. So to the extent
that guns are regulated, law abiding citizens get stripped of a core
constitutional right while bad guys kill people with impunity. And the cops
hide behind sovereign immunity, marble columns, and parents.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Understand this: <b><i>all</i></b>
regulations are subject to the same critique. Laws do not prevent bad behavior
and regulating the means by which, or the tools used to commit, bad behavior
punish only the innocent and aid only the bad guys, the bootleggers in Bruce
Yandle’s parable of the Baptists and the bootleggers. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">More generally,
regulations typically stem from an unholy alliance between paternalist zealots
who think they know what is best for other people, policymakers eager to be
seen quote unquote doing something, partisan ideologues, and the bad guys.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">All those competing
interests mix in a toxic stew where each party tries to get regulations
tailored to match their various, often conflicting, goals, some quite distant
from the putative problem to be solved. For example, if gasoline or diesel
vehicles are used to run over people, as they often are, calls come out to
regulate them even more than they already are. Due to their instant torque, EVs
are even more efficient at running over people in crowds but they are
subsidized instead of regulated because of the influence of Greens, who just
want to suppress direct fossil fuel consuming vehicles and don’t really care
about babies criss-crossed with tire tracks.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Because of such
political dynamics, policies rarely efficiently address the problems they
purport to address. Instead, they represent a hodgepodge of compromises that
usually render them monstrosities that aid special interests but that rarely
ameliorate the original problem. Worse, one set of regulations often gives rise
to the perceived necessity of yet more regulations.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">For example, speaking of
actual bootleggers, consider the national prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s.
Rum runners and organized criminal gangs supported it because it drove their
legitimate competitors, the good guys, out of the market. Instead of competing
on price and quality, the gangs instead competed on the basis of the number of
Tommy guns – Thompson machine guns – they could summon to key locations at key
times. So, the Feds passed a law making it more difficult to own machine guns.
But Al Capone <i>et al</i> kept right at it, until they died or surrendered up
to the cops.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">And now the brainiacs at
the FDA want to ban menthol cigarettes. They don’t believe they have the
authority to ban all cigarettes but they do think they can ban specific
subcategories, like menthols and flavored cigars. Supposedly the ban will
prevent some young people from getting hooked on tobacco. Problem is, tobacco
will still be available and menthol is made from mint, which grows naturally
over most of the northern hemisphere. So people who want menthol will get kits
and make them themselves and organized crime will sell them to kids anyway. And
the government’s cigarette tax revenue will decline but that’s okay because all
of us are an endless source of cash. Did you know that? And if we get fussy
about explicit taxes, the Federal Reserve is ready to tax us via inflation.
Governments suck at just about everything except causing chaos, so the
inflation tax is perfect for it.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">But higher inflation
will mean more organized crime, which will mean more guns, even, gasp! 9 mm pistols
and ARs, which does not stand for assault rifle, by the way. So one dumb
regulation will lead to another, further restricting your Second Amendment
rights. If, for some strange reason, you never aspired to own a machine gun, or
a bump stock, you might not find their regulation terribly onerous at present, but
you have surely heard of the slippery slope. Next thing you know some president
will assert that BB guns decapitate and de-lung people.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">And gun control is only
one of numerous unnecessary regulations that do cost you, big time, whether you
know it or not.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Old timers like myself
remember when it cost a considerable amount of money to call anyone outside of
your local area code. A map from 1928 that I have here shows that you could
call from NYC to California for only $9! For the first three whole minutes!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%; padding: 0in;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">As a reminder, the
dollar was worth a lot more then. Nine dollars in 1928 could buy you 27 pounds
of top sirloin, or 36 pounds of real buttah! Today you can’t touch a pound of
top sirloin for $9 and probably soon for butter too.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Granted $9 was during
business hours. Like the good monopolist it was, AT&T price discriminated
by reducing its rates on nights and weekends when business call volumes
subsided and most calls were between friends and family. But it was still very
expensive and the phones, which Americans had to lease from AT&T, were
cumbersome, ugly, and difficult to use. You could get any color, so long as it
was black, and you had to dial by sticking your finger in holes corresponding
to numbers, crank it, and then wait until the dial clanked its way back to starting
position. All thanks to regulations that ensured AT&T’s monopoly on long
distance telephone calls.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Technology eventually
got us out of that expensive hole but there were many, many others. Ever take a
train in France or Japan? They are like horizontal rocket ships: super-fast,
modern, and smooth as the cheek of a baby crying from a lack of formula caused
by useless regulations. The record speeds are over 370 mph:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%; padding: 0in;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Acela’s Amtrak isn’t
even on the top ten fastest chart, even though the comparison run on the
infographic I have here is NYC to Montreal. All the trains on the top ten chart
could easily do that 373 mile run in less than two hours. When I recently tried
to book a train from NYC to Albany, NY, I couldn’t even do it, instead
receiving an error message:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">One third party site
says that it takes about 4 hours for the trip on Amtrak. Note that Albany is
about halfway to Montreal.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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Description automatically generated" height="281" src="file:///C:/Users/ROBERT~1/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image006.png" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="448" /><!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Ever actually ride on
Amtrak? If so, congratulations for not being killed in one of the many recent
derailments. But even if you survived, you likely did not have a pleasant
experience as the thing clickety clacked its way along, when it was moving at
all. And if you had to eat, or go number two, during the journey, you might
have been praying for a derailment, especially if you were not on one of the
newer, but still painfully slow, Acela trains.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Why did America – Murica
– once the world’s leading nation for intercity passenger rail service, become
the laughingstock of the developed world? One word: regulation. Regulators beat
on the railroads for decades, especially with price controls and labor
regulations. At the same time, the government subsidized personal automobiles,
buses, and, eventually, airlines. So, all the smart people and people with
money moved into those industries and out of intercity passenger rail.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Funny story. With a
business professor named Jan Traflet, I’ve written a biography of a lovely
corporate activist and financial journalist named Wilma Soss entitled <i>Fearless</i>.
Born in 1900, Wilma grew up crisscrossing the nation on commercial passenger
trains. During World War II, she commuted between New York City and Detroit via
the rails. By the mid-1960s, however, she had to chide railroad bigwigs for <b><i>flying</i></b>
– <b><i>flying</i></b>! to their annual meeting in Chicago. It was a sign of
the end, just like when Wilma noticed that way more than half the cars in the
parking lot at the American Motor Company annual meeting were not AMC models.
AMC, like private passenger rail service, was soon toast.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Auto safety regulations
eventually doomed AMC, which is now part of Chrysler, because it just didn’t
have sufficient scale to keep up with arbitrary demands. But thank Uncle Sam
for those safety regulations, right? Or we’d all be driving around with metal
spikes sticking out of our steering wheels! Or maybe not. Turns out that most
people want to get to their destinations as quickly as safely possible, so they
prefer safer vehicles. All the best auto safety stuff was developed to lure
purchasers away from competitors, not to satisfy government regulators.
Moreover, the best auto safety tests are conducted by the insurance industry,
not the government.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Speaking of insurance,
we don’t even need government regulation of drivers. Let insurers handle it via
pricing. Government driver’s licenses allegedly ensure a minimum level of
competence on the road but it’s a gross guess at best, and not at all
contextual. Some people mature sooner than others but in many states you cannot
even begin the learning process until you are 16. Some adults who are fine to
drive on local country roads should not be allowed to drive on highways or in
major cities. But they scored 1 for a binary license, so they can.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Insurers could price
major variables, issuing cheap insurance for the best drivers in the safest
conditions and dear insurance for the less experienced in dangerous conditions.
And no insurance at all for the worst. Premiums could even vary by location and
time of day. Insurers could also feed recommended speed limits based on road
conditions and driver aptitude right to people’s cars. But nooooo, because of
regulation of insurance premiums. The government’s sole role could be to punish
people for driving without an insurer-issued license and insurance.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">But would deregulation
really work across the board? Well, a zero regulation environment served just
fine in America’s pre-regulatory past. You think the nation’s Founding Fathers
and Mothers faced numerous, onerous regulations? Only on their international
commerce, and <b><i>we know what that led to</i></b>. There were some local
regulations on the books, like the assize of bread, which fixed the weight of a
pennyloaf of bread up to some minimum standard. But it isn’t clear how much
local regulations were actually followed as America was not then a police state
or even an administrative state. Justices of the Peace handled almost
everything according to local conditions and customs. And juries of peers
handled the worst situations.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Statists protest that
times were simpler then, that more complex technologies require regulation, and
so forth. That’s a big, steaming pile of bull … oney! More complexity suggests
less regulation, not more, due to what is called the Knowledge Problem. Nobody
alone can understand the complexity of goods production, especially how it
might evolve over time, so nobody can know enough to make sensible rules and
regulations.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Consider, for example,
two of the modern marvels of the twentieth century, stock exchanges and
commercial passenger air travel. Both got much better and cheaper when they
were price deregulated in the 1970s. Something called competition kicked in,
leading to innovations that drove brokerage commissions to close to zero and
airplane travel to real low real levels, which is to say adjusted for
inflation. Until the recent spate of regulatory b.s. anyway. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">And, again, if you think
government inspectors have made airline travel safer, you haven’t been paying
attention. Insurers and the fear of getting sued out of existence do way more
to prevent crashes than guhmint does. Like automakers and railroads, fear of
lost business and getting sued or suffering higher insurance premiums keeps
airline passengers safer than FAA regs do.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">The same goes for your
food. If you think that every bite of your food has been approved by a loving
bureaucrat, think again. Almost none of it is inspected. Competition, not the
FDA, added to your own common sense, is your real savory savior.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">That same assessment
also applies to fire safety. America’s cities no longer burn to the ground, as
many did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, because insurers raised
the premiums of businesses that did not implement fire safety best practices, like
not leaving oily rags in the smoking break room.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">But it isn’t just that
government regulations are useless, many actually hurt Americans by raising
costs, costs that get passed on to consumers and investors. Every second wasted
filling out a government form or waiting for a government inspector means a
higher market price and/or lower profits. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Government building
codes and zoning laws, for example, make much more costly the construction of
housing and is the leading causing of the alleged housing affordability crisis.
Most infamously, government officials in the city of angels proved themselves
quite unangelic when they ordered the seizure of mobile housing units that cost
only $300 to construct because they were not up to some building codes. Better
that people live in tents or under the stars, where their possessions are
easily stolen and their bodies easily violated, than in secure and fire safe
barebones units. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Because why? Only Kafka
knows!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Perhaps the biggest
problem with regulations is their opportunity cost. The salary of a useless
food inspector could be used to pay a police officer, or a public defender.
Resources thrown into the Drug War, which is simply a regulatory scheme that
enriches drug dealers, the DEA, and the pharmaceutical-medical complex, and the
Sex War, which is simply a regulatory scheme that enriches pimps, madames, and
law enforcement officers, are not available to fight crimes with actual
victims, like murder, rape, and robbery. America spent trillions failing to
keep long pointy things out of the bodies of consenting adults but can’t keep
schoolkids safe. What’s up with that?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Not that we need law
enforcement to keep schools safe. The teachers could do that, were it not for a
regulation making schools so-called gun free zones. They are gun free alright,
until a bad guy with a gun shows up. School covid masking policies showed that
many teachers care more about themselves than their students. We all get that,
but most teachers don’t want to shoot their students and those who do, can do
so anyway. But most teachers will save their own skin and, in the process, like
an invisible hand, save their students, if allowed to carry.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Almost everything wrong
with this country is due to regulations, many begun under the administration of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or FDR for short. F’in Dumb Retard as some of his
critics call him. I’m currently writing a book called <i>FDR Exposed!</i> that
I hope will be out in late 2023. But if you can’t wait that long, over a decade
ago I published a book called <i>Fubarnomics </i>that also shows how New Deal
regulations messed up this country but good. It’s got a toilet paper roll of
dollar bills on the cover. Should have been Benjies instead but the publisher
didn’t want to be seen as too extreme.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Wanna know why healthcare
costs so much? An FDR-era regulation that allows employers to take a tax
deduction on health insurance. So Murica is the only country in the developed
world where health insurance is linked to employment instead of to individuals.
Hence all the uninsured people, the pre-existing condition problem, and the
inability of insurers to rate risk. Technically, we do not have health
insurance in the country at all because the rate can’t go up and down with
individual risk. As a result, some people are charged too much and some too
little. The people being charged too much know it and drop out. Hence the
necessity of the Obamacare mandate. If we deregulated health insurance, we’d
see innovations in insurance and medical care that would soon put the kibosh on
out-of-control healthcare costs.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Speaking of health-related
mandates, what good did mask and vax mandate regulations do? None on net. In
fact, like other regulations, they not only diminished liberty, they hurt innocent
people, especially those who survived Covid early on and were hence a threat to
no one, but still had to wear the mask and get the shot.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Know what else keeps
healthcare costs so high in this country? CONS. No, not incarcerated persons,
Certificates of Need, legal barriers to entry into various healthcare services
like those provided in hospitals and nursing homes. Proponents argued that
regulations restricting supply would <b><i>lower</i></b> prices. Yeah, that’s
not how prices work. Holding demand constant, decreasing supply <b><i>increases</i></b>
prices. But policymakers and politicians went along with the healthcare
bootleggers, and we all paid the price in 2020, when Covid raged through
overpacked nursing homes. Somehow, it was okay for hospitals to shut down <i>before</i>
Covid hit, so that hospitals wouldn’t have to shut down <i>when</i> Covid hit.
And elites wonder why so many people started putting clown emojis next to world
emojis.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Without CDC and state
emergency regulations, and with a little common sense, the whole Covid thing
would have sorted itself out. Think about it. You run a business and half your
customers are too afraid of Covid to come in, but the other half think that masks
and vaccines don’t work. What to do? Well, how about opening one day without
any mask or vaccine requirements and the next day with them? Everybody gets
served and feels safe, from Covid on the one hand and tyranny on the other. But
in most states and nationally, regulators came in on the side of the Covid nuts
and said no soup for you, at least no soup seated at a table in a restaurant.
What’s that tell ya?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Another costly
regulation to come out of the New Deal FDR era was Social Security. The
government forced workers into the program, which simply earmarked a regressive
payroll tax to fund a crappy life annuity and, later, an even crappier any occ
disability policy with politicized claims service. It kept heading toward bankruptcy,
so the government kept forcing more and more people into it, like a Ponzi
scheme. And it kept raising the payroll taxes. Social Security is facing
bankruptcy again and there are no more workers to add so the only question is
how much payroll taxes will go up versus how much Social Security benefits will
go down and how many disabled people will be turned away without getting any
help.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Regulations have totally
screwed up Americans’ ability to save for retirement. You pretty much have to
throw it all into the stock, bond, and securitized real estate markets and if
you take it out before what regulators deem to be your proper retirement age,
regulators tax the bejesus out of it. What would the stock market be at today
if Americans were not forced to invest in it, and stay invested in it? A lot
lower, I suspect, because who would voluntarily invest in companies subject to
onerous, volatile regulations on everything from carbon emissions to the
employment terms of their own workers? Did you see how corporations were so
quick to become Woke in 2020? They tremble in fear of regulators, especially
the IRS but also the FDA, FAA, FCC, CDC, the SEC, and the other alphabet soup
agencies that collectively comprise <b><i>The Swamp, </i></b></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 200%;">the swamp</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">, </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">the swamp</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Yeah, the stock market
does go up over the long term but not because corporations become more
efficient, because more money has to come into a market with only a few
thousand choices. To keep gobs of money flowing into the market, regulators do
something that should be unspeakable. They give tax breaks to people for the
interest they pay on home mortgages instead of <b><i>the equity</i></b> they
put into their homes. The former helps mortgage lenders, but it keeps people
leveraged up instead of putting their savings into someplace they can live when
retired, and maybe rent out portions for income. Buying a house and renting
part of it was the normal retirement strategy of Americans before the New Deal.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">But noooo, Americans
interested in investing for retirement have to invest in financial securities,
which are subject to inflation risk as many learned to their chagrin in the
1970s and as they are learning again today. High inflation means high nominal
interest rates which means lower bond and stock prices, all else equal. High
peacetime inflation is possible because FDR devalued the dollar in terms of
gold, confiscated private gold holdings, and by the end of World War II took
America off the classical retail gold standard. He put the once mighty nation
onto a fixed gold-exchange system doomed to fail, as it did during the Nixon
administration a mere quarter century later. That led directly to the floating
fiat mess we have today. The US dollar’s only redeeming quality today is that
it is not quite as bad as other fiat currencies. Or so most people seem to
believe.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">But innovators and
entrepreneurs have started looking for alternative monies, like Bitcoin, not
subject to political inflationary pressures. Regulators, though, are again
messing everything up. Two big ones, the SEC and the FDIC, both came out of the
New Deal. FEMA is also totally unnecessary but nevertheless it should swallow
the Securities and Exchange Commission because the SEC is a disaster area, and
always has been. I’ve been trying to write its despicable history but it uses
FOIA requests and the National Archives to block me at every turn, especially
after my article with Andrew Smith came out that showed how SEC regulations
promulgated in the 1970s led directly to the subprime mortgage crisis that
fomented the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">That is ironic indeed
because FDR and his minions ostensibly created the SEC to prevent another
financial crisis like the stock market crash of 1929, which was blamed for
causing the Depression when in fact it was merely the messenger of deeper
economic problems. The SEC was also supposed to stop insider trading. Ask Nancy
Pelosi how that is working out.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Surely, though, the FDIC
is good, right? I mean there haven’t been any bank runs since its
implementation … except for when there were some bank runs. But seriously, the
FDIC does seem to have decreased the number of bank runs. That is a problem,
though, because it achieved that goal by lulling depositors asleep. They no
longer watch their banks very closely because they don’t have to. The FDIC will
bail them out if their bank fails. So bankers can, and do, take on more risk
without being chastised by net deposit withdrawals. At best, then, the FDIC and
the spate of regulations that come along with it are a wash on net. Yay
regulators!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Regulations that are
downright pernicious are difficult to expunge so you can imagine what happens
to innocuous ones. They linger, seemingly forever. I am sure that you have seen
one of those websites with the crazy regulations from the past that are still
on the books. You know, like the one in Alaska that says that you can’t awaken
a sleeping bear to take its picture. You can shoot it with a gun though. Or the
one in “R-Kansas” that makes it illegal to mispronounce the state’s name. Or
the one in California that makes it illegal to eat a frog that has died in a
frog jumping contest. Obviously, a dead frog is totally inedible, which is why
the French serve frog legs still attached to living frogs. Or the regulation in
Georgia that forbids people from putting an ice cream cone in their back
pockets on Sunday. Any other day of the week, just stuff drumsticks back there
to your butt’s content, but on the Lord’s day? Hell no. Or the one in Kentucky
that forbids the sale of fewer than six ducklings dyed blue. Obviously, that
was put in place to protect Big Blue Duckling from competition from new
entrants that can’t afford to buy more than six ducklings, which by the way
come free with chicken chicks, or fiddy cents worth of blue dye. Big Green
Duckling just didn’t have the lobbying bucks to protect itself and now look at
the dying duckling dying industry in Kentucky. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Meanwhile, in Washington
State it is illegal to harass a certain large, hairy biped still unrecognized
by science. Best of all, though, is Utah, where it is illegal <b><i>not</i></b>
to drink milk. Yes, you heard that right. I am not sure that it is correct, but
it does point out the cause of many regulations, simple rent seeking, or
somebody trying to get something for nothing by mandating the use of their
product. At least in Utah the mandate is for milk and not a dangerous
experimental injection. [Good, the drones aren’t out yet today.]</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Rent seeking was behind
another response to the Great Depression called the Smoot-Hawley tariff.
American manufacturers tried to save themselves by throwing consumers under the
bus with high taxes on their competitors. But, as usual, high tariffs ended up
hurting everybody, including the manufacturers themselves, after foreign
countries reciprocated and world trade volume plummeted. See when trade is
voluntary, both the buyer and the seller benefit. Implement a tax or regulation
and not as many voluntary trades take place, hurting the buyers and the sellers
who would have traded were it not for the extra burden.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Economists call such
unrealized gains deadweight losses because they are losses that nobody else
gains. They are lost to humanity. Hence in today’s hyper-hyperbolic lingo,
deadweight losses literally kill people. <b><i>Literally</i></b>. Ergo,
regulations kill people and should be banned. Or in other words, everything
should be deregulated.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Really? Everything? What
about hunting and fishing regulations? Well, I have a book just out about that
called <i>The History and Evolution of the North American Wildlife Conservation
Model</i>, which might have been the best set of regulations ever devised. You
can read the book for all the juicy details but basically a set of regulations
that evolved a little over a century ago saved a lot of critters, including
deer and moose, from going extinct. But the model was not the only solution to
the root problem, which essentially was what economists call the tragedy of the
commons or the common pool problem. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Americans used to
consider critters gifts from God, ya see, so they believed they could shoot ‘em
whenever, and wherever, they wanted, even on <i>your</i> private property. As
the countryside became more populated, that led to lots of hunting and,
eventually, people specializing in providing wild game to urban markets and
restaurants. They all competed to kill critters themselves, before the other
guy shot ‘em. You can see how that could lead to the local extirpation of some
species, like beaver and deer, and a series of local extirpations of course
eventually lead to extinctions.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">So state and national
governments said we are your new god, we own these critters and we are going to
charge you fees for killing them, establish tag and bag limits, seasons,
methods of harvest, trespassing restrictions, and so forth. And no more selling
wild game meat. The regulations worked, though too well in places now overrun
with deer, wild hogs, geese, turkeys, and such. But regulators don’t want to
change the regulations much, like allowing the sale of wild game meat again.
Think about that when you crash your car into a deer or bear some dark night.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">A different solution to
the extirpation problem would also have worked and been more flexible over
time. Just enforce property rights so that critters could thrive on private
lands. Private property rights saved the bison and private property rights
explain why exotics from Africa thrive on ranches in Texas, New Zealand, and
South Africa. But the private property approach does not compute with statists.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">After you’ve read all my
books, check out James C. Scott’s <i>Seeing Like a State</i>. He explains how
regulators want to make everything quote unquote “legible” by reducing complex
realities to simple, quantifiable categories. Unfortunately, those categories
obscure complex realities, leading to disasters like government-managed
forests. Imagine the hubris needed to think that your puny human brain can plan
a forest better than Mother Nature can. All that the government foresters
managed to do was to plant a first generation forest that produced more
products that humans wanted. The second generation, though, saw decreased
yields and the third was an ecological disaster because it turns out that
various species depend on each other in ways that humans can never fully
understand, much less improve upon with a top-down plan. Now Greens have gone
in the other direction and regulate in favor of biodiversity for its own sake.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Some government policies
have even led to desertification. Much of North Africa and the Middle East is a
government-made desert because regulations induced herders and farmers to strip
topsoil, which decreased vegetation, which decreased local water mass and hence
rainfall and rainfall retention, leading to rapid erosion of the remaining
topsoil and hence desertification. Something similar is happening in California
right now, with regulatorily induced superfires speeding the process.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">To be clear, I don’t
claim that life will be perfect with complete deregulation, only that it will
be better than at present. Shit happens. Life’s a bitch. If something can go
wrong, it will. All that. But regulators cannot fix much of anything and are
likely to make matters worse. So let’s do away with regulators and regulations
and unleash entrepreneurs -- commercial and social -- to find marginal
improvements and, occasionally, breakthrough technologies that can improve life
for billions. Unburdened by regulations and our current tax distortions,
entrepreneurs would soon discover new ways of doing things. Many will prove
duds, but others will work and spread.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Consider three examples
related to recidivism, school shootings, and gender equity in corporate
boardrooms. All seem to cry out for more regulations, but all could be
ameliorated with a little ingenuity.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Many people released
from prison commit crimes and go back, at great expense to the public as well
as their victims. Why not pay nonprofits for each week they manage to keep the
ex-cons in their charge alive and out of prison? They’ll figure out the best
ways to do so or fail for lack of funds.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">School shootings are
horrible, but we know that banning guns in them, or in the nation overall, is
no solution. Even if all guns could be confiscated, bombs and vehicles could be
used instead, perhaps with more deadly effect. And although not all cops are
cowards, they do not have a legal duty to protect Americans, even kiddies. But
what if every school and other soft target was protected by drones controlled
remotely by skilled operators? And if the drones could also double as medical
first responders? </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">When statists hear that
women are under-represented on corporate boards, they immediately want a
regulation imposing a quota, like the one recently shot down as
unconstitutional in California. Why not instead randomly pick board members
from a pool of qualified candidates to ensure that corporate boards represent
those presently qualified? Over time, more women and members of other
traditionally underrepresented groups would acquire the necessary
qualifications because they would rationally compute that they would have a
chance of being chosen.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Except for the drones
example, where a company is actually working on the concept, such ideas do not
gain traction precisely because they do not require onerous regulations and the
expensive bureaucratic apparatuses that accompany them. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">A fourth innovation that
will go nowhere is my Ministry of Truth proposal. Now before you storm the
stage, let me explain. The government wants to regulate your Free Speech, a
clear violation of your natural and Constitutional rights. What I want is a Ministry
of Truth as a fourth branch of government that would only identify, stop, fine,
and punish disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda spread by government
officials, politicians, and candidates for office. It would have the same
powers as the rest of government, including the power to own F-16s and nuclear
weapons. A tip of the hat to President Biden for that tip. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">My version of the
Ministry of Truth would also have the power to seize and sell any personal or
government assets used to create or disseminate misinformation and to impose
heavy fines and jail terms for dissembling government officials under
administrative law procedures and mandatory arbitration. Finally, it would be
headquartered in Wyoming or South Dakota and be utterly independent of the
federal government except for its budget, which will automatically be 10
percent of the country’s combined federal, state, municipal, and special
district budgets, which should of course all be capped in nominal terms
immediately. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">The Ministry of Truth’s
first order of business will be to fine Tony Fauci one trillion dollars. If
that sounds excessive, remember that inflation has not been transitory as
claimed, so the Ministry’s second order of business will be to fine Federal
Reserve officials, seize and sell off the Fed’s assets, and shutter it.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt; line-height: 200%;">Gold and/or Bitcoin will
soon fill the void the Fed will leave, especially when cryptocurrencies are
deregulated and the states make gold and silver a legal tender, which they can
do under </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the US Constitution, which
reads, in case you forgot your pocket Constitution: “</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No State shall … make
any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course, it is not
at all clear that the government will ever deregulate crypto, which threatens
its seigniorage profits as well as its much-vaunted anti-money laundering laws.
Those are regulations that force banks and other financial service providers to
spy on you on the government’s behalf, so that it can enforce other useless or
downright pernicious regulations, like the aforementioned wars on consenting
adults putting pointy things into their own bodies. At the rate we are going,
soon only the government will be able to decide what you put into your own
body. Experimental things called vaccines maybe, or tracking devices, for your
own safety of course. [Exaggerated eye roll.] And the government will keep
things out too, like baby formula and real beef.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Speaking of baby
formula, do you know that if you happen to have a full breast of milk you can
make quite a nice bit of money selling it to babies rendered hungry by
government overregulation? Breast milk is one of the few unregulated markets
left. You can’t lawfully sell raw cow milk in some states, but raw booby juice
is aokay. Let’s keep it that way, before we end up in a life-and-death
situation instead of merely suffering further annoyances, like those regarding
contact and eyeglass subscriptions, which require an annual examination. The
contacts I wore yesterday were fine but the same ones today are illegal until I
pay a vig so someone can tell me what I already know, that my existing
prescription is fine. They are my eyes, after all, and “which is better, A or
B, B or C, C or B?” is not scientific or all that helpful.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But regulations keep ophthalmologists
and regulators employed, so it is good, right? No! They could all be doing
something else, something that consumers actually want. Regulations are like
broken windows in that Frederic Bastiat’s broken window fallacy applies to
them. That which is seen are the regulators and their beneficiaries, like ophthalmologists
and Utah dairy farmers, getting paid. That which is not seen are the other
things that people would rather have put their time, attention, and money into
if the regulation didn’t exist.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Again, the whole
regulatory apparatus is such a joke. Somebody else did something bad so the
government has to restrict your rights. Crazy! Regulations passed on such
grounds violate due process by punishing people not proven guilty of anything
by a jury of their peers. If eliminating such crap sounds pie-in-the-sky to
you, check out the recent federal court decision in <i>Jarkesy vs. </i>my
friends at the<i> SEC</i>. The court ruled that administrative law is
unconstitutional on due process grounds, especially denying Americans the right
to trial by a jury of their peers. It’ll probably get overturned by statists,
but many Americans are beginning to wake up to the fact that regulations, even
if they appear irrelevant or innocuous, are <b><i>not</i></b> their
friends. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 24pt;">Let’s deregulate everything
in New Hampshire and show the rest of America the way! Whattaya say?</span></p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-55505626020959066982022-04-12T14:41:00.001+00:002022-04-12T14:41:35.263+00:00Stinky Ugly Body Parts and Classical Liberalism<p> Stinky Ugly Body Parts and Classical Liberalism</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span> </span>Most of us have called someone else a stinky, ugly body part (SUBP) at some point in our lives. Some of us do it daily. Classical liberals, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">though, should refrain from it, and say instead that the annoying person is behaving “as if they are a SUBP.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Almost all of us act like a SUBP at one time or another, sometimes deliberately but often unwittingly, and few deserve to be </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">permanently canceled for it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>If humans truly excel at anything, it is dehumanizing other humans by word and deed. The deeds are by far the worst: live there, not here; pay this before making a living at that; educate your children in this dreadful place rather than at the better place down the street, and so forth. Actual sticks and stones may break your bones, and policy sticks </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/death-by-policy-lottery/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">may kill you</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but it isn’t quite true that words can never hurt you. I’d rather be called names, though, than be forced to wear a mask on an airplane on the off chance it will prevent me from getting an illness my immune system already conquered.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>The words humans use to disparage each other range from puerile simple words, like the one referring to a female dog, to inspired phrases or strings of insults, like @#^*#*@%#&#%@!!*!. And who could forget how our valiant current leader accused two different voters of being a “</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/10/joe-biden-lying-dog-faced-pony-soldier-new-hampshire" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lying dog-faced pony soldier</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>Many insults mock physical characteristics, others mental ones. Several refer to the performance of sex acts, several to sex toys, and at least one to the bag used to dispose of the fruit of an intimate feminine hygiene procedure. Often, insults are accompanied with a command to go to a metaphysical location or to perform a sex act on oneself.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>In fact, many put downs make little to no sense. In high school, the baseball coach of an opposing team repeatedly referred to me as an “abortion” even after I explained to him that an abortion is a medical procedure and that therefore “aborted fetus” would be a more credible claim. He shut up only after I popped a homer off his star pitcher son. Similarly, asserting that someone doesn’t have a legal father is downright odd, especially when the accused most assuredly does have one. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our most prominent insults accuse others of being mere body parts, and the stinkiest and ugliest body parts at that. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After all, we usually reserve “armpit” for </span><a href="https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/the+armpit+of+some+place" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">geographical areas</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, not people, and nosey refers to a behavior, not the schnoz itself. Three SUBPs predominate insult discourse but most people only have two, simultaneously at least. One is not much used in the United States but remains common in other English-speaking countries, a point made by Canadian comedian </span><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000196/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mike Myers</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when he played with the pronunciation of the contraction of the word “cannot” in one infamous scene.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>Apparently, allegedly vile people deserve to be called only the vilest body parts, those that humans keep hidden from others everywhere except in bedrooms, locker rooms, doctor offices, and a few beaches. But even in those places humans don’t generally flaunt these parts, the intimate details of which they reveal only to lovers and hot pizza delivery guys. That’s because SUBPs usually create negative externalities but occasionally they create positive externalities, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">very</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> positive externalities.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>I jest because the whole name calling phenomenon is rather silly, a form of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ad hominem</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> attack that </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Michael-J-Douma/dp/1498536123/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">classical liberals should disdain</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Often, one person acts like a SUBP because she or he believes the counterparty is behaving like a SUBP. Sometimes, both sides are acting like SUBPs. Other times, they are just trying to protect their own self interests, though perhaps not as effectively as they otherwise might. Often, though, neither party is acting like a SUBP, at least not consciously.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>Humans, you see, are tremendously diverse. Words and ideas that octogenarians find perfectly fine, young people find as crass as yo’ momma’s … grass. Conversely, I’ve had younger colleagues say things to me that would have seemed highly inappropriate were I not able to </span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/code-switching" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">code switch</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Sentiments often expressed in rural America seem outlandish in the city, and vice versa. Northerners might take umbrage at a Southern flag without considering how a Southerner might react to a term like the “</span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/has-americas-third-civil-war-begun/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Civil War</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” And some people find it rude to be asked what their pronouns are.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>Body language cues vary a lot too, especially internationally. Some people take eye rolls much more seriously than others. Other people do not make eye contact even when telling the truth. That European woman standing a foot away from you is not being aggressive (or flirtatious), she stands a foot away from everyone. And yeah, sometimes I wave with my left hand, show off the soles of my shoes, or don’t burp at dinner, even with Arab friends. Who is the SUBP, the person who forgets or doesn’t want to follow foreign customs, or the fella who insists that he belch even though the falafel was subpar?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>Except for a few mustachioed mid-twentieth-century dictators, few people are innately evil enough to be </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">equated</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with a SUBP. Most of us are just flawed human beings, incapable of behaving all the time in ways that all people will find appropriate. So don’t call them SUBPs and write them off forever as such. Instead, analyze the situation and erect a palatable solution.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>As the creators of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">South Park</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> recently urged, Americans ought to cut </span><a href="https://thegameofnerds.com/2022/01/08/in-the-return-of-covid-south-park-thinks-we-should-cut-each-other-some-slack/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">each other some slack</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Times are tough and we don’t need to behave like SUBPs by dehumanizing others by calling them a SUBP and cutting off all communication and trade with them. Let s/he who is without a SUBP cast the first aspersion.</span></p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-62099623664302056762022-01-10T21:23:00.001+00:002022-01-10T21:23:19.118+00:00Reversing Our Infantilization<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My apologies for calling many Americans “wussies” on Twitter the other day. I was Omicron-delirious. I should have called them babies instead. I mean that, however, merely as a descriptive term, not as an </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ad hominem</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> attack. America’s adult-age babies are victims of governments, especially the national one, which have been working hard for decades to infantilize the citizenry. As explained below, their efforts clearly are paying off. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-3f1a0d83-7fff-1bd4-37c6-f21b24665ab3"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reversing Americans’ infantilization will not be easy, but biological adults will have to grow up emotionally and intellectually before they can become truly free.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What do I mean by infantilization? Infants have unique attributes now shared widely among the working age adult population. (In other words, this is not a rehash of the well-worn diapers-to-diapers life cycle observation that </span><a href="https://www.chicagonow.com/geriatrics-city/2014/11/old-people-are-like-babies/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the aged begin to resemble babies</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.) Eleven major similarities between babies and (too) many working age Americans spring to mind.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Babies, real ones and adult-aged ones</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:</span></p><br /><ol style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">defecate in public.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Have you heard about the street poo in </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-human-poop-problem-2019-4?op=1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">San Francisco</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.fox5ny.com/news/mta-to-ban-defecation-on-nyc-subway-trains" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and other cities in </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-biggest-cities-confront-a-defecation-crisis-11565994160" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">California</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/everybody-needs-access-to-bathrooms-chicago-doesn-t-provide-nearly-enough-of-them/ar-AAPMqJZ" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">elsewhere</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? Most is adult-age baby feces, not diaper detritus.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">throw temper tantrums for no apparent reason.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Have you seen that video of a woman screaming maniacally for no reason? I am kidding, there are </span><a href="https://waynedupree.com/2021/07/white-liberal-women/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dozens</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of them, including this one at a </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/tiktoker-posts-viral-video-womans-bizarre-meltdown-over-gas-pump-1582508" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gas pump</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and this one at a </span><a href="https://www.dailydot.com/irl/victorias-secret-karen-video/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Victoria’s Secret</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Maybe some of the perps are on drugs but the ones who </span><a href="https://ricochet.com/735900/sometimes-you-just-need-to-curl-up-in-the-fetal-position-and-cry/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">curl up in the fetal position and cry</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> really make the baby angle pop.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lash out in anger over nothing.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> There are lots of those videos, too, but the recent one of a maskless semi-famous celebrity </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_LwWsSve2Y" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">berating and then slapping an old man</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for not wearing his mask while eating on an airplane is perhaps the most recent of the ugly genre.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">beg for food and other stuff.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If baby gets hungry, cold, or tired, baby cries, which is its way of asking for help. If adult baby gets hungry, cold, or tied, adult baby goes on Twitter and begs for help from Uncle Sam, or a paternalistic local government. [Error! References too numerous to link.]</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cannot be told the truth.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Parents tell their babies all kinds of sweet lies. Everything will be okay. Some fat dude is going to give you stuff. Some rabbit is going to give you stuff. Adult babies prefer putrid lies. Nothing is right with the Constitution. The world will end soon unless everyone submits and suffers. The country is tainted by slavery. Some people are “white” and they are privileged and yet fragile.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are easy to abuse.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Despite </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/fifteen-signs-youre-in-an-abusive-relationship-with-the-government/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">several</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> articles by AIER writers detailing </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/abuse-escalation/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">abusive</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> government policies, most Americans continued to allow it to happen, with only a few stirrings of protest, mostly at the polls in Virginia and southern New Jersey in November.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wear diapers.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Babies wear them on their bottoms and adult babies on their chins, leading to the environmental crisis exposed in this </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/dead-masks-a-photo-essay/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">photo essay</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have untrustworthy immune systems.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We love our babies so we start working on their immune systems right off, with momma’s milk. Unfortunately, scientists and public health officials </span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684040/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tricked some mothers into believing that manufactured “formula” is better</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when in fact it leads to diabetes and allergies. Most of us also get our precious little ones vaccinated, after the shots </span><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/infant-and-toddler-health/in-depth/vaccines/art-20048334" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have been thoroughly tested for years</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, of course. Adults have long been left to decide for themselves if they want annual flu shots or the shingles vaccine. But adult babies cannot be trusted to take their medicine and their immune systems cannot possibly handle SARS-CoV-2, so everybody has to get as many experimental vaccine shots as possible as soon as possible, possibly forever, which may not be that long.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like to play peekaboo.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If you ever want to see a real baby laugh – and who doesn’t? – cover your face with your hands while saying peekaboo and then open them quickly while saying the magic phrase, “I see you.” They will </span><a href="https://youtu.be/FdS3S-nRLDE" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bust out laughing</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as they </span><a href="https://www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/peek-a-boo/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">learn object permanence</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Adult babies like to play peekaboo policies. They get infatuated with some silly policy idea, </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/changing-dcs-status-remains-unconstitutional/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like DC statehood</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, then forget about its inanity once it leaves the news cycle, only to express baby-like delight at its eventual reemergence.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are easily distracted by shiny objects.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If you want to distract a baby, jingle some keys nearby and it will soon be fixated, even as its screaming mother is carted off to jail. America’s adult babies are also easily distracted. In fact, crazy Covid policies may have simply been a big set of shiny keys meant to distract Americans from The Great Reset (which </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/the-great-reset-between-conspiracy-and-wishful-thinking/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thing</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">!). It has certainly muted public discourse over the problems with the 5G rollout, which some claim will exacerbate recent air travel disruptions by interfering with aviation safety systems. The </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59737194" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BBC</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">WSJ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/airlines-brace-for-flight-restrictions-in-5g-standoff-11639929603" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reported on it before Christmas</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, when Fauci the Grinch was still stealing headlines. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f42; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Boeing and Airbus warned </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/for-petes-sake-there-is-a-better-road/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mayor Pete</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f42; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that the 5G rollout on 5 January could have “an enormous negative impact on the aviation industry,” including passenger safety. Most Americans talk about </span><a href="https://brownstone.org/articles/the-case-against-vaccine-mandates-for-domestic-flights/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Covid passports for air travel</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f42; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> while airline executives hint that planes could fall from the sky. Jingle, jingle!</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cannot think rationally.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> For all their cuteness, babies are a total mess upstairs. They can’t even walk or talk right. Adult babies are not quite that bad but many fall short of achieving what educational psychologist Jean Piaget called the “</span><a href="https://www.theedadvocate.org/piagets-theory-of-cognitive-development-the-formal-operational-stage/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">formal operational stage</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” of cognitive development. Most people do not achieve that stage until early adolescence at the youngest. More to the point here, most people achieve it in only one area of specialization and these days many never get there at all. Even many </span><a href="https://rdw.rowan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3014&context=etd" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">college students</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> do poorly on formal operations assessment tests. These days, many public pronouncements sound crazy because they are essentially irrational as the thought processes leading to them do not follow </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/who-to-believe-what-to-believe/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the fundamental rules of logic</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> but rather are riddled with logical fallacies. Goo goo, gah gah, photo id is racist/transphobic etc. in voting but just fine for vaccine passports.</span></p></li></ol><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could go on, but think you get the point given the way the phrase “</span><a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/joe-manchin-democrat-party-aoc-joe-biden-david-bossie" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">adults in the room</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” has been used in the mass media over the last few years. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The important question is: how can Americans learn to grow up, into adulthood and, ultimately, freedom? Unfortunately, there is no magical red pill. All we have are incentives. Americans need to grow up, emotionally and intellectually, before they wake up one morning in a paternalist, centrally-planned hellhole.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A collective action problem, however, means that liberty loving adults have to do more than educate their fellow Americans about the horrors of paternalism and statism. It is costly to become an adult. Imagine the internal dialogue of an adult baby: “Why should I work hard to grow up and live free if that allows others to live free, as free as an adult baby can live anyway, without bearing any of the cost? Worse yet, what if I bear the costs of growing up but too few others do as well to save the country from authoritarian subjugation, be it under the Left or the Right? If I stay an adult baby sheeple, I might barely notice the change as I just follow orders anyway. And once you go adult, Jack, there is no going back. </span><a href="https://adultpacifiers.net/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adult pacifier</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, please!”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is a way out of that collective action problem. Being a free, rational adult in a land of adult babies is really, really cool once you come to see it in the right way. It’s like the saying about the one-eyed guy being the king of the land of the blind. You shouldn’t take their candy any more than you should steal some from a real baby. But you can ethically have fun with them. Make them laugh. (With your words or actions but don’t try tickling their feet or motorboarding their bellies, without permission anyway.) Induce them to donate to a cause that is the exact opposite of what they purport to believe, like I did one lucrative summer thirty years ago. Shame them into reading a real book. And note that it </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> legal to have sex with adult babies, again with what passes for their consent.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As more Americans decide to become actual adults to share in this booty, or at least avoid being taken advantage of, the marginal gain from adulthood will decrease. But so too will the risk that real adults will not be numerous enough to control public policy. So as the individual incentive declines, so too does the collective action problem.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moreover, it is always better to be a free adult than an adult baby, which is better </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Child-Slavery-before-after-Emancipation/dp/1107566703" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">than being a slave</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in only one way. It remains in the power of the adult baby, at least for now, to break loose their </span><a href="https://hugsleep.com/products/sleep-pod" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">swaddling blankets</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, rid themselves of </span><a href="https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/treating-skin-irritations-from-wearing-face-masks/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">chin diaper rash</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, save their adult pacifiers for special occasions, and develop policy permanence and formal operational thought.</span></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-11504821661970971002022-01-01T16:41:00.002+00:002022-01-01T16:41:32.773+00:00A Simple New Year's Resolution<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let lovers of liberty resolve this New Year to turn against collectivist groupthink and return to the basic principles of economics and common sense that made America’s first 245.5 years relatively happy and prosperous.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-2970e467-7fff-67ed-f0f6-4a66df8b9876"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Readers sometimes complain that my words and sentences are too long. I believe them because often telling assertions go uncontested or ignored, as if readers did not understand the point. So this post is going to reit … go over several points that I made </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/staffs/robert-e-wright/?wpv_view_count=42765-TCPID42316&wpv_paged=12" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">early in the pandemic</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Again, very slowly, so that maybe even a few collectivists will start to get it.</span></p><br /><ol style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Americans are allowed to die if they want to.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Suicide is not a crime, so I can eat a bullet or smallpox pie if I want, so long as I do not endanger others in the process. That also means that Americans can engage in risky behaviors that might kill them, like drinking alcohol in a crowded bar, even during a pandemic. They can skydive, bungee jump, base dive, free ski and free dive, and so on. Yeah, they might die but they might also live a fuller life than those who prefer cowering on the couch. Their bodies, their choice.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Americans are presumed innocent until proven guilty. They must be accorded due process. That includes authorities collecting evidence of wrongdoing only if they can show “probable cause.”</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Sticking with the drinking analogy, Americans can’t lawfully drive until sobering up because drunk driving endangers others. But the crime is driving under the influence, not going to the bar or having drinks. If there are no symptoms of drunkenness, individual drivers cannot lawfully be stopped or tested for DUI. If symptoms appear, relatively objective tests ascertain the degree of impairment. Drinking during a pandemic might induce an infection that could be spread to others, but until there are symptoms and a test proving infection, there is no lawful cause to restrict individual freedom of movement, or even a visit to another bar. </span><a href="https://www.marca.com/en/nfl/2021/12/24/61c631fb22601d4f4c8b45b1.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The NFL</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and other organizations are finally pushing back on the notion of asymptomatic spread of Covid, but science aside, punishing people on the mere possibility of illness was always morally and legally dubious.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Americans are allowed to harm each other in minor ways.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Right now, my neighbor is running his leaf blower. I could ask him to stop until I am done writing but I cannot legally compel him to do so until 11 pm. We might talk about leaf-blowing etiquette and such but if my neighbor incidentally infects me with a contagion in the process, that is on me, not him. He can block traffic on a narrow road to make a left turn, beat me to the good stuff when shopping for Christmas presents, and insist on keeping a tree that obstructs my view of fireworks, etc. But I can do the same to him. Creating minor harms for others is part of life, summed up by the credo of live and let live.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">American law generally follows the negative externality cost reduction principle laid out by economist </span><a href="https://www.law.uchicago.edu/lawecon/coaseinmemoriam/problemofsocialcost" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ronald Coase</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/coase-and-covid/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">simpler terms</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, while I have a right not to be infected by others, they also have a right to go about their business. And vice versa. Generally, the party who can </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">most cheaply</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> reduce the harm is the one legally and morally bound to do so </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in a free country</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If I have </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">symptoms</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, like snot oozing from my nose, it is right that I stay home and rest up, and also the best thing for my health. So my harm mitigation cost is lower than that of keeping others locked away from my snot in their homes. If I have </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">no symptoms</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, by contrast, others have the lowest cost of mitigation. That may mean that they stay healthy and boost their immune systems by eating a freaking vegetable or piece of fruit every now and again. Maybe hit the gym instead of the buffet. Or, if they face high risks, it may mean that </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> stay home while the asymptomatic masses roam the earth unimpeded.</span></p></li></ol><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Points 1 through 4 are not easily contested individually. Together, they constituted “common sense” until March 2020. Lockdowns violated them then, and mask and vaccine mandates do so now. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Point 1 means that each American can decide for himself or herself if s/he wants to risk Covid infection without a “vaccine.” Not that such people are being suicidal, as many have strong natural immunity because they have already recovered from Covid. Others believe that the risk from the vaccine is greater than the risk from the disease. One need not be an anti-vaxxer to conclude that. Covid is still a mild illness for most. </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/black-hole-covid-vaccine-injury-claims-2021-06-29/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Top lawyers say that nobody</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has financial responsibility for harm created by the shots, records related to them are being </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/19/secret-vaccine-contracts-with-governments-pfizer-took-hard-line-push-profit-report-says/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sequestered for years</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and even decades, and media censorship of adverse reactions </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/big-tech-censorship-covid-information-leads-vaccine-hesitancy-opinion-1644051" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">appears rampant</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. So the whole thing smells too fishy for many to stomach. Don’t blame the victims of the complete loss of </span><a href="https://cen.acs.org/policy/global-health/Will-public-trust-in-science-survive-the-pandemic/99/i3" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">trust in public health authorities</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Point 2 relates to the non-exemption of those who have acquired natural immunity. Vax mandates expose them to a positive risk, even if it is a low one, despite the fact that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they cannot spread Covid. Doctors can test for immune resistance to Covid, so why do policymakers not take natural immunity into consideration? And why don’t policymakers give those without immunity </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">organic</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> options for acquiring it, like </span><a href="https://financehistoryandpolicy.blogspot.com/2021/08/infecting-ourselves-slouching-towards.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">variolation</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? Omicron appears </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/omicron-coronavirus-variant.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to be so weak</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that it may be less risky to be infected with it than to take one of those new-fangled shots that nobody wants to take financial responsibility for. At least give people the option of “boosting” via natural immunity instead of the synthetic stuff.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Point 3 is about the way the socioeconomic world functions. Americans constantly create minor inconveniences for others. If you don’t believe me, try driving on any part of the </span><a href="https://www.njta.com/travel-resources/camera-list" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Jersey Turnpike</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> at just about any hour of any day. But authorities don’t shut the dangerous thing down, they fine those who drive way too fast and recklessly. The same principle should be/have been applied to Covid policies.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The point about Coase, Point 4, is key. When rights conflict, the party with the lowest cost of ending the conflict or reducing the harm should be the one to act. That varies with the context. Unvaxxed people can spread Covid to vaccinated and boosted people. But the latter can also infect the former. So we are really in the same situation as during the pre-vaccine stage: if you have symptoms or have tested positive, stay home and get well. If you don’t, it is up to other people to protect themselves by </span><a href="http://www.gbdeclaration.org" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">staying healthy, staying home</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or taking the Fauci ouchie, as they see fit after consulting their personal physicians, not some talking head on TV or some distant government “official.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Policymakers could be, and should be, teaching our children these basic lessons in economics and common sense so that nothing like the last 21 months ever happens again. Instead, they waste time </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/11/05/the-conversation-about-critical-race-theory-in-schools-is-over/?sh=32567a926f04" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on “call it what you will” collective victimization</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> studies, creating a generation of people expecting direction from on high instead of following the internal moral gyroscope of what sociologist </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Riesman" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David Riesman</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> called the </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/the-desperate-loneliness-of-social-media/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">inner-directed personality</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">America may not be at the end of the end, but it could well be at the </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/is-this-americas-turning-point/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">beginning of its final act</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> if lovers of liberty cannot find a way to clobber collectivist groupthink and foster understanding of the concepts that constituted the core of the nation’s long period of initial success. Let’s make achieving that goal a New Year's Resolution.</span></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-91330628953965808512021-11-02T14:22:00.000+00:002021-11-02T14:22:31.506+00:00That's Engrossing!<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why aren’t the ships wallowing in idleness off of the California coast making for Florida, which has assured them a speedy unloading? (Or being carried in by migrants, as the</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Bablyon Bee</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://babylonbee.com/news/supply-chain-crisis-solved-as-each-migrant-coming-into-country-will-be-asked-to-help-carry-a-shipping-container" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">joked</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?) Lots of mundane contractual and cost reasons, for sure, but also one </span><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/engrossing" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">engrossing</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> one, “engrossing.” That term, along with forestalling, hoarding, and regrating, are old timey words for various ways of </span><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Engrossing" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">withholding goods</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from retail sale.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-cb03e448-7fff-c33e-b934-27cdc9fcb7a5"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Engrossing and such were once crimes associated with the alleged evils of speculation, but really they find root in expectations about future price. Unsurprisingly, lawmakers found “engrossing” most engrossing during periods of high inflation. Vide, for example, this bill to prevent forestalling, regrating, and engrossing from </span><a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0132-0004-0089" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1779</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, when the phrase “not worth a Continental” was coming into its own as prices denominated in paper currency soared.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The economic logic of engrossing is pretty straight forward. If everyone expects some good X, competitively priced at $1 today, to be competitively priced at $2 tomorrow, buyers will want to buy up the total supply, either to save themselves a buck tomorrow, or to resell X themselves tomorrow. Sellers, by contrast, will want to withhold X from market today in order to get $2 for it tomorrow.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The size of the effect on the supply and demand for X will of course vary. Buyers will be less ravenous if the $2 price is expected next year rather than tomorrow, or if the expected new price tomorrow is only $1.01, or if X is expensive to store, degrades over time, and so forth. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But you get the picture! Shortages occur in an inflationary environment in part because sellers calculate it is better to sell tomorrow than today, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">especially</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when interest rates are low. Say each unit of X cost $.50 to produce and its production was financed at a fixed rate for $.03 per year. So long as the expected price increase over that year is greater than $.03 (plus storage, wastage, etc.), the seller will be better off engrossing X than selling it today.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the many advantages of stable money is that the future price and today’s price diverge only due to supply or demand shocks, which by definition are unexpected, not due to inflation expectations. Even with low financing, storing, and wastage costs, it’s better to sell today than tomorrow when money is stable, so sellers find the cheapest ways to stock warehouses and shelves and engross themselves not with engrossing. They even trick people into buying today goods that will not be consumed for months. Yeah, Christmas, I’m looking at you.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In later stages of inflationary periods, after nominal interest rates rise, incentives to engross decline but so too can incentives to produce new units. Shelves remain bare because businesses are not sure if they can turn a profit when relative prices and the availability of inputs lurch around in ways that are difficult to predict, or plan for.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take, for example, the predicted shortage of </span><a href="https://swiftheadline.com/the-great-book-shortage-of-2021-explained/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">physical books</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> this Christmas season. Will demand for books be as high as expected with lockdowns fading and food and fuel price increases pinching budgets? Won’t any price increase or unavailability of physical books simply induce people to jump to Kindle and other digital options? Who knows? That uncertainty is the problem.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Uncertainty increases as inflation does. If a business forecasts 2 percent inflation and gets 1 or 3 percent, it will probably be okay. But it will be ruined if it forecasts 200 percent and gets 100 or 300 percent instead. In those circumstances, a lot of businesses will hold back and some will even mothball and await better times. Either way, that means less production and hence more empty shelves, until the shelves themselves are shelved, or sold for scrap or firewood.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hyperinflation, as I have said, is </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/the-horrors-of-hyperinflation/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">horrific</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but even run-of-the-mill high inflation, as colleague </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/is-inflation-back/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peter Earle notes</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, hardly spells happiness. If prices continue to grow rapidly in the coming months and years, just keep in mind it is because of the way our financial, fiscal, and monetary institutions interact, not because of engrossers or other types of speculators.</span></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-78649412463482824812021-11-01T17:11:00.001+00:002021-11-01T17:11:32.889+00:00How $6 Billion Could Solve World Hunger<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You may have heard that the </span><a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/world/elon-musk-challenged-un-officials-claim-that-6-billion-of-his-wealth-can-help-solve-world-hunger" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">UN says that it can cure world hunger</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with only 2 percent of Elon Musk’s money, a mere $6 billion. Musk has offered it, if the UN can explain its plan in detail. At the time of posting, the UN promised to share it with him. That is odd because if the plan is made public, and is likely to work, the money could be easily crowdsourced. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-10092257-7fff-8f65-b6e2-bce0f67ebee3"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t think Elon Musk should take on this cost by himself, but $6 billion </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">could </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">solve world hunger. Forever. No joke. Read on!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">World hunger stems from some people not having enough money to buy enough food to sustain themselves, not from a lack of global food producing capacity. It is a problem of political economy, not agriculture per se.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So how can one help people have enough money to buy enough food? Well, it would cost about $6 billion per day if the money were simply handed over. Half for the food and half for bribes to ensure that the money reached those in need, who mostly live under nasty authoritarian regimes.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So maybe make the payments in kind instead? Pay the poor with food that nobody else wants. That isn’t such a good solution either as all food, properly defined, will have a positive market value and hence will have to be protected from theft. And it will have to be distributed. So, again, lots of waste.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plus, we are still talking billions of dollars </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">per day</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, not a $6 billion one and done deal.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But $6 billion could be used to induce the world’s petty dictators to abdicate and transition to a less predatory form of government, a scheme I first developed in </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fubarnomics-Lighthearted-Serious-Americas-Economic/dp/1616141913" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fubarnomics</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Less predation means more economic freedom means more economic growth means less extreme poverty means a lot less global poverty.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Would $6 billion be enough? It would certainly be enough to establish proof of concept in several countries. And if it works, the rest of the money will flow easily.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe we could try it out first in the United States, or at least California? Just pay ‘em to quit. Yeah, some are power hungry but they have a price and it is less than $6 billion. What would Biden need to save his beloved son from the drudgery of making those horrible paintings? To stop the “Let’s Go Brandon” chants? Only one way to find out.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-77755107496322237912021-08-20T23:40:00.004+00:002021-08-20T23:40:39.850+00:00Infecting Ourselves: Slouching Towards Variolation<h1 style="text-align: left;">Infecting Ourselves: Slouching Towards Variolation</h1><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">If the Covid vaccines are safe, why won’t anyone take financial responsibility for any of the few </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and minor problems they (almost certainly won’t) cause? Heck, Hunter Biden could step up </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and promise to give one of his </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/14/1015895944/the-latest-ethical-pitfalls-involving-joe-bidens-son-hunter" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">$500,000 paintings</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> to any American injured by any of the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">vaccines subsidized by American taxpayers. (The very “interesting” paintings must only take </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">him a few minutes to make, so surely it would be no burden.) </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I’m like many other Americans and people around the world, generally preferring the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">broad, effective, and safe immunities that come from natural exposure to electing to get the jab. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This is not due to ignorance but the opposite. I’ve read the literature. Until I know my family </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">will be safe if a vax, by some miraculous piece of bad luck, kills or maims me, I just do not want </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">to risk taking one, especially knowing what I know about the nation’s weak any occ disability program.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">But, some friends claim, the government will soon force me to submit to the shots. If it comes to that,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I am going to insist that the government execute me … with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Covid-19. Yes, my plea will be disingenuous because the virus in any reasonable dose </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">is highly unlikely to harm even a pudgy 50-something man in good health. But the broader point is </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">that I still believe that the proper course of action in March 2020 would have been to continue living</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a normal life, just as we did with past pandemics, allowing the vulnerable (we know who they are) </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">to avoid exposure while the rest of society functions as normal. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">De facto, and depending on how much and to what extent people even became aware of the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">presence of a new virus, this could have even included a </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">voluntary variolation strategy,</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">i.e., to expose ourselves via living a normal life, that is in order to stimulate a natural immune</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> response. It is based on the long-settled principle that the best path toward avoiding the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">most severe effects of pathogens is permitting the immune system to learn from the mild ones. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These days, given the widespread disappointment upon the discovery that the vaccines are not </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the magic cure they were advertised to be – they mitigate against severe outcomes but don’t </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">provide universal protection against infection – we are starting to see some admissions that </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">conscious exposure may become our best bet once again. The fact that the vaccines are not </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">quite as effective as advertised can be discussed openly in public, apparently, under the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">code word “</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-moderna-seen-reaping-billions-covid-19-vaccine-booster-market-2021-08-13/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">booster</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But don’t take my word for the potential power of variolation. Last October, in the august</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New England Journal of Medicine</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Drs Monica Gandhi and George W. Rutherford argued </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that the value of masking was not to prevent the spread of the virus but to mitigate its effects.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “Universal masking,” they noted in </span><a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2026913" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">their Op-ed</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “could become a form of ‘variolation’ that would</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> generate immunity.” The doctors point out that the fact that some people show severe symptoms while</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> others remain asymptomatic is probably due to the extent of their exposure. The bigger the dose of</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the nasties one receives, the more likely one is to end up in hospital or, alas, the morgue.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It isn’t clear to me, however, why so much has to be left to chance by being exposed to the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">virus randomly, in the wilds of our social lives. Even with a mask, we know, one might get a massive</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hit that leads to complications, or a small hit that leads to mild symptoms and more community</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> spread. Why not instead deliberately infect people with small amounts of the live virus and quarantine</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> them for x days afterwards until they can no longer infect others? After all, this is precisely what </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">old-fashioned inoculation achieved with so many other pathogens. In the early stages of such a</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> program, volunteers could be carefully studied, with variations in outcomes linked to</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768926" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">variations in their DNA</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, infection and immunization histories, vitamin levels, and so forth, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and the dosages tweaked accordingly for later waves of volunteers.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So much time and money has been expended since the “novel Coronavirus” emerged that </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">scientists already could have engaged in reverse “gain of function” (loss of function?) research,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> creating variants less deadly and less transmissible than the original SARS-CoV-2 but still capable </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of helping people to develop natural immunities against the “</span><a href="https://www.altamed.org/articles/stay-guard-deadly-delta-variant-cases-rise" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">deadly</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” Delta and other variants. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(I assume they are called the awful Alpha, bad Beta, ghoulish Gamma, etc.)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">One would think there would be a huge market for live vaccines which, after all, would be </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">inexpensive, all-natural, organic, and non-GMO (well, the recipient would no longer be a GMO).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Instead, both the Trump and Biden administrations put all of the nation’s Covid eggs in the mRNA</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “vaccine” basket, a basket that, despite its cost, apparently needs boosting.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Keep in mind that I am not your doctor so I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t take the current</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “vaccines.” You should discuss personal health matters with your physician(s) and decide what to put</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> into your body, or not, on the basis of that discussion, not what some also-not-your-doctor says on </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TV or online, even if they are presented as wearing a </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/the-idiocracy-experiment/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">proverbial white lab coat</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am also not a scientist per se, “just” a lowly historian of science, somebody conversant with some of</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> humanity’s past medical successes and their far more frequent blunders. The former typically</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> occurred when information about diseases and their treatment flowed freely, data could be trusted to</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> be as accurate as technologically possible, and hypotheses could be openly proffered and tested. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Epic failures tend to occur when and where </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/dismisinfoganda/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dismisinfoganda</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> reigns, as during the Covid pandemic and early cholera outbreaks.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While it is silly to say that X person, behavior, or </span><a href="https://www.aier.org/article/cnns-death-toll/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">network</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> kills people when actually it is the virus that</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> does so, politicians and bureaucrats need to be held to account for lying, even if the lie was allegedly</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> well-intentioned, because the cost of the falsehood is high in terms of public trust. That point was well</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> understood at least by the 1850s, when a character from the play “Serious Family” named Abinadab</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Sleek became a household term for pious hypocrisy, as in “</span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Young_Men_s_Christian_Magazine/85csAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Abinadab+Sleek%22&pg=PA122&printsec=frontcover" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you saw that old canting Abinadab Sleek was up to every dodge and vice, although he did seem such a sanctified fellow individual in public</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sound at all familiar?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/now/cdc-scrambles-correct-florida-covid-221000356.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recent Covid case data tussle</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> between the CDC and Florida’s health department would make </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">old</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Mr. Sleek proud because it undermines the mission of both institutions while continuing to distract from the real question of how best to help people avoid bad Covid outcomes, even if that means allowing them to opt into infecting themselves, in a medically-controlled manner, with a virus that cannot be avoided forever.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">We seem to be gradually coming around to the idea of endemicity – the realization that this pathogen is here to stay and we must adapt to it the same as we have to millions of others that present themselves in the course of regular life over millions of years. We vaccinate when possible, especially for the stable viruses, but for others, we evolved with immune systems that adapt according to a pattern discernible through scientific discovery. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was once a mark of the scientifically informed mind to grapple with this truth, embrace it, own it, and live it, with the realization of the counterintuitive truth that exposure and health are not countervailing forces but complementary ones. It is time to take the next logical step and slouch our way toward Variolation.</span></p><p><br /></p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-54675397104797243852021-08-03T20:09:00.002+00:002021-08-03T20:09:29.903+00:00Nasty "Nannies"!<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">NB: most of my hot takes and searing rakes can still be found on the AIER website aqui: </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.aier.org/staff/robert-e-wright/">https://www.aier.org/staff/robert-e-wright/</a>. </span></span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nasty "Nannies": A Cautionary Tale</span></h2><span id="docs-internal-guid-2b864ca8-7fff-1446-0e57-6ca609e96b37"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a land not so far away, a very large family faced a conundrum about what to do after noticing that their nannies had multiplied in number and grown quite nasty. The solution to the family’s problem, which is ongoing and even growing, is by no means clear but surely something must be done. Maybe you can help?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first big difficulty is that the family inherited the nannies, most of whom are quite old and/or childless. The head nannies are the oldest and have become scolds. When family members object to their many rules, the nannies retort by asserting that they are following the terms of their ancient employment contract, a determination generally seconded by a small group of the head nannies claimed to be sufficiently independent from the others to render an objective opinion on the matter.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When pressed, the nannies also point out that family members possess the right to choose which faction of nannies is in charge. The nannies who lose leadership roles remain employed but defer, more or less, to the winning nannies until the next selection is made in two, four, or six years, depending on the exact nannyship role in question. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Traditionally, the nanny leadership selection procedure appeased most family members. Recently, however, the legitimacy of the selection method has been questioned due to rule changes, some of which appear to have violated the ancient employment contract. Also, the selection justification strikes some family members as odd given that today the vast majority of the nannies, including many very powerful ones, are not subject to direct selection.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The nanny leaders hire many subalterns to perform various tasks, few of which seem necessary or even beneficial once the costs are properly accounted for, an exercise that the nannies refuse to undertake in a serious way. Mostly the nannies just make and enforce rules that make a few family members happy or rich while making the rest poor or miserable. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All told, the nannies take about one in every three dollars earned by family members but they give some of it back in various ways, some of which are very popular and some not so much. The entire complicated exercise appears designed to prevent family members from knowing precisely how much they contribute to the nannies on net. The richest family members of course contribute more but all sorts of claims to the contrary are made to keep the family divided.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Understandably, some family members are not happy with the arrangement and wish to change the terms of the ancient employment contract but other family members fear that even worse arrangements will take their place. Some joke that everything is fine because their nannies are the worst in the world, except for all the others. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few family members whisper that maybe the family doesn’t need any nannies at all. Others think they need just a few, like when the family first hired them, and the nannies were more like sentinels. Many family members, though, cannot imagine life without nannies and would gladly give half or two-thirds of other family members’ incomes to have nannies tell them what to do with their lives.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The family members might be able to work this all out themselves but the nannies interfere constantly, in ways large and small. The nannies scold or mock those who question their authority or who have the audacity to claim that they are not following the terms of the employment contract, as amended over the years.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The nannies also claim to have a monopoly on science, a claim that some family members find absurd but others accept because they were educated by the nannies, who fight all attempts to allow non-nannies to educate family members. The nannies are so set on educating all the family members that they donate large sums to private universities in order to better control what the bastions of higher education tell family members about the nannies. One common distortion is to blame the nannies’ bad behaviors on family members.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of the nannies think that family members should not have firearms because it is the nannies’ job to safeguard the family. Although the nannies did successfully coordinate the family members’ efforts to thwart outside attacks several times in the past, the nannies also sometimes sent family members off to distant swamps and deserts to die for reasons that some family members thought dubious.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moreover, some family members wonder where the nannies are when family members kill each other, as too often happens, especially when the nannies coerce them into living in close proximity to each other. The nannies seem to use everything as an excuse to take the family members’ firearms instead of looking into the root causes of murders, many of which are committed using bombs, knives, and blunt objects.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile, instead of combatting real ills, some nannies trick family members into joining sundry ludicrous plots against the nannies simply to aggrandize themselves and make it seem as if family members cannot be trusted with their privacy let alone with guns. They also claim that some family members are better than other family members due to the way family members look, or what their ancestors did, or did not, do. Many family members find such claims upsetting and even contrary to the ancient terms of employment but they still let the nannies tell their children such things.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The nannies also routinely interfere with family members’ social media posts, especially regarding the selection process and their own health. They claim that they do not want family members spreading misinformation about the virus, vaccines, therapies, masks and other forms of social distancing, and such. Very few of the nannies have medical training and most family members see non-nanny doctors, however, so it was not clear that the nannies had superior knowledge, information, or understanding of the virus or ways to treat it or to mitigate its transmission. But apparently nannies have to nanny.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is the utter arrogance of the nannies that troubles many family members the most. Instead of admitting that they cannot control everything and simply providing the best available advice, the nannies pretend to know everything and get defensive and even </span><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorious" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">censorious</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when family members expose their ignorance, which is legion. ‘Tis feared the nannies might think it possible to run every aspect of the household economy, though ample precedents suggest that the attempt will lead only to poverty, despair, and death, the very things the nannies are supposed to help to prevent.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is this family to do? Fire most of the nannies? Jettison or reform the ancient employment contract? Split into one or more new households? Or maybe the family members should lower their standards and laud nannies simply for not making things worse? Maybe pay the nannies not to nanny?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No path will prove an easy one but clearly something must change soon if the family is to survive the onslaught of their nasty nannies.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-34074934525358211672021-06-29T17:31:00.004+00:002021-06-29T20:58:55.562+00:00Is Britney Spears Enslaved?<h1 style="text-align: left;"> Is Britney Spears Enslaved?</h1><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">One would think that in this Woke World more people would be asking if Britney Spears is a slave. <br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Although her income and net worth are enviable, it is no secret that the 39-year-old-American has been <br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">under the thumb of a court-appointed guardian for 13 years. Recently, her plight regained media </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">attention after she gave an </span><a href="https://www.insider.com/britney-spears-bombshell-testimony-conservatorship-hearing-full-text-2021-6" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">impassioned plea in court asking for her Constitutional rights to be restor</span></a>ed.<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In light of the Paternalist Authoritarian Turn of 2020, I herein approach the question of her enslavement</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">as rigorously as I can, which means my response is nuanced, detailed, and based on my study of </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">10,000 years of human slavery across the globe.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>In 2017, Palgrave published my book </span><a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319489674" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Poverty of Slavery</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, one key aspect of which was not to “define” slavery but rather to </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">measure</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> it. In Chapter 2, “Various Degrees of Liberty,” I developed a twenty point “Freedom Scale” based on official definitions and historical characteristics of enslavement. For context, most modern CEOs score a 20 on the scale, chattel field hands worked in the gang system in the antebellum cotton belt of the U.S. South score a 0, and an everyday working American today scores about a 15. So far as I can ascertain, Ms. Spears scores a 4 on my scale, which is just 1 above the score of chattel slaves workinged on the task system in the rice plantations of antebellum South Carolina.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>Here is my Freedom Scale as published and, in </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bold typeface</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, my estimation of how it relates to the situation of Ms. Spears based on media reports. Her score, a 0 or 1, is provided at the end of each criterion, in </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bold and italic typeface</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Note that because this is a Freedom Scale rather than a Slavery Scale, some of the wording may be confusing. Just remember, freedom = good = 1 and unfreedom = bad = 0.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Direct Methods of Control</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">:</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">1. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Is the laborer paid primarily in cash or other liquid assets (e.g., company stock)? (Payment </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">entirely in kind or in company scrip can be used to limit worker mobility or otherwise ensure his/her </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">dependence on the employer.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She is paid a weekly cash allowance of </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57593201" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">$2,000.00</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">2. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Can the laborer own property on the same terms as his or her employer? (Preventing laborers from </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">owning property serves the same purpose as paying him or her entirely in kind as it prevents the worker </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">from selling assets when s/he wishes to move to a new employer.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> The assets accumulated by virtue of her work, estimated at $60 million, are controlled by </span><a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-much-has-13-years-under-conservatorship-cost-britney-spears-11624654464" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">her guardian</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">3. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Is the laborer free from physical restraints? (Punishment should be termination of employment, </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">not being beaten.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> The restraints, so far as I have ascertained, are entirely paper ones.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">4. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Is the laborer free from psychological constraints? (‘Invisible’ or psychological chains can be as </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">potent as iron ones.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> She is clearly </span><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/britney-spears-emotionally-manipulated-conservatorship-says-ex-nanny-092051685.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">emotionally manipulated</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> by her guardian, </span><a href="https://www.insider.com/inside-britney-spears-conservatorship-freebritney-movement-2020-12" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">who is also her father</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">5. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Is the laborer not legally required to work? (Vagrancy or compulsory labor laws contain, as a </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">newspaper put it in 1922, “the essence of slavery” because they reduce each worker’s option to remove </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">him or herself from the labor force, thereby reducing the attractiveness of strikes, subsistence lifestyles, </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">or self-employment.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> She claims she has been </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/arts/music/britney-spears-conservatorship-hearing.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">forced to work</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> and of course we have to believe her, not due to some Woke baloney but because we know </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">that people respond to incentives, and her incentive under conservatorship is not to work.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">6. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Is the laborer inalienable (unsalable or otherwise nontransferable to another employer without his </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">or her consent)? (Sale of labor services is also another characteristic of slavery, though of course not the</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> only one.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> This is a trickier one but my take, given that I am not a lawyer but can still see a clear legal path </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">for the sale, is that her guardian has complete control over her and if desired could sell her/the </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">right to benefit from her labor, to another guardian. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">7. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Is the laborer incapable of owing his/her employer significant sums or of being listed as collateral </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">security for an advance or other loan payable to his/her employer? (When an employer is also a major </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">creditor to his/her/its workers, the employer possesses too much economic power over them, which </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">can lead to debt bondage.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> She could borrow from her father or anyone whom he might sell her guardianship to.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">8. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Has the worker not been subjected to ‘seasoning’ designed to break his/her will to find other </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">employment? (This is another standard sign of enslavement.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> I cannot find anyone who has used that term of art, but her recent </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57586405" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">court statement strongly</span></a></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57586405" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> suggests that she was seasoned</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, though ineffectively.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">9. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Does the laborer have freedom of movement in order to search for other employment? (Employers </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">that prevent laborer movement can effectively stop laborers from moving to employers willing to </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">offer better terms of employment.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/1009726455/britney-spears-conservatorship-how-thats-supposed-to-work" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Clearly not</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">10. Can the laborer quit without monetary or other loss? (This question appears key to many.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/1009726455/britney-spears-conservatorship-how-thats-supposed-to-work" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">clearly not</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">. She could presumably buy her freedom from her guardian, per the response to number 6 above, </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">but likely at the loss of most or all of the assets her labor since age 17 has accumulated.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Working Conditions</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">:</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">11. Can the laborer control his/her work schedule? (If not, s/he can be prevented from having a </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">personal cultural, economic, political, or social life outside of the workplace.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> The guardian controls such </span><a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/06/britney-spears-conservatorship-case-legal-expert.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">decisions</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">12. Can the laborer control the total hours s/he works? (Ditto.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> The guardian controls such </span><a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/06/britney-spears-conservatorship-case-legal-expert.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">decisions</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">13. Can the laborer control the tempo of his or her work? (If not, s/he can be driven to work at a pace </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">that injures his/her well-being, as well as his or her ability to have a personal life outside of work.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> The guardian controls such </span><a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/06/britney-spears-conservatorship-case-legal-expert.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">decisions</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Personal Life</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">:</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">14. Is the laborer not legally dead, socially dead, or otherwise alienated from the formal or dominant </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">social order? (If dead to society, the laborer has no basis for a personal life outside of work.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> Her social life </span><a href="https://www.insider.com/inside-britney-spears-conservatorship-freebritney-movement-2020-12" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">has been curtailed</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, ostensibly to keep her away from illicit drugs.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">15. Does the laborer not belong to a group that has been dishonored? (Ditto.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> Pop music stars are </span><a href="https://www.idsnews.com/article/2020/10/column-stop-idolizing-celebrities" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">more idolized than dishonored</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">16. Can the laborer determine his/her own name? (If not, his or her identity is controlled by another.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> Britney Spears was born </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Spears" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Britney Jean Spears</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> but unlike other </span><a href="https://www.mass.gov/name-changes" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">adult Americans</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> she could not change her name without her guardian’s approval.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">17. Can the laborer determine what to consume and where to buy consumption goods? (Employers </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">can lower wages into negative territory by selling laborers goods at monopoly rates and can prevent </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">laborers from purchasing goods that might aid in their resistance.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> She </span><a href="https://pagesix.com/2021/04/16/britney-spears-resurfaces-for-malibu-shopping-spree/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">shops around </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">with her allowance.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">18. Can the laborer choose his/her place of residence? (If not, a major component of the laborer’s </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">personal life is outside of his/her control.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> She was forced into a </span><a href="https://laist.com/news/entertainment/britney-spears-conservatorship-hearing-what-you-need-to-know" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">long residency</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> in Las Vegas.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">19. Is the laborer able to marry on the same terms as his or her employer? (Ditto.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">No, she needs</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://laist.com/news/entertainment/britney-spears-conservatorship-hearing-what-you-need-to-know" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">permission </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">from her guardian.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">20. Does the laborer control his or her own children on the same terms as his or her employer? (Ditto.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">0</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> No, her guardian insists on an </span><a href="https://laist.com/news/entertainment/britney-spears-conservatorship-hearing-what-you-need-to-know" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">IUD</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> and the conservatorship has </span><a href="https://www.oxygen.com/true-crime-buzz/who-has-custody-of-britney-spears-and-kevin-federlines-kids" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">apparently negatively affected</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> her custody rights negotiations with their father, a fella named </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Federline" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Kevin Federline</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>It is important to note that slavery is NOT illegal in the United States, it is simply highly regulated. Specifically, the </span><a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xiii" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">13th Amendment</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of the U.S. Constitution (rat. 1865) commands “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, shall exist within the United States.” Millions of Americans have been enslaved since 1865. (For details, see the resources provided by the nonprofit </span><a href="https://www.historiansagainstslavery.org/main/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Historians Against Slavery</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, of which I am currently treasurer.)</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>A court that presumably followed due process placed Ms. Spears under conservatorship but did NOT convict her of a crime. That means that any among us could be treated similarly, whether called a slave or not. In fact, many elderly persons have already fallen victim to the guardianship system, as detailed by HBO funnyman </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG2pEffLEJo" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John Oliver in 2018</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and as portrayed in the </span><a href="https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1114947865?playlistId=tt9893250&ref_=tt_pr_ov_vi" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2021 comedy thriller</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Care a Lot</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Both show that the current system creates incentives to bilk the wealthy elderly on paternalistic grounds ultimately rooted in greed. The movie, in fact, should be entitled </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Care a Lot (Not!)</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>The best solution I can think of would be to turn the guardianship of duly ascertained incompetents over to nonprofit charities that receive no direct remuneration from their wards, or some other private ordering solution a la Ed Stringham’s </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Private-Governance-Creating-Economic-Social/dp/0199365164" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Private Governance</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13093208.post-54191306557314438702021-06-25T14:42:00.000+00:002021-06-25T14:42:08.616+00:00American Federalism at the Crossroads<h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">American Federalism at the Crossroads</span></h2><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Robert E. Wright, AIER Senior Faculty Fellow for the Bastiat Society of Venezuela, 23 June 2021</span></h3><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nota bene: Slides unavailable. Most of my work can still be found at the AIER's Daily Economy Blog here: </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.aier.org/staff/robert-e-wright/</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 1] Buenas noches! Me llamo Roberto Wright y trabajo para el American Institute for Economic Research en Great Barrington, Massachusetts, en los Estados Unidos. Han pasado cuarenta años desde que estudié español, así que hablaré en inglés esta noche.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-342d42b1-7fff-0d22-fb67-178d2e96de4b"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 2] Unlike most nations, the United States of America at its founding adopted a federal form of government whereby governance is distributed across multiple levels, from private nonprofit corporations at the bottom through local governments like towns and cities, to counties, to the now fifty state governments, to the national, or federal, government. School and other special districts add further complexity, as do tribal and territorial governments. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 3] The Founders of the United States wanted a government that was strong enough to protect individual Americans from foes foreign and domestic but without creating a government strong enough to tyrannize them, as Great Britain had following the French and Indian War. That meant pitting the three branches of the national government, the legislative, executive, and judicial, against each other. It also meant pitting different levels of government against each other. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 4] In other words, American governments are supposed to some degree to compete, much like businesses do. That is easiest to see at the lowest level of governance, the voluntary nonprofit corporation. Those institutions form and dissolve at the whim of the volunteers who create them to achieve specific missions, like educating people about the costs of alcohol abuse or slavery or working on Sunday or any other thing, except generating profits. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 5] They obtain sanction to operate from higher levels of government, usually at the state level. They cannot directly tax the population but they can induce individuals to voluntarily divert taxes away from higher levels of government, including the national government, to them instead. They can invest some of that revenue in remunerative assets if they wish, or use it all to fund the current annual budget. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 6] The line between nonprofit corporations and municipal corporations blurred yet more in recent decades as many have come to rely on government appropriations rather than individual donor dollars for much of their budgets. Nonprofit corporations typically focus on specific missions rather than geographical territories but most do, in fact, limit their activities to specific geographical areas. Even nonprofits with national or international missions are often comprised of smaller auxiliaries tied to specific states, counties, or townships. Such ties are often loose, however, and they may count as members, donors, or beneficiaries individuals not strictly resident in their geographically designed area. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 7] Municipal corporations provide a range of presumed public services, from garbage collection to policing to schooling, but only in very strictly defined geographical areas. They include a hodge podge of entities, from tiny hamlets to six mile square townships to large cities. Hamlets, villages, or towns may sit wholly within other municipalities. Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, for example, is a borough located within the much larger township of Abington. Both are just a few of the municipal governments located in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 8] As some services are thought to be better provided across jurisdictional lines, special districts have been formed to perform single functions, like schooling, fire control, mosquito abatement, or energy or water provision. Like nonprofits they are independent of local governments but, unlike nonprofits, they are not voluntary associations. They have limited taxing powers or charge use fees, as for electricity or water. There are almost 52,000 of them in America, not counting school districts. Special districts keep the costs attendant on the provision of the various services they perform off general municipal budgets and out of partisan politics to some degree.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 9] Were that not complicated enough, the legal relationship between local municipalities and county governments varies from state to state. What is true in Pennsylvania may not hold across the Mason-Dixon Line in Maryland. Louisiana is divided into parishes instead of counties but the difference is mainly one of nomenclature rather than function. Some states have unincorporated areas that are within counties but no other municipal government. Except in Alaska, all villages, towns, and so forth fall under the jurisdiction of a county or parish, but in a few places cities and counties have the same boundaries. In other places, like Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a single city sits within multiple counties.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 10] Yes, all of these overlapping jurisdictions cause confusion, which is part of the point. When jurisdiction is unclear, sometimes nobody asserts authority, creating regulatory and tax spaces where innovative activities can thrive, but also be squelched due to the uncertainties that arise in some areas of the law. In 2003, for instance, Colorado made it unlawful for municipalities to have their own gun laws because it was thought that the patchwork dissuaded people from owning or carrying guns. It just changed back, though, by allowing municipalities to enact their own firearms ordinances, so long as they are at least as strict as the statewide ones. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 11] Jurisdictional overlap also allows municipal governments to check each other by offering local options. Adjacent towns might compete to provide education and parks cost-effectively lest they lose people, and hence tax base, to the other town. Or now in places like Colorado they might compete on gun regulations.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 12] Local revenues mostly come from personal and commercial real estate taxes but some supplement with sales taxes. A few municipalities in major metropolitan areas like Philadelphia even tax income from work, though at a relatively low rate and by piggybacking on the national Internal Revenue Service.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 13] State governments rely on retail sales taxes, user fees like automobile, business, and fishing licenses, and income taxes, though a few with sizable tourist industries and efficient governments, like Florida and South Dakota, are able to provide sufficient public goods without taxing incomes, in part by leaving more responsibility at the county and lower levels, including the nonprofit layer at the bottom.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 14] In addition to competition, federalism between state and local governments provides more nuanced, local control. A town that wants more parks or police officers than the county government allots it can raise the revenues needed to fund its own parks and rec and police departments. A county without a state university could establish its own community college, and so forth.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 15] From the start, America was a large and heterogeneous nation. It could never have been ruled from the top in a way that most Americans would have found worthwhile so it would have split up had it not developed a federal system with significant local autonomy. Most of its states are also too large and variegated to be completely ruled from a central location. Policies that work in cities may be entirely inappropriate for agricultural counties, and their policies would cause nothing but harm in mining and lumber districts or seashore communities.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 16] Of course one might imagine a country controlled from the top that nevertheless grants local governments significant autonomy without intervening provincial or county-level governments, which may simply add expensive extra levels of bureaucracy, more mouths for taxpayers to feed, so to speak. But then again there might be economies of scale that cannot be achieved at the local level. A county might be able to afford a tactical police unit that no town within the county could afford. Townships might be able to afford high schools but not community colleges. And perhaps only state governments could afford to maintain military units.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 17] That last point suggests that America’s federal system of governance also renders it resilient in the face of shocks. If Washington, DC were to evaporate in a thermonuclear blast, America would go on, not quite as before, but not driven to its knees by a single blow. In fact, it might improve. We know this because the national government has periodically shuttered itself for weeks at a time due to budget impasses and yet everyday life continued without interruption.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 18] Likewise, when state capitals have been shuttered due to natural disasters, federal and local governments take up the slack. They remain staffed by bumbling incompetent bureaucrats but no power vacuums arise to be filled by truly venal criminal elements or foreign powers.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 19] Most importantly, perhaps, federalism reduces the risk of tyranny by creating many centers of power and many decision makers. That was very clear during the lockdowns imposed in 2020 and 2021. Some states locked down harshly for over a year while a few, including South Dakota, put in place only a few measures designed to stop large, indoor gatherings. That allowed Americans to visit, if not move, to jurisdictions where they felt the most comfortable and also provided the policy heterogeneity necessary to prove beyond the shadow of all doubt that lockdowns and mandatory masking did not work to reduce the spread of Covid-19.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 20] The downside to federalism, though, was that states that removed lockdowns quickly, like Florida, allowed municipal governments and nonprofits to formulate their own policies, even ones that ran counter to state recommendations. To this day, for example, there are children in Florida forced to wear masks in school and that may be worse for students than the places that still have not returned to face-to-face instruction.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 21] Covid lockdowns have also exposed the fact that the U.S. national government is no longer the champion of human rights, a role it assumed during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s when presidents sent federal troops to states like Arkansas and Mississippi to enforce federal court orders to desegregate schools. Instead of sending troops to states that refused to uphold the many federal laws that states were breaking in the name of public health, it complained that it could not join them in Covid tyranny or the destruction of property rights on the mantle of so-called social justice causes. When American governments join together in a phalanx instead of competing to create the best policies, they become more formidable than tyrannies that rely on a single strong man.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 22] If federalism still appeals in some ways, remember what Bastiat said about that which is seen and that which is not. I have described the more obvious benefits of dividing power and tax revenues in broadly rational ways. But significant costs lurk beneath. Foremost is the struggle for power between the national and state governments. If they compete to see which can most oppress some minority, woe be to its members.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 23] America’s Civil War was primarily about which level of government controlled fundamental labor policy. Traditionally, the matter was left to the states, some of which banned chattel slavery, some of which allowed it but didn’t subsidize it heavily, and some of which subsidized it heavily. Even before President-Elect Abraham Lincoln tried to move the national government against the institution, slave states seceded, or left the United States, and formed their own country.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 24] During the four-year military struggle that followed, the national government assumed additional powers from state governments and has been doing so ever since, by degrees, though not always permanently or successfully. Federal minimum wage law, for example, has been superseded by many states with their own, higher minimum wage rules. But in Wyoming and other states that do not have a state minimum wage law, the federal minimum binds local businesses.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 25] Similarly, for most of U.S. history, alcohol policies have been matters for state or municipal governments to decide. Well before national Prohibition in the 1920s, individual U.S. states, counties, and even towns were dry, meaning that it was illegal to manufacture, sell, or publicly consume alcohol within them. That allowed temperance advocates to live as they liked without forcing Catholics and immigrants to give up their more alcohol-tolerant cultures. When the U.S. Constitution was amended to give the national government the power to decide alcohol policy, the result was a disastrous national policy called Prohibition. After over a decade of heavy costs, the policy was eventually reversed and once again states, counties, and towns decide alcohol policy.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SLIDE 26] The national government, however, insinuated itself into another area of policy traditionally left to the states, the regulation of substances colloquially known as drugs. Its policies were again disastrous but until recently it maintained them while asserting its legal supremacy over the states in the matter. Interestingly, however, some states challenged the national government over marijuana policy, at first legalizing its medicinal use, and now its recreational consumption. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 27] This has created considerable confusion, as when the national government’s agents destroyed marijuana being grown on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where marijuana was still illegal, but for sale in Colorado, where it was legal under state law. The national government had two justifications for this. First, although called sovereign nations, Indian Reservations are ultimately simply a special type of municipality beholden to state governments in some ways and the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs in others. Second, the national government undoubtedly controls interstate commerce, which the Indian Reservation would have had to engage in for its marijuana to be legal.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 28] The contours of American federalism are in flux in other ways as well. During 2020, for example, several states blocked the free flow of American citizens from state to state, a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, in the name of public health. The national government also allowed several state and municipal governments to flaunt federal laws and regulations by allowing protestors to secede from the United States and to attack federal office buildings, statutes, and other national property, protection of which state and local governments have traditionally provided due to scale economies.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 29] And American-style federalism is only going to get more interesting. Some scholars have called for reviving the doctrine of nullification, which almost led to a civil war in the early 1830s when South Carolina claimed the right to outlaw national tariffs in its territory. That dispute was never resolved constitutionally but rather alleviated by a political compromise that lowered tariffs, which hurt agricultural states in the South while benefiting industrialists primarily located in the North.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 30] Many of America’s unusual financial regulatory features stem from unresolved issues of federalism. To this day, insurance companies are regulated primarily by states though most are large, national organizations. Banks, by contrast, are regulated by a “crazy quilt” of regulators, some national, like the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, some state, and some regional, like the Federal Reserve and the regional compacts that at one time were needed to branch across state lines. Even securities regulation is federal, with so-called state-level Blue Sky Laws supplementing the national Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules. Financial regulators have incentives to work together to make their lives easier but during crises informal arrangements can break down or lead to untoward outcomes that of course regulators try to hide.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 31] In short, those seeking to create a federal system of government may want to look to Switzerland rather than the United States. In an earlier draft, I also suggested Canada but then I learned that Alberta is seeking independence right now. Quebec long did but was mollified without conflict. Albertans, though, are citing America’s Declaration of Independence, specifically the part where it says “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing inevitably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such a government,” and create a new one. Albertans trace that long chain of abuses all the way back to 1870 because ever since Ottawa has assumed more and more power over their daily lives. Bilingualism and urban cosmopolitanism play well in Toronto and Montreal, but not the oil and agricultural regions of the west. Albertans now annually pay $20 billion more in taxes to Ottawa than they receive back in government services.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 32] In the U.S., significant differences in policy preferences between rural and urban counties now create dissension in many states. Several rural counties have voted to leave Oregon for Idaho, for example, and one county in Nevada just announced that it will protect its residents from the enforcement of unconstitutional state or federal laws that impinge on the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and so forth. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 33] Rural and Republican states also seek to increase their ability to block national policies, from Covid restrictions to firearms laws to voting procedures, with which they disagree. Florida has taken the lead in many ways. They can only do so much, however, because the national government definitely controls what America’s founders called the power of the purse. The national government controls the individual and corporate income tax apparatus, strongly influences the printing of money, and has the best access to credit markets. It can use its immense fiscal power to bend states to its will, as it did in the 1970s and 1980s when it forced states to lower speed limits to 55 miles per hour and to raise the legal drinking age to 21 by threatening to withhold their federal highway appropriations if they didn’t comply. Thankfully, it eventually lost the speed limit battle.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 34] I have suggested that at some point states may have to interdict federal taxes rather than allow their citizens to continue to fund poor policies emanating from Washington. Several districts within America’s dysfunctional large cities have already threatened to do something similar. Businesses in the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore, for example, want to put their city taxes into an escrow account until the city government begins to collect trash and enforce laws again. And the Buckhead area of Atlanta threatens to secede from the city unless it provides more law enforcement and other public amenities.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 35] Similarly, Staten Islanders are again considered seceding from the rest of New York City, which is increasingly crime ridden and poorly governed. It is as populous as Atlanta but doesn’t have a single public hospital. It’s also geographically isolated from the rest of the city and hence a prime candidate for independence. Many upstate New Yorkers want to secede from downstate New York because, as New York City does to Staten Islanders, New York City, Long Island, and Yonkers take more in taxes more than they return in public goods. Many in southern New Jersey would love to leave northern New Jersey for the same reason. At the very least, they would like to see taxes and regulations shifted back to the county level and away from the state capitals of Albany and Trenton.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 36] What secession movements indicate are that people feel that the government is not being sufficiently responsive to their needs because it takes more in taxes than it returns in public goods. They feel they are being forced to subsidize those in power and their constituents. They feel tyrannized by the majority and hence want to create a new majority by cleaving off from the old to go on their own, or to join a more amenable group, or to have more local control.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 37] When the U.S. national government had relatively little power before the Civil War, secession movements remained weak because there were no clear benefits when the governments with the most direct effect on Americans’ lives were local and state ones. Moving from one town to another in pursuit of better policies was relatively cheap. Even moving from one state to another was often possible and sometimes states were cleaved from other ones, or from larger territories, rendering physical movement to more amenable jurisdictions unnecessary. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 38] The more powerful the national government becomes, however, the more it becomes necessary to leave the nation entirely, or to secede from it, in order to enjoy better policies. The bigger states with histories as independent republics or territories, like Alaska, California, and Texas, periodically threaten secession but today entire regions appear poised to leave the Union if the national government persists in raising taxes, debasing the dollar, weakening the military and border controls, and fomenting racial animosities. The specter of national voting and zoning laws, like the specter of national labor laws in 1861, may well cause another attempt by some states to leave the United States so they can forge an independent path. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SAME] America has stayed together for so long by being a union of states, governed by many overlapping levels, not a single leader in Washington, DC. While some local and state officials may well capitulate to the right national leader, many others will resist further attempts at centralization and they will garner significant local support. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[SAME] There is an old adage that the American Revolution was not about Home Rule but who would rule at home. It was not about Independence, in other words, but who would govern America. To defeat the British, coalitions formed and they all sought a share of power after independence was won, making federalism a natural governance choice. Almost 250 years after the Revolution began, Americans again wonder who shall rule at home, bureaucrats in Washington, DC or multiple layers of elected officials, from the officers of nonprofits to county commissioners and mayors to state governors to a President checked by those layers as well as by Congress and the federal judiciary. Time will tell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Slide 39] Gracias. ¿Preguntas?</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Robert E. Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13094487737942138926noreply@blogger.com0