Coyote Blog

FactCheck.Org, which did a lot of good work during the election, is back up and running with several new posts related to Social Security claims and counter-claims. 

Previously, I wrote:

It is not uncommon that advocacy groups struggle to declare victory.  The problem with crossing the finish line for such groups is that their leaders will lose power, influence, and face-time on the news, and rank and file members may lose jobs.  Also, it is always possible to point to some instance where victory has not been secured, though these instances are often trivial compared to the original problem the groups were organized to fight.

Such seems to be the case with women's groups today.  Their shift from women's issues advocacy to groups trying to maintain their political stature probably began in the Clinton administration, where most women's groups chose to support their political ally (Clinton) rather than their traditional issue (sexual harassment in the workplace).

Ann Althouse has similar thoughts:

But didn't you notice that the feminist concern about sexual predation, a huge deal circa 1992, fell into steep decline shortly thereafter? The people of the left had a keen eye for the sexual subordination of women in the late 80s and early 90s, the era of the anti-pornography movement. They gasped about sexual harassment around about when Clarence Thomas was nominated as Supreme Court Justice. And then it all just suddenly went away, because party politics outweighed whatever real concern about feminism they'd ever had, and Bill Clinton needed help beating Paula Jones into submission. Feminism has never recovered! Oh, abortion politics still remains, because it works well as a campaign issue, but there's not much serious attention to feminism on the left anymore.

There is a tendency in politics, once you have an enemy, to attack that enemy no matter what position they take.  Conservatives of late have (rightly) attacked Liberals for being un-supportive of Iraqi democracy, just so they can embarrass their arch-enemy GW Bush.  However, conservatives can be guilty of the same thing. 

Ed Morrissey of Captains Quarters has been on Governor (of Wisconsin) Jim Doyle's case for historically opposing and promising to continue to oppose reforms in election controls, despite very suspicious voting numbers in Milwaukee.  In this case, Captain Ed has done a great job bringing focus to election fraud and "over-vote" issues in Milwaukee, E. St. Louis, and Washington State, especially since the MSM has preferred to focus on potential "under-vote" issues in Ohio and Florida.

However, in piling on Mr. Doyle, I fear that Morrissey has put aside his political and/or philosophical beliefs in favor of giving his enemy another good bludgeon.  His post points out that:

executives involved in a controversial health-care merger gave Doyle over $28,000 in donations shortly after he allowed the merger to go through. Critics at the time wondered why Doyle didn't ask for common-sense economic concessions

OK, lets take this in two parts.  First, lets look at Doyle's decision on the merger.  The article says that Doyle is being criticized basically for NOT holding two companies for ransom.  Often anti-trust law is used as "merger tax" to extract some sort of pay-off from the parties, in the form of reduced prices or a spun-off properties or whatever.  However, no matter what you call it, this is a bribe the government is demanding to let individuals carry forward with a private business transaction.  Usually this bribe is waved around by some politician in order to score some populist political points toward their next reelection (the Europeans and Elliot Spitzer are both good at this).

Is this really what Morrissey thinks Doyle should have done?  As a libertarian, I find that conservatives' support for truly free market capitalism sometimes runs hot and cold, but I would generally expect a conservative to oppose this kind of extortion and interference with the free market.  So does Morrissey really think Doyle did the wrong thing?

The second part of the story, of course, are the campaign contributions.  First, I would argue that if Doyle's merger decision was not wrong, then donations based on this decision are not wrong either.  Many, many companies out there donate to politicians who promise to keep the government off their back.  I certainly do - does that make my contributions graft?  Finally, Morrissey admits that

These donations do not appear to have broken any laws, although the timing strongly suggests some sort of payoff

Look at it the other way around:  If Doyle HAD extracted concessions to approve the merger, it would not have strongly suggested a soft of payoff, it would have been a definite payoff.

Captain Ed- I enjoy your site immensely, even when I disagree with it.  It is OK for you to say that Doyle made the right decision on the merger without backing off of him over the election issue -- just as it is OK for those of us who had concerns about the war in Iraq to gleefully support that country's return to democracy.

Support for free speech is generally tested at the margins -- everyone supports free speech for themselves, but the real challenge is to support free speech for your enemies.  It is for this reason that I force myself not to get worked up about the American Nazi party adopting a highway in Oregon.  LGF is wrong in this post to cheer the illegal removal of this sign.  And a state government cannot be put in the position of screening out groups eligibility based on their political views - where would it stop?

Besides, since Nazis unfortunately don't seem to be going away, what better use for them than cleaning litter off of highways?

Update:

The next step on the slippery slope.

Over the last several days, more revelations have emerged that the Bush administration seems to be spending unprecedented amounts of taxpayer money for third party PR support of administration policies.  There is nothing that makes me madder than politicians using my money to help cement their own position in office.  For all the majesty of the office, the President is still the taxpayers' employee, and we should expect an honest accounting of his performance and programs.  What makes this even more ridiculous is that the US Presidency is the greatest bully pulpit in the world -- no one gets more of a chance to get his/her point of view into the public domain than the President.  But Bush is generally a crappy communicator, so he has squandered this opportunity and is forced into paying others to speak for him.

Often business people like myself lament that the government needs to be run like a business - meaning more focus on efficiency and productivity and process improvement.   But there are a number of ways the the government is NOT like a business.  The key difference is that a private company can, at the end of the day, give outsiders the brush-off.  As a private company (with no public stock float) I don't have to tell anyone anything about the decisions I have made or why I made them.  I am not only allowed but expected to pay money (in the form of PR, sales, advertising, etc.) to  put a public spin on my products and services -- this is called marketing.  The government, of course, is not supposed to do this.  They have an accountability to everybody.  (actually, even CEO's of public companies are not supposed to do this either, at least with their shareholders, but they do).

The Bush administration wants to believe they are still running their own private business, rather than a public trust.  They have used 9/11 and the war on terror as excuses to pull a veil of secrecy over decision-making, data, and even mistakes that often have little to do with national security.  They have set a number of unsettling precedents around managing their public image, and their payments for PR and good press fall into this category.

This is pretty funny, as highlighted in Reason's Hit and Run:

Under the plan, any person seeking a new job would be required to obtain an updated "counterfeit-proof" Social Security card, equipped with a digitized photo and an electronic identification strip containing the person's legal status. To offset fears of government intrusion, the card would be clearly marked, "This is not a national ID card," [California Republican congressman David] Dreier said.

Gosh, what a great solution.  Think of the applications.  All Phillip Morris has to do is write "this is not a cigarette" on each Marlboro and poof: all that nasty regulation and litigation goes away.  I guess I would not need a liquor license to sell Budweiser's labeled "this is not beer".  Or maybe Pamela Anderson can get a T-shirt that says "these are real".  LOL.

By the way, for business owners, don't miss this gem later in the article:

Employers would have to check a prospective employee's legal status against a new employment eligibility database either by swiping the card or calling a hot line. Those who fail to do so, or knowingly hire an undocumented worker, would face fines of up to $50,000 and five years in prison for each occurrence.

Nothing like spending 5 years in the slam for having one of your managers forget to check the ID of someone they hired.

I am spending the day filing all our sales tax returns (10 states, 4 counties) and have noticed something about state and county tax collectors and treasurers.  They put their name all over everything.  Take Lake County, Florida.  The sales tax form says "BOB MCKEE" and in little letters underneath that it says "Lake County Tax Collector".  The pre-addressed envelope is to BOB MCKEE.  I have to make my sales tax check to, you guessed it, BOB MCKEE.

Why is BOB MCKEE's name all over this?  What happens when BOB MCKEE retires or fails to get reelected?  Isn't the county stuck with a huge printing bill to replace all the forms and send out new ones?  And, assuming this is an elective office, don't BOB MCKEE's political opponents object to tens of thousands of dollars of free advertising paid for by the county.  Heck, I can't always name all my Congressman here in Arizona but I sure as hell know that BOB MCKEE is the tax collector for Lake County, Florida.  Conversely, I don't know who the head of the IRS is and I certainly don't address my checks to him or her on April 15.

By the way, this is just one example.  I get sales and property tax forms and such from many many counties in 10 states and it is much more the rule than the exception that the person, rather than the office, dominates the letterhead.  Stupid.  And, given the taxpayer subsidy implied for the incumbent, mildly corrupt.

This is a real low both for journalistic and governmental integrity (via Captains Quarters):

The blogosphere buzzed yesterday with the revelation that pundit Armstrong Williams received $241,000 from the Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind Act and push other commentators to do the same. Williams did not disclose the payment while pushing NCLB in several columns and on his television appearances; instead, he represented his opinions as his own independent views.

This is simultaneously wrong and stupid.

California Governor Schwarzenegger pointed out in his state of the state address that out of 150+ state congressional districts in California, NONE changed party in the recent elections.  The Governator rightly called out gerrymandering as practiced in states like Texas and California for being a threat to democracy and an incumbent protection program.

This is great to hear, but I would give this a 0% chance of success for anyone but Ahnold.  The problem with doing anything about it is that your political support will almost by definition be coming from the minority party in the state.  That is not a winning political formula.  Even Kevin Drum, who seems to agree with Arnold's logic on this feels compelled to disagree to protect his party. However, Arnold is getting good at taking issues over the heads of legislators straight to the voters, so you never know.

By the way, as a libertarian who cares a lot more about the democratic process than either party, I would take Drum's proposed deal in a second.

(sign of the times:  my ieSpell program already has Schwarzenegger built into the dictionary)

It has always been ironic to me that those who started the "free speech" movement of the 60's have been in the forefront of clamping down on campus speech via speech codes.  The answer to this paradox was that the free speech movement was never about free speech, but about advancing a mostly Marxist point of view to the exclusion of all others.

FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, has a nice roundup of work they have done to defend free speech on campuses in 2004.  Hat tip to Virginia Postrel.

I don't know whether it warrants the "crisis" moniker (to me, government is always in a disastrous state), but Social Security is indeed facing an enormous cash flow shortfall in just a few years.  Those who use bogus government accounting to say that there is no problem until 2042 are either disingenuous or delusional.  People making this argument are saying that yes, cash flow will be negative, but those negative cash flows will come out of the huge Social Security trust fund, which won't be depleted until 2042.

Um, the only problem with this is that... there is no Social Security trust fund.  I mean yes, there is such a thing on paper with a large number next to it, but there is no actual pool of cash or investments to draw on.  The "trust fund" is full of government IOU's to itself - the actual cash was spent for general budget needs over the years.  As a result, in just a few years, Social Security will require:

• Massive new taxes
• Large benefits cuts
• A complete restructuring of all parts of the program
• More government borrowing

Good post at Assymetrical Information goes into it in more depth.

This is wrong, wrong, wrong.  Yes, I know that there is a real risk, in fact a certainty, that dangerous people will be let out on the street.  But that is the bias of our entire legal system - the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard and other protections of the accused routinely put bad people back on the street.  We live with that, because we would rather err in putting bad people back on the street than in putting good people behind bars for life.  Give them a trial, deport them, or let them go.  Heck, airdrop them into Paris for all I care, but you have to let them get due process or go free.

After years of enduring a procession of moonbats and losers running under the Libertarian Party banner, I am frustrated that the party can't produce a credible libertarian candidate I feel good about voting for.  I wrote more on this here just before the election.

Now I see that the Libertarian Party is asking for a second recount in Ohio, after the first one changed the vote tally all of 300 or so votes out of a 100,000+ margin.  The Party's candidate admits that the recount won't change the result:

They have said they don't expect to change the election results, but want to make sure that every vote is properly counted.

Then why the hell do it?!?  And why the hell should we use government money to do it.  And why why why the hell is the Libertarian Party, the party of not just small but minimal government, doing asking for this??

Thanks to Captains Quarters for the link.  This "count every vote" thing confuses me.  A scientist would laugh at you at the concept of error-less measurement. Every measurement and count has error - you just try to make the count or measurement error substantially smaller than the differential in votes.    In the Washington governors race or in the Florida 2000 Presidential race, the differential was/is probably within the error bar.  But certainly not in Ohio.

It is not uncommon that advocacy groups struggle to declare victory.  The problem with crossing the finish line for such groups is that their leaders will lose power, influence, and face-time on the news, and rank and file members may lose jobs.  Also, it is always possible to point to some instance where victory has not been secured, though these instances are often trivial compared to the original problem the groups were organized to fight.

Such seems to be the case with women's groups today.  Their shift from women's issues advocacy to groups trying to maintain their political stature probably began in the Clinton administration, where most women's groups chose to support their political ally (Clinton) rather than their traditional issue (sexual harassment in the workplace).

This trend seems to be accelerating.  Here are some other indicators:

• Increasingly, women's rights seem to have become a euphemism for abortion rights.  I don't have any problem with people organizing to support abortion rights, but it strikes me that women have more rights than this.  What happened to free speech and property and religion and bearing arms?  Aren't those women's rights?  But press most women today who say they are concerned with the erosion of women's rights, 95% of the time they will be talking narrowly about abortion rights.  The majority of the articles on the NOW site are related to abortion and Roe v. Wade, not any other discernable consitutional rights.
• At the same time that the US Government was in the process of freeing millions of Afghan women, opening up to them for the first time the right to vote and go to school, womens groups in the US were mostly opposing these actions.  In fact, their main focus at the time was instead on trying to get one female millionaire into a country club in Georgia.  This contrast both points out the trivialization of the battles left to fight for women in this country who can mostly claim victory, as well as the loss of focus on the most fundamental of women's rights that are still denied to women all over the world.  For many women in the world, women's rights aren't getting an abortion or joining a country club, they are not getting beaten with impunity by your husband, not getting stoned to death for minor offenses, being able to vote, or read, or be educated, or even to show some skin every once in a while.  Women have far fewer rights in islamic nations than blacks had in aparteid South Africa.  African-American groups in the US actively opposed apparteid in South Africa -- where are womens group's voices on islamic fascism?
• Women's groups have lost any consistent philosophical focus.  With abortion, they were of one mind - our bodies are private, the government can't tell us what to do with them.  Great, I'll buy that.  But, along comes the breast implant scare, and suddenly women's groups are all for banning women from doing certain things to their body (mainly because women's leaders see breast implants as frivolous and not something real women should do).  So, you can do whatever you want with your body as long as women's leaders agree with your decision- making.  Don't believe me?  Here is the spot on the NOW site , and here is an article urging woment to complain that the government is not micro-managing their bodies enough by making certain medical items too available

And now comes this story on banning Walmarts and other big box retailers from certain parts of Maryland.  I won't even get into the ridiculousness of this rank protectionism for unions and small retailers - other blogs have attacked it well enough, example here.  I was struck by this line:

Officials of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400, meanwhile, organized labor, education and women's rights advocates to testify with them in front of the council in October [in favor of the ban].

Huh?  Women's groups are out campaigning to ban Costcos and Walmarts?  Is it somehow hurting women to go to one place to do all of their shopping rather than 4 or 5 smaller stores?   Is it a fundamental right of women not to be tempted by lower prices?  Are women somehow genetically more susceptible to those large boxes of cereal?  Yes, I know that women's groups are opposing some hiring and promotion practices at Walmarts, but is this really a valid reason to have the government ban construciton of all large retail establishments?

The fact is that womens groups have just become another generic liberal advocacy group, jumping in on whatever hot topic is out there to keep them in the press, but with little connection to the original issues that energized their formation.

If women's groups want some valid women's causes, here are some suggestions:

• Support women in their transition from slave to citizen in Iraq and Afghanistan.  You don't even have to sanction the war - just accept the situation as-is and help tens of millions of women who are trying to be free
• Protest the UN's treatment of women, including widespread rape, in the Congo
• If they want a cause closer to the US, support the women whose husbands are stationed overseas in war zones.  Or, if you would rather support the troops than their wives, petition Congress for more budget to ensure women soldiers have the tools they need to survive and be victorious

Here is a scoop for a few folks out there:  6-year-olds do not have the reasoning ability or a sophisticated enough view of the world to be polical activits.  However, they are, given their lack of sophistication, perfect subjects for political indoctrination and great pawns for media-savvy advocacy groups looking for a little airtime.

I saw this story on Fox News today about a group of 2nd graders manipulated by their activist public school teacher and the Rainforest Action Network to protext at Chase Manhattan in New York against logging and oil drilling.  Apparently unable to get anyone with a high school education or a adult reasoning level to support their cause, the RAN turned to first and second graders:

"I celebrate the world, I celebrate the rainforest, and I care [about] the reality of what is happening with my students, which is only fair, and I let them make their own choices," said teacher Paula Healey.

Right.  Six-year-olds are in the perfect position to formulate their own opinion on sophisticated issues.  Even if the kids did have adult decision-making faculties, I would bet a gazillion dollars that Ms. Healey never brought any contrary opinions into the classroom, exposure to which is necesary for most of us to "make their own choices".

This is entirely inappropriate at this age in the Public Schools.  In my mind, this is just another reason for school choice - if there are parents who disagree with me and consider it a good use of a first grader's time to carry a picket sign about issues s/he can't possibly comprehend at a NY bank, then they should be able to send their kids to a school that so specializes, but the rest of our kids can be left alone to learn trivial stuff like math and reading.

In this post on Social Security reform at Powerline (Time blog of the year, congrats guys) they take as a starting point a Sabastian Mallaby article in the WaPo who says:

Privatizing social security would increase stress levels, says Mallaby, because determining where to invest one's retirement money entails making tough choices and taking risks. Thus, Mallaby believes that many, perhaps even most, people would prefer to have the government handle their social security funds as it does now than to "agonize over health stocks vs. Asian bonds."

In this we see two things that characterize liberals and progressives:  "1) distrust of individual decision-making and 2) willingness to accept much less wealth in return for more certainty.  By the way, I have no particular problem with #2 when this decision is made on an individual level.  However, I do have a problem when politicians make this decision at a societal level.  As regards Social Security, I have no problem with people being offered the "let the government continue to keep your money" option as long as it is voluntary.  The Powerline guys have other good comments, read the whole thing.

By the way, I will take a moment for a bit of "I told you so" here.  This "capitalism is too stressful for us dude" attitude is entirely consistent with what I said about progressives and capitalism here.

UPDATE:

Here is a nice post on the same topic at Cafe Hayek.

The "news" today is that Eliot Spitzer has announced he is running for governor of New York.  This is about as surprising as the "revelation" that Barry Bonds took steroids.  Duh.  The "AG" job is not nicknamed "Aspiring Governor" for nothing.  Also, Spitzer represents the worst of a new trend of AG's using their prosecutor role to engage in lawsuits more for their media and publicity value rather than an sense of public service.  Why else would Spitzer involve himself and the AG office in a compensation dispute between two private parties, except for the fact that the two private parties are very high profile in NY.

OK, but what is this Antarctica thing?  Back when I was an undergrad at Princeton, one of my fondest memories was of a bizarre Student Body Governing Council (USG) election.  The previous USG administration, headed by none other than fellow Princetonian Eliot Spitzer, had so irritated the student body that, for the first time in memory, the usually apathetic voting population who generally couldn't care less who their class president was actually produced an energetic opposition party.  Even in his formative years, Spitzer was expert in using his office to generate publicity, in this case frequent mentions in the student newspaper that finally drove several students over the edge.

The result was the incredibly funny and entertaining Antarctic Liberation Front.  I wish I had saved their brochures, but their proposals included things like imposing a dawn to dusk curfew on the school and funding school parties by annexing the mineral rights between the double yellow lines of the US highways.  All of this was under the banner of starting jihad to free Antarctica.  The ALF swept the USG election.  This immensely annoyed Spitzer and other USG stalwarts, who decried the trivialization of such an august body.  The pained and pompous wailing from the traditional student council weenies (sounding actually a lot like liberals after the last presidential election) only amused the general student population even further.  After a few student-council-meetings-as-performance-art, the ALF resigned en mass and life went back to being just a little bit more boring.

If you think I am exaggerating in saying that the Spitzer-led student council types had a whiny reaction to this bit of fun, you should know that Spitzer was still whining about it 20 years later to the New Yorker magazine.  Virginia Postrel, also a Princetonian at the time, had a similar reaction to mine here, and fisks the New Yorker article.

I am all for restructuring the whole social security system, but, as I have written before, we cannot let the government invest social security funds in private equities.  The potential for manipulation and creeping socialism are astronomical.  Its easy to picture fights over whether the social security funds should be invested in tobacco makers, gun makers, hospitals that conduct abortions, Domino's Pizza (that donates funds to oppose abortion), Haliburton, etc. etc. 

I have always used government-funding of universities as an example -- the government uses the leverage of this funding (and the threat of its withdrawal) to force all kinds of regulations on universities.  Today, we have a good case example that is even more directly applicable. 

Over the past several years, Calpers (the California state workers retirement fund) has been a great example of how government control of equity investments can be a disaster.  In the case of Calpers, their huge pension investments automatically make them one of the largest investors in each company in their portfolio.  Calpers has used that power wisely at times, promoting improvements in corporate governance, but has also used it astronomically poorly. 

Under Sean Harrigan, Calpers portfolio has been unbelievably politicized, up to and including having the portfolio use its ownership in several grocery chains to support striking members of the grocery union run by... Sean Harrigan.  Professor Bainbridge has a couple of good roundups here and here.

If we are change how social security funds are invested, let individuals make their own investment choices. 

I have written several times as to why the libertarian party, while philosophically sound, falls far short as a political force.  Arizona Watch has a nice article and several links with suggestions to make the party a more viable political force.  You can find some of my problems with the party here.

Via Scrappleface, here is an AP report of some of the special interest spending items in the most recent budget.  Ughh.

"”Alabama: $4 million for the International Fertilizer Development Center in Muscle Shoals.

"”Alaska: $443,000 to develop salmon-fortified baby food.

Oh, just read them all.  Not sure any branch of government needs to do most of these things, but certainly if they need to be done, they should be funded by local taxpayers who get the benefit, not the rest of us.

I love this from James Lileks:

Yay Condi Rice. I want her to go to Saudi Arabia, and I want her first words upon getting off the plane to be "I'll drive." As for the Department of Education, I'd like to see an experiment: let the position go unfilled for four years and see if it has any impact on the educational abilities of the nation's youth. I'm guessing no one would notice if we didn't have a Secretary of Education. Everyone just keep on doing what you're doing, and get back to us.

I would suggest the Department of Commerce for the same experiment.

One of the less remarked on casualties of 9/11 and the war on terror is any progress on a number of issues that GWB looked like he might tackle (e.g. social security and tort reform).    While the war is far from over, and I have had mixed feelings about some part of it (e.g. here), the infrastructure seems to be in place to fight the war while also tackling some new domestic issues.

Jane Galt, over at Asymmetrical Information, has a nice post about new momentum in the Bush administration to tackle social security.  It is unlikely that Bush could draw any more hatred than he already has, so he might be the right person to finally grab the third rail.

UPDATE #1

Marginal Revolution tackles social security and links to other good sources.

OK, I could not ultimately resist the need for a red/blue map on my site.  This map is county by county, and shows bright red or blue in counties Bush and Kerry won over 70% of the vote.  Counties with votes in between are shades of blue-purple to red-purple.  Courtesy of Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman, University of Michigan

Click for Larger Image

Two election-related Princess Bride posts in one day.

From Vodkapundit - "Incomceiveable"

From Asymmetrical Infromation - "Iocane powder"

I think the Princess Bride is one of the 10 most quotable movies of all time, at least for guys (Caddyshack being #1).  So here is my Princess Bride reference for the election:

Rove (election night, 7PM EST): I admit it, Kerry is leading us in the exit polls
McAuliff: Then why are you smiling?
Rove:  Because I know something you don't know.
McAuliff: And what is that?
Rove: I... am not left-handed.

UPDATE

Jane Galt & Co. have their servers down at Asymmetrical Information.  Here's hoping they are back soon.

This is awesome:

Robert Swetich and Raymond Urrizaga each received 1,847 votes in Tuesday's general election. Under the law in this gambling state, tied elections can be settled by lot.

After the election was certified by the commission Thursday morning, the two settled over a shuffled and fanned deck of cards.

Urrizaga drew first. Queen of clubs. Swetich pulled a seven of diamonds, then offered his congratulations to the winner.

Via Reason's Hit and Run