Coyote Blog

Gary Galles at Mises has a good post on why currently proposed "anti-gas-gouging" law is rediculously vague and effectively ex-post-facto law.  I have made this point before as well.

I wanted to comment on something different.  As he begins:

In May, the House of Representatives passed a bill that could lead to
fines as high as $3 million per day for gasoline price gouging, which
it defined as charging a price that "grossly exceeds the average
price"¦offered for sale by that person during the 30 days prior" or
"grossly exceeds the price at which the same or similar gasoline"¦was
readily obtainable in the same area from other competing sellers."

Lets take these two cases in reverse order.  If I am charging a prices that "grossly exceeds the price at which the same or similar gasoline"¦was
readily obtainable in the same area from other competing sellers," then what for God's sakes is the harm?  People will just go to one of the "readily obtainable" other sources.  My business will take a beating, but that's my problem.

The first case is an open invitation for gas lines.  It does not say "grossly exceeds the average
price"¦offered for sale by that person during the 30 days prior unless there is some kind of supply discontinuity or change in wholesale prices."   It sets up a clear if-then:  If you raise your prices by some amount we later rule to be too much, we can fine you $3 million per day.  In the confusion of a supply disruption, gas stations will be afraid to raise their prices despite the new supply-demand reality. They will be afraid of this kind of arbitrary enforcement.  Therefore, the first 100 random people who show up to top off their tanks  or fill their generators to keep their TV running will get the available supply, rather than letting price allocate the gas to the people who value it the most.

I lived through gas lines of the 1970's.  In fact, as the low-driver-on-the-totem-pole, it was my job in the family to cruise around town looking for an open station and then sitting in whatever line I found.  I don't think younger people remember, but in major cities (not in the countryside) in the 1970s, there were weeks when there simply was no gas to be found.  Since that experience, I have pleaded to allow gas gouging in supply emergencies.

This is an outstanding post that a reader sent me that offers a number of climate scientists in their own words taking issue with the climate consensus on CO2-driven anthropogenic global warming.  I won't convince you that man-made CO2 is not one cause for warming -- at this point in the science's development, that would be as big a mistake as declaring AGW theory "settled."  However, for those who get beaten about the head with "consensus" every time you ask a skeptical question about AGW, you should enjoy this article.  This is just one of the 13 vignettes on newly minted skeptics the author highlights:

Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a,
recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the science and now
calls global warming fears "poppycock." According to a May 15, 2005 article
in the UK Sunday Times, Bellamy said "global warming is largely a
natural phenomenon.  The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money
on trying to fix something that can't be fixed." "The climate-change
people have no proof for their claims. They have computer models which
do not prove anything," Bellamy added. Bellamy's conversion on global
warming did not come without a sacrifice as several environmental
groups have ended their association with him because of his views on
climate change. The severing of relations came despite Bellamy's long
activism for green campaigns. The UK Times reported Bellamy "won
respect from hardline environmentalists with his campaigns to save
Britain's peat bogs and other endangered habitats. In Tasmania he was
arrested when he tried to prevent loggers cutting down a rainforest."

Here is a copy of the petition sent to the Canadian government which several of the people in the article refer to.  One taste:

Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate
models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the
future. Yet this is precisely what the United Nations did in creating
and promoting Kyoto and still does in the alarmist forecasts on which
Canada's climate policies are based. Even if the climate models were
realistic, the environmental impact of Canada delaying implementation
of Kyoto or other greenhouse-gas reduction schemes, pending completion
of consultations, would be insignificant. Directing your government to
convene balanced, open hearings as soon as possible would be a most
prudent and responsible course of action....

While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental groups may provide for sensational headlines, they are no basis for mature policyformulation.
The study of global climate change is, as you have said, an "emerging
science," one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be
many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate
system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the
protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern
about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew
what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not
exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary....

"Climate change is real" is a
meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public
that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause.
Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the
time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains
impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." The new Canadian
government's commitment to reducing air, land and water pollution is
commendable, but allocating funds to "stopping climate change" would be
irrational. We need to continue intensive research into the real causes
of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to
whatever nature throws at us next.

It is signed by scientific no-names like Freeman Dyson and Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology, Dept.
of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology

In the beginning, human rights were things we could enjoy by ourself on a desert island.  Speech, assembly, the ability to make decisions for our own life, to keep the product of our own labors -- these are all rights that don't require other people to make them real.  The only role for government is merely to keep other people from trampling on these rights by the use of force.

And then, in the 20th century, we invented new rights -- the "right" to sustenance, to be clothed, to have shelter, to be educated, to have health care.  These were not the passive rights like freedom of speech.  For example, the right to shelter did not mean that we were free to go and build ourselves a shelter and have it protected from attack or burglary by others.  No, it has come to mean that if we don't have shelter, either through hardship or fecklessness, it should be provided for us. 

I hope you can see the difference.  These new rights require action by someone else.  They require that someone, by force if necessary, be made to provide us these things, or at least be made to forfeit wealth which is used to purchase these things for us.   These new rights are not only different from traditional rights like speech and property, but they are 180 degrees opposite.  The old-style rights established that no other person has a call on our mind, our bodies, or our labor.  The new-style rights establish the opposite, that we do have a call on someone else's mind and labor.  In fact, these news-tyle rights are not rights at all, but dressed up slavery.  Because no matter how you try to pretty them up, the fact is that none of them have any meaning unless force can be used to make someone provide the object in question, whether it be health care or education or housing.

Now when we libertarians begin calling things like this slavery, the average American turns off.  Oh, you libertarian guys, always exaggerating.  But Eugene Volokh brings us a great example that proves otherwise.  Libertarian Dr. Paul Hsieh wrote what I thought was a pretty reasonable letter to the Denver Post:

Health care is not a right, and it is not the proper role of
government to provide health care for all citizens. Instead, this
should be left to the free market. It is precisely the attempts of the
governments of countries like Canada (or states like Tennessee) to
attempt to mandate universal coverage which have led to the rationing
and waiting lists for vital medical services. Similar problems are
already starting to develop in the Massachusetts plan as well. Any plan
of government-mandated "universal coverage" is nothing more than
socialized medicine, and would be a disaster for Colorado.

Paul S. Hsieh, M.D., Sedalia

Denver Post columnist Jim Spencer is scandalized by Dr. Hsieh's position:

The craziest letter to the editor that I've read in some time came
from a physician who claimed that Coloradans have no right to health
care.

Seems the guy not only forgot his Hippocratic oath but also the law.

If you're sick enough or badly injured, they have to treat you at the emergency room regardless of your ability to pay.

The doctor aimed his editorial rant against socialized medicine. But
he wrote it because a state blue-ribbon commission is now cobbling
together a plan for medical treatment and prescription drugs for
Coloradans....

First, it is depressing how deeply these new non-rights are embedded even in the freest country in the world -- so much so that the reporter considers it the craziest notion in the world that free health care might not be a human right.  (I have a thought problem for you -- if free health care is a fundamental human right, and a group of us are stranded on an island with no doctor, how do we exercise our right?)

Second, the fact that something is written into the law does not make it a right.  Rights flow from man's nature (or from God, depending on your beliefs) and NOT from the government.  The fact that the government legislates against free speech does not change my right to free speech, it just marks itself as a bad government.  On the other hand, if the government legislates that we all get free plasma TV's, it does not change the fact that man does not have the inherent right to a plasma TV. 

Third, and I think most interesting, is how Mr. Spencer is using Dr Hsieh's Hippocratic oath as a club.  In effect he is saying "you swore an oath and now you are obligated to provide us all with health care at whatever price, including zero, we wish to pay for it."  Mr Spencer demands the right to health care -- and Mr. Hsieh is going to provide it at any price the government demands because his Hippocratic Oath forbids him to do otherwise.  Very unsubtly, Mr. Spencer is treating Dr. Hsieh as his and society's slave, and he is appalled that the slave has talked back to the masters.

Postscript:  I could not let this other paragraph in the article go. 

"Insurance companies are not in the
business of providing quality, equitable health care," [health care reform advocate] White explained.
"They're in the business of making money. I said, 'OK, let's fix this
once and for all.' This establishes a single- payer system."

I just love the people that treat "making money" and "quality service" as incompatible.  Because its just so easy to make a crappy product and sustain profits over a number of years.  Here is an exercise:  Name 10 private for-profit businesses that make a quality product or service.  Gee, how about Apple, Sony, Toshiba, GE, Home Depot, UPS, Wal-Mart, etc. etc.  You get the idea.  Now name 10 government run agencies that provide a quality service.  Gee there's the post office, uh no, not really.  DMV?  no.  VA hospital?   no.  Amtrak?  no.  OK, name one.

MaxedOutMamma has a pretty good overview post on the economics of funding Social Security and Medicare over the next 30 years or so. 

So the real issue is not
those fictional bonds in the surreal trust fund. The real issue is
whether the American taxpayer will be able to pay for all its current
programs as well as Social Security and Medicare without paying double
or triple the percentage in income taxes the American taxpayer is
paying now. Because that is not going to happen. Forget all this
jibber-jabber about moral issues. That is not going to mean a thing to
the man earning the equivalent of $28,000 today in 2023 when he is
asked to pay much more of that money so that some 67 year old with
several millions of assets can get his or her scheduled Social Security
benefits.

Nothing really new here, but the picture is always worth reviewing (she has lots of nice graphs showing the coming spending overhang).  Politicians' ignorance of (and ignoring of) this problem would shock me if I had any regard left at all for politicians.   I wanted to offer some random observations:

1. If you are below 50 and in the top 40% of earners, do NOT expect to get any Social Security benefits.  Live with it.  Up until now, wealthy people have received SS retirement benefits as an expensive PR campaign to convince everyone that SS is an insurance program, not a welfare program.  Well, I have run the numbers, and it is at least 83% welfare.  The only alternative to defending these benefits will be to suffer through substantial tax increases which will be disproportionately paid for by the same richest 40% who would lose their benefits.  Given the negative rates of return that SS pays on your payroll taxes, each extra dollar that taxes are raised will only yield well under a dollar (present value) in benefits. So give up on the benefits, campaign to keep taxes down, and start saving on your own.
2. If you have some control of when you you earn your lifetime income, try to earn as much as you can in the next 10-15 years.  After that, taxes are almost sure to go up substantially.  It would not surprise me to see top marginal rates back well above 50% again.
3. Democrats in Congress are pushing for new welfare programs, particularly socialized medicine, right now because they must understand that in 10 years, the window for major new spending programs will be closed.  The pressures in a decade will be for program cutbacks as costs really start to balloon, and I can't imagine that new transfer programs will be taken seriously as the old ones eat up a larger and larger part of GDP.  Of course, my point is that this is the last time that such a program would be politically feasible.  From a financial management point of view, we are past the point where adding major new social programs makes any sense.  In fact, adding such a program now would be like a guy who has gotten over his head and knows he can't pay his credit card bills taking his last money out of the bank and buying a plasma TV.

I am thrilled to have Hawaii 5-0 on DVD.  I remembered it as my favorite TV crime drama ever, and so far, it is holding up very well.  A couple of other observations:

• Whether you like the show or not, I think it is nearly indisputable that Hawaii 5-0 has the best intro of any TV series ever made.  Mission: Impossible is pretty good, but I never liked the practice of having scenes from the days show in the intro.
• I am watching show 4 or so of the first season, and they have Ricardo Montalban playing a Japanese man.  Never has a Caucasian looked less like a Japanese man since Sean Connery when he was supposed to have been surgically altered to be Japanese in You Only Live Twice.  [check out Montalban's linked videography - in the last 60's and 70's he was on nearly every TV show I can remember]

I am a big fan of the Mises blog, but in this post on a Boston Globe editorial they miss something pretty substantial.  S.M. Oliva takes as a starting point this absurd editorial on the pending XM-Sirius merger:

the proposed merger of the two US satellite radio firms is premature at
best. At this point, it should be rejected. In half a decade, the two
firms have gone from barely broadcasting to throwing up their hands in
defeat. But it is hardly clear that the nation's two satellite radio
firms will wither and die unless they unite, or that a merger would
benefit consumers.

Oliva does a good job at debunking this argument, but why bother?  It is patently absurd.  How is can one possible define a market at just satellite radio?  Where have I heard this same ridiculous argument before?  Aha!  Right in the press release from the National Association of Broadcasters, the organization most threatened by satellite radio and who would benefit most if it would just go away.

When
the FCC authorized satellite radio, it specifically found that
the public
would be served best by two competitive nationwide systems. Now,

with  their stock prices at rock bottom and their business model in
disarray
because of profligate spending practices, they seek a government

bail-out to avoid competing in the marketplace.

Of course, even a combined XM-Sirius would have to compete in the marketplace -- in fact with the members of the NAB, whose asses Satellite has been kicking for a few years.

Oh, but here is the good part: the Boston Globe's parent company is a member of the NAB, owning two radio stations and 9 TV stations.  So in fact, the Globe was not editorializing in favor of the consumer, but in fact was shilling for its own trade group, working to weaken a dangerous source of new competition for its own broadcast radio and TV stations.  And nowhere in the editorial does the Globe disclose this massive conflict of interest.  Which makes this closing line a joke:

A Sirius-XM merger would snuff out competition within a potentially
lively market at a time when the technology is still evolving. And by
creating one dominant satellite radio firm, the move would likely keep
new rivals from emerging in the future.

As any economist will tell you, it is ridiculous to define satellite radio as a "market."  At its smallest, the market is reasonably "radio."  The delivery mechanism of radio (satellite vs. terrestrial) is meaningless to the definition of a market (the editorial tries to deal with this logical fallacy by creating a straw man that the market does not include iPods, when of course the main issue is that it does include terrestrial radio stations).   The Globe, along with the NAB whose talking points the Globe is just repeating in this "editorial", are in fact interested in reducing competition for themselves, not enhancing it.

Oh, and by the way, if approving a merger of broadcast or media companies is a "bail-out," then I invite the Boston Globe to calculate how much of a bail-out the Times corporation has been given, as the government has approved the merger of the NY Times, Boston Globe, IHT, 20 other papers, 9 TV stations, 2 radio stations, and 35 commercial web sites.  And by the way, what is the market share of each of their papers in their own local "markets?"

I will leave you with a quote from Milton Friedman vis a vis licensing but entirely appropriate here:

The justification offered is always the same: to protect the consumer. However, the reason
is demonstrated by observing who lobbies at the state legislature for
the imposition or strengthening of licensure. The lobbyists are
invariably representatives of the occupation in question rather than of
the customers. True enough, plumbers presumably know better than anyone
else what their customers need to be protected against. However, it is
hard to regard altruistic concern for their customers as the primary
motive behind their determined efforts to get legal power to decide who
may be a plumber.

A reader sends this one in, after reading my book BMOC.  One of the characters in the book is a business man who has a knack for monetizing wacky business models  (one example:  providing free fountains to malls in exchange for being able to harvest the coins out of them).  The book is named after his new company called BMOC, which specializes in making teens popular.

This caused a reader to send me this web site for FakeYourSpace.com.  They are selling popularity their own way, by providing you comments and visits from hot and cool friends on your MySpace pages.  Sort of sock puppetry for teens.

Welcome to Fake Your Space. You have found a new and
exciting service which offers help to all the men and women out there
who don't feel like they are popular enough on social networking sites
such as MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster.
If you are tired of seeing everyone else with the hottest friends and
want some hotties of your own, then this is the place for you.

LOL.  Wish I had thought of it for my book.  Below the fold is the business model for BMOC, which I thought was crazy enough:

Continue reading ‘Wacky Business Models’ »

I have no tolerance for watching TV series on the network's schedule.  If a series gets good reviews, I will watch it on DVD (e.g. Serenity, Deadwood, Rome, Sopranos, Alias, Wonderfalls, etc).  In this same vain, I watched the first season of 24 straight through and really enjoyed it.  The second season was OK but weaker and less believable (even a hard-core libertarian paranoiac like myself had trouble buying the cabinet coup).  Plus I got about the same feeling when the Kim Bauer character was on-screen as I did when there was Anakin-Padme dialog in the last Star Wars movie.

So I am a third of the way through season 3 and I am having trouble really getting into it -- maybe the threat is not immediate enough at the mid-point.  Should I stick it out?  Is there anything out there left worth seeing?  Is there anything interesting in seasons 4 or 5 that bring back what made the first season great?

I sure wish I could like activists like Al Gore.  Last night, at the Oscars, he was charming and passionate.  He has something he cares deeply about and flies around the world speaking about.    It's terribly compelling, which you could see in the reaction Al got last night from an adoring audience and various fawning actors.

And if Mr. Gore were there last night to convince the audience to get out of their stretch limos and G-V's and drive Prius's and use compact fluorescent bulbs, I'd be fine.  Sure I might laugh that it was all pointless and the movie Inconvenient Truth was terribly overblown, but its a free society and Mr. Gore would be welcome to make his call to other individuals that they change their lifestyle. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's only goal last night was not just to rally the TV audience to change its lifestyle.  The more important goal was to increase the likelihood that government will compel Americans to do what Mr. Gore wants.  And this is what makes me cringe nowadays when I hear the term "activist."  I don't want to cringe, because passionately advocating for you cause, even if I disagree with it, should be part of the rich fabric of a free society.  Unfortunately, though, at the heart of nearly every modern activist's agenda is compulsion -- the desire to use the coercive power of the government to force you to do something you would not otherwise choose to do.  It is the very unusual activist today who is not trying, whether they admit it or not, to chisel away at individual freedom for some "higher cause."

By the way, speaking of higher cause, did anyone else note the religious parallels in the green-speak last night at the Oscars?  You had Al Gore in the role of Bill Graham, with several people talking about how Al had helped them "see the light."  Even more amazing to me was the parallel with a confessional at Catholic Church.  I have been lucky enough in the past to attend the Academy Awards, and I can tell you from experience what was sitting right outside:  The largest collection of stretch limousines you can ever imagine -- I am talking about enough limos to create a traffic tie-up four lanes wide and extending back for miles, all running their engines for six hours waiting to whisk stars to late-night parties and private jets.  I am fairly certain that no other small group in America generated more CO2 yesterday through their private use than the audience at the Oscars.  Yet by declaring the Oscars to be "green", voting for an Inconvenient Truth, and cheering Al Gore, the audience was in effect saying 10 hail mary's in the confessional, washing away all sin. 

Update:  How I can be sure Al Gore's activism is about government control and not individual action:

Drudge reports  that Al Gore's Nashville mansion consumes more than 20 times the average amount of power for an American household.

Since
Gore's whole deal is that civilization-saving absolutely and vitally
requires an action on everyone's part that he seems to refuse to do
himself, it leads one to wonder about how this whole global warming
thing is going to play out with the public and with the government.
(Unless Gore's house is powered completely or partially off a
conventional coal-burning grid, which doesn't seem to be true based on
Drudge's piece.)

Does Gore's seeming inability to curb his
power consumption--which has apparently grown since the release of his
Oscar-winning flick--mean it isn't true that we really do all
have to scrupulously use less carbon-burning energy or doom the planet?
No. But it does make it a little hard to believe that he really
believes it--or that if even the biggest believer in global warming of
all can't control himself in this regard, that a serious planetwide
reduction in the short or medium term short of draconian outside
controls has much hope.

The other night our local libertarian discussion group had a presentation by Larry Reed of the Mackinac Institute.  Mr. Reed discussed why he thought that individuals who are lone voices in the wilderness should not give up hope (a topic particularly relevant to us libertarians) and he used the William Wilberforce story as one example.  Wilberforce, who is profiled in the movie Amazing Grace, fought a nearly fifty year battle in the British Parliament first against slave trading, and then against slavery itself.   (Mr. Reed, who has written and spoken about the Wilberforce story for years, said he had seen the movie three times and highly recommended it).

Not surprisingly, the libertarians in the room found the story inspiring -- here was a man who successfully fought for protection of individual rights against great odds.  The Wilberforce story is part of the great 19th century liberal tradition that is bedrock for libertarians today.

However, what is interesting to me is how other parts of the political spectrum also look to the Wilberforce story as an essential part of their own history.  Conservatives see the Wilberforce story as an example of the beneficial effects of an activist religious fundamentalist (which Wilberforce was) bending law to fit his religious beliefs.  At the same time, progressives on the left can look to the story as an early example of the central government looking out for a downtrodden group, a precursor to modern "social justice" legislation.

In other words, libertarians see a direct line from Wilberforce to, say, fighting Kelo-type government takings or indefinite detainments at Gitmo.  Religious conservatives see a direct line from Wilberforce to reducing violence on TV and preventing gay marriage.  Progressive see a direct line from Wilberforce to universal health care and affirmative action. 

I'm not really sure I have a point here, except that Amazing Grace may find a pretty good audience if everyone thinks it is "their" movie.  The only other thing I would observe is that it is nice to know that for all our differences today, there are some things we can agree on.  Which causes me to wonder why modern slavery, which is still all-too-prevalent, does not get more attention (except perhaps because certain folks are so invested in the Westerners-as-bad-guys view of history that they are blind to exploitation from other directions).

I have written numerous times about how most anti-trust actions are initiated for the benefit not of consumers but of industry competitors.  The incredible claim that Microsoft's giving away free applications with its OS somehow hurts consumers is just the most famous such example. 

Now we face the specter of anti-trust review of the XM-Sirius satellite radio deal.  All you need to know is that the National Association of Broadcasters, who represent the terrestrial competitors of satellite radio, are lobbying hard for the deal to be rejected.  Nearly every line of the statement is hilarious, but this one caught me:

When
the FCC authorized satellite radio, it specifically found that
the public
would be served best by two competitive nationwide systems. Now,

with  their stock prices at rock bottom and their business model in
disarray
because of profligate spending practices, they seek a government

bail-out to avoid competing in the marketplace.

First, I am sure that the NAB is deeply, deeply concerned about satellite radio serving the public well -- NOT.  Customers gained by satellite radio are customers lost by the NAB**.  In fact, if they really believed the merger would hurt the consumer experience with satellite radio, their statement would instead be "we are thrilled by this merger because it means that customers will be served poorly in the future by the new company and that means customers will defect back to us."

Second, I love the term "government bailout."  What they mean by government bailout is the prospect that the government might not block this merger.  Which, given the white-hot merger activity between NAB members over the past 5 years, means that most NAB members have received the same "bailout."

(HT: Hit and Run)

** In the TV market, terrestrial broadcasters, particularly their local affiliates, got the government to cover their butts by passing a "Must Carry" law, which basically requires that cable companies have to include all the local broadcasters in their feed.  In practice, this and similar laws have forced satellite providers to give you your network feed only through your local affiliate.  This means that instead of DirecTV being able to just give me the NBC national feed, they have to give me the NBC Phoenix affiliate.  As a result, DirecTV has whole satellites that carry forty, fifty, sixty or more identical feeds.  What a screaming waste, and it only gets worse with HDTV.  Anyway, in radio, there is no similar law, so satellite growth is more of a zero-sum loss for terrestrial competitors.  I think the NAB is just huffy they did not get their own must-carry subsidy law passed.

There was a lot of thanking God for the Colts victory today.  I would love to see the losing coach come on TV after such an interview and say "you heard it -- God was against us.  What chance did we have?"

Update:  I would love to see this on John Madden's etch-a-sketch.  "OK, here's Grossman dropping back for a pass, he throws it across here, and BOOM, God knocks it right out of the receiver's hands.  First down Colts, game over."

Most of you know I tend to avoid the topic of religion like the plague on this blog, but suffice it so say that I am a secular guy.  But that doesn't stop me from being scared of this guy (Chris Hedges at the Nation Institute):

This is the awful paradox of tolerance. There arise moments when
those who would destroy the tolerance that makes an open society
possible should no longer be tolerated. They must be held accountable
by institutions that maintain the free exchange of ideas and liberty.

The radical Christian Right must be forced to include other points
of view to counter their hate talk in their own broadcasts, watched by
tens of millions of Americans. They must be denied the right to
demonize whole segments of American society, saying they are
manipulated by Satan and worthy only of conversion or eradication. They
must be made to treat their opponents with respect and acknowledge the
right of a fair hearing even as they exercise their own freedom to
disagree with their opponents.

Passivity in the face of the rise of the Christian Right threatens
the democratic state. And the movement has targeted the last remaining
obstacles to its systems of indoctrination, mounting a fierce campaign
to defeat hate-crime legislation, fearing the courts could apply it to
them as they spew hate talk over the radio, television and Internet.

Whoa, Nellie.  The "forced to be free" thing never really works out very well, I promise.  I find the outright socialism preached by much of academia to be scary as hell and an incredible threat to me personally as a business owner, but you won't catch me trying to get the government to muzzle them.  Hedges attitude is consistent with opposition to school choice discussed here by Neal McCluskey of Cato:

Another frequent objection to letting parents choose their kids'
schools is that American children need to be steeped in a shared
worldview, lest they be in constant combat as adults. This arose as a
major line of argument in a Free Republic discussion about Why We Fight,
and is very similar to the "Americanization" mission given to
industrial-era public schools, where immigrant students were taught to
reject the customs and values of their parents' lands "” and often their
parents themselves "” and adopt the values political elites deemed
proper.

Now, if one were willing to accept a system that would, by
definition, quash any thoughts not officially sanctioned, then in
theory one would be okay with a public schooling system intended to
force uniform thought. In the context of an otherwise free society,
however, getting such a system to work is impossible, because
it would require that incredibly diverse and constantly combative
adults create and run an education system that somehow produces uniform
and placid graduates. It's no more realistic than hoping a tornado will
drop houses in a more perfect line than it found them.

The practical result of our trying to make uniformity out of diversity has, of course, been constant conflict, as Why We Fight
makes clear. Moreover, there is another by-product of this process that
no one mentions when they weave scenarios about choice producing
schools steeped in ignorance: our schools right now teach very little, especially in the most contentious areas like evolution and history, because they want to avoid conflict.

It all kind of makes a mockery of the left's favorite word "diversity."  One suspects what they want is for people of all color and backgrounds to come together and... think just like they do.  This seems to be part of the same strategy here to bring back the fairness doctrine.

PS- Remember, before you flame me, I am a secularist here defending the right of everyone to speak.  I am not defending Pat Robertson per se, because I almost never agree with the guy, but I am defending his right to say whatever he wants on TV.

Perhaps the central touchstone of the women's movement has been the ownership and decision-making for one's own body, starting of course with the freedom to choose an abortion, but extending into a number of other health and sex-related issues. 

What amazes me, though, is how quickly all this is chucked out the window when it comes to having the government take over health care.  Because many of the exact same people who have campaigned for the primacy of a person's decision-making for their own body are also strong supporters of government funded universal health care.  And I can't think of anything less compatible with individual decision-making for one's own body than having the government run health care. 

The demands for universal health care general come from two complaints:

1. Health care is too expensive and is more than I can afford
2. Health care quality is low.  In this category, by far the most common complaint is that "my insurance won't pay for X procedure that I want, or Y level of care, etc."

Neither is a surprising complaint, given how our health care system is currently set up, and both are highly related to one another.  The key problem in the US health care system is that, unlike just about any other product or service you and I purchase, the typical individual is not presented with a cost-quality tradeoff.   Since most of us have a fixed price insurance plan, we couldn't care less how much anything costs, and in fact, like an all-you-can-eat buffet, our incentive is to use as much as possible. 

This puts the insurance companies in the odd position of having to make cost-quality tradeoffs for us, via their coverage and treatment rules.  But when they try to cut costs by narrowing or limiting certain treatments, consumers tend to get the government involved to remove these limitations.  They either do this though legislation (many states now have onerous requirements on what procedures insurance companies must pay for in that state) or through litigation (the threat of lawsuits pushing doctors into expensive defensive medicine, asking that every conceivable test be conducted).  In other words, people take their dissatisfaction with #2 above to the government, who acts, pushing up costs and making problem #1 worse.

Until we find ourselves in a Strossian post-scarcity world, someone is going to have to make this cost-quality tradeoff for our health care.  Even if it is never discussed, this is the most important design factor in any health care system.  There are only three choices:

• Individuals make these choices for themselves, paying for their health care and making their own decisions about whether certain procedures are "worth it".  - OR -
• Insurance companies make these choices for us.  (I am not sure this is even a choice any more, as government micro-management seems to be pushing this de facto into the next choice). - OR -
• The government makes these choices for everyone

So, folks that are pushing for government-funded universal health care are in fact saying "I want the government to take over decision-making for my body."  Yuk!  Where are the feminists when we need them?

Beyond just ceding to the government decisions such as whether its really worth it for dad to get his new hip joint, there is another chilling factor, which I have written about a number of times.  Government health care will act as a Trojan Horse for nanny fascism.  Because, you see, if the government is paying to fix your body, then you can't be trusted to do whatever you want with your body.  By paying for your health care, the government has acquired an ownership interest in your body.  You want that Wendy's cheeseburger?  Sorry, but the government can't allow that if it is paying for your health care.  Likewise, it is not going to allow your kid to play dodge ball at all or to play soccer without a helmet -- can't afford to fix all those broken bones.   And no swing sets or monkey bars either!

Already, when its only affects us as individuals, the government is poking its nose into micro-managing our lives.  Just think what will happen when the government has a financial incentive, in the form of health care costs, to do so!  Eek! In fact, it is already happening:

People who are grossly overweight, who smoke heavily
or drink excessively could be denied surgery or drugs following a
decision by a Government agency yesterday.  The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) which
advises on the clinical and cost effectiveness of treatments for the
NHS, said that in some cases the "self-inflicted" nature of an illness
should be taken into account.

Or here in the US:

New York City is at the forefront of this new public health movement. In
January, city health officials began
requiring
that medical testing labs report the results of blood sugar tests for all
the city's diabetics directly to the health department. This is first time
that any government has begun tracking people who have a chronic disease.
The New York City Department of Health will analyze the data to identify
those patients who are not adequately controlling their diabetes. They will
then receive letters or phone calls urging them to be more vigilant about
their medications, have more frequent checkups, or change their diet....

So what could be wrong with merely monitoring and reminding people to take
better care of themselves?  New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Friedan
has made it clear that it won't necessarily end there. If nagging is not
sufficient to reduce the health consequences of the disease, other steps
will be taken. Friedan
argues
that "modifications of the physical environment to promote physical
activity, or of the food environment to address obesity, are essential for
chronic disease prevention and control." Friedan envisions regulations for
chronic disease control including "local requirements on food pricing,
advertising, content, and labeling; regulations to facilitate physical
activity, including point-of-service reminders at elevators and safe,
accessible stairwells; tobacco and alcohol taxation and advertising and
sales restrictions; and regulations to ensure a minimal level of clinical
preventive services."

Read that last paragraph.  That's just the starting point for where the government will go when it starts paying for all our health care.

Postscript:   This is a very hard topic to discuss with people, because they are so ingrained with the way the market is set up today.  When I started working for myself, I told my wife that we needed a high-deductible medical plan, to protect us from a health disaster, but we would just self-pay for dental costs.  "What?"  She said.  "You can't pay for your own dental - you need insurance.  We can't go without insurance.  That's all you hear on TV, the problem of not having insurance.  We'll be one of those people!"  I patiently explained that it was almost impossible for us to face a dental problem that would bankrupt us, and that for any conceivable level of dental care, it was cheaper to just pay the bills than get dental insurance.  Eventually, she relented.

We have been paying our own dental bills for years now, and have saved thousands vs. the quotes I got for insurance.  The other day we had an issue that perfectly highlights why 3rd party payer systems cause problems.  My wife chipped a tooth.  She was presented with two choices:  To file it down for nominal cost, or to do a major repair which would cost $500.  She asked me my advice on which to do, and I said "its your mouth.  You know what else we might use $500.  You make the tradeoff."  I am not even sure what decision she made.  It is simply impossible to make this kind of decision for someone else.  Everyone will make it differently.  A government-payer system would only have two options:  1)  don't allow anyone to get the expensive fix or 2)  force taxpayers to pay for everyone to get the expensive fix.  Both solutions are wrong.  Such is the problem with all single-payer systems.

I was thrilled to see that two of my top 5 most wanted DVD releases are finally coming out - by March 6 according to Amazon.

• Hawaii 5-0:  The greatest TV crime drama ever. 
• Captain Horatio Hornblower:  I know that the current generation doesn't think there was ever a good adventure movie that did not involved Industrial Light and Magic, but this Gregory Peck movie is an absolute classic.

I was a little worried that both had the identical release date.  I am hoping that this is not just the default date in the Amazon system when the release date is uncertain. 

I still get a lot of email and
commentary on my posts explaining why a trade deficit does not
necessarily result in a build up of debt.  Its a mistake that
protectionists like Lou Dobbs make, either accidentally or on
purpose, to confuse the trade deficit with a debt (Dobbs, in the linked article, claimed that we had $5 Trillion in accumulated trade debt).  In another
attempt to explain this, I want to present a thought experiment.

In our hypothetical, a regular old
American guy named Joe walks into a Wal-Mart to buy new Plasma TV.
Lets assume that Joe is presented with two choices, a Chinese-made TV
and an American-made TV.  The American TV is $2000 and carries a
brand Joe recognizes;  the Chinese TV is $1800 and is a brand Joe
does not recognize.  As far as he can tell, both are featured
similarly.

Joe may choose to take a chance with an
unknown brand to save $200, or he may not.  Let's see what happens
either way.  If Joe picks the Chinese TV over the American TV, the US
trade deficit will likely be worse, by whatever Wal-Mart has to pay
to restock the shelves.  But, while the trade deficit may be worse if
Joe buys Chinese, is there any additional debt created by buying
Chinese rather than American?

Well, Joe doesn't have more or less
personal debt either way.  Whether he is paying with cash or
financing the TV, this decision is unaffected by whether he buys
Chinese or American.  He may happen to buy Chinese and take on debt
to purchase the TV, but the decision to take on debt has nothing to
do with the fact that it is an import.  If he had bought the American
TV, he presumably would have taken on debt for that purchase as well.
In fact, if anything, since the Chinese TV is cheaper, Joe's
personal debt is reduced by buying Chinese over American.

In fact, the only way in which Joe's
personal debt could be said to be increased by Chinese imports is if
the $200 price differential was enough to change his mind from
not-buying a TV to buying one, and he then financed the purchase.
But this is only going to occur in a small percentage of
transactions, and besides, it would be unfair to call something so
empowering "“ ie giving Joe the power to get something he really
wants that he would otherwise been unable to "“ as a negative.
(Update: I do think this is sortof the logic trade opponents
use.  They argue that "rampant consumerism"is causing an increase
in consumer debt which is kindof sortof tied up in some way with this
whole cheap Chinese goods at Wal-Mart thing, so therefore trade
causes debt.  This may sound good rhetorically at an
anti-globalization rally but makes no sense scientifically).

Now let's take Wal-mart.  Assuming they
know how to price items, they will make a gross margin on either the
Chinese or the American TV.  How, then, can having to restock the TV
Joe bought by buying one from an American factory for say $1400
affect Wal-Mart any differently than paying the same (or less) money
to a Chinese company?  The answer is that it has no effect.  Buying
Chinese vs. American has no effect on Wal-Mart's debt.

So let's say Joe bought the Chinese TV,
and the Chinese end up with $1400 (the factory price) in US currency
courtesy of Wal-Mart.  If they don't need anything in the US, they
will trade this currency for yuan to someone in China who does want
to buy something in the US.  Let's assume that these dollars are all
incremental, so none go to buying exports from the US or goods to be
consumed in the US.  Let's assume that it all gets invested as
profits, and further, let's assume that it gets invested 100% in US
debt securities.

Aha!  People want to say to me.  There
is the debt!  Chinese are buying up US bonds.  And so they are.  But
trade did not cause or create the debt.  Just because Chinese trade
dollars are reinvested in debt securities does not mean trade cause
the debt.  In fact, the US government debt would exist with or
without Chinese trade, courtesy of the tax and spend whores of both
parties in the US Congress.  If the Chinese had not bought the debt,
someone else would have, and the debt still would have existed.  In
fact, the US debt would likely have just been a bit larger and a bit
costlier without Chinese buyers to bring down interest rates.

So, to review, an average American
makes an incremental decision to buy Chinese rather than American,
the trade deficit gets worse, but no debt is created.  So I renew my
challenge to Lou Dobbs, who claims America has $5 trillion in trade
debt by asking a simple question:  Where?

A reader sent me this article on the new proposition F passed in San Francisco. 

Under the Sick Leave Ordinance, employers must provide one hour of paid
sick leave to an employee for every 30 hours worked. The Ordinance
limits the amount of paid leave to a maximum of 40 hours of paid leave
for "small businesses," defined as employers who employ fewer than 10
employees, and of 72 hours of paid leave for larger employers.

Note that this applies to everyone -- part time workers, day laborers, housekeepers, nannies, you name it.  Everyone gets an extra paid hour vacation for every thirty they work.

But Coyote!  How can you say its vacation - the law says sick leave.  Yes, I know, and I am sure supporters can fill any number of 30-second TV ads with heart-rending stories of people who got sick and needed paid time off.  But all of us who have actually worked in real jobs and real companies know how most sick days get used - they become extra vacation days.  Here is a guide to getting the most vacation possible out of your sick days.  For this reason, many companies have done away with the distinction of sick and vacation days and just call them "personal days."

But the law makes sure that employers can't ask any of those nagging questions like "you don't sound sick on the phone."  Because you don't actually have to be sick to take paid sick leave in San Francisco. 

Proposition F, the "Sick Leave Ordinance," also expands existing state
law "kin care" requirements so that covered employees must be permitted
to use paid sick leave to care for siblings, grandparents,
grandchildren and a "designated person" of the employee's choice.
Employees must be permitted to use any or all accrued paid sick leave for such kin care.

"Yep, old Uncle Ed is sick again.  I won't be coming in today but you still have to pay me."  And who's to say "care" for uncle Ed shouldn't include companionship in the form of some fishing.  After all, California recognizes a service animal designation for companionship only.

But just to make sure that the employer does not ask any nagging question when Uncle Ed needs care on nine Fridays in a row, the law includes this:

In addition, Proposition F prohibits an employer from taking any
adverse action against an employee who exercises his or her rights
under the Ordinance. An employee's mistaken but good faith complaints
of employer violations of this Ordinance are protected. Any adverse
action by an employer against an employee within 90 days of the
employee's exercise of a right under the Ordinance creates a rebuttable
presumption of employer retaliation....

The Office of Labor Standards Enforcement has authority to
investigate alleged violations of the Ordinance. If the Office
determines that a violation has occurred following an investigation and
hearing, it may order relief including reinstatement, back pay, the
payment of any sick leave unlawfully withheld and various
administrative penalties.

The Ordinance also permits civil actions by the Office of Labor
Standards Enforcement, the City Attorney, "any person aggrieved by a
violation" (the term could encompass affected employees but also any
person for whom the employee sought to care or aid), and "any other
person or entity acting on behalf of the public as provided for under
applicable state law." The prevailing party may recover all "legal or
equitable relief as may be appropriate to remedy the violation"
including, but not limited to, reinstatement, back pay, the payment of
any sick leave unlawfully withheld, liquidated damages, injunctive
relief; reasonable attorneys' fees and costs. Employees and plaintiffs'
attorneys who sue employers on behalf of similarly-effected employees
and the general public may be entitled to equitable and injunctive
relief, restitution, and reasonable attorneys' fees and costs.

So, any violations by employees will be called "good faith" mistakes and are protected from any punishment.  Employers, on the other hand, are liable for penalties and lawsuits should they make even a good faith mistake.  Attempting to determine if an employee is cheating on his sick day designations will be treated as "retaliation" and punished.  Note that while the office of labor standards have investigation abilities, all the investigative actions listed in their purview are employer violations.  For example, there is language about employers reimbursing employees for sick days they should have paid, but where is the language about employees reimbursing employers for sick days taken fraudulently?

This is exactly how the unemployment system works.  There is a heavy state enforcement arm, but only aimed at fraud by employers, not employees. Pick any state unemployment office at random and look at their web site.  They will probably have a link for filing complaints.  When you click on it, you will quickly see that the complaints they accept are only for employer fraud or impostor fraud, not employee cheating.  In fact, as I wrote here about people taking vacation on unemployment, I was threatened with a lawsuit by an employee and with fines by the state agency in California for even suggesting that an employee was lying when he said he was "looking for work" (when I knew for a fact he was on a winter-long vacation in Mexico).

CBS's venerable television newsmagazine 60
Minutes on Sunday will focus on Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff
Flake's battle against "earmarks" and congressional overspending and
government waste.

CBS News veteran Morley Safer is the correspondent on the piece, which is
expected to include interviews with Flake and his uncle, state Sen. Jake
Flake, R-Snowflake, from August.

The Flake segment is scheduled to lead the program, which airs locally at 6
p.m. Sunday on KPHO-TV (Channel 5).

For a summary of the segment, which will run on Sunday, November
5th, please click on:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/60minutes/main2145860.shtml

Update: A bit of the video is here in the Buried in the Fine Print section about 3-4 videos down.  Go, Jeff, go.

Glenn Reynolds had a post on TV series that are coming soon to DVD, and some that other bloggers would like to see.  My vote for most conspicuously missing DVD would be Hawaii 5-0  (Don't be confused by the knock-off on sale on the internet, there is no official release).  I know everyone has their opinion, but I think this was the all-around be TV crime drama ever.  Period.  Aloha.

Nearly every dystopic novel I have ever read usually has an all-powerful state that insists on televisions everywhere in all public and private spaces to spew government propaganda and rebellion-soothing-entertainment at the masses.  (Example:  Richard Bachman / Stephen King's Running Man, which is a much better novel than a movie.)

I am reminded of this every time I go to an airport.  Why is it every airport feels the need to have CNN blaring from televisions spaced out every 20 feet or so.  You can't escape it or turn it off.  Do they really think I am so much of a moron that I can't entertain myself or even sit quietly without video Valium blaring at me every second.  Can't we maybe have some little quiet TV-free rooms, like the smoking rooms spaced around the airport?

I am an active computer gamer and much of the talk in the community is the uproar EA has caused by putting ads in Battlefield 2042.  Much of the discussion is not fact-based, but just panicky rumor-mongering, but one can see how much people don't want advertising pushed at them.  Which is funny to me, because ubiquitous TV in airports seems a much more annoying push than a few ads in a game.

Eight days from now, all of our first amendment rights will be put away in a box for 60 days, hopefully to be retrieved after the election is over.  During those 60 days, and in an astronomical violation of the intent of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, none of us, unless we are operating under the banner of certain organizations like official political parties, will be able to pay to publicly criticize the *cough* fine *cough* men and women who serve as elected officials in this country.  Once the election is over and their jobs are safe and the criticism is moot, then you will get your speech back.

Thank you very much John McCain, Russ Feingold, all the Congressmen who voted for this, GWB who signed it, and the Supreme Court who astoundingly declared it constitutionally A-OK.

Update: Here is an example.  I use it because the people involved are try to fund ads to support a law I absolutely oppose (I have no desire to give the Feds more power over the free movement of US citizens across state lines).  But I totally support their right to advocate their position on TV.  In this case, their public speech is great even for folks like me who oppose what they support, because I didn't even know this proposed legislation existed until they started talking about.  Their ad informs me, even if it is sending me the message that I need to counter their message.  And that is what political dialog should be in a free society.

I am constantly irritated by efforts to ban a certain speaker from speaking or to drown out their message with taunts and chanting.  If you think someone is advocating something so terrible - let him talk.  If you are right in your judgment, their speech will likely rally people to your side in opposition.  As I like to tell students who want to ban speakers from campus -- Hitler told everyone exactly what he was going to do if people had bothered to pay attention.

I wasn't too impressed with the movie Dodgeball, but I did enjoy the
niche sports spoofs associated with the mythical ESPN "the Ocho."
Today at lunch, I saw a crowd gathered around the TV, and went to see
what they were watching.  On ESPN - the main one, not the deuce - was the world sport stacking championships.
Basically, this is a timed race to stack drinking cups in fixed
patterns (pyramids and such).  I could not believe this was on TV.  It
was far more outrageous than any of the sports they came up with on the
Ocho.  Also, the kids doing it were fast -- a couple were such total
blurs with the cups I thought the tape was sped up.  There is no way
you can adequately picture this without seeing it - Click on one of the videos in the lower-center of this page.  The kid in the Comcast video on the right is pretty good too.  Oh, and get your gear here.

I have had several readers email me asking my opinion on net neutrality, at least as embodied in the regulations passing through Congress.  I really haven't gotten worked up about it one way or the other, but here is where I am on it:

1. It seems to be solving a "problem" that doesn't exist, but is mostly hypothetical.  So the current benefit of the law is zero.  Which makes the law at best currently useless, and at worst a negative given inevitable unintended consequences.  It seems crafted out of general distrust of phone and cable companies than for any other reason.  Couldn't we at least have waited not just until some company was giving preferential access to certain sites, but until there was some demonstrable harm from the practice?
2. I dislike the precedent of the government increasing its regulation of the Internet.  I know folks want to argue to me that this law is just to "keep the Internet like it has always been" but that is the justification of half the regulations on the books -- locking the the status quo against new business models, technologies, and competitors
3. I can imagine situations where net neutrality might be bad.  I think in particular with fledgling wireless networks, that might want to put certain limits on high-bandwidth sites to try to reduce the load on their key nodes.
4. I know it is not a direct analog, but net neutrality smacks a bit of the awful "must carry" rules applied to cable and satellite.  These must-carry rules were crafted to force people like cable to carry every local TV station, worthy or not, on their cable and to force satellite providers to only bring the network feed to a city via its city's local affiliate.  Another government incumbent protection act, it basically said that incumbent terrestrial broadcasters got first call on cable bandwidth ahead of new entrants.   The sattelite rule has always irritated me - it means that to provide NBC to 60 cities, DirecTV has to carry 60 nearly identical feeds in its limited satellite bandwidth instead of just one, all to protect technologically dated but politically influential local TV businesses. 
5. Ironically, the same "progressives" pushing net neutrality also pushed, just 6 months ago, legislation to require cable TV to provide content a la carte rather than just one price for everything bundled.  Aren't these two initiatives effectively opposite of one another?  And why is either the government's business?

One of the problems I have making common cause with many of the civil rights critics of the Bush administration is that they tend to hurt legitimate civil rights by exaggerating their claims into the ridiculous. 

A good example is detentions at Gitmo.  I believe strongly that the Bush administration's invented concept of unlimited-length detentions without trial or judicial review is obscene and needed to be halted.  But critics of Bush quickly shifted the focus to "torture" at Gitmo, a charge that in light of the facts appears ridiculous to most rational people, including me.  As a result, the administration's desire to hold people indefinitely without due process has been aided by Bush's critics, who have shifted the focus to a subject that is much more easily defended on the facts.

Interestingly, as I watch the Beeb this morning, Britain is having a similar debate.  Its hard to figure the whole thing out from the TV coverage and sound bites, but apparently Britain has the ability to detain suspected terrorists for 90 days, and wants the power to extend this.

Many people have told me that I am an insanely naive Pollyanna for not accepting the need for indefinite detention without trial of suspected terrorists.   I have explained in the past that we don't have the right to do this with our own citizens, but we also don't have the right to do this with any other human being (the short explanation:  The individual rights we hold dear are our rights as human beings, NOT as citizens.  They flow from our very existence, not from our government and not from the fact of our citizenship.   In some ways, the government probably has less right to abuse non-citizens, not more).

Here is a test:  If the government had always had this power, ie to detain indefinitely people it thought somehow "dangerous" to "someone"  (with the government getting to define both these terms), how abused would it have been in the past.  My answer is "very much".  Who would J. Edgar Hoover have detained?  Would Martin Luther King have spent his life in jail, much like Nelson Mandela?

By the way, I have no idea what Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld means for all this, since I haven't read it and pundits seem to disagree on what it means  (unfortunately, this may be something we live with a while, a feature of the new muddled "Justice Kennedy compromise" we seem to have to live with on a number of decisions).  If anyone thinks they have seen a definitive analysis, please link it in the comments.