the defeatists!

Educated Arrogance

Among the many abominations foisted on us is the merging of Lincoln's Birthday with Washington's and calling it President's Day. Frankly, we need more holidays, and Federal Holidays should be made mandatory paid holidays. Like in civilized countries – double time for workers and everybody else is off doing their thing. Now, celebrating Lincoln and Washington makes a lot of sense – but, Jerry Ford? Grover Cleveland? Warren G. Harding? John Tyler? James Buchanan? Seriously, give us back our holidays and make the bastards give them to workers…

There is method in my madness, by the way. Reduce work hours and you'll spur hiring to maintain productivity. It's a fairly simple idea and works very well especially when you're trying to maximize employment. If you have an idle assembly line, well, if you need a hundred employees to run it, and you cut the hours of 1000 employees enough to reduce productivity to where profit is affected, it will make economic sense to hire more workers. It probably does on a macro scale anyway – as Paul Krugman and other non-Friedmanesque economists keep saying, it's demand, stupid. No demand, no need for supply to keep up. No money, no demand…why is this hard?

I was wandering through various interweb sites this morning and discovered a number of things at places I don't always visit. Probably the best way to be exposed to new thought and new thinking is to just go out and look. I recommend Twitter for that – follow some of the links that are twittered and be prepared to be amazed, enlightened and generally entertained.

Spit on statistics -- it's what you measure and how, not the results

 

WILL WRESTLE YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW FOR A BUCK!--Homeless Guy's Sign, Trust Stop Near Barstow

So, the unemployment rate has dropped below 9% to 8.6%. Why is the AXE less than excited by this? The unemployment rate is based on the number of people who are considered to be in the workforce, so if you eliminate people from the workforce who are unemployed, the percentage employed is skewed to teh right. In other words,  So, most of the drop is due not to the imaginary job creators of Republcian lore, legend and myth, but due to people giving up after months of trying, running out of unemployment benefits and falling off the grid and under the bus. In other words, a historically low number of workers are doing less badly, while there's an increase in people who are literally just waiting to die. 

American governments at all levels continued to bleed workers, for one. And the decline in the unemployment rate had a down side: It fell partly because more workers got jobs, but also because about 315,000 workers dropped out of the labor force. That left the share of Americans actively participating in the work force at a historically depressed 64 percent, down from 64.2 percent in October.Even excluding these hundreds of thousands of dropouts, the country still had a backlog of more than 13 million unemployed workers, whose spells of unemployment averaged an all-time high of 40.9 weeks. “They say businesses are refusing to look at résumés from the unemployed,” said Esther Perry, 59, of Bedford, Mass., who participated in a recent report on unemployed workers put together by USAction, a liberal coalition. “What do you think my chances are? Once unemployment runs out, I don’t know what I will do.”

Do the Occupied folks stay in the Workforce? Probably not -- while they're doing their thing, exercising their constitutional rights and getting pepper sprayed and beaten and shot with rubber bullets and so on, they're not looking for work or, conversely, they are working, just not getting paid. See how much fun this is? Statistics measure what you measure -- basing policy decisions on them or making political decisions on them -- THE PRESIDENT"S CHANCES FOR RE-ECLECTION IMPROVE AS UNEMPLOYMENT DIPS! -- without asking some structural, almost existential questions about what these things mean is really stupid, and I'm sure we'll do it soon, 24/7 on cable news, blogs like this one and talk radio. 

So, here's the test -- who do you know who's unemployed and you don't understand why? When they get a job, assume that the unemployment rate may be going down. Whom do you know who hates their job -- trick question, the stats that I have seen are pretty straight and seem confirmed by reality, just about everybody hates their job. However, pick someone who's dramatically underpaid, overworked and unhappy...see when they get a raise. Or feel comfortable quitting their job to look for a new one. Then what's happening is an actual increase in employment, as opposed to an artifical decline in a rate.  

 

Too much of nothing is too much...

 Some of us have more problems with heroes. Steve Earle comes to mind -- he often tells the story of playing a gig early in his career in Houston, and his hero Townes Van Zandt showed up and sat in front. He then proceeded to heckle Steve for the rest of the evening. "Play Wabash Cannonball. You call yourself a folk singer but you don't know Wabash Cannonball." It wasn't a zen moment; Townes, when drunk and off meds could be a real asshole. While touring in support of his TVZ album, Steve touchingly says that after years of thinking about it, the main reason more people don't know Townes Van Zandt was Townes Van Zandt. 

 Steve also tells the story of leaving a tour during his drug days, driven by the sudden need to hitchhike off at Thanskgiving time and see William S. Burroughs. Not that he knew the guy, but Burroughs was a hero of his too. So, with two guitars -- one wouldn't be enough -- a gun, a stash and a roll of money he took off. He showed up, and Burroughs was the sort of host an insane junky crashed in Lawrence Kansas would be expected to be.. Burroughs was not the sort of guy to feel comfortable with a left-leaning country singer in the early 90s...do ya think?

 

Steve had better luck with people like Guy Clark, Emmy Lou Harris and Johnny Cash. But, those stories are not so funny. I'd be curious to listen to a conversation about writing and meaning between Steve and Bob Dylan. That would be interesting. 

I just saw a thing that Jabba Hut Lindbaugh has an annual Thanksgiving story about how socialism almost killed the early pilgrims. Not exactly. And, as usual, he's a total dipshit about it. It's true that the pilgrims had an agreement at first to have all thing in commons. However, they departed late with one ship instead of the two that were planned, and did not finally get to Plymouth until December. They looted some graves of corn left as offerings for the dead, but they were in coastal New England during what we know to have been a particularly cold cycle in the world's climate and they were short of supplies to begin with. 

Pure socialism is as stupid a system as pure capitalism. However, it wasn't the communitarian living plans that almost killed these folks -- it was bad navigation, poor planning, insufficient supplies and insufficient knowledge of what to expect. The Pequot tribesman who actually helped them lived in a communal arrangement that worked really well until disease, warfare and Protestant Christianity did them all in. 

Regardless of system, scarcity is the problem. If there is not enough and Jesus hasn't provided the receipe for multiplying wine, fish and bread, any system can be stressed to the near breaking point. Interestingly to me, the retreat from a communal to a more traditional structure occurred after a supply of food and goods was secured. Dylan summed this problem up very well --scarcity is the problem. 

 

As I said, it would be interesting to listen to Dylan and Earle and Clark talk about songwriting. We know that Dylan and Cash spent a lot of time together, so I suspect that some of the others have also been at Cinnamon Hill or at Hendersonville for a guitar pull or two. 

About as unclear on the concept as we are...Part I

Is it impossible to get a cup of coffee-flavored coffee? You can get every other flavor except coffee-flavored coffee! They got mochachino, cappuchino, frappachino, Al Pacino, what the fuck? www.what the fuck.com! --Denis Leary

 

Starbucks has a new blend, Iced Coffee Blend. I guess they Blend it so it will make really good Iced Coffee when blended. Anyway, while I was waiting for Sonny the Anorexic 20 something to get me my Americano, she offered me a sample. In a plastic Starbucks Shotglass. Of Hot Iced Coffee Blend. Obviously, they are unclear on the concept...about as unclear as we are on the debt limit debate, the deficit and why the US can't afford not to borrow and build and grow the infrastructure, American industry and hope for the future. 

Now, the debt limit is about as artifical a piece of idiocy as we can expect from the Republicans. Greenspan, ole Al hisself, has said in the past that he doesn't understand why the government goes through this drill. The other developed nations don't do it. Most businesses do this -- they borrow short term and long term, and play with the floats to keep going. The problem is not the borrowing -- rather, the problem is when you can't borrow anymore. 

While those who claim we are no longer capable of paying off the debt and therefore should massively contract and give up on the dreams of economic justice, industrial democracy and the old "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare" piece of the American ideology are dominating the debate, there are alternative visions. Those visions are better morally, poltically, economically and historically. Given mankind's ability to screw up sure things, I'm not sure that I can be too optimistic here, but I'll try. 

The market -- the money market, the bond market -- is eager to lend the US money by purchasing our debt through T-Bills. They -- the bond market, the Germans, the Chinese, the US Banking Industry -- are willing to do so because we're the best game in town historically and economically. The cost of this borrowing, the interest, is at historic lows. There's a reason for this, which should be almost like a Saint Paul falling off his horse on the road to Damascus moment to the Ayn Randian-Supply Side- Debit Hawks. The market, which they have raised to a level of sanctity exceeded only by the angelic choruses, the thrones and dominations and all the rest of that choir, isn't worried about the US debt. They see it as the preferred cost-benefit-risk investment. Since the whole "let the market decide" nonsense is based on the idea that the market is rational, well, the deficit hawks are disregarding their own ideology. 

So, from their point of view, the market is rational so long as it does what they think it should. Since it doesn't, they'll run around and compare the US economy to Bob's Burger Palace and Beer Emporium in Incest Hollow, Kentucky. There are problems with that, of course. Like it's a totally insane comparison. Or, comparing the US economy -- which is the basis for the debt -- to the Rand Paul household. 

Now, how do we screw this up? There are a number of ways. The first and the one that makes the world the most nervous, is the possibility of US default on debt. If you can't get the cash to meet current obligations, you ultimately are bankrupt. When you have to start stiffing your suppliers, things are bad; ask any government contractor and that's been happening around the edges for a while. When you start stiffing your lenders by not being able to stay current and having to decide whom you're going to pay, you're insolvent. Now, the market wants to let us borrow more -- we aren't Greece, we aren't Argentina, we aren't Russia. They know that and all these people who babble about American exceptionalism ought to remember it. We're still the greatest -- most prosperous, most inventive, most productive -- country in the world. 

So, the way we go insolvent is to artifically truncate our ability to meet current obligations -- not raise the debt limit as needed. Hell, establishing a debt limit is an artificial construct. It doesn't control anything. So, what happens if we aren't able to meet current obligations? What happens if we default? 

Well, things change. The world will become nervous about our stability and our reasonableness. There are concerns in Russia that Vladamir Putin is their version of Robert Mugabe. Since we are a Democratic Republic as opposed to a kleptocratic autocracy, our version of Mugabe will be John Boehner and Mitch McConnell reinforced by Rand Paul and ilk doing their Facism as 100% Americanism Fan Dance. Irrationality triumphs because they don't understand their own goddamned ideology, economic theory or how to act in the best interests of the country, or since they purport to believe in this stuff, their immortal souls...

Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal 

fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For
I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was
thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and
you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me
no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not
care for me.

...
Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one
of these least ones, you did not do for me. And
these will go off to eternal punishment, but the
righteous to eternal life.

(Mt. 26: 41-43; 45-46)

 

Obama is not much help here. He's been so busy triangulating the Republican position, the Progressive Democratic position and the public opinion that he can't do anything. He's done a lot of good things, but no great things because he lacks the willingness to be as dynamic a communicator with the bully pulpit of the presidency as he was in pursuit of it. While Madeline Albright's point was perhaps off, when she questioned why we needed the greatest military in the world if we were never going to use it she asked a question that someone ought to ask Barrack Obama...why exactly did you want to be president anyway? To slow the descent of the Republic into something worse? Or, to continue to make the country great...

When I was in college, we had dances on campus. These "mixers" were really mating rituals, where the various Catholic Girl's Schools sent busloads to Catholic West Point to see and be seen by the next generation of the rising Catholic middle class. We had beer, and there was music. Some of it was actually very good music -- a little known Boston band called JAY GEILS and HIS Rhythm Kings featuring Petey Wolfe or somebody like that I recall doing covers of various R&B stuff. 

The problem,as pointed out in Harry Potter and the Goblin of Fire is that girl's tend to travel to these things in herds while the men travelled in packs. Some male had to brave the herd, some member of the herd had to agree to brave the man and the process might start. The way this was done was with the question, "Would you like to dance?" Most of the time, the answer was yes. However, the fear of rejection was great...unfortunately, we were a bunch of drunken egocentric assholes in those days. (Based on my samples of our class population and my own experience, we still largely are egocentric assholes, of course who drink less.) And, what do you do when you risk everything and the answer is no? 

Well, one of my buddies had a way of either overcomming the resistance at best and at worst getting some of his own back. (We Irish are great at that. Starve us into economic slavery and disaspora, and we'll sing three choruses of The Wild Colonial Boy and burn down a pub. By good, showed the bastards...) When rejected, Franny would say " You don't want to dance? Then why'd ya come here?"

The "constitutional option" on the debt is something the Prez doesn't want to talk about which is insane. The 14th Amendment is very clear on this -- we're not in 2nd Amendment territory here, we're dealing with the fact of government and the requirements of governing...

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. (AXE emphasis) But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

So, while I dislike admitting it if only on aesthetic grounds, Mitch McConnell actually has a pretty good idea. I'd like there to be a more blanket approach, where this becomes what it is, a business practice, maintaining liquidity and solvency. As for the phrase "authorized by law" the debt becomes authorized when the Congress passes an appropriation bill and the President signs it. If Congress doesn't want to incur any more debt, they should just go the hell home...if there are no more appropriations, then there will be no new debt, just the continuing cost of governing at the current level. ) Of course, same question -- if you don't want to dance, why'd ya come?

 Now, since I regard the Republican Leadership in Congress as a wholly owned subsidiary of our insect-alien overlords (GE, the Koch Brothers, Pfizer, Merck, Boeing, JP Morgan-Chase, BOA, Goldman Sachs, the Vatican, the Templars, the Illuminati), I keep waiting for the adult leadership to recognize that their minions are about to drive their economic interests off the cliff...the problem that I see is that they're so intellectually inbred of such bad genetic stock (Ron Paul is a harmless old coot/Cult Figure in Congress; Rand Paul is one of 100 with the power to delay if not stop just about anything...) that their hearing is not acute enough to hear the dog whistle. McConnell and Boehner are old stock and can still hear their Masters' voices, but the Tea Party and the Randians and Rick-Bachman-Pawlenty-Overdrive and the rest are deaf to reason, national interest and enlightened self interest.  Since the Democrats are only partially owned by the same interests, well, they can still hear. They snap back about some stuff, but they aren't idiots. The Tea Party/Boehner-McConnell Republicans appear to be lemmings; most of the Democrats appear to be sheep. And, the Shepard appears to be interested in playing basketball as opposed to doing what he went into the field for. 

Next Time, why Taxes are a good thing and why the Stimulus didn't work better than it did. 

 

 

Well, it's been a weird week...out on Highway 61

 

I've been quiet lately. Posted some crap at Facebook and Twitter that I found other places and figured either didn't need or deserve my comments. I've been toiling away at a few things, and have no excuse. Of course, between the budget deal and the Ryan Budget and the Obama budget and Libya and Michele Bachmann and Donald Trump and such, there really hasn't been a lot to write about. However, got a few things to at least refer to...

Larry Kirwan is an Irish immmigrant and now citizen who wandered into the Brnonx with a Telecaster, an excellent Irish education from the schools of Eire, a collection of adventures and the attitude that allowed him to form, with friends, Black 47. Unlike a lot of Celtic Rockers, they have a strong reggae influence and have actually got a bit of hip hop in the closet. However, he's in the best of the Irish-Catholic-liberal-working class tradition, and Black 47s political stuff can be as exciting as the best rock stuff, and sometimes they overlap. Anyway, he had the opportunity to speak and play at a Labor Rally commemorating the Triangle Shirt Fire recently, and that led to an excellent discussion of how impossibly hard it is to keep us focused on what's important.

“You don’t say,” says Your Man up in Pearl River. “We didn’t think you were performing at a Sarah Palin Rally!”  I do have to admit that it was a thrill to stand on the same stage where a rather more stellar Republican, Abraham Lincoln, gave one of his greatest speeches. Besides, Sarah is auld hat now. Everyone and their granny knows that Michele Bachman is the new inheritor of Margaret Thatcher’s mantle. (AXE comment.  Thatcher looks like Elizabeth I compared to the US Bachmann-Palin-Coulter Underdrive. However, she stayed too long, and that gave the British Tony Blair and David Cameron. Reagan-Thatcherism, the gift that keeps on giving -- venereal disease.)

Kirwan is well worth reading on this and listening to as well. I dislike a lot of the Black 47 Ballads. That said, I have most of their CDs because they have fantastic up-tempo stuff. The ballads suffer from the Irish "Oh, Danny Boy" syndrome...we can't help it...like Danny Boy, it's a legacy of the British occupation and cultural rape. Like venereal disease. But, he can rise above it --and I think he sums our situation up well here.

All of us, Left, Right and Center, are being manipulated by that top 1%. It’s just that we’re so busy trying to keep our heads above water we don’t have time to stop and think about it.

Consider this! Back in the bellbottom 70’s manufacturing workers were pulling in $15-20 per hour. The recently negotiated UAW contract guarantees new hires $14 per hour. Thirty years of progress!

That great American ineluctable right – or rather assumption – that one can make the middle class is now a mere pipe dream for much of the population.

Many who lost their jobs in the recent financial debacle stand scant chance of regaining their standard of living, for those decent union jobs of 30 years ago have been replaced by low paying service industry positions, if at all. The great factories that I once drove past on Route 80 are now boarded up shells. Buffalo, Toledo, Detroit are graveyard cities, their populations declining by the year.

How did this come about? Well we trusted venal politicians in the pocket of lobbyists employed by the top1% oligarchy. Meanwhile, we allowed ourselves to be divided by a media more interested in selling ads than seeking the truth; and the sad part is - nothing has changed.

There is a great moment in the Scorses film about Dylan where Joan Baez says that after 40 years, she doesn't expect Dylan to show up at any "movement" function. He isn't about that stuff anymore. Hasn't been for over 40 years. Probably wasn't then -- she advises people to get over it, and appreciate him for what he is. Although he'd probably blanche at the comparison, for the AXE, Dylan is Kierkegaard in Leather, with a Telecaster swung over his shoulder and an XM radio. He doesn't really show up, he just is there sometimes. In the first Farm Aid concert, there was a moment when he was playing with his band, and he glanced up and saw Willy Nelson jamming away -- he was taken aback, and Nelson shrugged and grinned. That's the way to appreciate Dylan -- he goes where he goes and does what he wishes. And then he does a tour in China and Vietnam, and it's seen as a betrayal?  

I've expressed my love and contained lust for Maureen Dowd in this space for years. However, she can get very irritating. Her attitude toward the Dylan show and it's set list shows a number of things, including that she isn't really a Dylan fan. There is nothing in the Dylan songbook from the protest period that would be controversial in the Chinese Communist Party mind. Hell, they could start chanting Mao, Mao, Mao and waive their Little Red Books in adulation of the old fat bastard and be right in sync... There is nothing universal about Master's of War or Hurricane -- they're American songs about America. When a poltical song becomes specific, it loses it's universality. So, the Chinese apparachniks could actually have felt at home with With God on Her Side...because it's about the problems of American aggression, based on a tune stolen from Dominic Behan called the Patriot Game. And, Blowing in the Wind isn't all that optimistic and positive..."The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind."I think Jerry Jeff Walker put it well in it's proper place in the American songbook when he sang "The answer my friend isn't pissin' in the wind, the answer is pissin' in the sink..."

The stuff that Dylan got to sing was a helluva lot more subversive than the stuff Dulcinea Dowd wanted him to play, and she has the balance to quote people who point out that Dylan is not the guy with the old Martin guitar and workshirt anymore. Anyway, here's the setlist. If "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" isn't subversive enough, as another commentator put it, Highway 61 really speaks to the Chinese...meaningless slaughter just because sure sounds like Mao; exploitation for the manufacture and sale of crap; and, of course, war and militarism. From another point of view, the most subversive song Dylan ever wrote, the one that changed popular culture, music and the way a lot of people thought was the first encore...Like a Rolling Stone. Maureen probably doesn't really get Dylan. Remember, we're roughly contemporaries, and I'm sure she was into Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles and Laura Nyro over at Catholic University. Hell, I could picture her feeling daring drinking a 3.2 beer and singing along to "Danny Boy" on St Patrick's Day. Or that fucking Unicorn thing...

Then there's the dueling budget issues. I wish Obama wouldn't be so damn subtle...his speech that got Boehner and Ryan and Fox News all upset about his tone was what we need to hear him say about most stuff, and needed to have him say during the whole first two years. Hey, collegiality is nice, but calling bullshit and backing the call with facts is critical to the survival of the any Civil Society. And, the Ryan plan is bullshit. The delays in changing programs are sops to a special interest group -- old bastards. Like me. My wife. My sister. Our friends...to paraphrase the President when the mic was left on -- do we really think that was an accident -- do they think we're stupid? Well, yeah, they do. And, in general, we've justified that...the Tea Party consists of ignorant old farts who are confused about the government role in things like Medicare and Social Security, funded by people who'd just as soon go to a world run like the unpublished and lost fouth volume of Ayn Rand's Atlas saga,  Atlas Jacked Off a Mongrel Dog and Swallowed the Cum, where poor people were taken to rendering plants when they're dying for dog food and the human version of whale oil. The Republicans have encouraged not only the plutocrats, but the goddamn loonies to excess...People like Barbara Boxer, Anthony Weiner, Barney Frank and the branding iron-toting governor of Montana are peforming a great service by being vocal and direct, but the Bully Pulpit belongs to the President. As long as he's trying to be vague, collegial and inspirational, the Fox News gang is able to be crazy...and asshats like that clown from Texas who's had a career now ranting at people about how much he hates the American Flag from the steps of the capital in Austin need to be answered. I'm actually amazed that nobody has pistol whipped the clown and his compatriots yet. Where the fuck are Walker, Alex and Trevette when you need them? Or, Tom FUCKING Landry?

You know what I'd like to hear? Someone like Jim Clyburn of South Carolina or maybe Eugene Robinson say what they're really thinking, and what most of us are feeling. Every time somebody says Obama and birth certificate and Kenya what we hear is "Nigger." That's really what it is...why are we kidding ourselves. Everytime someone claims that all Muslims are evil, what we hear is "Nigger..." Everytime someone talks about Eastern Elites, what we're really hearing is "Kike..." Abortion complaints, unintended to be factual statements about Planned Parenthood, and similar nonsense about Gays -- all should be understood in one simple way -- "Eine Partie, eine Stadt, eine Volk! Seig Heil..." Look, the Celts in this country have been there -- NO IRISH NEED APPLY and No-Nothingism is as American as toxic waste and as corrosive. We just forget, a lot. We need to remember, say what we're thinking, stop being silly and get focused and stay goddamn focused.

If you're not rich, you need to get your ass to the polls and vote Democratic. If you're a soldier, sailor or Marine, you need to get your ass to the polls and vote Democratic. If you're a woman, you're gay, you're in a minority, have a job, have children, have parents, want the roads to work, the sewers to work, the power lines to work, the food to be edible, people to have jobs, people not to lose their homes and on and on and on and on...you need to get to the polls and vote Democratic.

If you're a Democratic lawmaker, you need to pass laws that are punitive to those who hurt the nation. We don't need a goddamn Flag-Burning Amendment. We need an Amendment to the Constitution stripping corporations of the legal fiction of them being people. If a kid selling or possessing a rock of crack cocaine can get 10 years to life, a bank executive who led his company on a spree of fraud, deceptive and predatory lending, and the destruction of lives and hopes and jobs and aspirations needs to do 10 years to life. Mandatory sentencing for white collar crime...similar to that for drug possession. I wonder how many years Countrywide Executives would be looking at ...

Arithmetic and History

 Many years ago, I was taking a course at one of the more advanced Army schools. Due to the nature of the material, the ability to use a calculator and do some relatively basic algebra -- plugging numbers into formulas and hitting enter -- was critical. Some of us were very capable, most of us were capable, a few were pretty hopeless. I was in a study group for one of these things, and prefaced the explanation of something with "It's algebra..." My buddy's response was "I can do algebra. That's not a problem. It's all these Xs and Ys..."

So, it strikes a note with me when I read a piece from the Kennedy School of Government that provides the best explanation of why Reagonomics can't work and why the deficit cannot be reduced by cutting spending. Jeff Frankel is a MIT Economics PhD over at the Kennedy School, and he sees the problem as lying at the intersection of arithmetic and history. Because of history -- poorly understood history poorly remembered -- we are incapable of having rational discussions with the Tea Party faithful and their captives on Capital Hill. Not only don't the numbers work, the numbers can't work...without some shared sacrifice and significant increase in revenue. How do you get revenue? You get it by taxation. How do you get money from taxation? You get it from the people who have the money to tax...

Frankel's explanation is so simple, and shows some of our government accounting problems. Remember Al Gore and the "Lock Box" for social security. Didn't happen. Social Security payroll taxes come in, they get processed and they get paid out. The difference between what comes in --rougly 15% of payroll nationwide -- and what gets sent to the recepients goes into bonds. The money gets spent as part of general revenue. It's been that way for a long time -- T-Bills are the safest investments you can find, unless you're some clown like Glenn Beck, envisioning a barter system based on freeze-dried food, .308 ammunition, and gold. Without that source of revenue, bad things happen. You could increase the revenue here by increasing the percentage or increasing the amount of income that gets taxed. Most of us don't ever really see ceiling on this; but, if we were to raise it to $200K, the trust fund would be solvent for a long time. And, since it's solvent now barring Beck's various prophecies coming true until 2050 or so, things would be fine for most foreseeable event horizons. 

If you think Beck and his ilk are not demented, stop reading this, write a comment to the effect that I'm obviously a Jew-loving liberal tool of the Israelis and the Commies, and save yourself some irritation. However, Frankel does the best job I've ever seen in laying out the problem. If you either don't think Beck has access to some revealed wisdom or you're willing to be persuaded, Frankel's piece is more than worth your time.

Total federal spending is $3 ½ trillion in round numbers.    That spending number minus tax revenue left a budget deficit of $1.3 trillion in fiscal year 2010.   Putting aside a very small number of genuinely sincere libertarians like Ron Paul, most Republican congressmen want to exempt defense spending and senior-related spending (Social Security and Medicare), and to make all the cuts in non-defense discretionary spending.  (That was their official platform in November’s election.)     How much would you have to trim non-defense discretionary spending to balance the budget?   Start — as many people would like to – by eliminating all foreign aid.  Contrary to what they think, foreign aid is of course only about 1% of total outlays.  Next imagine zeroing out all of veterans’ benefits, all federal spending on education, and all federal spending on transportation.   That includes programs so popular with their beneficiaries that the congressmen voting for them would be virtually certain to lose re-election.  But some of the freshmen say they are willing to pay that price, so let’s go full speed ahead.   We are only up to 6% of total outlays.   Now eliminate every dime of non-defense discretionary spending: parks, weather service, food safety, SEC, FBI, border patrol, politicians’ salaries… everything.  Do you think that closes the gap?    It only gets you half way there!   Domestic discretionary spending is not where the big bucks are.

The arithmetic in fact works out quite simply.    Of the $3 ½ trillion in federal outlays, just under 1/5 is non-defense discretionary spending.   Another 1/5^th is defense.   Social security is the third 1/5^th.    Medicare is the fourth 1/5^th (slightly less now, but far far more in the future).    The last 1/5^th is interest on the debt (which will also grow enormously in the future) plus other entitlements.    Numerically speaking, we would have to eliminate not just all non-defense discretionary spending, but also all defense.  Or else all social security spending (but we would have to continue somehow collecting the payroll taxes that are supposed to fund it!).   Or else all Medicare spending.   The unmistakable implication is that a solution to our long-term fiscal problems will have to involve some sharing of sacrifice among each of these five categories.    And increased tax revenue as well.    

Admittedly, the Republican leadership’s goal for the current fiscal year was to reduce domestic spending by “only” $100 billion.   But the freshmen’s position is that this goal is not enough.  (At the same time, they are unable to come up with that much in specific cuts that they are willing to put their names to, for the same familiar reasons.  Domestic discretionary spending is not where the money is.)

A reasonable medium term goal might be to raise taxes as a share of GDP at least to 18%, what it was during the Reagan administration, and to lower spending to 23%, what it was then as well.   Of course these two numbers still leave us with a deficit of 5% of GDP, which was Reagan’s record.  It will take us much longer to get back to the fiscal rectitude of Clinton.   It is not possible to eliminate the need to borrow, in the short run. 

Very simple. The numbers don't work without some sort of new revenue. The ideas floating around Capital Hill and the various statehouses that don't include some increase in revenue from increased taxes are silly. Add some more revenue to the pie, and you'd be amazed at how quickly everything gets back to something sustainable for the long run.  

Not sure or want to play around. Frankel has links to a site at the NY Times and The Program for Public Consultation.  I've played with both, and the results are interesting. If we went back to the Clinton Tax Rates, we'd have money for a lot of things we need to do while paying down the deficit and the debt. However, spending cuts alone don't get there.

Paul Krugman is another of the smart people that I look to when I'm trying to understand economic issues. Krugman's column today makes the point that cutting spending is just a bad idea...we're nowhere near recovery, job numbers are awful and the economy is fragile. The worst idea is to pull money out of the economy but cutting government spending. Increased federal spending has been offset by the disasters happening in state and local government.There's a net loss in jobs, which means there is a net loss in consumer spending. What's about to happen in Wisconsin is being played out in lots of places across the country -- not the boneheaded union busting, but the layoffs and impoverishment of the middle class. Krugman slashes and burns through the Republican argument, but he does it with a rapier and a laser. What they're saying is empirically wrong and doesn't work -- outside of that, great idea. Sounds good on Fox News. This is, of course, the sort of silliness that got us here and threatens the future.

The clear and present danger to recovery, however, comes from politics — specifically, the demand from House Republicans that the government immediately slash spending on infant nutrition, disease control, clean water and more. Quite aside from their negative long-run consequences, these cuts would lead, directly and indirectly, to the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs — and this could short-circuit the virtuous circle of rising incomes and improving finances.

Of course, Republicans believe, or at least pretend to believe, that the direct job-destroying effects of their proposals would be more than offset by a rise in business confidence. As I like to put it, they believe that the Confidence Fairy will make everything all right.

But there’s no reason for the rest of us to share that belief. For one thing, it’s hard to see how such an obviously irresponsible plan — since when does starving the I.R.S. for funds help reduce the deficit? — can improve confidence.

Beyond that, we have a lot of evidence from other countries about the prospects for “expansionary austerity” — and that evidence is all negative. Last October, a comprehensive study by the International Monetary Fund concluded that “the idea that fiscal austerity stimulates economic activity in the short term finds little support in the data.”

And do you remember the lavish praise heaped on Britain’s conservative government, which announced harsh austerity measures after it took office last May? How’s that going? Well, business confidence did not, in fact, rise when the plan was announced; it plunged, and has yet to recover. And recent surveys suggest that confidence has fallen even further among both businesses and consumers, indicating, as one report put it, that the private sector is “unprepared to fill the hole left by public sector cuts.”

Arithmetic and history; empirical facts and context. Worth keeping in mind...

Bad news travels like wildfire and good news travels slow...

Sweating in the ghetto with the wetbacks and the poor
The rats have joined the babies who are sleeping on the floor
Now wouldn't it be a riot if they really blew their tops?
But they got too much already and besides we got the cops
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.-- Phil Ochs

The problem becomes, of course, being able to tell the difference between the two, good news and bad news. Or, becoming aware that they exist in the face of cultural degradation and silliness. This is a day of universally WTF important stories that we are missing because of the Charlie Sheen phenomonon. We've got years of reruns of 2.5 Idiots and there's always Hot Shots and Navy Seals. Stop worrying about Charlie, oh great media machine and pay attention to the things that are going to get the rest of us killed. Oh Tempora, Oh Mores! as that great Italian defense attorney Cicero said in about 64 BCE. Of course, he was talking about viciousness and corruption; we need to add stupidity, greed and the inability to connect the dots. Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, Cato, Crassus, Brutus -- they could all connect the dots. Our politicians and our leaders - not so much.

First of all, there's the latest debacle in Afghanistan. Now, the Afghans are big on blood feuds, revenge killing, pederasty and goats. So, the accidental killing of a bunch of kids herding goats and getting firewood is not just a tragedy, it's symptomatic of everything that's wrong with this war...

Look, it's a low tech place, and kids play while they're doing choirs. See the helicopter and run around -- and, some door gunners think, "Oh shit, Taliban..."  and ratatattat. We've ruined the lives of Afghan families, which will piss off extended families and result in payment of blood money and probably American blood. Shoot my neighbor's kid from the sky while he's doing the equivalent of raking leaves, and I might be predisposed to not want to help you do anything but get the fuck out of my country...Inshallah! If we're worried about Psyops, well, this kind of shit that happens entirely too often is why we can expect no real results from Psyops. It a low tech place, in tough terrain, with a warlike populace who are pretty good at not going along with strangers. It's noble of Petraeus to go and apologize but to the Afghans invovled, he's just another outsider. It's his fault...they may understand that. They won't get accidents happen; collateral damage is inevitable.

I'm all for orderly withdrawals, since the alternative is a fighting retreat, but it needs to happen now...not in two or three or ten years.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported on its Web site that the suspect was carrying a large amount of ammunition when arrested. The police said they could not confirm that report.A man whose office is near the site of the shooting, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his business, said witnesses told him that before opening fire the gunman shouted “God is great” in Arabic. --NY Times

Then, there's the murder of two Airmen on their way to Afghanistan as they're getting on a bus at Frankfurt's international airport. The Politzei haven't identified the guy yet,but it appears that the guy works there. The Times points out that there have been no major terrorist attacks in Germany but states that they've been on alert for a while expecting some. The media claims that the guy is a Kosovar who was born in Germany...citizenship in Germany not being easily available to non-Germans. There are about a million Turks, Armenians, and every other type of non-German living in and born in Germany legally who have no citizenship rights. Supposedly the guy got into an argument with the GIs...ok, I can see that. What I don't see is why or how the guy had a gun...Germany has really stringent gun control laws. This non-citizen would not have come close to getting a pistol permit. Hell, he'd have had trouble getting a permit for a sword...I wandered all over that country, and never felt nervous. I stayed away from the docks and red light zones, and saw no evidence of street crime. I recall being on "Courtesy Patrol" -- an oddball Army thing where some NCOs or Officers would put on their Class A or B uniforms and go someplace that soldiers might go and get drunk and in trouble, so they could exert a calming influence at best and at worst haul the bastards back to the barracks. Normal vehicle was a jeep with radio, driver and two NCOs. When I did it, I told the senior guy  to man the phone/radio, and we took a five ton truck so if there were drunks, we'd have room to carry them. Anyway, this particular adventure was at a major Beer Festival in Wurzburg, my favorite city in, oh, the universe. We were standing around over by the main Politzei area, and some belligerent German drunks were dragged into the shed that the cops were using. A huge cop came out, smiled at us, and shut the door, standing against it and bracing his back against the door. Bodies proceeded to slam against walls for a few minutes -- I am not exaggerating to say the walls seemed to bulge. Next, the cop opens the doors and helps drag the drunks, now docile, out and away...I also was involved as a witness and as a translator a couple of times when the Kriminal Polizei were involved. Guns were drawn, and people were very cooperative. Whole Miranda thing not an issue over there. So, while I'm not naive enough to think that there were no guns in the hands of thugs when I was there, I am pretty sure that this indicates that they've lost the bubble on arms trafficking there. Expect more. Why exactly are we flying people into Frankfurt to move them on to Ramstein AFB before flying them to Afghanistan anyway? The piece mentions that we've downsized a lot in Europe, that there are now only 50000 total Army, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guardsmen there. I guess my thought is "Why are there any beyond essential liaison with our allies?" And, if our allies really want us there, why aren't they paying for it? I know that there are overcrowding issues at some US installations, but unmothballing a few and putting soldiers there would make more sense than not. And, create jobs here, by the way. Turning the Yakima Firing Range into an Afghanistan style joint readiness training center would work great...it looks like Afghanistan, and has basically the same sort of weather...hellish.

Then, there's Dr Doom and his merry Gang of Tricksters. Nouriel Roubini sent me this today... Download Gmail - Fwd RGE's Wednesday Note - Fallout From the MENA Days of Rage - March 2, 2011 - crusader.axe.ofthe.lost.causes@gmail.com The good doctor and his think tank are pretty expensive to subscribe to, but I do get some of his newsletters, and his team sent one today that was just marvelous to behold. Here's a bit...MENA is Roubiniese for Middle East-North Africa, by the way.

As RGE Chairman Nouriel Roubini examined in a recent piece, the economic costs of MENA unrest extend far beyond the region, with rising commodity prices the most significant linking factor. A further increase in oil prices would pose a significant downside risk to global growth. We expect demand destruction for fuel products to occur at lower oil prices than in 2008, as U.S. and EU consumers are more stretched. Fuel importers will suffer from higher prices, and global central bankers will face a more difficult job in setting policy. Countries like Turkey and South Korea with extensive goods and services exports to MENA countries could face two challenges from the region’s disruption: a stall in their projects with the countries and a deterioration of external balances from an increase in oil prices.

Beyond food and fuel security risks, the waves of unrest are washing up on the European continent in the form of increased numbers of migrants to southern EU nations. Already, Italy has reported an increase in Tunisians in Lampedusa, and some of the 100,000 Libyans flooding into Tunisia and Egypt may well try to make their way north. An increase in illegal migrants and refugees could stress the broader EU, which is still suffering from high unemployment rates and fiscal austerity...

Here's my problem. Austerity has been proven to not work, to drive down GDP and to screw things up in general. Yet, we have an entire Republican party devoted to saying "we're broke...: Well, not really. What we have is a revenue problem -- we need higher taxes at the state, county, municipal and federal levels. And, the immediate return to the Clinton Tax Rates for the richest makes sense, but we actually need a lot more. As the Wisconsin debacle has shown, we've got issues with reality; nobody likes to pay taxes and have government waste; however, we kinda like things like schools, libraries, roads, sewers and bridges. It takes money to build those things...I suppose we could anticpate our inevitable downfall and institute an annual corvee but that would be incredibly stupid. Expect the Tea Party to immediately endorse it...

Now, Robert Rubin has pointed out repeatedly, that the concentration of wealth at the top end does a disservice to the top end. The Koch Brothers probably think that their ideology makes sense and we're just dealing with hiccups, but not distributing money from the people who have money to do the things that need to be done in society while trying to take it from those who do not have so much money is pretty damn stupid. Now, I'm not rich enough to squirrel away a lot of my money in municipal bonds or state bonds. These are generally tax free, if you can afford to buy them. Earnings from Munis or State bonds are not tax free if part of a mutual fund. Hedge fund managers and portfolio managers love these things for salting away excess wealth -- no risk and the lack of tax makes them more attractive.So trust funds, pension funds, insurance agencies, low risk mutual funds and so on love them. They're considered almost as safe as T-Bills and you get better returns.

So when Doctor Roubini and his band of gypsies tell the Wall Street Journal that Municipals will probably drop about $100 Billion in defaults this year, that's hardly a good thing. It appears, from the Journal's piece that they regard this as being good news that at some level we've got disaster fatigue. The loss of a $100 billion worth of wealth will shaft investors, but will do a number on any municipality or state that happens to have to default. Or, appears threatened. Interest rates will shoot through the roof; when Texas state bonds are accorded junk bond status along with California and a few other places, what the hell, over? Pensions will go under, investors will go crazy, and some one will come up with the great idea of bailing out Hedge Funds...we can't let a trillion dollar industry go south, can we? Think of the children!

And, of course, the hits keep on coming. The Dems cave on this two week funding thing, everybody with any credibility tells the House Republicans and the Tea Party and the General Public that their economic plans are based on bad math, lousy economics and general ideological paralysis of the insane. And, we continue to go merrily down the road...

To Reverend Phelps and his church. Frankly, I tend to almost always side with the Bill of Rights. Free speech should be protected at almost all costs. But, the Founders would be dumbfounded by no constraints. They tolerated a lot, because they had faith that society would punish those who went too far. Hamilton died because he said things that he'd probably said before, possibly to Burr, but this time to someone who published them. The same reasoning that brought us Citizens United and the best Congress the rich can buy has now found in favor of the Westboro "Fag-Hating, Jesus-loving" Baptist Church.

“Westboro’s funeral picketing is certainly hurtful and its contribution to public discourse may be negligible,” Chief Justice Roberts concluded. “But Westboro addressed matters of public import on public property, in a peaceful manner, in full compliance with the guidance of local officials.”

I spent my life dedicated to the cause of free speech among others. This one bothers me...a lot. The only reason that these damn things have not degenerated into blood, mud, fire and riot is that we're far too disciplined in the military and veterans communities, and far too tolerant on the left. Idealism doesn't get in the way of Clarence Thomas or Scalia. I interpret this to mean that cross-burning, which is hate speech by definition, is probably protected speech. Yea! More fun ahead...

Meanwhile, Charlie Sheen has been spotted walking down the Vegas Strip with a gun, a speedo and a feather sticking out of his ass. Oh, half the men in the US have HPV. Which, since the virus is largely assoicated with women, means that a higher percentage of women have it. Which means that maybe we should be vaccinating everybody for it, since the virus itself is not so bad, but the cancers are. Or, maybe we should just skip it. Quick -- shoot Tiger Blood Charlie with a tranquilizer gun using the Siberian White Tiger dose and test him for it!

 

 

 

Everything is fucked up and nobody goes to jail...now you know the story

Matt Taibbi has a new piece in Rolling Stone that discusses why we've yet to see anyone go to jail as a result of the various pieces of nonsense leading up to the financial meltdown. It's an interesting piece because it points out the difference between Main Street and Wall Street in a very important way -- the more harm you can do to more people, the less likely you are to be punished. Brother Schmedlap sells someone a half ounce of dope in Utah and goes to jail for six months; BOA continues to not play nice with and actually screw with it's customers and pays some fines. Nothing to see here, just move along.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The only big money guy to get sent to jail is Madoff. Chris Matthews had a segment with Jim Cramer of CNBC this afternoon, trying to figure out why Madoff has taken to claiming that the banks and investment houses had to know what he was doing. Well, to my mind Cramer whiffed on this one...he pointed out that there was a lot of speculation about how Madoff could be registering the results he was claiming, and that Barrons, among others, discussed the possibility that he was running a Ponzi scheme. However, the SEC supposedly kept giving him a clean bill of health. Again, I'm not an economist or a banker or an expert on regulatory affairs, but if the SEC kept giving him a clean bill of health, somebody at the SEC needs to be in jail next to Madoff...

Now, I've been reading the various books about the debacle, and there have been a number of them -- well researched, well written and well documented. If I were to sum up what I've read, the problem began with the whole concept of derivatives. These investment instruments are hard to explain because they can be impossible to understand, between the jargon and the general murkiness of the effort. The general conception in the sub-prime derivatives -- the Credit Default Swaps -- was that while most of these mortgages were lousy mortgages, a very small percentage would default and result in foreclosure.  The demand would stay high, if not continue to grow exponentially, and therefore prices would continue to rise. When things started to fall apart, well, they fell apart quickly. Lots of people on Wall Street knew that the emperor was wearing no more than a striped loincloth; just nobody wanted to do anything about it.

If you listen to Barney Frank, one of the things he's proudest of is the regulation of derivatives that was included in the financial reform act. Even Jim Cramer thinks that there needs to be effective regulation and an amped up SEC. He says in his interview with Matthews that without a strong regulator, a crook can get away with just about anything. Yet, the Republicans in the house want to cut the funding for the SEC and for the Consumer Financial Protection Agency in half...as well as cut the IRS enforcement budget by half.

Ok, without strong regulations and strong enforcement, in this Ayn Randian world created by Laffler and Greenspan and Reagan and friends, the country is screwed. There used to be a concept of civic duty. Organizations and individuals were expected to share in the maintenance of the public good. We've learned that corporations --those soulless approximations of human beings with the rights of the individual with none of the risk -- have no problem dodging their responsibilities. We know that people cheat on their taxes. The Republican Party has made the screwing with the tax rules their moral equivalent of standing in front of a tank in Tiannamen Square. So, if we are going to tax at a lower rate, shouldn't we be collecting all the damn money owed? If there's no chance of being caught, lots of folks will do whatever they can here.

At some point, revenue has to increase. The states are really in a bad way of course, and it appears that the best idea the new Moses, Chris Christy of New Jersey has that is sweeping statehouses is to piss, moan, insult and condemn public employees. Ok, there's a gaggle of miserable pricks in DMV, say, and we all want to bitchslap those bastards. But, EMTs? Firefighters? Cops? Teachers? Really? That's the solution...

Anyway, Taibbi is right one target as usual, and the screaming match between Cramer and Matthews -- who appear to agree -- is illuminating and interesting on several levels.

When Brooks gets it right, it's very right indeed...

"Ideologies are for theoreticians."

Alexander Hamilton and Edmund Burke walk into a bar. Hilarity and intelligence ensue...

Every Thursday my gurus, Mr. Burke and Mr. Hamilton, get together at the Heavenly Rest to drink and talk politics. Mr. Burke prefers a whiskey and water, while Mr. Hamilton likes a good strong Sex on the Beach. This week, they ended up talking about President Obama.

David Brooks column this morning is about the internal conflict in the ranks of thoughtful conservatives and the problems inherent in our economy. I think Burke gets the last word, and Alexander Hamilton comes off as the tea party tin-foil hat wearer. But I could be wrong...

If the revenue is not sufficient for what you have to do, you grow the revenue or fail. I don't care if you're a family, a global corporation, a religious movement or a goddamn country -- you can't make money by counting it. You need money to do things...so get the money. If it requires tax increases, fine -- increase them. User fees are a way of shedding the pain. Want to cut back on the number of SUVs on the road? Tax vehicles by weight when it's time for license renewal. $25 a ton...the Suzuki Swift owner pays about $20; the HUMMV owner pays about $80. Why not?

Excess profit or windfall profit taxes work as well. Koch Industries has net revenue equal to 25% of costs. Establish a reasonable amount as reasonable income, and tax the rest at 50%. You're not taxing income, you're taxing revenue. Add a 2% VAT on luxury goods or socially interesting goods like, oh, guns, sportscars, alcohol and tobacco, clothing items over $100, sex toys, pornography, fast food,  whatever.

You know what would really help? Requiring politicians and lobbysists to tell the goddamn truth...but, that's crazy talk. Both Hamilton and Burke thought politicians were supposed to tell the truth. Hamilton's inability to tell a polite lie and eat a little crow with Aaron Burr when he knew that he'd been wrong to call Burr a variety of bad things got him killed. I find that admirable, particularly in an environment where people feel fine about just making shit up. Outside of bringing back duels, I don't have a solution but still...

Not Atlas Shrugged but Lord of the Flies...

now i was 15 in 1973, and as the years went by it dawned on me, as it dawned on a lot of folks, that there wasn't going to be a revolution. also it is a bit hard for an anarchist to contemplate the actual mechanisms and results of actual revolutions. none of the twentieth century revolutions eventuated in anything that resembled the rhetoric of the revolutionaries. and every successful revolution of the twentieth century eventuated in a totalitarian regime. and i got sidetracked of course: love, poetry, philosophy, drugs. i remained committed to the ideas, which i found in emma goldman or developed for myself, and i have tried to express them or stay true to the anti-authoritarian impulse, of which i have found over the years that i have an inexhaustible supply. but i also made some sort of peace with some sorts of authority (even my own: the hardest task).

Crispin "Bowties and ee cummings are cool" Sartwell, 12-15-2010

Way back when we first started this thing, one of my bros found a political-social index that ranked you on a left-right, libertarian-statist matrix. We all were various combinations of left-libertarians...I believe that I was the furthest to the left, and Mr. Fun was furthest to the right although more libertarian than I. Of course, that calls into question the real meaning of Libertarianism.

Well, Christopher Beam in New York Magazine has a great article on just that topic. It's kind of anti-libertarian, but only in so far as the more radical and Objectivist types push it. Reading it, I realized  that the most conservative of the founders, Hamilton and Adams were probably the most statist; Jefferson and Madison would have seemed far more liberal, in all senses of the word, as well as the least statist. Intersting how that happens...When Ron Paul accuses the Federal Reserve of covering up Roswell or whatever other nefarious doings, he is the spiritual heir not of Hamilton but of Jefferson and Andy Jackson.

The thing about libertarianism is that it's really not a left/right thing but a high/low thing. Someone who is totally libertarian is...well, possibly Crispin "Snakewalk" Sartwell, who is in fact an anarchist, a professor of Philosophy at Dickinson and owner of an extremely large and disturbing collection of pictures of John Mayall. (He also is the Stig on Top Gear -- the real one in England, not our phoney version. And a practicing Druid...) However, Crispin is far too generous and kind -- except to his students where he channels Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds by being cruel to be kind -- to fit the extreme social libertarian mode. Crispin, as a philosopher, knows that when you carry thing to their logical extreme, they tend to warp and become illogical. Light bends in atmospheres, and ideas bend in connection with reality. Pure light and pure ideas are interesting concepts, but what mainly of Platonic importance; we can argue about the essence of libertarianism or of light in the abstract -- however, getting things done and maybe getting some ambient lighting in the cave would be more illuminating. We can argue about Orcs all we want, but it's of little practical use unless you're an animator, a writer or a fan of Atlas Shrugged...Crispin, far more articulate than I, puts it well, as he always does even when (or perhaps especially when) I disagree with him.

 

The New York Magazine article nails that aspect of libertarianism really well --

Consider the social side of Libertopia. It’s no coincidence that most libertarians discover the philosophy as teenagers. At best, libertarianism means pursuing your own self-interest, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. At worst, as in Ayn Rand’s teachings, it’s an explicit celebration of narcissism. “Man’s first duty is to himself,” says the young architect Howard Roark in his climactic speech in The Fountainhead. “His moral obligation is to do what he wishes.” Roark utters these words after dynamiting his own project, since his vision for the structure had been altered without his permission. The message: Never compromise. If you don’t get your way, blow things up. And there’s the problem. If everyone refused to compromise his vision, there would be no cooperation. There would be no collective responsibility. The result wouldn’t be a city on a hill. It would be a port town in Somalia. In a world of scarce resources, everyone pursuing their own self-interest would yield not Atlas Shrugged but Lord of the Flies. And even if you did somehow achieve Libertopia, you’d be surrounded by assholes.(AXE Emphasis Added)

Beam earlier makes the point that a radically libertarian reading of the Constitution probably is closest to the original intent of the Founders. However, that original intent or idea had all sorts of provisos about the common good, the general welfare, justice and so on. Thus there was room to evolve, and the government has expanded in order to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare. Does it go too far at times? Yeah...but, in a libertarian world, a truly libertarian world, there is no agency to really do those things. Beam points out that out and does it exceptionally well...Citing a former Cato Institute Wonk who left because he was either too intellectually pure or not pure enough, Brink Lindsey, who says that "The dominant strain of libertarianism these days is—and I’m not using these words in any kind of pejorative sense—radical and utopian,” he says that mainstream libertarianism is pretty far out there.

Libertarian minarchy is an elegant idea in the abstract. But the moment you get specific, the foundation starts to crumble. Say we started from scratch and created a society in which government covered only the bare essentials of an army, police, and a courts system. I’m a farmer, and I want to sell my crops. In Libertopia, I can sell them in exchange for money. Where does the money come from? Easy, a private bank. Who prints the money? Well, for that we’d need a central bank—otherwise you’d have a thousand banks with a thousand different types of currency. (Some libertarians advocate this.) Okay, fine, we’ll create a central bank. But there’s another problem: Some people don’t have jobs. So we create charities to feed and clothe them. What if there isn’t enough charity money to help them? Well, we don’t want them to start stealing, so we’d better create a welfare system to cover their basic necessities. We’d need education, of course, so a few entrepreneurs would start private schools. Some would be excellent. Others would be mediocre. The poorest students would receive vouchers that allowed them to attend school. Where would those vouchers come from? Charity. Again, what if that doesn’t suffice? Perhaps the government would have to set up a school or two after all.

And so on. There are reasons our current society evolved out of a libertarian document like the Constitution. The Federal Reserve was created after the panic of 1907 to help the government reduce economic uncertainty. The Civil Rights Act was necessary because “states’ rights” had become a cover for unconstitutional practices. The welfare system evolved because private charity didn’t suffice. Challenges to the libertopian vision yield two responses: One is that an economy free from regulation will grow so quickly that it will lift everyone out of poverty. The second is that if somehow a poor person is still poor, charity will take care of them. If there is not enough charity, their families will take care of them. If they have no families to take care of them—well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Of course, we’ll never get there. And that’s the point. Libertarians can espouse minarchy all they want, since they’ll never have to prove it works.

It's also worth noting that we basically tried to do all the stuff noted above and none it worked. When every bank printed money, it didn't work. My "Bank of AXE" fifty dollar bill might not work so well in Orange Country where they're mainly using "Bicycle Sites Bank" money. If I say I have a bank, I can print money...yeah, didn't work in the 1800s, and won't work now. Private Toll Roads as opposed to public roads? Didn't work. Private charities -- with a severly weakened government safety net, they're in trouble. Eliminate it, and have you seen Angela's Ashes recently? One can argue that privatization of natural monopolies is an example of extreme libertarianism, and I think that -- if we consider Enron as a great example of this kind of thinking -- one would be right and establish Beam's position of true minarchy would result in being surrounded by greedy assholes.

Government should provide that which can not be provided equitably or adequately by the private sector. For example, the Food and Drug Administration outsources the responsibility to review research proposals for human subjects in clinical trials to Institutional Review Boards. That works reasonably well, except that the people paying for the review are...the people who are trying to get the trials done. I used to work for one of those boards, and frankly, I found there to be a serious disconnect between the idea of making money reviewing the ethical standards of a research proposal and then taking money from the people you're reviewing. In no way do I question the integrity of the organization -- far from it. There was a motive in making certain that the research proposal conformed to and that the research was then conducted in strict accordance to the rules -- nobody likes to be sued for gross negligence or go to jail for corruption. Since the airwaves are now crowded with commercials for various law firms that talk about suing for serious side-effects, the big Pharmaceutical companies don't want anything to screw them down the road; approval of shody proposals would result in bad research, risk to subjects and possibly huge damages.

By basically outsourcing this responsibility -- approving research as meeting FDA requirements -- the FDA was putting responsibility for that piece of the approval process  in hands that made sense and that had a strong economic motive to do a good job. However, if you outsource operations of a major airport to the private sector or even sell it to the private sector you are guaranteed problems if there is a crunch between regulation and requirements versus profitability. If you like spending days with the several thousand of your closest strangers waiting for someone to get the runways cleared and the planes deiced, then such an arrangement would be right in your comfort zone. However, if you're not insane, you want the people making decisions to allocate resources to be primarily driven not by profit for shareholders but services for stakeholders. The focus of the constituencies is different -- and, the common good in this place should outweigh profit.