Category: Politics

We have our first loser.

We do not have a winner in the race for an entry of praise. But I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn the identity of the first candidate to drop out. You’re going to be so not surprised, although much Hillarity (pun intended) and ignorance ensues.

“There is something seriously wrong with our economy when Exxon’s record $11 billion in quarterly profits are seen as a disappointment by Wall Street. This is truly Dick Cheney’s wonderland.

“But on Main Street, middle class families are facing devastating choices every day between buying groceries and filling up their gas tanks to get to work. They are being squeezed by a vice grip of record high gas prices, record declines in housing values and an economy that is shedding jobs and tumbling into recession.”

“I believe these families need immediate relief. That’s why I have called for making Exxon and other oil companies with record profits pay the federal gas tax this summer. Now, Senator Obama doesn’t believe in any kind of gas tax holiday. And Senator McCain doesn’t want to pay for one. I believe we should impose a windfall profits tax on big oil companies and use that money to suspend the gas tax and give families relief at the pump. They typical family could get $70 in relief, and families that drive more for work could get even more. Truckers will get a $50 break every time they fill up their tanks.

“At the same time, we need to set a new course for our long term energy strategy, and move away from oil and towards new sources of clean energy. That’s why I have proposed a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund that will invest that money in clean energy sources like wind and solar.”

I try not to deploy this term, but it’s the only description that fits here: hack. Unfortunately, this is probably the only race she’ll drop out of any time soon.

Post Script: Per Mark’s comment to yesterday’s entry, I’m including Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr in the race. The LP nomination is far from certain, although I suspect Barr will win it. And I’ve already discussed my concerns with the other leading candidate for the LP nomination, Wayne Allen Root. I’ll also set a deadline of Monday. (This story doesn’t have legs.) Any candidate who shows restraint will receive an entry of praise about some policy position.

Post Post Script: Here’s an excellent essay on the actual issues involved in oil and profits.

Partisan buffoonary is certain to lead to a solution. Somehow.

President Bush talks about the economy, a topic he has proven himself qualified to discuss on par with his podium’s ability to explain game theory. Not that it matters, of course, because the best a president can do is get in the way. Talk of helping is politics, not economics. As it was today:

President Bush today blamed Congress for many of the nation’s economic woes, charging that lawmakers have blocked his proposals for dealing with problems ranging from soaring gasoline prices to the increasing cost of food.

Wasn’t the Free Money economic stimulus package the solution? That hasn’t even gone out yet, so it’s advertised benefits are unproven. I did get the letter telling me I might be getting the Free Money. I won’t, but why let that save me the cost of the postage and paper?

And he charged that instead of dealing with rising food prices, lawmakers are “considering a massive, bloated farm bill that would do little to solve the problem” and would not “eliminate subsidy payments to multimillionaire farmers.” Describing the U.S. farm economy as “thriving,” Bush said now is the “right time to reform our nation’s farm policies by reducing unnecessary subsidies.”

When he vetoes one of these massive, bloated farm bills, maybe I’ll think he’s serious.

The U.S. owes the world. The world owes nothing to individuals.

Here’s an interview (part 2 of 3) with Stephen Lewis¹, a former diplomat now involved in HIV/AIDS issues. Here are a few curious excerpts (italics added):

What do you think should be done [to fix PEPFAR]?

People should demand more – much more. No one denies that when you pump several billion dollars into a response it will mean something. Of course it will; millions of people will be treated. That’s terribly important.

But that’s what we deserve to expect from the United States. You don’t kneel down before a country because it’s doing… something that the world has a right to receive. The American administration is so discredited, George Bush is such a lamentable president, that when anything of a positive kind happens people are prostrate at the unlikelihood of it and they shouldn’t be.

It gets worse from there, but it’s most important to focus on the key assumption. The world has a right to receive American funding for its problems. I’d like to know the socialist theory Lewis is using to arrive at the conclusion. Presumably we’re only allowed to call our giving “charity” if we need to feed our American egos. The world will acquiesce with that concession, but the dollars must continue to roll in to satisfy the world’s right to receive.

I don’t have anything else nice to say about that, so I’ll move on to the next interesting bit. (Again, italics added.)

How about the response of the United Nations to HIV/Aids in Africa?

There is just so much more to be done. Frankly, one of the things that is inadequate is the United Nations agencies. Some of it is bewildering.

For example, you get the Minister of Health in South Africa (Dr. Manto Tshababala-Msimang [sic]) attacking and dismissing circumcision as a preventive technology. Here you have three determinative studies, definitive studies, we have UNAIDS and WHO encouraging male circumcision as a way of reducing transmission and you get an attack on it by the minister of health in South Africa. Where is the United Nations’ voice? Why haven’t they taken on the minister? Why haven’t they said what should be said, which is that she’s effectively dooming people to death and it need not be done? You have to have a much stronger voice of advocacy from the United Nations in dealing with disease and related matters.

Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is nuts is HIV, yes, but Lewis’ rant against the United Nations is bizarre. Whether it’s pushing circumcision through UNAIDS with breathless calls-to-action, issuing press releases touting the latest hype on the original story from WHO, or endorsing gender-based human rights violations through its remaining organizational reach, I’m not sure it’s possible to do more for the organization to insert its reach any further into this debate on the wrong side of human rights. But that’s defensible. Instead, let’s complain that they never criticized Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang for being stupid and dangerous.

Except, they did.

The United Nations special envoy for Aids in Africa has closed a major conference on the disease with a sharp critique of South Africa’s government.

Speaking at the end of the week-long gathering in Toronto, Canada, Stephen Lewis said South Africa promoted a “lunatic fringe” attitude to HIV/Aids.

Mr Lewis described the government as “obtuse, dilatory and negligent about rolling out treatment”.

Hey, wait a minute. Stephen Lewis? Stephen Lewis, working as special envoy for AIDS in Africa, attacked Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang’s comments in August 2006. Denouncing idiotic statements is necessary, but move on. Leave the grudge match to the WWE. Instead, every microphone is dead horse meets Stephen Lewis’ stick.

I did thoroughly enjoy this, in an “I’m disgusted” way:

“It really is distressing when the coercive apparatus of the state is brought against the most principled members of society,” he said.

Clearly Lewis is exhibiting a textbook case of Kip’s Law. I would challenge Lewis’ assertion that he is principled, since the UN’s Declaration of the Rights of the Child clearly forbids medically unnecessary genital cutting, without exceptions for gender or potential disease prevention. Nor am I particularly moved by his claim of oppression. Are infants subjected a coercive apparatus when they are circumcised, in part based on the rantings of individuals like Stephen Lewis?

¹ The following biography accompanies the article:

Formerly the special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa for United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, [Stephen Lewis] is now chairman of the board of the Canada-based Stephen Lewis Foundation, which endeavors to ease the pain of HIV/Aids in Africa by funding grassroots projects. Lewis is also co-director of Aids-Free World, a new international Aids advocacy organization based in the United States.

This will be important later in the entry.

It’s like legislating that puppies are cute.

Congress, protecting you from the world they built:

Lawmakers have agreed to make it illegal for employers and insurance companies to deny applicants jobs and health care coverage because DNA tests show they are genetically disposed to a disease.
…

It also makes clear that, while individuals are protected from discrimination based on genetic predisposition, insurance companies still have the right to base coverage and pricing on the actual presence of a disease.

Here’s an idea: eliminate the favorable incentive that irrationally ties health insurance in America to employment. If employers are no longer in the insurance business, they’ll have no opportunity to discriminate on the basis of future health care expense. Instead, Congress leaves the underlying problem that permits possible discrimination and codifies “discrimination is bad, mmmkay.” Never mind that politicians discriminate against the unemployed, under-employed, and self-employed.

Naturally Congress misses the point that discrimination is not inherently evil. It is often used for reasons we don’t like, so we’ve attached an exclusively pejorative interpretation to it. But I discriminate against meat when I choose vegetables instead. I discriminate against Ford when I drive a MINI. The Phillies discriminated against a local player when they traded him for a player they value more. Politicians discriminate against one expenditure when they vote for another. Sometimes, discrimination is just about making choices in a world with limitations.

I’m playing semantics right now. Conceded. But semantics matter, as this shows:

[Senator Olympia] Snowe noted that nearly 32 percent of women offered a genetic test for breast cancer risk by the National Institutes of Health declined because of concerns about health insurance discrimination.

I’m not advocating mandatory screening against a person’s wishes. But I’m also against prohibiting insurance companies from pricing risk more precisely by requiring genetic information through the voluntary application process. (Is that the inevitable future from this legislation?) Yet, just as an insurance provider may require the test, no applicant is forced to accept that condition. Competition breeds options where it is permitted. To a significant extent, it is not permitted while insurance is tied to employment, so we get further legislation.

Although it’s not explicit, I think the sponsors of this legislation are more content with the collective outcome of this. Insurance providers are good at knowing their business. They understand risk and how to price it based on statistics. Congress seems to be saying that pricing it better – to the individual, based on the individual – is discriminatory. Perhaps. But the risk will be priced. The only question for discussion is who pays. Is it shared across the insurance pool or paid by each according to his risk?

Legislation like this, as opposed to the more logical solution that removes the faulty incentive, clarifies the political mandate: genetic luck, just like financial “luck”, increases one’s responsibility to the unlucky.

The new looks like the old.

I have a lingering internal question over whether my mistrust of government is still a healthy skepticism or is now in mired in the depths of cynicism. I don’t think the difference matters significantly because I still reach the same conclusions. But the latter might make the rare exceptions harder to accept when they appear. And yet, as I wonder, a story like this on Senator McCain’s proposed “gas-tax holiday” comes along (link via John Cole):

Earlier Monday at a community college in the Philadelphia suburbs, Obama rejected a tax holiday as bad economic policy. “I’ve said I think John McCain’s proposal for a three-month tax holiday is a bad idea,” Obama said, warning consumers that any price cut would be short lived before costs spike back.

“We’re talking about 5 percent of your total cost of gas that you suspend for three months, which might save you a few hundred bucks that then will spike right up,” Obama said. “Now keep in mind that it will save you that if Exxon Mobil doesn’t decide, ‘We’ll just tack on another 5 percent on the current cost.’”

I’m calling my mental approach skepticism because Senator Obama demonstrates here what cynicism really is. Where he could talk exclusively about the stupidity of a tax holiday bribe, he had to jump into talking points. Let’s assume Exxon Mobil, since they’re the working man’s evil oppressor du jour right now, would “just tack on another 5 percent on the current cost”. Then what? I, as a price-conscious consumer in need of gasoline, drive to the Shell station where the 5 percent isn’t “just tacked on”. Although it could be, because in a competitive market, companies are able – and certainly willing, the evil bastards – to “just tack on” whatever little windfall profits they want.

I’ve heard Senator Obama is a new kind of politician. I’m not buying it. A new kind of politics would rely on something a little more honest than pandering to voters with a scapegoat and misrepresentation of economics. This is one more reason I will not be voting for Senator Obama in November.

The First Amendment still protects talking points.

Senator Obama had some interesting comments the other day. Oh, not those comments. No, he shared a thought or two on public financing for political campaigns.

Senator Barack Obama said today that the public financing system for presidential campaigns, which has been in place since 1976, is antiquated and should be overhauled in the era of Internet-driven fundraising.

“I think that it is creaky and needs to be reformed if it’s going to work,” Mr. Obama told reporters at a morning news conference. “We know that the check-off system has been declining in participation and as a consequence, the amount of money raised through the public financing system may be substantially lower than the amount of money that can be raised through small donations over the Internet.”

The check-off system is a tax on those of us who are smart enough to ignore that $3 box by those of us who are not. But there’s a better point buried in there. Senator Obama has found a new, better way to finance a campaign than big, moneyed interests. (I’m correcting the ridiculous hyphen placement used in the article.) Isn’t this the same new, better way to finance a campaign advocated by Jerry Brown in 1992, with the Internet being the only difference? What Sen. Obama is ultimately saying is that the Internet is an equalizer. But that would mean that the system is no longer necessary, not that it should be swept into an updated First Amendment infringement campaign finance regulation. His campaign is showing that government can never keep up with efforts to avoid the letter of the law. His political spidey sense tells him we should still try, subjecting ourselves to a permanent game of public catch-up that “we” can never win.

Of course, it’s not about the power of the voice of the small donor, is it?

… “I would like to see a system preserved. And I intend, if I am the nominee, to have conversations with Senator McCain about how to move forward in a way that doesn’t allow third parties to overwhelm the system.”

I don’t believe that Sen. Obama is stupid enough to think that a third-party candidate is going to overwhelm the system in 2008. At the current pace of legalized incumbent entrenchment in Washington, I’ll be amazed if a third-party candidate can win in 2108, to say nothing of overwhelming “the system”. But what if some third party’s candidate did make noise? Is that bad, or do the voices of those parties not matter because we already have our two deserving parties to balance each other?

This is just a useful, if unsurprising, reminder that Senator Obama likes the outside role until he’s an insider. Just like every other politician.

Failure is not a sin to be prevented at everyone’s expense.

I’m slowly beginning to figure out that politics is a test of wills. Whoever has the most endurance will win. My resolve is based on strength of ideas. Unfortunately, politicians are supported by power to be used as freely and stupidly as possible. Eventually, they’ll win because everyone with sense will go insane.

I’m not quite at insane, so today, this:

The Senate on Thursday passed a bipartisan package of tax breaks and other steps designed to help businesses and homeowners weather the housing crisis.

The measure passed by an impressive 84-12 vote, but even supporters of it acknowledge it’s tilted too much in favor of businesses like home builders and does little to help borrowers at risk of losing their homes.

The plan combines large tax breaks for homebuilders and a $7,000 tax credit for people who buy foreclosed properties, as well as $4 billion in grants for communities to buy and fix up abandoned homes.

And what about those of us who, while stupid enough to buy in the bubble, were smart enough to finance at a fixed-rate on a loan properly proportioned to our income? We get nothing? Mind you, I don’t want anything because I’m not interested in sending money to the Treasury so that it can then be returned to me masked as a constituent service. I’m already paying indirectly for the mistakes of others, as everyone is and must in a free market. I’m content with that because I know it works. This is just part of the process. But why should I also pay directly for the mistakes of others?

Specifically, the last thing homebuilders need right now are tax breaks that will inevitably encourage more speculation. There is an existing inventory of homes that may be purchased. Perhaps those aren’t the homes people want. I don’t claim to know, nor do I need to know. But expecting willing buyers to find a willing builder to produce the correct new home in the correct location without incentive from the government is the only reasonable position. A tax break just covers up the risk of speculation and the reality of failure. Dumb.

That’s not to say the proposed $7,000 tax break for buying a foreclosed home is any better. That incentivizes buyers into a foreclosed home over a non-foreclosed home. If they prefer the foreclosed home over a non-foreclosed home, they’ll be willing to negotiate a price without the incentive. If they prefer the non-foreclosed home over a foreclosed home, the incentive may skew their decision away. Sure, the owner(s) of the non-foreclosed home could lower their price by $7,000, but that just demonstrates the perversion Congress is imposing on them to benefit another party. It’s the same game of picking winners and losers outside of the marketplace.

Remember, though, that the actual marketplace is not a zero-sum game. Both parties gain from their transaction, or they wouldn’t enter into it. If they would agree without an external incentive, the incentive is unnecessary. If they would not agree without an incentive, the incentive skews the market away from its optimal point. Buyers have a required range of acceptable terms and sellers have a required range of acceptable terms. If the two do not overlap, that is not a failure of the market. The market is working as expected.

The housing market needs to stabilize. Unfortunately for me it will stabilize below what I owe. However, I want that to happen sooner rather than later because that is better for me, as it would be for any homeowner, whatever their equity status. More information is better than less information. But the market will not stabilize correctly, or as quickly, as long as Congress forgets that its job description does not include “Do something”.

Politicians lie to please us because we allow ourselves to be pleased.

Via Wired, the Los Angeles Times reports on a scheme to fight global warming. Or, rather, I should write that the scheme is claimed to fight global warming, although the specifics (unsurprisingly) suggest otherwise. Consider:

Motorists in Los Angeles County could end up paying an extra 9 cents per gallon at the gas pump, or an additional $90 on their vehicle registration, under proposals aimed at getting them to help fight global warming.

Voters would be able to decide whether to approve a “climate change mitigation and adaptation fee” under legislation being considered by state lawmakers and endorsed by the board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

So state lawmakers are offering a Pigovian tax, right? Their interest is in countering the negative externalities of carbon pollution, right? You know the answer, right?

The money would fund improvements to mass transit and programs to relieve traffic congestion at a time when transportation dollars from Washington and Sacramento are hard to come by.

Of course. Sin taxes always purport to be about reducing the offending behavior, but are never actually designed to correct the problematic outcomes. The politicians always end up saluting General Fund.

And it often comes with “words mean what I say they mean” baggage.

[Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn] also objected to the measure’s being called a “fee” — which requires a simple majority for approval — instead of a “tax,” which requires two-thirds approval.

[Assemblyman Mike] Feuer’s bill would allow the MTA board to ask voters either for a fee of up to 3% of the retail price of gas, or for a vehicle registration fee of up to $90 per year. The money would pay for programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Want to bet how quickly lawmakers would revisit “3% of the retail price” tax if the retail price of gas falls, lowering tax receipts? Bonus points to anyone who can find an example of Assemblyman Feuer endorsing an expansive governmental role in lowering the price of gas. Oh, wait, scratch that. Finding an example is actually quite simple. Surprise!

Service to the President: What McCain wanted to say.

John McCain offered useful insights into his (dangerous) political mind at the Naval Academy on Wednesday. For example:

I’m a conservative, and I believe it is a very healthy thing for Americans to be skeptical about the purposes and practices of public officials. We shouldn’t expect too much from government — nor should it expect too much from us. Self-reliance — not foisting our responsibilities off on others — is the ethic that made America great.

But when healthy skepticism sours into corrosive cynicism our expectations of our government become reduced to the delivery of services. And to some people the expectations of liberty are reduced to the right to choose among competing brands of designer coffee.

Actually, my healthy skepticism is still healthy. I expect government to ineffectively deliver services it shouldn’t be attempting, even though it tries and tries and tries. And when it fails, my healthy skepticism knows that it will try harder, but with more money.

My definition of corrosive cynicism looks something like the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a.k.a. McCain-Feingold. This is the belief that individuals can’t be trusted, so someone smarter must look after their interests for them. That brand of corrosive cynicism believes expectations of liberty should be reduced to the right to choose among competing brands of designer coffee. My healthy skepticism understands that competing brands of political speech are a form of liberty thankfully enshrined in the First Amendment. The corroded cynic speaks of quote First Amendment rights.

Continuing:

Should we claim our rights and leave to others the duty to the ideals that protect them, whatever we gain for ourselves will be of little lasting value. It will build no monuments to virtue, claim no honored place in the memory of posterity, offer no worthy summons to the world. Success, wealth and celebrity gained and kept for private interest is a small thing. It makes us comfortable, eases the material hardships our children will bear, purchases a fleeting regard for our lives, yet not the self-respect that, in the end, matters most. But sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself, and you invest your life with the eminence of that cause, your self-respect assured.

Senator McCain and I have different opinions on how our rights are protected. As noted above, we don’t share the same opinion on our rights. But the problem here is his idea of a “cause greater than yourself”. Who decides what cause is greater than me? Who decides whether or not my actions constitute sacrifice? And I’m not thrilled by the idea that “success, wealth, and celebrity gained and kept for private interest” is allegedly a “small thing”.

I’ve long believed that we are a citizenry who behave as though we are rightfully subjects of the government. Among his many faults, Senator McCain is too friendly to perpetuating that mistaken belief. We are electing the president of a government (previously?) limited by a constitution, not a king limited only by his mandate by his higher calling.

Link via Hit & Run.

Only his left eye sees the future.

Sen. Obama was prescient in the current mortgage problem. I’d be more impressed if it had happened in March 2005, or even 2006. But it’s still worth noting.

Also worth noting is what he leaves out of his assessment of the problem. In filling out a standard critique against lenders, he can’t find a single word against borrowers. Sen. Obama does not suggest that borrowers might lie. He does not suggest that they had a duty to understand the terms of their mortgage contracts before signing. Any looming crisis would arise only from insufficient due diligence or outright deception by the lender.