Category Archives: Political

Following All Regulations

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 20 January 2010 – 1:27 pm
Filed under Political

I cite as a sort of an addendum to a previous article I wrote on the subject, something Samuel Edward Konkin, III (SEK3) wrote:

If all regulations passed in any country you wish to name were completely obeyed, let alone enforced, we would all be dead.

Consider a particularly pathological case in the United States of America.  If you charge a price for your product higher than your competitors, this is taken as evidence under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act that you have a monopoly and charges may be brought against you.  The same problem arises if you charge the same; that is considered evidence of a cartel and you and your competitors can all be fined.  Finally, if you charge less than your competitors, you are violating the "Fair Trade" laws in most states and can be arrested and fined.  It is impossible to obey all the regulations.

Source: The Agorist Primer, p. 39

I heard a joke along these lines from a Mises conference.  I'm sorry, I don't remember who originally told it.  The joke goes like this:

There were three soviet prisoners comparing stories about why they were in prison.  The first one said he was in prison because he was late to work.  He was accused of being lazy.  The second said he in prison for the same thing, only it was because he was early to work.  He was accused of being too competitive.  The third prisoner was always on time to work.  He was accused of having an American watch.

It's kind-of sad because these Soviet vs. American jokes are dated and don't make much sense anymore.

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My Great-Uncle Alfred

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 19 January 2010 – 2:40 pm
Filed under Political
I have a fictitious great-uncle Alfred.  Everything he says is to be taken with a grain of salt.  He is a huge curmudgeon and ultra-contrarian.  If you tell him the sky is blue, he will tell you it's not really blue because yadda-yadda-yadda.  His reasoning is deeply flawed because he is senile.  But he doesn't know his flaws.  He just knows he's always right.  Most of the time he's not.  But sometimes, he says things that are profound and actually do follow logically.  After all, a stopped clock is right twice a day (unless it's military, then it's only right once a day).
 
A contrarian is a person with a preference for taking a position opposed to that of the majority view prevalent in the group of which they are a part.  Both Alfred and I are contrarians.  But Alfred is a total nut who can't be taken seriously and doesn't care anyway.  I, on the other hand, do care.  I want to be taken seriously and it bothers me to be ignored, unlike Alfred.
 
So if you tell Alfred he is sitting inside a motor vehicle, he will tell you there is no such thing as an "inside" to a motor vehicle.  The concept of "inside" is define in topological terms to him.  In topology, an object cannot have an "inside" if it also has a hole.  Alfred is technically correct from the standpoint of this very specific area of mathematics concerned with spatial properties.  But normal people do not think in those terms.  Alfred doesn't comprehend the normal terms.  He just assumes everybody knows what the heck he's talking about.  He is only interested in being contarian and you're supposed to know that if you're talking to him.  Alfred probably should be confined to a rubber room because although topology is an important area of study within mathematics, it is not something we apply in day-to-day life.  He wouldn't be inside the rubber room anyway, so he'd probably be fine with that situation.
 
I use the idea of Alfred in an attempt to temper my own assumptions.  When I am being contrarian in a dialog or debate (which is 99% of the time, it seems), these days I try to listen to myself as if Alfred is talking.  If this old curmudgeon says things that just sound off-the-wall, maybe they are.  Maybe I need to modify how I express my ideas so that they couldn't be said by Alfred.
 
For instance, if I say I don't trust government, isn't that exactly how Alfred would say it?  So maybe I can word it better.  If I word it in such a way that it is atypical of Alfred but still gets the same point across, my idea will be more convincing.
 
Instead of saying I don't trust the government, maybe I could assert that government doesn't seem to act in the best interest of most people.  That is a more reasonable assertion.  And it's also very atypical of something Alfred would say.
 
Alfred is also very set in his ways.  He learned one way to think about things and applies that way to all new situations.
 
Me: Have you ever heard of a "collar" trade in the stock market?  It's a risk management strategy that combines a covered call and a protective put.
 
Alfred: They're nuts!  That reminds me of portfolio insurance back in the 80's or credit default swaps in the 2000's.  The problem with using these schemes is that if everybody does it, there's not enough liquidity in a crisis to protect everyone's asses when everything unwinds at once.
 
Maybe Alfred is right about that.  But then again, maybe the markets figure out a way to address the lack of liquidity for massive collar trades.  I'm not saying there wouldn't be new problems as result of solving lack of liquidity.  But the specific problem Alfred cites isn't necessarily how it will go down just because that's what happened in the past.
 
Alfred thinks in absolute terms.  He is fine with his totalogy and this makes him frustrating to talk to.  Unfortunately, it is all too easy for me to sound like Alfred.  Even when I go to the trouble of carefully wording my assertions (something I don't always do), other people immediately hear Alfred anyway.
 
Besides, cermudgeons who end up being right only become bigger cermudgeons.

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Somalia Spin

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 6 January 2010 – 9:04 am
Filed under Political

I wanted to use this article to demonstrate the statist spin on a typical news article:

(CNN) -- Recent threats and attacks from militant groups have made it almost impossible for the World Food Program to get food to hungry people in southern Somaila, the aid agency said Tuesday.

The actions by militant groups have led to a partial suspension food distribution in much of southern Somalia, the agency said in a statement.

This has left more than 1 million people in the area in peril, the United Nations food agency said.

"WFP is deeply concerned about rising hunger and suffering among the most vulnerable due to these unprecedented and inhumane attacks on purely humanitarian operations," the agency said in a statement.

One of the recent threats to the food agency occurred in late November when Islamist militants in Somalia warned the agency to buy food from Somali farmers or stop sending aid to the impoverished African country.

That threat came from al-Shabaab, a group that has waged a bloody insurgency against the U.N.-backed government of transitional President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Four of the agency's staff members were killed in Somalia between August 2008 and January 2009.

Despite difficulties in southern Somalia, the agency says it is still dispensing food in the capital city Mogadishu and several other areas.

The agency says it is still able to reach more than 60 percent of those in need or about 1.8 million people.

Source: CNN

Of course, all news always has some kind of spin.  Some of the spin originates from the government organizations while some originates from the news organization itself.  For this article, can you find it?  If you will indulge me, I would like to reword the article with an anti-state spin:

Recent threats and attacks from militias have made it almost impossible for the World Food Program to interfere with the agricultural economy of southern Somaila, the meddling agency said Tuesday.

The actions by militias have led to a partial suspension of meddling in much of southern Somalia, the agency admitted.

This has left more than 1 million people in the area in peril, the United Nations food agency claimed.

"WFP is deeply concerned about rising hunger and suffering among the most vulnerable due to these unprecedented and inhumane attacks on purely humanitarian operations," the agency claimed in a statement.

One of the recent threats to the food agency occurred in late November when Islamist militia in Somalia warned the agency to buy food from Somali farmers or stop sending aid to the impoverished African country.

That threat came from al-Shabaab, a group that has waged a heroic resistance against the illegitimate U.N.-backed "government" of puppet President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Four of the agency's staff members were killed in Somalia between August 2008 and January 2009.

Despite difficulties in southern Somalia, the agency says it is still meddling with the agricultural economy in the capital city Mogadishu and several other areas.

The agency says it is still able to reach more than 60 percent of those in need or about 1.8 million people, in contradiction to the assertion that it was "impossible" as implied by the first sentence to this story.

First, I do not want to excuse overt violence by insurgency.  I think they should use non-violent, passive resistance.  The "Islamist militants" would get more sympathy from the world if they avoided violence.  But I also see the WFP as a violent organization.  They are systematically promoting hunger which is killing many more people than the militants.  The WFP is also funded with violence (via taxes of the world's citizens, but mostly the US taxpayers).

The reason I called the Islamist militants "heroic" is because that's what they would be called if this happened in America.  If a group of armed patriots resisted an underhanded devious international group from destroying the US economy, they would be painted as heroes.

I am trying to illustrate that when the statists send food to help out a region alleviate hunger, they are in effect messing with the economic structure as well.  These are the consequences to welfare.  Ask yourself, why would the "militant groups" demand that the U.N. buy food from Somali farmers?  Doesn't that demand seem a little out of left field?  The problem is, the news organization didn't bother to explain.

So I will explain.  When free food comes in, it effectively undercuts the farmer and the free market.  Why would anyone ever buy food from the farmers if it's free?  The US does the same thing in Haiti.  The US sends rice to Haiti, which undercuts the locally grown rice.  This free rice completely screws up the regular economy.

Necessity is the mother of invention.  If there is a lack of food, that means food is in high demand.  That means the price of food should be high.  Higher prices are market signals that stimulate production by getting more farmers to produce more.  As farmers produce more, prices will fall because of higher supply.  That's basic economics.  Free food just destroys this dynamic.

You might ask if it's reasonable to sacrifice human lives to hunger in order to preserve the economy.  But that's a dialectical argument (what's that?).  The fact is, the more the statists meddle, the worse it'll get and the more dependant the economy will be on free food.  More free food, more death.  It's a vicious cycle.

True, it's not the only reason for the food shortage.  Civil war in Somalia contributes.  Yeah, the civil war partially induced by the U.N.-backed "government."

So that's my spin.  You decide.

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"Preventing H1N1" Billboard Near LAX

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 21 December 2009 – 4:57 pm
Filed under Political

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Trusted Computing and Dialectics

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 11 December 2009 – 6:02 pm
Filed under Political

This is one of my son Benjamin's favorite videos:

You might be wondering why I would show my six-year-old autistic son a geeky/pseudo-political video like this. Well, one of the things my wife and I have noticed about him is he loves to watch things like text scroll by on the screen. As result, he enjoys the credits of movies that do this. After discovering this, it occurred to me he might like this video too.

Sure enough, it's one of his favorites. It's really well done and very stylish. And I like how it helps to illustrates the concept of a "dialectic," although I know that idea is lost on Benjamin for the moment.

A dialectic is a method of argument. Specifically, it is the idea that one thing is presented as multiple things. If you tell someone they can have steak or carrots, you have presented a variation on a dialectic. Why not have both stake and carrots? Why not have neither? To shoehorn people into one or the other when other options are available is a dialectic.

A dialectic is similar to a false dichotomy (also known as a false dilemma). A false dichotomy is a specific kind of dialectic where the choices are supposed to be obvious. A dialectic can also obscure the choices. So instead of calling it "steak or carrots," someone might call it "Nutrition Choice" even though the choice has actually been narrowed artificially. I believe some people refer to this kind of dialectic as a "fnord" (but that's more of an obscure pop-culture reference).

If you are against trusted computing, are you personally deciding for or against how threats should be dealt with? Or are you against the more nefarious interpretation of trusted computing? Or are you against delegation of the task?

It's a little bit like "No Child Left Behind." If you are against it, does that mean you want children to be left behind? Then there's the Patriot Act. Are you unpatriotic to withdraw support from it?

These are examples of dialectic concepts that should be separated from each other to dialog about them properly. The video properly identifies the two and presents them as separate concepts. I think we need to look for these separated issues more when we dialog in politics and in general.

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Selective Service System

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 9 December 2009 – 6:19 pm
Filed under Political

Check out the new sign on Metro Line 444.

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Richard Dawkins is Misguided

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 9 December 2009 – 9:45 am
Filed under History, Political

Believe me when I say I can take any subject and pretty much tie it back to a political argument.  It's not hard because the state has ensconced itself into every facet of life.

A friend of mine recommended that I read "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" by Richard Dawkins.  It seems that Dawkins' primary beef is that 40% of Americans don't buy evolution.  He explains that this is the primary purpose of writing his book.  And that's a fine reason indeed.  If you have a viewpoint you want to get across, write a book and help people understand.

But that's not why Dawkins is misguided.  You have to ask yourself, why is it so important to Dawkins that everyone accept evolution as fact?  Well, that's where I get political.  Dawkins wants science to be pure.  He wants it to be free from pseudo science.  And on that, we both agree.  But he believes that the only way to do it is to convince the general public to accept evolution.  And that's where I disagree.  Science shouldn't ever depend on a majority.

If science can only be done by consensus, there will always be conflict.  So the solution is to get away from the need for consensus.  I'm talking about general consensus, not consensus within science itself.

If you don't get away from consensus, you have to turn to indoctrination.  But it shouldn't matter if 50% + 1 of the general public accept one conclusion over another.  You can present the general public a mountain of evidence, yet they believe what they want (see OJ trial).  Science should be unfettered by general consensus.  If the evidence leads a certain place, science should follow that evidence, even if 100% - 1 person believe otherwise.

The problem is that science is funded primarily by government and coercion.  Grants come with strings attached.  But even if the strings don't affect the outcome of scientific research, a moral problem still exists.  The moral problem is that the funds were obtained by violent means.

Government should not be involved in research.  It should not do science.  There needs to be a separation of science and government, but instead there's a lobby.  Research should be funded voluntarily.  Political angles always surface.  The scientists who do the research that tends to lead to pro-state political outcomes will successfully lobby the funding while the research that leads away from pro-state outcomes will get ignored.

There will always be piles and piles of money waiting to go somewhere.  Some of it goes into war.  Some of it goes into major economic sectors.  But even what's left over for scientific research is huge.

The above is a problem even assuming there is no fraud in scientific research.  But imagine what kind of money-pit could happen if research is falsified for a time just to get at that cash-cow.  Nobody is surprised when fraud is found in the commodities industry.  If "Big Oil" or "Big Iron" is caught with its hand in the cookie-jar, it's almost expected and they get a slap on the wrist.  So why would scientific research free from the same scrutiny and suspicion?

There is another gentleman named Dan Dennett who has similar but not identical misguided ideas about education.  Dennett is a little less of a prick about it than Dawkins.  Where Dawkins would beat people over the head with scientific research, Dennett's approach would be to beat people over the head with all other religions.

Their ideas might be different, but both approaches on dealing with their ideas are identical.  They both pine over the democratic implication of ignorance.  They both want to take their appeal directly to children, bypassing the parents because they know better.

Dennett claims he wants the parents involved but then asserts that children must be taught all facts in all religion, possibly against the wishes of the parents.  I'm sure there are some parents that are totally in favor of this idea.  There are some who would rather home school their children, at great expense, to avoid it.  Dennett wants to mandate his curriculum policy even for the home schooled.

Both Dawkins and Dennett want to teach their overarching philosophies regardless of what parents value.  Check it out, and listen to their recommended tactical political policies:

While Dawkins outright attacks religion, Dennett fanes support for it:

I highly recommend you watch both of the above.  It is where education is headed whether you like it or not.  The only solution is to abolish government schools.  These nutjobs will continue to assert their dastardly policies piggybacking scientific research to get there.

By the way, I'll put anybody on the intelligent design side of the discussion into the "nutjob" category if they are trying to mandate national policies for education too.  I know they exist.  None of it is valid if the goal forced curriculum.  Both sides of the origins debate are trying to leverage public opinion and that's what I object to.

As for the true science itself, I have no objection to it.  If you want to research evolution by natural selection, do it.  Have fun.  It is certainly compelling science.  And if you want to teach a curriculum on the same, do it.  Offer your curriculum to schools that want to teach it.  But don't force it on people by offering it as a national policy.  If you have the truth, it should be self-evident.  You shouldn't need the violent apparatus of the state to get what you want.

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"Proof" Deregulation Doesn't Work: Antitrust Law Exemptions

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 30 October 2009 – 9:06 am
Filed under Political

Application of antitrust law is capricious and the exemptions are established to improve the shaky credibility as to the effectiveness of these laws.  Then, when the exemptions ultimately fail to bring objective improvements, they are used as "proof" that deregulation was a bad idea.

I have often brought up the idea that deregulation is good.  This applies to specific topics like private health insurance as well as the agricultural industry and banking.  So if I sent you to this article because you and I were chatting/talking about deregulation, welcome, and thank you for following the link!

I'll try to keep this short and to the point (well, to the point anyway).  I assert that deregulation always helps an industry overall.  A quick example of this can be find in any industry that has never been regulated or has minimal regulation to begin with.  So for example, I'll cite mobile phones and computers as two areas where the lack of regulation has helped those industries.

Are there examples where regulations were removed, causing an overall improvement?  My progressive friends who argue for regulation will cite antitrust exceptions as a counterexample to the benefits of deregulation.  They maintain that the exemptions (or exceptions) to antitrust law prove that deregulation is bad.

I keep hearing this argument, so let me address it from my point of view.

What is antitrust law?

First of all, what is antitrust law?  Primarily, the way regular people like you and I tend to encounter them is in the form of government price controls.  A corporation is only able to charge an amount that the government deems is fair and equitable.  Any time there is a cap on prices, the "evil greedy" corporation try to find a creative way to get around these caps.  Because evil greedy corporations are ... uh greedy!

According to the Department of Justice ...

Many consumers have never heard of antitrust laws, but when these laws are effectively and responsibly enforced, they can save consumers millions and even billions of dollars a year in illegal overcharges. Most states have antitrust laws, and so does the federal government. Essentially, these laws prohibit business practices that unreasonably deprive consumers of the benefits of competition, resulting in higher prices for products and services.

Source: Antitrust Laws and You

One way the evil greedy corporations could get around the price caps is to bring the price far below the fair and equitable amount.  This would supposedly put the competition out of business.  So antitrust law has also been created to keep prices from going too low.

Got that?  The same body of laws keep the price from going too high and too low.  Sort-of like Goldilocks (not too hot ... not too cold ... just right).  How is that possible?  Well, the summary above says it best, "... when these laws are effectively and responsibly enforced."  It is subject to the whim of the government.

And that's the main purpose of antitrust law.  There's a lot more to it than that, but the main goal is to protect consumers and keep prices where they should be.  And "where they should be" is determined by government.  And how does government know where prices should be?  They have really smart people, never mind the so-called "market signals," so stop asking those kinds of questions!

But I will question.  I always question.  I'll question if these antitrust exemptions even qualify as deregulation.  I assert they do not.  It is regulation on top of regulation that is then labeled "deregulation."  It is more accurate to call them "faux-deregulation."

What are antitrust law exemptions?

In a nutshell, antitrust law exemptions are where government gives a pass to certain corporations to do things that would normally be illegal under antitrust law.  Basically, if your industry is organized enough to have a lobby, you can probably get an exemption, if you have enough time and money.

One example of antitrust law exemptions is when the government allows corporations to join up and share resources.  So, for example, the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 allows for joint operating arrangements between newspapers to share production facilities and combine their commercial operations.

Before this act, it would have been illegal for two competing newspapers to join forces like this because government thinks it reduces competition.  But government realized (with the help of the lobbyists) their own regulations were getting in the way.  So they had a choice of either killing the newspapers with regulations or creating an exemption for them.

Why doesn't it work?

The primary reason antitrust exemptions are faux-deregulation is because antitrust law itself is ambiguous.  You can't make clear exemptions if the overall law isn't clear.  The application of antitrust law is unpredictable and at the whim of whoever is in charge.  Some actions cause the law to come down like a ton of bricks.  But then those same actions performed by another corporation are allowed, even before the exemptions are drafted.

It's a tangled web of law that is totally incomprehensible.  All it really shows is that the free market has never really been trusted by government, therefore blaming the free market for the failures of government to regulate it is foolish.

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Utilitarian Argument Against Taxes

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 20 October 2009 – 10:47 am
Filed under Political

I'm not a democrat or utilitarian, but one of the things I hear from time to time is the idea that Jesus was a democrat.  At least, that's what democrats say to try to appeal to non-democrats (I think it's because it's assumed that a lot of non-democrats are into Jesus).

Basically, the usual assertion is that Jesus helped the suffering, so shouldn't we institutionalize the practice with government mandate?

The simple answer is "no."  The complex answer is "no."  And all other answers in between is "no."

The US government forwards 23¢ of every dollar it collects to help the suffering.  Playing strictly on the utilitarian argument (I think a lot of democrats are into utilitarianism), if your goal is to help the poor and suffering, paying taxes isn't the way to go about it.

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Electronic Cigarettes and the Peak Theory of Economics

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Posted by Anthony Martin on 10 October 2009 – 1:17 pm
Filed under Political
Tagged as ,
First of all, IANAE (I am not an economist). But I have been studying economics since the summer of 2007. Since that time, I have run across many economic views. The one that makes the most sense to me is the Austrian School of Economics.

In the most basic terms, the Peak Theory of Economics proposes that the price of something will rise until it doesn't. I know I have oversimplified it, in a free market the peak would probably coincide with the equilibrium of supply and demand. Peak prices are exaggerated by interference in the market. Where the price should stay static or fall slightly (in a free market), political interference causes the price to artificially rise for a time then fall more sharply than it would have if there weren't political interference.

To illustrate, let's look at electronic cigarettes (for example, Blu Electronic Cigarettes). The innovation of this product has emerged as a direct result of political interference. Taxes, and the threat of taxes, as well as bans on certain kinds of products has resulted in new market innovations (which was not the political goal). The economic factor of taxes makes alternatives surface. Prior to the artificial cost imposed by government, entrepreneurs had less incentive to investigate alternatives. But when taxes and bans came on the scene, entrepreneurs released investment into expensive alternatives which brought the price of those alternatives lower and lower.

So both taxes and artificially lower demand will probably affect the price of regular (combustion based) cigarettes. This will result in more political interference. What will the politicians do after that? Hard to say. Would they bail out the big tobacco companies? Unlikely. Will they start banning electronic cigarettes? I think that's more likely. Whatever they do, it will only exaggerate the problem and create more artificial peaks in prices, further perpetuating the Peak Theory of Economics.

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Tags: Economic, Rant