The Bill Reader

The "Legislative Priorities" Of Harry Reid

2009-01-08T19:42:00.003-06:00

We explored in the last post why these aren't actually his legislative priorities-- those revolve around dealing with minor political issues to help his allies and hurt his opponents using the framework of the law as a bludgeon. These, however, are the things he feels he needs to say in order to get re-elected. Who knows; when he takes time off from using the government to enforce his personal vendettas and pay off his buddies, he may try to pass one or two of these.

These are all nominally bills he has put forward, but most people expect them to be simple placeholders for other bill of the same type.

1- A stimulus bill that will cause infrastructure improvements, energy independance, more education, cheap medicine, tax cuts, and protection for the poor. And he wants a pony. Presumably, Harry Reid will announce a press conference detailing how he is made of money and capable of performing miracles, or announcing that these goals are actually unattainable through massive government intervention. Or maybe he will just go along pretending he is omnipotent as he finishes the task of bankrupting our nation.

2- Improve the lot of the Middle Class, through magic. A) Tax relief and simplification are noble goals that he won't follow through on. B) "Promoting investment" is not the job of government in a free society (although it is in a socialist state) and "enacting policy" is not the way to create "Good, well-paying jobs", repealing policy is (also, what is wrong with shitty, well-paying jobs or good, poorly-renumerated jobs? (also, why is the government creating jobs?)). C) "enhancing incentives and protections" for people to "meet thier needs in retirement": Note that he doesn't say 'invest for' or 'plan for' because he wants people to be dependant on the government; otherwise he would let people opt out of the largest ponzi scheme in our nation's history. D) Help families get education is a noble goal, but not one he supports, as a historic defender of teacher's unions and an opponent of any sort of real educational progress in this nation (though he does like to throw money at the problem and hope it will go away). E) "Promoting families" by having free ("affordable" is the PC term) child and elder care; also he will outlaw the murder of children (just kidding! He would never do that). F) restoring "Prosperity and Economic Security" by spreading the organization that has caused the collapse of the American Auto industry to other industries (Unions, if you missed the reference). G) "Removing barriers to fair pay for all workers" but no details.

3- He wants to end the financial crisis by A) Banning foreclosure (never mind the fact that it would make the toxic MBSs that much more toxic) B) adding more regulation to the financial industry while simultaneously C) streamlining the loan process and making it easier to both get and receive loans (spreading the seeds for this to happen yet again-- has this man learned nothing in the last year?) and D) something vague about credit card responsibility. Nothing here will help us get out of this crisis, nor will it prevent the next one. B and C lay the groundwork for more regulatory capture and bubbling and thus another crisis like this one.

4- Universal health care. You think health care is expensive now, just wait until it is "free".

5- Fix global warming and oil dependance through top down government mandates and subsidies like the ones that brought us the ethanol debacle. Will these people ever learn that the government should not be picking winners? Particularly firghtening; "protect consumers from volatile prices through better market oversight" How does that at all sound like a good idea, except from the point of view of someone who sees himself as an all powerful benevolent father here to protect you from all the evil in the world?

6- National security. Nothing remarkable here (give troops equipment and leave, fight Al-Quaeda, secure WMDs) except for "addressing trans-national humanitarian challenges", presumably by having us interfere in other nations in the way that pisses so many of them off. A humble foreign policy seems to have no support among Senate leaders

7- spend more money on education and education related things. Also "strengthen math and science curriculum" presumably through more top-down curriculum mandates. Oddly, blogger's spell check seems to think "math" is not a word.

8- This bill is a warning to the Bush administration not to pass anything Reid disagrees with until Obama takes office. Even though, you know, he is still president. This is perhaps one of the least subtle bits of arrogance I have seen in a while (I hope that link works).

9- Immigration: Harry Reid wants better enforcement, less illegal immigration, better naturalization procedures and a pony. No details.

10- Balanced Budgets. After the last nine points (well, eight, since number 8 doesn't cost any money) this is laughable and not even worth looking at, except for the implication that he is going to try to increase the progressivity of the tax system.

In summary: The priorities of Senate Democrats are the grocery list progressives have been spouting for quite some time, followed by the absurd demand for a balanced budget (not that balanced budgets are bad, but the idea that you can spend enough to make George Bush blush and still balance the budget, no matter how high you raise taxes, is absurd). Expect no surprises, and a 1% drop in potential GDP over the next 20 years as a result of the taxes, regulation, and spending burden.

The 111th Congress

2009-01-08T18:03:00.004-06:00

Everybody hide! Congress is back in session!

That means I need to get back on the horse. Oddly, any slip-ups will be me falling off the wagon, which would seem incongruous as I am currently on a horse, not in a wagon. But I digress...

This is my 400th post in exactly two years. That would be a post every other day, except that I have been on and off on the blogging thing. (Incidentally, Blogger is telling me that "blogging" is not a word-- I find this curious). I am getting started again. No guarantees, but hopefully I should last through the semester. Supporting the sponsors by clicking the ads would help keep me going (because I like money).

And now, I being again:

One of my inside sources has called my attention to ten placeholder bills (S 1-10) put up by Harry Reid which are supposedly the list of legislative priorities. While these are interesting, what I think is more important is what they actually do on their first days. At the beginning of the 110th congress, six bills were passed in the house, one each day that pushed forward the progressive agenda. For comparison, let's see what the House did yesterday after being sworn in (noting that today was spent in the formalities of the electoral college vote).

LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES:

HR 35- Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2009. Rewrites the methods for making public any document in a presidential library. Repeals one of Bush's early executive orders and replaces it with rules that make easier the process of making documents public.

HR 36- Presidential Library Donation Reform Act of 2009. aka the "Bush won't get away with what Clinton got away with" act. Basically requires the same sort of contribution reporting required during a campaign from presidential libraries. This comes right after various "issues" with the Clinton library and right as the Bush library starts taking contributions.

S J Res 2- The "Cover Ken Salazar's Butt" Act. The first part of the act reduces the pay of the Secretary of the Interior because the way election cycles have interacted with Cabinet pay raises could bring Salazar into conflict with the 27th amendment in appointed Sec. Int. The second part of the resolution gives the DC federal court jurisdiction, so that if anyone had a problem with this, it could go to the supreme court fairly quickly, because we all know the nation has been dying to hear a case on the 27th amendment.

While these are certainly valid bills, I just feel that perhaps congress could have started out with something a little bigger. The next post will be about the "stated priorities" of the democrats.

WTF?

2008-09-26T17:07:00.001-05:00

I am not dead, but I will not be posting a whole lot for a while. However, here is the first draft of something I am sending into the school newspaper, entitled wtf?

WTF?

If you are like most Beloit students, you are well informed about the pressing issues of the day. By that I mean you saw that guy on the Daily Show talking about a $700,000,000,000.00 bailout for the finance industry and you were like WTF?!?!111?!/1? I will take that reaction to indicate confusion on your part and spend the rest of this column telling you a story. Note that, in the immortal words of Bob Elder “This is a rich tapestry we are weaving.” I don’t really know what that means, but please realize many of the events in this story have multiple causes and multiple effects, and I do not lay exclusive blame for anything on any single actor, even when only one cause is mentioned.

While elements of our story come from things as far back as the New Deal (so this is sort of like watching season two without realizing that there was a season one), we can reasonably say that the important bits started around 1997. If you are old enough to recall those heady days (and I would hope so), you may recall that there was an increase in construction driven partly by the strong economy, partly by regulatory changes, partly by rising real estate costs, and partly by a drive in congress to get more poor people owning homes. All of these things seemed like good ideas at the time, and with good reason. We watched home values begin to climb and simply assumed that it was either a normal cyclical increase or an increase in the real value of real estate, possibly driven by increasingly strict land use regulations, possibly because of new demand created by what later came to be called sub-prime borrowers, and possibly because of structural factors in the growth of the American city.

As this was occurring, a little thing called the tech bubble formed and burst, leaving us stranded, drunk, and naked in the rain as the new millennium turned (or at least, I was) with no Y2K bug in sight. This was the impetus for a long overdue recession which came into our houses and plopped itself on the couch. And he was always watching crap on TV, even when there was something good on another channel. In order to get Mr. Recession out of our nation’s houses a little quicker, Alan Greenspan, then chair of the board that controls monetary policy in the US, opened up his Intro to Macroeconomics textbook and employed the tried and true method of getting out of recessions by cutting interest rates. This, however, has the side effect of increasing inflation, but in a way that principally benefits those who receive the money first at the expense of those who get it last. In this case, those who got the money first ended up being people taking out home loans (I am over generalizing), which fed an already bubbly industry.

Let me permit housing to continue to bubble while we recall that there were natural inflationary pressures which were beginning to take effect around this time (about 2005, for those playing at home). The dollar began to fall in a long awaited correction for the trade deficit and foreign investment quit making up for the American aversion to saving. At the same time, food and energy prices began to spike, partly because of increased global demand and partly because of silly regulations like ethanol subsidies and restrictions on the addition of new oil capacity in America. This after a recession that hadn’t really had time to work itself out because Greenspan had ended it before all the bad investments could be purged from the economy, which led to more uneven growth than should have been seen.

Now the housing bubble collapses, as all good bubbles must. The collapse was going nice and orderly like, and the added squeeze to prices was likely to send us into a normal recession. Then everyone went bat-shit crazy last August. This was because everyone suddenly realized that what they owned wasn’t worth quite as much as they had thought. This was because the bubble was bursting in conjunction with economic hard times which increased the default rate for mortgages.

Much has been made of this increased default rate, and an excessive amount of the panic has been spurred by it, so perhaps some clarification is in order. Every mortgage has a chance that it will default, and an asset that contains a large number of mortgages is statistically likely to lose some percentage of that value because of defaults. Thus if the average default rate is 4%, someone who owns a whole bunch of mortgages will lose about 4% of the total value of that portfolio from defaults. Then, if the default rate doubles, his portfolio losses are going to double from defaults, and he is going to want to unload the portfolio. If these changes are system wide, then everyone is going to be trying to unload at the same time. If everyone is selling and no one is buying, then the price falls to zero (even though the expected value of the bundle may still be positive).

As the financial market began to struggle, the Federal Reserve reached back into its toolkit and began reducing interest rates a little bit every month (they settled out over the summer). However, the Fed noticed that people did not want to be seen borrowing from them, because all the cool bankers decided that anyone taking credit from the Fed must need it desperately. To this end, the Fed created a new way to loan money, the Term Auction Facility, which gives loans to many more institutions than normal, and got a number of solid banks to borrow from them to remove the stigma of borrowing from the Fed.

Despite all these measures, Bear Sterns, an institution with weak fundamentals which was heavily invested in mortgage backed securities, failed. This came a few months after the world had watched the Northern Rock, a small English bank, fail and the subsequent cock-up of the English government’s attempts to deal with the situation. To avoid doing what the English had done (always a good policy), Economic policymakers in America decided to act quickly and decisively on Bear by bailing it out and selling off its assets to JP Morgan.

Things were looking up for a while, with 3.3% GDP growth in the second quarter of the year, until the first anniversary of the crisis came around. Then people remembered that they were supposed to be having a massive credit crunch and Lehman Brothers failed. The Fed decided that this time they were not going to bail anyone out, which created confusion in the markets (This is called “regime uncertainty”). The general economic conditions continued as larger banks began to fail or get bought up (13 outright failures since Jan 1). While we have thus far been able to avoid bank runs, the FDIC, the government program which insures most bank deposits up to $100,000, has been running out of money and is down to $45 billion, when the lowest safe amount it should have is $200 billion.

In this context, the Department of the Treasury has proposed $700 billion to purchase anything and everything the banks want to sell them. This has sparked a wave of bailout requests, from an FDIC proposal for $200 billion more to a GM/Chrysler/Ford proposal for a $25 billion bailout. All of these proposals are longer on numbers than specifics, so this is where we stand as a nation and an economy. The bailout proposal seems to have sparked even more panic in the markets, which means our troubles are not over yet. Look for another update after something else interesting happens.

-Jeb Bleckley

Barr Sues Texas

2008-09-17T11:43:00.002-05:00

A delightful story I have been covering focuses on the fact that neither major candidate filed for the Texas ballot in time, but were let on anyway in violation of the law. Bob Barr is suing to take them off the ballot, because of all the crap he has had to go through to get the ballot access that the major parties get even when they break the law. Full Press release has more details:

Atlanta, GA - Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party's nominee for president, has filed a lawsuit in Texas demanding Senators John McCain and Barack Obama be removed from the ballot after they missed the official filing deadline.

"The seriousness of this issue is self-evident," the lawsuit states. "The hubris of the major parties has risen to such a level that they do not believe that the election laws of the State of Texas apply to them."

Texas election code §192.031 requires that the "written certification" of the "party's nominees" be delivered "before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before election day." Because neither candidate had been nominated by the official filing deadline, the Barr campaign argues it was impossible for the candidates to file under state law.

"Supreme Court justices should recognize that their responsibility is to apply the law as passed by the Legislature, and the law is clear that the candidates cannot be certified on the ballot if their filings are late," says Drew Shirley, a local attorney for the Barr campaign, who is also a Libertarian candidate for the Texas Supreme Court.

A 2006 Texas Supreme Court decision ruled that state laws "does not allow political parties or candidates to ignore statutory deadlines."

Orrin Grover, attorney for Bob Barr and Wayne Root, said that he believes that the Texas Secretary of State is bound by Texas law to remove the Republican and Democratic nominees from the November ballot. "Either we have rules and deadlines, or we do not," Grover said.

The Chairman of the Texas Libertarian Party, Pat Dixon stated, "Libertarian principles require personal responsibility for your acts and failures. Obama and McCain failed to meet the deadlines. They must follow the law like everyone else."

The petition also alleges that the Democratic Party's late presidential filing falsely claimed under oath that Senator Obama had been nominated hours before the nomination actually occurred.

"The facts of the case are not in dispute," says Russell Verney, manager of the Barr campaign. "Republicans and Democrats missed the deadline, but were still allowed on the ballot. Third parties are not allowed on the ballot for missing deadlines, as was the case for our campaign in West Virginia, yet the Texas secretary of state's office believes Republicans and Democrats to be above the law."

Barr will be holding a press conference this Thursday at the Texas Supreme Court at 11:00 a.m.

Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003.

I don't think you have any idea how badly I want them to pull McCain and Obama off the ballot for breaking the law. If Barr could manage this, I would vote straight ticket Libertarian for the next 20 years.

Props to Barney Frank

2008-09-17T11:35:00.002-05:00

I can't stand Barney Frank, chair of the banking and finance committee. However, he did propose Sept. 15th to be Free Market day. Sadly, he was kidding and has no intention to make it an actual holiday. Bonus Quote: “The national commitment to the free market lasted one day.” Sounds about right.

While we are on the subject of openly homosexual congressmen, I urge anyone in Southern Wisconsin to support Peter Theron in his run against the first openly lesbian member of congress (though he isn't running because she is a lesbian, rather because she has no understanding of economics and a terrible health policy). Before he ran for congress, he was my computer science professor at Beloit, and is not a government hack.

Firing Federal Employees

2008-09-15T17:21:00.002-05:00

Congressional turnover rates rarely dip below 90% in modern times, and when you factor out "voluntary retirements" (admittedly, some of them would have lost had they not left) the retention rate is reminiscent of the old Soviet Union.

Federal Employees, however, seem to be a different story. Every year, hundreds of federal employees are fired for incompetence. Sadly, there are 1.86 million non-military employees of the federal government. When you include gross violations like assaulting the boss, the number rises to between 8,000 and 10,000. 3.7% of all federal employees get unsatisfactory ratings every year, which means that 68,820 federal employees are deemed incompetent by their superiors.

When I hear idealists telling me that all it will take are a few willing politicians and the committed civil service to enforce regulations, I tell them that you cannot trust the bureaucrats, because they are the same sorts of people you meet on the streets (after all, there can't be 1.86 million people energized by the mundanity of bureaucracy) only they face different incentives. One of those incentives is caused by the ability that they have to be grossly incompetent and continue to receive a paycheck. People in private enterprises may be no smarter or better than bureaucrats, but at least they can be fired if they are tremendously unproductive.

Further Attacks on Economists Who Are Smarter Than Me

2008-09-15T14:07:00.003-05:00

Mark Thoma displays an inability to think marginally, which is unusual for an economist. He criticizes the McCain plans for permitting expanded drilling and fighting earmarks by posting charts showing that the net effect of these things would be small. However, no one said that the effect would be huge (though some have overstated their benefits) but the important thing to consider when adopting a new policy is not the total effect, but rather the marginal costs and benefits. Looked at this way (the economic way, which is why I am surprised that an econ prof. at a state university misses it), both policies are remarkably effective. Cutting earmarks will come at no cost to the government, and the cost to society will be a few incumbents losing out on votes, and states having to pony up a little more money to pay for things that are state responsibilities (as few of those as there are in this age of diminished federalism). The benefits will be a few incumbents losing out on votes (this one is a perspective issue-- I have no love for politicians in general) and a lower amount of government spending.

Also, Mr. Thoma is both right and wrong, but really just wrong, when he says that many earmarks direct money that has already been appropriated. He is right in the very literal sense. However, in reality, that money was appropriated either for some legitimate purpose, and must make up the shortfall through more fees or appropriations requests, or additional money is built into the appropriations request in anticipation of congressional earmarks. If these expectations were removed from the system, less money overall would be spent.

It Bears Repeating

2008-09-15T13:39:00.002-05:00

Democrats don't give as much to charity as Republicans. When Democrats say that society would not make up the shortfall if welfare was removed, and Republicans say that it would, they are both arguing from their personal motivations. Permit me now to cast aspersions on the motivations of Democrats.

Personally, I give very little to charity, but I still think that the elimination of welfare, coupled with an immediate, across the board tax cut would create at first a slight drop in overall transfers, but over the long run I suspect there would be an increase in transfers to charitable causes.

links

2008-09-06T11:54:00.002-05:00

The facts about drilling in ANWAR. Sorry about that. Link fixed

Another "Isolated Incident" which casts shame on the law enforcement community.

Assorted Economics

2008-09-04T20:29:00.002-05:00

Here is pretty much the definitive exegesis on McCain's economic plan, by his number two and three economics advisors, one of whom wrote the equation that drives monetary policy everywhere on the planet (except Zimbabwe), and the other is Marty Feldstien. You cannot understand anything about economic policy this election unless you have read and understood everything in this article and where it came from (and you need to have read a similar article from the Obama camp, though I have yet to see one as comprehensive as this).

In a similar vein, Reason has pointed out that the Republican plan is better than the Democrats, but not by much. I am afraid the cause of tax simplification is a battle that will not be fought in the next four years.

Look! America is better than Europe. There was a paper a few years back, which I am not sure how to put online (I have the PDF, if anyone knows how to put it on blogger, please tell me), about how living standards in the wealthiest parts of the EU are comparable to the poorest states in the USA. Only Luxembourg is even above the US Average, while the UK, France, Italy, and Finland are all poorer (per capita) than Oklahoma and Alabama.

Also, I almost hesitate to write this last paragraph. Brad DeLong is a significantly better economist than I am, and possibly ever will be, but he is wrong on this post. Prof. DeLong insists that we are in a recession, so when he sees the numbers that say productivity overall has increased 4.3% in the last quarter, he comes to the conclusion that productivity number are counter-cyclical. First off, this is fundamentally ridiculous, since it is principally productivity gains that increase economic activity in the first place. Second, it is absurd because real GDP rose 3.3% over that time period. This would mean both that we are not in a recession, and that productivity broadly speaking corrolates positively to GDP. The depressing part of this is that Prof. DeLong is a respectable economist who has let his rabid partisanship get the better of him. He should know better.

Geek Cred

2008-09-04T15:48:00.002-05:00

Why didn't I post yesterday? Is it because I am a lazy, good for nothing,...? Yes. But, I also downloaded the new Google browser fewer than 2 hours after it was released. I then spent the rest of the evening doing homework and moving everything that I had in Opera into Chrome. Sadly, Chrome doesn't come with a built in RSS reader like Opera does, so I had to manually transfer all 70 feeds I read regularly into the Google RSS Reader.

My verdict: Chrome is excellent. It is not astoundingly good, but the performance gains are noticeable even with only a small number of tabs open (right now I have 12 tabs open, including youtube and a PDF file, which is a small number for me). There are a very few personal preferences that aren't implemented, like how in Opera the tabs will only go six to a row and then it will add another row, which allows me to see the entire title of the web page, but I suspect it will be implemented before too long.

However, not everyone should switch to Chrome just yet. If you are particularly attached to your interface configuration, or if you are bad with computers and are only good at your native configuration, you should probably not switch. However, if you are reasonably good at getting new interfaces (and this one isn't really that different for normal functions) then you should switch to take advantage of the fact that your browser is never going to be your internet browsing bottleneck again.

An Interview With The Beloit Daily News

2008-09-02T21:56:00.002-05:00

I feel important. I just got an email interview from the beloit daily news to provide the campus republican perspective on the Republican Convention. This is about how it went (questions bulleted):

• How closely are you following the RNC?

I am not following the convention nearly as closely as I should be, simply because I have been quite busy lately, but I will watch McCain's and Palin speech (maybe even Bush's, if it ends up happening)

• How do you feel about the RNC taking a backseat to the hurricane coverage on Monday?

Frankly, the hurricane is going to affect a lot more people than a bunch of silly speeches in Minnesota. The news needs to cover things that will affect peoples lives, and while convention nonsense is entertaining, it really isn't that important in this age of uncontested conventions.

• What kind of effects do you think that will have?

If by "it" you mean the hurricane, I suspect it will destroy a large amount of property, kill a few people, and prevent McCain from getting a post-convention bump because no one is paying attention to it. If by "it" you mean the convention, I doubt it will have any affect at all unless one of the big names goes insane and starts shouting obscenities and racism.

• What are you looking forward to about the RNC?

I was looking forward to an absense of George Bush, but the latest news says he may still give a telespeech. Bush has done some good things for the country over the last eight years, but he has proven himself to be a terrible spokesman for conservatism, increasing the size of government more than anyone since Roosevelt. In that sense, I am looking forward to McCain, who has a proven record controlling spending.

• What do you think about McCain's running mate?

I think it was an excellent choice. Though I associate with the Republican party and use it as a vehicle to advance conservative principles, the fact is that in the last few years it has become corrupt and abandoned its small government principles. Palin made her way up the political ladder by rooting out corruption in Alaska and supporting small government conservatism. While she isn't perfect and has made a few missteps in her political career (and I do hope the whole troopergate thing turns out to be nothing) she has the sort of instincts I want advising McCain, and should the unthinkable happen, she would make an excellent president after a few months in McCain's shadow seeing how everything worked.

• Anything else you'd like to add?

I would like to add three things:

1) The Rock County Republicans are always looking for volunteers. Contact Jan Deeters: jan.deters@rockcountygop.com to support conservative causes and candidates in the area.

2) I run a blog: http://thebillreader.blogspot.com (gotta do the self promotion)

3) Many people see Obama as an agent of serious change from the current order, but his record shows that he is unlikely to be much more than the standard liberal politician. While that is alright if what you want is one more liberal expanding the regulatory burden, increasing spending, and raising taxes, the fact is that the candidate with a record for bipartisanship and responsible governance is McCain. Consider that while Obama has voted with his party 96 percent of the time, making him one of the most partisan democrats in congress, McCain has broken party lines for almost 20% of the votes in the last eight years (see: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/what-chance-of-change-is-enough/).

That last point is very interesting, and I recommend that you read the article in full, especially if you, for some reason, still think Obama is above the normal run of politicians. The fact is that he is just one more far too liberal Senator who wants a free hand to remake America in his image. While I am usually a fan of scientists playing god (because it makes cool things like immortality and ray guns) I don't find it nearly as attractive when politicians do it.

I also want to add to the Palin baby story. First, people seem to be confused. The original, and decidedly false rumour, was that the downs sydrome baby was not Sarah Palin's, but rather her oldest daughter. Some versions of the rumour claim that Sarah faked giving birth and had the doctor forge the birth certificate.

This is crap.

What is true is two things. First, Sarah Palin, while carrying Trig, did pre-natal tests and discovered that he had Down's Syndrome. Becuase Palin believes life to be sacred and not something to be tossed aside when it becomes inconvenient, she chose to give Trig a chance to live and love and be happy instead of killing him before he had a chance to incovenience his mother. Trig is now about 1 year old.

Second, Palin's 17 year old daughter has became pregnant a few months ago. My understanding is that they have kept it out of the media for two or three months, though close political advisors and the McCain campaign knew about it. Her daughter is engaged to the father, and they are not killing the baby (I think it says horrible things about our society that this needs to be made explicit) and while it is certainly inconvientient, the Palin family does not seem to be embarrased by this (nor should they be).

The President Is Not God

2008-09-01T10:07:00.002-05:00

People forget this sometimes, and the candidates seem to forget it more often than most people, but Scott Ott has an excellent take on it, "Lame Duck Bush Loses Power to Direct Hurricanes"

A Line I Missed

2008-08-31T13:45:00.002-05:00

If I could ask Obama one question (which presumably he would have to answer completely honestly), I would ask how seriously he meant this line from his speech in Denver:

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us.

I missed this line the first time I read through his speech, but now that I see it, it disturbs me profoundly.

If he truly believes this, as in he believes it is possible for the government to serve an actively positive role in our lives, then I am truly frightened.

A Question Of Message

2008-08-30T16:32:00.007-05:00

It amazes me just how tightly on message the Obama campaign keeps itself and its supporters, especially compared to the exceedingly poor job McCain is doing in that regaurd. If I am certain of anything in this campaign, it is that Obama hopes for change, and if I am certain of nothing, it is because McCain doesn't seem to have any sort of unifying theme anywhere. Heck, I don't even know what thier campaign slogan is.

This dynamic is coming out in full force with the new Sarah Palin related messages. From the left it is one blinding criticism of her experience. Each and every left wing opinion peice about Palin mentions the same few facts, that she has only two years of being governor, was a mayor of a smaller town than Obama's senatorial district, and that she is not ready to lead when (not if for these people) McCain keels over, which they expect to happen any day now.

On the right, by contrast, I have heard all sorts of cheerleading for Palin, but every columnist has a different cheer. Some say she is good because of abortion (she insisted on raising her downs sydrome baby instead of killing it), others because of fical conservatism, others respond to the experience charge by saying that the VP slot is the best place for a candidate to get experience, and the end result is a large number of strange and varied pro-Palin arguments.

This dynamic seems to arise from the fact that everything is working for Obama, and nothing for McCain. Obama's campaign is a tight ship, with solid ties to the netroots who seem to be at an unprecedented point of unity (with the Clintonites starting to shut up) and the media is reading his press releases like messages from heaven. McCain, on the other hand, seems to be just muddling by, only now waking up to the fact that it sort of helps to have a little organization when running for president.

I know I need to quit writing about horse-race nonsense, but it is just so much easier than figuring out issues.

Long Term Thinking

2008-08-30T16:32:00.003-05:00

This is not a novel observation, I am sure, but why is it that the same democrats who oppose permitting private oil drilling because the benefits are small and far away (never mind that there are no costs to the government or society from it) also insist that we need the government to regulate industry because it is incapable of long term thinking?

Similarly, Greg Mankiw uncovered an old article about Barney Frank opposing the sort of regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (two government corportations) that we need right now. If these were private entities, they could never have gotten into the sort of trouble they are in now, but because the Democrats wanted them to sacrifice their long term financial interest for the short term political gain associated with "being responsible for expanding homeownership".

Also similar (at least to my mind) is the lack of understanding of where government resources come from. Obama wants to "create" 5 million jobs in the green energy field. Setting aside the fact that the president cannot create jobs unless he takes people away from other jobs, Coyote has the explanation of why this is absurd.

The Only Two Reasons To Be Worried About Palin

2008-08-29T18:53:00.005-05:00

The Harrison Scenario and the BattleStar Galactica Scenario. I will say that in the latter case, Palin is more attractive than Roslin, which will make the movie that much better.

I do encourage you to click that link

"Predictions by political scientists are always wrong"

2008-08-29T18:53:00.002-05:00

I, however, an am economist, so if I apply economic methodology, or simple statistics, I can tease out the winner of the presidential race. Here are a bunch of political scientists who built big complex models showing why some completely unrelated factor is going to be the driving force here.

My reasoning, however, derives from this website (which is really the only "horse race" site you need). The fact is that the election hinges on Virginia, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada, and when I say "hinges on" I mean that those are the four states McCain has to win to win. Math wise, McCain has to win every state he has locked up, plus the toss ups of Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado (which is almost out of swing territory for Obama anyway) to tie with Obama. The next closest swing state is Nevada, which McCain would need to pull for a win (because a tie would go to the legislature, which would pick Obama) although a McCain win in New Hampshire (the next closest state) would do it as well.

In short, quite a lot has to go right for McCain, in places where they are rather unlikely to go right for him. Beyond the number of individual things he needs to happen, the fact is that there are really only two swing state scenarios where McCain wins (OH, VA, CO, and either NV or NH), while there are a large number of plausible scenarios where Obama wins. Probablilistically, McCain is screwed.

All of this will be moot under one (or more) of three conditions: A large external event which shifts public priorities, A large scandal/blunder that alienates large numbers of independents or discourages the base, Barr wins his case in Texas to keep the major parties off the ballot (see a previous post for that fun, see the Texas Sec. of State office to see if anything has changed). All of those possibilities, however, are outliers in the set of posibilities, especially with the Obama campaign being so disciplined and seeing how little the Georgia war affected priorities.

Cliff Notes: Obama

2008-08-29T10:14:00.000-05:00

Government cannot solve all our problems. Just the ones involving energy, education, work, the weather, cities, the countryside, sick children, sick mothers, joblessness, hopelessness, and frightening foreigners who do not live in Iraq. Now if you'll all look under your seats, every one of you is going home with a new car!

Courtesy of Reason

I Was Wrong

2008-08-28T15:15:00.011-05:00

GDP did not grow 1.9% in Q2, which was one of the main signs I was pointing at to say that the economy is not in that much danger. Those figures have been revised to 3.3%. Take that, pessimists-- now your glass is only 1/4 empty.

Interesting Post

2008-08-28T15:15:00.008-05:00

Not mine, but Greg Mankiw's.

In Four Years, Will We Be Yearning For The Relative Peace Of The Bush Years?

2008-08-28T15:15:00.007-05:00

Remember, Bush campaigned on a humble foriegn policy, and aside from anything that could be labeled "War On Terror" he has avoided any Clinton style interventions.

Well, it turns out that those Clinton style interventions have made it into the Democratic platform this year. Since Iraq is winding down naturally, and neither candidate will withdraw from Afghanistan any time soon, we may be facing a sitution where the pro-war candidate, in practice, is not McCain but Obama.

Of all the simmering world crises, the only one McCain seems more likely to get involved in than Obama would be Georgia. No one is going into Iran unless the Isralies force our hand, Obama has talked about intervening in Darfur, and the platform mentions Zimbabwe (of all places) by name.

Barr Wins Texas?

2008-08-28T15:15:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, the Bob Barr campaign sent out an interesting link to the Texas Secretary of State's office. Click on it. Go ahead, I will wait.

Now, tell me what was missing from that page.

If you guessed "McCain and Obama", you win! The letter I got today adresses this interesting fact in a way that promises much excitement on the horizon:

Dear Jeb,

As it stands now, Bob Barr is the Lone Candidate in the Lone Star State.

As the filing deadline passed this week, Bob Barr was the only presidential candidate legally certified on the ballot in Texas.

The new Texas law is clear:

A political party is entitled to have the names of its nominees for president and vice-president of the United States placed on the ballot in a presidential general election if . . . before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before presidential election day, the party's state chair signs and delivers to the secretary of state a written certification of the names of the party's nominees for president and vice-president . . .

Given that the deadline passed on Tuesday, Senator Obama was nominated on Wednesday, and Senator McCain has not even announced his selection for Vice President, the Republican and Democrat parties in Texas were technically unable to certify their candidates by the deadline.

However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the ballot situation in Texas will magically correct itself.

Since we sent out our release yesterday regarding Bob being the only presidential candidate certified in Texas, a spokeswoman for the Texas Secretary of State's office stated that, "Upon further checking, both parties filed before the deadline. We expect their amended filings after both parties finish their nominating process at the conventions."

Upon further checking . . .

Hmmm . . .

As it turns out, upon further checking , we were able to collect 10,000 more signatures in West Virginia a few days after that early deadline passed.

Upon further checking, we found that ballot substitution is permitted in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

Also, upon further checking, we found that Maine stopped accepting our petitions a week earlier than they had done in the past.

Not to mention that, upon further checking, we do object to the state of New Hampshire insisting that two libertarian candidates for president be listed on the ballot.

Finally, upon further checking, we found that the signature thresholds in Oklahoma are a bit too high.

Will our diligence pay off for us in West Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine and Oklahoma where we have active interests?

Do you think that John McCain and Barack Obama's names will eventually be printed on the ballot in Texas?

I would be willing to make an educated guess and say that we're going to have to fight our hearts out to get on the ballot in the states above while the Republican and Democrat candidates won't have to lift a finger to secure their place on the Texas ballot.

. . . that is unless we make a stand in Texas.

And that's exactly what we're going to do.

This situation in Texas is a perfect opportunity to highlight the double standard that exists in our nation.

Over the past several decades, Libertarians have spent millions of dollars, filed countless numbers of lawsuits while being sued countless numbers of times over their right to be on the ballot. Thousands of people have put in their time, energy, earnings and passion in an effort that, in the end, simply allows a voter to see a candidate's name printed on the ballot.

Throughout every battle that we engage in each election season, we must dot every "I" and cross every "T" or face the consequences of failure for our ballot drives.

Even when we follow the letter of the law, as we did in Pennsylvania, we still face challenges that drain our financial resources and strain our staff.

Should we give Barack Obama and John McCain a pass in Texas and look the other way? Would they do that for us?

. . . I don't think so.

If John McCain and Barack Obama want to bend the rules to get on the ballot in Texas, they're going to do it with the Barr Campaign and tens of thousands supporters looking on and scrutinizing their every move.

If you want to join us and support our efforts in Texas and around the nation, now is the time to do it.

Our campaign is taking off with tremendous opportunity and we're going to need your commitment to kick it into a higher gear.

A significant gift before the holiday weekend will help us roar into September and face our challenges in Texas, Pennsylvania and many other states.

Please consider a gift of $1,000, $500, $100 or any other amount Also, if you can give up to the maximum, please do so soon as September 4th represents the close of our primary season.

Donations can be made to the Barr Campaign by US Citizens here. Even if you don't want him elected, isn't $25 worth it for the possibility of the two party system being taken down a notch?

The Accomplishments of Barack Obama

2008-08-27T10:33:00.004-05:00

I subscribe to Sen Tom Coburn's (R-OK) daily pork report, where he lists all the new pork his office has found in the previous day. Though it is run by a Republican, today it has corrected a misperception of mine regaurding Barack Obama.

For the longest time, I had believed that Obama had accomplished nothing of note while in the Senate. It turns out that:

Sen. Barack Obama sought more than $3.4 million in congressional earmarks for clients of the lobbyist son of his Democratic running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, records show. Obama succeeded in getting $192,000 for one of the clients, St. Xavier University in suburban Chicago.

Compare that to John McCain, who has been at the forefront (well, perhaps behind the real crusaders like Paul, Flake, Coburn and Hensarling) of the war against earmarks and pork for some time in the Senate.

As an aside, it has been a while since I posted a summarry of the pork report. Here is what the Coburn office found since yesterday:

Senator Barack Obama sought more than $3.4 million in congressional earmarks for clients of the lobbyist son of his running mate, Senator Joe Biden
National Science Foundation study claims that despite federal spending increases for science research in higher education, funding has failed to keep up with inflation
National Science Foundation grant pays to send New Zealand photographer to Antarctica
National Science Foundation to spend $600,000 to study inbreeding of antelopes
National Science Foundation grant of $326,733 pays for expedition to Alaska to find ice worms (none were found)
$1.25 million federal grant will go toward constructing an annex with a snack bar and a place to sit and overlook a fossil dig site
National Science Foundation research “rehabilitating the image of modern Neanderthals” by demonstrating they were not less intelligent than humans
National Science Foundation will provide free tuition for a full year of drawing classes for children
Department of Homeland Security official who hired a disgraced Minnesota state official quits
Indiana sheriff misused federal justice grants to pay for campaign supplies for his re-election campaign, personal trips, and travel expenses for his stepdaughter
72 percent of New Orleans residents believe that the billions of dollars spent on Hurricane Katrina federal recovery money has been “mostly misspent”
Louisiana PBS affiliate damaged by Katrina has received a SBA loan, federal grants, and assistance from PBS, but says "we did not get the FEMA funding, so we are not whole."
Work on New Orleans homes billed by contractors and paid for by the federal government was not performed in many instances

As you can see, it is more of a laundry list of corruption, waste, and inefficiency then it used to be. If you want to sign up, email Roland_Foster@coburn.senate.gov and ask to be added to the pork report.

UPDATE: It is for this tremendous accomplishment that he is being heralded in Denver by greek columns. This is to feed his ego and give him self confidence, which is important because he is the shyest and most humble presidential candidate we have had in years.

Midnight Thoughts

2008-08-26T23:59:00.000-05:00

Why am I up this late?

Why am I eating white cheddar cheez-its, which are probably the most vile things I have put in my mouth in quite some time?

Complete non-sequitor: Brian Caplan asks why anti-free marketers are against government intervention in social issues (broadly speaking). He lists some pertinent questions:

1. Are markets for ideas/culture less subject to market failure than other markets? Why or why not?

2. Is well-intended regulation of idea/culture markets more likely to have unintended negative consequences than well-intended regulation of other markets?

3. Is regulation of idea/culture markets less likely to be well-intended than regulation of other markets?

4. Is the average consumer a better judge of his own best interest in idea/culture markets than in other markets?

5. Is efficiency less normatively important in idea/culture markets than in other markets? If so, what normative goal(s) do we satisfy by sacrificing efficiency?

6. Should countries with weak civil liberties liberalize their regulation of idea/culture markets? If so, would you advocate "shock therapy"? Why or why not?

These are good questions, but they make me wonder this- what's up with the exact opposite of these people; those Republicans who are (again, broadly speaking) opposed to larger government in the economy but stereotypically in favor of intervention in social issues.

Except that I think the sterotype dicotamy is not quite accurate, or at least not as perplexing as is the dicotomy on the Democratic side. In the modern era, social conservatism seems driven largely by three things- Opposition to abortion, homophobia, and anti-immigrant sentiment. Of those three things, the first is a completely legitimate government function (preventing murder) by anyone's standard, and thus cannnot really be called an extention of government power. The third is taking a legitimate government function (policing the border) and squeezing it perhaps past the point where it is a good idea, but still residing fully within the category of "legitimate". As for the homophobia, it seems to be waning, it isn't a strict pre-requisite to get into the socially conservative club (actually, I think only abortion is the deal breaker for that club these days), and doesn't involve that much government intervention in the grand scheme of things (assuming marriages are going to be licensed at all, this is just one more line on the form).

What I am getting at here is this: Democrats are protrayed as the party that wants the government out of your life and into your pocketbook, while republicans are portrayed as the party that wants the government out of your bank and into your life. Because of that, many small government activists seem to throw thier hands up and say that you cant win. But what they don't seem to realize is that, in the modern American political context, the scope for restrictions on the economy is so much wider and deeper than it is for restrictions on your personal life, that the Republican party seems like a much more natural fit between the two parties for libertarian types.

I hope that was coherant.

This Made Me Happy

2008-08-26T23:22:00.002-05:00

Perhaps you will be happy too? via teh internets.

TV programming from the esteemed Dr. Boli.

A terrible idea. If you don't see why this is a terrible idea, there is something seriously wrong with your creativity muscle or your getting into trouble bone. "nerf style excitement" is the last thing we need in every office building in the nation.

While perhaps not a cure all, unless scientist is defined broadly to include economists, this is definitely a useful warning sign.

Robits are terrible dancers. I mean that in both the low quality sense and the tremendously frightening sense. Fight the robit overlords. N.B. They aren't called "robots", they are robits, because it sounds cooler.

Assorted Links

2008-08-25T19:43:00.002-05:00

Words of Wisdom: "If I had had more time, I could have written a shorter paper." These are words I should never forget. Context here.

Guess what? Politicians are inconsistant hypocrytes that rarely have moral or sound theoretical reasons for thier actions!

Nuclear power is the best long term energy solution we are going to develop for quite some time. "France is able to store all its “waste” (from 30 years of producing 75 percent of its electricity) beneath the floor of a single room." "A 1,000-megawatt coal plant is fed by a 110-car coal train arriving every day... By comparison, the “wastes” of nuclear power can once again be contained in a single truck." "Nuclear energy is the most environmentally benign discovery ever made."

Overheard in Denver.

Chuck Benedict Last Term

2008-08-25T12:45:00.003-05:00

What follows is the record of the legislation Chuck Benedict (45th Assembly) sponsored during his first term (2005) in the Wisconsin State Assembly.

AB691: This is the same as AB747 this term. Did not pass.

AB626: Broad overhaul of the Wisconsin campaign finance system, including state funding for primaries. Also makes other small changes, some of which could make it easier for third parties to recieve state funding. Did not pass.

AB791: Requires hospitals and hospices to encourage their patients to create a living will. Did not pass.

AB305: Requires hospitals to provide "emergency contraception" for rape victims. Did not pass.

AB977: Same as AB70 this term. Did not pass.

AB1123: Requires Wisconsin Energy utilities to have a telephone help line. Did not pass.

AB108: Allows small businesses to enroll thier employees in the state employee health program. Can't tell if this would put all those employees on the government's accounts or just subsidizes the employer's expenses. Did not pass.

AB773: Same as AB71 this session. Did not pass.

AB720: Prohibits doctors from recieving anything from drug companies except informative brocures and free samples. Did not pass.

AB690: Same as AB750 this session. Did not pass.

AB1130: Provides explicit permission (which is implicitly overridden by the federal government) to research stem cells and opens up the possibility of state funding. Did not pass.

AB176: Designates "little bluestem" (schizachyrium scoparium) the state grass. Did not pass.

AR57: Honours the life of Lewis T. Mittness, Jr. Passed.

AB252: Mandates an increase in the amount of health insurance coverage for mental disorders. Did not pass.

AB1126: Same as AB135 this session. Did not pass.

AB807: I believe this bill is the same as AB94 this session, but both bills are quite long and it is possible that there are differences. Did not pass.

SB388: Senate version of AB807. Did not pass.

SJR54: Amends the state constition to enumerate a "right" to health care. I think it is telling that he did not take up this cause this session. When I comment on Benedict directly, I will note that he does not seem to understand the difference between negative rights (like life, liberty, property) and positive "rights" (like a "right" to health care, education, etc.) which are fundamentally illegitimate. Fortunately, Did not pass.

SB157: Prohibits all discrimination against those with seeing eye dogs. Passed.

AB1133: Prohibits the sale of soft drinks in government schools. Did not pass.

AB1169: Same as AB81 this session. Did not pass.

SB675: Senate version of AB1169. Did not pass.

Bottom line here? Chuck Benedict has been in the Assembly for almost four years, has seriously backed 46 bills, (not including the approximately 100 bills he has cosponsored), and has seen two resolutions and one bill with legal force pass. I must say that, after going through his legislative priorities, I am glad he is so ineffective. Wisconsin would be a vile place if even the better half of his agenda was passed. I encourage everyone frightened by this to help elect Mike Hahn for Wisconsin Assembly.

George Orwell is Blogging

2008-08-25T12:30:00.001-05:00

A group has recovered George Orwell's diaries and are posting every entry precicely 70 years after originally published. They are kind of lame right now, but apperantly they include his opinions on the descent into WW2.

Blog is here.

I Hate You, Old People

2008-08-25T10:03:00.002-05:00

My chance of ever seeing a penny of the social security money I am forking over to y'all is 7%.

Will return with Chuck Benedict's 2005 legislative record of "accomplishments" later today.

Chuck Benedict

2008-08-24T11:11:00.003-05:00

This post is going to be remarkably unhelpful for people outside the 45th Assembly district of Wisconsin (roughly Beloit and Janesville). Chuck Benedict is my current assemblyman, and I am considering supporting his opponent, Mike Hahn. Before I do that, however, I want to ensure that Benedict really does do bad things in the Assembly. To that end, I am going to dump every significant looking bill he has sponsored below. The next step will be to look at his co-sponsorships and then (if possible) his complete voting record. If you don't live in Beloit or Janesville, you will probably want to skip this post.

This post will focus on his record in the 2007 session. The next one will be for the 2005 session.

AB747: Requires that all schools teaching abstenance-only education give a notice to parents, which includes the delightful line " 2. Abstinence-only education does not teach pupils how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, such as human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, other than by remaining abstinent." which I had assumed was sort of the point. It also directs such schools to provide waivers for parents who object to abstenance-only (although why would you opt out, since parents could teach condom sex ed on top of it?). Did not pass.

AB311: Prohibits robo-calling, except when done by the government and except when the customer has given written permission for the call. Did not pass.

AB225: Grants for big businesses to form or relocate in a border county. This is counties pulling pork from the state. Did not pass.

AB139: Strengthens the review procedures for deaths in prisons. Did not pass.

AB70: Prohibits negative discrimination in hiring against veterans or active servicemen. Did not pass.

AB474: Increased the tax on Fermented Malt Beverages (is this just malt liquor, or is this a broad term?) from $2 per barrel to $10, with the increase going nominally to fund anti-alcohol measures. Did not pass.

AB922: Mandates health insurance coverage for mental disorders, substance abuse issues, and alcoholism. While I will talk more about this, the brief problem with this bill is that these varied and arbitrary mandates are one of the reasons that health insurance costs so much. Did not pass the first time, but still pending.

AB71: Requires that facility useage fees be marked seperately on medical billing statements. Did not paas.

AB926: Mandates overtime pay for all medical workers working over 40 hours per week, regaurdless of what thier freely negotiated employment contract says. This sounds like a great way to both get the government out of the medical industry and reduce costs. Oh, wait, no it doesn't. Fortunately, Did not pass.

SB512: Senate voerson of AB926. Did not pass.

SJR1: Honouring the life of Hugo H. Henry. Passed.

AB773: Removes the consent of the incarcerated as a precondition for house arrest (as opposed to normal incarceration). Did not pass.

AB750: Expands the number of topics to cover in Sex Ed and permits more non-abstenance options for school districts. Did not pass.

AJR7: Honouring the life of Lewis T. Mittness, Jr. Did not pass. I must say that you are a pretty ineffective legislator if you can't get tiny resolutions like this passed.

AB325: Requires that all practicioners of needle electromyography, surface electromyography, and nerve conduction be licensed by the medical board. Licensure artificially restricts the number of doctors that can practice and acts as a monopolizing force increasing the cost of medical care in this country. Did not pass.

SB175: Senate verson of AB325. Did not pass.

AB135: "This bill prohibits a person from intentionally pointing an object at or towards a law enforcement officer who is acting in an official capacity if the law enforcement officer may reasonably believe that the object is a firearm." While bills should generally be written with the assumption that they won't be abused, could Benedict seriously not see how it could be a bad thing to make it a crime to stand next to a jumpy police officer? Did not pass.

SB43: Senate version of AB135. Did not pass.

AB467: Defines that contraception is not abortion, and reqires all pharmacists to dispense contraceptives, regaurdless of personal beliefs. Cato has a wonderful article on this. Did not pass.

AB204: Prohibits advertisements originating in Wisconsin for prescription drugs, except to doctors and pharmacists. Did not pass.

AB94: This is Benedict's universal health care plan. Did not pass.

SB51: Senate version of AB94. Did not pass.

AB81: Prohibits USDOT from building any wieght stations on I-90 in Rock County, and from building an interchange at Townsend road and I-90 until 2057. Did not pass.

SB82: Senate version of AB81. Did not pass.

I would like to note that I consider 225, 922, 926, 325, 135, 467, and 94 to be particularly damning.

Also, note that of all the bills he sponsored, Zero were passed, and of all the legislation sponsored, only one meaningless resolution. I would say that is a fairly poor record. Interestingly, all of his bills failed in the vote against SJR1, so he may simply have put all his eggs in one basket, only to have them all crushed in March.

Back

2008-08-23T20:55:00.001-05:00

Back at school.

Spending the day unpacking, so enjoy this WSJ article is lieu of me. Look particularly at the causalty rates chart.

Political Strategy

2008-08-22T10:41:00.002-05:00

I hate talking about political strategy, partly because the media does it to the point that it crowds out substantive policy discussion (although the media does it poorly, reducing it to horse race and tactics with minimal though towards broader strategies) and partly because it is far too meta for me to be comfortable with (the means by which we will aquire the means to devise a plan to pass a bill, which may be a means towards a greater end or an end of itself).

However, it occurs to me that I have been living in a bubble of unusually politically astute people for quite some time (a bubble I fully expect to pop when I get back to Beloit). It turns out that many people still believe that Obama is a higher breed of politician than the normal. I know that this is not true, but they don't.

This suggests that Republicans need to make the point, as forcefully as possible, that Obama is just another liberal politician, and a very liberal one at that, without invoking absurd rumors about being a secret muslim or "involved with" assorted unpleasant people. His arrogance needs to be brought to the forefront, but not with juvinile celebrity attacks, but rather with questions like "what sort of person writes 2 autobiographies in ten years?" and discussions of the unhealthyness of a cult of personality (I vaugely remember some founding father quotes along these lines).

Oil Link

2008-08-18T22:16:00.003-05:00

Here is an excellent article about why oil prices are so high. One reason: Government.

This sparks a vauge idea in my mind to do a study of how much oil revenue is being lost by inefficient governments. That will go on the "To Do" pile, along with everything else.

Not A Recession

2008-08-18T15:14:00.003-05:00

It is fairly clear by now that we are not in a recession, nor will one pop up. What we have been experienceing for the last year or so is not a recession but an adjustment.

Adjustment is a tremendously unfortunate word because it sounds a great deal like a weasel word used by people trying to claim we are not in a recession when we actually are. However, there is a significant differance between a recession and an adjustment, with serious consequences. Note before I get into this that often enough "adjustement" really is a weasel word used by lying politicians, but I am not a lying politician when I use the word.

A recession is a cyclical phenominon characterized by the growth rate of real production (GDP growth) falling below the growth rate of full production (Potential GDP growth). An adjustment is a change in Potential GDP growth, in this case a downward change. This means that currently what is happening is not a cyclical phenominon but a structural one. This can be seen in both inflation and unemployment.

The unemployment rate is a bit high, but this is not because of the typical cyclical reasons. While economic pessimisim is probably hampering hiring, people far smarter than me have layed out the reasons why unemployment is structurally higher today than it was twenty years ago. Increased specialization has lowered substituteability of hyperspecialized workers. Also, a burdensome and capricious regulatory environment, highlighted by the fact that minimum wage is rising 41% in two years, is sapping employment on the low skilled end.

On the inflation side, I have discussed the issue before. In normal inflation, what could be called fake inflation, what happens is that the money supply increases and nothing else in the economy changes. This is typically the result of governments printing too much money (think Zimbabwe) or a lowering of reserve requirements in banks (more a theoretical than practical concern in today's economy). In this sort of inflation, the nation does not become poorer (except where the transactions costs rise significantly, like in Zimbabwe, and discounting psychological effects and the disincentives to savers), but wealth is transferred to those who get to spend the new money first, generally banks and those near banks, from those who get the new money last, by which point the general price level has risen and the new money is worth correspondingly less.

What is happening here, however, is not an increase in the money supply. As can be seen from this image I got off wikipedia, money supply growth has not increased beyond trend in the last few years.

Despite this, however, the general price level has increased. This is because there are more people in the world bidding for the same number of resources, and those people have spontaniously burst into existance (or at least, into the demand side of the world economy) in the last ten years. Because of this, basic resources are more expensive, there are fewer shares per person to go around and we are poorer now than we would otherwise have been.

Because we are truly poorer now than we would have been otherwise, the economy needs to make some structural adjustments. This is not a recession, because it is not cyclical. It is bad for America, but it is necessary to lift the rest of the world out of miserable poverty. This means that there is only so much the government is capable of doing, even in the keynesian sense, to improve the economy.

That does not, however, mean there is nothing the government should be doing right now.

To deal with the unemployment problem, the government should do everything it can to minimize frictional and structural unemployment. While retraining programs are not a bad idea, first the government should endeavour to repeal all the laws which inhibit job creation like licencing requirements, minimum wages, and burdensome business regulations.

While much of the inflation currently is caused by real inflation, where everyone is literally poorer than previously, there is still the risk of spiralling inflation expectations, and should the fed continue in thier path of overstimulating the economy, we run the risk of simultaniously setting ourselves up for another speculative bubble, just like how the Greenspan response to the 2001 inflation fed the housing bubble. While it is unlikely we will have both, there is a narrow range in which it is possible. The answer to both of these issues is for the fed to accellerate the adjustment process by hiking interest rates, and risk a recession and possibly even light deflation to prevent an inflationary spiral like what happened in the 70's.

We are poorer, as a nation, than we could have been, and the sooner the economy realizes that and prices adjust fully, the sooner the economy can get back to trend growth.

Above My Pay Grade

2008-08-18T09:03:00.003-05:00

Obama is a coward. I am sure you have heard this by now, but at the faith fourum both candidates were asked when they believed a human life began. McCain answered "At conception" which is a somewhat defensible answer, and certainly within the range of legitimate possibilities. Obama, however, meandered for a bit, and said:

Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade

There are two ways to interperet that; either $4.2 million dollars per year or the pay grade of president. However, either way there isn't really a higher pay grade out there, and if Obama won't make that call, who will.

Admittedly, there are frames of reference where it would make sense to say that the president should have absolutely no say in when life begins and where contraception becomes murder. However, Obama is not a federalist who believes the decision should be held by the states, but rather a consistant pro-abortionist. His stance on abortion on his whebsite cannot be found under "Faith", "Family", or "Ethics", but is rather a small few lines in that can only be found on the "Women's issues" page proclaiming quietly that he has been a consistant supporter of "Reproductive choice".

This combination of stances is morally bankrupt, craven, and quite possibly evil. It is one thing to support abortion if you believe that a human life does not begin until birth, or when self-awareness begins, or some other late-ish marker. I suspect you are wrong on that definition, but at least it is reasonable and restricts the decision to a matter of science that has yet to be fully resolved. Obama, however, by his own admission, has no idea when life begins, and doesn't seem to care. By way of (a very worn) analogy, let us imagine that Obama is a hunter. While he is much to urban and chic to do something as lower class as hunt, let us pretend and try to keep from laughing. Obama is in the woods with a rifle in his hand and sees a rustling in the bushes. He can't tell what it is in the bush, but it could be a deer. However, it could also be a person walking through the same hunting grounds as Obama. A good hunter will hold his fire until he can get confirmation that whatever is behind those bushes is not another human being. For Obama, however, questions of what is a human life in uncertain situations are "above his pay grade", so we can expect that he will shoot blindly in the bushes, risking murdering 1.2 million Americans every year because he isn't particularly interested in waiting for confirmation that what he is shooting is not in fact a human being.

I have a very high standard for evil, so I am not certain that Obama is making an evil decision here, but I am certain that it is craven, inexcusable, and morally bankrupt. There are legitimate pro-life arguments, and there are legitimate ways to say that the president should have no say at all on the question, but Obama has chosen none of them.

Quick Link

2008-08-17T17:50:00.001-05:00

Free trade and technological advancement have been compared before, but this is a particularly good one.

I Have Been Accused Of Many Things

2008-08-17T12:34:00.003-05:00

People have accused me of thinking with my cock, my stomache, (rarely) my heart, and my mouth, but never of this.

Why I Refuse To Vote Electronically

2008-08-17T12:34:00.001-05:00

I am sort of split on e-voting. On one hand, it is sort of cool, and my vote doesn't mean anything either way.

On the other hand...

A Meaningless Poll!

2008-08-15T14:51:00.004-05:00

Encycolapaedia Britannica is behind this one, so it is a little less meaningless than most polls. Vote Here!

The Rich Get Richer, And So Does The Rest Of America

2008-08-15T14:51:00.002-05:00

Appropos of nothing, here are a bunch of links.

If you don't read any of the rest of these, read this.

Here is an example of why zero-sum economics is always wrong when applied to a predominantly private sector nation.

Here is a long and rambling refutation of zero-sum economics.

Here is a study on the material conditions of poverty in America.

And the most important part of inequality: mobility.

McCain's Atrocious Emails

2008-08-14T19:12:00.002-05:00

First I get an email from the mccain campaign inviting me to join the Barack Obama Fan Club. Seriously:

We can all agree that Senator Barack Obama is one of the world's biggest celebrities and every celebrity needs a fan club filled with adoring fans and Senator Obama certainly has his fair share. You might even be tempted to join this fan club.

If you love Senator Barack Obama enough to join his fan club you'll love higher taxes, massive federal spending, government-run health care and higher gas prices. Despite Senator Obama's lack of experience and readiness to lead, he's still considered dreamy and deserves an amazing fan club - he just doesn't deserve to be our next president.

Most of the time, people make judgements based on popularity. For instance, Amazon.com tells me what other people are reading, and I didn't go to a restaurant the other day because we got there and it was completely empty. Apperantly in politics, this dynamic is completely reversed, i.e. the more people support a candidate, the less likely he is to be any good. This seems to clash with the general idea of democracy, and it seems like McCain is saying that the best government is the one run by a brutal dictator who has the support of no one. This is the Robert Mugabe theory of government.

The next day McCain sends me an email attacking Obama for stealing less and having more devoted supporters, as well as flip-flopping:

But there are also stark contrasts between myself and Senator Obama. I intend to keep my promise of accepting federal funds for the general election. Senator Obama has chosen to break the promise he made many times before and will opt out of accepting these funds. I am a man of my word and I intend to honor the promises I have made during this campaign.

If McCain had made an oath to murder every child in Kansas, I would think that the moral high ground would be in breaking that oath. You see, honesty is wonderful, and integrity is certainly a virtue, but there are higher virtues even then that. John McCain is taking credit for stealing from taxpayers, about half of whom would prefer that he not be elected. Obama, in stark contrast, has decided that it would be better if he elects to only take money from people who give it to him of their own free will.

Yes I recognize that the issue here is one of spending caps, but I think spending caps are bad except to the extent that they keep people out of my pockets.

last post

2008-08-12T16:40:00.000-05:00

Delete the semicolon at the end of the URL in the last post or the link won't work. Sorry about that, but phone blogging is harder than it looks.

obama and Georgia

2008-08-12T16:24:00.000-05:00

III
am having a wonderful time in new York, but I will be back to regular blogging soon enough.

Until then, you should know that the georgian war is the most important thing occurring anywhere right now. I would add my name to the list of unqualified prognosticators bloviating on the subject, except that I am better than these people in the sense that I recognize my inability to for dependable judgements on foreign policy issues of this nature. Therefore, I will direct you to a link where you can learn the interesting fact that the french leadership has returned early from their August vacations, yet Barack obama has remained in Hawaii, and issued only two statements, only one of which even weakly identifies Russia as the aggressor. George bush took a break from the Olympics to wag his finger at putin, but has since returned to his entertainment.

For contrast, both Bob Barr and McCain have condemned the Russian actions and made suggestions about what should be done.

Link is here

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/08122008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/russia_goes_rogue_124032.htm:

Amtrak demography

2008-08-08T21:09:00.000-05:00

The ticket taker for Amtrak just walked up to the microphone and announced that.all seniors and families with children may preboard. This caused me to look around at how long the line was going to get, at which point I realized that all but perhaps ten passengers were either quite old or possessed small children (though I don't doubt that these children were aquired specifically for there preboarding benefits).

This makes me wonder why they even attempt the farce of preboarding, since I assume they realize that most of their customers are preboarders.

Perhaps some kind family will take me in so that I can get a good seat. And perhaps not.

my adventure in the deep south

2008-08-08T18:39:00.000-05:00

I am walking around union station in Chicago and have noticed that it seems to be as segregated as anywhere in the deep south. Don't think that I am exaggerating when I say that the only non black or Hispanic people working in the food court are the two Asians at the Chinese restaurant. I have seen one white security gaurd and no white janitors. The only slightly intergrated position are the mechanics. I don't know the breakdown on train staff, but I suspect the pattern will be the same.

Thoughts?

what a wonderful world

2008-08-08T15:23:00.000-05:00

I love Chicago.

I got in at 1 and have a nine hour layover before my train leaves for NYC, so I go wander around Chicago. Walking from union station towards the lake, I came across the fed building and board of trade (quite by accident, actually) so of course I go in. In the BOT building I get in line for the ATM right behind a fellow in an official trading jacket who withdraws a number of hundred dollar bills and walks into the fancy restaurant for traders. I withdraw considerably less than he did, but still feel good about using the BOT ATM.

Continuing down Adams street I hit the art museam and find that it is free from 5-9 PM. So I go into subway to kill time, where I get my favorite sandwitch, win a free bag of sun chips, read the news on my cell phone and discover that Russia and Georgia are in a serious war.

I am quite glad I don't live in foreign.

Before I Leave

2008-08-08T09:08:00.000-05:00

Here is a fun link.

The Olympics

2008-08-07T09:08:00.004-05:00

Unless there is some sort of big event at the olympics, these two articles are the most attention I will pay to the Olympics for the next two weeks.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/china_celebrates_its_status_as

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/citing_poor_conditions_china

School Choice

2008-08-07T09:08:00.001-05:00

Yes Prime Minister was not nearly as funny as Yes Minister, but it had its good points, like this:

Foreigners Aren't Really That Different From Us

2008-08-06T21:27:00.005-05:00

A leading opposition figure in Malaysia is being charged with Sodomy, which will forever keep him out of political office. Curiously, he just got out of prison for corruption, which was apperantly not enough to keep him out of politics forever.

Reminds me of American politics-- Corruption is just fine, but Homosexualty can ruin your career (except in absurdly liberal areas like Massachusetts and Madison, WI)

Western Media

2008-08-06T20:10:00.004-05:00

This story is on the main page of every foreign paper I have read today, but is not on the drudge report nd is literally the last story on CNN's world news page, after a story about DNA testing of king Tut's nummified children.

While the story is not all that important, it would be nice if the American media wasn't so atrocious.

UPDATE: Also, someone tell me if the story about the death penalty for the mexican national has been big news in Austin, because it made the front page of the Kuwait Times and the Gulf Times (from Qatar). All I can find on the statesman's website is a story about how Mexicans don't care about it and one about how a Honduran is facing the death penalty in Texas.

Modernization in the Arab World

2008-08-06T20:10:00.003-05:00

Muslims are encouraged to emulate the life of Mohammed as closely as possible, believing that he was entirely without sin. This (and presumably pre-islamic custom) is why Muslims have been marrying children for 1400 years. Now a bunch of Saudi clerics want to forget the unpleasent bits of their history and prohibit marriage practices that Mohammad himself practiced.

While this is probably a good thing, I am obnoxious enough to enjoy pointing out when believers aren't following thier beliefs properly.

phone blogging

2008-08-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

I have a new phone (blackberry) that works with blogger. I don't expect to do this often, but it is fun to do it once.

Anyway, I had a thought and I want someone to tell me if they've seen this anywhere, or know of any good sources of this sort of data. So, throughout the 90's the Saudi government withheld oil production as part of their cartel ageement with OPEC to keep oil prices up. All that oil would have gone to market at 10 or 15 dollars per barrell 15 years ago but stayed in the ground until today when it is being extracted at 130 dollars per barrell. My question is this- what was the real return on investment on that barrell of oil over the 15 or so years?

To answer this I need to know what the production quotas and capacities were when prices were low (to find out how much oil was "invested" in this manner). Thoughts?

test

2008-08-06T13:25:00.000-05:00

Testing a new function. Kindly disregard. :)

Links

2008-08-06T12:13:00.002-05:00

I am pretty much burned out at this point (not from blogging, of course) so I will just direct you to some of the articles I was going to comment on this week.

Inequality at the Olympics. Here is is suggested that perhaps the US income distribution is the perfectly natural result of a reasonably competative system. I want more data points, but it is suggestive.

Drug war

Drug war

Energy gimmicks. Is a less effective gimmick less gimmicky, or just a sign that Obama can't pander in a way that will create positive outcomes.

China prepares for the olympics. The part I noticed was that they specifically mention unblocking wikipedia, BBC, and playboy ("a site that offers pictures of naked women").

The definitive case against government run health care. This goes even beyond economic considerations. I don't think the article emphasizes that the fellow trying to kill Rivera was appointed by the government.

More On People

2008-08-04T19:13:00.002-05:00

While doing a criminal background check on myself (don't ask) I looked over at the sidebar ads and found this:

Additional Results from PeopleFinders.com
James Bledsoe, 46
Richmond, IN
View

James Bleckley, 62
Austin, TX
View

James Bleckley, 63
Boothwyn, PA
View

James Bleckley, 108
Winston Salem, NC
View

No idea who the first or third people are (they wanted money for that info), but the second is my dad, and the fourth is (I assume) my late grandfather, except that I am fairly certain he was not born in 1900, which means I have no idea who that could be.

Exactly

2008-08-04T12:03:00.005-05:00

Here are people smarter than me showing that in fact the media can and does show the economy as worse than it is. While there are always exceptions like the washington post, the largest newspapers and three out of four (and sometimes all four) cable news stations are on the recession beat.

Stragest Sales Pitch Ever.

2008-08-04T12:03:00.002-05:00

This from an email from the McCain Campaign. Tell me if you can make any sense of it.

McCain Team -

Americans across the country are feeling the effects of high gas prices and our need to expand domestic oil production.

John McCain says we need offshore oil drilling and we need it now. Senator Barack Obama has consistently opposed offshore drilling - calling it a "gimmick." Senator Obama's solution to high gas prices is telling Americans to make sure their tires are inflated.

Today, I'm asking for your help in putting Senator Obama's "tire gauge" energy policy to the test. With an immediate donation of $25 or more, we will send you an "Obama Energy Plan" tire pressure gauge. Will simply inflating your tires reduce the financial burden of high gas prices on your wallet?

It's clear Senator Obama has no plan to address the energy challenges we face as a nation. He has said no to offshore drilling, no to expanding domestic drilling and no to nuclear energy. He has no plan to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

John McCain is prepared to lead our country as president to break our dependence on foreign oil with real solutions. John McCain believes we should lift the federal ban on offshore drilling, enabling you to decide where we drill for oil.

But John McCain won't be able to enact these policies without your help in electing him as our next president.

Please help us put Senator Obama's energy plan to the test - donate $25 or more for your very own "Obama Energy Plan" tire pressure gauge.

Thanks, as always, for your support.

Sincerely,
Rick Davis
Campaign Manager

P.S. Our next president's energy policy will need to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. John McCain believes we need offshore drilling now. Senator Obama's plan is calling on Americans to check their tire pressure. We're asking for your help in testing out Senator Obama's energy plan. With your donation of $25 or more right now, we'll send you a tire gauge to test for yourself, Senator Obama's "tire gauge" energy policy.

Umm, I am fairly certain keeping your tires properly inflated WILL improve your performance, and is entirely unrelated to the concept of drilling.

The Internet Says...

2008-08-03T16:21:00.003-05:00

I don't exist:

According to the US Census Bureau°, fewer than 0.001% of US residents have the first name 'Jeb' and 0.0001% have the surname 'Bleckley'. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there are 0 Americans who go by the name 'Jeb Bleckley'.

Also:

People with this first name are probably: Male or female... We don't know yet.

And

you are poorly envoweled.

Gee, thanks internet.

Fortunately, there is another place on the internet that thinks I might exist. I got this from the website How many of me:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are
1
or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Space Flight

2008-08-02T22:49:00.003-05:00

From the Economist. The good part is the last half, unless you haven't been following what will probably the most important single technological revolution occurring currently. Recognize that White Knight aircraft are the heralds of the space age in a way the apollo missions could never have been, partly because the technology wasn't there and partly because it is a commercial venture now.

Ballot Access

2008-08-02T17:57:00.003-05:00

People talk about the two party system as if it were the only way things could possibly be in America, despite plenty of evidence worldwide to the contrary in other nations. This attitude is simply wrong, and one of the key reasons for the two party system in America is explained in a recent Bob Barr email.

If you're new to third-party politics, the "Ballot Access" process should be an eye opener for you. Since 1888, politicians have been writing rules to limit political competition and to maintain their own power.

Here's a good example:

A candidate running for president as an Independent in 2008 would have to collect 867,134 signatures from voters in all 50 states in order to have their name printed on the ballot on November 4th.

In comparison, Republican and Democrat nominees must collect zero signatures to have their name printed on the ballot in all 50 states on November 4th.

That's right, to get their name printed on the ballot, John McCain and Barack Obama will need to collect no signatures - zip - zero - nada.

Had it not been for the three decades of work done by the Libertarian Party, the Barr Campaign would not be in such fine shape right now in regards to Ballot Access. But the job is not done just yet.

The email then goes on to encourage you to donate here to help Bob Barr get on all 50 ballots. The two things to note about this is that first the two party system is largely a function of the two major parties controlling govenment and altering regulations to protect their incumbency status. The other thing to note is that it has taken 30 years of constant work for the Libertarian party to get as much ballot access as it has, and the LP has the most ballot access of any third party in the nation.

There are, of course, other factors involved like the media blackout of third parties and the mentality that has been drilled into the culture as well as the exodus of a great deal of talent out of third parties precisely because the cards are so strongly stacked against them.

Which is why you need to be supporting Bob Barr.

What's That White Stuff?

2008-08-01T17:35:00.002-05:00

Oh, yes, that would be ice. On Mars.

By the way, where do they come up for the names of digging sites. It is really bothering me that the historical site where we first found water on Mars was named Dodo-Goldilocks. Come on NASA, you can do better than this.

The Economy

2008-07-31T20:59:00.002-05:00

Everyone! Be Afraid! The Economy is Collapsing!

Actually, is expanded by just less than two percent.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The prospects for a quick economic recovery dimmed Thursday, with new data showing the economy grew at a slower-than-expected rate this spring despite some oomph from tax rebate checks -- and actually shrank late last year.

Democrats called for a second economic stimulus package, while the Bush administration said the growth was proof the checks helped.

Armed with government stimulus checks of up to $600 per person, Americans boosted spending on food, clothing and other items in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported.

But the gross domestic product still increased at a 1.9 percent annual rate, up from 0.9 percent in the first quarter but less than the 2.4 percent economists were looking for.

Consistant with my theory that the media will spin any good news into a sign of the apocalpse while a Republican is in the white house. Note first that they insist on focusing on the fact that it is less than optimistic economists were looking for, rather than noting that it is far above the expectations of many. Note also that the stimulus package is being advertized as a "fake" recovery, when it may very well boost us back into solid growth territory.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the number of newly laid-off people rose to 448,000 last week, the most in five years. More job cuts are expected in coming months, and Americans may cut back on spending, kindling recession fears.

This bit is presented without any relevent context, like the fact that the minimum wage hike took effect that week.

Vile

2008-07-30T12:15:00.000-05:00

Indescribably vile. Thank God I don't live in Minnesota.

What Is Occuring

2008-07-28T22:08:00.002-05:00

I'm busy. Quit emailing me asking why I have stopped posting so much. Wait two or three weeks for summer school to get out and I will be back in full force, with a brief foray into Wisconsin politics.

This Man Understands Freedom

2008-07-26T23:13:00.001-05:00

It's my lawn mower... I can shoot it if I want.

Americans Are Almost Faster Than God

2008-07-26T12:06:00.003-05:00

In the creationist story, God took three days to create all the 1.6 million species we currently estimate to be in existance. When Will Wright (creater of SimCity and The Sims) released the creature creator demo for his upcoming game Spore, it took 18 days for Americans to upload that many creations to the server.

15 years ago, this feat would have taken years. 30 years ago this would have been impossible.

Sometimes I sit and I ask myself, how can I contribute to humanity? The easiest and most useful answer is "Edit the wikipedia". Find something you know about, or even find something obscure and do a little research and improve an article on the wikipedia. While Spore is just a game, we are collecting human knowledge the same way Maxis is collecting creature designs. One day all human knowledge will be collected on the wikipedia. Until then, go do some research.

The Prophet Obama

2008-07-25T17:02:00.002-05:00

This came from a chain letter, and probably makes up for all the crappy chain letters I have gotten in my life:

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

-Gerard Baker

A New Low In Campaigning

2008-07-24T20:31:00.002-05:00

Caveat: WND is not the most reliable source. However, it was on the drudge report, which makes it somewhat legitimate.

1) Who in the world thought it would be a good idea to have a campaign stop at the wailing wall? Though the article notes that he was praying, unless that picture was faked there was enough signs to count as a campaign event.

2) Who in the world though it would be a good idea to plaster campaign signs on the grounds of the old temple? The only American thing I can think of comparing it to would be hanging a giant campaign poster off the washington monument, the white house, or the capitol building.

3) Is it really acceptable for christians (or perhaps secret muslims) to be wearing yarmulkes and rolling prayers into the wall of the holiest temple is Judiasm? Perhaps it is common and I am simply ignorant, but I doubt it (more doubt on the first than the second).

Also, here is a good summarry about the issue closest to Barak Obama's heart. Almost a shame it has to come from Charles Krauthammer.

Charlie Rangel Wants Me To Be A Slave

2008-07-23T16:56:00.002-05:00

While I thoroughly appriciate the irony of a black man pushing a national slavery bill (with the help of Obama and the moral support of McCain), I would really prefer that Mr. Rangel be ironic in a way that did not imply that I am the property of the federal government and entirely subservient to its whims. This goes beyond partisanship-- This is the worst idea to be floated in this republic since the draft, no since the Dredd Scott decision.

Volokh explains it here(I), here(II), and here(III).

Be Warned

2008-07-22T23:23:00.001-05:00

Time Warner Cable Customers-- Be very careful before you sign your next contract. There may be usage caps so low that going to youtube becomes a hassle.

Barakism watch

2008-07-22T20:43:00.000-05:00

"Israel is a strong friend of Israel's,"- I would sure hope so.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080722221541.itdi1dcz&show_article=1

Send in any more Barakisms.

Worrying

2008-07-21T19:14:00.003-05:00

This is not a new development, but it cannot bode well for our republic.

Forecasting

2008-07-21T19:14:00.002-05:00

Economic forecasting is largely indistinguishable from fantasy, and this number will probably be the upper bound, but here is a forecast of Q2 GDP +3%. I predict that if GDP figures get anywhere near this for Q2, the media will treat it as a fluke and the "recession" will continue until a democrat is elected (at which point we will have 4-8 years of "prosperity" no matter how bad the economy actually does).

Outsourced To A Real Economist

2008-07-21T12:18:00.001-05:00

Democrats cut spending (dont get used to it).

Two links

2008-07-20T21:02:00.003-05:00

Here are two fun links that fairly well speak for themselves.

Coyote on how Walmart (not wal-mart anymore) increases small business activity in communities it enters.

Here is Tyler Cowen on the positive effects of the slowdown.

Bonus Third Link: possibly interesting restaruant in NY.

The Economics Party

2008-07-20T19:07:00.002-05:00

This has been sitting on my desktop for a week now, so I better get to it.

Scott Adams is a genius. In May he proposed starting an "economics party" that did not have any platform except for what a poll of economists agreed on. He has since commissioned such a poll, with results expected in a few weeks. As a preliminary guess, he postulates that the platform would look like this:
- Withdraw from Iraq
- More aggressive energy policy (back off on ethanol)
- More sane tax policies
- Limited government
- Legalize doctor assisted suicide
- Keep abortion legal
- Decriminalize marijuana
- Strong education policy
Of that, I would say that, if you were to take a 75% cutoff threashold for inclusion in the platform, you would only see "Back off ethanol" (but no more coherant energy policy), tax simplification, "limited government" (if nothing more specific was offered), drug legalization, and a "strong education policy" (again, only if nothing more specific was offered).

Then, last week or so, Greg Mankiw (a real live economist) posits the hypothetical platform of his economist party. On the list:
- Support Free Trade
- Oppose Farm Subsidies
- Leave Oil Companies And Speculators Alone
- Energy Tax
- Raising The Retirement Age
- Invite More Skilled Immigrants
- Liberalized Drug Policies
- More Funds For Economic Research
Humourously, the only place where these two see that all economists agree is on drug policy. However, there are a few places where I think Dr. Mankiw (on the conservative end of the mainstream) mistakes his own opinions for ones generally held among economists. Raising the retirement age is not universally seen as the best solution to the entitlement crisis, or even as a desireable solution among both those who see no social security crisis (much more prevalent than the media would let you think, Paul Krugman being an outspoken advocate of this) and those who would see all entitlements privatized in some way. Also, his vision of "energy tax" is not one shared by all economists, some because they prefer cap-and-trade solutions and some because they oppose government solutions to global warming (there are legitimate reasons for this, which will not be discussed here).

Also, for those who don't follow Dr. Mankiw, a few clarifying points may be in order. When he says "energy tax" he really only means a carbon tax to price the negative externalities of global warming. When he says lay off the oil companies, he means this specifically in response to the congressional hearings on speculators and gouging.

Obama's Anger Issues

2008-07-20T09:51:00.002-05:00

Obama, the bipartisan love fest encapsulated in a single man, has anger issues. Here is a new story about Obama's carefully hidden temper.

McCain has a famous temper as well, but at least it is both well known and not directly contradictory to his central message. I don't know how you can achieve broad, bipartisan consensus while threatening to kill other legislators, which is probably part of the reason Obama has accomplished so little in congress.

When you know as little about a candidate as we do about Obama, every hypocracy and tendancy to violent tempers needs to weigh heavily on the mind. After all, what if he and say, gordon brown, were to get into a serious disagreement. Could Obama be trusted not to threaten the death of a foriegn leader?

another link

2008-07-20T00:39:00.002-05:00

There will come a time when I will be able to post more, but that time is not today.

Until then, here is a meter showing how much money the Texas legislature spends every second. As you watch, think of how quickly the amount you payed got eaten up.

Sentance of the Day

2008-07-19T15:35:00.001-05:00

"This leaves a long and impressive list of white men" From The Economist's Lexington Column.

Batman is Amazing

2008-07-18T18:55:00.001-05:00

Drop what you are doing and go see batman. right now. that was almost certainly the best film I have seen in my life. stop reading this. go. now.

Note To Scifi Fans

2008-07-18T08:27:00.005-05:00

Tor.com, one of the larger publishers of scifi/fantasy, has been putting out free books, one per week, through email. When they launch thier new site on the 20th, all those books will be briefly available for free for download. I will post a reminder on Sunday, but in the meantime, here are reviews of some of the books (which vary greatly in quality).

Homeland Security Paper

2008-07-18T08:27:00.001-05:00

This is a real analysis of the homeland security situation in America. Sadly, I do not think a single reccommendation of this will ever be adopted.

Why I Like John McCain

2008-07-16T20:00:00.001-05:00

On Energy:

Government intervention, whether through more regulations or more subsidies (or both), hurts consumers in the end. The free market, driven by consumer choice and reflecting the real cost of resources, should be the foundation of America’s energy policy. The federal government should eliminate restrictions that inhibit energy production, as well as all special privileges for the production of politically-favored fuels, such as ethanol.

On Welfare:

Government should stop acting as the welfare agency of first resort under the guise of providing social insurance. In general, private charity should be the first resort for anyone in need. The process of welfare reform begun by Congress in 1996 should be continued to reduce even further people’s dependence on Washington. In 2007, for example, Americans gave more than $300 billion to charity, an increase over 2006 despite growing economic uncertainty. Government should eliminate regulatory barriers that inhibit private philanthropy, and expand tax deductions to encourage charitable giving.

On Spending:

Every area of federal spending can and should be cut. Entitlements must be reformed and welfare should be cut, including subsidies for business sometimes called corporate welfare... Needless, duplicative, and wasteful programs... should be terminated...

Controlling government spending is a necessary step to enact true tax reform, which will reduce the burden on all Americans and allow them to keep more of their hard-earned money...

Capitalism is the only economic system that rewards risk, protects individual liberty, and furthers economic freedom. America will be most prosperous and free when the government stops interfering with private economic decision-making.

On Health Care:

Our health care policy should be reformed based on the principle of consumer-oriented health care. Regulations which mandate insurance coverage and inflate premiums should be eliminated. Controls which unduly restrict competition within the health care industry, and that limit access to insurance across state lines, should be ended. Moreover, current tax policy, which is biased towards employer-provided, comprehensive health insurance, should be reformed, encouraging individual purchase of less costly catastrophic policies.

On Education:

The free market naturally provides both choice and competition, providing goods and services of higher quality for less expense. These principles should be applied to education. Unfortunately, the government’s near monopoly on education in the United States has seized control of our children’s education from parents, and has trapped children in failing schools across the country.

The more we increase government control over education, the bigger the problem becomes. Turning education over to the federal government, as through such legislation as the No Child Left Behind Act has not worked. Trying to fix failing schools with more money and regulations also has failed to do anything other than waste taxpayer money without results.

On Taxes:

Tax reform is desperately needed in the United States; but before we can reform the tax code, we must sharply reduce the tax burden on Americans made necessary. Second, we need a tax code that makes taxation fairer and simpler for all citizens. Meaningful tax reform begins with reining in government spending...

However, tax reform should not end at just reforming the tax code. America’s corporate income tax is among the highest in the world, putting the U.S. at an international disadvantage. The estate tax takes advantage of a person’s death. The capital gains tax discourages investment and capital formation. All of these must be reduced

On Immigration:

America has too many illegal immigrants and too few legal ones, particularly those with unique entrepreneurial, professional and scientific skills.

The government must address both immigration issues.

The border can never be completely open or completely closed. But the starting point of any immigration policy is to secure the borders to the extent possible. America needs to be able to check potential immigrants, criminal background, communicable disease and possible terrorism. Only by deterring massive illegal border crossings can the U.S. put in place a fair and enforceable legal immigration policy.

Equally important, we must end government benefits and services for illegal immigrants...

We also must transform our immigration bureaucracy and process that both impede legal immigration and encourage illegal immigration. We need to sharply increase the number of economically productive people allowed to enter the U.S. Americans benefit greatly from such immigration... English should be made the national language for government and official public business.

There is no perfect immigration reform. The government must balance security and sovereignty concerns, which necessitate controlling the border, with the economic benefits of immigration. The best policy would be to stop illegal immigrant flows while accepting more of the world’s economically productive who want to come to America.

On Marriage:

Regardless of whether one supports or opposes same sex marriage, the decision to recognize such unions ought to be made by each state rather than imposed as a one-size-fits-all mandate by the federal government. Any federal laws that prevent states from determining their own standards for marriage should be repealed; the federal government should not define marriage, whether by statute or constitutional amendment.

On the Military (not Iraq):

America should not be the world’s policeman. The American [military's] purpose is to provide a strong national defense, not to engage in nation building or to launch foreign crusades, no matter how seemingly well-intentioned...

The most effective way to preserve peace is through an expanding free market, backed by a full range of cultural and other private relationships, not by maintaining permanent military presences around the globe.

If you were getting a little suspicious near the end, that is because this is a selective sample of what Bob Barr says, and not a word comes from McCain. For a complete and unedited version of Barr's positions (and I did not cover some of them) go here. For the McCain version of each of those issues, click the headings above the various quotes. The topics don't match 1-for-1, but they should be close enough. For the full list of McCain's positions, go here.

Why did I do this? I often get asked what, exactly I believe. Since I don't have a professional writer polishing my beliefs (can you tell?) I outsourced the job to Barr, and edited the results. This edited (and somewhat less extreme) version of Barr's platform is exactly what I believe on the issues large and mainstream enough to be touched by politicians. The only reason something is not on here is either because it is too philosophical/esoteric/fundamental to be dealt with by a politician (such as the basis of morality/various advanced economics topics/abortion) or I am conceiding that I am nowhere near sufficiently qualified to form a valid conclusion on the topic (like Iraq).

Arabs are People, Too!

2008-07-16T16:36:00.000-05:00

While the last post was celebrating that which makes Arab culture special, this one is dedicated to how it is exactly like every other culture in the world. Specifically, even the Arab people are slaves to the laws of economics, and even the Arab governments can be so stupid that they forget that fact.

The UAE has instituted a price ceiling on rice to combat inflation among food stuffs. While economists don't get every call right, price controls is one thing we have a good track record forecasting. In exactly zero incidences of price ceilings, where the price ceiling has been effective (meaning both reasonably enforced on the open market and where the prevailing legal price was at the cap), have there been anything but shortages in the legitimate market and higher than normal prices on the black markets (because of the additional costs of avoiding aw enforcement). Here the premium seems only to be 20%, but that is likely a result of poor enforcement, the novelty of the controls, and the size of the market (both supply and demand). Best quote "Now, it is not just a shortage of rice...we also have a black market for rice where some dealers will sell you any type of rice you want" which leads me to assume that A) there is something unsavory about certain types of rice and B) these NSFW varieties were previously prohibited. Many lolz.

Encouraged by the results of the Emirate price controls, the Kuawiti government seems to think that the best was to get chicken to the poor is to make it difficult to aquire and raise the prices.

People are everywhere and always as subject to the fundamental economic laws as they are to physical ones. Similarly, governments everywhere and always think that since they often claim to be above civil and criminal laws, they are above the laws of physics and economics. Thank God I was born in America.

"It's government's responsibility to protect people from obvious risks."

2008-07-16T15:14:00.011-05:00

Mitch Katz is not a shining example of what makes America great.

1) smoking bans infringe upon your property rights

2) it is only the government's responsibility to protect your rights from others.

3) if the risks are "obvious" then you can rest assured that people have included them in thier cost-benefit calculations (not explicitly of course, but there just the same).

Reposting This

2008-07-16T15:14:00.008-05:00

In case you didn't see it the first time:

Article from Qatar about the Indian Embassy bombing in Afghanistan-- bits the western media would have left out are bolded:

KABUL: A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the Indian embassy in Kabul yesterday, killing 41 people and wounding nearly 150 others in the deadliest attack here since the 2001 fall of the Taliban.

The blast in the heart of the city scattered human flesh in front of the embassy compound, tearing down an outside security office and part of a wall. Charred and bloodied bodies littered a road outside.

“The toll of casualties we have so far is 41 martyred and 147 wounded. Among those killed are six policemen,” Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. Many of the dead were Afghans collecting Indian visas.

The Indian embassy’s military attache and a political counsellor were killed along with two Indian guards. The body of one of the diplomats was flung onto the roof of the embassy and only found hours later, officials said.

Indian Ambassador Jayan Prasad, who was not hurt in the explosion, said the suicide attacker rammed the diplomats’ vehicle as it was entering through the gates of the embassy compound...

This is one of the reasons I read the arab press regularly. Humourously, many of the articles in these dailys show limited english vocabularies and feature frequent grammatical errors, yet descriptions of destruction and violence are among the most poetic in the language.

Now that I am learning to read Arabic, I find that these descriptions are watered down for the english version, presumably because of limited english fluency. From what little I can read, and from the pictures, many reports of violence are in fact more graphic in the original Arabic. Isn't this why Americans learn other languages; to be exposed to different points of view? :)
أحب الاخبار لااربية

Not A Barakism

2008-07-16T15:14:00.003-05:00

but interesting nonetheless. Now that the surge has undeniably succeeded, Obama has tried to remove all traces of his opposition to the surge from his website. Sadly, what happens on the internet, stays on the internet. Forever.

While this notion has been examined previously, I wonder if that means that todays internet memes (lolcats, rickrolling (here for wikipedia explanation)) will stay around forever. While goatse has vanished (I will not link that) I suspect that the reason is because it was too extreme even for the internet.

My prediction-- in 10 years people will still be lolcatting and rickrolling, partly because of the inertia, partly because there are new generations entering the internet constantly, and partly for some unexplained thing that makes teh biggest internet memes exist in perpetuity.

I got off track here a bit. What I am trying to say is "Send me any and all Barakisms so that they may exist on the internet in perpetuity".

Happy Cost Of Government Day

2008-07-16T15:14:00.002-05:00

Not Tax Freedom Day, that was on April 23rd. That was when you had paid the full tax burden assigned by the federal government. Today is when you have paid the full cost of state, federal, and local government, assuming there was no deficit spending. Thats right-- while the federal government only takes up about 1/3 of GDP ("only"), putting America at one of the less burdensome governments in the developed world, when you account for state and local spending you find that 53.9% of all spending in the US is done by some government agency.

How could you ever say that we live in a free country, when more than half of GDP is dominated by government spending? Happy Cost Of Government Day, may they rot in hell.

Official Obama Jokes

2008-07-15T19:13:00.005-05:00

Andy Borowitz just released a "press release" from the Obama campaign detailing the five approved jokes that can be made about Obama. The best one-- "A Christian, a Jew and Barack Obama are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. Barack Obama says, “This joke isn’t going to work because there’s no Muslim in this boat.”" All a good.

Reminder: Still collecting Barakisms. email me every misstatement you have ever seen or heard of Obama making.

Until This Stops, Palestine Can Never Become A State

2008-07-15T19:13:00.002-05:00

While I have no problem with the death penalty, I do have a problem with imposing the death penalty for "alerting authorities as to the whereabouts of militants". While it is often difficult to distinguish between a state and a mafia, this crosses the line and attacks the very legitimacy of the state the palistinans are trying to form.

This Does Not Get Said Enough

2008-07-14T16:51:00.003-05:00

Hypocracy is one thing, and generally bad. Flip-flopping, however, is not nearly as bad as is made out to be. Changing your mind is the rational response to new information. While it is certainly possible for flip-flopping to be excessive, or bad, generally a little more tolerance for it would do America good. For instance, McCain threw out his gas tax holiday plan without really thinking about it. I suspect, however, that the only reason he doesn't back away from it at this point is to bolster his image as a stick to your guns sort of fellow. While having sticky guns is generally a good thing, doing it when you are clearly wrong is not.

Frankly, I am trying to say what Arnold Schwartzenegger is saying. While I don't like all of the directions he has gone, he has been responsibly flexible and shown an ability to move in the direction the facts (both scientific and political) seem to lead.

More Hypocracy From Barak

2008-07-14T12:08:00.007-05:00

Reminder-- Still looking for Barakisms.

Not a barakism, but still a wonderful example of how Obama really isn't any different from any other liberal politician. Obama, a strong opponent of vouchers and private schools, sends both his daughters to a $20,000 per year private middle school. If I could afford it and had children, I would certainly try to send them to a private school, but I also support vouchers and general privatization of the education system. I could imagine someone disagreeing with me on the second part, but not if they send their children to private school.

Economist Poll

2008-07-14T12:08:00.004-05:00

Scott Adams has comissioned a poll of economists out of his vast personal fortune. This is especially timely for reasons that are explained in a post I haven't finished yet, but hopefully will tonight or tomorrow. Until then, I am tagging this so I will remember to post when the results come in.

I vaugely remember reading an official study about the political opinions of economists, but I cannot remember the source.

Lunchtime Capitalism Celebration

2008-07-14T12:08:00.001-05:00

This is good.

Though, when you think that Oil has had 100 years of innovation behind it, and wind only a few decades, it isn't quite that surprising. Still, a good read.

Age at the Fair

2008-07-13T21:48:00.003-05:00

Beloit Riverfest was in town, which featured carnival rides and aging rockers.

Just got back from seeing the Beach Boys, or more correctly, the beach boy, since only Brian Wilson (the high pitched one) is left. While it was good to have seen them in concert before they are all dead, it wasn't worth the $13 dollars. Brian Wilson sounded really bad. He still got up to the high pitches, but he couldn't hit the notes, and the long oooo's were physically painful. Maybe its a good thing that most rockers die young. Bad image of the day: could you imagine what kurt cobain would have sounded like if he kept touring (and living) at 80?

Other age related anecdote: Spent friday afternoon at the carnival part of the party, where they had machines that would spin you every which way imaginable at remarkable speeds. After riding the ride which spun you against a pad, where you would reach three or four G's from the centrifugal force, twice, I was standing in line with a friend for a different ride. I could barely stand up from motion sickness (and still in line for something that would make me more motion sick, but in a different way) and I tell my friend "oh, man, I feel old". Then a small girl, perhaps 5 or 6 turns around and informs me "but you are old." For those who don't know me, I was not bothered by that comment becuase I am a 40 year old with a seriously inflated inner child-- I'm 19. I can't be old yet. Though, in fairness, I do know where the girl was coming from.

Go Here

2008-07-13T13:55:00.002-05:00

Not sure why I am posting this, except it has a picture of Bob Barr and Uga (the U. Georga mascot dog). Click Here.

The Number 1 Global Poverty Reduction Method

2008-07-12T16:02:00.001-05:00

Become an American! Wage premiums range from 130% to 840%. The entire article is short, and recommended.

Note On Poverty In America

2008-07-12T15:57:00.002-05:00

In America, the poor go to wal mart. In China, the rich do.