October 28, 2012
Yup. Nastiest political rhetoric ever. Or not.
October 24, 2012
Persuading Michigan voters to refuse a new free bridge to Canada
The announcement back in June must have appeared too good to be true: a new bridge between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario to be completely funded by Canada. Michigan voters are being urged to refuse the deal:
Canada, understand, has agreed to pay for the bridge in full, including liabilities — and potential cost overruns — under an agreement that was about a decade-in-the-making and officially announced to much fanfare, at least on the Canadian side of the border, by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in Windsor/Detroit in mid-June.
For Michigan, it is a slam-dunk arrangement. As Mr. Norton told one audience: ‘‘If this proves to be a dumb financial decision, it’s on us, not on you.’’
It’s a free bridge, a vital new piece of publicly owned infrastructure — for both countries — and yet one that is in grave danger of being demolished before construction even begins when Michigan voters head to the polls for a ballot initiative attached to the Nov. 6 elections.
[. . .]
Manuel (Matty) Moroun, an 85-year-old self-made billionaire who owns the 83-year-old Ambassador Bridge, is Cynic-in-Chief. The Ambassador is currently the only transport truck-bearing bridge in town. Twenty-five percent of Canadian-American trade, representing about $120-billion, flows across it each year.
It is a perfect monopoly for the Moroun family, a golden goose that just keeps on laying eggs, putting upwards of $80-million a year in tolls, duty free gas and shopping sales in their pockets. Allowing a Canadian-financed competitor into the ring without a fight isn’t an option.
October 21, 2012
Nick Gillespie: A libertarian appreciation for the late George McGovern
George McGovern will, unfortunately, be best known to most people as the poor beggar who lost the 1972 election to Richard Nixon in a blowout. Nick Gillespie says there was much more to McGovern than just being on the wrong side of an electoral landslide:
McGovern’s early criticism of the Vietnam War (he first spoke against it as a newly elected Democratic senator from South Dakota in 1963) was out of step with a bipartisan Cold War consensus that smothered serious debate for too long.
Yet when you take a longer view of his career — especially after he got bounced from the Senate in 1980 during the Republican landslide he helped create — what emerges is a rare public figure whose policy positions shifted to an increasingly libertarian stance in response to a world that’s far more complicated than most politicians can ever allow.
Born in 1922 and raised during the Depression, McGovern eventually earned a doctorate in American history before becoming a politician. But it was as a private citizen he became an expert in the law of unintended consequences, which elected officials ignore routinely. He came to recognize that attempts to control the economic and lifestyle choices of Americans aren’t only destructive to cherished national ideals, but ineffective as well. That legacy is more relevant now than ever.
[. . .]
In a 1997 New York Times op-ed article, he emphasized that simply because some people abuse freedom of choice is no reason to reduce it. “Despite the death of my daughter,” he argued, “I still appreciate the differences between use and abuse.” He rightly worried that lifestyle freedom, like economic freedom, was everywhere under attack: “New attempts to regulate behavior are coming from both the right and the left, depending only on the cause. But there are those of us who don’t want the tyranny of the majority (or the outspoken minority) to stop us from leading our lives in ways that have little impact on others.”
McGovern believed that attempts to impose single-value standards were profoundly un-American and “that we cannot allow the micromanaging of each other’s lives.” But as governments at various levels expand their control of everything from health-care to mortgages to the consumption of soda pop and so much more, that’s exactly what’s happening.
UN to deploy international monitors during US elections
The UN has become so concerned about claims that voting in the United States is corrupt that it will deploy international observers during the US elections:
United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner on democratization and human rights projects, will deploy 44 observers around the country on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places.
Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.
Update, 23 October: Among the observers will be Azerbaijani and Kazakhstani representatives, and some of the places being monitored include places like Concord, NH and Tallahassee, FL:
For example, Aida Alzhanova of Kazakhstan will be monitoring in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Phoenix, Arizona. Elchin Musayvev from Azerbaijan will be monitoring in Concord, New Hampshire.
[. . .]
Other U.N. targets include Richmond (VA), Harrisburg (PA), Raleigh (NC), Austin (TX), Des Moines (Iowa), St. Paul, (Minn.), Topeka (KS), and Tallahassee (FL).
October 17, 2012
October 15, 2012
Crony capitalism: a bipartisan plague
Veronique de Rugy writes about the problem both major US political parties have (and neither really wants to get rid of):
In his 1986 memoir The Triumph of Politics, former Reagan administration budget director David Stockman wrote: “I had long insisted, to any liberals who would listen, that the supply-side revolution would be different from the corrupted opportunism of the organized business groups; that it would go after weak [corporate welfare] claims like Boeing’s, not just weak clients such as food stamp recipients. Giving the heave-ho to the well-heeled lobbyists of the big corporations who keep the whole scam alive would be dramatic proof that we meant business, not business-as-usual.”
After four years as the Reagan administration’s fiscal whiz kid, Stockman left, objecting to the president’s inability or unwillingness to make good on his promises to cut government spending. Crony capitalism, having avoided a showdown with a principled adversary, has thrived ever since.
Cronyism is the practice by which government officials — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives — give preferential treatment to particular firms or industries in exchange for votes, campaign contributions, or the pleasure of promoting pet projects. Favored companies reap financial rewards, reduce their exposure to risk, and gain an advantage over rivals who don’t get the same government help.
[. . .]
Corporate double dipping isn’t new. Bipartisan federal, state, and local support for the “weak claims” of corporations has been going on for far more than 30 years, and not just in new and exotic industries such as alternative energy. The target of David Stockman’s ire, aerospace giant Boeing, continues to receive almost unfathomably huge direct and indirect subsidies from the federal government. Ninety percent of the value of the loan guarantees issued by the Export–Import Bank in 2011 went to subsidize Boeing. As a result, Carney reports, Boeing “accounted for 45.6 percent, or $40.7 billion, of Ex-Im’s total exposure in fiscal 2011.” With the help of federal guarantees, the company gained contracts from the likes of Air China and Air India.
Boeing shows its gratitude to taxpayers by overcharging them at every turn. The nonprofit Project on Government Oversight recently reported that “Boeing charged the U.S. Army $1,678.61 for a plastic roller assembly that could have been purchased for $7.71 internally from the Department of Defense’s own supplies. In another transaction, a thin metal pin worth 4 cents that the Pentagon had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, ended up costing the Army $71.01 — a markup of more than 177,000 percent.” The watchdog group’s investigation found that Boeing overcharged the Army nearly $13 million in dozens of transactions, jacking up the price on small, mundane parts and in some cases charging thousands of times more than they were worth. What Stockman called the “corrupted opportunism of the organized business groups” has become business as usual.
October 14, 2012
Gary Johnson interview in Salon
He’s showing his bipartisan disdain for both of the leading candidates in the election:
We’re in debate season. You’re not on the stage, but what might we hear from you if you were?
Well, I would not bomb Iran. I would get out of Afghanistan tomorrow, bring the troops home. I believe that marriage equality is a constitutionally guaranteed right. I would end the drug wars. I would advocate legalizing marijuana now. I would have never signed the Patriot Act. I would have never signed the National Defense Authorization Act allowing for arrests and detainment of you and me as U.S. citizens without being charged. I believe we need to balance the federal budget now and that means a $1.4 trillion reduction in federal spending now. When it comes to jobs, I’m advocating eliminating income tax, corporate tax, abolishing the IRS, and replacing all of that with one federal consumption tax. In this case, I am embracing the FairTax. I think that that’s really the answer when it comes to American jobs. In a zero corporate tax rate environment, if the private sector doesn’t create tens of millions of jobs, then I don’t know what it takes to create tens of millions of jobs.
So I think big differences between me and these two guys [Obama and Romney]: They’re on stage debating who’s going to spend more money on Medicare when we have to slash Medicare spending or we’re going to find ourselves with no health care at all for those over 65. And Medicare, very quickly, is a benefit that we put $30,000 in and get $100,000 out. It’s not sustainable and it has to be addressed. None of this is sustainable. None of it. I think we all recognize that we’re in deep trouble and we’re going to need to make some mutual sacrifices on all of our parts. But I just saw the whole debate thing as head in the sand, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy — they’re all coming, don’t worry.
October 12, 2012
McArdle: Biden won debate, but constantly risked going “full frontal jackass”
I didn’t watch either the Presidential or Vice-Presidential debates, but Megan McArdle seems to have the most even-handed analysis of the Veep sock-fest:
Biden launched into the eye rolling and the smirking, the head shaking and the laughing, and of course, the constant interrupting, nearly as soon as Ryan started talking. I assume that means it was part of their debate coaching. I mean, I don’t think that he intended to come off as an obnoxious eighth grader heckling a classmate, or to actually shout himself hoarse with his constant interruptions. I’d guess they told him to come across as genially disappointed, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, and he kind of went off the rails.
Both candidates looked far overcoached for this debate; you could hear the hesitations as they desperately tried to overstuff their responses with canned lines. And that overcoaching showed up in their demeanor. Paul Ryan was speaking so slowly that it sometimes sounded as if he was reading off a teleprompter set at half speed; this made him seem uncertain of his memorized answers, not deliberate. And Biden — well, we seemed to be watching him going through a second puberty, complete with voice changes.
Yet I suspect that MSNBC was right: this was what the Democratic base wanted to see. Yes, they also wanted to hear him defend their issues. But they already agree with him on the issues. Their biggest desire was just for someone to express their disdain for the Republican Party, and particularly its rising young star — to display their collective contempt in a public venue. I’m not sure exactly why this is so important, but I seem to recall that the same dynamic from Republicans in 2004. There’s a lesson there about where American politics is headed, and it’s a pretty grim one.
[. . .]
But unfortunately I thought Biden threw that away that lead with his behavior. It’s hard to get enthusiastic about a candidate who apparently might go full frontal jackass at any moment. I’ve seen a bunch of progressives dismiss this as conservative carping, but watching CNN’s ticker of undecided voter sentiment, it seemed to me that every time Joe Biden started talking over Paul Ryan, Ryan’s ratings went up. And it was the first thing that the CNN hosts, most of whom I guarantee are not Romney/Ryan voters, commented on. The panels of undecided voters also brought it up — and none of them said, “It made Vice President Biden seem really authoritative and in control”. Some of the commentary this morning seemed so suggest that if progressives just insist sufficiently loudly that it was awesome, everyone else will have to agree. I think this rather overestimates both the ability to “work the refs” in the media, and also, the power of doing so.
October 10, 2012
October 9, 2012
October 8, 2012
October 7, 2012
Libertarian propaganda appears even in video games like Minecraft!
Those evil Ayn Rand types are fitting their loathsome philosophy into everything! It’s even shown up in otherwise wholesome areas like video games:
I just realized that this has been nibbling at the back of my mind for some time: Minecraft may be a very subtle (and probably unintentional) piece of propaganda that could corrupt people into believing in Objectivist or libertarian/anarchocapitalist ideas. For those not familiar with political theory in this vein, one of the popular libertarian metaphors is that of resources as sand on a beach, and that there are so many grains of sand that no one should need to share, because they can just go out and get more sand.
Nowhere is this ideology more present than in Minecraft. You are a single individual, gendered male, who is placed randomly in a wilderness. You are able to fashion tools from only that which surrounds you. At first you can only build primitive tools and live in a shitty shack, but as you work more and more, you can eventually dwell in a castle. All you have to do is work hard and know what to do.
The metaphor gets even worse when we factor in monsters and villagers. Monsters are like socialist parasites — they come to attack you, and literally to parasite themselves off of you, but many of them — especially creepers — destroy your projects in trying to get at you. Think of Howard Roarke’s courtroom speech in The Fountainhead. The player in Minecraft is that quintessential builder-architect who discovered fire and was hated by others. Meanwhile, the villages — people living together in communities — can never aspire to the kinds of feats that the player can, and they exist only as resources to be exploited. There is no moral penalty for demolishing them or for stealing.
I’m not saying Notch intends this to be the reading of Minecraft, but it’s there and it unsettles me.
October 4, 2012
Here’s a reality TV show that should exist
At Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok has a pitch for a new reality TV show that deserves a chance:
I suggest a game show, So You Think You Can Be President? SYTYCBP would have at least three segments.
Coase it Out: Presidential candidates have 12 hours to get a bitterly divorcing couple to divide their assets in a mutually agreeable manner. (Bonus points are awarded if the candidate convinces the couple to stay together.)
Game Theory: Candidates compete in a game of Diplomacy. I would also include several ringers — say Robin Hanson, Bryan Caplan and Salma Hayek. Why these three? Robin is cold, calculating and merciless — make a logical mistake and he will make you pay. Bryan is crafty and experienced. And Salma? I couldn’t refuse her anything but presidents should be made of stronger stuff so we need a test.
Spot the Fraud: Presidential candidates are provided with an economic scenario (mortgage defaults are up, hedge funds are crashing, liquidity is tight). Three experts propose plans. The candidate must choose one of the plans. After the candidate chooses, the true identities of the “experts” are revealed. One is a trucker, another a scuba diver instructor and the last a distinguished economist. Which did the candidate choose?
Entertaining? Check. Correlated with important skills for governing? Check. Can the voters tell who the winner is? Check.
