Funny Stuff My Family Sez

I come from a family of immigrants. Learning a new language is hard, but it creates some hilarious moments. On Facebook, I posted the following status update:

David Walker: "Even if they [interest rates] don’t go up, the single largest line item in the federal budget within 12 years will be interest on the federal debt -- larger than defense, larger than Medicare, larger than Social Security. And what do we get for that? Nothing."

Below it, I said, "This Halloween, I'm thinking about going as the federal debt."

A friend of mine, Ziem, responded, "Don't. You'll be gang-raped by people dressed as special interests."

I read his comment while my family and I were dining in a semi-formal restaurant with my 21 year-old cousin, my aunt, and my uncle, who were visiting from Iran. The following transcript doesn't do the scene justice, but it's the best I can do. I hope you'll be entertained as much as we were:

Me: [cracking up]

Everyone: "What's so funny?"

Me: "Um, how do I explain this? Well, let's see if he [pointing to my cousin] can understand this, because it's complicated, but at least we can test his English."

"Do you know what a budget is?

Cousin: "No."

[Parents explain what it is, he gets it]

Me: "What about a deficit?"

Cousin: "No."

[Parents explain what it is, he gets it]

Me: "Do you know what "special interests" are?"

Cousin: "No."

Dad: "We don't have those in the Iranian political process, so he won't know what that is." [Tries to explain "special interests" to my cousin]

Cousin: [smiles] "Ah, you mean like the mullahs?" [religious leaders]

Me: "Yes! Good job!" [I tell him about my status update and Halloween costume proposal]

"Do you get it?"

Cousin: "Yes."

Me: [I repeat Ziem's comment, but use "hit" instead of "g*ng r*pe."]

[Everyone laughs]

Me: "I told you 'hit,' but it's even funnier with the actual word my friend used."

Everyone: "What word did your friend use?"

Me: "Think of a word that's worse than 'hit.'"

Mom: Does it start with the letter, "f"?

Me: [caught off-guard, but manage to shake my head]

Dad: "Kill"?

Uncle: "I think I know what it is." [Turns out later that he didn't.]

Cousin: "What letter does it start with?"

Me: "Hmm, well it's two words. I don't think you'll get it, but I'll try anyway. It starts with an 'r.'"

Cousin: "R*pe?"

Me: "Yeah, but it's worse than that. Think multiple people."

Cousin: [confused] "What's the other letter?"

Me: "It starts with a 'g.'"

Cousin: "G*ngb*ng"?

Me and Dad: [start laughing hysterically]

Mom: [looks confused, turns to my cousin and asks] "What's a 'g*ngb*ng'?"

Cousin: [looks at me, starts cracking up]

Me: [I can't stop laughing and leave the table for the next 10 minutes. When I come back, no one mentions the conversation, but people are smiling.]

Random Thoughts: On Elitists and Inflation

"Liberals" and Democrats like to argue that poorer Americans vote Republican because they are misled by rich people and corporations. (See Frank Thomas's What's the Matter With Kansas, which argues that conservatives have manipulated poor people into voting for the GOP and against their own self-interests.) This smug, self-serving thesis puts liberals in a position to "help" the poor, usually through more government programs.

In reality, poorer people vote based on their economic circumstances and tend to focus on economic issues because they know the value of a dollar. In contrast, rich people's life experiences tell them that money is abundant and can be spent and created again. For example, blue state residents tend not to be offended when the federal government prints money and puts their grandchildren in debt. Unsurprisingly, West/East coast liberals (blue states) have higher salaries and earnings than Midwestern and Southern conservatives (red states).

The problem is that the perception of money as an easily renewable resource leads to inflationary policies that create higher costs of money for those on the lower end of the income scale who tend to be net borrowers of money, not lenders or large savers. (Printing more money also causes the devaluation of the dollar, decreasing the purchasing power of the poor, but that's a separate and more complicated issue).

Also, poorer people intuitively understand that injecting more money into something causes inflation. For example, if you pay LeBron James more, the cost of NBA tickets increases, because the owners have to make more money, and most businesses make more money by raising prices. For poorer people, inflation tends to show up in higher prices, making it more difficult for them to buy things (like a good seat in an NBA game).

Another example: it's much easier for poorer people to buy a decent house in a decent neighborhood if a house costs 100K and the median price is 150K, than if a house costs 400K in a neighborhood where the median price is 600K. Think about why house prices tend to be so much higher on the coasts compared to the Midwest and South, and why someone in the Midwest or South wouldn't want his/her children to pay 400K to live in a decent neighborhood. (Why increase the cost of living in a decent neighborhood if you don't have to?)

Rich people, unlike poorer people, tend to be the beneficiaries of inflation--when it happens, their salaries go up along with prices, so they notice no changes or believe they are doing even better. (Think about it: 80% of Americans would never pay $650,000 for a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in a so-so school district, but rich people in the Bay Area do this all the time and rely on continued inflation to increase their home's value.)

Bottom line: if you don't have much of something, it becomes more precious to you, and you can't stand to see too much of it being used or spent. Generally speaking, abundance mitigates caution and tends to cause inflation. Inflation tends to be bad for poorer people and good for some people, especially educated and affluent people. Therefore, poorer people tend to vote for fiscally conservative candidates because they want to keep their costs low, and they intuitively understand that more money tends to lead to higher prices.

Bonus: historically, the Democrats have favored bigger government. Well, big government costs money, and paying government workers higher salaries and expensive benefits costs money, and they both cause inflation. Inflation hurts poor people. Ergo, in most blue states where Democrats have controlled the legislature for long periods of time, it is harder for poor people to buy homes, afford to live in decent neighborhoods, etc. It's really interesting that anyone would actually think that the Democrats help the poor when it's harder in most blue states for a family making 30K to buy a home and be debt-free than it is for the same family in most red states.

Idiocracy

California-based voters who focus on social issues are like students who study hardest for the class in which they already have an A- (sociology) while ignoring the class in which they are failing (economics).

Thank You, Gov. Schwarzenegger

From SF Gate, October 4, 2010, by Bob Egelko: "The state Supreme Court upheld Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furloughs of 200,000 state employees today, saying the Legislature had ratified his decision to order workers to take three days off each month without pay." See Professional Engineers in Cal. Government v. Schwarzenegger.

From the Gov: "Today's ruling [authorizing government employee furloughs] upholds the state's actions to protect taxpayers and ensure we live within our means."

Governor, you deserve so much more credit than you have been given. When you realized the Democratic state legislature wouldn't work with you, you went to the people via the initiative process--but we failed you. Now, you are doing the best you can to prevent the unions from destroying California. You have saved us $1 billion. Thank you.

Despite this victory, I am not entirely optimistic. I know your power has limits--as it should. The Court ruled that only the Legislature can authorize the governor to cut employee pay and workweeks. I predict the Democrats will pass a law limiting your power to furlough employees in the future. More details from the decision below, courtesy of the DFEH and Director Phyllis Cheng:

On December 1, 2008 — faced with (1) a large current state budget deficit that was projected to grow to more than $40 billion by the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal year, and (2) the very serious prospect that by as early as February 2009 the state would run out of cash to pay its ordinary expenses — the Governor of California declared a fiscal emergency, called the Legislature into special session, and submitted to the Legislature a comprehensive plan to address the budget problem. The Governor’s budget plan included, among many other cost-saving features, two proposed statutory provisions that would direct the Department of Finance and the Department of Personnel Administration to implement, for the remainder of the 2008-2009 fiscal year and for the entire 2009-2010 fiscal year, a mandatory one-day-a-month unpaid furlough of most state employees employed by the executive branch, a proposal that would save the state approximately $37.5 million per month by reducing by approximately 5 percent the wages paid to each of the affected employees.

Two and one-half weeks later, on December 18, 2008, the Legislature passed its own proposed comprehensive budget legislation, comprising 15 separate budget-related bills. Among many other differences from the Governor’s proposal, the Legislature’s alternative plan did not include the Governor’s recommended furlough provision.

On December 19, 2008, the Governor issued the executive order that lies at the heart of the present litigation, instructing the Department of Personnel Administration to implement, beginning on February 1, 2009, and continuing through June 30, 2010, a mandatory two-day-a-month unpaid furlough of most state workers employed in the executive branch.

Shortly after the Governor’s issuance of this executive order, a number of employee organizations — the recognized, exclusive bargaining representatives of a majority of the workers employed by the State of California — filed three separate, but similar, lawsuits, contending that the Governor lacked authority to implement unilaterally an involuntary furlough of represented state employees that reduced such employees’ hours and earnings by approximately 10 percent. The trial court, acting on an expedited basis, treated the three cases as related, heard argument in the cases together, and thereafter issued a single ruling rejecting the broad attacks made by the employee organizations on the executive order and concluding that the Governor possessed the authority to impose the furlough in response to the fiscal emergency facing the state.

The employee organizations (hereafter sometimes referred to as plaintiffs) appealed from the trial court’s ruling. After briefing in the Court of Appeal was completed and the three cases were consolidated for purposes of oral argument and decision, but before the Court of Appeal set the matter for oral argument or issued a decision, we exercised our authority pursuant to article VI, section 12, subdivision (a) of the California Constitution to transfer the consolidated matter to this court for oral argument and decision.

For the reasons explained below, we conclude that, under existing constitutional provisions and statutes, the Governor on December 19, 2008, possessed authority to institute a mandatory furlough of represented state employees, reducing the earnings of such employees, only if specifically granted such unilateral authority in an applicable memorandum of understanding entered into between the state and the employee organization representing the affected employees. Although there is considerable doubt whether the applicable memoranda of understanding granted the Governor such authority, we further conclude that even if the Governor lacked authority to institute the challenged furlough plan unilaterally, plaintiffs’ challenge to the furlough plan now before us must be rejected. In mid-February 2009 — shortly after the furlough program went into effect — the Legislature enacted, and the Governor signed, legislation that revised the Budget Act of 2008 (2008 Budget Act) by, among other means, reducing the appropriations for employee compensation contained in the original 2008 Budget Act by an amount that reflected the savings the Governor sought to obtain through the two-day-a-month furlough program. The February 2009 legislation further provided that the specified reduction in the appropriations for employee compensation could be achieved either through the collective bargaining process or through “existing administration authority.” That phrase, in the context in which the revised budget act was adopted and in light of the provision’s legislative history, reasonably included the furlough program that was then in existence and that had been authorized by the current gubernatorial administration. In particular, the bill analyses considered by the Legislature made specific reference to furlough-related reductions of employee compensation costs. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the Legislature’s 2009 enactment of the revisions to the 2008 Budget Act operated to ratify the use of the two-day-a-month furlough program as a permissible means of achieving the reduction of state employee compensation mandated by the act.

Accordingly, we conclude that the 2009 budget legislation validated the Governor’s furlough program here at issue, and reject plaintiffs’ challenge to that program.

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S183411.PDF

Social Rights v. Economic Rights

I had a very long debate about social rights and economic rights. It involved a philosophical debate about whether social rights--such as being able to call your relationship a "marriage"--and economic rights--such as a job--are equally important.

Me: I got a very smart liberal Democrat to say that letting a child die was the same thing as denying gay couples the right to call their union a "marriage." I asked him, "If you had to choose between a job and feeding your kids (economic rights) and gay marriage (social rights), does one trump the other?" He said they were equally important--even after I explained that one scenario would cause a child to die.

For many so-called liberals, human beings and property rights are mere obstacles to their version of a more fair and just society.

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasions of their liberty--by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." -- Justice Louis Brandeis

Alicia: Everyone thinks they're right.

Me: except that the point of being a true conservative or classic liberal is that you cannot trample someone else's property rights or right-to-life to get a desired result (assuming the person has achieved his property legally and you are not acting in self-defense).

Ivie: your analogy is flawed!

Me: flawed how? I understand that the choice offered is not ideal, and in an ideal world, we should have both social and economic rights; however, this is a philosophical exercise. The whole point of a philosophical exercise is to present tough choices to determine a person's values.

Alicia: What are the rates of child deaths by hunger in the United States? Would job creation really stop the problem of hunger in the US? Would the same children at risk of dying of hunger before jobs are created still be at risk after job are created? Is the issue of hunger in the US more important than it is in other countries? Does the severity of the issue in developing nations make it more pressing to deal with the problem there, first?

Me: you are injecting several other factors into the question, which was originally intended to force someone to choose between two clearly defined choices that involve different values.

Alicia: Life doesn't work like that, though. What's the point in having to pick between two clearly defined choices when that's never the case?

Me: to determine someone's value system and to determine a baseline to analyze more complex issues. We live in an imperfect world, and sometimes we must choose between two imperfect or non-ideal scenarios.

Alicia: There's this exercise we do a lot with the group I work with where you figure out what element (Thai people use animals) you are. I still haven't decided what I think of the activity, but it kind of seems like you just end up putting yourself in a box. I'm not sure if I agree with activities that involve strict yes or no, you are this or you aren't. I think analyzing more complex issues would give you a pretty good baseline, too.

Me: think about Kant and the categorical imperative. You have to analyze different situations and tough either/or scenarios to arrive at a consistent baseline.

Alicia: Why is there a need to come to a consistent baseline? Why do I have to always think that one thing is better than the other? Why wouldn't someone be able to call themselves a liberal without subscribing to all its ideologies? What's the measure of what's right and wrong? Is there anything that's truly good or bad, true or false? I think there's a big difference between sitting around and intellectualizing things and real life. You can consistently hold opinions that point to non violence and an aversion to killing, but if it comes down to a real life situation where you might have to kill someone (for whatever reason), then who really knows what you'd do. The Milgram experiment shows that what people think they'd do, want to do is different than what they'd actually do.

Just as not having a job MIGHT end in the death of a child, not helping to promote inclusion through policies like allowing gay marriage MIGHT end in death as well.

Me: except that your two scenarios are not at all similar, and therefore you miss the point of my original question. If you do not have a job, you cannot earn a living, and you cannot typically feed your child. It is true that perhaps welfare will allow your child to survive, but some countries lack welfare programs and food stamps. To determine a universal set of values, you cannot require that your child will be born in a first world country, b/c you would be imposing a random, lucky element in a discussion about universal values.

Once you apply Rawls' "veil of ignorance," and agree that you cannot predict whether you will be in California or Uganda, the possibility of welfare and other avenues of survival become less certain. But whether in CA or Uganda, someone with a job and source of income has a much higher (tho not 100%) chance of improving his/her child's chances of survival. It should be obvious that jobs require money and money requires goods, and goods involve food, etc. In other words, the existence of jobs requires a minimum level of infrastructure, and once you admit the existence of infrastructure, jobs have a direct value on survival.

At the same time, one can easily argue that gay marriage, whether in California or Uganda, will have little impact on being able to feed a child. This is b/c whether in California or Uganda, one does not have to be married to a man or a woman to feed a child. Thus, the presence or absence of gay or heterosexual marriage is irrelevant when it comes to feeding a child in California or Uganda. In contrast, a job presumes infrastructure and certainly improves the chances of buying food, whether in CA or Uganda.

Therefore, the situations are obviously different, and the attempt to make them appear similar is incorrect. Social values tend to be emphasized by rich, affluent people (if you are American, you are richer than 99% of the world). Poor people care about survival, not social values. If you want more social values, you have to give people jobs first, and the social values follow. In short, economic values are a good indicator of social values, and I believe that economic values are the foundation for social values--and not the other way around.

That is the point of the question: to test whether someone believes that gay marriage, by itself and in the abstract, creates stability and infrastructure--which of course it does not. In contrast, a job and money require certain basic infrastructure. Assuming basic infrastructure, a person with a job has a directly improved chance of improving his progeny's survival, whereas the abstract value of (gay) marriage is an idea that bears no direct relationship to survival or childbearing. In fact, once you realize marriage itself--whether hetero or gay--has little direct bearing on a child's survival, it is easy to see that economic values are more important than social values.

Maris: Wow. As a liberal parent, even I have to say there is definitely a hierarchy in democratic causes. Geesh.

Me: Maris, you have (indirectly) hit the nail on the head. I have found that the main difference on various issues is the presence of children. People with kids tend to have more common sense on these issues, perhaps because they must think about the future. My hypothesis is that the greatest danger to civilization is childless humans, b/c to them, it is easier to see society as a vehicle for advancing social causes instead of a unique, fragile infrastructure.

Maris: Perhaps it's the job. It's pounded into us "life over property" over and over and over again. By chance does this friend have kids?

Me: all the people in the room who said that social values were equal to economic values were child-less. The two people who had children did not answer my question.

Alicia: I think if you're going to answer this question straight, the only way to answer it is in terms of the United States. The policies of different countries are far too different to be able to compare them. The topic of gay marriage in the U.S. is far different than in Uganda. I don't think you can say that because looking at economic needs in Uganda is more important, that the same could be said in the US. There are different priorities and different needs. It would be like looking at a school in a impoverished area and one in a rich area and saying that because the poor school needs computers, so does the rich school.

Also, I think that a child's survival does have something to do with marriage. By furthering the cause of gay marriage, then you're indirectly furthering the cause of gay adoption, allowing children access to home and survival they might not have had otherwise. By putting children into loving homes, you're helping to end the cycle of poverty that would end up putting more children in danger of starvation.

But, that's not to say I think that one is more important than the other. It's to say that different situations deserve different thought, and that, for me, the situation can't be clean cut. There are a million different ways to look at that question, and I personally wouldn't want to look at it terms of only have one right answer.

I also think that it's not so much about having children as it is about looking outside of yourself. I think having children helps people to realize the need to protect more than themselves. However, I think it's just as bad to think about just your family as it is to think about yourself. Never said it wasn't understandable, but shouldn't be the goal.

Me: as far as I know, you don't need to be married to adopt in California. See California Family Code 297.5.

Also, I will accept your "American" restriction. Please answer the following question: an American adult is malnourished. Which is more important to him? Gay marriage or a job that will allow him to make money and buy food? (Economic infrastructure that allows him to get food from welfare programs, or the abstract right to get married as a gay or straight person?)

Alicia: But, it's not legal for gay couples to adopt children in all US states. The question wasn't asked in terms of California.

And, of course, to someone directly affected by poverty, their most important issue is going to be getting food. But that doesn't mean that gay marriage issues aren't valid in their own right. The point I'm trying to make is that both issues are valid. And in certain instances, they both take a more important role. I don't believe that one is always more correct than the other.

I think more important than economic or social reform is educational reform, as it has an effect on all areas of society. By improving education, you're not only creating a less impoverished society, but one that is more willing to accept all types of lifestyles.

Me: you said, "And, of course, to someone directly affected by poverty, their most important issue is going to be getting food."

I was getting worried there :-) Of course in an ideal world, we want both social and economic rights--but no one in their right mind thinks that economic rights are the same as social rights in every instance. Even though it took about ten tries, you've passed the test of common sense, and you don't even have any kids :-)

And I agree with you re: educational reform, but that's a topic for another time.

Me: 1. Who voted for Prop 8? Most affluent Bay Area DINKs, or most poorer Central Valley folks?

2. Who cares more about gay marriage? Affluent Swedes (who have wonderful infrastructure) or members of the Taliban (who are located in areas without economic infrastructure)?

3. Please cite a single place without economic infrastructure and/or affluence that has advanced or supported gay rights.

4. Whom amongst you is willing to say that a poor Somali or American who lacks food believes that jobs and economic infrastructure are equal in importance to the idea of gay marriage?

Patrick: ‎"this is a philosophical exercise. The whole point of a philosophical exercise is to present tough choices to determine a person's values."

So is the question, "would you rather be burned alive, or frozen in a block of ice?" a philosophical question?

Why would I have to make this choice? Why must a child die in order that same sex couples might wed?

The only scenario in which this sequence might come true is a terrorist's demand: Criminalize same sex marriage, or this child gets in the head. In that event, my choice would be for a SWAT team to shoot the terrorist in the head.

Me: except that both your scenarios involve death--a tangible, real thing with the same end result. As a result, there is no real choice. In contrast, my question involves a real choice between an abstract right vs. a tangible right.

By setting up a question that involves two tangible results that are exactly the same, you've missed the whole point of the question--to differentiate between tangible rights leading to a better economic position, and abstract rights leading perhaps nowhere.

Patrick: Your point's ridiculous. But to play your game, suppose the Ku Klux Klan announced that if America does not return to segregation and Jim Crow, the Klan will hijack multiple airliners and fly them into the Empire State Building and the Washington Monument. So we must choose between loss of intangible rights and loss of tangible rights, according to the Klan.

My response would be that this is a stupid choice. Arrest the Klan.

And WHY would rejecting Proposition 8 kill a child?

Peter: I think the laws pertaining to the death of children are pretty well hammered out, whilst the laws pertaining to gay marriage are not, hence the unequal amount of attention one gets over the other. I'm not sure exactly what basis you are using to equate the two things, except that there are laws which oversee them.

Me: @Patrick and @Peter: you've missed the entire point of the exercise. Let's try again.

My scenario involves an attempt to differentiate between economic rights and social rights. We are attempting to gauge the value of a job, which leads to money and increased chances of survival vs. the abstract value of having two men or women get married. It is obvious that almost anywhere in America or elsewhere, a single person who is unmarried has similar chances of survival than a married couple (whether gay or straight). It is also obvious that marriage has little direct relevance on survival, b/c in most places, someone need not get married to have a job or to survive, even if it means stealing food.

It is also obvious that assuming basic infrastructure, having a job has direct relevance on a person's survival. Namely, a person with a job or money (tangible goods) has an increased chance of attaining food and shelter when compared to someone without a job or money.

It therefore follows that in almost all instances, someone who had to choose between a job and money vs. marriage (whether gay or straight) would rationally choose a job and money if survival were at issue.

Again, my scenario sets up a contrast between economic rights impacting survival and non-economic rights that may or may not have any impact on a person's survival. If you want to create an analogy, you must stay within those guidelines.

Your example fails to set up a situation similar to mine. Instead, you have created a situation where someone must choose between death and segregation--both of which involve tangible property/economic rights. The reason segregation was immoral and harmful to Africans wasn't because of some abstract idea--it was because segregation and Jim Crow prevented Africans from gaining the same property rights, police protection, and economic rights as white Americans. So your example compares two economic rights, one direct (right to life) and one indirect (property rights). It is not similar to my scenario and is therefore inapplicable to this discussion.

Alicia: Also, you're making the assumption that economic reform would lead to positive change. And I'm sure there were plenty of people who questioned whether the social reform of the 1910s and 60s would make a change, but I'm pretty happy that happened.

Me: Last time I checked, we were relatively affluent in the 1960's. Also, b/c we didn't have to worry about fulfilling our basic survival needs, we were able to focus on improving social ideals and social values. Which proves my point: economic values and affluence typically precede broader social values and acceptance.

Think about it: how willing were most Americans pre-WWII to accept broader social values and change? Why do Americans, even today, go anti-immigrant whenever there's a recession? Why are more affluent areas in America more open to immigrants and diverse lifestyles than poorer areas?

Me: @Patrick: there's another issue you've missing: most Americans today don't care much about marriage as they used to. Therefore, a married person, whether gay or straight, has little advantage over an unmarried person in modern-day America. Which, of course, makes your refusal to see the difference between a job--necessary for survival and basic needs--and marriage--unnecessary for survival and basic needs--very, very troubling.

In the old days, segregation caused serious problems economically and also psychologically, because de jure segregation makes the side imposing segregation superior to the side subject to segregation. This superiority manifests itself in substantive, tangible ways that restrict economic rights.

If we were arguing about whether gay people had to attend separate schools, work in limited professions, buy houses only in specific neighborhoods, etc. this would be a completely different conversation. But we're not--we are discussing an abstract right that may have no economic impact on a person during the time he or she is alive. If you don't believe me, go outside and see if it makes any difference whether you wear your marriage ring or do not wear your marriage ring.

It should be obvious that the failure to allow (gay) marriage--which doesn't restrict most people from basic survival or a high quality of life--and the active imposition of segregation--which does harm a person's chances of affluence and a high quality of life--are completely different.

(P.S. By using scenarios that involve two economic rights rather than one abstract social right and one economic right, you implicitly accept that I am correct. In other words, you cannot even pose a question similar to mine without imposing scenarios that involve two economic rights. Therefore, you intuitively understand that a social right is worth less than an economic right...which is the entire point of this discussion.)

Peter: Well, there's a lot of ways you can look at this, but my view is pretty simple.

If you look at a married couple as an economic unit, then compare the survivability of the two people working together vs. the one person working by themselves, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a situation in which the single person has an advantage.

That being the case, and all child rearing being equal (which in reality it is of course not, but this is a thought exercise), then it would seem obvious that the couple would create a higher chance for survival of children, regardless of sex or orientation, hence a relation between economic and social rights.

Now, lets look at the other side of things. What would be the benefit, economically, of disallowing marriage between an arbitrary set of two people, based on any criteria which would exclude some portion of the population? If someone can answer that, then please do, as I cannot.

So, lets apply these values to your scenario: 1) Jobs lead to survival; 2) Gay marriage leads to social freedom. I come out with: two people with two jobs have a better chance of survival than one person with one job, and any person reliant on those people's survival will therefore have a greater chance of survival if they rely on two people rather than one.

By that reasoning, allowing any two people to get married and rear a child increases the survival rate of children, so it would seem that convincing multiple people to work as a single economic production unit has more economic benefit than denying certain people from forming such units.

I think this pretty creates a link, at least in this instance, between social liberty and economic viability.

Me: I was waiting for someone to link marriage to economic values. By creating the link, we are no longer comparing an abstract right vs. an economic right--we are comparing two economic rights.

I agree that marriage's value is only relevant to this discussion if it is linked to economic gain or loss. No sane person would equally compare an economic right to an abstract social right. You've now proved my point: abstract social rights are worth less than economic/tangible rights. Thus, in California, which already guarantees substantive equal rights to gay couples (see Family Code above) to the greatest extent possible, economic rights take precedence over abstract social rights. Remember this discussion if some misinformed person tells you s/he's voting for Candidate A over Candidate B for a California state office based on the right to gay marriage in California.

The only rational argument for social rights being equal to economic rights is if those social rights impact property rights or the right to life. That was my whole point. Why did it take this long to get here?

Tahir: Who cares more about cartoons of Mohammed published in Denmark? Affluent Swedes (who have wonderful infrastructure) or members of the Taliban (who are located in areas without economic infrastructure)? In fact, wasn't the Taliban the ones who squandered time and resources on shelling ancient statues documenting that at least some of their ancestors were Buddhists? Why weren't those shells sold in exchange for food?

Me: you've sort of helped prove my point--by disrespecting all property rights (such as the statutes they destroyed, as well as women's property rights), the Taliban demonstrates that destitute people tend not to care about social rights or economic rights. In other words, the Taliban is willing to destroy everything opposed to them, whether abstract or tangible, because their lack of an economic or social infrastructure allows them to be completely destructive without having to suffer any negative consequences. Inject religion into it, which has allowed them to make their right to life abstract, and they now have nothing to lose. The Taliban has no respect for economic or social rights, and part of their savagery is based on having no infrastructure or tangible rights, period.

The reason tangible rights mean more than abstract rights is b/c tangible economic rights give people something to lose. People with something to lose tend to care more about social rights that help preserve their property.

Tahir: Well no, the Taliban justified the action on the basis of a social right, furthering their particular set of religious beliefs despite their economic destitution.

Me: I disagree. The so-called "social rights" advanced by the Taliban involve destruction of everyone else's property and social rights. I don't think any reasonable person would argue that the right to destroy everything is a social right. That's sort of the point--the reason economic rights are superior to abstract social rights is b/c people with something tangible to lose tend to create more affluent and open societies than people with nothing tangible to lose. The basis for civilization is property and tangible economic rights, not abstract rights divorced from economic rights.

Tahir: So-called to you, established to them. You need to back up the distinction with universally applicable reasoning rather than an abstract plea of what a "reasonable person" would argue. And the Taliban certainly do not believe in destroying any one else's social rights any more than those who want to deny gay marriage to others. Where is the distinction between the two?

The starting point of a civil society is a respect for individual liberty limited to the extent it unreasonably interferes with another's liberty to arrange their social and economic affairs as they see fit.

Defining "unreasonable" is where us lawyers come in. And of course, if your "choice" is to have real world relevance, I would expect some reference to child deaths in Massachusetts that are linked to gay marriage in that state. One argument at a time no doubt.

Me: You said, "And the Taliban certainly do not believe in destroying any one else's social rights any more than those who want to deny gay marriage to others. Where is the distinction between the two?"

You're comparing people who voted for Prop 8 [to deny gay marriage] with the Taliban? You lose automatically.

Tahir: you've abandoned argument for conclusory statements. Do better and show me the steps of your reasoning.

Me: I already did explain my reasoning. The Taliban believe in nothing, and to them, even life is abstract. The Taliban show what happens when people deem abstract values the same as tangible economic values, namely, total destruction. This is b/c abstract values--when divorced from tangible economic consequences--are of course subjective. Once something is subjective, there is no basis for objective protection of tangible property rights. In contrast, a society that values tangible property rights over abstract social rights creates the necessary framework for social values.

Tahir: No, the Taliban do not "believe in nothing' and they certainly for a time created a framework for their social values (and you and I find common ground on disagreeing with those social values). Take time to think. This statement is a non-sequitur: "Once something is subjective, there is no basis for objective protection of tangible property rights." Consider instead that the absence of gay marriage bars gays from adding their partners to their health insurance. Are you trying to say that the denial of marriage to some on the basis of a subjective decision that one pair of humans should be able to cover each other on their health insurance and another pair of humans should not is a denial of a tangible economic benefit? Careful where your reasoning takes you.

Me: you just linked economic rights to social rights. That's my whole point. Social rights, in the abstract and divorced from economic rights, are inferior to tangible economic rights.

My statement re: social rights being subjective meant that social rights, in the abstract, are subjective. Which they are, of course. It is only by linking them to economic rights do they gain tangible form and equal priority with economic rights.

Tahir: Tangible economic rights are certainly of more consequence in the real world, but then I take it that if I put to you the question you posed to your smart liberal friend and explained to you in turn that the denial of gay marriage would kill another human being who could not thereby obtain employer-provided health insurance through his/her spouse that you would agree the two situations you posit are equivalent?

Me: now we're getting somewhere. First, in California, your scenario is void and inapplicable because of Family Code 297.5. But let's pretend we are in Wyoming. In that case, your analogy still isn't applicable, because American hospitals are legally required to treat everyone, regardless of marital status or sexual orientation. But let's keep going, because you're onto something here.

If you could show that the failure to obtain health insurance would definitely lead to a person's death in Wyoming, then yes, we are comparing two deaths, which implicates two economic rights. Consequently, the two situations would be equivalent. But for reasons stated above, your example doesn't apply in the United States. And if you notice, the issue, as you've now drafted it, isn't about marriage per se or the ability to call a couple "married," but the availability of health insurance to all persons--an economic issue.

You've merely linked a social right--marriage in some states--to the right to receive privately-subsidized health care. Now that we have universal health care, it's also unclear whether your analogy applies, but I do not want to be too uncharitable, b/c you have implicated an equivalent economic right--the right to life--and in doing so, have proved my point: that abstract social rights, without being linked to economic rights, are inferior to economic rights. How many times must we go around the same mulberry bush? :-)

Peter: I was only speaking to this particular scenario, in which there is a clear link between a social and economic function. I certainly would not use the same reasoning if this were two other arbitrary issues, one purely social, the other purely economic. It seems to me that society and economy are very strongly linked, especially if you consider food production to be relevant to the economy. I think from a governance perspective that you can make laws to govern economy quite easily, where laws which govern social behavior with no seeming direct impact on economy should be handled with much greater care, or in other words, there should be less of them.

This does not in any way confer a graded value system on either social or economic rights, simply on my faith in the legal system to govern those rights and ensure equality. It's easy to split a dollar in half, not so much a human.

So, I believe I can be consistent with my views on economic rights, and my views on social rights by saying there should never have been a law made which limited anyone's right to be "married" or to call it whatever they want, nor should any entity have a right to discriminate against those who are married, unless the marriage in some way impedes the rights of the entity. In other words, there should be no difference between any marriage anywhere as it applies to the state, the federal government, or any private entity operating within those boundaries. There should also be no law forcing people to accept that what they call marriage and what someone else calls marriage may not agree.

Basically, at home you can yell whatever you want at your four walls, but when you go outside of your home you have to accept that everyone has the same rights.

Alicia: I think it's definitely more of an issue than just "the right to call a relationship a marriage." There's a reason that people don't want gay marriage to be legal. It's not arbitrary. By not allowing gay people to get married, you're telling an entire group of people that they aren't allowed to do something that other people are allowed to do. If you subscribe to the belief that homosexuality isn't a choice (as I do), then it's like saying blond people can't get married. Even if you believe it's a choice and think it's immoral, it would be like saying that anyone outside of your religion couldn't get married. How do you think people would react if suddenly everyone decided Muslim people couldn't have a valid marriage in the United States?

I don't think anyone would disagree that economic issues are important. I think everyone one is trying to say that economic AND social issues are important. That you can't just abandon social reform because there are situations in which the need for economic reform might be more dire. It's not "this or that"--it's everything.

One of my favorite Buddhist ideas asks the question: What do you see when you look at a piece of paper? Buddhist belief says that it's not just a piece of paper. It's the sky, the rain, the tree, the ground, the people who cultivated it. It's everything, because everything in our world is interconnected in some way. Nothing is ever just one thing.

Me: First, please keep in mind I've already said that both social and economic rights are important. Second, we live in an imperfect world that can force us to make decisions between two inflexible scenarios, and sometimes neither scenario is ideal.

The question is what do we do when we must choose between two imperfect candidates? If Politician A has better economic ideas than Politician B, but Politician A is against gay marriage, for whom should you vote? Obviously, there are other issues besides economics and gay marriage, but we can characterize most issues as either economic or social.

My argument is that in an imperfect world--i.e., until we get a mainstream candidate who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal--we must give precedence to economic rights. In other words, when forced into a box with imperfect options, one must give precedence to economic issues, not social issues. I've shown that economic rights are superior to social rights if one must make a choice between them. Of course, whether Candidate A does indeed have superior economic ideas than Candidate B is an entirely different discussion, but it is the discussion we ought to be having.

Jon: The question itself is not designed to spur debate or evaluate the relative merits of each position on the topic you supposedly wanted to address. It's a set up so that no matter the answer, you can declare victory. Hence the only way to have a chance in the debate, logically, is to change the rules by forcing a new question so there can be real debate. Now if you had asked something like:

You are a California senator and you are late for two votes on which yours is the deciding factor, but you only have time to cast one. A bill that will cap government spending equal to inflation thus curbing tax increases, or one that will overturn prop 8 and allow gay marriage, which do you vote for thus ensuring it passes?

This is open for real debate, real support of your position etc. As neither choice is clearly right, but one is economic and one is social, it's actually a test of which you would choose.

Getting someone to admit they would rather save a baby than allow gays to marry says nothing about economic or social values, it says they aren't a psychopath.

Me: kudos on coming up with an interesting question/scenario. The point of our discussion is that the Senator should vote for or against the economic issue b/c it takes precedence over the social issue. (I actually have no problem with gay marriage, but I'm troubled by the idea of letting a court overrule the initiative process unless fundamental rights are involved. Hence, the dilemma in California, where we have FC 297.5.)
Sometimes, you are stuck with two imperfect scenarios and you have to make a choice. The issue is how we choose between two imperfect scenarios, which is similar to voting for GOP or Dem candidates, neither of whom are perfect.

So one benchmark is whether we go by social rights or economic rights. Are they equivalent, or is one superior to the other? The point of this discussion is that economic rights should trump social rights in a head-to-head collision b/c economic rights are the foundation for most social rights.

El-Erian: A Paradigm Shift

I don't know how I missed this Charlie Rose roundtable (click on the "Transcript" tab, or scroll up to see the video). It was back in February 2010, and it included Krugman, El-Erian, and David Walker, i.e., the heavyweights. Here are some excerpts:

"I think the extreme deficit that we’re dealing with now is something that came at us out of the blue resulting from a crisis in high finance, a crisis in housing, a crisis in automobiles. The private sector created a lot of the problems that’s given rise to these huge recessionary deficits."

"The way I look at it, there are really just two things that are top of the line. Everything else is secondary. First is health care. Nothing works unless you can get health care costs under control...[and second,] the bulk of it has to involve raising more revenue. "

"And I would say we’re still spending quite a lot of money to keep Soviet tanks from going across Germany, and so if we could stop doing that, that would help."

"Why is it that we want fiscal consolidation and fiscal stability? It’s a means to an end. And the end is growth, employment creation, and welfare creation. Ultimately we look for financial stability and fiscal stability because it’s a means to an end."

"Let me give you my broader take, which is that the United States does worse than anybody at controlling health care costs."

"[L]ook, we need protection against catastrophic accidents and illnesses that could wipe us out financially. It’s the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States."

"Even if they [interest rates] don’t go up, the single largest line item in the federal budget within 12 years will be interest on the federal debt -- larger than defense, larger than Medicare, larger than Social Security. And what do we get for that? Nothing." (David Walker)

"I’m really -- I really hate that calculation. I share your concerns about the long term, but I really hate that calculation. Take the Obama budget, I happen to know the numbers. It says in 10 years we will be spending 3.5 percent of GDP on interest payments. And when did we last do that? We did it when the first George Bush was president. It wasn’t catastrophic then and it isn’t catastrophic now. It’s a very misleading number in calculating the real burden." (Paul Krugman)

"Let me put it this way -- you need a situation where irresponsible rhetoric actually loses people elections. And that has not been the case in America for a while." (Krugman)

"[W]hen you add in the unfunded promises that have been made, this country is in a $60 trillion-dollar hole. Just Medicare and Social Security, pensions and health for civilians and military. That’s three times what it was when George Bush became president. The debt has doubled, more than doubled, since George Bush, this is 43, became president." (David Walker)

"It’s not that our democracy has become dysfunctional. It’s really that we’re going through a paradigm shift. We have a seen a 20 percent increase in the debt to GDP ratio in a very short period of time. We have seen unemployment go up to levels that were unthinkable and is likely to stay there. And this is in a system built on the assumption that unemployment cannot stay high for a long time. That’s why our safety nets are so weak. We have seen major questions being raised about institutions, about the Fed, about the banks. This is a paradigm shift." (El-Erian)

"Let me tell you one other thing I say to my Democratic caucus when we’re trying to pass a budget resolution, referring to the incumbents about what the rest of the world thinks of us. I tell them, if you can’t budget, you can’t govern. That’s the way it is looked upon. And if you look at other, true parliament systems is it particularly a condition or rule of the parliament, if they fail to pass the budget it’s a call for dissolution of the parliament. And frankly we should be held accountable for what we do to a far greater extent than we are." (John Spratt)

Baby Boomers are Fleecing their Kids and Grandkids

Laurence Kotlikoff is fast becoming one of my must-read authors. From a recent Bloomberg article:

Over the past five decades, our policy of taking ever larger sums from young savers and giving them to old spenders has more than doubled the ratio of average consumption of oldsters to average consumption of youngsters.

Much of this redistribution has taken place through Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Collectively, these three programs spent $1.2 trillion on the elderly last year [2009]. Their total payment per oldster equaled a whopping $30,000, which is three-quarters of U.S. per-capita income. And, about half of this total constituted Medicare and Medicaid benefits, which are provided to the elderly directly in the form of personal consumption of health-care goods and services.

The bottom line? If we are serious about reversing the decline in national saving, we need to stop expropriating the young for the benefit of the old.

Oh, the betrayal.

Reliable Net Worth Numbers?

It's difficult to analyze the average person's net worth because most of the data comes from informal surveys. In a way, it's like asking people how many times they have sex--chances are, they're going to focus on the good times and give you a higher number.

Anyway, here is one link that leads to a compilation of net worth numbers. CNN's money calculator indicates that most people making $120K a year have a $301K median net worth. When you examine the retirement account numbers below, a $301K net worth seems high, but perhaps not so unusual for a two-income family on either coast who bought their home more than ten years ago.

Bonus: according to EBRI, "More than half (56.4 percent) of those owning at least one IRA had less than $25,000 in them in 2008."

The average IRA account balance in 2008 was $54,864. Because the EBRI IRA database can aggregate multiple accounts held by one individual, the new EBRI analysis also finds the average IRA individual balance (all accounts from the same person combined within the EBRI IRA database) was significantly higher, at $69,498.

The median IRA account balance was considerably less: $15,756 per account and $20,046 per individual. Median levels mark the mid-point (half above and half below) and are less affected by outlier data.

Elsewhere on EBRI, they report that at "year-end 2007, the average account balance in the EBRI/ICI database was $65,454, compared with $61,346 at year-end 2006. 401(k) account balances varied with participant age, tenure, and salary. Individuals with account balances of less than $10,000 were primarily young workers or workers with short job tenures. In contrast, those with account balances in excess of $100,000 were primarily older workers or workers with longer job tenure."

Median 401k balances are harder to come by. According to EBRI and the Investment Company Institute, at the end of 2007, someone in his/her 50s making $60,000 - $80,000 had a median 401k balance of $160,324 and someone in his/her 50s making $80,000 - $100,000 had a median balance of $226,266.

It appears almost all Americans have most of their net worth in their homes.

David Walker, Fiscal Hero

David Walker, former comptroller of the United States, on gerrymandering: out of the 435 House of Representatives' seats, only 60 seats have any real competition. We are not a true representative democracy/republic. We need to consider political districts, campaign finance reform, and open primaries. We may also need to look at term limits.

(Elsewhere, Mr. Walker has recommended electing members of the House of Representatives to four-year terms instead of the current two-year terms to minimize 24/7 re-election efforts. He would also limit the tenure of Representatives and Senators to 12 to 18 years and even suggests electing Presidents to a single 6 or 8-years term.")

Another (paraphrased) gem, on the so-called Social Security trust fund: government uses terms in its own way, outside the Merriam-Webster definitions. For example, take "trust fund"--you can't trust it, and it's not funded.

Bonus: from Walker's book, Comeback America (hardcover, page 121): "we must realize that corporations don't really pay taxes. Rather, they pass along any tax, in the form of higher prices to consumers, lower wages to workers, and/or lower returns to shareholders."

True Patriots Don't Suffer from Blind Allegiance

I love good police officers. Good, honest cops are essential to a civilized, well-functioning society. It's the bad cops I despise--and it continues to astound me when normal people defend bad cops, as if wearing a badge is a license to do harm.

To anyone who has raised issues with corrupt police officers, only to have someone say, "Why are you criticizing the police? Don't you know they risk their lives every single day?"--I offer the following handy response:

I apologize. Any criticism of police officers, even the worst ones, is unpatriotic. Unlike mine workers, loggers, taxi drivers, pilots, construction workers, and farmers--all of whom have higher job fatality and/or injury rates--police officers risk their lives every single day.

In any case, don't assume that respect is a two-way street. Like any abusive relationship, you should not complain publicly, even if someone has done something unethical, wrong, and indecent.

Before you say anything else, remember this: America was founded on blind allegiance to executive authority. The founders clearly envisioned a country where citizens would be unable to use their free speech rights to criticize the government. I question how you were able to graduate high school without learning these basic facts about our country.

Now, the person on the other side has three options: one, say he didn't mean what he actually said, in which case you thank him for his clarification; two, he gets upset and starts calling you names, in which case you win by default; and/or three, he protests your use of sarcasm, in which case he is just protesting style, not substance.

Journalism Lives at SCU Magazine

Sam Scott has written an excellent article in SCU Magazine (Fall 2010) about how one man saved the internet. More HERE.

[W]hat he finds is a gaping hole in the very pipes connecting computers across the Web—a weakness so fundamental that the security of practically everything online seems suddenly at risk. “At first I thought I must be missing something,” Kaminsky says, looking back. “I thought, ‘This can’t work—because if it worked, the Internet would be in so much trouble.’ Then it worked.”

Great story.

On the History of American Religious Tolerance

I found this interesting article on Instapaper.com:

From the earliest arrival of Europeans on America’s shores, religion has often been a cudgel, used to discriminate, suppress and even kill the foreign, the “heretic” and the “unbeliever”—including the “heathen” natives already here. Moreover, while it is true that the vast majority of early-generation Americans were Christian, the pitched battles between various Protestant sects and, more explosively, between Protestants and Catholics, present an unavoidable contradiction to the widely held notion that America is a “Christian nation.”

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Americas-True-History-of-Religious-Tolerance.html

Bonus: interesting article about Roald Dahl.

George Soros: an Amazing Lecture

I recently discovered one of the best lectures ever. It's by George Soros and titled "Capitalism vs. Open Society." You can read the transcript HERE.

On Free Markets and Morals: "The distinguishing feature of the market mechanism is that it is amoral: one person’s dollar is worth exactly the same as another person’s, irrespective of how she came to possess it. That is what makes markets so efficient: participants need not worry about moral considerations. In an efficient market, individual decisions affect market prices only marginally: if one person abstained from participating as either buyer or seller, someone else would take her place with only a marginal difference in the price. Therefore individual market participants bear little responsibility for the outcome. But markets are suitable only for individual choices, not for social decisions..."

On Government Interference: "[T]he main policy implication of market fundamentalism, that government interference in the economy should be kept to a minimum, is not as unsound as the arguments employed to justify it. The market mechanism may be flawed but the political process is even more so. Participants in the political process are even more fallible than market participants because politics revolve around social values whereas markets take the participants’ values as given. As we have seen, social values are highly susceptible to manipulation. Moreover, politics are poisoned by the agency problem [Agents are supposed to represent the interests of their principals, but in fact, they tend to put their own interests ahead of the interests of those whom they are supposed to represent]. To guard against the agency problem, all kinds of safeguards have to be introduced and this makes the behavior of governmental authorities in the economic sphere much more rigid and bureaucratic than the behavior of private participants. On all these grounds, it makes sense to argue that governmental interference in the economy should be kept to a minimum. So market fundamentalism has merely substituted an invalid argument for what could have been a much stronger one. It could have argued that all human constructs are imperfect and social choices involve choosing the lesser evil, and on those grounds government intervention in the economy should be kept to a minimum. That would have been a reasonable position. Instead, it claimed that the failures of government intervention proved that free markets are perfect. That is simply bad logic."

Thank you, Mr. Soros. This lecture was amazing.

Update on 6/3/12: from Sebastian Mallaby's 2010 book, More Money than God:

"By now Soros had melded Karl Popper's ideas with his own knowledge of finance, arriving at a synthesis that he called 'reflexivity.'  As Popper's writings suggested, the details of a listed company were too complex for the human mind to understand, so investors relied on guesses and shortcuts that approximated reality.  But Soros was also conscious that those shortcuts had the power to change reality as well, since bullish guesses would drive a stock price up, allowing the company  to raise capital cheaply and boosting its performance.  Because of this feedback loop, certainty was doubly elusive: To begin with, people are incapable of perceiving reality clearly; but on top of that, reality itself is affected by these unclear perceptions, which themselves shift constantly.  Soros had arrived at a conclusion that was at odds with the efficient-market view...To a disciple of Popper, this [EFM] premise ignored the most elementary limits to cognition." (pp. 85, hardcover edition)

Update on November 9, 2019: I learned Soros supported dissident groups Charta 77 in Czechoslovakia and Solidarity in Poland. Vaclav Havel was one of Charta 77's founders. 

American Teachers: World's Best PR Operation?

The following status update caused quite a discussion:

If you can't understand basic economics, can't compete against international students in math and science, and think that bigger government can solve our problems, thank a California K-14 teacher.

P.S. students in India, Israel, China, Iran, and Eastern Europe can't wait to compete with you.

EzD: That's a pretty wide brush. I used to be a teacher (not in CA, admittedly) and know that there are plenty of great, bright motivated teachers that find themselves fighting against the District offices and our awful myopic focus on standardized tests. It's not always (or even most of the time) the teacher's failure that causes our educational issues.

SlW: I've been put through the system in Poland (K-5), Germany (6-7) and Canada (9-12). The math I was taught in grade 9 in Canada I already knew in grade 5 from Poland. really sad...

JA: And that's why I attended private school most of my life.

TrB: I agree with SlW--after I returned from 3 years in Germany I got to "coast" for a couple years while the rest of the kids caught up to where I was at. Sad.

MaR: @EzD: no one said that teachers don't work hard or that there aren't any bright teachers. At the same time, it's easy to see that our public school system is failing students when it comes to basic knowledge, especially in math, economics, and science.

(By the way, I was doing a riff on the more common quote, "If you can read this sentence, thank a teacher.")

EzD: My first year of teaching, on my first day I had 36 students, 34 sets of books and 33 desks. We don't set our teachers up to succeed any more than we do our students.

DaC: Why blame everybody and the system when the fault lies with the students themselves. What with the WII and PS3 and modern day toys, does anybody really focus on school. Kids can't wait to get home and play. Parents need to enforce stricter ground rules for the kids also.

RoW: the teachers can only work with what they are given. My dear friend is a third grade teacher and often finds herself spending her own money on school supplies when she is short. She also has to buy snacks/meal substitutes because so many kids get sent to school hungry. If they can't focus because the are starving, they aren't learning.

MaR: I'm not surprised kids don't have sufficient resources. 80 to 85% of the education budget goes into the pockets of teachers and administrators. More here.

ScL: Well, you just hit the nail. It's the same thing killing the university system as well. Bureaucrats and Administrators are a metastasizing cancer that starve the rest of the system of resources but the same can be said of government and large banks. Add in a general unwillingness for an objective rating system for teachers and the whole thing's hosed.

NiP: This was a complaint about PS when I was growing up in Chicago. My parents made sure we were challenged by giving us extra homework. "Not all parents are equipped to do that," you counter. True, but there are all sorts of after school help parents can get for their children, some of it free. Some effort needs to be made to help the teachers teach the students, including imposing some home discipline and a good night's rest.

EzD: Heh, I think you have this image of teachers as being overpaid. Strangely, I (and I think a lot of other folks) have a different experience. I make more working at a small non-profit than I ever did teaching. It may very well be that administrators & union folks are rolling in dough, but I don't see anyone getting rich from teaching. Hardest job I ever had, and second isn't even close.

NiC: Teachers should be paid more, the school year should be longer, and there should be less administration.

MaR: @EzD: you mentioned you did not work in California. In California, teachers are adequately compensated. "According to the CTA's parent union, the National Education Association, California teachers were the nation's top-paid, with $64,424 average annual salary in 2007-08." See here.

Teachers also receive special benefits including pensions, lifetime medical benefits, and job security. If teachers agreed to switch to a private sector retirement plan (i.e., a 403b plan), we could pay them even more. However, as long as teachers receive millions of dollars on the back end (i.e., when they retire), we cannot afford to increase the salaries of newer teachers. I guess we care so much about children we don't mind paying newer teachers less money so we can pay millions of dollars to retired, non-working teachers.

EzD: True, I taught in New Orleans and was not so well paid. Does that job security you list in the benefits include the mass pink slips that districts up & down the State are sending out?

The real reason our system is hosed? Prop 13. If we got rid of Prop 13, our schools would almost instantly improve.

NiC: Really, more taxation is the answer??? Houses can't sell as it stands now. Higher taxes is not the answer. How about not wasting the money we already send to the schools. I agree with MaR.

MaR: @EzD: again, the reason newer teachers are receiving pink slips--which were canceled after states received $26 billion in emergency federal aid--is because we are spending millions of dollars paying retired teachers who no longer work. Until the day money grows on trees, we have to decide between paying millions of dollars to retired teachers or paying millions of dollars to newer teachers. California, much to my chagrin, has decide to focus on retired teachers at the expense of newer teachers.

Also, Prop 13 has been a boon to California's middle class (not just the rich). People who support the repeal of Prop 13 support taking money from the private sector middle class and giving it to government employees and unions. It's hard to sympathize with such an approach when the private sector middle class is experiencing major unemployment and financial difficulties.

AnL: You're tough!

MaR: you think I'm tough? Listen to Chuck Thompson:

"And, yes, poor unappreciated teachers. I did say sweet deal. American public school teachers have the world's best PR operation going. Whining every chance they get about how demanding their jobs are, how many 'extra hours' they put in, how little they make, how much of their own money they have to spend just to do their jobs, how noble they are working this job that nobody ever asked them to do--welcome to the f*cking world...

You think you got it tough? You don't got it tough. American teachers would crumble if they ever had to work the real hours of a cabbie, doctor, bartender, fisherman, truck driver, small-business owner, hotel clerk, mechanic, architect, janitor, musician, surveyor, accountant, or the million other jobs that don't observe weekends, much less every city, county, state, and federal holiday on the docket, almost three months' paid vacation a year, and pension programs funded out of the public trough. How is it we go through school painfully aware that half our teachers are lazy or incompetent or pathological control freaks, then turn around and let them convince us what a bunch of saints they are as soon as we become taxpayers?" (p. 100, Smile When You're Lying)

ZiL: I did K-6 (and some college) back in the old country [Poland]. And yes, the curriculum there was more demanding, esp. in mathematics. But their system sucked (and continues to suck) in many other respects, such as lack of individualized attention and a complete disregard for psychosocial development.

MaR: I agree that psychosocial development and academic aptitude are not contradictory goals, but thus far, our schools have been artificially boosting children's self-esteem with their low standards. From my perspective, families should provide self-esteem, and schools should focus on teaching viable skills so students aren't required to work for the government to enter the middle class.

One could almost describe our current education system as a scam. If schools teach most kids no marketable skills for 18 years, it forces them to rely on the government for jobs. As a result, most kids become adults who are forced to vote to expand government, which means teachers and government unions get even more money...for teaching kids no viable or useful skills.

Gerrymandering Killed the Political Process

Dan Walters, SJ Merc, 9/18/10: "Just one of California's 53 congressional districts has changed partisan hands since they were redrawn in a bipartisan gerrymander by the Legislature after the 2000 census."

I guess it's not how you vote or who you vote for, but where you live...

I'm Just Sayin'

D.C. Democrats tend to do okay, because the federal government can print money. States, unlike the federal government, cannot print money and must balance their budgets each year. Right now, the only reason many states are able to survive without massive cuts in services and layoffs is because the federal government has loaned them billions of dollars.

If your economic strategy is tax-and-spend, i.e., using tax dollars to create government jobs and to increase services, you have to make sure the private sector can generate enough revenue/taxes to support government employees and their salaries and benefits. In other words, if you want a bigger government, you have to make sure you can pay for it, which means you should also support a larger, more successful private sector. However, most people who favor bigger government want more regulation and more restrictions on corporations and businesses, which usually lower the government's revenue and therefore its growth.

Apparently the Swedes have found an economically-viable balance: high taxes and a strong private sector. They're like libertarians that don't mind high taxes because they see their taxes being used effectively. (Indeed, Sweden has one of the best education systems in the entire world.) California Democrats, on the other hand, don't seem to understand basic economics: they continue to restrict the private sector--i.e., the people paying their bills--even as they demand more government. It's like a child telling his parents not to work and instead demanding that they stay at home and take care of him. It might work for a while, but after some time, the child will be homeless and destitute, perhaps regretting the decision to restrict his parents' time and efforts. Right now, though, California seems happy to have major industries leaving the state and choosing to hire elsewhere. It remains unclear how the state is going to pay for the bigger government it wants.

Bottom line: if you vote for a pro-union, pro-regulation Democrat without having a financial printing press ready to go, it's like having sex without a condom--stupid and unsafe.

Michael Lewis Goes Greek

Michael Lewis always delivers. He's easily my favorite magazine writer. Below is a link to his article on Greece:

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010?printable=true

My favorite sentence from the article: "In Greece the banks didn’t sink the country. The country sank the banks." Mr. Lewis also quotes the ancient orator Isocrates: “Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”

Bonus: if you haven't read Mr. Lewis's article on article on Iceland, you are missing out.

Meg Whitman is Telling the Truth

Meg Whitman is telling the truth when it comes to Jerry Brown and taxes. According to factcheck.org, "state taxes...increased during four of Brown’s eight years, and during six of those years they were higher than before he took office. But they were lower during his final two years."

For me, the bottom line is fixing structural long-term deficits, and Meg Whitman has shown more willingness to do that than Jerry Brown. One measuring stick is government employee pensions--does a politician wants to reform government pensions, or does s/he want to maintain the current pension system?

By the way, some of the anti-Meg literature seems counter-productive. I received a 9/23/10 letter from a Consumer Attorneys Group with the following line: "Meg Whitman has a plan--to change California to be a world without [civil] lawyers." Does the pro-Brown camp really want to align themselves with lawyers? When large organizations of civil lawyers support a candidate, it usually means the candidate supports greater regulation of businesses, including small businesses.

Bonus I: Allow me to explain how our federal government works. To begin with, by the federal government I mean Democrats and Republicans working together. And the only thing dumber than a Democrat and a Republican is when those pr*cks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I'm gonna make it sh*ttier." -- Lewis Black

Bonus II: “I am not a Democrat, because I have no idea what their economic policies are; And I am not a Republican, because I know precisely what their economic policies are.” -- Barry Ritholtz

Bonus III: "If the choice is between a crackpot, small government conservative or a tax and spend, nanny-state liberal, I’ll choose the crackpot every time." -- as seen on message board

In 'N Out

Just because.

Abraham Lincoln

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. -- from Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Donate to Pakistani Relief Efforts

If you are looking to donate to Pakistani relief efforts, check out the following link:

https://www.theirc.org/donate/help-rescue-lives-pakistan

IRC seems to be providing much-needed help all over the world.

California's Budget Mess: Blame the Stock Market

A must-read for anyone interested in the reasons behind California's budget mess:

http://www.businessinsider.com/california-pension-dow-25000-2010-6

An excerpt: "[E]veryone related to California's pensions must have known for quite some time that the underlying assumptions were way too high. Yet, absurdly, when someone tried to correct these obviously broken assumptions, he was kicked out [by Democrats]."

My kingdom for a fiscally-sane Democrat or a socially-sane Republican. Sigh.

Bryan Caplan on Immigration

Bryan Caplan has an interesting post on immigration here.

American Dollar: Fallin' since 1971

The New York Times chart above shows the American dollar's relative value. As you can see, a dollar just 30 or 40 years was worth much more in the international marketplace. I am willing to bet if you asked most college graduates how much the American dollar has been devalued since 1971, almost no one would know.

I wish high schools would teach Americans basic statistics and macroeconomics, but with teachers' unions and religious fundamentalists influencing the academic curriculum and refusing to adapt to the 21st century, I don't see much change on the horizon.

Here's a basic tip: when analyzing economic data, you cannot rely on one set of numbers. For example, if someone shows you a chart of income growth rates, such data is meaningless without also evaluating inflation rates during the same time periods. More specifically, if your income rises 3% but inflation rises 4%, you are worse off than if your income rises 2% but inflation rises 1%. That's another interesting question to ask a high school senior--whether you are better off under the former or latter scenario. Again, I bet most of the high school seniors would answer incorrectly.

Random Thoughts

1. In most cases, the single most important factor in keeping a marriage together is keeping the primary breadwinner employed.

2. I read the following line in a review of the German film, The White Ribbon: the main character is "an intellectual whose pursuit of the truth is enabled by the inability to change anything." It made me stop and think about the possibility of an inverse relationship between power and truth.

3. I was playing chess in Campbell, and my opponent gave me the following gem: "In the old days [before cell phones, email, etc.], it was harder to communicate, but easier to understand each other. Now, it is easy to communicate but harder to understand each other."

4. If you like action flicks, you should see the Korean film, The Good, the Bad, and the Weird (2008). The plot involves a treasure hunt where a cowboy, gangsters, the Japanese military, and various thieves are all after the same prize. Lots of fun.

5. I recently discovered Republican Chuck Hagel. Along with Ron Paul and Richard "Dick" Armey, he appears to be a true Republican. When he was Senator, he questioned George W. Bush and the Patriot Act, stating, "I took an oath of office to the Constitution. I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president."

CTA Issues Press Release from Fantasyland

Prior to losing millions of dollars in federal aid because it refused to accept educational reforms, the California Teachers' Association (CTA) had issued a hilarious press release (see here). I couldn't help but laugh at this line: "It's alarming that the president wants to focus on a competition system that creates winners and losers." Are you kidding me? Welcome to the real world, CTA. The 88% of schoolchildren who don't end up working for the government will eventually enter a system that creates winners and losers. Sheltering students from reality or protesting methods that evaluate academic progress doesn't help anyone.

Also, when teachers' unions view the public's desire for accountability as a threat, something is obviously wrong with our educational system. No one but California teachers would ever dream of accepting $50 to $62 billion each year and then crying foul when taxpayers want to see results.

I never thought I'd see a Democratic president stand up to the teachers' unions in my lifetime. Thank goodness President Obama cares more about children than teachers' unions.

Bonus: most people don't know that most California teachers are adequately compensated. See here:

According to the CTA's parent union, the National Education Association, California teachers were the nation's top-paid, with $64,424 average annual salary in 2007-08...Because of its huge student population and its high-priced teachers, California spends 44 percent more on K-12 public education than does Texas, the next highest-spending state, $59 billion versus $41 billion.

Tenured teachers also receive unique benefits including pensions, lifetime medical benefits, and job security.

USA Today on Immigration

USA Today's Darrell M. West on immigration:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-09-01-column01_ST1_N.htm

One study found that 25% of all the technology and engineering businesses launched in the USA from 1995 to 2005 had a foreign-born founder. In Silicon Valley, that number was 52.4%.

If you live in a middle-class or affluent area of Silicon Valley, you probably owe much of your good schools, steady home prices and safe neighborhoods to highly educated immigrants from the Middle East, Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Keynes on Capitalism

I don't know if Mr. Keynes actually said this, but the quote is too good not to share:

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.” —John Maynard Keynes

Mr. Keynes seems to forget that neither regulation nor socialism will reform wicked men. As I've written before, effective capitalism requires mutual trust to be effective. In short, the best economic systems are as honest and transparent as possible. It is possible to have capitalism that is transparent and honest, and that kind of economic system should be our goal--not simple-minded socialism or cuckoo conservatism.