President Trump - Part 1 - How to Respond to the New Reality

Reality -  Donald Trump is President for the next four years.  

So how does a thoughtful person respond to this new reality?  

There is little to be gained in complaining.  He has a guaranteed four years.  Protests and denials are not going to make him go away.  They may actually enhance his credibility with the base of voters who elected him.  

I believe the most productive way to respond is to focus on his substantive policies.  Educate the public with pertinent historical facts, scientific data and common sense about likely results from his policy initiatives.

The good news is that Mr. Trump is not an ideologue.  He has ideas he thinks are right but seems flexible on almost anything.  In fact he doesn't seem to really care about what policies he pursues, he just wants to be the guy running the show.  He said a lot of offensive things in his campaign but in his mind that just seems to be what he needed to say to get elected.  He is already, in fits and starts, backing away from virtually every outrageous claim he made during the campaign.  

Of course that could change.  But lets be positive and push constructive dialogue.

So this is the introduction to a series of blogs addressing specific policies the President Elect has proposed in the hope constructive dialogue can make his Presidency a positive for the nation.  

My next topic with be his proposed tax cuts.

I invite others to pick a topic and join the conversation.

Democrats and the Media Were Oblivious to History

Donald Trump began using his slogan "Make America Great Again" at least a year and half ago.

Republican tax and government phobic policies have dominated national (and many states) policy for two decades.Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress for 17 of the last 21 years, including the last 4 years.  During that time we have had the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression (after 10 continuous years of Republican control) and as we started to recover Republicans again grabbed control and stymied efforts to build on the recovery.  In addition Republicans control and have controlled for some time the Governorship and legislature of virtually every state where the "forgotten" workers, who led the states to a Trump victory reside.  

Taking the longer view, twice in the last 100 years Republicans obsessed with cutting taxes, government and regulations controlled Congress for a decade, the first ended in the Great Depression, the second in the Great Recession?

Yet during the entire campaign I did not hear one single word in the major media or from the Democratic party or Hillary Clinton asking the simple question "If America is not great, whose fault is it?"

Has ideology blinded us to history?  Are we so busy peering into our magnifying glass at the tree in front of us we no longer see the forest?

The Dangers of Childhood

According to the Brady Campaign guns kill 7 children a day in the United States, 5 are homicide and 2 shoot themselves.

Compare to:

About 2 children a day die from unintentional drowning.

CDC figures suggest that a child dies from a bike accident a couple times a week (about 3 people die a day, but mostly adults and adolescents).

One child is killed every 2 weeks by having furniture topple over on them (Economist, 7/2/16 p8).

Publish or Perish

When I was young (in the 1960's and early 1970's) the higher education establishment came under attack as a privileged good old boy network, if you knew the right people you got tenure on a college faculty and were set with a cushy job for life.  In part, it seemed to me, the attacks, while they had some merit, were largely driven by the political right who wanted to undermine the influence of the generally liberal leaning higher education faculties.

The solution that developed was to require professors to publish prolifically in their field of expertise to retain their position on the faculty.

Looking back on what has happened since it appears to this outside observer the solution was worse than the problem.   

It became apparent pretty early on that teaching suffered.  Now it is rare for a professor to actually teach a class, graduate students with little teaching experience do that so the professor can pursue their research.

But the bigger problem that has become more apparent as the years go by is that all fields of human study are being buried under mountains of research findings that are unreliable at best.

Major research studies have announced big breakthroughs with great fanfare, earning their authors tenure and riches, only to be unreproducible by any other lab.  A prominent recent example is that the (probably) billions of dollars that has been poured into thousands of MRI studies to try to understand the brain was probably largely wasted because of huge flaws and assumptions built into the software that found statistical effects where none existed.

The fundamental problem is publish or perish does not align motivation with the public interest.  If an individual has to publish to survive in their chosen field the need to publish eclipses the detached view that is necessary for effective research.   Publishing volumes of useless or misleading research findings forwards the individual interest but makes the search for knowledge vastly more complicated and difficult.

Republicans have controlled Congress For 17 of the last 21 Years

What do we have to show for it?  Lets have a look;

Climate change - Republicans as a party have spent most of the last 21 years denying that the climate was changing. Now it is becoming so obvious they are not saying much about it but still dragging their feet about doing anything to try to slow climate change down. 

Tax law - For the last 21 years our tax laws have been universally acknowledged to be extraordinarily verbose, complicated and complex and produce ridiculous results - some very wealthy individuals pay nothing while middle income and low income people pay a lot.  Every election cycle some Republican has been pounding on the issue.  But if anything the tax laws have become unremittingly more complex and convoluted during the last 21 years.

The Deficit - In the last 21 years Republican policies (invading Iraq and turning Banks loose to blow up the economy) have greatly increased the deficit.  Republicans pound the table about our deficit but all they ever actually recommend is tax cuts - like cutting the nation's income is going to pay off the debt?

Immigration - For all of the last 21 years our "failed" immigration laws have been an election issue pounded hard by Republicans.  Yet comprehensive immigration reform never makes much headway in Congress.  

Economic Competitiveness - Setting aside the fact after the first decade of Republican control their anti-regulatory and tax policies set the stage for a worldwide financial collapse we are still trying to pull ourselves out of, in the last few years the Congress controlled by Republicans has scarcely sent a single bill to the President to try to improve our economy.  (see related post-  http://motrvoter.blogspot.com/2016/02/fact-check-democratic-president-v.html )   

Civil Rights - For most of the last 21 years Republicans have pushed policies making gays second class citizens.   But when the issue was finally presented to a Republican dominated Supreme Court even they couldn't find a way to justify discriminating against gays under the constitution.  This is another issue current Republicans are doing their best to ignore hoping folks will forget about their past table pounding.

Education - In 2002 the Republican Congress sent our Republican President the "No Child Left Behind act" over the complaints of many educators who said its focus on testing would lower the quality of teaching and not improve student learning.  It was enacted amid much fanfare.    Fast forward to December of 2015 when President Obama signed a law replacing the "No Child Left Behind" act with the "Every Child Succeeds" act sent to him by the Republican Congress (with strong Bipartisan support in Congress).  The consensus was the 2002 bill made teachers spend far to much time on testing, rather than teaching critical thinking.  Pretty much exactly what the critics said in 2002.

Republicans have also heavily promoted Charter Schools for the last twenty years and Republican money has funded an influential non-profit to push for Charter Schools - the Center For Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) based out of Stanford University.  In 2009 CREDO heavily promoted a film (waiting for Superman) based on their first round of research in which CREDO claimed 1 in 5 Charter Schools outperformed public schools (actually their numbers showed 17%), but neglecting to mention that their own study found that twice as many (37%) did worse than public schools.

Then in 2013 a new CREDO study found that Charter School Students were one one-hundredth of 1 percent (.01%) better readers than non-charter schools.  CREDO issued press releases trumpeting that Charter School Students do better at reading than public school students, neglecting to mention the difference is statistically insignificant.

The National Education Policy Center recently reviewed all the research, both CREDO and other independent researchers, on the topic and concluded the data shows no significant difference in test performance between students in public schools and students in charter schools.  A couple of decades of uproar orchestrated by Republican think tanks to make no forward progress.  Perhaps we should have been talking to teachers instead of castigating them?

Foreign Policy -  In 2003 our Republican President and Republican Congress led us into an invasion of Iraq that has resulted in a middle east spiraling into region wide chaos.  More recently, not having a like minded President, they have actively sought to undermine virtually every foreign policy initiative of the Obama administration.

Lots of Republican are talking this election season about what bad shape our country is in.   Seems to me If Republicans want to see the cause for the current state of the Union they only need to look in the mirror. 

A Definition of Being "Trumped"

"Trumped" has always had a special meaning in certain card games.  But now Donald Trump has turned it into a very useful shorthand for certain types of business transactions seen frequently in the news, or by lawyers in a business practice.  No longer do you have to explain the details of the transaction, you just say someone was "Trumped".

The scenario involves a promoter who wants to achieve some outcome for his benefit.  He goes to investors and promises big benefits if they lend him money.  Then perhaps he hires contractors or employees to get it up and running.  Once the promoter has achieved their goal they see no reason to actually pay what they owe to investors, or the contractors or employees.  The investors, contractors and employees have been "Trumped".

Now a caution to those who might have ambitions to "Trump" people to achieve their goals.  It only works if you are a billionaire dealing with regular folks.  If you are a regular folk you will get sued and a judge will make you pay lots of money to the folks you "Trumped".

But if you are a billionaire with an army of lawyers at your disposal you can bury regular folks in legal entanglements so no judge ever gets a chance to address the fact you behaved like a scoundrel.  Or an even cheaper solution is for the billionaire to just create a corporation, become the CEO, award themselves with a huge salary then throw the corporation into bankruptcy and walk away with all the money.

For the rest of us who don't want to get "Trumped" the trick is either not have anything to do with anyone who has a history of "Trumping" people, or beware promoters who offer grandiose but vague promises.  

A clever promoter will always have an excuse why this time is different, or why he/she can't be specific.

Trade Agreements - Good or Bad?

Wall Street and big business say Trade Agreements accelerate growth and make the country wealthier, Trump and Bernie say they steal jobs.

Seems pretty clear there is some truth to both arguments.  But the middle ground isn't that difficult to find.  Other countries deal with trade agreements by having benefits for workers who lose their jobs and in particular retraining them for new ways of supporting themselves.  

Our problem is a Congress that has been dominated for two decades by Republican's allergic to taxing the folks who benefit from trade agreements and unwilling to spend money to help the folks hurt by trade agreements.

Trade agreements aren't the problem, we have just been too tax phobic and ideologically rigid to do what we need to do to make trade agreements a plus for everyone in the country.

Making America Great Again

The Republican Convention in Ohio is hammering on the theme Donald Trump can "make America great again".

When you stop to think about it the whole notion is really surreal. Republicans have been the dominant political force in this country  for the last 36 years.

Republicans controlled both houses of Congress for the last four years (and managed to be most notable for not doing much) and for 17 of the last 21 years.  

The Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress for just 2 years out of the last 36 (2008 to 2010).

Republicans have controlled the Presidency for 20 of the last 36 years, and had eight years in the last 16 with a Republican Congress and Republican President (during which we invaded Iraq and blew up the world economy). 

Yet the Trump campaign is built on the notion Democrats are keeping America from greatness.

How am I to make sense of this?  Doesn't seem to be any way to look at it that reflects well on Republicans.

Are Democrats smarter than Republicans, so can still control the agenda even when Republicans have the majority control?  

Or perhaps that Republicans are better at the ideological platitudes that win elections than actually governing?  

Why Has Congress Spent So Much $ Investigating the Clinton's?

Having watched the wars between Republicans and the Clintons since the Clintons first appeared on the national scene in Bill's Presidential run 25 years ago, the current uproar about Hillary's emails leaves me inclined to see it all more as unsavory partisanship driven by Republicans than a threat to our security.

Did in hindsight Hillary make some mistakes, maybe even exercise some poor judgment?  Maybe.  Did it harm our national interests?  There doesn't seem to be any evidence to suggest that was the case.  Have Republicans used their control of both houses of Congress to try to destroy Hillary's viability as a Democratic Presidential Candidate?  Absolutely, and that conclusion in part flows from the history of Republicans efforts to politically cripple Bill and Hillary Clinton.  I cut Hillary a lot of slack in her efforts to avoid giving Republicans political cannon fodder (which I take it is at least part of why Hillary set up the separate email servers) because in my judgment she and Bill have been subjected to an extraordinary level of political abuse by Republicans using taxpayer money during periods they have controlled Congress during the last couple decades. 

It started with Whitewater - This failed Real Estate deal from 1978 was seized on by Republican opponents of Governor Bill Clinton in Arkansas alleging some sort of corruption which sparked investigations in Arkansas.  When Clinton became a viable Democratic Presidential candidate in 1991 the national party picked up the issue.  The Republicans kept Whitewater in the headlines from that time until nearly the end of his Presidency.  No investigation in Arkansas or by the Feds ever uncovered any illegal activity by the Clinton's in the Real Estate deal, but when Republicans took over both houses of Congress in 1995 they appointed a special prosecutor.  In the end Congress spent about $80 million investigating Whitewater and spin offs from that politically motivated investigation. No investigation ever ended in anything other than a pompous report trying to justify all the money wasted.

The $80 Million figure comes from a 1999 CNN article 
http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/04/01/counsel.probe.costs/  

I saw it at that time as mostly partisan politics, unsavory but tolerable on the campaign trail, but smacking of an abuse when the Republicans started using the money and power of Government to beat down political opponents.

Once it appeared Hillary was likely to run for President Benghazi and the email issues that spun off from it have become the cudgel.  After years of investigation and $6.8 million spent by the Republican controlled House committee they found no evidence of negligence by Clinton on the night of the attack.   However, that investigation revealed Hillary had her own servers for separate email accounts.  

AHA, something else to investigate!  

The State Department then investigated and reported that their investigation revealed that what she did (and what Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell did before her) was a violation of department policy but the department had been lax in enforcing the policy.  The FBI (headed by a Republican appointee) investigated and found no evidence that would support criminal charges.

Now Republicans, unhappy there isn't any evidence that could support bringing charges against Hillary, are seeking to start another investigation.   This is the same Republican Congress that has been most noteworthy for doing less actual legislating than any other Congress in my lifetime.
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6940679083386201830#editor/target=post;postID=6332255972138313967;onPublishedMenu=editor;onClosedMenu=editor;postNum=26;src=postname


We don't need another investigation, we need a Congress that wants to solve problems rather spend their time and our money beating down political rivals.

Globalization - Boom to Bust to War?

Globalization is an abstract notion, a construct of words and logic.  Like many abstract ideas it is sometimes difficult to judge the value of the notion in the swirling complexity of reality.  

Globalization at its core is rooted in the idea of free trade.  In theory if everyone could simply trade freely across borders we would all be better off.   The different circumstances of people around the world would allow everyone to make a living doing what their circumstances allow them to do most efficiently.

Reality keeps getting in the way.  Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the world economy has gone through repeated burst of globalization, which lead to aggravated income inequality, which leads to Nationalism as dissatisfied populations turn to leaders willing to pretend other groups are the problem, which leads to war or to idealistic communist notions that in the past have become the most abusive governments in the Modern era.

As an abstract idea it has just enough truth in it to make it very appealing to folks (like me) who live in a world where logic is relied upon because it is so time consuming and difficult to analyze the complex experiences we find in history.

Now I have lived through a big part of a globalization cycle.  I was born with the world starting over after the destruction of WW II (the cataclysmic end of the last big globalization cycle).  For the first five decades of my life the world was driven by ever expanding globalization ambitions.  Now, to the bewilderment of believers in globalization, we find ourselves in world at war with itself over religious difference internationally, and the most economically powerful western democracies are sinking into populist nationalism.

The theory of globalization is probably correct but incomplete, which has caused us to neglect much in the implementation.  The lesson of history is that globalization will eventually self destruct without focusing on two fundamental related motivational problems that trigger a "race to the bottom" - that will undermine support for globalization in the long term:

1.  The inability to recognize and control excessive disparities in income.
Jurisdictions buying into the notion "the winner takes all the spoils" create an underclass that will gradually become less and less attached to the existing status quo and eventually revolt (unless ruthlessly subjegated).

2.  The lack of a worldwide tax scheme.  Without a universal tax scheme powerful business interests use their influence and power to locate in the most tax friendly jurisdictions.  To attract the business jurisdictions keep taxes low, which limits their ability to provide much of their population with a decent standard of living.  This is great for businesses big enough to go where they get the best deal, and for the upper crust of society who benefit from those business.  But it undermines the economic situation of those in society don't own a piece of those businesses.

It also undermines the economic competitiveness of countries that aspire to provide for their population, since often their biggest businesses may move big parts of their operations to other jurisdictions not so concerned about providing for their population.  

Without a greater attention to income disparities and universal scheme of taxation stability and growth in the economies of the developed western democracies will be difficult to maintain.  





  

Pounding on the table

Early in my first year of law school an old saying about how to be a lawyer was circulating among our first year class (as it does about every class of lawyers I suspect). 

If you are strong on the facts, you pound on the facts.  If you are strong on the law, you pound on the law.  If you are weak on both the facts and the law you pound on the table.

It was a wry wake up to call to the fact that being a lawyer often isn't being right, it is about winning - and those are two entirely different things.  If you don't use whatever tools are available to win, if you worry to much about what is "right", many clients will go find another lawyer.  

I had a difficult time with the idea that "winning" is more important than being "right".  It is, to me, contrary to all the values I was taught in school and Sunday school as I was growing up.  Like many lawyers I drifted away from the practice of law after a few years so I wouldn't have to deal with the enormous challenge presented of trying to represent clients without acting contrary to values you believe to be important and still be economically successful.

Long after my reality check in law I still clung to the notion one could be successful in politics without letting winning trump honesty and an open mind.   

Did I say Trump?  

Boy was I naive.

Lessons of History - Evolution or Revolution

I recently reading an excellent book about the Spanish Civil War (Spain in Our Hearts, by Adam Hochschild).  Looking back on the events of 80+ years ago in Spain keeps bringing to mind the Arab Spring.  It also brings to mind the Berns call for a new Revolution.

We memorialize, indeed almost worship, our own founding fathers revolution, and tend to see revolutions around the world by people seeking government by the people as a wonderful thing.

But looking back at history one is tempted to conclude our revolution was as successful as it was in part because of fortuitous circumstances that seldom arise in modern reality.  Our revolt against England was relatively amicable, we were culturally nearly identical and England was far away so atrocities were few and in the end England's pride was dented and they lost some tax Revenue, but the battle was more a test of wills.   The English public would not have tolerated the sort of scorched earth military tactics England might have used to put down a revolt by their darker skinned subjects in other parts of the world.

Revolutions within a single country tend to be much uglier, more like our own Civil War.  Zero sum games where the losers are crippled and carry resentments for generations. 

The Spanish Civil War, like the Arab Spring involved uprisings where the powers that be were pushed aside by an left leaning modernist uprisings seeking to completely remake society.  They are inherently zero sum games, for every gain by the people there are huge losses by the upper strata of the society.  The people gain an apparent victory, only to have a more repressive regime imposed militarily.

In Spain Franco ruled for 40 years or so and it was only after he died that modern democracy could begin to develop in Spain.  Is this what the Arab Spring countries can look forward to?

Certainly in most of the famous revolutions of recent history - Russia in 1917. Spain, China after WW II - revolution produced decades of repression and misery. 

Perhaps Bernie should stop talking about revolution and start talking about evolution.  Move away from the language of winners and losers toward aiming to improve the lot of those at the bottom without demonizing those at the top.  Clearly China's communist party has recognized that evolution is their key to avoiding revolution.

Who Is likely to Perpetrate a Mass Shooting?

I haven't seen any data on the subject but running my mind back over the litany of mindless mass shootings over the last couple decades, it seems like every one of the shooters was a young man (I don't recall if the wife of the San Bernardino shooter took part in the actual shooting).

Given the difficulty we have as a nation coming to grips with any kind of effort to keep guns out of the hands of possible terrorists perhaps it would help to focus on identifying the characteristics of those who actually do the shooting.

Criminal statistics have shown for years that most violent crimes are perpetrated by young men, mostly between ages 18 and 25, perhaps that is where we should start with limiting access to killing tools.  Perhaps people under the age of, say, 30, can't buy a weapon without going through some rigorous process of training - sort of like licensing drivers.  We would also have to make it a crime for anyone to sell or give weapons to persons of that age to avoid having them just get someone else to buy one for them.

Paying People More Reduces Corruption? Maybe not.

Government folk and economist's have traditionally intuitively ascribed to the view that corruption in government, sports or politics is a product of low pay and if you pay people more, corruption would go away.

A recent study in Ghana suggests maybe not.  In 2010 Ghana began to move public officials to a new salary structure.  The first and biggest beneficiaries were police officers whosr pay doubled.  One hope was the police would stop extorting money from drivers at roadblocks.  It just happened that a large survey of Ghanian truckdrivers was already underway.  Drivers with all the right paperwork were asked to keep track of how many times they were stopped and how much the had to pay to police and customs officials along the way.

The date revealed that after having their pay doubled the officers erected more roadblocks than before, kept drivers longer and extracted more money.

Rising expectations?   More demanding dependants?  Or just a culture of corruption?

For more details see the Economist January 30, 2016 issue, page 65.

Odd Quirks in US our law regarding Free Speech

Free speech is the canary in the coal mine for assessing the political health of a country.  Although individuals may abuse that freedom in aggravating ways, that aggravation is vastly less consequential than the consequences of allowing speech to be controlled by society, since that inevitably means control ends up in the hands of the most personally ambitious people who cannot separate their own personal beliefs and interests from the greater interests of society, so their instinct is to stifle the speech of anyone who disagrees.

We do enjoy living in a country where free speech is a fundamental value, but there are still some oddities in how that speech is protected in the United States.

One of the most glaringly wrong oddities is the curious application of the constitutional right to free speech in business relationships that has evolved in US Supreme Court decisions.

Corporations exist only because the government creates them.  Government sets up rules that if the organizers follow they get certain benefits (most importantly the owners of the corporation are insulated from some responsibility for their actions).  But according to our Supreme Court, even though the people who own corporations already have all the free speech rights any citizen has, and even though Government could do away with all corporations tomorrow, government can't regulate corporations ability to spend money to forward the corporations political aims.  

Yet those same Corporations (and business in general) can use contracts to limit the free speech of their employees.  If a Corporation decides to fire a bunch of US workers and hire cheaper employees overseas, or bring in cheaper employees from overseas, it can pay the employees they are laying off a little bit of money as a severance pay and require those employees to sign contracts in which the employee promises not to say anything the employer doesn't want to hear.  For the employee's that get a pink slip they generally have little choice but sign, they have bills to pay and they need the severance money to keep them going while they get back on their feet.

Or if a Corporation is sued by some folks who were damaged by faulty products or services, the Corporation will typically will use the leverage of their ability to prolong lawsuits interminably to extract contracts where the victims promise not to tell the world about the corporation's bad behavior.   So the rest of society remains clueless and vulnerable to the corporation's bad activities.

Both of these seem wrong to me.   Corporations are not people, they are creatures created by government for economic purposes, the idea that government that can abolish them at the stroke of a legislative pen can't regulate their conduct in the political arena is nonsense.   

Further it seems to me society has an interest in free speech that should trump individual rights to use superior bargaining power to control situations to hide their bad behavior.  The law should take a dim view of contracts restricting free speech rights, and any contract with a clause prohibiting certain speech should be void when it a favors a party with a clearly superior bargaining position.

Why I Left the Republican Party

I started my adult life as a Conservative Republican.  I was taught growing up that nothing was more important than having strength in your convictions.   President Nixon's promise in 1968 to get us out of the Vietnam war - as it went unfulfilled year after year, began to make me question whether strength in convictions was what really mattered.  Perhaps what matters is achieving the best result.  For the next couple decades I waffled back and forth between Republicans and Democrats.  

Republicans big ideological underpinning - that individuals should take responsibility for themselves - reflects a value crucial to a functioning society.  But I have never really liked the Republican tendency to hew so strictly to that ideology that they become oblivious to the plight of the less fortunate.  Republicans also talk constantly about freedom - another crucial value - but as they see freedom it tends to mean their freedom to act with impunity to the consequences of their acts on other people.  

CEO's walk away with millions of dollars from companies that collapse and cause great damage to their customers?  Republicans celebrate their entrepreneurial spirit!  

Massacres occurring in theatres and schools around the country?  To bad.  Can't impinge on any ones right to have a house full of guns - public just needs to get their own guns so they can shoot back.

I also thought in the early years Republicans were probably better at managing an economy - after all lots of noisily rich people are Republicans.  But history has emphatically rebutted that notion - the two times in the last one hundred years when Republicans have controlled the show we ended up in the Great Depression and the Great Recession. From the roaring twenties to the Republican wave that took over Congress in 1995 their policies have been rooted in promoting economic wishful thinking.  

Now, looking back at nearly 5 decades as a reasonably well informed voter the Republicans have lost me completely.  I can't even take them seriously.    

So I decided to check my current perception by compiling a historical laundry list of things Republicans have advocated and/or implemented in my lifetime that history revealed as dumb, mean spirited or both.

Economy

After incurring a big national debt from the Great Depression and WW II Congress used very high tax rates on the very wealthy to pay down the national debt.  With folks with really high incomes paying over 90% on the top part of their income the national debt was steadily decreasing from 1950 to 1981.  (We also enjoyed a pretty strong economy during this period - I suspect rich folks are more inclined to invest in things that produce jobs when the option is paying 90% to the Government).  Then Ronald Reagan got elected in 1980 and ignited the Republican obsession with cutting taxes, regardless of the consequences.  Didn't stop us from marching off to war, we just have done it on credit and hoped the bill will go away.  In the last 35 years, there are about 3 that were not adding to the national debt.

1995 - Republicans change the Capital Gains tax provisions applying to personal housing so anyone who wants to buy a house can get a huge tax free gain when they sell it.  Results - Whoops, the housing market became a casino full of speculators flipping houses.  It pumped up prices leading to a bubble and housing market collapse. 

About the same time Republicans created an exception to the immigration law to allow rich people to buy legal residency.  Now in the most vibrant cities and attractive parts of the country few citizens can afford to buy a house because wealthy people from other countries are coming in and plunking millions in cash to buy diversification and a bolt hole, even as we vilify the immigrants who do much of the dirty work in this country. 

Now despite the lowest interest rates in my lifetime the percentage of folks owning their own home has dropped significantly in the last 10 years.  In many parts of the country citizens are priced out of owning a home.  

1998 -  A Republicans Congress pushes Bill Clinton into cutting banks free of the regulations that hinder them from using depositors money to speculate on whatever they want.   Result - Banks pile money into complex derivatives that grow out of the housing market madness.   When the housing market stalls it produces the worst financial collapse since the great Depression.

2008 to present - Since the financial collapse Republicans double down on their notions that Government is the problem and essentially freeze Congress into inaction.  We have a modest recovery because Congress hasn't done anything really stupid, but Republicans are in denial about the fundamental problem - income inequality has undermined the consumption that drives growth.

Foreign Policy
2003.  Republicans invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein was building Nuclear weapons.  Whoops, turns out he wasn't, and our invasion ends up costing us lots of money, lots of lost lives and crippled young men, and has sent the Middle East into a spiral of total chaos we still don't see the end of and are trying our best to not get further entangled in.

Civil Rights
Republicans have harvested a lot of votes by advocating (fiercely sometimes) that Gays are not entitled to the same civil rights as other citizens.  Turns out even a Republican leaning Supreme Court can't quite jam the notion that Gays somehow aren't entitled to equal treatment into the Constitution.  

Environmental Law
Science has been warning us that the globe is warming for a couple decades.  I am not aware of any reputable scientist who seriously questions that if the globe warms even a couple of degrees it will have a major impact on our world, but in the face of the evidence for decades Republicans have continuously denied that the globe is warming and fought any effort to address the problem.   Now that we are experiencing one extreme weather event after another most Republicans have stopped loudly denying global warming but are still unwilling to do anything about it. 

Democracy-
One person one vote is crucial to a functioning democracy but Republicans have take advantage of their control of state legislatures to enact laws making it harder and harder for low income people to vote.

Economics - A Difference Between Republicans and Democrats

For Republicans if one person is assigned to do a job that really needs three people to do, no problem.

For Democrats if three people are doing a job that one person can do, no problem.

Republicans - Money Trumps Everything.

No, this blog isn't about the Donald, not directly. It's about the fact on every government issue that effects the health and welfare of the entire country Republicans over the last couple decades consistently choose money over public health or addressing poverty.

They weren't so bad back in the early 70's.  The Nixon and Ford administrations signed off on laws regulating air quality to reduce toxic emissions into the air we breath, regulating the dumping of toxic materials into the water we drink, more broadly regulating industrial dumping of poisonous substance on the land we live on and requiring government to assess the impact proposed development would have before approving the development.

But for the last couple decades Republicans primary focus has been on getting rid of those nuisance regulations that make business accountable for the damage they cause to the the air we breath, the water the drink and the land we live on.  All because it costs business money.  "Job Killers" the Republicans say.  Yet during that period of time business has done just fine, corporate profits are at all time highs, corporate executives make 300 times the salary of the average worker.

Then there is poverty.  The anti-poverty programs of LBJ have made a huge dent in poverty in this country, although they certainly are not notable for their efficiency.  But Republicans talk only about getting rid of the programs, not improving efficiency.  They say that the free market will take care of poverty.  Odd, given that in the prior history of mankind the free market never managed to come even close to accomplishing that feat. 

Then there is Health Care.  Anyone that cared could see for the last 40 years the US health care system was a joke.  It cost twice us twice as much per person as any other developed country in the world, and produced mediocre outcomes.  The people in tiny, relatively poor countries have lower infant mortality and live longer than we do.  Yet no progress could be made until we had the one two year period of a Democratic Congress and Democratic President in the last 20 years.  Even then Republican obstructionism resulted in a system that is a ludicrous combination of private insurance and public oversight.  An improvement but light years from a really efficient system.

The really odd thing about the Republican obsession with money is that history demonstrates they are oblivious to how money works.  Twice in the last hundred years Republicans have controlled Congress for a decade or more.  Both times they handed the economic controls over to business, confident business knew better than anyone how to run an economy.  Both times ended with the world economy blowing up, leaving the world (including us) poorer (although a few really rich people did just fine).

In Republican primaries this last year virtually every Republican Governor touted his ability to balance his states budget.  They can balance their budget because most Republican states get more back from the Federal Government than they pay in taxes.  The Feds are doing all the heavy lifting on poverty and health care.  Florida (Jeb Bush) get $2.44 back for every dollar of Federal Income taxes paid in the state.  Ohio (John Kasich) gets 34% of the states revenue from the Federal government.

Sometimes it seems Republicans are too obsessed with getting rich to understand how an economy works.

Mindfullness Meditation

It's a hot topic in the media these days and has been brought to my attention by presentations at legal conferences addressing ways to reduce stress.  As someone who has been fascinated with the organization of the brain since my college days I can't resist (figuratively) lifting up the hood to see what is going on.

It appears that what "Mindfulness" is all about is shutting off that area of our brain above our left ear (in most people) that is the root of language and logic.  The thing with language and logic is it derives meaning from sequential data, this + this = that - because it is rooted in sound which we perceive sequentially.   If you are talking 2+2=4 that's the end of it, but much of life cannot be reduced to such a simple answer.  Most of what goes on in our lives is ambiguous in both cause and effect.  So our logic doesn't get us to an easily identified final answer.  If the topic is important to our life we keep chewing on it to solve the problem.  In modern life that can mean we live with many problems our logic is simultaneously chewing on.  Even if you manage to turn away from one problem another pops up to dominate our thoughts.  The result can be difficulty sleeping, or constant stress or just an inability to relax.

What Mindfulness seems to accomplish is to let the other parts of our brain grab the controls for awhile.  Parts like vision, which doesn't find meaning from sequential data since it builds systems that we perceive as a whole, so vision perception isn't plagued by an eternal nagging sense of something unfinished.  Or even more basic areas of our brain that monitor our bodies as a whole, not as a problem to be solved.

The primary tool mindfulness uses, typically, is breathing.  Breathing is unambiguous in whether we are achieving our objective.  We breathe in then we breathe out.  Mission accomplished.  By focusing on an immediately achievable goal we shut off the sequential processing parts of our brain that never quiet reach a final solution, allowing us to relax.

The need for mindfullness is probably a direct result of modern life that drives us incessantly from early in life to use language and logic to achieve abstract goals and objectives.  It would be a good habit to find a way to strike a balance between achievement and just being.

Voters Mad as Hell

Through this primary season a consistent theme on the Republican side is Republican voters are angry and frustrated and are letting their anger and frustration decide who to gets their vote.  Not to suggest this is a failing that only afflicts Republicans, people on the left are prone to the same tendency, but the angry lefties are more marginalized in the Democratic party at this point in time.

Some of this is just media blather but judging by the behavior of the candidates they perceive a large element of the Republican primary voters are motivated not by gathering data on how to solve problems, but by identifying enemies and bad guys who are the source of all the perceived problems.  Ironically apparently many of these angry Republicans are Evangelical Christians who seem oblivious to the admonition from Jesus that if you are angry you are in danger of hellfire (Mathew 5-21). 

Makes one wonder if these folks follow their emotions in all their important decisions in life.   

It also makes one wonder if these folks have any clue how easily they can be manipulated through their anger.  We see that playing out in the success of Donald Trump, the master marketer.  In the same way some business folks jump on whatever marketing strategy will make the most money, Donald seems to look at whatever marketing strategy will get him the most votes.  While other Republican wannabees look to pollsters and consultants to figure out what to say to get votes, the Donald knows instinctively.

Hitler's ability to stir up anger to gain power in Germany was the direct cause the most horrendous war in history.  I don't think the Donald is another Hitler - he seems to be a pretty happy guy.  But the worst atrocities in history generally can be traced back to political leaders who created enemies to blame for all problems and then stoked anger at those enemies.  

Politicians of all stripes are always going to be tempted to cultivate anger or disgust since that is the easy way to motivate voters.  It is up to we the voters to not reward that tactic.

Reference Query - Do We Have A Growth Problem?

(Caution - this blog has lots of facts and figures - maybe have some caffeine before reading)

The world of economists revolves around GDP.  It is tempting sometimes to view economist as worrying about mathematical constructions that are not reality.  GDP growth is a measure of wealth not health or happiness.   Economists often seem to not even consider someone, or a society could be perfectly content at a given level of income per person.  Maybe they don't need more wealth to be either healthy or happy?

Further, GDP is not a direct measure of technological and scientific advances. Finding ways to do things better in our day to day lives is unquestionably a good thing.  But GDP measures many things totally unrelated to doing things more efficiently.

But that said, given all the talk about income inequality I decided to look into the whole concept of wealth to see what I would find - maybe there are some good reasons to be focused on GDP?

I begin with the proposition statistics about wealth are not precise but are probably educated estimates that provide some representation of reality.

I also begin with the proposition growth in itself is not the concern, the concern is growth allows more people to live comfortably.  Studies tell us that the average American worker is comfortable with an income of about $70,000 a year. That is the point where they feel no need to work at getting more wealth.  So if the whole world was generating an average yearly income of about $70,000 per person, we perhaps would not need more growth?

Where are we on growth?

I looked at wealth figures, even though GDP combines both wealth and income.  Although wealth is not the same as income, it is a relatively good proxy for income.  If you have a lot of wealth you probably have a decent income and if you have a lot of income you will probably will have a lot of wealth eventually.

Dividing the total wealth in the world (241 Trillion) by the total world population (7.4 billion) reveals that existing wealth amounts to $35,567.56 per person.   That would be a decent yearly income but as total wealth it is pretty low.  $35,000 invested to produce a 5% per year return would only be income of about $1,750 a year per person.  Clearly the world could use some growth.

On the other hand dividing the total wealth of the United States (118 trillion) by the population of the United States (319 Million) reveals that existing US wealth amounts to $369,905.95 per person.   A two person household with this theoretical wealth could generate an income of about $18,000 per year per person assuming a return of 5% on their wealth, which would be $36,000 for a two person household.  Skimpy but not starving.

However data indicates the top 1% of the US population currently owns about 37% of the wealth.  That means the top 1% (3.19 Million people) own $43 trillion of the countries wealth which equals $13,479,624 per person.  At 5% per year the top 1% control assets could produce income of $673,981 per year per person.    

Subtracting the top 1% share from the total national wealth (118 Trillion - 43 Trillion) leaves 75 Trillion for the other 99%. 

However, the next 19% own 1/2 of this remaining wealth which amounts to $37.5 Trillion.   19% of the population equals 60 million people.  Per person each of that 19% has assets of about $625,000.  At 5% that would generate $31,250 per person per year.

The remaining $37.5 Trillion are shared among the remaining population (80% = 255,200,000 persons)   The per person share is $146,944 which, if invested would produce $7347 per year per person.   

Conclusions

Economists can't be faulted for obsessing about growth, the world needs it.  However, the world would not need as much growth if economists could figure out policies that would spread wealth across populations more effectively.

Source of Data - Wikipedia articles on wealth, GDP and Income Inequality.

Trump - Random Thoughts

1.  Lloyd Kumley offered the following observation:

"I had a thought while listening to the harangue at a wrestling show..." (Lloyd isn't a wrestlemania kind of guy but was indulging a niece who likes the excitement of the shows) ".... Trump's campaign talks sound much like the outrageous stuff the wrestlers shout to whip the crowds up... It's a formula that works for wrestling....those choreographed "shouting matches" , which lead to what look like make believe battles between the good guys and bad guys. Are wrestling fans and their ilk much of the Trump supporters?'

2.  Some very rich and politically active CEO's are coming out saying Trump must be stopped.   Mitt Romney, Meg Whitman.  Hmmmm.  Perhaps they feel like the domination of Republican economic policy by big business interest is threatened?  Both Mitt and Meg say Trumps policies could cause a recession.  Gee whiz, no Republican has ever caused economic damage - oh wait, the Republicans were running the show for the decade leading up to the great Depression...and the Republicans were also running the show in the decade leading up to the great Recession. Those prior Republican efforts have set a pretty high bar in terms of economic disasters, I don't see how a mediocre  businessman (according to Mitt and Meg) like Trump could do as much damage.

The FBI, Apple and Privacy

I don't get it.

On probable cause the government can get a warrant from a judge and search my house.  But they shouldn't' be able to search my phone?

Privacy is an abstract concept, what does it mean in the real world? 

What data could be on my phone that I would perceive as more important than accommodating to governments efforts to protect us from violent attacks?   

The techies argue this is a slippery slope, if they open the door to let the government into a terrorist suspects phone soon all manner of bad people (or the government) will then be able to troll through the data in all of our phones.  So?  Maybe I don't do my banking on my phone to protect financial data.  An inconvenience, but in my mind worth not providing safe havens for those seeking to engage in potentially murderous criminal activity.  

It would be helpful to understanding if the techie claims have merit if they could give a few concrete examples of what other data from my phone could present a threat.  Because I haven't been able to come up with much.

I can accept that some governments in this world would collect data to stifle dissent, maybe even arrest people on trumped up charges.   But as my mother used to say, two wrongs don't make right.  Hamstringing governments ability to investigate potential threats to public safety doesn't seem like the way to deal with bad government.  

I wonder if the tech industry isn't overly wrapped up in the idealistic notion that technology is going to save the world.  They don't want to face up to the problems their ambitions are creating.  I'm old enough to remember life when it didn't revolve around the phone in our pockets, I'm no happier now than I was then.  

The Underdog Democratic Senator from a Small State

Pushing the Democratic establishment candidate with idealistic aims to make revolutionary change that appeal to and motivate young people and attract celebrity endorsements.

No, not talking about Bernie.  Talking about George McGovern who startled the Democratic establishment and ended up pushing aside Edmund Muskie, the presumptive Democratic nominee in 1972.  

In 1972 the Democrats had controlled both houses of Congress for 17 years. But in the general election McGovern got clobbered 60.5% to 37.5% in the popular vote.  McGovern's idealistic liberal views, coupled with Nixon's southern strategy (backing away from active civil rights enforcement to swing southern whites, solidly democratic since the Civil War, over to supporting Republicans) laid the groundwork for a new Republican coalition that has dominated politics since.  By 1980 the Republicans grabbed the momentum and by 1996 Republicans took control of both houses of Congress and held it for 12 years, power that had eluded them for 66 years in the middle of the Twentieth Century (other that one session where they rode the coat-tails of Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was first elected). 

The times are different, the issues are different and Bernie Sanders is not George McGovern.  But the Bernie campaign reminds me in so many ways of George McGovern's idealistic campaign.  Bernie is idealistic and uncompromising in his progressive prescriptions for what ails us as a country.  I like Bernies vision of what this country should be better than what the decades of Republican  dominance have bequethed us.  But getting from where we are to where Bernie wants to be is a little like turning an aircraft carrier around in a bathtub.  Not surprisingly Bernie talks a lot about goals and ambitions and not so much about how to achieve them.

I feel like the Republicans are spent, out of ideas, burdened by the fact swing voters are aware of the Republican legacy of Iraq, the financial collapse and the last 5 years the most do-nothing Congress in modern history.  Their primary has been a spectacle of nonsense and name calling.  This is a significant opportunity to begin moving the country away from the Republican ideology that enriches the powerful and punishes the most vulnerable.  But leftish idealism has a poor history in this country as a formula for winning elections.  I don't want to see the country lose the opportunity because the Democrats can't resist overreaching.

Justice Scalia - Not a Tribute

He may have been a decent guy but he represented a most unfortunate tendency that has plagued the law profession down through history.  He saw words as reality, not as imperfect tools we use to communicate about reality.

You and I go through our lives relying on context to interpret the meaning of words.  Not just the context of the word within the larger body of words, but the context from which the words sprang, and the context within which the words are to have meaning.  Generally the more we know about context the better we understand.

Justice Scalia publicly disdained context.  He was not going to go outside the words to determine meaning.  He loftily argued that in this way he would not impose his views on the words.  In reality ignoring context outside the words is the ultimate indulgence.  As we see from politicians daily, ignore context and with clever words you can obscure factual reality.  You can make the words mean what you emotionally want them to mean - be that to accomplish a particular goal, or just to make your job easy.  All you have to do is cultivate the ability to manipulate words and you don't have to spend lots of time investigating and understanding the world that provides context.

Our country is the worse for it.  

In the Citizens United case he ignored the context to give us a law - that government can't regulate corporate political contributions - that is corroding the foundations of our democracy.  It is a decision that could only be justified by ignoring context.

Modern corporations did not exist when the founding fathers drafted the constitution.  They developed generations later as something akin to an agreement between government and investors.  Government wants investors to take risks so government allows people to create a corporation in which they put money they want to invest.  The corporation is subject to regulations as the government sees fit.  As long as the entity obeys the rules government establishes the investors are shielded from losing any more than what they invested.  

Allowing corporations the privilege of limited liability can impose tremendous costs on real people.  We recently spent billions in taxpayer money bailing out big corporations because their limited liability meant their stupid activities were sending waves of huge economic losses rippling through the world economy while the corporate officers and owners went home to their massive estates and fabulous fortunes, insulated from responsibility for their folly.  

Justice Scalia found in the founding fathers words the intent to preclude the government from regulating political contributions by these corporations that did not then exist.  As a result corporations still have limited liability but governments ability to regulate what is deemed inappropriate behavior is severely limited. 

Fixing the problems caused by Citizens United will be really difficult.   As a legal matter we could abolish corporations - state governments could repeal all the laws under which corporations operate.  But corporations are so embedded in our financial system we can't just abolish them.  The economic upheaval would be disastrous. 

Perhaps state governments could make consent to regulation of political contributions a condition of doing business within their state.  But that would take years, perhaps decades, and make economic life for all very complicated.  This really is a national issue and should be dealt with at the Federal level.

At some point (I hope) some future Supreme Court may find a way to lead us out of this mess.  But it will be a mess - for many years, thanks to an agile legal mind that celebrated words over reality.