These fixes address the basic weakness in any attempt to finance government fairly - Government wields power and even the best intentioned government cannot completely erase the bias of self-interest in establishing their own compensation.
The fixes are based on two assumptions:
1. The private sector creates wealth, so the measure of compensation of the government should be based on the compensation of the private sector governed.
2. Government should be conservative in adopting policies that produce long term obligations.
1. All governments must compensate employees based on fixed compensation schedules computed off a base of 99% of the average private sector compensation within the jurisdiction. No government can hire any person at compensation in excess of 4 times the private sector average compensation unless the amount is specifically approved by the voters in the jurisdiction. Average compensation for all government employee's cannot exceed 99% of the average private sector compensation.
2. No government can contract to pay any future employee compensation or benefit that is based on actuarial projections of future economic conditions. Employee compensation obligations must be funded out of current tax reciepts or current reserve fund.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Being True to your Beliefs - Virtue or Vice?
In political rhetoric the conversation often focuses on honoring a person with strong beliefs and castigating the person who changes his position.
Being true to your beliefs is only a virtue if being sure your beliefs are true is an even higher priority. That simple truth usually gets lost in the heat of political rhetoric. I doubt that Hitler, or Stalin, or Ghaddafi were ever accused of not being true to their beliefs.
Being sure your beliefs are true requires constantly reevaluating your beliefs in light of all available information, and requires a willingness to admit you are wrong and change your viewpoint.
There should be a direct correlation between certainty in your beliefs and the amount of time you spend critically evaluating your beliefs - more time = more certainty. Unfortunately in politics usually the inverse correlation is more accurate.
Being true to your beliefs is only a virtue if being sure your beliefs are true is an even higher priority. That simple truth usually gets lost in the heat of political rhetoric. I doubt that Hitler, or Stalin, or Ghaddafi were ever accused of not being true to their beliefs.
Being sure your beliefs are true requires constantly reevaluating your beliefs in light of all available information, and requires a willingness to admit you are wrong and change your viewpoint.
There should be a direct correlation between certainty in your beliefs and the amount of time you spend critically evaluating your beliefs - more time = more certainty. Unfortunately in politics usually the inverse correlation is more accurate.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Minimum Wage
The minimum wage discussion sparked by President Obama's call for an increase in the minimum wage is a perfect example of the process that constantly leads this country into adopting a policy that is a primarily a compromise between the two most extreme and inaccurate characterizations of reality rather than a policy that will produce the best results.
On one side of the minimum wage debate folks say an increase in the minimum wage will hurt small business, and cause poor beleagured small business folk to lay off employees, cut their hours or even close up the business, and thus hurt the economy.
On the other side folks say nonsense, increasing the minimum wage will increase the money in peoples pocket, will help the economy, and won't really hurt business.
Both sides are about equally right and equally wrong. In fact using a national minimum wage to make a fairer society and boost the economy is like trying to use a sledgehammer to make an ice sculpture.
Examples of the misdirected nature of the debate:
1. Proponents of the minimum wage cite San Francisco, where the minimum wage is over $10.00 an hour and the city taxes business to provide health insurance for all workers. They say - "See, this proves minimum wages increases will be good". Folks, get a grip. San Francisco is one of the richest areas of the country, with a very high cost of living, Just because San Francisco employers can thrive with a $10+ an hour minimum wage and city business taxes to cover employee's health care doesn't mean businesses can do the same thing in other parts of the country that aren't full of well off single folks with lots of money to spend.
2. Opponents of the minimum wage paint all small businesses as running on the edge of insolvency. They argue the minimum wage will force many business owners to close up shop, or lay employee's off to avoid bankruptcy. Undoubtedly there are businesses where the profit margin is low enough that the owner won't be able to afford to increase hourly wages for minimum wage workers without losing the ability to make an acceptable profit. But there are also businesses whose business model is built on exploiting minimum wage workers to create huge profits for owners. And there are businesses that fit every possible niche between those two extremes.
A better National policy would leave minimum wage laws to individual regional governments, but use the Federal tax code to impose high taxes on income derived from businesses where the owners compensation greatly exceeds the average pay of the employee's. The greater the disparity, the higher the effective tax rate. Minimum wage workers would drag down the average salary, thereby increasing taxes on the owners of the business - a strong disincentive to those trying to make their fortune exploiting minimum wage workers.
On one side of the minimum wage debate folks say an increase in the minimum wage will hurt small business, and cause poor beleagured small business folk to lay off employees, cut their hours or even close up the business, and thus hurt the economy.
On the other side folks say nonsense, increasing the minimum wage will increase the money in peoples pocket, will help the economy, and won't really hurt business.
Both sides are about equally right and equally wrong. In fact using a national minimum wage to make a fairer society and boost the economy is like trying to use a sledgehammer to make an ice sculpture.
Examples of the misdirected nature of the debate:
1. Proponents of the minimum wage cite San Francisco, where the minimum wage is over $10.00 an hour and the city taxes business to provide health insurance for all workers. They say - "See, this proves minimum wages increases will be good". Folks, get a grip. San Francisco is one of the richest areas of the country, with a very high cost of living, Just because San Francisco employers can thrive with a $10+ an hour minimum wage and city business taxes to cover employee's health care doesn't mean businesses can do the same thing in other parts of the country that aren't full of well off single folks with lots of money to spend.
2. Opponents of the minimum wage paint all small businesses as running on the edge of insolvency. They argue the minimum wage will force many business owners to close up shop, or lay employee's off to avoid bankruptcy. Undoubtedly there are businesses where the profit margin is low enough that the owner won't be able to afford to increase hourly wages for minimum wage workers without losing the ability to make an acceptable profit. But there are also businesses whose business model is built on exploiting minimum wage workers to create huge profits for owners. And there are businesses that fit every possible niche between those two extremes.
A better National policy would leave minimum wage laws to individual regional governments, but use the Federal tax code to impose high taxes on income derived from businesses where the owners compensation greatly exceeds the average pay of the employee's. The greater the disparity, the higher the effective tax rate. Minimum wage workers would drag down the average salary, thereby increasing taxes on the owners of the business - a strong disincentive to those trying to make their fortune exploiting minimum wage workers.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Cultivating a Realistic View of Gun Control - 2
1. Gun advocates argue that if everyone carried a gun, society would be more safe from criminal activity. They argue private gun ownership deters criminals. Criminals who can attack a defenseless population and are much more inclined to do so.
The evidence of history does not support their theory more guns in everyones hands makes for a safer society. Gun advocates need to explain why 100 years ago in much of the western united states many people carried a gun. Did that stop crime? If so explain to me why virtually the entire the "wild west" moved to banning people from carrying firearms in public in the space of a couple decades?
Explain to me why our murder rate with guns is orders of magnitude higher than other similar developed western countries where guns are generally not available?
Explain to me why we subject police officers to psychological tests and hundreds of hours of training before we let them carry a gun? Yet even after all that training they shoot innocent and unarmed people from time to time because their hormones are surging and they make mistakes in judgment.
Explain to me why does the military gives soldiers guns but not ammunition unless combat is threatened?
Are there actually documented instances where private citizens intervened to stop a crime? I have seldom heard of such an event, but in a recent discussion a gun advocate cited the following web site as offerring examples of cases where folks with guns stopped a crime - http://www.akdart.com/gun3.html
The cite presents lots of anecdotes without reliable documenation, and makes no distinction between people at their home or business defending themselves and people out walking the streets packing heat.
The site tries to explain away the lack of reliable evidence (such as police reports or media reports) by starting with a disclaimer that the mainstream media doesn't report instances where people successfully defend themselves with guns because the mainstream media is for gun control. That is certainly not the mainstream media I experience. The mainstream media is about any story with emotional appeal, and with good guys and bad guys, and any gun confrontation has that appeal.
The site then starts citing "examples", many of which are about instances where people are in their homes or businesses defending against intruders. There are virtually no examples of people walking around the streets armed stopping a crime.
The only instance close that has happened in my recent memory was when that gun toting self appointed vigilante in Florida shot an unarmed black kid he confronted on a street in the kids neighborhood. Exactly the sort of event one would expect from members of the general public packing heat on the streets.
2. Gun advocates argue ttat there is no way to stop criminals from having guns - since a black market arises for banned substantces such as drugs, or, once upon a time alcohol. But the fact is when things are illegal, although markets in the banned substance are almost always developed by criminals, the banned item is vastly more expensive than the same item in a legal free market. And trading in guns is vastly more difficult than selling illegal drugs that fit in your pocket. If guns were illegal they would be much less available to the common criminal, or those operating in the heat of passion. Existing licensing systems for those who need to carry concealed weapons would allow responsible citizens to obtain licenses, so further shrinking a potential illegal market.
In addition if carrying guns in public is illegal and the police stop someone with a gun and no license to carry the weapon, they can arrest them. When guns are legal to carry in public, and the police stop someone with a gun, even if they are on their way from a crime, or just committed a crime the police are unaware of, the police cannot detain that person unless the person has committed some other offense.
One approach is to require weapons that fire lots of rounds rapidly (more than 6 rounds a minute) to have special sized ammunition, and then tightly control that ammunition.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Cultivating a Realistic View of Gun Control
Fact: Emotionally some people love guns. Probably the vast majority of gun owners are responsible, hard working citizens whose guns are no threat to others. But with even the responsible gun owners the mere fact they own guns creates the possibility of accidents, or that guns could get stolen in a burglary, or the owner could sell them to someone less responsible. So any gun ownership creates some level of risk to society.
Fact: Emotionally some people want to see guns disappear off the face of the earth. Unfortunately guns represent a tool for those who want to enforce their will on others. History is littered with the bones of civilizations that imagined that they did not need to be prepared to meet force with force.
Fact: Historically tyrants have denied access to weapons as a means to control populations and use the population as a resource for their own gain. While our democracy is a huge step forward in human evolution toward elevating civil society over the rule of brute power we cannot be certain some powerful future forces will not find a way to elevate personal ambition over civil society. While current technologies in our military make the notion of protecting oneself from the government with your guns ludicrous in the dawning era of drones, satellites and electronic surveillance, we cannot say that having some part of the population have access to guns would not provide some form of protection from some forces seeking to hijack government.
Fact: One side says guns kill people, the other side says guns don't kill people, peaple do. In fact ammunition is what kills people. A gun without ammunition is not much different, in terms of effectiveness as a weapon, from a brick or a big stick, and probably slightly less dangerous than a hammer or hatchet.
Conclusion: What if we could find the technology to individually identify each round of ammunition. When a person bought ammunition the purchaser would have to pass a background check and each round would be registered to them. Then if that round of ammunition is used in a crime the person who is the registered owner would be strictly liable for civil damages to the victim(s) or their families.
Benefit: People who love guns, and are willing to take responsibility for the risks inherent in gun ownership, and in insuring their ammunition is not lost or stolen, could have and use as many guns as they want. When they use their ammunition they would have to collect the shell casings and return them, or destroy them, to be relieved from potential civil liability. This system, over time, should make ammunition unavailable for the mentally unstable and so expensive as to be unavailable for the casual criminal.
Problem: Goverment would have a database identifying who had ammunition. This creates some risk of rogue government, but gun-owners would have plenty of warning if Congress sought to make ammunition or guns illegal, and if Government really is going rogue the fact they know who has ammunition is the least of our problems. The risk is low and can be ameliorated by a strong commitment to civil society.
Fact: Emotionally some people want to see guns disappear off the face of the earth. Unfortunately guns represent a tool for those who want to enforce their will on others. History is littered with the bones of civilizations that imagined that they did not need to be prepared to meet force with force.
Fact: Historically tyrants have denied access to weapons as a means to control populations and use the population as a resource for their own gain. While our democracy is a huge step forward in human evolution toward elevating civil society over the rule of brute power we cannot be certain some powerful future forces will not find a way to elevate personal ambition over civil society. While current technologies in our military make the notion of protecting oneself from the government with your guns ludicrous in the dawning era of drones, satellites and electronic surveillance, we cannot say that having some part of the population have access to guns would not provide some form of protection from some forces seeking to hijack government.
Fact: One side says guns kill people, the other side says guns don't kill people, peaple do. In fact ammunition is what kills people. A gun without ammunition is not much different, in terms of effectiveness as a weapon, from a brick or a big stick, and probably slightly less dangerous than a hammer or hatchet.
Conclusion: What if we could find the technology to individually identify each round of ammunition. When a person bought ammunition the purchaser would have to pass a background check and each round would be registered to them. Then if that round of ammunition is used in a crime the person who is the registered owner would be strictly liable for civil damages to the victim(s) or their families.
Benefit: People who love guns, and are willing to take responsibility for the risks inherent in gun ownership, and in insuring their ammunition is not lost or stolen, could have and use as many guns as they want. When they use their ammunition they would have to collect the shell casings and return them, or destroy them, to be relieved from potential civil liability. This system, over time, should make ammunition unavailable for the mentally unstable and so expensive as to be unavailable for the casual criminal.
Problem: Goverment would have a database identifying who had ammunition. This creates some risk of rogue government, but gun-owners would have plenty of warning if Congress sought to make ammunition or guns illegal, and if Government really is going rogue the fact they know who has ammunition is the least of our problems. The risk is low and can be ameliorated by a strong commitment to civil society.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Our Political Future
Politics is crazy sometimes. Economist's tell us that in the United States the areas of the country that are dominated by Republican's are also generally the areas of the country where they receive more federal tax dollars in benefits than they pay in taxes. The areas of the country where people pay more taxes than they get back in benefits tend to the controlled by Democrats who want more taxes and spending.
Yet in Congress it is the Republican's who are wanting to cut and chop government spending and Democrats that are usually resisting. The exception, of course, is defense spending. Many Republican's regard our mind boggling levels of defense spending as untouchable. At least here politics maybe makes some sense - it's my impression (haven't researched it) the last round of military base closures 20 years ago ended with the bulk of the military bases being in Republican controlled states - I suspect that fact is a big part of why Republican states get more Federal dollars back than they pay out.
When we look at the negotiating positions of members of Congress on the approaching debt ceiling and, shortly thereafter, the deadline to impose 6% across the board federal spending cuts, we find it is the Republican members of Congress who represent areas of the country who will probably be hit the hardest by cuts in federal spending who are pushing the hardest for big cuts. They are trying to steer the cuts toward social spending, but the fact is defense accounts for 50% of the spending our income taxes support. Republicans controlled the agenda for most of the last couple decades and they have continually nibbled away at social programs, then turned around and lavished new money on defense and handed out tax cuts. As a result of their policies to only path toward getting the country back toward a balanced budget involves either higher taxes or major cuts in defense, or start stealing money from the Social Security trust fund or Medicare.
What are their constituents going to think when the economy in Republican parts of the country get slammed by cuts in Federal spending? Are the Republican's in Congress that confident in their ideological marketing that they think they can keep voters who vote their pocket book voting for them through (another) deep downturn? Will Republicans trade ideological purity for irrelevance, as they have in California?
Yet in Congress it is the Republican's who are wanting to cut and chop government spending and Democrats that are usually resisting. The exception, of course, is defense spending. Many Republican's regard our mind boggling levels of defense spending as untouchable. At least here politics maybe makes some sense - it's my impression (haven't researched it) the last round of military base closures 20 years ago ended with the bulk of the military bases being in Republican controlled states - I suspect that fact is a big part of why Republican states get more Federal dollars back than they pay out.
When we look at the negotiating positions of members of Congress on the approaching debt ceiling and, shortly thereafter, the deadline to impose 6% across the board federal spending cuts, we find it is the Republican members of Congress who represent areas of the country who will probably be hit the hardest by cuts in federal spending who are pushing the hardest for big cuts. They are trying to steer the cuts toward social spending, but the fact is defense accounts for 50% of the spending our income taxes support. Republicans controlled the agenda for most of the last couple decades and they have continually nibbled away at social programs, then turned around and lavished new money on defense and handed out tax cuts. As a result of their policies to only path toward getting the country back toward a balanced budget involves either higher taxes or major cuts in defense, or start stealing money from the Social Security trust fund or Medicare.
What are their constituents going to think when the economy in Republican parts of the country get slammed by cuts in Federal spending? Are the Republican's in Congress that confident in their ideological marketing that they think they can keep voters who vote their pocket book voting for them through (another) deep downturn? Will Republicans trade ideological purity for irrelevance, as they have in California?
Friday, January 11, 2013
Gun Control
I see the folks who love their guns are circulating the story of a women in Georgia who shot an intruder with a crowbar - citing the event as a reason why there shouldn't be gun control - and stretching their imagination to say it justifies having assault weapons in the home. One gun law supporter was quoted as saying "It's a good thing she wasn't facing more attackers. Otherwise she would have been in trouble and she would have run out of ammunition," said Erich Pratt, director of communications for the Gun Owners of America.
In the 65 years of my life I can't recall a single instance of a homeowner facing a horde attackers attacking their home. I'm sure that would make the headlines and I would hear about it. On the other hand I don't have enough fingers to count the massacres of innocent people that have occurred the last few years by nut cases wandering the streets armed to the teeth.
Media sources say the NRA is developing TV ads to exploit the story.
They are so out of touch with reality - so deeply enamored with their right to have guns - so wrapped up in the argument as to be out of touch with reality - it is mind-boggling.
I'm sure there are people who want to ban all guns, but I think most people don't have a problem with people who choose to have a gun in their house for self protection. It's foolish - statistically the gun in your house is more likely to kill you or one of your family or friends than an unknown attacker. But if a gun in the house makes folks feel safer, not a problem - maybe we can require trigger locks and some safety training and licensing to weed out the mentally unstable. But that seems to me to be a completely different issue than allowing anyone to buy a gun at private sales and gun shows. Or to buy assualt weapons that have no purpose other than killing or maiming lots of people really quickly.
80 years ago or so the NRA started as an organization of gun owners who recognized that guns were dangerous and wanted to lobby for regulation. Today's NRA is nothing more than a public relations company for the gun industry, oblivious for the greater good of this country.
Here is an interesting question. What countries in this world would you expect people to be lobbying to put armed guards in schools? It is inconceivable in virtually every other developed western democracy, and most of the non-democracies in the world. The only ones that occur to me besides the US are Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan and the sub-saharan countries being taken over by Al-Queda.
In the 65 years of my life I can't recall a single instance of a homeowner facing a horde attackers attacking their home. I'm sure that would make the headlines and I would hear about it. On the other hand I don't have enough fingers to count the massacres of innocent people that have occurred the last few years by nut cases wandering the streets armed to the teeth.
Media sources say the NRA is developing TV ads to exploit the story.
They are so out of touch with reality - so deeply enamored with their right to have guns - so wrapped up in the argument as to be out of touch with reality - it is mind-boggling.
I'm sure there are people who want to ban all guns, but I think most people don't have a problem with people who choose to have a gun in their house for self protection. It's foolish - statistically the gun in your house is more likely to kill you or one of your family or friends than an unknown attacker. But if a gun in the house makes folks feel safer, not a problem - maybe we can require trigger locks and some safety training and licensing to weed out the mentally unstable. But that seems to me to be a completely different issue than allowing anyone to buy a gun at private sales and gun shows. Or to buy assualt weapons that have no purpose other than killing or maiming lots of people really quickly.
80 years ago or so the NRA started as an organization of gun owners who recognized that guns were dangerous and wanted to lobby for regulation. Today's NRA is nothing more than a public relations company for the gun industry, oblivious for the greater good of this country.
Here is an interesting question. What countries in this world would you expect people to be lobbying to put armed guards in schools? It is inconceivable in virtually every other developed western democracy, and most of the non-democracies in the world. The only ones that occur to me besides the US are Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan and the sub-saharan countries being taken over by Al-Queda.
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