A Few Gripes

I know what you're thinking: "Gripes? On this blog? Heavens!" But it's true. Here they are:

1) For the jillionth time, pro-lifers are pro-life because they believe abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, i.e. murder. It is not because they hate women, or want to keep women in their place, or think women should all be mothers instead of workers, etc.

2) Pro-lifers do not stop caring about babies after they are born. You lefties are making the classic mistake of thinking that just because your opponent doesn't hold with a given policy (i.e. a large welfare state), then he doesn't care about the intended beneficiaries of such policy. This is like thinking that a person is really pro-terrorist or anti-American just because he doesn't think invading Iraq or Libya is a good idea. Take statement p: " cares about children and the poor" and statement q: " is in favor of a large welfare state." You assume that p automatically implies q, and if !q is the case, then obviously !p. Your error is the assumption that p implies q. (propositional logic, do some reading)

3) There are many "controversies" in economics which are, for all intents and purposes, settled, and only persist in being controversies in the mainstream press or among politicians or whatever. They are settled because both the theory and (more importantly) the empirical data has pretty much made up every economist's mind on the subject. I say this because of a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives published a "study" claiming that reductions in corporate tax rates do not spur investments, and thus do not "create jobs." This is, of course, total baloney, and akin to releasing a study claiming that tides do not actually go in and out but rather stay put. There are still plenty of areas for disagreement, but there are many "controversies" which can be settled empirically without a lot of hemming and hawing. Anybody who thinks of themself as a serious, reasoning person should begin their understanding of economics (and hence politics) by accepting these settled axioms and reasoning from there, not trying to "debunk" them in a vain attempt at salvaging a discredited ideology.

4) Ultra-rich liberals, exactly how does that work? I mean, Ted Turner once claimed to be a socialist. Friedrich Engels was a wealthy heir and incompetent factory boss. I can't make up my mind about whether these people are aberrations and distractions from the real debate or if this trend says something important and fundamental about left-wing philosophy. In either case, how can one possibly take them seriously? If Warren Buffett really believed that the wealthy weren't being taxed heavily enough, why does he have accountants to help him reduce his taxes at all? Why not write a bigger check to the government and say "nah, you keep it all"? Or why not give more to charity? In the case of Buffett, many people argue that he advocates higher progressive taxes because his financial services companies would personally benefit (and they certainly would), but if we're talking about multi-millionairess Whoopi Goldberg, communist sympathizer and talented actress, then what's the explanation?

5) Tax cuts do not "cost" anybody anything, it is outright lying to claim otherwise. There is no cost incurred by anybody, anywhere, when taxes are cut. "But what about people who rely on government spending? Aren't they bearing a cost?" No, when your parents decided you were too old for an allowance and had to get a job instead, it didn't cost you a thing. Your total stock of resources didn't diminish one iota. If a person works, and then doesn't get paid for their work, then they beared a cost--the opportunity cost of their labor. To say that it "costs the government money to cut taxes" means that, as a result of tax cuts, the government must now spend more money. That is literally what leftists are saying when they complain about tax cuts. It may not be what they mean (I know very well what they mean, they believe the government is de facto entitled to everybody's money and that tax cuts take away what's theirs), but it is what they actually say, it is the actual argument that they are using (in my experience leftists don't say what they really mean, but instead use other "dummy arguments" like "it's for the children" or something, rather than saying "line the pockets of the public sector unions and keep me in office!"). Pay attention to the wording next time. They say that as a direct result of cutting tax rates, the government will incur a cost. How else can the government incur a cost but by being forced to spend money? Now, how does being forced to spend money follow as a direct result of tax cuts?

6) A particular reason I have trouble taking leftists seriously is that I think they put ideology over pragmatism even when it hurts them. Going back to taxes for a good example: leftists want bigger government, to get bigger government you want more tax revenue so the government can afford to be big (the alternative is slavery and brainwashing, which worked for the Soviet Union for a while), and here is where leftists put ideology over pragmatism. Their stated goal is more tax revenue, the way you get more tax revenue is often (but not always) with tax cuts. I say often but not always for a reason, for now we'll focus on those times and places where taxes are to the right of the Laffer Curve (to use a broad analogy) and where reducing them would result in greater economic growth and thus more long-term tax revenue. This happened during the 80s. I know, I know, you've heard that the government had horrendous deficits as a result of tax cuts in the 80s. Not true, the government actually had enormous revenues as a result of the economic growth following the tax cuts, it was the spending spike that caused the deficits (deficits or surpluses are functions of both spending and revenue, if revenue goes up and so do deficits, then spending must have gone up too, that's not even economics that's just arithmetic). The facts bear me out on this one, tax cuts in the 80s spurred economic growth which gave the government more money. Now, if I were a leftist and my goal was more money in government hands, I'd root for tax cuts wherever it seemed appropriate as a means of maximizing government revenue for the long-term (obviously we could maximize government revenue tonight if we simply taxed everybody at 100% of their income right this minute). But as I said, this is where leftists reveal that their religion, their faith, their ideology of collectivism is more important to them than their stated goals: they opt for higher tax rates virtually every time. It's more important to them to see the government being large and overbearing than it is to actually maximize revenue. They may not all think along these lines, but a lot of them do. I hear some conservatives talk about peace, but what they really like to see is the military kicking some butt, whether it brings peace or not. Same kinda thing. I love when I get to compare left-wingers and right-wingers and show their similarities. :-) Maybe I should make a post all about stuff I love about politics and economics.

Clearing Up Some Misconceptions for the Left

Listening to lefties talk, reading their books and editorials, and hanging around on their message boards, has taught me how they view those who disagree with them.  And they tend to completely misunderstand not only what their ideological opponents believe, but also what motivates their opponents' beliefs.  For example, pro-lifers aren't against abortion because they are "anti-woman," or believe women have to be chained to a stove, or are sexist.  We're against abortion because it takes the life of an unborn human being.  Attend any pro-life event, visit any pro-life pregnancy help center, and what will you find?  Women.  Lots of them.  Look at Sarah Palin, do you think she's anti-woman, hates women, thinks women belong in the home and not the office?  Oh, that's right, lefties cannot rationally discuss Sarah Palin.  Shouldn't have brought her up.  Sorry.

Anyway, I wanted to address some of the more common misconceptions and myths I see coming from liberals.  I won't go super-in-depth on any one of these, just touch on them briefly.  Many times on Democratic Underground I've wanted to interject to clear something up, but of course I'm not allowed to post.  So I hope some of you guys/gals/misc. read this:

1.  We're not "anti-union" because we're "anti-worker," we're are simply opposed to the tactics "unions" (and I put unions in quotes because the modern, legally-enforced unions are really rent-seekers and not true examples of collective bargaining at all) use, and we are opposed to the special enforcement unions get from the government in non-right-to-work states.  We fully support the right of workers to organize and voluntarily associate, so long as they remain within their rights and are not given special rights (rights which infringe upon business owners as well as their own fellow workers) to do so.  We believe unions can only be a force for the greater good when they have to stand or fall on their own merits.  We also believe that there is a major difference between merely organized labor and the modern-day legal construct we call "unions."  I know I said it earlier but it bears repeating.  We believe that artificially raising wages (this includes non-pecuniary benefits and the increased risk associated with strikes) above market levels leads to greater unemployment among non-unionized workers.  For that matter, so do virtually all economists.

2.  We're not all rich.  I know, some of you already know this.  Unfortunately, you also seem to think that if a person is a rightie and is not rich, then it's because they want to be rich and so cling to a "pro-rich, pro-business" ideology, or because we've been duped by our corporate masters to be too scared to vote the way that would most benefit us, since you lefties are all about taking away our Bibles, guns, and turning our sons into fags.  I'm satirizing your own satire there, in case you didn't notice.

3.  There's actually more ideological diversity among us than you might think.  Though not nearly as paralyzing as the special-interest splintering I see on the left, there are atheist libertarians and gay-hating, 700 Club-watching, protectionist, welfare-state backers among us, and a jillion other varieties I could mention.  I spend some time on Free Republic, and at least half of that is spent arguing with my fellow righties.

4.  We read.  And not just the Bible and Sarah Palin's book.  I literally have more books than places to put them.  I read 19th-century classics, left-wing 20th-century authors such as William S. Burroughs, Albert Camus, and Kurt Vonnegut, all sorts of economics texts both positive and normative, sci-fi, fantasy, the list goes on.  Most righties I know also read voraciously.  In fact, I don't think anybody quite enjoys reading history or economics more than righties.

5. We don't hate the environment, although we often make jokes about driving extra miles on Earth Day and clubbing seals just to tweak you guys.  In fact, since a disproportionately high number of us are rural or suburban dwellers who enjoy camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, and boating, you can bet we care very much about keeping the environment pristine.  But we don't buy into your trendy hysteria or your attempts to prop up a dubious hypothesis on the weather as a means to enact government control over the economy and hence, over peoples' lives.  And be honest lefties, that's what the global warming scam is all about.  So go ahead and pat yourselves on the back for bringing the world clean air and water, but pat us too, since basic conservationism and restricting pollution are non-partisan issues that nobody has a claim to.

6.  You're actually not more educated than us.  I know, the figures show that the more graduate level education a person has, the more leftie they are.  But you are forgetting that an enormous number of public school teachers, public administrators, bureaucrats, social workers, "education" specialists, etc., make up most of those numbers.  These people depend on the government's giant welfare state (and its growth) for them to have a job.  They naturally tend towards leftiness.  Most righties I know have a better understanding of history and of the political process, and studies bear that anecdotal evidence out as well.

7.  We're not all about making money.  In fact, we give more to charity than you do.

8.  Not many of us actually "hate" gays, and if and when we vote against gay marriage (and not all of us do), it's because we don't want to be forced to recognize a marriage that conflicts with our religious beliefs.  And that's what it's really all about.  An orthodox Jew shouldn't be forced by the government to eat crab legs and bacon, a Scientologist shouldn't be forced to see a psychiatrist, a Wiccan shouldn't be forced to shave her legs, and I shouldn't be forced to recognize a marriage that conflicts with my religious beliefs.  I happen to believe that the government shouldn't have any role in marriage at all, so that I am not forced to recognize a marriage that conflicts with my values and also I am free to marry whoever I want.  Lefties wanting gay marriage sanctioned by law are seeking a government solution to a government-created problem.

9.  We don't travel less because we're backward, uncultured xenophobes, we travel less because we aren't as rich as you and we have entire families we'd have to bring along.  It's funny how out-of-touch you can be with the culture in your own country, yet consider yourself cultured because you know how to order coffee in Paris.

10.  Palin never said she could see Russia from her porch.  That was an SNL joke.

11.  That offensive Rush Limbaugh quote you heard?  Taken out of context.

12.  We don't love Bush, we weren't brainwashed by Bush, and it actually is possible to be in favor of the Iraq War, against how the post-war occupation was conducted, and not be either a Bushbot or a soulless Nazi.

13.  What you consider torture is actually not even as bad as the routine training exercises we inflict on OUR OWN TROOPS, but since so few of you know anybody serving, you wouldn't know.

14.  When we take a stand against the public education monopoly, we aren't "against education" or "against kids."  Anybody in favor of educating kids would be appalled at our system, not an ally of it.

15.  Islam is not a race, so any criticism of Islam cannot be called racist.  For that matter, Judaism is not a race either.  So you hereby have my permission to criticize Israel without me calling you a racist.

16.  Criticism of Obama is not racism, criticism of Hillary was not sexism.  When you have to resort to irrelevant insults rather than actual reasoned argument, it's time to rethink your stance.

17.  Deficits are bad no matter who makes them, and yes, we criticized Reagan and Bush for their deficits.  We are criticizing Obama more merely because his are so astronomic.

18.  You may not know this, but the stimulus theory has been debunked.  In fact, one of Obama's chief advisors, Dr. Romer, wrote a paper explaining how stimulus has no effect on the economy.

19.  Media consolidation is actually a sign that the traditional media has gotten too big and is shrinking (or about to), not that it has "gotten more powerful."  To wit, recent nosedives in news ratings, paper and magazine subscriptions, etc.

20.  We dislike Nixon, love Reagan, don't care for Bush Sr. and are lukewarm on Bush Jr.  Stop assuming we love and are brainwashed into obedience by every GOP president.  Stop seeing people as products of society or of powerful wealthy special interests, and start seeing them as individuals for a change.

21.  The current recession was not caused by Reaganomics.

22.  Reaganomics doesn't mean what you think it does.  Neither does trickle-down economics, a term which is used more by the left than by the right, and which right-of-center economists didn't invent.

23.  The Reagan deficits were due to increased spending, not tax cuts.  Revenue soared throughout the latter two-thirds of the 80s.  But spending, driven by Congress, soared even more.  Thus, deficits.

24.  "Tax cuts for the rich" don't mean what you think they do.  Despite what you may have heard, the wealthy pay a disproportionately high share of taxes in this country, not lower.  What's called tax cuts for the rich are really attempts to "flatten" the tax system.

25.  We think Cheney's an idiot when he said "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

26.  Only a regressive tax, not a flat tax, falls disproportionately on the poor.  A progressive tax falls disproportionately on the wealthy, and a flat tax doesn't fall disproportionately heavy on anybody.

27.  Those 91% income taxes of the Eisenhower era?  Three recessions.  It was your hero JFK (who would be a Republican today) that turned things around with tax reductions.

Things I Hate About Politics--Part One

This is the first in a series of posts (future posts to arrive whenever I feel like it) about thinks I dislike about politics (which is plenty).  First, I'm going to focus on what the people, i.e. voters and non-voters who are not politicians, bureaucrats, or employed by the government do that bug me (though you'll notice that quite a lot of these things are also practiced by politicians).

1.  The tendency to believe uncritically what alleged statistics or facts you hear from somebody on "your side," and to automatically disbelieve any alleged statistic or fact that comes from "the other side."  People often do this to protect themselves against reality, they'd rather believe a falsehood than a truth, because believing the truth might mean changing their beliefs on policy (though this assumption is often false).

2.  People's lack of curiosity about how the other side thinks and feels.  I often hear people of various viewpoints describe people who disagree with them as liars, jerks, or just stupid.  Sometimes that's the case, sometimes people are liars, jerks, or stupid.  But when I hear somebody describe the other side that way, that tells me they don't know much about the other side, their understanding of the other side is limited to what "their" media tells them about the other side (i.e. what Rush says about the left or what Michael Moore says about the right), or is defined by the lunatic fringe of the other side, or misunderstandings of what exactly motivates the other side.  Which tells me that you don't understand the issues yourself very well, it tells me that you are in a cocoon where your beliefs reign supreme and unquestioned.  If you can't understand your views in relation to the views of those who disagree with you, how well do you understand political issues?  How well do you understand how prices work if you cannot observe an economy where prices don't function properly or at all?  Understanding other viewpoints isn't about making compromises or being weak, it's simply about understanding, gaining knowledge.  It does not necessarily imply any change in your positions on the issues.

3.  The kneejerk reaction to be against something that the other side is for.  This is often because of what motivates their policy positions, rather than what that particular policy position is.  F'instance, I consider myself in favor of free immigration and am against deportation of illegal aliens and am in favor of some form of amnesty for workers who are already here--although my reasons are practical in nature and differ entirely for the reasons that leftists hold to similar policy (yes, to calm your fears, I am opposed to immigrants benefiting from the American welfare system and believe violent criminals ought to be deported).  For the left, a good example is minimum wage laws.  Every economist agrees, and so does the empirical data, that minimum wage laws simply raise unemployment among the least-skilled workers--teenagers, certain minorities (why only certain minorities?  that's for a future post), ex-cons, in other words the people who most need to improve their job skills and productivity are the first ones cut out of the work force when minimum wage laws are enacted or raised.  Even flaming left-wing economists oppose them for this reason.  Yet rank and file Democrats and lefties are whole-heartedly in favor of minimum wage laws, and raising them to ridiculous, economy-crippling heights.  Why?  Because the other side is opposed to minimum wage laws and/or hikes.  Lefties don't want to find themselves in agreement with (dun dun DUN!!!!) Big Business.

4.  Feeling the need to defend something a politician said because they are the same party as you.  One of the liberating things I noticed about going independent six years ago was that I no longer felt obligated to defend stupid things politicians said because they were my party.  I wasn't a fanboy anymore, defending the indefensible against any criticism.  I could see politicians for who they are, policies for what they actually do, and if somebody said or did something stupid I could attack it.  I see plenty of this right now coming from the left as regards Obama, such as defending his insensitivity to various issues (Ft. Hood massacre, the Berlin Wall anniversary), his membership to radical socialist churches and his friendships with communist terrorists (future generations will look back at a person like Obama winning the Presidency and wonder if the entire nation had lost its mind), I could go on.  But the point is that people are only defending these things because Obama is a Democrat.  Simple as that.  Any excuse will do when it's your guy.  Doesn't have to be a good excuse, just an excuse, and you'll swallow it and tout it.

5.  Not voting third-party, or voting even when you don't really have a choice.  If there is a race and none of the two-party candidates really fit your views, I don't care if it's for President and you are in a swing state, you vote third-party with a candidate who fits your views.  Think about future elections, not just one.  Hate RINOs or DINOs?  Stop making excuses to vote for them.  If there is no third-party choice, abstain from voting for that race.  Politicians do pay attention to turnout, and if "their base" doesn't turn out they notice.  Not voting can be as powerful as voting, it's just a shame that we're so inundated with "voting is your duty" propaganda that many people don't understand that.  It's all about giving those in power the incentive to make the right decision, it's not about getting the right people in, because once those right people get in they face the same incentives as the last guy.

6.  Ignoring the importance of grassroots action.  This relates to number five.  As I said, it's all about giving those in power the incentive to make the choice you want them to make, to vote for the bills you want them to vote for, to introduce the bills you want them to introduce.  It matters less who is in office, and it matters more what incentives they face, and they get their incentives from opinion polls and what voters vote for (and lobbyists, that's another post).  Obama got the (wrong) impression that voters wanted a center-left President and that he had some kind of socialist-lite mandate.  He was wrong.  But the GOP got the right message for future elections:  they don't want soft RINOs.  Already you see the GOP changing its behavior, its rhetoric, and the types of candidates it puts forward.  These changes don't happen fast (they can't), but if they are led by genuine grassroots efforts (and that includes not voting) then they will be forced to happen if politicians want to keep their jobs.

Jacob's Laws of Economics

I'm not saying that I'm an economic whiz, and that these insights are all my own. Rather this is a combination of key insights from well-known economists, or insights that can be derived from simply economic theory but which are rarely stated--leading to bad reasoning, even among economists.

1. All statistics on incomes are misleading.
2. All statistics on incomes provide an incomplete picture of standards of living.
3. Income inequality is a red herring.
4. Income inequality and global warming are nothing more than poor excuses for socialists and other economic fascists to bring back discredited anti-market, big-government economic engineering policies.
5. There is an inverse relationship between a government's control and/or influence over prices AND that government's spending, and that country's GDP as a reliable measure of economic performance and economic growth.
6. There is not necessarily a benefit to privatization if you are merely trading one monopoly for another.
7. In a mixed economy, the market will always be blamed for recessions and crises.
8. You cannot complain that the market hasn't worked if the market has been impeded from functioning properly by the government or by other coercive means (i.e. gangsters).
9. Government manipulation of the costs associated with the production or sale of a particular good or service not only function as de facto price controls, they are in fact worse than actual price controls, as 99% of people will not know the price is being controlled and will blame the market instead of the government.
10. Economists come in two phenotypes: beard-face and leprechaun. When a beard-face shaves, he becomes a leprechaun. When a leprechaun grows a beard, he becomes a beard face.
11. Women economists are exempt from law 10.
12. Paul Krugman is the only known economist who is simultaneously a beard-face and a leprechaun.
13. The family, not the individual, is the basic unit of the market economy.
14. The state, not the individual, is the basic unit of the command economy.
15. Job creation is a by-product of economic growth, not the cause of economic growth.
16. Artificial make-work policies designed to "create jobs" are in fact job destroyers on net, as they lead to an inefficient use of the tax-payers' capital and thus have a contractive effect on the economy.
17. It is an inefficient use of the tax-payers' capital when the government uses it to buy things that the tax-payers either do not want or when the government uses it to buy things at a higher price than the tax-payers would be willing to pay.
18. "Efficiency" means achieving maximum output with a given amount of input. Unless "input" and "output" are defined for a given situation, then any use of the word "efficiency" is as valid as the next. IOW "efficiency" becomes meaningless if "input" and "output" are not defined.
19. The seven scariest words in the English language are "It will be good for the economy."
20. The term "economic imperialism" was invented by economically illiterate people who do not understand that economics is the study of scarcity and choice, and thus anywhere there are decisions being made about scarce resources is an area where economic theory is applicable.
21. Studying economics will not impress the ladies.