VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN

I do not plan to turn this into a political blog. In my opinion, we already have plenty of local political blogs. I have six favorites that I try to check daily, and about thirty that I check periodically. It seems to me that, collectively, they cover just about any issue of major concern to me. And although each individual blog is different, it seems that the blogosphere as a whole is very tolerant towards allowing commenters to fully express themselves. Although I have plenty of political thoughts, I just don’t see the need for the redundancy of another such blog. But tomorrow being election day, I thought I would dedicate this particular post to politics. Like most things though, I somehow find a way to make seemingly unrelated subjects connect back to my neighborhood.
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Last night, someone vandalized my property. It doesn’t appear to be drug related, and I don’t suspect the Vice Lords, MS-13, Gangster Disciples or D-Boyz. In fact, I believe that the gangs who vandalized my property are ones which have national reach, with an active presence in nearly every county and parish in the United States.

Based upon this trash that they left in my yard, I suspect that someone affiliated with the Democratic Party was responsible for this atrocious act of vandalism. Of course, everyone knows that their rival gang rarely allows any such activity to go unchecked. And apparently the Republicans sent some of their goons by to yank the sign but lacked the muscle necessary to do so. Instead, they just marked the territory with their own brand of garbage.

Anyway, it appears that this led to a chain of retaliatory strikes throughout the night and by sunrise, my property had been thoroughly desecrated.

At this point, I really don’t know what to do. Although it is illegal to put out these signs, it is also illegal for me to remove them. I would call the City to see about having them removed, but that leads to another major problem. You see, these two local gangs, with support from their national organizations, have close ties to nearly every politically elected and appointed official throughout the United States. Calling the City to report the criminal activities of these two groups would probably be about as effective as reporting to FWPD that people are selling drugs from my front yard.

So I guess I’ll just suffer through the indignity of having my property tagged by these gangs until after the election is over. Maybe they’ll eventually blow away or perhaps the leaf collectors will suck them up. And although I am relatively powerless to sway the actions of either of these gangs towards me, I can at least vent a bit by giving my assessment of both of them.

Dem-Obama

Barack Obama, the Democratic Nominee, wants to increase taxes on the rich and upper middle-class. He wants to transfer this money to the poor and lower middle-class. The loudest criticism against this plan is that by transferring wealth from the rich to the poor, Obama is attempting to turn our country into a socialist state.

I would mention two facts here in support of Obama. First, it is true that Obama (like most Democrats) wants to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. The main difference is that Obama is far more honest in his explanation than most are. Typically, Democrats will either twist the truth or lie outright on this subject. Rather than try to explain why they think a wealth transfer is justified, they simply claim that they are not doing what it is obvious that they actually are doing. So I give Obama credit here. He has said flat out that if you make more than $250,000 you can expect for your taxes to be raised under his plan. That doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with him on this point, just that I appreciate that he is being honest about it.

But Obama needs to do more than just be honest about who he will draw on and how much wealth his plan will confiscate. He also needs to explain who will receive the benefits and under what terms. First, I’ll start here with my own justification for why a wealth transfer from rich to poor should at least be worthy of discussion. This country has practiced some type of socialism to some degree from the very beginning, and in most cases this has been a wealth transfer upwards rather than downwards. The Federal Reserve System is an example of socialism. The Federal Reserve regularly increases the money supply, which is the root cause of inflation.

An increased money supply automatically decreases the value of the existing currency, and is thus a tax on all persons who have monetary assets or an income. In my opinion, at least up until the 1930’s the recipients of this increased money supply were overwhelmingly those who were above average, economically speaking. And as recently as the 1950's, governmental officials were still declaring publicly that U.S. foreign policy was based mostly upon the needs of major corporations. One could therefore make a strong argument that a wealth transfer in the opposite direction is justified to some degree to balance out this historical inequity. The main problem with this argument though is that we have already been doing that in significant ways for the past seventy years.

Social Security is socialism which favors the poor. Granted, the rich do have a cap on their contribution, but I believe the cap on their benefits is even more restrictive. In other words, I am pretty sure that the people who have the highest benefit-to-contribution ratio are more likely to be of below average economic class (Ask William Larsen to be sure.) We have also had many other programs which support the elderly and children in many ways. Since many of these programs are designed to favor giving benefits to those who are of lower economic classes, this represents another major form of wealth transfer from rich to poor which already exists.

Now, all of this is not to say that the programs we already have in place provide enough relief to the poor, nor does it prove that the rich are already being over-taxed. Such conclusions are what every American should decide based upon their own analysis of the current situation. I merely wanted to point to the fact that we have already had many socialist policies which support the poor for over seventy years, and we have had many socialist policies which favor the rich for even longer. Major programs of both types still exist. So, in my opinion, simply shouting SOCIALIST!!!, rather than actually explaining the details, is a worthless criticism of Obama.

I would say that a worthwhile explanation of any program which seeks to transfer wealth from rich to poor should at least be required to prove that it can actually implement the measures that it proposes. The Democratic argument in support of poor relief often falls into one of two categories. First, there is the - These folks are so poor that they are in imminent danger of starvation - argument. A free lunch program or food stamp program might fall into this category. But since Obama’s plan favors those who make incomes of up to $250,000, it is clear that many of his beneficiaries are not really in dire economic straights.

When this is the case, then Democrats usually turn to their second argument, which is that helping the poor will actually benefit all of us. They want the rich to see the wealth being transferred from them as an investment, rather than a tax. Education benefits easily fall into this category. The theory goes that investing in other’s education will result in them becoming more productive workers. A doctor or lawyer will pay a lot more in taxes than a fast-food employee. A more productive society will therefore create more wealth, and thus will pay dividends on the tax monies used to bring it about.

Well, there are two major problems with the poor relief programs. The first has to do with their own stated intentions. The second has to do with the discrepancies between what they promise and how the programs are actually administered. Regarding the first issue, I’ll again exemplify by using education programs and speak about a major disconnect between their stated goals and respected economic opinion. The major drawback here is that while they are justifying this as an investment, they totally fail to take into account the law of diminishing returns (which of course is essential to any complex cost-benefit analysis.)

Roughly stated, in this situation the law of diminishing returns could be stated as follows: While there will likely be a return on investment for money spent on education, and while there will probably be some circumstances where the return is greater than the amount invested, eventually, as the number of “educations” purchased becomes greater, the ratio of return to investment will begin to drop. And when extended far enough, there will likely be a point where the return becomes less than the investment.

In practical terms this simply means that while an increased number of professionally trained people might greatly increase productivity, this is only true to a point. As an example, let’s imagine a world where everyone has a masters degree or higher. This world is literally filled with doctors, lawyers and scientists and there is not a single person who has not invested at least $100,000 and twenty years of studying to increase their education. In such a world, there will still be menial tasks to be performed. And now such tasks will necessarily be performed by doctors, lawyers and scientists. So the question here, and I mean no disrespect to anyone who does these jobs, is whether such a great investment of time and money is well spent on educating the person who empties the garbage and flips the burgers.

Now I realize that there will probably always be a lot of people who choose not to pursue higher education, even when offered for free, so my “everybody is a professional” model will likely never exist. But the fact that the Democrat’s programs seem to never even mention this possibility is a problem. If they can’t define at what point (Sixty percent of population professionally educated?) they would admit that the costs outweigh the benefits, then it probably really means that this is not actually their true intention for pursuing such programs. Whatever the real reason they want to take from the rich and give to the poor may be unknown, all that is know is that they only posed it as an investment to try and sell it to others, not because they actually believe that.

It is also fair to say that a fully professionalized workforce would not be the only problem with this plan. Suppose that it was estimated that sixty percent was the optimum level of professionals, and suppose that it was determined that to even further optimize things, this should be comprised of equal numbers of doctors, lawyers and scientist. But what if thirty percent of the population wants to be doctors, and only ten percent wants to be lawyers. To correct this problem, there would have to be a way to convince ten percent of the population to give up medicine and study law instead.

I know that currently, just about any career counselor would justify studying anything in the medical field. And their justification is based upon the predication that these position are currently being undersupplied. But there are other professional positions which are also undersupplied, and it takes many years to create a professional. So imagine that everybody enters the medical field now, because that is the area which currently has the greatest need, then commits to this endeavor for the next several years. Eventually, there will come a point where the medical field is saturated, or at least over full compared to other professional fields, but then there are all those people who are already midway through their studies. To stop and switch programs now will be extremely costly, but to continue their current course of study will begin to bring the law of diminishing returns into effect. At the same time, the other fields are then being undersupplied.

So any program that purports to turn a tax on the rich into an investment that pays dividends, really needs to explain how they will administer such a program for optimal results. Would it not be fair for the government that recognizes a greater need for lawyers than for doctors, to encourage students to pursue a law degree? Would it not be sensible for them to either set outright restrictions or at least to direct people through economic incentives. Perhaps they could say - If you study law, we’ll pay for everything. But if you study medicine, we’ll only pay for ninety percent.

And this finally brings to light the major problem with the way Democrats often describe their own programs. Taking money from the rich gets a few people upset, but it also makes a few people happy. But the very thought of government “directing” our lives seems to be offensive to a clear majority of Americans, including those who are receiving the benefits. Seriously, how many times have you heard someone who gets their medicine subsidized or free complain about being “forced” to accept generic drugs? The concept that the government which is providing this service to them should actually have any say over the matter seems extremely offensive to them.

So the problem that Democrats face is this. While there actually are many Americans who support programs which transfer money from rich to poor, there are very few who actually accept the concept of socialism, which by it’s very definition includes governmental planning. No, while many of us actually demand that the government take money from the rich and give to the poor, we usually refuse to allow the government to distribute this money in the manner which would lead to optimal results.

It is unfair to call most Democrats socialists. They are simply liars and thieves. They purport to be advocating for plans which will benefit society as a whole, while the fact of the matter is they simply want to take cash from the rich, keep a cut for themselves, then turn the rest over to the poor in a lump payment. They don’t really give a damn if the poor better themselves, and in fact if they don’t then this provides more justification for the Democrats to later proclaim the need for even more poor relief. A good Democrat would start by making his case for why the rich should be taxed, but then he should propose programs for distributing this money by methods which actually are likely to provide a return on the investment - A good Democrat seems to be hard to find though.

And this leads to the other problem. They can’t simply take from the rich and give directly to the poor. That is too transparent and it makes it easy for their critics to see the flaws (as well as what the government's own cut is.) Instead, they create complex programs who’s main intention, I believe, is to simply make it more complex for people to follow the money trail. If I give a friend $10,000 dollars for a business investment, but demand partial ownership of the business in return, I can easily follow the money. If my friend’s business does well, I will see it, and make sure that he is not doctoring the books to make it appear less profitable and screw me out of money. But if I take this money and give $1 to ten thousand individuals, I can not possibly monitor each of their businesses. I will have no idea whether they are sucessful, other than what they choose to tell me.

Similarly, under the Democrats faux socialist agenda they take money from several million people, churn it through a complex maze of governmental programs from the local to the national level, then spit it out in a matter which is virtually impossible to follow. If I have $10,000 dollars taken from me in taxes, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to say whether this was a successful investment or not. The Democrats will point to someone who used his share of the doled out money to educate and place himself in a much higher tax bracket. But then the Republicans will point to the guy who went and bought crack with his money. The programs are so complex and bureaucratic laden that we end up with a system which actually allows either side to see exactly what they want, while nobody can see the full truth.

So, regarding Barack Obama specifically, I believe he has been more honest than most politicians of either party in describing who he will take money from and how much he will take. But I am not convinced that he has done an adequate job of describing who will get the money, under what terms, and how this formula will benefit us as a society. Am I to simply believe that under an Obama Presidency, mothers who receive assistance for their “needy” children will no longer squander their money on a boob job? (See Jeff Pruitt for insight on that one.) Am I to believe that people who receive a government grant for their education will never end up channeling some of this money into alcohol or illegal drugs? And am I to believe that after January twenty-first, people who receive home heating assistance will no longer leave their windows wide open during the middle of winter?

Well, I don’t believe it. I simply don’t believe that Barack Obama’s mere presence in the White House will be enough to fundamentally alter the basic tendencies of human nature. I do not believe that people who are given money from the government will do what they are expected to do with it unless this is stipulated under binding terms. I think that to suppose that simply handing poor people a chunk of cash will result in them spending it on things which will benefit society or even themselves is foolishly naive. And I think this is Obama’s major weakness. I am not necessarily saying that I will vote against him. I am merely stating my reservations about him.

Republi-Cain

So there’s my take on Obama and the Democrats. I see some things that are good, and some things that are bad. Now, let’s take a look at the other clown in this circus. John McCain, like most Republicans, wants to lower taxes for the rich and upper middle-class. Like the Democrats, they have two usual justifications for this philosophy. First is the incentive argument, which states that if you take wealth redistribution to it’s extreme, meaning a complete equalization among all, you will necessarily destroy the incentive for an individual to work.

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Well, this is a great argument. You don’t have to study economics to realize that the person who gets paid for it will work a lot harder than the person who doesn’t get paid for it. There simply must be individual reward for individual effort and any system which does not recognize this is doomed to failure. There’s only one problem with the Republican’s scare tactics here. No one has ever seriously suggested equalizing wealth or anything that even comes near it. I am not necessarily suggesting that taxes should be raised to fifty percent, but even if they were, strong incentive for individual effort still remains. This is still a strongly capitalistic economy, albeit with many socialistic tendencies.

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But if the first argument is not compelling enough to some, then the Republicans have a back up plan. Interestingly, it is the same as the Democrats. That’s right people, we are not cutting taxes on the rich for their benefit, but rather for the entire societies benefit. It’s an investment model which is actually very simple to follow. You concentrate wealth in the hands of a few individuals, who will then serve as incubators for job creation and expansion of our economy. The positive effects of this will directly reach a large percent of our population, and through a chain of reactions eventually benefit us all.

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There is one major problem with “trickle-down economics though”, and it has to do with that trickle part. As Keynes once said in reference to such policies, “In the long-term, we’re all dead.” In other words, if the government taxes a poor guy to give to the rich guy, under the theory that eventually this will pay dividends, the poor guy might starve to death while he’s waiting for the paycheck. And there’s a reason that this return might be very slow in coming. It’s because rich people are greedy. And before you start bitching, thinking that I’m bashing on rich people, let me explain.

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All people are greedy. History has proven this is true, and it usually takes a unique set of circumstances to keep people from exercising this greed. In the case of the rich, they are uniquely empowered to exercise their greed in ways far more auspiciously than the average Joe. If you only have a couple bucks in your pocket, and you refuse to feed (buy crack for) the homeless beggar on the corner, you are just being prudent. Hell, you’re not that far removed form where he’s at and if you’re not careful, you could easily wind up there. But the guy who’s driving a Mercedes and wearing a gold-plated Rolex, well, he’s just being greedy. And he’s not doing anything different that what the guy with a few bucks or the homeless guy themselves would probably do if they were in the same situation.

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This natural human tendency towards being greedy has serious effects upon how the trickle-down theory is actually put into practice. Economic theory teaches us that in a free market economy, prices are established through an interplay of supply and demand. Those who hold a greater supply over a good, or especially those who hold monopolistic or near monopolistic control over that good are in a strong position to set prices favorable to their own demands. And those who hold little supply will exhibit far less control. The demand factor also figures in here because those who have a greater demand for a product are actually more susceptible to having the price for that product manipulated against their will.

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So, regarding wages (which is the cost to purchase labor), the price is set through supply and demand. And when the divide between the rich and poor becomes more pronounced, this has two effects upon the labor market, both of which favor the rich. First of all, the poorer a guy becomes, the more desperate he becomes. In desperate circumstances he is likely to accept a deal which he normally would not, out of necessity. Yet at the same time that the poor guy is desperate to strike a deal, the rich guy has the luxury of simply being able to wait him out.
When it is rich versus poor who are competing with each other to establish the cost of labor, the poor have a natural disadvantage. This disadvantage translates into a low wage rate being set, and this then compounds the divide between rich and poor.

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Trickle-down economics is correct that the rich money will filter down to the poor, but because the rich are in such a dominant bargaining position, the trickle part actually becomes the most prominent feature of this economic relationship. The same people who argue against taxing the rich are the same ones who argue for eliminating minimum wage laws. If their desires alone were allowed to set up our economic system, we would be in big trouble. You would eventually have a very few people who held most of the wealth, and they would employ the rest at wages that approach slave labor.

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So if McCain and the Republicans are to successfully plead their case before a majority of Americans, they must do two things. They must first show that the tax plans being proposed by Democrats will actually deincentivise the rich to perform. Logically, although it may not necessarily be fair to do this, you could tax the rich right up to the point where the marginal return on their investments is zero, before they would actually just set on their money. We are not, nor have we ever been, anywhere near this extreme. Our taxation policies do lower the incentive, but they certainly don’t eliminate it as some Republicans would appear to be claiming.

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The second burden upon them is to simply prove that the financial returns to the poor, which trickle down from the rich persons business activities, will be greater than if they had simply taken the cash to begin with. This is extremely difficult to prove either way on the empirical scale. It would be easy to find many examples where this has been the case, and it would be equally easy to find examples where it was not the case. And because or complex taxation policies make it so difficult to actually follow the money, and because such investments often take a considerable amount of time before achieving success, it is virtually impossible to make a comprehensive statement about exactly how much government subsidies or tax breaks the rich should have to produce optimal results.

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I am sure that this does work as stated to a considerable degree, but I am also sure that at some point the rich can become so rich that they don’t NEED to invest anymore. At this point, it is just a social activity for them, and they are then squaring off against people who’s desperate circumstances lead them to accept any scrap thrown their way. So there is reason to support a taxation policy that is favorable to the rich at times, but there is also much cause for skepticism of whether such policies have been taken beyond the point of usefulness.

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I will say that I think McCain is a bit more liberal on economic issues than most Republicans. On the other hand, he also seems to have shifted further to the right on a lot of issues since he won the primary. I suppose that trying to predict the outcome of his policies is about as pointless as doing so for any other politician. First, the plans are usually not articulated in enough detail to allow for full analysis. Then, the fact that just about every politician deviates in major ways from what they said they’d do as a candidate to what they actually do once elected further confuses matters. I really wish I could sit down with these two for a cup of coffee. I’m sure that seeing how much cream or sugar they add to their cup would probably be about as valid of a predictor for how successful their policies will be than trying to understand what they say.

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Independents and Li-Barr-Tarians

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Now for those who don’t like either the Democrat, Obama or the Republican, McCain, there are always other choices. Third party and independent candidates have always been a part of our election tradition in this country. Most of the time they serve as spoilers to one of the major party candidates. The two most recent example of this are when Ross Perot took a very large number of votes in 1992, and very likely cost President Bush his reelection, and in 2000, when Ralph Nader’s much smaller number of votes just might have been enough to tip certain states away from Gore. I guess it’s kind of ironic that among these two examples one favored a Republican and the other hurt a Republican, and both times the Republican in question was George Bush.

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Third party movements are not necessarily resigned to remaining on the sidelines forever. They can eventually become strongly incorporated within one of the two major parties. Look at the Green movement, for example. Between the two parties, the republicans were at one time leaders on this front. After all, it was Republican President Richard Nixon who ushered in the EPA. But many followers of this movement felt that neither party was giving their issue due attention, so they formed the Green Party. Now although the Green Party does officially exist today, and I am in no way suggesting that their issue is not worthy of a completely separate party, their former followers are largely shifting their vote to the Democratic Party.

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I think you can look at other special interest groups and learn a lot by following their political evolution. I think that most of the “Religious Right” type of groups were originally founded independent of either party. I think that many of them began as grass-roots style movements where a group of people got together and agreed on what they thought was wrong with current public policy. Then they began fishing around to see if they had any takers for their agenda.

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Whether it was genuine or just contrived to get their allegiance, it soon became obvious that the Republican party was largely willing to carry the mantra of the religious right. If a majority of Republicans had either disagreed with this group, or simply thought that their issues were much lower on the scale of importance, then it is likely that these groups would have coalesced to form their own independent party, similar to the way the Greens did.

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The most famous instance of a third party movement in this country is of course the Republican Party. Every American knows that this party was formed in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican President. Wow, if he can just rise up out of the dust from nothing, become President, then actually go on to replace one of the other major parties, then why can’t we expect the same from the Libertarians, the Greens, or any hoist of other nut jobs out there that think they are exactly what this country needs.

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Well the reason those nut jobs can’t do it is simply because that’s not how it’s done - ever. The Republican Party did not suddenly arrive on the scene in 1860 and take over the White House in a sudden burst of glory. No, Lincolns campaign actually began at least as far back as 1854, when the Republican Party first took seats in Congress. Granted, they served a minority role in both chambers, but the important point to realize is that for six years and three consecutive sessions of Congress, the Republicans had effectively replaced the Whig Party in the United States Congress. This is not to say that the two party’s ideals were the same, just a recognition that major groundwork had already been achieved before the nation decided to entrust this new party with the Presidency.

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I really don’t think we’ll ever see an independent as President. I think a vast majority of people will always demand that such candidates express themselves in enough detail, on enough issues, and show that they can garner wide geographic support, that they will by necessity have to coalesce into a party before they are give serious consideration. Then, I think that a vast majority of people will never trust the Presidency to a new party until it has proven itself in action - I.e. holding power in Congress. I think most people want evolution, rather than revolution, because as bad as things might seem at times, the unknown (by it’s very nature) could possibly be much worse.

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Regarding the Libertarian Party in particular, I do not think it is the solution America seeks. Although I think a clear majority of Americans have libertarian tendencies on certain issues. I just don’t think that a majority of them lean this way on a majority of the issues and I don’t think there are even very many individual issues where a majority of Americans lean in the Libertarian direction.

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Although I would say the diversity of opinion found within this party is greater than either of the two major parties, there are certain patterns which seem to be repeated. I would say it has been my experience from both those I have met locally, as well as readings from beyond this area, that most Libertarians place economic issues above social issues on scale of importance. Now it is important here to realize that I am differentiating between libertarian philosophy and the aims of the Libertarian party.

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Regarding the Libertarian Party, it is difficult to give a summary overview with such a wide rang of opinions, but I would say that on social issues, their stated agenda aligns much more closely with the stated agenda of the Democratic Party, rather than the Republican Party. But on Economic issues, they can largely be construed as an ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party. Now here, I added the qualifier of “stated agenda” for a very important reason.

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According to many Libertarians, the difference between stated agendas of the two Parties matters far less than how they actually behave once elected into office. I think the bi-partisan support for the recent $700 billion bailout proves this point. I am not saying here whether I think that this plan was a good idea. I am simply saying that it is my opinion that a majority of Americans were against it yet large numbers from both Parties in Congress supported it. So yes, the Libertarians make a very good point when they refer to members of both major Parties ad Republicrats. What you say is far less important than what you actually do.

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Now Americans displeasure at being repeatedly lied to and abused by both major parties might eventually have an impact on the Libertarian Party. I think for just about any office below President of the United States, people are willing to take the occasional gamble on the unknown. Our frustrations with both the Democrats and Republicans could easily begin to show as votes for third parties or independents. As the largest and most active third part in the United States, the Libertarians certainly stand to gain momentum from this. But as I explained before, I think they are going to need to be more firmly established before a majority of Americans entrust them with the Presidency.

Final Comment

For those who did not get the irony of this particular grouping of signs, I will explain. The signs were pretty evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, with one Libertarian and one independent thrown in for good measure. In many cases, both sides fighting for the same office were represented. Over half these signs weren't even for people running for office in Allen County. And just to further confuse things, there were also signs for the U.S. Army, The Boy Scouts, debt relief and Monty's Pizza. And for those who still don't get the message it is simply this: If you are stupid enough to base your vote upon the fact that you saw a name on a sign, then you may as well just write in Monty's Pizza.

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I think the lower sign on the tree speaks for itself.