We're in trouble. Serious trouble. The Bank of England is going to try to print money to ease the economic crisis. Anyone with even a marginal background in economics knows why this is a disaster. What astonishes me is that I don't see the press howling over this one.

The problem is simple. When the government starts printing money and injecting that into the economy, people have more money. Unfortunately, that means they spend more money. Suppliers raise their prices. Why? They have higher demand and can do that. Even if you think they're being greedy, their suppliers will raise their prices. Lots of people are going to raise their prices and inflation sets in. The more money the UK government prints, the worse the inflation will be.

• So can't the government freeze prices?
  
  So what happens when the price of your goods is frozen and the supplies for those goods cost more? You go out of business.
• So can't the government turn around and freeze those prices?
  
  Not if you have an international economy where many goods and services are supplied outside of your country.
• Ah, but the price of those goods and services aren't affected by our printing money, so they'll stay cheap.
  
  No, you've just trashed your currency and undercut its value internationally. You can't afford those goods and services at the exchange rate for your money. (See Zimbabwe for a delightful example)
• But the Euro means no exchange rate with other EEA nations who've adopted the Euro!
  
  Ah, but we haven't adopted the Euro, have we? And if we did, we'd be taking other EEA countries down with us. This national disaster would turn into an international crisis.

What's worse is that I suspect the Brown government won't stop this ludicrous idea.

The UK has officially gone nuts. No economist would seriously suggest this. As an act of desperation, it ranks up their with going to a loan shark to help paying off your bills. Everyone's going to be screwed. Prices are going to go up much faster than wages and people will struggle even harder to make ends meet.

I am trying to hang on here. I have almost two and a half years before I can apply for citizenship but I'm scared that this government is going to make the intervening time a living hell for me. I just can't believe this idiocy.

You know how to deal with this economic crisis? I'll give you a hint. Somewhere there's a farmer in Tibet saying "there's a global economic crisis"? He raises his own food and keeps to himself. I am not arguing that countries should be isolationist, but they should be more self-sufficient (there's a big difference, but I'll be Rush Limbaugh types won't be able to figure it out). By focusing more on local economies, we can have some level of protection when another economy collapses.

But why won't this happen? Because there's no incentive to. Global financial systems ofter huge rewards and the people who play them have little risk. If they lose a few billion dollars, it's not their money they're losing. And why do politicians allow this? Because there's no downside for them, either. If they play along and let these institutions assume too much risk with other people's money, they leave office for a nice, fat, private sector jobs. And if the economy gets hurt by this? They leave office for nice, fat, private sector jobs. The revolving door of government ensures that they'll do what the business tell them to do.

So the UK government needs to focus on local, sustainable economies and let the economic crisis run its course. There's no way that the UK government is going to come out of this as a island of wealth and stability in a search of financial turbulence. The best we can do is mitigate the damage, work with other countries to repair the damage and admit that they can't print money to get out of this mess.

Is the UK economy going to collapse completely before I can get citizenship? If the BBC were to lay me off (not likely, but you never know), it's not going to be easy to get another job right now. I'm really, really worried about this. On the bright side, I can apply for permanent residency in June 2010, so if things hold together that long, I should be OK.

Hmm ... time to look for a wife (with EEA citizenship, of course :)

So if you read articles about the US economy, you might seem them reporting a 7.2% unemployment rate. Now this sounds bad, but it's not as bad as it could be. After all, unemployment during the Great Depression was close to 25%. So we're nowhere near to being in a depression.

Or are we?

First, take a look at this table of unemployment rates for the Great Depression:

Year	Unemployment rate
1923-29	3.3%
1930	8.9%
1931	15.9%
1932	23.6%
1933	24.9%
1934	21.7%
1935	20.1%
1936	17.0%
1937	14.3%
1938	19.0%
1939	17.2%
1940	14.6%
1941	9.9%
1942	4.7%

As you can see, we didn't start pushing 25% until 1933. The stock market crash of October 29, 1929 is when many people view the Great Depression as starting. Then, our unemployment was just over 3%, but soared to almost 9% the following year and almost 16% the year after that. With out unemployment at 7.2%, we're don't seem to be doing too bad, but unfortunately your government is lying to you.

Take a look at the official unemployment rates for the US for the last four months of 2008. Without going into too much detail about all of the different types (explanations on the page linked to), "U-3" is what the newspapers tell you. "U-6" is the actual unemployment rate and it's much closer to how it was calculated during the Great Depression.

Type	Sept.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.
U-1	2.4%	2.7%	2.6%	2.9%
U-2	3.5%	3.8%	4.0%	4.2%
U-3	6.2%	6.6%	6.8%	7.2%
U-4	6.5%	6.9%	7.1%	7.6%
U-5	7.2%	7.6%	7.9%	8.3%
U-6	11.2%	12.0%	12.6%	13.5%

So while the newspapers are telling you we have 7.2% unemployment, it's actually closer to twice that. Why? There are some categories of unemployed which aren't counted. For example, have you given up looking for work because you can't find any? Congratulations! You're no longer unemployed. Have you lost your high-paying job and are delivering newspapers? Congratulations! You're now fully employed and the government can pretend that you're doing fine.

Apparently, determining which unemployed people are unemployed is a serious business and in 1995, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a comprehensive redefinition of unemployment (PDF). Apparently, their original U-1 through U-7 classifications were too confusing to the public, but U-1 through U-6 are just right.

So are we screwed? Are we heading into another Depression? Maybe not. Back in the 1930s, the idea of government assistance for the economy was unheard of and it was believed that it would sort itself out. It was the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, elected in 1933 (after Herbert Hoover was kicked out on his ass for pretending that the market will solve all) which aggressively sought to provide direct economic assistance from the government. Curiously, it was after this assistance was offered that the Great Depression started easing, though it was almost a decade before things were really sorted out (and then we had WW II. God has a sense of humor, eh?).

Regrettably, I'm hearing many Republicans today claim that the New Deal didn't have any benefits for the economy, a stance that most economists laugh at. Only time will tell what Obama's policies will do, but by aggressively intervening early, we may rack up a lot of debt but buy ourselves some time to pay it off. However, if we wait to long, our 13.5% unemployment rate may well top 20% and grow worse. I expect the fighting in Washington is going to hurt us all.

I sometimes write about the economics of software development because it's an important thing for software developers to understand, but due to a recent post here, I've decided to write about the reverse. No, I'm not talking about economics software, but rather, the lessons that software development can bring to economics.

( You can take your dogma and ... )

With all of this outcry that Obama is socialist, I confess to being a little confused. I hear so many journalists and "pundits" throw around that term, but none of them really explaining it. Perhaps more importantly, I want to hear them explain two things: how "socialist" applies to Obama's policies and how "socialist" doesn't apply to the US.

But first, we interrupt this rant with an excerpt from "Pulp Media Fiction".

               INT. LIBERAL MEDIA BLACK-OPS HEADQUARTERS


            SARAH PALIN sits back in a chair, staring in horror at JULES 
            WINNFIELD.  He has a microphone held tightly in front of him.


                                     JULES
                                 Can you name me a single 
                            mother-fuckin' Republican who 
                            attacked Obama's "protect domestic
                            jobs" position?

                                     SARAH
                         What?

                                     JULES
                                 I *said* 'Can you name me a 
                            single mother-fuckin' Republican 
                            who attacked Obama's "protect 
                            domestic jobs" position?'

                                     SARAH
                         What?

            Jules presses the microphone hard against Sarah's mouth.

                                     JULES
                         
                                C'mon, pretend this is a 
                            Katie Couric interview again!  
                            I dare ya, I double dare ya
                            motherfucker, say "What" one 
                            more goddamn time!

( And now, back to our regularly scheduled rant )

Years ago I was spending a lot of time with a woman I really liked but for some reason nothing seemed to happen beyond friendship. One night I asked directly asked her what she was thinking about our friendship and she informed me that she was a lesbian and in a small town like ours, she felt she needed to use me for cover.

Ouch.

It brought to mind that old line from a song "if everyone's a little gay, why can't you be a little bit straight?"

Oddly, that brings me around to socialism. There's been a lot of talk about Obama's "socialist" policies. People are outright calling him a socialist and were I living in the US, I'd like to meet some of those people and ask them a simple question: "how do you define socialism?" I'd also ask them if they can give any examples of socialism in the US they object to and examples they support.

As you have probably noticed, many socialist countries (including China -- they're not communist) have strong elements of capitalism in their societies and these elements are growing. However, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single "capitalist" country on the planet which doesn't have socialist elements. We have plenty of socialism in the US, but you'll note that most of our socialism is limited to what are called "public goods" (a good thing, in my opinion). For example, the construction and maintenance of the US Interstate Highway system was and remains a socialist endeavor and it's clearly what economists would call a public good.

Even though most socialists are a little bit capitalist (North Korea is the only exception I can think of), it seems that all capitalist societies are a little bit socialist. So why do Americans like to pretend this isn't true our the good 'ol US of A? Why do Americans get all paranoid and scared about something that permeates their life?

To a large extent, the "socialist" label is mostly applied to Obama for his call for universal health care, even though this doesn't have to be socialist. You can simply mandate that employers provide medical insurance. Don't have a job? You could pay privately or, at that point, take advantage of government subsidies for the insurance (which would be a tiny bit of socialism). This is more or less the German model and it helps to promote competition and keep health care costs down (it's great when you can see a doctor rather than being forced into expensive emergency rooms).

I still hear people argue that they don't want the government making their medical decisions (except for abortion. Or medical marijuana. Or death with dignity. Or ...), but why should they feel better off letting corporations make their decisions? If the current financial crisis demonstrates anything, it's that corporations value profits more than people. I can't say the US government is much better, but at least we have a say in it.

And for those who argue that universal health care would raise our medical costs, why would that be? There are approximately 193 countries in the world (the number depends on who's counting) and out of 193 countries, the US has, by far, the most expensive health care system in the world and it's a far cry from the best. Given that the US is the only industrialized nation not offering universal health care (I highly recommend reading that link), why is it that all of the others have managed to keep their costs down? Further, most of them offer excellent health care. Universal health care is quite possible, quite practical, and should be viewed as a right, not as a privilege.

Universal health care might be instituted as a form of socialism, but so what? We have plenty of that and I don't see people complaining about the Interstate Highway System or fire departments. I don't hear many (non-libertarians) calling for the abolishment of Medicare or Medicaid. The US has plenty of successful socialist enterprises. I'm not a socialist, but it's a stupid label applied by ignorant people. Next time someone uses that word, call 'em on the carpet!

As an interesting aside: I note that those who generally object the most to universal health care are those who've never faced the terror of a medical crisis without insurance.

The news that the Japanese government is officially backing a space elevator doesn't seem like that big of a deal in light of the current financial woes in the US, but this could potentially be huge.

First, a space elevator would lower costs of getting getting things into space to a fraction of what it is today. If they allowed tourists, you could afford to go. It might get as low as a few hundred dollars (long run, not short run, obviously). At first you wouldn't actually be able to go because tons of technology companies would be working like mad to take advantage of this and they'll all be lined up in front of you. The micro-gravity in Earth orbit would be a huge boon to many areas. There could truly be a technological revolution here, not to mention an explosion of business in space.

So who cares if the Japanese build it first? Well, the US should, for one thing. The Japanese price tag of $5 billion is a joke. It will cost them far, far more than that. However, the real cost of building a space elevator is actually the cost of building the first space elevator. If you have the first one, subsequent ones are actually cheap. Not only do you have the technology, you then have the access to space. All of my reading of space elevator technology suggests whichever country or group first builds a space elevator will have such a dominant position in the industry that it will be very difficult for any others to overcome. If the US then tries to put up an elevator, the Japanese can just put up two or three more for a pittance, further increasing their dominance in space.

So if Japan succeeds, the US, like every other country on the planet, automatically becomes a second-rate player. The Japanese will be the ones who could potentially solve our energy crisis. The Japanese will be the ones who be able to chase down rare materials we can't get on earth. The Japanese are the ones who will make huge strides in materials technology. And even though they have almost nothing by way of a military, they stand to become a hugely influential military power ("Oh yeah, we'll just take out all of your satellites!").

Frankly, I won't be too disappointed by this. I want someone to take advantage of this. Better the Japanese than no one.

toxic_pink37, who, like me, is also interested in economics, had an interesting post about Exxon's profits. Now, no disrespect is meant towards her, but she linked to this hilarious post in The New Editor, a right-wing blog. In this blog, they point out a couple of interesting -- and misleading -- facts about Exxon's record 11.7 billion second quarter net profit this year.

1. Exxon was "only" earning 8.5% profit.
2. Exxon has a price/earnings ratio of less than 11 (I'll explain this in a moment).

To give a quick quote from this:

ExxonMobil just announced their 2008 2Q earnings -- $11.7 billion -- which are being touted by the press as the "highest-ever" profit for a US company -- of course there is either a de-emphasis or no mention at all of the company's profit margin in most of these stories (ed. -- Exxon's 2008 2Q profit margin was just less than 8.5%) -- a number which might add some additional context to the report.

Though they don't come outright and say it, they strongly hint that the profit margin is rather low relative to the earnings. Oh, poor Exxon! Barely scraping by! Oh, but wait a minute; it turns out that this is pretty damned close to average profit margin for corporations for the last couple of decades.

OK, since they only implied that Exxon's profit margin was poor, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and focus on their real mistake:

Here's a question for all those who are bashing Exxon's 'record profits': if Exxon is making 'record profits,' why is the company's P/E ratio below 11? (The average historical P/E ratio for the stock market is roughly 20, less the inflation rate.)

So what the hell is a price/earnings ratio? Well, that's simply the price you pay for a share divided by how much money you'll make annually[1] for it. In other words, if you pay $100 for a share and you earn $5 dollars per year, you have a P/E ratio of 20 and it will take you 20 years to recoup your investment. In other words, if the P/E holds, the number is simply how many years it takes for you to earn your money back.

Now it might seem like the lower a P/E ratio, the better deal you get, but this is where it gets strange. As you can see from the relatively simple math, the lower the P/E ratio, the faster you earn your money back. But here's what happens. If a solid company has a low P/E ratio, people buy up their shares like mad and this pushes the price up. As a result, if a P/E ratio is suspiciously low and remains that way, the market is betting against the company maintaining those profits. So to recap: Exxon is earning record profits, but the market still doesn't trust them. Mind you, "the market" is comprised of people who tend to make their living this way. When they are betting against someone as solid as Exxon, something serious is afoot.

And this is what is happening to Exxon. Exxon didn't meet market expectations. People think that oil company tax breaks are going away. There's also the Exxon shareholder revolt to contend with. Exxon's "what global warming?" approach to climate issues is leading people to the conclusion that Exxon's long-term business strategy isn't viable. And hell, if you have a P/E of 11 and thus know that it will take 11 years to recoup your investment in the fact of radical market change that the company is ignoring, do you really think you're going to feel comfortable with that?

The writers at The New Editor don't appear to factor in these issues, but hey, economics is hard; let's go shopping!

As a side note, even if their 8.5% profit is low compared to other companies, need I remind you that this isn't your typical company? Would you want to earn 10% on millions or 8.5% on billions? Let's have a sense of scale, people.

And if you've read this, you understand why I'm still single in the UK. Who the hell wants to talk about this?

1. Amusingly, I misspelled that at first and Firefox tried to correct that as "anally". I swear my browser has a sense of humor.

Executive summary: if you're fat, eat more. If you smoke, smoke more. You're doing your part to save civilization.

It's always astounding how a superficial analysis of complex problems can fail in substantial ways, including in ways that seem blow common sense out of the water. For example, death penalty opponents have long pointed out that putting someone to death in the United States is far more expensive then keeping them in prison for the rest of their life[1]. It doesn't seem logical, but even a brief willingness to look at the numbers verifies it.

In a similar vein, I was astonished in college when one of my economic classes taught about a computer model of long-term economic scenarios which examined what would happen if we eliminated pollution, eliminated disease, eliminated war, instituted population control, etc. Regrettably, my economic texts are back in the US, so I can't find the study, but the overall conclusion was that such elimination would be disastrous to the world economy. Why? Because old people would live longer relative to young people. They would get sick less often (eliminating disease and pollution), would die less often (war), or there would simply be fewer young people (population control).

In these scenarios with an ever-growing elderly society, more young people would be required to support the growing elderly population. Since we wouldn't have enough young people, economies would struggle and potentially collapse. Raising the retirement age wouldn't help. The average healthy 75 year old simply cannot perform at the same level as the average 25 year old, either physically or mentally.

The pessimistic results shocked us, but it was difficult to see a clear way out. Even the desperately needed population control flies in the face of countries trying to maintain growth economies (which is a hint that the current world economic model is not viable in the long run).

Which leads me to a fascinating study[2] funded by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports[3]. This study was analyzing the long-term financial impact of obesity. They also threw smokers into the mix. What they found, not surprisingly, is that individual health care costs for a smoker or obese person are higher than for healthy people. However, their life expectancies are short enough that long term health costs are lower than for healthy people. Specifically, from their findings:

Until age 56 y, annual health expenditure was highest for obese people. At older ages, smokers incurred higher costs. Because of differences in life expectancy, however, lifetime health expenditure was highest among healthy-living people and lowest for smokers. Obese individuals held an intermediate position. Alternative values of epidemiologic parameters and cost definitions did not alter these conclusions.

So what does all of this mean? Well, it could mean that since obese people and smokers have more medical problems while alive, they'll contribute less economically then others. However, it could mean that they'll live through their economically productive years and conveniently die before becoming economically unproductive. If that's true, then pushing morality aside, it could easily be in society's best interest to encourage obesity and smoking.

Any wonder why economics is often referred to as "the dismal science"? It's also worth noting that just because being unhealthy might (I can't stress that word enough) have hidden benefits to society, it's little consolation to the 50-year old mom dying of lung cancer.

If we want to take all of this to its logical conclusion, we might mistakenly conclude that a "Logan's Run" scenario where "mandatory retirement age" means killing people off when they become an economic drain actually helps to curtail many of the disaster scenarios we currently face, but this omits (as economics is wont to do) the human factor. There would be an instant uprising, throwing the murderers out of power and bringing us back, once again, to business as usual. But if we quietly step down on certain public health campaigns, we've an inefficient way of potentially achieving a similar result. What a nightmare scenario.

Anyone got a light?

(Of course, just to remind you that simplistic analyses don't do complex problems justice ...)

---

1. This is easy to research and has the knock-off effect of diverting financial resources from crime prevention.

2. I was tipped off to this by my friend Piers Cawley's wonderful blog post Fat is an economic issue.

3. The authors assert that "the funder did not have any role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

Facts:

1. Cuba's food supply is mostly organic
2. Cuba has one of the highest life expectancies in the world (not far behind the US)
3. Cuba has universal health care at a fraction of the US cost (even as a percentage of GNP)
4. Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the US.

I don't think these facts are all unrelated, but I've found when I mention them, people say stuff like "yeah, but they live in a brutal dictatorship! Think of the price they have to pay."

Sure, they live in a dictatorship and I would love to see them get out from under it, but that has nothing to do with the fact that their people are ridiculously healthy and they've done so at a fraction of the cost per person (even in GDP comparisons -- look it up!) than the US. But somehow the diehard (and dieoften) free market supporters like to pretend that this isn't possible for the US. They're so Darwinian in their approach to everything that they refuse to admit when it's possible for us to collectively help others.

I stumbled across this fascinating video on thesoundofsnow's journal. This Swedish professor has a funny and fascinating talk about world health statistics. It really gave me pause to realize that in many respects, the world is doing a better overall job than many would give us credit for.



But here's the good part: a version of that wonderful software shown in the video is available online, complete with a tutorial. I decided to look at Zimbabwe (the "software link" should take you straight to that graph. It worked for me in Safari, but not in Firefox). Robert Mugabe is widely believed to be destroying his country, so I wanted a better look. I decided to take a look at two key indicators, child mortality and economic growth. (Chart reproduced in case the "software" link doesn't work for you).



Obviously, you want a lower child mortality and a higher economic growth. From 1965, when Southern Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was then known) declared independence, to 1970, declaring itself the "Republic of Rhodesia", the child mortality and economic growth indicators generally improved. But as you can see from the chart, there was a sharp downturn in both indicators starting in 1970 and lasting until 1977. What happened?

Around this time period, Ian Smith, the prime minister of Rhodesia, led a white government that did not want to share power with the black minority and there was a constant civil war. In 1978 an accord was signed with black leaders and open elections were held, bringing blacks into power. After an initial strong spurt of economic growth, the growth slowed down, but generally remained positive until 1990. Child mortality dropped significantly during this period. Around 1990, everything fell apart. Infant mortality skyrocketed and economic growth plummeted.

Robert Mugabe, first elected in 1980, decided in 1991 to institute an austerity program which was a disaster and to this day, he's still all over the news for how well he's single-handedly destroying his country.

What's interesting is that I sound mildly educated about this topic, but it only took me a few minutes to learn all of that. Most of the time was spent writing this post and editing that graphic. I think the Gapminder software can be a fantastic tool for people to dig for information that was previously not available. The downside, of course, is that correlation is not causation. Merely because major events mark turning points on the Zimbabwe graph does not mean that the data and events are related. I suspect they are, but it's a useful caveat to keep in mind.

PS: If you really want to have fun, compare life expectancy and physicians per 1000 people and watch life expectancy drop like a rock starting in 1987. I was also startled to note that the US had a significant drop int the percentage of women using contraceptives, starting in 1995. It appeared to drop 12% over 4 years.

In the United States, I think it's safe to say that just all Republicans -- and many Democrats -- are going to object to publicly funded national health care. We hear the same tired refrain over and over again: it's socialized medicine. In this context, "socialized" means to establish or regulate according to the theories of socialism. A lot of people are afraid of the socialist politicians who support this evil idea. Of course, all rational people know government shouldn't own or control anything which represents a public good. You may think that government bureaucracy can do better, but the private market has always proved itself more efficient.

Since I'm not a politician, I don't have to pussyfoot around with half truths. I can say what I really mean. I hate socialists. This country would be better off without 'em and I mean all of 'em.

First on my list are the god-damned cops. We all hate cops anyway, right? Domestic security is a public good and we all know that if we didn't have cops, people would be able to fend for themselves. A perpetual state of fear would make the world a better place. As Robert Heinlein explained it, an armed society is a polite society. When was the last time you ever heard drug dealers giving each other any lip, huh? 'Nuff said.

Next that have to go are firemen. You don't pay your fire bill, they should let your damned house burn. To this day our country has not lived down the disgrace of socialist firemen rescuing red-blooded Americans on 9-11. And what's worse? Some people call these men heroes! I mean, really, what sort of idiot do you have to be to say "yeah, I want to be underpaid to risk my life for ungrateful fucks." A Socialist Idiot, that's what.

And let's not forget our military. Government controlled and funded, through and through. As a child, I cried myself to sleep every time a military doctor helped me live through another asthma attack, knowing that our socialized military and the free medical care this entitled me to was a violation of everything our nation stands for. You remember the Vietnam war? Back then, cooks actually had some training on how to fire a gun. How fucked up is that? You know what a jack of all trades is? A master of none. You didn't hear soldiers praising their god-damned gourmet meals, did you? Hello no. Who do you want backing you up in a firefight? A cook or a professional soldier? What this country needs is three or four private militaries showing the value of comptetion. The people know that competent management, skilled in maximizing value for the dollar will provide us with the best defense this country can buy.

And the damned congressman voting for more money to throw away on military spending are a bunch of god-damned socialists. Throw the bastards out.

Note: my opinions on "left" and "right" are based primarily on my interpretation of their origins. However, I realize this is an issue which many people have strong disagreements over and that's OK. Hell, you could define government controlled economies as right wing, as far as I'm concerned. What follows is my interpretation of the definition of "wingedness", if you will. If you object to my characterization of Democrats as right wing, do so in the context of my definition. If you just attack the definition, it quickly becomes a pointless argument which no one can ever win since so many disagree.

Someone asked me online in to justify my assertion that the US Democrats are pretty far to the right and I thought that was a pretty fair question. To understand it, though, requires understanding that the world is round. Their are other countries besides the US and in terms of simply US politics, the Democrats are definitely "left wing". Of course, Angelina Jolie (thank god Google Images "safe search" was off for that one!) is fat if all I have to compare her to is Twiggy. Sure, some people can point to the US Communist, Socialist, and Green parties as examples of more left-wing movements in America, but few vote for them and probably fewer even know what they really stand for. So for most Americans, all they really have to compare are Democrats and Republicans (with the odd Libertarian in there to stir the pot).

So let's take a look at what being left-wing is all about. First, we have to make it clear that it's generally used in too broad a context. You can loosely break left-wing down into two categories: authoritarian and economic tendencies. The term "left wing" derives from the fact that traditionally liberal French politicians sat to the left of the French president's chair in the late 1700s. Nobles and tended to sit on the right. Nobles and clergy also wanted more central control over the populace but they wanted their mercantile activities unfettered. They were also exempt from personal income taxes. No trade unions or minimum wages for them! Up with business, down with people, if you will. While people argue over the precise meaning today, I'll stick wth the traditional origins. Interestingly, this view of "left wing" and "right wing" (which I admit that not all share) means that the Libertarians are not an extreme right wing party like many feel. Instead, they are "right wing" on economic issues and "left wing" on social issues. (I generally agree on the latter but I'm moderate on the former.)

For authoritarian tendencies, perhaps the most famous central government was the former Soviet Union. The government controlled what you could say, what you could read, where you could go, where you could work, etc. In terms of authoritarian tendencies, the USSR was very right wing. However, in terms of economic tendencies, they had very strong central planning. This was a natural extension of their desire to exert authoritarian control and, paradoxically, central economic planning is considered very left wing because historically, the right wing French nobles wanted the government to stay out of their business. As a result, the terms "left wing" and "right wing" seem rather muddled in the minds of many. So being "left wing", historically, is to favor greater central control over business and lesser central control over people.

So how does that apply to the US? Regarding authoritarian tendencies, at first the Republicans seem fairly reasonable when they talk about "state's rights". Because we're generally free to pick up and move where we will in the US (obviously, there are often significant economic and social constraints there), the idea of state's rights seems good because each state can pick and choose how they want to run things and people can vote with their feet if the Diebold voting machine doesn't seem to help out. However, there's an interesting problem here. Want to lower your drinking age below 21? The Feds will take away your federal highway funds. Want to legalize marijuana? The Feds will come in and step on your forehead. Want to allow assisted suicide? The Feds will threaten to yank medical licenses and bring out the lawyers. Want to allow gay marriage? They're trying to outlaw that, too.

To many people, these are moral issues. When you want to allow people to decide for themselves what is and is not moral, suddenly, the Federal government is keen to exercise central control. And by "Feds", in this specific case, I mean Republicans. They're not so keen on state's rights if it offends their sense of morality. This desire for central control over the populace is historically very right wing. Ironically, many conservatives feel that the government has no right (ha!) to legislate these issues, so they tend to be further to the left than mainstream Republicans. However, the Christian Right has a strong influence over much of Republican politics, so many conservative Republicans who feel people should be allowed to make up their own minds have been marginalized. If they hadn't, my voting record would be far more balanced.

Unfortunately, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, the Democrats aren't terribly keen on showing a spine when it comes to moral issues, so when it comes to this form of right-wing central control, many say nothing or they outright support it. Thus, on authoritarian issues, many Democrats lean to the right (and notice I've not even brought up the issue of their support for the Patriot Acts). Mind you, on such "moral" issues, many countries in the world are right wing though there are notable exceptions such as Spain and the Netherlands.

As for economic issues, Republicans are traditionally viewed as favoring small government and less government interference in business. Businesses should be allowed to operate relatively unfettered by rules and regulations. Without discussing the relative merits of this position, I'll just point out that many who have left-wing economic tendencies favor ideas such as longer vacation hours, stronger unions, higher minimum wages, public regulation of public goods and even federal work programs and sometimes federal subsidies of business. It's a mixed bag and gets awfully confusing at times, but let's face it, the Republican party today is generally staunchly opposed to these (though most politicians of all stripes cheerfully support Federal business subsidies so they can brag to constituents about how good they are at bringing home the pork).

As for Democrats, they do struggle with some of these, but they don't try very hard. Union membership in the US is very low compared to many other countries. In much of Europe, yearly four-week government mandated vacations are the norm. I don't expect to see many Democrats standing up for that. There's been rampant deregulation in the US since the late 70s and the Democrats haven't tried very hard to stop that, either (anyone remember how successful deregulation was for the Savings and Loan industry -- or which of the Bush family was heavily involved in that mess?). Real wages in terms of purchasing power have dropped dramatically. In fact, the New York Times reports:

As a result [of median hourly wage for American workers dropping], wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as "the golden era of profitability".

"Lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product" loosely means "you have to work longer hours for the same benefit". The Democrats aren't doing too much about this, either, while the Republicans are crowing about how well businesses are doing. (Hmm, aren't most business comprised of people? Won't people still be here if big corporations go away? Which should be a priority? I report -- you decide.)

Now all you have to do is conduct a brief survey of how other countries in the world are handling issues like this and you'll see that while central control over the populace seems to be widely varying -- we do better than some, worse than others -- central control over the economy is an area where both Republicans and Democrats are extremely right wing. Where are your four-week vacations? Where is your guaranteed medical care? Where are your trade unions? What's your government doing to curb corporate pollution?

To be fair, you can pull out a bunch of countries to dispute anything I mention here. However, it's not fair to compare us to Rwanda or Somalia. Trying to compare a mature, stable country with an immature stable country is simply a straw man. But when you compare us to, say, many European nations -- nations which have both stable economies and governments -- we lag far behind in many ways. (This is the point where people will happily drag out isolated bits of information to "prove" me wrong rather than looking at the overall situation).

So in absolute terms, going by the origins of the term "left wing", Democrats aren't very left wing. In relative terms, so long as that relation is to many countries with both stable governments and economies, the Democrats still aren't very left wing. However, the situation still isn't that cut and dried.

In the US, the media still has great freedom to print whatever they will. However, in this area of greater and greater media concentration, many news outlets appear to be driven more by profits than the public interest. Anyone else remember when radio and TV stations were legally required to offer news and present balanced viewpoints? That disappeared with the 1987 elimination of the Fairness Doctrine. (Rush Limbaugh, of course, felt that those who supported the Fairness Doctrine were part of a conspiracy to "Hush Rush".) This, combined with media concentration, has allowed "news" channels like Fox News to dominate the airwaves. The Federal government, by exercising less control over the public good of the airwaves, has, without mandating it, allowed mega-corporations to decide much of what we see and here. This is not official censorship, but it does change the quality of the news in a way that many don't feel comfortable with.

In terms of personal freedom from government coercion, it's a mixed bag. We're no longer thrown in jail for sympathizing with Communists and, to be completely fair to the current administration, they don't throw you in jail for sympathizing with terrorists -- they just listen in on your phone calls and tell you that you can't board airplanes. However, while we're usually not thrown in jail for engaging in homosexual acts (is that still a possibility somewhere?), the government is still denying many gay people the basic rights that straight people have. I could cite many similar examples, but it does seem that for every inch we gain, authoritarian control tries to gain an inch somewhere else. However, on the issue of personal freedom, we've definitely been winning the last few decades, but the last few years have seen that drag to a halt and even a reversal in some ways. In left wing economic terms, though, we've skewed far to the right of where we were.

There's a hell of a lot more I could write and I know many things presented above are incomplete, it gives you a good start on why I feel the US Democrats are pretty far to the right (especially in terms of what I've experienced over here in Europe). Business reigns supreme in US politics, we still have no right to basic medical care, individual wages are falling and there are far fewer protections in place for US worker than for other mature economies (though we do a hell of a lot better than immature ones, but that's comparing apples to oranges). Until the Democrats find their voice and admit that silence is approval, they will remain firmly in the right wing of world politics despite appearing to be the left wing of US politics.

And just to hammer the point, home, take a look at Bill Clinton.

• He supported NAFTA
• He supported "don't ask/don't tell"
• He supported the "Defense of Marriage" act.
• He supported dismantling much of the Federal Welfare system
• Allowed drilling for oil on Federal lands.
• Allowed the timber industry to clear-cut some old-growth forests.
• In 1997, he signed a budget which slashed billions from Medicare and Medicaid.
• He slashed government spending.
• His "reinventing OSHA" plan meant that OSHA did far fewer business inspections.
• In 1999, he supported deregulation of much of the US banking system.
• He worked with Gingrich to support deregulation of the energy industry

Those are a small sampling of his activities and many of those those actions (and I support more than one of them -- though the context of them is often convoluted, so be wary of what I say) are ones which many right wing Republicans would be proud to have on their resume. And let's face it, if Clinton could run for a third term, he'd probably win, though why the Republicans hated him, I'm at a loss.

So that's enough for one evening. You can decide for yourselves how "left wing" the Democrats are.

The Liberty Dollar is an attempt to create a private currency in the United States. Basically, individuals can decide to accept or reject this currency of their own free will. Don't want to accept Liberty Dollars? Then don't. Want to accept them? Then do. It's that simple. Liberty Dollars look nothing like US government issued currency and they don't say 'legal tender' on them, so using them is sort of like using a foreign currency -- so long as you trust the issuer (if you don't want to accept foreign currency, you don't have to, but if I offer you £50 for a cup of coffee, you'd be fucking moron to say 'no').

( Don't read if you find economics boring ... )

Musa Abu Marzouk is allegedly the leader for Hamas in Amman, Jordan, and Damascus and is apparently responsible for coordinating and directing terrorist attacks against Israel. I have his date of birth and place of birth. Of course, if you read enough newspaper articles, you can probably glean this, too. However, I also have his US Social Security number and his Egyptian passport number and I'm going to tell you what they are and how to find them.

( More than you want to know )

OK, I'm getting sick of it. I am getting so tired of having asinine discussions with people about economics that I've decided it's time to coin a new word.

Religionomics: the study of people whose economics are based on faith rather than observation.

( Money 24:24 "For there shall arise false Credits, and false profits ..." )

My first experience with socialized medicine was as a child. I was a military brat and if you were in the military, you'd sometimes be called upon to protect us from communism and socialism while enjoying the finest socialized medicine our taxes can buy. We never paid for medical treatment. We never paid for medications. If we needed medical attention, we received it, plain and simple. It wasn't always great, but then, as an adult who sometimes not had insurance and sometimes had virtually worthless insurance, I'd happily take the government's socialized medicine over none at all. When you can't get a prescription for antibiotics, much less afford to pay for them, you're pretty damned miserable.
( Socialized medicine under the microscope )

The ancient Roman city of Colonia Augusta Firma Astigi was one of the largest cities in the world for its time. With 30,000 inhabitants, its olive oil industry was well-known and urns of its products were found throughout the ancient world. Archaeologists discovering the ancient city discovered wonderful statues, mosaics and many well-preserved buildings that would have provided a treasure trove of information about ancient Roman life.

"Would have"? Immediately after the discovery was made, Spanish officials destroyed the remains to make room for a car park.

Good to be reminded that the US isn't the only country churning out morons who don't realize that there are some things more important than simple economics.

There seem to still be a few folks who are a little unclear about what "civilization" entails, so I'm going to break it down into small, bite-sized pieces to hopefully shed a little light on the subject.

Ogg, Trogg, and Badnarik are three cavemen, living in their little cave. Part of the reason this situation has worked out is because, after due consideration, they've agreed not to kill and eat one another. They won't steal one another's clubs or loincloths and, perhaps most importantly, they've realized that the free rider problem of public goods is pretty tough to hide when there are only three of them.

Now this situation has worked out fairly well when one day, Trogg is screwing around and falls off a cliff and gets hurt. Ogg immediately goes down to help him and Badnarik, after a bit of consideration, does the same. They help Trogg back to the cave and after a good night's sleep, are relieved to discover that Trogg is sore, but relatively unhurt. No harm has come of this unfortunate incident, but Ogg and Trogg were pretty miffed that Badnarik was hesitant. It seems that Badnarik was relaxing in the shade and didn't think it was fair he had to get up and help Trogg back to the cave.

A few months later, a deep freeze sets in and wipes out Trogg's garden. Ogg has a bit of extra food saved, but not enough to feed Trogg. Badnarik is in the same position. However, if both Ogg and Badnarik chip in, Trogg can be fed. At this point, Badnarik has had enough! "That's socialism!", he grunts!

Despite their limited language, Badnarik, through a series of grunts and elaborate hand gestures manages to explain that he's in favor of lowering taxes, slashing bureaucratic regulation of business, and charitable -- rather than government -- welfare. In short, Badnarik views their three-man cave as a de facto government and because government welfare is compulsory (unlike charitable welfare), it is the equivalent of theft. Badnarik has always viewed Trogg as being a shifty, lazy sort of individual and he doesn't care if Trogg starves to death.

Ogg grunts "This is our cave. Love it or leave it."

The problem that Badnarik faces is one of democracy. If two out of three cavemen vote in a laissez-faire system, that's OK. That's how democracy works. If two out of the three cavemen vote to help one another out in times of need, that's OK too. That's how democracy works. (Hint: socialism is an economic system. Democracy is an electoral system. Don't get this wrong or you'll look like an idiot).

It's fine for people to voluntarily vote to help one another. Yes, there are those who will be upset that the majority didn't vote their way and it's OK to try and convince others to change their mind, but helping someone when they're down is not theft! When the majority of people vote for something, that's democracy, not theft.

Naturally, in a world of more than six billion people, the situation is a little more complicated than this. Communism's fatal flaw is that it kills incentive to produce, so productivity plummets (socialism has the same flaw, but not as severely). There's also the previously mentioned free rider problem. If someone is willing to abuse a system, they can siphon of resources that should rightfully go to those who really need help. Identifying abusers of a system is considerably more difficult when populations explode.

Ogg's "love it or leave it" comment is also worth considering. People (rednecks and conservative types, typically) sometimes say that about America. Of course, sometimes loving a country means that you want to stay and make it better. That's OK. The US is a democracy, remember? We're supposed to be allowed to dissent. (Don't pitch the "this US is actually a republic" argument unless you can clearly explain how splitting this hair effects things).

"Love it or leave it" also fails on another ground: what if there is no other cave? While many Americans want to limit or even eliminate immigration (both legal and illegal), many other countries are doing the same thing. Very few people are in a position to leave, so telling them that leaving is their only recourse is foolish, despite what Billy Joe and friends seem to think. You disagree? Find me a country where the majority of people here would actually want to live in and can legally emigrate to. Seriously, find me one. Many folks would love to hear it.

So what's the clear solution to these problems? There is none. Society has grown too large and too complex for a "one size fits all" solution. Solutions necessarily entail compromise, though some fail to recognize this. We need to live together, play together, work together, and not steal one another's clubs. The failure in thought that many have today is that they are insisting upon passive measures to help society. Refrain from killing. Refrain from stealing. Refrain from active measures that will cause harm.

Passive measures are not enough in a society as large as what we have. We need some active measures, too. When Trogg falls down a cliff, go down and help him. If Trogg is starving, feed him. You know what three of the most successful active measures the US has undertaken to help folks are? Social Security (it did and still does exactly what it was originally intended to do), the Interstate Highway System and the Rural Electrification Act. All three of these programs have had huge benefits for the US economy and not one of them could be successfully handled by private firms because in the short run, there's no profit in many of them. In the long run there are huge profits but it's tough to divert those profits to individual firms.

Naturally, there are plenty of other government programs (education, anyone?) which have reaped huge benefits and others which have been dismal failures. That's the nature of these things, but we muddle along somehow. Though the US clearly has many areas in which it needs to improve, from an economic standpoint, we have succeeded magnificently (on the large scale. Individually, it's often a dismal failure).

So that's your intro to civilization. Badnarik isn't happy with our success model, somehow confusing choosing to help one another with theft, but it's worked. There are those who would cheerfully abandon active government measures to help one another, thinking that the bigots and Christian Taliban in this country are going to open up their pockets to help those they don't like, but that's not what we've voted for and if you disagree with how we voted, that's OK. But saying that how we voted is tantamount to theft is saying that democracy is theft.

By the way, no other cave wanted Badnarik, so he stayed. When he finally fell down a cliff, Ogg and Trogg grudgingly carried him back to the cave and applied a splint to his broken leg. They still think he's an asshole, but an agreement is an agreement. Badnarik, oddly enough, didn't protest the help.

Despite the provocative title, this post is not political. Further, despite your political affiliation, the title "Why You Willingly Accept the Deaths of Innocent People" is perfectly accurate.

Most of you have cars. Most of you drive cars at times that you don't need to. Even I, who drives far less than most people, am guilty of this; I like the convenience. However, every time we hop in our car, we accept the fact that there is a non-zero chance that someone will die as a result.

Economists have long known that there's a simple way of eliminating vehicular-related deaths: eliminate vehicles. Of course, this trades some deaths for other deaths. If all vehicles were eliminated tomorrow, the economy would be destroyed, people would starve, critical medical supplies wouldn't be transported, people injured in accidents couldn't get to hospitals in time, etc. However, even if you cite this as a reason we still need cars, you probably hop in your car to drive to a restaurant, a beach retreat, visiting friends, etc. These are all "optional" trips (though still important to the economy) which significantly increase the chances that innocent people will be killed. Though we rarely think about this explicitly, we silently accept these deaths as the price we pay for this convenience.

Estimates of automobile fatalities in the USA vary between 30,000 and 40,000 deaths per year. This is a hard number to judge as this probably doesn't count pollution-related deaths or injuries which kill people much later, but let's settle on the 40,000 number for a moment.

The automobile industry is offering more and more life-saving features in their cars. Anti-lock brakes, seat belts, and airbags only touch the surface (incidentally, SUVs have been found to be more dangerous than most vehicles because of the increased odds of the other driver dying -- minivans are much safer). However, manufacturers are working on new lifesaving technologies. Imagine that your car warns you when you're traveling too close to someone. Your car won't start if you're intoxicated. Some cars beep if they think you're nodding off. New technologies are even being invented which can detect if your car veers outside of the lines.

Now imagine that 10 years from now we have a host of lifesaving devices and automobile related deaths are cut in half (unlike victims, I suppose). Instead of 40,000 deaths, we'll have 20,000. Typically we blame drivers for automobile deaths, but when cars take over more responsibility, problems will happen. Imagine you're tailgating and your car applies the break and someone behind you hits you, causing an accident. Imagine that you're swerving outside of the lines to avoid a pedestrian and your car tries to correct. Imagine that the ABS fails and you, not knowing how pump your brakes, hits the car in front of you. Imagine that you swerve outside the lines and your car doesn't correct or beep and warn you. In short, there are tons of ways in which fail-safe devices can fail.

That's the problem. The manufacturers won't be able to think of every contingency and all software has bugs. So by making a car much safer and reducing deaths, all of a sudden people who have lost family members will be more likely to blame the car's manufacturer than drivers. Unless we can figure out a way to handle this appropriately, there could be many, many lawsuits. As a result, automobile manufacturers will be put in a curious situation. If the lawsuits stemming from their life-saving devices are too expensive, it might be better for them to remove the devices, despite knowing that more people will die. But then they'll get sued by people whose cars don't have the devices. Maybe it's better to not add too many safety devices in the first place?

Think this is far-fetched? It's already happening.

It is clear that airbags save lives. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, airbags have saved 6,856 American lives. However, over the last 10 years, airbags have also killed 175 people.

Lawyers for the families of those injured or killed point to numerous confidential settlements reached between automakers and plaintiffs. They claim these settlements prove that automakers know airbags are defective.

The more safety devices there are the more lawsuits there will be no matter how many lives are saved.

Communism	Libertarianism
Property is theft	Property is sacred
Totalitarianism	Any government is bad
Capitalists are baby-eating villains	Capitalists are noble Nietzchean heroes
Workers should rule	Worker activism is evil
The poor are oppressed	The poor are pampered good-for-nothings

For the longer version, you can read What's wrong with libertarians.

Or again, for a shorter version, here's my only slightly tongue-in-cheek take:

Anarchist

Unemployed Libertarian

Libertarian

Employed Anarchist

---

I might add that I pulled the link from this discussion. It's really sad how completely incapable people are of reading something and seeing past the little things which cause knee-jerk reactions. There wasn't much intelligent rebuttal in that thread.

My favorite comment in that thread was where a poster claimed that corruption in a Libertarian society could be avoided by keeping a clear separation of business and government because -- make sure you're not drinking anything when you read this -- "corruption only spreads to areas in which they can obtain both political and economic power".

Of course, if you're the captain of the U.S.S. Make Shit Up, you can steer to any port you want. Comments like that are worthy of the Randroids.