Environmental Accidents

The modern economy is utterly dependant on the scarce and non-renewable natural resource crude oil. Unfortunately, a failure to tax the price of crude and to mandate sufficient insurance, and to exact sufficient environmental penalties has created industries like nuclear power and offshore drilling which ought to be uninsurable in a well designed marketplace.

The failure of regulation aside, British Petroleum, Transocean, and Haliburton ought to be nationalised in the United States. The combined value of the companies at USD 200B is insufficient to cover the damages that they have caused through their excessive risk-taking and poor engineering. While there has been a response to try to stop the leak, it is a global emergency that requires the most urgent of responses from the world.

The Exxon Valdez incident should have been the turning point in the late 80s where the governments of the world should have agreed to property rights and regulations for activities on the Oceans and a penalty schedule for environmental accidents. Nothing of course has ever been agreed. Within the United States, a jury demanded only a modest penalty of $5B. Exxon fought this very light penalty and eventually the Supreme Court reduced the fee to a pitiful $500 million. The Supreme Court should have increased the fee 10 times rather than decreasing it 10 times. From an environmental perspective, it was the worst ruling the Supreme Court has ever made. Congress should have quickly enacted new legislation which would have exacted proper penalties for these disasters, but they too are a complete failure along with the executive branch. Other countries should demand compensation for these disasters, particularly the latest one which affects more than just the United States.

Healthcare in the United States

We have pointed out on here many of the reasons the US health care system is distorted, monopolistic, and inefficient. Obviously there are many things wrong that we did not address. We largely avoided discussing the demand side of the equation, including brokerage services like insurance. From what we have seen, those demand side elements are all that was tweaked in the latest legislation. Thus there remains the entire other side of the equation needing legislative redress.

We are most happy for the moment though that a passage of this bill will finally mean people will stop talking about "Health Care". The protraction of the issue in the public forum with little to no substantive progress has been excruciating. Let us celebrate the end to the collective insanity.

Fall of the Republic

I will have more to say about Alex Jones. In the meantime, his new propaganda film, Fall of the Republic, is worth watching.

The Nobel Peace Prize

Many Americans were stunned by the award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama. Indeed, he has "changed to tone" of US foreign policy towards greater cooperation, internationalism, and globalism. As we noted before we are encouraged by nuclear disarmament, the logical consequence of peace.

Barack Obama has already committed war crimes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He joins a cadre of other war criminals who have won the prize including Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. The Barack Obama Nobel is even more ridiculous than Al Gore's award for a poorly made Powerpoint on Global Warming.

In a very well stated response to the news, Ron Paul indicates that Obama has in fact suppressed the peace movement in the United States because those members largely voted for him and so do not want to criticise their man. Ron Paul has been actively campaigning for a true position of peace and military isolationism for his long career. If any US politician were to have been awarded a Nobel it should have been Paul; not a president who has continued the Bush legacy of two Wars going on a third in Pakistan, secret CIA detention facilities, and an illegal Guantanamo Bay Prison.

Perhaps Obama will end up accomplishing some very significant substantive movements towards Peace, but at the moment his actions have been far too mixed to merit a significant Peace Prize. We must conclude in light of this and past questionable awards that the Nobel Peace Prize has simply become a politicised tool with no merit.

Nuclear Disarmament

Disarmament does not lead to peace. Disarmament is a consequence of peace.

                                               - Stephen Schuker, 2002

Nuclear Disarmament should be seen as a sign of tremendous human progress. The Twentieth Century saw mankind reach for the bomb and with it the power of life and death over all complex life on the planet. The threat now of Environmental Destruction from pollution or biological weapons manufacture pales in comparison to the nuclear button. Nuclear armament has been the first existential threat humanity has faced in all recorded history. It surely will not be the last. This threat has not been nor probably will it ever be completely eliminated. Nevertheless, the current push towards global reduction of arms reflects increasing world peace and security.

C-SPAN Funding

Given the lack of commercials or NPR style begathon fund-raising and the intended lack of political bias of C-SPAN, it is surprising to learn from their recent public service announcements that they do not receive public ie government money. They are in fact sponsored as a public service by the US Cable Television companies.

We all owe these companies a debt of gratitude for documenting and archiving governmental proceedings, bringing more openness to government, and making it widely and freely available without a hint of commercialism or political favouratism. This is a task which should have been the responsibility of the National Archives in a well run government, yet corporate charity has come through to do the job better and cheaper than a Government run programme ever could.

Manuel Zelaya - Drugs Policy of an Ousted Honduran Presidente

We do not pretend to know the motivations for the recent coup of Presidente Manuel Zelaya, overthrown by members of the Honduran Army last week. Was the CIA involved? These are open questions.

All else aside, we do want to commend and support el Presidente on one particular issue. He was strongly in favour of ending the oppressive and immoral 'War on Drugs.'

It is always suspicious when such a person is overthrown, particularly when the CIA is known for having a history of profiting from the drugs trade and political meddling in the region. As Alex Jones stated, 'The Drug Dealers want to make sure the Drugs stay illegal.'

Irony

Via Ron Paul:

“The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”

-Alan 'Bubbles' Greenspan, 1966

The 'Bubbles' were my addition.

Jacque Fresco: Future by Design

Jacques Fresco is an engineer, inventor, futurist and visionary. I believe his name will eventually become commonly known years after his passing. Future By Design (torrent) is a documentary film about the work and ideas of Jacque Fresco. Fresco has a fairly coherent vision for the transition of our civilisation to a prosperous and harmonious Type I civilisation. Mostly this involves education and culturally focusing humanity towards embracing and shaping technology to take care of our living needs, so that we might be free to pursue the higher goals. The DVD currently available on the Venus Project's website contains a book, Designing the Future.

He does not have all the answers nor does he propose that he will make a Utopia. He claims only that his ideas are a far better direction that the one in which we are currently headed. He takes a rational, analytical engineering approach towards designing an economy and infrastructure which automatically satisfies the basic needs of humanity in a sustainable way. A must see.

Ron Paul News Blog

Ron Paul's Campaign has been picking up momentum. Unfortunately he is still way too far behind Guiliani for the moment. That aside, Ron Paul News is a great new blog tracking the best Presidential candidate to come forth in generations.

Incidentally, I have donated 50 USD to Paul's campaign as a small token of my support.

Columbia University hosts Ahmadinejad

Reacting to yesterdays news regarding behaviour unbefitting an elite academic institution, a loyal reader had this to say.

*Update* A good Charlie Rose interview conducted before the Columbia University incident.

Irrational Living Practices

Every year, some fairly predictable natural disaster occurs and devastates large areas of land creating human death and misery and property damage. Earthquakes, flooding, and hurricanes come to mind. After the disaster, affected regions usually prey upon the sympathy of others to rebuild their homes and cities through both charity and governmental subsidy. A notable example is the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Army Corps of Engineers was widely blamed for the failure of the levies and the subsequent flooding. 1) The inefficiencies of the legal code to deploy National Guard soldiers without the consent of a State Government combined with 2) the normal inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of government at all levels and 3) a general lack of psychological preparedness for infrequent devastating events resulted finally in an anarchistic, violent scenario of devastation and distress. The reconstruction efforts have basically followed in the same mode despite billions in subsidies and tax cuts.

The critical problem which is politically incorrect to address is who decided it was a good idea to build their house in a flood zone in the first place. In the case of New Orleans, the sad answer was everybody, but especially the poor. Since in economic terms the wealthy had far more to lose, it makes sense that the wealthiest areas of New Orleans were constructed on somewhat more secure ground. It is not fair to say, however, that the risks living below sea level next to one of the world's largest rivers which regularly changes course was properly priced into the housing market. Most people who build their houses in flood zones are either ignorant of the risks, risk loving and possibly irrational, a very high personal discount rate, or a very high preference for living in those areas. Unfortunately psyche of humans, like many pack or herd species, is far more prone to feel secure in a clearly irrational situation so long as everyone else does the same.

A related problem of course is the question of climate change. Far more people are in far greater danger than Katrina owing to probable climate change from human activity. Many major cities are rationally addressing the fallout by considering dikes and other technologies to ensure the cities survive intact. Others are intelligent and ambitious enough to build flood-proof houses.

Whenever possible, avoiding a confrontation with nature is the wisest course of action. Reducing greenhouse emissions and not constructing cheaply in a predictable future disaster area are good rules of thumb. In the event of an inevitable but unfortunate catastrophe, federal governments in all of their fiscal inefficiency ought not be expected to pay.

Ron Paul

Ron Paul, a staunch libertarian, recently interviewed at Google as part of his campaign for the Presidency of the US - a must see. Many of his espoused positions such as supporting the gold and silver standards for public currency seem impractical or irrelevant, yet they are based upon sound legal foundation, ie the US Constitution. He is a candidate who is easy to distort, yet his solid character, sound principles, and political idealism are undeniable.

It is clear that the letter of the law set out by the Constitution has gradually been eroded and perverted by activist judicial decisions, misguided lawmakers, and tyrannical Presidents. Rather than a politically isolationist Republic of free citizens, the United States has become a fascist empire, able to invade, occupy, or completely eliminate other nations in blitzkrieg at the whim of a single individual. While most other current presidential candidates have supported these illegal and immoral policies, or at least in principle would use such illegal power under certain circumstances, Ron Paul is one of the few who has always in principle and practice been opposed (eg the Conquest of Iraq).

Through the "War on Drugs," a war against its own populace, their property, and freedom itself, the United States Government manifestly defecates upon the Enlightenment principles upon which it was founded and the cannabis paper upon which it was written. Any convoluted judicial argument for the legality of such policies should have long ago resulted in the prompt impeachment of any supporting justices and the arrest of any enforcing agents. By continuing to prosecute this crime against humanity, the US Government has undermined its own legitimacy.

As directed in the Constitution, Ron Paul supports States' rights in legislating or enforcing powers not guaranteed to the federal government in the Constitution.

On the Colbert Report where I was exposed to Paul, he supported the elimination of almost every federal agency and administration including United Nations agencies. In the interview, he comes off as somewhat of an extremist, yet in fact he is perhaps one of the few sane, thinking, and principled. I have little doubt that if given a proper chance, most of the World would gladly welcome a man such as this to take over the Presidency.

I realise that that the ideas asserted in this post probably do more to paint both Paul and myself as extremists than anything else, but I encourage readers to watch the Google interview and decide for themselves what the best course would be for the United States to follow.

The Least Among Us

Niall Ferguson, a history author, journalist, and Harvard professor, has a well written review of three new books on African Development politics and economics. I will add them to the list of things to read. Eliminating disease and poverty are the two biggest moral imperatives for the developed world. Nowhere are those problems more dire than sub-Saharan Africa.

Politics and US Healthcare

As I have mentioned before, the biggest flaw I see in the current US system is the problem of the limited supply from the American Medical Association doctor's labour union. This aside, I would like to draw attention to Brad DeLong's FT opinion article endorsing Barak Obama's proposed healthcare "solution." Obama should be applauded for having the courage to announce such a detailed proposal which exposes him to political attacks.

Euro Monetary Policy

Quite unlike the possibilities for future private currencies, I find traditional governmental monetary policy generally uninteresting. The 20th Century taught us that the most economically and politically stable monetary policy is one in which money supply and interest rates are gently tweaked only to maintain price stability. The US Federal Reserve and the now the ECB have held to this fairly well thus making them the World's reserve currency. A stable money supply also promotes economic activity with participants confident in the future value of their long term contracts.

Price stability really is a one-size fits all solution. Countless models have been able to show circumstances where deviation from this policy could be beneficial. Despite the painful inflationary lessons many countries learned in the last century, there are always some who wish to manipulate the money supply to take advantage of the short term benefits of the Phillips Curve in lowering the rate of unemployment. Sarkozy has been among those calling for monetary policy to target job creation rather than price stability. For the specific case of France, Sarkozy's suggestion likely would be a net benefit since their labour market is so completely bureaucratic, over-regulated and backwards. Some inflation would act like a lubricant on rusted metal. Tyler Cowen explains it a bit better. However, France's focus really should be on firing its State employees, eliminating labour market regulations, and cutting back on welfare benefits. Just because inflationary monetary policy would be politically acceptable amelioration in France does not mean the rest of Europa should have to suffer.

Fascism

Laws and Principles are meaningless when blatantly violated by those responsible for upholding them. Granting a general amnesty to those who were complicit in violating those laws and principles should be considered with the greatest sobriety. Such actions should not be permitted to reinforce a corrupt regime or to whitewash their misdeeds and those of their traitorous collaborators. More often than not, the proper response is to overthrow the corrupt authority and hold their allies to account. Too many people have sacrificed too much in support of those principles to casually permit their debasement.

Allowing the Extinction of Species

Under the Bush Administration's "interpretation" of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, species need only be listed as endangered whose existence is threatened in its current viable range, not its traditional range. So far 38 prominent scientists have signed a letter of protest.

Larry Summers on Climate Change

Finally, the Global Warming debate is hotting up. Larry Summers begins to call for practical solutions to the crisis in his FT column. The first in a series I presume.

Via DeLong.

Social Choice and Voting Systems

The Economist's blog, Free Exchange, has a post relating the characteristics of the French election to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, (pdf proof) from Kenneth Arrow's 'A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare,' The Journal of Political Economy, Volume 58, Issue 4 (August, 1950), pp. 328–346. This and his more comprehensive book 'Social Choice and Individual Values' won him the Nobel Prize in 1972. The theorem explains the inefficiency of voting systems with more than two candidates and more than one voter in determining the one candidate who is the social optimum. It can be shown that in some voting scenarios, the aggregate outcome can produce a result which is below the social optimum. In the case of France, François Bayrou was the clear social optimum, but in only a two round election system, the results were polarised in the first round between Ségozy and Sarkolène as Jean-Marie Le Pen called them. The United States also has a particularly inefficient selection system where geographic area and party affiliation vote on a candidate in the primaries, then geographic areas vote again for a president who is elected then by several hundred members of the Electoral College. For example, Albert Gore won the popular election but ultimately lost the election in the Electoral College. The inefficiency of voting systems can also be exacerbated or exploited as in Tom Delay's infamous Tejas redistricting of 2003.

It should be stated that a voting system based on modern information technology could easily be far superior to all of the 18th Century systems currently in use.