Third Way Politics

Whether they go by the title RINO(Republican in name only) or Blue Dog Democrat, or even just the less than descriptive monickers of moderate and centrist, “Third Way” groups are coming back in vogue.  It’s difficult do say if this is actually because voters actually want politicians who paint themselves as non-partisan or if this is the backlash against extremist groups like the Tea Party, but at the very lest the coverage of people who claim to hold socially liberal values but endorse economically conservative policies is rising.  The biggest poster-boy for this movement is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, but even in the Republican Gubernatorial primary we’re seeing Dan Rutherford as both the most likely candidate and self proclaimed “Republican without horns and a tail.”  Does this center really exist?  More importantly does the pursuit of a “Third Way” hold a real promise to get a functioning government?

Let’s start by pointing out the obvious, there is no third way because there does not exist a solid first or second way.  Yes, we live in essentially a two-party state, although someone like Senator Bernie Sanders is a notable exception, but these parties are so fractured they can hardly be called solid fronts.  Within the Democratic party there are, aside from the aforementioned Blue Dogs, civil libertarians and statists if that could even be the right word for it, there are gun lovers and haters, environmentalists and proponents of coal, and there are even some pro-lifers as well as pro-choice politicians.  On the Republican side there are Tea Party Dandies and establishment Republicans, climate “skeptics” and rational people, near anarchistic libertarians and old school conservatives, candidates in favor of marriage equality and the rest.  When it comes to the national stage these same people will either talk about their party’s “big tent,” or claim that their differences are only slight, i.e. they pass the litmus test.  And there is some truth to these claims because only by unifying as a party are either sides able to accomplish the small goals they do go after.

But there is no big push in American politics for a third party, like the Liberal-Democrats of UK.  Or rather the role that the Lib-Dems used to play but are now seeing their importance turned to impotence.  And I do understand that the point of “third way” politics isn’t to create a party, but to give people that want to vote with both their wallet and their heart/mind a way to find their way to one side or the other.  President Clinton was clearly a Democrat, but also a proponent of this kind of policy.  The same could be said for Tony Blair with his New Labour Party.  But here’s the danger of “Third Way” politics, it gives the Right the rope with which they will hang the Left.  It is almost inevitable in our politics that the Left, being the more rational side, will compromise with the Right to get something done rather than nothing.  But in doing so as a matter of policy the values that the Left is supposed to stand for gets lost.

Politics is supposed to be a way of mediating differences by allowing every side to say their piece and after the debate coming to a compromise that no one loves, but which does not give any one side too much power.  I don’t consider myself to be a hard left ideologue, although I do enjoy being a little bristly to the Right.  But I don’t see the Left defending the principles it once did: equality of all people regardless of class, a safety net that allows people to fail but not fall, liberty from ignorance and crippling poverty.  I am not against corporations, as they provide at a cheap price, the things we love in a modern society.  But the benefits they give come at a cost, notably the human cost of sweatshops in the third world, and if only the voice of corporations are heard that cost is forgotten.

I am not against a government negotiating with the different parties to come to a solution that might be centrist, but if Democrats come to the table expecting that outcome and therefore use it as the opening offer, the Right will pul it even farther away from that middle.  This is what happened with healthcare reform.  The Democrats had a bad experience in the 90’s when they tried to pass Hillarycare, so they left out the parts that Republicans objected to, and proposed a plan that was originally created by a Republican, Mitt Romney.  Then when the debates started the act of “compromising” led to more and more of the program being shaved away until what we have now exists.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the ACA is better than what existed before, but it is not the bill we were promised and it’s not the bill we need.  The Democrats have forgotten how to negotiate because they are obsessed with looking like the responsible party.  But that doesn’t matter when you’re competing with an obstructionist party like the current GOP.  Even if they got everything they wanted, they would vote and have voted no just to spite the president.

This is the problem with “third way” politics, it assumes that the conservatives are right about the economy.  And although there are things they do get right, and the input is necessary so that we don’t make a system that exploits business, this assumption is dangerous.  Socially liberal and economically conservative, well where is socially conservative and economically liberal?  That used to be the role of the Dixiecrats, and god forbid they were to come back, but without a balanced compromise way from the Right, the left is stuck giving up all the programs people fought and died for.  Especially now when we finally are talking about the minimum wage again, we cannot afford to give up the fight before it is started.

We need more Democrats to run on platforms like Senator Elizabeth Warren, who are not as extreme as the Tea Party, but give the party a chance to start the bid up higher and then cut it down with negotiations.  And the votes are out there for candidates like these, people need to be reenergized around the concept that politicians are not solely beholden to corporate sponsors, that their position rests on their ability to serve the people.  The rallying cry I heard time and time again while campaigning in Virginia is that the Democratic Party has taken for granted the people that elect them.  The people who vote time and time again for the party that promises to fight for them are disappointed time and time again to see the battle lost before the first shot.  This discourages them and makes them less likely to make it out to the poles next time.  The Democratic Party as it stands IS the “Third Way,” which the Right decries as socialism, and without anything to the Left to which it could be compared, how are they to know better?  

No, “Third Way” is the endpoint after negotiations, not the way to organize a party before the fact.  So for once, since the Right has become so complacent from getting the Left to come to them, let’s make them show the effort.  Let’s put up a platform that will force them to meet us half-way or else have the policies made through Executive Order.  President Obama doesn’t have much time left in office, but there is still time to stop the gridlock, by making the Right climb over the wall for once.

Third Rail Politics

Most people don’t take much interest in politics and when they do it’s usually because something has happened that, although completely arbitrary, actually changes something they care about.  This has a little something to do with the way our political system operates.  There are a handful of extremely expensive programs or departments that are so popular that they can never change, regardless of the harm they may be doing, and then there are countless small things that fall under the blanket of discretionary spending that get cut because “spending needs to be cut.”  There is some truth to the opinion that the government wastes money on unnecessary programs, but generally when it finally comes times to make cuts they tend to cut things that are noticeable in their absence but do little to actually solve the problem of deficits.  This is partially to do with inept politicians, but it has more to do with the election cycle we have, that makes difficult and important issues secondary to urgent non-issues.

First we need to cover some basic civics.  Congress is made of the upper house(Senate) and the lower house(House of Representatives).  Senators are elected for six-year terms and congressmen are elected for two-year terms.  The other main difference between the two houses is the number of people in them, 100 and 435(kind of) respectively, but we might get to this some other time.  Despite the intention that the Senate would slow down politics so that only things of great importance would change, thus limiting the overreach of government, the Senate actually tends to get things done.  More importantly they tend to be the house that actually comes the closest to covering important issues.  I should, of course, mention that the filibuster that tends to gum up the works, but when used in moderation it can also be a good way of defending the minority party from the “tyranny of the majority.”  This is because they have the benefit of time, which gives them the liberty to do something necessary but which may be unpopular.  Time does indeed heal all wounds and when reelection time comes around people generally have forgotten if they voted for something unpopular or maybe have even found that they made the right choice after all.  Congressmen, and women, do not get this luxury.

The House of Representatives is full of petulant children, whose dialogues seem more fitting of professional wrestlers than politicians.  The job congressmen are supposed to do is make good legislation to represent the will of the people, yes, but more importantly to do what they determine to be best.  The job they actually do is whatever will not make them unpopular in the upcoming reelection campaign, and the easiest way to do that is to vilify opposition and follow orders from above.  The Speaker of the House is, therefore, king/queen of vitriol.  John Boehner is as loathed by the Left as Nancy Pelosi was loathed by the Right.  Newt Gingrich was as big a pain to President Clinton as Tip O’Neill was to Reagan.  And insofar as they were effective foils to their opposition they were considered by their parties to be successful politicians.  

But what are the issues that they tackled when they were in charge?  To Nancy Pelosi’s credit she oversaw the first major policy change of national healthcare the ACA in decades, she oversaw the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and she was able to pass financial regulations to fill the gaps the previous administrations had created in repealing say Glass-Steagall.  Other than that, Congress rarely even discusses on the floor the issues that they agree are the biggest factors in America’s debt: Military spending, Social-Security benefits, Medicare benefits, and Gun Control.

These are the “Third Rails” of our political system today.  On a radio show or a television program, even in a memoir it is perfectly acceptable for politicians to discuss the fact that that the first three are the biggest costs and the overall responsibility for our deficits and the last is a matter of national security or common sense.  However, when it finally comes time for discussion or if even possible the vote, these spineless elite back down, because they know if they even come close to doing anything about these issues in the next election they’re sunk.  So pulling military spending is a no-no, a change to the retirement age is verboten, a structural change to medicare unthinkable, and even with 97% national support background checks to keep the mentally ill from purchasing firearms is insanity.  

Now as to the last one that did technically fail in the Senate, despite a majority voting for it, but we can’t forget a last little bit of math when it comes to the Senate.  Unlike the House where every two years the whole thing is up for election, Senatorial elections run on a rolling schedule where every two years a third of them are up for election.  That means about 33 senators were in the same boat as the congressmen in fearing their approaching elections.  33 people were more worried than the rest about going home to gun-loving districts, meaning that the four Republicans that did vote for it were over shadowed by the five Democrats who voted against.  

By contrast we could look at the Supreme Court, who although I don’t agree with everything they decide on, don’t tend to give a single thought to what is and isn’t popular.  They have the liberty that comes with never having to worry about an election.  The liberty to vote exactly as they want, which let’s be honest means with their own wallets quite a few times.  The only time Congress does act like this is during their “Lame Duck” period.  Right before the Democrats were about to lose their super majority in the Senate and their majority in the House, that was when they got around to doing stuff.  They had nothing left to lose so they were finally free to vote without consequence.

Now this isn’t to say that we should give all politicians their posts indefinitely.  As the saying goes “Politicians and diapers should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.”  But this misses the point, politicians act like children because we expect them to and we have set up a system that rewards it.  We need to lengthen the terms of our representatives.  I know that the general logic says we need term limits, but this only makes a system where we have to regularly cycle through people who need to learn the ropes.  Political experience is a good thing, but there needs to be some way to give politicians the liberty to make the tough choices.  My solution would be for the House to have five year terms, the presidency ten, and the Senate fifteen.

But I don’t expect that to happen in my lifetime or ever really.  So here’s my compromise, we demand that our politicians do a better job.  This is tougher because we are forced to make decisions on whether they are doing that job well every other year.  At the very least though we must demand that they can’t stop working until they start working.  Congress doesn’t get a vacation, they don’t get to go home or even leave the office until they find a way to get past their petty grievances.  Well that or they accept that laws will be made by the executive indefinitely.

State of Dissolution

President Obama fulfilled one of the obligations the Constitution requires of his post, namely that “he shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”  But my how times have changed since that sentence was first written.  There was a time, even within the presidency of Mr Obama, that the president would indeed recommend policies for Congress to undertake.  This act requires a certain amount of faith that Congress will indeed act on these recommendations, perhaps not all of them and certainly not to pass all of them, but to take seriously the advice and will of the highest elected position in our government.  This phase of the State of the Union Address has ended, because the faith in our legislative branch is dead.

This is best summed up in a phrase that ironically got one of the loudest cheers from Congressional Democrats last night, “America does not stand still and neither do I.”  This is how President Obama chose to highlight his dissatisfaction with his colleagues on the Hill, an opinion which is justified.  Mr Obama, who came in to the presidency carrying the experience of a Constitutional Law Professor, has shown that even he cannot execute the ideal of the executive that he had once embraced.  He believed that after the reign of the second George Bush that it would be possible for the executive to return to the secondary status it had once held, but he learned so very quickly that the hope of that had died.  Congress has become so impotent that even the most basic function of passing a budget has become a major achievement.

Mr Obama has now promised that his time on the sidelines is over.  I might here want to say better late than never.  After all where was he when the ACA dropped the public option?  Where was he when new financial regulations were being drafted?  Where was he when Americans called for new gun restrictions?  And after every small slip up and scandal it turned out that Mr Obama was not the cause but a blissfully unaware spectator, who as the Chief of State accepted that the buck stops there.  So now after five years in office he has given up the last shred of hope that Congress could do its job, and will act unilaterally where he can to get the work that needs doing, done.

Of course this decision comes just before midterm elections where nothing gets done because more than half of the legislative branch is busy campaigning and even when they aren’t they don’t want to risk doing something unpopular, like anything.  To make matters worse Mr Obama is entering the lame duck stage of his presidency where no one expects Congress to listen to anything he has to say, and any political capital he may have been building up quickly loses value.  So perhaps this decision comes more out of pragmatism given his situation and not from lessons learned, but either way the reality remains that the time of legislative control has died.  More realistically it never really lived, the control of the legislative branch really has been the exception not the rule.

But given his disillusionment with the legislature, what are the issues that Obama plans on going after with his remaining time, and what did he highlight as his legacy so far?  He has acknowledged the hypocrisy of his administration: the pledge to close Guantanamo that has been unfulfilled, and the expanded NSA programs that he promised to scale back in elections.  I don’t hold my breath, but there is a chance that since these are goals that can be accomplished by executive order that he will finally follow through.  He is making an effort to walk the walk of his populist messages.  I remember hearing his goal to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour a year ago.  At the time I was shocked that he was willing to make a clear, ambitious goal like that, but there was no follow through and what we got was a whole lot of nothing.  This time he is moving forward with the $10.10 plan, starting with what he can do immediately with government contractors.  This is a small step, but one that was missing from a year ago, so there’s hope.

He is stepping up the game on the environmental front by definitively calling out conservatives who claim to be skeptical of climate change.  He is now willing to defend the government policies that seek to incentivize green energy sources, but he remains unwilling to explicitly call out the environmental dangers of natural gas and fracking.  Which brings us to the things left unsaid.  He made one mention of his beliefs on new gun legislation.  It was so vague and off hand that it seems less likely than ever that we will see any real effort to enforce meaningful legislation to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill or historically violent citizens, so the NRA can go home with the confidence that they’ve won yet another round.  There was no mention of actually going after the people responsible for the recession that has overshadowed his presidency, although he did make claims that he would try to shore up unfair loopholes in the tax code and end subsidies for oil companies among others.

Granted, there is only so much time in a speech and he was able to say quite a bit in the approximate hour he did speak.  He called for gender pay equality, reform of the unjust wealth distribution, the end of military operations over seas, and the reinstatement of funding for log term unemployment benefits and education.  And he requested something that would seem more than reasonable, that the Republicans stop there countless attempts to repeal and defund the ACA.  The vindictiveness of trying this hard to sabotage, an admittedly imperfect act, that is doing more good than what existed before is astonishing.  But it makes sense when you consider that it will likely be the cornerstone of his legacy.

And that is ultimately what the fifth State of the Union address has traditionally been, the first attempt of the president to outline what he, or hopefully at some point she, feels should be the legacy of their administration.  Yes, there is the ACA which has given untold numbers of people access to healthcare that had been either impossible to get or so expensive it might as well have been impossible.  He has brought the American economy back to a competitive level and seen better unemployment numbers year after year.  He has dealt with the non-issue of deficits that Republicans kept blasting him on, and helped lead the way to dramatic gains for the LGBT community.  He is seeing the close of two wars started by his predecessor, although the actual final day may yet be out of reach.  But on some of the big issues that need Congress to act, like immigration and federal minimum wage he has not yet taken the reins.  So we can only hope that Mr Obama truly has learned the lessons of this do nothing Congress and will be able to establish not only a more stable policy making process going forward but the foundations of a legacy that will stand the test of time.

In other news Biden is as amusing to watch as ever.

Pardon My French

I had a friend ask me today why it is that countries like the US and Germany are seeing better unemployment numbers while France is reaching record highs around 11%.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, namely “Wealth Be Not Proud,” I find that the best way to talk about economies is from the demand perspective, not the supply side as has become popular.  I think that this real world example can help illustrate why I believe this, as well as answer the ultimate question of why France is not doing so well.  What’s more I think people who paint me as a leftist ideologue will be surprised at how much credit I give to the private sector for its role in creating real wealth while at the same time coming down on government practices.  Above all this essay should clarify that I believe moderation to be the key to a sound economy and it just so happens that the US has been overtaken by Right wing extremism, just as France has suffered from Left wing extremism.

But back to the original question, why is France still losing jobs despite the end of the world recession and growing economies of her friends like Germany and the US?  The short answer is pretty straight forward, a lack of demand.  I should perhaps be a little more clear, a lack of demand sufficient to outweigh the obstacles of doing business in France.  There is no amount of regulation a government can employ, no level of tax too high to scare off business so long as there is a profit to be made.  If, however, those regulations and taxes take away the possibility of actually making a profit, then there is a problem.  So let’s look at some simple statistics.  The World Bank makes an index of countries based on the ease of doing business in them.  In 2014 the US came in 4th and Germany came in at 21st, but France comes in at 38th just ahead of Cyprus.

In and of itself this is not a reason barring France’s economy from booming.  After all the BRIC nations(Brazil, Russia, India, and China) that keep getting press for their nearly unlimited growth are much worse on that same scale.  The best one being Russia coming in at 92nd and the worst being India at 134th.  But for the most part these countries have the benefit of low labor costs or in the case of Russia a much improved infrastructure for new enterprises.  This means that once the hoops are jumped through there are much fewer costs to the employer, making products cheaper to produce and profit easier to attain.  If it were simply a matter of relations with the government, what business would want to try and set up shop in the heavily bureaucratic, liberty-crushing behemoth know as the People’s Republic?  But there is also more to the story than lower costs of labor to consider.

If it were simply a matter of getting the lowest labor costs all manufacturing would shift to Bangladesh, India, Guatemala, Mexico etc.  But in the recent months and years we are beginning to see a new trend of relocating manufacturing back to industrialized nations.  This is just a trickle now, but the trend is easy to see.  In countries like Bangladesh and China we are beginning to see the end of ridiculously cheap labor, it’s still very low pay mind you, but workers are beginning to demand higher wages.  There is also the matter of transportation cost.  To get cars and heavy machinery from China to the US, or France for that matter, costs a great deal.  Many manufacturers are going to find that these two phenomena, rising labor costs in the developing world and high long-distance transportation costs, are going to make the consumer countries more competitive.  This is not going to change the manufacturing of small products like clothing, but electronics, vehicles, and large machinery will likely find their home in countries like Germany and the US, especially the former as the infrastructure for such manufacturing is laid and the expertise in engineering is ready.

But France does not benefit from this trend, why?  Well, here’s where those rankings come in to play.  There is not yet a profit to be made by shifting production to France for two basic reasons: 1)France doesn’t consume that much, 2)France takes too much in taxes from those that might consider starting up a business.  And here is where I start making generalizations about the French.  France is not a materialistic country, or at least not in the way that would benefit it most.  French people tend to buy one or two really nice sets of clothing that will last a long time, instead of buying seven or eight decent sets that may need replacing more often.  French people don’t tend to make many big purchases, whether that means owning a car or a home.  Cities in France have wonderful public transportation and renting an apartment is much easier, but this means the products that would be built in post-industrial countries like Germany, or potentially France, don’t have a market in France.  Or at least the demand is too low for the level of burden put on the companies.  

Again even a small market can be the niche for the right business, but France’s policies as they stand now do not allow that niche to exist in the first place.  France has the potential to be a great car manufacturer with the infrastructure set up by Renault and Peugeot-Citroën, but there isn’t a big French market for these cars.  To make things worse these brands aren’t terribly popular outside of France.  The government needs to ease up on the tax burden on these companies and give them the chance to thrive.  When they do the government will get a smaller slice of a much, much larger pie.  Even better these companies might be able to innovate and make cars that have international appeal.  France’s central location bordering Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, to name just a few potential markets, gives these types of businesses a great reason to locate there.  If they do they will bring with them jobs.

So what does this mean in terms of austerity?  This has become something of a taboo word on the Left as it does seem to shift the burden onto the poorest of society, but a certain level of austerity may be necessary for a short while.  Germany went through it, the US is still going through it, but the benefits are tangible.  Perhaps France will have to settle for four weeks paid vacation and some spending cuts, but if it keeps intact the great healthcare system France has, the great education system France has, and of course the great nation France is, then it would seem to me to be a worthwhile sacrifice.  The people of France have a wonderful and terrible history of sacrificing themselves for the Patrie, and it may be time to make another.  I believe in France, but I must say I do not believe in her current president.  France needs to make some decisive actions to increase demand and decrease the cost of business, but if more time is wasted there is a much greater risk to be gambled, insolvency and bankruptcy.  I don’t believe that France will fail, and I hope my friends there will prove me right.

Warm Mitt-ens for a Winter of Discontent

Just a few days before the president’s State of the Union Speech, Netflix decided to release its documentary about the hidden side of former governor of the great state of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney.  Perhaps done to dig into the minds of people what could have been, perhaps merely because it took as long as this to finish up with the editing, regardless there was a conscious effort made to show the human side of the candidate who twice tried and twice failed to beat Mr Obama.  I won’t say that this was a bad documentary, because it is well made and covers a side of a candidate that is rarely seen, but there are many pitfalls in its portrayal that really limits the lessons that could have been learned with some fairly rational choices.

Now I’ll set aside the discussion over the key issue that Romney ran on, i.e. that he is a qualified candidate because of his business experience, as I just discussed the problem of this argument yesterday.  What I really want to talk about is the context, or lack there of, in which this documentary is based.  Because the problem is not what is shown, rather it is what is not shown that forms the biggest problems of this movie.  I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt wherever I can, so let me just say that I don’t think the intent of this movie was to make a full character study of Mr Romney, rather it was to add to the conversation what the director felt was lacking without piling on to what already existed.

Willard Mitt Romney seems like a normal person.  He is a devoted family man, hard worker, clean-freak, and passionate about his cause, or at least that’s what I gather from the film.  I’ve never met the man, but he definitely comes off as more caring in the film than his public persona would suggest.  More or less he comes off as just another WASP, despite being from the LDS.  He is committed to winning and is level headed, almost to a fault.  He clearly takes losses personally as well as what he considers inaccuracies in the media, but he can’t bring himself to really vent or swear or let the camera see his depth of emotion.  I phrase it this way because despite his being more relaxed in this film, there is still an underlying consciousness that he’s being watched and keeps up some walls, which may be his real nature but for the sake of argument I’ll pass off as being camera conscious.

But again what should be noted at this point is given all that background there are some truly startling omissions of the film.  Let’s first just cover what the timeline is.  It begins in 2006 with a family conversation about whether he should run.  It goes on following Romney through 2007 until he resigned to John McCain in 2008.  It then does a four year jump to his acceptance of the Republican nomination in 2012, skipping the Republican Primaries entirely.  There is a brief mention of the “47%” speech and then it jumps to the prep of the first debate through to election day and a few days afterward.  There is only one small segment that includes his vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, and absolutely no mention of anything between them.  There is no response to his “47%” speech, either to defend what he said or to give it context or to say why the clip was inaccurate.  

There is a small moment about 42 minutes into the movie where he gives a truly human reason for why he believes what he believes.  He explains why he thinks that politicians on the left don’t understand the plight of small business, that despite their good intentions to rein in the excesses of big business that the policies make it harder to create wealth.  Earlier he expresses his disappointment with the media in labeling him a flip-flopper or as he puts it, the “flipping Mormon.”  This would carry as much weight if they went over why he feels this is unfair, and I believe that the reason they don’t is because Romney is not a wing-nut and does understand reality.

There are great reasons to change your mind, especially if over time new evidence convinces you to do so; however, this does not seem to be the case for a majority of Romney’s views.  He is a political opportunist for whom the key is to say what people want to hear and not what he believes.  When he was running for governor of a liberal state he was “moderate Republican” with progressive ideas.  When he ran for Republican nomination he was a “severely conservative” governor.  Now let’s get the record straight on a few things.  One, Romney has never been in favor of gay marriage but he was governor when the courts said he had to, and although he may not have been actively pro-gay he did not try to enact new legislation to bar gay rights.  Granted any attempt would likely have been rebutted, but still pragmatism outweighs “conservatism.”  Two, Romney created the model healthcare system for the ACA, but when he wanted to run for president he turned tail and claimed he didn’t think it was a good system for the whole country, and clearly it’s a coincidence that the conservatives didn’t like it.  Three, Romney ran in Massachusetts as a Pro-choice candidate, but when it came time for the Republican campaign he claimed to have had a revelation and became a Pro-life candidate.  Four, as governor Romney believed that the global warming debate was basically over and recognized the need for investment in renewable energy, but somehow over the course of campaigning for the Republican party became skeptical about not only the cause but whether there was climate change at all.  Five, as governor Romney not only accepted stimulus money from the government but actually touted the benefits of stimulus spending for the economy, but luckily came to the revelation that the government can’t use stimulus spending responsibly just like his conservative opponents.  Six, as governor Romney not only benefitted from being governor of a state that reasonably understands that tax levels sometimes need raising but refused to follow the party line on Bush’s tax cuts, and then once he was in the running for president only then did he sign Grover Norquist’s despicable pledge.   I could go on but I fear I’ll get off point.

Now the only way this context could be avoided was by avoiding the parts of the Romney campaigns that highlight these positions.  There could be no mention of his pissing contest with Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Michele Bachman, and Newt Gingrich.  There could be no mention of his running mate Paul Ryan and the economic plan he tried to pass.  There could be no reference to the reason why people got the impression of Romney in the first place.  The closest we get is the self-martyrdom of his complaints how the media dogged him.

So in closing I just want to say that the documentary Mitt is worth watching if you want to see Mr Romney the family man; however, if you are looking for real insight into the candidate you need to look elsewhere.  Mitt depicts a man with a handsome family trying to get past people’s, not entirely inaccurate, conception of him.  Incidentally his son Josh is very handsome, but has the most terrifying eyes I have ever seen, truly they outshine even Michele Bachman’s Newsweek photo in terms of crazy.  But I digress, this is a movie too late to make a difference and too deluded to vindicate the straw-man Romney that came out of two unsuccessful bids for the presidency.

It’s Business Time

In several elections that I’ve witnessed or participated in there is one quality above all others that sticks out to me as a disingenuous qualification.  It gets used by both sides if applicable and is used as a hollow way to shore up a certain part of the electorate.  I speak of course of when people tout their experience in the private sector as a reflection of how they would run the government like one of their businesses.  I understand why this is an appealing quality in theory.  It seems logical that in a business where success is dependent on eliminating inefficiencies and increasing output that we would like to see these qualities brought to the management of the government.  But this is not how one runs a government, much less a government that performs the duty we expect of it, e.g. “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure(sic) domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare.”

Business is concerned with the creation of wealth, that is the bottom line.  This can be done by providing a good or service, this can be done through invention and innovation, this can even be done in tandem with other goals like charity or social justice; however, businesses are dependent on generating profit.  If a business is unable to at least cover the costs associated with its running it will cease to exist, even if it may survive such deficits in the short-term.  This ability to fail is essential for enterprise as it leads to more robust businesses and lower prices for consumers, and the lack of it is part of the problem that has gained some notoriety since 2008 called “moral hazard.”  If you believe that the government wastes money, which I think it is fair to say that it does, then it would make sense to believe that bringing in this kind of business ethic would be healthy.

This is where I believe that there is some overlap between liberals and conservatives.  There are clearly problems in the structure of a bureaucracy, coupled with the pork that gets passed as a result of successful lobbying, and any time we can eliminate unnecessary spending it is a good thing as it allows more funding for necessary spending or in lower taxes.  But the goal of the government is not to create wealth or profits, even if some of its programs do lead to this.  Some of those goals of government are listed in the preamble to the Constitution, and quoted at the end of my introductory paragraph, but nowhere in that list is there a mention of working like a business.  This is one of the complaints about government by the Right, that government cannot create wealth because it gets its funding through taxes.  And although I do not necessarily agree that government cannot create wealth or choose winners and losers, I do agree that it is not the end that government strives for.

Government is there to form a more perfect union, which means progress with compromise.  A more perfect union will be more prosperous, but prosperity in and of itself is a hollow victory.  A more perfect union means that we are brought together toward a common goal, which is not necessarily best served increased competition.  A more perfect union means that regardless of race or class or gender there is no one among us who is fundamentally greater than another, so if there is one person or a group of people that call for division, segregation, or the end of the United States and its representative government they cannot be allowed to dominate the conversation even if they can bankroll campaigns.  And yes that was directed toward the Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, and Americans for Prosperity.

Government is dedicated to establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, and providing for the common defense.  This means spending money on a military and civil defense agencies like the police, the fire department, and the National Guard.  By definition spending on war is the destruction of wealth, despite what war-hawks like to say about the virtues of a good war.  However, despite the fact that these services do not generate wealth they are nonetheless necessary and good.  I am by no means one who believes that war can be justified, but I understand that it is from time to time necessary.  Regardless of moral arguments or the fact that no wealth is created we must make these investments.  Now a business may see the necessity of paying for a security service, but a true businessman would work to use as little money on this unproductive field as possible.  And although I would agree that we do spend too much on our military as it is, I do not trust a Chief of State more than a Chief Executive Officer to make a rational call of how much of our money needs to be spent on this field.  I left the conversation about establishing justice out of this essay as it is fairly well addressed in my other essay Justice for Some is Justice for None.

But now we get to the most crucial part, i.e. promoting the general welfare.  Conservatives would be better off remembering that the Constitution mentions welfare and unions but does not mention corporations or “job-creators.”  Promoting the general welfare can be opposed to an individuals ambition for greater wealth, it is an unfortunate truth.  If one person’s wealth depends on sabotaging competition, it is the obligation of the government to be the “trust-buster.”  If necessary services such as unemployment benefits, healthcare, and education cannot be provided at a low enough cost by the free market, it is the obligation of the government to spend the money, to take the hit necessary to ensure that they are provided.  And this is what is lacking from a “businessman” perspective, the brute fact that there are times when necessary services cost more than what may be profitable.

There is a higher virtue than profit for a government, although I don’t want to dissuade people from entering the private sector as they are what boost an economy and give people livelihoods.  That higher virtue can be phrased as I have done in earlier essays to fill the holes left by businesses.  This can only be accomplished by a willingness to accept that a balance must be made between cost cutting and providing for the citizens.  This can be at times a dangerous balance to strike, as it implicitly embraces the much maligned “moral hazard.”  However, if we allow the argument that a candidate running a government like a business as being a positive to go unabated we allow ourselves to be wooed by lesser leader and worse servants of the existing masters.

We Are the 0.000000012%

I was shocked to see that among the fluff pieces and obsessed gossip about various celebrities there was actually an important bit of information being mulled over by real journalists on the “news” networks.  I am referring to the new reports about the state of poverty in the world and the realities of wealth distribution on planet earth.  There is much to be pleased about, some statistics that could leave an uninformed persons mouth on the floor, and enough little bits of the truth to vindicate everyone’s opinion.  So here comes another essay where I vindicate my own opinion based on this new information.

As I hinted at in the title, one of the most striking statistics to come out is that fact that the richest 85 people, yes fewer than one hundred people total, hold as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people or the bottom 50% of every living person on earth.  On a lighter note it turns out that the top 1% of people only control about half of all wealth in the world, so if the 99% pooled everything together they would just about come out as equal.  This level of a wealth gap has been, historically, dangerous not just for the people without, but for the people on top.  Generally speaking, and I promise I’m not trying to make some Marxist claim about the history of class struggle, people in a society demand a certain level of fairness or else the peasants show up with their pitchforks and torches and lash out.  However, we’ve seen that the comfort that comes from advancing technologies also tempers these violent outbursts to an absolute minimum.  And this trend is what Marx never took into consideration in his theories, which is why the workers revolutions happened in pseudo-feudal states like Russia and China but not Germany or England.

And this brings us to the hopeful portion of the new reports.  Poverty is at its lowest levels in human history, people are living longer than ever before, and even the poorest nations of the world are seeing growth.  Countries like India and China, which for so long were colonial subjects struggling to handle their massive populations are indeed showing reasonable trends of growth, although there are clearly still unconscionable levels of poverty in the nations.  And this is where we find the devil, as always hiding in the details.  There is some merit to the idea that a rising tide lifts all ships, in that as the years go by and some individuals become incredibly rich almost all poorer nations are also seeing growth, on the other hand the growth that the poor do see often is less than their rate of inflation meaning that real growth comes to a stand still.  In the last decade new wealth has gone predominately, to the wealthiest to the tune of about 95% going to the top 1%.  This should be alarming to anyone that understands the role money has in influencing the agendas of politicians.

As it stands now America spends very little money, at least in terms of a percentage of governmental spending, on aid to foreign nations.  The general consensus about government spending on foreign aid comes to about 0.8% of our budget, which don’t get me wrong in terms of dollars spent is a considerable sum.  But if you talk to the average voter, or at least the average conservative voter, the consensus is that we are spending far too much on aid, and worse that aid doesn’t help these countries as it makes them dependent.  There is some validity to this point of view, at least to the extent that some of it is wasted.  It is true that corruption leads some of that aid to be co-opted to the personal bankrolls of dictators, warlords, and bureaucrats; however much of the aid still makes it on the ground and the good it does cannot be overemphasized.

Mortality rates in Africa, South America, and Asia are on the down turn.  Production from countries in these areas are increasing, and much to the confusion of people who believe that giving money to the poor leads to overpopulation, wealth gives people the freedom to not have twenty children and pay more attention to the kids they do have creating more stable levels of population.  The aid we send to these nations is mainly on their infrastructure, agriculture, and medicine.  These are worthwhile investments even if we simply give the money and don’t enforce loan payments.  Infrastructure developments lead to a more educated and therefore prosperous nation; furthermore, it allows easier flow of goods and services allowing industry to become more efficient and profitable.  Improvements in agriculture lead people to spend less time worrying about their next meal giving them the freedom to work and innovate as well as frees up the time of those responsible for the growing of crops and cattle in the first place.  And of course a healthier population is a happier population, is a population free from fear that keeps them from participating in society, is a population that can spend more of its time on other things.

Above all stability is what leads to great wealth creation, and this includes market stability, which is why I’m concerned to see these statistics being used as justification to let the free market take the reigns.  It is true that capitalism and enterprise are what has led to such a growth of wealth for all people, but it is not free-market capitalism.  Without regulation the market goes through booms and busts where a select few at the top profit, but the rest get along during the booms and suffer through the busts.  Right now the stock market is seeing record highs, but in the last day or so is seeing a market correction.  This has the potential to slow investment in these poorer nations as the need for raw materials will go down sharply, while the richest maintain their status if not become even richer from selling off assets that are becoming less profitable, and then swooping in to pick up the pieces in the end.  This is where the danger of having so much money in the hands of so few people becomes dangerous for everyone, except for those über-rich in the short run.

We may yet be reaching the next bubble burst in the world economy, I don’t think it will be in the next year or so and it doesn’t need to happen at all, but that is the direction we’re heading toward.  85 people can only spend so much money, but they can use the money they do have to get even more.  Bill Gates is a wonderful example of how even if every one of them were to do as he did and give about half of his wealth to charity they would still remain the top 85 people in the world.  And I don’t think that we should “eat the rich” because then people would lose the incentive to make the kind of money that does indeed lift all ships.  But if the manner in which that wealth is created leads to this type of economic instability and social misery then those people who created it may see the chickens come home to roost.  And this would be bad for everyone as a revolution kills as many innocent people, if not more, than it does guilty.

So let us set aside for a moment whether or not it is just that of 7 billion people a mere 85 people control as much wealth as the bottom half of people, is this good for business?  The answer I have to give is no.  No, because although there is growth much of it has happened when inequality was much lower.  No, because inequality leads to disillusionment and lethargy.  No, because as it stands half of the world’s wealth depends on satisfying a tiny fraction of people whose sudden absence would be disastrous to the economy.  No, because although we have the chance to make these trends permanent we are already setting down the path to undo all that has been done. 

420 on the 24th

Well considering that the biggest stories on “news” networks include the President’s opinion on marijuana and the drug habits of an adolescent Canadian, whose name I dare not utter lest the wrath of a thousand screaming fangirls descend upon me, it seems like as good a time as any to discuss marijuana legislation and drug culture more generally.  The stereotypical stoner image of a good for nothing bum obsessed with munchies is still fairly prominent, but the fact that some of the most famous pot users include Michael Phelps and Joe Rogan plus the fact that both teams appearing in this year’s Superbowl come from states where pot is legal is beginning to change that, however slowly.  Reports by journalists like Sanjay Gupta are also showing people the human struggle behind the medicinal use of cannabis.  But despite trends toward favoring decriminalization if not legalization of marijuana it still remains political suicide to come out in favor of it.  I generally don’t think too much about legalization as an incredibly important issue, but then I remember the injustice done in the wake of the War on Drugs and I remember why it is an issue worth bringing up.

Despite the general trends that show nearly identical cannabis use among all racial backgrounds, blacks and latinos are more than four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.  Even if there weren’t this kind of racial injustice when it comes to the enforcement of these laws, the laws themselves are unjust.  The idea that a nonviolent, victimless crime such as marijuana possession should be reason enough to send someone to prison alongside dangerous and violent criminals is absurd.  More than likely, because of the recidivism of our justice system, the person will end up prone to more serious crimes.  So far from being a way to correct bad behavior we are sending people to prison to become criminals.

Now there are some people for whom the argument that marijuana is not a dangerous drug is less than compelling.  They believe in the world of Reefer Madness, where marijuana use leads to rape and insanity, or more rationally that it impairs judgement, decreases memory and brain cells, and could be addictive.  The first opinion is pure nonsense, and the stereotype of the fairly sedated stoner should be reason alone to point out the irrational hypocrisy of the belief.  To the second, there is actually good reason to believe these claims; however, the same claims could be made against alcohol but more severely.  Alcohol is a very addictive drug, so much so that AA has become a well known group dedicated to fighting it.  Alcohol makes its users less capable of safely driving vehicles or making rational decisions.  Alcohol has been proven to have deleterious effect on the brain and memory.  What’s more over-consumption of alcohol can lead to liver damage if not alcohol poisoning and death.  Marijuana also makes driving safely much more difficult and some people have reported becoming addicted to it.  And of course for children and adolescents there is a credible threat that marijuana impedes brain development.  But there is no evidence that anyone has died because of over-consumption of cannabis.

A rational person might say that laws concerning marijuana should thus be similar to that of alcohol.  People found driving under the influence of marijuana should be held responsible just like those driving under the influence of alcohol.  There should be harsher penalties for people who commit crimes while intoxicated.  And there should be a minimum legal age to buy cannabis just like alcohol or tobacco for that matter.  But aside from the clear injustice of punishing people who really haven’t done anything particularly harmful to themselves, others, or society in general, there is the much more sinister problem with the way the laws concerning cannabis are constructed.

Just as the prohibition gave organized crime a profitable new enterprise, with a consumer market of otherwise law abiding citizens, the prohibition on marijuana gives cartels a dangerous market to exploit.  One of the greatest threats to human life and justice in Mexico right now is the strength of drug cartels whose biggest crop is by far cannabis.  There is obviously a market for much more insidious drugs like methamphetamines, cocaine, and heroin, but the comparably harmless drug marijuana has a much larger market.  And although the ease of transporting drugs like heroin has caused a resurgence in the suburbs, it still remains a much smaller portion of society that uses such drugs.  This brings us to the age old argument that marijuana is a “gateway” drug.

There is next to no evidence for this claim.  Beside the fact that there isn’t the kind of study that would be able to figure out whether there is actual causation and not mere correlation between the use of marijuana and the use of stronger drugs, the use of alcohol is much more likely to put people in the frame of mind where they are willing to try other drugs and yet it is not considered a gateway drug.  Which brings us to the question of what kind of drug is marijuana?

I do not consider myself to be an expert of the subject, but as I understand it different strains of marijuana produce different effects based on the levels of two major compounds.  The first is tetrahydrocannabinol(THC) which produces the euphoric, sedative, and hallucinogenic qualities for which cannabis is the most famous.  the second is cannabidiol(CBD) which is being touted for its medicinal uses.  Unfortunately there is little to no standardization on the levels of these compounds, instead leaving consumers to do their own personal “research” on which comically named strains best suit their needs.  There is evidence that the ingestion of cannabis can help ease symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and something of interest to me Crohn’s Disease.  What’s more aside from helping cancer patients deal with the problems associated with chemo and radiation therapies, there is some evidence to suggest that cannabis use can help to slow growth of tumors.  However, personal “research,” see anecdotes, are no substitute for real medical research and the experienced opinions of doctors.

Some states, including my home state of Illinois, are beginning to loosen up prohibitions against the medical use of marijuana.  I am, of course, all for this as well as the regulation and standardization of cannabis so that consumers can be well informed, but I do not think that should be the end goal.  Because people use cannabis recreationally even with strict laws against it, and because much of that comes from unregulated cartels we should seek to legalize cannabis.  We should in the mean time though address the social issues that already exist with the laws in existence and seek to keep as few non-violent offenders from the corrupting influence of our prisons.

A Longwinded Lecture

It is an an unfortunate fault of my mind that it does like to wander.  In the same essay or discussion I might start by talking about the hypocrisy of, so called, pro-life activists and end up talking about the importance of the government’s role in healthcare.  In some ways I like this about my writing as there really is no issue that I can think of that is not intertwined with larger issues and thus with every other small issue.  The world is too complicated to be summed up in a few words or phrases, unless you want to be broad or vague… or somehow convince people that over-simplicity is wit.  BUT, it does make it impossible to cover all the things you want to, even for a narrowed down subject, in just a few pages. So I concede that even the more detailed explanations of a more succinct essay were too broad and went too far from the point to allow me to get to everything I wanted to, without being longer than they already were.  It is with this in mind that I revisit my contention that the free market leaves holes in education, and I may at some other point retouch the other arguments, but I felt this one more than others needs revisiting.  This is because I only talked about basic education, from elementary school to high school essentially, but now I want to talk about what comes after and perhaps some other time, what comes before.

Now I must confess I went to a private university, much to the pride of my parents if at cries of their wallet.  What I experienced in this campus of higher education was much more than the course load I took.  I was exposed to different people, with different backgrounds, different opinions, different ideas.  And although I learned much from my professors some of the most important things I learned were just from talking with my friends, my fellow learners.  Such circumstances don’t happen much in the “real world” and they certainly don’t happen in high school or middle school, nor should they.  When you are in that level of education you need to learn the rules, you need to learn what you think, you need to learn how to express it in a way that other people will accept.  Once you have that foundation you can break those rules, you can evaluate why you think, and what is useful in your expression.  These higher level lessons that you learn, not necessarily from a history, philosophy, chemistry, literature, economics, physics course, are what give life some real meaning and make citizens who are ready to actually face the big questions of life and society.

However, these lessons, these values that are instilled by higher education do not necessarily have marketable value.  Of course lessons of how to deal with other people will give you an edge in business, but a major in Latin or Fine Arts are not necessarily the most productive to creating physical, financial wealth.  These are the holes left by the market when it comes to higher education.  These fields of study are important to the full development of society, they make society wealthier, and perhaps more importantly the broadening of human understanding in any direction leads to untold advances.  But these are not urgent fields of study, they don’t give people the skills and knowledge that the market deems the most valuable.

A decade or so ago the market decided that it needed more lawyers, that it was prepared to compensate anyone who accomplished a lawyers education very well.  Needless to say many people took up the challenge and now there is such a large pool of lawyers, or I should say potential lawyers, that the degree has become nearly useless.  Right now the market says that students should focus on the STEM fields, which is to say Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.  Now I’ll grant you that America needs to have a greater emphasis on math and science, that the current age of information-technology means that knowledge of computers is a necessity, but there is a cost to be paid when the market dictates what should be taught.

If all education is, is a preparation for a profession then it makes perfect sense to make higher education private.  People who want to gain skills to get upper-level jobs should indeed be expected to take on the price of a university education as an investment for future gains that will clearly be made from better paying jobs.  But if education is about gaining knowledge and learning about different ideas and finding your passion then there is something clearly wrong with this system.  A degree in 17th Century Russian Literature does not lend itself to being able to get a high-paying job, the price of that college education will likely not be rewarded, at least not right away.  But that education was valuable and there are many things to be learned from Russian literature and we are richer for having that field explored.  That kind of education needs to be available to anyone who has the passion and the drive and not just the people with the background to be able to afford it in the first place.

Because this gets to the next part of what higher education is supposed to be, a playing ground leveler.  Higher education gives people the ability to come out better than they went in, where your parents wealth count for next to nothing and your ability to learn and improve is everything.  And when graduation day comes that degree may just be the ticket out of the working class you came from.  But this cannot be if higher education remains as expensive as it is.  The free market laws of supply and demand drive up the cost of these universities every year, and to make matters worse just getting that degree is no longer the achievement it once was nor the guarantee it once was.  This is, more or less, what led to the Occupy Protests.  Students are expected to go into massive debt and then try and get a job, it no longer matters if that job is high-paying as more than likely you’d be lucky to get a job at Walmart.  This is a failure of the free market and the broader problem we saw with law degrees and will see with STEM fields.

The positions that those fields lead to are well paying, if you can get them.  Any person who wants to become wealthy will then devote themselves to those fields, even if it isn’t their passion.  The end result is an over-saturation of that field until the market corrects itself, i.e. fewer people go to college.  University education should be a guaranteed to anyone capable of passing the requirements to entering it.  This is how it works in France, in Germany, and although slightly altered out of “austerity” in the UK.  Everyone, rich and poor, is given the equal shot to pursue their interests.  The majority of people will still choose the market friendly fields whatever they may be by the time they go to college, but some people will risk something more obscure that may yet be of great use to them and society as a whole.  We want people to get a good education but create financial barriers that force the people who would benefit most from it from receiving it.

So we need to end the catch-22 of university that says you need a degree to make money and you need money to get a degree.  We need to take away the penalty for studying the fields that give wealth to society even if not to the student’s wallet.

For Tony

One of my personal heros is Tony Judt.  He was one of the most articulate writers of all time, and what he articulated was a vision of what humanity strives for and how history can show us how to make these things a reality.  He died in 2010 after a prolonged fight with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis(ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  As his body steadily turned into a prison for his mind and his basic functions being assisted by machines, he did stop writing and even shortly before his death was called by some “the liveliest brain in New York.”  And although that may be like being the skinniest kid in fat camp, take that New York, it is a brilliant example of the triumph of the human spirit.  The reason I choose to start this essay with a short description of him is because one of his favorite subjects to talk about was transportation.  Dr Judt understood the power of the freedom to move unrestricted and the necessity of the government to fill in the gaps left by the free market to ensure this freedom to all people.  It is for his memory that I hope to adequately express just what those holes are and how they are best filled, but this post will be bare bones because I would rather anyone reading this spend the time reading his works or at the very least hearing him nobly speak his mind in one of his last public speeches. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrePxnR4HcE

Markets have made transportation cheaper and more expansive, I need to clear this up front that I give credit where credit is due.  Because of the incentive to be more efficient with resources, and thus make a profit, ships became faster, train lines expanded, and cars became affordable for the majority of people.  However, there is only so much that can be made profitable and services that aren’t, won’t be provided by markets.  This means that for people without the means to buy a car or who live in areas too sparse to be viable for busses that the market doesn’t do enough.  This means that once one market gains enough capital it will use that capital to block any and all competition, for automakers that would be high-speed rail.

Now I understand that there are certain things that simply aren’t profitable and that businesses simply can’t spend resources on, but they may still be important.  And some people choose to do these things on their own, certainly charities are a prime example of this.  The creator of the polio vaccine, Dr Salk, decided that it was less important to profit from his discovery than to make sure that people were rid of that horrid disease.  But charities too have their limits and giving freely is a truly noble thing, and people should be applauded for their altruism but this cannot be expected of everyone at all times.  Where these gaps emerge, where there remain things that we deem important but their is neither the incentive for individual enterprise nor enough altruistic people to fill it voluntarily the government needs to step in.

We believe, as a society, that people deserve to be able to move about freely in their own country.  At the very least we recognize that, that freedom of movement means the movement of resources and thus profit for all who have access to it.  It is for this reason, as well as some Cold War fears, that Eisenhower set out to make the widespread interstate system we use today.  This is unfortunately not nearly good enough for those who cannot afford the car to use those roads and the gas to get them from one coast to the other.  This of course not to mention the environmental effect of having so many internal combustion engines running this way and that all across the country.  Of course a person could also take an airplane.  An expensive, environment destroying, privacy ravaging, personal space destroying airplane, which of course only gets you to the outskirts of any city.  To momentarily quote infomercials everywhere, “There has to be a better way.”

Trains, high-speed rail, an alternative to both cars and planes that is faster than cars full stop and, depending on the distance, faster than taking the plane because it requires less security and can go right to the center of a city and hook up with a local metro.  Regardless, once the initial materials are laid down it is by far the cleanest way to travel.  More than anything it is the great equalizer, being much cheap enough to be viable for just about everyone.  The benefits of it are so clear it seems incredible that no private industries take it up.  The problem is the upfront costs.  It takes a huge investment to make the rails appear, and only the government has the means to be able to take a hit like that.  Once it is made private companies could operate as they normally would and pay back the government for the use of the rails.  This is more or less how things work in Europe, the exception being the UK where Maggie Thatcher’s ideology saw the end of government participation.

But I suppose that will remain a dream and what remains is the public transportation we do have.  Subways that transport all people cheaply and efficiently.  Busses that go to all parts of the city to make sure no one is left without transport.  But this only exists in cities.  Well not entirely, I went to school in a small town in Minnesota where there was an investment in public transport.  The colleges, of which between two the undergrad population was below 5,000, had their own transportation companies, but more importantly similar services existed for the residents of the town.  A shuttle service worked to make sure everyone the old, the poor, the outcast were still able to get from their homes to shops and back.  This was performed by a nonprofit organization, and I am glad for it.  But when I look at similar small towns all across this nation I don’t see nonprofit organizations creating similar services.  Where they can’t act we must.  It is unacceptable to allow people to be separated from our society in this way.  We are a great community and we must act as such.

Now please stop reading this and read Ill Fares the Land, The Memory Chalet, Postwar, A Grand Illusion, or anything written by “the original talking head.”