Longer term consequences

Because the economy is going to recover without Republicans in charge, the right now loses the myth that only they can solve economic woes. This wound will last a couple generations. With it to the trash goes the right’s bigotry that theirs is the only morality, the only religion, the only good worthy of the word, that the rest of us are vile and immoral. So to goes the falsehood that getting sloshed on beer is less harmful than getting baked on brownies. Freedom to choose is not free if the choices are already chosen.

But the left loses something, too, with their victory. They lose the real messsage of the Right, poorly wrapped in fear and hypocrisy, about the power of the individual, the validity of making choices in our lives. There need be consequences for bad choices and individuals need to suffer those consequences. If society takes up too much of the burden we disable instead of empower. Freedom to choose means freedom to fail. We cannot eliminate risk nor should we. We make better choices knowing life is not easy. 

Economic recovery is a time to do less

Let’s have a discussion about the 47%. Students who got bought off by college loans, women bought off with birth control,  poor bought off with medical care, Hispanics bought off with immigration reform. Let’s assume, for a moment, that Romney’s White Man’s Nightmare is true.

Let’s even ignore his secret tax returns and off-shore bank accounts.

We need to ask about the actual cost of these programs and whether this is truly the harbinger of an “entitlement society” as bemoaned by the right.

And at the same time, we need to look ahead about six months or a year, assuming the recovery that seems to be picking up steam (without Republican participation) continues to build.

The more affordable college becomes, the more engineers we produce (and fewer Golden Sach bankers) the better off we are. It is probably an investment, as opposed to a cost. I will make the same argument for much of Obamacare.  We do not have the best health care system in the world, just the most expensive. We can do better.

Immigration reform? How much does that cost us really? Should we send back the Irish, the Swedes, the Italians, the Chinese? C’mon.

Birth control? Let’s get government out of the religion business. And the morality business. Let’s make it as easy as possible to avoid unwanted pregnancies. If abortion offends you, then advocate for birth control.

No surprise, I have a contrarian argument to my friends on the left: We need already to be thinking about doing less with government. The left will say that they won and now is the time to push forward with an agenda they feel they earned. I respond that there was no mandate and a political victory does not change the laws of economics.

First and foremost of those laws is the problem of deficits. Of productivity. And yes, let’s give Republicans their due on this one, it is a fact that if something is free it will be consumed without limits, and the law of unintended consequences assures that if we remove consequences behavior will be altered and individuals will depend more and take responsibility for less.

It was never a good idea to cut budgets during a recession. But now that we see the end of the downturn and the beginning of prosperity, it is time to determine how we will slow the growth of government. Because we can’t live that far beyond our means as a society and we cannot tax our way into higher productivity, the only way that we truly create wealth.

Romney-Ryan need the week off

The Republican duopoly Romoney-Ryan has hit heavy weather, but storms have caused them to finally say what they mean. Let's look, shall we? The following came from an article today in Businessweek, hardly a left-leaning publication.

The federal government should not "take from some to give to the others," said Romney, trying to defend his dis of 47% of Americans he said think they deserve handouts.

Which means what? That he believes there should be an end to "progressive taxation" where the rich pay a higher percentage than the middle class? Or does he favor a national sales tax? Maybe the whole country should just go to user fees, pay for what you get? Toll roads, private schools, doctor's paid through your VISA card? Explain, please.

Because tax policy is already skewed in his favor, Romney paid 13%, possibly a lower percentage than his cooks, his maids and his chauffeur, certainly lower than taxes paid by people earning much less than he does. More importantly, he has much, much more left over.

He would have more left over even if he actually paid the top tax rate. Even if he wasn't hiding his income in the Cayman islands and Swiss banks accounts (we NEED to see those tax returns. I would be content with 2005 through 2010).

To add fuel to the fire, VP candidate Paul Ryan stepped up with "The point we're trying to make here is, under the Obama economy, government dependency is up and economic stagnation is up."

Well, duh! Government dependency? Mr. Ryan, we are still in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s (which was made worse still by policies like those you advocate). The federal government (you were involved in a lot of the discussion–remember?) pays unemployment insurance and (don't tell anyone in your party) there have been a lot of unemployed since your buddies over at Goldman Sachs kicked the economy in the balls and George Bush started the war in Iraq without wanting to pay for it. Yes, there is also more Medicaid going to people who lost their health insurance when they lost their jobs, too.

Economic stagnation?  Two days ago you called efforts by the Federal Reserve to end "economic stagnation" nothing but a "sugar high." I will put Ben Bernanke's PhD up against your asinine Ayn Rand blather any day of the week. Economic stagnation is part of the process called debt destruction (you can look that up if you take the time from pumping up your biceps) and we need to get banks and companies to take money out of their vaults and put it to work, which will put people to work.

Private employment is actually recovering. We would have lower unemployment now than when this mess started if Republicans weren't trying to fire every other public employee in the country. And we would likely be out of this mess completely if you, Mr. Ryan, had not tried to capitalize on our hardship by blocking recovery efforts so you could create a regime change in Washington putting you in power.

Finally, Romney admitted he doesn't believe in opportunity for the rest of us.

 "…Romney referred to videotaped comments Obama made in 1998 (14 years ago!?) as evidence he favored government redistribution of wealth. As an Illinois state senator at the time, Obama said he believes in it "at least to a certain level to make sure everybody's got a shot."

What?! Remember, redistribution of wealth is another way of looking at progressive taxation. Even then, Obama was restrained. He didn't talk about fairness, he talked about opportunity.

So. Romney doesn't believe that everyone should have a shot at the American Dream? No "pursuit of happiness" if you weren't born wealthy? No need for America to pull together in this crisis, share the burden, provide an opportunity to all her citizens?

Very good. Glad we finally know where they stand.

The Conservative within

The schizoid ideology of the left and right leave me confused. The right believes in individual responsibility, but wants keys to my bedroom door. The left believes in personal freedom but wants to mitigate consequences for every bad decision I make.

Unfortunately for the left, without consequences there are no rational incentives. Even worse for the left, they will have to watch as a few generations are wasted, because it takes that long for consequences to take root and modify behavior.

Unfortunately for the right, bad things happen to good people. Even worse for the right, there is benefit for the entire society if together we provide opportunity for individuals, and not doing so guarantees decline for the very society that provides for their wealth.

I ran across three articles in rapid succession today in the New York Times. The first was a mild little piece on free will. The second was a Krugman opinion on opportunity. The third was about what the right gets right ("That ought to be a short one," snort my snotty leftist friends).

That they snort is part of the problem. Because the right snorts back, the argument becomes one of finger pointing and probing for vulnerability. If neither side is willing to listen, we have a shout down, no progress and everybody goes to bed angry.

One place where idealogues might find common ground, albeit a long way from where each sits, is around the concept of opportunity: America has some, used to have more, and needs as much as she can get.

Opportunity is the life force, opportunity is the dream that creates the energy, opportunity is the engine that pulls the train to a higher standard of living.

I believe the left and the right have a vested interest in creating opportunity. This starts with education in America, which has fallen to an abysmal state. The right blames the left for polluting the classroom with polemic and letting it become a sinecure for mediocrity. The left blames the right, for shunting education onto a side street in pursuit of the perfect consumer.

To fix this, the left has to quit trying to be everything for everybody and accept that there are consequences, often nasty ones, for certain behaviors, including failure by students as well as teachers in the classroom.

The right has to give up the idea that they have no stake in what happens to others, accept that a world of gated communities of the spirit will ruin the environment for everybody. We have to fund more than just police and fire departments.

I don't want to talk about income inequality in and of itself. I don't find inequality by itself to be a sin, nor do I hate other people's money as so many on the left seem to do. But if inequality perpetuates itself through an inheritocracy, it damages opportunity. We need to do what we need to do so that a farm boy in Idaho can share the same dream as a street kid in Buffalo. Then we might see a reversal of America's decline.

We spend more per capita on education than any other nation and we do so poorly. We spend more than any nation on health care and it is pretty lousy. So money, by itself, is not the answer here, and everyone has to accept there are limits to what we can spend.

But it is unAmerican to accept that this is the best we can do, and accept the status quo. If we continue this path, and if "We the People" do not believe there is opportunity, if not for themselves but for their children, they will get angry and will want to take it back, by ballot or by bullet.

Matt Miller for President

Here is the platform:

A Third Party Stump Speech.

Eat your spinach. No whining.

How will Oregon play the revolution?

Herman Cain says it's my fault that I don't have a job.

I hope he becomes the Republican candidate for President of the United States. I think it would be wonderful for America to be choosing between two Blacks of high intellect for the highest office in the land. It would prove, in many ways, that Herman Cain is right.

Except that he is not. I don't have a job because two industries in which I was employed have effectively been wiped out. No one wants to hire someone my age, and I look. Goldman Sachs destroyed the value of what were considerable investments and was then bailed out with my tax dollars. My insurance went away with my employment.

So I hang on, underwater, hoping that I can hold my breath for as long as it takes to pop to the surface. If not, I drown, and it was my fault, according to Herman Cain.

Opportunity is such a tricky concept. On the one hand, we all know personal effort is necessary for success. On the other, we also know that luck of birth and circumstance plays a major role.

That is why our founding father's sought to secure the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and why this country's system of public education, especially by including returning soldiers after WWII, figured so prominently in American economic dominance of the second half of the last century. It was a time when personal effort and public support and a sense of "justice for all"-- and a bit of geopolitical luck -- came together to create wealth beyond imagination.

But that was then. This is now. And to those, like Herman Cain, who want to roll back the clock and say we all just need to roll up our sleeves, I say they need a reality check. It's now, not then, and we have to fix what's wrong now, not protect a system that evolved in a different environment and that has become corrupt because that is the nature of power -- it always corrupts, and the corruption is becoming concentrated.

Our schools are broken by having become a safe haven for mediocrity and by a lack of realism on the part of students, parents and society. Opportunity starts with high expectations at home, but is nurtured by demands in the classroom. We lack both. Our schools are pretty good at turning out lawyers and bankers, neither offering a lot of societal value-add.

Our political system is broken. Pharmaceutical companies, telecoms, insurance companies, energy companies -- they own our representatives (political system). And they are focused on the short term, so next year's profits (elections) take precedence over long-term public good (wider distribution of income). They (corporations, politicians) do whatever they can to make the system less transparent, so we can't follow what's going on.

Not that we have the schooling to do so. Or a media with the teeth to do the job entrusted to them by Jefferson and the first amendment.

If they can charge me $214 today for a generic drug I bought last month for $40 (yes, really!), so much the better, according to Mr. Cain. It is not immoral, it is the natural outcome of a system where power is purchased. That is the message of the right these days, under the cover of false "market economics," and the left whimpers about it not being fair and takes a fall in the ring.

If you don't have a job, blame yourself. If you don't have schools, blame yourself. If you don't have healthcare, blame yourself. If you don't have power to make a change, blame yourself.

Okay, I accept his challenge. I assert my right for change, and if that means protesting on Wall Street against the kleptocracy, then I protest. If I insist that elected officials represent me and my neighbors and not giant corporations (Greg Walden), I shout and protest and work for the other guy. If I want better schools, I will ask teachers and administrators to deal with the incompetent.

Once, a long time ago, Oregon's first Governor Kitzhaber proposed a revolutionary approach to healthcare. Why so silent now? When I was in school, Oregon had one of the finest systems of public education in the nation. Where is that vision and courage today? Oregon once sent statesmen to Washington D.C. who were effective, outspoken and moral. Those we send now croak about compromise.

That is not to say that the left has all, or even any, of the answers. Many on the left simply advocate for a bigger share of an ever smaller pie. And they get so distracted by red herrings of "social injustice," real and imagined. We have some actual economic injustice going on, the other can wait. Yes, it can. It must.

No, Herman Cain and Barrack Obama would not have the opportunity to face off against each other were it not for the civil rights movement. But that was then, this is now, and the problems are not the same. Opportunity requires that the pie become larger, so everybody can have at least a small slice.

Which is why we need a revolution. Why we will have a revolution. Because the opportunity for a better life through hard work has been lost to special interests. They not only play the game against us, but they own the refs, they slope the field and choose who gets which end, they draw the lines. The game is rigged, and if you and your children or grandchildren aren't on the inside, you will lose. It's a sucker's game. It's time to change the rules.

Only a revolution can upset a status quo that has evolved to protect the powerful. According to a recent well-respected study, 147 organizations control 40% of the world's wealth. What do you suppose they talk about when they get together? We'll guess: more for themselves of what they already have.

They won't do anything else, unless they have to, unless driven by economic collapse or an "American Spring." It should should start now. It should start here.

Seduction of life without consequences

A while back we noted that the current financial and economic upheaval might have long term impact on how we live. Eye wrote about it in August of 2007, and referred to it again in March of this year, and again in May.

David Brooks has just done a far better job than Eye in an outstanding piece on why and how the current downturn affects us socially. (Read it here.) Brooks calls the current situation "The Great Seduction" and notes how our country's prosperity was built on "hard work, temperance and frugality."

Because he is an honest writer, Brooks offers a few solutions, then concludes:

"There are dozens of things that could be done. But the most important is to shift values. Franklin made it prestigious to embrace certain bourgeois virtues. Now it’s socially acceptable to undermine those virtues. It’s considered normal to play the debt game and imagine that decisions made today will have no consequences for the future."

Brooks misses one very important point. It may be necessary to allow greater hardship i.e., consequences, as a result of profligacy. This is the only way to modify behavior. The extent to which society, or government, mitigates consequences is the extent to which the problem will persist.

This is not just human nature, it is biology at its most basic. Why would we not do what we evolved to do, if there is no reason not to do it? That is why Franklin's message was so well regarded. He was offering a suggestion on how to improve life when the consequences of not doing so were dire.

The unpleasant side of this today is that there will be suffering that we are not used to seeing in America for the last couple of generations. And we will want to prevent the worst of this. But to be effective, we need to realize that every effort to reduce hardship above a "hit bottom" level will prolong it, or postpone it and make it worse when eventually the bills have to be paid.