tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-112092532024-03-10T09:29:41.808-04:00The Wombat's View on EverythingWhere cool wombats come together to talk about things that are of particular importance to wombats.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-61257358583172204072010-03-08T21:58:00.002-05:002010-03-08T22:24:48.769-05:00Get Rich Quick?I've been wondering lately why it is assumed that someone who comes up with a good idea or invents the "next great thing", no matter how small, is somehow entitled to get rich from it. This theme seems to run through all the debates I've had with others about "intellectual property" (IP), even if it's not articulated as such. Pro-IP folks vehemently defend the inventor's "right" to profit from his or her idea, claiming that someone else using another person's idea to make a profit is somehow "stealing" from the original inventor.<br /><br />Inventors and innovators are definitely important for human progress, as without them technology would stagnate, and we wouldn't have many of the amazing devices and technologies we have today. But does creating something new really entitle you to a profit windfall? As a capitalist pig, I certainly believe that everyone has the right to exchange goods and services with others to make a profit, but why should inventors and innovators be given special treatment?<br /><br />Many Pro-IP folks would probably say that if we didn't reward inventors handsomely we'd never have any new inventions, but I think that's hogwash. If nothing else, it ignores the fact that good ideas and useful inventions generate lots of profits for lots of people over long periods of time...not just at first or only for the inventor. Thus, it's silly to think that no one would ever invent anything if they couldn't be assured of getting rich from it within a short period of time. A good idea can make one rich without monopoly protection, maybe just not as quickly.<br /><br />But I think there's something much more human that makes most people think that the market (or government or society or whatever) should make inventors rich. I'll call it the "It Could Be Me!" (ICBM, lol) principle. See, coming up with a great idea or a new useful gadget represents to most people the simplest, quickest way to "strike it rich." Potentially anyone can have a sudden flash of insight that leads to the next great thing and make a bundle...and it could be me! It's a way to make a bunch of money and live the life you've always wanted without saving and investing more of your earnings than you spend, being a real entrepreneur and starting your own business, or showing a ton of initiative and ambition and working your way up the ladder. <br /><br />It's the everyman dream of success. It's hope that I could be the next one to get rich by hatching the plans for a better mousetrap. So if we got rid of patents, copyrights, and other IP monopoly protection, we would destroy the hopes of millions of people hanging onto that glimmer of hope...the hope that It Could Be Me! Who could possibly be so callous as to want to dash all those hopes and dreams?Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-63580791412181248582010-02-10T09:55:00.002-05:002010-02-10T10:58:38.264-05:00The 2010 CensusI recently received an email (from my mom) warning me about possible scams associated with the upcoming 2010 federal census. Apparently there is a chance that some people will attempt to pose as census workers and try to get financial information from you so they can steal your identity. Maybe so, but that's not the reason for this post.<br /><br />What stood out to me in the warning email was the following, seemingly innocent statement:<br /><blockquote>...more than 140,000 U.S. Census workers will count every person in the United States and will gather information about every person living at each address including name, age, gender, race, and other <span style="font-style:italic;">relevant data</span>. (Emphasis added)</blockquote><br />What do they mean by "relevant data", and why is any of the information mentioned at all relevant to the federal government?<br /><br />According to the U.S. Constitution (remember that?), the census is only used to determine the number of representatives in the House for each state, as per the 14th amendment. Once upon a time it was used to determine taxes paid by each state, but that was superseded by the 16th amendment, which arrogated to Congress the power to levy income taxes with no regard to population whatsoever. The census is supposed to be a survey of the geographical dispersion of residents within the United States...that's all.<br /><br />So why would it be at all necessary for the federal government to know the age, gender, race, or even the first name of every person living in your house? Is there going to be a new law mandating representation based on the relative ethnic composition of each state? Will there have to be so many black, hispanic, or Asian representatives based on the census? Are we going to ensure there is appropriate age and gender representation, ensuring that Generation X is as well-represented as the Baby Boomers, or that there is a geographically proportionate number of female and male representatives? How about names? Do we need an apportionment of representatives based on the first letter of each first name? Will I be represented by the Letter R in my district? Obviously this is all patently ludicrous (though I wouldn't be shocked if some form of race- or gender-related representative apportionment legislation made it onto the House floor), so why do they care?<br /><br />I have to confess a tinge of paranoia when it comes to government gathering information on its subjects (as if you couldn't tell). I can't help but wonder what they're going to do with that information, particularly since it has nothing at all to do with apportionment of representatives. All they need for that is a simple headcount. I imagine most people probably think it's no big deal. After all, they're just statistics. But statistics in the hands of government can be a powerful weapon against freedom, and therein lies my concern. How many more entitlement programs will we see based on the census results? How much more redistribution of wealth will ensue? How many excuses will be found within those statistics for future expansions of government power over our lives?<br /><br />Thinking back about the original email warning me about impostors fishing for information about me, I'm dismayed that most people are more concerned about the possibility that their fellow man may attempt to do them harm than they are about the activities of their government. It speaks volumes about the attitude of most people toward government...trusting their government over their fellow man. As I've said before, I'm a lot less worried about what free people <span style="font-style:italic;">might </span>do than what an overbearing government is almost <span style="font-style:italic;">certain</span> to do. In either case, regardless of who comes to my door claiming to be a census worker, the only answer they'll get from me is, "2."Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-83598991386191395602009-01-02T11:47:00.002-05:002009-01-02T16:03:49.603-05:00Is the Value of Everything Measurable?A common complaint about Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot, and other "big box" retailers is that they drive smaller retailers out of business. When this happens, it is opined, something "intangible" or of immeasurable value is lost. Among the things lost may be involvement by the business in the community, personalized, polite, or friendly service, and the sense of satisfaction that comes from supporting a small business. While it's true that small businesses often provide intangible benefits such as these, many would argue that since their value can't be measured in terms of dollars they are typically under-valued by most consumers and are therefore unable to stand against the onslaught of low prices from big box retailers. Interestingly enough, the value of such intangibles <i>can</i> be measured in dollars, although perhaps not directly.<br /><br />Economically speaking, the value of any item or service can only be measured subjectively, in terms of what an individual is willing to <i>give up</i> in order to attain the item or service. For instance, if a buyer is willing to give a seller $15 for a particular item, this shows that <i>the buyer values the item more than whatever else he could have bought for $15</i>. Thinking in terms of money, therefore, provides a convenient way of measuring subjective value, but it's not always obvious. Consumers may be willing to give up other things that they don't immediately associate with money in order to attain some item or some intangible "good" such as personalized customer service. They may, for instance, be willing to drive further, accept a more limited selection, or have to arrange their schedule to visit a store during business hours. All of these things represent a cost, and no matter how you slice it they always impact our ability to exchange productivity (earnings, i.e. money) for goods and services.<br /><br />So what bearing does this have on the overwhelming success of big box retailers and the demise of mom-and-pop boutiques? Well, it simply means that in many cases the majority of consumers place less value on such intangibles as customer service or a sense of community than they do on the other things they could buy with the money they saved by going to a big box retailer. Smaller stores that are unable to compete with the larger retailers on prices will often find themselves out of business. This will undoubtedly mean short-term hardship for those business owners and their families, and it may mean the loss of shopping options for those consumers who place more value on intangibles.<br /><br />There is no more "democratic" system than the free market. Consumers vote with their dollars every moment of every day, rather than just once every few years. And unlike political elections, the businesses elected by consumers that fail to meet the electorate's demands will be thrown out of office in short order as consumers withhold their votes/dollars. Any attempt to "level the playing field" in favor of small businesses flies in the face of majority rule and simply substitutes the preferences of a relative few for those of the vast majority. <br /><br />But also unlike a political election, those of us who wish to vote for small businesses by exchanging a little more of our productivity for things the majority under-values are free to do so. We need not be relegated to big box retail stores if we don't want to be. So long as the market remains free, those options will remain available to us.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-75198878999754794512009-01-01T20:45:00.002-05:002009-01-01T21:19:46.260-05:00What Can a Tampon Teach us About Markets?I was watching television with some friends recently, and during a commercial for some new model of panty liner a friend asked if anyone else was "disturbed by the amount of research being put into creating new feminine hygiene products. After all, how many different types of tampons and panty liners does the world really need?" <br /><br />Like most things other people say, it got me thinking. Why IS there so much research going into feminine hygiene products, or indeed any other personal care product? Walk down the personal care aisle of any grocery store, and you'll see an amazing variety of products in every category. Whether it's toothbrushes, hair gel, antiperspirant, shampoo, facial cleanser, or hand lotion, consumers have a plethora of choices.<br /><br />I think the primary reason for this vast array of variety is regulation, or rather, the lack thereof. These industries are incredibly vibrant because they're largely unregulated. Unlike heavily regulated industries there are very few barriers to entry for a small company that wants to make toothbrushes, toothpaste, or mouthwash. Putting a new brand of hair gel or conditioner on the shelf doesn't require expending resources meeting cumbersome safety rules. The products are safe because consumers wouldn't buy them if they weren't. There's incredible variety because it's simpler for smaller companies to compete. The playing field is level because no one company is hampered any more or less than another by the heavy hand of government. Greater competition means more innovation and research as companies search for ways to stay ahead of their competitors. This is why there are so many different brands and styles of panty liners on grocery store shelves.<br /><br />Of course, this condition is not at all unique to personal care products. In any un- (or at least less-) regulated industry there will always be more research, greater innovation, higher quality, and lower prices. Witness the computer hardware industry, for instance, or the television industry. These are almost entirely unregulated, and so they are incredibly vibrant. Computer hardware gets faster, better, and cheaper every day, and televisions get larger, cheaper, and have better picture quality all the time. There is no reason the same would not be true of any industry that currently suffers from government oversight. Whether it's health care, education, banking, or otherwise, freeing resources for innovation by reducing government regulation will always result in better, safer, less expensive products and services.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-88051769135821794562008-10-09T09:18:00.003-04:002008-10-09T09:42:31.247-04:00We're all Marxists now!The fifth plank of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_manifesto">Communist Manifesto</a> reads:<br /><br /><b>Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.</b><br /><br />For those of you unfamiliar with the Manifesto, it outlines a plan to overthrow the Bourgeois and bring about the full "blessings" of Communism. The 10 planks are the conditions that must exist before a transition to Communism is possible. So far, we've already met planks 2 (A heavy progressive or graduated income tax) and 10 (Free education for all children in public schools), and were brought closer to 4 (Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels) with the passage of The Patriot Act and various other abominations under the Bush administration. The impending <a href="http://finance.comcast.net/www/news.html?x=http://76.96.38.13/data/news/2008/10/09/1082611.xml">purchase of ownership stakes by the Treasury Department</a> in private U.S. banks gets us closer to plank number 5.<br /><blockquote>WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is considering taking ownership stakes in certain U.S. banks as an option for dealing with a severe global credit crisis.<br /><br />An administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made, said the $700 billion rescue package passed by Congress last week allows the Treasury Department to inject fresh capital into financial institutions and get ownership shares in return.</blockquote>Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-55355134848217215842008-10-08T12:58:00.003-04:002008-10-08T17:05:46.364-04:00Democracy is a Big Fat FailureI'm one of those people who gives his Congresscritters hell about everything. I email them and call their offices anytime a piece of crap legislation comes down the pipe, and I often get their canned responses telling me they're going to do this or that, regardless of what I say. The recent bailout bill was no exception. I emailed both Senators and my Congressman about that steaming pile of destructive garbage several times, and I called their offices and had protracted discussions with their lackeys about it. Without exception, each of them told me that public opposition had been overwhelming, quoting numbers of calls and emails received in ratios anywhere from 25:1 to 300:1 against the bailout. I was encouraged that the public had finally mobilized and made clear its wishes to our representatives in Congress, and I thought that such indisputable public outcry might mean the bailout bill would meet an appropriate end as bedding in some kid's hamster cage. Unfortunately, my optimism was unfounded, and Congress took us further down the road to economic ruin by passing the $700 billion bailout. What a great day for democracy, huh?<br /><br />I now know, beyond any doubt, that representative democracy is a complete and total sham. In one stroke, Congress has shown complete and utter contempt for those they are elected to serve. By voting against the wishes of the public they have illustrated that they don't give a damn what we think, and that they believe we're all far too stupid to know what's good for us. It's not that I had any great faith in democracy to begin with, but this just puts the final nail in the coffin.<br /><br />So what happened? Put simply, members of Congress <i>do not</i> have your interests at heart when they go to vote on a piece of legislation. There are a few exceptions, but by and large they are all working to further their own agendas and pet projects. In some cases, their intentions are good, but because government really has no way of knowing whether or not it's doing the right thing (because it neither profits nor suffers loss as a result of its actions), the policies undertaken are nearly always disastrous.<br /><br />Really, it's not even a problem with the <i>people</i> in government. On the one hand, they're just people like you and me...no smarter than us, no less fallible, no more immune to the trappings of vice and greed...yet they are somehow expected to be immune to normal human failings simply because they've been elected. Even the most noble-minded individuals, once elected to seats of power, are soon swallowed up by the machinery of bureaucracy...the plethora of perverse incentives, the focus on procedure over outcomes, the complete lack of meaningful feedback, the near total insulation from the possibility of being replaced during the next election. Then of course there are the malevolent, power-hungry, career politicians, who will do or say anything to get elected, then focus completely on their own enrichment at the expense of taxpayers. Either way, we (the public) lose.<br /><br />It can be no other way. These flaws are built into the machinery of government, and as romantic an idea of a Constitution that limits the power of government may be, it is obviously powerless to constrain the desires of Leviathan. Those who seek power will use it to gain more power. Those who can get away with doing whatever they damn well please despite the wishes of those who elected them will do so without fear of retribution. It is a grave error to believe otherwise.<br /><br />How, then, can we expect government to protect us, to work toward the betterment of society, or to make <i>anything</i> better? The fact is that we can't, and we shouldn't. Government can defend us no better than we can defend ourselves. Government can provide for us no better than we can provide for ourselves. Government can do nothing good for society when it institutionalizes all the worst things of that society...violence, fraud, coercion, theft, you name it. Government is the manifestation of all these things, and as if that weren't enough, it wields the power of force to bend us all to its will.<br /><br />I'm done. I refuse to participate any longer. I won't get out of bed any earlier on November 4th than on any other day. I will still grudgingly pay my taxes simply because my refusal to do so would impose costs on others who don't share my views. This great democratic experiment has been a colossal failure, and I only hope that someday others wake up to this reality and decide not to participate anymore as well.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-69654452703657990192008-09-02T18:46:00.002-04:002008-09-02T19:00:31.390-04:00Couldn't Have Said It Better MyselfA recent <a href="http://mises.org/story/3081">book review</a> on Mises.org sparked a debate on the legitimacy of the State. Various posters commented on everything from the establishment of government to the workability of anarchy. One post in particular stood out so much that I felt it bore repeating.<blockquote>"According to the Declaration of Independence, if the government is not serving your best interests, you are entitled to overthrow it. Given the costs of overthrowing any government, it is apparent why most people prefer paying their taxes and taking their chances with the depredations and destructions heaped on them.<br /><br />Nevertheless, history is also replete with cases where governments were violently overthrown and the rulers liquidated when oppression became so severe that opposing became more palatable to remaining in subjugation. I have confidence that America will suffer the same fate since we see the sign posts on the same road that all nations have traveled.<br /><br />Empires rise and fall, but human nature never changes. Every generation starts fresh and repeats the same mistakes because people cannot believe that they are like their ancestors. And so all the world cycles through the phases of civilization and destruction. Alas, we are caught in the decline."</blockquote>This reminds me to keep a few things in perspective: First is that there will always be those who seek power. Likewise, there will always be those who believe that <i>someone</i> must be in charge of everything. And finally, that ideas change the world.<br /><br />I don't know if it will happen in my lifetime, but eventually the masses will tire of the incremental destruction of liberty, the constant theft of our earnings, and the endless lip service paid by politicians to the principles Americans once embraced, and they will take action to end it. Until then, I will remain a champion of freedom within my own sphere of influence, and I will take heart in knowing that one day the cycle will start again. Perhaps next time they'll get it right.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-44210465505405508122008-07-30T13:14:00.003-04:002008-07-30T13:31:08.948-04:00Non-Coercive EnvironmentalismNow, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2008-07-29-ecowin_N.htm">this is the way it should be</a>...partnerships between businesses and environmental groups, instead of heavy-handed, destructive government edicts.<br /><br />Think of what a "market" is comprised...individuals and businesses exchanging value for value. Each player participates in the exchange because they both believe they will be better off for it. This is exactly the same principle that is at work here. Businesses exchange what environmentalists value for what businesses value. In the end, both are better off than they were before. Environmental groups make progress toward their goals, while businesses receive the "green" seal of approval and improve their reputation with consumers. It's win-win...value is <i>created</i> for both parties.<br /><br />On the other hand, government edicts destroy value by forcing businesses to exchange something of more value to the business, for something of lower value. Businesses expend resources reducing pollution, with nothing to show for it. As if that weren't enough, the cost of enforcing the edicts takes money from the hands of consumers that could be put toward more environment-friendly products. It's a lose-lose. As in nearly every other case, government inaction has been a good thing. It has allowed the market to respond by creating value, which is what markets are good at.<br /><br />The holdouts who claim that environmental groups are "compromising too much" will forever be unable to come to grips with this reality. Markets are all about compromise. Any time you spend money on something you compromise whatever else may have been bought with those funds. By giving up one thing, you have gained something of greater value. The Sierra Club may not have gotten its hearts' desire of a complete ban on pollution of any kind, but rather than spending resources lobbying for this or that legislation, perhaps fruitlessly, they have actually accomplished something through compromise. Let's hope they keep it up.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-71017142208331272812008-07-09T08:00:00.002-04:002008-07-09T09:51:54.484-04:00Isn't MORE Recycling the Whole Point?Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's a crime to recycle in some major U.S. cities. Or it soon will be. With the market prices for recycled goods actually reaching a level that makes recycling profitable, <a href="http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-finance/20080707/Stealing.Recyclables/">bands of entrepreneurs have rushed onto the scene</a> to make a buck by "stealing" recyclable materials from trash cans. A few major cities are cracking down on these trash thieves, in a bid to ensure that recycling remains a government monopoly.<blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">"</span>California lawmakers are also considering legislation that would make large-scale, anonymous recycling more difficult by forcing scrap and paper recyclers to require picture identification for anyone bringing in more than $50 worth of cans, bottles or newspapers and to pay such individuals with checks rather than cash.<span style="font-weight:bold;">"</span></blockquote>So, let me get this straight...state and city governments supposedly want people to recycle, right? Most people believe that recycling is a good thing, which is not untrue. The problem with recycling to date has been that it wasn't profitable, so the only way it could be sustained was if it was subsidized by taxes. Now, suddenly it's profitable to recycle, so more people are doing it. You would think this is a good thing, right?<br /><br />Well, the government obviously doesn't think so, and neither do their monopoly contract holders. Why not? You might think that a waste collection company could care less, and may even be thrilled that private individuals are doing a portion of their work for them. After all, refuse theft means less they have to pick up and less they have to dump into a landfill. It would save space, time, and money. So why would they condemn the practice and lobby for laws prohibiting it? Because it threatens their monopoly on recycling...plain and simple. If private recycling becomes a profitable enterprise, the subsidized government bureaucracy loses its raison d'etre, since its only reason to exist is to provide a service that supposedly couldn't or wouldn't be provided by a free market.<br /><br />Now, I certainly am not one to advocate theft, and you could make the argument that refuse left by the curb to be picked up by a collection company belongs to either the producer (the resident disposing of the refuse) or the company. And, of course, stealing newspapers out of the rack in order to recycle them would rightly be considered theft...except that we're talking about "free" newspapers.<blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">"</span>The <span style="font-style:italic;">free</span> weekly The East Bay Express, which covers Oakland, Berkeley and other Bay Area cities, hired an ex-police detective to stake out thieves and began retrofitting curbside newspaper racks to make them theft-resistant because thousands of fresh copies go missing some weeks.<br /><br />"We don't want to be spending all our energy printing papers that people take directly to the recyclers," said Hal Brody, the paper's president.<br /><br />Mike Costello, vice president of circulation at the <span style="font-style:italic;">free</span> San Francisco daily, The Examiner, has taken to doing stakeouts of his own.<span style="font-weight:bold;">"</span> (emphasis added)</blockquote>These newspapers are probably free because they're paid for by advertisers, so the argument could definitely be made that the recyclers are stealing from the advertisers themselves. However, the fact that they're being stolen specifically for recycling would seem to indicate that they're more valuable as recycled material than as actual newspapers, which should probably inspire the advertisers to rethink that particular marketing choice.<br /><br />But why should a homeowner care who takes possession of his or her trash once they place it next to the curb for pick-up?<blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">"</span>Every Wednesday night, Bruce Johnson dutifully puts his garbage and recycling on the curb for pickup, and every week he fumes as small trucks idle in front of his home and strangers dig through his bins stealing trash they aim to turn into treasure.<span style="font-weight:bold;">"</span></blockquote>In most cases, residents don't pay for their trash pick-up directly. Rather, it's paid for via taxes or homeowners' dues. The same is often true of recycling (although in some rural areas homeowners must actually pay to have recyclables picked up separately). One would think that if someone was willing to pick up a portion of a homeowners' garbage for free it would spur competition among waste collection companies for contracts. This is, of course, precisely what the government monopolists <i>don't want</i>.<br /><br />So here we are, at a point where one can actually turn an honest profit while "saving the planet", but rather than embracing the benefits that this newfound profitably would bring in a free market, bureaucracy is fighting it tooth and nail, as it threatens its very existence. Surely we all see the irony herein. Government wants you to recycle, but only so long as you use government to do it. All else is verboten. Honestly, were I a homeowner who witnessed my garbage being ransacked for recyclables I would probably feel more inclined to sort the recyclable items into a separate container to speed up the process of undermining the government monopoly on recycling, thereby doing my part to save the planet by encouraging the free recycling market to flourish.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-2334583210801952672008-07-08T13:34:00.003-04:002008-07-08T15:14:19.472-04:00Rants on Corporate Culture - Treatment of Rule BreakersLet's face it...unless I strike out on my own and start my own business, I'll probably always be a corporate employee. It's just the nature of my job. What I do isn't cheap, and lots of resources are required to attract and keep people like me. So, the best pay, benefits, and growth opportunity for DBAs can generally be had only in a larger corporate environment. I accept this willingly, particularly since my understanding of economics and free exchange provide me with the appropriate perspective to be able to appreciate the benefits that working for larger corporations provides. This is my bed, and I'm happy to lie in it.<br /><br />Every now and then, though, some things about corporate life get under my skin. The one recent example is something I'll call "Group Remediation". It occurs when one person makes a mistake or abuses some privilege, but rather than discipline that particular person for his or her infraction, the corporate mindset inevitably requires that EVERYONE be trained, counseled, or otherwise made to suffer for it. It's as if, unless something is done quickly, the irresponsible person will infect everyone around him or her with some vile disease, and so we must ALL be inoculated immediately with mandatory group training sessions, policy awareness surveys, and other such corporate vaccines.<br /><br />It would be one thing if we were talking about a new policy, in which case it makes sense that human resources (HR) would want to make everyone aware of it. Too often, though, it is a knee-jerk reaction to the violation of an existing policy. They call it "proactive prevention", but it's really just a spreading around of punishment, although any HR department member will deny that this is the case even unto their deathbed.<br /><br />So whence does this mindset originate, and what are the effects thereof? I suspect that the origin of the mindset has something to do with the general tendency to ignore individual responsibility, for which bureaucracy is well-known. Rather than view a policy infraction as a lapse in individual judgment, it is seen as some sort of systemic problem, and must be treated as such. That is not to say systemic problems don't exist, but these are typically a case of twisted incentives directing individual behavior, such as the way a system of government inevitably rewards departmental failure. <br /><br />The effect of Group Remediation is to alert individuals in no way associated with the infraction that someone in their midst is a rule-breaker. The identity of the irresponsible person is almost never revealed, leaving the responsible individuals to wonder who has caused them all to suffer through this particular instance of corporate hell. The rule-breaker, however, has the pleasure of knowing he or she has cost coworkers time that could have otherwise been spent productively, and wondering who knows it was them. Perhaps this is exactly the point...to drive home the consequences of individual actions by dragging everyone around the individual through the mud, hoping that doing so will spur responsible individuals to "police their own". What a shitty way to treat people.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-72248449408087317522008-02-28T09:11:00.002-05:002008-02-28T09:18:01.296-05:00New Tax Aims to Soak Greedy Oil Companies<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-27-oil-taxes_N.htm">House OKs $18B in taxes on Big Oil - USA Today</a><br /><br />Hooray! Now those greedy oil companies, who have made record profits by gouging consumers at the pump over the past couple of years will finally have to give something back to the people!<br /><br />Give me a break. This is yet another example of government idiots talking out of both sides of their mouths. On the one hand, they're shrieking about all the families who have been hurt by high prices for gasoline and heating oil. However, if you can figure out a way this bill <b>won't</b> raise prices even further I'd love to hear it. What are they smoking?<br /><br />For once, I actually agree with a Republican:<blockquote>"It punishes the oil and gas industry. This is wrongheaded. It will result in higher prices at the gasoline pump. It's spiteful and wrong," said Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La.</blockquote>Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-31922978903918806362008-02-22T13:35:00.003-05:002008-02-22T14:15:50.523-05:00More Consequences of Ethanol Subsidies<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/114364">This article</a>, in Newsweek, talks about the pressure being placed on water supplies in the midwest due to increased corn growing, for use in the production of ethanol. While this is indeed a boon for corn growers, it can't last forever, and not just because the money runs out. The water is running out as well.<br /><br />By now we all know that using ethanol as a replacement or additive for gasoline is a losing proposition. Ethanol requires more energy to produce than you get back when you burn it, which means it costs more money to produce than it can be sold for. In a free market, such a product would have limited uses, but thanks to the environmentalist lobby, along with a great deal of misinformation about the benefits of ethanol versus its cost, the public is stuck with it. The only way to make such a product feasible is to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize its production, which the federal government does with glee, and which grants to corn farmers a windfall of potential profit.<br /><br />The unintended consequences of the subsidy are many. First, the price for corn has skyrocketed, as mentioned in the article. This applies primarily to feed corns, which aren't consumed by humans directly, but which are used to feed cattle and other livestock. With more of the feed corn going toward the production of ethanol, there is less left for feed, meaning that food prices will increase as well. Also, since feed corn is suddenly more profitable than other types of corn, farmland that was previously used to grow human-consumable corn has been re-allocated to the growth of feed corn, so the prices of corn products directly consumed by humans will increase. In fact, the effects have been so far-reaching that in Mexico the price of corn tortillas, formerly an affordable staple food item, has more than doubled. The tequila industry has suffered as well, as former tequila producers torch hundreds of acres of yucca fields in preparation for planting ethanol corn.<br /><br />Now, we throw in the fact that the additional growing in the midwest is threatening the region's water supplies. In a free market, an increase in the demand for water would be countered by an increase in its price, which would in turn act to discourage its profligate use. In areas where water is a public utility, however, its price is usually fixed, regulated, or subsidized, effectively preventing the natural equalization between supply and demand. Likewise, if the water is obtained by some other means, such as diversion of streams or rivers, or by pumping directly from a lake or reservoir, any or all of which may be "public property", there is little incentive for farmers to curb their water use, as there is no additional cost for using ever more water. Instead, other users of the streams, rivers, and lakes bear the costs of overuse of the water supplies...a classic example of the tragedy of the commons.<br /><br />Ethanol is all hype and no substance. It has its uses, but that of a general gasoline replacement is not one of them. The continued subsidization of its production will continue to have far-reaching consequences, and the majority of the costs will be born by taxpayers, and by those in society who can least afford it in the form of increased food prices. How does the environmentalist conscience square with foisting the costs of its preferences upon those with the least ability to pay, and how long will we continue to perpetuate the ethanol scam?Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-47383259629480320962008-01-21T15:32:00.001-05:002008-02-22T14:31:59.029-05:00I Want to be a ConsumerThe following poem, by Patrick Barrington, was published in April, 1934, a couple of years before John Maynard Keynes published his <u>General Theory of Money and Credit</u>, which forever changed mainstream economic thought. In over-simplified terms, Keynes' underlying premise was that the primary cause of recession was "underconsumption". The theory was that production follows consumption, so if consumers decide to save more of their money rather than spend it, the result is overproduction and wasted resources. So all the government needs to do to prevent a recession is to get more money into the hands of consumers so they can spend, spend, spend, and thereby save the economy!<br /><br />It is true that production and consumption cannot exist without one another, but Austrian economists understand that wealth is built on the accumulation of capital, which is a direct result of savings. The more money is saved (or invested), the more capital there is to lend, thereby lowering interest rates. This serves as an indicator to entrepreneurs of what is known as "time preference", which simply means that consumers (in the aggregate) have shown a preference for spending more money later rather than less money now. This alerts the entrepreneur (or established firm) that the time is ripe to undertake larger projects that will yield higher profits in the future, when consumers will once again be ready to spend the money they have saved. <br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">I Want to be a Consumer</span><br /><br />"And what do you mean to be?"<br />The kind old Bishop said<br />As he took the boy on his ample knee<br />And patted his curly head.<br />"We should all of us choose a calling<br />To help Society's plan;<br />Then what to you mean to be, my boy,<br />When you grow to be a man?"<br /><br />"I want to be a Consumer,"<br />The bright-haired lad replied<br />As he gazed into the Bishop's face<br />In innocence open-eyed.<br />"I've never had aims of a selfish sort,<br />For that, as I know, is wrong.<br />I want to be a Consumer, Sir,<br />And help the world along."<br /><br />"I want to be a Consumer<br />And work both night and day,<br />For that is the thing that's needed most,<br />I've heard Economists say,<br />I won't just be a Producer,<br />Like Bobby and James and John;<br />I want to be a Consumer, Sir,<br />And help the nation on."<br /><br />"But what do you want to be?"<br />The Bishop said again,<br />"For we all of us have to work," said he,<br />"As must, I think, be plain.<br />Are you thinking of studying medicine<br />Or taking a Bar exam?"<br />"Why, no!" the bright-haired lad replied<br />As he helped himself to jam.<br /><br />"I want to be a Consumer <br />And live in a useful way;<br />For that is the thing that is needed most,<br />I've heard Economists say.<br />There are too many people working<br />And too many things are made.<br />I want to be a Consumer, Sir,<br />And help to further trade."<br /><br />"I want to be a Consumer<br />And do my duty well;<br />For that is the thing that is needed most,<br />I've heard Economists tell.<br />I've made up my mind," the lad was heard,<br />As he lit a cigar, to say;<br />"I want to be a Consumer, Sir,<br />And I want to begin today."<br /></blockquote><br />The poem's brilliance is that it illustrates how ludicrous the concept of "underconsumption" really is. Carried to its logical conclusion, it would stand to reason that all we really need is for government to print money as fast as possible, so that people can spend it as fast as possible, thereby stimulating production like never before! It makes one wonder why they don't just go ahead and run the printing press 24/7.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-19699508822417989732008-01-15T11:23:00.000-05:002008-01-15T11:26:34.039-05:00What Can We Really Predict?My sister sent me the following list of predictions, made by some very notable figures. It certainly makes one question the feasibility of all the doom-and-gloom predictions used in defense of the State these days...global warming and peak oil come readily to mind.<blockquote> "Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."<br /><br /> -- Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television." <br /><br />"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." <br /><br />- - Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project <br /><br />"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." <br /><br />-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923 <br /><br />"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." <br /><br />-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 <br /><br />"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers "<br /><br /> -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 <br /><br />"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." <br /><br />-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957 <br /><br />"But what .. is it good for?" <br /><br />-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip. <br /><br />"640K ought to be enough for anybody." <br /><br />-- Bill Gates, 1981 <br /><br />" This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." <br /><br />-- Western Union internal memo, 1876. <br /><br />"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" <br /><br />-- David Sarnoff's associates, in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s. <br /><br />"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." <br /><br />-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) <br /><br />"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper,"<br /><br /> -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind." <br /> <br />"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."<br /><br /> -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. <br /><br />"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." <br /><br />-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. <br /><br />"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." <br /><br />-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895. <br /><br />"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."<br /><br />- - Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads. <br /><br />"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." <br /><br />-- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist in his project to drill for oil in 1859. <br /><br />"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."<br /><br /> - - Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929. <br /><br />"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."<br /><br /> -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, France. <br /><br />"Everything that can be invented has been invented." <br /><br />-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899. <br /><br />"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required." <br /><br />-- Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University <br /><br />"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself." <br /><br />-- the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox. <br /><br />"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."<br /><br /> -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872 <br /><br />"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." <br /><br />-- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873. <br /><br />And last but not least... <br /><br />"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." <br /><br />-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 <br /></blockquote>Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-68937180036349071032008-01-02T11:47:00.000-05:002008-01-02T11:53:17.964-05:00Capitalism vs. the Free MarketI've posted here an article, written by one of my fellow commentators on one of my favorite economics/politics blogs, that beautifully illustrates the differences between the American economy (known by many as "crony capitalism") and a free market. I'm shamelessly thieving this piece because it's so well-written. Enjoy.<br /><blockquote><b>Viva Co-operation!<br />Or, why 20th century ideological discourse missed the point.<br />By David Chaplin</b><br /><br />During the 20th century, the term ‘capitalism’ became a crude synonym for the ‘free market’, even by enthusiastic proponents of liberty and free choice. This is a pity, because the term was originally coined by Karl Marx as a pejorative. Rightly so, but not for the reasons he would have had in mind.<br /><br /><b>Capitalism and free markets are not the same thing.</b><br /><br />The fundamental characteristic of a free market is that participants are free to engage in transactions willingly, without coercion or impediment by the State, and without the interference of any other parties who are not involved in or affected by that transaction. Capitalism is something different (except when it suits any individual capitalist to present himself as a free market proponent): where Capital, as one of the factors of production, engages the legal and coercive powers of the State to advance its particular interests at the expense of any other factor of production, or at the expense of consumers. Or where it engages with the State to capture tax revenues(1) .That’s Capitalism, and it is in ideological terms no different to the labourist Marxist prescription, which seeks to advance the narrow interests of Labour at the expense of the other factors of production, for example landowners or investors.<br /><br />This crucial distinction is rather subtle, not at all obvious to either the Left or the Right – thus both sides of the bipolar debate have happily come to conflate free markets with capitalism. This is probably because most capitalists rhetorically endorse the broad principles of the free market, having recognised that their earnings and profit generation are at root dependent on the willingness of consumers to buy their products ( which I suppose puts them one step closer to enlightenment than socialists). However, it is a rare capitalist who will pass up an opportunity to boost his earnings through rent-seeking (2) , whether through protectionist tariffs, or restrictions on imports, or monopoly licensing, and this tendency is utterly at odds with the very idea of a free market.<br /><br />The United States of America is widely regarded as the poster-child of Capitalism, and this is popularly equated to it being the prime example of the Free Market - by its detractors and supporters alike. However, like many others, the US is not a free market. Its tax code, body of Law, and the very way its political system is structured, is characterised by a thickly entangled complex of regulations, interventions, restrictions, and other forms of government interference, each strand calculated to protect and entrench the narrow interests of one or another special interest grouping – thousands, millions of them. Many of which, incidentally, are fundamentally incompatible with one another, generating wasted costs while mutually negating the very benefits they are aimed to secure. Thus, America may indeed be the home of modern Capitalism, but it is hardly more than an insult to the pure concept of the free market. Granted, the American market might be relatively free, and arguably freer than those in many other countries, but ‘free market’ is no longer its defining characteristic – how could it be with a Federal government share of GDP of some one-third?<br /><br />In short, Capitalism in practice makes no distinction between profits gleaned from rent-seeking and those earned from the productive exchange of value, and it actively develops political institutions which entrench that vice. The Free Market, properly constituted, has no room for rent-seeking at all and naturally disincentivises it. The misunderstanding of this distinction is the central flaw which invalidates the broad socialist thesis: By and large, all of the Western social ills the Left has blamed on the ‘unfettered’ free market ever since Marx, arose out of the rent-seeking behaviour that inevitably follows Capitalists getting into bed with the State.<br /><br /><b>It’s not competition, it’s co-operation.</b><br /><br />There is another, deeper, misconception associated with the free market. This is partly due to the way elementary (neoclassical) economics is taught in schools and universities, and Capitalists simply love it: the Doctrine of the Virtue of Competition. Companies everywhere regard their mission as some sort of sports match against their perceived competitors, some treating it as all-out war. (And some even extend the concept of competition to their trading partners, customer or supplier alike, regarding them as opponents to be beaten down as much as possible, stopping just short of the deal-breaker). The free market is defined by competition, they say, it’s dog eat dog out there, you gotta be the toughest, the biggest, meanest, leanest fighting machines to get your slice of the pie, ‘cos if you don’t, somebody else will steal your lunch. And that’s Good! Equally, and citing more or less the same words, communists and other pink-tinted ideologues bemoan the implicit violence in this view of competition , regarding it as a sad loss of compassionate human values, once again erroneously conflating the ugly elements of capitalistic rent-seeking with the purity of the free market.<br /><br />Both sides of this view of competition missed the point completely. This misconception arguably does more to entrench economic illiteracy across the spectrum than any other factor, (except perhaps the undead labour theory of value which I won’t go into here). And it makes companies, CEOs and entrepreneurs everywhere lose their way in optimising the performance of their enterprises in their quest to generate value in the hands of their customers where none existed before. Furthermore, it has, in Western, capitalist economies, given rise to the most absurd forms of legislative State intervention to somehow enforce competition through the barrel of a subpoena, backed by the threat of jail or other violence against person and property. Whatever that is, it is not a free market.<br /><br />Granted, competition in a free market does indeed have a structural role in assuring the productive and allocative efficiency of a market. But it is a subtle and indirect form of competition, completely unlike a sporting match, or a war, where the competitors square off and battle it out directly until a winner emerges and the losers fade behind a cloud of disgrace. Let me let you in on a little secret: The defining characteristic of a free market is not competition, but co-operation. All economic activity, however or wherever it takes place, is defined by the fact that each participant in any given transaction does so willingly, because each expects to gain from having done the transaction. Absent the jackboot force of compulsion from the State or any other party with guns, any party to a transaction is free to choose not to do it if he believes he’ll be worse off for having done it. That’s freedom. You do the same every time you pick up an item in the supermarket and then put it back on the shelf because you have better things to buy with your earnings. In a free market, the interaction between any buyer and seller, in every transaction, represents a friendly, voluntary, mutually-beneficial act of co-operation, with millions upon millions of them every single day making up an economy that accumulates wealth among its participants, each gaining in direct proportion to the value he places in the hands of others. That’s a free market, and it works.<br /><br />The competition in the free market economy is of an indirect, second-order nature, a residue. If I and my customer are co-operating between ourselves to mutual benefit, that means other suppliers in the same line as I am have lost the opportunity to sell him something similar to what I am selling him. But I need never meet this competitor directly, still less fight with him. That’s neither a war nor a sports match. If I rip my customer off by charging him too much or by supplying shoddy goods, he is more likely to do business with someone else next time. The customer chooses where he gets the best value, and its up to me to offer better value than what others do. Modern corporates and CEOs would do well to remember this: If your mission is focussed on beating your competitors at all costs, what does this say about the importance of your customers? Focus your attention on your customer, your partner in co-operation, keep him happy with your product, service and pricing. And likewise, keep your supplier happy with his co-operative relationship with you. Do this, and everything else falls into place naturally.<br /><br /><b>Strange bedfellows.</b><br /><br />We have seen that the ideological debate that characterised the 20th century, simplistically polarised into capitalism vs communism, free market vs socialism, or simply Left and Right, was based on several economic misconceptions. Indeed, the simplistic bipolar nature of the debate led to some very strange bedfellows: Conservatives on the right, who by and large supported economic freedom, also tended to support the regulation of private moral choices through State force, and of course censorious suppression of dissent. And yet on the Left, those who favoured State intervention in markets also tended to support personal liberties, free moral choices, and free speech ( But only in so far as they didn’t get to actually run a country, when the tune inevitably changes to despotism overnight). It is ironic that either side of this polarity contained half of the Libertarian prescription, strapped to a fundamentally incompatible other half. It seems hardly more than an accident of history that Libertarianism found itself popularly lumped in with the conservative Right. This despite Murray Rothbard’s brief attempt to align the Libertarian movement with the New Left of the 60s. It seems this failed because it proved too difficult to get the Left to understand economic fundamentals and see Marx’s Big Mistake for what it was.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion – what a waste of ink.</b><br /><br />That observation aside, there is rich irony in the observation that the ideology of the Left, while full of the rhetoric of mutual co-operation, egalitarianism, freedom, and compassion for the less fortunate, required nothing less than totalitarian coercion, and the wholesale removal of freedom from all citizens, to advance its aims, simply because the ideology required human beings to behave in fundamentally non-human ways, and of course, it has failed fairly rapidly in every known case.<br /><br />Likewise, on the ‘right’, the mainstream capitalist ideology of the West based its ideological case on the rhetoric of competition and self-sufficiency, both of which narrow values are completely at odds with the co-operation and mutual benefit that characterises free market trade. Indeed, co-operation and mutual benefit are the defining features of reciprocal altruism, itself deeply embedded in human society: it comprises the very essence of what it means to be human. And yet, behind the rhetoric of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’, or ‘freedom and democracy’, the capitalist State has stealthily and relentlessly increased its activity in regulating and constraining just about all areas of human activity and individual choice. Regrettably, this capitalist despotism takes longer to fail than socialist despotism, because within its framework, there is a larger scope for citizens to engage in free, voluntary economic activity among themselves, and this permits them to build value, which blunts their outrage, even as their State confiscates some of that value to fund the perpetuation and entrenchment of its coercive powers.<br /><br />Thus it was that the polarised 20th century debate between left and right turned out to be a colossal waste of breath – the real issue wasn’t collectivism vs individualism, or communism vs capitalism, or even workers vs bosses. It was always State vs liberty, coercion vs free choice. Barring a few marginalised visionaries who kept the spark of classical liberalism (3) alive, hardly anyone in the 20th century even noticed.<br /><br /><i>(1) Consider Halliburton, whose core competency is hoovering up tax dollars. That company could not exist without the State as its primary customer.<br /><br />(2)‘Rent-seeking’: the use of political power or force to capture value from other people without yielding value in return. Not to be confused with mutually-agreed hiring of property between the owner and the user.<br /><br />(3) ‘Classical liberalism’ as distinct from ‘liberalism’. The distinction is important, because the term ‘liberal’ had been hijacked by the Left by the 1960s, by which time it had come to label the mildly pink part of the ideological spectrum. This forced the successors to the classical liberal tradition find another name – libertarian</i></blockquote>Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-60379201767178447142007-12-28T11:48:00.000-05:002007-12-28T12:55:26.542-05:00"Legal" ImmigrationThis is the continuation, or expansion, of <a href="http://mises.com/blogs/ronorama/archive/2007/11/06/stupid-arguments-re-immigration.aspx">this small item</a>, that I posted on another 'blog. In that post, I asked what benefit is provided by the legal immigration process to those of us already living in the good old US of A. I'd like to examine the question a bit further to see what fallacies underly the belief that immigration must be a formal process.<br /><br />When you enter a doctor's office, there is typically a diploma (or several) hanging on the office wall. If you take your car to a reputable auto repair shop you will often see a certificate from <a href="http://www.asecert.org/">ASE</a> or some other certifying body. When I interviewed with my current employer I presented my credentials as a Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA). All of these documents indicate that the bearer has completed some sort of training or testing to verify that they are qualified to provide a particular service. Even though in some cases these certificates are required by law (which is a discussion for another time) they nonetheless add value to their services in the form of consumer confidence, and most people are willing to pay a bit more for the services of a certified provider versus one who is uncertified.<br /><br />What if, however, you entered your doctor's office or auto repair shop and saw, not a certification, but the provider's birth certificate? Likewise, what if I had simply provided my prospective employer with a copy of my birth certificate, rather than my MCDBA certification? Would this document have indicated a single thing about the ability to perform the service offered? What about a work visa, passport, or green card? Do these documents add any value for consumers of our services? No, of course not. Why, then, is there the presumption that they are necessary for an individual to live and work in a particular country?<br /><br />Do any of these documents serve to reassure us that the holder will be a productive member of the community? Do they, in fact, say <i>anything</i> useful about the possessor at all? If you have racist or nationalist tendencies, then perhaps they do, but I can think of no other reason these documents should hold any weight whatsoever.<br /><br />Many who oppose illegal immigration do so simply because the rest of us are already saddled with a myriad of stifling rules, taxes, and regulations, and so everyone else who desires to come to this country must abide by those same laws. This completely ignores the question of the validity of those laws to begin with. However, rather than call for the abolition of taxpayer-funded entitlements, most people prefer instead to rail against the "flood of illegals" that are supposedly "draining our economy." They fail to realize that these "free" services may be part of what attracts immigrants to the US in the first place, though one wonders how an immigrant without a valid government ID would go about obtaining government services.<br /><br />These people are correct in one regard...the taxes and endless entitlement programs are indeed a drain on the economy, as are the rules and regulations. Exactly how they affect the economy is a subject for another post, but the fact is that the government programs should be the target of public ire...not illegal immigrants.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-38347960039075830382007-10-10T13:22:00.001-04:002007-10-10T15:46:12.813-04:00Doing the Right ThingA strange thing happened to me yesterday...<br /><br />I had taken my wife's car to our local Honda dealership on Monday, as the check engine light had come on and it was running poorly. A few hours later, the service adviser called me to tell me what the problem was and how much it would cost to fix it. It wasn't cheap. Also, they didn't have the part, so it would be overnighted to them and they would fix it the next day. The following day I received another call. The part had been replaced, but it hadn't entirely fixed the problem. There was another part that was needed, and again, it had to be overnighted. It also increased the total repair charge by about 65%.<br /><br />This put us in a bit of a bind. The money wasn't really an issue, but having the car out of commission for two days created transportation problems for us. My wife needs her car to get to work, and since part of her job is coaching a soccer team she has a lot of stuff to carry around. She also has to be able to get from work to the soccer field and all that good stuff.<br /><br />So, while I'm still on the phone with the service adviser, wondering how we're going to resolve our transportation problem, he offers to reduce the overall service bill by 10%. I didn't ask him to. Nobody told him he had to. He just offered. How weird is that? <br /><br />Then, as I was expressing my gratitude for this generous gesture, I told him that we would need to come get some items out of the car and casually mentioned our transportation problem. I certainly didn't expect him to do anything about it. I was just communicating that I hoped we wouldn't run into any other setbacks in the repairs. You won't believe what happened then.<br /><br />The service adviser offers to provide me a rental car for the duration of the repairs...free of charge! I was blown away. This was not the typical car dealership treatment. This was above and beyond, as far as I was concerned. I actually thought about declining the rental car offer, but we really did need the transportation, so that afternoon we headed to the dealership, picked up the items we needed from the car, and waited about 15 minutes for the rental car to arrive.<br /><br />So what's the point of this anecdote...the moral of the story, if you will?<br /><br />I've often heard the argument that in order for a truly free market to work properly, it requires that people do the right thing. However, as Adam Smith and loads of economists since him (and a few before as well) agree, the exact opposite is true. In a free market people do the right thing because it's in their best interest to do so. To quote Adam Smith directly:<blockquote>It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages.</blockquote>The service adviser at the dealership didn't offer to reduce my bill out of the kindness of his heart. He didn't call Enterprise Rent-A-Car because my need was great. No government official told him he had to bend over backwards to make sure my life was disrupted as little as possible while my car was being repaired. He did these things because he knows that I own an older vehicle that will likely require more repairs in the future, and if he treats me right in this instance I won't hesitate to bring it back to his dealership the next time it's in need of service.<br /><br />The free market provides a framework wherein individuals, acting in their own self-interest, do the right thing without really meaning to. Business owners treat their customers fairly and with respect in the hopes that they will come back and do business with them later. The very survival of any business depends on it...or at least it would were it allowed to work. More often than not, however, government skews the incentives provided by the free market to "do the right thing." Heavy-handed government regulations replace incentives to "go above and beyond" in order to keep customers happy with a more costly incentive to merely comply with regulations to keep bureaucrats happy. Subsidies replace incentives to be efficient and reduce costs with more lucrative incentives to keep costs stagnant and push for even greater subsidies.<br /><br />On the other side of the coin, a lot of people get hung up on motivation. They think people should be altruistic, and feel that if someone does something good for you just because they want your money it somehow invalidates the act. I say, "Who cares?!" When the levees (built by government) in New Orleans failed, and thousands of people were left homeless or worse, Wal-Mart had hundreds of trucks filled with supplies standing by to help the victims of government failure get on with their lives. But many people thought Wal-Mart shouldn't be allowed to help, since they were "only doing it to improve their image." Those evil bastards! How dare they try to help for the wrong reasons! I'm betting, though, that the people whose homes had just been washed away were probably more than happy to accept Wal-Mart's help, and didn't care in the least about their motivation.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-6041275488480824432007-08-31T10:34:00.000-04:002007-08-31T11:45:32.852-04:00DO NOT BAIL OUT SUBPRIME MORTGAGE HOLDERS!!!<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20524454/">President Bush intends to outline a plan</a> to assist those who will soon suffer hardship by their choice to live beyond their means.<br /><br />Here is the email I sent to my senators and representative in Congress on this issue:<br /><blockquote>DO NOT BAIL OUT SUBPRIME MORTGAGE HOLDERS!<br /><br />If he hasn't already, President Bush plans to urge Congress to pass legislation to provide assistance to subprime mortgage holders. This message is to urge you to VOTE AGAINST ANY SUCH LEGISLATION.<br /><br />As a homeowner and standard mortgage holder I have made conscious, responsible choices regarding my finances. Like most people I have at times overextended myself in the past, but I have NEVER expected anyone else to pay my bills or bear the cost for my mistakes. President Bush's proposal will do just that. It will lay the cost of others' mistakes at the feet of responsible individuals like myself and the millions of other Americans who have worked hard to keep their finances in order, live within their means, and have good credit as a result.<br /><br />You may be inclined to blame banks or "predatory lending practices" for this problem, but this would be placing undue blame on those institutions that merely operate at the whim of the Federal Reserve (FED). By guaranteeing every loan, no matter how risky or unsound, the FED has encouraged irresponsible lending and created the very "crisis" we now face. Spending the money earned by taxpayers to assist those who face hardship as a result of this policy will make us all victims of the FED. Bailing out those who have made poor choices will only encourage more poor choices, and it will render meaningless the hard work put in by the rest of us. By mitigating the consequences of irresponsible behavior, further and more egregious irresponsible behavior will be encouraged.<br /><br />DO NOT use my tax dollars to support this effort.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><br />Ron Jennings</blockquote>Truly, this does suck for the people who have entered into these high-risk mortgages, but I believe that in any transaction there is equal responsibility on both sides. This means that the borrower has a responsibility to understand what he/she/they are getting into and what the consequences of insolvency may be. Some believe that subprime mortgage holders have been duped into overextending themselves, and it is certainly possible that the lender used some fancy language or persuasive arguments to close the deal on a risky loan. But how is this any different than say, buying a used car? Though smarmy and slimy, used car salesman can be awfully persuasive...but you still don't buy the car without driving it, and if you do there's no one to blame but yourself. Until fairly recently (perhaps 10-15 years) a prospective borrower hired a lawyer to at least review the mortgage paperwork, much like a prospective used car buyer might hire a mechanic to check out a car they were thinking about buying. That practice has fallen out of favor somewhat as mortgage companies have started "cutting out the middleman" and providing their own closing agents. Again, it is the responsibility of the borrower to ensure that he/she/they are protected. To do otherwise opens oneself to undue risk.<br /><br />On the other side of the transaction...while I certainly don't hold smarmy lenders harmless in this instance, the lending of funds to sub-prime borrowers holds a great deal of risk. This risk is mitigated to a great extent by the Federal Reserve's backing of every loan. The FED creates credit (money out of thin air) for banks to lend in an effort to stimulate consumption. This brings with it a great deal of hidden cost, in addition to inflation. In a free banking environment (absent the Federal Reserve) banks would be much more risk averse, as the cost of a defaulted loan would depend on the bank's ability to liquidate the asset tied to the loan. Banks wouldn't put themselves at risk of losing millions of dollars loaned to unsound borrowers. The elimination of the FED and a return to free banking would do much to stabilize the mortgage market and prevent "crises" such as these.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-42287451233183375772007-08-17T14:04:00.000-04:002007-08-17T16:58:54.998-04:00The "Threat" of Wal-MartAll over America, communities are fighting the blight of the ubiquitous Wal-Mart Super Store. These heroic Wal-Mart fighters are champions of the little guy, protectors of the Mom and Pop business, and defenders of historical integrity...or so they believe. While many of them may mean well, there is nevertheless a great deal of contradiction in the beliefs held by those who oppose Wal-Mart and other "big box retailers". Viewed from a distance, their efforts may seem noble, but close inspection reveals a more insidious line of reasoning.<br /><br />People love to hate Wal-Mart for a variety of reasons, but there are a few standards that come out nearly every time a Wal-Mart "threatens" a geographical area with its presence. Many decry Wal-Mart's low wages and lack of employee benefits. Others hate that Wal-Mart drives smaller, less competitive businesses out of the market. Some dislike the fact that a Wal-Mart often attracts numerous other businesses to its locations, thereby contributing to "sprawl". On an emotional level these things all certainly seem deplorable, but when considered rationally these arguments all break down. One simple question puts them all into perspective: How many people, in a given geographical area, are harmed when a Wal-Mart opens up, and how many people in that area benefit from it.<br /><br />The people who may be harmed tend to be obvious. Local businesses who face competition from Wal-Mart may indeed be forced to close their doors as consumers exercise their preference for lower prices and greater convenience by shopping at Wal-Mart. This does, indeed, bring temporary hardship to the owners and employees of those businesses. Some may argue that all the members of a community are harmed when a local business closes, but I fail to see how that could be true. Some may bemoan the loss of a local establishment, and friends and families of the affected business owners may feel some grief, but again this is a temporary condition, and it shouldn't render anyone incapable of ever obtaining another job or finding some other productive means of making a living. <br /><br />Others who may be "harmed" are those who prefer to (and can afford to) shop at local businesses rather than at big box stores. This is not so much harm as inconvenience, and the fact remains that if there are enough people who refuse to shop at big box stores then boutique shops should have no fear of losing revenue.<br /><br />The number of people harmed when local businesses close due to competition from Wal-Mart may number in the tens or possibly even 100s. These are the "victims" that Wal-Mart haters claim to be protecting. What is rarely considered, however, are the thousands who benefit when a Wal-Mart comes to their town. Poor families benefit greatly from reduced grocery bills, clothing costs, and household item costs. In addition, Wal-Mart brings valuable jobs to any area in which it's located. But often this fact is turned completely on its head and used as an argument against the store, as outsiders claim that the wages paid and benefits provided are too low. It must be kept in mind, though, that the people who apply for and accept jobs at Wal-Mart don't quit higher-paying jobs with benefits in order to take a lower-paying job with no benefits. They work at Wal-Mart because it offers a better alternative than what they would have otherwise had.<br /><br />In the end, those who oppose Wal-Mart are simply attempting to impose their own preferences on others, without consideration for the costs of doing so. They attach inflated importance to "historical preservation" or apply some arbitrary standard of what wages and benefits Wal-Mart <i>should</i> offer their employees, with no regard to poor families who must bear the costs for those preferences by being forced to pay higher prices. Competition is the nature of Capitalism. It is what causes quality to constantly improve and prices to continue to fall. It raises the standard of living for everyone, and in absolute terms the poor benefit the most. To stand against it under the pretense of protecting a few people from temporary hardship isn't noble or heroic, but harmful and elitist.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-9845249832089634822007-07-19T14:11:00.000-04:002007-07-19T14:16:03.678-04:00Libertarianism is a utopian ideology?Here's a good quote from paper I just finished reading:<blockquote>The free market is not a panacea. It does not eliminate old age, and it won't guarantee you a date for Saturday night. Private enterprise is fully capable of awful screwups. Both theory and practice indicate that its screwups are less pervasive and more easily corrected than those of government enterprises.</blockquote>It's from an article on externalities, written by Gene Callahan.<br /><br />Libertarianism, particularly in its support of the free market, is not at all utopian. We realize that there is no perfect answer to the problems facing society. We just understand and accept that private solutions always work better than government coercion.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-38664079095539940002007-07-11T09:51:00.000-04:002007-07-11T17:25:19.786-04:00Let's Talk About Freedom of SpeechIn March, 2004, <a href="http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/04/State/Woman_arrested_for_to.shtml">Elizabeth Book was arrested</a> for going topless in protest of a Daytona Beach, Florida, law prohibiting women from exposing their breasts in public. On appeal, a <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1718376/posts">Florida appeals court ruled</a> that Book had a right to bare her breasts <i>because she did so in protest.</i> While many would consider this a victory for 1st amendment rights, I feel that it's disingenuous, and that it further muddles the issue of what, exactly, "freedom of speech" really means.<br /><br />There are two things at issue here. First, the ruling reinforces the belief that <i>only certain kinds of speech are protected</i> by the 1st amendment. Because Book bared her breasts in protest her actions were permissible. Had she done it just for fun or to even out her tan, she would have remained guilty of violating the law. Again, this brings up two questions: First, is speech only protected under The Constitution if it's done in protest or meets some other arbitrary and necessarily subjective set of conditions, or is all speech protected? Second, is any activity protected so long as it meets that same set of conditions? As one commenter to the afore-linked-to article so aptly put it, "So then in Florida car jacking someone in protest of a law making car jacking illegal is exercising their rights?" By this logic anything is permissible so long as it's done for the right reasons. <br /><br />The second issue is one of property rights, and there are a couple of facets to this as well. First, and most obvious, is that Elizabeth Book's breasts are her property, as are all of her body parts. As such, in a society that respects the right to private property she would have the right to do with them as she pleases, so long as she's not violating someone else's rights in the process. Unfortunately, American society largely <i>does NOT respect the right to private property</i>, so others are able to dictate what Elizabeth is and is not allowed to do with her breasts.<br /><br />The other facet of property rights in this case deals with the question of on whose property Book bared her breasts and whether or not its owner would have permitted her to do so. Again, in a society that respects private property, the owner would be free to dictate what types of activities were and were not permissible on his or her property. The problem is that Book wasn't on private property when she removed her shirt...she was on "public" property, which is property owned by everyone or, more appropriately, by no one.<br /><br />The institution of public property confuses a plethora of issues that should be relatively simple. In the case of freedom of speech the existence of public property necessarily creates controversy over who is allowed to say what, why, and where. On private property the owner decides, making the issue a non-issue. On public property the "public" (often in the form of a jury or ballot initiative), or a government official (in this case, a judge) decides what is and isn't acceptable behavior, so the decision must be left to the arbitrary whims of the majority, the persuasive powers of a litigator, or the subjective valuation of a bureaucrat. With all of these voices subject to persuasion by the whims and fancies of the day, the concept of "free speech" can never be truly defined. It is only through the institution of private property, from which stem all other individual rights, can freedom of speech be put into its proper context.<br /><br />As previously stated, Elizabeth Book (and indeed all humans) is the owner of her body and all its parts. If she chooses to expose it to the elements that is her right, and she violated no one else's rights by doing so. Not a single person was forced to view her nudity, as by a simple turn of the head or the aversion of his or her gaze any and everyone could have avoided looking at Elizabeth's breasts. She is, however, bound by the responsibility to not violate the property rights of any other person in doing so. This means that she cannot expose her body in a manner inconsistent with the wishes of the owner of whatever property on which she happens to be at the time. If she doesn't want to abide by the property owner's wishes she is free to find some other piece of property whose owner is amenable to her nakedness.<br /> <br />Indeed, the city ordinance prohibiting women from exposing their breasts in Daytona Beach could be considered a violation of the property rights of business owners in the area. It is entirely possible that the businesses who choose to operate in the area do so in anticipation of attracting a particular type of clientele, and prohibiting certain activities may actually hinder their ability to do so, thus costing those businesses to lose potential profits. For those of you who would argue that decency is more important than profit, I challenge you to define "decency" in any objective manner.<br /><br />By the same token, a ruling stating that any woman MUST be allowed to expose her breasts on public property violates the property rights of those businesses who wish to attract the type of customers who may find nudity offensive. Herein lies one of the problems with the concept of public ownership of streets and roadways. Behavior may be protected in public streets that is harmful to the owners of adjacent private properties, but it must be allowed because the law says so.<br /><br />The 1st amendment was a valiant attempt to protect Americans from a government that would at times desire to suppress dissent by curbing free expression. As glad as I am that it exists, I take umbrage to its being trotted out to defend any activity that violates the rights of private property owners. The classic example of yelling "Fire!" in a movie theater is a perfect illustration. The yeller has clearly violated the property rights of the theater owner (by costing profits and possibly physical damage to the theater) as well as the rights of all the patrons who paid to see the movie, but many a lawyer would argue that his right to yell "Fire!" is protected by the 1st amendment. Elizabeth Book's right to bare her breasts shouldn't have been protected under the 1st amendment, but rather by a basic right to private property, not only Elizabeth's right to ownership of her body, but also the rights of private "real estate" owners to use their property as they see fit.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-6328454653146475922007-05-21T13:49:00.000-04:002007-05-21T14:40:06.238-04:00Morality and the Market EconomyFor all of you out there who still think that I (along with all other Libertarians) am a soulless, ethically challenged corporate shill because I support a truly free market, I present the hereto linked article: <a href="http://www.mises.org/story/2563">Plunder or Enterprise: The World's Choice</a>, by Thomas E Woods<br /><br />It clearly illustrates the exact reasons for which I support the market economy...not because I think businesses are all great and wonderful, but because the free market is a framework that encourages morality and ethical behavior while punishing the opposite. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but there are a few passages that I think are particularly poignant:<br /><br /><blockquote>One of the market's virtues, and the reason it enables so much peaceful interaction and cooperation among such a great variety of peoples, is that it demands of its participants only that they observe a relatively few basic principles, among them honesty, the sanctity of contracts, and respect for private property.</blockquote><br />By observing (and enforcing) these few simple rules, a very strong ethical and moral system is created...one that fosters peaceful exchange and concern for the well-being of others:<br /><blockquote>The market all but compels people to be other-regarding, but not by means of intimidation, threats, and propaganda, as in socialist and statist systems. It employs the perfectly normal, morally acceptable desire to improve one's material conditions and station in life, both of which can grow under capitalism only by directing one's efforts to the production of a good or service that improves the well-being of his fellow man.</blockquote>The author also addresses various objections to the market by its critics. For instance,<blockquote>It takes little imagination to surmise how critics of the market would respond to such a claim [that the market itself encourages moral behavior.] Doesn't the market encourage greed, rivalry, and discord? Does it not urge people to think only of themselves, accumulating wealth with no thought to any other concern?</blockquote>And responds...<blockquote>That human beings seek their own well-being and that of those close to them is not an especially provocative discovery. What is important is that this universal aspect of human nature persists no matter what economic system is in place; it merely expresses itself in different forms. For all their saccharine rhetoric, for example, communist apparatchiks were not known for their disinterested commitment to the common good. They, too, sought to improve their own well-being — except they lived in a system in which all such improvements came at the expense of their fellow human beings, rather than, as in a market economy, as a reward for serving them.</blockquote>The author goes on to challenge several criticisms of the market economy, each time responding with what I feel is an excellent illustration of some of the best reasons to support the free market.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-2518978244109580052007-05-11T12:29:00.000-04:002007-05-11T13:45:33.866-04:00Please Help Me UnderstandI need some help. I'm having a difficult time understanding something, and I'd like your input on the subject...<br /><br />In general, there is a great deal more distrust of the market than of government. Many people put a lot more faith in government to solve problems and provide for us than in the free market.<br /><br />Why is this? If you are one who has little or no faith in the market and instead trust the government to protect and provide for us, please tell me why.<br /><br />I'm not baiting anyone for the purpose of blasting them, I just really want to get a handle on that side of this argument. That said, here are some lead-in questions and observations:<br /><br /><ol><br /><li>Corporations are made up of people. Government is also made up of people. Both are subject to the same human shortcomings, desires, vices, etc. What makes one more or less trustworthy than the other?<br><br /><li>If your answer to the first question was something like, "Corporations are motivated by profits, and profits are evil." Then my question is, "What, then, motivates government?" Are the individuals in government somehow motivated by some higher or more legitimate cause? Are they somehow less corruptible than the individuals who make up a corporation?<br><br>My bet is that this is not likely. Politicians have to be motivated by something, and I'd stake my left nut on the bet that they're motivated by power. Now, it could be that they only desire power so they can "do good things", but it's power nonetheless, and being human means that they are corruptible...just as much so as the individuals who run corporations. In fact, they may be more susceptible than corporate shills simply because they stand to suffer little or no loss for their mistakes or outright corruption. At best, they receive a slap on the wrist for their wrongdoings. In a free market setting, however, there are numerous mechanisms to ensure that the costs of corporate corruption are born by those who are corrupt...until government interferes to shift those costs to taxpayers, of course.<br><br /><li>Finally, if we don't trust the individuals in government any more than the individuals in corporations why do we keep putting government in charge of more and more of our money, freedom, and personal affairs?<br /></ol><br />Let the enlightenment begin!Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-1170712754907588522007-05-03T16:05:00.000-04:002007-05-03T16:06:41.019-04:00TV - "Educator" of the MassesI get irritated with television a lot. Of course, I'm not the only one. With all the different programming on television anymore, probably every viewer gets irritated with it at some point. My beef, though, isn't with the boring programming, inane "reality" shows, or sex and violence (in fact, I'm all for those latter two). What I specifically object to is the "message" that most television programming seems to tend toward, particularly with regard to economics, history, or government.<br /><br />Now, as a free market advocate, I realize that it is not my place to determine what others watch or don't watch. I'm not advocating that any particular programming be taken off the air or censored for any reason (even if it just plain sucks). So, this post is basically just me bitching about something that irks me. (Enough of a disclaimer for you, Kathy? ;)<br /><br />My wife and I watch Law and Order: SVU a lot. We like the drama of the show, the cases are usually interesting, and Mariska Hargitay is totally hot, so there are lots of good reasons to like it. Too often, though, the point the writers seem to be trying to make about politics, society, or whatever, bugs the crap outta me.<br /><br />One recent episode in particular set me off on a tirade...<br /><br />A convicted pedophile was being charged with the rape and murder of a young girl, to which he confessed. He claimed, though, that he had been successful in resisting his urges until he started receiving emails from a porn site featuring photos of 18-year-old women doctored to appear many years younger. The web site's owner was then indicted as a responsible party in the crime by virtue of his marketing to known pedophiles via email. The pedophile claimed to have attempted to unsubscribe from the site's mailing list to no avail, and the repeated emails wore him down to the point where he could no longer resist the urge to take advantage of young girls. The site's owner was found guilty as an accessory to the rape and murder of the pedophile's victim.<br /><br />Now, I agree that the practice of marketing child pornography (or virtual pornography in this case, since the photos were of legal-age women) to known pedophiles may be deplorable, but I don't believe it constitutes a crime. At worst, the site's owner was guilty of fraud because the pedophile's email address was not removed from their mailing list when requested. Even so, there were plenty of other measures the pedophile himself could have taken to make the emails stop. There is a lot of spam-blocking software out there, and most ISPs and email programs allow the user to create a list of blocked addresses. Failing that, he could have just as easily changed his email address altogether. Had he wanted to resist, the tools were available for him to do so.<br /><br />The owner of the website may indeed be among the world's biggest assholes, but again, being an asshole isn't a crime. Noone's rights were violated by his marketing tactics, so the commission of the crime against the young girl was the responsibility of the pedophile, regardless of any outside influence.<br /><br />Yes, I know we're talking about fiction here. It's just television. It's not real. Still, people believe a lot of what they see on TV, and I doubt that many people took a minute to think about how the outcome of the case on Law and Order fit into their own system of beliefs. More than likely their response was purely emotional...agreeing that the filthy evil porn-monger should go to jail for feeding on the weakness of his fellow man...feeling that the real victim was the pedophile, who just couldn't help himself.<br /><br />Again, I'm in no way advocating censorship. The First Amendment protects the porn-monger equally to the Law and Order writers and all our various news media outlets. It falls to each of us to question how what we see on TV fits into our own system of beliefs, rather than allowing ourselves to be swayed by an emotional response presented as entertainment.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11209253.post-67914517854646005872007-05-03T14:03:00.000-04:002007-05-03T14:38:35.358-04:00Copy WarsSo somebody has finally cracked the code needed to remove copy protection from all high-definition (HD) DVDs, and in a move that's been described by some as "liberating" they've posted it all over the 'net. Download junkies can now freely copy and redistribute any HD-DVD they like, and no one would be the wiser. Hardly surprising is that the HD-DVD Consortium has declared this a criminal act, and more than one website has removed the code from message boards and blog posts.<br /><br />Digg.com, however, has chosen to allow the code to remain on its website in a dubious effort to fight a "way for big business to gouge individuals." <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/Story?id=3135461&page=2">ABCNews calls the decision</a> "irresponsible" and even "craven", saying that Digg's founder should have stood up to his customers and protect the Consortium's trade secrets. I believe, though, that they've missed the point entirely.<br /><br />The ABCNews article talks about patents, the First Amendment, and the value of information, but I think it's all really a lot simpler than that. When you, as a consumer, purchase a CD, DVD, book, magazine, newspaper, or any other type of media, you enter into a voluntary contract with the media's publisher which states that by purchasing the item you agree not to copy its contents for redistribution. If you then copy and redistribute the contents in a manner that violates the contract you've committed a crime...a breach of contract. That's it...period.<br /><br />On another note, I have no opinion on what Kevin Rose should have done about the content that was posted on his website, but trotting out the First Amendment as an attempt to protect oneself from retribution for wrongdoing is crap. The First Amendment doesn't allow you to say whatever you want to say with impunity. Words can constitute a crime just as easily as actions can, and the person(s) who broke the copy protection code committed a breach of contract by doing so. The fact that they then turned around and shouted it to the world doesn't absolve them from the crime or bestow upon them some magical protection from recourse by those from whom they have stolen.Ron Jenningshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10644767465331151904noreply@blogger.com4