America has a security problem, but it isn't the one we hear about on the news. It's a pretty serious one in my book, and it is one that impacts all of us. It's also a bit of a strange problem.
We're safe, you see. We really are pretty safe. We are also afraid, and react out of that fear in strange, often bad ways.
So obviously, 9/11 is going to be a big part of the background for this one, because it really lead to a lot of where we are today. I feel like I should do the token "inspirational monologue" about it, but that's not the point here, and I think we all realize nothing I am going to say really matters on that front. Let's just say it was a really bad day that has had widespread effects on the world, and move from there.
After the attacks, a lot of things changed fairly quickly. The PATRIOT act was brought to the house and passed before most of congress was even given a chance to read it. Almost immediately this was a controversial law that had a pretty profound impact on American discourse. You had a lot of people throwing around a lot of quotes from a lot of people about the relationships between security, privacy, freedom and my favorite, the old "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to hide." The emotional state of this country got, understandably, a little nuts.
Another big change was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). We had this grand plan of opening up communication between our various security agencies and trying to streamline intelligence. This hasn't really worked the way we hoped. There are also the many many problems with the TSA. Along with the low success rate with internal testing, we are seeing lots of privacy and safety concerns with their newest line of defense, the backscatter scans.
And some of these concerns are due to the very agents who are implementing these security protocols. The supposed last line of defense. If the entire intelligence community fails to catch them before making it to where they can hurt us, then we obviously want the best and the brightest there to catch the bad guys. Of course, all of this is rendered a little silly when you look at the fact that here in the U.S. you have almost no chance of being killed by a terrorist anyway.
When did America get so scared? We used to be the big bad superpower that would shake the world from time to time, and now we're hiding behind ineffective security that makes us feel "safer" without really doing much good.
Humans, in general, are really not very good at dealing with probability. When it comes to risk assessment from an evolutionary standpoint, all this fear makes a lot of sense. We are fairly easily eaten. But when we move this same instinct to the modern world, well, it just makes us a little nuts. We are afraid of being murdered, even though violent crime is on the decline. We are afraid of our children being kidnapped so we shelter them, even though statistically it really isn't a likely event.
And the problem with all of this is that we use these fears as excuses for all kinds of terrible things. We give away our rights in order to protect ourselves. We give up privacy and safety to get a false sense of security. We have militarized our police forces, giving them a new mindset along with new weapons and tools.
I pretty clearly think this is a bad thing, however I'm not suggesting that the response to any of this should be anger. Anger is even less rational an emotion than fear, and I'm all about rational. What we need to do is recognize our own emotional responses, and then think through it. What we need to do is stand up, calmly and rationally, and say "no... it's ok... we're not afraid, and we don't want this."
Send well thought out and calm letters to your congress folks. Go to city counsel and talk to them. Get involved and get things done.
But most of all, keep calm and carry on.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Education and Economics
Economics is meant to play the long game; it just functions better that way. Sure, you can sell short, or flip a house and do very well, but it's very risky and not just to you. This should be one of the lessons of 2008. People ended up gambling on all of our futures, and damn near lost them because of the short game.
We talk about sustainability in the environment all the time, but economic systems need it as well. We need systems that are dynamic enough to adjust to changing times and events, but with a foundation that is solid, and well rooted to prevent collapse.
We, the people, on the whole are not very good at long games. We like our instant gratification and are easy to panic. It's not good, but it also makes a lot of sense. Our brains really haven't caught up with civilization yet. As flexible and adjustable as our minds can be, we still have those hardwired responses and instincts that are just damned hard to override. When the market takes a down tick, people start selling, pushing it further than it would have gone without the fear response; it's what we do.
But we need to be more clever than that. We need to be playing the long game.
Right now the U.S. has around $16 trillion in debt. That is a truly unimaginable number. We also have around a $1 trillion budget deficit. Neither of these things are good, by any stretch of the mind; we really need to do something about this.
Now, the obvious answer is to cut spending and possibly raise taxes, though that second part is certainly contended in a lot of circles. On a base level it's like balancing a household budget. Spend less and bring in more, and the deficit goes down; easy as lying.
Sadly, national economics are a bit more complicated than this. We also need to look at things like unemployment and job growth along with GDP, social security, and the social safety net in general. Things get tough very very quickly.
One of the first places we see the tightening of belts is in education. As the author of that piece explains, although real dollars spent in education is going up, its relation to the GDP is steadily dropping; we are investing a lower percentage of our income into education. We have seen it in the cutting of arts programs, music programs and now even physical education programs. We are seeing class sizes grow and school libraries shrink. And it kind of makes sense. On that basic budget model, we have to make a cut somewhere, and education is expensive.
But again, I want to talk about the long game.
There are lots (and lots and lots) of scholarly articles about the relationship between education and crime, and I'm linking you to one of the better ones that doesn't require downloading things. It's pretty simple and even logical; the better educated people are, the lower the rates of crime you see. Now, there are lots and lots of factors that can go into this, including education level of the parents and a whole host of other issues, but education is absolutely a big factor.
Education is also, for some obvious reason, a good indicator of future success. It should come as no surprise to anyone that places with higher poverty rates also have lower levels of education. Now, to some degree this is going to be a chicken and egg argument, which is actually one of the big issues with poverty; it is a cycle. Low income families don't have the same access to education, and educational activities, so the children of low income families are at a disadvantage, so they are more prone to staying poor.
It is also worth noting that low income children are more likely to miss school than their higher income counterparts.
We are also in a place where people with lower incomes, lower education levels, and who are on public assistance are having significantly more children than those who aren't in those social strata. Breaking tone for a moment, I've tried for a good chunk of time to post the link from the census data to demonstrate that, and apparently I just can't. It's a PDF that you can get at www.census.gov. If you want to fact check me, search for p20-558 and look at pages 6 and 7.
The effects on the individual are pretty clear. A lack of education increases the likelihood of dependence and future incarceration for our children. This, in and of itself, is obviously a negative, but one could make the argument that it isn't "our" problem. One could make that argument, assuming they didn't look any deeper into the social and financial effects that this has on society as a whole; we should probably do that though.
Right now, the cost of sending a child to public school from k-12 runs right around $10,000 per year per student, though there is a pretty wide variation state to state and district to district.
We, as a nation, are spending about $800 billion on welfare for about 56 million people. This comes out to around $14,300 per person.
And, at least in California, it costs around $47,000 to keep an inmate in prison for a year.
So as it stands, we are spending less on our students than we are on taking care of the consequences of a bad education. If we could lower the incarceration rate by one person, we could double the education budget for 2.3 students. Higher levels of education also reflect a lower chance of being on welfare and a lower rate of childbirth, which means the social safety net gets less use.
As is almost always the case, prevention is less expensive than dealing with the aftermath, and we are not doing nearly enough prevention. I'm also not saying that we need to just throw money at it. It needs to be a reasoned and rational response to the issue, targeting money into places where it has the highest chance of helping and using methods with the highest returns. I'm not going to go into all that right now, if for no other reason than a hope of getting this posted soon.
I would also like to touch on the argument that all of this support should be coming from the parents, not the government. This is an absolutely fair argument, and I don't disagree. I personally went to public schools in a mediocre school district, but luckily have fantastic parents that pushed me to learn, think, and try more every day to better myself. The problem is that some parents are busy; so busy trying to support their families financially that they can't support their educations. Some parents aren't educated enough themselves to help out. And tragically, some parents just don't care enough. In none of these cases can any blame be put on the children, but it is without question the children who suffer. The "American Dream" is that everyone has a fair shake at life, but we're not actually offering that; we can, however, get closer to it.
The United States became a superpower in the world because of innovation and technology booms, along with some philosophy and political growth that changed the world. If we hope to maintain that position we are going to have to keep pushing in those fields. We need educated, intelligent, and productive people to keep driving this country forward. With innovation and creation comes growth, making the country stronger, reducing our reliance on other countries in every possible way, and strengthening our position in the world.
But regardless of that, if we tactically invest in the youth of the nation, even without all the growth that will come, we can save money and cut the deficit just by giving children the tools to get off, or stay off, welfare, and to stay out of prison.
It's not complicated, but it is a long game.
Now, the obvious answer is to cut spending and possibly raise taxes, though that second part is certainly contended in a lot of circles. On a base level it's like balancing a household budget. Spend less and bring in more, and the deficit goes down; easy as lying.
Sadly, national economics are a bit more complicated than this. We also need to look at things like unemployment and job growth along with GDP, social security, and the social safety net in general. Things get tough very very quickly.
One of the first places we see the tightening of belts is in education. As the author of that piece explains, although real dollars spent in education is going up, its relation to the GDP is steadily dropping; we are investing a lower percentage of our income into education. We have seen it in the cutting of arts programs, music programs and now even physical education programs. We are seeing class sizes grow and school libraries shrink. And it kind of makes sense. On that basic budget model, we have to make a cut somewhere, and education is expensive.
But again, I want to talk about the long game.
There are lots (and lots and lots) of scholarly articles about the relationship between education and crime, and I'm linking you to one of the better ones that doesn't require downloading things. It's pretty simple and even logical; the better educated people are, the lower the rates of crime you see. Now, there are lots and lots of factors that can go into this, including education level of the parents and a whole host of other issues, but education is absolutely a big factor.
Education is also, for some obvious reason, a good indicator of future success. It should come as no surprise to anyone that places with higher poverty rates also have lower levels of education. Now, to some degree this is going to be a chicken and egg argument, which is actually one of the big issues with poverty; it is a cycle. Low income families don't have the same access to education, and educational activities, so the children of low income families are at a disadvantage, so they are more prone to staying poor.
It is also worth noting that low income children are more likely to miss school than their higher income counterparts.
We are also in a place where people with lower incomes, lower education levels, and who are on public assistance are having significantly more children than those who aren't in those social strata. Breaking tone for a moment, I've tried for a good chunk of time to post the link from the census data to demonstrate that, and apparently I just can't. It's a PDF that you can get at www.census.gov. If you want to fact check me, search for p20-558 and look at pages 6 and 7.
The effects on the individual are pretty clear. A lack of education increases the likelihood of dependence and future incarceration for our children. This, in and of itself, is obviously a negative, but one could make the argument that it isn't "our" problem. One could make that argument, assuming they didn't look any deeper into the social and financial effects that this has on society as a whole; we should probably do that though.
Right now, the cost of sending a child to public school from k-12 runs right around $10,000 per year per student, though there is a pretty wide variation state to state and district to district.
We, as a nation, are spending about $800 billion on welfare for about 56 million people. This comes out to around $14,300 per person.
And, at least in California, it costs around $47,000 to keep an inmate in prison for a year.
So as it stands, we are spending less on our students than we are on taking care of the consequences of a bad education. If we could lower the incarceration rate by one person, we could double the education budget for 2.3 students. Higher levels of education also reflect a lower chance of being on welfare and a lower rate of childbirth, which means the social safety net gets less use.
As is almost always the case, prevention is less expensive than dealing with the aftermath, and we are not doing nearly enough prevention. I'm also not saying that we need to just throw money at it. It needs to be a reasoned and rational response to the issue, targeting money into places where it has the highest chance of helping and using methods with the highest returns. I'm not going to go into all that right now, if for no other reason than a hope of getting this posted soon.
I would also like to touch on the argument that all of this support should be coming from the parents, not the government. This is an absolutely fair argument, and I don't disagree. I personally went to public schools in a mediocre school district, but luckily have fantastic parents that pushed me to learn, think, and try more every day to better myself. The problem is that some parents are busy; so busy trying to support their families financially that they can't support their educations. Some parents aren't educated enough themselves to help out. And tragically, some parents just don't care enough. In none of these cases can any blame be put on the children, but it is without question the children who suffer. The "American Dream" is that everyone has a fair shake at life, but we're not actually offering that; we can, however, get closer to it.
The United States became a superpower in the world because of innovation and technology booms, along with some philosophy and political growth that changed the world. If we hope to maintain that position we are going to have to keep pushing in those fields. We need educated, intelligent, and productive people to keep driving this country forward. With innovation and creation comes growth, making the country stronger, reducing our reliance on other countries in every possible way, and strengthening our position in the world.
But regardless of that, if we tactically invest in the youth of the nation, even without all the growth that will come, we can save money and cut the deficit just by giving children the tools to get off, or stay off, welfare, and to stay out of prison.
It's not complicated, but it is a long game.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Hey Folks,
I have been offered the opportunity to contribute to my friend Brendan's blog. As a shipmate and fellow free thinker I both appreciate and support what he does with words and actions. As a graduate student in history I bring a fair amount of critical thinking, and writing skill to the table and I look forward to diving into this mix to help promote thought, and civil dialogue among human beings. Thus far I have not completed a topical entry of any kind and have been serving in an editorial capacity only. I believe my first true post will center on the idea of civilian oversight of police and some of the problems I see with the way things work as of right now.
Jeremy Stolz.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
excuses excuses
So I don't have anything for this week. I've had a bunch of traveling going on, and then some decompression time from the end of the season. Now I'm watching the election. I promise, next monday I'll have something for you.
Monday, October 29, 2012
On Civil Discourse
So I want to start this one with a bit of a disclaimer. There will be a few unpleasant, un-politically correct, or downright offensive words in this post. I try hard not to use them in general, but given the nature of the topic, they will come up in quotations or when I paraphrase what was said. I actually know very little about the demographics of the folks that read this blog, so if there are going to be kids reading it, be responsible and talk to them about it.
I've managed to avoid talking about specific contemporary events so far, but I've been toying with this commentary for a while, and a really obvious example came up, so here we go.
This past Monday was the third presidential debate. I watched it, along with a whole lot of other people; one of those people was Ann Coulter. Now, Coulter is known for being inflammatory, and in this specific instance she tweeted "I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard." This received a lot of attention, but there was only one piece I have read that really speaks to it well in my mind. John Franklin Stephens has written about the use of "the r-word" at some length, and this is a pretty clear example of it.
But this post isn't to denounce Coulter specifically; that was just a useful example.
Public discourse, particularly in the realm of politics, has gotten ugly over the years. My mother talks about watching William F. Buckley and disagreeing with everything he said, but respecting him nonetheless. There was a time when we could do that.
But now everything has gotten polarized to a truly frightening degree and everything is given in apocalyptic terms. If the media is to be trusted at all, large portions of the country believe that if the politician they don't like gets elected president, that it will be the end of the world as we know it. Would you like to know a secret?
That is almost certainly not the case. Things will most likely be ok either way.
Here are some more fun things: Obama isn't a socialist. If you compare his policies to those of actual socialist countries, he's at best a moderate conservative. Also, Romney isn't actually a plutocrat, and for the record, G. W. Bush wasn't/isn't a nazi. Also, no one is Hitler. I'd just like to get that stuff out of the way.
We use terms like this because they evoke emotions, and are easily understood on some base level, but they are wholly inaccurate and we should aim to converse better than that.
I have a confession to make; I am an internet arguer. I argue with people on the internet. I do it a lot. I may have a problem. And in debates on the internet, it is very easy for things to escalate quickly and get to a point of true absurdity even faster. It's generally not very productive.
And people behave the same way in the real world, too. There are rules to civilized debate and discussion. It's commonly understood that you attack the idea, not the person, and that you articulate it the best you can. These rules have also been disregarded.
Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not a proponent for censorship. I don't think that I, or anyone, has the right to tell you what you can or can't say. I just don't think that is ever acceptable. What I do believe in is self-control.
I grew up doing martial arts. Any dojo worth it's salt will teach you that anger is a dangerous and foolish thing. You can also easily learn that from Star Wars. If you fight angry, you will almost certainly fight sloppy, and make mistakes. If the person you are fighting is good, they will absolutely exploit those mistakes and you will lose. If they aren't, in your uncontrolled state you may well do more damage than you intended. This is as true with words as it is with fists, as most of us know firsthand.
Have you ever gotten into an argument, gotten upset, and then hurt someone you loved by spurting out something in a fit of anger? Worse, have you ever been angry and seen that opening where you knew you could hurt them, and you took it because it was there? I think most people have at some point; I know I have. I also know I have always regretted it.
Which is why I have trained not to do that anymore.
If we want to convince people of things we need to be calm and reasonable. If we want someone to see our point of view, we need to demonstrate that point with well thought-out arguments. When you attack someone, they will go on the defensive and the conversation has ended, even if you both keep talking. Words have meanings and word choice is one of the more potent tools we have. We need to learn how to say what we mean.
So if there is a hope for rational discourse, we need to change our own behavior and our own expectations. I know that I am not perfect in this, but I'm trying. I also expect a certain level of discourse from people around me, and simply will not participate if a common level can't be found. Maybe that's a little too "I'm taking my ball and going home," but it's the only move I have. As I said, I can't tell someone what they can and can't say. I can only choose what I will respond to.
Getting mad at someone, insulting someone, hurting someone can feel really good. It's one of the less pleasant parts of human nature, but it is there. Maybe it stems from tribal living, or other hierarchical structures in human development. Maybe it stems from the fact that we are emotional and instinctual creatures before we are rational. I'm not a psychiatrist, sociologist or anthropologist, and I think you would need to be all three to hope to really answer that question.
But the fact that it is real doesn't mean it is the right way to do it. We are social animals, and if you want to succeed, you need society in one form or another so we need to learn to work together.
And that starts with our ability to actually talk to each other. Not to talk at each other, yell or attack... but the ability to actually converse.
And until we decide to make that change, things are only going to keep going down the route they have been following.
I've managed to avoid talking about specific contemporary events so far, but I've been toying with this commentary for a while, and a really obvious example came up, so here we go.
This past Monday was the third presidential debate. I watched it, along with a whole lot of other people; one of those people was Ann Coulter. Now, Coulter is known for being inflammatory, and in this specific instance she tweeted "I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard." This received a lot of attention, but there was only one piece I have read that really speaks to it well in my mind. John Franklin Stephens has written about the use of "the r-word" at some length, and this is a pretty clear example of it.
But this post isn't to denounce Coulter specifically; that was just a useful example.
Public discourse, particularly in the realm of politics, has gotten ugly over the years. My mother talks about watching William F. Buckley and disagreeing with everything he said, but respecting him nonetheless. There was a time when we could do that.
But now everything has gotten polarized to a truly frightening degree and everything is given in apocalyptic terms. If the media is to be trusted at all, large portions of the country believe that if the politician they don't like gets elected president, that it will be the end of the world as we know it. Would you like to know a secret?
That is almost certainly not the case. Things will most likely be ok either way.
Here are some more fun things: Obama isn't a socialist. If you compare his policies to those of actual socialist countries, he's at best a moderate conservative. Also, Romney isn't actually a plutocrat, and for the record, G. W. Bush wasn't/isn't a nazi. Also, no one is Hitler. I'd just like to get that stuff out of the way.
We use terms like this because they evoke emotions, and are easily understood on some base level, but they are wholly inaccurate and we should aim to converse better than that.
I have a confession to make; I am an internet arguer. I argue with people on the internet. I do it a lot. I may have a problem. And in debates on the internet, it is very easy for things to escalate quickly and get to a point of true absurdity even faster. It's generally not very productive.
And people behave the same way in the real world, too. There are rules to civilized debate and discussion. It's commonly understood that you attack the idea, not the person, and that you articulate it the best you can. These rules have also been disregarded.
Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not a proponent for censorship. I don't think that I, or anyone, has the right to tell you what you can or can't say. I just don't think that is ever acceptable. What I do believe in is self-control.
I grew up doing martial arts. Any dojo worth it's salt will teach you that anger is a dangerous and foolish thing. You can also easily learn that from Star Wars. If you fight angry, you will almost certainly fight sloppy, and make mistakes. If the person you are fighting is good, they will absolutely exploit those mistakes and you will lose. If they aren't, in your uncontrolled state you may well do more damage than you intended. This is as true with words as it is with fists, as most of us know firsthand.
Have you ever gotten into an argument, gotten upset, and then hurt someone you loved by spurting out something in a fit of anger? Worse, have you ever been angry and seen that opening where you knew you could hurt them, and you took it because it was there? I think most people have at some point; I know I have. I also know I have always regretted it.
Which is why I have trained not to do that anymore.
If we want to convince people of things we need to be calm and reasonable. If we want someone to see our point of view, we need to demonstrate that point with well thought-out arguments. When you attack someone, they will go on the defensive and the conversation has ended, even if you both keep talking. Words have meanings and word choice is one of the more potent tools we have. We need to learn how to say what we mean.
So if there is a hope for rational discourse, we need to change our own behavior and our own expectations. I know that I am not perfect in this, but I'm trying. I also expect a certain level of discourse from people around me, and simply will not participate if a common level can't be found. Maybe that's a little too "I'm taking my ball and going home," but it's the only move I have. As I said, I can't tell someone what they can and can't say. I can only choose what I will respond to.
Getting mad at someone, insulting someone, hurting someone can feel really good. It's one of the less pleasant parts of human nature, but it is there. Maybe it stems from tribal living, or other hierarchical structures in human development. Maybe it stems from the fact that we are emotional and instinctual creatures before we are rational. I'm not a psychiatrist, sociologist or anthropologist, and I think you would need to be all three to hope to really answer that question.
But the fact that it is real doesn't mean it is the right way to do it. We are social animals, and if you want to succeed, you need society in one form or another so we need to learn to work together.
And that starts with our ability to actually talk to each other. Not to talk at each other, yell or attack... but the ability to actually converse.
And until we decide to make that change, things are only going to keep going down the route they have been following.
Come all you bold sea men
So I have the next real update written. I have revisions back from the people who do that for me... I just need to go over it and it'll be up.
And hopefully I will get to that today.
In case anyone doesn't know, the HMS Bounty was lost today in the storm.
I don't want to start rumors and I don't have any more information than you can find on the news right now.
14 people have been rescued, two are still missing.
I just... I don't even really know what I'm writing this for. I just need to put something down to try and calm myself down.
My deepest condolences go out to the crew, who has lost their ship and their home. And God willing those last two souls will be found safe and be returned to those that love them.
I am a little speechless right now.
And hopefully I will get to that today.
In case anyone doesn't know, the HMS Bounty was lost today in the storm.
I don't want to start rumors and I don't have any more information than you can find on the news right now.
14 people have been rescued, two are still missing.
I just... I don't even really know what I'm writing this for. I just need to put something down to try and calm myself down.
My deepest condolences go out to the crew, who has lost their ship and their home. And God willing those last two souls will be found safe and be returned to those that love them.
I am a little speechless right now.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Self-regulation in a free market
One of the big debates in American politics currently is the issue of regulations. You have representatives from various industries and organizations out there arguing that the government is regulating them to death.
On the other side of things you have environmental groups, workers rights groups, and consumer advocacy groups saying that we need to be putting more regulations in place to protect workers, consumers, and the environment.
On the anti-regulatory side of the argument we often hear about the concept of industry self regulating. We hear about the invisible hand of the market applying pressure to industry to regulate itself. I see this as problematic, especially given the culture of quarterly profits that our nation seems to have developed.
To really get into this issue first requires getting into the nature of the free market. In a pure capitalist society the only function of industry, at the core, is to make money. It does that by providing goods and services that people want or find beneficial. The theory is that the people will decide on the value of a thing, and pay for it accordingly. Companies will be controlled by the market and prices will be managed because if a price goes too high, or the public finds out about some terrible thing the company is doing, then another company will step in and make the same product better, or cheaper. This prevents exploitation and keeps costs down to the consumer through competition. It also protects us against monopolies.
This is predicated on a few important things. The first of these is an educated public with the ability to make choices. Without the consumers being able to look into the business practices and actually understand them, or the ability to choose another company to do business with, the whole model breaks down quickly. I find this to be the most clear in industries that have had the luxury of creating natural monopolies in an area. Back when I lived in Baltimore, my electricity came from BGE. For a long time, there wasn't another option for energy suppliers. (Apparently there is now, but I don't honestly understand how that works. If anyone knows more about that, I'd love to talk to you.)
So if it turned out that BGE was getting their energy from mountain top removal coal mining (with which I have some pretty serious issues) I wouldn't be able to do much of anything about it. Going without electricity is certainly possible, but we should have a higher standard of living than that. BGE also pulled one of the more impressive scams I have ever seen. During the collapse in '08, people tightened their belts and one thing that happened was a pretty massive effort to conserve electricity to save money.
BGE responded to this by raising the cost of energy so they could keep their profits; Demand went down, so price went up. This is what happens when you have monopolies.
But so without a population that has access to information, and the ability to at least basically understand it the people are unable to make an informed choice. And without choices... well... I don't think I need to finish this sentence.
Now, as stated before, the point of a business, especially under this system is to make money. Their product should be beneficial to the people in one way or another, and at a price that the market agrees is fair. The practices used in its production should come out to being acceptable to the public both in terms of human resources, and environmental impact. If any of this fails to be true, theory is that the company will fail; the free market will sort it out.
There is an inherent flaw in this idea however. It is the inherent flaw in most systems, so it's not a unique problem. Humanity simply doesn't function this way. History is rife with examples, but lets start on the basic, philosophical problem.
If a company's primary goal is to make as much revenue as possible, then they are going to make their product as cheaply as they can, and sell it for as much as they can get for it. Cheap production is easy to explain. Minimizing the cost in the labor force is providing as little pay as you can, the least benefits possible. Making things safe is often expensive, so industry has an incentive to do very little to ensure it. The less you have to spend on your employees, or your company, the more potential income you have.
And as for sales prices, I don't know that anyone can deny that advertising carries at least as much, if not more weight than actual value. The definition of the "market value" is whatever the market will bear. So really, the ideal method is to create something cheaply, and convince people that it is worth a great deal of money. I know this sounds basic and obvious, but I like to make my position clear.
So this brings us to the concept of regulations. In a pure free market, the government keeps it's hands out of business and lets the market do it's thing. The problem is, the businesses within the market have no real incentive to regulate themselves. It is cheaper, by far, to mistreat your workers than to help them and look out for them. It is cheaper, by far, to pollute the environment than to protect it. It is cheaper to put out an inferior, useless, or sometimes dangerous product and advertise the hell out of it, than it is to make good, safe things. You can try and argue that this isn't true, but you have to argue that all of history is false to really back it up.
Much of the regulation that has come to pass is in some way connected to terrible things that have come before. I would like to start with something that is still rather fresh in everyone's minds; lets talk about the economic collapse in 2008. Bankers were making money, hand over fist bundling sub prime loans into mortgage backed securities (MBS) and re-selling them as sound investments. The ratings agencies were invested in it, and were rating these MBS bundles as much safer investments than they really were. The big banks were leveraging their investments to unheard of levels, and were making a killing doing it. Everything was great, and everyone was getting rich right up until they weren't.
The bubble burst, and it became clear just how deep the hole was and everything collapsed; we all know what followed. And the kicker is, nobody got in trouble for it. A bunch of people did some mostly legal things and managed to break the global economy and will never see the inside of a jail cell for it. This is the industry that claimed it should be trusted to regulate itself back in the 1990's and was given the chance. This is the same industry that still claims it should be allowed to do so.
Look at the shipping industry. In 1920 a piece of law known as the "Jones Act" was passed by congress giving sailors a few protections. If a sailor was injured on a vessel, he could sue the owner or the captain for negligence and take them before court to get compensation. This was not granted under the international maritime code that preceded the Jones Act. American flagged ships also were required to keep an American crew, and if an American sailor were put ashore in a foreign port the company was required to get them back to the United States.
All of these provisions were reactions to common business practices of the day. If one of the sailors was injured and unable to work, they became a liability. Not only were they not working, but they were eating, and taking up space. It was in the interest of profit to get them off the ship as quickly as possible and leave them in whatever condition they get there. Paying for medical care would be expensive, especially in such a dangerous industry.
It was also common practice to crew up a ship in America headed for another port, and upon arrival in some small, relatively poor nation, to fire the crew and hire on locals at a fraction of the cost, leaving the Americans stranded in some foreign, and sometimes hostile place. The companies interest was not the sailors, but the profits; it makes it all very simple.
We see abuse of workers throughout history, almost as a constant. From child labor and company towns to the Triangle Factory Fire and the Radium Girls the pattern just keeps going. To industry, the workers are just parts in the machine, and easily replaced.
In the interest of time, I'm going to skip on talking about environmental impact because I think it's pretty clear, really.
And as for the consumer, we constantly have things put out into the market that are dangerous, flawed, or generally useless. We have an entire market of "medical" supplies that are nothing but placebos with little scientific backing at best. We have shoes and cloths made in sweat shops selling for hundreds of dollars, and then there's the fight club equation for auto recall. Tobacco companies lied about the dangers of their product while working to make it more addictive and products made for children until recently (and maybe still now) off-gas toxins. Yes, companies don't want to kill their customers, but how many have to go down before it hurts the companies bottom line. That is a very real math that we see done. As much as the advertising will tell you that they really care, and that their product will make you smarter, or more attractive, or give you a bigger penis it just isn't so. They spend more on advertising than they do on product testing because selling it is what counts.
The only way that self-regulation in industry can possibly work is if we manage to develop an entirely different mentality towards how we approach the world. If we had a collectivist view then yes, the idea of the high tide lifting all boats would certainly make it seem more beneficial to a company to regulate themselves for the protection of others. This mentality would also lead to the end of war, crime, poverty and everything else that has been holding society back since society came into existence.
This is also a pleasant fiction, and nothing more. It goes against the very basics of human nature and, as far as I can tell, will never come to pass. That is why we need to have some form of regulation to keep things in check. And that is not to say that the government is the answer to all things and can be trusted, but at least hypothetically we can vote people out of the government and have some control there. We need regulations that work, and make sense. We need to get rid of the back room deals and sweetheart negotiations between industry and government, and get it leaned down to being a swift, efficient system.
And there I go on pleasant fictions again. We have a lot of work to do before we can get to that point, I suspect.
On the other side of things you have environmental groups, workers rights groups, and consumer advocacy groups saying that we need to be putting more regulations in place to protect workers, consumers, and the environment.
On the anti-regulatory side of the argument we often hear about the concept of industry self regulating. We hear about the invisible hand of the market applying pressure to industry to regulate itself. I see this as problematic, especially given the culture of quarterly profits that our nation seems to have developed.
To really get into this issue first requires getting into the nature of the free market. In a pure capitalist society the only function of industry, at the core, is to make money. It does that by providing goods and services that people want or find beneficial. The theory is that the people will decide on the value of a thing, and pay for it accordingly. Companies will be controlled by the market and prices will be managed because if a price goes too high, or the public finds out about some terrible thing the company is doing, then another company will step in and make the same product better, or cheaper. This prevents exploitation and keeps costs down to the consumer through competition. It also protects us against monopolies.
This is predicated on a few important things. The first of these is an educated public with the ability to make choices. Without the consumers being able to look into the business practices and actually understand them, or the ability to choose another company to do business with, the whole model breaks down quickly. I find this to be the most clear in industries that have had the luxury of creating natural monopolies in an area. Back when I lived in Baltimore, my electricity came from BGE. For a long time, there wasn't another option for energy suppliers. (Apparently there is now, but I don't honestly understand how that works. If anyone knows more about that, I'd love to talk to you.)
So if it turned out that BGE was getting their energy from mountain top removal coal mining (with which I have some pretty serious issues) I wouldn't be able to do much of anything about it. Going without electricity is certainly possible, but we should have a higher standard of living than that. BGE also pulled one of the more impressive scams I have ever seen. During the collapse in '08, people tightened their belts and one thing that happened was a pretty massive effort to conserve electricity to save money.
BGE responded to this by raising the cost of energy so they could keep their profits; Demand went down, so price went up. This is what happens when you have monopolies.
But so without a population that has access to information, and the ability to at least basically understand it the people are unable to make an informed choice. And without choices... well... I don't think I need to finish this sentence.
Now, as stated before, the point of a business, especially under this system is to make money. Their product should be beneficial to the people in one way or another, and at a price that the market agrees is fair. The practices used in its production should come out to being acceptable to the public both in terms of human resources, and environmental impact. If any of this fails to be true, theory is that the company will fail; the free market will sort it out.
There is an inherent flaw in this idea however. It is the inherent flaw in most systems, so it's not a unique problem. Humanity simply doesn't function this way. History is rife with examples, but lets start on the basic, philosophical problem.
If a company's primary goal is to make as much revenue as possible, then they are going to make their product as cheaply as they can, and sell it for as much as they can get for it. Cheap production is easy to explain. Minimizing the cost in the labor force is providing as little pay as you can, the least benefits possible. Making things safe is often expensive, so industry has an incentive to do very little to ensure it. The less you have to spend on your employees, or your company, the more potential income you have.
And as for sales prices, I don't know that anyone can deny that advertising carries at least as much, if not more weight than actual value. The definition of the "market value" is whatever the market will bear. So really, the ideal method is to create something cheaply, and convince people that it is worth a great deal of money. I know this sounds basic and obvious, but I like to make my position clear.
So this brings us to the concept of regulations. In a pure free market, the government keeps it's hands out of business and lets the market do it's thing. The problem is, the businesses within the market have no real incentive to regulate themselves. It is cheaper, by far, to mistreat your workers than to help them and look out for them. It is cheaper, by far, to pollute the environment than to protect it. It is cheaper to put out an inferior, useless, or sometimes dangerous product and advertise the hell out of it, than it is to make good, safe things. You can try and argue that this isn't true, but you have to argue that all of history is false to really back it up.
Much of the regulation that has come to pass is in some way connected to terrible things that have come before. I would like to start with something that is still rather fresh in everyone's minds; lets talk about the economic collapse in 2008. Bankers were making money, hand over fist bundling sub prime loans into mortgage backed securities (MBS) and re-selling them as sound investments. The ratings agencies were invested in it, and were rating these MBS bundles as much safer investments than they really were. The big banks were leveraging their investments to unheard of levels, and were making a killing doing it. Everything was great, and everyone was getting rich right up until they weren't.
The bubble burst, and it became clear just how deep the hole was and everything collapsed; we all know what followed. And the kicker is, nobody got in trouble for it. A bunch of people did some mostly legal things and managed to break the global economy and will never see the inside of a jail cell for it. This is the industry that claimed it should be trusted to regulate itself back in the 1990's and was given the chance. This is the same industry that still claims it should be allowed to do so.
Look at the shipping industry. In 1920 a piece of law known as the "Jones Act" was passed by congress giving sailors a few protections. If a sailor was injured on a vessel, he could sue the owner or the captain for negligence and take them before court to get compensation. This was not granted under the international maritime code that preceded the Jones Act. American flagged ships also were required to keep an American crew, and if an American sailor were put ashore in a foreign port the company was required to get them back to the United States.
All of these provisions were reactions to common business practices of the day. If one of the sailors was injured and unable to work, they became a liability. Not only were they not working, but they were eating, and taking up space. It was in the interest of profit to get them off the ship as quickly as possible and leave them in whatever condition they get there. Paying for medical care would be expensive, especially in such a dangerous industry.
It was also common practice to crew up a ship in America headed for another port, and upon arrival in some small, relatively poor nation, to fire the crew and hire on locals at a fraction of the cost, leaving the Americans stranded in some foreign, and sometimes hostile place. The companies interest was not the sailors, but the profits; it makes it all very simple.
We see abuse of workers throughout history, almost as a constant. From child labor and company towns to the Triangle Factory Fire and the Radium Girls the pattern just keeps going. To industry, the workers are just parts in the machine, and easily replaced.
In the interest of time, I'm going to skip on talking about environmental impact because I think it's pretty clear, really.
And as for the consumer, we constantly have things put out into the market that are dangerous, flawed, or generally useless. We have an entire market of "medical" supplies that are nothing but placebos with little scientific backing at best. We have shoes and cloths made in sweat shops selling for hundreds of dollars, and then there's the fight club equation for auto recall. Tobacco companies lied about the dangers of their product while working to make it more addictive and products made for children until recently (and maybe still now) off-gas toxins. Yes, companies don't want to kill their customers, but how many have to go down before it hurts the companies bottom line. That is a very real math that we see done. As much as the advertising will tell you that they really care, and that their product will make you smarter, or more attractive, or give you a bigger penis it just isn't so. They spend more on advertising than they do on product testing because selling it is what counts.
The only way that self-regulation in industry can possibly work is if we manage to develop an entirely different mentality towards how we approach the world. If we had a collectivist view then yes, the idea of the high tide lifting all boats would certainly make it seem more beneficial to a company to regulate themselves for the protection of others. This mentality would also lead to the end of war, crime, poverty and everything else that has been holding society back since society came into existence.
This is also a pleasant fiction, and nothing more. It goes against the very basics of human nature and, as far as I can tell, will never come to pass. That is why we need to have some form of regulation to keep things in check. And that is not to say that the government is the answer to all things and can be trusted, but at least hypothetically we can vote people out of the government and have some control there. We need regulations that work, and make sense. We need to get rid of the back room deals and sweetheart negotiations between industry and government, and get it leaned down to being a swift, efficient system.
And there I go on pleasant fictions again. We have a lot of work to do before we can get to that point, I suspect.
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