George Bernard Shaw Provides Insight into the Iraq "Cut and Run" Debate in Congress

"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty." - George Bernard Shaw

Open Source Intelligence

Forbes has an article about Open Source Intelligence, which basically means giving citizens ways to alert government to possible threats and sharing some threat information directly with citizens.

I think eventually tools will evolve that will enable even hunches to be part of the equation. If the way a guy is acting worries a lot of people but they can't put their finger on anything, that might be enough to at least send a cop over for a look.

James Woods actually alerted the flight crew on a flight in August 2001 about suspicious passengers who later hijacked planes on 9/11 and a report was filed with the FBI by the airline. If only we had a system that valued these reports! It seems like a pattern of activity would have been obvious to the FBI if they could only google their own data!

The Rising Price of Gasoline

It's caused by inflation, folks. The government (the Federal Reserve actually) has been inflating the currency since 2001. That means the currency is worth less, stuff costs more, with commodities going up first, especially imported commodities. That means oil.

And the inflation, brought to you by the low interest rates that pumped up real estate, is heating up the economy and increasing our own demand for oil.

China's currency is tied to the US dollar, so, surprise, surprise, so is Chinese demand for oil.

Its bad public policy again.

From Marginal Revolution: French economics

Marginal Revolution has a piece on French economics citing a survey of 22 countries. Every country in the survey had a majority of the respondents agree that the free-market economy was the best system, EXCEPT FRANCE.

Which comes as no surprise if watch the news on a regular basis. Which group is striking and/or protesting in France this week so they don't have to deal with the slings and arrows of the marketplace? One week its the farmers, the next its young people, etc.

If people don't compete, neither can their country. And competition within the EU will make that clear going forward. French entrepreneurs already go abroad to start new businesses rather than deal with all of the anti-reality regulations. Like overtime being outlawed, for example, even for executives.

One Way to Counter Censorship in China

Since it is easy to identify web users living in China, its possible to tailor web pages for that subset of users. Why not work out a way to insert modify web pages that are sent to China so that a header is inserted containing opinions from people in China?

Such a header could use AJAX, which allows contact with a server, so opinions could be refreshed and folks from China can submit opinions. SSL encryption would be nice too.

If enough web sites adopted such a scheme, it would be very difficult for the Chinese authorities to block them all without a big negative impact on access to valuable information. And some of them would always get through.

Of course, the problem is that each site has to go to the expense of doing this and that is probably why it won't happen.

Googling this topic, I see there's already a lot of thinking being done about various approaches.

Arnold wants to put you deep in debt -

According to http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/, each citizen's share of the US national debt is $27,703.

Now Arnold wants California taxpayers to approve the borrowing of $222 billion, which is $6,554 for every one of California's 33,871,648 residents. That's one third of California's share of the national debt on one ballot initiative. Somehow I do not think it will pass.

I'm so glad the Republicans have given up on that whole smaller government idea. I guess if you can't get your idea of reform through, you open the flood gates of government spending and hope that gets you re-elected.

The Case for Small Government

A new blog about smaller government. We sure need it!

Blocking Cell Phone Signals

Newsday article about paint that can block cell phone signals. Note how the Wireless Association spokesman is opposed to the idea.

He does make some valid points. Doctors will not get emergency calls. But people do have the right to control their own property.

I think the thing to do is enhance cell phones so that they recognize where they are and what rules the property owner wants respected.

GPS is being added to phones anyway. The company could look up the rules before ringing the phone and, if the rules prohibit all non-emergency calls, ask the caller if it is an emergency. That would cut down on the number of calls. The property owner could register the rules with the county which keeps track of who owns what land.

Canadian Health Care System Feeling Ill

Interesting article in the New York Times discussing the evils of the Canadian health care system. They actually prohibit you from getting private health care. So you have to drive to the US to get around the long waiting lists they have.

Makes me of the price controls on gasoline the US had in the 1970s and all the long lines. The real cost of filling your tank was pretty high as you had to wait to get your gas. If you make $40k after taxes (that's $20/hr) and have to wait just 15 minutes, you pay an extra $5 to fill your tank. It gets worse if you are more affluent and there are long lines.

People seem to forget that time and inconvenience cost you something. Sometimes its even something important like your health or life.

The Click That Broke a Government's Grip

Interesting look at how information can travel via the Internet even in a society where the media is controlled by censors.

Old Chinese Communists Protest Restrictions on Free-Speech

Former high-ranking communist party officials wrote a letter protesting restrictions on free speech.

Democrats Can Take Over

If they whack the Republicans over the separation of church and state.

If they whack the Republicans over Nixon dropping the gold standard and causing all that inflation worldwide. Honest money helps the poor and middle class more than those who have accountants and lawyers!

If they come up with a reasonable reparations plan for the slavery issue that is amenable to at least 50% of both African Americans and the rest of the population (it wasn't nothing!). Let's have a referendum. We can make it a combination of tax cuts and a tax credit so it would help both the poor and the middle class. It could be spread out over a number of years.

If they can finally see that lower taxes help the poor more than redistribution. The Democrats should propose a program that gets rid of the income tax for foster children, victims of child abuse, anything traumatic like that. At least for five years anyway.

The Democrats should propose that we lower the income tax rate by 1% a year until revenues from the tax go down for more than two years and then raise it until revenues go down so that we can find the optimum rate for growth and revenue. We should do this separately for the capital gains tax. Once we find the optimum rates, we should stick to them! And we should have a flat tax, with the first so many dollars exempt.

There is no reason for the right to own these economic issues. The debate over socialism is over and the debate should now be whether the government is going to tample your individual rights or not. Most people who vote Republican would switch in a minute if offered an alternative that embraced economic AND individual freedom.

Education Common Sense

Refreshing perspective on education that totally meshes with my own experience.

You do need to learn how to think and how to acquire exisitng and new knowledge on your own. Do you need to sit in a room and learn in a government-prescribed fashion? Does it drum the spontaneity out of us?

Maybe we should randomly select a couple of school districts and try some completely different approaches to education (like vouchers), and then see what happens. We can measure the results by seeing how many enter college and how well they do.

How Tax Rates Affect Economies

I finally picked up Jude Wanniski's "The Way the World Works" again. He makes an interesting case for low tax rates when describing the effects of tax rates on various economies following the first world war.

Britain, France and German maintained the high rates (70% on the wealthiest taxpayers) and the US and Italy slashed theirs back to pre-war levels. And which countries boomed throughout the twenties? The US and Italy.

His case is more detailed than that. For example, he cites speeches given by various US politicians who argued for cutting the rates because of the decline in total taxes collected on high incomes while the high rates were in effect. And how Congress continued cutting the rates as the economy revived. Ironically, the national debt DECLINED from $24.3 billion in 1920 to $16.9 billion in 1930.

Jude Wannaski is a conservative (he worked in the Reagan White House), but no apologist for the Bush administration (he actually wrote articles for Al Jazeera denouncing the war).

I also don't think cutting today's rates necessarily has the same effect. Rates are nowhere near as high as they were. But paying taxes does impede economic activity, especially when you can avoid getting taxed for gains not yet realized in a sale of assets. It pays to wait in many cases.

I wonder if a complete switch to consumption taxes (complete with a tax on income and profits leaving the US) would remove this friction from the creation of wealth. It ought to be a low tax (15% maybe?).

I also think there is a fair number of people who are just annoyed that the rich don't pay a lot more. Is it jealousy? Who knows. I do know that when a person has wealth, that wealth has to be earning a return somewhere and that means economic activity is happening and people are working. If you punish such investment with high taxes, such activity declines.

Jude Wanniski has Passed Away

Economist Jude Wanniski passed away yesterday. A very smart man. He was a visionary and had a great knack for explaining things. And he's spent quite a bit of energy lambasting Bush policies, particularily the war in Iraq.

Until I read his book "The Way the World Works" (still haven't finished it) , I'd always wondered what the deal with the gold standard was. He makes the case that it is the most stable of all commodities, as most of all the gold mined is still in existence and the supply cannot change by a great deal in a given period, making its value one of the more constant ones on the planet. In short, ideal as an agreed-upon exchange mechanism.

He will be missed.

A new model for the UN

I am thinking of a new model for a replacement for the UN, one that cuts out governments and lets the people directly participate. The people of each country would be represented if the government allowed its people to join and vote for representatives in this new body. This would mean ditching the unfair Security Council and encouraging democracy.

Proportional representation would keep the politicians from interfering with what the people really want, which is peace.

I can even see the possibility of setting up such an organization independently of the UN. If the people of the world were to form an organization outside of the existing framework, it could gain its own legitimacy by passing judgment on the issues on hand.

After all, what could be more legitmate than the judgment of all the free individuals in the world that care to express their opinions about an issue.

Facing Global Warming

Scientific American had an article on some research that indicates that the earth should already have entered an ice age and that this hasn't happened due to human activity, mostly agriculture that has been going on for thousands of years.

Natural cycles of the earth movement around the sun and other mechanisms are responsible for the cooling and warming cycles and I expect when the natural warming begins, along with our industrial activities, we are in for some problems.

We need to understand how these mechanisms work so that we can maintain the climate status quo. We can neither afford to ignore this problem or simply cease all industrial and agricultural activity. We must instead master it. There is no other alternative but to try.

Secession and the Right to Self Determination

One of the basic reasons for fighting wars is the desire to end a political union. The US, for example, fought a civil war that cost over 600,000 lives.

So it seems that real peace cannot be established in the world without addressing this issue. People have the right of free association and can freely form groups and associations. By banding together. those individuals do not lose this right. So these groups also have the right to enter into associations with other groups and to end those associations.

The right of peoples and territories to peacefully leave political entities is the ultimate way to make government accountable. To paraphrase a heavily advertised mortgage website, when governments compete, you win!

This is actually in practice in Switzerland. There, people in any area can vote to leave their canton (like a county or state, I guess) and join another or form their own. Government, since it is the user of force, has to be a geographic monopoly, but does not have to be a temporal one. Just like any relationship, there has to be an out. A contract without an exit clause is a recipe for disaster.

That doesn't mean there shouldn't be a protocol or process, or that territories can leave a union without taking their share of any debt.

A Smart Guy

George Kennan came up with the policy of containment that was the primary element in the United States' approach to dealing with the Soviet Union. I was impressed with him because he really could see clearly how our own leaders are often compromised by special interests.

This page has some audio files about his contributions.

It's a shame people like this guy don't have more influence.

Gerrymandering

American RadioWorks has an interesting feature on gerrymandering and its stifling effect on American politics. This practice is, of course, non-existent in a system of proportional representation that lets voters be accurately represented in a legislature.