When I launched this blog I aggregated the articles discussed by
broad subject. In order to become more
timely with my posts, I am instead posting articles daily as I read them. Understandably, the themes will now jump
around some. Check the article title and
read if it interests, and skip if not.
Happy reading and thinking!
As always, anything in quotations is from the article or specifically noted, my words are not in quotations. Highlights and emphasis is mine.
Written from the perspective of a Chicago suburban woman.
Excerpt from the article:
"Aside from the policy
differences and mixed enthusiasm, one factor brought us together: Hillary
Clinton. It all boiled down to a common refrain I heard from women and men,
which was, ‘I can’t vote for her.’ The disdain, even disgust, for her was
palpable. Corrupt, dishonest, phony were the most common descriptors. Her
complicity in the Benghazi terrorist attack and subsequent cover-up were high
on the list of reasons my friends wouldn’t vote for her, along with her private
email server and questions about the Clinton Foundation.
They were afraid her policies would mean higher taxes on
their families and more regulations on their small businesses. Frankly, no one really
talked about her as a role model for women. In fact, some shared the
opposite view, believing she had largely risen in politics because of her
husband. Given what a poor candidate she was, it’s not hard to make that
case."
I know some
females in my life who can relate to these statements!
And another
excerpt:
"The weeks leading up to Election Day made our vote
easier. The media pile-on and growing viciousness toward Trump supporters only
emboldened us. The real possibility of upending the political
establishment—both Democrat and Republican—in Washington DC was compelling. And now that we’re being
called racist, traitorous homophobes—even Nazis—by the bitter, vanquished
elite, we feel even better about our choice. Our vote
for Trump didn’t come without serious consideration, moments of doubt, even
anxiety about what we were getting ourselves into. But our vote wasn’t borne of
ignorance, bigotry, or blind loyalty to our sex. Now we all have our fingers
crossed for a successful Trump presidency for our country and, yes, for the
daughters we are raising."
Why is it so
difficult to understand the difference between the option to use contraception
and the mandate that insurance pay for it?
Three quotes:
"It’s beyond me why the Left fears that a man who very
obviously loves lots of sex with lots of women wants to ban the birth control
that makes such profligate seed-sowing possible by neutering it."
"Repealing federal mandates for insurance companies to
make everyone pay for the birth control that only some women avail themselves
of would simply tell women that their reproductive choices are their responsibility, not mine."
"Let’s
be clear here. The law Pence signed required
medical facilities, not women at home, to dispense of human remains they are aware of in a dignified way,
rather than just chucking them out with the trash or tipping them into the
sewer. Yes, both of these have happened, as have instances where hospitals
refused to release to parents their miscarried child’s remains for a
funeral."
If my purpose in writing
“IdeaEquilibrium” is to marry differences, then I need to work on understanding
the perspectives from which the other side comes from. This is something I am working on, and I
submit it is something we ALL need to work on. I see myself in the author’s
statement: “It is easy to laugh at the
hypocritical nature of the left. It is harder to empathize with them and
realize they have their beliefs for good reason.” For this reason I am trying to become more understanding.
Excerpts:
"Instead, I remember that anyone would be upset at such a
historic loss, and this loss is magnified by
their fears of a man who would ban entire religions, build walls, deport
undesirables, enact torture, and promote country-wide violence. Those are the
conditions they believe will become reality.
Just as conservatives are sick to their stomachs at the thought
that unborn children do not have rights, liberals likewise are sick to their
stomachs at the loss of reproductive freedom. I posit one reason Trump won this
election is that conservatives swallowed their distaste of the man and decided
abortion was that important. Why can we not understand that this issue is just
as important to the other side? ‘Don’t tell me to smile,’ said one my friends
recently. ‘Don’t tell me it’s going to be okay.
I see the anger and disbelief by liberals who believe that almost
50 percent of the country is more racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic than
they feared. I am tempted to be furious at their suggestion. In fact, I was
initially angry when I began seeing those statements on election night. You know what
else happened? I got called out on the irony of my anger at Republicans being
treated as a monolithic group, while addressing my writings to all liberals as
a monolith. They are not a monolith. Not everyone upset at this election
is a spoiled elitist millennial. Not everyone having a cry-in session or giving
out free hugs is weak. Not everyone furious at this election is a hypocrite who
does not understand how democracy works. In fact, most are not ... We always
scoff at liberals for not expanding their bubbles. We say they control
mainstream media, education, and live in ivory towers. We laugh at the story of
the New York woman in shock over Reagan’s landslide election, who said she knew
not one person who had voted for him. But we can be just as guilty."
This was well done. The last line is the best. "I am going to give him a chance and
we, the historically disenfranchised, demand he give us one too."
My psychology and sociology courses at UChicago tell me this rings
true. I have often thought the more we
characterize ourselves by differences, the more divided we believe we are.
"Throughout the entire 2016 election campaign, the New York Times ran a front-page story
on Donald Trump almost every day. But every one of these articles was a
personal attack—portraying Trump as a poor businessman, a tax cheat, a
womanizer, a cad. Never once, if memory serves, did the Times run an
intelligent piece on the issues Trump was campaigning on.
Identity
politics is almost by definition the politics of hate.
It is based on convincing people that they have been victims, that they have
grievances and that people outside their group are responsible for their
suffering. This type of politics necessarily creates its own backlash.
When voters hear speaker after speaker
at the Democratic National Convention list all the groups they are for—blacks,
Hispanics, women, gays, etc.—they have to be really, really stupid not to
notice that if they are a white, straight and male, they are not on the list.
No wonder they flock to the other party.
Donald Trump throughout his campaign never said one word that could be
characterized as anti-black or anti-gay or anti-Semitic. Even though he was
insensitive about Hispanics and Muslims, he made clear over and over that he
was not anti-Hispanic or anti-Muslim. Yet he is being accused of arousing
hatred in every corner of the country."
Another excerpt:
"Think
about that while you consider some relevant facts. It was Donald Trump who took
on the establishment in Palm Beach, a city with a notorious reputation for ugly
prejudice that goes back for decades—opening his hotel to blacks, Jews and everyone else. And, in all of American politics you will find nothing more
hateful and incendiary than the efforts of the NAACP, the Democratic Party and
even Barack Obama to inflame racial passions in order to drive black voters to the
polls. They are much worse, for example, than the rhetoric of David Duke.
(See “Which is the Party of Hate?”)"
Just to play devil's advocate - today's heavy
lifting looks at a scenario when a minimum wage law actually would make sense.
Give it a read.
My takeaways:
1. Monopsony rarely if ever occurs in the free
market.
2. If it did, technological advances could
eradicate monopsony at any time.
3. And even if it did occur, and existed for a
long period, monopsony would still require government to set a minimum wage law
for every employer at that employers individual level of power given the
preferences and elasticities of demand for labor in each individual firm
market. (BTW these preferences can and do change at a moment’s notice but even
if they remained static it is not possible to maximize benefit because
maximization is inherently probabilistic.)
4. So suppose points 1,2 and 3 above somehow
don't pose a problem - we still have to have a government that is extremely
political and partisan in nature. Additionally, it is run by a bunch of
people trying to get reelected or pushing their own agenda.
5. And finally, there is yet another
wrinkle:
"But
matters get yet more complicated once the dynamism of the global economy is
taken into account. With consumer demands frequently shifting, with new
market opportunities always opening, and with new production techniques
regularly becoming available, the optimal minimum wage for each employer with
monopsony power changes over time – perhaps monthly or weekly (or even daily).
If, for example, the demand for firm A’s output falls tomorrow, the
optimal minimum wage for firm A also likely falls. If under these
circumstances the state fails to lower firm A’s minimum wage, this failure will
cause some workers to be unemployed."
This means that the firm level of monopsony minimum wage pricing would need to be updated at all moments to reflect changing market dynamics.
If all that works under your view of government, then maybe,
just maybe, there is a role for a minimum wage. But it sure took a lot to
get to a scenario in which the benefits of a minimum wage law are even
remotely plausible.
Are the American people really too dumb and the politicians too
corrupt to not realize that guaranteed issue and community rating are simply
incompatible no matter which way you twist turn and fudge it? If someone
has cancer it costs money to provide health care. Either 1) they
shouldn't be covered and the costs can remain low in an insurance plan or 2) they
are provided insurance and the whole group pays a higher cost to cover the risk
of a few having cancer. If you force everyone to get insurance, you have
chosen option number 2. Prices for insurance will surge. This is
what we are seeing right now on the exchanges with premiums going up more than
30% in many states. It really is not rocket science folks.
Is Trump a moron or a genius? I truly cannot tell.
Returning power to
the states and localities has two big benefits:
1. Less divisiveness
"A weak federal
government would produce little divisiveness because there is little to be
divided over. A strong Federal government would produce significant
divisiveness since there is much to be divided over. It also goes to say that
an absolute government would create absolute division while the absence of
government would not produce a division because there isn’t any risk of having
your life dictated by distant populations."
2. Reduced
cost by eliminating the middle-man known as the Federal government:
"On average,
the Federal government consumes 50 percent of all the taxes paid in this country. This means that, if the average
holds for Colorado, and the State is likely further disadvantaged because of
the higher income bracket, residents are sending $1 in taxes to the federal
government for every $1 in taxes that are collected from them that go to the
State or Local governments. In other words, Colorado residents have no say in
how half their tax resources are used. Worse, Colorado residents would likely
do a better job administering the exact same programs and do so for less
because most Federal programs do little more than return the money back to
equivalent State agencies. This means your State is having to cover the overhead of 2.7
million Federal employees whose sole purpose is to take money from your State
then give it back again with orders on how to spend it."
“’Our nation’s Framers got a lot right,’ wrote Dana
Nelson, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt chair of English and American studies at
Vanderbilt University. ‘But they got something major wrong: they assumed that
the three branches of our government would remain co-equal, maintaining the
Constitution’s delicate balance. Over time, the executive has become the
dominant branch. Presidential government replaced congressional government over
the course of the 20th century.”
"For example, we know President Obama has unilaterally authorized the assassination of American citizens abroad. We do know that he lied about doing it. We do not know how many or why. President Obama has unilaterally denied the writ of habeas corpus to detainees not accused of a crime. He has unilaterally commenced war."
We are on a slippery slope folks. You may have been happy with Obama doing what
you agreed with but now that same power is in the hands of Trump. Scared?
"All the tears shed and anger felt by
those who wanted a different outcome prove one thing: statists have little
understanding of reality or human nature. These people can be accurately
described as utopians. They object to
Trump building a wall, but not to the fact that the president has the power to
build a wall. The record of history is abundantly clear that this is not the case. The
greater the power that is granted to a state, the more that power will attract
those who ought not to have it."
Has this ever been truer then now, when we, ahem,
elect Donald Trump as our next president?
"People say those who place their trust
in the market are wide-eyed utopians. That our systems would require angels to
function well. In fact, it is the
statists who are the utopians. They are the ones who believe that, once
created, an all-encompassing state can be controlled and used only for good;
that the humans who wield that power will use it for the good of society and
not to enrich and protect themselves and their friends. Libertarians and market anarchists understand
that power only attracts the corrupted and will only serve to corrupt them
further. This is why we reject the legitimacy of force in the normal conduct of
human affairs. That is why we reject an expansive state as an effective and
ethical form of governance. So if you
are feeling the sting and the fear, please understand that the problem is not
Trump. The problem is a government that is capable of causing this fear."
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