What are Republicans today, anyway? George Will: As much socialists as Democrats these days.

George Will had an excellent column today:

Rent-Seekers Run Amuck

Is fiscal conservatism really so dead in America today?

Just remember some of his examples the next time you hear about some new tax being “temporary”, or “only for a particular purpose”.  How many times have those words turned out to be true?

I voted for Barr in the election.  Not because I had any misconception about his chances, but because enough votes for those with fiscally conservative views will hopefully help influence the national discussion.  Supporting Ron Paul.  Voting for Barr.

At this point I would even be ok with Obama raising taxes, as long as he went Clinton’s path towards balancing the budget.  Even with big spending, if we can get closer to the point where we are realizing the actual cost of all of these programs and foreign interventionism then at least we can have an honest discussion about fiscal policy.  But as long as costs can be deferred, or hidden, then it is almost impossible to have honest discussion.

I’ve never been a Republican.  I went from being a Democrat to being a libertarian, because that stage where people used to become Republicans never took–the fiscal principles that used to pull the youth as they grew older into Republicans has vanished.  Compare Clinton to either Bush, and it’s no wonder the current generation likely sees Democrats as, if not flat-out fisally more responsible, more honest and knowledgeable about what things cost and how you have to find funding for what you want to do.

Conservatives can say all they want that tax revenues rise when you lower tax rates.  But if you’re spending billions upon billions in new government programs and foreign interventionist policies, and now government bailouts, that doesn’t wash.  Republicans have to become much more rational about spending, and that includes what we are able to do internationally.

[/soapbox]  You go, George Will.  Tell it like it is.

McCain needs some damn Bobby Knight in his blood.

Can McCain really be surprised by this?  Ads run by the RNC, or with McCain’s own endorsement, tangentially or by implication fan the very flames he tries to put out here.  And while he’s trying to find a pail to put water in to douse the fire he’s started, his VP pick isn’t just blowing on the ashes, she’s picking up flaming logs and chucking them all over the place.

If McCain and his campaign were totally innocent of starting and/or fanning these rumors around, then maybe I could say he’s doing the honorable thing by what he says.  But at the end of the day I just don’t believe that.  Too many ads endorsed by him that dance around these topics with a wink and a nod, and too much of Sarah Palin being out of her depth.  Way out.

Without knowing him personally, I do figure John McCain is probably a pretty decent guy.  Some people (my wife among them) can’t get past the affair (true whether it is Republican (her lean) or Democrat), but with all the mistresses and affairs of world leaders, here and abroad, I’m not going to pass judgment there.  But what I get the feeling is happening here is that instead of setting tones and choosing directions, he is being carried by the current of the river of his party and supporters.

Having gone to IU during the Bob Knight years, I am reminded of an incident I witnessed while attending a game.  Some fans were shouting . . . unpleasantries at the opposing team (could have also been the refs).  During a time out, Knight grabbed a microphone hooked up to the PA system.  He didn’t meekly say “Now, I know the other team’s coach and their players, and, why gosh golly gee, you’d be ok if they were here, on this bench, in place of me and the IU team.”  No, He took that microphone (capitalization intended . . . that’s the kind of presence he was in a room, no matter a closet or a stadium) and said (paraphrased) “CUT THAT CRAP OUT.  STOP GIVING THE UNIVERSITY A BAD NAME, AND ACT LIKE ADULTS.”  It went on for a bit longer than that, but you get the drift.  His personality was the kind that set the tone, it didn’t follow it.

Now Knight had his problems, and his personality while he was at IU was both a blessing and a curse, but when he perceived someone as out of line he set them straight.  If McCain had that in him, that fire, he would have taken that mic back and said to the whole room (paraphrase) “CUT THAT CRAP OUT.  STOP MAKING ALL OF US LOOK LIKE IDIOTS, AND ACT LIKE ADULTS.”  Then he could have said something about an Obama Presidency not being the end of the world (I’m a libertarian, and I don’t even think that) and, you know, actually sound powerful and authoritative.

But what I saw there was someone being pulled along by the current, not picking up his trident and making the water do his bidding.  That to me is a weakness, but I’m not sure where it comes from.  Certainly he is otherwise a strong and able individual, but somehow he’s gone from pulling in a positive direction to being dragged in a negative direction.  Handlers?  Party leaders?  Campaign advisers?  If what we are seeing is part of the Rove playbook, then that paradigm, at least for this election, seems to me to have been broken.

And maybe he can’t win.  Maybe, through no fault of his own, he is the sacrificial lamb that Bush and the economy and the War demand.  That is a possibility.  But if that turns out to be true, then he should take up his post and say with spit and thunder and command “!@(*&-Dammit, if we’re going down, then we’re going down with honor!”  That’s the only kind of spirit that could turn a ship like this around, but I don’t see that happening, and especially not after watching that performance above.

Calmer voices amid scare-tactic fearmongers

Quality commentary on the bailout:

Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer

It makes me sick when people lay the current financial crisis at the feet of deregulation, ignoring government’s hand in the creation of this economic Frankenstein’s monster. From the article:

This bailout was a terrible idea. Here’s why.

The current
mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal
policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and
Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the
center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these
institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and
Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.

Worse, beginning
in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century,
Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime
lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise
of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.

This subprime
lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines.
This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending
practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got
mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle.

I’ll tie this back into the debate from Friday–I’ve rarely heard so many things of which I need to be fearful. If you swallowed the debate hook, line and sinker you’d probably believe we’re on the brink of another cold war with Russia, that the economy is going to grind to a complete halt, that we should be scared out of our pants over Iran, etc., etc., etc.

Thank goodness there are people keeping a cool head in the midst of the “whatever works” school of campaigning and governing (see, e.g., fear). I know I’m going far afield here but I’ll bring it back quickly. Take a look at September’s Cato Unbound topic on responsible psychoactive drug use (brilliant discussion that I would be happy to drive traffic to). It drives me crazy that people believe it is legitimate for government to provide misleading or inaccurate information for the purpose of achieving a public policy goal.

I think it OK (meaning not unconstitutional and not outrageous if the
majority want it) for the government to promote health and well being
through public health campaigns that seek to change behavior,
particularly when the campaigns are directed toward youth. I generally
prefer for such campaigns to achieve their ends simply by providing
accurate information, but acknowledge that sometimes appealing to
emotions or providing only selective information is more effective at
changing behavior.

Don’t misunderstand the author here . . . “selective” information is merely a euphemism for lying to the public. It’s “spin” (with all the negative connotations that implies) . . . “technical” accuracy leading to inaccurate conclusions based on the knowledge of how people will interpret provided data from a “trusted” source.

Translate that into any topic . . . the economy? The War on Terror? I don’t know that all slippery slopes have the same grade, but when it comes to information we receive from our government, we seem to be pretty far down a pretty slippery slope already. I understand national security, which is to say that it is a legitimate reason to potentially withhold information, but it has been so misused over the last several decades even there it seems there is little reason to trust what we are being told.

So I take these dire warnings from Paulson in late-night meetings to Congressional leaders with much less credibility than perhaps others are. But let’s stop teasing Wall Street with a big government bailout, and let them get about the task of picking up their pieces. It can be done. We’ve seen them do it. But they’re going to drag their feet as long as there is the promise of free money out there. No reason to bite the bullet if you might get a Get Out of Jail Free tomorrow, right?

More communist than China, more socialist than France

Add this article to the one below:

How We Became the United States of France

I’m starting to wonder whether, in the “first world” of countries, there is anything other than an awful mix of quasi-capitalism, nationalistic fear-mongering, and big government (e.g. massive taxes and tiny freedoms).

Seriously, the United States certainly had its problems back when freedom meant freedom–everything wasn’t sunshine, rainbows and tulips. And our fledgling nation was helped by seemingly endless natural resources. But we are not the nation we were, and neither major political party seems to have any inclination to look back and try to cull the good from the bad. Instead we look to the new role models of the world–China for national security, France for economic advice, Russia for foreign affairs.

It’s just a truly sad state of affairs, to know that you are living in the decline of power. Had we not abused our position, had we not driven down the road to hell with the bestest of intentions, maybe we’d still lead in education and innovation. Maybe we wouldn’t be looking down our economic backs at the pursuit of China and India.

The most interesting thought to me is that for years conspiracy nuts have been talking about things like the “New World Order” or “One World Government” or whatever . . . where the shadow brokers of power consolidate governmental power worldwide into the UN or some similar body to impose the world onto the United States, to destroy our economy and our values.

Did I miss the takeover? With China adopting more free market policies, with the U.S. government taking over entire industries . . . it looks to me as if the material distinctions between major governments are fading away. Maybe we did miss the invasion, while looking to the government to save us from ourselves. Is there some first world government model that is inescapable whether you are a Constitutional Republic or a one-party authoritarian state? Are modern governments trapped into becoming nearly homogeneous because of the power of the rich and the demands of the poor and middle class?

I don’t know the answers, I only think our direction is a sad one. Neither major Presidential candidate strikes me as truly caring one whit about change. Neither truly wants to change the direction of this country. And whether that change would be massive government control, or Chiacgo-school economic reforms, at least I could respect a candidate that really wanted change. That stood up and fought for something other than a slightly more or less mealy than the status quo that we choke down every day. This path is a slow death spiral towards irrelevance. I wonder how soon we will be able to look for the next paradigm shift in government, the next evolution in moving forward? That will at least be an interesting thing to look towards.

What a wonderful world we live in.

CFI: It’s time for science and reason

Hat tip to Pharyngula.  The message this video has to convey is important, and so I’ll let it speak for itself.

You can say it isn’t totally true, but you know it’s part true. U.S. slipping towards state control (communism/socialism)

US Is “More Communist than China”: Jim Rogers

Hyperbole by the interviewee? Maybe a little.

But not by that much. The Federal Government has now taken it upon itself to prop up pretty much the entire U.S. housing market.

A mess of fomented by bad government policy, now compounded by our decision to go for the quick fix that will ensure continued pain in the housing market for years to come–read the article for some of the potential issues down the road.

Free markets aren’t pain free.  They don’t guarantee success for everyone.

But free markets and small government is a sustainable system.  What we have now, what we are moving towards, is the literal bankruptcy of government caused by decades of asinine and ignorant interventionist foreign policy, by the ever-increasing size of government both in terms of social programs and also in the restriction of the freedoms of its citizens, by the massive bureaucracy regulating in some way all facets of commerce.

Maybe the only thing not sustainable under a libertarian system is The People–democracy.  Libertarians base their belief structure on the fact that people at heart are good, and want freedom.  But when armed with the power of the federal government, and the knowledge that, at least in the short term, something can be gained “free” by nothing more than the cost of your vote to vote those in office who will take from all to give to you.  Maybe the temptations of the power of government, wielded by those in a democracy who have little to lose by adopting a policy of greed by force, is just too much responsibility for the public to handle maturely.  The temptation to take by force with no consequence.  It boggles my mind, but here we are.

This story should be linked everywhere.

Google’s Open Source Browser–private browsing

I just read via Techmeme about Google’s new, open source browser project called Chrome.

Lots of goodies, such as the potential to speed up javascript. But also a private browsing feature similar to what is in existing browsers and upcoming in IE8.

With the open source nature of the project, we won’t have to worry about back doors being embedded in closed source code. There is a legion of users out there who will be snooping around the code.

All of the tools are out there to really privatize your browsing and online communications. All we need now is a galvanizing event that really pushes adoption. I would have thought that retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies for cooperating illegally with the current administration in spying on Americans would have been an excellent trigger point.

However, I think people distinguish between making a phone call and communicating over or browsing the Internet, despite the fact that voice communications are more often now occurring over the same technology.

But if it is one thing we can be sure of, it is that there will be other, large invasions of privacy ongoing. If there are enough people not accepting of it, then the trigger point will come.

Technology moves faster and more efficiently than law or politics.

BBC reported today (hat tip to Techmeme) that the world’s market leader in internet browsing software, Microsoft, will integrate more sophisticated privacy features into IE8.  This is on the heels of other browsers seeking Microsoft’s market share in part by offering better privacy features–Safari already offers this kind of protection, and Firefox soon will officially (but probably already does unofficially through one or more user-created add-ons).

You can already search and browse the Internet almost totally anonymously, so circumstances where legislation is necessary to protect user privacy should be pretty limited.  Gmail’s privacy filters (and those of its competitors) do ever-better jobs of protecting consumers from spam and phishing atatcks.

You do eventually get to a place where the free market bumps up against privacy–how web sites handle data you enter.  Should a web site have the legal right to sell data you provide?

Tough one.  On the one hand, the FCC has stated that if a web site provides a privacy policy that they have to comply with it (presumably the one in place when you entered your information . . . you saved a copy of that, right?).  So you certainly have the right to review a site’s privacy policy before entering your information and submitting it.  Sites do not have to have a privacy policy–should the law fill one in with default terms regarding the handling of data if one is not provided?  The law already fills terms into contracts that are silent on certain points.  And it isn’t as if sites like Facebook or Amazon.com are so important that they represent an essential public service that must be provided to everyone under privacy terms explicitly set by the government.  More than that, if sites are generating revenue through some limited data selling, prices will increase for consumers if that revenue stream is cut off.

On the other hand, who is actually going to sue based on the FCC’s statements, and how easy is it going to be to prove that one particular web site violated a user’s privacy?  Is it really fair to put such an onus on the average consumer to protect his/her personally identifying information and online activity?

I work in the software industry for a vendor whose software may handle credit card transactions and other types of sensitive data.  While some people may decry large corporations (I have my own conceptual issues with the legally-created fiction that is the corporate entity), it is those large corporations that have the leverage to push out non-legislative initiatives like the Payment Card Industry Data Standards.  It’s not going to protect the pictures you put up on Facebook, but it is a system designed to integrate safeguards regarding the handling of transactional information.

I’d like to see legislators take a light, measured touch in these areas.  Technology, and the market, is going to move faster than legislature, so look for those areas where the market is making adjustments, and seek to only provide a net underneath that, ideally, will be rarely, if ever, necessary.

Technology is evolving in new and awesome ways. The free market will keep up, but will we allow it?

Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games.

I really like the technology industry. It is still in America among the freest of markets, and the breathtaking advances that seem to move ever-faster I believe are a direct result.

So far even the most professional, most expensive computer animation has come up short. But the pace of progress has been increasing, and this video is the best I’ve seen. There are still minor things that would tip someone off that this is a CGI job, but still, just excellent! If AMD isn’t blowing smoke about the capabilities of its current high-end card, the 4870 X2, being able to work with not just video playback but actualy polygon and image processing and manipulation . . . we’re talking about consumer cards here, not professional video cards costing thousands of dollars!

And while the headline talks about games, think about the wide-ranging ramifications once technology like this, and better, becomes widely available. When you can create a virtual persona that is indistinguishable from a real person. It will change everything about media content, about what is possible. I just can’t stress enough how this will change media. It will be a leap forward of an order of not just kind, but an exponential magnitude. I know this pales in comparison, but if you have a chance to peruse even fan sites of content created from last-generation graphic engines . . . there is good, funny, free stuff out there even now (Red vs Blue . . . Halo humor). People with the skill to take these technologies and run.

The law will struggle and strain to adjust and compensate for the new types of issues this kind of technology will raise, and politicians . . . will they be able to help themselves or will the upcoming years be rife with new laws intended to regulate these new technologies?

I personally don’t think it will be necessary. Existing laws regarding misappropriation of someone’s image, or fraudulently misrepresenting the opinion of others, and identity theft laws (which will be entering their maturity), will do the brunt of the work. I would hate to see technology like this trigger the equivalent of Sarbanes-Oxley in the animation development sector–an overbearing morass of regulations that don’t really address the problems they were purported to be passed for, and push businesses overseas. You might see the laws do more to protect the average person, but again hopefully it is more a natural extension of existing laws and less a series of new, over-arching regulation.

It is a truly exciting time to be following technology. Keep your hands off, Washington!!

Why does this exchange require a solution to scaling up self-enforcing agreements?

Sometimes you just get too caught up in other things to keep up on a good thing, so it is with a heavy heart that I have missed most of Cato Unbound’s August discussion on Anarchy. Now, to follow up with a blog post, I am responding to content that is ancient by web standards . . . six days.

I want to revisit the exchange being had by Peter Leeson and Dani Rodrik regarding the scale-up of self-enforcing agreements. The contention seems to be that an anarchic system relies on self-enforcing agreements, and that as you scale up such economies, self-enforcing agreements break down. Therefore, self-enforcing agreements (and efficient systems of anarchy in general) only operate effectively in a small scale that may be geographically limited or involve a specific group or community where individuals know one another. Specifically, one of the problems cited is signaling–essentially in a small or closed group it is possible to communicate to the others who is trustworthy and who is not, thus creating disincentive for people to try to circumvent the rules of fair trade and dealing. How can that work on a large scale?

This may be simplistic, but I am learning more and more to trust technologies within markets. Ebay’s user group is fairly large, and is not very contained geographically, yet Ebay seems to have instituted a private system of signaling that has scaled very nicely. It does not, and does not seek to, eliminate bad deals altogether, but by enabling an easy-to-use user ratings system, those that do not abide by the rules of fair trade and dealing are identified, and thus lose out on any portion of their market that choses not to engage in the more risky behavior of conducting transactions with a user having a less-than-optimal reputation. In Ebay’s system, the beauty of the scale-up is that a user who systematically engages in dishonest behavior is actually more visible, not less. Is it possible to game the system? Possibly, but Ebay has a major incentive to monitor the efficiency of the system itself and add technologies that continue to empower users to utilize the market to maximum effectiveness.

I’m not sure exactly what I am missing regarding signaling and scale-up, but wanted to throw out this example and see if I could get some feedback, perhaps from Leeson or Rodrik. If I am Leeson, I think there are ample examples with one one can defend oneself regarding scale-up and technology, even if one cannot figure out definitively how it would be accomplished (a definitive solution which would, even in our current regulated state, make one very rich indeed).

Overall, even when thinking about a Randian system, courts exist to help enforce private agreements, and I’m not 100% convinced in today’s world or modern warfare that a large territory such as The United States could effective defend itself without a government-run standing army (despite evidence that we utilize mercenary groups in Iraq and the Middle East). But this has been a fascinating topic to follow.