Monthly Archives: April 2017

Melissa Etheridge Smoking Marijuana with Children

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melissa-etheridgeSinger Melissa Etheridge recently gave an interview where she talks about smoking marijuana with her two older children. The comments are predictably judgmental although there are more people defending Etheridge than I expected. Count me among them.

I could make a lot of arguments comparing marijuana to alcohol. I had my first sip of beer at the tender age of ten from a can my father was drinking. I drank wine even before that at Passover celebrations. I could point out she lives in California where marijuana is perfectly legal. I could mention Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and marijuana can be a useful appetite stimulant. I’m going to forego all of those arguments for another that strikes directly to my Libertarian ideology.

What Etheridge does in the privacy of her own home with her adult children is none of your business. You don’t have any right to tell her how to behave both from a legal standpoint and more importantly, from an ethical position.

We are so overly sanctimonious in this country that I sometimes get physically sick to my stomach reading comments. I don’t care how much better you think you are than someone else, mind your business. I don’t care how your parents chose to raise you, mind your business.

I don’t care if you’re opposed to people smoking marijuana, mind your business.

The vast majority of people in this country or overly interested in what everyone else is doing. We have become a nation of busybodies and tattletales. I’m reminded of one of the great lines from The Right Stuff.

The John Glenn and Scott Carpenter characters are upset that some of the other Apollo astronauts are engaging in premarital sex with pretty young women interested in mingling with the heroes. The Alan Shepard character tells them off with Mr. Glenn, you are way out of line. I’d advise you not to try and foist your view of morality on anybody else in this group.

Exactly.

My morality is mine. Yours is yours. And that’s just fine. If you want to do things differently than I’d do them, fine by you. I can choose not to associate with you, but it is not my job to tell you how to lead your life.

We, as an entire nation, are way out of line. Do not question the way another person goes about doing their business. It’s one of the most important lessons I learned while at college in Idaho. The way another person goes about their business is largely none of your concern. We need to be far more worried about how we go about conducting our own lives and far less about everyone else.

This holier than thou attitude is not good. It pervades every aspect of our lives. Maybe I’m an old curmudgeon but it seems to me with the advent of always available media and communication we are more than ever concerned with things that are just none of our business.

If Etheridge wants to smoke marijuana with her kids then more power to her. If you choose not to do so it doesn’t make you better or worse than her, just different. Stop pretending otherwise in some self-delusionary attempt to make yourself feel better.

Mind your business.

Tom Liberman

Too much Celebration in Sports or not Enough?

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celebration-rulesI was watching the St. Louis Cardinal’s latest debacle on Sunday Night Baseball when the announcers, bored with the game, started to discuss Yadier Molina and the excitement and celebration he showed during the World Baseball Classic.

In baseball, there are a fairly large number of unwritten celebration rules. The basic idea is that when you celebrate a home run or some other even too greatly you are humiliating your opponent. That by celebrating your victory you are showing disrespect to the opposing team and players. In the past, the players in the game took care of this themselves. If you celebrated overtly you might get a high fastball in your next plate appearance. The same went for virtually every sport in which I’ve participated. In tennis, believe it or not I played competitively in my youth, if you celebrated too much you’d get a tennis ball in your ear the next time you got close to the net.

Currently the NFL and the NCAA have rules in place about how much you are allowed to celebrate before incurring a penalty. The announcers spoke about wanting more excitement and celebrations in baseball, but also worried lines could be crossed.

It’s an interesting and difficult problem to solve. I actually agree there is far too much celebrating going on in sports these days. I think it does show a lack of respect for your opponents when you jump up and down to celebrate a lucky single or have a sack dance when your team is winning by twenty points.

Personally, I find all the celebrating intrusive and disrespectful but other people love the emotion involved. They, like the announcers, think sport needs more celebrating, more emotion. Who is right, if anyone?

I think it’s incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for a league to codify celebration rules. The more they try to do so, the greater imagination players show in pushing those boundaries. In addition, penalties for celebrations that affect the outcome of the game disturb me. It takes the result out of the hands of the players and puts it under the discretion of officials.

Every rule increases the burden on the officials and the more important the game, the less likely the regulation is to be enforced. Officials often put their whistles in their pockets as the stakes grow higher. Still, even then, how long before a championship game is greatly affected by an official meting out punishing for a celebration? Do any of us want that?

This is where my Libertarian ideology comes into play.

A critical analysis seems to indicate that there is no way to create effective celebration rules. That doing so creates further problems and doesn’t address the issue itself. Therefore, the answer is to simple let the players celebrate as they will. Let other players react as they will.

There are rules about delaying the game and that is enough.

I’ll be annoyed by nonsensical celebrations after minor successes while others will be upset by a pitcher who throws a high, hard one after such revelry. We can’t have everything we want in life and this rush to create rules that will supposedly fix things, but instead make them worse, is not the answer.

Tom Liberman

How do We know there is an External World?

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kant-external-worldA philosophically minded friend posed an interesting question on Facebook about the External World that I’d like to take a moment to examine.

I’ll try to summarize his basic question in more layman terms than he used. As we live our lives certain things happen to us. We react to these events as if they are external to our own imagination. At its simplest level; when I set a cup of tea down on the table and it doesn’t fall to the ground, I learn something. My behavior is modified. In the future, I confidently set that cup of tea down on the hard surface knowing it will not fall and make a mess.

This could be something I’m making up in my mind. There are almost endless possibilities. First among these is that cup and tea simply don’t exist at all. Another possibility is that both exist but I’m living in some sort of controlled environment where the cup levitates at level equal to the height of the hard surface upon which I thought I set it. I’m sure you can think of many other explanations that indicate my conclusion, that a hard surface supports a cup full of delightful oolong tea, is false.

This is a question examined quite thoroughly in The Matrix, a movie my friend enjoys greatly. In that movie, external reality did not exist at all. Everything was internal to the electronic signals coursing through the brains and bodies of the imprisoned populace.

That is largely my friend’s question. I shouldn’t say just his question; for it is something philosophers like Kant and Descartes spent considerable time and energy examining.

The response to that I find most appealing is: Any answer is irrelevant and the question itself is an exercise in mental gymnastics. It’s not wrong to engage in healthy exercise for the mind or body but we get about as far as if we ride twenty miles on the stationary bike. The tea mug stays on the table because that is the reality in which I live. The tea cup will always stay on the table and no amount of doubt will change that fact. I admit any of the alternate explanations listed earlier are possible, I just don’t care. I’m putting the tea cup on the table regardless. Everything I do in my life is based upon experience driven repetition. I know behaving in certain ways will return the desired result. My goal is achieved.

I suspect my friend will not like that answer. He will demand proof these external events that I think I’m witnessing are actually occurring.

He suspects, or at least I believe he suspects, the world is not as we see it. That some external agency, be it machines as in the Matrix, aliens as in They Live, or some other force, controls our lives. Makes us imagine we are seeing and doing things when in fact we are not. He might believe our lives are some sort of mix or reality and illusion created by this external force. He might think these otherworldly things are placing obstacles and rewards in front of us like scientists with a group of mice.

He will dazzle you with philosophical terms and rail against the seeming impossibilities that occur around us on a daily basis. Let’s say you see three cars in a row going the other direction; one a Porsche, one a Lamborghini, and the final one a Ferrari. This is all but an impossibility from a statistical standpoint. You can name any three makes and models of cars and the chance those exact three will be the next three to pass in the other direction is highly unlikely. And yet, every moment on the road, three particular cars pass in a configuration that is all but impossible.

Impossibilities are not an indication of an external reality beyond our perceptions. They are simply the natural course of random events taking place, as they always do.

That, I think, is the answer my friend hopes to find. Impossible is happening all the time. We must not confuse this for external influence on our lives. We must learn to distinguish improbably normal from impossible.

In conclusion, my answer comes in two parts.

  1. It doesn’t matter.
  2. It’s not as weird out there as you think.

Overbooking at Airports and Hotels is there a Solution?

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OverbookingThe recent case involving United Airlines has brought to the forefront of people’s consciousness the industry practice of overbooking on flights and in hotels. I understand the United Airlines case didn’t actually involve overbooking but that’s irrelevant to the topic at hand. The question is, should the airline and hotel industries engage in the practice?

In order to make a judgment in this regard we must understand why they do so. Overbooking is done primarily to maximize profits. There are always people who book a hotel room or a flight but don’t show up when the time arrives. This translates into losses for the airline or hotel as they would normally have reserved that ticket or room for someone else. Now it is too late to do so.

The problem occurs when fewer people fail to show up than are overbooked. The flight or hotel now doesn’t have enough room for all the customers. This is resolved in a number of ways, generally by offering incentives to take a later flight or providing a room at another location.

But how is it solved? There are basically two methods.

Laws might be passed that forbid the practice. This leads to decreased profits for the industries involved. Hotel rooms go unfilled and flights take off at less than maximum capacity.

The second method is for the hotel or airline to voluntarily refuse to overbook. This generally involves non-refundable transactions. If you purchase a ticket and are unable to make the flight or stay, you do not get any of your money back. It is as if you actually took the flight or stayed in the hotel.

Both solutions have significant problems.

When we reduce profit, there is a negative effect on all aspects of the business. The company might not be able to employ as many people, they might economize on things like safety, they might even go completely out of business. If laws are passed in one state or community rather than another, we create obstacles to the free market. One supplier has an advantage over another. In addition, companies are now given an incentive to break the law. When you make breaking the law profitable, you encourage crime. Companies that find ways around the restrictions are going to be more profitable than those who follow the regulations. These criminal companies succeed where their competitors fail.

The second solution is problematic for the consumer. Sometimes when we miss a flight or fail to stay at a hotel the cause is unavoidable. Perhaps a death in the family or an illness. It comes across as cruel and certainly generates an enormous amount of bad publicity in this information age to force people to pay for tickets under these circumstances. People lie. It would be impossible for an airline or hotel to track down everyone who failed to show up and prove their excuse, a death in the family, didn’t actually happen. Thus, they either stick to policy or face social media retribution.

I totally understand the outrage of a person who suffers because of overbooking. I’d be angry as well. I just think it’s important to understand the cause of a problem before going about trying to solve it. In this case, there are solutions but they are imperfect.

That’s the nature of this world sometimes. Contrary to what people might be saying, there aren’t always easy solutions.

Happy travels, my friends!

Tom Liberman

Masada Admirable Rebels or Foolish Martyrs?

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masada-fortressAlmost two thousand years ago Roman soldiers besieged Masada which was held by a splinter group of Jewish people called Sicarii. This group strongly opposed Roman occupation of Judea and carried out a terrorist campaign to prosecute their beliefs.

Eventually less than a thousand of them took refuge in Masada where they held out for a few months before Roman engineers finished a ramp into the fortress. When the Romans finally arrived, they found the Sicarii had all committed suicide rather than be captured.

This event has come to be celebrated as symbol of Jewish heroism against overwhelming odds although another opinion is that it was simply a group of violent extremists who forced the Romans into drastic action. That the Sicarii brought about their own deaths because they refused to accept reality and engaged in a series of assassination against not only the Romans but any residents of Judea who they deemed sympathizers.

Which was it? Heroic martyrs or violent extremists? I think the answer to that question contains a great deal of value to the modern world. I won’t keep you in suspense. It’s apparent to me the Sicarii were violent, murdering, extremists tied to a hopeless position and willing to drag down anyone who opposed them.

The Roman occupation of Judea was generally, as were many Roman conquests, enlightened. The Romans brought their laws, clean water, and other benefits with them. This was one of the main reasons they were able to conquer much of the world. The daily lives of the average person improved under Roman rule as compared to the previous government.

I’m not saying it was all wonderful for everyone. Certainly, the leaders of the former regime often met gruesome fates or at least lost their power and prestige.

The reason I mention this is because the modern-day equivalent to the Sicarii are radical Islamic terrorist. The people who are carrying out the most horrific and terrible violence against innocent civilians would actually be far better off under the rule of those who they see as invaders. They live under despotic, theocratic rulers who allow them very little freedom and restrict their general well-being in any number of ways.

The terrorists are essentially fighting to preserve their own misery. As individuals, they have committed to a particular side and refuse to compromise in any way or even accept the fact their leaders are far from ideal.

While the terrorists are somewhat responsible for their own circumstances there are other culprits. The western world spent many years exploiting these nations for their mineral resources while propping up said brutal dictators. We are still doing so.

I think it’s important to understand that we can only be responsible for own behavior. We can’t tell a terrorist to stop her or his suicidal course. When we seek out and kill terrorists, when we support brutal dictators, when we cause terrible hardships through economic sanctions, we only push more and more of the population to terrorism. We can only control our own actions.

That’s a little bit off topic as to my point today. I’m saying that we all have choices in life. We should make decisions that are going to be in our long-term benefit. The Sicarii chose a path that led to their own destruction and did not benefit their nation in any way. Modern-day terrorists are doing the same thing.

The United States is making choices that create far more terrorists than we kill and has been doing so for some time.

What choices are you making?

Tom Liberman

Perceived Value of Starbucks Coffee and Organic Eggs

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starbucks-perceived-valueA friend of mine on Facebook recently passed along a meme comparing the price of a dozen organic eggs to the price of a coffee at Starbucks. The ostensible reason for the post was to ridicule people paying five or more dollars for a coffee who then complain a dozen eggs is too expensive. The reality of both situations is something called Perceived Value.

The basic idea is that people want value for their money. The relative worth of a product and the value associated with expenditures are different for each person. For some people a dozen eggs has much more value than a cup of coffee from Starbucks, while for others it is reversed.

I don’t want to get into a long discussion of Perceived Value, although it’s certainly a fascinating subject. I want to examine why people in the United States, and much of the developed world, seem to value a cup of flavorful coffee at a higher level than a dozen organic eggs.

It’s because cheap eggs abound and we don’t need to purchase expensive eggs to stave off starvation. There are plenty of eggs in this part of the world. Eggs go for a very low price thanks to factory farming and other capitalistic endeavors. Thus, we balk when we see a high price associated with a dozen organic versions of the product we could get more cheaply.

But wait, you say. You can also get a cup of coffee for less than five dollars many places. This is true; however, a cup of coffee is not a vital human need. Eggs, as in nourishment, are something we absolutely must have. If we go without eating for a long period of time we die. Eggs are a human need. Coffee is simply a human desire; in other words, a luxury. We don’t mind paying extra for a cup of coffee as long as we really enjoy it. We don’t need the coffee to survive. We justify the expense as disposable income.

The reality is we cannot change anyone else’s perceived value of a product. If some people balk at spending a certain amount on eggs, that’s their business. The same for coffee.

The important lesson to be learned is that capitalism has brought us abundance. Certainly, arguments against factory farming can be made. The practices that allow for cheap eggs are not particularly savory. That being said, we can actually purchase a dozen eggs for a couple of dollars. In fact, most people in the developed world spend far less of their income and time getting enough food to survive than do those in underdeveloped countries. This allows us to purchase an expensive cup of coffee.

I’m of the opinion this is something we often overlook in an age of abundance and wealth. Sure, things aren’t perfect, but capitalism and technology have brought many of us to a level of wealth and luxury beyond the wildest imaginations of previous generations.

Rich people are very rich but poor people are a lot wealthier than their counterparts in underdeveloped nations.

It’s going to take some time before we achieve super-abundance. Where everything we truly need is available for almost nothing at all. Where the only money we spend is on luxuries. There are still people in the developed world suffering and hungry but that doesn’t mean we should turn back to older times.

The path to this level of abundance is through the expansion of capitalism, not the restricting of it. Five dollar coffee proves it.

Tom Liberman

The Benefits of Autonomous Cars

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autonomous-carI’ve long been a proponent of Autonomous Cars, or as they are often called, Self-Driving Cars. When I try to argue for them I generally get a lot of resistance. Some people don’t want to give control of the car to a machine, which they feel less able to safely navigate the roads. Others feel the cars are likely to have their computer systems hacked.

Both of those things are fairly unlikely but I really want to discuss the many and varied benefits of autonomous cars for all of us. The arguments I present here really aren’t going to promote the march toward such vehicles. The cars are coming and there is nothing to be done about it.

One of the major benefits is simply an enormous savings in money of law-enforcement expenses and the transfer of such assets to criminal, rather than traffic, duties. That is to say we’ll save huge amounts of taxpayer money. Autonomous cars won’t make illegal turns or exceed the speed limit. They will follow the restrictions of the software, which will be to obey the law.

Another huge savings in tax dollars will be on emergency services. Autonomous cars will get into accident far less frequently than human driven cars. This means hospital services will decrease dramatically. Doctors will have much more time to deal with sick patients, not accidents victims.

More tax dollars will be saved on construction and maintenance of road signs and signals which will be unnecessary.

Your insurance payment will be reduced by the amount of liability you are paying. You will not be responsible for any accidents.

People unable to drive will be able to move about their communities as desired.

Handicapped passengers will be dropped at the front door of their destination and picked up at the same spot at a time of their convenience.

There will be no more intoxicated drivers on the road

Some fifty-thousand lives will be saved in the United States every year.

The land devoted to parking lots will be greatly reduced. Autonomous cars will deliver a passenger to the front door of a location and then motor off to park in huge lots built off the beaten path. This will create a network of shops and businesses in a much smaller area and allow the greening of your community with more parks and other amenities.

These cars will increase productivity as passengers will perform their work while commuting from their origin to their destination. In addition, the travel time from points will be reduced dramatically as the cars will be able to travel at far higher speeds than a human can manage and also in herds, thus avoiding the stop and go of normal traffic.

Security measures will prevent your car from being stolen by anyone other than an identified driver.

You will be far less stressed. Driving is, without question, the most stressful thing I do.

Travel will be increased as any destination within eight hours can easily be reached while the passengers sleep. This will lead to the closing of many small airports which are largely supported by tax dollars. Thus, yet another saving for taxpayers.

You may not like the idea of an autonomous car but your children will never learn to drive. And, in this man’s humble opinion, that’s a wonderful thing.

Tom Liberman

MOAB and the Right Tool for the Job

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moab** ADDENDUM **

Since I wrote this article, sources in Afghanistan are claiming that three caves were destroyed and 94 militants killed. I’m rather skeptical of this total seeing as no one has yet to clear the area and United States sources are silent. That being said, it that is true, then what follows is apparently incorrect.

** END ADDENDUM **

The GBU-43/B is the wrong weapon to attack caves and people supporting its use are coming up with contrived arguments to prove the value of the strike. I think it’s important to use the right tool for the job and optimistic hope that a shovel can pound a nail still doesn’t mean the shovel was used properly. Do we really want our military running on hope and using the wrong tools?

I’ve been in a number of discussions on various social media outlets about the effectiveness of the GBU-43/B against protected fighters in Afghanistan. The issue has largely been the GBU-43/B is designed as an Air Blast weapon to clear soft targets from the surface and to explode mines over a large area. Its very name indicates as much, Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB).

The United States military has a number of other weapon systems called Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) which are designed to penetrate caves and bunkers to destroy their targets.

The problem here is the caves are not a single target but a massive complex and the MOP can only strike a small portion of them. Meanwhile, the MOAB does affect a much larger area but only on the surface, not caves.

What I’d like people to think about is the design purpose of the GBU-43/B, the way it was used in Afghanistan and, most importantly, why and how they are defending the strike.

It’s my opinion that people are defending the strike because they support aggressive action against enemies of the United States holed up in the caves of Afghanistan. I don’t begrudge them this attitude. What I’m suggesting is that we should pound a nail with a hammer, not a shovel. I’m also saying it’s counterproductive to support people pounding nails with shovels. Tell them they are doing it wrong. Give them a hammer.

If you saw your enemy spending considerable effort in making attacks that were useless would you be frightened by the inarguably massive power of the attack or emboldened by the sheer stupidity of the misused weapon?

Most of the arguments I’m getting from supporters is the concussion of the blast might destroy tunnels below ground. This is true. It’s unlikely, but possible the force of the air on the surface might collapse a small section of the tunnels directly below the blast. The vast majority of the force goes sideways and destroys targets on the surface, as is the design parameter of the ordnance.

Basically, people are arguing the shovel is a good pounder of nails when it clearly is not. This because they want to support the strike. Again, I get you support the attack. I’m just suggesting that we use the right tool for the job.

If you have to contrive an argument to support your point, well, your point might not be so valid. Something to consider.

Tom Liberman

Turn North Korea into a Parking Lot?

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north_koreaA rather common refrain I hear from people is the idea of using nuclear weapons to completely destroy a particular enemy of the United States. I probably first heard this in regards to Iran not long after the revolution in that nation, today I mostly hear it in reference to North Korea.

The idea is that North Korea doesn’t have the ability to damage the United States in return and they do not have resources we’re much interested in acquiring. If we simply use nuclear weapons on them we don’t risk any soldiers’ lives and solve the problem.

But what does saying something like “Turn North Korea into a parking lot” indicate about the person saying it? I think it’s fairly important to examine this idea. I’m of the opinion that most people are saying it rather flippantly, they are not really thinking through the idea nor do they actually want the plan carried out. Still, it’s important to consider your words. When you say something, other people hear you. People who respect and trust you often repeat your sentiment. It’s one of the ways fake news gets legitimized. When someone you respect gives an opinion, you are prone to believe it and repeat it.

So, let’s examine the consequences of turning North Korea into a parking lot by using nuclear weapons.

North Korea is a nation of nearly twenty-five million people. It has a land mass of forty-six thousand square miles. It is adjacent to U.S. ally South Korea and important trade partner China. It is less than a thousand miles from central Japan.

In order to completely destroy North Korea, the U.S. would likely have to drop hundreds of nuclear bombs. We could destroy the major population centers and military institutions with fewer but it would require a considerable effort in either case. We could attempt to bomb when prevailing winds would minimize the drift of the nuclear cloud. Most likely we’d kill, maim, and radiate hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in Japan, China, and South Korea in collateral damage.

In addition, North Korea has considerable artillery assets which are well within range of Seoul. They would almost certainly bombard much of South Korea before the full effects of the nuclear attack could be achieved.

Obviously, we’d be killing the vast majority of the population in North Korea; man, woman, child, and unborn infant. For me that’s an issue of simple ethics, morality.

In addition, we would be establishing a pattern of behavior where we are willing to completely destroy an enemy. This has a two-fold effect. Proponents argue it would frighten our enemies, who would immediately come into line with our desires. There might be some truth to that but the reality is our enemies would simply plan to completely destroy us before we could do the same to them.

I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t want to flatten North Korea. I’m just suggesting you consider the consequences of such actions before you advocate them. What doing so would infer about your own humanity and decency, the effects your spoken and written sentiments have on those around you.

Tom Liberman

Little Carmine Lupertazzi Really was an Idiot

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little-carmine-lupertazziLittle Carmine Lupertazzi is a character from the Sopranos and, if a fan of the show, you know he was generally portrayed as rather dimwitted. He often used malapropisms. He made poor managerial decisions and was largely not respected.

What’s interesting is that in the years after the show’s end his character has given rise to a rather popular theory that he was only pretending to be stupid. That in actuality he was luring his enemies into a false sense of security and biding his time to take over the family business. It is commonly, if not universally believed, the show’s controversial ending was actually the culmination of his nefarious plot. That he ordered the assassination of Tony Soprano and took over both families.

That’s what I’d like to discuss. Naturally we cannot prove anything one way or the other as it is a fictional show. Still, I’m of the opinion that it gives us an opportunity to examine the idea of how to be a good writer. Or at least one aspect of being so.

It is extraordinarily important to be honest with your audience.

Let’s imagine you are a mystery writer and the butler did it. You need to conceal this from your audience until the final reveal. To cover up the fact the butler did it you have an eyewitness see the butler somewhere else at the time the crime is committed. Only at the end of the novel do you reveal the butler has a twin brother. That is a betrayal of your audience. They have been given information which they used in their thoughts about the novel as it progressed.

This is bad writing. Your audience will be angry at this contrived conclusion.

Now, if you established the butler has the twin brother at some earlier point, then you have not betrayed your audience, you have merely fooled them. There is nothing wrong with this. The audience slaps their forehead and exclaims, “Of course! I should have known that. It was mentioned earlier.”

That is good writing.

This is why Little Carmine Lupertazzi is no secret mastermind. There is nothing to indicate as much. He is almost always portrayed as an utter fool.

We can say many things about the Sopranos as a television show but we cannot accuse the writers of being bad at their craft. We must assume the writers are good writers based on the content they provided us during six glorious seasons.

This is not just about Little Carmine Lupertazzi being an idiot. It is also a blueprint on how to be a better writer.

To a certain degree this is what separates excellent entertainment from its more common peer, garbage. What makes a good television show? Good writing, good acting, good directing, good lighting, etc. It is the sum of all these parts that brings us quality entertainment. Of which we desperately want more.

What books do you most enjoy? Movies? Television shows? Think about your favorite characters and ask yourself if their story was written in a consistent fashion.

We all want quality entertainment. Better television, better movies, better books. More shows like the Sopranos. That being the case, we must accept the fact that Little Carmine was an idiot.

Tom Liberman

Why are Manufacturing Jobs in China?

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manufacturing-jobs-chinaI just read a lengthy but amazingly interesting article describing a firsthand account of working in a Chinese electronics factory, apparently one of the better ones. The account of what happens in the factory and how the workers are treated is an eye-opening experience. It also explains why manufacturing jobs are vanishing in the developed world.

Why so illuminating? Not because it gives the reader an insight into the working conditions of the workers. I have, nor do I think most people have, any illusions about that particular issue. It’s fascinating because it shows, in the starkest possible terms, why such manufacturing is happening in China and other less-developed nations.

There is good, bad, and awful about how these factories operate. I’m not going to go into detail on the various issues. My goal today is to simply explain why such jobs are being performed in China and other countries like them.

It’s really quite simple. In developed countries, we lead amazing and largely wonderful lives. We have access to things people in other countries can only dream about. China and countries like it have a huge and largely disposable workforce. Turnover rates at such factories are enormous. Young people come, work a few months or so to earn enough money to help their families, and then leave.

Suffice it to say that the workers in developed countries would simply refuse to work in such conditions because of our way of life. I’m fairly certain the so-called bad guys here, factory owners, would not want a world in which such factories were possible in the United States.

Consumers drive business. If the United States were China or Mexico as far as the average user’s buying power, well, manufacturers wouldn’t be able to sell their product. They would go bankrupt.

What’s happening is that we have disparity. Wealthy nations have workers who don’t want to do awful jobs whereas poor nations have a plethora of such employees.

The good news is that such jobs, unpleasant as they are, raise the economic profile of countries like China. As the average Chinese citizens gets more wealth then there will be fewer workers to do this sort of work. Automation in the form of robots will continue to take over.

As wealth increases so does quality of life. Eventually the entire world will catch up and there will be no profitable way to exploit workers in this fashion. Not without turning back the clock in way that is detrimental to the super-rich as well as the poor.

This kind of manufacturing job is gone. It won’t be back. And that’s a good thing.

Tom Liberman

Charging Bull and Fearless Girl Statues at Odds in more ways than One

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Girl-and-Charging-BullThe fight between the Charging Bull and the Fearless Girl just left the park and headed to the courts!

I am the son of a lawyer, the brother of two lawyers, and the cousin of even more lawyers. I find law fascinating and when I read the artist who created the Charging Bull, Arturo Di Modica, plans to file a lawsuit against New York City in regards to the Fearless Girl statue placed nearby, well, I had to learn more. And learn I did!

I suspect Di Modica doesn’t have a case seeing as he installed the Charging Bull as an act of Guerilla Art back in 1989. The police seized it but then replaced it a few blocks away because of its popularity. It has remained there on a temporary permit ever since. The worst-case scenario for the city is likely that Di Modica moves it to a new location, at his expense.

Di Modica is a rather litigious fellow so we will see.

Meanwhile, the statue of a young girl facing down the bull was commissioned, created, and placed by State Street Global Advisors as part of an advertising campaign coinciding with International Women’s Day. This statue is referenced as the Fearless Girl. It was placed legally with a permit for one week. It also proved popular and the temporary permit has been extended in the same way as the Charging Bull’s was.

Another incredibly interesting thing is why Di Modica is planning to involve the courts. It is something called Artistic Integrity. Di Modica believes Fearless Girl changes the integrity of his art. The Charging Bull is meant to symbolize aggressive financial optimism. Fearless Girl staring down the bull seems to change this meaning. Now, at least in the minds of some people, Charging Bull is a symbol of aggressive bullying.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think Di Modica has a chance in court, but I still wanted to examine this idea. I’m an artist. I write books. Is it really up to me challenge the meaning one, or many, of my readers choose to assign to events in those books? When Jon Gray tangles with High Priest Amalagaz I certainly intend the scene to have particularly meaning, specific artistic integrity. There is a point to it.

If a reader came to me with a completely difference conclusion, I’d certainly explain what I meant by the scene. That being said, I’d have no legal basis to challenge the right of someone else to believe what they want. Likewise, if Barnes & Noble chose to put my ostensibly Sword and Sorcery Fantasy books on the shelf with Mystery Novels I would have little recourse other than telling them not to sell my books.

I strongly suspect Di Modica is simply drumming up publicity and his threatened lawsuit will eventually go away.

Still, I’m glad he filed it because I learned a lot of things today. I hope you did also.

Tom Liberman

ATF Agents Breaking the Law to Make Money

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loose-cigaretteThere’s a great story in the New York Times that is a follow up to one they wrote back in February about how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) used a secret account to pay for all sorts of things.

The articles expose any number of egregious problems in ATF but I’d like to focus on how the account in question was supplied with millions of dollars.

Basically, agents authorized their informants to purchase untaxed cigarettes and sell them at a profit. They then used the revenue generated to fill the account.

It’s really important what’s happening here. The ATF is doing the very thing they are arresting other people for doing. They are doing exactly the thing that resulted in the death of Eric Garner.

The government is breaking the law ostensibly to stop people from breaking the exact same law. The law itself is stupid. If New York decides to put a ridiculously high tax on cigarettes they make it possible for entrepreneurs to bring in product from other states and sell it at a profit. In order to prevent such activity, they create more laws. I’ve written about this stupidity before so I won’t wax poetic here today.

What we’re seeing here is simple market dynamics. The state of New York, and others, created some taxes making certain behavior profitable. The state and federal government then attempted to stop people from doing the profitable thing. Eventually they realized how profitable was the system and began to do the same thing.

That’s natural. That’s capitalism in action. This chain of events is something that needs to be considered every time a legislative body passes a law or institutes a tax.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens all the time. Legislators pass new taxes to raise revenue for whatever reason, they pass laws to prevent particular behaviors. This often create criminals. In this case, the very agency tasked with stopping such people.

Think about it. If the tax incentives criminals, what hope does it have of having long term success? Yes, it will raise revenue, that’s true. But how much money is spent enforcing the laws engendered by the tax?

I think it can argued that all we’re really doing is taking money from cigarette smokers to give law enforcement agents work. Work created by the original misguided taxes.

It all could be avoided if we didn’t tax cigarettes so highly. All because we don’t like smokers and don’t mind taking their money.

For the record, I don’t smoke.

Tom Liberman

FCC Decides Against Cell Phone Use Because They’re Noisy

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cellphone-airlineYep. Not because they pose a threat to communications between pilots and air traffic controllers. Because FCC Chairman Ajit Pai thinks people want some peace and quiet in flight. Pai believes the government has the right to prevent you from using a cell phone because it might disturb someone else.

This is government that Libertarians like myself not only hate, but fear.

If there was a technical reason using your cell phone on a flight was dangerous, I’d fully support the airlines preventing you from doing so. The reason Pai doesn’t mention this as an excuse is because there is little evidence doing so is dangerous.

In a survey, it was found the majority of people don’t really want the person next to them on the plane gabbing away on her or his cell phone. And therefore, the FCC seems to be of the opinion that it should be made illegal. That because people don’t like it, it should be against the law.

I’m certainly not opposed to each airline creating rules about cell phones. If one airline wants to restrict their use during flight then that’s their business. Consumers might flock to that airline for the silence. Other consumers might patronize airlines that allow cell phone use because of the convenience. That’s a free market. That’s the way it should be.

This is an important distinction. When the government is allowed to make things illegal because other people don’t like them we’re treading in dangerous waters. Let’s face facts. We’re not merely treading in such waters. We’re up to our necks with our heads tilted back trying to breathe.

The United States is certainly not a totalitarian regime. We have many freedoms in this country that are not available in places like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China. I’m grateful for those freedoms but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight against even minor grievances like this one.

The government has no good reason to restrict the use of cell phones on planes. We should not be making laws based on what the majority of people may or may not find annoying. Remember that someone else might very well find something you do to be irritating. When you support government restricting someone else, you inevitably open the door to rules prohibiting you from doing something you would enjoy. Resist such temptations.

Tom Liberman

 

Mozart vs Salieri Talent or Hard Work

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mozart_and_salieriI was browsing through YouTube when I came across a clip from the movie Amadeus where Mozart plays a piece written by Salieri without any effort and then improves it within seconds. In the comment section below, someone mentioned how talent is better than hard work.

A number of other people immediately lambasted the original poster saying that talent was nothing more than a lot of hard work. I thought I’d examine the idea here today.

Let me relate a personal story. I was a pretty decent athlete as a young fellow. I had excellent hand-eye coordination, was moderately strong, and had decent foot speed. I loved sports and dreamed of becoming a professional athlete. In sixth grade I was playing flag football with some other kids and doing quite well when a talented athlete took the field. He literally ran circles around me. No matter how I tried I was unable to grab his flag. He was faster, quicker, and plain better. Not by a little either.

It was then the realization dawned upon me that I was not nearly as good as I imagined. I suppose this happens to almost everyone as they progress in their chosen field; athletics, music, sciences, writing, or anything else. As you get better so too does the competition. Hard work can only take you so far in this world.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge advocate of hard work. The superstars of the world combine both hard work and talent. Hard work will get you many places in life that talent alone will not. Plenty of talented people don’t work hard and fail to succeed. I’m just pointing out the reality of talent. You know it when you see it and you can’t get there by hard work.

What’s the lesson in all this? I think it’s important to understand your limitations. It’s fantastic to reach your maximum potential through hard work, study, and practice but it’s also good to recognize there are things beyond you. Understand these things you will never achieve, playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, are not personal failures. I just didn’t have enough talent to play major league baseball. That’s reality.

If I had worked harder I certainly could have done more with my athletic talent but I moved on to other things. I like to think I’m a pretty good writer and I work hard at that. I study the structure of good writing. I practice my craft regularly. I hope that I will enjoy success. That’s a good model to follow in life.

Do the things you enjoy doing. Work hard at them. Study and understand the best way to perform these things. But understand sometimes someone else is just better than you. And that’s ok. And so are you.

Tom Liberman

Strict Rules at the Masters a Good Thing?

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The-MastersThe Masters golf tournament just finished up with Sergio Garcia winning an epic battle with Justin Rose. Sergio has had a long and successful career but always fallen short in the Majors so it was quite wonderful to see him win and the emotion of the triumph. However, that’s not what I’m writing about today. As a Libertarian I want to examine the nature of the stringent rules for spectators at The Masters.

There are rules against using cell phones, rules against running, and plenty more. Spectators who violate the rules not only risk being removed from the grounds that day, but also losing their ticket forever. That’s right. Forever. The Masters tickets are strictly limited and the only way to get new ones is if someone else gives up their own. Thus breaking the rules carries serious consequences and most people do not do so.

Now that we know the consequences are serious I’ll turn my attention to the rules. Said regulations are certainly the purview of the people who run the Masters. They can make whatever rules they want.

In other, less popular, events such rules would likely drive away their audience and cut into their ticket sales.

Watching the Masters on television is rather pleasant because there are not as many spectators yelling banal encouragements or trying to distract the actual competitors.

The lesson to be learned here is important from a Libertarian perspective. Those who run the Masters created in environment in which many people want to participate. Television networks pay huge sums of money to broadcast the even. Advertisers pay even more money for the right to run commercials during the event. Spectators hope against hope to even have the possibility of getting tickets.

But there is something else to discuss as well. Prior to 1990 the club where the Masters is held, Augusta National Golf Club, did not allow black members. Prior to 2012 they did not allow women members. These policies threatened their audience. People were rightfully upset about such racist and misogynistic rules. Fewer people wanted tickets to the event. Fewer people wanted to watch on television. The event itself, if they continued such policies, risked serious reduction of revenue. Even players began to at least think about not attending in protest over such rules.

The government did not force Augusta to change their policies. Several members resigned. Corporate sponsors faced heavy criticism from those who consumed their products and put pressure on August as well. It became in Augusta’s self-interest to change their rules and they did.

We often rely on the government to right social wrongs but it is generally unreliable in such matters. There will always be those who hold racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and other vile views. They are often in positions where they can discriminate. People can effect change where the government is powerless. Something to keep in mind.

Tom Liberman

Jordan Spieth – Tiger Woods Misleading Headline

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spieth-woodsThis one is a doozy! Jordan Spieth tees off on Tiger Woods in Epic Shade Throwing reads the completely false and malicious headline from Sportsnaught and Vincent Frank.

Clickbait at its absolute worst. Not only does the headline make it appear as if Spieth said something nasty about Tiger Woods but the article pretty much matches the headline. It talks about how Spieth was throwing a “whole heck of a lot of shade.”

Give me a break. Spieth pointed out his game is not based on hitting the ball long but on accurate approach shots and strong putting. Thus the methods used at the Masters to lengthen the golf course for Woods and other long hitters wouldn’t be effective against Spieth.

It was not shade. It was not even directed at Woods. It was simply a comment on his style of play.

Congratulations Sportsnaught and Vincent Frank, you win Misleading Headline of the Week!

Tom Liberman

Shayrat Air Base Launches Fresh Attacks Undeterred

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Shayrat-Air-BaseSigh. Double Sigh. Triple Sigh. It’s a mess. A big, horrible, horrific, terrible, nightmarish mess. Syria. The Syrian Civil War rolls along. Long before Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical weapon attack on Khan Shaykhum on April 4, 2017; over 300,000 died in the war. Many of them children.

The images of the terrible chemical attack somehow managed to touch the sensibilities of those who were completely oblivious to the hundreds of thousands dead prior to that.

President Trump launched a supposedly devastating attack on the Shayrat Air Base which “severely degraded or destroyed” the base according to the United States military. So degraded and destroyed were they that Assad ordered and carried out raids from the base within 48 hours. According to sources not the United States, the military base was lightly damaged and, because the Syrians had warning of the impending attack, almost no planes were lost and there were few casualties. The majority of the Tomahawk missiles missed their targets.

Sigh.

Our political leaders told us there would be an immediate change in Syrian policy.

Sigh.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced they will deploy more air defense systems in Syria to counter future threats.

Sigh.

I get it. Assad is a horrible person. Using chemical weapons is awful. But what do we hope to accomplish? What possible good can come from this attack? What possible good can come from almost any action we take? If we somehow overthrow Assad does anyone imagine things will be better? Those that take over will somehow be wonderful humanitarians?

Why are we there? Why the drumbeat to war? Our interventionist policies have wrought nothing but horror throughout the Middle East, horror for the inhabitants of those countries, and horrors for innocents all over the world.

It’s nauseating to do nothing while terrible things are happening in this world. I get the urge to punish wrongdoers. I understand the rage at the inhumanity of Assad and his allies. I just don’t see anything good coming out of an intervention in Syria. Nothing.

If the action you’re taking isn’t going to do any good, aside from making you look like you’re doing something when you’re not, maybe you should think about not taking said action.

Just a thought.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy all About Freedom

Trouble at America’s Malls so we Blame Who?

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malls-closingNewsflash! American brick and mortar retail stores are closing in record numbers. What sort of genius do you have to be to figure out why? Not much of one. Total sales aren’t going down, just sales in such stores. More and more people, me included, are purchasing online.

Yet every time I read an article in one business publication or another about how malls are losing their anchor stores and closing down in record numbers, the comment section is filled with tirades about President Obama or President Trump. Filled. I’m not willing to start counting comments and tell you what percentage want to lay blame on one of the two major political parties. Nor will I bother figuring out how many rational people explain there is no blame to be laid, it is simply an example of changing market environments.

This is what happens. This is why buggy whips, to use the example from the hidden gem Other People’s Money, are no longer manufactured in large numbers. This is economics. This is capitalism. While many people benefit from this there are, and always will be, losers. The people who lose their jobs in the malls. The companies that go out of business.

In the end capitalism will benefit the majority of us. We get a product at the price we want without having to leave the comfort of our Tom Pagnozzi locker room chair given to me as a gift many moons ago. I love this chair but that’s beside the point.

It’s obvious why malls are closing. Everyone knows the root cause. It’s not rocket science. I don’t believe people are so stupid as to think political policy is driving this trend. I think their motivation is to convince someone else to further their political agenda.

What can we do about this? You certainly can’t argue someone out of their position on this because they really don’t believe it anyway. You can call them stupid if you want but that’s not really helping matters. You can certainly ignore them and that’s largely what I do. I think often times that’s the best strategy. Don’t get into a pointless debate. Don’t call them idiots. Don’t get enraged. Simply ignore them.

The other possibility is to do what I’m attempting to do here. Plainly, clearly, logically, and without malice lay out some facts. After that it’s just not your responsibility any more. You can’t think for other people, speak for anyone else, or act for anyone else. Do what is in your power to do.

The world would be a better place if we all could ignore provocation and follow the excellent advice of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Don’t Panic.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy all About Freedom