Category Archives: Politics

What is Locker Room Talk and What isn’t

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locker-roomI don’t have to tell you what today’s blog is all about. Back in 2005 at the youthful age of 58, Donald Trump made some claims about how he behaves with women that are dominating the news cycle.

He has excused his words as Locker Room banter.

As many of my readers know I love sports but most are probably not aware that I played sports. I started at the age of 10 playing baseball and I was in locker rooms pretty consistently until I graduated college. I was no star but I can safely say I know a thing or two about locker rooms.

The following language is going to be harsh. If you are easily offended, triggered, or do not like vulgar talk then you should turn around and leave right now.

Locker room talk is largely men talking dirty about women. About what we’d like to do to a particular woman. I’m going to give some examples.

Example: “Did you see that bitch hanging out of her sweater in the front row? Tits as big as my head. I’d fuck her on the floor of a gas station bathroom.”

Response: “She was fine. Hellz ya.”

Example: “My wife is a dirty whore who sucks like a vacuum cleaner.”

Response: “Lucky bastard.” “Does she have any sisters?”

It is less often about actual activity but can be.

Example: “See that ho in green? I met her last night if you know what I mean.”

Response: “Damn, brother. You best be careful where you put your horse cock or that thing might fall off.”

If is often filthy jokes that have no basis in reality.

Example: “That bitch was so loose I fell in and got lost. Luckily I found a McDonald’s in there.”

Response: “Har har.”

Locker room talk is vulgar. It’s rude. It’s almost universally not meant to be taken seriously. The details of what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom.

What Donald Trump said is not the kind of Locker Room talk with which I’m familiar. The locker rooms I frequented did not tolerate talking about other people’s wives, girlfriends, or sisters. It did not include bragging about actual acts of physical aggression toward women. The lockers rooms I spent much of youth in did not take lightly talk of assaulting women. The men in there have mothers and sisters. Anyone making the statements that Trump made would likely have found their head in the toilet.

To be very clear here. Locker rooms are filled with good looking, charismatic men, they often had sexual encounters with beautiful women. Only rarely did I hear even vague details about actual encounters. “Yeah, I made out with Karen last night.” Even telling other guys that you had sex with a particular girl was generally considered out of line. A real man doesn’t kiss and tell.

There is an enormous difference between, “I’d like to get my head between those legs” and “I grabbed her pussy. Because I’m rich, ha ha, she couldn’t stop me.”

Maybe those were just the locker rooms I was in. Maybe Trump was in different ones although I can find no record of him playing athletics at all.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

Regulation Quagmire of EpiPen

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epipenEpiPen is in the news and many people are angry.

There is, in fact, quite a lot to be angry about. The government encouraged the entire thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not absolving Mylan and CEO Heather Bresch of wrongdoing. They took advantages of a system to steal perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars from both the government and average people. But the system is all but designed to be abused.

EpiPen is a medical device that injects a measured dose of epinephrine. It was brought to market in 1987 after approval from the FDA. Things get quite complicated from there and I’ll try to summarize as best I can. If you want to know the entire sordid story read the Wiki article.

Basically the manufacturer of the device changed hands many times. Each time the new company aggressively sought to protect their patent, buy out competitors, and maximize their profit. The most recent company to acquire EpiPen is named Mylan.

The United States government helped Mylan greatly with draconian patent laws. In addition the FDA makes it extremely difficult and expensive to introduce competitive drugs to the market. Using these two factors to their advantage EpiPen managed to control a monopoly on the drug.

Price Gouging is largely not illegal so EpiPen can charge whatever they want for their product, and they did. However, if getting competitive products to the market was not so difficult, if the government did not tacitly help Mylan maintain their dominance in the market, bargain price manufacturers would certainly have undercut Mylan and restored the market to an equilibrium. In a word, capitalism.

In addition Mylan used a private non-profit called the National Association of State Boards of Education to influence, read bribe, state and local governments to pass laws protecting schools from all liability when using EpiPens. This meant schools across the nation purchased that particular product because it was legally, thanks to state government, less risky. The close ties between Mylan executives and the NASBE, Heather Bresch’s mother is the president having been appointed after large donations from Mylan, is disturbing if not illegal.

Into this mix comes Medicare. Medicare is an enormous government agency designed to make sure elderly people don’t go without medical care. Among their many regulations are different fees for generic and brand-name drugs. Generic drugs pay a significantly smaller rebate. Mylan listed the EpiPen as generic when it was clearly brand-name. This meant they didn’t rebate the government as much for purchases, to the tune of about $100 million. I can only guess agents in charge were bribed to ignore the listing.

How was all of this possible? I’ll tell you. Because the government is overly involved in business. If the government didn’t help Mylan get the monopoly in the first place the price issue wouldn’t exist. If the government didn’t have an insanely complex regulatory system associated with Medicare then taxpayers wouldn’t have paid Myland tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions for EpiPens. If state and local governments didn’t incentivize schools to purchase EpiPens in enormous numbers they wouldn’t have done so.

There aren’t simple answers to these problems. I don’t pretend there are. But I wouldn’t mind if people took note of the complicity of government in the EpiPen mess. In government’s integral role in the fraud. Mylan used the government but the government is designed to be used. It begs unscrupulous business owners to join the party.

Tom Liberman

Lessons from Trump Taxes

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trump-tax-recordsThere’s an interesting story in the news about Donald Trump and his various corporations paying no taxes. Some people are outraged and others think he’s a genius. Those are not the conclusion I draw from the story.

I’ve written about this before but I’ll go over it again.

The current tax rate on corporations in the United States is 35%. Many people argue, correctly, that this is far too high but somehow nothing ever gets done. Even when Republicans are in charge of Congress and the Executive Branch the rate stays the same despite all the complaining. Why is that?

Simple. Enterprise Businesses and rich people pay comparatively very little in taxes in relation to their percentage of wealth. The actual paid rate for corporate taxes amounts to about 11%. Why is that? Because Enterprise Businesses have access to an army of tax lawyers to find shelters. They pay little or nothing in taxes for the most part. Just like Donald Trump. Trump isn’t a genius, he’s an average wealthy person with a business and good tax lawyers. None of them pay much in taxes and that’s why they love the current system. That’s why it doesn’t change. Lobbyists from Enterprise Businesses and wealthy people ensure that it won’t change.

So who is paying taxes? Small and Medium businesses, you and me. We don’t have access to high-powered tax attorneys. We don’t have access to offshore shelters. We pay the huge rate. There’s a reason why a higher and higher percentage of all business earnings and employers are from Enterprise Businesses. The system is set up to give them an advantage and they love it.

The more complex the tax code the more the person who doesn’t have access to tax lawyers pays. The more the code is designed to stop the wealthy and powerful from paying the more it actually benefits them. They find the loopholes in the increasingly complex system that the small business owners and regular people cannot.

People argue against a Flat Tax because the perception is that it will cost regular people more. On paper this is true. Paper isn’t reality. In reality if the tax code was simplified the wealthy and powerful would pay more even as their supposed tax rate goes down. It’s all a shell game of deceit. The wealthy and powerful love the tax code that supposedly has them paying high taxes.

Simplify the code. That’s the lesson to be learned.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

97 to 1 Must be Bad Suing Foreign Nations JASTA

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jasta-veto-overrideThe United States Senate just voted 97 – 1 to override a presidential veto of JASTA and that can only mean one thing. The legislation being proposed is either useless and/or dangerously stupid but helps the senators get elected.

In 2011 terrorists hijacked and piloted plans into several targets in the United States murdering thousands of innocent civilians. A heinous act of stupidity touching off events that ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people in Arab counties, who presumably were to benefit from the attack. So, utter failure.

The legislation in question is Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. It allows United States citizens to sue other nations when they have provided material support directly or indirectly to people who engage in terrorist acts against people of the United States. It excludes any act of war.

First off JASTA is probably a violation of our existing U.S. laws. That’s well and good but the real problem is something called comity.

Basically, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If U.S. citizens can sue foreign nations in our courts then we must certainly allow foreign citizens to sue the U.S. in their courts. Members of Congress acknowledge this fact readily enough and yet vote yes anyway, sigh. Bob Corker, a senator from Tennessee sums up what a lot of others who voted for this nonsense are saying: …concerns about what this bill’s going to mean to America.

What JASTA is going to mean for America is a big giant legal mess. Not only will the United States be liable for a drone strike that killed a civilian but so will everyone indirectly involved. Boeing and my friends and relatives who work at Boeing.

Hundreds of thousands of lawsuits will follow. Not that any of them have a chance of success but they’ll need to be dealt with in a real way.

And of course there’s that zero chance of success business. U.S. citizens can sue Saudi Arabia or another other country all they want. They aren’t getting a dime. It’s completely and utterly useless. I wouldn’t mind useless. When our politicians do useless things it keeps them occupied from doing damaging things. The problem is that this isn’t just useless. It’s damaging. It damages our ability to deal with other countries after we inevitably deny their legal claims against us.

This is our country. Short sighted and willing to propose and enact legislation that we know is bad simply to pander for votes.

Anytime I see a piece of legislation get a 97 – 1 vote I know it must be awful. Harry Reid of Nevada. Kudos to you, sir. A lone voice of reason.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

Mayor Raggi of Rome says No to Olympics

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virginia-raggiMayor Raggi of Rome, Virginia Raggi, said no to the Olympics and that’s a brave thing to do.

To fully understand why this is a rather astonishing turn of events you should read my blog post on why the Olympics are so lucrative for certain groups of people. I’ll sum up quickly in case you aren’t interested in reading that post.

There are three groups of people who make huge sums of money from hosting such events. Olympic Committee members who are bribed by Politicians. Politicians who are in turn bribed by contractors. Contractors who are then paid to build and staff venues, and sell their wares during the event.

The money to pay the contractors comes from tax revenue.

What we must understand is in this situation Raggi is a member of one of those three groups. Not only is she a member of one of those groups but she associates with many other members. While it is certainly admirable of Raggi to forego the personal bribes she would receive from contractors it’s even more astonishing that she is willing to risk the wrath of her fellow politicians who will certainly attempt to punish her for essentially taking millions out of their pockets.

I don’t really have a lot to say about this that I haven’t said before in other posts. Just hearty praise for Mayor Raggi. Well done, ma’am. I’m afraid your political life might well be compromised. That you will face sabotage and backstabbing from your fellow politicians.

Politics is a tough game, even more so when you try to do what’s right rather than what’s profitable.

Buona fortuna, Mayor Raggi. You have at least one fan here in the states.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

New York, Cigarettes, Tax Law, and Crime

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illegal-cigarette-salesThe state of New York has opened legal proceedings against UPS over the shipment of cigarettes to their state from Native American Reservations and it brings up some interesting questions about taxation as a whole.

To sum up the legal situation; New  York has high taxes on cigarettes. Native American Reservations do not. Enterprising people ship huge numbers of cigarettes into New York from the Reservations and sell them at a discount rate. They use UPS to do this. New York has laws on the books making it illegal to bring cigarettes into New York without paying the state tax.

At $4.39 New York has the highest tax rate in the country. A rate so high that shipping from other states and reselling becomes possible and profitable.

We live in a Union of States. Outside of Federal Law, these states are allowed to do as they please. New York is free to set their tax rates as they desire. I’m not going to discuss what I think about this rate. The purpose of the rate. Nor how the money is used.

What I’d like to talk about is the effect of the tax rate. It’s clear when a state has high taxes on any particular product where another state has a lower tax, we are going see this sort of behavior. In order to prevent people from bringing in product from another state the original state must pass laws making it illegal. Thus we are making something illegal that is going to be impossible to prevent.

If there is a profit to be made selling something to a willing customer in which the only entity “hurt” is the state, people are going to find a way.

I’m not opposed to New York instituting a high cigarette tax but I absolutely think it should not be illegal to purchase cigarettes in another state, ship them to New York, and sell them. The entrepreneur is making the original purchase, paying the transportation costs, and paying the expense involved in the sale. If it’s still profitable, good for that person or people.

New York is losing out on taxes but UPS and other shipping agencies are making money. The people involved in transportation and sales are being paid salaries. It’s capitalism. By making it illegal to bring in cigarettes from other states, New York is acting in an anti-capitalistic manner for no good reason.

It’s also better for the smokers in New York because they get a cheaper product. The only “loser” is the state. The state shouldn’t be trying to win. It’s should be trying to provide the best services possible to its citizens at a reasonable rate. If the state sets a tax rate on a product so high that entrepreneurs circumvent that rate; the state must either lower the taxes or accept the consequences. They should not be making the obvious outcome of their misguided tax policies illegal.

This is how the power of the state spirals out of control. Laws are passed not to protect and serve citizens but simply to ensure revenue.

And if you think that doesn’t cause harm I’d suggest you find out why a fellow named Eric Garner is dead.

Tom Liberman

How you deal with Mistakes Determines Success

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mistakes-to-success

When you tell the truth, that means that you acknowledge mistakes. Mistakes are part of everyday life. But it’s how you deal with mistakes that ultimately determines success.

How many of you agree with that statement about how to deal with mistakes? Please pause for a moment and answer the Poll below and only then continue reading.

Is how you handle mistakes crucial in future success?

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The person who said that quote it is one of the people running for President of United States of America.

There are other ways to deal with mistakes.

You can attack anyone who dares point out the mistake. You can pretend you didn’t make a mistake. You can give a fake or halfhearted apology. You can lie and claim you were just joking or being sarcastic.

But I want you to think hard about the second half of that quote. How you deal with your mistakes is going to directly effect the success you have following the mistake.

So, either Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, or Donald Trump said it. Do I need to tell you who?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

When Prisoners Work should they be Paid?

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prisoners-working-slave-labor

I just read an interesting story from the Guardian which brings up memories of movies like The Shawshank Redemption and Cool Hand Luke.

What is happening and happened in the past is prisoners in the penal system do work but are paid either nothing for this work or a few pennies an hour. We’re all aware the United States incarcerates far more of its population than any other country in the world. That we largely use private contractors to house these prisoners. These private contractors get your tax dollars to run the prisons and operate on a profit system. They want more prisoners because that accrues more tax dollars into their pockets.

Harm to Contractors

The problem here is they are using prisoners to do the work in the prisons and additional work outside the prison. This avoids payment to contractors who would otherwise be doing the work in the system. Generating further profits for work done outside the system.

Questions

Q1: Is it right to use prisoners as essentially slave labor because they were convicted of a crime?

A1: If you want prisoners to work then pay them a fair wage for their work. That’s capitalism. Certainly doing so would drive up the cost of incarcerating people but I think the reasons I’m going to enumerate in answering the other questions fully justifies such an expense.

Q2: Is it right to pay private prison contractors money for things like laundry service when the prisoners are providing it essentially for free?

A2: I’m absolutely in disagreement with this practice. If private prisons are going to use prisoners as slave labor then the government should not be paying the private company for the services rendered. The state is paying the prison to feed, cloth, house, and otherwise take care of the prisoner. The private company should be doing so out of the money paid to them from tax dollars.

Q3: What effect on other companies does using prisoners for work have on the economy of the region?

A3: This is the answer that goes to the very heart of the problem from a capitalistic point of view. Slavery was terrible for the economies of the southern states for the simple reason it took jobs away from otherwise able workers. It stole profits from companies wanting to provide the service that slaves did, and slavery worked against innovation and technology. For the exact same reasons we should not be employing prisoners to do work for free or for ridiculously low wages. Every service a prisoner provides is work taken from an able-bodied person. It removes profits that could be made for the company employing said person.

Conclusion

I’m not opposed to prisoners working but they should be paid fair wages for said work. This has additional benefits. It gives prisoners a sense of worth and accomplishment in finishing tasks. It gives prisoners money to accumulate for their eventual release which makes their rehabilitation into society significantly less difficult. Prisoners should also have access to educational material so that they can, should they so choose, improve their chances of getting gainful employment when released.

Finally I’m opposed to using prisoners as slaves simply on ethical grounds. It is wrong to force another person to labor without wages under any circumstances. Prisoner or not.

What do you think?

Should prisoners be paid fair wages for their work while incarcerated?

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Tom Liberman

ITT is Shutting Down because they can’t get Government Money

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ITT-Technical-InstituteThere’s an extremely telling news item this morning about ITT Technical Institute and judging by the comments I’m reading, most people don’t understand why the news is important.

In a nutshell, ITT Tech is a For-Profit educational institution. The government has accused them of fraud and deceptive practices. The school looked into ways to defend against these charges and decided that their only choice was to shut down operations at their 130+ campuses. This after a series of lawsuits and federal raids.

What I’m seeing in the comments section is basically two ideas.

The first trend is that it’s about time the government shut down this institution that was preying on young people and giving them false hopes and a sub-par education. That this is the role of government and they should be shutting down more such schools.

The second series of threads is from those who think this is an example of overbearing government persecuting the school. These people argue students are responsible for signing up for the classes. No one forced them to take out loans, which are defaulted at an alarming rate.

Both points of view have some merit but I think miss the real problem.

The government didn’t shut down ITT for their practices. Those investigations are still ongoing. The government didn’t shut down ITT at all. What the government did was tell ITT they were no longer eligible to receive government backed loans. Once ITT could no longer get such loans, their only choice was to shut down operations.

The lesson from this? The government, essentially your tax dollars, was completely and totally supporting ITT and, in fact, almost the entire For-Profit educational system. That’s what is wrong. That’s the root of the issue.

There’s nothing wrong with For-Profit educational institutions. If the government didn’t get involved by giving out trillions in student loans then the successful schools would be those that provided their students with a quality education at a fair cost. Those would have been the schools that attracted the most students because of fair prices and good education. That’s capitalism in action.

What happened is shady institutions interested in taking government money with little or no obligation to the students became dominant in the industry. Students had, and continue to have, little choice but to attend a school that is interested mostly in gleaning profits from government loans, not providing a quality education at a reasonable price. There is far more money to be made fleecing the government.

That’s the problem. The fact that ITT Tech has to shut down in the face of the loss of government money proves the point.

It’s not the government’s job to decide which business should survive and when it does so it causes far more problems than it solves.

The problem it is trying to solve is getting young people an education and allowing them to enter the workforce. It’s a noble idea but it causes huge problems. Let financial institutions loan money to students to attend such schools. These institutions will only give loans to students attending schools that have quality programs because the financial institutions have a vested interest in getting their money paid back. Unlike the government which just collects more tax dollars and rolls right along.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

Online Poker in California and Crony Capitalism

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online-pokerI watch an extremely entertaining fellow by the name of Jason Somerville play poker on Twitch and if there is any subject that can rile up the mild mannered, friendly fellow, it’s the people who are trying to stop online poker from becoming legal. It was during one of his rants on the subject that I became aware of legislation that is pending in California.

The problem with this bill is that it allows only existing card clubs and the California Native American tribes to host the websites. This means that the established online poker sites would not be able to compete. In addition, the vast majority of the money taken in from such online gambling sites must be given to the horse racing industry. This to cover for the expected losses to that industry from wider gambling options.

That’s the very definition of crony capitalism. Basically the tribes now host the majority of gambling in the state of California and they don’t want competition. There is a huge amount of money involved.

You may not realize how much bigger California is than the rest of the country but the numbers are mind-boggling. California has the sixth largest economy in the world, tied with France. They produce fully 13% of the total agricultural output of the United States. They purchase enormous amounts of products produced in the other states who are quite dependent on them as a consumer.

I tell you all this not to brag about California but to give you the reality of the amount of money that is at stake. Those Native American Tribes want that money and they don’t want to share it with existing online poker sites.

If we lived in a society that actually valued real capitalism we would not consider such factors as who is to benefit from legislation. We’d simply decide if we thought gambling was something the state should allow or not allow. I’d argue against, but understand, someone who thinks the government should prevent people from gambling because it’s potentially harmful. The legislators would decide who they agreed with and pass laws.

This situation is not that. It is a product of the way government has come to have undue influence on business. Don’t get me wrong. I believe in anti-trust laws. That being said, I absolutely think the more power government has over the success or failure of a business, the more a practical business person must be involved in influencing politicians.

The more business gets involved with politics the more corrupt it becomes. Business operators become less interested in providing a quality product. They simply want to have legislators pass laws that favor their business at the expense of competitors.

What should happen in this case is simple. If California decides to legalize online gambling the horse racing operators need to work harder to get people to visit. The Native American Tribes need to either partner with the existing Online Poker sites or develop their own alternatives. That’s business.

It’s not up to government to decide who succeeds and who fails. When they do so we all lose.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

Schlitterbahn Waterslides are Dangerous but will Federal Regulation Help?

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the-verruckt-schlitterbahn

The terrible news from Kansas City about Caleb Schwab dying while riding one of the waterslides at the Schlitterbahn water park has hit a nerve with the public. The story is at the top of news feeds across the country and spurred calls for more regulations at such parks.

Currently there are no federal inspections of amusement parks at fixed locations. Carnivals and the like are subject to such rules. It is up to each state to inspect as often or as little as they think pertinent. Kansas has pretty lax regulations and the park in question hasn’t been inspected by anyone other than the owners in about four years which is before the slide in question went into service.

A Personal Interlude

First a personal story. I’ve got a friend in Austin and go to visit him pretty regularly. On one of those trips we headed to New Braunfels and spent an afternoon at the Schlitterbahn water park. We hung out and eventually climbed a large tower and went plummeting down the water slide. As we sloshed from side to side and I held on it became obvious to me the slide was quite dangerous; that if I wasn’t paying attention or was being a bit rambunctious I could easily cause myself serious injury or death. When we got to the bottom we just sort of looked at each other and neither of us suggested riding again.

I’ve had no desire to visit a water park or ride on a slide since then. I grew up going to Six Flags over Mid-America and in all that time I never felt anywhere near as concerned on any ride as I did on that water slide.

Unenforceable Rules at Waterslides

The ride that resulted in the death of Caleb has difficult if not impossible to enforce requirements. There must be two or three people in the raft with a total weight of between 400 and 550 pounds. The shortest anyone can be is 54 inches (4′ 6″) tall.

Now to the point of my blog. The terrible tragedy has a lot of people calling for Federal oversight at amusement parks and waterslides. Even with all that I’ve mentioned above, I’m of the opinion such regulations will do nothing to make rides safer.

Schlitterbahn has the most vested interest in keeping the park safe. This tragedy is costing them huge sums of money and I’m certain much personal grief as well.

Carnivals Are Not Safe Despite Federal Regulations

I’ve been to carnivals where the rides were filthy and likely unsafe. Many people are injured and killed each year on such rides despite supposed Federal inspections. Frankly, I’m highly skeptical such inspections take place regularly in any case. There isn’t enough time or personnel to make it happen.

Conclusion

So what’s the solution? While I oppose federal regulation on such rides as being both unworkable and ineffective; I’m completely for a national database to document all accidents, injuries, and deaths. The government should publish the results on an easily accessible website paid for with my tax dollars. Then it is up to the consumer to decide if they want to go or not. Vendors who operate unsafe rides will surely feel the pinch quickly.

This obviously doesn’t help those already injured or killed but the reality is nothing does.

What do you think?

What do think is the best solution to unsafe amusement park rides?

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Tom Liberman

Trump Proves Gerrymandering Dangers

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Congressional-RedistrictingThe candidacy of Donald Trump for President of the United States is proving interesting in a variety of ways and one of them is how starkly it shows the dangers of gerrymandering.

Case in point is the reelection campaign of Mike Coffman from Colorado. It is one of the few competitive races in the nation. Because of this he has to take moderate positions appealing to a broad range of voters. He must reject extreme positions.

The problem is that gerrymandering is so prevalent in the United States that only 66 of the 435 House of Representative Seats are contested. That means about 85% of the people running our government know they are going win the general election. Their toughest challenge is getting through the primary election. The primary election is where special interests and people aligned with extreme positions have undue influence. In the primary the voter turnout is very low so candidates who appeal strongly to a voting minority can and often do win. Thus we get more and more extreme candidates from these gerrymandered districts.

This in turn leads to extreme politics once the politician gets to their state or federal position. Each district is determined by the very politicians who currently sit in office. Thus they have a strong incentive to make sure they are reelected and do so with gerrymandering.

In addition it subverts the democratic process for people causing them to be frustrated and feel they have no voice in politics. For example, in the 2012 election in Pennsylvania Democrats received more votes than Republicans but Republicans won 13 of 18 seats in Congress.

New York actually counts prisoners towards their total population because it gives them more seats in Congress despite the fact these prisoners can’t vote.

What’s the solution? Not so easy. The Supreme Court has ruled states have the right to draw their districts how they see fit within certain guidelines. Basically because there are no Constitutional standards the Supreme Court and the judicial branch is largely helpless to prevent gerrymandering except in extreme cases.

The only solution I see is a Constitutional Amendment that forces states to draw their districts by mathematical algorithm.

Not that this would solve all issues but it’s a step in the right direction. Several states have already taken steps toward doing this and if 34 states agree they can force that rule upon everyone else.

I don’t think there is one solution to all the ills of the world but I think this is one step that would clearly help.

What do you think?

Would you support a Constitutional Amendment that forces Congressional Districts to be determined by mathematical algorithm?

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Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

Allowing Yourself to Be Bullied?

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bullying-and-harassment-minThe presidential election in the United States this year has plenty of “scandals” rearing their head seemingly more than once a day but the one swirling around Eric Trump and his statement that his sister, Ivanka, would not allow herself to be harassed interests me.

The basic premise is that a person should not allow themselves to be bullied, harassed, sexually abused, physically abused, mentally abused, taken advantage of, or otherwise treated poorly by another person.

I think there is a small amount of merit to that idea on a basic level. If a person is subject to any of those things they should immediately stand up for themselves. However, the reality is standing up for yourself can have serious negative consequences. Often times the bully is physically stronger or in a superior position within the organization. People want jobs, a marriage, an education, they are not in a position to just leave as Trump suggests.

Saying no can mean losing your job. It can mean putting yourself in danger of serious physical damage. It can mean losing your friends. It can mean losing your family.

To suggest anyone who is willing to put up with some sort of bullying is complicit in the bullying is largely mistaken.

I’m going to tell you a personal story on this subject. In my high school I worked for the yearbook staff. We had a teacher supervisor but it was mostly us putting together the yearbook. The last quarter of the semester was largely sitting around doing very little because the yearbook was mostly complete and there wasn’t much to do. The supervisor was one of those teachers who hates students. She was a bully. She would make up stuff to do and intimidate the straight A students with threats of a bad grade. I was a straight C student so I didn’t much care. One day she gave us a test. It was an incredibly stupid test with dumb questions about the yearbook. Who knows where she got it. We all seethed but the other students, top honor students who needed a good grade for the most part, sat down and took the test. So did I. But, in a fit of independence I wrote some choice words on the test. “This test is bullshit”.

I got suspended for three days. Barely a blip to what others risk and yet it took some courage to make the stand I made.

For a rising young journalist who is sexually harassed the choice might have been between accepting it or ending his or her career. For a spouse being physically abused the choice might be to accept it or lose her or his marriage, children, or even life. For a young student it might mean the loss of a degree and years from his or her life starting fresh in a new place. For an athlete it might mean losing her or his position on the team.

Yes, you can stand up to the bully but there can be terrible consequences for doing it. The idea that people allow themselves to be bullied has a ring of truth to it but doesn’t stand up to examination. We all put up with things in order to get along with our lives. We do it everyday, anyone who says otherwise is living in an ideological fantasy realm. The more we want something, the more power the bully has over us because we are willing to accept more abuse.

The real problem, it goes without saying, is the sicko who takes advantage of a superior position and gets their jollies harassing those beneath them.

When you grow up rich, with every advantage, with many options; it’s easy to think you can’t be bullied, it’s just not true.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

Corruption Wins – Supreme Court Vacates Bob McDonnell Case

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BOB-MCDONNELL

An interesting corruption case has been slowly moving through the court system here in the United States. The Supreme Court rendered their decision in June of this year.

The former Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell and his wife received gifts, trips, loans, and other items from a lobbyist of a pharmaceutical company. During oral arguments before the Supreme Court the justices seemed to be of the opinion that the way McDonnell went about doing his business was perfectly normal. Their line of questioning seemed to indicate that accepting trips, gifts, loans, and other largesse from lobbyists was so pervasive that to put McDonnell in prison would essentially open every politician to such prosecution and bring government to a stop. That a political motivated prosecutor could attack anyone from the opposite party at will.

Corruption is Already Legal

The final decision indicates the court thinks corruption is completely institutionalized and there is nothing to be done about it. They vacated the sentence against McDonnell in a unanimous decision.

The point seems to be that for a government official to be charged with corruption related crimes they must state a willingness to work on behalf of the person giving the bribe. If they simply take the bribe and give that person access to public officials. When they work to pass legislation helping the briber, that is not a crime. Only if the politician explicitly declares plans to help the person in exchange for the gifts is it a crime. Good to know … if you’re a politician or a lobbyist. Don’t ask, don’t tell indeed. Here’s a trip to Europe for you and your family. Have a house for your child, a Rolex for you, say no more, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Where do I Stand?

So, you are probably wondering, where do you stand on this issue, Tom? I’m glad you asked because I’m happy to tell you.

The Supreme Court Justices were perfectly correct. If what McDonnell does passes for criminal corruption then there are precious few members of Congress that should not be in jail. It is the norm. Lobbyist providing fine dinners, alcohol, sports tickets, trips, business favors to family and friends, loans, and gifts is rampant and pervasive. A zealous president with no morals, a mean streak, and a vindictive personality could well order the Justice Department to attack and imprison all foes using this case as a precedent.

It’s reality. I certainly don’t like it but I’m also a pragmatist and I don’t think there is a judicial fix to the corruption that pervades our system of government. Crony capitalism is entrenched.

Solutions

What to do? There is no simple answer. The main issue seems to me to be that legislators control how well a business does by passing legislation that favors one company or another. By allowing politicians to control business we invite corruption. If we limit laws regulating businesses, we limit the interest a business owner has in influencing a politician and the ability of said politician to favor a particular business.

The less power government has the less interested is anyone in influencing the politicians.

Tom Liberman

Brian Everidge, Seinfeld, Recycling, and how we Create Criminals

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michigan-recyclingThere’s an instructive story in the news today about a young entrepreneur/criminal named Brian Everidge who stole a plot from Seinfeld and tried to recycle some 10,000 beverage  containers gathered outside of Michigan. Michigan pays ten cents for each such container which is the highest price in the United States.

This refund fee is paid for when the original container is purchased by the consumer with a ten cent surcharge built into the price.

The idea behind the plan is to encourage people to recycle. This is government trying to get us to behave in a way they desire. It certainly has an effect as Michigan has the highest recycling rate in the nation. This number must be taken with some skepticism because clearly people like Everidge are bringing in containers from surrounding states and collecting the deposit, thus boosting the rate.

There is another side of this. Consumers are paying ten cents for every such container but about 10% of them are not being returned for deposit. So, what is done with this “extra” money? That’s where we start to see ulterior motives. 80% of the money is given to the state earmarked for the cleanup of polluted sites. The merchant selling the bottle gets the other 20%. That’s a lot of money.

In addition we make criminals out of people like Everidge. Certainly everyone who lives near the Michigan border takes advantage of the system to purchase outside the state and redeem within.

Proponents of the plan will point out that it saves the state money in cleanup and also helps the environment. That is completely correct.

I’m certainly not opposed to recycling nor blind to its cost benefits. My problem here is the ten cent fee has created thousands of criminals. This is a pattern we see everywhere in the United States. Laws which are designed to be helpful essentially create criminals and encourage criminal behavior. The result of the fee should have been painfully apparent.

I’m not going to offer alternative solutions here, of which I’m sure there are some. My point is we should not write laws that encourage people to be criminals, no matter the other supposed benefits.

This is how we end up with a police officers spending their time pursuing things that should not be criminal in the first place, how we alienate police from the communities they serve, how we create a prison population second to none in the world at an expense of $74 billion a year.

We should not be looking for more way to put people in jail. For laws that give people a financial incentive to commit crimes.

I recognize this is an isolated incident and a relatively minor law but I find it educational. This is a law that tries to encourage people to recycle but in fact encourages them to break the law.

Legislators, think hard before passing laws. We have far too many and the result is plain to see.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

Pokemon Go Shaming and Fear

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pokemon-go-memeAs if you didn’t already know, a game called Pokemon Go has become hugely popular in the last week.

Along with its popularity I’ve seen a huge spike of news stories and comments in social media attacking the game and its players. The question I want to try and examine today is why is there all this hate and fear?

The object of Pokemon Go is to physically wander around in public places and collect virtual Pokemon. These are little creatures that do battle with one another. A player who has stronger Pokemon can defeat players with weaker Pokemon. Thus it becomes necessary to collect ever stronger Pokemon to win battles. Players can join teams where groups battle one another. What makes Pokemon Go different is that you have to venture out into the physical world to find and collect your combatants. And people are doing it by the millions.

People are getting out of their houses and wandering the world at strange hours and visiting places they might not have visited before. They are getting exercise they would not normally get. They are meeting strangers whom they would not normally meet. Social boundaries are crumbling as people who would never so much as give each other the time of day because of their jobs, race, religion, sexual orientation, or physical locations are now meeting and finding common ground.

That, my devoted readers, is causing abject fear in the establishment. I know it sounds like I’m making way too much out of this but the plethora of news stories about the dangers of playing Pokemon and the social shaming I’m seeing everywhere must have an explanation. People of all religions, colors, nationalities, ages, sexes, and sexual orientations are finding out they have something in common besides our traditional way of separating ourselves. They enjoy playing the same game.

And, by golly, that’s with whom we should be associating! We should hang out with the people who love the same things we love regardless of all those other factors. Factors which are often merely the circumstances of our birth.

Look at that forty year old, white computer programmer sitting on the bench with those two young black men in baggy trousers teaching the police officer how to play. (That’s one of the few positive stories on Pokemon Go I’ve seen). You’re fooling yourself if you think images like that don’t frighten the authorities. What would the world be like if people with the same interests hung out with each other and didn’t worry about what everyone else was doing?

What would happen to nations? To boundaries? To government?

I know, I know, I’m making way too much out of this. Still, my friends, go play Pokemon Go and make some friends you otherwise would never have met.

Be afraid, authority. Change is coming and it comes from unexpected sources.

Is Pokemon Go just a game or something more?

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Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

Made in America is Meaningless

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make-america-great-again-hat-minI just read an interesting article that is a mix of clickbait and excellent writing. At the heart of the article is the idea that products available to consumers around the world are almost impossible to define as Made in Wherever.

The headline attracts readers who are eager to learn that Donald Trump hats proclaiming Make America Great again and sporting a Made in America label are, in fact, at least partially produced abroad. Once you get past the political nonsense there’s an important and interesting message in the well-written article.

The problem is tracing the origin of all the materials needed to make a single product is not easy and in most cases simply impossible. Oil is used to make many things besides gasoline and certainly gasoline is used to transport the products from the factory to the store. The origin of this gasoline is impossible to trace. The oil came from the ground but it was shipped, refined using chemicals, shipped again, and eventually arrived at the pump. The same is true for virtually everything you purchase.

The article goes into detail about how even with microscopic examination of the threads used in the Trump hats its pretty much impossible to tell where they came from. It’s possible to rule out certain threads and one of the Trump hats was made from thread not in the lots it reportedly came from. But that’s totally beside the point.

The point is that we have a global economy. There’s no way around it. Raw material is mined or produced all over the world. It is then shipped to another location to be processed. Then parts are shipped somewhere else to be assembled. The assembled parts then go to a warehouse somewhere and are eventually shipped to a store where you purchase it at a low price. That low price is absolutely a product of the global economy. Without it prices go up and you cannot afford the things you currently enjoy. That’s reality.

Made in America is meaningless. There’s no way to ensure it is accurate nor should we care if it is. Is the product in the store the one I want at a price I can afford?

Made in America doesn’t keep jobs in America, it doesn’t improve the American economy, and it most certainly does not get you a better price on the goods you desire. Products largely produced in China create and maintain many, many jobs here in the United States.

If you want to pay $20 for a Trump hat supposedly, but likely not, made in America or $5 for a Trump hat supposedly, but not completely, made in China, that’s your business.

I’m saying I want the best product at the best price and the global economy provides that far better than any local economy.

You may not like it, but it’s true.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray

The System isn’t Always Rigged – Libertarian Convention

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banner_2016_libertarian_convention-minAs many of my democratic and republican friends lament the “rigged” system in which a series of complex rules bind or do not bind delegates to a particular candidate during their party’s nomination process, another system was on display this weekend in Orlando, Florida.

My party, the Libertarians had their convention. You probably didn’t hear much about it for a number of a reasons. One reason is that Libertarian candidates do not generate many votes, they hold no national offices, and precious few state positions. There is another reason and one I’d like to offer up as a contrast between the way the Republican and Democrats do things as compared to Libertarians.

We’ve had a long nomination cycle, which continues, in which voters in each state and territory of the union vote for candidates. Delegates then cast their vote for the candidate. The Republicans and Democrats have complex rules about how delegates can vote and many are bound to the choices the voters made. These rules are changed and modified each year, largely in an attempt to get a particular candidate nominated. Look up the Ron Paul rule for an example.

At the Libertarian Convention a delegate is bound only by her or his conscience. There is no state by state vote. Rules are not arranged to ensure a particular candidate is guaranteed victory or an upstart is shunted to the back of the room. The Libertarian Convention almost always has a Contested Convention. That is a convention in which none of the candidates receives 50% of the vote. Thus diplomacy comes into play in vote after vote until a consensus is finally reached.

In a Libertarian Convention delegates are not barred if they represent a candidate who stands little chance of winning. Delegates feel free to boo the candidates who express ideas with which they disagree. The room is not filled with flag-waving non-delegates designed give the impression of unity and support. Libertarians welcome dissent. Like in life, we embrace opposition for it is only by testing ourselves that we reach our full potential. It is only by listening to alternate ideas that we come to know all our options.

Now you know how we do things. Which system do you think is best?

Is it better to have bound delegates and many rules or unbound delegates who vote their conscience?

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Tom Liberman

Government to Regulate e-Cigarettes but Why?

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e-cigarette-regulationElectronic Cigarettes burst onto the market in 2004 and now the government plans to regulate them in the same way they do traditional tobacco products. This despite the fact that e-cigarettes don’t use tobacco.

Today I’d like to address an issue slightly deeper than just this particular piece of legislation which was announced in 2014 giving producers two years to submit an application for approval. This application costs money and the e-cigarette manufacturers are claiming an approval must be submitted for every flavor and nicotine level available for sale. They claim the costs for such submissions would drive out all the small market e-cigarette manufacturers leaving only the largest companies.

I don’t know if this is true or not but I do know that the justification for such regulations and applications is outdated. There was a time when the internet did not exist and getting accurate information about the efficacy and danger of particular products was nearly impossible. I can understand that government officials felt it their responsibility to prevent essentially toxic products from being put on the market without at least some sort of warning.

I’m not opposed to the government employing a laboratory to test the content and health effects of tobacco, alcohol, and other products. I’m not opposed to the government using my tax dollars to disseminate information about said products on government managed websites. I think those are good things. I’m not under the illusion that a business would never market a harmful product with deceptive advertising and cover up the dangers. That sort of thing happens all the time, greed and human nature being what they are. To pretend otherwise is simply foolish.

However, with the advent of the internet and the availability of information I don’t see why the manufacturer has to provide relatively useless warnings on their labels and apply for expensive approvals. It seems to me that such rules and regulations are not intended for the safety of the population but simply generate revenue for the government and empower Crony Capitalism in order to support the largest manufacturers who fund political campaigns.

This is not the job of government.

The Information Age is a fundamental change in the nature of the world. For a Libertarian like myself it is the opening of a door into a utopia of personal freedom. If I want to use a product I can do my research and find out its nature. If I plan to buy a chicken from the grocery store, I can learn about the factory or local farm that raised it and how that chicken lived its life. Then I can make an informed decision on which chicken to buy. This was not possible until recently.

I’ll repeat, I do think the government has a right and responsibility to inspect, collect information, run tests, and publish the results for all to see. After that it is up to us. Should we choose to smoke tobacco then we know the risks and suffer the consequences of our actions.

We must trust people to live their lives in the manner they choose. We may not like. It might not be healthy. But it is ultimately their life and their decision. If they have the information they need to make an informed choice, that is all we can do. If we try to make that decision for them, even for their benefit, we end up causing far more harm in the long run.

As I point out in The Girl in Glass I – Apparition, freedom is free, it’s just not safe.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition
Next Release: The Gray Horn

Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the role of Government

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elizabeth-holmes-theranosOverview

There’s a fairly big story in the news about a company called Theranos and its founder, a woman named Elizabeth Holmes.

Holmes founded Theranos based on the idea that they could perform accurate lab tests with a few drops of blood, using a secret test called Edison, when before it took vials to do the same thing. The promise of such tests and the charisma of Holmes was enough to attract over $800 million in investments. The original claims of Holmes, who attended Stanford in an attempt to get a degree in Chemical Engineering but dropped out, were met with skepticism by the medical community but that didn’t stop hopeful investors.

Building the Labs

Theranos built their labs and began performing tests for companies like Walgreen’s. Eventually it came out that the Edison test Holmes and Theranos claimed was accurate was anything but. Their lab conditions did not meet any sort of standards and they were actually using machines built by competitors, not Edison testing machines.

At one point Theranos tried to get a contract with the United States military. Military inspectors found serious problems in Theranos labs and asked the Food and Drug Administration to step in and investigate. This request was denied by Marine Corps General James Mattis. Mattis then retired and took, among other things, a position on the Board of Directors of Theranos.

The latest news is that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is considering banning Holmes and Theranos from owning or operating a laboratory for up to two years. They became embroiled because the company was collecting money from those government services.

Role of Government

That’s all background though. What I find interesting is the role of the government in all of this. What Holmes did was clearly dangerous to many people. Patients and their physicians were getting bad lab results and acting in good faith on them. Investors believed the lies of Holmes and gave her a great deal of money.

What I want to examine is how Theranos was eventually brought down, or at least curtailed.

It all started when the Wall Street Journal published an article back in October of 2015 citing many problems in Theranos labs and also numerous inaccurate statements made by Holmes. She claimed partners that did not exist and regulation approvals from the government that had not been issued. Later that month the Food and Drug Administration stepped in because they had not tested the Edison equipment (Theranos was claiming it had been approved). Soon after this Walgreen’s, Safeway, and the Cleveland Clinic Hospital pulled out of contracts with Theranos.

Conclusions

This is all good. I’m totally on-board with this. This is government doing what it is supposed to do. It made information available, thanks in no small part to media intervention from the Wall Street Journal, which then allowed businesses like Walgreen’s to make informed decisions.

My anarchist friends will argue that the result would have been arrived at without the government at all. My social democratic friends will argue that with all that money involved it was only the government that allowed the story to come out at all, businesses would have covered it up otherwise.

To my way of thinking it is the combination of the two that offers the best results. Government gives us pertinent information and lets businesses and people make the final decisions.

It’s certainly not perfect but suspect nothing is.

Tom Liberman