Tag Archives: News

Drunk Driving at .05% Alcohol – a Life Saving Idea?

Posted on by

Drunk DrivingThe National Transportation Safety Board recently recommended that the drunk driving limit be reduced from .08% to .05% in order to save lives. When I first heard about this I scoffed at the idea as a further example of the nanny-state of our country. But, I wanted to be fair so I started to look up some numbers.

The NTSB makes their recommendation largely on the idea that a number of European countries reduced their own legal limit to .05% and saw a reduction in drunk driving fatalities. The board certainly implies, but does not state explicitly, that the reduction in fatalities is related to the new laws. The reality is that in recent years the number of fatal crashes has declined across the board, largely because of huge strides in vehicle safety systems. The total number of accidents, fatal or not, has stayed relatively stable over the years.

Also, the number of fatal car accidents related to alcohol is highly skewed towards very drunk, or hardcore drunk, drivers. Drivers with a blood alcohol content above .15% cause 70% of fatal accidents and the curve follows a predictable path. As blood alcohol rate goes down, increasingly fewer accidents occur.

I think it’s safe to say that such a reduction will result in lives being saved but that reduction will be limited in effect. Drunk driving accidents caused by drivers between .05% and .08% are small in number. There is a reasonable argument that it’s worth it even if one life is saved. The question then becomes what are we giving up if we reduce the limit?

One argument is that we are giving up our freedom. That it is our right to drive in whatever condition we want to drive in. This is patently false. Any activity that is inherently dangerous is subject to reasonable restriction by the government. So, now we must ask our ourselves, is .05% a reasonable restriction?

Depending on the weight of the person; a relatively small amount of alcohol will produce a blood alcohol content between .05% and .08%. For people of smaller stature this can be as little as a single drink. But, should people be driving at all if they are impaired? Even if by only a single drink as it is clear that such impairment does indeed cause accidents and cost lives?

All right, I’ve examined the facts and made points in both directions and now it’s time for me to state my opinion. It seems clear that lowering the legal limit of blood alcohol content necessary to operate a motor vehicle will produce a small decrease in traffic fatalities. It is also clear that as citizens we enjoy certain freedoms and the vast majority of people drink moderately and drive safely. That laws designed to reduce fatalities will inordinately effect such people.

I think every state has a right to make it illegal to drive under whatever level of intoxication they choose. Drinking and driving, even in small amounts, is not a constitutionally guaranteed right. I also think lowering the limit to .05% is largely pointless. I do think that advancements in car safety will largely eliminate the need for this entire argument. Cars will continue to be safer as collision avoidance systems develop.

Frankly, I eagerly await the day when my car drives itself and all I have to do is get in and tell it where to go. Then fatal accidents, drunken or not, will drop to almost nothing and we can eliminate all laws having to do with drunk driving as they become obsolete  We can also get the police back to the job of stopping crime and hospitals back to the job of helping the sick instead of spending billions on emergency room care for the uninsured who get in car accidents.

But in the end I must come to a decision. I decide that reducing the rate to .05% is unreasonable. That the safety engendered by such a move does not rise to the level of the loss of freedom that it entails. What do you think?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (300 pages of awesome adventure for $2.99)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Wild Horse Roundups a Difficult Problem

Posted on by

Wild Horse RoundupThe rounding up and penning of wild horses in western states has gotten both a great deal of national news and personal Facebook postings of late. One of my good friends is an animal activist from Colorado and I’ve been reading about this activity, thanks to her links, for several years now. It seems to be finally getting some national attention as I spotted a lengthy story on the subject yesterday.

The reason I want to write about it today has to do with the complexities of the issue and the difficulties of finding solutions. Let me first describe the problem. Wild horses are not actually wild horses at all, they are feral horses. That’s not really pertinent to the issue but interesting nonetheless. These animals are the descendants of domesticated horses that escaped captivity long ago. In the western states there is a population estimated at about 82,000. Of these, 32,000 are free in the wild while another 50,000 are held in pens. These 50,000 horses were largely captured in annual roundups. According to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) own statistics about 1% of all horses captured this way end up dying because of injuries sustained in the operation. One percent doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s a significant number. Many other horses are badly hurt being driven into barbed wire fences among other things.

After roundup the horses are offered for adoption but the number taken in has been dropping and those in captivity rising. Capture operations and ongoing housing and feeding costs an estimated $78 million dollars a year. The costs are rising as more animals are being held. That’s taxpayer money.

We’ve got animal cruelty and big expenses. So, why is it happening?

The western lands where the horses roam is also home to sheep and cattle ranches. These animals need the grass to breed and survive. The ranchers who own these animals depend on the land for their livelihoods.

Environmentalists and animal lovers want the animals to roam free. Ranchers want to kill them all. The roundup as it stands is a compromise solution but it’s beginning to fail. So, we need to figure out something else.

The biggest problem is the BLM refuses to sell the horses for slaughter. Animal activists regard such a solution for the horses as anathema. So, to appease the ranchers we keep rounding them up and to appease those who love the horses we don’t kill them.

I know I’m not going to be popular here but the fact is we need a hunting season on horses. Sell permits and let people go out there and shoot them. Horse meat largely isn’t eaten in the United States but it is elsewhere in the world and for good reason. It is lean, low-fat, high-protein meat. Yes, we love horses, yes we find watching them roam the western lands beautiful. Here’s the reality, if we’re willing to compromise we can have it all.

Hunt the horses to keep numbers at a level satisfactory to ranchers and activists. Eat the meat and enjoy it. Allow thousands of the animals to roam the western landscape for the enjoyment of endless generations to come. The horse lives a life free to roam until it is killed. That’s a good life, maybe not as long a life as they would have naturally but better than being in a pen.

The best solutions generally don’t make anyone perfectly happy. That’s often the sign of a good compromise.

As for me, I’m digging my bunker and getting my food and water supply ready for what will surely be an assault by my horse-loving Facebook friend!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (full-length fantasy fun for $2.99)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Cheating or Taking Advantage of the Rules

Posted on by

Phil IveyAn interesting case is taking place in England about a poker player who won a significant amount of money from a casino. The casino is refusing to pay because the player supposedly cheated. What I find intriguing about the case is that the so-called cheater, Phil Ivey, is not accused of breaking the rules but of taking advantage of the failure of the casino to note a printing error on its cards.

Basically, Ivey and a companion at the table supposedly noted a mistake on the cards which allowed them to correctly identify which cards were dealt even when face down. The question becomes: Is this sort of behavior is cheating? Is taking advantage of a weakness in the system cheating?

To my way of thinking this is different from cheating in that a cheater doesn’t play by the rules to gain an advantage. In this case the casino dealer had access to all the same information as Ivey. It all becomes rather interesting from a philosophical point of view.

I think we can say without reservation that it’s unethical. If you are playing baseball and note that your opponent’s shoelace has become untied, the sporting behavior is to point out the potential game-changing lace in order to even the playing field. It’s certainly the morally correct behavior but I’m of the opinion that ignoring the shoelace in the hopes your opponent falls down at a crucial time in the game does not rise to the level of cheating. If the casino’s accusations are true, that Ivey noted the printing flaw and played with that advantage to win a large sum of money, his behavior is unquestionably unsporting but, in my opinion, doesn’t rise to the level of cheating.

On the other hand, if he was somehow involved in introducing the printing flaw to the cards, then I think his behavior is not only cheating but criminal. In that case he committed fraud and theft. I don’t think anyone is accusing Ivey of such a thing and I only mention it as a philosophical idea.

The real question I’m pondering is at what point I would engage in unethical behavior myself. I like to think that in a friendly game of cards with friends; if I noticed that the cards were printed badly and I had an advantage, I would immediately alert my friends and we would get a new deck. I know that if a friend of mine noticed such a mistake on the cards and didn’t notify the rest of us and went on to win some money I would be somewhat angry. Not to say they cheated, just that I would consider it poor behavior.

I think it’s become normal behavior in our society to win at all costs. That taking advantage of a situation rather than pointing it out is largely the way we function in the modern world. I don’t think it’s a good thing but I do think it’s accepted. Judging by the comments I read on the Ivey story most people think what he did was perfectly reasonable. I don’t think so. I think it was unethical. I also think the casino owes him that money. He didn’t cheat, he just took advantage.

Would you take advantage of misprinted cards in a game with friends? In a game with tens of thousands of dollars at stake? Does the prize make the behavior acceptable? Interesting questions. What do you think?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for 300 pages of action packed adventure!)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

The Price of a College Education

Posted on by

Is College Worth the MoneyFormer Secretary of Education William Bennett is out promoting a new book and in a recent interview talked about how a college education is hurting more people than it is helping. The book itself looks at various colleges around the country and tries to determine if they give value for their investment. I have not read the book but its results are no secret. That only a few colleges and a limited number of degrees are worth the investment of both time and money. Not having read the book I can’t speak to the methodology of making the evaluations but the result certainly seems accurate as to what I see in the world.

Students are coming out of college, even with a degree, unable to gain employment in their field of choice. Over 40% of students simply drop out of college. I’m an excellent example of that group. I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do with my life and simply milled around for four years before calling it an education. Happily I chose a university, the University of Idaho, that didn’t charge huge fees and I was able to finish without debt. That’s not the case for the majority of students today who are leaving school with large amounts of debt.

In the interview Bennett talks about how he thinks college should be about teaching young adults how to think and that his own degree was in philosophy. I think even the strongest detractor of the current college education system would agree that learning how to think properly is a useful trait. The question becomes; is college a viable place to gain this skill? At this stage, with the price of an education going up and up, I think the answer has to be no. That’s a real shame. I’ll leave it to the book and Bennett to provide the arguments against going to college and I’ll take this opportunity to offer some ways I think we can improve the situation.

One of the most important things we can do is stop insisting that everyone go to college. It’s fine for me to spout off that people don’t need to go to college but what alternatives are there for people without degrees? I blogged just the other day about how people need to be intelligent to hold down a job in modern society. I think education is an increasingly important player in keeping the United States powerful. So, how is this accomplished except through college?

I’m of the opinion that a system of apprenticeship is an excellent tool in this regard. In Germany they have a strong apprentice program. I’ve worked with steel mill employees in Granite City who go to work immediately after high school and eventually rise into high-paying, skilled jobs. The idea is that someone who isn’t really interested in a higher education can immediately go into the workplace and learn a job. Many times the employer will not only pay the apprentice but encourage them to continue their education as well. This is a winning system in that young people are gainfully employed while learning a skill and companies have eager employees, with lower salaries, who move up in the company internally to higher paying jobs.

This system certainly cannot replace a degree in Philosophy or Engineering but it would dramatically cut down on students who didn’t really want to go to college in the first place. Even for degrees like engineering a student might well start out at a low-level job with a technical company and go to school part-time while working with skilled co-workers.

I think this would also have the benefit of alleviating high schools from having to prepare students for college and allow them to return to what many call a classical education. We could dispense with ridiculous testing and standards and get back to teaching kids how to think properly.

This is a hugely important issue in relation to the United States’ place in the world. If we continue to churn out people with a college education who cannot hold down a job, our nation is in peril. More disability, more welfare, less work, less excellence. The rise of a class system of haves and have-nots. This is a recipe for the decline of our nation.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for 300 pages of neck snapping adventure)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Monica Seles the Tragic Exception

Posted on by

Monica SelesA terrible anniversary passed by on April 30. If not for an article buried fairly deeply in the tennis section of ESPN I would have forgotten about it altogether. Twenty years ago on that day an obsessed fan dashed onto the tennis court in Hamburg, Germany and stabbed tennis great Monica Seles in the back. The wound was serious both physically and emotionally and Seles did not return to competitive tennis for over two years.

Fans of tennis were cheated out of many years watching her play to say nothing of the emotional damage done to Seles herself. Today I don’t want to spend too much time condemning the attack or wistfully imagining what might have been. The stabbing was horrible. The change of career trajectory to Seles a crime. These are true statements and I think no one will disagree. What I do want to discuss is the truly remarkable dearth of such attacks.

Sports fans are fanatical. Their willingness to attack one another inside and outside sports venues is well-known. Here in my home town of St. Louis it’s a rare Cubs or Blackhawks game that doesn’t result in at least a few punches. Red Sox and Yankee fans, Giants and Dodgers, Wolverines and Buckeyes, Crimson Tide and Tigers, these are fierce rivalries where trees are poisoned and fans are beaten. Despite this fever pitch of animosity there are rarely attacks on players. It’s as if some unspoken rule of sportsmanship prevents it.

Not only are players vulnerable at games but also in their daily lives where they interact with the public. A crazed fan could fairly easily attack the star player for a rival squad and yet it almost never happens. Why is that? What is the reason behind this restraint?

I can’t answer the question with any certainty but I can at least make a suggestion. Too often sport are associated with war. We go to war with the other team. We battle on the field of play. We fight for victory. Yet the reality is that sports is nothing like war. We play by rules, sometimes we push them, but we generally follow them. We don’t try to hurt our opponents, let alone kill them.

I hate the Cubs. There was a time in my youth when my hatred of the New York Mets was almost unquantifiable. Don Denkinger, I don’t like him. While it might cross my mind to harm those who dare play for the other team I know that such an action would be unsporting. If my team loses on the field because the other team did better, damn you Roy Oswalt, then I must accept it and wait for next year.

You might argue that I’m a rational fellow and there are plenty of people not as sane. I agree! That’s why I find the lack of physical attacks on opposing players to be so compelling. If crazy people, really crazy people, realize that it’s wrong to attack players for an opposing team; then sport must be doing something right. There is something in the fierce competition that brings morality, ethics. We root for our team, if they fail to win then we put away our disappointment and start getting ready for next year. Those most drunk amongst us may fight one another, but the players, they are off-limits.

This is a glorious thing. This is how life should be in all its aspects. We do our best. Our rival does the same. We play by the rules and, win or lose, come back next year to give it our best again. We weep in defeat but firm our resolve. This is society at its best. This is a nation at its best.

Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic, but I do love me some sports. Let’s Go Blues!

Tom Liberman

McDonald’s Coffee Lawsuit

Posted on by

McDonald's Coffee lawsuitThere is a ridiculous news story making the rounds about a man who lost his life’s savings while playing a carnival game and it brought to mind the McDonald’s spilled coffee lawsuit that many people consider the epitome of frivolous cases.

I don’t want to talk about the stupidity of the man who lost his money at the carnival, there seems to be a consensus on that and I’m not the sort to join in with the crowd. I do want to discuss the McDonald’s lawsuit because I think there are a lot of misconceptions about that case.

I’d like to discuss not only why it wasn’t nearly as frivolous as people think but also how it has made all our lives a little safer.

McDonald’s serves their coffee quite hot and for legitimate reasons. Coffee cools over time and with the introduction of cream and other sweeteners more quickly yet. In this case the woman spilled it on her pants and suffered third-degree burns over six percent of her body, spent eight days in the hospital, and required skin grafting. She originally sued for the cost of her hospital stay. McDonald’s refused and the case, after much wrangling, was eventually settled for something less than $600,000. The exact amount is unknown as a gag order remains in effect.

It turns out that coffee served that hot is pretty dangerous. There were many cases involving coffee induced burns prior to this incident and there continue to be some although at a lowered rate. Basically the situation presents a real problem. Coffee served cooler is not as appealing. Coffee served that hot is dangerous. What has the industry done to resolve this issue? They’ve made major improvements in coffee cups and lids. The idea being that if you spill the coffee it is almost certainly because you were handling it negligently.

This is an excellent outcome. We’re all safer. It’s a shame McDonald’s didn’t just pay the original medical damages and then move to improve the cups and lids but sometimes the hard lesson must be learned.

It’s easy to be angry at companies for failing to anticipate an issue that results in serious harm or death, and it’s likewise common to label people who file lawsuits over apparently silly issues as cranks.

I’m of the opinion that our judicial system, while imperfect, is truly excellent. Average people have a way to redress legitimate complaints and large entities can defend themselves. Are there warts in the system? Certainly. Do people take advantage of the system? No doubt. Does the system largely function? Absolutely.

Who knows, maybe the man who lost his money at the carnival may also end up helping us. In any case I suggest that the next time you get a chance; don’t tell a lawyer joke, thank a lawyer instead. They really do help us all.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (it’s awesome, $2.99, what do you have to lose?)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Crony Capitalism and the Abrams Tank

Posted on by

M1 AbramsThere was a story this morning on Yahoo about how Congress was pushing purchases for more of the United State’s main battle tank, the M1 Abrams. When I got back from the gym today I had a difficult time finding the story which means it didn’t garner much interest from the clicking audience. The reason: Republicans have no trouble with wasteful spending if it is on the military. Democrats have no trouble with wasteful spending.

The tank’s service life is winding down and the Army Chief of Staff and others do not want to spend any more money on upgrades or new tanks. They are on record as saying they have enough, they want to spend money elsewhere. Can you guess why Congress is quickly moving to force the army to spend $437 million on new tanks? Crony Capitalism of course.

The tanks are built primarily in Ohio but in other places around the country as well. If that production stops then jobs are lost. I’m not particularly mad at Congressman Jim Jordan who represents the district where the tanks are built. It’s his job to do the best he can for his district. It’s all the other Congressmen who support this that rouse my ire although I expect nothing less.

Crony Capitalism has the word capitalism in it but it is the furthest thing from true capitalism you can imagine. It is simply the government picking which business they want to survive and funding it. It doesn’t matter that this happens to be defense related; it’s just that nearly half a billion dollars is a good amount of money and draws the eye. This isn’t an isolated case. This sort of behavior is extremely dangerous to our freedom.

The reason this is so dangerous to our nation is because the very heart of capitalism is that well-run businesses succeed while poorly run businesses fail. A company that makes a product that no one wants must fail. If it does not the nature of capitalism is undermined. Men and women who strive to succeed and build a strong company, employ good workers at a fair wage, contribute to their community, and otherwise further the ends of the people must be allowed to succeed. When people like that see others who do not run good companies succeed, at their expense, they stop trying. That’s one of the central messages of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead.

We’ve seen time and time again that moneyed interests bribe our politician into rewarding failure. Each time we do this we encourage someone else to fail and discourage those who want to succeed. Failure must be allowed just as success must be rewarded, otherwise capitalism is undermined.

The real point of my post today is that the government far too often is the final decider in the success or failure of a business. Congress has decided, against the will of men and women in charge of the army, that a bunch of businesses in Ohio and other places will not fail. Congress alone has made that decision, not the market. We are the worse for that decision and many others just like it.

This Congressional intervention, this Crony Capitalism, subverts the system so badly that good businesses are destroyed while bad ones thrive. Today, the best way to succeed is to contribute to Congressional elections and running a business properly is less important. The year after year repercussion of this is inferior products made by inferior people. That’s not how the United States became the greatest country in the world and it is in no small way the explanation of our recent decline.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (a story of fear and how a scared little girl learns to overcome it)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

P.S. I just returned from Atlanta, Georgia from my sister’s wedding. To the people of Atlanta: Your road signage is outstanding. Well marked, large, visible, repeated regularly. Excellent job. A big tip of the hat from this St. Louis Cardinal’s fan.

Lance Armstrong sued by the Government

Posted on by

Lance Armstrong Sued by GovernmentHere’s a story that makes me want to weep. It’s all bad.

Lance Armstrong is being sued by the government over money the Postal Service gave him, his teammates, and his team during the period between 1998 and 2004. For this financial boon the team was called the U.S. Postal Team during the Tour de France. Armstrong won the race every year from 1999 to 2004 although these victories have now been voided after he admitted to using Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs).

The government claims it did not receive the value of the services for which it bargained. The idea of advertising is that a business spends money to promote their goods and sees an increase in sales.

Golly, let me try to pick a place to start my rant. It’s not easy. Lance? Lance’s teammates? The government lawyers? The Postal Service?

I’m no fan of Armstrong. Not because he cheated, they all did, but because of the way he ruthlessly bullied and hurt people to keep his secret. His teammates rode along in silence saying nothing until the gravy train came to a halt and only then did they come flying out eager to tell stories. The Postal Service paid $40 million dollars to a cycling team to advertise? What were they advertising? The Post Office isn’t trying to make a profit. They provide a service to citizens. If people want stamps they buy them. The money goes to pay for this service. The Post Office shouldn’t be competing with any private business. They should never advertise. Meanwhile the lawyers who thought this one up can’t possibly think that the publicity for the then heroic Armstrong wasn’t value for the investment. It most certainly was as documented by their own records.

I don’t want to get too deeply into the Post Office but it’s the perfect example of a working tax. People purchase stamps to mail letters and packages. Those letters and packages are delivered by the government. The tax directly supports the service for which it is paid. That’s the way all taxes should be. But, I digress.

Armstrong is not a nice man but he delivered precisely on the investment the Post Office made in him. He won races, he garnered publicity, he wore their colors, and undoubtedly promoted their services. What’s the issue? He cheated and was caught later? They haven’t paid him since 2004. He revealed his lies in 2012. What are the possible damages?

If it turns out my old girlfriend, still love her, great woman, didn’t really like me can I sue to recoup the dinners I bought? I had fun at those dinners. I enjoyed her company.

What if my kitties were just pretending all those years to enjoy the snuggling? Can I sue to get the money I spent on food and vet care back?

As a baseball fan can I sue to get back the money I spent (ok, my mother the season ticket holder spent) on all those years Mark McGuire was hitting home runs for the Birds on the Bat? Did I retroactively not enjoy the games?

This is not only ridiculous but it sets and awful legal precedent. Now, if Armstrong had failed to try during those years, if he had taken the money and not put forward the effort to win, then a lawsuit makes sense. Then the government didn’t get its money’s worth.

I don’t even think this is a money grab. This is someone trying to capitalize on the unpopularity of Armstrong to bolster their own image. Golly, you go Post Office, get that bad man.

No winners here, nothing to see, please return to your lives.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (buy it, seriously, it’s good, $2.99, it’s a bargain)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Internet Sales Tax – Getting Closer

Posted on by

Internet Sales TaxI wrote about this issue back in August of last year but I want to talk about it again. The legislation to put a sales tax on goods you purchase via the internet is moving forward quickly and there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of opposition to the idea.

I don’t want to cover the same topics I wrote about last August so I’ll review them quickly and then discuss why this sales tax is not just an example of a money grab but also a real danger to our nation.

A traditional brick and mortar store requires infrastructure that an internet store does not. Roads to deliver shoppers, electricity, plumbing, parking, gas, and maintenance on all those things. The government pays for this and therefore a tax is placed on sales in those stores. This is fair and reasonable. If a company has a warehouse in a state where the sale is made then taxes apply although this should be somewhat reduced as the need for infrastructure is somewhat lessened at a warehouse as opposed to a traditional store. Fewer employees, smaller parking lots, less traffic, etc.

The main argument for the internet tax is that brick and mortar stores are at an unfair disadvantage because existing taxes increase the price of their goods. This is, as I discussed in my earlier post, not an unfair disadvantage, it is a completely fair and normal disadvantage. Internet stores have less overhead and they cost the government of that state less in infrastructure costs. This is a perfect example of capitalism. They have a better business model. The goal of a government is not to make the field perfectly fair for everyone. Did we put a huge tax on cars to protect the horse industry?

That’s what I want to talk about today in this follow-up post. What the federal government proposes to do undermines not only fair business practices but jeopardizes the growth of our country. My example of cars replacing horses seems ridiculous at face value. Cars contributed significantly to the growth of the United States and the world. They were better than horses in many ways. Not to say that they are perfect, pollution, accidents, etc. Still, I’m quite comfortable saying an effort by the government to stop the progress of cars, trains, and planes, would have left this country far in arrears of other countries who were taking advantage of the technology.

Maybe I’m being an alarmist to suggest that manipulating prices to encourage people to shop in stores rather than take advantage of internet sales is as much a danger to our country as would have been banning cars; but who can say what the future holds?

Internet sales offer many advantages. Fewer trips to the store, less pollution, fewer roads, fewer accidents, less law-enforcement, less emergency service, more parks, more people working from home. These are tangible economic, health, and social benefits. This is an example of government meddling that will end up doing far more harm than the perceived good it attempts to achieve. When the rest of the world sees the benefits and the United States does not; where does this lead?

If there are fewer brick and mortar stores and less traffic the government gets smaller. Thus our taxes should decrease! Let capitalism do its job. If internet sales are cheaper, more convenient, and better for society then they should win. Brick and mortar stores should vanish. The government shouldn’t have a vested interest in one or the other. That’s what this tax represents. The government taking sides to artificially alter the market. That’s never going to be good for the citizens of this nation.

What do you think?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (buy it, read it, write a review, buy it again!)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Miranda Warning Exception – Boston Bomber

Posted on by

Miranda WarningI haven’t written a post about the despicable attack during the Boston Marathon. I honestly don’t think I have anything to add to the conversation but there is an interesting situation arising from that attack that has sparked my desire to speak out.

As most people already know brave law enforcement officers captured one of the two bombers. I can’t bring myself to write “suspects”. They did it. We all know they did it. At the time of the capture the man was unconscious or nearly so and was not read his Miranda Warning. There was some outcry about this although I assumed that it wasn’t given because the bomber was not capable of understanding and, if he recovered, they would proceed with the reading. Apparently I was wrong, or at least the Obama administrations is indicating that I was mistaken. They do not plan on reading said warning because of an exception to the Miranda rule.

The 1984 Supreme Court case leading to the exception can be found here but I’ll quickly summarize. A police officer captured a suspect who had been identified as having a firearm. When searched the weapon wasn’t found. The officer asked the suspect about the location of the gun. The suspect pointed out, with a head nod, where he had thrown the pistol. This was deemed to be a possible violation of his rights as the Miranda Warning was not yet read. The Supreme Court ruled 6 -3 that immediate public safety, the loaded weapon very nearby, was a “narrow” exception to Miranda. Chief Justice Rehnquist authored the opinion and was joined by Burger, White, Blackmun, and Powell, while O’Connor wrote a concurrent opinion and Marshal, Brennan, and Stevens dissented.

The basic idea of the Miranda Warning is an extension of our Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. It cannot be assumed that all citizens have a full understanding of their rights and thus arresting officers are required to give them this brief sketch.

The Obama administration is arguing that the bomber might have information about other bombs and therefore the public safety exception can be invoked. Presumably they would ask about other bombs and then read the Miranda Warning.

I’m extremely skeptical of this logic. Even if we take the Obama administration at face value all they can ask about is other bomb locations not anything else to do with the case. Otherwise it is a clear violation. This is not a police officer asking a quick question at the spur of the moment. This would be days later when the situation had calmed considerably.

By this logic any suspect who may be construed to have planted an explosive device falls into the exception. A suspect who made a threat against a spouse might have planted a car-bomb, who knows? I can see the exception being expanded virtually without limit. There is, I suppose, a possibility that there might be more bombs but the idea that reading the warning would influence whether the bomber admitted their location or not seems far-fetched. If he is remorseful he will give their location whether read the warning or not and vice-versa.

In my opinion this is one of those situation where it is important to uphold the constitution and the court’s interpretation of it. It’s easy to demand rights for people who deserve them. It’s harder to want the constitution to apply to scum like the bomber. It’s easy to want to put a gun to his head and finish this business. I know that’s what I want to do. That’s exactly what they would do in totalitarian countries, in theocratic countries, in nations where a free population is something be feared by the ruling party. It’s not what we do here, and I’m proud of that fact.

We’re free for a reason, it’s called the Constitution. Let’s keep following it.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (buy it, read it, review it)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Lindsay Lohan and the Art of the Decision

Posted on by

Lindsay LohanOne of my Facebook friends mentioned the Lindsay Lohan appearance on the David Letterman show and I paid only passing attention to the event. I’ve been thinking more about it over the last day or so and thought I’d write a post on the subject.

Lohan has made a series of bad decisions in her life that have led her to the trouble she currently faces. In the end we are responsible for our own decisions and to that point my thinking would be that if she doesn’t like where she finds herself in life that she has no one to blame but herself. This is, I’m fairly certain, true … to a point. Certainly her parents and peers deserve some blame but what I want to examine today is the culpability of those of us who drive the story, who click the links, who watch the show, who direct the flow of money.

Many people made money from Lohan’s appearance on the Letterman show. Certainly the network directly through advertisement. Letterman benefits when ratings are high and his earning potential rises. People who enjoy watching other people destroy their lives benefit because they watch a high-profile actor lurch from one disaster to the next. Lohan herself gains some benefit from the publicity that continues to generate acting opportunities for her; although there are certainly many negative results to her behavior as well.

I want to examine that last point in greater detail. When a person smokes a cigarette, has a few drinks, procrastinates writing their fifth book, or otherwise behaves in a way that is not immediately detrimental but in the long-term effects the success in their life they have made a decision. Smoking a cigarette will not kill anyone. Taking another six months to write my book will not change my career path all that much. Eating a piece of cake, not asking that saucy girl out, saying something grumpy at work rather than smiling and being cheerful; these are all decisions. Our lives are nothing if not a series of decisions. These decisions add up to determine the course of our life.

Lohan has been making bad decisions for a long time now and each one contributes to the condition she finds herself in now. I don’t want to devolve into a debate about determinism and I certainly attribute a large part of the blame to Lohan herself.

However, is some of what is happening to Lohan my fault? I cannot deny that I feel some sort of superiority as I watch a talented young woman waste her potential. I would never destroy myself that way, I’m better than her. I’ve searched her image and watched her morph from a stunning beauty to something far less and felt a strange satisfaction with myself. I’ve read reviews of her latest projects and newest revelations of self-destructive behavior and it made me feel better about myself for some reason, probably because I’m not nearly as a good a person as I think I am.

Is it in our nature to watch train wrecks? Do we as a species yearn for such things? Is Lohan’s behavior some sort of self-induced Truman Show? Is her real life just a big movie made for me?

I can’t help thinking that our species will be mired in this sort of behavior until we can only want the best for ourselves and for everyone else. When I want every actor to give their best performance every time. When I want every athlete to play their best even if they are playing for an opposing team. Is this sort of thinking even remotely possible? What sort of world would we live in if we only wanted people to do their best? Would Lindsay Lohan have a much different, better life in that world?

What limits would be erased if we all rooted for and helped each other even while competing? I’ll do my best, you do your best, someone wins, but in the long run, we all win.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (buy it today, it’s inspiring)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Mental Health and Gun Control

Posted on by

Crazy people with GunsGun Control is big news in the United States these days and much of the focus seems to be on particular gun types, background checks, high-capacity magazines, arming teachers, waiting periods, and a few other things. I think the main issue is one of mental health.

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution is unfortunately not completely clear and modern weapons with destructive potential far beyond anything the Founding Fathers could imagine muddies the issue further.

The Amendment mentions a well-regulated militia as the precursor to the idea that the right to own arms shall not be infringed. In a time when the country had no standing army this militia was envisioned as a potential army available to call up to defend the nation. However, the following wording indicates quite clearly that the people of this country have the right to bear arms and the government has no ability to limit that right.

I think there are a few people who probably think this right is absolute but most people agree that shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and hood-mounted .50 calibre machine guns are probably not in the best interest of safety. If you drive any amount of time in a given day you’d probably agree. The rage out there is palpable. Likewise I think there are few people who think a citizen owning a firearm for uses such as hunting, personal protection, or sport shooting should be restricted. There are people on both fringes of the argument of course, but most people are in the middle.

This is where I have my problem with the measures being proposed. They are essentially useless. They don’t address the real problem.

Cheap guns in the hands of criminals cannot be stopped by legislation and most of the gun murders we see in this country involve those sorts of weapons, generally associated with the illegal drug business (don’t get me started on the War on Drugs). Most murders and gun crimes are not committed with assault rifle type weapons. High-capacity magazines can now be printed and the vast number of them out there make any sort of legislation designed to ban them all but useless. The definition of a gun type will just encourage manufacturers to make guns that don’t fit the restriction and get around any bans.

Anyway, I’ll cut to the point here. The problem is mental health. The people who use firearms to attack movie theaters, schools, and crowds are insane. The idea is to identify and help crazy people, people who suffered abuse, people with mental illnesses. If we recognize that insane people are the greatest threat then we should eagerly put forward the effort to help them before they start murdering. If we can identify and prevent crazy people from driving cars into crowds, buying bomb-making product, and purchasing lots of weapons and many rounds of ammunition then we’ll have gone a long way to solving this problem.

Sure, there will still be gun accidents and gun crimes, I’m not pretending the world isn’t a dangerous place. I’m just suggesting that we spend more money and more time on the mental health issues that are the underlying cause of these sorts of attacks. Crazy is uncomfortable, crazy is something we don’t like to see, look at, or talk about but it’s real. In almost every one of these cases someone knew the person was unstable and sometimes even tried to warn people.

If everyone was mentally stable, rational, and an objectivist thinker; I think most of the troubling issues that we face in this world would vanish. Mentally unstable people can be treated with increasing success using modern drugs and therapy.

It frustrates me when I see so much effort, argument, rage, and dissension going on over solutions that don’t address the underlying problem.

I don’t think spotting and helping insane people is an easy thing to do but I think we’re not trying nearly hard enough. I’m not even really arguing for registration of crazy people and background checks, just let’s spend some public money to make sure insane people get treated. It’s one of the beneficial uses of tax dollars as far as I’m concerned. Let’s empower mental health professionals to alert the authorities. Let’s train the authorities to listen to mental health professionals. It’s not an easy road, I’m not one to live in a pretend world. I do think we can do more if we focus our energy on underlying causes and stop screaming at each other.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (awesome book, buy it today)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Officials Cheat – The question is How Much?

Posted on by

CheatingA major story in sporting news involves the basketball coordinator of officials in the Pac 12 conference offering a reward to his referees if they called a technical foul or ejected the coach of a particular team in the conference tournament. The league has done an investigation and declared the statement was made in jest and that there is nothing more to it; this despite the fact that during a crucial game the coach in question was given a controversial technical foul.

I want to get something out of the way up front. Officials cheat. They do it at every level of the sport. They are people just like the rest of us and there are always going to be some unethical members in every profession. To pretend there are not any cheaters is ridiculous. I’ve seen it in every sport I’ve played beginning with a called third strike on a pitch that was literally over my head when I was eleven years old. The umpire didn’t like me because I looked back after a bad call on the pitch before. He sure showed me.

When the referee kicked me out of the pool after my opponent elbowed me to the face he was cheating at the behest of the opposing team’s coach who was his friend. That’s a fact. Our team’s best player, Jimmy Croyle, kicked out for the game, three kick outs means out for the game, in the first period. Right. No cheating there.

When the St. Louis football Cardinals got the short end of call after call against America’s Team the Dallas Cowboys in the 70’s and early 80’s that was cheating. When NASCAR rigs races so Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins that’s cheating. When the NFL wants the New England Patriots to win the 2001 Super Bowl it somehow happens. Just to show I’m not totally biased, when the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team gets the benefit of bad call after bad call in their favor, that’s cheating too.

The referees know who the league would prefer to win a game. The vast majority of referees call the game to the best of their ability without bias, but they know who the cheaters are. They work with them every day. Sure good officials make mistakes from time to time but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about referees who use their power to slightly influence the game towards a result they desire. It happens all the time. Now we’ve got league officials openly encouraging them to do it? That’s serious.

The human element you say? You can shove the human element where the sun doesn’t shine. My chance for a state championship was stolen by a cheating referee and I’d be willing to bet everyone who’s played in any sort of competitive sport has a similar story. To the refs who cheat, maybe your son will come up to you one day and ask, “Why would he cheat, dad? Why would he do that?” You’ll know the answer, won’t you?

I hate cheaters and when they are the officials I get hot.

There is only one solution. We can fire a person here and there but the ability to cheat by simply “missing” a narrow judgement call will always be too tempting to resist. Only when we make emotionless machines the final arbiter will we get fair results. It’s not easy to do but there are some sports where it is possible, tennis with the lines and baseball with balls and strikes to name a couple of examples. Tracking devices in the balls to determine exactly when they go out of bounds, into the goal, etc. This is possible. The sooner the better.

For all the great officials out there, who do a difficult job to the very best of their ability, I salute you. The world needs people with that sort of integrity. To the cheaters, to those who encourage them to cheat? To you I can only shake my head and despair for the lives you’ve hurt.

Anyone ever cheated by a referee? Tell me in the comments.

Tom Liberman

Drug Raid in Kansas City nets Three Tomato Plants

Posted on by

Tomato GardenI’ve posted about the stupidity of the “War on Drugs” several times before so I’m not going to write a lengthy article here on yet another example of that idiocy. I do want to use a recent incident to draw a direct correlation to the argument that our safety is inversely correlated with our freedom.

The basic story is that the states of Missouri and Kansas use a day celebrated by marijuana enthusiasts, April 20, to launch raids against those they think are growing that drug. These raids are highly publicized when marijuana and drug paraphernalia is seized. In this case one of the homes raided belonged to a moderately wealthy family in an upscale Kansas City neighborhood. The police found no evidence of drugs in the house.

Why is this a big deal? Because the family in question seems to have had nothing to do with illegal drugs except the fact that they do some indoor gardening and frequent a store that supplies equipment for that hobby. This sort of equipment can also be used by marijuana growers. There seems to be no other evidence of drug use and the assumption is that the police department used sales records of hydroponic equipment to convince a judge to allow a search warrant.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is clear and it is vitally important to our freedom, to your freedom, and most importantly, to my freedom.

I don’t do any indoor gardening but I stand by Adlynn and Robert Harte. In this case they represent my lost freedom. If you purchase cough medicine, fertilizer, or a myriad of other common items then you have something in common with terrorists and drug lords. Does that give the government the right to search your home? To insult your family?

The reason we must be protected from the government is that it represents a real threat to our freedom. In many ways much more of a threat than foreign enemies. Yes, our laws protect criminals also. Yes, our constitution is used by the guilty to get away with criminal activity. That’s the price of freedom. So called patriots yelp about how “Freedom isn’t free” but the reality is that such phrases are used to frighten people into giving up their freedom. In my opinion the phrase should be, “Freedom isn’t safe”. Freedom isn’t safe. It’s dangerous. It’s also glorious. To be free we must allow people to do as they will and sometimes this means danger. We can’t insulate ourselves from the world. There are people trying to hurt us. We can be hurt.

My argument is that the methods used to give us safety are actually far more dangerous than the threats they claim to thwart. Terrorists killed 3,000 people on September 11th. That’s true. How many men and women have died in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world trying to keep us safe? How many Americans have been wrongly imprisoned? Brutalized? Let’s just play a numbers game and see who loses. How many have died in the “War on Drugs”? How much money pours into the hands of bad people because an adult chooses to smoke a plant?

The War on Drugs is a threat to our freedom and in the end doesn’t make us any safer.

Finally, I strongly support anyone doing indoor gardening to raise healthy fruits and vegetables for their family. The idea that they will be raided for this noble effort infuriates and frightens me.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (A book about overcoming fear)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

The Shrinking Middle Class

Posted on by

Middle ClassMy middle younger sister (yes, I have three younger sisters) recently linked an interesting radio show from This American Life on her Facebook page. The topic of the show was the precipitous rise in disability claims in the United States over the last twenty years. It’s an interesting show for a number of reasons. While I somewhat disagree with its conclusions, it did lead me to some interesting thoughts. Here is a summary of what it talks about.

In 1996 the United States passed a sweeping welfare reform act largely at the behest of the newly elected Republican Congress as part of their Contract with America. President Clinton signed it into law. Clinton had vetoed two earlier attempts and with Congressman Newt Gingrich arrived at this compromise bill.

The main focus of the bill was to allow each individual state more leeway in who was allowed to be on welfare and for how long. The state took over some of the funding for welfare although still received much federal money. Largely the bill only allowed people to get welfare if they were actively looking for work and stopped welfare after a period of time, largely five years although this varied by state.

In the early years there was a large reduction in welfare recipients and decrease in the unemployment rate although this was certainly at least somewhat related to the dotcom boom of the time. The radio broadcast points to a direct link between the rise in disability claims of that era and said reductions of welfare. That those leaving welfare took up disability instead.

I took some time to look up a few statistics and I see the point made by the broadcast but I’ve come to a different conclusions. Disability is not necessarily replacing welfare as a place to get free government handouts for doing nothing, although I’m sure there are many who abuse the system. Since 1990 the number of disability claims has been going up, this started six years before the 1996 welfare reform act.

What we see in our country are two trends that both drive people onto disability and increase the wealth gap between those who have sufficient money and those who do not. This gap, this increase in people unable (or unwilling) to work presents real problems for our country. A strong middle-class is vitally important to a strong nation. When the poor have real opportunity to gain wealth we have a fairly equitable society. When they do not, we risk revolution, the possibility of becoming a police state, or both.

I think the rise in disability claims is more closely tied to an increasingly unhealthy population and stupid people. Unhealthy people cannot work. This didn’t used to be true for stupid people. Prior to the last ten years or so there were always plenty of jobs for stupid people. Not the highest paying jobs, but jobs that provided adequate income. Stupid people are seeing their employment opportunities dwindle and are essentially disabled because they cannot work productively in modern society. They can’t do simple jobs because modern jobs, even simple ones, require an education.

As the ability for stupid and the ever-growing number of unhealthy people to get jobs diminishes, the middle class vanishes. This is very dangerous. We have moderately high unemployment but a quick, unscientific survey of my friends indicates their companies would hire more people if they could find qualified people.

There is no effective way to legislate health or study habits. By the way, when I say stupid, I generally mean people who choose not to learn. Not the mentally disabled. I think the vast majority of people could learn simple tech jobs. Not the highest paying jobs, but people would be able to support themselves with this sort of work.

So, what is the solution?

Value education. Value health. That’s the only answer. We cannot make people eat healthy food and study in school. Legal remedies will never work. But, why do Jewish kids generally do well in school? Asian kids? We cannot deny these facts. Why are some people healthy? Why do they exercise? Why do they eat better? I argue that it is because they grew up in a home, in a society, that valued these things.

We can blame Democrats, Republicans, laws, liberals, conservatives, Paris Hilton, McDonald’s, whoever. I don’t think it’s their fault. Our society is raising hordes of people who cannot hold down a job. Let’s look in the mirror. Let’s make some changes.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (totally awesome, I might add)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

What Went Wrong in Cyprus?

Posted on by

Cyprus Bank CrisisOne of the biggest financial stories in recent weeks is the bankruptcy of several large banking institutions in Cyprus and the methods needed to bail them out. I don’t want to talk about the methods for solving the financial crisis but analyze the reasons behind it. It’s an interesting case and in the United States you don’t see too many Democrats or Republicans lining up to blame each other, there’s a reason for that.

Cyprus has a long and complex history but the parts that pertain to our story have to do with its politics and economics. Politically it is split between a Turkish faction and a Greek faction dating back to the 1974 when the country reunited after an invasion by Turkey split the region. The Turkish part of the island is allocated seats in the government but refuses to take them because they will not acknowledge a Greek government.

The country is what we would call socialist or liberal in many regards but not in a special few. As of 2002 Cyprus has the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe and is considered very business friendly. It has become a hub for foreign investment because of few restrictions. Many Russians and other eastern tycoons placed huge sums of money in its banking system because of the tax friendly status. Thus it is an odd mix of what people call Conservative and Liberal.

They have also recently had an energy boom thanks to deposits of natural gas found offshore. They have little other than that as a natural resource and derive much of their income from tourism.

So, with all this business friendly, low-tax conservative money policy, why are they bankrupt?

Much of the money that was coming in was given back out in what eventually became bad loans. Thus the banks went bankrupt much as they did in the United States. They also have a public debt of 84% of the GDP which is one way to determine, with modest accuracy, how much they owe. This means despite lots of economic growth prior to 2012, when the crisis hit, they were still in debt.

The reason we don’t see an uproar among conservatives to raiding the savings accounts of citizens to bail out the banks is that a lot of very wealthy people have their money in Cyprus banks and they don’t want to lose it. The reason we don’t see liberals decrying the situation is that even with excellent economic growth a liberal government was still in debt. Neither system worked.

My point here is that the economic system as it stands is unsustainable with any model. We insist on growth with flattening populations and when we don’t get it, make it happen through stimulus packages. We loan money to aid growth and count on being paid back with interest. There is currently so much debt that much of that money will never be repaid. The few countries not in debt will be driven into it because the money they supposedly are owed will not be repaid. If everyone is in debt then no-one can make payments. It’s that simple. There is no money.

I don’t want to devolve into a conversation about how to solve the situation, I just wanted to point out an instructive event currently taking place in Cyprus. If you are a Democrat or a Republican I urge you to look at the situation closely and make a particularly hard examination of the policies you endorse. We must stop bickering over which failed policy we want to pursue, it gets us deeper into trouble.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Rise of the Mexican Drug Trade

Posted on by

Foreign EntanglementsI’ve posted on numerous occasions why I think the so-called War on Drugs actually promotes criminal activity and engenders huge amounts of violence. I’ve also talked about how my Libertarian philosophy suggests that the United States should not be involved in the internal affairs of foreign countries; even those that are our enemies.

Those two ideas came to a surprising conjunction when I happened to be watching a Hulu show called Bordertown: Laredo and did a little research. It’s a story that is so incredible it can only be true. No one can make this stuff up.

In the 1980’s the most profitable drug was cocaine and the production and distribution of this came primarily from a Columbian drug organization called the Medellin Cartel headed by a fellow named Pablo Escobar. At this time Mexico was not a significant drug supplier to the United States.

Meanwhile, in the country of Nicaragua a fellow named Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista government supported Cuba and their communist agenda. President Reagan decided that we would fund a guerilla organization called the Contras in an attempt to overthrow this government. The Sandinistas and Ortega came into power in 1979 and President Carter agreed to allow the government to pursue its agenda without sanctions. Reagan reversed this policy.

Following so far?

Impartial organizations claimed that the elections in Nicaragua were fair and free although the Reagan administration disputed this and provided financial aid and military training to the Contras. In 1983 the U.S. Congress forbid any more funding on the Contras. The Reagan administration refused to admit defeat and began to channel funds to the rebels through outside sources including selling Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Iran which led the Iran-Contra scandal although this is outside the scope of today’s post.

Meanwhile, it turns out there was a fellow in Mexico who was helping fund the Contras. His name was Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. Gallardo was a high-level security official in the government of Mexico and, because of his generous donations to the Contras, immune to interdiction from the CIA. In addition to helping President Reagan fund the Contras he was also working directly with the Medellin Cartel to bring cocaine to the United States.

Gallardo essentially created the entire Mexican drug cartel organization that exists today. This is the organization that is behind the vast majority of drugs that are shipped into the U.S. and commits much of the horrific violence that pervades Mexico. The violence funded by the massive appetite for illegal drugs in the U.S. and carried out largely with guns manufactured in the U.S. and smuggled into Mexico. Gallardo’s activities were apparently known to the CIA and other U.S. agencies but allowed to continue because he was giving large amounts of money to the Contras.

Gallardo ordered the capture, torture, and murder of U.S. DEA agent Enrique Carmarena. For this he was arrested and eventually convicted. This led to the splintering of his organization and the Mexican drug wars we see today.

As an aside, a fellow named Oliver North in addition to helping funnel money from Iran weapon sales to the Contras was also in contact with Panamanian strong-man Manuel Noriega who was eventually brought to trial in the United States. There is some evidence to suggest that North was at least aware of the distribution of cocaine into the United States from Panama and allowed it to happen because some of this money was also given to the Contras.

Meanwhile the funding for the Contras to overthrow the apparently fairly elected government of Nicaragua was eventually stopped by the Iran-Contra scandal. However, we continued to support anti-Sandinista efforts and achieved election “victory” as Ortega was defeated in 1996. To this day the United States is trying to influence politics in Nicaragua against the Sandinista government which came back into power in 2006.

I don’t mean to suggest that President Reagan wanted to create the drug situation we now face but I strongly argue that his policies led directly to it. The best intentions often lead to horrible results. No one can say that the Mexican drug cartels would not have arisen even without U.S. policies towards Nicaragua but the results of that meddling are undeniable.

We should stay out of the internal affairs of other nations even if those nations are our enemies. Our meddling does us no good and often results in real harm. Oh, and we should make all drugs legal; manufacture, distribute, and tax them in the same way we do any of our legal drugs.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

PokerStars vs the US Casino Trade Group

Posted on by

GamblingThere is an interesting situation developing in regards to gambling in the United States that in some ways epitomizes one of the things that Crony Capitalism does to destroy true capitalism. It’s a complex situation and I’m certain that I don’t fully understand all the legal technicalities but I thought it was a story worth exploring.

What is happening is that the state of New Jersey, and several other states, have legalized online gambling. A company called PokerStars is hoping to leap back into that market. Yes, back into that market. For a number of years online gambling was legal and then in 2006 Congress passed a law making it illegal. PokerStars was one of two companies that were market leaders in the industry. Congress passed that law largely not to keep American citizens safe from the awful scourge of making a bet of their own free will but because the gambling industry wanted Americans to only be allowed to make such wagers in their casinos. Crony Capitalism at its finest.

If, horror or horrors, someone comes up with a business model that beats my business model, I can always bribe Congress to pass a law putting my rival out of business. Hooray for the American entrepreneurial spirit. In this case PokerStars created out of country sites and continued to take bets from U.S. citizens. This of course led the gaming industry to convince Congress in 2011 to seize the assets of these companies (essentially stealing money from gamblers who had made wagers but not yet collected their winnings).

This drove PokerStars main rival out of business and PokerStars stayed around by agreeing to pay a $771 million bribe … er settlement to the U.S. government so as to avoid further prosecution. Capitalism as it is now practiced in the United States in full bloom.

So, back to now. With New Jersey and other states legalizing what the U.S. government made illegal in 2006; companies like PokerStars are now ready to resume their former operations. The gambling industry is represented by the American Gaming Association. This group wants to institute their own online gambling business in New Jersey and the other states. They have now asked the state governments to ban PokerStars from being allowed to participate because of their supposed past crimes; continuing to take bets offshore after it was made illegal to bet in the U.S.

Basically it comes down to the idea that a company bribes government officials into passing laws that make it difficult, impossible, or illegal for their rivals to do business. This is what capitalism has come to mean in the United States. This is not an isolated case. Large businesses routinely bribe, I mean contribute to elections hoping to get laws passed that favor them. This sort of crony capitalism is destroying small business, it has essentially eliminated what used to be called the family farm. It is skewing the wealth of this country towards an increasingly unfavorable distribution with a steadily declining middle class.

This sort of unfair business field in which people with good ideas, energy, and drive are prevented from succeeding not only destroys true capitalism but it deprives the citizens of this country great products at a reasonable price.

Anyone remember Tanya Harding hiring a thug to kneecap Nancy Kerrigan? Was that right? That is a microcosm of new capitalism in the United States. We are becoming Tanya Harding. So afraid of losing that we beat up our opponents rather than working hard to make a better product. Nice.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (It’s awesome! Buy it now!)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Mike Trout vs Albert Pujols – Salary Wars

Posted on by

Albert Pujols Mike TroutThere is an interesting story occurring in Major League Baseball in regards to the Los Angeles Angels baseball team. The reason I find it fascinating is because it parallels quite nicely with a situation we had here in St. Louis with my beloved Cardinals. I think it is instructive from a human resources point of view.

Essentially the story is that the Angels have a player by the name of Mike Trout who had a spectacular rookie season and won the Rookie of the Year award. Because of the way baseball salaries are structured, players with less than a certain number of years of major league experience have very little power to bargain over their pay. After they reach a certain point these restrictions are removed and the players are free to seek a rate of pay their play deserves.

I’m not here to argue  the benefits and drawbacks of such a system but merely to compare how the St. Louis Cardinals handled a very similar situation with Albert Pujols after his own astounding rookie campaign.

In the year 2000 the rookie minimum wage was $200,000 and Pujols was given this salary. He had an astounding season hitting .329 with 37 home runs, 130 RBI, a slugging percentage of .606 and an OPS of 1.013. You don’t really need to be a statistical guru to understand that he had a spectacular year. One of the most useful modern statistics is something called Wins Above Replacement which shows how many games the Cardinals won because Pujols was better than the average player at his position. His WAR in 2000 was 6.3

In the year 2012 the rookie minimum wage was $480,000 and Mike Trout was paid $490,000. He also had an astounding season hitting .326 with 30 home runs, 83 RBI, a slugging percentage of .567, OPS of .963, and a WAR of 10.7. Trout missed the first few weeks of the season before being called up so played about twenty fewer games than Pujols and is better than him in most defensive comparisons although they play different positions.

Major league teams are not obligated to give second year players any particular percent raise for their second season. The Angels agreed to give Trout a $20,000 pay raise so that he will make $510,00 this season. The Cardinals voluntarily gave Pujols a $400,000 raise to give him a second year salary of $600,000.

That’s what I find interesting. This was not just a one time thing. The Cardinals gave Adam Wainwright an $80,000 raise in his second year and a further $260,000 raise for his third when they were under no obligation to do so.

From a human resources perspective the question becomes what is it worth to make a valued employee happy. If you are under no legal obligation to give a larger raise then why would any company do so? I’d love to hear from HR people out there on the topic!

Personally, I’m of the opinion the Cardinals did the correct thing although Pujols eventually did leave to join the Angels. He played for eleven seasons in St. Louis when the reality is that after his sixth season he could have simply taken a much larger contract from a wealthier team like the Yankees. Instead he stayed in St. Louis and the Cardinals won the 2006 and 2011 World Series and made the playoffs almost every year.

Now, it’s entirely possible Trout will remain with the Angels for many years. They are a large market team with a great deal of money although much of that is tied up in the lucrative contract they gave Pujols to entice him away from St. Louis. The future is unpredictable. Still, I think that spending a smaller amount to make a key employee happy is almost always a good idea. Good employees, be they baseball players or computer software programmers, are not easy to find.

I think most people enjoy a good working environment where they are valued. Certainly for a talented individual there will be offers of more money and at some point they cannot be refused. But, a little proactive generosity can go a long way.

In any case, I’m glad the Cardinals were generous with Pujols in the early years because I got to see him play and lead us to two World Series victories. It’s impossible to say what would have happened if we hadn’t given him those early pay raises but I stand by my opinion that it was not only a nice thing to do, but the right thing to do. What do you think?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (it’s really good, I promise!)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Sequester Doom – Not so Much

Posted on by

SequesterOver the last few years we’ve seen politicians decrying the danger that will befall this great union we call the United States because of the awful, horrific, terrible, mindless, stupid, dastardly, evil, other side’s fault, sequester. If the evil Republicans allow this to happen the nation is doomed! If the nasty Democrats force this upon us all is lost! Flee, weep, hide your children!

Ok, well, this round didn’t have that effect but we promise that when the March 27th deadline arrives it will be disaster! Trust us. You cannot allow these budget cuts to occur or our nation will face destruction. All because those evil people on the other side hate America! They hate it!

The United States currently owes $16 trillion to its creditors. The western world is largely bankrupt because of current economic policies. Don’t fool yourself. We’ve had Republicans and Democrats in the White House, controlling Congress, we’ve had all combinations and the debt keeps going up. There is only one final solution. Default. The end result is the same as the sequester. The government will not meet its financial obligations. The armed forces will be reduced, social security will be reduced, farm subsidies will be reduced, aid to the poor will be reduced. It’s inevitable but, contrary to what your trusted politicians are telling you; it’s not the end of the world.

Will it mean hardship for many? Probably. Will businesses go bankrupt because they existed solely thanks to government funding? Likely. Will people lose their jobs? Most likely. When the colossal bust of this massive boom cycle hits it will be painful. We’ve been running up debt pretty much since the day President Reagan took office in order to sustain an unsustainable economic model. We’ll have to pay for that. But what happens then? When the chips fall where they may and the government no longer supports the country but merely governs it.

New business will arise. New companies will fill the void. Hopefully they will work with a sustainable business model. The idea of business ownership should be to create a quality product, to provide a useful service, to employ good people, to make some money. With western style republics spreading women’s rights and lowering birth rates we will eventually go back to this model instead of expecting growth, growth, growth. It will be good. Maybe very good. Maybe a real utopia with a steady population, where energy is cheap and abundant, where people are allowed to do their job well and go on freely about their lives.

Of course, maybe I’m an idiot and you should keep listening to the politicians.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (it’s a really good book, honestly, buy it today!)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt