POLITICAL SPEAK REGARDING TAXES

Posted July 25, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Political Economy

First let me disclaim any intention to argue, in this post, for the rightness or wrongness of the tax policies advocated by democrats or republicans or the administration or the congress.  I am willing to start from zero in arguing about the best tax policy for our country.  All I am trying to do in this post is to clear away some of the politically loaded debris involved in talking about taxes.   Taxes are, after all, a given of life.  About taxes we all believe in the saying, “Don’t tax you and don’t tax me, let’s tax that fellow behind the tree.”  However, tax policy, as opposed to tax politics, ought to be based upon a wise and articulable basis as to why it is best to fund government by imposing upon some in different proportions than others.  It may very well be that taking money from some and leaving it with others is good for the country but that is what we should be talking about.  We should ask questions like, what would you or people like you do with the money which might otherwise be taken in taxes?”  Is one person’s consumption better than another’s?  Is there a societal benefit derived from investing wealth?  Should it be subsidized?  If so, is there a societal benefit in allowing people to accumulate wealth to be invested?  When we refuse to enter into this debate we are being disingenuous and expedient.  We are refusing to look at how this country actually operates and what makes it successful and instead we focus upon the “politics” of taxes, whose ox is being gored.

Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, was interviewed today by ABC’s Jake Tapper concerning the Obama position on expiration of the Bush era tax cuts.  During the interview Geithner advocated at least two discrete policy positions.  First, Obama would let the income tax rate cuts expire for those “wealthy” earners who earn more than $250,000 a year effectively allowing the highest marginal income tax rates to increase from 36 to 39.6 percent.  Notwithstanding this pursuit of the “wealthy” to pay more in income taxes, Geithner also emphasized that Obama would see that taxes on capital gains and taxes on dividends would not increase above 20 per cent.  This 20% cap on income from capital gains and dividends is, of course, without regard to the actual total income of the receiver.  It is also not subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) which was enacted to make every one pay their fair share.  Geithner and Obama have effectively drawn a line between two groups of taxpayers.  The  wealthy whose income comes in the form of passive dividends and capital gains and those wealthy whose income comes in the form of salaries or the net profits of their own businesses.  Of these two groups which are “the wealthy” as that term is understood in the taxing imaginations of the vast majority of Americans?  Do we see those people getting up at 5:00 a.m. to go out and run their businesses as “the wealthy” or do we see as “the wealthy” those who sit around and clip coupons from “tax free” municipal bonds like Ross Perot or collect dividends paid by Exxon, Shell and the like.  This latter group is precisely the “wealthy” who Warren Buffet chided for being taxed at a lower rate than his secretary!!!!  

How can it be that the working “wealthy” who are also paying large amounts of self employment and medicare taxes are deserving of having to pay yet more while those who “invest” are taxed at about half the income tax rate of the former and pay no social security or medicare taxes at all?  Who is better off, those who must labor to earn their pay or those who “live off the fat of the land.”  In the latter group of investors I believe you would place such wealthy democrats as George Soros and Theresa Heinz Kerry among many, many more. 

My simple and only point is that our politics make a certain group  “the wealthy” who should pay more while another group, with equivalent or even higher incomes, are politically allowed to pay less.  The politically loaded language of this “debate” actually allows the “investing wealthy” to advocate soaking the faux or “working wealthy,” who are really just the upper middle class, while pretending thereby to be oh so generous.  It reminds me of this speaker at an SEIU rally who was so concerned with the plight of government that she wanted the government to “raise my taxes.”  I doubt very much that it was her ox she was talking about!!!!

Tax debates ought to be more about what’s good for the whole country and less about what’s good for the various groups of voters.  The framing of the tax debate as a political choice between different “classes” of taxpayers has had another pernicious effect, it has actually resulted in our shifting a large percentage of the tax burden to our children and the unborn through borrowing and promising more than we can deliver.  The innocents will never even have the chance to vote about whether to accept this burden from us.  They will never receive the benefits.  The debt will just be there when they reach adulthood and they will have to pay.  I hope we can do better.  We’re going to need to be more straightforward and less partisan in this debate if we are to survive as a free republic.  I hope I’m not being too naive.

P.S.  The graph presented at http://www.quickanded.com/2010/02/effective-tax-rates-of-the-richest-400-americans.html presents my point perfectly concerning the effective income tax rates of the truly wealthy as opposed to rates applicable to the merely working higher income upper middle class.

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WHAT CAN WE LOOK FORWARD TO NOW

Posted July 24, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags:

Given the passage of the Financial Reform bill and Obamacare, I thought it might be useful to step back and consider where we are headed.  We have now turned over two of the largest chunks of our economy to the government to run, for better or worse.  Government also yearns to serve us by taking over our energy sector but, if you believe Harry Reid, that’s off the table for the time being.  Those among us who believe that government is good while business is bad must be bursting with enthusiasm and happiness for the brave new world.

Now that we find ourselves at this point, let’s ask the most relevant question.  When government is tasked with providing important goods and services, how does it do? 

If there is anything to the criticism of government workers implied in the following statement, “[t]hat’s close enough for government work” can we realistically look forward to excellence in medical treatment for all?  Will government control of the financial sector mean that only bad ideas will be impeded and new ones, innovative ones which if developed would lead to the creation of wealth, will live and thrive? Will the setting loose of government’s imagination and energy overwhelm us with it’s active and effective brilliance?  I, perhaps in limited company given the fact that these things have been passed by the representatives of the people, am dubious.

I cannot say it any better than it has already been said by the noteworthy Richard Maybury, the so called Three Thousand Year Old Man.  I have been reading Mr. Maybury’s insights and ideas for some years now and generally find his logic compelling.  I believe that you will profit also, in wisdom at least, from the eight minutes it takes to view his video.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RichardMaybury#p/u/6/bP3Sfnp_ehw

Taking the liberty of paraphrasing Mr. Maybury, when government treats us like its wards, whose money and needs are to be carefully cared for but without the need of our input we are very unlikely to be pleased by the result.  The fact that the Obamacare and financial overhaul bills are over 2000 pages long and both provide for development of further regulations by the agencies charged with their implementation, makes it clear that their rules, not ours, will apply.  It’s as simple as this, we are now to be treated like children.  They’ve got our money and now they mean to “care for us.”

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THE GREAT ECONOMIC WISDOM OF PROGESSIVES

Posted July 18, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Political Economy
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

This newest Pelosi-ism has moved me to do a bit of examination of the Progessives’ approach to the economy.  This post will show a few prominent Progessives in their own words.  The first quote is from Ms. Pelosi, who you will remember has been Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States for three and a half years.    

Ms. Pelosi’s conclusions can’t have anything to do with politics trumping sound economic principles, can they?  She concludes that: (1) Republicans are mean guys who lie about the effect of paying some people not to work, and (2) paying money for no work is a good thing for economic recovery because it makes sure the money is spent quickly.  It’s great that this policy has only positive effects, right Ms. Pelosi.  This eliminates even having to think about the possible negative effects, huh?   

Lyndon Johnson, the father of the Progressive program known as the Great Society, is among the most prominent and powerful progressives ever.  From Larry De Witt’s excellent 2003 essay,”The Medicare Program As The Capstone To The Great Society — Recent Revelations in the Recent White House Tapes,” Johnson is quoted at length admitting that sound economics was not his motivation for acting on many domestic “priorities,” it was just his innate goodness that he was putting into governing.   

Probably the most revealing conversation regarding LBJ’s political values and sentiments as they related to Social Security and Medicare was an extended conversation he had with his Press Secretary, Bill Moyers. In this conversation, recorded on March 10, 1965, Johnson permits himself to reflect almost philosophically on his support for a provision in a pending bill which would provide a retroactive increase in Social Security payments. Moyers is arguing that the President should support the retroactivity clause because it will provide a stimulus to the economy. Johnson supports the provision, but he makes clear to Moyers that he does not see programs like Social Security and Medicare as being about economics.
Johnson: My reason though is not because of the economy. . . . my reason would be the same as I agreed to go $400 million on health. I’ve never seen an anti-trust suit lie against an old-age pensioner for monopoly or concentration of power or closely-held wealth. I’ve never seen it apply it to the average worker. And I’ve never seen one have too much health benefits. So when they come in to me and say we’ve got to have $400 million more so we can take care of some doctors bills, I’m for it on health. I’m pretty much for it on education. I’m for it anywhere it’s practicable. . . . My inclination would be . . . that it ought to retroactive as far back as you can get . . . because none of them ever get enough. That they are entitled to it. That’s an obligation of ours. It’s just like your mother writing you and saying she wants $20, and I’d always sent mine a $100 when she did. I never did it because I thought it was going to be good for the economy of Austin. I always did it because I thought she was entitled to it. And I think that’s a much better reason and a much better cause and I think it can be defended on a hell of a better basis. . . . We do know that it affects the economy. . . . it helps us in that respect. But that’s not the basis to go to the Hill, or the justification. We’ve just got to say that by God you can’t treat grandma this way. She’s entitled to it and we promised it to her.”    

In fact, Johnson explicitly eschews economics in favor of his paternalistic approach to “taking care” of people.  What happens in the long run, who knows so long as the present is taken care of?    

Paul Krugman, a self admitted Progressive as well as an Economic Nobel Laureate and columnist for the NY Times, has recently observed this concerning his assignment of blame for starting the Third Depression:    

So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs.    

Paul Krugman

It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.     

And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years, and some of whom will never work again.    

In other words the ‘not profligate’ among us are hard hearted and unfeeling b_ _ _ _ds who are just interested in elections!  Huh?    

FDR Campaign Button

Then there is this famous quotation from the godfather of all modern Progressives, FDR, addressing the political strength of the Ponzi scheme  known as Social Security:    

We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics.     

This demigod admitted to his unconcern for the future economics of his country in favor of the politics of paternalism.     

And again there is the always economically minded Ms. Pelosi addressing Obamacare as a “jobs” bill.     

Who believes that it is a good thing for this country for people to quit their paying jobs so that they can be cared for by the rest of us.  But in the mind of Madam Speaker this is a great jobs program because the unemployed will be able to fill the now abandoned jobs.  You sly fox!!!  Since it’s such a good jobs program why aren’t we starting it in 2010 instead of 2014?     

Finally, I quote the “Compassionator in Chief,” the “Decider” himself on the indispensible nature of the Medicare Part D drug benefit which has never been paid for, even in theory, other than by increasing the size of the federal deficit.  Having pushed this entitlement through to favor politcally active and powerful senior citizens over everyone else, in his 2004 State of the Union speech George W. Bush proclaims:    

I signed this measure proudly, and any attempt to limit the choices of our seniors, or to take away their prescription drug coverage under Medicare, will meet my veto.    

What economic laws do Progressives hold to as a matter of principle?  None that I can see other than the idea that there really is such a thing as a free lunch.  The economics of supply and demand, the law of unintended consequences be damned, that’s what Progessives believe.  In the Progressive mind electoral politics is the only thing that matters.  Whatever policy will get them through the next election is what they will choose.  Whatever benefits them politically, usually paternalistic and pandering, will win the day even if the problems created in the long run are obvious and huge.  They simply deny the existence of long term economic effects from their politically motivated economic actions.  Progressive politicians, like most of us, are capable of rationalizing away any inconvenient fact of life, such as the fact that you can’t create wealth by dropping borrowed money from helicopters.  In fact, the more intelligent the Progressive, the better they are at rationalizing and sound biting away the inconvenient fact that there is simply no such thing as a free lunch, someone always has to pay.

UPDATE – As of August 11, 2011 this just in:

The White House has now adopted the economic road advocated by Ms. Pelosi. Grow unemployment and you will grow the economy. No kidding, this is what they think. Don’t believe me, here is Jay Carney lecturing a reporter from the Wall Street Journal from the White House podium on the basics of economics:

I guess you really can grow the economy by dropping money from helicopters. Why stop at the unemployed, give everyone free money and we’ll all be better off in the long run. Whoo knew? No wonder we’re in such great shape with these geniuses in charge. Have they ever heard of Bastiat and the effect of the broken window?

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NAACP CALLING TEA PARTIES RACISTS – A MATTER OF WORLDVIEW

Posted July 15, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Clash of Worldviews
Tags: , , , , ,

I believe that the primary point of agreement among Tea Party adherents is a commitment to limited government. Is limited government a racist idea per se? Is it a racist idea in a country with a history of slavery and racism and therefore with much to correct? Is it possible that the desire for limited government is mainly motivated by the racial animus of self identified Tea Partiers? Does the existence of racism in a person or an institution require the existence of racial animus? If so, can it be demonstrated that it is Tea Partiers’ racial animus which causes them to desire limited government? Likewise, if racism requires animus, is it even possible to disprove the charge that the desire for limited government is motivated by racial animus? Motivations being such slippery things, how would you demonstrate this? Therefore, the party which has the burden of proof on the issue of animus and therefore racism, either in the affirmative or negative, will necessarily fail. If the burden is upon the Tea Partiers to prove pure motives then the limited government movement can never be rid of the label “racist.” Limited government Tea Party types must consequently accept the label of racist and understand that they can only overcome it in the eyes of their opponents by renouncing their limited government ideas.

Next question. Is it morally wrong to advocate the definitionally “racist” policy of limited government? If there is no burden of proof on those asserting racial animus as the motivating factor in the limited government movement, then the very term “racist” loses much if not all of its moral opprobium. If racism is not a matter of morality but only of policy, then being accused of racism should lose its painful sting and disqualifying connotation. If there is no evidence of racial animus but only evidence of racially disparate impact of limited government policies, then a Tea Partier can simultaneously be a racist and a good person.

The following exchange between Keith Olbermann and a Princeton professor points out the distinction between racism based upon disparate racial impact and racism based upon racial animus [Unfortunately the link to this Olberman interview with Princeton Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell, which perfectly makes my point, has been removed and is no longer on the net, I will continue searching for it. I am adding a link to an Olberman interview with NAACP Ben Jealous who himself, around the last minute and a half of the interview, concedes that there is a difference between Selma/Birmingham racism and the “racism” which is espoused by people other than David Duke.]:

It appears to me that the divide between the NAACP and the Tea Parties is their respective worldviews. A worldview is neither a fact or an opinion but a context or point of view? If someone disagrees with your worldview they are not necessarily, by this fact, liars or morons. Substantial evidence should be required to damn them as morally defective!

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a democratic US Senator from New York, famously observed that:

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

At first blush Moynihan seems right but upon reflection I’m not so sure. To what extent is our worldview based upon accepted and demonstrable facts and to what extent upon our own life experience and our own emotions? Can one worldview be deemed right and the other wrong by application of facts and logic? Certainly the rightness and wrongness of worldviews are in the eyes of the holders of those worldviews since it is so much based upon each personal history and upbringing. The human ability to rationalize all contrary facts is unlimited and this is particularly true when one’s view of himself and his life is intimately affected by his assessment of the factual evidence. Therefore, there are very few statements which are indisputable enough to be referred to as the “facts” in Moynihan’s quote. We must be careful about labelling our opponents as anything other than as opponents.

As to the dominance of worldviews in regard to this issue, this blog returns to a poll reported by Rasmussen on June 24, 2010 in an article titled, 48 Percent See Government Today as a Threat to Individual Rights. It yields the following :

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.

What are we talking about? Is one side or the other lying about how they see the proper role of government? Can both be right and both wrong simultaneously? That this Rasmussen poll gives profound insight into the worldviews of the two sides seems inescapable. There is a fault line that runs through American politics which is based upon the view of whether government is a threat or an ally. This fault line is too deep to overcome by mere factual evidence.

The NAACP perceives Tea Party people as racists because they advocate policies which are not specially advantageous to members of racial minorities but are targeted at making the playing field level for all, a situation which in their worldview is the ultimate in correctness. Generally speaking, however, the average white is economically and institutionally better off than the average black or hispanic so whites begin the game with a head start. That there is “institutional racism” in our world is inescapable given the disparate impacts of existing structures on differently situated people. Therefore in the worldview of the typical black or hispanic citizen this may be viewed as a matter of racism since they start out with less institutional and economic power than most whites. The typical response of the white worldview to the worldview which holds these institutional advantages to be forms of racism is likely to be that their own ancestors started off with nothing when they came to this country and that wasn’t racist, it was just a fact of life which their respective immigrant groups overcame. The alternative worldview holder argues in response that they and their ancestors have been in this country for hundreds of years and that if their race were different they would certainly be economically and institutionally “equal” by now. The reason that they are not equal by now, they conclude, is that racism and its vestiges hold them down. Therefore, they say, they’re still entitled to the head start government intervention gives them. To which the typical Tea Party response is something like, I don’t care what happened hundreds of years ago, just start out on our level playing field and you and your children will get the economic benefits of existing institutions in due course. To do otherwise, they argue, the governmentally instituted advantages for minorities will effectively become permanent which may actually inhibit the disadvantaged from ever “catching up.” And so the argument goes on ad infinitum.

The point of this blog is that NAACP-style “outcomes racism” or “institutional racism” is not actively and causally connected with a demonstrable racial animus. This type of “racism” only requires proof of disparate racial impact for existence not proof of racially based feelings of superiority or inferiority. With this type of “definitional” racism what is really being talked about is political maneuvering for advantage and it cannot be properly considered a moral label. As such “racism” is a label which has everything to do with differences in worldview and little to do with human moral values. Remember that Majority Leader Reid was absolved of a charge of racism by reason of statements about President Obama’s “light skin” and lack of “Negro dialect” essentially because Reid had the right voting record. Apparently no visible moral taint on Reid’s moral character or reputation remains.

Contests between worldviews have always been the province of politics in this country, ever since the federalists and anti federalists squared off over the constitution more than 220 years ago, and so it goes.

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The Supreme Court Legislates From The Bench, Again

Posted July 8, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Law
Tags: , , , , ,

Notwithstanding what you know or believe you know, it is the application of the Supreme Court’s so-called “incorporation doctrine” and not the 2nd Amendment which was the focus of the case striking down Chicago’s gun ban.  In McDonald v. City of Chicago the Supreme Court decides that state governments may not deny you, as represented in the case by Otis McDonald, the right to own and have a hand gun in your own home.  This is only an extension of the 2009 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Court held that the individual right to own a gun is protected against federal infringement.  

Otis McDonald

It is surprising to most that once Heller was decided that McDonald even needed to be addressed.  However surprising, the Bill of Rights was not originally intended to apply to the states but was designed only to restrain the power of the federal government.  The Supreme Court recognized this fact in 1833 in a case holding that the City of Baltimore could take private property without compensation to the owner which would otherwise have violated the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, to wit:  “. . . nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”  The need for the Court to decide whether the 2nd Amendment, once found applicable to the federal government, also applies to the states seems a non-question to most Americans.  That this issue would even need to be addressed by the Supreme Court seems odd and anachronistic in a world in which the federal government is universally considered the master and the states the servants.  This is their emotional reaction even though many are intellectually aware that the First Amendment provides,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . .” etc.  [Emphasis added.]

We the people have just not followed the arcane legal basis of the evolution of the Bill of Rights into being generally applicable to the states as well as to the federal government.  There’s been no popular press coverage of this legal issue.  It has happened almost silently as far as the public is concerned.

There are four different opinions in McDonald written by the nine justices and they cross reference things they agree with in one another’s opinions.  Therefore, there are more than four opinions held by the nine.  Wow, huh?  So much disagreement over such a fundamental issue of our constitutional fabric of which the public is almost totally unaware.  How can this be?  What happened that there is still such a broad divergence of opinion on the Supreme Court in 2010?   Why hasn’t this been solved yet after about 220 years.  What has changed? Why aren’t we all on the same page about this by now? 

This is why.  The “what happened” is the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, passed in order to protect former slaves from the actions of the seceding states in the wake of the Civil War.  The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly modified the thirteen previous amendments and the power sharing envisioned by the rest of the constitution when it provided:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We’ve been struggling for 132 years with the ramifications of these words.  How do they apply and what do they restrict?  Do these words amount to a “fairness” requirement for life in the US with the federal courts acting as umpires?  How does the 14th Amendment’s protection for the privileges and immunities of US citizens as well as the due process and equal protection of law interact with the “rights” of US citizens some of which are protected in the Bill of Rights?  What are privileges and immunities anyway?  How does the 14th Amendment dovetail with the first eight amendments and especially the Ninth which provides as follows:  

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The broad language of the 14th Amendment is subject to expansive interpretation by federal courts when they are asked to provide protection against actions of the states.  Into the breach, to remedy the lack of specificity of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has thrust a doctrine which correlates the due process requirements of the 14th Amendment with the protections provided by the Bill of Rights.  The so-called “incorporation doctrine” effectively grafts (incorporates) most of the individual rights protected by the Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment, a doctrine which is then used to restrict the ability of the states to manage their own affairs.  As such the ‘incorporation doctrine’ has effectively been used to limit the power of the states since at least 1933.  It is the use of this doctrine in this manner which has been decried by many as federal courts “legislating from the bench.”

I find myself in substantial agreement with Justice Stevens dissenting opinion in McDonald.  This is odd since it is people philosophically aligned with me who complain most bitterly about federal courts “legislating from the bench.”  We do not usually agree with Justice Stevens.   Stevens in his dissent argues for restricting the scope of the 14th Amendment in a principled fashion without reliance on the fact that certain individual rights have been protected by the Bill of Rights, to wit:  

The question we should be answering in this case is whether the Constitution “guarantees individuals a fundamental right,” enforceable against the States, “to possess a functional, personal firearm, including a handgun, within the home. That is a different—and more difficult—inquiry than asking if the Fourteenth Amendment “incorporates” the Second Amendment . 

Showing the partisan divide of the Court while writing for the plurality Justice Alito spurns Stevens’s outreach to reconsideration of decades of poorly reasoned precedents calling his dissenting opinion “eloquent” but, with a nearly visible sneer, stating :

As we have explained, the Court, for the past half-century, has moved away from th[is] . . . approach. If we were now to accept Justice Stevens’ theory across the board, decades of decisions would be undermined. We assume that this is not what is proposed. What is urged instead, it appears, is that this theory be revived solely for the individual right that Heller recognized, . . .  [Emphasis added.]

Alito may be correct as to duplicitous motive behind the Stevens dissenting opinion.  Such a motive is made more likely because Stevens is now retiring from the Court and will not be voting to reconsider earlier precedents on the basis stated in that dissent.  (Among hundreds, subjects of reconsideration would be cases involving school prayer, abortion rights, rights of homosexuals, and even the rights of free expression of high school students).  I am not naive but it seems unfortunate to me that a non-partisan outreach to reconsideration of decades of questionable decisions could not have been accepted at face value and honored for what might have been.

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Krugman’s Depression!!

Posted June 29, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Clash of Worldviews, Political Economy
Tags: ,

Paul Krugman

Well, it’s finally happened.  Nobel prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, is throwing in the towel on the current crop of top politicians.  He has called the start of the Third Depression.  The hyper-rational Krugman has concluded that the G8 and G20 leaders are not about trying to save their countries or citizens through a frugal reappraisal of their economies.  Oh no, he judges that Merkel, Harper, et al., are marching to a different drummer and an anti-social one at that:

So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.

Although I am not a genius like Krugman, I believe that Keynesianism’s strength is that it addresses the economy as a dynamic whole.  The idea is that the more money that is moved (spent), the higher the incomes of the people.  Hence, in recessions and depressions Keynes prescribes a policy of forcing money to move. The problem is that when you move borrowed money through the system in a way which does not result in an increase in real wealth, you have wasted the money.  And the taxpayers still have to pay it back.  How much of the money increases real wealth?  I’m thinking that the $700 Billion stimulus bill, put together in a matter of months, probably has a lot more boondoggles than wealth creating projects in it.

It’s like the difference between borrowing $100 to buy a business tool and borrowing the same $100 to eat out.  The former increases your wealth, you are demonstrably better at making money.  The latter only makes you better off to the same extent that a patio grilled hamburger,  which would have fed you just as well, would have made you better off.  If you spent $100 to eat out and you could have served hamburgers on the grill for $10, you’re $100 in debt but only $10 better off.  Surely, the restauranteur and the waiter and the chef are better off but you’re still left in debt from the extravagance.  Keynes assumes that you’ll be better off in the long run when the money goes around.  Perhaps this is so but we’re all still in debt even though we made some money in the coming around going around merry go round. 

It can only be true that the political leaders of the largest economies on earth are sadistic ideologues if they believe that their borrowing money today is without negative economic consequences in the future and still they refuse to do it?  Are we really to believe Krugman cares more about their electorates than they do?  Is this refusal to accept purely rational Keynesianism just another example of populist anti-intellectual backlash ?  Being willing to allow “unnecessary” pain to be visited upon current voters in order to benefit those not yet alive or at least not old enough to vote is without a doubt politically difficult.  After all, it is not a political coincidence that Keynesianism, which minimizes short term pain, is the very ‘ism’ we in the US have been following since Bush and the Democratically controlled congress passed a $152 stimulus in 2007.   Krugman the intellectual simply denies even the possibility that the willingness to accept current pain is simultaneously the patriotic and responsible thing to do.  

Mr. Krugman, is it possible that the G8 and G20 leaders believe in the “new orthodoxy” of frugality because they have lost faith in the long term benefits of following Keynes?  We started with Keynesian policies in the 1930’s so it seems it’s fair to say we’re in the long run now. Keynes didn’t theoretically address the long term outcomes of continuously following his proposals over a long period since he suggested that in the good times which followed the bad ones we’d pay back the debt.  It should also be remembered that Keynes coined the phrase, “In the long run we are all dead.”   What’s happening right now in the Keynes driven economy?  Not much good that I can see other than an increased propensity to save.  The political leaders of much of the rest of the world, personally disdained by Krugman, seem to agree with my assessment of the situation. 

Keynes is Krugman’s intellectual hero.  A rejection of Keynes is in a real sense a rejection of Krugman.  Krugman obviously believes that rejecting Keynes and therefore Krugman is irrational.  The rejection of Krugman may be what he really has in mind when he calls the G8 leaders sadistic.

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A Rise in Civil Libertarianism on the Right?

Posted June 26, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Uncategorized

On June 24 Rasumussen reported the following poll results:

Nearly half of American Adults see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights.

United States Supreme Court

That is, according to Rasmussen, 48% of American adults believe that government is a threat to individual rights. 

Additionally, most Americans (52%) say it is more important for the government to protect individual rights than to promote economic growth.

One final and interesting point made by Rasmussen about this poll is the breakdown in opinion between self identified Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.

The polling represents a point of view that the more conservative among us are becoming more interested in our civil liberties.  To see these poll results in practice before the US Supreme Court we have Thursday’s opinion in Skilling v. United States.  Skilling was formerly the CEO of Enron.  The justices, in striking down Skilling’s conviction, lined up in a very interesting way.  In this so called “right to honest services” case the Court unanimously agreed that, as it applied to Skilling, this criminal statute was too vague and Skilling had been deprived of his constitutional due process rights.  The author of the Court’s main opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is the former general counsel for the ACLU.  She concludes for the majority that the “honest services” statute is vague and this vagueness is overcome only in those cases involving bribes or kickbacks.  Limited to such cases she finds the law constitutional but, because Skilling had not participated in bribery or kickbacks, the statute was defective as to him.

In a separate opinion Justice Scalia joined by Justice Thomas, certainly the most conservative members of the  Court, joined by Justice Kennedy, argues that the reasoning of Justice Ginsburg is insufficiently broad.  Justice Scalia concludes that any conviction under this statute would be defective on due process grounds since nowhere in the statute is there a limitation to those cases involving kickbacks and bribery. Hence, Scalia says, the statute is overbroad, ambiguous and fundamentally defective and future opinions should invalidate any convictions under it on this basis.   

The juxtaposition of these two opinions and their authoring jurists is fascinating.  The so-called conservative would flatly invalidate  all convictions under this statute while the former general counsel for the ACLU would uphold convictions in certain circumstances which are unnamed in the statute.  Who is the civil libertarian here?  Why the divergence?  Is there something in the way each of them see the world which makes them break down this way?  Are the results of the Rasmussen poll playing out on the stage of the highest court in the land? 

Of course you may say that this is just like medieval theologians arguing over how many angels may dance on the head of a pin.  Why, you may ask, is this anything more than a simple academic disagreement between extremely intelligent justices?  Why is this a civil liberties case?

My answer: the Skilling case is rightly understood as a political rather than a law enforcement case.  Why do I believe that the prosecution of Mr. Skilling was political?  I think we can all agree that there was considerable pressure on the Bush justice department to convict Skilling as well as Ken Lay and other higher ups at Enron as well as the accountants at Arthur Andersen (another prosecution which failed at the Supreme Court level in 2005) of something, given the high profile of this largest bankruptcy in US history.  There simply can’t, in our modern America, be such a thing without criminal charges, can there?  Somebody must be made to pay and pay dearly.  Our federal government cannot be seen to be passive here because people would start to wonder if the federal government’s “protection” of the public is really all that valuable if there is no criminal violation associated with Enron’s fall.   [Note: The justice department  publicly began looking at BP for criminal violations associated with the oil leak several weeks ago prior to the agreement by BP, under pressure from the White House, to fund an independently administered $20 Billion compensation fund.]

In the end, the government charged Skilling with both a violation of the “right to honest services” law and insider trading violations.  Lacking a strong insider trading case against Skilling, evidence of this fact being conclusive since a local Houston jury acquitted on all nine such counts, the government used it’s “go to” statute, the “right to honest services” law, to “get him.”  At trial the government gained a conviction but it did so only through the use of a criminal statute which was, as to Skilling, unconstitutionally vague according to a unanimous Court.  From the point of view of the executive branch, however, the justice department was vindicated by a jury which convicted, even though Skilling was eventually let off on a legal loophole.  It was plainly just a political prosecution.

The Courts are there to protect us from being crushed under the overbearing weight of the federal government.  It is laudable that all of the justices stepped up to agree that Skilling, an unpopular and much villified character, was subjected to prosecution under an unconstitutionally vague law.  It is interesting, I think, in light of the Rasmussen poll, that the more conservative justices were willing to go further than the reputed “civil libertarians” to restrict the power of the feds.       

[See also:  Fox News Judge Andrew Napolitano attacking the Patriot Act as blatantly abominable, unconstitutional and hateful from the stand point of civil liberties.]  

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WHY PROGRESSIVES EXPECT BUT DON’T FEAR VIOLENCE

Posted June 22, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Uncategorized

Many are aware of this quote from George Washington:

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

If, as Washington believed, government is just force and if, as many American’s believe, a focus of the current administration is “redistribution of wealth” through government action, then the redistribution of wealth by force is a focus of the current administration along with their allies in both houses of Congress. What makes this “redistribution” logically different than a burglary or a car jacking or armed robbery? Implied violence is certainly not a distinction because it is present in both situations.  Supporters of the redistribution would say that the difference is the fact that it is accomplished by means of law which was arrived at through our representative government. Is this a principled distinction?

What law is this that permits forceful reassigning of wealth? The tax law? The health care law? Social Securityand Medicare?  The $800 billion stimulus law? The previous $152 stimulus law? The TARP law?  The incipient new laws on Financial Regulation and Cap and Trade?  Is there a distinction between burglary/robbery and “redistribution” other than that the political system has decided to give what some people own to different people?  In whose eyes is this a fundamental distinction?  Isn’t it like changing the rules after the game has been played?  Like the proverbial two wolves and a sheep voting about what’s for dinner?  Even if it is a good idea economically and government policy wise, is taking something and giving it to someone else without even the appearance of compensation morally okay?  Is it principled?  Can principled and moral resistance to this aspect of the political system be rightfully characterized as mere ideological claptrap?

Says Al Sharpton:

Is Sharpton alone?  President Obama gave a radio interview in 2001 in which he addresses forcible redistribution of wealth.  See  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck. 

How do we analyze this?  Let’s say that there is a new law. That law states that poor or unemployed persons or investment bankers are permitted to let themselves into your house and remove your property up to a certain amount. Should this be considered as proper “redistribution under law” or criminal activity? Is there a moral difference between this new law and the current laws of “redistribution?”  What if the law requires us to leave a certain amount of designated property on our front lawns for later pick up by the beneficiaries of government largesse avoiding the unpleasantness of  actual entry?  Is such a system justifiable under traditional morality?

I believe that passing a law does not lessen the moral failing of a policy of  governmentally enforced redistribution.  This, however, is the reason that progressives expect a violent backlash to the redoubling of redistribution policy under the leadership triumvirate of Obama-Pelosi-Reid. They understand that fundamentally there is no difference between theft under law and “redistribution” of wealth through taxing and spending. This is equally true whether the redistribution is accomplished by means of the income tax or inflation or through some other governmental means. Progressives, however, reject the very idea of a morality which transcends the rule of the majority.  They are well aware that their aim is to make some people poorer and some richer by means of the law and they want to to accomplish this, in part, to demonstrate their rejection of any idea of a transcendent morality.  They challenge this morality!  They want a reaction from those who accept it. 

Right now there is no easily perceptible connection between the manna being conferred upon the beneficiaries of redistribution and the source of that redistribution. This is because taxes have not really gone up yet and governmentally measured inflation is limited. The current source of  redistribution is borrowed money which taxpayers are on the hook for. People are being given benefits and we are simply promising to pay for them in the future.

How will we pay? The payment will come in at least three ways. First, taxes will go up. Second, the value of the dollars we hold will be eroded through inflation. Finally, we will all pay for the current transfer of wealth through a future of less, possibly much less, because the debt will act as a drag upon the productiveness of our economy and everyone will be worse off than they otherwise would have been.

Progressives know that some people will resist this, feeling that the law is being used to mask what is essentially theft. Given their aim to demonstrate rejection of a principled morality, they expect people to resist and to resist this taking by force. Resistance by force is a right under law when someone enters your home to take your property unless you welcome them and invite them to do so. The fundamental reason that this redistribution by law cannot be resisted by force, however, is that the government has sanctioned this taking. In fact government is the one acting as the intermediary and doing the taking.  We cannot forcibly resist the government taking because it is at once the repository of “lawful” force and the source of the political law which creates the redistribution.

Why no violence yet? Is it because the “resisters” have a deeply ingrained respect for government whether acting morally or not or is it because the loss of property has not really been felt yet? I don’t know for certain but I believe and hope it is the former. Nonviolent resistance and protest through the political process is the only way to maintain what is left of our limited government constitutional republic.  Any violent opposition will be violently put down by the lawfully instituted authorities. Those violently asserting moral rights to their own property will lose their legal credibility as well as their moral superiority. 

A reinvigoration of the principles and self discipline of Americans to refrain from looking to government to take property from others is necessary. In fact, it seems that an example of self discipline is necessary.  We must start with ourselves before we look to others to relinquish their redistribution “benefits.” Violent resistance to this “theft under law” can result only in losing our constitution and our right to insist upon its principled limits on government.  Through resistance by force we will enter a free for all in which might makes right.  Progressives are not really afraid of this since theirs is a world where the majority may freely trample on the rights of a minority through government action, i.e. redistribution under law. We cannot allow ourselves or those who see the world in a similar way to go there.

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AN OPEN LETTER ABOUT GOLD

Posted June 10, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,
Gold US Eagle Coins

John Schoen, a columnist for MSNBC’s personal finance site, writes about gold. gold bugs and gold values in an article titled “Gold Bugs Fly High As Values Soar.”  This article features prominent quotations from an “investment strategist” at Barclay’s Wealth, Michael Crook,  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37490761/ns/business-personal_finance/.  Says Crook: 

As the market realizes that the events that it’s working though are not the end game, the selling from the ETFs creates source of downward momentum that we actually haven’t seen before,” . . . .  Investment demand has become a much a larger source of demand than it used to be. So the question is that a true shift in preference or it is it a bubble? We’re wagering it’s the latter.

As indicated by this quote, Crook and Schoen’s article generally take the view that the current run up in gold is just another bubble not unlike the bubble in the early 1980s when gold rose in price to over $800 per ounce.  If so, this bubble could mimic the tech stock bubble or the oil bubble or even the housing bubble which is still in the process of popping.

I wrote a response to Mr. Schoen.  I would like to share with you the gist of that response.

John:

Do you have any bullion gold yourself?  If not, I would be interested  in an article about why you’ve decided to avoid bullion.  Is it because you see that in the last century the fiat dollar has never collapsed therefore it is not possible that it will collapse?  Do you think it is impossible for the fiat dollar to become worthless or nearly so?  If not impossible, how ‘unlikely’ is it do you think?  If it is merely ‘unlikely’ and not impossible how do you quantify the likelihood of the occurrence of that unlikely eventuality?  Have you read or do you know of Nicholas Taleb’s book, “The Black Swan” which concerns the impact of the highly unlikely event or non-event? 

I consider it unlikely that gold will lose half of its dollar value over the next twelve months but it appears to me that the difference between you and me is that I don’t consider it impossible that this will happen or that it may double again.  If an event such as these were considered impossible by some, I would have to understand why they believed it was impossible before I would believe in its impossibility.  Crook simply opines that markets are discovering that this period is not the “end game.” 

The destruction of gold’s current valuation or the doubling of it is not impossible at the very least because Congress could conceivably pass a law deeming the value of gold at $600 per ounce or there could be rampant deflation when the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011 or the Fed could successfully reduce the size of the money supply when velocity returns to a more normal value and in any of these events and a million more I could think of, gold would lose much of its market value.  Likewise war and hyperinflation might push the value quickly higher. Virtually anything is possible, even the election of an honest government at some point in the future is possible, but that’s another subject. 

It seems to me, however, that holding some gold is a reasonable hedge against a Talebian Black Swan event, hyperinflation, loss of the dollar’s reserve currency status in favor of gold, or world war, whatever.  Not likely events, and events too terrible to contemplate to be sure, but not impossible ones either.  

I should also have included this but I didn’t think of it until later.

No more than 5% of net financial assets held in gold though, is that a good idea John?  For me and apparently for you, diversification is important.  For others, with the US government apparently ready to step in to take care of them in their dotage although they haven’t provided for it themselves, why not?  They could end up mega-rich.   If they win great, if not, it would sort of be like the Wall Streeters who were bailed out by the government too.   

You also cite Congressman Anthony Weiner and his public crusade against gold companies supporting conservative talk show hosts.  Weiner has criticized at least one prominent coin dealer for a “mark up” of either two or three times (208%) the melt value of some gold coins they offered for sale. Does Weiner understand the numismatic value of gold?   There are pennies and a few other coins which I have owned which are worth hundreds of times their base metal value?  Is Weiner simply saying that there are rare coin dealers who are sharks?  Duh!!  Who doesn’t know that?  However, are the people who are buying that type of gold betting on the Talebian Black Swan of government confiscation of non-numismatic gold?  Wouldn’t this action very likely send the price of the remaining gold, the numismatic gold, that much higher?  I just wonder?  Is the public as stupid as the intelligentsia think?  Do we all need to be protected from ourselves and from the evil,  racist Glenn Beck? 

 P.S.  Your point about exchange value is a good one John.  Perhaps some silver coins then as well? 

In the end, who knows what will happen.  The Boy Scout motto should ever be our watchword whether young or old, “Be Prepared.”

Congressman Weiner’s report on Goldline, the offending coin merchant, can be found at http://weiner.house.gov/Reports/GoldlineReport.pdf

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MICHAEL YON AND CENSORSHIP BY EXCLUSION

Posted June 5, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Uncategorized

Yon in Iraq

Michael Yon, a former Green Beret, went to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to discover the story of our wars from the point of view of those fighting them. In his own words:

　

. . . [W]hat spurred me to drop what I was doing, get on a plane and fly halfway around the world, to a war zone, was a growing sense that what I was seeing reported on television, as well as in newspapers and magazines, was inconsistent with the reality my friends were describing. I wanted to see the truth, first hand, for myself.

For more than five years Yon has been issuing his Dispatches from embeds with American and UK units both in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has spoken often and powerfully about his experiences and observations. He has shown directness and even bluntness in his assessments, often including implied and explicit criticism of the US and UK upper echelon. He jumped into the political hornet’s nest when he observed that the war in Iraq had morphed into a civil war but did so because he felt it was necessary to be accurate about events on the ground. He has also been particularly direct when talking about the military and police forces of the two host nations. He has always told it like it was and, notwithstanding his sometimes impolitic opinions, for the most part was welcomed by the allied military at all levels.

Last month, despite the terms of a written understanding with the army, Yon was abruptly dis-embedded from his unit, the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division in Aghanistan. There is significant evidence that this action was taken from the level of and at the direction of Gen. McChrystal and staff. D.B. Grady explains the context of the order to dis-embed Yon in the Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/michael-yons-war/57483/.

Despite early optimism, Yon has clearly expressed his lack of confidence in Gen. McChrystal’s capacity to lead the US to a successful outcome in Afghanistan. He has also leveled substantial criticism against the actions of a Canadian General who was subsequently relieved of command. The specifics of these episodes are all beside the point however. The point I am making is that dis-embedding Yon was a form of censorship and a threat.

Let’s ask ourselves some pertinent questions. Is controlling access to non-secret information a form of censorship? When is such access-censorship permissible in a country whose press is supposedly free? Does access-censorship become more permissible when you are in a war and you, as the authority, believe people’s lives may be lost if your war aims are made more difficult to accomplish by reason of the publication of non-secret information or even uncomfortable opinions? Are there written guidelines which are to be applied by the party making the decision to limit access to non-secret information? Isn’t the censorship of Michael Yon worthy of substantial news coverage especially when it acts as an implied threat to others? After all the remainder of the press rallied around Fox News when the White House was trying to isolate and marginalize it. Why is D.B. Grady, a freelance writer, the only one even mildly interested in it? I truly hesitate to make this political connection, but did the fact that President Obama made himself, until very recently, virtually unavailable for press corps questions set the tone in which this action was acceptable? Would the press have pursued the story if Bush’s army had cut off Yon’s embed when he went public saying that the war in Iraq had become a civil war when that conclusion contradicted the Bush party line?

Long before his dis-embed, Yon made this important statement about access to information:

The longer I stayed, the better I understood things. And I began to realize that Americans need to see these things in order to understand what is happening here and come to a more informed judgment of whether this struggle is “worth” the cost, in money and lives. No one can make that determination without a balanced set of facts.

How do we, the American people, reach a reasoned conclusion about the war in Afghanistan without Yon and others like him giving us the raw data? Is a man like Yon, whose embeds are at the discretion of the army, entitled to express opinions about the leadership of the war without losing his observation post thus cutting off his access to information and ours along with him? Is this another issue which must be injected into the political process if the press itself turns away?

　
Note: It should be disclosed that the author of this post has read Yon’s Dispatches for years and has made voluntary financial contributions to help keep him in place.

 

　

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IT’S ALL ABOUT INCENTIVES MS. PELOSI

Posted May 29, 2010 by Michael Chovanec
Categories: Political Economy
Tags: , , ,

       How do you get people to do things which are good for them and good for each other?  One possible plan would be to start with a definition of what is good and then develop the incentives to accomplish that good.  In a world in which people are free to choose, there could even be a deeply human relationship between what is good and the incentives you develop.  Let’s work through it and see . . .

       What is good? Are you one of those seditious folks who think giving people what they want is good?  If you are such a one, how would you go about giving people what they want?  Would you ask them?  This is imperfect since they can lie to try to please the questioner or to please themselves by answering in a way which pleases their view of themselves or their responses may be limited by the questions which the questioner asks because of the questioner’s own idea of what is good.  Of course, you could simply tell them what is good for them and eliminate their choices altogether but that’s another post.  Alternatively you could simply see what they are willing to freely trade for, a very objective and real way of expressing their idea of what is good for them?

       If you think that what people are willing to pay or trade for is the best measure of what is good, then you have a starting point. If this is your idea, then you  would probably create a free market in which people are freely permitted to exchange things of value which they own (payment) for other things which they consider to be of equal or greater value but which they don’t own yet. The desire for things which other people have and which you are willing to trade value for is called demand by some economists and it is at least one measure of what is good.

       Supply, on the other hand, comes about by people seeking to create goods and services which others demand in order to have valuable things to trade for the goods and services created by others to satisfy their own demand. This is what the market is all about, matching buyers and sellers, supply and demand.  In my experience this is the main reason most people go to work in the first place. Their incentive to work is to get something to trade with. Hmmm, it appears that there may even be a relationship here between supply and demand, work and appetite.

       What does the speaker of the house think about this supply and demand idea of what is good?  Says she,

Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance.

Don’t believe that she said that, watch her yourself in this clip from the Rachel Maddow show a few months ago.

 

       Is Madam Speaker nuts?  Certainly she could not have intended to say that.  It must have been garbled to the extent of a Bushism.  Creating artistic entrepreneurs who haven’t been discovered yet, that wouldn’t create real economic growth, would it?  Certainly the speaker’s handlers got to her and made sure that she didn’t say that again, right?  Wrong, here she is last week repeating her prescription for economic growth through stimulating entrepreneurs.

       What happens to people who do not create that which others want to buy? In Pelosiworld they are subsidized to turn out mountains of unwanted but “artistically valuable” books, paintings, sculptures and photos. Seems as if we’re going to have a large supply of artistic goods. Unfortunately, however, there’ll still be about the same amount of demand for valuable things like food, health care, cars, gas, etc. If people aren’t willing to eat and drive less in order to get the artistic good you’re selling, there has been a mis-allocation of resources. There’s been an allocation of resources, human labor, to produce things which are not very valuable to others. The result of this mis-allocation, for instance, may be hunger without the food to satisfy it!!!! Get it, there is a relationship, huh? I know it’s harsh but in a world where people are unable to sell their art, they must get a real job for which people are willing to pay money!!!! At this job they will in turn create things others want and need. Hamburgers, computers, cars, medical care, whatever.

       In Pelosiworld, while creating the goods and services people want, the better producers are going to be taxed extra in order to help pay the medical bills for otherwise starving artistes? Will food end up being a part of their governmentally provided medical treatment? Shelter? Where will it stop? Is this arrangement sensible to anyone? By creating a Pelosiworld we are in a place where people aren’t going to want to do the things which are hard, unpleasant or difficult but which have real value. In Pelosiworld we will subsidize the creation of things which have little or no value (remember Pelosi admits that the artistes don’t even create enough value to afford to pay for their own health insurance). Therefore, things that they might have created and for which there is a real demand will become even scarcer. While there is growth in both taxes on productive and valuable work and subsidies for creating things that are not valuable, guess which of these things Pelosiworld will create more of and which it’ll create less of?

       I’ve got the answer to this conundrum, let’s import more undocumented workers in order to do the work that ‘Americans just won’t do.’  If we do this, however, we’ll have to make sure that the new players never catch on to the game.

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