no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

Detroit Mayor Guilty of Perjury?

January 24th, 2008

In case you’re not familiar with Kwame Kilpatrick — and there’s no reason you would be, unless you have a fetish for all things Detroit, or you live here — let me recap. There was the curious one-year lease on a Cadillac Escalade, to the tune of $24,995. Or, the use of a tax-exempt fund to pay for a personal vacation, while the city’s fire departments literally deteriorate by the minute. A whistleblower suit, filed by two wrongfully-terminated police officers led to a $6.5M settlement, in favor of the whistleblowers. There are also strange allegations about all-night partying at the Manoogian, and a dead prostitute (unsubstantiated). Then, last fall, his press secretary was arrested on domestic abuse charges.

Today, the Washington Post is bringing a new Kilpatrick story to the national stage, yet hardly an unexpected one. As reported, text messages from Kilpatrick obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that he perjured himself in vehemently denying an affair with one of his top aides.

The county prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the legal implications of the report, posted Wednesday on the Detroit Free Press’ Web site. A conviction of lying under oath can bring up to 15 years’ imprisonment.

As I wrote a few months ago:

The fact that Detroit Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick’s press secretary was recently arrested on domestic abuse charges is not terribly newsworthy, except as part and parcel to an ongoing series of mishaps that seem to befall the Mayor and his associates at every turn…

…Trouble doesn’t find people. People find trouble. like a nightmare version of the Midas touch, eventually everything King Kwame touches turns to trouble.

Teflon Kwame won’t do any time. He won’t even be asked to resign his post. The citizens of Detroit elected him twice — once after many of these improprieties were made public. Kwame is embarassed, but he ought to feel like he’s 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Nothing sticks.

People will argue that we should forgive his indiscretions, and I’m inclined to agree. But what I’m unwilling to forgive is the millions on millions that he’s spent defending, deflecting, and denying charges throughout his tenure as Mayor. Look, I could care less about Kwame’s infidelity. I feel sorry for his wife and for his children. And I’m not even sure that the relationship with Beatty is even tangentially related to the whistleblower suit (details escape me…) Regardless, Beatty is still in the city’s employ. Kilpatrick is still the Mayor. And the city, more specifically, the taxpayers, are out millions of dollars.

Libertarians Are Not Idiots

January 18th, 2008

Government is slavery. Taxation is theft.

Libertarians are pie-in-the-sky utopian pipe-dreamers. But we’re useful idiots. Or so the argument goes.

Earlier this week, I referenced that attempt by one Bryan Angliss to paint libertarians as basically utopian pipe-dreamers, short on pragmatism and long on useless “theory.” Angliss’ commentary is pretty close to what I’ve referred to as The Conundrum, when a non-libertarian accuses the libertarian of being a base hedonist, at best. I was compelled for some reason to return to his post yesterday and peruse the comments. I’m not one to engage in comment wars on other sites, it’s often a fruitless argument against dogma. And it’s usually useless to address arguments made by other commentators, most of whom are idiots.

But then I noticed that Angliss responded to some of his detractors in the comments section. And what he said to them, well, I felt compelled to respond. Actually, “infuriating” would be a good description of how it made me feel. Enough already, I’ll respond to Angliss here.

Responding to one libertarian, Angliss perpetuates the myth of benevolent government and malevolent man:

Individual human nature is base, mean, selfish, and violent. Yep, that’s what I want my society to look like.

…And everything I’ve read convinces me that libertarian ideology, applied on a national (or even state) scale would flame out, crash, and burn. It’s all theory, no pragmatism, when representative government exists to determine the most pragmatic approach to solving problems.

The first statement is clearly a mindless regurgitation of the Hobbesian myth, that without government, life would be nasty, brutish, and short, as man finds himself in a perpetual war of all against all. Allow me to regurgitate the counterpoint to this fallacy. This is not my original idea, I probably first got it from Hoppe, but basically the argument that government is needed to reign in man’s baseness is inherently self-contradictory. If it is true, that man’s nature is base, selfish, immoral, shortsighted, and evil, then there is no reason to believe that a government being comprised of such men could be anything other than a projection of those traits on an unimaginable scale.

Moving on, it is clear that he hasn’t read The Voluntary City, to my limited knowledge, the single best compilation of articles and essays describing real world examples of how markets work to provide things generally believed to be the provenance of government. Think “roads.” Think “community planning.” Think “utilities.”

Responding to yet another comment, Angliss trolls:

A small federal government with limited powers would not have protected consumers from an AT&T monopoly, … or broken up the rail monopolies, or been able to pull us out of the Great Depression, or….

I think you get my point.

Bwahahahah!

Seriously. In terms of “the ease with which I can explode these myths,” this statement is on par with (or perhaps exceeds) his “stadiums are a legitimate public good” argument.

I don’t know about AT&T, but my understanding is that their “monopoly” status was due in no small part to previous government actions or regulations. I excised “Microsoft” from the list because I don’t know enough about the situation to even provide a synopsis. My gut tells me that they’ve been able to game the system of intellectual property rights [a Government creation, no less!] to establish their dominant position in the market place.

Continuing, a small federal government would not have had the power to grant land to the railroads creating de facto monopolies. If, on the other hand, Angliss is referring to the landmark Northern Securities case, it may be safe to argue that there was not actually a monopoly in play, and that the case is yet another (in a long line of such cases) where anti-trust law is used to protect inferior competitors from market forces, accordingly, Northern Securities, and others like it, represent a significant welfare losses to consumers.*

Many economists concur that it was the FED policies which increased both the depth and breadth of the great depression, and these are Nobel-prize winning economists like Hayek and Friedman, not just the libertarian kooks like Rothbard. A small Federal government without the Federal Reserve Act emphatically could not have plunged the U.S. (and the world) into the Great Depression to begin with.†

With apologies to Mr. Angliss, I think you get my point.

Deeper still into the comments, Angliss suggests that “contracts are a form of force,” as a means of negating the general idea that a libertarian society can be self-regulating through the use and enforcement of contracts to which the several parties have voluntarily agreed.

Let’s think about this for a moment, shall we? Contracts are a form of force, right? Even if they’re entered into voluntarily, enforcing the terms of the contract if one of the contractees wants out would be a form of force, so that’s “wrong” by your own definitions. Yet voluntary contracts are one of the fundamental mechanisms by which libertarians want to run the country.

For starters, Mr. Angliss, libertarians don’t want to “run the country.” We just want to run our own lives. But this topic, along with his deification of “democracy” will have to wait for another time.

Words have meanings, Mr. Angliss, and a contract is not force. What Angliss is most likely referencing here is the idea of specific performance, where a government court system compels a party in breach of contract to fulfill the contract. Seeking specific performance is a form of force. I will not debate this.

Failure to perform one’s obligations under a contract, however, is force. So the guilty party is the one in breach, not the one seeking restitution for the force employed against him by the default. Few but the most ardent pacifists will argue that retaliation, defense, is not a justified use of “force,” so I could make the argument that specific performance could be justified under libertarian principles.

But let’s imagine, for a moment, a pacifist world where we abhor even the idea of specific performance. I can play this game. It’s clear that Angliss cannot.

There are voluntary, contractual ways to eliminate the specific performance portion of contract law. One possibility is social ostracism, “black-listing,” or some sort of ratings system like that employed on eBay. A new participant would have a hard time entering into his first several contracts without putting up some collateral, or without a guarantor or co-signer of sorts. Once “in the system,” if you will, his performance in existing contracts could be rated. Failure to perform one’s obligations per a contract would result in some sort of demerit. At the most local and informal level, we all know a friend to whom we refuse to lend money, because he has earned a reputation for not paying people back. At a more impersonal and macro-level, various rating systems, black-lists, etc., could be employed, and their accuracy, reliability, and integrity would also be subject to a market test.

Another idea which is currently in use is the escrow agreement. If I make an offer to buy real estate which is accepted by the seller, and then I decide to back out, there is no recourse to specific performance. The seller can’t force me to buy his house, for a number of reasons not worth discussing here. But what he can do is keep my earnest money deposit, which was held in escrow as a safeguard against the small possibility that I’d back out of the deal. Here, Angliss says that I can object, “Taking my EMD is force,” I am clearly incorrect. Refusing to fulfill my obligation per the contract is the application of force, in this scenario.

The money is not mine, it is the sellers per the terms of our agreement, and at this point, it would only be an exercise of force if I were to try and prevent the seller from keeping my EMD. Because there is the possibility that I might be inclined to do just this, the money was voluntarily deposited with a neutral third party as a safeguard against such an event. And this is why sellers rarely accept an offer which does not come with an EMD to be held in escrow.

Neither of these suggestions are meant as the be-all, end-all of contracts. But they are far more than the theory Angliss so flippantly besmirches. These are examples of “pragmatism” at its finest: in practice.

+ Recommended Reading +

* Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure by Dominick T. Armentano
†Economics & The Public Welfare: A Financial and Economic History of the United States, 1914-1946 by Benjamin M. Anderson

Catching Up Around the ‘Sphere

January 16th, 2008

I’ve been absent for a few days, so I suppose it’s time to catch up.

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Mitt Romney is celebrating a victory by wide margin here in Michigan. His television ads so far have been pandering to the UAW and automotive base, traditionally safe haven for the Dems. (Sidebar: Does anyone else think that it’s funny that Romney grew up in Michigan, which State is shaped like a mitten? Mitt. Mitten. Get it?) Among other things, he’s been promising “investment” by which he really means “subsidy,” and peddling all sorts of nationalist economic mercantilism.

The son of a former car-company chief, Romney pledged billions in Washington aid to bolster automakers. And his anti-Washington, pro-change message resonated with Republicans in the state whose economic fortunes have declined along with the auto industry.

Pledging “billions.” Where do you think that money is going to come from, Mitt? Well, it can come from taxes, or it can come from the printing press. I thought Republicans were supposed to be for free markets and low taxes. Apparently, not when an election is on the line. Republican he is not. CoyoteBlog is certainly not the only one who ponders these things…

I propose that the amount of bullshit people are willing to believe is proportional to how badly they want it to be true.

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Speaking of the “i” word…

The Washington Post continues to propogate the myth that inflation is not a monetary phenomenon. The pace of inflation has increased some 50% over fiscal year 2006. The market anticipates another rate cut by the FED, so apparently Bernanke remains committed to the FED’s policy of using inflation to combat inflation.

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The USDA is urging a ban on cloneburgers, even while the FDA has determined they are safe to eat. I endorse cloneburgers, previous post here.

Part of the problem, according to the Washington Post, is foreign trade, where other countries are reluctant to purchase genetically altered florae and faunae from the U.S. I say fuck them if they don’t want it. More cloneburgers for the rest of us. Or clone-veggieburgers. We shouldn’t be prohibited from purchasing and consuming consistently tasty clones simply because some eurotrash is skeptical. The French love their peasant farmers more than the U.S. loves its agribusiness. Tell them to get off their collective derrieres and actually produce something for a change…

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Via FSK’s shared items, I came across this Bryan Angliss, who clearly doesn’t know how to think. He honestly argues that without the government, the national highway system would “end up being controlled by a single monopolistic corporation, and that’s functionally equivalent to the government that already owns the highways.”

There is simply no basis in historical fact or in theory, for assuming that roads would end up being monopolized. American history, is full of examples of private highways around the turn of the 19th century, many of which earned small or modest returns. Bonus points for recognizing that the government is equivalent to the “single monopolistic corporation.”

…However: Several demerits for failing to recognize that monopolies have historically not existed without the sanction and privilege granted to them by governments. Further demerits for ostensibly understanding that “monopolies are bad,” but failing to apply that line of reasoning in a consistent manner. (i.e., if monopolies are bad, and government is functionally equivalent to a monopoly, what does that say about government?) Even more demerits for citing sports venues and mass-transit as examples of “public goods.” These are probably two of the absolute worst examples of a public good, but Angliss suggests that,

[T]he economic benefits of a major sports franchise and mass transit will boost the entire region’s growth, reduce pollution throughout the region, etc, so fairness requires that everyone who will benefit should help pay the costs..

Where to begin… By this logic, a department store or a restaurant or a movie theater is a public good, because it will boost the entire region’s growth.

I don’t even want to waste the time explaining that “public financing” of major sports stadiums (operated by billionaires who own billion-dollar franchise teams) essentially amounts to public subsidization of their wealth and largesse, and allows them to earn a far higher return than they otherwise would. Public sports venues routinely employ minimum-wage workers, commission-based hawkers, and volunteer organizations to perform the lion’s share of the vending and services. “Public” police are conscripted for crowd control, and “public” thoroughfares are congested on game days. Furthermore, Angliss’ argument is essentially Bastiat’s fallacy of the broken window, noticing only what is “seen” and ignoring what is “not seen,” that is, he essentially assumes that if the money is not spent on the sporting venue and its complimentary goods and services, the money will not be spent on anything, anywhere. This is demonstrably not true, and even if it were true, it doesn’t mean the money disappears. It would become “savings,” which is what people are able to do when they’re not taxed to the hilt. And “savings” encourages investment, in spite of Keynes.

I could go through the same sort of step-by-step with public transit, but I’d rather not.

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At The Liberty Papers, Doug Mataconis comments on the Supreme Court’s refusal to grant terminally ill patients the ability to use experimental treatment.

This reminded me of something I’ve thought for quite some time. When the “right to die” issue is brought up, sometimes people make an argument that goes something like this: “We shouldn’t play God with human lives.”

It’s facially hypocritical to argue that “We shouldn’t play God” by permitting people to end their own lives. Preventing someone from exercising the right to die is essentially forcing them to remain alive, which amounts to no less than playing God. There are no two ways about this. If it’s wrong to “play God,” by helping people die, it’s just as wrong to keep them alive.

We “play God” when we perform quadruple bypass surgeries, when infants are born months premature and they are incubated by thousands of dollars of technology, when we grow flowers in a greenhouse during the winter months, and so on. I submit, that there is nothing wrong with “playing God.”

If you want to argue against a person’s right to end his or her own life, you’ll need a stronger case than that.

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The CoyoteBlog complains about an Oregon law which requires an attendant to fill up your gas tank.

I ran into the same emasculating regulation while I was in Oregon snowboarding back in late May, 2007. What a fucking nightmare – since I was running late for an AM flight back to Detroit, I did the same thing: gassed up my rental car. Then, the clerk was there in seconds. He said something to the effect of, “I’m supposed to do that for you.”

Listen brah, in Michigan, we pump our own gas. I don’t have time to wait for your rent-seeking ass.