Lets Put Politics Aside for Thanksgiving

I enjoy a spirited debate about many things, but lets put politics aside for Thanksgiving and think about things we should all be thankful for on this day. Let's forget about the reasons and history of the day for now, which I might get into another time.  I'm just going to focus on celebrating the things we should be happy about, and I think we all have a lot of those. It doesn't matter what your faith (or lack thereof) or politics are.

This country is a great country, where we still have the opportunity to express ourselves.  I am thankful to live in a place that lets me be open about what I feel and express it to anyone. I can do so with little fear of becoming a political prisoner.

I am thankful to live in a place where there exists fewer barriers to rise in socio-economic status and have more opportunity for myself and provide more for my future children. Most countries in this world cannot provide their citizens with that much opportunity, despite leaps and bounds in their economic growth.

I am thankful to be able to share a country with a diverse set of individuals, many of whom I may disagree with. It is only through having the chance of spirited debate that doesn't devolve into violence that we can learn from each other. And I have learned so much more from disagreeing with others, than from agreement. For this, I am also thankful.

I am thankful to be with someone that admires, respects, trusts, and loves me. Of course they do more things, and the list is not all inclusive. Few of us have the opportunity to meet someone that is such a perfect match for them. I myself did not expect to ever meet someone as perfect for me as I have.

So many people don't have a family to spend Thanksgiving with, or they are estranged from theirs. For this I am thankful. Even though we may not agree, or choose our families  they are ours. Though I myself have disagreed and even cursed my family at times, I am grateful to have them.

I'm sure there are so many things that I have missed that I am, or should be, thankful for. The goal of my post was not to be all inclusive, but to inspire us to think about these things on this day. Happy Thanksgiving.

How pro-America do you have to be to Break up the United States of America?

I hope that the people in states with petitions to secede from the union get their wish.  I know it's unconstitutional, but frankly I think we should make a Constitutional exception this time.  And with it, the Federal government can withdraw funding for education, the National Guard, FEMA, and earmarks for politicians among other things.  Give them all what they want.

Maybe it's a good thing that we go the way of Europe.  Perhaps it does make sense to divide the US into different countries.  It does seem like we are becoming more than one country.  So I say, let them have what they want.  Perhaps it will help them understand the err of their rugged individualism when they go broke.  Will they issue their own currency?  Of course, it will be interesting to see what happens in the event of a disaster.  Or perhaps a terrorist attack?  I wonder if they will want the help of the US military if terrorists attack their state.  Will they have enough of an economy and infrastructure to provide for the defense of their citizens against such events without the US Armed Forces?

Honestly I await with interest in finding out how this plays out.  However, like previous secession cries, they just seem like more hot air.  To me it shows that they don't believe their own rhetoric about individualism, since they subconsciously know better.  They know damn well they would be destitute, and it would be nightmare to establish currency, commerce would be destroyed.  A random question comes to mind as well--how un-American is it to break up the United States of America?  People that want to secede have revoked their justification to ever call anyone un-American ever again.  Have they ever though of trying to fix the country they are in?  Just more divisiveness, and more walls.

There have been novels written in the cyberpunk literature about a new US civil war.  Many Japanese anime that take place in the near future, portray the US as a fractured state in civil war.  It is funny how prophetic these authors might turn out to be.  How the culture war, might actually turn into a real war.
I wouldn't want a civil war--it would be stupid to devolve to that point.  It would be best to grant those that want to secede, the right to leave the union.  I feel it is, frankly, to their own demise.  I'm not buying that any of the states that would secede would be able to compete by themselves in the global marketplace, or against other states when pitted against each other.  Sadly, there is no precedent, except civil war (perhaps this might be a good thing, to discourage this.)  Statehood cannot be revoked, it is one of the reasons why there used to be so much back and forth about Puerto Rico becoming a state.  Many people wanted to, but were weary they could not turn back from the decision.

Russell Kirk's 10 Conservative Principles: a Rebuttal

Russel Kirk is a learned conservative writer that wrote up an interesting essay about conservative values.  I was pointed to the essay thanks to the magazine, The American Conservative.  It's a rather good magazine, and the essay is well written and enjoyable read.

First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent. 

This word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul, and the outer order of the commonwealth.

A solid morality are a principle common to many philosophies.  It can be established that certain ethical choices lead to outcomes that are provably better.

A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize;

Moral order, a sense of right and wrong, and personal convictions about justice and honor will only be as good as the society that establishes them.  Moral truths must be subject to empiricism for verification.  Take for example Nazi Germany.  They had a strong, though deluded, sense of right and wrong and a sense of justice and honor.  After all, Nazism was borne of a powerful nationalism and pride of the German state.  Nazi Germany was not a good society.  Morals are only as good as the society that make them, just as promises are only as good as the people that make them.  Preempting any suggestion of comparing conservatism to Nazism, it suffices to say it is simply an easy to use example of moral absolutes being subverted for bad purposes.

Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions.

Though it's rather catchy, (custom, convention, and continuity has a nice ring to it,) but at least one of these isn't like the other.  Indeed they are all different.  Kirk attempts draw a false equivalency between them.  Indeed it makes it ironic for Kirk to point out the abuse of the term convention here.  Conventions are far more fluid than a set of customs, are generally broader in scope, and in practice often more grounded in evidence based reasoning.  People's traditions and customs aren't really bound by restrictions on nonsense.

Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription.

There is a lot to learn, and much that can be applied from what our ancestors have established.  That said, we don't just learn from their prescriptions, we learn from where they were mistaken as well.  Call it, "negative prescription," or what not to do, which is just as important; if not more so.  Our predecessors might be able to provide us with significant wisdom, and it is important to acknowledge that.  However, it is because people stand on the shoulders of giants they are better informed than the generation the preceded them.  It is thanks to our improved vision that we can dismiss our ancestors "prescriptions" when we get more accurate data.

Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence.  Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity.

Checking the problems with Burke (he was opposed to the American and French revolutions after all) at the door, it is important to judge decisions and choices for the long haul.  In addition, since new information is constantly received about the progress of existing structures, it is prudent to empirically evaluate their long-term consequences and validity, irregardless of tradition.

Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.

Kirk's candor must be commended here.  More conservatives should come out and say how they really feel about inequality.  Indeed, if his position wasn't more clear, it would make sense to commend his sense of humor in framing inequality as "variety."  It grates against our observations to call egalitarianism deadening when it has been demonstrated empirically to be strongly positively correlated with human progress and functioning healthy societies.  Inequality is not a "preservation of a healthy diversity."  Surely we are more creative as a species than to call that "diversity."

Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created.

It must be difficult to reconcile, on the one hand, a desire to maintain established norms while at the same time understanding that these norms, themselves products of human nature, suffer from those grave faults.  Upholding the virtues of such norms, while acknowledging they are faulted would seem to indicate a lack of yet another conservative principle previously alluded to:  reflection.

Humans have faults.  Understanding faults exist and what they are is half the battle, the other half is actively working to fix the faults or remove or diminish their impact.  It is asinine and fatalistic assume perceived faults are irremediable.  Part of what is observed of conservative principles is the claim that human nature is unfixable, while making it part of conservative philosophy to never actually try.  What a truly insipid and empty philosophy!

Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

Again the truth sneaks through in pieces.  Kirk is simply reverting back to the principles used by Aristocracies to dominate their people.  The implication that people are too weak, stupid, or violent to govern themselves.  It is interesting to note that we often fear in others the faults we see in ourselves.  If this was the case, there is no point to democracy.

Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. 

There is no such thing as private property.  The only thing that exists is property that you claim is yours, no one else claims as theirs, and a common structure in place to enforce that distinction.  It is not private; it requires state protection to ensure you retain ownership.  In effect the reason you can own things is because society collectively establishes that you can.  Whatever you believe about how rights are derived, it requires a government to ensure that those rights have meaning in the real world.  A right is only as good as the ability to actualize it.  Without governance, you have no rights.

Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community.

Another contradiction, is observed here.  Collectivism by definition requires all parties to consent.  Otherwise its not collectivism it's bullying and coercion.

Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic.

Certain restraints on power and human passions are necessary for ensuring that other's passions and autonomy are not unreasonably restricted.  A state in which an individual or small group dominate the wills of one's fellows is a state of mind control.  Joking aside, and in agreement with Kirk, states which allow a single person or group to seize control rather than through democratic elections are fundamentally flawed.  He continues

When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy...

Again no disagreement here either.

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects.

The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other.

The fact that Kirk feels it necessary to point out that conservative philosophy is not opposed to social improvement, is remarkable.  It wouldn't have occurred to me to think that anyone would be opposed to social progress.  And considering that he has bisect such as broad a gap as that between liberals and totalitarianism, just to insert conservatism as a reasonable middle.  That would be like one inserting their views between that of a selfless doctor doing candlelight surgery and a serial killer.  Then saying they not as bad as a serial killer and claiming it as an insightful demarcation.  Oh how sad are these principles that neither challenge nor inspire!

For one not necessarily opposed to societal improvement, Kirk sure has a marked cynicism of progress that seems to characterize conservatism in general.  Where is his aforementioned principle of prescription when you need it.

Since the establishment of civilization in the Middle East,  quality of life for human beings has measurably improved.  Life expectancy has improved, death from infectious diseases has declined, and quality of life has improved for large numbers of people.  That is considering that there are vastly more humans on the planet than in ancient times.  There has been progress in the absolute sense, and to be so cynical of progress in the modern age is not conducive of our modern society of which Kirk is a beneficiary.

Kirk's essay is impressive the first read through.  Though still a good read, upon further analysis, the same contradictions repeatedly appear, and eventually it cracks at the seams.  Disappointingly, conservatism continues to be the vapid philosophy fit for cowardly tools it has always been.  The basic synopsis of conservatism as per the words contained in these principles are, "We have affection for and are weary of changes to a deeply, irreparably, and gravely flawed society of people who assume responsibility for their successes or failures despite us knowing they can't change anything."  With a political philosophy so devoid of meaning, it is no wonder they must turn to religion to fill the gap.  This happens frequently as the initial excitement of having found what is believed to be a solid conservative argument gives way to emptiness.  It's almost like conservative ideas are much like rainbows, initially eye catching and appealing, but ultimately lacking substance and simply retreating to emptiness as you approach. 

Additional Musings on Free Markets

Further elaboration on my previous post about free market economics and its flaws was noted.  There were a few things of note that would make the last article more clear.  Clarification on what it means for a problem to be non-convex was noted to be necessary.  It was also found that additional comments from the main cited publication should have been included, which were of importance.  Additionally, there were just more ideas to share on the topic, and what these structural issues mean.

Non-convexity in the case of economics refers to the set of preferences for a given market participant.  It means that some prices for goods support two separate optimal states.  Quoting from the Wikipedia article on non-convexity with regards to economics

For example, we can imagine that, for zoos, a lion costs as much as an eagle, and further that a zoo's budget suffices for one eagle or one lion. We can suppose also that a zoo-keeper views either animal as equally valuable. In this case, the zoo would purchase either one lion or one eagle. Of course, a contemporary zoo-keeper does not want to purchase half of an eagle and half of a lion (or a griffin)! Thus, the zoo-keeper's preferences are non-convex: The zoo-keeper prefers having either animal to having any strictly convex combination of both.

The fact that two different mutually exclusive states can yield equally valuable outcomes, is not a stretch of the imagination.  It is this very property that is very troublesome for economics and the free market, because it is also what makes computing optimal decisions no better than random in the aggregate for a lot of common cases (failing you do not have an insider edge in the market in question.)  There are additional things of note about the findings of Papdimitriou¹

Firstly, it is NP-complete to distinguish between economies that have no price equilibria or in marginal prices, and those that have both.  Computing allocations that are optimal are FΔ^P₂-complete. Furthermore it is FΣ₃^P-complete to compute the optimal plan preventing defections from the economy.  Though optimal solutions exist, the inefficiencies caused by complexity equilibrium is unbounded.

The consequences of these results are that the natural state of free markets is a state of inefficiency.  Since there are infinite families of allocations, this means that polynomial time agents (agents operating within normal human time time constraints) will nearly always be stuck at inefficient allocations.

While there is mathematical tools for converting non-convex problems to approximate convex ones to obtain quasi-optimal solutions,, it is not an easy task for lay persons.  For more information on non-convexity and its role in producing many of the market conditions we observe empirically as well as providing prescriptive actions on the response of public agencies acting in the greater interest.  See  Salanié² on this issue.  The book makes a very strong case against deregulation in its contemporary promoted form.  Additionally, it points out that the solutions are not production ready for imperfect competition

At this stage of research it is very evident that the transposition of the Arrow-Debreu general equilibrium model to an economy where competition is imperfect poses too many problems that have not yet been solved.  p 138  Salanié²

Frankly these troubles will probably never be solved, since they are based upon the bounds of the physical universe and what we know about competition.  These problems place limits on what the meaning of being successful  within the market framework really represents.  Considering the large amount of uncertainty and intractability of deciding what the correct allocations of resources, courses of action, or even if the solutions exist in a given context.

Further Reading & References

¹Papdimitriou, Cahristos H., and Christopher A. Wilkens. "Economies with Non-Convex Production and Complexity Equilibria." (n.d.): 1-19. http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cwilkens/pubs/PapadimitriouWilkensComplexityEquilibria.pdf. Computer Science Division, University of California at Berkeley, CA, 94720 cwilkensg@cs.berkeley.edu, christos@cs.berkeley.edu. Web. 25 Sept. 2012.

²Salanié, Bernard (2000). "7 Nonconvexities". Microeconomics of market failures (English translation of the (1998) FrenchMicroéconomie: Les défaillances du marché (Economica, Paris) ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 107–125. ISBN 0-262-19443-0, 978-0-262-19443-3.

Calculating GPI

The Genuine Progress Indicator or GPI is an economic indicator made up of many societal revenues and expenditures.  It's goal is to be a GDP like index, that takes into account things that GDP doesn't to give a more balanced picture of overall human development and progress.  This post is about putting the calculating front and center, making it superfluous to dig through websites or PDF files to figure it out.
First we compute the Income Distribution Index, \(IDI\), from the Gini index, \(G\).  The latest numbers the US Census Bureau has are from 2010, though they can be calculated, which this post won't go into.  The 2010 precalculated Gini Index, \(G = 0.469\).  The \(IDI\) is based on the 1968 Gini Index, \(G = 0.388\).
\[
IDI = \frac{G - 0.388}{0.388}*100
\]
We now take the total personal consumption, \(C_t\), weight it by \(IDI\), and
obtain the weighted personal consumption, \(C_w\).
\[
C_w = \frac{C_t*100}{IDI}
\]
Compute the value of non-economic activity, \(V_n\), summing the value of housework and parenting,\( v_h\), the value of education, \(v_e\), the value of volunteer work, \(v_v\), the services of consumer durables, \(s_c\) and the services of highways, \(s_h\).
\[
V_n = v_p + v_e + v_v + s_c + s_h
\]
Compute the costs of societal ills, \(C_s\), by taking the negative of the cost of crime, \(c_k\), subtracting the loss of leisure time, \(l_t\), subtracting the costs of under-employment, \(c_u\), subtracting the costs of consumer durables, \(c_d\), subtracting the costs of commuting, \(c_c\), subtracting the costs of household pollution, \(c_p\), costs of auto accidents, \(c_u\), costs of water pollution, \(c_w\), costs of air pollution, \(c_a\), costs of noise pollution, \(c_n\), loss of wetlands, \(l_w\), loss of farmland, \(l_f\), loss of primary forest, \(l_p\), resource depletion, \(r_d\), carbon emissions damage, \(e_c\), cost of ozone depletion, \(c_z\).
\[
C_s = -c_k-l_t-c_u-c_d-c_c-c_p-c_u-c_w-c_a-c_n-l_w-l_f-l_p-r_d-e_c-c_z
\]
Now compute the GPI by summing \(V_n\), \(C_s\), net capital investment, \(I_c\), and net foreign borrowing, \(F_b\).
\[
GPI = V_n + C_s + I_c + F_b
\]
The model takes into considering quite a few values, and there are extensions to creating models from the index to predict future index values.  The GPI is correlated to a variety of public policy decisions, and is a useful stand alone model for drawing conclusions about a given economy.

If you would like to add LaTeX math rendering to your site or blog copy paste this HTML code to your webpage. It was a pretty neat find that made this post cool looking.

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What GDP can Tell Us (and What it Can't)

Debt/GDP Ratio, co. The Market Ticker

GDP is an oft quoted figure for conveying the economic output of economies.  The figure is useful in conveying a broad sense of how much value is being produced by an economy.  I say a broad sense, since the figure is more like gross income on your paycheck rather than net income.  And while gross income might be useful for some purposes, the money you actually take home is net.

More specifically GDP is the upper bound on the productive output of the economy.  Of course, it's very hard to actually determine exactly what the productive output of a large economy is precisely.  Furthermore, different ways of measuring GDP will actually give different values.  Again, because of it's nature as an upper bound this really isn't worrisome.  It is probably more worrisome that GDP heavily overstates it's case.  Nonetheless, because it is a best possible estimate, comparing it to the national debt (a figure that is bound to be understated) and finding national debt exceeds it, should bring some pause.

There are additional cases where using GDP as an indicator won't distort what economic facts you are trying to discern.  In the case of excess credit in the system, as has been noted repeatedly by Denninger, it is clear that since GDP is an upper bound, if what you are measuring paints a dire picture, you can be assured that the reality is far worse.  For indicators like this, sadly it also means that optimistic news is always going to be overstated.

The problem is in how GDP is computed.  GDP is a simply the product of the sum of the credit and cash in the system with the velocity--the number of times the money changes hands.  The reasons that money is being exchanged don't matter.  If you buy $1000 of capital equipment to expand your business, it affects GDP the same as if you spent $1000 on an insurance deductible, because flood destroyed your existing equipment.  It has the same mathematical effect on GDP.

It is no surprise that  this measurement of value suffers from a failure on the common-sensical level.  Clearly buying $1000 additional equipment is going actually increase the overall societal value, whereas replacing destroyed equipment has a neutral effect.  We don't have people run around and destroy things for the sake of increasing societal value.  Though, some people will do that in poor neighborhoods and split the cash received from an insurance company with the insured.

Luckily other methods have been developed for determining "real" overall societal value.  Sadly GDP cannot be viewed this way, because of the aforementioned distortions.  Using GDP per capital doesn't really convey the true contribution of each citizen.  The mean is going to be positively biased due to the nature of there being a small fraction of companies contributing to a large majority of GDP, along with it already being inherently overestimated.

GPI/GDP Divergence Over the Last 30 Years

GDP v GPI per Capita in yr 2000 USD

An indicator that better states its case is the Genuine Progress Indicator or GPI¹.  Looking at historical calculations, GDP has diverged ever more from then GPI.  It doesn't take a remarkable inductive leap to conclude that externalities, that are not accounted for by GDP, are to blame.  These observations, along with an increase in GDP per capita, are highly suggestive of a simultaneous privatizing of profit while imposing externalities on society.  Of course GPI includes societal costs, like crime, that aren't the result of conducting business.
GPI has many benefits as an indicator.  It captures a large amount of important costs borne by society like natural disasters and healthcare that GDP doesn't.  Additionally, it adds in human progress indicators like income disparity to better represent actual life quality.  Looking at the GPI per capita, it is observed that US residents have made no human progress or even negative progress since the 1970's.

The indicator is not without it's critics.  Take Landefeld's² take of GPI as too "subjective" tainting GDP.  That is of course true, as any attempt to accurately asses the value of an economy will at it's core be subjective.  GDP suffers from the same flaw, resulting in multiple ways computing it; each method giving different values.  Despite the dense and deep mathematical material, economics is a multidisciplinary field, where the rigour must eventually come to grips with human social behaviour.

It's important to have econometrics to be able to make societal and public policy decisions in the first place.  All economic indicators are going to be subjective, so it makes sense to try and come up with a more complete picture of the economic pie.  Since it includes less tangible benefits to society though volunteering as well as accounting for losses like healthcare and leisure time, the indicator draws a more complete picture of reality.  Perhaps GPI is more objective, taking into account additional factors that people consider relevant to their well being.

Further Reading & References

¹Denninger, Karl.,  The Market Ticker. (Sept 12th 2010.)  http://market-ticker.org.  Web.  12 Sept 2012.
²Talberth, John Dr. Cobb, Clifford. Slattery, Noah., The Genuine Progress Indicator 2006. A Tool for Sustainable Development. (2006) Redefining Progress Oakland, CA.  http://rprogress.org/publications/2007/GPI%202006.pdf.  Web.  12 Sept 2012
³Landefeld, Steve.,  Economist Debates: GDP Proposition: The House Believes That GDP Growth Is A Poor Measure Of Improving Living Standards.  The Opposition's Opening Remarks.  (Apr 20th 2010.)  http://www.bea.gov/about/pdf/Newsclips_GDP_group.pdf.  Web.  12 Sept 2012.

Does the Free Market Live Up to the Hype?

Wall Street

It has been demonstrated with powerful logical and mathematical rigor in literature for at least a half-century that in reality the so-called "free market" economy doesn't really do what it's cheerleaders purport.  Ironically it seems that those most in favor of laissez-faire policy are the one's that aren't informed about the serious intractible problems with it. When those that understand something the least are the one's cheering for it, that speaks for itself.

I understand it is difficult to make an anti-market argument in the United States without coming under fire, since it is espoused in all its glory.  It's invisible hand working to ensure the efficient allocation of capital and resources, while eliminating waste.  The stark reality is that there are only three economies that work like they do in economic textbooks:  those with a single individual, one's created in computer simulations for the purpose of being tractable, and those in our minds.

Real economies (any economy that contains more than one participant) suffer from a well known problem called non-convexity.  In one of the more accessible and well referenced journal articles, Economies with Non-Convex Production and Complexity Equilibria¹, the authors explain

...the theory of markets with non-convex productions is plagued with very bleak negative complexity results... We start by showing that computing a Pareto efficient outcome in a market with non-convex production is FΔ^P₂-hard. Economists regard Pareto efficiency as a sine qua non for any concept of stability or rationality in markets. Hence, our negative result for the complexity of finding Pareto efficient outcomes is a lower-bounds for any "reasonable" equilibrium concept. Finally, in sections 4 and 5, we give similar results for two concepts of stability more sophisticated than Pareto efficiency. It is FΔ^P₂-hard to tell if an allocation is in the core (no coalition of agents has an incentive to defect and create its own economy). And for a natural models of sequential production, we show that computing equilibria is FΣ^P₃-hard and PSPACE-hard, respectively.

Perhaps most significantly, we show in the process that such economies can have a novel kind of equilibrium, from which deviation may yield tremendous improvement for any and all agents, but the agents are stuck at a suboptimal solution of a particular instance of an NP-hard optimization problem. We call such a situation a complexity equilibrium (Definition 6.2). When agents are at such an equilibrium, standard complexity-theoretic assumptions imply that no computationally efficient procedure would generally allow them to improve indeed, it is even intractable to recognize that improvement is possible. With the exception of deliberate complexity-theoretic studies in game theory (e.g. [20]), we are not aware of other natural economic situations in which computational complexity begets stability.

The second paragraph is a rather stunning rebuke of free-marketeerism.  The authors themselves demonstrate rigorously that agents find themselves in sub-optimal states of "complexity equilibrium."   The authors get rather dense bringing up problem classes.  In order of problem complexity they are:  NP-hard, FΔ^P₂-hard, FΣ^P₃-hard, and PSPACE-hard.  They are simply a classification Computer Scientists give to certain problems or queries they have based on how hard they are to solve.  All of the one's mentioned cannot be computed efficiently at best, meaning a coin flip or dice toss to solve them no less efficiently than any other known method.  PSPACE problems require infinite time and memory, and so are considered to be unsolvable. When stuck in these "complexity equilibria", flipping coins to make decisions is as good as anything else.  So there is little incentive for improvement, though there might be profit to be had, if it could be known what to improve.  No method is better than a wild guess at determining whether improvement is possible.  Deciphering what procedures would to allow agents to improve, also suffer from this deficiency, known in academia as intractability.  Using a coin flip or dice toss to solve intractable problems is no less efficient at finding a solution as any other method.  Money is supposed to be a proxy for successful business operation.  It is there to reward those that take the right steps.  Yet how can  success be judged if we can't know determine what success is because of these unsolvable intractabilities?

Another stunning realization is how removing the convexity requirement from economic theory to better represent reality, introduces outcomes where everyone loses.  This is called a circle-of-death, and in this case results from problems that unsolvable in any real sense (requiring infinite amounts of computational space or time.)  So this means that certain allocations of goods will lead to unknowable inefficiencies and unsolvable problems for resource allocations, that leave everyone involved worse off.

Non-convexity is remarkably commonplace, and not merely an academic issue.  As an example, take what free marketeers nearly universally hold as axiomatic, the equilibrium price.  Simply put, there is a price where supply and demand meet, and that point is the place where the price of a commodity will settle on.  The tenth mink coat isn't as valuable as the first.  By contrast, it would grate against common sense to think the first airplane off the assembly line would cost the same as the next 100.  Economy of scale is not some academic construction, it is a widely accepted feature of a market economy.  Yet something so basic flies in the face of the assumption of convexity.  These asymmetries lead to the phenomenon of non-convexity and eventual intractability of solutions.

It could be rebutted that there is no other alternative to free market economics in its current formulation, because everything else is worse than capitalism.  The results presented here demonstrate the free market has major deficiencies producing efficient outcomes because of structural flaws.  Furthermore, many of these structural flaws are unknowable; to figure them out would be intractable.  Free market capitalism has the burden of proof.  It cannot be fully determined whether the system is truly working and it is demonstrable in many real world scenarios outside of academia it is not.  The invisible hand of the market is as intractable as the problems presented.  These results are not new, and have been available for review for at least 50 years.  References for further reading are provided at the end of the post.  In Economies, Papdimitriou et al. provide extensive literature as well.^1,2,3,4

The necessity of a independent authority representing us all and provide some resolution over these sub-optimal conditions that the market can get stuck in.  There must be an alternative to the free-market system.  Sadly, there is of course economic incentive to maintain the status quo, because those with money and influence would clearly seek to maintain their societal position.  It is not a cut-and-dry issue of whether free markets work.

Further Reading & References

¹Papdimitriou, Cahristos H., and Christopher A. Wilkens. "Economies with Non-Convex Production and Complexity Equilibria." (n.d.): 1-19. http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cwilkens/pubs/PapadimitriouWilkensComplexityEquilibria.pdf. Computer Science Division, University of California at Berkeley, CA, 94720 cwilkensg@cs.berkeley.edu, christos@cs.berkeley.edu. Web. 25 Sept. 2012.

²Regular, Nonconvex Economies
Andreu Mas-Colell
Econometrica, Vol. 45, No. 6. (Sep., 1977), pp. 1387-1407.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0012-9682%28197709%2945%3A6%3C1387%3ARNE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3
³Existence of Competitive Equilibria in Markets with a Continuum of Traders
Robert J. Aumann Econometrica, Vol. 34, No. 1. (Jan., 1966), pp. 1-17. Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0012-9682%28196601%2934%3A1%3C1%3AEOCEIM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

⁴Quasi-Equilibria in Markets with Non-Convex Preferences
Author(s): Ross M. Starr Econometrica, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Jan., 1969), pp. 25-38. Published by: The Econometric Society. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1909201 .
Accessed: 25 Sept. 2012.

The US Must Enhance Cyber Threat Defenses, Offenses

US Must Enhance Cyber Defenses

Lockheed Martin in Bethesda, MD

It has been reported before that the US is currently not well defended against cyberattacks.  Some examples of US companies that have come under attack by Chinese hackers are Lockheed Martin, Google, and LinkedIn among others.  Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg, there's tons more.
Take this hacking campaign against energy companies in December 2011.

Others, not publicly attributed to the group before, include a campaign against North American natural gas producers that began in December 2011 and was detailed in an April alert by the Department of Homeland Security, two experts who analyzed the attack said. In another case, the hackers first stole a contact list for subscribers to a nuclear management newsletter, and then sent them forged e-mails laden with spyware. 

In that instance, the group succeeded in breaking into the computer network of at least one facility, Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, next to the Hosgri fault north of Santa Barbara, according to a person familiar with the case who asked not to be named.

They Phished a Nuclear Plant

The Compromised Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant

What strikes me is that hacking attempt against nuclear facilities wasn't particularly sophisticated.  This attack is straight out of the script kiddie playbook.  It concerns me that the natural gas producers e-mail filter didn't catch these spyware attachments.  I'm also shocked that people listed in a nuclear management newsletter lacked the sense to never open e-mails from suspicious sources on work computers.  I would have guessed that nuclear engineers and managers had more sense.

This concerns me, because a sophisticated security expert would have been far less overt.  If these hackers with adolescent tactics were able to compromise a nuclear plant, what could a better trained adversary accomplish.  I doubt the attack would have even been detected.

Symantec has published information about Chinese cyberattacks against US Defense contractors.  Indeed terabytes of data have been stolen from the DoD.  This is bad news, and we have to wonder how much technology, strategic plans, and information have been stolen from us.  The Chinese are not our friends.

Panetta is Weak on Cybersecurity

Panetta is having talks with China about “cyber issues.”  These aren't “cyber issues,” they are purposeful attacks on the US and private companies in the US to obtain information.  China is a state sponsor of cyber attacks throughout the western hemisphere, they must be called out on this issue.  This has gone on long enough. I am gravely concerned about our technology being turned against us, which is something that makes cyber attacks so dangerous.

They Could Compromise Our Weapons

F-22 Raptor in Flight

Modern aircraft require computers running a real-time operating system (RTOS) to fly.  The F-22 is a sophisticated fighter plane that can network using a system called Total Information Awareness (TIA) with other fighters in the air to produce a composite map using the combined sensor data.  It isn't too hard to imagine an adversary spoofing a friendly F-22 signature and either obtaining strategic battlefield information or providing false radar data.  Furthermore, like nearly all modern fighter jets, F-22s are digital fly-by-wire so it doesn't take a remarkable stretch of the imagination to envision fighters being taken over by remote control.  Though I hope that the engineers designing the aircraft implemented network air gaps to isolate the aircraft RTOS control systems from the TIA sensor systems.  However based on a quick mental overview of the data pipeline, the RTOS would need to talk to the TIA in order to adjust to manoeuvres.  Of course, any linkage between the TIA and RTOS would be create a vulnerability, since the input to the TIA could be manipulated by a rouge signal.

Hack Them Back

We must begin offensive hacking attacks (if we haven't already) against those that would seek compromise our systems.  The fight is no longer conventional; there is a cyber war going on at this very moment, and we must be prepared for enemies to use this vulnerability against us.  This will give us several advantages.  The main advantage will be to actively stop attacks before they happen, since we will be able to compromise the hackers systems and know how they will strike.  Secondly, we can implement back doors to provide us access and monitor systems and their uses, to come back whenever it is deemed necessary.

More Confirmation Egypt, Libya was a Terrorist Attack

Video of Egyptian Protesters

Multiple independent sources now confirming that the attack was indeed a terror attack.  The plot thickens, since we have reports that an al-Qa'ida operative, a former Guantanamo detainee, was involved.  The official line is that this attack was brought about by some video posted two months ago, but that is baloney.  An offensive needs to be mounted immediately against these attackers, and there should have been a lot more condemnation from Washington.  Just the usual vacuum of leadership that we have all come to expect.

No one should still be under the delusion that this was an angry mob motivated by some perceived disrespectful portrayal of their prophet. Too many governments are cowering; we must set the example by a show of strength.  If there is no projection of power, that will embolden  al-Qa'ida to continue launching attacks if not against us, against our allies.  While the White House continues to lack testicular fortitude, Romney is providing only criticism of the President without a plan of his own.

The President should have launched an offensive in response to this attack.  I find it hard to believe that there was no awareness that this was anything less than a purposeful, planned attack against the US.  Of course, the sources I cite are claiming this is not the case.  Choosing 9/11 as the date of the attack seems to indicate forethought, otherwise it's a bit of a convenient date to throw an ad-hoc terrorist attack.

French Newspaper Stands Up for Freedom of Speech

Headquarters of Charlie Hebdo

One of the ways we can neuter the power of Islamic extremists is refusing to listen.  It is ridiculous for radicals to believe they can control the speech of individuals in countries that respect freedom of speech.  Indeed, it is indicative of the divide that exists between cultures.  Western culture has established freedom of expression and speech as fundamental.

I am overjoyed that Charlie Hebdo didn't bow to pressure and published satiric cartoons of Mohammed.  Backwards cultures shouldn't be allowed to squelch freedom of speech.  We must join together to demonstrate that the ideals of our society have won.  As a culture we have moved forward

The French government has spoke out against the cartoons, but of course its because it's going to cause them extra work.  Riot police was deployed to the magazine's headquarters.  Muslims must learn to deal with criticism of their prophet with appropriate responses, just as all other religious groups can deal with satire of theirs.  While many may find the French cartoons disrespectful, no ones beliefs are entitled to any more respect than any others.

For those that believe that the attacks on the embassies in Libya and Egypt were over a video that was on YouTube for two months prior, let me rid you of your denialism.  This is not the case, considering what is known, and what I have linked to before.  There is strong evidence this was a coordinated attack, especially timed for the anniversary of 9/11.  Therefore, there is even less reason to appease them, since in reality they would find something else to latch onto and blame the next attack on.

This paper is a champion of freedom

The offices of Charlie Hebdo, a left-wing title with a reputation for provocative covers, were firebombed last year after it published a mocking caricature of hammad. Its editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, has been under police guard ever since.

“You get the impression that it’s officially allowed for Charlie Hebdo to attack the Catholic far-right but we cannot poke fun at fundamental Islamists,” said Mr Charbonnier, who drew the front-page cartoon in yesterday’s issue showing an Orthodox Jew pushing the turbaned figure of Muhammad in a wheelchair.”

The paper did the right thing by publishing the cartoons and not allowing itself to be bullied by a bunch of knuckle dragging apes, tied to barbaric, ancient customs. I like to think political correctness would not prevent that from happening in the US.

We Must Stand with Japan Against China

I was neutral of Leon Panetta's rather compromising stance in diplomacy with China at first.  Considering the fact that Japan has no way to defend itself, I was considering that maybe his soft stance was just him being mindful and trying to keep our ally safe.  The Japanese government wants to buy some islands from a private Chinese owner.   After mulling over this issue I have made my decision.  Bejing's response has made me suspicious of their motives.

The Chinese seem extremely defensive about these islands.  So upon review, I have decided we are not taking a strong enough position on China on this issue.  We need to project more strength, in regards to Beijing.  From the way the Chinese are projecting blame onto the Japanese government, we need to take a moment to reflect on who we are being friendly to and whether we should remain neutral on this issue.  China clearly isn't.  From the AP via the Albany Times Union:

China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported that during their private talks, Liang told Panetta that China was “resolutely opposed” to the islands’ inclusion within the terms of the U.S.-Japan mutual defense treaty, the agreement signed in 1951 as the U.S. helped the island nation rebuild after World War II.

Why would China be opposed to this islands' inclusion within the terms of the defense treaty, unless they were planning to attack Japan?   Panetta didn't demonstrate enough strength on this issue.  We cannot remain neutral on a territorial issue involving an ally we have a defense treaty with.  Again, another failure of the Obama administration demonstrate leadership where it is necessary.  We must stand with our allies, because we have a duty to protect them.

Obama Sold Out on his Principles

A Loyola University clip of the future President from 1998 has been posted.

The trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution -- because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody’s got a shot.

I have to agree with what President Obama said in 1998.  There are a couple of reasons why it makes sense to have a progressive tax structure that has people with more wealth paying a higher percentage of their income as taxes.

Firstly, the more wealth you have the more rapidly you can grow it.  Those with more wealth have access to instruments with higher returns while having the same or lower risk than those with less of it.  The inflation created by this process causes the corresponding currency debasement to impact those with less wealth disproportionately.  We therefore impose taxes to counteract this effect.

The other reason why it makes sense to tax wealthier individuals at a higher rate is because they impose more externalities on society to maintain their wealth.  Take private property as an example.  Private property requires not only the recognition that something is mine, but also societies recognition that it is no one else's.  A government is required to enforce that distinction, and therefore those with more property require additional  protection.

The truth is that everyone believes in redistribution--after all, the purpose of economic systems is to redistribute wealth by some means.  The debate is really about what kinds of redistribution are acceptable and what the mechanics of it are in order to better serve society.  A society that seeks to promote the general welfare (as stated in the Constitution) of all citizens might have different ideas on how to redistribute wealth than one that seeks to encourage a lazzie-faire, cold individualism.

Sadly, the President is not the person he once was.  He is content to sell out to Wall Street and lobbyist interests, rather than protecting the interests of the people that elected him.  The alternative is not palatable for me either.  For this election, I'm voting for a third-party.

Mitt Romney Hates You, Suprised?

From what can be gathered from their actions, modern politicians dislike this country and display it in different ways.  President Obama, for example, seems to lack the willingness to stand up for our country domestically and on the international stage at a time when we need it.  Romney hates the people within this country, and has basically written off nearly half of everyone as a bunch of welfare recipients; not to say the President has higher minded sentiments either of course.  This is why I reject both major parties at this point.  They don't seem to represent anything that I value.  I value both the people of this country and getting them back into productivity, and the importance of standing up for this country.

I'm going to be fair and reproduce the comments in question

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what... All right -- there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing...

What do Romney's "47%" comments tell us?  That he is in bed with rich people.  Is it really surprising that Romney is such an elitist?  He was raised into privilege, so this would be expected.  His comments weren't stupid, they were honest.  Refreshing really; honest speech from an elitist, corporatist being delivered to a group of like minded individuals.  If only more politicians would come out and admit who they really represent.  This is what America needs to hear.  Our citizenry needs to know just how much these individuals actually hate us.  What the anti-Obama crowd has to realize is that just because you don't like the President doesn't mean you have to hold water for Romney either.

Disliking President Obama is understandable given the circumstances, and I agree.  He is certainly not getting my vote.  But neither is a sniveling, anti-American, factory closing, Wall Street loving scumbag like Romney.  If there is any time to entertain voting for a third-party candidate, this election is certainly it.  You might dislike the President as I, but his criticisms of Romney are valid.  A vote for either candidate is a vote against the principles of this country.

President Obama's actions are enough to demonstrate that he is also unfit to lead.  I have pointed out before that my biggest problem is his lack of strength of necessary issues that face us all.  I voted for an FDR or a JFK and got a bunny rabbit.  Those that are against the President need to be consistent however.  I have heard too many claim the president too weak, while simultaneously accusing the administration of trying to establish a dictatorship.  Dictatorships actually require leadership; something this President lacks.  In the White House there is a complete vacuum of leadership.

Cut the Fat, Kill Farm Subsidies

Banning soda isn't going to fix the US's obesity problem, the problem is that healthy food is expensive.  And there is a reason why this is so that is not inherent to healthier choices, it's a problem related to agricultural hand outs.  The US gives massive subsidies to preferred agribusinesses, manipulating the food choices that are available and the price points we receive as consumers.

The real issue here is farm subsidies.  The editors of Scientific American have it right, the problem is money that gives preference to certain crops.  Most (62% of) farmers don't even receive subsidies.  Out of those that do, 70% of the payouts go to 10% of the recipients.  From these figures it is clear that the programs aren't helping the intended recipients, "family farms."  It's giving preferential treatment to certain types of large agribusiness that has ultimately led to the obesity problem.  Growing fruits and vegetables is clearly less expensive than meat or dairy.  But thanks to subsidies, that's all mixed up. The fruit and vegetable farmers are mostly thrown under the bus (except for corn and soybeans, I'll get to corn in a minute,) and special consideration is given to farmers of livestock.

Consumption of Sugars By Year

Corn is probably one of the most highly subsidized crops in this country because of its importance to industry as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS.)  It is an essential part of many high calorie processed snack foods like potato chips.  Thanks to our use of processed corn as a sweetener, we pay twice what the rest of the world pays for regular table sugar.  HFCS, however, comes dirt cheap, thanks to the subsidies, ready to haywire our insulin responses, and trap us in a permanent obesity epidemic.  This is not only due to HFCS's high calorie density.  Insulin causes humans to convert glycogen in the bloodstream to fat, so it is reasonable to think that HFCS might be implicated our obesity problem due to the havoc it reeks on the system.  It is good news that it's use might be declining.

Wool is One of New Zealand Biggest Exports

New Zealand did something everyone in the developed world should have done in 1984.  They ended farm subsidies.  About time someone did it.  In the US only 0.1% of the population lives on farms, compared to 25% when farm subsidies were first put in place.  There was a purpose for it then, but I think even FDR would agree with me here, in the modern world, these handouts only go to serve a small percentage of recipients.  All American Blogger has a great write up on this.

None of the horror stories came true.  It's true that 1% of farms went under.  But overall the agribusiness survived and flourished.  Now this is pure speculation, but I am sure that they have better food choices too, since it's dictated based on what is easier to grow.  Produce is far easier and cheaper to grow than raising livestock and cattle.  I'm betting that would have had an effect on healthy food choices almost immediately.

This is probably supposed to be more about fixing obesity, but while on the subject of farm subsidies, check out this list of city slickers receiving farm subsidies from the government.

Patents Have Got to Go

It is about time someone told the truth; patents need to go.  The technology life cycle has reached a point where patents do more to stifle innovation than they do to encourage it.  We must abolish patents on technology products and software.  Nearly every study has show that patents do nothing to encourage innovation at all.  If companies are concerned with people steaing ideas, we already have non-disclosure agreements for that purpose.  Why isn't the Coke formula patented?  Because to do so would actually reveal the formula to the world.  An innovator that wants to really protect their invention is better off keeping it secret.

Most of the arguments for patents are based on the story of a lonely inventor that innovates, gets a patent on their invention, and that grants them protection against big businesses that want to steal their idea.  That is the fairy tale we are sold since childhood when we look at inventors like Thomas Edison.

The modern reality is far more cynical.  Often times a small innovator will be approached by a large business.  This large business will offer a contract to cross license the proprietors invention at a discount.  The inventor is then coerced to cross license under threat from the large companies patent portfolio and well funded legal team.

The current situation with Apple computer is strongly indicative of the rampant abuse of the patent system.  Many of the things that are patented aren't even true innovations to say the least.  One of the troubles with having a patent system is the determination of whether a particular invention is novel.  Instead of allowing clerks in a patent office that have no familiarity with the particular art being patented to determine whether inventions are novel, why not let the marketplace decide that.

Following the trends of the products in question in the Apple patent lawsuit against Samsung, one can clearly see who the true innovators are.  Samsung had a much larger variety of products and it was evident they were not infringing on any innovations.  However, the patent court ruled in favor of Apple.  This was highly disappointing, because it was a victory for patent trolls and non-innovators.  The courts acting this way, simply encourages this kind of patent troll behaviour, without true innovation.

Indeed, many large companies just buy patents and sit on them without innovating.  This is a complete abuse of the patent system.  Obviously the intent of patents was not for large companies to hold them hostage in portfolios without actually innovating.  Failing a complete abolishing of the patent system, I would settle for putting a requirement that granted patents be actualized within a certain time period.  After expiry of that period, the patent is auctioned off to the highest bidder by the patent office.  The process is repeated until someone innovates, and that patent is put into fully active status at that point.  If we are going to have a patent system, at least there should be no one owning a patent that is not building a product with it.

FDR's Legacy

It seems easy for talking heads to attempt to denegrate the New Deal.  Unfortunately, history classes are quite poor, and my father for example never got to World War II in his history class.  In fact he never covered the legacy of FDR either.  My own family benefited from the projects put in place by FDR, and if you had any family in rural America during the post-Depression years then yours did too.  The New Deal along with other FDR projects were fundamental to bringing this country back after the Great Depression.  If you put down the New Deal, frankly, you are un-American or sadly uneducated.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was an incredible undertaking that put millions of young men to work and gave them a paycheck and skills to be useful in the workforce.  Even after leaving the CCC these workers could rest assured they had learned skills to be put to good use.

Lineman Working for REA Coop

FDR signed Execute Order 7037 on May 11, 1935 creating the Rural Electrification Administration.  This was followed by the  Rural Electrification Act that passed congress.  Private companies were unwilling to provide electricity to rural areas claiming lack of profitability. When Roosevelt responded, its ironic how quickly these companies claimed it was unfair because they couldn't compete with the government when they themselves said it would be unprofitable.  In reality, the REA simply gave authorization to give funds to private local electric cooperatives to do the work themselves.  Thousands of jobs were created as a result of this.

Not only was authorization given for simply electrical power, but also telephone service as well.  Local cooperatives sprung up all over, providing work for the willing.  People were put back to work bringing forth a sense of shared struggle, and work towards a common good.  That is the real America.  Not this cold individualism we are sold today, but a sense of shared hard work delivering results for common folk.  The America of the four freedoms:  Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

The Four Freedoms Etched in the FDR Memorial

We must ensure that we aren't trampling on the rights of people to express their views and opinions.  People must be able to worship however they choose without interfering or interference from others.  There is a need for us as a society to provide a social safety net for the common good and step in where private individuals corporations wont.  And finally, but no less important than the others, there is a necessity to protect ourselves and defend against our enemies and our way of life.

Where is a President that will deliver these things?  Among the current field of candidates I see none that can deliver the type of real American values that I'm looking for.  Not a peep about the four freedoms.  If I was running for President, that would be my platform.  Let's take it back to FDR.

The Worst of Unions

Chicago Teacher Union President Karen Lewis

I am a strong supporter of unions and unionization.  It is a sad day however when we see the likes of this making it hard for us to accept the idea.   Karen Lewis is the personification of what people hate about teachers and unions put together.  Her performance looks like she could have been addressing the Apollo theater, not an audience at a social justice conference.  She goes on to casually talk about her marijuana use, before realizing that there might be children in the audience.  Now given, I would understand a comedian slipping up and making that mistake.  But this is someone who is supposed to be educating the next generation of Americans.  It is a shame how terrible this person makes unions look.  It is truly a shame how awful this person makes teachers look.  She is as close as you get to a caricature.

FDR's lieutenant, Henry Wallace, spoke of this problem.  Though called an idealist in his time, his writings betray an individual valuing a pragmatic approach.  You won't find an ideology ripe with any idealism about labor, corporations and government.  I think Wallace is a better source for the vibe of the New Deal since he was involved in much of the most extensive projects in it.  Here I'd rather focus on how this particular president of the teachers union doesn't really represent what those behind FDR and Wallace really meant.

Corporations in their policies are not alone in their neglect of the general welfare. Organized labor and organized agriculture, insofar as they have the power, act in a somewhat similar way. Labor tries to get higher wages per hour and to make higher wages more certain by cutting the hours of work per week. In like manner farmers want higher prices per bushel, backed up if need be by production control. Obviously, if the price, wage and production policies of all three groups are completely successful the result will be to give everyone more and more money and less and less goods.

This is quite a balanced view, quite different I think than the naive idealism so many are lead to believe  What we see here is an example of what happens when we allow one of the three major forces to run amok.  Of course we must always stay wary of the other two when trying to reign in one.

I implore you to look at what organized labor has brought us, before we choose to abolish it over the actions of ignorant and stupid people.

• Minimum wage
• 40-hour work week
• Child labor laws
• Unemployment insurance
• Passage of the Social Security Act
• Collective bargaining rights
• Pensions

Egypt and Libya Protesters are Part of a Larger Military Attack

Despite what many are reporting, it is difficult for me to believe this is a simple mob or riot.  The video that was referred to was nearly two months old.  It gives me pause that the protesters would wait for 9/11 in order to produce maximum effect.

It is clear the intent here was a military action.  This was not a simple protest about a film.  Not only did al-Queda make the claim the attack was revenge, but again the video was two months old.  If this was about outrage over a video, the attack would have come sooner.  I'm not going to believe these people waited until precisely the anniversary of the attack on the WTC to voice their grievances.  Simultaneously, do you expect me to believe a simple uncoordinated mob knew where the safehouses for the embassy officials were

Furthermore I am outraged at the bifurcation given by the Egyptian prime minister, Hisham Qandil, on this issue.  Take this choice quote.  About how the west needs to:

strike a balance between freedom of expression and to maintain respect for other people’s beliefs.

I am referring to third party reporting from the New York Times. In that article, the PM of Egypt quote continues.  It as if he treats the "protesters" response as appropriate to the film makers work.  Now I have my problem with the film maker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, (he is a scumbag, drug dealing, criminal that should have been deported long ago,) but that juxtaposition is completely inappropriate.  In fact who cares really since it is now clear that this is no longer about a film.  This leads me to conclude that the PM is on the enemies side.  That would make him an enemy to this country.

Over the past 30 years we have made friends with those that should have been our enemies.  We have forged alliances with nations that do not believe in our way of life.  We should have been busy wiping off the face of the earth.  I know our military forces our stretched, and our boys are stretched out.  But I also feel we have no other choice based on the information we have.  At this point I support military action against Egypt.  It has been shown without a shadow of a doubt that they are no longer our ally.  I don't believe they ever were.

Abortion... ::Ducks to Avoid Incoming, Sticks, Stones, and Molotov Cocktails::

Abortion.

Few other topics draw such polarized views from a diverse cross-section of the electorate.

Even the terms used by the various factions to identify themselves are polarizing and loaded.  We have those that self label themselves as "Pro-Life" and those that identify as "Pro-Choice."  Frankly, I don't like either of those terms.  After all, I don't know if many people would self identify as "Pro-Death" or "Pro-Totalitarian."  They say nothing of the underlying issue, and a term that could mean anything, means nothing.  At the risk of turning everyone into a scarecrow, I'm going to henceforth refer to people that are "Pro-Life" as those that believe abortion should be illegal in any and all circumstances.  I shall define "Pro-Choice" as everyone that is not in the aforementioned category.

Quick Position Summary

I think it should be societies goal, and an uncontroversial position that we should have zero abortions.  There should never be a need to have an abortion.  A stronger emphasis needs to be placed on adoption as an alternative to abortion.  Personally I find it unfathomable that a mother would choose any other option in case of unwanted pregnancy other than adoption.  Abortion is not birth control, it is an emergency measure done in extreme circumstances and never on a whim.  Any doctor that sees repeat abortion patients needs to be required to refer them to adoption services and refuse service.

As an example of an extreme situation, doctors should be allowed to perform abortions in cases where there is evidence of incestual rape.  Additionally, in these cases they should be able to do so without parental consent to protect the child, if a forensic rape examination determines there is sufficient medical evidence of such an occurrence.  Preferably, if it is reported immediately the morning after pill should be administered.

At some point abortion is homicide, and the point that happens occurs very early in the pregnancy.  I would argue that once there is a peripheral and central nervous system in place it should become  homicide.  Based on what we know about human development and adding some extra margin of error I would say after 2 weeks, it becomes  homicide under any circumstances, unless it is ectopic or there is another life-threatening medical condition.

I agree with the use of the morning after pill.

The First Amendment

Because of the establishment clause I find it necessary for the political positions of a candidate to be justifiable without respect to any religious belief.  If a politician cannot justify his positions without turning to some religious text, then I don't think that position can be imposed legislatively.  To do so would violate the Constitution.  The First Amendment to the Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It is the most basic of freedoms.  No law can be made that respects a particular religion, or prohibits the exercise of any religion (with some degree of reasonable restrictions established through case law, like human sacrifice for an extreme example.)  Creating and justifying a law solely based on a particular religious belief is "respecting an establishment of religion" and unconstitutional.  This means that any argument that would seek to outlaw a particular behavior would have to be based on secular reasoning.  Of course, this doesn't mean that religion cannot be a part of the motivation, it simply means the law must seek to promote the general welfare through secular reason.

Adoption

I think a huge part of reducing abortions is to work on improving, streamlining and enhancing state adoption systems.  The process of giving your child up to the state, nor the process of becoming a foster parent should require an overwhelming amount of paperwork.  It is ridiculous that to become a foster parent you must allow the state to dictate in unbelievably totalitarian form everything about your household.  This is unacceptable, since biological parents don't have struggle even a quarter as much.

Instead of federal funding for abortion, how about more federal funding for adoption.  It's almost as if there are only two choices sometimes:  mother's having abortions, or mother's carrying their child to full term and raising them from zero to 18.  As sad as it is to give up one's child, surely if one is living in such abject poverty as to be willing to terminate their pregnancy, adoption would be a much more viable option.

Secular Arguments Against Abortion

Congressman Ron Paul is the only politician I have heard give well reasoned secular arguments for making abortion illegal.  Perhaps his strongest argument is the inconsistency in the law between pregnant women that are assaulted resulting in the death of the fetus and abortion.  What is the difference?  In both cases a person is causing death to an unborn child.  In fact, there is a law that specifically recognizes this.  Strangely the law makes an exception for abortions.  States have done a better job at being consistent.  In Florida, the law is a bit more consistent, but it may still be overridden by Federal jurisdiction.  He is certainly right, in that states must do a better job at having well developed law for these cases.  I completely agree that at some point termination of an unborn child must become a murder, and it must be precisely consistent.

Ectopic Pregnancy and Defining Life at Conception

Despite his well reasoned arguments, there is a problem with defining personhood at conception (along with others, like Paul Ryan.)  Ectopic pregnancies or tubal pregnancies become a problem under that definition.  A dark irony is that Ron Paul, an OB/GYN by profession, has himself has terminated tubal pregnancies.  I'm not trying to call the Congressman out for hypocrisy; the procedure is relatively common actually with nearly one in 40 pregnancies being ectopic.  I just believe that Paul doesn't believe that is an abortion.

Though, I challenge anyone to explain to me how terminating a ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion.  Ectopic or not a pregnancy is being terminated and a fetus is being killed.  A living breathing organism with the potential to become a human being is being discarded as biomedical waste in both cases.

Paul describes seeing the fetus's tiny heart beating in the ultrasound prior to removal.  There is nothing un-conceived about it.  Nonetheless, like any medical professional, he also knows that pregnancies of this kind are simply not viable, and without removal certainly the child and possibly the as well mother will not survive.  Is this mother or doctor a murderer?  Surely a doctor removing a tubal fetus is not a criminal nor committing homicide.

Sadly there is no contemporary medical technology available to transplant fetuses to recipients.  If there was any argument for this technology, it would be to save the nearly one in 40 unborn human children currently being incinerated alongside syringes, catheters, and other medical waste.  As utterly awful as it is, this is an example of a mercy killing in medicine that is a common procedure.

In an unrelated moral conflict to illustrate moral conflicts, if you lie to home invaders with guns pointed at you about the whereabouts of your wife and children as they hide in the closet.  It is clear that the immoral act of lying is justified, because the moral act of protecting your family takes a higher preference.  It would of course be relativist to say lying is ever moral, but it can be justified in situations where there are overriding moral concerns.

When faced with two immoral decisions, how to we resolve the conflict?  We might say that causing an unborn fetus with a nervous system to suffer is immoral.  This is also a case where it may actually be justified to deprive a fetus the opportunity to develop because there is an overriding medical and moral concern that takes preference.  Particularly, the fetus's condition is certainly fatal, and the mother's risk of death is overwhelming.  It is understood the fetus will die either way, and continuing the pregnancy will also very likely kill the mother too, we justifiably end the pregnancy.

The Morning After Pill:  A Detailed Account

A blastocyst, unlike a fetus, is essentially an unfeeling colony of human cells.  While the fetus has a beating heart, rudimentary organs systems, and a partially developed nervous system, a blastocyst (far less developed being less than a couple days old) cannot possibly feel pain or suffer in any meaningful sense.  It just simply lacks the ability to do so.  If you don't have a nervous system nor consciousness you cannot suffer.  Suffering requires you to have a peripheral nervous system, a partial central nervous system, and be sufficiently conscious of it.

It could be argued that termination of a tubal pregnancy is a worse transgression than terminating a relatively small colony of human cells.  That is not to say that terminating an ectopic fetus isn't justifiable given the circumstances.  I'm simply saying that it's worse morally comparatively speaking to destroying a blastocyst, since a fetus actually has rudimentary characteristics of being human.  A two day old  blastocyst is certainly far less developed than an ectopic fetus that is large enough to be removed surgically.  Indeed, it is less developed than most household pests that we would indiscriminately kill without regard to their suffering.

We lose huge amounts of skin cells all the time, and because all cells contain the ability to be converted to stem cells, they theoretically all the have the potential to become human life.  Now a blastocyst does have genetic information that is unique and different from its mother, meaning it is a separate life.  But what if you are a chimera?

Chimeras are individuals that have multiple DNAs.  It is possible for them to have two different eye colors, or multiple hair colors.  Their organs can even have different DNA types.  They are essentially multiple human beings in a single person.  If someone murders a chimera would that be considered a multiple homicide?  I think the reason we don't consider the murder of a chimera to be a multiple murder is because we understand that given the configuration of their cells, they are not independent human beings.  The cell colonies that make up a chimera as a whole person are not physical independent human beings.  There is a dependency present.

Though a blastocyst has a unique DNA, it is not an independent life form from its mother at this point.  And there are fewer cells in a couple day old  blastocyst, than the cells that are destroyed when you sneeze, or scrub your skin to take a bath.  Indeed, there are probably millions more.  Using the morning after pill cannot be worse.

Fetus Transplant

I think that the only solution that will finally end the debate on this issue will be fetus transplantation.  The day we can finally take a fetus, and transfer it to another womb and transplant it into another mother who might have a medical condition preventing her from getting pregnant on her own.  Or a mother that had her tubes tied, but now regrets the decision.  Surely no one could object to allowing people to avoid unwanted pregnancy, giving a fetus the opportunity to become some one's child.  And as a bonus, giving another person a chance to experience motherhood that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise.  I think that is just about the most moral medical technology we could devise.  That is a true win-win.  The ability to transplant fetuses.

I'm going to try to play devil's advocate with this idea.  A cynical objection comes to mind, "If a woman wasn't careful and managed to make herself pregnant she should have to pay the consequences and carry to term, despite there being a way to end the pregnancy without killing the unborn child."

All I would ask of someone that cynical to raise the specter of that objection, is whether the thought crossed their mind to tell the mother, that had her tubes tied and now regrets the decision mentioned previously, that she should just stay childless as punishment for her mistake.

Further I think it would be interesting if a debate about Federal funding for such a procedure rose to the national stage.  Unlike abortion, this would be procedure that would provide opportunity for parties involved.  I would be curious in hearing what those who advocate illlegalization of abortion would opine.

Conclusion

This is a complex issue, and frankly abortion is always wrong.  The question becomes at what point does the moral transgression of the action outweigh the ethical issues associated with not doing it if any.  Also there needs to be a second look at alternatives such as adoption, and even the development of fetus transplants from mother to mother.