Extinction As A Corrective Measure

 

We've recently watched several banks (Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank) suddenly go 'casters up' in IT-speak, and the government in the guise of the FDIC has jumped in to assure their depositors (and investors... let's not forget the investors) that all will be well.

Just kidding...  All is not going to be well... except for those depositors and investors.  You?  You're going to pay the butcher's bill.  'FDIC', let's keep in mind, is the Federal Deposit Insurance Company.  Normally, banks pay premiums to FDIC based on the number of deposit accounts at their respective institutions and the value of those accounts up to insured limits.

Suddenly, bank depositors are being reimbursed well above the limits that were insured.  Actuarily, that's a losing business model — for the FDIC.  (It's great for the banks.)  If deposit insurance rates are being set correctly, we should expect that the FDIC will end each fiscal year with a small surplus or a small deficit.

Small.

So, when the FDIC comes up short by a huge pile of loot (and I use that term deliberately), where does the FDIC — which cannot go out of business — find the funding for its sudden and unexpected (heh heh heh) flood of red ink?

I know, Dear Reader, that you are way ahead of me on this.  You have already guessed, haven't you, that the U.S.Treasury is going to write a nice fat check to FDIC to help them over their sudden and unexpected (heh heh heh) 'difficulties', and you already know that you fund the U.S.Treasury.

Extinction, they say, is the engine of evolution.  When a species goes extinct, it makes evolutionary 'room' for a successor species that, we hope and expect, will be 'better' however that term is defined.

When a banking species is artificially protected from the consequences of Natural Selection, things don't get better.  That is why I can confidently predict that the 'failures' of SVB and Signature Bank will not only not be the last such, but that we should expect more of the same within The Planning Future.

Get out your checkbook.

 

Corporate Charters

 

Here's a question you may have never before considered:  How does a corporation come into being?  Here's how:

A corporation comes into being because a group of investors, having decided to incorporate, asks a State for a (corporate) charter.  When the State issues that charter, the corporation springs into existence.  The corporation is a creature of the State that issued the charter.

People (and courts) sometimes treat corporations as if they were persons; they are considered 'artificial persons', 'artificial' meaning 'created'.  Because of this, they are often considered to have all the powers and rights of real persons, but this is not logically defensible.  A real person is the biological output of other real persons and can participate in producing other real persons, all without the intervention of the State.  None of that is true for artificial persons like corporations.  Corporations cannot create other corporations without the approval of the State;  they are, in this respect, sterile like mules.

Because a corporation is a creature of the State, it has only the attributes acquired by heredity from its parent.  That is, it can have only those powers that were endowed to the State by the State's creators, viz.: the people of the State.  Conversely, any powers that were withheld from the State by the people cannot have been passed on to the corporation.

A wide variety of powers were withheld from the States and from the federal government that, via Congress, creates new states.  Most of us are familiar with the Bill of Rights — which probably should have been called 'The Bill of Prohibitions' since it mostly lists things the federal government (and, by extension, States) are forbidden to do;  things like:  interfere with the free expression of peoples' opinions,  discriminate among customers based on their exercise of rights retained by real people,  &c.

So, if a State is forbidden to discriminate among its customers (i.e.: citizens), how can a corporation, a creature of that State, have such a power?  If a State is forbidden to block the free exercise of expression by its citizens, how can a corporation, a creature of that State, have such a power?  The answer is that a corporation cannot and does not have any such power.  Doing such acts is a violation of the corporate charter.  The proper remedy for a corporation that violates its charter is for the State to withdraw the charter, killing the corporation.

Adios, FaceBook, Inc.

Adios, Twitter, Inc.

Adios, MasterCard, Inc.

There are plenty of others waiting to feast on your carcasses.  There are lots of companies anxious to take up any slack your absence creates.  You will not be missed.

 

 

A response to 16 liberal talking points

 

A friend posted these 16 theses on Facebook with the proviso: "(Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine)".  Each of these 'liberal talking points' deserves an individual reply, but since I have been disinvited to post anywhere but my own page...  so let it be written; so let it be done.

—==+++==—

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members.  A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected.  Period.

Resp:  It is the essence of 'civilization' that the old, the weak, the infirm, and children are cared for and protected when they cannot do so for themselves.  On this count, there cannot be any argument without first abandoning any pretense of civilization oneself.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all."  This is not the case.  I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" a better alternative.  I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it.  And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

Resp:  To say that healthcare is a right reveals a gross misunderstanding of the nature of 'rights'.  One cannot have a right without a corresponding responsibility.  My right to own a gun, for instance, carries with it a responsibility not to use it for evil.  What responsibility is associated with a right to healthcare?  It can only be that someone is charged with the responsibility of providing healthcare.  Who would that be?  Here is a case where, again, the productive sector is being asked — no that's not right — is being ordered to provide for someone who can't or won't provide for themselves.  If it were only the old, the weak, and the infirm, our innate moral sense would urge us to do this without coercion, but that's not what's at stake here, is it?

3. I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone.  It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

Resp:  What we see as 'the education crisis' is largely manufactured by bad public policy.  Suppose the government decided that teachers must be able to get to work teaching and offered a $10,000 tax rebate for any teacher who bought a new car.  What do you think would happen to the price of new cars?  If you guessed that the price of cars would suddenly jump by several thousand dollars, you can see why the price of a college education has quintupled in just a few decades.  (The same analysis, by the way, applies to that 'housing bubble' of a few years back.)  Market forces must be allowed to 'price' the value of a degree in Medieval French Literature or we will soon find ourselves with scholars who can quote verbatim 13th-century love poems but can't be employed anywhere but McDonald's.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work.  I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this.  Ever.  I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor.  Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this.  Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

Resp:  Jack is not rich because Jill is poor.  There is not a causal relationship between those two things.  There is a causal relationship between 'Jack is rich' and 'Jack runs a government-sanctioned monopoly'.  If you're serious about solving the problem of wealth inequality, you're not going to do so with simple-minded redistributionist schemes.  Plus, recognize that there will always be some inequality; some people are more talented than others, and some don't see money as the be-all and end-all of life.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly.  If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it's because I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

Resp:  Well, you just pinned two things that can't happen without government intervention, and you think the answer is 'more government intervention'.  I don't know how to counter that.  Checkmate.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage.  Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes.  What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water.  Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multi-billion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

Resp:  Should companies have to pay 'x' dollars for work that isn't worth 'x' dollars?  What do you do with employees who don't/can't/won't contribute to your bottom line at least the equivalent of the minimum wage?  Answer: you fire them and replace them with machines.  What happens to your business if ALL your employees produce less than you are forced to pay them?  Your business is now 'your former business'.  Good idea?  Then, too, 'minimum wage jobs' aren't meant to provide a living wage.  They're meant to provide the kind of experience one needs to get a better job.  If you can only make minimum wage, you shouldn't be starting a family.

7. I am not anti-Christian.  I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc.  (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal).  All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs.  When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" — I'm offended that you're trying to force me to live by your religion's rules.  You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you?  That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me.  Be a Christian.  Do your thing.  Just don't force it on me or mine.

Resp:  THAT is a true 'liberal' position, one that all the founding fathers would have applauded.  It boils down to 'leave me alone', a sentiment we find all through the revolutionary writings, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.  Where did we go wrong?  We said "Hmm.. clean food and untainted meat: good idea; let's have an FDA..." and we were off and running.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you.  I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

Resp:  Another true liberal position, but who says they have fewer rights?  Would that be... umm... Congress?

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally).  I'm not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

Resp:  While Republicans (and occasionally Democrats) might dispute this, the Constitution nowhere grants authority to anyone, Congress or the President, to control immigration (you could look it up).  Congress is granted power 'to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization', and that's as far as it goes.  Surprised?  Whether you acknowledge it or not, the root of the current malaise is not 'immigration' per se, but rather the welfare state we have allowed this country to become, that and the fact that Congress has bobbled the ball on that 'uniform Rule of Naturalization' thingy.

10. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc.  It's not that I want the government's hands in everything — I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE.  Is the government devoid of shadiness?  Of course not.  But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc.  Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

Resp:  I would much rather have Consumer Union inspecting my food than FDA and USDA.  CU has a vested interest in maintaining their reputation for honesty and fair-dealing.  FDA and USDA?  Not so much.  Every drug ever recalled by the FDA was first determined to be safe and effective by the FDA.  As to 'consumers have recourse', I refer you to the vaunted 'tobacco settlement'.  Was any of that monster fine used to recompense anyone actually harmed by smoking?  Nope, and the terms of the settlement immunized the tobacco companies against lawsuits.  Nice people you're hangin' with...

11. I believe our current administration is fascist.  Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities.  Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

Resp:  If by 'fascist' you mean 'controlling the means of production', then we've been fascist for about 170 years.  I think what you mean is 'totalitarian', and we've been that for about 120 years.  Only the fact that 120 million Americans own 400 million guns and 300 billion rounds of ammunition has kept the government from lining people up against the wall.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed.  Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc. — need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

Resp:  Does that mean you want to forbid facial tattoos and eyebrow piercings?  Because if anything 'marginalizes' people, it's that.  Most marginalization of people results from the decisions of the marginalized rather than their skin color or gender.  Efforts to coerce an end to that marginalization results in bakers being sued for turning away profitable business.  Coercion is bad no matter what the reason.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government.  What I am interested in is sensible policies, including background checks, that just MIGHT save one person’s, perhaps a toddler’s, life by the hand of someone who should not have a gun.  (Got another opinion?  Put it on your page, not mine).

Resp:  There is not a single 'sensible gun control policy' in the liberal catechism that would have saved even one life — ever.  If anyone has proof that that's incorrect, I'd like to see it.  120 million Americans own 400 million guns and 300 billion rounds of ammunition.  If any appreciable fraction of those were as dangerous and unstable as they are made out to be, there wouldn't be 30,000 fatal gunshots each year; there would be 30,000 fatal gunshots each month.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness.  I prefer to think it’s social politeness.  If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles.  It’s the polite thing to do.  Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better.  When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better.  So why not do better?  How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

Resp:  I will happily call someone 'Theo' rather than Theodore, Ted, or Eddie, and I may even — if they ask politely — refer to them as 'Your Serene Boffness', but I'll laugh when I do.  Force me to do that?  That's really what this is all about, isn't it?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs.  There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil.  Sorry, billionaires.  Maybe try investing in something else.

Resp:  The laws of physics are immutable.  No amount of wishing will change the fact that wind, solar, hydroelectric, and thermal energy together cannot — that's an important word: cannot — sustain the world's current lifestyle, but it can destroy entire national economies trying prove that they can.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human.  They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse.  Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

Resp:  The laws of nature are as immutable as the laws of physics.  Men cannot bear children and parthenogenesis doesn't work for our species.  That means that men and women are biologically different, and no one with even half a brain disputes that.  That women must bear the children and are in a relatively fragile state while doing so means that they cannot — there's that word again — work the same as men.  At some point, they are forced (!) to attend to the birthing process and not attend to 'their job'.  Men provide muscle mass and DNA; women create civilization; let's not screw that up.

I think that about covers it.  Bottom line is that I'm a liberal because I think we should take care of each other.  That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money.  It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

Resp:  That must mean you're anti-war.  What are you doing voting Democrat (or Republican)?

 

reg•u•late, v.t.

 

From Noah Webster's dictionary, 1828

reg•u•late, verb transitive

1. To adjust by rule, method or established mode;  as, to regulate weights and measures;  to regulate the assize of bread;  to regulate our moral conduct by the laws of God and of society;  to regulate our manners by the customary forms.

2. To put in good order;  as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances.

3. To subject to rules or restrictions;  as, to regulate trade;  to regulate diet.

Note that placing rules and restrictions on a subject was the last thing Revolutionary era Americans thought of when they said 'regulate'.  The first thing they thought of was 'adjustment':  to make something work properly, the way one might adjust a clock to keep correct time.  Thus, a 'well-regulated militia' is one that functions as a unit and all of whom know how to clean, load, and fire their weapons.  To 'regulate commerce' did not mean 'suffocate under a mountain of legislation';  it meant 'make it work the way it should'.

Under Congress' article I section 8 power to 'regulate commerce among the states' the implication was that Congress would facilitate commerce rather than micromanage it.  This was the primary impetus behind FDR's threat to pack the Supreme Court with additional judges who would see things his way:  FDR wanted more power than the interstate commerce (hereafter IC) clause allowed because his vision was of a larger, more powerful central government that could mold the economy in ways that would dispel the economic depression of the 30s and 40s.  He got his needed reinterpretation and today almost everything Congress does is justified under those expanded IC powers.  That new interpretation is so expansive that the Gun Free School Zones Act was cast as justified by the IC clause because it claimed to protect future consumers in IC!

In fact, although article I section 8 grants power to Congress in only 17 specific areas, this new interpretation of the IC clause is so broad that it can truly be said that article I section 8 now grants power in 16 specific areas and one other which is 'anything else Congress wants'.

Virtually everything we see as 'wrong' with the federal government today arises from that faulty interpretation:  we are supposed to be living in The Free Trade Zone Of The United States but are instead saddled with rules that require (just as one example) special certification for over-the-road long haul drivers who operate in more than one state — and those rules cost money.  In the one recent case where Congress should have been using its original powers to prevent damage to the consumer, they conspired with a state to promote it.  Before 1974, if you wanted to fly to Dallas, you landed at Love Field (DAL), 5 miles NW of downtown.  When DFW was proposed as Dallas' new airport, Texas asked for and Congress agreed to limit the use of Love Field in order to promote DFW (and American Airlines).  As a result, as soon as DFW was operational, the FAA no longer accepted flight plans for Love Field to or from airports outside Texas.  You could then fly DAL-Abilene-Seattle, or DAL-ElPaso-Hawaii, or DAL-Houston-Paris, but you could not fly non-stop to any of those destinations unless you flew from DFW.  The 40-year agreement expired in 2014 having cost Southwest Airlines 40 years of business out of Love Field and funneling most of that business to America Airlines which, for all intents and purposes, owns DFW.

Because of Congress' new-found power over the economy, corporations whatever their size and, in fact, entire industries are at the mercy of Congress which now wields the power of life and death over them.  Is it any wonder Washington DC is awash in corporate lobbyists and campaign contributions?  People who complain about the corrupting influence of corporate money over politics are complaining of the wrong thing.  They should be complaining about the corrupting influence of the incorrectly-interpreted IC clause.

 

'Avatar' as 'not-best-picture'

 

God bless Blockbuster Express.  For $1 we got to rent 'Avatar' and view it at our leisure at home.  Now I have just one question outstanding:  how did 'The Hurt Locker' beat out 'Avatar' for best picture?

True, Avatar presented  'corporate America'  as rapacious savages and  THL  presented Iraqi-occupation troops as bravely heroic, and neither meme is as true as some would like to have us believe  (or, in fact, as many people actually do believe).  Perhaps it is because it is more acceptable to  'support the troops'  (as they kill in the name of corporate profits)  than to  bash the capitalists  (who make their profits the old-fashioned way)?

'Avatar' used lots of computer graphics.  I don't know what the price/performance ratio is for CGI, but it still needs voice-overs, and that can't be cheap.  THL looks like it was shot on-location and it had scads of 'extras' that all had to be paid.  Also 'not cheap', merely 'cheaper'.

The thought that keeps gnawing at the back of my mind is that 'Avatar' is very much an avatar of Western Civilization's treatment of the native Americans:  we killed them and/or burned them out of their ancestral lands because they were 'in the way'.  It's not pleasant to have one's nose rubbed in one's own history...  like a puppy being bowel-trained.  Perhaps the Academy found it as distasteful as I did.

On the other hand, how else will we learn history's lessons?

 

'The Hurt Locker' as best picture

I just watched "The Hurt Locker" which this time around won the Academy Award for best picture.  Somebody please tell me that was a joke.

Granted, the staging was very accurate as to its portrayal of Iraq as a typical Moslem Middle Eastern hell-hole:  garbage in the poorly-maintained streets, the locals living in 12th century luxury, and a complete disregard on nearly everyone's part for the niceties of the rule of law.  It probably also was accurate as to the intelligence level of everyone involved on the military side:  the smart ones stay alive by being as wily and as suspicious as a feral cat;  the others die in various gruesome ways that are, for the most part, painless for being mercifully quick.

If this film has any value it is that it shows the American people what all that money is being spent on, and it may urge a few more to wonder whether rescuing Iraq (or Afghanistan or Kuwait or ...) from its instant condition is worth the expenditure of even one American soldier's life.  If it does that it's worth watching, but does raise the interesting follow-on question "how would we know we've 'rescued' them?"

But...  best picture?  The only way this could be a 'best picture' would be for the producers to take all the money they saved on script-development and cast salaries and use it to grease the palms of the judges.  I'm not a film critic by any means but shouldn't an award like 'best picture' have some positive correlation to the coefficient of I-want-to-see-it-again ?