Liberty

Labor Unions as Squeegee Men

Warren Gibson Liberty

ImageIt seems like only yesterday, but it was in the 1980’s that squeegee men had their heyday, particularly in New York City.  These were young men who would approach cars stopped in traffic.  Without asking, they would start “cleaning” the victim’s windshield – often using just a dirty rag.  It was usually evident to the driver that a generous gratuity would be a good idea, as a smashed windshield would be a distinct headache.

As a lecturer at San Jose State University, I am victimized each month by a group of “squeegee men” known as the California Faculty Association.  A certain sum is extracted out of my paycheck and handed over to these gangsters so they can continue pressing their statist demands.  “Membership” in the union remains optional at extra cost, notwithstanding a recent dirty trick in the form of an announcement that everyone would be enrolled as a “member” unless they sent a letter to the union asking to be excluded.

What benefits do these squeegee men confer on me?  The pay I get for teaching one class is trivial so whether it rises or falls makes little difference to me.  I have other motives for teaching.  The benefits were pretty good, but having voluntarily cut back to one class, I no longer get benefits.  I see no return at all from the money that the union extracts from me.

A couple of years ago there was talk of a strike.  I had fond hopes that it would come to pass because I have long wished for an opportunity to cross a picket line.  That would have been great fun.  Alas, it’s unlikely, as budget woes have taken the steam out of such threats.

But wait, wasn’t the union legitimized by a vote of the faculty?  Yes, a vote was taken a few years before I got there.  In no way does that excuse the theft of my money.  It does exemplify the basic social malady of our time, which is social democracy – the idea that voting can legitimize acts that trample minority rights.

Unions have been taking it on the chin lately.  Most recently the Michigan legislature passed, and the governor signed, a “right to work law.”  Such laws, now on the books of some 24 states, make payment of union dues of any kind optional. The primary argument against these laws is that they enable “free riders,” non-payers who supposedly benefit from union activities, like motorists who drive off without paying the squeegee men.  This problem could be solved by excluding non-payers from union-negotiated settlements.

While it’s great fun to watch the unions getting pummeled, I must add a note of opposition to right-to-work laws.  If employers want to make union membership a condition of employment, and are able to find good workers willing to accept that condition, the law should not prohibit such arrangements.  The proper place of the law in labor relations is the prevention and punishment of criminal acts, principally violence and intimidation, and nothing more.  Any union that conducts its business in a peaceful manner – without threats against either employers or holdout workers – should not be molested.

The Israeli-Palestinian Mess: Some Historical Context

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History, Liberty, Religion , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just finished up an anthropology course on the Middle East as a culture area, and for reasons beyond my explanatory power, I got to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a bit more in depth. A brief narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict follows.

The historical context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can best be understood by breaking it up into three separate but interrelated segments: the collapse of cosmopolitan empires, the emergence of nation-states, and seismic shifts in demography that accompanied collapse and rebirth.

The post-World War I era can be defined largely in terms of the collapse of the cosmopolitan Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. The spectacular collapse of these centuries-old empires has been attributed to the policies of democrats in western Europe and the President of the United States at the time, Woodrow Wilson, by a number of historians. The underlying idea being promoted by Western elites for central and eastern Europe was that of national self-determination, a belief that each ethnic and linguistic group should have the right to govern itself within a free and democratic state. The movement was intended to break the back of “despotism” in eastern and central Europe (as well as the Near East), but the policies unleashed instead a hotheaded nationalism amidst pockets of power vacuums prevalent throughout the now-dead empires. Continue reading →

A Glimmer of Freedom in Health Care

Warren Gibson Liberty

The politicians are bound and determined to seize total control of health care and damImagen the consequences.  And yet … And yet every so often a glimmer of a free market in health care appears like a weed pushing through a crack in the asphalt and bursting into bloom.

Here we have an inkling of a free market in medicine: an advertisement from a local paper featuring price, diversity of services, convenience and qualification (MD).  We mustn’t give up hope for health care freedom.

I had never heard of Dr. Marchasin but got a pleasant surprise when visiting his web site with links to his criticisms of Obamacare.

Reflections on the Income Tax

Warren Gibson Liberty

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with TurboTax lately, looking for last-minute opportunities to manipulate my income – legally, of course – to minimize my income tax.  Why not just hire a professional to do it, you might ask?  I’ll tell you later.

First, let’s remind ourselves what a vile institution the income tax is.  Taxation in general is bad enough – legalized theft, really.  The income tax is particularly onerous because it requires us to drop our pants financially, because it’s hideously complicated and because it generates huge amounts of deadweight loss.

With all the concern about privacy these days we hear precious little about the intrusiveness of the income tax.  We must reveal intimate details of our economic activities.  Of course the IRS holds all that information in confidence – until they don’t.

The tax code, in case you didn’t know it, has become complex far beyond the comprehension of any single tax expert.  Consider, as a random example and a mild one at that, the instructions for line 31 of Form 6251, Alternative Minimum Tax for Individuals:

  • ImageIf you are filing Form 2555 or 2555-EZ, see instructions for amount to enter.
  • If you reported capital gain distributions directly on Form 1040, line 13; you reported qualified dividends on Form 1040, line 9b; or you had a gain on both lines 15 and 16 of Schedule D (Form 1040) (as refigured for the AMT, if necessary), Complete Part III on the back and enter the amount from line 54 here.
  • All others: If line 30 is $175,000 or less ($87,500 or less if married filing separately), multiply line 30 by 26% (.26).  Otherwise multiply line 30 by 28% (.28) and subtract $3,500 ($1,750 if married filing separately) from the result.

Can anyone set this to music?

The original form 1040, issued in 1913, ran to three pages in length with a single page of instructions.  The current federal income tax is set forth in Title 26 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.  You can get your own copy, all twenty volumes running over 13,000 pages, from the Government Printing Office for just $974, free shipping included!

The complexity of today’s income tax leads to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of deadweight losses each year.  A deadweight loss, you will recall, is a loss that is no one’s gain.  Deadweight loss associated with income taxes consists of two parts: (1) tax preparation costs plus costs of finding and implementing avoidance or evasion strategies and (2) lost gains from production and trade because of the disincentives of taxation.  If you’re tempted to say that money spent on accountants isn’t deadweight loss because it generates income for accountants, you haven’t internalized Bastiat’s “Fallacy of the Broken Window.”  If you’re going to count income to accountants you have to subtract the value of their efforts which could be spent doing other things.

TurboTax is good news and bad news.  The good news is that it reduces tax preparation costs while generating profits for Intuit.  The bad news is that lower costs mean taxpayers are less inclined to rebel against the tax code.

What disturbs me most about the income tax is not its complexity but how resigned most people are to this heinous institution.  We forget that taxes are extracted using threats of physical violence.  People are so brainwashed!  Every time I open up TurboTax I face the picture shown here of happy taxpayers.  Or maybe they’re happy accountants.  Or happy IRS agents.  Anyway, I’ve managed to avoid barfing on my keyboard thus far.

So why do my own taxes?  Stubbornness, I guess.  First of all, I’m an engineer and a numbers guy.  I can figure this stuff out (I think).  With TurboTax I can play what mathematicians call finite-difference games to see how hypothetical increments of various kinds of income alter my tax liability.  Second, I hate to shell out a four-figure fee to an accountant who may add little or no value to what I can do on my own.  But mainly I guess it’s just the perverse satisfaction in doing first-hand combat with The Man.

If you’re like me and have some choices about income such as IRA withdrawals or realization of capital gains, better get cracking ‘cause you only have about three weeks left.

Finals Week (with an update 12/9)

Brandon Christensen Liberty

Thanks for your patience, folks. I have about four half-finished mini essays just begging to be finished over the break. Stay tuned!

Update (12/9): I’ve been sinking my teeth into this book on and off again. It’s about the idea of Europe and how it has been floated around for millenia. I think the essays on Dutch republicanism and Kantian federalism are fantastic. I sometimes wish I wasn’t going to law school. Then I could pursue a dream of researching and teaching about federalism and all its varieties for the rest of my life. Now THAT would be cool.

Alas…

Anyway, the book has some insightful essays by historians, anthropologists, political scientists and philosophers. Look it up next time your hanging out in an academic library!

Secession within the EU?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty, Politics , , , , , ,

While I’m on the topic of secession, I thought I’d point readers to the upcoming vote in Catalonia to see if they want to secede from Spain. Central to my arguments for secession is the role that new states would have within a broader free trade zone (like the U.S. or the E.U.). For Catalonia, the British paper Telegraph reports:

Catalonia wants to collect its own taxes, to control how they are spent and it seems prepared to break away from Spain to do so.

But with a clear road map yet to be outlined the process of separating from Spain promises to be burdened with hurdles.

While Catalans prize their role as citizens of Europe, EU officials have warned that membership of the union won’t be automatic. Instead Catalonia would have to gain admission, joining the queue of a list of new European nations seeking membership, and the process would likely be blocked by a vengeful Spain.

This is key to not only Catalonia’s success, but also the success of secessionist movements everywhere. If regions within current states want independence, they have to be sure to not confuse political independence with economic independence. The latter will only lead to poverty. I highlight this point because new states formed during the beginning of the post-colonial revolution of the 60’s and 70s thought that economic independence was the key to liberty. How wrong they were. Continue reading →

The Case for More States in Africa? Anarchy, State or Utopia?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Liberty , , , , , , , ,

Yes please! There is an old article in the Atlantic arguing that more states are just what Africa needs, and I’d like to highlight why I think more states are a good thing, and at the same time pick up Dr. Delacroix’s argument on states and libertarianism from a little while back and explain why I think that more states are a good thing and why Dr. Delacroix doesn’t really understand libertarian thought.

Now, I know more states seems at first glance to be a counterintuitive position for a libertarian to take, but upon second glance I hope to show you why this isn’t true.

First up, from the Atlantic‘s article:

The idea that Africa suffers from too few secessionist campaigns, too few attempts to carve a few large nations into many smaller ones, flies in the face of conventional wisdom. One of the truisms of African politics is that traditional borders, even when bequeathed by colonizers without the least sympathy for African political justice, ought to be respected. The cult of colonial borders has been a cornerstone not only of diplomacy between African nations but of the assistance programs of foreign governments and multinational non-governmental organizations.

I’ve pointed this out from a number of different angles previously here on the blog, so I don’t want to delve too deeply into this, but the article, written by a professor of journalism at Arizona State, has more: Continue reading →

Atomic Radiation and Mental Health

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Liberty, Religion , , ,

The average level of radiation to which inhabitants of the beautiful city of Denver  are exposed is .9 rem (zero point nine). The level of radiation in the hots spots around the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor was .1 rem (zero point one).  Yes, it’s nine times lower near Fukushima than in Denver.

Denver residents concerned about the effects exposure to radiation have on their health should evidently have moved to the Japanese hot spots for greater safety, it seems to me. I hear the price of real estate plummeted in that area.

The first paragraph is drawn from “The Panic Over Fukushima” in the Review section of the Wall Street Journal of August 18 – 19 2012. The article is by Richard Muller, PhD,  a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. (But what does he know?)

The cynical deduction in the second paragraph is mine, of course. Here are more.

Shouldn’t alarmists employ their high capacity for panic in connection with large and certain killers of people such as road accidents and the myriads of illnesses that unwashed hands cause?

How difficult is it to understand that nuclear energy is the cheapest and the safest alternative to poisonous coal emissions and to “blood for oil”? Yes, it’s that simple. Continue reading →

National Economic Systems: An Introduction for Intelligent Beginners – 3

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Economics, Liberty , ,

My Debt, your Debt and Future Poverty.

I told you in previous installments of this series of essays that we, in the USA, are not facing one economic crisis but two.

The fist crisis is a recession. It’s a common event in the long run of market economies. Recessions are defined by serious people (according to me) as two consecutive quarters or more of economic shrinkage. Recessions go away whether any government does anything about them or not. One school of thought (Keynesian), to which the Obama administration belongs, maintains that large government spending – stimulation- can lessen or shorten a recession. I argued that the Obama stimulus package of several months ago cannot possibly stimulate, even if you believe in the stimulation scenario.

The second crisis, by far the most serious, is the abnormally high debt the federal government has incurred since President Obama came to office. It disturbs me because the people, you and I, will have to pay interest on the debt for a long time, and eventually re-pay the principal. Else, the government will have to repay its debt in bad currency, in devalued or in eroded currency. If this happens, we will simply all be poorer, in real terms, If your dollar is worth half in ten years of what it is worth now, you will simply have to pay two dollars for what you buy today for one dollar. There is no reason to assume your income will automatically follow. This is a common fallacy (perhaps the topic for another essay): It takes about forty Indian rupees to buy a US dollar today and the same mountain bike that costs 400 US dollars in this country costs 600 US dollars in India. A good income in India would be 12,000 dollars per year. (That’s about twelve times the national average.)  Continue reading →

The View from California

Brandon Christensen Liberty

In other election news, the Atlantic reports:

On Tuesday, California voters overwhelmingly approved two ballot initiatives that were sharply opposed by the very same “victims” they were allegedly designed to protect. The final vote tallies are not yet in, but it looks like there was statewide approval for new criminal penalties on prostitution-related offenses, while a Los Angeles-only proposal to mandate the use of condoms in all pornographic films shot in the county is also heading to victory.

Ouch. And then there’s this:

The entire ballot initiative process in California has long been derided because of the way it allows special interest groups to bypass the legislature and create laws themselves. It also makes ballot an jumbled mess and frustrates voters with confusing and sometimes contradictory proposals. These are just two of latest examples that will have Californians spending a lot of effort helping people who didn’t ask to be helped.

Indeed. There is more here. I almost feel guilty for not voting now. California is often acknowledged (or derided) as a state known for its social tolerance, but I haven’t seen this at all in the political arena. From banning gay marriage to demanding that porn stars wear condoms (I wonder what that will do our state’s multi-million dollar porn industry?) to imposing stiffer penalties on sex workers, Californians can hardly claim to be the socially liberal torchbearers of a brave new world. Instead, I see a state populace comfortable with both draconian tax laws and draconian social laws. Socialism has never looked so good.

On the other hand Continue reading →

“Ayn Rand Explained”

Warren Gibson Liberty

Sales of Atlas Shrugged soared to 445,000 copies in 2011, more than 50 years after it was published. Books about Rand are proliferating as well, including major biographies by Anne Heller and Jennifer Burns. Is there room for yet another volume in this increasingly crowded field? Marsha Enright has shown that there is.

Ms. Enright promises a lot with her title, Ayn Rand Explained, and she delivers. She brings to her task a background reaching back to the early 1970’s when she first met Rand. Her writing suggests a keen intelligence and an independent spirit. The result is a book that is thorough and careful but not pedantic.

Her personal recollections portray Ayn Rand’s warm and approachable side and not the angry cult figure suggested by some. Particularly charming is the story about the cat jewelry.

A new reader or a moviegoer who wants to learn more about Rand and her philosophy, objectivism, will soon discover that there are two camps of followers. David Kelley’s Atlas Society promotes the view that objectivism, as a set of ideas, is necessarily open to extension by any serious thinker who accepts its basic premises. The Ayn Rand Institute is a far larger group because it receives royalties on the heft sales of Rand’s books. The ARI calls objectivism a closed system. Ms. Enright addresses this conflict head-on, explaining both positions evenhandedly and giving credit where credit is due.

Careful analyses of Rand’s novels are followed by a 40-page explication of objectivism, proceeding systematically, as Rand did, from metaphysics to epistemology to ethics to politics and esthetics. Some readers may find this section heavy going and may want to skip it and return later. If they do return, they should be well rewarded.

A separate chapter on politics takes up the uneasy relationship between libertarians and objectivists. She offers back-to-back sections outlining the case for the “plaintiff” (objectivism) and for the “defendant” (libertarianism). I found these sections particularly interesting now that ARI is making nice to libertarians, a sin that earlier got David Kelley kicked out of ARI.

I thought Nathaniel Branden deserved a little more sympathy than he got in this book. He and Barbara Branden have been the victims of vicious smears from the orthodox camp. Nathaniel has admitted the errors he made in his relationship with Rand while Rand never admitted hers, which were far greater. He has redeemed himself many times over, in my view, by the positive difference he has made in the lives of a great many people, both in person and through his books and lectures.

“Ayn Rand Explained” will be my top recommendation to anyone who asks me about Rand and objectivism.

“Gold and Money”

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Economics, History, Liberty , , , , ,

That’s the title of this piece in the Freeman by our very own Dr. Gibson. In it, he suggests:

Let’s turn down the heat a bit and look into some propositions about gold. That should lead us to some reasonable ideas about whether or how gold might return.

Indeed. I’m  tempted to copy and paste the whole thing, but just check it out.

PS I’ve been a very busy man lately, but I’ve got a bunch of almost-finished writings in the works. Stay tuned!

The Rationality of Anti-Antisemitism; The Currency Issue Made Simple

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, History, Liberty , , , , , , , , , ,

The most interesting thing I have read in years about anti-Semitism is in the Wall Street Journal today. A poll in Europe indicates that 50% of Spaniards have a somewhat unfavorable, or a very unfavorable impression of Jews. The percentage in Germany is 25, in France it’s 20, in the UK, it’s 10. There are large number so Jews in France and in the UK.

What makes Spanish anti-Antisemitism interesting is that there are no Jews to speak off in Spain. All Spanish Jews were expelled from the country in 1492. The bulk of those who did not die in the expulsion went to the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire were they were welcomed by the Sultan. Others scattered around Muslim North Africa and Italy. Until WWII, many Turkish and Balkans Jews spoke 15th century Spanish. I knew a Spanish-speaking Turkish Jew at Stanford in the sixties myself. His last name was Cardona.

Between 1939 and the 1970s, the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco promoted a brand of Catholicism that was unfriendly to Jews, as “Christ killers.” For most of the intervening period the Inquisition promised to make life miserable enough for Jews that they did not come back.

So, here you go: The ultimate judgment on the rationality of anti-Antisemitism: The less the chance that you ever met a Jew, the more likely you dislike Jews. At least, that’s true in Europe. Continue reading →

Homicide and the State

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , , , , ,

I am one of the hundreds of thousands, possibly of millions of conservatives with strong libertarian leanings. Incidentally, I am not just talking, I showed it in several things I wrote and published. (Please, ask me.) There are several things however that prevent me from stating unambiguously that I am a libertarian, and much less, a Libertarian.

Of the two main philosophical obstacles the first is the mainstream libertarians’ barely concealed pacifism. I deal with this issue in several postings in factsmatter.wordpress.com that include the name “Paul” in their title (I also have objections to Ron Paul, the politician, another topic treated in some of the same postings.) My second problem is that it seems to me that serious libertarians have not dealt adequately with the central issue of the state as peacemaker.

Let me say before I proceed that it may well be the case that I am simply exposing my ignorance, that the subject has been examined by many good minds and that I have simply not come across their efforts. There might even be forums where the issue is discussed frequently and about which I am ignorant because of my bad habit of spending a lot of time watching French television series. And by the way, I propose (forcefully) the following rule: No one must give anyone a reading assignment if he/she has not even done the assignment. Don’t tell me to read what you have not read thoroughly yourself!

Now back to the state as peacemaker. Continue reading →

Immigration: More on Conservative, Liberal Ignorance

Jacques Delacroix Liberty

I have heard conservative radio talk-show callers express indignation at immigrants who don’t “become American citizens,” as if it showed ill-will on the part of the immigrants, or lack of love for America.

These calls demonstrate a basic lack of understanding of our immigration laws. First, you have to become a legal immigrant (get the famous “green card”). Most foreigners cannot qualify for this in any way. The doors to this country are not wide open. (See below.) For those who are allowed to apply, it takes time and patience, unusually so, because the Immigration and Naturalization Service is one of the worst, least responsive of Federal bureaucracies. Then, once you are legal, you have to wait four to seven years to apply for citizenship. This arduous process leaves little room for ill-will. It’s exhausting and discouraging.

I have also heard many indignant liberals (liberals are almost constantly indignant or “appalled”) make statements implying that American immigration laws discriminate on the basis of race. They do, but not the way liberals think. In fact, it’s extraordinarily difficult for a European (most European are “white” in American classification) to emigrate to this country. There are reasons I don’t want to go into here though I will on demand. The numbers show unambiguously that people from Latin America or Asia are admitted legally in several times the numbers of Europeans. Of course, federal legislation considers almost all Latin Americans and all Asians in this country as “protected minorities.” This means that they deserve special treatment because they were historically oppressed by reason of their race.

Don’t blame me or conservatives in general for the stupidity of the relevant federal laws. They are entirely the handiwork of liberal opinion. Be it as it may, here is the summary: If you are “brown” or “yellow” your chances of coming here legally are slim. If you are “white,” your chances are practically nil.

If you find all this hard to believe, please take a little trip to the Statistical Abstract of the United States. It’s readily available on-line and easy to read.

Much of our political debate in this country is wasted because people are ill-informed of the issues about which they feel strongly. There is no excuse for this situation. Obtaining info used to be arduous; it used to require specialized skills. Not anymore.