Is There a Way Out?

Column 2018-9 (12/10/18)

In recent columns I have explored the strife and destruction that results when ever expanding, intrusive government interferes with more and more of the personal choices made by individuals. Even temporary majorities of legislators impose the choices of some on everyone. Once a law is passed it is all but impossible to repeal it, no matter how silly or destructive it is.

Can the seemingly endless growth of strife and destruction be contained and rolled back before the US ends up in the same pit Venezuela wallows in today? A look at history isn’t encouraging. The halls of history are littered with the carcases of nations destroyed by excessive government.

Majority rule democracy encourages voters to exploit and control each other. No where is it written that democracy demands that a mere majority must be allowed to unleash the force and violence of government against everyone. Florida already requires a 60 percent super majority to amend its constitution. In the last election Florida enacted the requirement that taxes be approved by a 60 percent super majority.

There is no reason why a super majority shouldn’t be required to pass every law. There are many reasons why it should be required. It is beyond the scope of a mere column to consider how large the super majority should be. A two thirds super majority would be good for starting consideration. This is the margin commonly required to over ride a veto.

Allowing a mere majority to unleash the force of government against an almost equally large minority is absurd. It is also a formula for strife and disaster. Why shouldn’t the proponent of any law be required to convince more than a mere majority that the law is necessary?

Requiring super majority approval won’t guarantee that all laws will be wise and wonderful. It will reduce the number of laws that allow some to impose their wills on others. This will dial down the strife we now see raging around us.

We have 200 thousand pages of federal laws and regulations, and who knows how many pages of state and local laws. It is too late to save civilization by merely making it more difficult to make new laws. Requiring a super majority to repeal laws would add to our problem, rather than solving it. Also, only requiring super majority approval for new laws would be too little too late.

I will briefly outline a plan that could work. I am not under the illusion that it will be easy to enact. No doubt there will be a few wrinkles to work out. Such as, how to deal with judges who believe they are legislators.

The starting point is that all laws would require super majority approval. All existing laws could be put to a vote for reapproval. Reapproval would be initiated by a petition signed by a percentage, perhaps 30 percent, of the members of the legislative body. If the law failed to get super majority approval it would be repealed. This would prevent the dead hand of past lawmakers from ruling the present. A similar procedure would apply to laws subject to popular vote.

Even if requiring super majority approval of all laws only postpones an inevitable doom, at least it would have accomplished more than doing nothing. With at least some voters now willing to reject the principal of “a simple majority should rule everyone,” the time may be right to remove the fatal flaw from democracy.

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum

The Danger From Overgrown Government

Column 2018-8 (12/3/18)

The headlines are filled with reports of individuals ready, even eager, to resort to violence against anyone who so much as dares to express a conflicting idea. Even more troubling, this opposition to free expression permeates universities that were supposedly places to express and debate conflicting ideas in the search for truth.

Now we see individuals banding together around what they claim is an unassailable truth that they discovered last week. It is so painful to these individuals to hear their truth challenged that all contrary expression must be squelched. One might ask, if this truth is so obviously unassailable, Why is it so fragile that it can’t stand up to being challenged?

These unassailable truths aren't usually about mere opinions. Red is the most beautiful color. Broccoli is the world’s best vegetable. Cotton is the best cloth. Usually the “truth” in question is one its advocates want to impose on everyone else. Challenges to that great “truth” may make the ignorant masses reluctant to jump on the band wagon.

In reality the advocates for the great ”truth” are bullies who want to force their will onto everyone else. The function of government is to force the will of the powerful on to others. It is simply, do it my way or I will hurt you. Thus, it is inevitable that the battles over “truth” will be in the political arena. We already see the battle to redefine free speech as the freedom to say only what the definers want you to say.

The advocates for a great “truth” try to cloak their emotional appeal with the mantle of science. Their actions involve little more than the shouting of slogans. Most of those threatened by the great “truth” respond with slogans of their own. The shouting soon reaches the point where the hot heads turn to violence.

What can we do to turn away from the senseless swamp of endless destructive strife? The only answer that will work is, remove the cause of the strife. Stifling speech is like trying to plug a volcano. Sooner or later it will blow up.

The strife we see about us is the inevitable product of our slide into majority rule democracy. Keep in mind the key word is majority. Thoughtful people long ago figured out that majority rule leads to a war of everybody against everybody. In the end there are no winners.

Under pure majority rule 50 percent plus one can do as they please to 50 percent minus one. We aren’t quite there yet. We are close enough to reek havoc.

As long as government interferes with almost every choice, the war with each other will rage on. If we are to preserve civilization, we must dial back government intervention in everyone’s choices. So long as we try to use government to control each other, the strife will rage on.

Two common desires are in conflict. Most people want to live their lives and make their choices as they see fit. Many also desire to force choices on to others. When government enacts a law it says to everyone, do it my way or we will hurt you.

The more laws we have, the more conflicts we will have between the backers of the laws and their victims. The only way to dial down the strife is to shrink government to where it isn’t constantly in everyone's face. Those who want people to quit using plastic straws should use persuasion, not the strong arm of the law.

If we insist on using majority rule democracy to run each other's lives, the war of everyone against everyone is inevitable.

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum

Who Should Make Our Choices?

Column 2018-7 (11/26/18)

Disagreement among individuals is inevitable. There probably isn’t a person on earth who agrees with you 100 percent. How many of those disagreeing people are you prepared to punch out, put in jail, or even kill because they don’t share your opinions? Probably not very many, if any.

If one person wants toast for breakfast, and another prefers pancakes, Are they likely prepared to fight and kill over their disagreement? Suppose that the toast lover starts a campaign to ban pancakes. The disagreement now goes beyond ideas. The freedom to choose pancakes is now at stake. World War III probably won’t flare up in a dispute over breakfast food.

What if government sides with the toast lover and bans pancakes? Government says to everyone, “If you eat pancakes, we will hurt you.” The threat of force and violence is now on the table. The ball is set to roll. How far will it roll?

The first step may be to levy a fine against the pancake eater. If he gives in and pays the fine, end of case. What if he refuses to pay? If government gives in, again the case ends.

Suppose government takes the next step and sends armed enforcers to collect the fine. The victim of the fine resists in every way possible. The victim will end up dead or in prison.

Prison isn't the end if the victim continues his resistance to what he sees as an unjust interference in his life. If he continues his resistance he is all but certain to eventually be killed by government.

The only reason we don’t see many such violent endings is that the victims give in to government. The threat of force and violence lies behind every law. There is a reason why police are called law enforcers. When someone says, “There ought to be a law,” his real demand is for government to hurt those who refuse to obey the proposed law.

The more laws we have, the more threats of force and violence we face. The more we unleash threats of force and violence on those we disagree with, the less peaceful and less civilized we become. Millions who wouldn’t resort to force and violence themselves, eagerly commission government to do the dirty work.

The bigger government grows the more threats of force and violence we all face. The problem isn’t that one group is trying to force its ideas on to everyone else. The problem is that nearly everyone has ideas they want to force onto everyone. We can’t sort out the black hats and the white hats because almost everyone wears a gray hat. They resist the choices forced on to them by others while seeking to forcibly impose their own ideas. As government expands we sink ever deeper into a war of everyone against everyone.

So long as everyone is busy imposing on others, strife, animosity, hatred, and violence will grow. The first step toward peace and civility must be to allow peaceful people to make there own choices, rather than being coerced to accept someone else’s choices.

Disagreements over what to eat for breakfast aren’t very important when no one forces their menu onto anyone. Unless there is a compelling reason for everyone making the same choice, everyone should be free to make his own nonviolent choice. The alternative is to continue what we are doing now and eventually destroy each other.

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum

What Makes a Business Tick?

The first step toward understanding businesses is knowing what businesses do. All businesses have one thing in common. Businesses seek to create wealth. To create wealth a business buys resources, makes products, and sells the products. If the proceeds from the sale of products exceed the cost of the resources the business has created wealth.

A business starts with an idea about a way to produce wealth. The idea leads to a plan for setting up and operating the business.

The next need is investment capital to pay for starting the business and operating it until it sells enough products to pay its own way. The investors may be owners or lenders. The business also needs equipment, supplies, etc. If the business makes physical products, it will need materials. Add workers to manage and operate the business and it is ready to try to produce wealth.

All of the above will be pointless unless the business finds customers to buy its products. Management runs the business, but customers hold the business’s fate in their hands.

The investors who made the business possible are most committed to it. The other participants can walk away and pursue their interests elsewhere. The investors loose their investment unless the business is successful in creating wealth.

It is understandable that investors wouldn’t invest if they couldn't control the business. Any of the other participants could bankrupt the business providing benefits for themselves, and then walk away leaving the investors holding an empty bag.

The investors can’t afford to ride rough shod over any of the other interests. Unhappy suppliers, workers, and customers can simply move on leaving the business to flounder. For the investors to succeed they must balance all the interests in a way that everyone finds it beneficial to continue doing their part.

Interfering with the investor-owners’ balancing acts is all but certain to disrupt the business and decrease its productivity. Decreased productivity is detrimental to all the participants. With freedom in the marketplace there is no need to worry about the owners gaining excessive profits. Competition limits profits, constantly pulling them toward zero.

The only way a free market business can sustain its profits is to innovate. It must find better production methods, better products, or something else that the competition doesn’t have. Everyone benefits from successful innovations.

The profits earned by the business while the competition is catching up are the business’s reward for taking the risk of doing something new and different. This is true even if the profits are 1,000 percent. Profits will be proportional to the benefits that flow from the innovation.

I’m sure many businesses would like to exploit their customers, employees, and anyone else in reach. They can get away with it only when helped by government. Freedom in the marketplace protects everyone. Government and businesses endlessly seek to limit that freedom for their mutual benefit, and to the detriment of everyone else.

When government aids businesses in blocking competition it decreases productivity. If the blocked competition wasn’t more productive than the protected business, the blocking wouldn’t be needed. Government is the last refuge for businesses that can’t win in the marketplace.

In “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith concluded that the nations whose governments interfered least with the economy became the wealthiest. This is still true. Find a poor nation and you will find bad government.

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum

Fair Warning

Column 2018-5 (11/12/18)

It recently came to my attention that the nation’s obsession with political warfare has distracted our guardians in government from one of their most important missions, the proliferation of warning labels.

The item that first caught my attention originated in Russia, or perhaps in the Onion. It reported that a man was found in a field with a knife in his head. Fortunately he was alive. Otherwise we would probably never have known what happened.

The man was having difficulty breathing. He decided to open a new hole for breathing. No explanation was provided as to why he chose to start digging in the top of his head.

I haven’t seen the knife. Still, I am willing to bet it didn’t have a proper warning label. “WARNING: opening a breathing bypass with this tool may cause serious injury or death.”

The next day I found (actual stumbled onto) an article that hit closer to home. Researchers claimed that sitting kills three times more people than smoking. My exhaustive research (more than one minute) discovered a claim that cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 people in the USA each year.

This suggests that sitting kills nearly a million and a half people each year. How many killer chairs are you harboring in your home? Sofas and park benches are probably serial killers.

Firearms death are reported to be 40,000 or less per year. That is in the same neighborhood as deaths from motor vehicle crashes. So, grab a cigarette and a gun. Then go for a drive. Your biggest risk will be that you are sitting. Of course, keep in mind that statistics will confess to anything, if they are tortured long enough.

Still, there are no background checks or waiting periods for purchasing chairs. Even worse, a mere child can walk into a store with a few dollars, and walk out armed with a killer chair. Most likely that chair won’t even have a proper warning label, such as: “It is known to the state of California that chairs cause death.”

If you are a regular reader of warning labels, you may have noticed how smart California is. It knows about all sorts of hazards that the benighted residents of the hinterlands can’t even imagine. Should California have a warning label? How about “Living in California may cause serious brain damage?”

One vital question remains unanswered. Are California warnings valid outside of California? The Californians who compose those dire warnings probably are unaware that there is anything outside of California.

Should I even ask, How great is the risk from smoking while sitting? Give government credit for leading the way on this one. It drove smokers outside to indulge in their pastime standing on the sidewalk. How many lives have been saved by getting smokers to stand up? Should the cigarette warnings be revised to: “It is hazardous to sit while smoking?”

After I wrote the above I learned of anther hazard branded “as bad as smoking.” Staying out of the sun can shorten lives as much as smoking does. What will happen to anyone who smokes while siting in the shade? I see another warning label in our future: “WARNING: Sunscreen can cause death.”

I believe that passing on these warnings is important. I took the risk of doing it. Some may ask, What is the risk? I am bravely sitting in a chair, out of the sun, while typing this vital warning. Will I make it to the next paragraph?

aldmccallum@gmail.com

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum

Where Is All the Plastic From?

Column 2018-4

For some time various people have expressed concern about the plastic accumulating in the oceans. One of the more noticeable accumulations is a blob floating in the Pacific Ocean.

Recently individuals and groups have launched a campaign to do something. They are seeking bans on plastic drinking straws. Some city governments appear ready to act.

Certainly plastic straws are plastic. Also, most likely some of those straws reach the oceans.

This isn’t enough to answer the question, Does the straw ban make sense? Advocates for the ban don’t appear interested in research. Their minds are made up. What might a little research reveal?

One point perhaps worth considering is that only a small fraction of one percent of plastic made in the US is used to make straws. If all of it went into the oceans, Would it make a detectable difference?

A study found that most plastic that goes to the oceans by river flows out of ten rivers. Two of these rivers are African. The other eight are in Asia. The Yangtze is by far the biggest contributer. Three more of the rivers are completely Chinese. An additional three are partly Chinese.

Perhaps the straw banners should take there campaign to China. Of course, it is highly unlikely that straws are a significant part of Chinese plastic.

The main point is that under developed countries with poor or nonexistent trash disposal facilities are the main sources of plastic flowing into the oceans.

Meanwhile back home in the USA Starbucks® has jumped on the end the straw bandwagon. It announced its plan to replace straws with a cup cover that eliminates the need for straws. One reporter did some research. He found that the new cover contains more plastic than the old cover plus a straw. Perhaps this is a small price to pay for getting rid of those cursed straws.

If plastic straws are eliminated, we could go back to paper straws. There might be a flaw in this plan too. Paper straws cost 10 times as much as plastic ones. Paper straws cost more because more resources are used to make them. Consuming more resources will have an impact on the environment. Perhaps someone should investigate that impact before beating the drum for paper straws. The results might be surprising.

I read of a study comparing the environmental impact of driving an auto to the impact of riding a bicycle. The researcher concluded that the bicycle rider generated the most pollution. The calculation included pollution from producing the food the biker ate to produce the energy for peddling. I have no idea if this conclusion will stand up under scrutiny. It does, at least, bring to mind the importance research being thoroughly done.

Back to that blob of plastic in the Pacific Ocean. Apparently most of the plastic is from discarded fishing equipment, such as nets. How many plastic straws go fishing in the Pacific?

It seems that once again the defenders of the environment have hatched a half thought out plan that will do little or nothing to improve the environment. If the ban is enacted, it will, of course, be a minor nuisance to millions of people.

I will boldly predict that the world can survive without plastic straws. Perhaps the campaign for the ban is a good thing. The effort and wealth devoted to the ban campaign won’t be used to pursue causes much more threatening to the comfort and survival of humanity.

aldmccallum@gmail.com

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum

The Accumulation of Wealth

Column 2018-3 (10/29/18)

The goods and services available to consumers today exceed anything ever seen in the past. Obviously some consumers have far more access to this wealth than do others. Still, even the poorest have more than they did a generation ago. The percent of the world’s population living in absolute poverty has decreased dramatically. In general those who produce more have more.

There are several things that affect an individual’s ability to be productive. These things include ability, environment and availability of resources. The willingness of others to cooperate is also very important.

Technology and tools are indispensable to productivity. Take away our vast array of technology and production facilities from farms, factories, mines, transportation, etc. and no one will be very productive. Maximizing all the other factors that are essential to productivity would do little to lift us above stone age levels of productivity and a stone age standard of living.

We owe almost everything we have to past generations that built up the accumulated knowledge and production facilities. We do our part. Without what our ancestors willed to us we couldn’t come close to producing what we do today. If we add to the accumulated wealth, the next generation will be able to produce even more.

Any generation could go on a spending binge and consume, rather than maintain and increase, the accumulated wealth. If that happens, every future generation will suffer from decreased productivity.

Even if future generations fully replace the depleted wealth, their productivity will lag behind what it would have been if the wealth hadn’t been depleted. Our productivity today suffers from the destruction of wealth in the major wars and other destructive actions of past generations. Recovery from the destruction took time. We will never get that time back.

The past is chiseled in stone. We can’t change it. The most we can hope for is to learn from it. Whether we learn or not, we can’t escape paying the tuition.

We can party, party, party. We can pay for the party by diverting wealth from investment in future productivity. We can keep the party going longer by failing to replace the production facilities passed to us by past generations.

At first the decrease in present productivity will be barely noticed by most. Decreases in future production don’t show up until the future arrives. Funny how it works that way. Don’t expect the generations that live in that future to be laughing.

It won’t matter that the spending binge was well intentioned. Taking investment capital from the wealthy and spending in on consumption by the poor hurts future productivity just as much as it would if the wealthy spent it on their own party.

It seems that there might be some moral questions involves in deciding whether to squander our inheritance, or enhance it and pass it on. Moral or not, we have the power to squander our inheritance if we so choose.

If the neosocailists have their way most people will not even see the questions. We need to ask more than, Shall we tax the wealthy and spend it on the poor? We need to ask, Shall we consume the accumulated investment in productivity to the detriment of the future poor, wealthy, and everyone in between?

It would be most unfortunate if the present generation choose to squander the investment in production facilities without even recognizing the choice they made. The so called socialists want to fool everyone into letting the socialists squander the investment in future production. Imagine what life will be like when all of our production facilities deteriorate to the equivalent of a road full of potholes.

aldmccallum@gmail.com

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum

Who Will Pay?

Column 2018-2 (10/22/18)

Our world is filled with conflicts. In the realm of politics and government these conflicts run rampant. Most of these conflicts are fueled by emotions rather than facts and reason.

One of the core conflicts is, Who should own the wealth? Before considering this conflict we need a common understanding of what wealth is.

Everything of value is part of our wealth. Contrary to a popular belief there is no such thing as inherent value. Individuals value certain things because of the belief that those things will some how contribute to the individual’s satisfaction.

Individuals seek to increase their satisfaction. Anything that an individual believes will increase his satisfaction has value to him. Anything that can be used to produce or preserve those valuable things also has value. Thus, consumer goods and the production goods that can produce consumer goods are all part of our wealth.

Most people can’t afford to own the production goods needed to produce the consumer goods they want. They depend on production goods provided and owned by others.

The only way to increase our standard of living is to make better production goods that in turn make workers more productive. Someone has to pay for developing and providing these better production goods. Even if we don’t develop better production goods, someone has to pay to replace the old ones when they ware out.

Not all invested wealth belongs to the rich. Much of it does. Diverting wealth from investment to consumption spending depletes the investment in production goods which is indispensable to prosperity. It is the equivalent of eating the seed corn.

It is possible to tax away investment for several years without obvious consequences. Sooner or later productivity and prosperity will start to slip away. It may not matter who owns the investment in production goods. It is vital that some postpone consumption and invest in production goods.

Taxing the rich investors isn’t painless for everyone else. When investment decreases, the poor and middle class will feel the pain from decreased productivity long before the rich do.

Those who have the least are hurt the most when productivity declines. Most rich people could still live very well if their incomes were cut in half. What would happen to the poor and middle income people if they lost half of their income?

There is another way to pay for excessive government spending, for a while. To some extent the US government is already using it. Governments have unlimited capacity to create new money. They don’t even have to print it. Just punch a few keys on the computer.

There is one small problem. Government has zero ability for avoiding the consequences from creating new money. The new money gets its value by sucking it from the existing money. The price of everything goes up. Create enough new money and all the money becomes worthless. This is nothing more than an indirect way of diverting wealth from investment to consumption spending.

Zimbabwe performed that magic a few years ago. Venezuela is doing its best to join the club. A recent article reported that price inflation in Venezuela is rolling along at about 48,000 percent per year. Suppose that report is wrong and the inflation rate is only 24,000 percent. Would it make any real difference?

So far the government's solution is to issue new Bolivar bills with five fewer zeros. A million old Bolivars become 10 new ones. This will not do a thing to solve the underlying problem of overspending by government. And, yes, it can happen here.

The people who call themselves socialists want the US government to provide trillions of dollars worth of more “free” stuff. Paying with taxes on businesses and the rich will be a disaster. Paying with new money will likely turn out even worse. Will anyone scream STOP?

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum

What Is In a Word?

Words are important. Imagine a world without words. How would we communicate with each other? For one thing you wouldn’t be reading this column. Okay, so maybe there would be some benefits from not having words.

Merely having words isn’t enough. What if I urged you to buy a gzajoxx? (Do you have any idea how difficult it is to create a word that doesn’t exist? The first two words I tried, Google found more than 6,000 times. Even “gzajoxx” appeared on three web pages, mainly as a license plate.).

Unless “gzajoxx”, or any other word, means the same thing to you and me, the word is useless for communication between us. How much of the conflict in the world exists because recipients of words don’t interpret them to mean what the senders intended?

Today I will consider an old word that is experiencing a rebirth: socialism. After the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics few, if any, rose to defend socialism, let alone advocate heading down the socialist road.

Socialism that had endlessly produced nothing but poverty, misery and servitude seemed to be dead and buried forever. Someone is bound to claim socialism has succeeded in the Scandinavian countries. Before considering that claim let us consider the definition of socialism.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines socialism as: “Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.”

Thus, the Scandinavian countries are no more socialist than the USA. Private businesses own and control most of the production in Scandinavia. These businesses are taxed less severely than US businesses and subject to regulations no more severe than those endured by US businesses.

If Scandinavia is socialist so is the USA. The socialists can declare victory, shut up and have a party.

Interestingly today’s self proclaimed socialists make little if any mention of government seizure of all businesses. Thus, whatever they are, they are not socialists. What are they?

The ones I have noticed simply call out for expansion of the welfare state. They want more free stuff from government. They demand “free” college and medical services for everyone. They want a huge increase in the minimum wage. There is nothing new about any of this. It is the same old drum beat with a new name for the band.

There is one thing the neosocialists don’t care to talk about. How will a government which is already out spending it income by a trillion dollars a year pay for more free stuff? That is right. Free stuff isn’t free. Someone has to pay for it.

The only answer I have heard is tax businesses and tax the rich. I haven’t heard any numbers mentioned about how much money can be collected this way, or what the consequences will be.

Perhaps they should check with Scandinavia on this. The Scandinavians have learned that it isn’t a good idea kill or drive away the geese that lay the golden eggs. Over tax a business and it will leave or fail. Either way the golden eggs that pay for the welfare state are gone.

Tax the rich and they too will find a way to leave. Thus, countries such as Sweden and Denmark pile the taxes onto the middle class and poor. Most of them don't have the option of leaving. So, they stay and pay for their”free” stuff. It is easy to understand why the neosocialists don't want to talk about paying for the “free” goodies.

When someone claims to be a socialist, check out what they really want, and how they will pay for it. The new socialism appears to be the redistributionist welfare state on steroids.

aldmccallum@gmail.com

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Copyright 2018

Albert D. McCallum