Recently in Politics Category

It's obvious to any rational outside observer that US terrorism policy mostly revolves around making sure people think politicians are "doing something", regardless of whether something needs to be done, or whether what they're doing is the right thing. Explaining the work for which Williamson won the Nobel last week, Judge Posner writes:

[FBI criminal-investigation functions] lend themselves to what are called "high-powered" incentives, which are systems of compensation and promotion that are based on objective performance criteria. In the case of criminal investigation these are number of arrests weighted by convictions and sentence. Intelligence work does not lend itself to such performance criteria, because the effect of surveillance and other intelligence activities in preventing terrorism or subversion is usually very difficult to assess. Hence motivation takes the form of creating a "high commitment" environment in which the organization's leaders try to elicit good performance by getting staff to internalize the organization's goals. The problem is that the absence of objective criteria of performance opens the door to "influence activities" by which members of the organization jockey for advancement.

If both types of task are combined in the same organization--those that can be directed by high-powered incentives and those that require high commitment as their motivator, the best employees will tend to gravitate toward the first type of task because they will be confident that they will do well if their performance is judged according to objective criteria. They will be much less certain how well they will do in a job in which influence activities play a large role in determining success.

To summarize the summary, the best and the brightest will be drawn to organizations that have objective measures of success, but even more so, within a given organization, they will be drawn to these types of roles. Those who aren't very good, and especially those who can be political hacks who shamelessly talk about how the threat level is Orange today, so put on extra sunscreen, will drawn to those roles without objective measures of success, where climbing the career ladder is based on criteria other than doing the job better than the next guy.

Check out the whole article

I've previously written that I don't like the CA LP's reasoning on some of tomorrow's ballot measures. I still think their arguments are only appealing to hard line libertarians, but I've been persuaded by other arguments to vote against everything tomorrow, and I encourage you to do the same.

I was marginally in favor of the rainy day fund aspects of Prop 1A, but as you can see from the links in the comments on my earlier post, this is a fraud, a repeat of the equally pointless prop 58 that was supposed to solve all our problems only a few years ago.

I argued in favor of 1D and 1E in my earlier post, because they could, in theory, have helped prevent tax hikes. But the Reason Foundation's analysis has another take on it that I found much more persuasive. Even assuming 1D and 1E can offer short term relief (as I did), they are dangerous because they offer an underhanded technique to grow state spending. First, the taxpayers are duped into supporting an initiative to provide mental health services, or pay for idiotic anti-smoking commercials. Next, once California's public employee unions induce another budget crisis, you cut the programs and transfer the money into the general fund.

I don't think the original supporters of the initiatives that established these programs intended it to be used in this manner, but it would set a dangerous precedent.

I'd even like to see 1F, the "no raises while the budget isn't balanced" measure fail. It would be good to send a message that the con games are over.

The Libertarian Party of California has taken a position I think is misguided on the May 19th ballot measures. They have opposed props 1D and 1E, but these are probably a good compromise to improve California's budget situation.

What 1D and 1E do is to move funding from two specially financed programs into the general fund. 1D would take tobacco tax money currently used for anti-tobacco initiatives (i.e. patronizing tv ads) and redirect it to the general fund to pay for what are presumably more useful programs. 1E would do the same with special mental health funds currently paid by a tax on the wealthiest Californians.

The only argument given against these is that it doesn't cut overall government spending. Is this the only measure of a law? We don't have the option on the ballot to cut taxes. It's not one of the questions being asked. Our options in this election are to spend the money on anti-smoking ads and expanded government provided mental health services, or use it to pay for other more useful services through the general fund.

For these reasons, I will be voting yes on prop 1D and 1E, and encourage you to do the same.

On the other measures, it's important to spread the message that while 1A is a tax increase, it also includes changes to how budgeting is done, which could reduce the hysteria in the future. Prop 1B on the other hand, is a complete gutting of the only beneficial effects of prop 1A. A reasonable person could conclude that prop 1A, though it is a tax increase, is a better option than what may come out of Sacramento if we force them to go back to the drawing board without approving it. I am undecided how I will vote on 1A at this time.

1C is a foolish borrowing against future lottery proceeds, and authorizes the state to increase marketing so that the poor and foolish can help pay off this enormous loan.

Prop 1F is a minor symbolic gesture, but definitely one to vote for. It would prevent law makers from raising their pay while running a deficit.

I welcome your comments.

Edit: here's an interesting piece on prop 1A with a comment from Richard Rider also worth reading.

Santa Cruz County says anyone can sign a ballot argument (from
http://www.votescount.com/books/argument.pdf )

"Signers of arguments for or against a county, school, or special district measure do not have to meet the criteria listed above. The filer of the argument must meet the criteria above; however, anyone may sign the argument."

Shasta county agrees:
"Arguments and Rebuttals must be accompanied by the Verification Statement included in this Guide. (Elections Code §9600) There is a distinction between a “filer” and a “signer or author.” The filer argument or rebuttal must be either the governing board of the district, a bona fide association of citizens or an individual voter who is eligible to vote on the measure. The “signers or authors” of the argument or rebuttal can be any person or organization accompanied by a signature of a principal officer. Filers do not have to be signers."

Sutter county has almost identical language to Santa Cruz. Butte County also.

San Luis Obispo has different "filers do not have to be signers" language.

Orange County allows signers who are not filers, but requires that the filers formally delegate their right to sign. See http://ocvote.com/election/rebuttal_Handbook.pdf

Sacramento County follows a similar system to Orange County.

Where did this all come from? San Mateo County ROV says that our arguments against local tax measures authored and filed by LSPM's secretary can only be signed by people who are allowed to author or file the argument. First, the law doesn't say that. Second, our actual disagreement is about whether we have to use our titles. That is, I'd like to sign ballot arguments as "Kevin Dempsey Peterson, Software Engineer", because that's the designation I'll be using if I run for office again. The ROV wants to put me down as Treasurer, Libertarian Party of San Mateo County. Seems somewhat reasonable, and I've have no problem if the law were actually written that way.

Bonus points: the form they provide for submitting ballot arguments misquotes California election code, combining "authors" and "signers" into the same thing (while the EC makes a distinction).

California's proposition 8, which says that marriage is only between a man and a woman, illustrates fundamental flaws in democracy. The right answer to the "issue" of gay marriage is the same as the answer to the "issue" of what movie I should watch tonight -- no one's business but mine and my wife's. I think that the vast majority of Californian's would agree with this position if asked, but social conservatives were able to frame the debate so that the voters were faced not with the question of whether the government should dictate who can marry whom, but instead forced to codify their gut feeling on marriage into law.

Almost everyone I have spoken to over the age of forty who isn't politically active is uncomfortable with the idea of gay marriage. To them, "marriage" means a man and a woman, and when the question is phrased as whether two people of the same sex can marry, they will say no, just as they would say that you can't be friends with someone you have never met, or you can't sing a song with no words. These aren't moral judgments, these are just simple statements that their definition of marriage means one man, one woman. They don't have any strong opposition to gay marriage, it's just a "how would that work" uneasiness.

On the other hand, against this mild queasiness, you have millions of Californians being told they cannot marry, they cannot gain the same legal recognition for their family as others. These same sex couples aren't just being insulted, they are encountering real, significant consequences of the limitations of the law.

With that background, a small number of social conservatives were able to frame the question as "what is the definition of marriage", rather than the more relevant question of "should same sex couples have the same rights as everyone else". In the eyes of the law, these may be the same thing, but to the voter, these subtle choices of wording and point of view change everything.

This is why I say that proposition 8 was a failure of democracy. From a legal standpoint, I agree with Tom Campbell that the California Supreme Court made a questionable ruling when they legislated from the bench and this should have been legalized through the democratic process. But the initiative process failed miserably. The California legislature, able to weigh the public's general queasiness against the significant legal discrimination against same sex couples, was doing their best to provide those rights, as with domestic partnerships. They were doing a reasonably good job of balancing the conflict between what they knew to be right and good for California, and Prop 22, which banned same sex marriage and they did not have the power to repeal.

But this is not how direct democracy works. The initiative process says one person, one vote, so one person's slight unease at "legitimizing" gay couples who make them a little uncomfortable is given the same importance as another person who desperately wants to marry his long time partner. Similarly, democracy says that the vote of someone living off government assistance is just as valid as the vote of someone who works and pays taxes. We let people with no children vote in school district elections. We let people who do not own houses vote to raise property taxes.

In short, we allow two wolves and a sheep to vote on what to have for dinner. Is there an alternative? Yes, the alternative is freedom. Freedom, coupled with the rule of law, says that we take certain things off the table. Certain things are removed from the calculus of political bargaining. We strictly rule out any bill that restricts freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of the right to keep and bear arms, of the right to be secure in our homes.

By now you may be snickering, because you know that those rights are no longer strictly protected. They are viewed only as suggestions, or guidelines. What has happened is that the people have forgotten why those rules were adopted. They have willingly reelected politicians who debase themselves and sell our freedom for short term gain, who promise us safety, if only we consent to police searching our bags on BART. Who promise us financial security, if only we hand over half of everything we make.

Remember that prop 8 isn't about marriage, and it isn't about gays. It's about freedom. As long as the voters remember the first question to ask isn't "which side am I on", but rather "is this really a political question at all", we can dig ourselves out. We can go back to the day when you could live your life in peace, and go about your business without having to convince your neighbors, or, even worse, have to hope that some judge would decide on a whim that he liked you, and find some convoluted argument that allows him to rule the way that he wants to.

If I have to choose between freedom and democracy, I'll take freedom any day.

The bailout is in the news. We get new info daily, and it's still in flux. If you believe in small government, or even responsible government, or even some semblance of a non-corrupt government, these are the key points to make when this subject comes up in conversation. Note that I wrote this on Saturday, 20 Sept, and things may have already changed (I don't have a staff to figuring things out for me, I just read the news like you do).

• We don't know what the final number is going to be, but it's looking like $700 Billion. That's $2000 for every man, woman and child in the country.


• Yes, it's true that these are loan guarantees, not straight handouts, but the fact that no profit-driven investors stepped up to the plate means they aren't going to pay out. The banks are not going to be handing off good loans to the bailout fund, they will be handing off the loans that are being defaulted on. We would be lucky to see even half this money returned.


• These handouts punish the prudent and reward the foolish. Why should Americans be cautious with their money, make sure they don't get in over their head, when those who do will be forced to pay for the "bad luck" of those who bought houses they couldn't afford and those who made the loans?


• If a bank collapses, the only ones who lose money are investors. If the bank that holds your mortgage collapses, it isn't as if they can come and kick you out of your house. The worst case scenario is that you'll get a letter advising you that your lender is defunct, your loan has been purchased by another bank, and would you please send your future loan payments to a new address?


• We see that the true meaning of bipartisan action is helping out huge corporations that donate to both parties. It's no virtue to be generous with taxpayer money.


• Once the banks that have made bad loans have been taken over by more responsibly managed banks, the problem will be solved -- if investors lose money, they aren't likely to invest in bad loans again.


• As a Libertarian, my preference would be that that $2000 per man, woman and child went toward reducing the debt and cutting taxes, but whatever your politics, I'm sure we can all agree that there are many more important things to spend the money on than making sure the rich
  get richer.


• This is the kind of opportunity that can actually get a Libertarian elected. Hammer this issue hard. This is the wedge that will make voters look to Washington and say "you're out of your minds".


• Don't talk about the gold standard. It's not a related issue and talking about the gold standard makes 90% of the voters think you are a kook.


• Don't talk about inflation. The relationship of this bailout to inflation are too complicated to explain in anything less than a feature length article, so just stay away from the issue. If you actually get asked, say it is increasing the money supply so we can expect inflation. Keep in mind that inflation probably directly benefits debtors more than the negative effects on the economy harm them.

I'm running for office because I'm pissed off. I'm pissed off at police that kick down doors using military tactics with no concern for the constitution, under the reasoning that accidentally shooting a few innocent bystanders is a small price to pay to make sure AIDS patients can't smoke marijuana. I'm pissed off at having 15% of my earnings go to fund a retirement plan which will most likely go bankrupt. I'm pissed off at “terrorism alerts” which accomplish nothing but to keep the populace in a perpetual state of fear, and at airport security which detains children for having a similar name to someone on a secret “no fly” list. I'm pissed off because FEMA is declaring places like Foster City a flood zone so that they can force home owners to buy flood insurance to pay for the poorly managed fiasco in New Orleans.

I'm pissed off that political debate in this country is entirely about whether the Washington should force everyone to do something, or ban them from doing it, and it seems to never pass through anyone's mind that maybe, just maybe, an individual can make his or her own decisions.

I support freedom and individual choice. I support copyright reform which expands fair use rights and oppose retroactive extensions of copyright. I support ending the failed war on drugs. I support full equal rights for gays. I oppose costly government bailouts of private corporations. I support the right of all law abiding citizens to own a gun. Most of all, I support you. I support letting you make the choices that affect your life, and leave government to deal only with those cases where it's necessary.

Visit Peterson for Congress 2008 and help turn back the tide. If you are a registered libertarian in the 12th Congressional District, I need your signature to get on the ballot. Email me if you have not received a form in the mail already.

Looking for the perfect gift for the capitalist on your list? Try this Milton Friedman T-Shirt available from Arthur's Hall of Viking Manliness.

They also have a good article How tree-Hugging hippies are destroying our environment. You gotta love any website that offers a "manly answer to Oprah's Book Club".

Given the overhead for sales taxes, income taxes, etc etc, it takes about 2 hours for me to earn enough to buy one hour of the time of labor from someone who makes the same salary as me.

Let's assume someone makes $20 / hr. Let's assume that he works for someone who makes something I want. It costs $20 for parts, overhead of the facilities, tools, etc. It takes 1 hour of the worker's time. So they have to pay the worker $21.60 to cover their share of the employment tax. Adding in 8.5% tax on the 41.60 gives a total price you would have to pay of $45.14 for this item. How much does the worker take home? Using number from my actual check stubs, he loses 19% to federal income tax, 7.65% to his half of the employment tax, and 7.4% to state income tax, so the worker takes home $13.19. So the worker has to work for two hours to be able to buy back his original one hour of labor ($45.14 - $20 (materials/overhead) = $25.14 just under $26.38).

Note that I've assumed taxes make no contribution to the cost of the raw materials and overhead. If these were included, the worker would be losing even more to the government.

If half of my labor goes to the government, do I get half of what I use from the government? Not even close.

(Title inspired by Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson)

When I got my ballot pamphlet a few weeks back, I was disappointed to see that they were moving to electronic voting. I think the chain of reasoning here is pretty clear:

1. Senile idiots in Florida can't figure out how to operate paper.


2. Electronic voting systems are even harder to use for easily befuddled retirees.


3. Electronic voting systems cost a lot more and make more money for government contractors.


4. Clearly we should move to electronic voting systems.

They list all sorts of ways I know that my vote is secure, like "rigorous logic and accuracy testing", and "stored in four physically separate locations for backup". All of this is smoke and mirrors. In fact, all established methods of testing make the assumption that the person producing it intends for it to work as described. The problem with the security model they are using to evaluate these systems is that electronic votes behave like pieces of paper. That is, they assume that the system accurately records the vote cast, that the system will not change the vote without malevolent outside intervention, and that the system will accurately count the votes. None of these types of controls will do anything to prevent an insider (someone at the manufacturer) from adding code to switch votes to a preferred candidate.

There is mention that the source code was audited by an outside source. Even assuming that it was feasible to do this audit in the time provided (a separate issue), and that an audit can find flaws in a short period of time (it can't generally find security flaws, but it should prevent intentional vote manipulation by insiders), there is a remaining problem. We will assume that the source code was audited, and the auditors found no problems because there were no problems to find -- the source code was perfect. (this wasn't the case) The remaining issue is, how do I know that the source code matches what is actually running on the machines? It's a long process to go from source code to the actual machines sitting in polling stations. Nothing guarantees that the source code didn't have malicious bits purged before giving it to the auditors. Nothing guarantees that the machines won't get a "more up-to-date version" of the software. Nothing guarantees that someone in the manufacturing plant doesn't replace the software with something of his own design. Even if the audit was perfect, all we get is that some source code looks like it works right, but this tells us nothing about the machines that are supposedly running that software.

But they have a voter verifiable paper trail. And this is all that saves the process. Computers are a great way to produce something which is easy to read. They make it easy to catch spelling errors, and so on. So the eSlate is a thousand dollar machine to make sure that the paper ballots are readable. All the security features are a waste of tax dollars.