warnings and disclaimers

I'm conflicted about something, here, and I need to talk about it before I go on.  On the one hand, I don't want to start off every blog post with warnings and disclaimers (warning: I don't so much care what other people think about me; mandatory disclaimer: no one blog post is a complete thought, because I tend to write about issues that are highly complex, and blog posts are short), but on the other hand, this blog was created with a purpose.  I really want to be able to articulate points on this blog that will help liberals and conservatives see my political perspective.

Right now, with a Democrat as president, I'll appear to most people around me as a conservative (I know, I know, it doesn't help that I live in NYC, either), even though when Bush was president, most people thought I was a liberal.  I'm neither.  I would consider myself to be a voluntaryist.  That means I hate both parties equally, because I don't really see a difference.

Obviously, we can't blame all of societies problems on Bush, Obama, the Democrats, or the Republicans-- even though they have all had something to do with them.

We can only solve the problems by understanding one key thing, then taking action on it.  The world doesn't run on gumdrops and unicorn farts.  Policy doesn't create outcomes by wishing it.  Bad policy is bad policy, no matter what your intentions are.  Want to decrease abortion?  Me too!  We could ban it, because that really worked with heroine, crack, and prostitution, right?  Want to get rid of poverty?  Me too!  Current policy (give money away) is not working.  Let's find something that does.

What Is Your Single Greatest Fear?

But just out of these options:
1- Robots killing all the humans
2- Small pox/ebola or some kind of virus killing us
3- Gray Goo
4- Israel bombs Iran and starts WWIII
5- Computers are used in the future to control everyone
6- Runaway global warming killing us
7- The singularity taking too long to happen

They've made movies about 4 out of the 7 (that I know of).

I'm a #7 guy, like Peter Thiel, because I know that if I can imagine amazing technology that would eradicate hunger, extend lives, and help us colonize space, then the stuff I can't even imagine yet must be so much more awesome.  When I describe the time in the future when our current problems don't exist, my sentence tends to start with "If we don't kill ourselves first."  The Singularity has to happen before we blow ourselves up. 

The one I'm least worried about?  #6.

"So, why do you think some people are poor?"

The girlfriend and I were hanging out with some of her friends the other day.  And there were some friends of those friends.  One of them started rattling something off about economics, and talked about how he was an econ major at Berkley.  Okay, if you're an econ major at Berkley, I know what kind of economics you learned.  Not that they teach it MUCH different at most major public schools (one class I took notwithstanding).

But here was an obviously intelligent guy who seemed to think that income stratification CAUSE poverty.  I disagreed.  We tiffed back and forth, seemly friendly, then he threw this one out at me:

"So, why do YOU think some people are poor?"

I made a dumb answer, not thinking first, "Because of learned helplessness."

"Oh my god," he said.  "I can't-I-you really said that.  I can't even have a conversation with you."  And then the car sat in awkward silence for a while.

Those of you who've taken a glance at the Mises Institute or looked at non-Keynesian economics know that my answer wasn't necessarily WRONG in the context of "not related," but it was more INCOMPLETE, and not the best way to handle that confrontation.  So I want to respond to that question with  my thoughts, and at least know that I got the right answer out into the void.

Why are some people poor?  Way to give me a question that can be answered in one sentence!  I can tell you that poor people don't exist  because rich people exist.  There aren't 2.5 billion people living on a dollar a day because Bill Gates owns all the money.

Maybe we're asking the wrong question.  Poverty is natural, like gravity.  Show me another animal that has cell phones, climate controlled homes, and has built rockets that take them to the moon and back, and I'll admit I might be wrong.  Every other animal on this planet lives, naturally, in what we humans consider "poverty."  Why are we different?

Our difference has to do with the source of wealth.  Some people would say that wealth comes from natural resources.  The continent of Africa has more natural resources than any other, yet almost the entire land mass is soaked in abject poverty.  South America is rich in oil, forests, gold.  So many are so poor.  Hong Kong is a barren rock, yet is ahead of Greece, New Zealand, and Portugal for GDP per capita.  Natural resources cannot be the answer.  It is the mind that creates value.  Someone had to figure out how to turn a toxic, gooey substance into something that can power vehicles, and also into something that can preserve food in our refrigerators.  Someone-actually, many someones-had to figure out how to take a pile of rocks, remove certain particles, then reassemble them into something we can drive around.  These, and a billion other things, are not natural.  They are a product of mind.

This is the simple part.  It's easy to understand, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it.  What this person really meant when he asked the question is: why are specific people poor, while other specific people are much richer in comparison?

And this deserves a very long, in depth answer.  But I'm going to defer to the experts.  The Index of Economic Freedom spells out what countries do or have that lead to riches:

1) Rule of Law
2) Low Government Spending
3) Secure property rights
4) Freedom from corruption

Notice what is not on this list:

1)  "Social safety net"
2)  democracy
3)  public schools

Creating wealth is about opportunity.  If you want to see wealth created, either create it, or get out of the way so others can.

Delicious steak

We joined Costco yesterday and bought the thickest steaks I've ever had.  I salted and peppered each side, then sprinkled some cajun.  Grilled for about 20 minutes on medium, then threw them in the oven at 300 degrees for about 10 minutes.  These were the greatest steaks I've ever made (not that I've been cooking as much as I'd like to).

The girlfriend and I are about to head to the Zoo in Prospect Park.  I'm sure I'll come back and rant about how "statists have been stealing our money for this??"

The New Mission

I've moved from Texas to New York City.

It's an interesting move.  I love the new job (Zocdoc.com!), but there are some implications for someone who has my political opinions.  I went from one of the smallest state governments, to one of the largest.  I'll have to keep you updated on how that goes.

The New York City that everyone thinks of, the parts that are in the movies, are really just Manhattan.  Brooklyn, where I live, is considered an Outer Burroughs.  Every time I see the NYC skyline, I think of the greatness of the human mind.  Some humans BUILT this.  Within only a few thousand years, we went from caves to buildings so tall, we call them "skyscrapers."  It's amazing.

I will tell you all about the great things that are in NYC, but I will also let you know the areas where the State is destroying the standard of living.

Part One: The city limits how tall buildings could be.

People in Brooklyn can, in some areas, see the City skyline.  This makes them excited, as it's awesome.  Brooklyn limits buildings to four stories high, so you can't block other's view of the City.  That's the law.  I understand that you want to see the City, but isn't it way cooler to live there?  Let the areas around you get built up!  Creating more supply would also lower housing prices, which would mean that they would not have to create rent control laws.  I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

"No, really, this time we are going to fix public education, we promise. We mean it, look at how much more money we are going to spend."

Apparently it's that time of year again, the time of year when politicians acknowledge that the public education system is getting worse (or remaining stagnantly bad at best) and start making efforts and promises to "fix it" or "get it right this time."

The Atlantic yesterday had an article summarizing this latest effort from the Obama administration. What is the newest issue affecting our public schools that if we can just change this will make things a lot better?

Today, President Obama wades in to a controversy that threatens to split one of the Democratic Party's most generous source of donations and activists, the teacher unions, from the whole. The dispute is about teacher performance, narrowly, and about government's distribution of common goods more generally.

Obama wants more accountability for teachers.

This idea is not bad in and of itself. Teachers should have always been held accountable for the performance of their students and be evaluated by that performance among other things. However, this is only a small piece of the larger problem with public education in general, which The Atlantic describes just a few sentences later without even realizing it.

Part of the problem is that nothing seems to work: not charter schools, not tying teachers to student performance, not throwing money at schools, not even curricula reform. There are blips -- a voucher program works here, a charter school works there. Nothing seems to work everywhere.

This summarizes the exact problem with public education. Top-down one size fits all solutions for everyone. As is nearly always necessary in a situation like this, I must quote Hayek:

The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of how to allocate "given" resources — if "given" is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these "data." It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.

The "Knowledge Problem" that Hayek spoke of here is the exact problem with our current public education system. No matter how well intentioned or how hard someone tries, a single person or group of people in Washington can not possibly know the best system of education for students in downtown L.A., El Paso, Bismark, Anchorage, Little Rock, etc... All of these areas of the country have large differences in their social and economic make up. How can one type of education system possibly be the best solution for all of them?

Maybe charter schools are the best solution for L.A., but Anchorage would benefit from school vouchers, while all Little Rock needs is more funding for new textbooks. If we allow local communities and individuals to make their own decisions on education we should see better results. Not because they are any smarter or more well intentioned than the politicians in Washington, but purely because they are not as far removed from the individual needs of the students in that community.

Now if only we can get the politicians to admit their own lack of knowledge we might be able to make some progress.

What I'm Watching and Reading

Watching: Firefly
Some would say it's about time.  It's the libertarian-leaning SciFi show that everyone's talking about.  It's the people against the authoritarian State.  The hippies I used to live with watched it a lot, which is.... interesting.  I'm not really sure how you can follow a show so closely, then miss the point of the story.  Anyway, there are only 14 episodes, then the movie.  I'll probably finish the season today, then move on to The Sopranos.  Netflix is awesome.


Reading: The Girl Who Played With Fire
This is a great series.  Start with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  It's sort of a murder-mystery.  But the story is brilliant, and the characters are amazing.  The movie, while just as dark and disturbing, does not do the book justice.  Go.  Read.


What are you reading?