I just saw this article on the faults of merit pay.
What struck me was the idea of bidding for next year's teacher. I would add the idea of sponsorship of vouchers and direct threats of non-renewal of contracts.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Friday, November 04, 2011
Lessons on media in Cain Kerfuffle
In this recent news blitz on Herman Cain's alleged sexual harassment case, I am again reminded about the news media's ridiculous notions of the rules of disclosure.
Since the reporter seeks a higher salary through satisfying thepowers that be in his news organization, we must understand the dynamics. The reporter has low standards of proof to put himself in front of the public with hos information. The target has high standards of proof to overcome bad news. This simply reflects the rules of the game that most likely increases the reporter's salary and income over time.
To understand how perverse this self-serving methodology is, let's pretend that these same rules applied in court. What would be the outcome.
To keep this example as close to a real lawsuit, let us pretend the reporter was filing a libel or slander claim against a private citizen. Under the rules that reporter claim should apply, once the reporter filed the lawsuit, he has the right to say anything he wants about the private citizen.
In the news reporter's world view, the level of proof the reporter must meet is simply, "I accuse you. Now disprove my accusation." The reporter need show no papers, no recorded statements, or no evidence that private citizen was even in the place where the accusation suggests the wrong doing occurred. The reporter believes Mr Citizen now has to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. Any flaw or hesitation means the reporter's flimsy accusations are true. No trial. No argument. Instant verdict in the court of public opinion.
The problem is that people seeking damageto their reputation have an incentive to keep their had down and protect their good name. The reporter's false promise is that playing by the reporter's arbitrary and capricious rules the citizen can end the problem quickly.
To truly fight and win this type of battle with the press is to be able to identify the self-serving nature of the reporter's rules and require the reporter do work before the response is forthcoming. It also requires persistent repetition of a strong statement of the rules of fair play:
1. I respond to specific allegations as to time, manner, place, and person.
2. I respond to corroborated evidence only.
3. If a judge wouldn't consider the case, I certainly won't.
4. I will sue for slander and libel.
5. Anonymous sources need not be disclosed to the public, but they must be disclosed to me before I will respond.
6. New questions do not demand instant responses. Instant responses only serve cameras. I serve the truth.
To fight the media this way means you will have days or weeks whee your message of the day is not served. PR consultants believe this is bad. In truth, those days will happen. It is better to have the battle early in a campaign. Set down a marker for the media. If you are clean, you will more message days than fewer. If you follow the reporter's preferred path, you are on their message when they choose.
Since the reporter seeks a higher salary through satisfying thepowers that be in his news organization, we must understand the dynamics. The reporter has low standards of proof to put himself in front of the public with hos information. The target has high standards of proof to overcome bad news. This simply reflects the rules of the game that most likely increases the reporter's salary and income over time.
To understand how perverse this self-serving methodology is, let's pretend that these same rules applied in court. What would be the outcome.
To keep this example as close to a real lawsuit, let us pretend the reporter was filing a libel or slander claim against a private citizen. Under the rules that reporter claim should apply, once the reporter filed the lawsuit, he has the right to say anything he wants about the private citizen.
In the news reporter's world view, the level of proof the reporter must meet is simply, "I accuse you. Now disprove my accusation." The reporter need show no papers, no recorded statements, or no evidence that private citizen was even in the place where the accusation suggests the wrong doing occurred. The reporter believes Mr Citizen now has to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. Any flaw or hesitation means the reporter's flimsy accusations are true. No trial. No argument. Instant verdict in the court of public opinion.
The problem is that people seeking damageto their reputation have an incentive to keep their had down and protect their good name. The reporter's false promise is that playing by the reporter's arbitrary and capricious rules the citizen can end the problem quickly.
To truly fight and win this type of battle with the press is to be able to identify the self-serving nature of the reporter's rules and require the reporter do work before the response is forthcoming. It also requires persistent repetition of a strong statement of the rules of fair play:
1. I respond to specific allegations as to time, manner, place, and person.
2. I respond to corroborated evidence only.
3. If a judge wouldn't consider the case, I certainly won't.
4. I will sue for slander and libel.
5. Anonymous sources need not be disclosed to the public, but they must be disclosed to me before I will respond.
6. New questions do not demand instant responses. Instant responses only serve cameras. I serve the truth.
To fight the media this way means you will have days or weeks whee your message of the day is not served. PR consultants believe this is bad. In truth, those days will happen. It is better to have the battle early in a campaign. Set down a marker for the media. If you are clean, you will more message days than fewer. If you follow the reporter's preferred path, you are on their message when they choose.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Term limits reconsidered
Polipundit's post makes me want to post a thought that has been bouncing around in my head for a month or so. Term limits on politicians are great, but what about employment limits for bureaucrats? Why not enforce a twenty year across the board limit on government employment? Force some of these lifetime government-employed people to find a new employer for 4-5 years.
Think about what that would do to government-school teachers or license branch functionary or tax collector. How many people in government are immune from having to worry about losing their jobs, yet those same people will lecture the rest of the world about how to live a life fully.
Imagine a government-school teacher who has just returned to his beloved teaching at age 47. He has just spent 5 years working as a lab scientists during his required 5 year break from government employment. He is now eager to be back with is beloved students, where he spent the first 20 years of his career. He has new life experiences to share. He has new insights into science. He has been gone longer than the limited and phoney 1-year sabbaticals that academia loves so that he has had to absorb worries about being able to return to the classroom. He is as fresh and excited as a first-year teacher, but he has the wisdom of an experienced family man.
That term-limit on government employment would be great.
What about the second teacher who chooses to disperse his 1-year breaks with 4-year visits to teaching. He, too, has more to offer the kids.
What about the third teacher that teaches in a private school for 5 years. He, too, will have experiences that challenge the assumptions in government schools of how education should work.
The license branch manager who has run a restaurant? The court clerk who has been in a small business worried about keeping expenses down?
Politicians need term limits, but they are at least exposed to the risk of losing their jobs. Their staffers' risk is similar but insulated. Those staffers may bounce from politician to politician, or politician to party organization. The full-time committee staff or institutional staff come to expect certain customs.
What if everyone in the building has had to step away from being in government for at least 5 years?
What if a Congressman went back into state government for 5 years? Or state politician back to local government?
This part from Thomas Paine that is posted at Polipundit.com makes my point about why. Forcing a change like that stated above is about how to do it.
Think about what that would do to government-school teachers or license branch functionary or tax collector. How many people in government are immune from having to worry about losing their jobs, yet those same people will lecture the rest of the world about how to live a life fully.
Imagine a government-school teacher who has just returned to his beloved teaching at age 47. He has just spent 5 years working as a lab scientists during his required 5 year break from government employment. He is now eager to be back with is beloved students, where he spent the first 20 years of his career. He has new life experiences to share. He has new insights into science. He has been gone longer than the limited and phoney 1-year sabbaticals that academia loves so that he has had to absorb worries about being able to return to the classroom. He is as fresh and excited as a first-year teacher, but he has the wisdom of an experienced family man.
That term-limit on government employment would be great.
What about the second teacher who chooses to disperse his 1-year breaks with 4-year visits to teaching. He, too, has more to offer the kids.
What about the third teacher that teaches in a private school for 5 years. He, too, will have experiences that challenge the assumptions in government schools of how education should work.
The license branch manager who has run a restaurant? The court clerk who has been in a small business worried about keeping expenses down?
Politicians need term limits, but they are at least exposed to the risk of losing their jobs. Their staffers' risk is similar but insulated. Those staffers may bounce from politician to politician, or politician to party organization. The full-time committee staff or institutional staff come to expect certain customs.
What if everyone in the building has had to step away from being in government for at least 5 years?
What if a Congressman went back into state government for 5 years? Or state politician back to local government?
This part from Thomas Paine that is posted at Polipundit.com makes my point about why. Forcing a change like that stated above is about how to do it.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Articles: Obama's Numbers
Articles: Obama's Numbers
I think the numbers issue for Obama is interesting. I think the issues for elections that are direction changing are even more interesting.
Using the Census data for the 2008 election of voter participation by age (Census Publication P20-562 (May 2010)) and the IRS 2000CM mortality tables, I ran some rough projections on what happens to the voter population over time. Since the census source data did not break the data down by age, I purposefully did not do this by each incremental age. I then averaged the mortality rate (more accurately the survival rate) for each cohort. For younger ages, this made the mortality rate artificially high and for older ages, artificially low.
To simplify tracking specific cohorts of people, I grouped them by age. Group I is all voters under 35 in the 2008 election. Group II is voters between 35-55. Group III is voters over 55. Once assigned to a group in this analysis, a voter does not change groups as he ages.
What I found among persons that voted in 2008, 16.8% are dead by the 2020 presidential election. More significantly, those Group I voters are only two and a half percentile of the sample group, but through death alone become three and half percentile of those alive in 2020. Group II voters do not materially change through proportion of the 2008 voting group. Group III voters decline from three percentile of the voters in 2008 to only two percentile of the 2008 voters still alive in 2020.
The effect on voting is that the thinking of the voting population moves from older, established philosophies to newer philosophies among prior voters by about 20% of the vote every twelve years, due to mortality alone.
Assuming that our population continues to grow and replenish each age group, particularly the younger voters, this effect can be increased by at least another percentile or more every twelve years.
Essentially without accounting for any other factor the age component accounts for over 30% of the change in voting patterns, all other things being equal.
Any political scientist will tell you that this analysis does very little to predict changes in voting patterns. I agree.
Due to the physiologic tendency of thinking patterns and philosophies to crystalize and not change in our latter years, what it does mean that over twelve years, nearly 30% of the population is going to be able to adopt a new voting philosophy. Older voters will try to avoid it. Younger voters will change philosophies most easily. Older voters are sticky. Younger voters are more fluid.
What this means for the 2012 election is that it can have significant long-term consequences for nearly a generation's long-term voting behavior.
An 18 year old voting for his first time in 2006 may come to hate the results of his Democratic vote by 2018. He is more likely to vote Republican from 2010 onward if Republican policies are implemented and that voter associates any success with those policies.
Simultaneously, those who came of age during FDR or LBJ die out rapidly even if they rarely vary from their party of choice.
The young voter who comes to be depressed about Democrats because of their votes in 2006 and 2008 leading to economic disaster. Votes in 2010 and 2012 for Republicans that result is desired impacts on society stand to make this voter a life-long Republican. As the voter naturally shifts from being a fluid voter to a sticky voter due to age, Obama's era will be a linchpin in the voter's thinking.
If that type of pattern is noticeable while 30% or more of the population that votes changes, long-term voting habits will shift throughout the electorate.
Consequently, Republicans need to consider going "all in" in the 2012 election for the clearest philosophical pitch they can. Succeed or fail in economics or taxes, 2013 to 2017 has a good chance to be a good economic period if even 15% of Obama's enactments are repealed. Republican office holding will give investors confidence of no more Socialism in big chunks.
If voters have a clear philosophy stated with this turn around, they will attach it to the Republicans' stated philosophy, right or wrong. Only through the course of several elections espousing this philosophy will political scientists be able to assess the accuracy of philosophical pronouncements versus actual practice versus actual results.
If Republicans go "all in" philosophically with a strong Conservative message, barring unforeseen circumstances like World War III or a volcanic eruption from Yellowstone's super-volcano, Republicans can push Democrats to the back benches for the next 12 to 20 years. The longer the economic success with a strong philosophical coherence the longer that position of power will be.
In practice, this will be extremely difficult. Success breeds many fathers. Each claimant to the mantle of father of the success will try to define the philosophy to serve his financial or political gains. Dilution of the philosophy becomes probable. Confusion among newer voters become equally more probable. The likelihood of a swing back the other direction becomes stronger in the next twelve-year cycle.
The key in the second cycle is whether the Conservative philosophy is articulately taught and empirically tested to persuade future generations of its truth. The least philosophically immersed will begin pushing Conservative doctrine as gospel truth and push away naysayers as if stupid or evil. Those tendencies to seek conformity to groupthink must always be undermined and deprived of credibility. Conservatism withstands empirical scrutiny. Avoid religious indoctrination and its prevalence can last for generations because each generation can perfect it.
The key today is to take the gamble of articulating the philosophy clearly, proudly, and courageously when electoral victory is most likely. Then prepare for the withering onslaught of the dying socialistic philosophy.
I think the numbers issue for Obama is interesting. I think the issues for elections that are direction changing are even more interesting.
Using the Census data for the 2008 election of voter participation by age (Census Publication P20-562 (May 2010)) and the IRS 2000CM mortality tables, I ran some rough projections on what happens to the voter population over time. Since the census source data did not break the data down by age, I purposefully did not do this by each incremental age. I then averaged the mortality rate (more accurately the survival rate) for each cohort. For younger ages, this made the mortality rate artificially high and for older ages, artificially low.
To simplify tracking specific cohorts of people, I grouped them by age. Group I is all voters under 35 in the 2008 election. Group II is voters between 35-55. Group III is voters over 55. Once assigned to a group in this analysis, a voter does not change groups as he ages.
What I found among persons that voted in 2008, 16.8% are dead by the 2020 presidential election. More significantly, those Group I voters are only two and a half percentile of the sample group, but through death alone become three and half percentile of those alive in 2020. Group II voters do not materially change through proportion of the 2008 voting group. Group III voters decline from three percentile of the voters in 2008 to only two percentile of the 2008 voters still alive in 2020.
The effect on voting is that the thinking of the voting population moves from older, established philosophies to newer philosophies among prior voters by about 20% of the vote every twelve years, due to mortality alone.
Assuming that our population continues to grow and replenish each age group, particularly the younger voters, this effect can be increased by at least another percentile or more every twelve years.
Essentially without accounting for any other factor the age component accounts for over 30% of the change in voting patterns, all other things being equal.
Any political scientist will tell you that this analysis does very little to predict changes in voting patterns. I agree.
Due to the physiologic tendency of thinking patterns and philosophies to crystalize and not change in our latter years, what it does mean that over twelve years, nearly 30% of the population is going to be able to adopt a new voting philosophy. Older voters will try to avoid it. Younger voters will change philosophies most easily. Older voters are sticky. Younger voters are more fluid.
What this means for the 2012 election is that it can have significant long-term consequences for nearly a generation's long-term voting behavior.
An 18 year old voting for his first time in 2006 may come to hate the results of his Democratic vote by 2018. He is more likely to vote Republican from 2010 onward if Republican policies are implemented and that voter associates any success with those policies.
Simultaneously, those who came of age during FDR or LBJ die out rapidly even if they rarely vary from their party of choice.
The young voter who comes to be depressed about Democrats because of their votes in 2006 and 2008 leading to economic disaster. Votes in 2010 and 2012 for Republicans that result is desired impacts on society stand to make this voter a life-long Republican. As the voter naturally shifts from being a fluid voter to a sticky voter due to age, Obama's era will be a linchpin in the voter's thinking.
If that type of pattern is noticeable while 30% or more of the population that votes changes, long-term voting habits will shift throughout the electorate.
Consequently, Republicans need to consider going "all in" in the 2012 election for the clearest philosophical pitch they can. Succeed or fail in economics or taxes, 2013 to 2017 has a good chance to be a good economic period if even 15% of Obama's enactments are repealed. Republican office holding will give investors confidence of no more Socialism in big chunks.
If voters have a clear philosophy stated with this turn around, they will attach it to the Republicans' stated philosophy, right or wrong. Only through the course of several elections espousing this philosophy will political scientists be able to assess the accuracy of philosophical pronouncements versus actual practice versus actual results.
If Republicans go "all in" philosophically with a strong Conservative message, barring unforeseen circumstances like World War III or a volcanic eruption from Yellowstone's super-volcano, Republicans can push Democrats to the back benches for the next 12 to 20 years. The longer the economic success with a strong philosophical coherence the longer that position of power will be.
In practice, this will be extremely difficult. Success breeds many fathers. Each claimant to the mantle of father of the success will try to define the philosophy to serve his financial or political gains. Dilution of the philosophy becomes probable. Confusion among newer voters become equally more probable. The likelihood of a swing back the other direction becomes stronger in the next twelve-year cycle.
The key in the second cycle is whether the Conservative philosophy is articulately taught and empirically tested to persuade future generations of its truth. The least philosophically immersed will begin pushing Conservative doctrine as gospel truth and push away naysayers as if stupid or evil. Those tendencies to seek conformity to groupthink must always be undermined and deprived of credibility. Conservatism withstands empirical scrutiny. Avoid religious indoctrination and its prevalence can last for generations because each generation can perfect it.
The key today is to take the gamble of articulating the philosophy clearly, proudly, and courageously when electoral victory is most likely. Then prepare for the withering onslaught of the dying socialistic philosophy.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
What does defense spending produce?
In reading, Victor Davis Hanson's article on the myth of World War II spending, I had some thoughts about economics that are quite tangential to VDH's point.
VDH points out how liberal's are changing their story about the Keynesian effects of spending during the Depression and WWII.
In reading this, my mind jumped back to Economics 101 in the classic Guns versus Butter choice. As you all remember, this is the choice that we as a society through government have to make whether we want more guns or more butter, but we can't have both. Laying aside one of the flaws of this dichotomy that good spending increases the size of the economic pie, so you end up with both, there are some inherent teases in this set of false choices that drives much liberal economic thinking.
Since most liberals only use economics classes to recite catch phrases and not dig any deeper, this guns versus butter is one of their favorites. In their eyes the choice is quickly converted into a choice of welfare versus defense spending. The notion for them is that if there are limited dollars, money spent on either welfare (using government distributed butter as the image) or guns (using army rifles as the image) is gone once spent. The choice must be made. The compassionate minded must choose butter and reduce spending on guns.
I do not dispute the fundamental choice that guns versus butter was supposed to teach. The lesson is supposed to be that must make choices in government spending. The problem is that the images are misleading to the uninquiring so they create false confidence among liberals that they understand economics.
Let's dig deeper. Butter represents welfare spending and other government spending on the domestic front like building highways or public schools. Guns represent the army, navy, and marines. (I am not sure where the FBI, ATF, or state and local police fit in most liberals minds. I suspect that the FBI and ATF are guns because I believe they are non-union and that police are butter because they are often union. Am I jaded?)
For the simple minded, purchasing guns is bad. Analysis done.
For the deeper minded, let's keep exploring what these images really represent and whether a better set of images are available.
Butter as domestic spending has the feel-good aspect that anything spent at home gets a better society. Guns as military spending has no feel-good aspect to the average liberal. The choice seems easy. Not knowing anything about the author of this method of teaching, I wonder what his motivations were.
In the real world, this dichotomy is a disaster. Most federal domestic spending is far beyond the scope of what is allowed under the US Constitution. Education? No. Welfare? No. Social Security? No. Medicaid? No. Obamacare? No. Liberals feel good but have no legal basis for their programs.
The problem with most of these programs is that they are grant programs. As a lawyer, I look at transactions to see if each party to the transaction gives something of value to promote the exchange. If so, there is a contract. If not, there is a grant or a gift. Both would be legal transactions for individuals, but not necessarily for constitutional governments. The problem with most liberal, grant programs is that the government is not a party receiving a benefit back from the other party. The programs produce no value because it is simply the transfer of money. The recipient may have strict restrictions, like the Program formerly known as Food Stamps or Medicaid, where misspending is a felony. Other programs have no restrictions on the expenditures, like Social Security or unemployment benefits.
Of those that go for specific purposes, like the Program formerly known as Food Stamps or Medicaid, the government gets nothing, but the program beneficiaries get specific goods or services. Since the government gets nothing, it has no accounting method to show that the government balance sheet has increased. It gets the benefit that fewer food riots will occur or old people attacking the car of the Chairman of House Ways and Means. The food providers or medical providers who receive the money on the beneficiary's behalf do increase their cash flow and hopefully their wealth through retained earnings after paying expenses. The program beneficiaries have little incentive to change their behavior within the program. Their choice is pass or fail: stay in the program or quit. Most economic choices are ones of timing of expenditures, size of expenditures, and selection of goods and services purchased balanced against choices on how to obtain more resources to use in the next round of purchases. These government programs destroy the choice about how to garner more resources.
On the guns side of the equation, most people have trouble explaining what gun purchases in a time of peace buy for the general public. Buying more and bigger guns is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about here is buying sufficient guns, military talent, and logistical capabilities that are most likely enemies fear to attack us at home or to attack our citizens abroad. We are buying peace of mind. Most liberals believe this is just as much conservative feel good as butter programs are liberal feel good.
If we are discussing whether to buy a multi-million dollar airplane because it is cool, I would agree with the liberal. If we are talking about projecting power with that airplane to the four corners of the earth so that we don't have to put boots on the ground in every corner of the earth, I would beg to differ with the liberal.
Ultimately, buying peace of mind with the military is a difficult concept to grasp. Why do we want peace of mind? As a liberal hiking in the mountains of ancient Persia, will you be arrested as a spy? We know from recent history the answer is yes. The fear of arrest overseas in that type of situation is an example where the US has not bought sufficient peace of mind. As a conservative businessman traveling in Venezuela, are you likely to be arrested as a spy? Not that I am aware, no. The US has bought sufficient peace of mind there. Can an American travel to the Caribbean and avoid arrest? Absolutely. The travel is cheaper than Venezuela and less personal security is probably needed. I would suggest the quiet presence of the US Coast Guard and US Navy in and around the old pirate-haven Caribbean is a major reason.
The guns choice allows American citizens to move around the world more cheaply under fewer threats which in turns allows more commerce.
A similar domestic guns choice of welfare versus police demonstrates that higher police presence reduces crime where high welfare spending has no causation at all. But high welfare spending and inadequate police presence guarantees a safe incubator for criminal activity. Commerce disappears. Jobs disappear. Wealthy families leave.
Just think how many private transaction are peace of mind purchases: psychiatry, massage therapy, gift shops filled with useless knick-knacks, nice restaurants, flower shops, mega-groceries, luxury homes and cars, etc. If we converted our economy into one that refused to sell anything that offer peace of mind, we would have politburo-run grocery with lines out the door and no food on the shelves.
We buy peace of mind every day. The military is first and last line of defense from foreign threats to our daily bliss. The police are our second-to-last line of defense (don't forget the Second Amendment is the source of the last line of domestic defense) to domestic threats to our daily bliss.
The stronger we are perceived by our enemies, the more likely are enemies go elsewhere.
The guns versus butter analysis is one of the greatest sources of liberals complete disconnect from reality when we discuss government spending. They misapply its true lessons and superimpose their own notions of right and wrong choices. Now all guns choices are bad and all butter choices are good.
The real choices are between expenditures that reduce the daily cost of living for self-sufficient citizens and those that increase the financial burdens on the self-sufficient. The choice is the great wide open versus prison.
Expenditures on highways reduce the daily cost of living by allowing more independent movement of infinite variety. (Some Constitutional questions remain about whether the federal government is properly the dominant player.) Highways give government a general use product that no other provider can provide efficiently and widely. The benefits of highways are easily and objectively measured by traffic counts and value of commerce passing over it. This allows a systematic analysis of good places to place or expand highways. It allows successful governments to build infrastructure for actual growth occurring, not wishful thinking. (Yes, politicians with earmarking and pork barreling ignore these objective measures. That is a reflection of decisions made at the wrong level of government than a bad use of money.)
Expenditures for grant programs with no reciprocated consideration are undesirable. (The individual states need to be aware of these economic problems arising from grant programs, but are not Constitutionally prohibited from pursuing them.) Grant programs benefit only one person or organization at a time. The benefits are diffuse and not subject to measurements of benefits that not subjective. The consolidation of benefits mostly go to the politicians who support the benefit and not to a community.
Once we become aware of the inherent fallacies of liberal reliance on guns versus butter, we are better able to deal with the real problems on the side of the equation called "butter." "Guns" can be expensive, especially during a hot war, but are easier to identify and corral. "Butter" is budget busting, as Obama has demonstrated, and harder to fix.
VDH points out how liberal's are changing their story about the Keynesian effects of spending during the Depression and WWII.
In reading this, my mind jumped back to Economics 101 in the classic Guns versus Butter choice. As you all remember, this is the choice that we as a society through government have to make whether we want more guns or more butter, but we can't have both. Laying aside one of the flaws of this dichotomy that good spending increases the size of the economic pie, so you end up with both, there are some inherent teases in this set of false choices that drives much liberal economic thinking.
Since most liberals only use economics classes to recite catch phrases and not dig any deeper, this guns versus butter is one of their favorites. In their eyes the choice is quickly converted into a choice of welfare versus defense spending. The notion for them is that if there are limited dollars, money spent on either welfare (using government distributed butter as the image) or guns (using army rifles as the image) is gone once spent. The choice must be made. The compassionate minded must choose butter and reduce spending on guns.
I do not dispute the fundamental choice that guns versus butter was supposed to teach. The lesson is supposed to be that must make choices in government spending. The problem is that the images are misleading to the uninquiring so they create false confidence among liberals that they understand economics.
Let's dig deeper. Butter represents welfare spending and other government spending on the domestic front like building highways or public schools. Guns represent the army, navy, and marines. (I am not sure where the FBI, ATF, or state and local police fit in most liberals minds. I suspect that the FBI and ATF are guns because I believe they are non-union and that police are butter because they are often union. Am I jaded?)
For the simple minded, purchasing guns is bad. Analysis done.
For the deeper minded, let's keep exploring what these images really represent and whether a better set of images are available.
Butter as domestic spending has the feel-good aspect that anything spent at home gets a better society. Guns as military spending has no feel-good aspect to the average liberal. The choice seems easy. Not knowing anything about the author of this method of teaching, I wonder what his motivations were.
In the real world, this dichotomy is a disaster. Most federal domestic spending is far beyond the scope of what is allowed under the US Constitution. Education? No. Welfare? No. Social Security? No. Medicaid? No. Obamacare? No. Liberals feel good but have no legal basis for their programs.
The problem with most of these programs is that they are grant programs. As a lawyer, I look at transactions to see if each party to the transaction gives something of value to promote the exchange. If so, there is a contract. If not, there is a grant or a gift. Both would be legal transactions for individuals, but not necessarily for constitutional governments. The problem with most liberal, grant programs is that the government is not a party receiving a benefit back from the other party. The programs produce no value because it is simply the transfer of money. The recipient may have strict restrictions, like the Program formerly known as Food Stamps or Medicaid, where misspending is a felony. Other programs have no restrictions on the expenditures, like Social Security or unemployment benefits.
Of those that go for specific purposes, like the Program formerly known as Food Stamps or Medicaid, the government gets nothing, but the program beneficiaries get specific goods or services. Since the government gets nothing, it has no accounting method to show that the government balance sheet has increased. It gets the benefit that fewer food riots will occur or old people attacking the car of the Chairman of House Ways and Means. The food providers or medical providers who receive the money on the beneficiary's behalf do increase their cash flow and hopefully their wealth through retained earnings after paying expenses. The program beneficiaries have little incentive to change their behavior within the program. Their choice is pass or fail: stay in the program or quit. Most economic choices are ones of timing of expenditures, size of expenditures, and selection of goods and services purchased balanced against choices on how to obtain more resources to use in the next round of purchases. These government programs destroy the choice about how to garner more resources.
On the guns side of the equation, most people have trouble explaining what gun purchases in a time of peace buy for the general public. Buying more and bigger guns is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about here is buying sufficient guns, military talent, and logistical capabilities that are most likely enemies fear to attack us at home or to attack our citizens abroad. We are buying peace of mind. Most liberals believe this is just as much conservative feel good as butter programs are liberal feel good.
If we are discussing whether to buy a multi-million dollar airplane because it is cool, I would agree with the liberal. If we are talking about projecting power with that airplane to the four corners of the earth so that we don't have to put boots on the ground in every corner of the earth, I would beg to differ with the liberal.
Ultimately, buying peace of mind with the military is a difficult concept to grasp. Why do we want peace of mind? As a liberal hiking in the mountains of ancient Persia, will you be arrested as a spy? We know from recent history the answer is yes. The fear of arrest overseas in that type of situation is an example where the US has not bought sufficient peace of mind. As a conservative businessman traveling in Venezuela, are you likely to be arrested as a spy? Not that I am aware, no. The US has bought sufficient peace of mind there. Can an American travel to the Caribbean and avoid arrest? Absolutely. The travel is cheaper than Venezuela and less personal security is probably needed. I would suggest the quiet presence of the US Coast Guard and US Navy in and around the old pirate-haven Caribbean is a major reason.
The guns choice allows American citizens to move around the world more cheaply under fewer threats which in turns allows more commerce.
A similar domestic guns choice of welfare versus police demonstrates that higher police presence reduces crime where high welfare spending has no causation at all. But high welfare spending and inadequate police presence guarantees a safe incubator for criminal activity. Commerce disappears. Jobs disappear. Wealthy families leave.
Just think how many private transaction are peace of mind purchases: psychiatry, massage therapy, gift shops filled with useless knick-knacks, nice restaurants, flower shops, mega-groceries, luxury homes and cars, etc. If we converted our economy into one that refused to sell anything that offer peace of mind, we would have politburo-run grocery with lines out the door and no food on the shelves.
We buy peace of mind every day. The military is first and last line of defense from foreign threats to our daily bliss. The police are our second-to-last line of defense (don't forget the Second Amendment is the source of the last line of domestic defense) to domestic threats to our daily bliss.
The stronger we are perceived by our enemies, the more likely are enemies go elsewhere.
The guns versus butter analysis is one of the greatest sources of liberals complete disconnect from reality when we discuss government spending. They misapply its true lessons and superimpose their own notions of right and wrong choices. Now all guns choices are bad and all butter choices are good.
The real choices are between expenditures that reduce the daily cost of living for self-sufficient citizens and those that increase the financial burdens on the self-sufficient. The choice is the great wide open versus prison.
Expenditures on highways reduce the daily cost of living by allowing more independent movement of infinite variety. (Some Constitutional questions remain about whether the federal government is properly the dominant player.) Highways give government a general use product that no other provider can provide efficiently and widely. The benefits of highways are easily and objectively measured by traffic counts and value of commerce passing over it. This allows a systematic analysis of good places to place or expand highways. It allows successful governments to build infrastructure for actual growth occurring, not wishful thinking. (Yes, politicians with earmarking and pork barreling ignore these objective measures. That is a reflection of decisions made at the wrong level of government than a bad use of money.)
Expenditures for grant programs with no reciprocated consideration are undesirable. (The individual states need to be aware of these economic problems arising from grant programs, but are not Constitutionally prohibited from pursuing them.) Grant programs benefit only one person or organization at a time. The benefits are diffuse and not subject to measurements of benefits that not subjective. The consolidation of benefits mostly go to the politicians who support the benefit and not to a community.
Once we become aware of the inherent fallacies of liberal reliance on guns versus butter, we are better able to deal with the real problems on the side of the equation called "butter." "Guns" can be expensive, especially during a hot war, but are easier to identify and corral. "Butter" is budget busting, as Obama has demonstrated, and harder to fix.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The incomprehensible lack of diversity of diversity education
Why is diversity education always taught the same way?
I can just imagine if other subjects were taught the same way:
Newtonian physics taught as a man pushing a box over level ground, even if the real point was gravity's acceleration.
Algebra taught as long addition writ large.
English as "Jack and Jill."
Botany as the study of an oak leaf.
Chemistry as the study of table salt.
The constant refrain of diversity education is that we should learn to appreciate the differences in one another.
The problem that I find is that the people who are best trained in diversity are the least appreciative of the differences in one another.
If a black student comes into class and proclaims his love for his white brothers, he is hailed as living up to the diversity creed. If a white student takes no interest in the fact that the black student next to him has a different skin color, he is racist for not appreciating the differences.
Diversity classes tell us that we look different but share common experiences but discourage actually learning about each others' pasts that might expose different experiences and different opinions. They are discouraged from accounting for differences in skin color, hair characteristics, childhood experiences that don't fit the template, and monetary habits. Heaven forbid a student mention that another person's statement of reality is wrong. There is only one opinion allowed but many observations of facts; so long as the observations support the allowed opinion.
Skin color tells you nothing about the person's character. Got that?
A person who truly appreciates diversity will learn about medieval English madrigals from a black man from the inner city of Washington, DC.
A person who truly appreciates diversity will seek out friends of other races because of similarities of interests and learn about their new friend's family and life experiences over a beer (or root beer for minors). He will ask tough questions that challenge his interlocutor's understanding of reality. Then both friends will challenge their differing opinions. They will laugh that one uses more sun tan lotion than the other. That one's hair is straighter than the other. That one's mother kept money in a shoebox and the other's mother kept money at a bank that went out of business. They will return to the joys of their similarities of interest and look forward to their next meeting.
Anyone who shouts about the importance of diversity scares me as a person who wishes to find only people who agree with him. Diversity studied is diversity ignored.
It does not have to be that way, but diversity training is the domain of the liberals and is just a way to use corporate money to enforce liberal orthodoxy (i.e., correct belief) just as the Spanish Inquisition was about enforcing correct Catholic orthodoxy.
As I watch my child grow, he has friends of all races and cares not one whit. Only as teachers in school tell him to look at all the other kids and teaches my son to place value on being different from his multi-racial circle of friends does he start to have a race-oriented mindset.
Diversity training does more damage that it solves. No member of the KKK will go into diversity training and confess his sins and repent of his racism. No member of the NAACP will go into diversity training and confess that the NAACP is damaging the black community. But put a multi-racial circle of young friends in diversity training and they will start to question their natural open-mindedness.
What's worse is inserting diversity training into history classes.
As a life-long student of history, I have found that the only way to truly learn history is to accept that each era has their biases that cause corrupting influences. The now-beloved Progressives were heavily exposed to racist ideology with many proposing programs to serve their racist goals. Study the history of the early Progressives by getting mad at their racism makes little sense. It is hard to truly learn about what motivated the Progressive's racism if you as a historian are angry.
As history meets the present, that emotional detachment can and should change. The only way a human being can affect the future is by his thoughts, feelings, and actions be carried out in the present.
A passionate pursuit of righteous behavior that interacts with other persons based solely on the content of their character is the best form of antidote to racism.
Diversity training is like taking the heroin addict and waiving a filled syringe in front of their eyes to demonstrate the evils of heroin. It does not work but it feeds the worst elements of the addiction.
I can just imagine if other subjects were taught the same way:
Newtonian physics taught as a man pushing a box over level ground, even if the real point was gravity's acceleration.
Algebra taught as long addition writ large.
English as "Jack and Jill."
Botany as the study of an oak leaf.
Chemistry as the study of table salt.
The constant refrain of diversity education is that we should learn to appreciate the differences in one another.
The problem that I find is that the people who are best trained in diversity are the least appreciative of the differences in one another.
If a black student comes into class and proclaims his love for his white brothers, he is hailed as living up to the diversity creed. If a white student takes no interest in the fact that the black student next to him has a different skin color, he is racist for not appreciating the differences.
Diversity classes tell us that we look different but share common experiences but discourage actually learning about each others' pasts that might expose different experiences and different opinions. They are discouraged from accounting for differences in skin color, hair characteristics, childhood experiences that don't fit the template, and monetary habits. Heaven forbid a student mention that another person's statement of reality is wrong. There is only one opinion allowed but many observations of facts; so long as the observations support the allowed opinion.
Skin color tells you nothing about the person's character. Got that?
A person who truly appreciates diversity will learn about medieval English madrigals from a black man from the inner city of Washington, DC.
A person who truly appreciates diversity will seek out friends of other races because of similarities of interests and learn about their new friend's family and life experiences over a beer (or root beer for minors). He will ask tough questions that challenge his interlocutor's understanding of reality. Then both friends will challenge their differing opinions. They will laugh that one uses more sun tan lotion than the other. That one's hair is straighter than the other. That one's mother kept money in a shoebox and the other's mother kept money at a bank that went out of business. They will return to the joys of their similarities of interest and look forward to their next meeting.
Anyone who shouts about the importance of diversity scares me as a person who wishes to find only people who agree with him. Diversity studied is diversity ignored.
It does not have to be that way, but diversity training is the domain of the liberals and is just a way to use corporate money to enforce liberal orthodoxy (i.e., correct belief) just as the Spanish Inquisition was about enforcing correct Catholic orthodoxy.
As I watch my child grow, he has friends of all races and cares not one whit. Only as teachers in school tell him to look at all the other kids and teaches my son to place value on being different from his multi-racial circle of friends does he start to have a race-oriented mindset.
Diversity training does more damage that it solves. No member of the KKK will go into diversity training and confess his sins and repent of his racism. No member of the NAACP will go into diversity training and confess that the NAACP is damaging the black community. But put a multi-racial circle of young friends in diversity training and they will start to question their natural open-mindedness.
What's worse is inserting diversity training into history classes.
As a life-long student of history, I have found that the only way to truly learn history is to accept that each era has their biases that cause corrupting influences. The now-beloved Progressives were heavily exposed to racist ideology with many proposing programs to serve their racist goals. Study the history of the early Progressives by getting mad at their racism makes little sense. It is hard to truly learn about what motivated the Progressive's racism if you as a historian are angry.
As history meets the present, that emotional detachment can and should change. The only way a human being can affect the future is by his thoughts, feelings, and actions be carried out in the present.
A passionate pursuit of righteous behavior that interacts with other persons based solely on the content of their character is the best form of antidote to racism.
Diversity training is like taking the heroin addict and waiving a filled syringe in front of their eyes to demonstrate the evils of heroin. It does not work but it feeds the worst elements of the addiction.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
legislating walls or channels
Laws can be written to channel people into specific behaviors. This is done by directing specific acts be done to be legal.
Laws can also be done to restrict breach of expected behavior. Essentially the law builds walls that people are not allowed to cross.
If we examine the American Constitution we find that it is mostly an act of creating walls. There's restrictions oncongress's abilities. There's some prescriptions on individual behavior specifically treason. But overall most of what is done is establishing walls. A person must be a certain age to serve in a certain office.
The problem over time is Congress passes laws that have more and more effort made to channel our efforts. Tax laws are written to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others. Essentially there is a channel that we are expected default to get certain tax benefits.
But even more damaging than Congress is regulations. Regulations have the effect of being very specific as to what behavior is allowed. In regulation D under the securities act the law, the regulation is written to make very specific persons eligible to invest.
Most of what the liberal agenda includes is Congress setting up structures and then has the regulatory world involved in making more specific rules the channel behavior and enforce those rules. Essentially the liberal bureaucrat becomes judge, jury and executioner.
The error of modern administration is the conceit that the bureaucrat is an expert. To truly be free, Congress needs to write laws of walls and not an enabling act for bureaucrats to make arbitrary and ever changing channels.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Is compromise always meeting in the middle?
As we await the results of today's powwow at the White House between the opposing sides on the debt limit debate, I constantly am reminded of the hackneyed refrain that in good settlements each side wins and each side loses.
I have gone through a few mediations and been trained to be a marital mediator. I have worked a lot of settlement agreements for clients. I can say categorically this hackneyed idea of each side winning and losing is ridiculous in more times that I care to mention.
Think of it this way: a gangbanger has your hand pinned down with an axe hovering over your hand. He tells you that he is going to cut off your hand. If you can persuade him to cut off just a finger, you have tried to compromise. Did you win? Is it winning if you lose a body part?
In my way of thinking this is not compromise. It is minimizing losses. When your opponent defines the battle field, your job is often to minimize losses. In this case, the gangbanger defined the battlefield as loss of body parts. The scope of the loss is all that matters.
In the budget debate we have a loggerheads. For the first time in decades the Republicans have come into the debate claiming a real demand for budget cuts with no tax rate increases. They know that cutting spending will improve the economy and lower tax rates will produce more profit and more tax receipts for the government.
The Democrats are demanding slower spending increases and higher tax rates.
If the spending increases one penny, the Democrats win.
If the tax rates increase one tenth of one percent, the Democrats win.
In both cases the battle for whose principles win is to the Democrats.
How do the Republicans win anything in a "compromise"? Slower spending growth? What if the Democrats had overinflated their spending demands just to make sure that they get some increase in the end? (Which they did.)
In the last round, the Republicans beat themselves when they came out saying that tax rates were not increasing and they got spending cuts. Later the spending cuts turned out be less than 1/10th of one percent. They got egg on their face because they accomplished nothing.
The only real solution to the current problem is a settlement that addresses no changes in taxes or spending. Lock both in place. Then legally require that debt service be paid first and that no new contracts can be let out for bid without the money on deposit. Further remove the stupid Democrat Congress law from the Nixon era that removed the president's ability to withhold payment of Congressionally authorized funds.
Obama will abuse that privilege to no end. He will refuse to pay for DOD expenditures and starve Republican favored programs. Fine. He will set the precedent.
With the Democrat blessing on that stupid law's repeal and the Democrat precedent, the next Republican president can move aggressively to fix the problem while Congressmen run for cover in their home districts.
That is the nature of separation of legislative and executive function. It is not Congress's privilege to order money spent. It is to authorize it and set rules of its expenditures. But the president's branch is more than the check writer. It is the oversight and administrative assurance of money well spent at an acceptable price.
Giving the president back this power will have some of the effect of a line-item veto, except with a wider scope.
I have gone through a few mediations and been trained to be a marital mediator. I have worked a lot of settlement agreements for clients. I can say categorically this hackneyed idea of each side winning and losing is ridiculous in more times that I care to mention.
Think of it this way: a gangbanger has your hand pinned down with an axe hovering over your hand. He tells you that he is going to cut off your hand. If you can persuade him to cut off just a finger, you have tried to compromise. Did you win? Is it winning if you lose a body part?
In my way of thinking this is not compromise. It is minimizing losses. When your opponent defines the battle field, your job is often to minimize losses. In this case, the gangbanger defined the battlefield as loss of body parts. The scope of the loss is all that matters.
In the budget debate we have a loggerheads. For the first time in decades the Republicans have come into the debate claiming a real demand for budget cuts with no tax rate increases. They know that cutting spending will improve the economy and lower tax rates will produce more profit and more tax receipts for the government.
The Democrats are demanding slower spending increases and higher tax rates.
If the spending increases one penny, the Democrats win.
If the tax rates increase one tenth of one percent, the Democrats win.
In both cases the battle for whose principles win is to the Democrats.
How do the Republicans win anything in a "compromise"? Slower spending growth? What if the Democrats had overinflated their spending demands just to make sure that they get some increase in the end? (Which they did.)
In the last round, the Republicans beat themselves when they came out saying that tax rates were not increasing and they got spending cuts. Later the spending cuts turned out be less than 1/10th of one percent. They got egg on their face because they accomplished nothing.
The only real solution to the current problem is a settlement that addresses no changes in taxes or spending. Lock both in place. Then legally require that debt service be paid first and that no new contracts can be let out for bid without the money on deposit. Further remove the stupid Democrat Congress law from the Nixon era that removed the president's ability to withhold payment of Congressionally authorized funds.
Obama will abuse that privilege to no end. He will refuse to pay for DOD expenditures and starve Republican favored programs. Fine. He will set the precedent.
With the Democrat blessing on that stupid law's repeal and the Democrat precedent, the next Republican president can move aggressively to fix the problem while Congressmen run for cover in their home districts.
That is the nature of separation of legislative and executive function. It is not Congress's privilege to order money spent. It is to authorize it and set rules of its expenditures. But the president's branch is more than the check writer. It is the oversight and administrative assurance of money well spent at an acceptable price.
Giving the president back this power will have some of the effect of a line-item veto, except with a wider scope.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Republican qualifications to be president
On June 14th Rush Limbaugh did a monologue during Hour 2 on the discrepancy of the media's requirement that Republican presidential candidates have experience and qualifications for office against the media's allowance for Obama's own and his cabinet officers' lack of experience.
Rush repeatedly asked the rhetorical question what was Obama's qualifications? Why the difference?
I believe that I see a simple answer in the media's liberal viewpoint of the world. Democrats are the carriers of the Holy Grail of Socialism. Wherever they bear the Grail, good will follow.
The Republicans only useful purpose is as servants of the Grail. Republicans best serve the Grail of Socialism by running Socialistic programs efficiently. Republicans are only useful as managers. As anyone knows, good managers must be experienced. If the Republican is experienced, he serves the media two ways: first he has demonstrated ability (which fits the media's desire to appear logical) and he has demonstrated his fealty and subservience to the Socialist Grail by refusing to dismantle their utopian vision.
A good manager then is one who is efficient and follows his master's orders without question. The good Republican is a slave to the Socialist Grail.
Since the good Democrat bears the Grail, he can serve the utopian vision by merely advocating for the expansion of Socialism. The programs he supports don't need to be efficient. They don't need to be questioned. They need to be implemented with haste before the Republicans stop the growth of utopia.
From the premise, so much becomes obvious. Democrats are comfortable with Islamic notions of dhimmitude, where good Christians and Jews don't need to share in Mohammed's vision but they must be subservient to it. Democrats are comfortable with Chinese notions that good capitalists can be tolerated as long as the capitalists stay subservient to the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army.
Conservative Republicans and Tea Parties are despised simply because they don't know their proper place in society. They won't hail the Socialist Grail or its bearers.
Rush repeatedly asked the rhetorical question what was Obama's qualifications? Why the difference?
I believe that I see a simple answer in the media's liberal viewpoint of the world. Democrats are the carriers of the Holy Grail of Socialism. Wherever they bear the Grail, good will follow.
The Republicans only useful purpose is as servants of the Grail. Republicans best serve the Grail of Socialism by running Socialistic programs efficiently. Republicans are only useful as managers. As anyone knows, good managers must be experienced. If the Republican is experienced, he serves the media two ways: first he has demonstrated ability (which fits the media's desire to appear logical) and he has demonstrated his fealty and subservience to the Socialist Grail by refusing to dismantle their utopian vision.
A good manager then is one who is efficient and follows his master's orders without question. The good Republican is a slave to the Socialist Grail.
Since the good Democrat bears the Grail, he can serve the utopian vision by merely advocating for the expansion of Socialism. The programs he supports don't need to be efficient. They don't need to be questioned. They need to be implemented with haste before the Republicans stop the growth of utopia.
From the premise, so much becomes obvious. Democrats are comfortable with Islamic notions of dhimmitude, where good Christians and Jews don't need to share in Mohammed's vision but they must be subservient to it. Democrats are comfortable with Chinese notions that good capitalists can be tolerated as long as the capitalists stay subservient to the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army.
Conservative Republicans and Tea Parties are despised simply because they don't know their proper place in society. They won't hail the Socialist Grail or its bearers.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Bin Laden killed because . . .
Obama got Osama because Obama told Panetta to getthe bad guy. Hmmmm.
Bush never gave that instruction to the CIA before?
Obama decided there was enough info?
So it was today? That at least explains the late night news.
Bush never gave that instruction to the CIA before?
Obama decided there was enough info?
So it was today? That at least explains the late night news.
Bin Laden Dead! Why the late night announcement?
Bin Laden is dead as of a week ago.
Who leaked the news that forced Obama out of bed to announce it?
They waited this long. Why not a few more hours?
Who leaked the news that forced Obama out of bed to announce it?
They waited this long. Why not a few more hours?
Saturday, April 09, 2011
if government union payroll deductions persist ...
Where Republicans fail to get rid of union dues for government employee unions, maybe Republicans need to come up with an alternative. I would propose that all government employees be mandated to pay into a fund for the funding and growth of Christian churches. The employee can then choose which church they want the money to go to.
The keys to this plan would be that the employee would contribute to the growth of something better. All employees would be required to contribute to Christian churches. This would include atheists, Jews, and Buddhists .
If these Christian churches would find it appropriate to use the money to open Christian schools, that would be acceptable. If these Christian churches would find it acceptable to give money to antiabortion groups, that would be acceptable. If these Christian churches chose to give the money to organizations of supported Christian causes but eventually ended up in the Republican Party or the coffers of republican candidates, that would be acceptable.
Like the required contributions to the government employee unions, the rationale for the required deductions from payroll would have a surface explanation that sounded good for the average person to see that they were contributing to a larger calling. It would also have the ability to fund political action on the half of a particular party. If you have the added benefit of allowing all the people handling the money to be able to write themselves big paychecks in order to justify their actions in promoting this Christian cause. If we are to use the rationales proposed by the Democrats to justify mandatory payroll deductions to democratic government employee unions, this plan passes muster all fronts.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Calorie Consumption Cost
The discussion of energy always seems to make little sense to the general public. I would encourage conservatives to create an index of costs for calories consumed.
Part of this idea goes to the old Clinton considered BTU Tax. They wanted to tax the fuels used based on their power delivered for work in vehicles, machinery, etc.
This measure is meaningless to the everyday lives of consumers, so it was ideal for Democrat gamesmanship.
The same energy can be measured in calories. While the average voter cannot really define a calorie as "the heat necessary to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius" (if I am not mistaken), the average voter knows how many calories some of their foods are and how much they cost.
That seems like a greater measuring stick to discuss the ridiculous costs of solar energy versus oil or coal. Adjust in the subsidies and taxes for various points of view and we have a real conversation.
Just imagine a mom discussing the CCC of her cereal versus oil versus solar energy. That is real economic analysis at the voter's level.
Part of this idea goes to the old Clinton considered BTU Tax. They wanted to tax the fuels used based on their power delivered for work in vehicles, machinery, etc.
This measure is meaningless to the everyday lives of consumers, so it was ideal for Democrat gamesmanship.
The same energy can be measured in calories. While the average voter cannot really define a calorie as "the heat necessary to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius" (if I am not mistaken), the average voter knows how many calories some of their foods are and how much they cost.
That seems like a greater measuring stick to discuss the ridiculous costs of solar energy versus oil or coal. Adjust in the subsidies and taxes for various points of view and we have a real conversation.
Just imagine a mom discussing the CCC of her cereal versus oil versus solar energy. That is real economic analysis at the voter's level.
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