Mexico is uh....

Drug cartel governmental support: makes you a cartel government. This is what happens, FAFO.

Shock: Democrat defends work from home government

In an unhinged, often erroneous, and over-the-top rhetorically few minutes, New Mexico congressional Democrat tries hard to argue for inefficient government.

Has the Netherlands blown it?

An overnight coalition collapse and the Netherlands is facing an election, after it's longest serving prime minister could not come to a four party coalition agreement on a tougher immigration policy.

Dramatic Trump indictments coming! Yawn.

When will the left get sick of failed Trump indictments? Never. When will the MAGA right stop panicking about them? I think that train has already left the station.  But what this does is tie up some of president Trump's attention and some of his money.

The message that has to start sinking in, whether it's Trump on the right or Bernie Sanders on the left, is that outsiders are not welcome.  We on the right get it, on the left, Sanders was not a good enough example to get it through their heads that the government exists to serve the government, not the people, and it's been that way for a long time.

The pitfalls of capitalism

I am an avowed believer in and supporter of capitalism. I wholeheartedly support the concept of the free market. My initial foray into the political sphere, as a young teenager mind you, was from that trajectory.  I was first a fiscal conservative before discovering my social conservatism a decade later.  The benefits of capitalism over socialism, communism, fascism, monarchies, dictatorships or any other form of governance are spectacular and incontrovertible.  Capitalism supports the Biblical principle of the work ethic. Capitalism supports the notion of individual liberty as well as individual responsibility.  Capitalism supports the idea of a meritocracy.  The other forms of government do not. In many regards they even reject or overtly oppose much of those ideas.

The pitfalls of capitalism I am about to discuss are not meant as an indictment of it, rather a warning that we cannot allow it's few but obvious weaknesses to derail it from succeeding.  To appropriate some William Shakespeare's Mark Anthony, I come to praise capitalism, not to bury it. Nevertheless, I come to gird capitalism by pointing out where it has failed.  Or rather, more aptly, those who profess to practice it, have failed.

Let me preface the below by saying that while I am talking about capitalism, which is an economic system, it is inherently entwined with democracy.  You cannot have a free market without a free people.  Other economic systems are more often than not a political and economic model combined. My commentary below reflects this mix of the economic side of freedom (capitalism) with the political side of freedom (democracy, a representative republic or similar means of governance).  My critiques of capitalism stem primarily from the shortcomings of governance rather than capitalism itself.

Capitalism has never existed in an unfettered state.  If it were so it would be seen to be more brutal than how we observe it. If indeed we existed in a truly laissez faire capitalist society, taxation would be for the creation of roads, the common defense and provide laws that protect commerce and individuals from unjustness (theft, fraud, murder for example).  But capitalism is managed by humans, and where it is practiced, it does more.  

There is a social safety net to help the most unfortunate and weakest among us in every capitalist nation.  When done properly this is a boon to individuals as well as to the system.  When done improperly it can result in bloat (too many recipients, including those not truly in need), or shortfall (not supportive enough or corruption leaching funds from those in need by government bureaucrats).  It should be pointed out that these are not pitfalls of capitalism, they are the pitfalls of improperly executed capitalism, or warping of it by those who seek to gain from unwarranted opportunity. 

But there are pitfalls nonetheless.  Perhaps the most egregious of these is the advent of a kleptocracy by both government and the techo-industrial elite.

In a kleptocracy, corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes, and special favors from lobbyists and corporations, or they simply direct state funds to themselves and their associates.

This is not a the flaw of capitalism, this is a distortion of capitalism.  Capitalism's flaw, is to lend itself to such distortion.  A free market system, with insufficient guard rails put in place can easily be corrupted by those with the money and power to do so.  Therein lies capitalism's greatest weakness; the inability to sufficiently protect itself from deliberate disruption by the lazy-greedy.  This extends to deliberate disruption by the unwise. Government in seeking to prevent disruption of the economy often inadvertently distorts the economy it creates bubbles.  The proper way to handle a recession is to endure it, not print money and artificially avoid it until the next election cycle.  This creates bubbles, and it creates incentive to expand the bubble and avoid the pain.  This makes the inevitable bubble-burst far worse.  Capitalism does not provide a way to prevent that.

The solution, good government, is not mandated by capitalism.  The smarter way to prepare for inevitable occasional economic weakness is to provide a sufficient safety net in those times and even more critically, provide the incentive and enable the populace the opportunity to prepare for it themselves. Does anyone save for a rainy day anymore?  Why bother when the government does not set the example and instead is willing to throw trillions of dollars they don't really have at the problem?  This is what is often referred to as generational theft.  The government borrows money that following generations will have to pay back. Lazy-greedy in a different way.

In defense of capitalism, no other form of government protects from this any better.  In fact they all serve a concentration of power that enables fewer and fewer to decide more and more and ultimately that power not only serves their corruption and enables it, it encourages it.  The imperfection of capitalism in this regard is far worse in other forms of system but capitalism is nonetheless not excused.

Capitalism requires a higher bar of protection against these weaknesses.  Not just legal protections are needed, as those can be rewritten or avoided through loopholes government has proven itself all-too-willing to use.   It requires a belief, strongly-held among the people, that government is a servant of the people and must be held to account for every action and decision.  This is a lot to ask of a population in terms of time and effort and even awareness.  The problem is that the awareness has been deliberately eroded over generations and even good intentions fail when awareness prevents their use. 

Coupled with the lazy-greedy issue, is the developed sense of entitlement.  Modern Caligulas across government and the wealthy elite and even the famous, feel entitled to their wealth and do not concern themselves that it comes at the expense of the middle class and poorer classes.  They are entitled after all.  They have lived it and been told it all their lives. They Marie Antoinette their way through life unconcerned that the price of eggs has dramatically increased and life has become significantly more straining on everyone else.

This oligopoly of wealth and power make decisions on governance outside of the purview of everyday citizens but in a way that affects everyday citizens (most often negatively).  Think COVID mask mandates "for thee but not for me" as one example. Think Jeffery Epstein's private island for a more direct and dramatic use of people as objects for another example.  All the while they tell you what you observe isn't real.  Inflation isn't bad, it's just you.  

This concentration of power and wealth builds upon itself.  Those inside the inner circle grow bigger and bigger feeding of the rest of society, and make rules to ensure competition to their aristocracy is fettered and hobbled and can never truly get to the top.  Again this is not capitalism, it is a distortion of capitalism.  But capitalism here is not snow-white and sin free.

Capitalism's inherent risk here, comes from it's strength.  one of the underpinning concepts of capitalism is competition. If there is a need going unfilled, capitalism rewards those who seek to fill that need by providing them with a growth in their wealth.  But competition inevitably means there will be more than one person or business entity that tries to fill that need with a solution.   Not all will do equally well and the best (based quality, price and other factors) will slowly grow market share at the expense of the less ideal solutions.  In a truly free market there is a potential that the one best idea ends up becoming the only idea, obtaining 100% market share (or perhaps 90% say). The competition has destroyed itself.  Capitalism has led to a market monopoly.  Perhaps this is inevitable in efficient capitalism.  But the strength of the best winning out, doing the best for consumers in the end, sews the seeds for its own demise.  Monopolies are not healthy in capitalism.  Maybe in the short term they are fine, but extended monopolies become like government.  They seek to exist for their own existence.  They serve themselves and only themselves. People be damned. This is a further recipe for corruption and perhaps collusion with government; you protect my market from other players and I donate to your election campaign. It doesn't matter if a newer and better option has been devised, it must be destroyed before it can grow and replace my monopoly.

It's a sick twisting of capitalism but capitalism itself has done nothing to prevent this twisting from occurring.  Or rather we have not done anything to prevent capitalism from being perverted. Again, laws exist to prevent these distortions but they happen anyway, because people are corrupt. Not just the elite, people in general look out for their own interests.  It's human nature, or in fact, just nature. What capitalism requires is an institutional way of preventing the corruption.  It requires it at a foundational level and it does not have it. More important than laws are two things; awareness and transparency.

Those unfortunately require complete openness about financial transactions at those levels (and in the interest of fairness the, at every level), and media coverage of anything that has been flagged as suspicious transactions. Yikes. While we are probably at a point where that may be technically possible, there are three things that are wrong with that solution.

1. The obvious one we rail over already as conservatives; the media is large enough and corrupt enough to become part of the problem already.  They will have no interest in exposing the problems.
2. There is no appetite to create a financially fully open society; not at the top level, not at any level.  Do you want everyone having the option to know or see everywhere you spend your money? Probably not. Very probably not.
3. This does not cover every possible transaction because not all transactions are financial. "Write a negative story about x, and I will make sure you have free access to y." That will still go undetected.

Capitalism also demands equality of opportunity (NOT outcome - I will never play basketball well enough to deserve an NBA level salary at the job. I do not have the physical traits such as height, to compete at that level).  Democracy as it has existed so far, does not ensure this is the case.  This requires equality of education, equality of access to opportunities, and a removal of unjust barriers to entry.

All is not lost for capitalism.  These problems also exist in every other form of government in some form or another, despite what utopian socialists or communist would have you believe. The strength of capitalism is invention and reinvention.  If those who believe in capitalism can come to grips with it's pitfalls, they can work more diligently to expunge them.  That can not be said to be true of most other systems of governance. Capitalism is redeemable but it requires constant vigilance and it does not have that, which is our own fault. 

Lessons from Canada's internet outage

Yesterday's massive internet outage across the country was for me, as well the rest of Canada, a great example of economic realities.  Unfortunately some people did not comprehend the lesson.  

Background 

Canada has localized internet and wireless monopolies in different areas.  This is not 100% true, but for all intents and purposes it is correct.  Several smaller carriers exist but do not have a large footprint anywhere. The largest carriers provide both wireless phone service and internet (as well as telvision and some other products like home security for example). Not only do these ISPs/carriers have monopolies in product sales but, and this seems like it is unique to Canada, but they also are the same companies that provide the hardware for these services (they own the cell towers, the cable and fiber optic lines).  There are smaller players, like my internet provider (ISP) who lease access to these lines and then compete with these larger carriers to attract cellular, TV and internet customers.

One of the large three providers, Rogers had a nationwide failure in it's internet and cellular coverage.  Some of the large banks and transaction processors as well as parts of the Canadian government were completely dependent on this ISP so the impact went beyond just their customers.  As well, ISPs such as mine, which lease the lines from Rogers, were impacted.

To further exacerbate the situation, carriers encourage bundling of products by providing discounts, so many people who use Rogers for internet could not switch to their phones and use data instead. 

The problem started yesterday at 2 a.m. in some areas and spread across the country. For most people the problem persisted until last night between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.  This impacted everything from people with medical conditions not being able to fill prescriptions to people being stuck unable to take taxis to free wifi cafes with working wifi being overrun with customers to some businesses losing thousands of dollars in business.

The Lesson

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this, for example don't bundle your products as you are more vulnerable to outages, or that Canada is way too susceptible to a hacking incident if this sort of thing if an astute hacker wanted to take advantage of it.

But the real lesson was pointed out by those who did not learn from it.  On message boards I was able to access (I'm not bundled so I could use my phone plan data), many people were calling for government ownership of telecom and internet. So wrong.

The people decrying an over-reliance and a few oligpolistic competitors provide as a solution a single provider. Not only does that make the nation more vulnerable, it puts the operation in the hands of the most inefficient monopoly out there - the government.  It reduces price competition (Canada has the highest prices in the industrialized world for internet and wireless) to zero, it reduces the available product and service selection, it decreases the need for provider responsiveness and locks the country into a solution that undoubtedly would be worse but even if there's only a chance of that, why do it?

The way to solve this problem is to open up the country to more competition; allow American carriers and new Canadian start-ups to compete in the currently monopolized regions. Split the ownership of hardware from the ability to sell the products and services, making them two separate industries.  Poor Government oversight allowed this all to happen, why would anyone think that handing everything over to them would improve anything?  My own experience of not relying too heavily on a single provider yesterday allowed me to escape complete connectivity failure.  The same holds true for Rogers; despite being offline, thet were able to tweet out infrequent and uninformative updates, no doubt using the still working Bell network to do so.  In summary, oligopolies -bad, monoplies - worse and government monopolies - horrifically bad.

Hilarious: Government video poses a COVID question then avoids answering it

This government (propaganda) video from Canada asks "How do I know COVID-19 vaccines are safe without long-term data?"

Then it goes on for 30 seconds without answering the question and talking about something else instead. Something of no real value.  Pose the question as if you are going to answer it, then avoid answering it.  It seems like they want to control both sides of the dialogue but then they do not even answer their own question. So why ask it? To trick people. Sadly over 4 million people have already viewed it and probably 70% don't even think about it critically and just assume everything is okay.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help

How does this help?  I guess the government doesn't trust you to form your own opinion.  I hope you are comfortable with that progressives: one day this will be used against you.  You know that, right?

Edward Snowden - it's worse than we thought.

When Edward Snowden first emerged as a public figure he seemed to me to be anti-American because of the nature of the information he stole and shared.   But the reality is that he is anti-government-corruption.  There is good and bad in what he has done. But exposing what goes on is definitely a plus for society.  And as it turns out, what is going on is worse than we thought.

A rationale for restricting government - please share

Government is an absolute necessity, but absolute government is necessarily evil.  

If perception is reality and no two people perceive things the same way, then what two different people need - in addition to the basic necessities of life - will necessarily be different.  Consequently, if government's purpose is to fill unfulfilled needs for the governed, in doing so government manifestly cannot fulfill different needs, arising from different perceptions and realities, in equal measure in each and every circumstance.  Government is therefore an imperfect vessel for social responsibility.  At best.

At it's worst, government can skew not only the delivery of the means to fulfill social and societal needs, but also it's own multi-faceted, compartmentalized, departmental understanding of what those needs even are.  If the government does not have an absolutely flawless perception of every individual and every circumstance, it cannot possibly fulfill every need equally. Moreover it  certainly cannot deliver for some without it being done at the expense of others.

Governments absolutely create an imbalance in what they deliver and in order to fund their fulfillment, also in what they take.  Governments are not creators of wealth, they are merely redistributors of it.  If they are flawed in their analysis, they are then also flawed in that redistribution.

But if governments are absolutely necessary to some degree, then what's to be done to ensure that society does not exist at the unbearable expense of an individual or vast swaths of individuals?

It seems that the further away from something we are, the less we understand of it.  That's common sense - we are not close to the stars of the universe so we are forced to infer things about them and build our knowledge of them.  But closer to home we have been able to explore Mars and understand it more than before we could touch the surface with explorer vehicles. And still closer to home we have yet to fully understand the oceans.  But we understand our farmland better than our understanding of oceans and likewise we understand oceans better than Mars and Mars better than stars in distant galaxies.

Using that logic, it makes sense that local government would be more understanding and knowledgeable of proximal problems than state governments, and they in turn more than federal governments and in turn again more than some United Nations panel.   Not only would proximal governors better understand a specific problem, that may differ than that in some other locality, they would consequently be able to better devise and assess potential solutions.  They would further be able to deliver a response in an infinitely more timely fashion.

Secondarily, if the problems were similar to those in other localities, there would be similar attempts to address the same issue, across these localities, likely with different outcomes. One of the greatest benefits of a non-homogeneous suite of ideas (forget non-homogeneous physical identifiers, that's a red herring),  is that with multiple attempts at solutions you immediately have improved your odds of finding a solution that can be extrapolated to those who have tried and failed with different approaches.  

If you are playing baseball and you only get one swing at a pitch, odds are you are going to miss.  If you have 50 swings, you probably are going to get at least one hit in there somewhere.  That one (or more) hit is an opportunity to learn.  So too are all the misses.  Non-homogeneity of ideas is what ensures success.  More specifically, non-homogeneity of ideas combined with multiple real-world attempts to enact them

This is why free market capitalism outperforms command economies every single time - individuals try and succeed or fail thousands of times where in a central command structure you get one shot, that's it.  Yes, if it fails you can try again, but what if it fails catastrophically?  You've put all your eggs in one basket and if it drops, eggs will break.  And even if it is not a catastrophic failure, you have wasted time and have to start over.  If it takes 3 or 4 tries to get it right you have spent three or four times as long to get to a solution that a free society has long since moved on to other problem-solving issues: you have fallen behind.

This is why central control is doomed to fail over time.  It cannot compete in the long run.  That is to say nothing of the fact that in order to prop itself up and mitigate the frustration and unrest resulting from its failures, it has to control speech, and ultimately, thinking. That further restricts ideas and ensures the implosion it someday faces.  This is how societies fail.  This is why communism, no matter when or where it has been tried or wherever it may be tried in the future, has always and will always fail.   The same is true for socialism.  These are varying degrees of fatal governments, the only difference being the speed of the death.

How do we avoid falling into that trap, when governments set the rules and therefore are subject only to their own regulation (assuming they even bother to comply with them)?  Society must devise a system where the government delegates as much power as possible to those outside of itself and keeps the minimal amount required to serve its base purpose. That means the states, municipalities, non-governmental institutions such as private companies and organizations like churches or charities, and ultimately, individuals are those who need to be empowered to act.  The United States Constitution was set out to do exactly that.  It's such a brilliant masterpiece of design.  Indeed, where its intent has been perverted is where we see unintended consequences and failures.  It's precisely where we see creeping avoidance of its imperatives and a resulting bloated state.  

Whether you believe America has a deep state or not, it is inarguable that it is a bloated behemoth of a beaurocracy bent on self-preservation at the expense of many (if not most) of those it was designed to serve. At it's core, individual liberty and the creative spark that alone enables are no longer it's primary purpose. The institutions of the American government, set out to foster individual liberty, are now being misused to specifically thwart that noble aim, and in the process are becoming like the dictatorial states America was designed to not become.  And sadly generations since the Baby Boomers have become increasingly enamored with a nostalgia for something that has never existed and cannot exist - a socialist Utopia.

I'm sure many of those who long for socialism simply do not understand what it is they seek and seek to replace.  Their ignorance does not excuse them from the inevitable harsh judgement of future generations forced to live under the yoke of a statist or globalist hegemony.  More importantly it does not excuse those of us in the know of not educating our brethren of the cliff they are hurling us towards unabated.  Upon us it is the most incumbent, not ironically at an individual level, to spread the word of individualism and liberty while we still can.  The failure to do so means the failed future of that liberty and free society will ours to own.

Tax Cuts And Jobs Act actually does help the middle class more than the wealthy

Now it's official, the Tax Cuts And Jobs Act is headed to president Trump for signing. The most important thing for Republicans to do is to sell the truth. The truth is important because it's way better for the middle class than it is for the wealthy - despite what the Democrats' and media narrative says about it. So says the federal government's Joint Committee on Taxation which published this:

 

Notice the rightmost column which shows the percentage tax change by income bracket?  Notice how the higher up the income ladder you get, the lower the tax rate cut gets?

That's the truth, not the popular narrative. 

Homelessness charity begins and ends with government. OR ELSE.

If this isn't proof that liberals want the solution ONLY to come from government, I don't know what is.  A private citizen does something to help homelessness and the city of L.A. immediately crushes his results, proving that in the eyes of leftists, charity begins and ends with government.

The Lighter Side of Trumpian Deregulation

Crisis? What crisis?

President Trump has rolled back some obsolete but on-going government efforts to combat...Y2K. The fact that this needed to be deregulated is as sad as it is funny.

Seventeen years after the Year 2000 bug came and went, the federal government will finally stop preparing for it.

The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would eliminate dozens of paperwork requirements for federal agencies, including an obscure rule that requires them to continue providing updates on their preparedness for a bug that afflicted some computers at the turn of the century. As another example, the Pentagon will be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid, a task that consumed some 1,200 man-hours every year.

“We’re looking for stuff everyone agrees is a complete waste of time,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters at the White House. He likened the move to the government “cleaning out our closets.”

It's not exactly draining the swamp but at least it's a move that's in the right direction and not the government adding more burden to itself.  Nevertheless I'm sure this will get tied into the Russia collusion investigation by the left.

Trust, two ways - government and people

Quality takes time.

Trust is essential in relationships but it is absolutely essential when it comes to how we expect government to operate. People need to trust that government will act in their best interest, and do so effectively.  Political differences come down how much people trust their government and consequently, how much they want the government to govern and how much they want the government to stay out of way.  Conservatives do not trust government to do things more effectively than the free market, liberals on the other hand trust government more implicitly and believe that it will act in the best interest of the public more effectively than the 'invisible hand'.

Liberals complain about sinister big business and yet put trust in a government far bigger than any single business.  Government is bureaucracy. All those departments trying to justify their existence have to find problems.  It's a recipe for sinister, self-serving decisions.  Big government even if it is not sinister, is still a recipe for inefficiency.

A defining example of  government "efficiency" is Obamacare.  It was  more than 2000 pages put together in a matter of months by cobbling together pieces of ideas from practically everywhere. Consistency, critical re-evaluation and working together (not to mention bipartisanship) were not part of the effort.  In retrospect, it's the paper tiger of legislation.  It was all sizzle and no steak.  It was hollow and left to it's own devices, it will collapse under it's own weight.  There's no way something like that hodgepodge could go wrong, right?  

For odd juxtapositional comparison, consider the best-selling album Rumours. Five (unfortunately) drug-infused musicians who were constantly at each other's throats but were nevertheless talented, spent a year putting the album together.  Eleven songs, approximately 45 minutes of music that are brilliant.  It took longer to produce than Obamacare and was considerably less detailed though far more eloquent.

Government does not deserve the trust it has been bestowed by the left today (president Trump aside).  On the other hand, government owes the public more trust than it has offered in recent history. Dodd-Frank, FATCA, the EPA regulating farmers' dust, the IRS and its predatory investigations of Tea Party groups  - it is all based on the premise that people cannot be trusted to do things for the greater good and must be forced to do so.  That's fundamentally sad, and largely wrong. In Canada, with a much more left-leaning government than America, citizens  donate to charity at a much lower rate than their American counterparts.  That comes down to two factors: (i) higher taxes and therefore lower disposable income to provide donations and (2) less tax benefit for donating because the government would rather have the money than provide the deduction.

Give people the freedom to help others, spice it with tax incentives and you will have a lot of charity happening.  Americans are more generous than Canadians not because they are fundamentally better people - people are people - but because the system encourages it to be so. And why does the system encourage it?  Because their is more trust.  Not enough trust, but more than elsewhere.  You give that away as an American, at your peril.

How not to do customer service and more important lessons

A lot of people assume conservatives are anti-people and would automatically side with United Airlines in the case of the man forcefully dragged off the plane because they oversold their seating capacity.  That's simply not true of true conservatives.  We are pro human rights and pro free-market.  And the free market has correctly assessed the video below as abhorrent and unacceptable.  [see more commentary below]

Furthermore, how United has handled the situation both the process before the incident which caused these conditions and afterwards with a practical endorsement of these actions and subsequent forced apology, have shone a light on where the opportunity exists in this situation.  United Airlines has an image of terrible customer service (not confined to this incident alone).  There is an opportunity for another airline, new or existing to step in and fill the void of quality customer service in air travel.  United Airlines will feel the consequences of this, as it is a situation where a boycott might just be justified.  Air travel requirements however, do not disappear.  Travellers will still need transport. A smart company will see the opportunity and respond by improving their own customer service to be demonstrably different - not from United, but from all other carriers who haven't done this.  An airline that does this in a noticeable way will be rewarded with more customers.

That's the free market doing it's job - producers and consumers, supply and demand, reacting to a market condition and improving an industry in the process.  For you millennials out there - if this were a socialist state and there was only one government-run airline, there would be no need to for the sole producer to respond because there are no alternatives.  That is because monopolies are bad for the market and the government, in a socialist state, is for all intents and purposes, a monopoly.  

Think about that when you consider how good or bad your schooling is in a public school.  Think about that when you think about single payer health care.  All monopolies are subject to stagnation or worse, decline.

WaPo: Panic at the Propagandists' Place

The liberal pulse of Washington D.C., the Washington Post is seemingly aghast and panicked at their own headline about president Trump looking to rollback federal government employment, calling it a contraction.

President Trump’s budget proposal this week would shake the federal government to its core if enacted, culling back numerous programs and expediting a historic contraction of the federal workforce.

This would be the first time the government has executed cuts of this magnitude — and all at once — since the drawdown following World War II, economists and budget analysts said.

The spending budget Trump is set to release Thursday will offer the clearest snapshot of his vision for the size and role of government.

I would have no problem with those paragraphs if they changed just one word.  If I could fix it for you, I would change the word contraction to correction, because that's what it is. Now I am really looking forward to the president's budget.   

Let me drill down on one aspect of this.

If you look at the average number of federal employees per 1000 Americans it went from approximately 5.4 in 2006 to 5.7 in 2015 (most of it coming in 2009 as a result of the abysmal stimulus package no doubt), an increase of 5.6% in a very short period of time.  This despite the fact that the population has supposedly grown by roughly 22.8 million people during the same period (roughly 7% growth in population and yet the number of federal employees has grown enough to cover that plus 5.6%).  Interestingly, population growth was last measured in the census of 2010, when the population was 309 million.  Growth since then is only a Census Bureau projection since the census only takes place once per decade.  The numbers since then seem fairly flat in terms of year over year growth rate.  So population has grown but the number of federal employees per 1000 Americans has grown at a rate 5.6% faster than that.

Whether you feel like you are getting 5.6% better or more service is a moot point.  After all, in business they talk about productivity growth. Between 2007 and 2016 productivity growth has averaged 1.1% per year. Between If government employees got better at the rate of productivity between 2000 & 2007 it was double that rate. But let's say for the sake of argument that they got better by 1.1% per year. Between 2006 and 2015 that would mean that federal employees got 11% more productive. Yet the government felt the need to expand the workforce  by 5.6%.  Either the government employees only grew in productivity by say half the national rate, or else the government has been padding the workforce.  What other conclusion can be drawn?  And in either case, there's an inefficiency now.

That's government for you

Here in Ontario Canada, today was the day students in Grade 10 were supposed to write the provincial literacy test.  I'm not sure if this was the first year it was online or not, but why a government would have every student in the province login to write the test at the same time is beyond me.  Oh wait, it's the government.

The website crashed.

Ontario's Grade 10 literacy exam was cancelled

The Fundamental Flaw in the American Governmental System

I greatly admire the American political system. The way the Constitution structured government is brilliant in it's methods of addressing a major concern of the founding fathers. The Constitution is eloquent in its design. It still is, and will always be, important and necessary. But it does contain a design flaw.

The Constitution was constructed to protect the American people against tyranny. Tyranny can come in many forms but the founders appeared to have focused on two crucial forms - the tyranny of an elite rulership (a King, or a dictator) and the tyranny of a mob. Of course that the Revolution against the British Crown drove the thinking of the framers is obvious. Government was divided into three separate but equal branches - the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches. Each had their own mandate as to what their areas of responsibility were, and are. This was to ensure that too much power did not end up in the hands of one person, or one small group of people.

Later the Bill of Rights introduced a number of protections like the second amendment to ensure the people could protect themselves against the tyranny of a future Julius Caesar who might try to usurp power. The tenth amendment delegated any powers not specifically enumerated to the federal government to the states or the people. This was designed to prevent the slow encroachment of federal purview into every aspect of life.

But the other form of tyranny, mob rule, is a danger to a freedom too. In a representative republic, unlike a democracy, rights of minorities are less subject to the whims of the day. If for example there was a rampant culture of fear concerning Muslims today, in a democracy people could vote in some sort of referendum that being a Muslim is a capital crime and that it requires the death penalty (never mind that my example overlooks the notion of freedom of religion, the absurdity is merely to prove a point). In a representative republic, that simply could not come to pass. Two separate but equal branches of government would have to agree that the idea should become law. The third branch would arbitrate whether the law, once passed and then challenged, is actually Constitutional or not.

That all serves as a brake on mob rule and gut reactions to crises or issues of the day. Further, the Senate with it's longer election cycle, allows senators to be less beholden to the electorate than congressmen and therefore able to take a longer view on the implications for the country of each legislative vote. Again, that sober, second thought is a brake on the tyranny of mob rule. This is also true to an extent for the presidency with its inherent responsibility to sign legislation onto law.

The Constitution even protects itself from being rewritten by requiring such a high threshold for amendments that it ensures re-writes don't happen to it all of the time.

What the Constitution does to prevent radical and/or ill-considered changes at unwise speeds is brilliant. But I did mention a flaw, and it's become apparent to me that it is kind of a critical one.

What made it hard to change the system makes, it hard to change the system when bad decisions have become institutionalized. The welfare state. Obamacare. Public education. Common core. Byzantine tax code as a tool for social policy. Redundant government departments sucking up taxpayer money for repetitive and overlapping social programs. Ever-thickening red-tape that is grinding industry in America to a standstill. All of these have become ingrained in the system and are perpetuated by government after government.

Reversing those bad decisions that have snowballed from small problems into major ones is proving to be as difficult as getting them going was initially. In fact in some cases, even harder. The government is set up to minimize change.  When the bad ideas are part of the institution, they cannot just be wished away. Worse still, there are also institutionalized practices that are not even law -- crony capitalism, lobbyists, and government and big businesses being in bed together to stifle potential competitors and enrich the big companies and the politicians who support them. In the case of these unseen 'institutions' there are no public accountabilities. There is no policing them as it were.

Yet we are asking politicians to change these things, to fix these problems. Government is part of the problem. What we see among voters is a reaction to bloat. Conservatives view the solution to this as reducing the size of government. Liberals see the same problem but believe the solution is to grow the government to keep these large evil companies accountable. That they do not see that asking one thief to watch the other is a bad idea, is comical. But the conservative position is also flawed. Yes, government bureaucracies are too large and not accountable. But the bigger problem than their size is how they operate, and how they are also not held to account for their actions.

Is America stuck with bad systems that cannot be changed? No. Paradigm shifts are possible, but the longer this bloat remains, the more they require incremental momentum to make that happen. We've gone from having to move a house to having to move a mountain. Adding to that mountain no longer makes sense. We're moving ever closer to complete stagnation in the name of progress. It's time to chip away at the stone, not add more stone. A new intelligent mechanism is required for dealing with the size, scope and relationships of government - one that is beholden to the ideals of the Constitution and not the government itself. The details of that are important and it must be given a great deal of thought. Just like the framers of the Constitution did in their day.

Government misdirection card trick

The more parts of the economy and society the government controls, the more venues it has to push its own agenda, whatever that might be:

(Daily Caller) Americans trust their doctors, so the White House wants these medical professionals to be a mouthpiece for President Obama’s global warming agenda.

“We also need doctors, nurses and citizens, like all of you”President Obama said in a taped speech presented to medical professionals gathered at the White House, “to get to work to raise awareness and organize folks for real change.”

The Obama administration has been hard at work trying to draw a link between global warming and public health issues. The summit included the U.S. Surgeon General, top administration officials, and public health experts from around the country telling doctors, nurses and other conference goers how to talk about global warming with their patients.

The central message: doctors should warn their patients that global warming could make their health worse.

I assure you, that agenda will be about holding onto power, keeping you dependent and maintaining that agenda at all costs.  Why?  Because they want to retain control of both the power they have to decide their fate, your fate and my fate, and also they want to retain control of the money - making yours and mine theirs. Property protection is part of human nature - ironically even for socialists, who view the power to decide as their property and within their exclusive purview.  They'll use the agenda to blind you to that fact, keeping you busy arguing about global warming or worrying about it.  It doesn't matter.

It's a classic "look over here" card trick they are playing on the public. By the looks of it, they are getting away with it.  The solution is simple - do not willingly hand over control of anything to the government.  Unlike businesses, they are the rule makers.  If the one making the rules is playing the game as well, it's a certainty that they are going to win, making the rest of us, losers.

Some rants on Canadian stuff (Part 2)

Alright, I get it Tea Party. Being unhappy with the representatives from your own side can happen.  Here in Canada that hasn't been a really big issue.  Our Conservative Party government has for the most part acted as conservatively as they could, given our center-left population.  It's a tough job given the circumstances, I get that.  Nevertheless, there's a few things they've done that have not been...perfect.

This morning I sent an email to Prime Minister Harper paraphrasing the points below.  I've never bothered to do that before.

I'm as about as conservative as they come.  I've never once in my life voted for a liberal candidate. I've always supported the conservative party, and even more so since they joined forces with Canada's version of the Tea Party, the Reform Party, long ago.  I've always been a supporter of Stephen Harper's government.  In fact, I voted for the conservative party candidate in a special election to replace our Finance Minister who hails from my riding (district, in American-speak) just a few weeks ago.

So I've got to be more than just a little annoyed to say what I'm about to say right now.  I'm not sure I want to vote for the Conservative party in the next election, I'm considering abstaining.

Why?

The conservatives have rolled out a number of new initiatives knowing that 2015 will be an election year.  Most of them are worthwhile - keeping taxes low, or lowering them where possible, consumer protection against cable and wireless companies and banks (you know, populist type stuff).  But the one thing that really, really irks me, is the selective nature of the tax credits they are proposing.

They have promised to give additional tax credits to working families.  On the surface, that seems fine but to qualify you must have your children, under 18 only, living with you.

This comes on the heels of the discussion of income splitting for seniors to reduce their tax burden.

Not to sound greedy, but seriously; what's in it for me?  I'm not a senior, and my oldest son is over 18 and my youngest lives with my ex-wife.  I'm already paying a pretty hefty child support bill every month, and she's remarried and living in a bigger house than I am, and taking multiple vacations every year.  But she's going to get this tax credit, while I get nothing.

That may sound bitter, but I have struggled financially over the last couple of years and I'm not happy to be excluded from a tax break which would definitely be helpful to my entire household.

It seems to me the most egalitarian thing to do would be cut rates across the board by a smaller amount rather than to use the tax code as a method of social engineering (to promote families, sorry, I'm not in a position to hop on that train), or else to pander to a voting block.  Either way, that's no different from what the liberal and socialist parties have done for decades. That's something I thought conservatives stood against.  Apparently not.

Unless something else happens before election time, I'm not inclined to throw my, until now unwavering, support behind the conservative party.