Gullible's Travails

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. -- Shakespeare

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The best reporters are neither advocates nor adversaries. They ask the tough questions because they need to be asked.

   Whatever happened to journalistic cynicism?
   Where are the skeptical reporters who used to be so widespread in the news media?
   Where are the editors who achieved fame for their irascibility?
   What happened to the real-life Perry Whites and Lou Grants?
   Do we still have city editors who seem like they came straight out of Central Casting?

   Government leaders ramble on in speeches about the need to deal with economic issues, but one soon realizes that they really don't know what they're talking about. Even more often, especially on social issues, they display outrageous ignorance. But that's another issue.
   Moreover, reporters and commentators in the news media are complicit -- unwittingly perhaps -- in conveying the messages that are really political ploys, and are sometimes downright lies.
   Someone once said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Therefore, it could very well be that politicians and their corporate supporters are using political means to gain economic power, which in turn enhances political power, all the while couching their rhetoric in airy phrases that sound good but mean little.
   It has been said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Not so. It is often the first.

   Consider: Political candidates pack their audiences with loyal supporters who cheer every word of a speech, and the campaign staff disallows any questions from reporters. There are no "news conferences" as such. And when in office, the officials limit contact with reporters only to those they deem sympathetic.
   Result: Reporters cooperate and follow rules set by the politician, lest they lose out on a "story," or they get no access to the official at all.
   The question then becomes, who's in charge?

   Officials want to control their message, and go to great lengths to do so. When possible, they talk mainly to those who toss easy questions, and help promulgate the party line. In fairness, it must be said that some so-called reporters are not fair or neutral; they are partisan. Some are for, and some are opposed to the political message. Some in the media have agendas -- messages of their own. And some publications and broadcasters also have political leanings.
   It's no secret that MSNBC leans to the Left and Fox News to the Right, but these views are mostly from the hosts and commentators, who by their nature are political -- they are not neutral. But that's part of the price we pay for our First Amendment freedoms.

   Besides, who gets to decide what's fair?

Sticky Wages and Getting Stuck

Economic decisions are made every day, even in what may seem very mundane circumstances. To the jobless poor, however, the decisions and circumstances are not mundane, but a matter of survival.

   Unemployment benefits, minimum wage laws, and union contracts all interfere with the classical economic theory that wages respond to supply and demand pressures just as any other factor of production. And because of these benefits, laws and contracts, wages are "sticky," and cannot slide downward during economic downturns, either for a firm, an industry, or a society.
   Meanwhile, despite humanitarian concerns, ultra-conservatives condemn public assistance programs as "socialist" -- a dirty word to them, which they use to demonize the opposition. As for the poor, even the working poor, the radical righteous maintain that "It's their own fault. They should have saved for a rainy day, and we should not have to pay for their bad behavior."
   But is it "bad behavior," or are they caught in a fiscal or economic vise not of their making? Granted, some are "irresponsible." But not all. Moreover, this is also true of the ultra-rich; the irresponsible wastrels of the wealthy are forgiven their "bad behavior" more often than the poor.
   Some claim unemployment benefits discourage job-seeking and are a waste of government resources. These payments go to the "takers," they charge, who stay on the jobless rolls rather than accept employment. The reality, of course, is that for some the only jobs available -- if any are available at all during a recession -- pay little more than government benefits. So they make an economic decision, especially if they have minor dependents. Taking a low-wage job and then paying for daycare would mean less money for food.
   An extreme example, perhaps, but not only possible but plausible.

   In any data set, there are outliers -- those 12.5 percent on the edges of the famous bell-shaped curve who are not within three standard deviation units from the mean. In other words, one size never fits all. The best you can hope for is that a standard benefit will help 86 percent of the population.
   In fairness, those who insist that the poor act responsibly should also take responsibility for their own actions, and not hide behind or take refuge in tax breaks or bankruptcy proceedings.
   Laws and options are in place for a purpose. If developers can take advantage of government programs to help them through rough financial straits -- even if, as with banks and mortgage lenders, they brought the problems on themselves -- fairness would stipulate that similar options be available to those without lawyers on corporate staff or without political influence.

   If banks are too big to fail, people are too many to be ignored.

Migrating Workers

"Going home to a place I've never been before." -- John Denver

Everybody needs somebody to feel better than. -- Pug Mahoney, Cynic in Chief

"I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door." -- Emma Lazarus, inscribed on a statue in New York Harbor

   Now that the U.S. government plans to pull American troops out of Afghanistan, we can look forward to an increasing influx of Afghan refugees, especially folks who served with or cooperated with Americans.
   There is historical precedent for this, notably Vietnam and Cambodia. To abandon them to the vagaries of a new regime can be dangerous. Moreover, many of these newcomers will take low wage, low skill, low prestige jobs, doing the scut work that many young Americans pass up.

   Meanwhile, Washington is working on a plan to provide a road to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants already here, who were brought to America as children. Should this be done?
   Consider: Is it right to blame children for the activities, legal or otherwise, of their parents? This program will offer amnesty and a path to citizenship for those brought here as children and know no other country. They are, in fact, Americans in every way except but in law. And many are well educated, skilled and productive. To send them "home" to a place they've never been before would be unfair, counterproductive and cruel.
   In addition, there's a move afoot to allow more workers in, to fill the demand for low-skill, less-educated, low-wage workers, because the supply of native-born Americans willing to take menial jobs is short. Therefore, newcomers are arriving to fill these positions.
   The Law of Supply and Demand has not been repealed.

   At the same time, Washington has inaugurated a program to issue visas and a fast track to citizenship to highly skilled professionals and to investors who lay out as much as $1 million in startup firms that employ at least ten Americans.
   The demand for well educated workers with special skills is high, and the supply of available citizens is low, so competition is driving this program.
   To claim that every job taken by a newcomer is a job lost by an American is not only too simplistic, but also untrue. Statistical data and studies, even those done by anti-immigration groups, back this up.
   Don't believe it? Do your own research. The Internet is a wonderful thing.

Speaking Up

In union there is strength.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

　Of the four major elements that make up any economy, Labor may be the most controversial, partly because Labor is the only one that has a voice. (The other elements, or factors of production as they are formally known, are Land, Capital and Entrepreneurial Skill.)
   The term Land refers to natural resources, and includes not only farm acreage, but also forests, mining, and water.
   To an economist, Capital does not mean money or financial resources, but refers to any improvement or investment in machines, for example, or other things that increase productivity or make production more efficient.
   An entrepreneur, from the French meaning a go-between, is a person who gathers the other elements and organizes their productive capacity.
   In economics, payment for the use of Land resources is called Rent. Payment to Labor is called Wages, return from the use of Capital improvement is called Interest, and payment to the Entrepreneur is called Profit.

   Entrepreneurs gather, organize and exploit the other factors of production for their own benefit as well as to serve society, and their reward for doing so is profit.
   The word "exploit" is used here not in a negative, abusive sense, but as a neutral term to describe what is done. Certainly, some entrepreneurs are abusive, and that's where Labor speaks up in its own defense. The result is controversy with abusive entrepreneurs.

   There was a time when entrepreneurs, the landlords of Capitalism, owned the resources and workers had little or no ability to avoid being exploited in an extreme, abusive way. That changed, however, with the advent of unions. Labor could and did organize into collective bargaining units, since individual bargaining ability was so weak as to be powerless.
   At one time, the entrepreneurs of Capitalism were so powerful and so exploitative -- in a negative sense -- that the downtrodden workers rebelled. In was in this that Karl Marx foresaw the collapse of Capitalism and the rise to power of Labor.
   What he failed to see, however, was that management would accept the rights of workers and would show a willingness to accommodate workers' needs (sometimes forced to do so through government intervention). Meanwhile, unions became so strong that management found it more worthwhile to cooperate with unions to create a more productive, efficient company.
   However, it was also true that some unions became so strong that power corrupted the process, and labor became so dominant as to be abusive. In recent years, union membership has been sliding, labor's power has been weakening, and management has been moving into the power void.
   Somewhere there is a middle ground where both sides can profit.

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
-- Lewis Carroll

Mass altruism ain't gonna happen.
　
   Those who prattle about the evil nature of all things socialistic speak jabberwocky in their efforts to demonize the opposition.
   Politicians assail those in the news media who report information that contradicts their positions as being part of the "reality based community," and their tone tries to imply something negative. But how is being in touch with reality a bad thing?
   "It is when you disagree with me!"

   When the evidence contradicts the message, ignore the evidence. Why let solid numbers interfere with the message? When you say something often enough, loud enough and long enough to enough people, many will start to believe it. Currently, when reality based information contradicts the message, conservatives call it a conspiratorial plot by the liberal media elite.
   One example of language-bending to serve a political end is the assault on "socialism." The reality is that any social benefit program is socialistic, and such programs have been part of American life from the beginning.
   When the Pilgrims taught all members of the group to read, that was socialism. Their motivation, of course, was that members read the Bible, but the idea of universal basic public education endures. And government supported schools is socialism.
   When government builds roads, to be freely used by all, that is socialism.
   When government builds bridges and airports, that is socialism.
   When government operates flood control programs, that is socialism.
   When government hires teachers, police and firefighters, that is socialism.
   When government sponsors unemployment benefit programs, that is socialism.
   When government sponsors old-age pension programs under its Social Security program, that is socialism.
   And when government offers universal health insurance, that is socialism. Otherwise, the indigent seek health care in emergency rooms, and when they cannot pay, the hospital and/or taxpayers pick up the tab. That, too, is socialism.
   Any program run by government that benefits society is by its nature socialistic.

   Is there is a difference between Socialism and Communism? In a political sense, yes, since nations that attempted socialist/communist forms became dictatorships. Karl Marx, the 19th Century philosopher who wrote extensively on the issue, used the two terms interchangeably. The problem is that while communal living may be functional on a small, local level, it does not work at a national level.

   And locally, they do work. In America, the communal living movement was well known in the 19th Century, and some of the names endure. Amana and Oneida were two successful 19th Century communes whose names are still familiar, even though they no longer function as communes.
   In the mid-20th Century, many hippies formed communes as they dropped out of the larger society.
   Meanwhile, communes remain, and number in the many hundreds, if not thousands. They even have their own organization and magazine.
   Want a definition? "We use commune only when referring to communities that share their income and resources completely, or nearly so," according to the Fellowship for Intentional Community.
   A successful commune or socialistic society needs a widespread sense of sharing. But on a national level, mass altruism ain't gonna happen.

Politics, Economics and Government

It ain't what you got, it's the way how you use it.

   Economics, at its root, is the study of what people do with what's available to them. The term originated in Ancient Greece. and referred to a household manager. And well into the 20th Century, high school girls in America took courses in "home economics." (That was back in the day when girls learned typing and shorthand so they could get jobs as secretaries, and boys took shop courses to become carpenters or auto mechanics. And never the twain did switch. Fairness didn't enter into it.)
   In the 19th Century, the academic discipline became known as Political Economics, meaning it dealt with how the polis, or city-state, managed its resources, and it expanded the study from the household level to the regional and national, making it more scholarly.
   Modern economics got its start with the work of Adam Smith, the 18th Century Scottish philosopher whose major effort, The Wealth of Nations, was published in 1776.
   Today, the field continues to expand, as economists look at more and more things that influence what people do with what they've got. The better economists, moreover, base their research, analysis and reports on the Five Ws of journalism -- Who, What, Where, When and Why. The first four are relatively easy to research and write about. The last, however -- Why -- is just as difficult in academia as it is in news reporting.
   Nonetheless, it's right to keep trying.
   Sometimes, of course, even with the best of intentions, some so-called experts go astray, especially when they start with preconceived notions of what "should be" and proceed to find evidence to prove what they already "know" to be true.

   Logic 101: If the premise is valid and the process correct, the conclusion must be valid. But if the premise is questionable or false, the conclusion may not be valid.
   In Law, there is what's known as the Prosecutor's Fallacy, in which investigators believe up front that a suspect is guilty, and then find the evidence to support that belief. What investigators should do, of course, is to gather all the evidence and then conclude from that who the perpetrator might be.
   Formally, the difference is between inductive logic and deductive logic. In the first, one gathers information, seeks a pattern and then forms an opinion or conclusion. In the second, one starts with a premise (hopefully a valid one), then deduces downward from that to a conclusion.

   Back to economics.
   Academics, as people, are often led off-track by prior beliefs and cultural leanings. Even if they are not, in presenting their conclusions to other academics and to the general public, they must overcome other folks' beliefs and cultural leanings.
   The same applies to journalists and especially to politicians, since they play to the opinions and preferences of voters in order to be re-elected.
   Whether the whole thing is a good system depends partly on your own preconceived notions and beliefs.
   In any case, this is the system we've got, so the choice is to dance with the guy what brung ya, or leave the party. Put another way, if you don't like it, your choice is to change it, learn to live with it, or leave it.

   In ancient times, the highest honor in the tribe was to carry the sacred rune stone during the Solstice Celebration. But to achieve that honor, a warrior first had to kill a venomous reptile that endangered the village. For as it was truly spoken by the Chief Druid: "He who slays the viper hauls the rune."

Perspectives

The stock market has about as much influence on my daily life as baseball.

   Both activities, the stock market and baseball, may be interesting and fun to watch, but for some folks, so is Honey Boo Boo.
   Even for those who own corporate stocks, the gyrations of the market as a whole matter little. The only thing that really matters is whether the stock or stocks someone owns goes up or down, and by how much. And even that matters only if the owner plans to buy or sell.
   Daily traders, of course, are another breed. For them, a small movement of pennies per share is important when dealing with many hundreds of shares. In that respect, it's like foreign exchange rates or commodities trading. When dealing with a million dollars, a shift in the decimal point price per unit can mean a profit or loss totaling thousands of dollars.
   Similarly, whether a major league player has a batting average of .190 or .195 has no financial effect on the general public, fan or non-fan. Granted, a batting average may influence a player's salary discussions, but it doesn't change my paycheck.
   Moreover, the best players score a hit less than half or even one-third the number of times they are at bat. Even Ted Williams in his best year (1941), with a batting average of .406, scored a hit only four out of ten times at bat. And his career batting average of .344, one of the best in baseball, means he failed to get a hit two-thirds of the time.
   Financial markets affect a person's daily life more than stock markets, because fluctuations there result in changes in interest rates. In turn, this means home mortgage rates change, savings rates change, and credit card interest rates rise or fall.
   But even here, if one does not own a home or does not plan on buying; if savings are in long-term CDs; and if one pays cash or has no credit card debt, it doesn't matter.