Mr. Moderate

We should not, as a nation, expect people to do things that injure their own interests. When we establish economic incentives and disincentives, we should expect them to operate on the actions of those who become aware of them in the way that a rational person would act. Again, we should not expect the actions taken by thinking people to go against their own self-interests.

When government programs are so structured as to lead to consequences that are literally insane, you have to ask whether or not the politicians creating the programs were themselves insane or whether they were just trying to create a program (and earn some “brownie points”) that would eventually fail, so that they could then axe the program (and earn more “brownie points”). It seems like some government programs were not well thought out as to their consequences. Perhaps we need to have an independent economist review any legislation with any economic impacts and write a report back to the lawmakers about the “Law of Unintended Consequences” as applied to the proposed legislation. Maybe we would not get programs structured like the one that is my topic for today.
Continue reading ‘Welfare Incentives Thrive’ »

I get so mad listening to President Bush continue to argue for his “stay the course” strategy when it is obvious to the majority of Americans that the ship is drifting ever closer to rocky shoals. In my mind, the 2008 election can’t come quickly enough to get the USA a new hand on the rudder of the ship-of-state.

Osama bin Laden is, to all intents and purposes, stronger than he ever was, in that he has more “combat effectives” at his disposal today than he did on September 11, 2001. This result is due to a totally bungled war effort that sent most of our combat forces off to Iraq, where there were few (if any) actual terrorists, and only a few combat troops off to Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan where there remain many terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Including, of course, one very tall Saudi by the name of Osama bin Laden.
Continue reading ‘Iraq & Terror - What Next?’ »

For the past decade, evangelical Christians, disgusted with the moral morass they saw in Washington, DC, have voted solidly for the Republican Party. So long as the issues considered by these Christians were narrowly defined as the 3-Gs, Gays, Guns, and God, evangelical Christians were easily roped into voting a straight Republican ticket.

Recently, however, a split has developed between the far right and the more-moderate factions within the evangelical community over global warming in particular. But that tentative split on environmental policy is just the first crack in a logjam of issues that have long divided America, such as the teaching of evolution in our schools (the “more-moderate” evangelicals have no issue with that, a position identical with that of the Roman Catholic Church) and the place of science education within our hierarchy of knowledge (the radical right wing decries reliance upon “science” as “just another opinion” not entitled to any real respect as it is clearly “anti-God”).
Continue reading ‘Evangelicals Split From The Right?’ »

Wikipedia has an excellent article on the housing bubble in the United States. I can’t recommend it highly enough. (At least, as the article stood as of the date of this post; it could be changed tomorrow for all I know.) As it sits, it aligns perfectly with my own thinking on this subject. If you want more on my own take on the housing bubble, please read my page on Greater Wealth & Fools.

The bottom line here is this: don’t buy a house anytime soon unless you are in a low-inflation market or can’t afford to wait (if, for instance, you’ve sold your old home and have to “roll over” the gain within a fixed amount of time). Plan on the possibility that housing prices may go lower for the next 5 to 10 years. If you can’t withstand that kind of a housing market, with low inflation leading to low wage increases for those who still have jobs, then rent and do not buy. Sub-prime borrowers should avoid buying altogether, as the sharks have circled for a final feast, and you had better believe that they know their bubble is bursting!

Four days ago I wrote this comparison of the Vietnam War with the current Iraq War:

In the Vietnam War, we were fighting only one insurgency, parented by the North Vietnamese. And in Vietnam, we did not have Catholic and Bhuddist militias battling it out with each other and the US forces. In Iraq, we have at least four distinct insurgencies, plus at least one active terrorist organization and dozens of sectarian militias, all seeking to kill Americans and each other on a daily basis. The parents of the insurgencies are: the former Baathist leadership of Iraq, the Syrian government, the Iranian government, and the government of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government plays its role by supplying Imams trained in its Wahabbi version of Sunni Islam, each of whom comes with readily-available cash to fund militant activities by people who will agree to follow their lead. Both the Syrians and the Iranians are running traditional proxy wars similar to that run by the North Vietnamese government. And the former Iraqi Baathists have billions of dollars left over from the massive looting conducted by Saddam Hussein before he was deposed as President. That massive amount of money allows them to run their own insurgency without a separate “safe haven” nation to operate out of.

Furthermore, the Iraqi people do not want the American and British troops to remain in Iraq. That is the strong result of every public opinion poll ever taken. The only differences of opinion among the Iraqi people are exactly when the troops need to get out of Iraq. Well, from a BBC report, a former British commander is of the opinion that now is the time for an exit:

Insurgents in Iraq are right to try to force US troops out of the country, a former British army commander has said.

Gen Sir Michael Rose also told the BBC’s Newsnight programme that the US and the UK must “admit defeat” and stop fighting “a hopeless war” in Iraq.

Iraqi insurgents would not give in, he said. “I don’t excuse them for some of the terrible things they do, but I do understand why they are resisting.”

Continue reading ‘Redeploy Our Troops In Iraq!’ »

One of the clear lessons from the Holocaust of the 20th century is that certain types of scientific inquiry are clearly immoral (or unethical) to perform. The infamous Nazi human experiments on prisoners disgusted the entire world, and such activities have been all-but-universally condemned. It is even questionable whether the ethical scientist ought to use or cite to the results of such ethically despicable research. I agree with those who would permit it under extraordinary circumstances and with appropriate condemnation of the unethical basis of the research in question. But few would question that scientific inquiry into medical subjects must be subordinate to considerations of medical ethics, and frankly I would condemn the ethics any who would question such subordination.

As I have written, my ethical hierarchy is grounded in survival. But we are all aware that even animals will sacrifice themselves in some ways to preserve the survival of their species through their own young. So, it does not necessarily follow that ethical scientific inquiry must necessarily avoid death for the organisms under study. To put this in a readily-understandable human context, we are “at war” with certain diseases, and in any war, some soldiers will die even if we do our best to preserve their lives. Since animals are viewed as “property” the ethical concerns with animal experimentation are somewhat different than they are with human experimentation. However, even there, we recognize that owned animals have certain rights to treatment according to recognized ethical standards. Accordingly, most of us would agree that there are limits to what scientific researchers can be allowed to do to owned animals for the purpose of scientific research. However, most of us would disagree with the limits sought to be imposed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The benefit of having an organization which takes such an extreme view of animal rights is that at least we can attempt to have a conversation about the proper limits upon the treatment of animals.
Continue reading ‘Ethical Concerns Limit Scientific Inquiry’ »

Albert Einstein said this about ethics:

I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern without any superhuman authority behind it.

I believe exactly as Einstein asserted in the above quote. There are many facts which lead me to conclude, as Einstein does, that ethics is a human invention and that there is no immortality to earn (or lose) through “good” (or “bad”) behavior. Among the facts are:

• The universe is extraordinarily large, and humans are comparatively quite small.
• Humans are just an evolved form of primate who just happen to have an evolved talent for transmitting rapidly evolving memes.
• The base of all ethical codes is survival, of individuals, groups, species, and of life itself.
• Each culture develops its own unique religion, with some elements in common (presumably due to the common ground of needing to prioritize survival) and many elements of difference (presumably due to the “fashion” or “tastes” of the particular populations involved).

Continue reading ‘Ethical Issues Are Basic Human Concerns’ »

The thing I liked about Colin Powell is that he “got it.” Powell understood the lessons of our tragedy in Vietnam, and the so-called “Powell Doctrine” called for eight essential questions that must be answered affirmatively before the US military is committed to action in a foreign land. Of those eight questions, history has shown that only the 7th, the support of the American people, was true at the time of the invasion. And of course, as time has worn on, the support of the American people has dwindled away. Why? Because it was clear that the answers to the other questions were “no” at the time of the invasion.

We can argue until the cows come home whether or not President Bush and/or his key national security aides knew that one or more of the answers to the eight questions were “no” at the time of the invasion. But today, four years after Bush appeared under that ludicrous banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished,” Bush refuses to declare victory and get out as quickly as possible.
Continue reading ‘We Never Learn!’ »