AB-Prosper

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do. -

Leo Tolstoy

Its a great little common sense editorial on marijuana with one powerful point

Today’s anti-drug campaigns are slightly wonkier than yesterday’s “Reefer Madness,” but equally likely to become party hits rather than drug deterrents. One recent ad produced by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy says: “Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren’t many jobs out there for potheads.” Whoa, dude, except maybe, like, president of the United States.
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Once a kid realizes that pot doesn’t make him insane — or likely to become a burrito taster, as the ad further asserts — he might figure other drug information is equally false. That’s how marijuana becomes a gateway drug.

Honestly there is little useful anyone can do with a humanities degree, BA, MA, or PHD except teach the same stuff you learned to other fools.

That being said a society that has so little respect for abstract learning and so little wealth that they can’t create some jobs for these degrees is a poor in both bread and soul.

Civilization itself calls for the quiet decadence of wasted ideas.

Krugamn. Health Care Now.

Preach it Bro. Preach it.

From USA Today.

I’d buy this. Most people who work and strive only commit minor crimes stuff like drug possession, simple assault, DUI, minor gun violations, and occasional theft, mostly of the petty sort.

If its true it going to be a tough nut to crack, Gangs recruit and even breed new members, aren’t centrally directed like the Mafia and todays groups Los Zetas, MS13 and the others are hundreds of times more ruthless and violent than the old line gangs.

if we want to deal with this issue we do have options though

#1 We can consider drug legalization

#2 We can seal the southern border,

#3 We can build a a real system of social services that helps make families strong and moves people into the middle class

#4 And lastly we add a “gang member” sentence enhancement. If we are willing to expend the money we can say make any offense committed while a member of a gang get an extra 5, 20 if violent and all parole is abolished. For dealing with the juvenile (under 16) gang members issue, instead of “life for kids” which is too harsh we simply give them the usual penalties and the kids get mandatory group home/ supervised parole till 25. If it a family issue, the parents lose custody.

Break the cycle and you break the gang and this trifecta will dry up the gangs pretty fast.

This cranky editorial extolling the virtues of vouchers as stimulous though is spot on. Rather than trying to preserve the status quo and drop up campaign contributors , err I mean important institutions , it might be better to simply give people vouchers. I’d rather give cash so people can save it when needed but at least Mr. Sessit’s idea is workable and pork free unlike most of what’s coming out of Washington.

The best way to understand the forces in play right now is to compare say Encyclopedia Brittanica to Wikipedia.

Yesterday’s Brittanica world was all about the big institution . It was a stodgy bureaucracy where a few men go to decide what was important, put it into a book and called it knowledge.

In todays Wikipedia world , anyone, man, woman or child who is interested gets to decide. We the people edit the encyclopedia, correct it in within limits of our expertise and call it knowledge. Turns out we are essentially as accurate as the institutions are and as a bonus provide an larger more easily corrected stream of knowledge to draw from.

You tell me which idea is more like a free market economy and which is more like socialist central planning?

A pro consumption rant from the BBC.

I’d like to ask the folks out there, whats wrong with having less and working less? I can always get more stuff later or get it cheap (yay $1 Book Store and Friends of the Library) but until someone comes up with a cure for aging I can’t get more time with the people I love. Folks thats something far more valuable than any new car.

Maybe we should find some kind of way (say a universal government support system) that would let people who have enough work less hours. Yes, you’d get smaller digs and less stuff but its not your job to prop up the economy here or in China. Consumption for the sake of someone else isn’t patriotic, just stupid.

What is your job to be happy though and chasing stuff for the sake of status is not going to get you there.

Time for a change.

To give credit where credit is do Indigo on America Blog relayed this stor .In my mind this applies very much to the idiots like Bernard Madoff that got us into this mess.

Kurt Vonnegut and Saul Bellow were at a convention years ago where a major entrepreneur was the speaker.
“You know,” Kurt said to Saul, “the speaker has made more on one trade than you or I have on the sales of all our books.’
“True enough,” said Saul, “but I’ve got one thing he’ll never have.’
“What’s that?” Vonnegut wondered.
“I’ve got enough,” Saul Bellow said, “and that speaker never will.”

Prosper’s Law of Bureaucracy states a bureaucracy is an institution designed to resist change at any cost.

Keep that law in mind when you go trying to fix screwed up situations. Any change will be resisted all out.

Also keep in mind this isn’t always a bad thing. Not all change is good.

from my post here

The stimulous may be a “last ditch” effort but its no more likely to work than monetary policy. While the infrastructure spending is much overdo and quite welcome the rest of the effort is just a wasteful continuation of the current failing system.

It would have been cheaper and more effective to cut each adult US citizen whose income is under a certain threshold a check for $4k . make it tax free and free from being attached.

Much of this would have been socked away (thus stabilizing the banks) or used on mortgages or other debts or even spent

Whats ailing the economy goes much deeper than the bubble, its a chronic trade imbalance and lack of demand. The big consumers are tapped out (US earning as percentage of GDP have plummeted in the last 30 years) and in the case of most of the others (US exempted) have aging declining populations — there are less consumers.

The new markets mostly in China are far more likely to meet any demand with local goods. Everybody is producing more than is needed.

On top of that automation is killing a lot of jobs, both high and low. if you trust the AFL-CIO they suggest that as many as 30 million service jobs (10% of all US jobs) are slated to be outsourced

In the long run, lack of jobs means lack of buyers and that means deflation and poverty.

if we are serious about repairing the current problem and preventing future ones we need a multi pronged approach

#1 balanced trade ala Buffet’s import certificates

#2 anti outsourcing laws. (treat jobs the same as material goods for purposes of trade)

#3 national health care (this is the biggest cause of Bankruptcy in the US)

#4 Tighter financial regulation

#5 a better social safety net that includes a lot more direct transfer of money

#6 a clamp on immigration

and last #7 shorter work weeks (4 day) and longer vacations to soak up excess productivity