In recent weeks we have been re-alerted to a most scandalizing fact, namely that the NSA and other US intelligence agencies have been spying on all internet and cell phone communications on an unprecedented level. I say re-alerted because we were first made aware of this in May of 2006 when USA Today reported on the NSA building a huge database for compiling phone records. There is a long discussion of the aftermath of these revelations here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy . But the reality is that this is nothing new. Our government, despite getting its hand slapped previously for warrant-less searches of wireless communications, has expanded the program to include all internet communications as well. Given the strictures of the 4th amendment, many are arguing that this is a clear violation of our constitutional rights. I will not argue with them, at least not on theory. However, it is worth pointing out that the Obama administration and the intelligence community have included such legal safeguards as they think are needed to pass constitutional scrutiny. Likely that argument will not be settled until it is in front of the US Supreme Court. But ignoring the pure legal arguments, it is hard to square our nation's stated values of liberty, freedom of speech and right to privacy with the actions of our government.
On the other side of the coin, I understand where the government is coming from. Since September 11th 2001, we as a nation have been made more alert to the dangers posed by terrorists, both foreign and domestic. The US public has been clamoring for the intelligence community to improve our safety in this new and dangerous world. In intelligence work, data is key, and when most of the world's internet communications come through US hubs, gathering that data was easy and convenient. The belief that if we just had more information that we could prevent the next attack drove the community to use questionable means to increase the amount of data they could analyze. It's easy to sympathize with them, especially with civilian lives on the line.
The problem with this theory is that, in many previous cases of terrorism, we already had the tools we needed to prevent disaster. What we lacked was the competence to interpret that data correctly and prevent the attacks. Take Sept. 11th, the Bush administration had received intelligence about Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden and their readiness to attack the USA. Had these warnings been heeded, we may well have avoided the disaster that occurred. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html . More recently, the intelligence community ignored Russian warnings about the Tsarnaev brothers and how they may be radicalizing. These are the brothers who then perpetuated the Boston Marathon bombings. http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/06/fbi-knew-earlier-of-boston-bombing-suspect-166313.html . Two of the largest attacks in recent memory on US soil were both preceded with specific intelligence warnings to the government of the risk of a terrorist attack; intelligence that was ignored. More damningly, this was intelligence gathered through traditional means. If we lacked the competence to interpret this data properly, it is easily imagined that we lack the competence to mine the NSA program properly as well.
So where does this leave us? We have a multi-billion dollar spying program that is manned by the same incompetent people who failed to heed traditional warnings of previous attacks. A spying program that tramples on the world's privacy rights and freedoms which likely will not help us prevent the next attack (if the Boston Marathon bombings are predictive). I can't help but think that our government would have been a lot better off hiring more analysts to mine traditional intelligence than spending billions of dollars on a computer data warehouse. But that is the modern state of our technocratic government. It thinks it is a lot smarter, and a lot more competent, than it actually is. It is now up to the courts to interpret its constitutionality, and the voters to let their representatives know their displeasure.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Why I am not a Scientist, Psychiatrist or Doctor
Sorry about the hiatus, I had a vacation and then some job related things to take care of. Real life intrudes sometimes...
So, without further adieu, here is why I am not a scientist....
When I was graduating from high school, I got it into my head that I should be an MD/PHD psychiatrist. This came from a variety of misconceptions that I had at the time, primarily that learning psychology would give me some sort of insight into the human mind and how people think about things. I also thought it would be a good way to spend my life talking to people and helping them work through the emotional traumas and troubles of their lives. My vision of psychiatry was of a Freudian doctor sitting in a big comfy leather chair in a wood paneled office talking to someone who was lying on a couch discussing their inner turmoils. Unfortunately, modern psychiatry has little to do with traditional therapy techniques. Instead it mostly involves popping people full of pills until they either stop complaining or actually believe you have cured their mental problems.
Now, you can probably tell from the end of the above paragraph that I do not hold modern psychiatry in much esteem. While this is true, I do wish to point out that there are quite a few people whose psychological conditions really are due to neurotransmitter imbalances that can be successfully treated with psychotropic drugs. Unfortunately, these people make up an incredibly small proportion of those seeking help from psychiatrists. Most people are simply depressed due to the modern world and their lives not living up to their ambitions, hopes and dreams and their inability to accept the life they have. Most of these people would likely be better served by not experimenting with drugs but instead working through their problems and analyzing the root causes of their psychological trauma. Unfortunately, years of therapy with a doctor is not cost efficient from an insurance perspective, so instead the grand tradition of psychiatry has been reduced to a happy pill dispensary. A way point between a troubled mind and the pharmacist.
But I digress, I entered college honestly thinking that I would go pre-med and major in psych. In my first year I took intro to psych, chemistry and a class called brain and behavior. Much to my horror, I found the focus of both psych courses to be neurology. Instead of learning about brain development, I was memorizing the taxonomy of a neuron and learning who was the first person to shove electric probes in a mouse's head and have it actually do something other than killing the mouse. It was an incredible let down to say the least. Moreover, in chemistry I found myself confused in lectures and bored in labs. The end result was that I was either obsessively reviewing notes and reading assignments, or sitting in a lab waiting for a solution to properly mix. In labs I would bide my time squirting liquids onto the hot plate to see them sizzle and pop. This included flammable liquids, mostly because they had the most satisfying reactions. The end result of all of this was that my grades were suffering and I had completely burnt out on my chosen collegiate course of study by the middle of the second semester of my first year.
After some personal issues, and some other unrelated problems, I ended up switching majors into a completely unrelated area of academia. Fortunately, I was much more engaged there and my grades improved markedly. In hind sight, my blunder from the very get go was a profound lack of knowledge about myself. I do not have the attention span to watch a chemical reaction slowly occur over a three hour lab. I do not have the patience to sit down and properly balance a chemical equation or memorize all the parts of the body and their Latin names. My mind requires more active thought and discussion. The discussion, and the desire to help people was what made me want to be a psychiatrist. It was the science required to get there that convinced me this was a bad idea. This is why I am not a scientist, psychiatrist or doctor. But it is why I respect the people with the mental discipline and fortitude to put up with all the years of tedium required to follow one of these three professions.
So, without further adieu, here is why I am not a scientist....
When I was graduating from high school, I got it into my head that I should be an MD/PHD psychiatrist. This came from a variety of misconceptions that I had at the time, primarily that learning psychology would give me some sort of insight into the human mind and how people think about things. I also thought it would be a good way to spend my life talking to people and helping them work through the emotional traumas and troubles of their lives. My vision of psychiatry was of a Freudian doctor sitting in a big comfy leather chair in a wood paneled office talking to someone who was lying on a couch discussing their inner turmoils. Unfortunately, modern psychiatry has little to do with traditional therapy techniques. Instead it mostly involves popping people full of pills until they either stop complaining or actually believe you have cured their mental problems.
Now, you can probably tell from the end of the above paragraph that I do not hold modern psychiatry in much esteem. While this is true, I do wish to point out that there are quite a few people whose psychological conditions really are due to neurotransmitter imbalances that can be successfully treated with psychotropic drugs. Unfortunately, these people make up an incredibly small proportion of those seeking help from psychiatrists. Most people are simply depressed due to the modern world and their lives not living up to their ambitions, hopes and dreams and their inability to accept the life they have. Most of these people would likely be better served by not experimenting with drugs but instead working through their problems and analyzing the root causes of their psychological trauma. Unfortunately, years of therapy with a doctor is not cost efficient from an insurance perspective, so instead the grand tradition of psychiatry has been reduced to a happy pill dispensary. A way point between a troubled mind and the pharmacist.
But I digress, I entered college honestly thinking that I would go pre-med and major in psych. In my first year I took intro to psych, chemistry and a class called brain and behavior. Much to my horror, I found the focus of both psych courses to be neurology. Instead of learning about brain development, I was memorizing the taxonomy of a neuron and learning who was the first person to shove electric probes in a mouse's head and have it actually do something other than killing the mouse. It was an incredible let down to say the least. Moreover, in chemistry I found myself confused in lectures and bored in labs. The end result was that I was either obsessively reviewing notes and reading assignments, or sitting in a lab waiting for a solution to properly mix. In labs I would bide my time squirting liquids onto the hot plate to see them sizzle and pop. This included flammable liquids, mostly because they had the most satisfying reactions. The end result of all of this was that my grades were suffering and I had completely burnt out on my chosen collegiate course of study by the middle of the second semester of my first year.
After some personal issues, and some other unrelated problems, I ended up switching majors into a completely unrelated area of academia. Fortunately, I was much more engaged there and my grades improved markedly. In hind sight, my blunder from the very get go was a profound lack of knowledge about myself. I do not have the attention span to watch a chemical reaction slowly occur over a three hour lab. I do not have the patience to sit down and properly balance a chemical equation or memorize all the parts of the body and their Latin names. My mind requires more active thought and discussion. The discussion, and the desire to help people was what made me want to be a psychiatrist. It was the science required to get there that convinced me this was a bad idea. This is why I am not a scientist, psychiatrist or doctor. But it is why I respect the people with the mental discipline and fortitude to put up with all the years of tedium required to follow one of these three professions.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Why Teachers are Important
Recently I have become aware of a new trend, college classes on video. The idea behind this is that a small local school can save money by firing their professors and simply buying video courses taught by professors. The students still get lectures and the school saves on the cost of hiring a live person. Win win right?
The problem here is that it assumes that the sole reason people go to school is to hear lectures. In fact, people pay to go to college to learn. These two concepts get confused because, in college, most courses are taught via lecture. Thus it seems to be an easy substitute to replace professors with video. The truth is that lectures are only part of why students go to college and pay such a high premium to do so. While it is true that 100 level courses are largely lecture, text book reading and memorization based. As a student progresses into higher level courses, class sizes get smaller and training becomes much more interactive. Classic techniques such as the Socratic method, thought experiments, lab work, and many others serve to teach students to think on their feet, apply the knowledge they have learned and learn how to interact with people. To reduce education to simple video lectures and memorization for tests misses half the reason students go to college. Learning is more than simple memorization, and to reduce it to such is a disservice to students.
A good example of this appears in the work of Charles Dickens. Much to my embarrassment I can't remember which book. But it's an indictment of the pure memorization education system. Essentially a teacher asks a student what a horse is. The student replies from wrote memorization "a four footed ruminating mammal." Then the teacher points outside to a horse pulling a cart and asks the child what it is. The child doesn't know despite the fact he was just asked to define it. The reason being that despite memorizing the correct answer the kid had no practical experience with a horse, nor even knew what one looked like. In this simple anecdote Dickens showed all the short comings of relying solely on memorization to teach students. Were the lecture the student was watching a taped lecture, he would not have had that interaction with the professor. He would have continued in his ignorance despite having the correct answer to the question. In short, the child would have continued on in his ignorance.
Also, from a practical matter, college costs a ton of money. State schools now charge in excess of $20,000 a year just for a student to take classes. Private college can cost $60,000 a year. More over, the value of a college education has never been more questioned. With record unemployment after the financial melt down of 2007 and 2008, experience has become more marketable than a degree. College kids now frequently graduate hugely in debt and end up not being able to find professional level jobs. So they are forced to live at home with their parents, work low level jobs part time and barely get by. For a school to reduce the education to merely watching movies seems to further cheapen the value of the education received. It becomes much harder for a working class family to justify the cost when there is no payoff in either education or in the job market. Instead of 4 or more years invested in a future, it is four or more years and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars wasted.
For a degree to have any meaning, the student must both have learned a lot of knowledge, and know how to apply it practically in the modern world. Reducing school to filmed lectures and memorization marginalizes the latter half of this equation. Were I still a student, I would think twice before going into debt to essentially watch a series of videos and have my grade determined solely by a few online computer graded tests. You don't pay for the lecture, you pay to interact with experienced college professors who are in the upper echelons of their fields. Schools should think twice before removing professors from their educational equation, because they may just find that they will no longer have customers.
The problem here is that it assumes that the sole reason people go to school is to hear lectures. In fact, people pay to go to college to learn. These two concepts get confused because, in college, most courses are taught via lecture. Thus it seems to be an easy substitute to replace professors with video. The truth is that lectures are only part of why students go to college and pay such a high premium to do so. While it is true that 100 level courses are largely lecture, text book reading and memorization based. As a student progresses into higher level courses, class sizes get smaller and training becomes much more interactive. Classic techniques such as the Socratic method, thought experiments, lab work, and many others serve to teach students to think on their feet, apply the knowledge they have learned and learn how to interact with people. To reduce education to simple video lectures and memorization for tests misses half the reason students go to college. Learning is more than simple memorization, and to reduce it to such is a disservice to students.
A good example of this appears in the work of Charles Dickens. Much to my embarrassment I can't remember which book. But it's an indictment of the pure memorization education system. Essentially a teacher asks a student what a horse is. The student replies from wrote memorization "a four footed ruminating mammal." Then the teacher points outside to a horse pulling a cart and asks the child what it is. The child doesn't know despite the fact he was just asked to define it. The reason being that despite memorizing the correct answer the kid had no practical experience with a horse, nor even knew what one looked like. In this simple anecdote Dickens showed all the short comings of relying solely on memorization to teach students. Were the lecture the student was watching a taped lecture, he would not have had that interaction with the professor. He would have continued in his ignorance despite having the correct answer to the question. In short, the child would have continued on in his ignorance.
Also, from a practical matter, college costs a ton of money. State schools now charge in excess of $20,000 a year just for a student to take classes. Private college can cost $60,000 a year. More over, the value of a college education has never been more questioned. With record unemployment after the financial melt down of 2007 and 2008, experience has become more marketable than a degree. College kids now frequently graduate hugely in debt and end up not being able to find professional level jobs. So they are forced to live at home with their parents, work low level jobs part time and barely get by. For a school to reduce the education to merely watching movies seems to further cheapen the value of the education received. It becomes much harder for a working class family to justify the cost when there is no payoff in either education or in the job market. Instead of 4 or more years invested in a future, it is four or more years and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars wasted.
For a degree to have any meaning, the student must both have learned a lot of knowledge, and know how to apply it practically in the modern world. Reducing school to filmed lectures and memorization marginalizes the latter half of this equation. Were I still a student, I would think twice before going into debt to essentially watch a series of videos and have my grade determined solely by a few online computer graded tests. You don't pay for the lecture, you pay to interact with experienced college professors who are in the upper echelons of their fields. Schools should think twice before removing professors from their educational equation, because they may just find that they will no longer have customers.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Deifying the 50's is Incredibly Stupid
One of the most persistent obfuscations in American politics is the continued misrepresentation of the historical phenomenon that lead to the economic and social booms of the 1950's and 60's. Republicans look back on that era and laud the stable family structure, wholesome family values and relative success of the economy. Democrats look back at the social activism, the high tax rates and powerful government and rhapsodize. Both parties refer to this era for their current political purposes and appeal to our success as a nation back then as some sort of proof of concept. The problem is that both views mischaracterize the era. This makes their analogies at best unpersuasive, at worst, down right misleading.
So let us harken back to the America of the 50's. It was a time of great prosperity, at least for white America. For blacks and immigrants from other countries, it was still a very unfriendly place. The civil rights movement was in full swing though. Martin Luther King, Jr. was advocating for minority and black rights and white America was finally taking notice and allowing the underclasses the freedom to join in the prosperity of white America. But such social progress was fitful and was often times underscored by violence. Also, America was indeed prospering economically, but the reason for this has as much to do with the end of World War II than it did any virtue of the politics of the era. After all, at the end of World War II, Europe was a bombed out mess, Japan had been nuked, and the cold war between the two largest economies that were not destroyed by the war (the USA and the USSR) was just heating up. This meant that, in the western world, only the USA was left as a provider and manufacturer of goods for a rapidly rebuilding and healing Europe. Once the 60's were over and Europe and Japan were beginning to reach parity with the USA in manufacturing and business, the economy tanked. There were a variety of reasons, the 1973 oil crisis, the failure of the Bretton Woods method of monetary management; but overlooked among these reasons usually is the fact that the USA suddenly had competition from the rest of the world in manufacturing. This competition put strong downward pressure on wages. Manufacturers started to fail all over the USA, unable to compete with the new competition from abroad. It was not till the Reagan era and the Thatcher era that the old system was junked, that taxes were lowered, that capital markets were opened up, that the economy really turned around.
So now let us deal with the Republican's vision of the 50's. As I said above, they laud the 50's for its stable families, prosperity and family values. But as I point out above, this safety and stability only existed if you were white (and since most Republicans are white, it gives them a skewed perspective on events). Also worth noting was the divorce system of that era was a fault based system. You had to have a real demonstrable reason to divorce someone, not liking the person anymore just wouldn't cut the mustard. While courts would rarely force two people to stay together if they no longer wanted to, they did not make it easy for them either. The end result is that, under the veneer of the happy family and lower divorce rate, was a seedier reality. Realities like couples staying together because they couldn't afford a lawyer to gin up a proper at fault reason for them to divorce, or spousal abuse and spousal rapes going unreported because a paternalistic society tended to ignore the complaints made by women. The family may have looked happy from the outside, but the reality was often much grimmer. Regardless, holding the 50's up as some paragon of family values misses the point entirely. The society of the time was just very good at hiding its problems.
The Democrats' view of this era is equally specious. They laud the powerful unions, the high tax rates on the rich and the prosperity of the nation at that time. Presumably, they use it as a model for their current tax and spend agenda. What they ignore is that it was only because of the unique properties of that era that expensive labor, high taxes and unionization didn't bankrupt the nation. As I said above, after WWII, the USA was the only first world nation (other than the USSR) that still had a manufacturing base and healthy economy. The result was that we provided the goods that allowed Europe and Japan to rebuild. Once they had rebuilt, and our industries had to compete on the open market, many of them failed. When they failed, the confiscatory tax rates on the wealthy overly burdened the economy and slowed our recovery. The reality was then, and still is now, that high taxes, organized labor and statist policies bankrupt the nation and make our products uncompetitive on the world market. They only were able to flourish because we had no competition. A reality that no longer exists.
So, in short, let us stop harkening back to the 50's as some sort of model for modern America. Except as a cautionary tale, it has absolutely no relevance on current political and economic problems. Also, do not let yourself be convinced by references to the 50's and the ensuing arguments from analogy to it. Arguments by analogy are formal logic fallacies and the reality of the 50's renders the comparison unpersuasive (even if you accept arguments by analogy as persuasive).
So let us harken back to the America of the 50's. It was a time of great prosperity, at least for white America. For blacks and immigrants from other countries, it was still a very unfriendly place. The civil rights movement was in full swing though. Martin Luther King, Jr. was advocating for minority and black rights and white America was finally taking notice and allowing the underclasses the freedom to join in the prosperity of white America. But such social progress was fitful and was often times underscored by violence. Also, America was indeed prospering economically, but the reason for this has as much to do with the end of World War II than it did any virtue of the politics of the era. After all, at the end of World War II, Europe was a bombed out mess, Japan had been nuked, and the cold war between the two largest economies that were not destroyed by the war (the USA and the USSR) was just heating up. This meant that, in the western world, only the USA was left as a provider and manufacturer of goods for a rapidly rebuilding and healing Europe. Once the 60's were over and Europe and Japan were beginning to reach parity with the USA in manufacturing and business, the economy tanked. There were a variety of reasons, the 1973 oil crisis, the failure of the Bretton Woods method of monetary management; but overlooked among these reasons usually is the fact that the USA suddenly had competition from the rest of the world in manufacturing. This competition put strong downward pressure on wages. Manufacturers started to fail all over the USA, unable to compete with the new competition from abroad. It was not till the Reagan era and the Thatcher era that the old system was junked, that taxes were lowered, that capital markets were opened up, that the economy really turned around.
So now let us deal with the Republican's vision of the 50's. As I said above, they laud the 50's for its stable families, prosperity and family values. But as I point out above, this safety and stability only existed if you were white (and since most Republicans are white, it gives them a skewed perspective on events). Also worth noting was the divorce system of that era was a fault based system. You had to have a real demonstrable reason to divorce someone, not liking the person anymore just wouldn't cut the mustard. While courts would rarely force two people to stay together if they no longer wanted to, they did not make it easy for them either. The end result is that, under the veneer of the happy family and lower divorce rate, was a seedier reality. Realities like couples staying together because they couldn't afford a lawyer to gin up a proper at fault reason for them to divorce, or spousal abuse and spousal rapes going unreported because a paternalistic society tended to ignore the complaints made by women. The family may have looked happy from the outside, but the reality was often much grimmer. Regardless, holding the 50's up as some paragon of family values misses the point entirely. The society of the time was just very good at hiding its problems.
The Democrats' view of this era is equally specious. They laud the powerful unions, the high tax rates on the rich and the prosperity of the nation at that time. Presumably, they use it as a model for their current tax and spend agenda. What they ignore is that it was only because of the unique properties of that era that expensive labor, high taxes and unionization didn't bankrupt the nation. As I said above, after WWII, the USA was the only first world nation (other than the USSR) that still had a manufacturing base and healthy economy. The result was that we provided the goods that allowed Europe and Japan to rebuild. Once they had rebuilt, and our industries had to compete on the open market, many of them failed. When they failed, the confiscatory tax rates on the wealthy overly burdened the economy and slowed our recovery. The reality was then, and still is now, that high taxes, organized labor and statist policies bankrupt the nation and make our products uncompetitive on the world market. They only were able to flourish because we had no competition. A reality that no longer exists.
So, in short, let us stop harkening back to the 50's as some sort of model for modern America. Except as a cautionary tale, it has absolutely no relevance on current political and economic problems. Also, do not let yourself be convinced by references to the 50's and the ensuing arguments from analogy to it. Arguments by analogy are formal logic fallacies and the reality of the 50's renders the comparison unpersuasive (even if you accept arguments by analogy as persuasive).
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Thatcher, and the Beauty of Smaller Government
This week a legend in British Politics passed away. Margaret Thatcher died on April 8th from a stroke after a long decline in health that limited her public appearances in the last years of her life. Perhaps second only to Winston Churchill in modern British Politics, Mrs. Thatcher's influence and impact is unquestionable. She took office in 1979, during a time of great political unrest in Britain. Unions had taken over, the top tax rate was a confiscatory 83%, inflation had reached double digits, public expenditures were 42% of British GDP and the British government accounted for 30% of the work force. The previous two Labour governments lead By Messrs. Heath and Wilson had tipped political power so far towards the unions that the popular consensus of the time was that Britain was ungovernable.
To right the proverbial sinking ship, Mrs. Thatcher took on the unions, lowered taxes (from the above mentioned 83% to 40%), privatized loss leading government run industries and tightly controlled the monetary supply to battle inflation. Her actions likely saved Britain from bankruptcy, and certainly turned the economy around. Under her care, Britain moved from being the 6th largest world economy to 4th largest; and this during a time when most economies were expanding (in most cases, because they followed a similar small government approach).
While this is interesting from a historical perspective, it serves as a good example and a good reminder to current world governments that the path to economic expansion is well known. We may live in different times than Mrs. Thatcher governed, but there are certain undeniable parallels. First, governments have expanded markedly, so has government debt, and the entire banking system has become a ward of the various states. Unions' pay packages, benefits and pensions have grown beyond what most Americans earn in the free market. More over, those pensions are beginning to bankrupt state governments (at least here in America). Instead of raising taxes, we have resorted to deficit spending and printing money to finance the excesses of our governments. This has lead us to a period of persistent unemployment, the lowest labor participation rate since 1979 (the year Mrs. Thatcher took office) and high levels of underemployment. Meanwhile current governments are flailing around unable, or unwilling, to do what is needed to right the ship.
The modern era could well use a Margaret Thatcher. We need a charismatic leader to step in, be the adult in the room, and give our economies and politics the medicine they need. We need someone to take on the public employee unions that are bankrupting us and draining money away from infrastructure projects that would better grow our economy in the long run. We need someone to take on the tax and spend cultures that have invaded the modern first world. Someone to come in and let the citizens keep more of their paychecks to stimulate the economy with. We need someone to instill tighter fiscal policies on our various central banks so that we stop debasing our currencies and penalizing savers. We need someone to privatize the banking system again, cutting off access to the central banks' borrowing windows to investment firms (reinacting Glass-Steagall here in the US would be a good way to do this, ditto ending too big to fail). In short, we could use a dose of Thatcherism in the modern era.
Here is a clip of the Iron Lady lambasting Labour for harping on a wage gap while ignoring the increase in welfare of the poorest members of Britain.
http://youtu.be/okHGCz6xxiw
Here is a bonus quote from the Iron Lady on the profligacy of Socialist governments: "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money."
To right the proverbial sinking ship, Mrs. Thatcher took on the unions, lowered taxes (from the above mentioned 83% to 40%), privatized loss leading government run industries and tightly controlled the monetary supply to battle inflation. Her actions likely saved Britain from bankruptcy, and certainly turned the economy around. Under her care, Britain moved from being the 6th largest world economy to 4th largest; and this during a time when most economies were expanding (in most cases, because they followed a similar small government approach).
While this is interesting from a historical perspective, it serves as a good example and a good reminder to current world governments that the path to economic expansion is well known. We may live in different times than Mrs. Thatcher governed, but there are certain undeniable parallels. First, governments have expanded markedly, so has government debt, and the entire banking system has become a ward of the various states. Unions' pay packages, benefits and pensions have grown beyond what most Americans earn in the free market. More over, those pensions are beginning to bankrupt state governments (at least here in America). Instead of raising taxes, we have resorted to deficit spending and printing money to finance the excesses of our governments. This has lead us to a period of persistent unemployment, the lowest labor participation rate since 1979 (the year Mrs. Thatcher took office) and high levels of underemployment. Meanwhile current governments are flailing around unable, or unwilling, to do what is needed to right the ship.
The modern era could well use a Margaret Thatcher. We need a charismatic leader to step in, be the adult in the room, and give our economies and politics the medicine they need. We need someone to take on the public employee unions that are bankrupting us and draining money away from infrastructure projects that would better grow our economy in the long run. We need someone to take on the tax and spend cultures that have invaded the modern first world. Someone to come in and let the citizens keep more of their paychecks to stimulate the economy with. We need someone to instill tighter fiscal policies on our various central banks so that we stop debasing our currencies and penalizing savers. We need someone to privatize the banking system again, cutting off access to the central banks' borrowing windows to investment firms (reinacting Glass-Steagall here in the US would be a good way to do this, ditto ending too big to fail). In short, we could use a dose of Thatcherism in the modern era.
Here is a clip of the Iron Lady lambasting Labour for harping on a wage gap while ignoring the increase in welfare of the poorest members of Britain.
http://youtu.be/okHGCz6xxiw
Here is a bonus quote from the Iron Lady on the profligacy of Socialist governments: "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money."
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Modern Feudalism
One of the advantages of modern society is the apparent freedom that we all enjoy. We can move freely between states (or provinces, depending on where you live) and relatively freely between countries. We can even move to another country, buy property and permanently immigrate there (following the laws of both countries governing such movements). We can work in whatever profession we prefer and spend our money as we see fit. In many ways we live in a very fortunate time.
In political theory arenas, our current system is called capitalism. The belief that the free flow of capital and labor lead to the best possible allocation of resources. In order to achieve this free flow of labor and capital we allow for private ownership of property. It is, however, important to remember that this was not always the case. The idea of private ownership of property and capital is a relatively new one. Capitalism, our modern system, grew out of the feudal system.
In the dark ages, all land was owned by the liege lord, who ruled through what was believed to be a divine right. The king was the chosen of god, and owned all property. He then divided up his lands among his subordinates, his lords, to rule the various parts of his kingdoms. These lords had vassals, and the vassals ran local towns. The common folk were viewed as being tied to the land they were born in, and worked for their own sustenance and the sustenance of their liege lords. Free flow of labor was not allowed, and the liege lord had absolute power over his particular fiefdom. The people provided labor and goods to the lord, the lord then provided for military and police protections to the citizens.
As society developed, professions did as well. Farming communities began specializing their labor to better use their time. Millers, coopers, black smiths and many other professions developed and improved society. As the professions developed and formed guilds, and these guilds started controlling larger and larger amounts of money. They became a second class that existed between the lords and the farmers. A middle class of professionals who lived in cities and worked for money. As this portion of the economy grew, the traditional lords, who were dependent on the money of the middle class and the population of the lower class to maintain its military and police powers, found themselves subordinate to the middle class. This lead to all sorts of class struggles. The end result was the old feudal system gave way to representative democracy, where the rulers who controlled the military and police powers of the state, were controlled by elected officials beholden to the general public.
The one constant between feudal times and current ones is the means by which the state, or liege lords, collected their due of the fruits of the labors of the general population. This is through taxes. In feudal times, farmers gave part of their crops to the lord and, in war times, they were expected to show up and be armed as part of the levies that defended the kingdom. Once the middle class developed, they paid their lord in the form of a percentage of profits, and rent on the land they were using for their businesses (all lands being owned by their liege lord). In the modern era, we pay our governments a portion of our salaries, property taxes and a variety of other taxes that have been dreamed up over the intervening years. Also, in times of war, people may still be "drafted" into the military to help defend their country and its interests.
So, now that we have gotten the history lesson out of the way, you may be wondering what the point of this article is. My point is to show how little has actually changed in the ensuing years. During the feudal era, the populace was kept in line and tied to the land by the liege lord. In the modern era, we are no longer tied to a particular state, but we are still controlled by whatever state we choose to live in. We may now have a say in government by being allowed to vote on who represents us. But given the cost and complexity of the modern political process, these contests are fought between professional candidates backed by entrenched political parties. We get two, maybe three, choices for any office, all of whom are controlled by their respective political parties. The parties are themselves heavily invested in the system that gives them power, that lets them exert control on the general populace. So while we can steer government to some degree, our actual power to change the system is quite small. More over, our current government still has the ability to call us into serve the military through the general draft. The draft is, after all, not so different from calling in the feudal levies. Worse, the modern government of a first world nation has unprecedented powers in running the lives of its populace. Feudal lords did not run schools or control the curriculum of what was taught to their subjects. The only indoctrination was done by the church, and then only on the sabbath. They couldn't monitor their subjects with a networked system of cameras in feudal times either. The tools by which government exerts control over us now were unheard of and unimagined during the feudal era. The one key difference, and it is a large difference, is that these powers are held in check by our ability to vote public officials out of office. This helps to avoid the worst abuses that such a system could be used for. A power not enjoyed by those who lived in the feudal era. It still does not change the fact that our modern, enlightened. governments exert much greater control over all aspects of our lives than the feudal one did on its subjects.
This is why I call this article modern feudalism. In the modern era we are still viewed by our governments as a mere source of revenue. We are subject to an unprecedented amount of taxes. Our hopes and dreams are only important to our liege lords on election day. Our powers too weak and disparate to enact true change and remove entrenched interests from the reins of power. We may have inalienable rights, but we have many less freedoms now than we did back then. The one key difference is that we have rights now. There are political ramifications for intruding on them. So the worst abuses of the populace of the feudal era (and the sexual liberties that the authorities took with their subjects) are no longer problems. Instead we live in a whole new world of government monitoring and government control of our actions. So the liberties that the government does take, it does so on a much larger scale. This is modern feudalism.
In political theory arenas, our current system is called capitalism. The belief that the free flow of capital and labor lead to the best possible allocation of resources. In order to achieve this free flow of labor and capital we allow for private ownership of property. It is, however, important to remember that this was not always the case. The idea of private ownership of property and capital is a relatively new one. Capitalism, our modern system, grew out of the feudal system.
In the dark ages, all land was owned by the liege lord, who ruled through what was believed to be a divine right. The king was the chosen of god, and owned all property. He then divided up his lands among his subordinates, his lords, to rule the various parts of his kingdoms. These lords had vassals, and the vassals ran local towns. The common folk were viewed as being tied to the land they were born in, and worked for their own sustenance and the sustenance of their liege lords. Free flow of labor was not allowed, and the liege lord had absolute power over his particular fiefdom. The people provided labor and goods to the lord, the lord then provided for military and police protections to the citizens.
As society developed, professions did as well. Farming communities began specializing their labor to better use their time. Millers, coopers, black smiths and many other professions developed and improved society. As the professions developed and formed guilds, and these guilds started controlling larger and larger amounts of money. They became a second class that existed between the lords and the farmers. A middle class of professionals who lived in cities and worked for money. As this portion of the economy grew, the traditional lords, who were dependent on the money of the middle class and the population of the lower class to maintain its military and police powers, found themselves subordinate to the middle class. This lead to all sorts of class struggles. The end result was the old feudal system gave way to representative democracy, where the rulers who controlled the military and police powers of the state, were controlled by elected officials beholden to the general public.
The one constant between feudal times and current ones is the means by which the state, or liege lords, collected their due of the fruits of the labors of the general population. This is through taxes. In feudal times, farmers gave part of their crops to the lord and, in war times, they were expected to show up and be armed as part of the levies that defended the kingdom. Once the middle class developed, they paid their lord in the form of a percentage of profits, and rent on the land they were using for their businesses (all lands being owned by their liege lord). In the modern era, we pay our governments a portion of our salaries, property taxes and a variety of other taxes that have been dreamed up over the intervening years. Also, in times of war, people may still be "drafted" into the military to help defend their country and its interests.
So, now that we have gotten the history lesson out of the way, you may be wondering what the point of this article is. My point is to show how little has actually changed in the ensuing years. During the feudal era, the populace was kept in line and tied to the land by the liege lord. In the modern era, we are no longer tied to a particular state, but we are still controlled by whatever state we choose to live in. We may now have a say in government by being allowed to vote on who represents us. But given the cost and complexity of the modern political process, these contests are fought between professional candidates backed by entrenched political parties. We get two, maybe three, choices for any office, all of whom are controlled by their respective political parties. The parties are themselves heavily invested in the system that gives them power, that lets them exert control on the general populace. So while we can steer government to some degree, our actual power to change the system is quite small. More over, our current government still has the ability to call us into serve the military through the general draft. The draft is, after all, not so different from calling in the feudal levies. Worse, the modern government of a first world nation has unprecedented powers in running the lives of its populace. Feudal lords did not run schools or control the curriculum of what was taught to their subjects. The only indoctrination was done by the church, and then only on the sabbath. They couldn't monitor their subjects with a networked system of cameras in feudal times either. The tools by which government exerts control over us now were unheard of and unimagined during the feudal era. The one key difference, and it is a large difference, is that these powers are held in check by our ability to vote public officials out of office. This helps to avoid the worst abuses that such a system could be used for. A power not enjoyed by those who lived in the feudal era. It still does not change the fact that our modern, enlightened. governments exert much greater control over all aspects of our lives than the feudal one did on its subjects.
This is why I call this article modern feudalism. In the modern era we are still viewed by our governments as a mere source of revenue. We are subject to an unprecedented amount of taxes. Our hopes and dreams are only important to our liege lords on election day. Our powers too weak and disparate to enact true change and remove entrenched interests from the reins of power. We may have inalienable rights, but we have many less freedoms now than we did back then. The one key difference is that we have rights now. There are political ramifications for intruding on them. So the worst abuses of the populace of the feudal era (and the sexual liberties that the authorities took with their subjects) are no longer problems. Instead we live in a whole new world of government monitoring and government control of our actions. So the liberties that the government does take, it does so on a much larger scale. This is modern feudalism.
Friday, March 8, 2013
The Problem With Data
In the modern world, where much of all human interaction is stored and recorded in some way on computers, data about every aspect of our lives is available for public consumption in ways that, even a generation ago, we never thought was possible. This creates problems, first for society, and second, for the individual. For society, because there is no consensus on what is the proper use for this data (morally and ethically speaking), and no consensus over what, if any, laws we should enact to govern the use of this data. For the individual, because he or she does not always know, or is aware of, what data is being shared about themselves publicly and what that data is being used for. The end result has been that many people are surprised to learn what advertisers, or even employers, are able to find out about them through data mining.
For a practical discussion of this, let's look at Facebook. Facebook, for those who have spent the last decade in an arctic wilderness devoid of internet accessibility, is a social web site where people create pages about themselves and their lives and share them with their friends. At first this started as just a social networking site. As the company behind it grew, it started adding advertising, games, marketing, and other features to capitalize on its user base. Today Facebook data mines all the posts and pictures people put on it to bombard them with targeted advertising. It is so good that based on benign information you share, it can tell very intimate things about you. For example this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/.
More alarmingly, employers and health insurance providers have begun buying your purchasing habits from credit card companies and major retailers in order to monitor whether or not you are living a healthy lifestyle. They believe this is a necessary step in keeping medical costs down and keeping people healthy and productive. It also gives them the ability to target wellness programs to benefit both themselves and, presumably, the employees. The counter argument is that this breaks the boundary between one's personal and professional lives and is a violation of an employee's privacy. See this article: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-your-company-watching-your-weight-2013-02-25.
But the reality is, based on available information, employers are able to learn a lot more about you than previous generations. There are also some fairly significant legal issues that go along with adopting such policies, and both employers and employees should be wary of trodding on the rights of people protected by various laws (think Americans with Disabilities Act, hostile work place and discrimination suits).
The end result is that we already have to worry about embarrassing Facebook posts or pictures keeping people from getting jobs, employers targeting employees for health counseling based on purchasing habits, or even employers making adverse employment decision about people based on data mining. The future could get even less private with employers monitoring all aspects of employees' lives to help them be more productive employees. If you hate a boss who micromanages your work, how will you feel when he or she micromanages your personal life, purchasing decisions and even dietary choices? The result of unregulated data usage could very well lead to just such a result. How long before employers can monitor your every move through your cell phone? It already logs your position with GPS and tower triangulation, and your activity based on accelerometers and G-meters.
The end result is that, as technology matures and innovations are made, we as a country (or as a world really) need to create clear legal frameworks for the use of this new world of freely available data. If a society decides that the division between public and private, professional and social, are divisions that should be nurtured, it will need to create a regulatory structure that fosters such results. Otherwise, the future of data mining could well lead to a pseudo Orwellian future where big brother and big employers monitor your every move. Until such framework exists, it's a good idea to be as careful as you can be about what data you are sharing.
For a practical discussion of this, let's look at Facebook. Facebook, for those who have spent the last decade in an arctic wilderness devoid of internet accessibility, is a social web site where people create pages about themselves and their lives and share them with their friends. At first this started as just a social networking site. As the company behind it grew, it started adding advertising, games, marketing, and other features to capitalize on its user base. Today Facebook data mines all the posts and pictures people put on it to bombard them with targeted advertising. It is so good that based on benign information you share, it can tell very intimate things about you. For example this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/.
More alarmingly, employers and health insurance providers have begun buying your purchasing habits from credit card companies and major retailers in order to monitor whether or not you are living a healthy lifestyle. They believe this is a necessary step in keeping medical costs down and keeping people healthy and productive. It also gives them the ability to target wellness programs to benefit both themselves and, presumably, the employees. The counter argument is that this breaks the boundary between one's personal and professional lives and is a violation of an employee's privacy. See this article: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-your-company-watching-your-weight-2013-02-25.
But the reality is, based on available information, employers are able to learn a lot more about you than previous generations. There are also some fairly significant legal issues that go along with adopting such policies, and both employers and employees should be wary of trodding on the rights of people protected by various laws (think Americans with Disabilities Act, hostile work place and discrimination suits).
The end result is that we already have to worry about embarrassing Facebook posts or pictures keeping people from getting jobs, employers targeting employees for health counseling based on purchasing habits, or even employers making adverse employment decision about people based on data mining. The future could get even less private with employers monitoring all aspects of employees' lives to help them be more productive employees. If you hate a boss who micromanages your work, how will you feel when he or she micromanages your personal life, purchasing decisions and even dietary choices? The result of unregulated data usage could very well lead to just such a result. How long before employers can monitor your every move through your cell phone? It already logs your position with GPS and tower triangulation, and your activity based on accelerometers and G-meters.
The end result is that, as technology matures and innovations are made, we as a country (or as a world really) need to create clear legal frameworks for the use of this new world of freely available data. If a society decides that the division between public and private, professional and social, are divisions that should be nurtured, it will need to create a regulatory structure that fosters such results. Otherwise, the future of data mining could well lead to a pseudo Orwellian future where big brother and big employers monitor your every move. Until such framework exists, it's a good idea to be as careful as you can be about what data you are sharing.
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