Currency War

For the past few years the US and other nations have accused China of currency manipulation. What they are talking about is China buying US government debt (aka buying dollars) to prop up the value of the dollar and keep their currencies deflated. How does this work? When governments' buy US debt they do it in dollars. Since only the US government may print dollars, these governments must buy dollars with their own currency. This decreases the supply of dollars in global circulation and increases the amount of their currency in circulation. When demand increases and supply decreases, costs go up. In this case it is the cost of buying that currency, i.e. the exchange rate. Conversely, the value of the country's own currency (the currency used to buy dollars) decreases.

Why is this a problem? When a country devalues its own currency it makes its products relatively less expensive in foreign markets because it now costs fewer dollars to reach the purchase price in the foreign currency. This makes the foreign goods more attractive to the consumers in those countries. It instantly makes these foreign goods and services more competitive. Unfortunately, this also means that the citizens purchasing power of US made goods decreases, since their earnings are in the now devalued currency. So a currency manipulator lowers the purchasing power of its own citizens, but promotes local business and employment over foreign ones. Devaluing currency leads to inflation as foreign goods' values go up and local industries see they can raise prices without losing competitiveness with their foreign rivals. This is why economists refer to inflation as a hidden tax. Governments' intentionally lowering the purchasing power of their own citizens to promote local business and job growth is very similar to taxing citizens and giving that money to local businesses. The only difference is that in the case of currency manipulation you get the added benefit of hurting foreign competitors.

Sounds like a great way to promote local industry then doesn't it? That is why countries like China find it so attractive. Unfortunately, there is one drawback, it is exceedingly obvious when a country starts playing with its monetary supply to manipulate its exchange rates. The end result is that other countries will take retaliatory measures. This leads to a currency value war. Before international markets for currencies it was more common to accomplish these tasks by taxing foreign goods, so called tariffs. However, since the Great Depression tariffs are deeply unpopular among economists because of their role in worsening the Great Depression. The damage that was sparked by the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which caused our trading partners to pass retaliatory tariffs, crippled international trade. This is also why "free trade" deals have become so popular. We know the damage a trade war can do.

The problem is, with the global economy stagnating, it is becoming exceedingly popular for countries to manipulate their currencies to gain an advantage over their trading partners. This is leading to retaliatory measures. Example: China manipulates its currency, we print a ton of money swamping world markets with dollars. Second Example: Japan, a country with a relatively stable and strong currency has seen the value of their money increase, incentivising international investors to buy their currency, creating a self reinforcing spiral where the value of the currency keeps going up. This then causes deflation in Japan and leads to its economic stagnation (not the only reason for Japan's two decades of economic stagnation). Japan has now pledged to devalue their currency in response to regain their competitive edge.

Some Opinion pieces have recently asked if a global currency war is on the horizon. I would argue we have been in the midst of one since the beginning of the great recession of 2007 and 2008. This is likely also a factor in why the global economy is stagnating. Like Smoot Hawley in 1930, modern currency manipulation is harming international trade and competitiveness. It is too easy for a government to print money to pay its bills instead of cutting its budgets and harming its entitlements in economic downturns. That it acts as an invisible tax on its citizens doesn't bother politicians because the average citizen doesn't realize it. Because they don't have to pay their governments anything, they don't know they have any reason to complain. Meanwhile the damage to the international economy continues unabated.

More Gun Control Nonsense

So today we hear from the President announcing the results of his colloquium on gun control. He invokes the Newtown shooting and many others as justification for the curtailment of civil liberties involving guns. He essentially said, "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" and proposed a series of gun control measures. It was pure appeal to emotion and not an appeal to reason. It is the sort of crap that the media and gun control liberals eat up, but infuriates opposition such as the NRA and its members. And while preventing another mass shooting tragedy is a laudable goal, I am not convinced that any of the president's proposals accomplish this. As I said earlier when I critiqued the Feinstein plan, blanket bans are not effective. The reason sounds pithy, but isn't. Namely, that criminals don't follow the laws and don't buy guns legally. Schools, movie theaters, malls and the like are targeted by psychopaths because they are typically "gun free" zones full of easy targets. Unless you do something to better protect these soft targets, you will see more mass shootings.

So what are the president's proposals you ask? They are as follows (note, since he just announced this, not all the details are known at this point):

Some of President Obama's Proposals • Requiring background checks for all gun buyers [needs congressional approval] • Ban certain semiautomatic rifles [needs congressional approval] • Require a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines [needs congressional approval] • Prohibit manufacturing, importation, possession and sale of armor-piercing bullets [needs congressional approval] • New gun trafficking laws with serious penalties [needs congressional approval] • Provide incentives for police departments to hire officers for schools and mental-health counselors [Something the NRA would likely support as it has called for armed guards in every school] • Require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations • Direct the Center for Disease Control to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence • Asking Congress to provide $10 million for the CDC to conduct research on gun violence • Launch a national responsible gun ownership program • Nominating B. Todd Jones to be permanent director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [needs Senate confirmation; he is currently acting director] Source: Wall Street Journal So let’s start from the top. Background checks. This proposal is not that bad honestly. If the goal is to get guns out of the hands of psychopaths, then doing some rudimentary background checks to make sure the person trying to buy a gun is not, in fact, a psychopath makes sense. My fear here is implementation. What will the government be monitoring, who will be black listed from buying guns? There is potential here for great abuse depending on how narrowly the government defines the category of people who can and cannot buy guns legally. Next, the ban on certain weapons. I have dealt with this before in the Feinstein bill. Banning guns based on their appearance is silly. It is one thing if these weapons were somehow more effective than standard hunting rifles, but they aren't. All guns are made for one purpose, shooting bullets. While they remain capable of doing this, they are deadly. But then, that's the purpose of a gun. If they fired NERF foam darts, they would be ineffective at their primary goals of hunting, home and personal protection. This is made even more laughable by the following ban on armor piecing rounds, bullets that are ACTUALLY more dangerous. Ten round limit on magazines. This also seems stupid to me. What exactly is the criterion that makes 11 bullets too deadly but 10 OK? The answer? There is none. The purpose is to make it hard for people to shoot a ton of rounds before having to stop and reload. Unfortunately, as recent tragedies have shown, people going on rampages carry multiple magazines, multiple weapons and sometimes (in the case of the CO shooter) bombs as well as guns (though his bombs were used to booby trap his apartment and not in his mass killing spree). So all this ban accomplishes is (assuming the offending clip sizes magically disappear if/when the ban is implemented) making psychopaths carry multiple clips or multiple weapons (things they already do anyway). Amor piercing bullet ban. This makes some sense. While victims of mass shootings typically are not wearing bullet proof vests when they are attacked, the police who respond to the shootings usually are. And while I have no illusions that this will stop the next tragedy from unfolding (because, as I said, victims don’t wear bullet proof clothing) it might help protect law enforcement. Moreover, it is a much harder argument to make that you need full metal jacket armor piercing rounds to hunt with. Possibly for home defense, if you assume someone invading your home will have the foresight to wear a vest… But still, highly unlikely that there is a legitimate reason to pack armor piercing rounds. As I said earlier, this provision is most interesting to me because it belies the idea that certain guns are more deadly than others. Gun trafficking laws. According to the press conference led by Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama, this is aimed at stiffening the penalties on people who buy guns legitimately in order to sell them to criminals. This, when coupled with the federal mandate to track weapons recovered in criminal investigations, seems like solid attempt at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. The problem here is that we have no details on how this will be accomplished. There is great potential here for infractions to civil liberties and constitutional rights. I will reserve judgment on this until I know more details. Lastly, the incentives to hire more officers, money for the CDC to conduct studies on how to curb gun violence and programs to sponsor national responsible gun ownership. These programs could well be useful, or they could be a big pile of pork barrel spending with no purpose. It really depends on the details of how the President and Vice President plan on implementing these programs. So I will reserve judgment here as well. (Note, I am ignoring the aspect of asking congress to confirm a head to the ATF. Confirmation processes are complex and I know nothing about the person nominated. So I will leave it alone) So where does this leave us? With a whole lot of questions that remain unanswered. I remain skeptical of the assault weapons ban, and I remain fearful of the potential to curtail civil liberties contained in these proposals. The devil, as they say, is in the details. Details we don’t have yet.

Declining Birthrate Babble

One topic that keeps rearing its ugly head in the news is that of declining birth rates in Europe and the USA. The concern in these articles always seems to be economic. Essentially, the concern is that the USA and Europe will not be able to support their welfare states without enough new citizens being born. More over without new consumers, who will buy the products of the future? This annoys me on many levels. The rest of this post will be about why this annoys me.

Firstly, the complaint that the first world won't be able to support its welfare state if not enough new workers are born seems to let the cat out of the bag that the welfare state is really just a self perpetuating ponzi scheme. For those who are unaware, ponzi schemes are fraudulent investment plans that pay returns or interest with investors' own money or the investment principal of others. Social Security is a government program started during the great depressing designed to stave off the effects of poverty on the elderly. It is funded (now partially, but originally the intent was total funding) through a payroll tax on all earners. The money is then entrusted to the Social Security Trust Fund which, when revenues exceed expenditures, invests the money in government bonds. So, it is a fund run by the government that pays returns or interest out of investors' own money. I.E. a ponzi scheme. That any interest paid into the fund is off government bonds whose interest is also paid out of general government revenue, i.e. tax revenue, i.e. investors' (tax payers') money.

Second, the complaint implies that the only reason the government cares about their population not reproducing is that it will lower future tax revenue that it can use to buy votes from the elderly. It sounds like they are saying: "How can we be masters of the universe when our subjects choose extinction over living under our rules?" Never mind that it implies a deep level of dissatisfaction with the modern first world dystopia that we (first worlders who apparently don't want to reproduce) all live in. Never mind that it implies that society has made it too big a pain in the ass to have kids. And never mind that it implies a deep seated pessimism about the world's future. No, lets worry about the fact that our bloated government won't have a new set of slave labor to exploit and support the festering corpse that is first world government.

If government was really concerned about people reproducing it would provide government funded daycare so that working couples wouldn't be bankrupted with childcare costs. But no, instead we waste hundreds of billions of dollars supporting unproductive members of society with programs like social security and welfare. At least in Europe they allow for paternity care, time off and child tax credits/stipends so working people can have families if they want them. Though it is important to point out that birth rates are even lower in Europe than they are in the USA. In the USA though, we do nothing to support working parents and we wonder why people are opting not become parents. Once upon a time it was possible for a middle class family to live on one income so that one parent could stay home and raise children. But thanks to global competition this is no longer possible. How do you pay a living first world wage and benefits to a blue collar worker in the USA and not get killed in the marketplace by companies using third world forced labor in sweatshop conditions? The answer is you can't. So instead we have had 50 years of downward pressure on wages for the middle class. We like to blame "corporations" but the reality is that consumers won't support non-competitively priced products or the companies that make them. It's so bad that "fair trade" products are viewed as a gimmick. If "made in the USA" (or other first world country) didn't imply high prices, low quality and bad products, maybe we could still support a family of 4 or more on one income.

So the next time the news or some government think tank starts complaining about the falling US birthrate, note the resounding silence on the subject of what to do about it. Because what that means is that the forces that be are out of ideas and trying to simply guilt people into reproducing. Just another solid idea from our intellectually bankrupt leaders.

The Blindness of Nationalism

One thing that has bothered me for a while is our blind nationalism. Don't get me wrong, I think pride in our country and the good that we have achieved as a nation is a good thing. I do think however that our pride often blinds us to our many faults and leads to a complacency towards improving our country. It is when pride is coupled with our ignorance and unwillingness to objectively evaluate how we can improve that I think it becomes pernicious and actively works against us.

What do I mean? In politics it is a common rallying cry that America is "the greatest country in the world!" What is not said here is the basis on which this judgment is made. If we look at our country objectively, we are the largest single economic and military power in the world. But this is only true if we look at things in a vacuum on a country level. We as a nation are a collection of 50 states, the European Union is a collection of countries. Not so different. Yet the EU has a larger GDP than the USA. So are such claims really based on our economy?

Another area where we are not leading the world is in education. While we spend a large amount of money per pupil, our educational outcomes are below much of the rest of the first world, and even some members of the developing world. I will spare you all a recitation of the depressing facts, but suffice it to say, our claims of greatness are not based on our claims of educational superiority.

So what about our military strength? While we by far and away spend more money than any other country (we are first at $711 billion annually, China is second at $143 billion), we do not have the largest number of active military members (China has 2.3 million active to our 1.45 million). But here a solid argument can be made that we are the foremost military power on the planet today because we spend the most money on it.

But here is the crux of the issue, I do not think this sort of analysis is what is going on. After all, how many people would really agree that military strength is the sole basis on which to judge greatness? How many politicians? How many Republicans and how many Democrats? Yet they all make such claims around election time.

Instead, I suggest the claim is one to nationalism. A rallying cry to political forces that appeals to human needs beneath reason. After all, much of America will have trouble finding all the countries in the Group of 20 on a map. Yet ask any of these people which is the greatest country in the world, and odds are they will say the USA. When politicians ask it during a stump speech, people will chant it over and over again. Instead this is an appeal to people who WANT to believe this is true, that they are a part of something that is great. Unfortunately, politicians use this as a way to drum up support without their base thinking critically at that politician's record in office. When used as a political tool, it is an appeal to unreason.

This is where it gets pernicious. For in appealing not to political philosophy, track record, or even the candidate's own competence, but to blind nationalism, we skew national policy. Instead of shoring up our failing infrastructure, we are spending more on our military. Instead of simplifying the tax code we are waging class wars as a cover for raising taxes. Instead of shrinking our bloated government and focusing on necessary areas for government action, Washington has become a vehicle for political patronage. And while this is not solely a function of our nationalism, I think a little less knee jerk nationalism and a little more self knowledge would go a long way towards correcting many of the ills that plague our nation.

Gun Control i.e. The Illusion of Safety

In a post Connecticut tragedy America, the left has decided the best thing to do to prevent another tragedy is to begin debating new gun control laws. As I stated in a previous post, this seems like a no brainer, right until you actually think about it. In my previous post I viewed gun control generally, but now that some time has passed we can evaluate more closely what has actually come up for debate. Sen. Feinstein has pledged to introduce legislation in January that essentially revives the old assault weapons ban.

Specificly, Sen. Feinstein has decided to:


"Following is a summary of the 2013 legislation:

• Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
• 120 specifically-named firearms
• Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
• Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds
• Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
• Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test
• Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test
• Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans
• Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds. 
• Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
• Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment
• Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes and
• Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons
• Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
• Background check of owner and any transferee;
• Type and serial number of the firearm;
• Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
• Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
• Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration"

Source: http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/assault-weapons

First, and most obviously, even if this is effective, it will not prevent the next tragedy. As many have pointed out, the Connecticut shooter procured his guns from his mother, a legal gun owner, after killing her. So, assuming this was in effect before the Connecticut killing, and was effective, all that would have happened is that the killer would have used different guns. Maybe (see more below). Not one life would have been spared as a result.

Secondly, how does addressing bayonet mounts, bullet buttons and thumbhole stocks make us safer as a nation? In no mass shooting that I am aware of has anyone ever been bayoneted to death. Gunman use the most deadly feature of a gun to kill people, namely the GUN part. Since this does not address the access to the gun part, this seems just plain stupid (i.e. because bans an assault weapons are just bans on cosmetic features and specific makes, not on access to rifles in general). But then I am no gun expert, so maybe someone can chime in and tell me how thumbhole stocks make guns more deadly?

Thirdly, grandfathering in old weapons just means that there is a huge supply of these supposedly extra deadly weapons available for psychopaths to procure. If the purpose of this is to make these specially deadly guns harder for psychos to get, how does grandfathering in all the currently held ones accomplish this goal? Similarly, adding a background check before transfer sounds good, until you realizes this gives people a way to sell assault weapons legally. How does enshrining a means of circumventing the law make it more effective? Again, the Connecticut shooter did not procure his guns legally, he killed his mother to get them and she was a legal owner. I have no doubt that she would have passed a background check.

So what can we conclude from this? That it will be completely ineffective. It's only purpose is so that law makers can tell their constituencies that they "did something", even if that something is stupid. Has there been any mention of strengthening our public mental health system? Nope. That would take money, effort, careful planning and intelligence, things in terribly short supply in Washington. I wish I could say I was surprised.

Connecticut Tragedy and Mental Illness

Today the second worst mass school killing in American history occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 27 people where killed, 20 of them children. Before I continue with my discussion of mental illness and this tragedy, I want to extend my heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families. Mere words will never be enough for those who have experienced first hand such loss, and I fear nothing that occurs in the aftermath will make the grieving any easier.

For those unaware, a 20 year old entered the school, armed with two pistols and committed mass murder. No motive is as yet found for his actions. What is known is that this man was the child of one of the teachers at the school. He killed this person, his mother, and himself during his rampage. Whether his mother was the target or not is unknown.

Since this tragedy happened, there has been a lot of focus on renewing the debate over gun control. In many ways this makes sense. So many senseless tragedies have occurred thanks to a madman armed with guns. Arguably, if these people did not have access to such weapons, they could not have killed so many people. Or so that line of reasoning goes.

Unfortunately, I believe this misses the most important aspect of gun violence, namely the person behind the murders. What I mean is that gun violence requires two things, a gun and a mad person to wield it. We focus on the guns because they are an easy target and obvious. Many believe that if we get rid of guns, the violence ends, or at least becomes less severe. This conclusion however, does not follow. If guns were the only means of committing mass murder, this might well follow. But they are not. One need think only of the middle east, where improvised explosives, often made from common household items, are used frequently to kill large numbers of people. Or, in China, where guns are less common, there have been a rash of school killings. They were committed by madmen wielding knives, cleavers and hatchets. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/world/asia/13china.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& . Another such tragedy occurred in Wyoming, where a son killed his father in the middle of a school with a compound bow. http://news.yahoo.com/man-killed-father-wyoming-bow-arrow-attack-185326288.html . The point here is that violence can take many forms, and mass murders have occurred throughout history without the aid of guns. Guns may make things easier, but they are hardly the only means

So that leaves us to focus on the other half of the equation, the madman wielding the weapons intent on killing. Worth noting here, I use the term mad traditionally, meaning not sane. For can we truly doubt that a person capable of killing innocents and children is insane? Regardless, it is the person who wields the gun, blade, explosive, compound bow, or what have you, that we should focus on. For in learning about the people behind these tragedies, by finding what connects them, seeing the patterns of behavior that occur, can we find a way to truly prevent another mass killing from happening. What sort of ailments of the mind, twists of thought or other motivations lead to deciding to kill? And what can we do to nip them in the bud, before they flower into a terrible tragedy?

The first thing we need to do as a society is refocus on mental health and therapy. Mental illness is too often demonized and swept under the carpet. People with problems are viewed as inconvenient and ignored, allowed to slip through the cracks, until they pick a terrible means of bringing attention to themselves. Buddhist monks in Tibet immolate themselves as a means of protest against their oppressors. Madmen, it seems, choose to take quite a few more people with them. How much tragedy could we avert if these people had therapists who listened to them, helped them through the hard times, and had the freedom to restrain them should the need present itself. Unfortunately, too few people have access to a therapist; hell, many do not even have a familial safety net to go to for help with mental illness. More over, when people do go to see therapists, they are fed a melange of uppers, downers and antipsychotics. Rarely do they get actual therapy.

The reason why therapy has gone by the wayside is, surprisingly, insurance. It is much cheaper to meet with a therapist once or twice a year to adjust brain meds than it is to meet a therapist with a sympathetic ear once or twice a week to talk through your problems. Insurance, as a means of cost savings, have dictated this change. It is not a change for the better. While there is clinical evidence to suggest that monkeying around with people's brain chemistry can help alleviate the symptoms of mental illness, we know surprisingly little about the long term effects of using such medications. We know even less about how lifelong usage affects brain development. While I do not doubt that such medications can be helpful, I think focusing solely on them is a mistake. More over, I believe that their use should be a last resort, not a first. Our focus on cost is leading to, what I consider, substandard care, and the people who suffer are the mentally ill and their families.

Secondly, we as a society need to recognize that mental illness is far more prevalent than we have been led to believe. Most of these illnesses are benign. The alcoholic who is actually self medicating for depression, the kid who acts up in class due to ADD/ADHD, the social misfit with autism spectrum disorder, or the former honor role student who gets weird, is ostracized and then drops out of school (i.e. schizophrenia). Most of these people never do anything more drastic than engage in self destruction; though self destruction, like the Buddhist monks who self immolate, is often a call to action should anyone be listening. It is the rare person who follows their illness down the road to mass murder. But this does not change the prevalence of the underlying disorders.

So, knowing that these disorders are prevalent, we need to take greater steps as a society to safeguard ourselves from violence. After Columbine, most school districts enacted policies or legislation to make access to schools much more difficult for outsiders. Some schools going even so far as to install permanent security details and metal detectors. While I am not so sure that putting schools on lock down is necessarily the best solution, I think we need to study ways to make things safer. So the next time a madman walks into a school wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying multiple fire arms, that there is someone there to respond quickly and end the threat before the innocent suffer.

In Sandy Hook a 20 year old walked into the school, killed 27 people, 20 of them children, one of the adults was his mother. He was a former honor role student in his high school who dropped out and disappeared from society until he committed this heinous act. This mirrors what happened in Virginia Tech and many other mass killings. Read through a list of historical school shootings and you will notice that some patterns emerge. We should learn from this and do more as a society, not just in making weapons harder for madmen to get, but also in helping these troubled people before they choose to do something so heinous. For further reading, here is an ABC News story listing such tragedies: http://abcnews.go.com/US/mass-school-shootings-history/story?id=17975571#.UMwI1azhd8E . And once again, my condolences to the victims of today's tragedy, their families, and the victims of the many other historical mass killings.

Wrong Opinions

One of my pet peeves is the belief that there are no wrong opinions. This usually comes up when someone has said something stupid, been argued into a corner, and responds "Well, this is just my opinion... opinions can't be wrong". What the person is saying (and let's call this person Stator) is that they are expressing their own world view about a subject, and matters of taste are subjective. Thus, just because you don't agree, and hold a different subjective opinion, doesn't change the fact that this person holds a different subjective opinion.

Here's an example: My favorite color is yellow. Just because someone else likes blue doesn't change the fact that I prefer yellow. You can argue all you want about the cool aspects of the color blue, but I will continue to like the happy, warm glow of a bright yellow.

Strictly speaking, this is an opinion, and it can't be wrong unless I am lying to you about my love of yellow (which is entirely possible). But this is not really what annoys me. What annoys me is when people take it a step further. When someone says (pick a pop music singer, I will call this person Pop Princess): "Pop Princess is the greatest musician in the whole world!" What they mean is that they like this musician the most of any musician they have heard up till that point. What they are actually saying is that in the set of all people who can be referred to as musicians, this person is the best. This is an entirely different statement, and you can make many valid arguments that this is not in fact the case. This is when the person usually says that it is just their opinion and therefor can't be wrong.

Why is the latter statement different you ask? Because instead of being about the person making the statement (i.e. that THEY like Pop Princess) they are saying that she is the best musician. This statement can be evaluated. First we must figure out what the stator meant when he/she said "best" and what that person meant by "musician". If we can know these two facts we can start to evaluate a set of likely candidates for being better.

Why establish a definition of "best"? Because otherwise you will be talking past each other. If Stator is using the term to mean most prolific and you are using the term to mean most talented, then you could both be right, and still be arguing with each other because you don't know the other person means something else. But once this is established, it narrows the set of musicians down to a set property or properties that can be discussed productively.

This is also why defining the word "musician" is so important. You could both agree on what is meant by best, and still each come up with different people depending on what you mean by musician. For example, you could both agree that by best you mean most talented, and one person argue for a singer/songwriter, and another pick a composer. They both make music, it's just one does it with song and instrument, the other by writing large complicated chamber pieces on classical instruments.

But now that you have those two defined, i.e. the set of people who qualify as "musicians" and what qualifies as "best", you can now analyze the statement made at the top and see if it is in fact the case. And you can do it without one person being able to fall back on it being "just their opinion". The reason is that it is not in fact just their opinion, but a statement about the world that may or may not be reasonable. By such means we can do away with people relying on the statement "that's my opinion" and "opinions can't be wrong" in most cases (i.e. because most people who say that have wrongly used it on something which is not in fact merely an opinion).