New School Politics

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This is not a personal blog.  However, as school lets out and the three of us (Eftychis, Ryan and Zach–the founding partners of NSP) find ourselves engaged in other endeavours over the summer, I think it’s important for us to keep our readers abreast of happenings that may affect the frequency of posts on New School Politics.

Politics is a passion for us and because of that we further our individual political interests in many other ways.  In late June, the three of us attended the American Legion’s Boys’ State program, one designed to allow students to learn via a hands-on government simulation.  We’ve been around since then, working and doing odd jobs, but our ability to work on NSP is going to change for the next month.  

Here’s what the three of us will be doing in the up coming weeks:

Ryan has been chosen to attend Boys’ Nation in Washington, DC from July 20-28.  The aforementioned Boys’ State program runs in 49 states (Hawaii does not participate) and, at the end of their week, each state choses its two top delegates to represent the state at Boys’ Nation (the national equivalent of Boys’ State). This year Ryan has the honor of being one of the two Boys’ Nation Senators to represent Connecticut.  There were articles written in both of our town’s newpapers. (Here’s the better one from Ken Partridge of the Greenwich Post).  Ryan will be meeting with national politicians such as Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito as well as President Bush as well as one of CT’s US Senators (Dodd or Lieberman) individually. He will surey write on what those figures have to say during and/or after his time at Boys Nation.

Zach will be traveling to Beijing, China with Stanford University to take a course on International Relations, Economics, and Globalization. He looks forward to an experience with a new culture, and meeting many important Chinse figures, including the Chief Justice of the Chinese Supreme Court.  While the internet may be tough to come by in China, Zach will be sure to keep NSP readers in the loop as to what he learns during his month in China.  

Eftychis will be in Washington, DC as well taking a course from Georgetown University for two weeks.  The program is an international relations crisis scenario that focuses on possible US foreign policy in July of 2008 following turbulent democratic elections in Pakistan. Eftychis looks forward to returning with new diplomatic skills and knowledge of the Middle East and hopes his experience will be able to add to the quality of his New School Politics posts as well.

The next few weeks may be inconsistant in terms of content frequency for New School Politics as our three co-founders will be traveling all over the country-and the world-in an attempt to gain greater political efficacy and knowledge.  We appreciate our readers and hope you’ll stick with us.  Thanks, and we hope you’re having a great summer.

-NSP

Popularity: 13% [?]

I’m not sure if others caught it, but in comparing the War on Terror to the Cold War in tonights GOP presidential debate, Governor Mike Huckabee said “Today’s Ronald Reagan’s birthday.”

But today is June 5th. Any true Reagan junkie (i.e. myself) could tell you at any moment in time that Ronal Reagan was born on February 6th, 1911.

 Any true Reagan junkie could also tell you that Ronald Reagan Died on June 5th, 2004.

 Good try, but very poor execution, Mr. Huckabee.

Popularity: 21% [?]

In the past couple of days the largest home insurer in the US, State Farm, announced that it will stop writing new policies for homeowners and small businesses in Mississippi. 

Bob Trippel, senior vice president, explained, “It is no longer prudent for us to take on additional risk in a legal and business environment that is becoming more unpredictable.” Essentially, the gulf coast has emerged as an area of exorbanite risk where a cost far outweighs the potential benefits of doing business. As such State Farm is making a reasonable business decision to take their capital elsewhere.

Consequentially they could now face the specter of government compulsion as Reuters reports:

Mississippi’s attorney general said Friday he would propose legislation to force State Farm, the largest home insurer in the United States, to continue writing new policies in his state.

State Farm has said it will stop writing new policies for homeowners and small businesses in Mississippi following a legal battle over damage claims in the state from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Attorney General Jim Hood, at a press conference, condemned the company’s decision, calling State Farm a “robber baron” and accusing it of “decadent actions” in Mississippi …

Hood said Friday that he had asked Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Insurance Commissioner George Dale to issue emergency orders requiring insurance companies to continue writing home policies until the state legislature can act. He said he had not had any response from either Barbour or Dale.

State Farm immediately fired back, saying Hood was part of the problem.

“This is a remarkable response to what was just a business decision, but it does underscore the legal and political challenges faced in Mississippi,” Fraser Engerman, a spokesman for State Farm, told Reuters. “We want to continue to serve our customers in Mississippi, but it seems some are intent on making that more difficult.” …

Under Hood’s proposed legislation, a company selling auto insurance in Mississippi, and both auto and home insurance in other states, would be required to also sell homeowner insurance in Mississippi.

State Farm has said it wants to sell auto insurance - but not new homeowner policies - in Mississippi.

Every proposition that the Attorney General has put forth now is an immoral threat to State Farm’s liberty. State Farm is entitled to the property they own by right. They earned the capital they have accumulated and therefore are entitled to venture it as they please and where they please. Mr. Hood did not earn it, he cannot order them what to do with it; Gov. Barbour did not earn it, she cannot order them what to do with it; the people of Mississippi did not earn it, they cannot order them what to do with it; it was the freedom of the State Farm that produced the service they provide and it is their right to do with it as they please.

The insurance that State Farm makes available to people in Mississippi, as well as all of the United States, was only made possible by them pursuing their own self interest and attempting to make a profit. The mind power that it takes to make a billion dollar corporation out of nothing is enormous. The exercise of free will and ingenuity that manifests itself in State Farm is a testimite to the power of the reason. But reason is a volitional faculty and does not function under compulsion. State Farm insurance was therefore a byproduct of the free market system; it would not have come from nothing to where it is today if it faced the constant duress of central planning.

And yet, Attorney General Hood is attempting to create such a business environment for insurance companies in his state and simultaneously expects them to continue producing insurance to individuals and small businesses. If successful in his agenda, Hood will soon find out the consequences of not allowing the rational mind to think freely–either State Farm will be forced to plunder its capital in the state or it will flee entirely from Mississippi. But no matter what we will see freedom and wealth of more than one party suffer. Not only will State Farm Insurance see its business freedom and bottom line reduced, but the people of Mississippi will simultaneously have their right to buy insurance from whoever is willing to sell it taken away and the supply of insurance available to them diminish.

Popularity: 16% [?]

I suppose that thirty-five years was as much of a break as we would get from the woman who committed treason during the Vietnam War by supporting the killing of American soldiers. Over the weekend she spoke at a rally in Washington D.C for an anti-war march. Once again she embarrassed herself and her cause by putting her face on the front of the anti-war movement. But, does she represent something inherent with the anti-war movement in Iraq today. Yes, the war has been executed badly, but it is evident in their rhetoric that none of the members of the anti-war movement have the capacity for intelligence to understand the consequences for withdrawal from Iraq.

If you are for an immediate troop pull out you are for a world war. It is that simple. It is not possible for American forces to leave Iraq with in the next 18 months without a major civil war, which would lead to a regional war. In the process of pulling out hundreds if not thousands of American forces would be killed in brutal battles as they retreat and millions of women and children in the Middle East would be massacred. Is this what the anti-war movement wants?

Jane Fonda, do your cause a favor, go back and hide away for another thirty-five years.

Popularity: 20% [?]

A few days ago, Tibor Machan, philosopher and co-founder of Reason Magazine (a leading libertarian publication),  wrote a satiricle editorial on what the New York Times might reveal if they were to be a little more candid in their editorial policy.

Mr. Machan hits it right on the nose, articulating the altruistic and nihilistic values that truly lie at heart of their, as well as most leftist, philosophy.

If you want the link to the article, click here. Here’s the whole thing:

The following is a New York Times editorial that will never be written by the editors there:

“We here at The New York Times want to announce a new policy. This is that we will no longer criticize anyone, nor praise anyone. We will, in other words, hold no one responsible for his or her conduct. “We institute this policy in light of the columns published recently in our pages arguing that human beings have no free will, that they cannot choose their own conduct. If this is so, as we believe it is-we haven’t published anyone arguing the opposite thesis, as you may have noticed-there can be no choice about what people do. Neither Saddam Hussein, nor George W. Bush, nor Nancy Pelosi nor indeed anyone at all has anything to do with his or her conduct or, as social scientists prefer to call it, behavior.

“It all just happens because it must. As one of the experts made clear whom we mentioned in the discussion we published, namely Mark Hallett-a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke-’Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.’ As he added, ‘The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it.’ Which is to say, to be up front about it, free will does not exist at all-it’s an illusion, according Mr. Hallett.

“Accordingly, over the entire history of this newspaper the editors have quite mistakenly blamed many of America’s and indeed the world’s political figures for wrongs they thought have been committed, some of them rather grave ones, such as Hitler’s and Stalin’s-although we have been easier on the second than on the first and we have continued this bias with how we have singled out General Pinochet for criticism but have given other dictators, mostly on the Left, a virtual pass-others less severe, as when we criticized politicians or our own adversaries. And the praise we have heaped upon those we liked was also pointless-they just did as they had to. In every case of blaming or praising, we have been misguided. Of course, we could not be blamed for this either-we just did what we had to do. Everything is exactly as it must be-the world is but a daisy-chain of hard-wired, deterministic forces driving everything relentlessly to proceed as it will. All of our own reporting and analysis throughout the history of the newspaper has come about as a result of impersonal forces, so we cannot be held responsible for any errors that have found themselves into our pages. Nor for the so called achievements for which we have received prizes!

“The very idea of independent journalistic judgment must henceforth be rejected since journalists who have no free minds cannot be held responsible for what they produce, any more than scientists can be required to be objective rather than biased. Nor, of course, are racists ever to be blamed for their prejudices-they cannot help themselves either. Come to think of it, all those who consider what we believe wrong are also blameless-they, too, just think what the impersonal forces of nature force them to think.

“In short, it is really, as Doris Day used to sing, just ‘Que sera, sera,’ after all. As your columnist said professor Benjamin Libet reported back in the 1970s-although, again, he couldn’t help himself when he did this-when we act, we do so independently of our own minds, so what we do is all just happening to us. We actually do nothing.

“So, again come to think of it, we cannot really say what we will do in the future as we write our editorials-it’ll all just happen, as will everything else in the universe.

“Sad part of it is that even as we appear to write these lines, we aren’t doing it. It is all just unfolding as the impersonal forces of nature and we are but puppets in it all. Still, in so far as we might by some chance have any hand in things, we would like to make clear that in virtue of our conviction that human beings have no free will, we are going to try very hard to abstain from holding anyone responsible for anything, including ourselves.”

Popularity: 20% [?]

Popularity: 24% [?]

I could not help but post this very entertaining (…it made me laugh, it made me cry) news story: 

To defend himself against athorities, a New Hampshire man convicted of federal tax evasion has armed himself and locked his house down and says that he will actively fight arrest.

CONCORD, N.H. —  A man who has holed up with armed supporters in his fortress-like house for most of his tax evasion trial was found guilty Thursday, along with his wife, of engaging in an elaborate scheme to avoid paying federal income taxes for a decade. Ed Brown has said he will defend himself against capture if necessary; U.S. marshals said they have no plan of escalating the situation.

Given the will and the resources Mr. Brown has it is hard to conceive that this incident will resolve itself quickly or quietly.

Ed Brown heard of the verdict in the middle of an interview with a radio station. “The verdict is in. I can guarantee you all hell’s going to break loose,” he told WNTK-FM in New London.

He later said, “It’s all bogus charges. None of these charges are lawful.”

Ed Brown stayed in his wooded, 110-acre home this week. The large, cement-walled house features a watchtower that offers 360-degree views of the rural setting. He said the home is capable of generating enough electricity to operate if cut off from the main grid…

Brown and about 25 supporters said they will defend themselves against capture if necessary. Bernie Bastian, a supporter who said he was carrying two guns, said they would stand with their friend.

Of course, all of this is only conceivable in a state like New Hampshire–which has a far greater libertarian bent than any other in the nation. His motive for evading his taxes was political. Mr. Brown, an exterminator, believed that he has a right to his money and that the Feds are not entitled to take it from him for the sake of supporting a big and intrusive government.

“Most Americans would cower and cringe and raise their hands and surrender like a good little slave,” he said this week.

“I won’t. Under no circumstances. I do not tolerate cowardliness, oppression, bulliness, and I certainly don’t tolerate a federal agency that has absolutely zero jurisdiction in my state, never mind in my county, in my town.”

Whether or not Ed Brown is a lunatic vigilante or a man dedicated to righteous values or both does not seem to be the initial thought to mind. The point is that this story would normally seem so bizarre, but because it took place in New Hampshire it just makes sense. And in all you cant help but feel a glimmer of excitement for a man who stands up for his freedom against big brother (not to mention the fact that it’s pretty badass).

Finally, in quoting General John Stark and the state motto of New Hampshire, Mr. Brown declared, “Live free or die. What else can I say?”

Popularity: 19% [?]

Given the outcome of the midterm elections and the passage of a minimum wage bill in the House of Representatives it is more than likely that a national increase in the minimum wage will come into effect in the near future. Six states voted in favor of minimum wage increases—Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio—with four of the six states affirming the proposals with at least 65% of the vote. Now that Democrats have control of both houses and the vast majority of Republicans have and will continue to capitulate on issues of economic freedom, such a measure will probably be approved by the Senate. 

A veto from the President is unlikely. In a press conference the day after Election Day, Mr. Bush described the issue as “an area where I believe we can [find] common ground.” Now that the President has let his guard down, and the House and Senate are without any obstacles, it should be smooth sailing for any proposed minimum wage amendment (never mind its details). 

But, Mr. Bush is mistaken. This is not an issue for which there can be any compromise. A minimum wage is an irrational economic policy. It is not conceived by economic science but rather is product of the childish, emotional impulse of most collectivists and was simultaneously accepted by those who masquerade as “fiscal conservatives.” Not only must any minimum wage increase be struck down, but any remnants of a “minimum” or “living” wage must be eliminated; the only proper policy for Congress to take on the minimum wage is to abolish it. 

The underlying intention of the minimum wage is to improve the incomes of the poorest workers. The failure of this logic is first that it assumes that businesses will continue to hire workers even at a price above their worth. Labor is like any other economic good or service; its price is determined by supply and demand, and its value is tied to its productivity. In a free market economy a capitalist pays a worker $5/hour because that is the maximum cost he is willing to pay, given the productivity of the labor. He has already implied the fact that he will not pay $10/hour for that labor—it is not nearly worth that price.  

If government were to mandate that no used car be sold below $15,000 would that ensure the prosperity of all used car salesmen? Of course not. If the car they are selling is not worth that price people will simply not buy it. When posed with the choice of buying a car worth $15,000 and a car worth $10,000–but priced at $15,000–the buyer will not pay that extra 50% for the overpriced car. In that case the cars worth less than $15,000 will simply not be sold.  The same idea applies to labor. If the minimum wage is set to $10/hour those whose labor is worth less will simply remain unemployed. Indeed those who the minimum wage was intended to help are hurt by it the most.

Despite wishful speaking, a decree by the government cannot create more wealth; it will not make a man worth more, it will not increase the demand for his labor (it will actually decrease it), the minimum wage simply makes it illegal for a poor man to be employed (at market price). It has and it will continue to curtail employment of those whose market price is below the minimum wage. 

Why else would a minimum wage be advocated by racists and labor unions all over the world and throughout history? Because it forces their competitors out of the market (for racists, minorities; for unions, cheap labor). In the United States, at every single congressional hearing ever held on a minimum wage amendment, an organized labor representative has been present to argue the case for an increase. But why? Virtually all unionized labor makes far more than the minimum wage. Those unions that have pull on Capital Hill would not nearly have their wages affected by a minimum wage hike. The reason these unions petition for such laws is because it eliminates competition from cheaper labor by making it illegal for such cheap labor to exist. 

America’s first minimum wage law (called a “prevailing wage” in the literature of the act) did just that. The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 was passed in part to stop black construction workers from “taking jobs” of white workers by accepting lower wages. The pet issue of the Congressmen who introduced the bill in the House, Robert Bacon, was preserving America’s “racial homogeneity.” 

So who is right, who would the minimum wage actually effect? It is not the single, middle aged mother of three as most bleeding heart liberals have perpetuated; it is the teenager working a summer job or after school to earn a few bucks (especially young blacks and other minorities). According to the 2003 US Census, of the 7.8 million Americans that earn below $6.65 an hour, 72% of them live in a household whose income is at least 50% above the poverty line. The average household income of those 7.8 million workers was a respectable $40,000.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 63% of minimum wage workers receive raises within one year of employment, and only 15% still earn the minimum wage after three years. Furthermore, only 5.3% of minimum wage earners are from households below the poverty line; 40% of minimum wage earners live in households with incomes $60,000 and higher; and, over 82% of minimum wage earners do not have dependents (i.e. children). 

In 1948 (while the minimum wage was negligible due to post-war inflation), the unemployment for black teenagers was 9.4% while it was 10.2% for white teenagers. Today, 16% of white teenagers are unemployed and 32% of blacks (aged 16-17).  Still, the fact of the matter is that even if the minimum wage raises the wages of all lower paid laborers, it would still manage to hurt everyone in the economy. The conceptual error of many proposing a minimum wage is that they mistake what signifies economic prosperity. The truth is that higher wages do not mean higher purchasing power. Purchasing power requires that there be something to purchase in the first place—the requirement for increasing purchasing power is greater productivity. But by increasing the costs of production (in this case, wages) government will curtail production in the present, and by decreasing real profit margins, and thus savings, it will further decrease production in the future.  If the economic well being of people could be improved by simply increasing wages then why stop at raising the minimum wage to $7, why not make it $50, or $100, or $10,000 per hour? That would be great, wouldn’t it?! If the government just kept raising the minimum wage it could make us all millionaires!  But, of course, that’s ridiculous. Yet it’s only the logical conclusion of the idea that a minimum wage will make people richer. No matter what, in economics you cannot escape the fact that wealth cannot be created by force. Government mandates produce nothing; they only consume wealth, destroy savings, and distort the incentive to produce. Production requires that individuals apply their minds to the practical problems of man’s existence in pursuit of their own self-interest and be free to do so. In the end that leaves us with only one issue—the most important issue—the mortality of the minimum wage. Perhaps the most preeminent “collectivist” economist in America is Paul Krugman. He summarizes the ultimate reason to establish a minimum wage: “In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price–determined by supply and demand…The amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away.” However, calling the price system and free market immoral is nothing more than an attempt to live outside of reality. 

The price system exists because of individuals who pursue their self interest and deal with their fellow men as traders of value in order to do so—nothing is more moral than that. Under a price system people do not deal with others as slaves or primitives or sacrificial animals, they deal with them as men, who have a right to their liberty. They do not deal with them by force, but by reason and through voluntary exchange. The fact of the matter is that a true price system exists because of men that have capacity to produce and trade, and are free do so. 

The minimum wage is immoral because it is the opposite of this. It is a blatant violation of liberty. The minimum wage is a perfect case of the government initiating force against individuals. People have the right to enter into any mutual voluntary contract they wish, because it is voluntary. If our government or any other government respects the moral absolute that man has rights and it is immoral for anyone to use force against that man’s life, liberty, or property, then it must abolish the minimum wage.    

Popularity: 12% [?]