Moving

Hey everyone, I'm moving my blog over to a different site. Its new address is http://thezspot.today.com. Please feel free to check it out, update links, etc. I'm really excited to continue. Thanks!

Sarah Palin's clothes

Alright. I couldn't resist any longer, even though I know I'm late. I'm really, really surprised by the commentary on this, for two reasons.

1) I don't understand how people think that Palin's clothes will hurt her image with hockey moms and blue collar people. If anything, it should help that image. This is a woman who is so down to earth/blue collar that she didn't have clothes to campaign in. I think most people can relate with that. Most people can relate to having a new job and wondering how you're going to pay for the clothes you need to wear to work.

On the other hand, here's what I'm surprised hasn't been an issue. Republican donors should be upset. Here we have Obama and the Dems outspending McCain and the Republicans by huge amounts. Granted 150k isn't that much in terms of presidential election campaigning, BUT, if you're the guy that donated $75k to the Republicans, would you really want it being spent on clothes for Palin?

My problem with looking at "special interests"

Alright. So here's my big problem with political analysis. Everybody looks at where people's campaign money comes from, and where they votes, and then points there finger. This is very problematic. As anybody who studied social sciences knows is that just because there is a relationship doesn't mean it's a causal one. Furthermore, in some situations (this one included) it's tough to say which way the causal relationship flows. Let me frame it this way.

You are the gaming industry (native or otherwise). You decide you want to actively participate in electoral politics. Are you going to donate your money to candidate A who opposes expansion of gaming, or candidate B who is a proponent of your industry?

Exactly. There is a difference between people donating money because a candidate supports their cause and a candidate supporting a cause because somebody donates money. And, it's tough to tell which way it's going.

As a rule of thumb for me, there's three points.

First- when did they start supporting this cause?
If a person has been a champion for certain issues for years, it doesn't really matter to me. They are probably getting money because of those stances.

Second- is the stance within the person's generally established political framework?
If the person is a free market proponent, perhaps supporting gaming shouldn't be that surprising. If you have a pro-regulation, anti-porn, anti-drinking, pro-tax candidate who suddenly starts supporting casinos, maybe we should ask questions.

Third- is the person consistent in their overall philosophy?
That is, is the person willing to upset donors when their political, moral, or other personal philosophies tell them they should. For example, McCain's voting record is not 100% pro-tribal gaming. He has voted against tribal gaming on a couple of major issues.

I use McCain and gaming as an example because I think it's been thrown out a lot lately, but this really is non-partisan and non-specific. It goes for all kinds of politicians on both sides of the spectrum. I think that 90% of the time, the money follows the political opinion, not the other way around. And 90% of the time, the public and the media assume/portray that relationship going the other way.

Why I'm scared about the bailout

Okay. First of all, I am opposed, as a matter of principal, to injecting taxpayer dollars into the economy. I maintain that the free market works, that it occasionally corrects itself, and that it should be allowed to run its course. I think the worst thing we can do is have a "free market" with either the risks or the rewards taken out of it.

Second, this is getting so much attention and has had such an effect on the market so far that I'm worried that people are going to think this fixes what's wrong. Whether it is policy makers or banks, they need to learn the lesson from the market correction we're going through right now. I'm worried that the bailout is going to be a "quick fix" and everyone is going to turn around and go about business as usual.

That being said, the whole point of the bailout, and some of the provisions that people were trying to put in it, is ridiculous to me. We are obviously where we are today because our entire economy is based on money that doesn't really exist. Credit is a good thing, to a certain extent, but let's face it. Right now, it's getting out of hand. So why are we going to try to "free up credit?" Why are we worried about helping people who make less than 50K keep their houses? They can't afford houses. When you take out a loan, there are terms. One of those is that if you can't pay, you can't stay. I make less than $50,000 a year and right now, I would not THINK of buying a house. Because I know that should something happen, with no savings to my name right now, I would wind up no just evicted, but losing out on a down payment and payments put in over a certain period of time. I KNOW that I can't afford a house.

Why are we bailing out banks which took risks? They chose to take those risks, and people chose to put their money in banks and investment firms which took those risks. Again, nobody was complaining a year ago, when all of these risks were bringing huge rewards. Rewards shouldn't come without risks.

That being said, here's the direction I would like to see us move in: regulate banks more on disclosure. For example, if you put your money in a bank account for the purposes of a checking or savings account, and that bank is doing something other than mortgages, credit cards, etc. with that money, they should have to tell you. Basically, if your checking or savings account is any riskier than what most people would think of a checking or savings account being (very low risk), that should be fully disclosed. Same thing with other investments.

BUT, bailing out everybody who makes a mistake (whether it's a company or an individual) is not the right thing to do. As non-material as credit is now, it becomes even less real when everyone knows you don't REALLY have to hold up your end of the deal, because Uncle Sam will help you keep your house, or your doors open, or whatever else it may be.

Border Town

So I saw Border Town on Showtime yesterday and it really made me think. What happened in Juarez is a tragedy, and a disaster. Hundreds, if not thousands, of women killed, and nobody paid attention. Not the government, not the media, not their employers. Nobody. It made me think about the "costs" of free trade, capitalism, and development. I then started thinking about other cases (granted, mostly also in Latin America), and really evaluated my own thoughts on it.

In some ways, it made me question my own conservative political and economic, pro-American views. In the end though, it reinforced them. Not to say that America has always been perfect. But instead, to point out that what America needs is not a changing of our worldview or priorities, but a strengthening of them.

What I see happening in the world because of American involvement is sad. But, it mostly falls into two camps. Countries where we have promoted free trade and other free market economic ideas, and countries where we have promoted liberal democracy as a political system. The problem is that in most of those cases (d certainly the ones we read about in the paper), the two don't go hand in hand.

Liberal democracy does not work in places where the government is totally entrenched in the economy. Where firms are nationalized, or the government has powerful taxation authority, a vote can easily be bought or intimidated. It simply won't work. In particular, countries whose governments own or control very profitable industries (oil, etc.) which employ large portions of the population. Or countries where the government is heavily vested with powerful unions or foreign companies which own or control those industries.

On the other hand, as we've see time and time again in Latin America, free trade cannot exist where the population is not truly free. Mexico is far from a dictatorship in any traditional sense of the word. At the same time, however, one political party was in power for decades. When they were finally ousted, the new President continued using many of the same techniques, simply reversing the direction. The government is corrupt and somewhat decentralized. This threatens people's individual freedoms in a very serious way. In particular, the freedom of the press, and people's freedoms to a) know what is going on in their country, and b) have their stories told.

When I was in Acapulco, the drug wars escalated to the point where the police chief disbanded the police and left the state. The Federales were called in. A friend e-mailed me about this. Oddly enough, a Google search in Spanish turned up one article about this situation, from a newspaper in Spain. In English, several dozen stories were out. This is obviously not coincidence. Free market economics only work (in my opinion) in certain circumstances. One, everyone must have equal opportunity. This is something we grapple with even in the United States. Second, people must have the ability to make choices. While nobody is holding a gun to people's heads and telling them what to do with their lives in much of Latin America, the ability to make choices is more than just freedom as such. It also includes the ability to make informed decisions. In a region full of media repression and misinformation, this cannot exist.

So I would argue, after seeing this movie, that America does not need to back off of either our crusade for liberal democracy or our crusade for free trade and free market capitalism. Rather, it needs to make both stronger and join them together. We cannot continue to impose democracy on the Middle East without economic reform to go with it. The Democracy will never last. We cannot continue to impose free trade on Latin America while allowing repressive or somewhat repressive regimes to remain in office. The costs, to us, to the people of the countries we involve ourselves in, and to the world, are too great.

Socializing U.S. financial services

This is really driving me crazy.

The basis of modern capitalism is the American and global financial system. How ironic that it's now becoming socialized. Well, sort of socialized.

At least socialist states understand what nationalization means. It usually means increased work and/or risk for the whole population, paired with benefits for the whole population. Now, the U.S. seems to be capitalist enough to not want to completely meet these ideas.

Instead, we're putting taxpayer dollars on the line, with no real benefit to the average American. Yes, we're stabilizing the economy. If we (and particularly the Republican party) really believed in the free market, we would understand that while it may not be immediate, the market will eventually cycle, and make necessary corrections, and we'll all be okay. Instead, we have lost faith, and put a bandaid on the market. In the meantime, until this gets sorted out, it has plummeted the stock market. We're now taking over financial institutions left and right.

And is there any guarantee that we will all be getting houses, stock, or anything else? No.

This is getting ridiculous. Especially that Democrats want to set up infrastructure to do this regularly. What will it be called, the Ministry of Half-Assed Socialization?

Religion and Academia

So I'm reading a book on Islam right now. I know I'm a nerd. And the thought occurred to me. Is it really possible to study religion in an academic way? I'm very curious about this. My thoughts are that it's not. For a few reasons.

First. Religions rely on faith. And they claim to be adaptable, and revolve around an omnipotent being. For the same reason that they are not provable, they are not disprovable. One can question the specific assertions about facts made in the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, or any other religious document, but can not disprove the overall message, in the same way that believers need to take a leap of faith and just trust the overall message.

Second. Followers of a religion tend to be very non-academic in their writings about it. This is illustrated by the book I'm currently reading. Now I'm not saying that Muslims started the Crusades, or that they were at fault, but the reality of the Crusades, and the historical conflict between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is that there were a lot of deaths all around. They were generally violent times. The author of this particular books paints the Muslims as innocent victims. Second, the author dismisses Muslim Emperors who had harems or used violence, or were intolerant of Christians and Jews as "un-Islamic," and Muslim violence as un-Islamic as well. He fails to account for the fact that even if it is a minority, there is a segment of the Muslim population that believes that these things are, in fact, justified, if not commanded by, Islam. He at one moment says that there is no universally accepted authority in Islam, and that all worshipers interpret and worship as they please, and then turns around and dismisses the religious beliefs of those who make Islam "look bad." Finally, the context in which his arguments are framed is telling. There is a Chapter on the types of Islam. Under subheadings, he explains Shi'ism, Sufism, and several other sects of Islam. He does not go into Sunnism, the dominant sect. Instead, it should, perhaps, just be assumed, that Sunnism is "the norm" and the only reason the other types are noteworthy is because they are the exceptions.

Third. It would be hard for truly religious believers of other faiths to write objectively about a religion. This goes without saying. If someone truly accepts the teaching of one religion, how will they deal with the unprovables of another religion? There is a double standard here.

Fourth. Atheists, agnostics, and non-devoted individuals would have a hard time taking religions for what they are. This has been shown over and over again in "religion vs. science" texts and debates. Neither side seems to win. The religious say, "but God's days could be our milleniums, and it doesn't say HOW he created, it just says that he created." Science says, "but God didn't create. Evolution created." And religious people say, "But God created Evolution, therefor God created Man." And scientists say, "How do you know God created Evolution?" And we're back where we started, with the idea that faith is neither provable or disprovable.

I'd be curious to see what other people's thoughts on this are.