Foxes Gaurding the Hen House

I would like to begin by saying what I am not. I am not an anti-GMO nut, I am not an organics freak, I am not someone who irrationally hates technology, progress and industry. Far from it, I hate those who do. But for once in their sad, miserable lives, they actually have a point about something, and I am an engineer.

Regulation has been a crucial part of our industrial society since around 1900, maybe slightly before. Because of regulation, more soldiers in Iraq have NOT died from their rations then enemy fire, as happened in the Spanish American War. The conditions seen in "The Jungle" are now largely missing. People are living longer. Likewise, because of good Intellectual Property laws, America is the best place in the world to do high-tech and tech-sensitive business.

Even before now, Monsanto has, in various rulings and court cases such as Monsanto vs. Schmeiser, worn down our IP shield with such distasteful injustices as punishing a farmer for seed spreading on to his land by the wind. (Monsanto vs. Schmeiser.) Now, Obama, in his typical Chicago Politics fashion, has appointed a Monsanto man to head of the FDA.

As an engineer, I think GMO is a technology with tremendous potential to make new lands arable, make soil more usable, make pests less of a problem, lessen the load on irrigation systems, heal livestock diseases when used in feed, and even make food more nutritious. It may also help us understand, in its research use, the complex chemical interactions that make up nanotechnology and mechanics on the molecular level. However, none of this will happen if, in retaliation for GMO misused, the American public is forever turned against it. Monsanto wouldn't care - by then, they will have found more profitable sectors of commerce, just as before they were a chemical company. GMO doing well helps their competitors far more then it helps them.

Mr. President, you cannot let this irresponsible and dishonest company, with a known history of exploiting what little influence it has had, gain greater influence.

A much wiser idea, now that technology is, as it should be, accelerating, would be creating a corporate version of the RICO law to break up corporations with a known pattern of subterfuge of the democratic system. Monsanto could be broken up in to many smaller companies, each carrying the function of the larger firm with only the mildest of effects on the economy. The IP laws could be reset with additional legislative action, while the FDA could be seriously reformed to handle its responsibilities better. Mr. President, as a chosen representative of the Progressive movement, I ask you not to let one of its better accomplishments go to ruin. Mr. President, Monsanto Delinda Est.

Abolish Property Tax Now!

Thames Tow Boat Company, New London, CT, 1975. Source: Wikimedia, public domain.

Imagine you are a rancher, on 10,000 acres, about what is needed to have a profitable Cattle ranch. You and your fathers have lived on this land for many generations, essentially since there were Europeans in the area. You don't have any debt, and you wake up every morning to a Montana sunrise against the rockies before a hard day of work.

Unfortunately, a bunch of wealthy Los Angelinos find out about these beautiful Montana sunrises, and move in to megahouses just next door. Your property values go through the roof. The government forces you to sell, as otherwise you can't pay your taxes. You never really owned the land to begin with.

Then we cry and scream about poor people who can take out loans that they can never pay off, but if those poor peoples property values ever went up, they would be driven off their land anyways, and at least they KNOW how much the bank will charge them (or think they know.) But why should they have a balanced checkbook? What benefit do they get? Why should they work hard and save when nothing truly qualifies you as an owner.

And then there are city councils that limit what you can do with your land, telling you you can't raise chickens, you can't raise horses, you can only have two dogs. People next to you decide that because they want high property values, they can tell you what to do with YOUR land. I think if George Washington saw modern suburbia, he would be perfectly ashamed.

And no, I'm not a property owner myself. I live in a 15 by 15 foot room that I rent, and I am offended and ashamed that my country, which call itself the "land of the free, home of the brave" destroys freedom and cowardly avoids productive activity in the name of land values. This is cowardice, and slavery, both.

These behaviors finally culminated in the Kelo decision. The city of New London, a long eclipsed New England city that was once a powerhouse of industry, decided it was going to make "hard choices" to improve its economy. Naturally, these choices were made with other peoples land. They took, by eminent domain, land from many owners, including Kelo, who challenged the constitutionality of this decision. By a narrow majority, the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional for the "public use" of reselling to a developer who will make "better purpose" of the land. In a twist of irony, the taken lands are now unused and fenced off, a decaying brownsfield, and I cannot help but think that the wrath of God is at work.

But then there's practicality. Supporters will argue that property taxes are neccesary for the funding of city coffers, but in reality property taxes are a very unreliable source of revenue that have impoverished far more cities then they have made wealthy. The desolation of the inner cities in the 1950's occurred because of wealthy whites fleeing the city, causing land values to fall rapidly. The city then raised property taxes, driving out business, and impoverishing it further. And it is not high property values that define a city. Rather, a city is defined by being the best place for business, a place to buy and sell, manufacture, import and export, a distribution center is the essence of a city, so why not tax THAT? The overall tax burden need not increase, in fact a thorough review of city budgets in the current political climate will likely lead to cuts.

In reality, property taxes serve no one but the wealthy attempting to eliminate the "riff raff" of their town, and those with a vested interest in delegitimizing the right to property. It violates the natural and legitimate right of property, harms the poor by providing subpar, underfunded city services, and encourages a mentality that can lead only to tyranny.

The Gospel of Joseph Stalin, Episode 3: Parable of the Talented Manipulators

Secretary General and Loving Father Stalin, who only sends those who really need it to Siberia to be worked to death. Photo taken by CCCP, public domain for all good comrades. Here

"The federal system is like a slightly violent and paranoid man who travelled to a far away arab nation in need of asskicking, leaving all his various powers to take your money to three servants, assigning it based upon their ability, with the instruction to generate more.

"To Obama he left 10 special interest groups,

"To Reidosi he left 5 special interest groups,

"To Bush, he left only one, the Christian Right.

"Obama came up with 10 more special interest groups, Pelosi used her 5 to get 5 more, but Bush took his and refused to look in to television cameras.

"When the federal system came back, he saw that Obama had generated so much special interest and said, 'Well done my faithful servant, I'm giving you the White House.'

"When he saw how much Reidosi had interested, he said, 'Well done my faithful servant, I'm giving you the Congress.'

"But Bush came to him and said, 'I was afraid, for I knew you were a hard man who reap where other people sow, thus I buried my speical interest group in the ground. Here, take what is yours!'

"But he said, "So you knew I was a hard man who reaps where other people sow! Therefore, you should've used the IRS to pay for other peoples earmarks!"

"'But I did do that!'

"'No you didn't damn it! Everyone loves earmarks!'

"'I honestly did do that! Haven't you talked the budget office lately? Look at how high the debt is! Aren't you proud of me?'

"'NO! I'm never proud of failures! And besides, what kind of idiot uses OTHER PEOPLES interest groups to advance himself?'

"And then they took the worthless servant, and cut him in two, and there was much rejoicing.

"Assuredly, I say unto you, whoever has much in this year will have much in the election to come, and to him who has little, even what he has will be taken away!"

The California Compromise

Vitrification, a common nuclear waste disposal technique. Image is public domain.

California is a catch-22. The USA already has serious economic problems, with unemployment now over 10% and allowing the destruction of Americas most populous state is only going to make this problems worst. On the flip side, if we do help them, it may encourage both them and other states to fail and get bailed out just like California did.

We have another major problem, energy. We do severe damage to our ecology, our air quality and our public health through the excessive use of coal in power plants. The more orthodox alternative energy sources -wind, solar, geothermal- are decades from being truly practical in the majority of locales, and would all require heavy subsidies. Many companies have already lined up to build nuclear reactors, even willing to pay to lobby for the right to do so, despite a horrific level of regulation and a public relations nightmare with the common voting public. Far from needing subsidies, they'll spend much additional capital beyond the market price to build these facilities in our country.

The inevitable question is, what about the waste? Yucca mountain would have been an ideal site, but politically, the people of Nevada have fought too well against it and the project is now dead in the water. There are deserts in California very similar to those in Nevada, and California needs us.

The less obvious question, but one every bit as important: who wants to live next to a reactor? Most states outside of the Southeast are not willing to allow Nuclear Construction, and Western states like Nevada, Arizona and Oregon are very far from the Southeast. I've also heard that California is a huge energy importer...

In addition, California has resisted allowing oil-drilling off their coasts. Beyond the humiliation factor, this would lower oil prices and boost domestic production, relieving our dependence on the Middle East for oil and lowering prices. If you don't like lower prices, we could collect a tariff on foreign oil. The tariff revenue would also help pay for the California bailout, while the land royalties that California would be allowed to collect, just like Alaska, would help them avoid a new bailout.

We also need more oil refineries, preferably in places with good weather. Our current refineries are on the gulf coast and get hit by hurricanes all the time, and no state in America allows you to build new ones.

All these proposals would create jobs in California through lower energy costs, the introduction of new industries (including Oil, Oil Platform Servicing, Oil Refining, and Nuclear energy related manufacturing and research.)

So here's the deal: California gets a bailout alright, in fact, in entirety, but in exchange, they must 1) dispose of our nuclear waste, 2) build nuclear reactors to power their cities and stop buying up the excess power reserves of the American West, and 3) drill oil off their coast and 4) build oil refineries on Californias sunny hurricane-free coast.

Thus we get past our Catch-22 by being exploitive jerks and manipulating California in to being the optimal economic citizen of the United States of America.

I don't think anyone will want a bailout after this!

The Almighty Dollar -- or Why we SHOULD spend more on Healthcare

From InvestorBizDaily, "The Attack on Doctor's Hippocratic Oath":

Ezekiel Emanuel sees the Hippocratic Oath as one factor driving "overuse" of medical care. He is a policy adviser in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and a brother of Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff.

Dr. Emanuel argues that "peer recognition goes to the most thorough and aggressive physicians." He has lamented that doctors regard the "Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the patient to the best of my ability and judgment' as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others."

Of course, that is what patients hope their doctor will do.

But President Barack Obama is pledging to rein in the nation's health care spending. The framework for influencing your doctor's decisions was included in the stimulus package, also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Now, I, being a fallible human being like most other Americans, do not understand completely Obama's health care plan. This is very suspicious, especially since, while I may not like the man's policies, I would generally accredit him with being a decent communicator. But, there is one particularly disturbing aspect of Obama's plans, the algorithms.

Although not quite as sinister as the SkyNet from Terminator, it too may terminate you. If your care is found to be too expensive, your cancer too aweful, you not worth it, it will let you die, not even granting you the dignity of a bullet to the head, another blood offering at the altar of balanced budgets in a manner of cruel neglect.

This is being done in the name of economic progress. Although Obama does not even have the certainty that this will work, he has bet his presidency, his country, and the lives and dignity of many vulnerable people on the idea that through reducing health care expenditures, we can save our "economy." But what is an economy anyways? Why is it so sancrosanct? Why are we willing to sacrifice ourselves and our loved ones for the sake of dollars? And why do we even trust this fellows plan?

In fact, why do we even have an economy? Why do we even have wealth? If we're not even going to take care of our own people, why are we even trying? Why don't we just go home?

Look, I know of fewer better spendings of our wealth on this earth as human beings, our petty dollars, then saving peoples lives and keeping them well. Why are we calling medical research and cutting-edged treatments "waste?" Because they don't make us more money? And is that even true...

The really sad thing is how many people seemed to have jumped aboard this bandwagon. I, as an American, have never felt this discouraged at my own people. That my own fellow citizens cannot seem to see what they are creating through their desire for, I don't even know what, is one of the most striking blows I have ever received when looking back at my own country.

And further, even from the practical side, what happens if we face a new threat? What happens if there's a big virus outbreak, like the Spanish flu, and this entire society we have sacrificed so much for crumbles before us, disgracing us and spitting on our name for our own lack of foresight.

For the sake of the fourth most basic human economic need (after clothes, shelter, and food), 20% (about where it lies) is not unreasonable. But I fear many people do not even realize what they've done. I don't think they even see that it could be their loved one, or themselves. I support making coverage more universal, but this is not the right way to do it. We just need to accept that a little more money to cover the remainder of our population is both right and justified, and seek other, more worthy, places to scratch out a balanced budget.