Social Security's "Trust Fund"

In the 1994 film "Dumb and Dumber," the film's protagonists, Harry and Lloyd (Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrrey), embark on a journey to return a mysterious locked Samsonite to a mysterious red-haired woman. Eventually, the lock on the suitcase breaks, and our heroes discover its contents: CA$H money. When they finally return the suitcase to its original owner (not the woman), the cash has all been spent. "That's as good as money, sir," says Lloyd, as the owner watches several little scraps of paper float to the floor. "Those are IOUs."

Think about this the next time you hear about Social Security's "Trust Fund."

Special thanks to "Icek" for the analogy.

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I Won!

Last week, there was an op-ed writing contest for the Cato interns. Long story short, I won! Here's my editorial:

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Twenty years ago, the internet was still called the Information Super Highway, satellite dishes were humongous backyard-eyesores, and cable television only had 36 channels. My, how times have changed.

This week, the FCC will hold a meeting to discuss a recent report that could lead to expanded regulation of cable television. A federal law passed in 1984 determined that if the cable industry ever grew "too dominant" and passed the 70/70 rule - that is, if cable services reached 70% of people and 70% of those people became subscribers - then the FCC would be given new powers to regulate the industry.

The FCC's recent figure of 71.4% cable-subscription rate has been contested by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Their estimates place that number at just below 60%. Also, cable providers have been losing subscribers over the years to satellite and phone companies that provide video services, and the industry as a whole has seen stock prices flat-line or decline in recent months.

The aim of the FCC's expanded regulatory powers, should the 71.4% figure be deemed accurate, would be to promote a competitive environment and "diverse information sources." This is roughly translates to ensuring that enough women and minorities get to own or lease cable channels, and requiring cable providers to carry those channels. Let's entertain this idea for a moment: if currently successful cable channels are dropped by broadcasters in order to carry channels that, diversity-friendly or not, previously had no market for them, what exactly is the benefit to the cable TV customers? Additionally, how will this increase competition for the "too-dominant" cable TV industry?

Competition for cable television providers already exists. Direct TV, Dish Network, and Verizon FIOS are the first three competitors that come to mind. The internet is quickly becoming a fierce competitor, too, with peer-to-peer video sites like Joost, and music and video marketplaces like iTunes providing everything that cable companies do, either for free in the case of Joost, or for a small per-download fee. The internet represents an unregulated gold mine for diverse information sources – Google news provides news from over 4,500 sources daily, and Youtube has become a cauldron for user-generated video entertainment.

It's unclear just exactly what cable regulation would accomplish – aside from more red tape. Television media is currently in a transitional stage, as video-on-demand and digital video recorders are giving consumers greater choices about what, when, and how they watch television. The freedom to choose what we watch and how we watch it will not be stopped by bureaucrats who purport to know what we ought to have access to. As consumers, we can be certain of one thing: as technology continues to evolve, our choices will continue to expand.




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If Cars Weren't Required to Have Seatbelts...

Wouldn't somebody go into business selling 3rd-party seatbelts to install in our cars?

A lot of commotion is made by statists about the government's responsibility to ensure our safety through regulations, consumer protections, etc. I consider myself a fairly death-averse person, at least as much as the next guy. I'm pretty sure that if my car didn't come with pre-installed seat belts, I would purchase them separately, even though seatbelts haven't yet saved my life in the nearly 24 years I've been driving or riding in cars.




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Al Gore wins the Nobel Prize

*forehead-desk*

Are they serious?? The Nobel Peace Prize just lost a lot of respect.

Honestly, I don't mean to come off as an ideological hack, but "Global Warming" is about as over-hyped as Britney Spears. Does nobody listen to the leagues of environmental and natural resource economists when they say that there are costs and benefits to be considered before we agree to any UN pacts that will set us back billions and billions of dollars?? (Not to mention years and years in terms of economic and technological progress?)

An example of the "environati's" unwillingness to listen to (or defend against) reasonable arguments: Bjorn Lomborg has admitted on several occasions that global warming is, in fact, happening, although you wouldn't know it by reading any randomly-chosen environmentalist blog.


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Thoughts about DC

I've been living here for about a month, and I have a few observations about Washington DC:

• The weather. It's terribly swampy here. The air feels thick, heavy, almost like your swimming through it. Forget about hair and makeup - it must be a quite a site, actually, to see a city's entire female population arrive at work in the morning with their hair mussed, dampened and pressed against their sweaty, make-up smeared faces. DC's fever finally broke this week, though, and we went from 95F on Monday to about 55F last night.
  
  
• The skyline. There aren't too many tall buildings here. It's actually quite nice, to walk to work in the morning and have a clear view of the Washington monument. It's a large city, but unlike New York or Chicago, you can see the sky from downtown. The tallest buildings are Marriotts.
  
  
• The traffic. Who in the world thought that traffic circles would be an efficient way to direct traffic?! Without a doubt, traffic circles are the worst conception in the entire history of city planning.
  
  
• The kids. Or the complete lack of them. There are a few small children, but I've only seen one teenager in my four weeks here. I think young people are rare enough in the middle of the city that I haven't been carded anywhere I've gone. If you've always wanted to live in a place without punk-teenagers, DC is the place for you.
  
  
• The local economy. Like a good little economist-in-training, I've thought a lot about this. I can't figure out how it works. I have a suspicion that DC's infrastructure - the Metro, the city workers, the free museums - is financed by federal (not local) tax dollars, though I haven't asked anybody. I just can't see how this city could sustain itself. The sales tax rate is lower than in Minnesota.
  
  Additionally, I can't determine what the big industry is here, aside from government, of course. A lecturer I saw my first week here warned that the only thing DC manufactures is power, and that people who are drawn to power tend to flock to this city like moths to a lamp (rather, two lamps - a blue light and a red one). I tend to agree with that. Not often in Minnesota have I overheard a group of people discussing politics in public, but you can't escape it here. I saw a sign in the window of one of the congressional office buildings. It was a stop sign that read "Stop Privatization." Vague, but I'll assume the person meant "-of social security and medicare," although they could have meant "-entirely" for all I know. Is there really a philosophical war going on between the social-engineering paternalistic left and the behavior-policing theocratic right? I miss the real world, the world where people do productive work.
  

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Profitability of cable networks

In their 2000 book The Satanic Gases, Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling state that the cable tv channel "Weather Channel" is profitable. Which raises a very important question:

How is "The Weather Channel" profitable, and "TechTV" only operated for four years - entirely in the red - before getting bought out (by an inferior company at that)?


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On Rights

I've been thinking a lot about rights lately, and how misconstrued the idea of rights seems to be these days.

Rights are not dispensed by the government. Government does not create rights, rights exist independent of any legislative body. Failure to understand that is failure to understand liberty.

Rights include: the right to life; right to property; right to be free; right to pursue happiness; among others.

Rights do not extend to "the right to not be offended." Rights do not include anything that takes from somebody else. Health care is a great example of a misunderstood non-right. Resources for producing health care services are finite, and desire for health care is infinite. Giving some health care to Roy leaves less for Bob. Prices remedy this conundrum.

This post is probably a little unclear because I've got "Bones" on in the background. I didn't know this show was a CSI clone.



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What to look for in Michael Moore's upcoming "SiCKO"

1. Anecdotal Evidence in place of empirical research.

Scientific evidence is obtained through the scientific method: hypothesis, gather data, observe, draw conclusions. Anecdotal evidence is not based on facts or rigorous empirical study. Often, it is used to promote one's own agenda, particularly when the scientific evidence (and many other testimonials) supports the opposite claim. When anecdotal evidence is used in this way, it constitutes a logical fallacy.


2. Moore's inability to effectively use rhetoric.

MOORE: So you, Mr. Canadian, believe that all Canadian citizens should pay tax dollars to support each others' health?
CANADIAN: Yes.
MOORE: Are you a socialist?
CANADIAN: No, I'm a conservative.
MOORE, TO AUDIENCE: Ha! Bet you didn't see that coming! I'm so clever.

Smooth like *water.*


3. Michael Moore smugly pointing out many elected officials who have accepted money from health care lobbyists.

Though he'll fail to realize that it was the increasing government intervention in the private sector, exactly like what he's advocating now, that initially set the stage for the increasing corporate intervention in government that we see today.

You can't inject the government into the corporation without injecting the corporation into the government.
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