I Never Forget a Face

We seem to have forgotten that the people working for large companies receiving bailout money are, in fact, just that: people. In our desire to see them lynched, or calling for them to commit ritual suicide (just scroll down a few posts if you don't have any idea what I'm talking about), we have shown exactly why a populist democracy is such a bad thing. Today the New York Times ran an open resignation letter from one of these recently-vilified executives, who was slated to receive bonus money but instead got a mailbox full of death threats. In case you missed it, you can read the entire letter here.

To me, at least, this could be straight out of John Galt's speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged. Unsurprising, but important for people to note. Populism is a dangerous, dangerous road to go down; and while I am disappointed in the American public for falling at such an obvious ruse as this bonus obfuscation, I am irate at the government's feigned outrage. They know better.

Well, now that I think about that, I'm not sure they do. Perhaps the blame should shift back on the public. Willful ignorance is not a justifiable defense, and voting in all these idiots doesn't help the case. So, just as a reminder, there's a reason we aren't a true democracy. There's a reason it takes so long to get anything actually done in the American system of government. Mainly the hope that, by the time some hare-brained legislation has passed through all the proper channels, cooler heads can prevail. People unfortunately have forgotten how to think straight when confronted with problems, and mob mentality seems to be the norm nowadays. There is so much misdirected outrage and offense that I fear we may never be able to return to that which was originally intended for us, and we sacrifice our freedoms by the minute to fuel the fire of our populist outcries. Why have we lost the ability to think? At what point did we decide to become ruled entirely by our emotions? That is the road to insanity! We pretend to be so cynical and world-wise, yet we take any random piece of data that's thrown at us as gospel without bothering to verify sources or even see if it passes the common sense test. We seem to want to have an opinion on every single subject, without an underlying philosophy. How is this even possible? How can anyone have enough knowledge to independently evaluate such an incredibly vast array of disparate information? Think about what you really believe, people! What are your principles? In what way to they color your view of the world, and how do your emotions and opinions fit with it? Do they fit at all? I'm especially looking at you on that question, Christians.

We will never be able to return to fiscal or political sanity in this country until we can revert back from "I feel" to "I think"...and actually mean it.

This got really stream-of-consciousness, at least for me...I'm going to try to pick through some of this stuff in later posts at a later date. Consider it an overview, if you can manage to wade through it. Stay tuned.

Rhetorical Rhetoric

"Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.

"The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community."

James Madison, Federalist Paper Number 44, 1788.

How angry are you over the AIG bonus hullabaloo?

At whom are you upset?

If you answered, "very" and "AIG executives", why? Is it because you've heard pretty much every media outlet and every politician railing on the subject for a week?

Why are you so angry? Is it because people are getting paid bonuses after taking taxpayer-funded bailouts?

How much do you actually know of the details?

Did you know that the bonuses are contractually obligated, and protected under Sections 9 and 10 of Article I of the Constitution? Did you know that Congress knew of these bonuses, in fact specifically carved out an exception allowing them, in the last couple of bailout bills? Did you know that the government has given AIG in particular so much money because they're basically using them as a giant money laundering scheme? That, through this scheme, they've managed to send over $68 billion of bailout money overseas? And that, conversely, a mere $44 billion has stayed in the USA?

Why haven't you heard about this anywhere? Why is it that you listen when Congress tells you to ignore the $8 billion, or approximately 2%, of the congressional budget designated for earmarks? Why do you also listen when they tell you to get outraged over $165 million, or 0.097% of the bailout money AIG has received, going to contractually-obligated bonuses for people who actually made the company money?

Do you not see the hypocrisy in this thinking?

Do you understand why the right to contract is so incredibly important in our society? Why it is mentioned so many times in the Federalist Papers, or outlined so firmly in the Constitution? Is it more important to you than holding on to your completely un-Christian vindictiveness? Why or why not?

Did you hear that both the people receiving their bonuses and their families have received numerous violent death threats, including threats to decapitate them one at a time with piano wire? Did you see Congress respond to this news with a collective "meh", then say they were going to try to release the names of these people to the public anyway? Does this not worry you? Isn't the role of the government to protect its people from the initiation of physical harm?

Do you trust your news source?

Just why do you think everyone in government (on both sides of the aisle) are talking about this so much, anyway? Are they trying to distract us? Is this their version of bread and circuses? If so, then from what are they trying to draw our attention? Is it the aforementioned money laundering scheme? Is it their total disregard for the Constitutionally-granted right to contract, protection from ex post facto law, and protection from bills of attainder that they're currently exercising? Does it feel like an under-the-table power grab to anyone else?

Does this not anger you?

At whom should you really be upset?

Today's Sign that the Inmates Are Running the Asylum

AIG has some people's blood pressure running pretty high, but there are a couple of pretty amazing things being said lately. The first, from President Obama:

Noting that AIG has "received substantial sums" of federal aid from the federal government, Obama said he has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole."

As a lawyer, Obama should know that this is a truly stupid idea. If they don't pay those bonuses that they are contractually obligated to pay, the guys who were to receive them will sue for breach of contract, and then not only will AIG have to pay the bonuses off, but also will have to pay attorney's fees as well... and I guarantee the lawyers for the executives won't be charging $200/hour, try closer to $600/hour. I've written about this elsewhere so I won't expand on it, but c'mon, guys.

The second, and even more ridiculous item, comes courtesy of Iowa Senator Charles Grassley (R), who insinuated that the AIG executives should either quit or commit seppuku. Seriously? Can I have some of what you're smoking?

Steal This Book!

I should preface this by noting that, as most of you probably know, I work in the music industry, specifically for a music publisher—my salary is paid by revenues from intellectual property. Having grown up like a good little boy under the shepherding shadow of the industry, I have always considered IP to be an important product protected under U.S. and international law. This is the preconceived notion with which I approached this book.

So I figured I'd start this blog off with something guaranteed to be quite controversial. I have a book review/recommendation for everyone: Against Intellectual Monopoly, by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. It's a sturdy, 300-page tome of applied economics (I know, a real page-turner, right?) detailing exactly what's wrong with intellectual property (everything), and what can be done to fix it (nothing). Okay, it's not quite so drastic as that, but they are certainly on the far edge of the spectrum when it comes to IP reform. But they aren't your run-of-the-mill teen pirates espewing such trite clichés as, "Information wants to be free, man" while taking a toke off of whatever rolled leafy substance happens to be handy; this is one of the most comprehensive, heavily-annotated references I've seen in quite a while.

Michele and David are both theoretical economists, and admit without reservation that theoretically, the reasons normally posited by the pro-IP crowd seem correct. For this project, they decided to branch out and actually look at real-world data for once (what a concept!), only to discover that, when taken out of the world of theory and into the world of empirical data, quite the opposite is true. Their findings are so exhaustively well-researched that I, at least, have had my opinion almost completely changed. Every argument is examined, and shown to be lacking. They have tremendous amounts of evidence that the costs to society of intellectual monopoly far exceed the benefits, and they aren't afraid to use it. I won't go into any details here, for this post would triple in length were I to do so; suffice to say that if you have questions and doubts, as I'm sure you do, it's well worth a read. Despite being an economics book it's written toward the educated layman, so as opposed to wading through the impenetrable economic jargon that most practitioners use, anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence should be able to read and understand this book. And I highly recommend you do.

Although Against Intellectual Monopoly can be purchased at Amazon and a few other places, it isn't the cheapest place to obtain it—it would, of course, be intellectually dishonest for them to make such outrageous claims and then charge $30 bucks for their book, so you can download it for free here in PDF form, in addition to reading a few reviews, blog posts, etc., and their brief summary of their work:

It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty.

Boldrin and Levine are able to show that, instead of being a necessary evil, intellectual monopoly is just plain-old-everyday evil. Hopefully when you read how your inalienable rights have been trampled all over you may actually get upset enough to take action. I realize that this is perhaps a tenuous position to take, considering my current employment situation. I'm sure several people with whom I work, or in my industry, will get pretty upset with it (I've actually already had this happen a couple times). But it rings false to me to believe that your basic principles are being violated, yet staying silent—or worse, espousing the alternative—simply for the sake of self-preservation. So if you start ranting about bittorrent or some alternative, you might not want to ask me to join in...what comes out my mouth may surprise you.