Proposal to expand Schengen

The Schengen Treaty is without a doubt one of the most important treaties in the world. It comprises 26 states, most of which are members of the European Union, have a GDP of $15 trillion and a population of 419 million people. People are free to move within this area, they can live and work in any other member state, as there are no customs whatsoever between any of these countries. Most members are EU members, with a few exceptions, Iceland, Liechstenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland, and Vatican City.

This is the pure liberal dream. The idea is that without trade barriers between these countries that people will have less of a desire to go to war with others. And it has worked along with the free trade area which has grown out of the European Coal and Steel Community which was founded in the 1950s. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, and Romania are currently pending the next council meeting.

The question now is, should Schengen be expanded, and if it is, how? As the title of this article suggests, I am in favor of expansion. The Schengen Treaty, as a legal document presents very clear rules on what is to move in between borders. The bulk of the laws are included in section 1, under the 14 June 1985 convention. The rules are laid out in the following titles as follows in this convention:

1. Definitions
2. Abolition of Checks at Internal Borders and Movement of Persons
1. Crossing Internal Borders
2. Crossing External Borders
3. Visas
1. Short-Stay Visas
2. Long-Stay Visas
4. Conditions Governing the Movement of Aliens
5. Residence Permits and Alerts for the Purposes of Refusing Entry
6. Accompanying Measures
7. Responsibility for Processing Applications for Asylum
3. Police and Security
1. Police Cooperation
2. Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters
3. Application of the Ne Bis In Idem Principle (No double jeopardy)
4. Extradition
5. Transfer of the Enforcement of Criminal Judgements
6. Narcotic Drugs
7. Firearms and Ammunition
4. Schengen Information System
1. Establishment of the Schengen Information System
2. Operation and Use of the Schengen Information System
3. Protection of Personal Data and Security of Data in the Schengen Information System
4. Apportionment of the Costs of the Schengen Information System
5. Transport and Movement of Goods
6. Protection of Personal Data
7. Executive Committee
8. Final Provisions

All of the laws and regulations are already in existence already, and the rules for Schengen are really straight forward and reasonable. Basically, control the borders, Mutual recognition of each other's visas, police need to cooperate and respect the laws and decisions of other countries in the area, sharing of information between countries when it comes to visa relevant information, a common tariff policy, don't leak data, and each member has a seat in the executive committee. That's the entire agreement in a nutshell.

There is also, notably, no requirement of a country to be in the European Union or even Europe to join the Schengen Area in the original document. This means, theoretically, that the Schengen Area could be expanded to outside Europe if I am not missing another law which regards Schengen membership. This seems to be the case because Switzerland joined in 2008, and it is not a member of the EU, and Liechtenstein joined in 2011 after the Treaty of Lisbon, the last major amendment to European law. This means that non-member states can indeed join the Schengen area.

The question then becomes... who should be included? Prospective countries to join the Schengen treaty could be established by fitting the following criteria in my mind:

1. Adopt the European Charter of Rights and Freedoms as law, or have comparable laws on the books already.
2. Have a Corruption Perceptions Index at least as high as the Schengen member with the lowest score.
3. Have a better Press Freedom Index then the member state with the lowest score. This is a useful proxy for how well the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are respected.
4. Have an economic system which makes it easy for businesses to flourish, using the Ease of Doing Business Index. We want the member country to be fully engaged in the common market.
5. Have no significant domestic terrorism. This can be measured by homicide rate.

These are 5 things which can easily be implemented.

Corruption Perceptions Index

Press Freedom Index

The Schengen member with the highest (worst) Corruptions Perception Index currently is Greece, at 44. they ranked #69 in the world as of 2017, which leaves 43 potential members by that metric.

The Schengen member with the highest press freedom score currently is still Greece, though Bulgaria will likely acede soon and it has the worst score, but they will likely not be chosen due to the factors which cause them to fare so poorly on the press freedom index, so that leaves Greece as the lowest score. They rank #70 in the world as of 2018 (yes, these are significantly correlated indexes) and that again leaves 44 potential members by this metric.

The obvious choices for membership by these two metrics combined are:

1. New Zealand
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Australia
5. United States
6. Ireland
7. Japan
8. Uruguay
9. Chile
10. Taiwan
11. Botswana
12. Cape Verde
13. Costa Rica
14. Georgia
15. Cyprus
16. Mauritius
17. South Korea
18. Namibia
19. Croatia
20. Romania
21. Senegal
22. South Africa
23. Suriname

This map is interesting for many reasons. Following this logic there are countries which are qualified to join the Schengen Area using my first two criteria on every continent. Some countries which have expressed interest are missing from the map, Israel is blank because their press isn't free enough, Bulgaria is blank despite being considered to join the Schengen area because they are too corrupt,  Ukraine is both too corrupt and their press is not free enough.

The one other variable which could be useful in determining whether a country would be able to join the Schengen Area would be the Ease of Doing Business Indicator. The reason for this one is the acquis on the free movement of capital, and if a country doesn't allow ease of movement of capital within its own borders it will not be able to join Schengen. This significantly reduces the number of countries which are eligible to join down to 17 prime candidates. The economies of Botswana, Cape Verde, Namibia, Senegal, Suriname, and Uruguay are less free than that of Malta, the Schengen member with the least free economy, which means that the best candidates for joining the Schengen map looks like this:

Every country shaded in red on this list has a Corruptions Perceptions Index, Press Freedom Index, and Ease of Doing Business Index ranking better than the worst performer currently in the Schengen region.

The top performer not currently in Schengen currently is New Zealand when you multiply the CPI, DBI and divide by the PFI. The order of this ranking follows as Canada, Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, United States, Taiwan, Chile, Cyprus, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Mauritius, Romania, South Africa, and then Croatia. If the current member states of the Schengen Area and these 17 countries chose to unify their customs into the Schengen area this would be mutually beneficial.

The countries which would most benefit from joining would honestly be the United States and Canada. With the world's longest border, highly developed economies and being among the most free in the world, we could benefit in joining.

Another factor when it comes to opening up your borders to another country is safety. This is easily measured using homicide rate as a rough approximation of the relative safety of one country or another. Three countries unfortunately have homicide rates which the European Union will likely find unacceptable, and those are Costa Rica, South Africa, and my home, the USA. The country with the highest murder rate in the Schengen area is Lithuania with a homicide rate of 5.25 people per 100,000. The United States unfortunately has a homicide rate of 5.35 meaning if the Schengen Area would not allow new members due to an intentional homicide rate we are just above the threshold.

This problem deserves special attention because we are so close to having a low enough murder rate to qualify for Schengen Membership, if this was a qualifier. Looking at murder rates by states and territories, the ones which have a higher murder rate than Lithuania are in descending murder rate (by latest available data): Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Maryland, Arkansas, Alaska, Alabama, Mississippi, Illinois, South Carolina, Tennessee, New Mexico, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, Indiana, Arizona, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Reference

This deserves an article of its own, and we need to focus on reducing our murder rate as a country.

This still leaves 14 countries around the world which have the proper statistics to join the Schengen travel area, from every continent. These 14 have low corruption, and are safe. Schengen is estimated to boost the trade and economics of the member states, and there is overwhelming economic evidence that increasing trade reduces the likelihood of war. For these reasons I believe it would be wise for the Schengen Treaty to be expanded outside of Europe, the UK and Ireland should join Schengen (which I know is unlikely due to the whole Brexit debacle) because it is the logical next step to fostering peace in the world we live in.

Countries which could theoretically join Schengen.

Oldspeak, Newspeak, alternative facts, and mind control

George Orwell's point is that the changing of the definitions of words changes how we think about such concepts. Capitalism originally was a revolutionary ideology saying that the big government firms of the European empires were not just bad for the people but also bad for the economy as a whole. Instead, we should have an economy where the means of production are owned by diverse interests not concentrated whenever possible. This exists in Europe today. The word has been evolved to mean a system very similar to the mercantilism the early capitalists oppposed, and day to day indistinguishable from the mercantilism of old. This is the same tool used by Oceania in 1984 to control the thoughts of the people, and is effective by cutting people off from their philosophical ancestors. Propaganda has become fake news, making it seem more like the onion than Pravda. Alternative facts are lies, another Orwellian trick.

History of Newspeak

We have seen this reversal of definitions to the point where they are the opposite of what they originally mean, when white is black and socialism is capitalism. The complete reversal of the definition of capitalism, (which I'm not sure exactly how it evolved over the last 50 years) has been far too quick to have happened organically. Roosevelt was lauded as "saving capitalism" for the new deal and banking regulation, meaning the reversal has happened since 1945, so we are down to a maximum of 70 years. Chomsky refers to the US and Western European nations (which are frequently called "socialist" today) as "capitalist democracies" in the 1970s (https://chomsky.info/priorities01/) so assuming Chomsky was using vernacular it would then be within the last 40 years. If we look at Germany the SPD was fairly radical before the 1970s when Willi Brandt and Helmut Schmidt transformed the party into the Keynesian capitalist party (sorry for the redundancy) it is today. I expect the transformation of the word from meaning a free market to a corporatocracy/mercantilist system then would have happened under Reagan in the US, Thatcher in Britain, and other leaders during the 1980s, meaning a 180 degree turn around in its meaning over no more than 30 years in how the media talks about "capitalism".

The word socialism does extend further back in time, to Louis Blanc who founded the school of "state socialism", defined as being the government controlling some industries. The issue with this is that capitalist philosophers also think that the government had a role in natural monopolies. The difference from limited government intervention from capitalism is indistinguishable, because a government involved in the economy is part of all capitalist thought. A government which controls all the means of production is also indistinguishable from Marxism. State socialism can mean either term, making the term meaningless. Bismarck's policies in Germany were derided as "state socialism" by opponents, as were the policies of the Soviet Union. These two systems are similar in almost no way at all in reality, making the term almost useless.

Anarchism as well is often described as being "socialist". Marx of course believed that the final stage of his theory would be anarchism. He also believed that it doesn't matter if government is democratic or a dictatorship, because the "capitalists" would control society either way. (1848 Papers)

This is the inherent problem with the word socialism. Someone who believes in no government or a dictatorship can be called a socialist. Someone who believes in a mixed economy with limited government intervention and someone who believes in a command economy like North Korea are both socialist. A Democrat and Dictator, both socialist. A person who believes the government needs limited government intervention is often described as being a socialist and agrees with every capitalist philospher. Someone who believes in the eventual monopolization of all unions (syndicalism) is a socialist, but one doesn't have to believe in that to be a socialist. Socialists argue that accumulation of capital is bad, but this was one of the major goals of early capitalist thought. The definitions of state socialism and state capitalism are poorly distinguished in economic thought.

Capitalism on the other hand agrees on some very basic concepts. 1. Free markets are generally good, but not always in the case of absolute monopolies. 2. Private property is important for growth. Capitalism is an anti-slavery ideology. 3. Democracy is good. 4. When people are left to make their own decisions they generally will make the right decision as a group, with some exceptions when it comes to externalities. The recognition of a government role in infrastructure and health care which do not work in an unregulated framework has been recognized by capitalism since the early 1800s if not earlier. Adam Smith said the state should exist to "administer justice, enforce private property rights, and defending the nation against aggression" which are not specific in what particular actions government can take. This view is still held by all capitalists. Capitalism has expanded to counter-cyclical policy, which is often described as socialist, and our understanding of how and when markets fail has expanded over 200 years leading capitalism to be more specific on what "administering justice" means. That is an important reality of the early capitalist philosophers in they were clear about their goals, leaving room for interpretation on how exactly government should administer justice. The end goals however, liberty for all, and competitive markets among others, are still the end goals of capitalism. In this sense capitalism is and has always been a consequentialist school of thought. A dictator can not be described as a capitalist because there isn't the free movement of capital under dictatorships. All capitalists agree that there is a role for government in achieving a competitive free economy where all can compete fairly. This is NOT the policy of the Republican Party and right wing democrats like Nancy Pelosi which is much more in line with a variation of the Mercantilism of old.

History of Alternative Facts

Lies and the belief in there being alternate realities has become mainstream in American politics. I have known Fox viewers insisting on how everything I say is "from my point of view" for years now, which stops all further investigation into the reality of what is happening, because they believe that reality is whatever they perceive. This hasn't always been mainstream in American philosophy, when back in the day we would turn to Walter Cronkite and other more or less non-partisan journalists who reported the reality of what is happening. The 1990s we see the beginning of this, with the formation of Fox News which has spearheaded this alternative reality, from their lies of how Obamacare failed, the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and how crime in the 1990s effected African American communities, among so many other lies.

This is why I speak oldspeak, and insist that activists speak oldspeak, because newspeak is a form of mind control.

Race and gender

Nate Silver, who I deeply respect and read frequently released a picture earlier this week showing how the election would look if only men or only women voted this year, to a difference that set off the internet, at least the part of the internet made super liberal people, who tend to be most of my friends.

However, as is so often the case in news, there is a much deeper level to this than meets the eye.

Looking at exit poll data from 2012 we can see that the "gender gap" is very different from what most people imagine it as.

First, Nate Silver is correct about how women voted in 2012, here is the map for reference:

In 2012 (for states which data is available) women voted like so:

This does show some significant swing states in the women vote for Clinton. Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Arizona, and potentially a few other states which CNN did not conduct exit polls in 2012.

Nate Silver also demonstrates in the male vote that they are overwhelmingly voting for Trump.

In 2012 however, the male vote regardless of race would have looked like this:

So, according to the latest projections, Trump is projected to pick up the male vote Michigan and Colorado and retain the men in all the other states which Romney won the male vote in 2012.

This gender divide picture changes however when you take into account both race and gender.

White men voted like so:

This shows a large number of massive swing states for Republicans if only white men were allowed to vote. Romney would have won every state (for which I can tell given data limitations) except Washington, Oregon, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Every other state for which I could find data would have voted for Romney in 2012. This would be approximately 494 electoral college votes for Romeney, leaving only 44 for Obama.

Is the gender divide what changes American politics? Well, white women voted like so:

This would have given Romney many important states, including Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. Romney would have won 349 electoral college votes if only white women were eligible to vote. More than enough votes to carry the nomination if voting were limited to white voters only.

With Obama carrying only the northwest and New England given a white only vote, Romney would have won 479 electoral college votes. A landslide victory without question.

The only reason Democrats can win nowadays is with minority voters who form a voter bloc. For every state with data, I find Democrats easily winning the majority of Latino and Black voters, both men and women. The Democrats have become a massive coalition of minorities and white allies since President Johnson, and that is their ticket to winning. This is why Republicans work for voter ID laws, which limit minority turnout. With their opposition to programs which raise people out of poverty, who tend to be disproportionately minority due to centuries of discrimination, there is no wonder why minorities have flocked to Democrats with their support of education, health care, and other essential services that prevent people from falling down completely. 

This is why it is important when studying gender or race to check to see if there is not a lurking variable behind what seems like an easy correlation. The real reason we see more women voting for Democrats is not simply from significant numbers of women flocking to the Democratic party, but from a higher voter turnout among minority women versus minority men. The gender divide is small, but the difference in turnout between minority men and women is large enough to tilt national elections. With millions of African American men incarcerated for minor crimes across the country they are ineligible to vote which does not give the male demographic the Democratic boost needed to also side slightly to the Democratic Party.

For the future this has major consequences for American politics. Hispanic/Latino Americans are growing as a percentage of the population, partly through immigration, and also through a higher birth rate than white Americans. It is now impossible for Republicans to win the Presidency without being accepting and open to these Americans, and they are likely to lose important states such as Arizona and Texas, and Florida is going to be out of reach within 10 years as the demographics shift.

The Republican Party right now is a reactionary party, and Donald Trump represents this reaction from the far right of American politics to a new America which is more diverse than at any other point since independence. With Nate Silver currently giving Clinton an 81.9% chance of winning the election with 322 electoral college votes under their Polls Plus Forecast, this strategy is clearly not working and if Democrats vote down the ballot this year it could be a total catastrophe for the Republican party.

Until the Republican Party becomes less racist the Democrats will retain the Presidency. It is time to focus down the ballot, end gerrymandering and kick the Republicans out of state legislatures as soon as we can. That will probably be in 2022 assuming that there are ballot initiatives in 2018 and 2020 to reform or end gerrymandering. The current initiative in Maine for IRV has the potential to spread across the country like how gay marriage in Maine and Washington spread across the country in the blink of an eye. With ranked voting and multiple members per district in more states, the Democrats and major third parties (eg The Progressive Party) will gain power, forming coalitions and increasing opportunity for everybody. Hopefully these efforts will spread like wildfire, we can change the law to allow (or even require) members of congress to be elected using ranked voting and then we will have governments which reflect the wishes of the people.

This is the foreseeable future of American politics. The racial divide is real and the biggest determinant of which party wins.

Sources:

CNN Exit Polls 2012

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-trump/

Warren wants to be VP

Elizabeth Warren recently said she would be willing to be Hillary Clinton's Vice President.

I fully plan on voting for Clinton because I don't want to see a Donald Trump Presidency. Though Warren as VP makes absolutely no sense to me, John Nance Garner was Vice President under President Franklin Roosevelt, and I bet no one reading this post knows who John Nance Garner was. (unless they are over 90 years old) This is because the Vice Presidency is a very boring position. Most Americans don't know who even President Lincoln's Vice President was, and given how much we hear from George HW Bush's Vice President (whose name I forget, even though I was technically alive at the very end of his term) further demonstrates how absolutely useless this position is most of the time.



Granted, sometimes you have a President who is notable, like Dick Cheney who was frequently talked about, Former President-elect Al Gore who had the election stolen from him, or the war criminal George HW Bush who betrayed our country in his dealings with Iran as part of the Reagan administration, but if the Vice President under the half of FDR's term where he did the New Deal is not a common household name, than I see no reason for us to put someone as talented as Elizabeth Warren in a position which significantly reduces her power and authority. She is already one of the most recognized figures in the country, the most respected politician in the country, and is frequently featured on late night talk shows and on the news. There is absolutely no advantage to her being Vice President and I hope that she will rethink this decision before giving up her seat on the Finance Committee, which is a far more powerful position ultimately.

I love Warren, she is my favorite American politician of today, I wish she was in Clinton's place right now, and I want her to do everything she can to do the right thing in preventing fraud which she is so remarkably good at. This is the reason why I do not want her to be Vice President because we need her to be in the most powerful positions possible to fight for US.

Schools Of Thought In Modern Politics: Part 3: Understanding the theoretical roots of economic policy

In my final post about different schools of thought and modern politics, a central question is how do we determine whether countries are more liberal or socialist in their policies while still maintaining the academic meaning of those words, which I have already defined by analyzing the views of the people who founded these schools of thought.

Before determining which school of thought dominates the country's economic policies, we first must construct a test to determine which school it most represents.

1. Does this country have price controls? How ubiquitous are they? (Price controls are a feature of mercantilism and socialism. Liberals oppose price controls.)
2. What percentage of manufacturing does your country control? (Control of manufacturing by the government is a feature of socialism. It can be a feature of mercantilism. Liberals favor private industry in competitive markets, but generally support intervention in monopolies.)
3. Does your government protect businesses from competition? (Mercantilists and Socialists oppose the free market. Liberals favor low barriers to entry to the market.)
4. Where do parties stand on interracial issues, if interracial issues exist in your country? (Liberals are concerned about ending such inequalities, Fascists are opposed to minorities, Socialists believe the real division is between classes)
5. How much influence does the average person have in government? (This determines how much corruption there is in government, Corruption Perceptions Index is a good metric)

Some questions are not defining features of any major school of thought and only controversial in sub-branches. The regulation of monopolies has been favored by most liberal economists since Adam Smith for example, and public education was a prominent feature of John Stuart Mill's extremely liberal writings, so I have omitted such issues. These four questions aim towards the root differences in today's world.

If we were then to analyze different country's policies, and more importantly the difference between different parties domestically and international, we can get a general idea of the ideological leanings of the major world players.

In the United States, each party is ambiguous about price controls. Democrats generally push for policies which will push prices down for the poor, but this is a completely separate and very liberal mechanism. Republicans do not support price controls, so this makes them look liberal. The second question also puts both parties as liberal. The third question however is where the picture gets more complicated. A number of politicians will support reforms like minimum wages, but minimum wages have disadvantages like other price controls, which is normally seen in a surplus of labor from our basic supply and demand graph. The other word for this surplus is unemployment. Another form of price controls we frequently see is in agriculture. The government keeps the supply of food low to keep the price high enough to support farmers profit yields. This is definitely not a neoliberal policy (who would generally support no price controls) and creates inefficiencies, while there are other issues with agriculture like food security that makes it a much more complicated issue.

When it comes to having a more open or closed market, this is similarly ambiguous.
In conclusion for the series. Today's politics has seen a  rapid reduction in true socialists who would call for the collectivization of production.

When it comes to racial inequality, we start to see some divergence between parties on ethnic questions. Democrats are far more likely to support human rights legislation than the Republican party, and most Republicans view such legislation which reaches out to minorities as being "bailouts" or other disparaging terms. Fascism still has some influence in terms of immigration policy in the US and Europe, and how different regions respond to issues like police shootings which have a massive racial component.

The other major issue today which we observe with the influence of the average person in government is widely apparent with far more Democrats supporting campaign finance reform than Republicans. This is one wedge issue which paints a difference in access to government between our two parties. This wedge pits politicians who support a government which works for all and is based in liberty against politicians who exist to serve their higher-ups and are corrupt. It definitely is not a guarantee that a member of either party will fit cleanly in the organization, but is a trend which makes them clearly different from each other to close observers.

This conflict between liberty and corruption is the true ideological conflict between parties in American and European politics today. The idea of access to the economy and government for all people is a fundamental distinction between the two major parties. There is still some role for fascist vs. liberal thought in modern politics as a significant driver, but this does not extend to the questions of campaign finance and how the government spends most of its money.

Obama's record

We have two and a half years left until President Obama will retire... and he has had a mixed presidency. He can repair his presidency and is starting to by speaking his mind. I am convinced that President Obama has been doing what President Clinton did during his presidency (according to Locked in the Cabinet by Robert Reich) where he has been listening to his advisors who are telling him to move to the right to capture votes, which hasn't worked once in the last 21 years the Democrats have been trying the strategy, and Elizabeth Warren has diverted from the strategy and is now the most popular politician in the country. So, how would I rank Obama today and how can he make his presidency count?

There are some problems:

1. His hunting Edward Snowden (who is a whistleblower) is unconstitutional. He should immediately grant Edward Snowden a pardon.
2. He has not stood against the vast bulk surveillance of the NSA which is unconstitutional. 

There are some issues he has struggled with:

1. The Affordable Care Act was not as strong as it could have been and could/should have been implemented 4 years ago, not this last January.

There are some major successes:

1. The Affordable Care Act increases competition between insurance companies by allowing people to switch more frequently (which reduces prices) and increases the ability to purchase medications at lower prices.
2. Congress has increased taxes on the wealthy while he is president which he signed into law and his party actually passed. I am not certain whether he could have vetoed this bill because he cannot veto budgets.
3. His environmental policy is flawless. After years of people speculating on Keystone XL he has stood his ground and he halted petroleum exploration in the Arctic.
4. The so-called "bailout" of the automotive industry was paid back in full, and we still have a large automotive industry with new management which is profitable.
5. He raised the minimum wage for federal government employees and contractors. Source

He has been blocked on some initiatives:

1. He passed an executive order to put all prisoners at Guantanamo Bay on trial on 22 January 2009, but this was overturned on 27 January 2009. Text of order and details
2. Immigration reform stalled in the Senate since he entered office and there is no chance of it getting passed a Republican controlled House.

Finally, when looking at President Obama's record we must take into account the response of Congress to all likely initiatives which means that we need to keep this reality in our analysis. With the resistance to his every action, it explains why the approval rating of Congress is 30 points below the President, showing people somewhere know where the real problem lies on why so many of these issues have stalled.

I stand with my President, he is a true progressive. I stand with Denny Heck and Elizabeth Warren as well.

I stand against the Democrats who try to appear liberal but are just in corporate hands which include Pelosi, Reid, Sanders, Murray, Cantwell, and most members of the Democratic Party.

A true progressive is not determined by his membership in a caucus but his voting record.

Economy of the Central African Republic

The Central African Republic is one of the poorest countries in the world. They rank at 188/189 on the ease of doing business index, have a GDP per Capita (PPP) of $700, and unemployment of 8%, with 23% unemployment in Bangui, the capital.

Demographically this is a classic case of a country which is not unified by tribe, with the largest tribe being the Gbaya at 33% of the population, with hundreds of other groups with their own languages and cultures. 80% is Christian, and 10% are Muslim. The Gbaya and Banda together make up 60% of the population. Only 4% of the population is over 65 years old.

The CAR became independent in 1960. They were under an extremely mismanaged dictatorship by Bokassa from 1965-1979 who held the country back economically, and was overthrown by the French. The 1980s were unstable under General Kolingba. The first free elections were held in 1993 when Patassé was elected. He led a violent and corrupt government until 2003. 2003 saw Bozize overthrow Patassé. The Bush War that followed ended in 2007. There continue to be Rebel Groups operating in the country that prevents development. They are currently under an interim government.

The CAR is currently in a period of transition with an interim government being formed, and this is a period of incredible potential for the country.

So, what to do? Well, the first step is to make sure that all people are included in the government. This is best done using a ranked voting system which will allow the establishment of parties that represent each group of the population and ensure all voices can be heard. I recommend Single Transferable Vote and multi-member districts because it will prevent artificial quotas and ensure that there will be less corruption because people will be able to elect opposition parties. Their legislature should be unicameral and be composed of regional representatives. They should reduce the term of the President so that there are more frequent elections. The President should be directly elected using IRV. The President can only act within the law. The court system should be independent and there should be trial by jury to separate the courts from politics. The Supreme Court should be directly elected by the people. Elections should be publically financed. Voting should be made convenient to people so everyone can vote.

When it comes to economic policy they have more work to do than almost every other country. Their Doing Business ranking is the second worst in the world, and they need to make it easier for people to start their own businesses. This will increase employment and allow them to advance technologically. Tax payments should be moved to an annual cycle which will save a lot of money in hiring accountants and allow business owners to put more time into doing things that are productive. They need to reduce the initial cost of getting electricity which is a significant barrier to development. They should have a simple tax system combined with a progressive income tax (which treats capital gains as income), progressive inheritance tax, and a carbon tax. They need bank reform so banks can be a safe place for people to deposit their money along with insurance for depositors, along with laws against financial devices that damage the economy. An example of dangerous financial devices are Ponzi Schemes. They need to protect unions so that workers can be competitive and get paid a living wage. This will create the economic growth to free up labor and resources to solve other major problems.

A major threat to the economy is illiteracy. The government should set up schools for adults to learn how to read and write and continue to mandate education for children. They should work with education organizations to ensure that education is done in a way to benefit children the most given their resources.

Healthcare is an incredibly important issue and a major problem for the economy. Access to contraceptives is important to help bring down their birth rate which is currently around 5 children per woman. This will make a significant improvement to the livelihood of everyone in the country when people have fewer children. They need to attract more doctors and keep working with the WHO to implement reforms. Developing the economy by eliminating unnecessary regulation and streamlining what is left will create the revenue needed for the government to make massive improvements in health care.

The CAR among other African countries has the potential to be a model green economy if developed correctly. The largest and most immediate hurdle is the extreme corruption which hurts workers and business owners and need to be reduced. Then they will have the ability to cover other issues such as their dire healthcare system. If they don't improve their economy they will like many other countries not have the ability to fix the other problems which perpetuate misery for far too many millions of people.

This is a time of incredible opportunity for the Central African Republic and hopefully they will make a large step towards democratic elections.

References
http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/central-african-republic/

The other thing Clinton needs to do

Hillary Clinton has this very annoying habit of writing her opponent's campaign ads. Last week she said she was not truly well-off. This is absolute baloney, since she and her husband are worth $80 million, and were worth over $1 million the day they left the White House. If she wants to have any political future she needs to stop doing this. Her 2008 campaign was filled with times where she would misspeak and say things that are blatantly not true, and she lost the primaries at the end of the primary season which gave Obama the presidency. A great deal of this was due to her being tactless in her speeches. Mitt Romney is similar to Hillary Clinton because he also made a lot of his money on investments (as does every millionaire in the world with the exception of tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un) which turned voters off in the general election. In a country with growing income inequality this will kill her campaign by the attack ads from her opponent and whoever the Republicans nominate will become president. A Republican in the White House will be a huge problem because of their tax policy, opposition to education, warmongering, like Clinton an opposition to AMTRAK, among other issues. If Clinton is going to keep doing this type of stunt she should stay out of the race and let Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders run because they don't make these types of large mistakes. She will be eaten alive, and this would be bad for all of us.

She also needs to address how she and her husband make millions of dollars on speaking arrangements. Fortunately for the Clinton campaign, she can talk about her voting record in the Senate which was quite progressive on economic issues, and explain that if someone is offered a million dollars they will take it. If she is tactful about how she says this she will be able to convince liberal voters who listen that she is far more progressive than her husband on these issues. Fortunately for Republicans based on history this is extremely unlikely to happen since she is not a great speaker and frequently says things that are wrong. She needs a coach for making speeches (or a better coach if she doesn't have one) who she can practice with so that she doesn't keep making these mistakes that kept the presidency from her in 2008.

If Clinton wants the vote of the left

I've been extremely skeptical of Hillary Clinton. I've been worried because her husband and her have a lot in common and this makes many people like myself wary of them. Bill Clinton had a weak presidency, and Clinton had an average Senate Career. I personally would like better for my president, and I am not alone. The day Elizabeth Warren announced her candidacy will definitely be the day I sign up to work on her campaign, and I still support her more. Currently, it looks like Hillary Clinton will be the nominee of the Democrats in 2016. She is going to need to do a major rebranding of her political career, and here are the issues and policy statements she needs to change and make clear in the next few years:

1. She needs to propose a major overhaul of the NSA. So far she has done nothing on this issue and it is the one she needs to come clean on soon. If she does she will have a chance in the election, if not it will be very close and she will probably lose a lot of voters. She needs to speak out against the PATRIOT ACT and propose a real constitutional solution. She did vote against wiretapping after the PATRIOT ACT came out in 2005.
2. She is an enemy of AMTRAK and needs to reverse this position.
3. Her education policy needs massive work and she needs a clear policy that the NEA will endorse. She is close, but this could use some massive work and clear policy objectives.

There are some issues she has corrected over time:

1. She has done a complete reversal of her gay rights policies. They are now in line with basic civil rights.
2. She has come clean on Iraq as of this month. It took her 12 years.

There are also issues she has been good on and will help her campaign considerably:

1. She has been progressive on taxes in the Senate
2. Her record on Social Security is stellar.
3. Abortion record is stellar.
4. Women's rights record is stellar.
5. Her environmental record is stellar.
6. She supports Ukraine and Georgia.
7. Her trade policy was more progressive than her husband as a Senator and in line with modern progressives.
8. Support for voting legislation is clean.
9. Supports background checks for guns.
10. She has supported public health care since she was in college.
11. She supports the minimum wage being enough to live on.
12. She supports GMOs.

Important voting records that are good are for progressive taxation, abortion, women's rights. Her civil rights score from the ACLU (excluding women's rights) is 60%, which is truly abysmal for a Democrat.

My main criticisms of Clinton thus far have been the 4 policies (which are extremely important). I have not criticized her for Benghazi because I realize that was a freak terrorist attack, and the resources were lacking from where they should have been due to a bill signed by George W. Bush. 

I've been extremely wary and have been hoping to have a different choice, but doing some deeper analysis at her policies leaves her with only 3 weak spots, which is pretty good for any candidate, and I think she can fix her positions on them during the campaign. Elizabeth Warren supports her, so that is another reason for me to trust her more. She does have some strengths over a few of her husband's weaknesses (she was more critical of free trade and supported fair trade over free trade as we see with CAFTA, as well as being significantly more liberal on her tax policy as Senator) which makes me have to change my mind on her. I underestimated her on economic policy, and since I was basing her views off of Bill's and now that I have (finally) done the necessary research I could campaign for her if she does a great job at designing her platform and hopefully could help design a platform that will reach out to young swing voters and target Republicans where it hurts.

So, I will support her candidacy over other candidates after doing more thorough research and separating her from Bill Clinton given that her Senate Career had some major improvements to her husband's career.

Hopefully she keeps moving forward as President on issues and will be more of a firebrand than Obama or her husband. Elizabeth Warren (who is the most admired politician in America) believes in her and she certainly has momentum. Hopefully when she becomes President she will be able to keep the momentum up and make some much needed change by working with Americans and politicians who work for us.

Information on Former Secretary Clinton:
http://www.ontheissues.org/hillary_clinton.htm

Good quizzes at the moment:
http://www.gotoquiz.com/results/2016_presidential_candidate_quiz
http://www.selectsmart.com/PRO/president16.php

Bernie Sanders is the right man for the job

The current VA scandal (which we must remember was created by the traitor George Walker Bush) is currently unfolding and the Democrats in light of an extraordinarily important midterm election are finally putting a real man on the job, Bernie Sanders.

This VA scandal is already a huge part of the election and if the Democrats do not fix it it will haunt them through 2016 and make it easier for the Republicans to win. The party has a historic record dating back to the election of Bill Clinton of trying to meet everyone halfway in mishmash legislation that gets only half the job done at best and frequently creates more problems than they solve because they miss important pieces. This is an important issue like the others, and they know that if they lose Veterans they will have a hard time winning in many places, like Florida!

On the other hand, Democrats portraying themselves as problem solvers as opposed to backstabbing two-faced liars will be more effective in getting people out to vote and hurt the idea that the two parties are no different which compromise has helped give evidence to support the idea that what differences they have are small. This will get African Americans and Hispanics and young voters out to vote which worked so well in 2008 that the Democrats got a near filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and over 300 seats in the house. If they repeat that in this next election than progress will be possible.

History says as much, as the most famous presidents in history were decisive and use politics to improve the country. By making excellent policy Obama could become a memorable president for a long time, and the last two years will be decisive for his legacy. Hopefully this will happen.

President Obama needs to look at people like Sanders for advice to get real change done that will improve our country.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/veterans-affairs-bernie-sanders-107300.html

Why American politics is confusing

Working within the assumption that Republicans are more socially conservative, anti-federalist (opposing the movement of services to the Federak level), and economically liberal (favoring less government intervention in the economy) and that Democrats are more socially liberal, federalist, and economically democratic socialist (favoring a free market with regulation, democratic socialist is a more accurate term) what party president would you think would sign the following laws? All of the following are real laws, if you really think you know our legislative history, try to guess which President signed the law. Click on the link bill to see which bill and President signed the law.

1. Requiring Americans to buy insurance without a public option.
2. Outlawing gay marriage. bill
3. Rescuing America's passenger rail at the national and local level with a brand new government agency to provide mass transit between cities. national bill and local bill
4. Tied American foreign assistance to human rights and established separate funds for developmental assistance to countries. bill
5. Increased support for helping people with HIV and AIDS in Africa.
6. Which President started sales of weapons to Israel? bill
7. Mandated certain safety requirements for the workplace. bill
8. Mandated equal employment for men and women and outlawed gender discrimination in the workplace. bill
9. Mandated certain levels for privacy. bill
10. The first President to start to move America towards the metric system? bill
11. Implemented Keynesian policies in response to stagflation. president
12. Vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on South Africa's Apartheid government. bill
13. Who did the first veto on a civil rights bill since Andrew Jackson? bill
14. The only President in the last 30 years to balance the budget. bill
15. Devolved welfare to the state level. bill
16. Largest increase in the US National Deficit in history (unadjusted) bill
17. Increased the cost of travelling to the United States? bill and bill
18. Which President doubled the interest rate on student loans? bill

If people ever  feel confused about American politics, these 18 examples would explain why our politics seems completely bewildering.

The State of the Union 2014

I liked President Obama's speech. He listed several proposals that will help our economy, including paying government employees enough so they don't qualify for welfare.

• His idea for a myRA is an excellent idea because it will make it so all people have access to a retirement plan, and will present competition to traditional IRA plans the way the Public Option was intended in the beginning.
• Working towards employers paying employees enough to live on is what we need, it will save states money to invest in education and make sure every American has the opportunity to succeed. Hopefully the tax code can be modified to work like the one I have already posted which would reward companies for paying employees a living wage and eliminating the deduction for employees who are paid below a reasonable living wage which should be more than just the bare essentials for someone working 40 hours a week.
• He mentioned solar power briefly, and extending tax credits to increase the amount of families who use solar power in the lower 48 and Hawaii will make a large dent on our greenhouse gas emissions and create thousands of private sector construction jobs.
• He talked about trade promotion authority which is of course the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Increasing trade with China and making it so we have strong ties with the Pacific Rim is a good idea, but the Trans-Pacific Partnership has a number of very bad provisions when it comes to copyright and patents which will have impacts on everything from music to literature to agriculture that will be negative for the vast majority of people from what I can find out. I will to make a post on this with a counter-proposal soon on the problematic parts. It also does nothing for tourism around the Pacific rim which is one major problem I have with all of our free trade agreements.
• His policy on Iran is very important. By using his veto pen (ideally) he can have more or less full power when it comes to Iran and negotiating with Iran to increase trade and bring them closer to the US and Europe as their President has stated he wants. Given how the last election was not fraudulent (and Ahmadinejad's last election was clearly fraught with corruption) it is clear where the Iranian people stand on this.
• Investment in Preschool which I am very glad to hear.
• Immigration was touched on and hopefully we can get important immigration reform passed to end the immigration problems that were started by George W. Bush of the severe limitations on work visas that clearly don't work.

When it comes to Representative McMorris-Rodgers speech I thought it was acid to the ears. I participated in debate for four years in high school and have done some judging since, and I have heard better arguments from 14 year olds. It was disconnected, and she keeps talking about how Republicans have better plans than Obama which she fails to elaborate on, and keeps rattling on about her children and how proud she is. She can be a proud parent, and good for her, but an official response speech is not the time to talk about your children, it's the time to present your counterproposals in a critical election year (because the question of whether any significant progress done by Obama for the remainder of his Presidency will be determined on November 4th in the Congressional elections, making this election, like all elections, extremely important). If the Republicans fail to present plans as the Response Speech has traditionally been used than the Democrats should start partying today because it will be a large uphill battle for the Republicans, so I think the Democrats can win the next election because the Republicans are just too crazy and incomprehensible to be taken seriously.

The response from the left I saw has been mixed. A lot of people I have seen have immediately grasped on to say that his speech has not been enough. Robert Reich claims on his facebook wall that Obama didn't show spine, and I couldn't disagree more. He stood up for 4 very important very liberal policies that have a chance to pass, and are first steps. No one should take this as the last step, and after a number of problems with the budget from the Republicans we need to recover ground to where we used to be. A lot of people on the left are taking his most progressive speech and immediately bashing it for being a compromise to the Republicans when the speech had the most similarities to the values he was taught as a child (given his Unitarian Universalist upbringing, "And we do them because we believe in the inherent dignity and equality of every human being, regardless of race or religion, creed or sexual orientation." is extraordinarily similar UU's first principle) I have heard from him since he became President. When people on the left shoot him for finally showing some skin in his speeches they are shooting themselves in the foot and losing credibility. It was a good speech and has a lot of potential to start moving towards an even better speech next year when the Democrats will be in control and they can make serious change like happened when President Johnson was President. I take this speech as a rallying call for this November's elections in some ways because he is starting to up the talk which is the first step to making real change.

A history of compromise

In my political science class we had a discussion about compromise and most of the classmates who spoke said compromise is a good thing and said they desired for the parties to "work together" and "find the middle". Some compromises are better than others, and some are just plain rotten. I can pinpoint no compromise that was completely good, though there are some (like Kansas-Nebraska Act) are just plain rotten. Here is a list of the seekers of this very romantic concept:

• The Great Compromise which created our bicameral congress made it so we have a congress that is hard to get things done, but is the best compromise on the list because it made it so the large and small states would stay together.
• What was maybe the only good compromise in history was the Missouri Compromise under Madison, which stated that slave states had to enter along with free states which allowed the nation to grow and postponed the ending of slavery.
• Millard Fillmore (our 13th President) compromised with the Kansas Nebraska group which historians agree (which is rare for historians to agree on an issue) helped make the civil war happen sooner.
• The Compromise of 1877 aka "The Great Betrayal" removed troops from the south which allowed them to implement the first Jim Crow laws.
• Franklin Roosevelt compromised in 1937 with Republicans to lower the deficit, but the private sector wasn't strong enough yet to support the jobs the government was supporting, so he quickly reversed course in the Second New Deal.
• President Clinton compromised on DOMA trying to get other bills done, which never happened.
• President Obama compromised on ACA which left it without a lot of teeth to fully reduce the cost of health care and delayed its implementation by 4 years after it passed. Some say this might be necessary, but the PATRIOT ACT (a much larger bill that expanded bureaucracy far more than ACA's original form was going to) was in full force just months after its implementation with an entire new department! The only remaining reason to delay it by 4 years is because it gave people time to doubt its implementation, put it after the Congressional and Presidential elections so that it gave the Republicans a chance to win (which failed for the Presidential election but did give Republicans the House, despite losing the popular vote last year for the house thanks to gerrymandering).

I oppose compromise as a policy intiative because if you are running for office and say you want to do something, you had better do it, or expect that people will not like you. Our greatest presidents in my opinion were Washington, Lincoln, both of the Roosevelts, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson (Andrew Johnson was a toad). The difference between these presidents and the presidents I listed above is they ran on a particular platform, and then worked towards their platform because all of them had the support of the American people. If you are an honest person and mean what you say you will do it. You won't walk into the German Bundestag and then reach over to the Neo-Nazi National Democratic Party and ask them what they want. They lost the election! The people chose your vision, you had better give it to them! If someone is an honest person they will do this, like the 8 presidents I list above. If Americans wanted the Republican vision of health care in 2008 we would have voted for Sarah Palin and John McCain, but we didn't. It was irresponsible and just plain rude for Obama and the other Democrats to then reach over to the Republicans and destroy their own bill that a majority of Americans had voted for in the previous election. They might have been able to retain the house in 2010 if they had actually stood by their platform, but instead of then stepping aside and giving into the insurance companies who have no interest in a stable reliable health care system they lost the election. Obama should have vetoed the NDAA in 2011 but he didn't. If something is right it should be done.

I respect the Republicans for one thing, and that is they stand by their word. If the Republicans state they want to privatize our schools, end Social Security, ship weapons to Israel, Iran, the Mujahideen, invade Grenada, veto the Americans with Disabilities Act, make it illegal for workers to organize, or put Habeas Corpus on hold you can believe they are going to do it, and for that I respect them. I don't trust their judgement as can be seen with the 2008 financial collapse, opposing bills meant to expand freedom etc, but I trust the Republicans will do what they say they are going to do given their history, I just think their platform is irresponsible and the wrong direction for a variety of reasons. But I do trust they will do what they say.

I have no respect for Mainstream Democrats, even though at times they make some good decisions like Obama talking to the President of Iran to reduce the tensions and bring Iran (which is one of only two ways to go over land from India to Europe, a geographic/economic position of unmatched importance) back to talk with Western nations so they can have freedom and the world can be better, the majority of the Democrats' decisions have been poor. Here is a list:

1. President Obama has postponed a number of parts of the ACA over the past year, meaning it will be over 5 years since passage when it will come into effect. The insurance exchanges are only now coming into effect now, if the PATRIOT ACT came into effect it would have come into effect in 2004. The Supreme Court has granted access to people who challenge the ACA (apparently the GOP has standing) but has refused to grant access to challenges by civil rights groups on the PATRIOT ACT (who apparently have no standing even though the government is snooping in their records without independent warrants, and prisoners who have been given no habeas corpus even though last time I checked no enemy troops have been on American soil attacking us in a war for the past 12 years, meaning we haven't been invaded).
2. President Obama has not made an honest attempt to repeal the PATRIOT ACT and has signed its re-authorization every single time. Obama is a conservative. The Terrorists won, the PATRIOT ACT is still in force. America will only defeat the Terrorists' motives when we reinstate our freedom.
3. President Clinton caved to the Financial industry on deregulating Over-The-Counter Derivatives which allowed people to make dangerous trades that were a major part of the financial collapse in 2008.

This is why I have no respect for the Democratic Party as an institution and limited respect for President Obama. When a party wins an election, it has the ability to make its platform that the people chose become policy of the land but the Democrats haven't done this since the 1960s. President Carter attempted, but with the Republicans taking over Congress halfway through his term and being unable to convince the American people that it was foreign states increasing the price, not the American government, he couldn't do a lot else.

The one time the democrats really led was when they didn't compromise on the debt ceiling last month. Hopefully they will continue and get real progress done. I don't know what they will do next.

The War in Afghanistan is a bad war

As everybody knows, on September 11, 2001 the United States of America was attacked by religious extremists whose leader was Osama bin Laden. Proof quickly came out that bin Laden was behind the attack and the United States declared a war on this non-state actor. It often feels like the Afghanistan government was harboring him, but this is just not true. Upon the attack, the supreme leader of Afghanistan offered to turn him over to an Islamic court if Bush presented evidence of his guilt. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 If George Bush had done this then we could have averted a major war and saved millions of lives. Everybody knows with the constant reports of deaths in Afghanistan that this didn't happen.

We could have avoided the entire War in Afghanistan and made it a manhunt for a wanted criminal, instead, George W. Bush chose to turn it into a conflict that destabilized the entire country and attacked the government for "helping bin Laden" even though it was the administration his father served in that put them in power in the first place!

George W. Bush had the opportunity to avoid a war and improve goodwill between nations, saving lives, and he refused. He is the worst president in American history and should be ashamed of his actions. Congress should be ashamed that they didn't pass a resolution to negotiate with the Afghanistan government, and I have no idea how this wasn't talked about by any member of Congress in that time period.

We won, we have work to do

Today, as everybody knows, the Supreme Court overturned DOMA and Proposition 8 as unconsitutional. Today will be remembered for the rest of American history and will be written in textbooks for decades to come, but the battle for freedom including and beyond gay rights is just getting started for this century.

On DOMA it is relieving to see that the Federal government will now recognize gay marriages, and this is a major step forward for freedom in our country. DOMA had no legal standing in the first place, for the reasons I outlined here: United States v. Windsor

I am pleased and disappointed with the decision on Proposition 8. I recommend reading Joanna Brooks' article on the issue because she is such an eloquent writer and Mormon. I am delighted that gay marriage has returned to California, and that it now opens opportunities to open district court challenges to anti-marriage laws in states across the country.

We saw the Supreme Court effectively overturn the Voting Rights Act yesterday in Shelby County v. Holder, one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of America. I would have agreed with a decision to extend Department of Justice approval to all changes , but they instead went the other way. Get ready for major bills restricting voting rights to people in the South through large requirements for voter identification and other ineffective and immoral changes to their laws. We need a Right to Vote amendment now to make such proposals harder to defend in court, because we are going down the rabbit hole. We need major voting reform now, and this is just one more tragedy that will convince more people of the desperate need to improve our democracy.

The past 24 hours have been a 67% success rate, hopefully we can change this set of decisions around before the next census... though I am not completely confident if enough people are mobilized it can be done.

Separation of Powers

There is one political habit a lot of Americans are into that I am sick and tired of. That habit is forgetting how our government separates powers and misplacing blame. Every time Congress does anything, the President is blamed. People blame the President for absolutely everything, even if there is nothing else he can do about it. There are a few important points to this.

Avoiding a constitutional crisis, the President does not make the law. Every executive order issued since 1789 (when the first executive order was issued) lists at the beginning the part of the US Code that he is enforcing. This is how the government of the United States works. Guantanamo Bay is still open, despite President Obama vowing to close it, he has proposed laws to close it, and since there is (fortunately) no law allowing the President to unilaterally close military bases, he cannot close it, it requires a vote of Congress. Another example is the current immigration laws. Obama is enforcing the laws that have been handed to him by Congress and were signed by the scum of our country, George W. Bush. Don't blame Obama for Bush's mistakes! Every time someone says this to me I will make a mental note that the person doesn't fully understand the basics of how our government works, and needs to be educated on the Constitution. Instead look at the big picture, which includes court opinions and decisions, legislative laws, and the President executing the law and acting as "preacher-in-chief" and a guiding voice for the country by presenting ideas for the country to follow and the veto pen which is hardly ever used anyways. Obama has had only two vetoes so far in his term... which makes him effectively a rubber stamp. He could veto more, but this is infrequent with Obama. President Bush had 12 vetoes in 8 years,  The President's power lies mostly in keeping the government functioning and keeping agencies running, as the Constitution intends.

So basically, don't confuse the powers of the different people in our government, it is sloppy and embarrassing.

Bachmann is gone

I expect that the people at Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and especially Jon Stewart will be in tears to hear that Michelle Bachmann has resigned.

On another note, the only bridge between Detroit and Windsor is owned by one man, and is not public.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassador_Bridge Personally, this seems like a really dangerous move to allow one person to hold such a valuable North American asset, for the same reasons that I think that the railroads should be public. As a capitalist, I believe in having competition for any privately traded goods, and that goods that we need (like bridges) that are naturally monopolistic should be publicly owned. When we privatize our necessary infrastructure, we give an immense amount of power to a third party with no incentive to keep prices reasonable, and make the economy inefficient.

Rail crisis illuminates need to make the railroads public.

Today an accident happened in Connecticut where two passengers trains collided head on in an accident. The trains were going opposite directions on the same track and hit each other. Reuters

The cause of this is very clear. I have ridden AMTRAK several times this year and I know exactly why this happened. Our railways are mostly privately owned. We don't have clear laws on northbound or southbound railways. We don't have clear rules for passing. If we did than there would never be a case where the passenger train has to stop and have a freight train go past because there is only one track at that place for both directions. Imagine if the freeway was like this.

The reason is because our railways are not owned by the government, they are owned by private companies. They don't manage the railways to work effectively, Imagine if our highways were done the same way. Imagine if the railways in the South were owned by UPS, by FedEx in the Northeast, and by Swift in the West. In order to save money these trucking companies decided that there was no need for two lanes across Snoqualmie Pass east of Seattle, or no need for two lanes around Lake Tahoe, and they were going to have the cars and trucks alternate in order to save money on paving in these conditions. No other trucking companies may use the roads they own, and if there is a truck in one of these bottlenecks than other people just have to wait and let the trucks go through. There is a toll every 50 miles or so, and the rates are high because otherwise you would go on surface streets maintained by counties, which no one will do. Another way would be saying "you can drive in the right lane, or the left lane, it's a free country you know!" which is of course absurd and dangerous.

This is how America's train system works.

A question I have had is what would keep a Chinese, Russian, or North Korean firm from buying out CSX, Norfolk Southern, or another major American rail operator? They wouldn't just have trains they are delivering, they would own a vital part of America's infrastructure. Something to think about.

We really need to own our railways through the government so that there can be clear regulations and that there can be competition in the industry. This will help both passenger trains and commerce. It will help consumers because there will be more options available to ship by freight trains (which are the most energy efficient form of transportation) and AMTRAK will be able to be run on time and eventually be less expensive because trains will fill up, which will increase AMTRAK's largest source of revenue bringing it closer to having a surplus.

The little deficit that couldn't

Paul Krugman recently posted about how people have been moving away from the deficit as an argument tactic.

I feel like I have already said this.

This is a filler post because I wasn't sure what else to write about today, and it is Sunday, and I just like pointing out when the data points toward what I said a month ago, before Krugman caught on. A little bragging never hurts!

Living within our means along with running government like a business

I just finished the Khan Academy course on finance which covered the basics of how companies are run. I highly recommend it for anyone who invests, which should be everyone. While it is called "stocks and bonds" which everyone should understand and isn't that difficult it includes the background of how businesses work and how they start which is very important.

Today I was reading a news article about Washington State's new budget where the Republican Senator who drafted the budget announced that we were "living within our means" which made me immediately think of their claim to want to "run government like a business" which immediately made me think after watching those educational videos "what a bunch of liars".

When people start a business they usually won't have the capital required start a business, so they will take a loan to get their business running to the point where they are self-sustaining. While taking this course and writing notes I looked at companies' balance sheets to get practice and basically every company I looked at had some sort of liability in the form of debt. Beyond that, the reason companies initially go public is to get cash in return for selling part of the company to continue to grow with the promise to pay back the stock if someone sells it back.

The root of the message is, the government can choose to do one of two things, run like a business by making an initial investment that will then pay off, (as we did in the 1930s) or live within their means and only investing what they already have in hand with a religious fervor against taxes which usually means cutting social spending. (which Greece is doing right now) One cannot do both. One would think that Mitt Romney would have understood this given how he was in Bain Capital all these years, but he apparently decided to campaign to the lowest common denominator who doesn't understand how to run a business because they think it is "boring" or "too complicated". But the root of it is, all the Republicans who preach both policies are liars or fools (by talking about something they clearly don't understand) and should be removed from office.

Given a choice, I would much rather see a government with a willingness to invest in its people than a government with a religious belief that they need to cut taxes, which is usually followed by cutting funds to schools and health care which is usually followed by a recession.