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Two Types of Soft Socialism Explained

25 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by Joe in economics, europe, history, law, philosophy, politics, socialism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

economics, europe, philosophy, politics, scandanavia, socialism

This meme seems to be far too accurate when I see socialism discussed in the media and by politicians.   I hope this blog will give people clarity on what socialism is and how an economy can be “mixed.”  Let’s start with the relevant definitions of socialism from Merriam Webster:

“1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property

b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state…”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

Politicians talking about socialism today are talking about government control not private communes.  Accordingly I think we can focus in on  :  “governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”   Or 2b “a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.”

Ok so does Norway’s government “own” the means of production and distribution of goods?   The answer is they partly do.   A government can partly “own” production and distribution of goods in at least two important ways:

First, it can entirely own a single sector of the economy such as health care or education or it can completely own businesses within a sector such as the post office in the United States or some public schools. 

Second, it can partially exert ownership rights over certain property that we still considered “owned” by private people.  The second aspect is a bit more complicated and will be addressed a bit more in depth.  

The first way is the easy to identify method of mixing socialism.  The government completely owns a particular sector of the economy or even a specific business within a sector.  So they may completely own the health care sector or the education sector.  Or they may own some businesses in these sectors.  For example in the US we have some schools completely owned by the state and some privately owned schools.  We have some VA hospitals and some privately owned hospitals.   We have government run police but also private security options and even private businesses that sell locks, fences and pepper spray in a security industry.   The post office is owned by the United states government but we also have private businesses like Federal Express that also transport packages.    So “soft socialism” can happen when there are some completely government owned businesses or sectors that operate along side private businesses or sectors.    That is the first and more straightforward form of “soft socialism.”

The second form of soft socialism requires us to examine what it means to “own” something.   What it means to “own” something is not as straightforward as it seems.    There are degrees of ownership and ownership is often not absolute.  But again lets start with a standard working definition. Merriam Webster says you own something if you “have power or mastery over” it.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/own#h2

The legal definition is very similar to the Merriam Webster definition.  See for example:

“The complete dominion, title, or proprietary right in a thing or claim.”

OWNERSHIP

And:


“OWNERSHIP the full and complete right of dominion over property.   It has been said that ownership is either so simple as to need no explanation or so elusive as to defy definition. At its most extreme and absolute, it means the power to enjoy and dispose of things absolutely…..”

https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/ownership

Does the government have “power or mastery” over our means of production and distribution of goods?  Now we are starting to see that “ownership” might be a bit fuzzier than we thought.   

But before we get into ownership as it relates to socialism let’s consider basic ownership claims that have no political implications.  Consider my claim that “I own this house.”  Ok normally we say you still “own” the house even if you allow someone to rent it from you.  But clearly you are giving up “power or mastery” over the property when you rent it.  You are giving up some aspects of your ownership in exchange for money.   The notion of having mastery or dominion over the thing is important to ownership.  You are the one who decides what happens to it.   If you own a house, you decide who can go in it.  However, if you rent it then you can no longer decide that and instead the renter can invite who they like.  If you own a car you decide who can go in your car and where the car goes.  But if you rent it then you give up some of those rights of ownership.   But you still retain some rights – specifically the right to eventually sell/alienate the item at the price you would like.    

Control over the terms of alienating/selling the property is important.   In fact, it is so important we still say the renter does not “own” the property even though he or she may be able to control what happens to the property due to a prepaid 100 year lease.   The renter still can’t sell the property.  Control of how the property is sold is so important that we still don’t call the renter who can exclude the “landlord” from setting foot on the property for decades the “owner.”   Even though the law still calls the landlord the owner, I think it is fair to say if you let someone rent your property you are giving up mastery and control of it – that is you are giving up certain characteristics of ownership.    But the ability to choose the terms under which I will completely alienate the property to someone else is retained so the landlord is still considered the “owner” even though I think ownership is really shared in these examples.    

If I have a mortgage on my home that means I gave up some of my right to alienate the property in exchange for getting the loan.  I can’t legally sell the property unless I pay off the loan.  Again the bank gains a share of ownership.     If I own one third of a company (one third of the stock) then I am entitled to one third of the proceeds of the sale of the company. 

Ownership is not complete if I do not control or receive the benefit of sale.  My ownership is shared with someone else.   In a documentary I saw on Cuba they said the people “own” their apartments.  But the catch was they could only sell it to the government.  If you can only sell something to one entity then that greatly diminishes your “dominion”.  The item may become worthless if that entity has no interest in acquiring the property and you have no use for it.   Clearly the Cuban government has a huge amount of mastery over that property.    The person who lives there is much more like a prepaid renter than an owner. 

So we can see owning property can be mixed.  What about ownership of “the means of production and distribution of goods.”   How do we produce goods?  One way is by our labor.   We think we own our labor.  But government often steps in and takes some of that ownership.  Income tax is like a mortgage on our labor.  We can’t sell our labor unless we pay the government a percentage of the sale proceeds.  So income tax an ownership interest the government takes in our labor much like a mortgage is an ownership interest the bank takes our land or a stock holder takes in a company.   The larger the percentage the more ownership and thus the more socialism.  This applies to sales taxes, property taxes (which is similar to us paying rent to the government for the right to use the property) and property you sell at a profit but have to pay income tax on.  So taxes are a direct way the government owns part of your labor and property.  The higher the taxes the more socialist the economy is.   But taxes are not the only way government takes an ownership interest in what we normally call private property.  

What about control over my ability to sell my labor?   Do I control the terms of when and how it will be sold?  Partially.  I might want to work in a field I have little experience in, but would be willing to do that for cheap.  I might be able to find someone who will hire me to do that.  But the government might come in and say “no we have a minimum wage so you are not allowed to sell your labor to that person at that price.”  Thus they are controlling the terms of the sale of my labor.  I read in Germany the government limits the amount of hours you can work. https://knowledge.leglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/LEGlobal-Employment-Law-Overview_Germany_2019-2020.pdf If you want to work more than that you need permission from them to sell more of your labor.  Overtime laws are another example of the government not allowing people to control the sale of their own labor.  As the government takes more and more control over our ability to sell our labor they are taking control/ownership over the production and distribution of goods and services.   

 So  Governments that take more control over the sale of our labor are more socialist.  They take ownership rights of the labor from the individual and give it to the government.  That is moving in a socialist direction. 

So is Norway socialist?  Well not completely but they are likely more socialist than the US.   With a few exceptions Western Europe is more socialist than the US.   Their economies are not as bad as full on socialist countries.  But they are considerably more socialist than the US and, unsurprisingly, their economies are substantially worse than the US economy.   As the data I offered here and here demonstrated. So I agree that Scandinavian and Western European countries are, with some exceptions, in fact more socialist than the USA. My question is why are we only looking at tiny homogenous Norway (or some other tiny Scandinavian country) and not all the other European countries that are also considerably more socialist than the US and whose economies are doing much worse? The US has over three times as many people with Italian ancestry as we do people with Norwegian ancestry. In fact we have three times more people of Italian ancestry than Norway has Norwegians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#Ancestry So it just seems odd indeed to assume socialist policies in the US would work out closer to how they work in Norway rather than in how it is working for Italy or Spain or France or England. Italy would need a 47% boost to their economy to match the US gdp per capita and the UK would need a 35% boost to their economy to match the US gdp per capita. By my rough calculations the average Western European/Scandinavian would need about a 40% boost to their countries economy to equal the USA’s economy. That is a fairly dramatic difference in prosperity.

Just a few points of clarification on what socialism is not. 

  1. Socialism is not the only factor that determines how healthy an economy is.   Other factors are important including resources, education, culture, corruption, crime, legal system that respects property rights etc.    
  2. Socialism and democracy are different concepts.  People can democratically elect a soft socialist or even a hard socialist.  This happened when Salvador Allende was elected in Chile.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende So saying someone is a “democratic socialist” doesn’t necessarily mean the socialism they are pushing for is less severe than a vanilla hard socialist.  Democracy is a political system not an economic system.   However “democratic socialist” can be a label that attaches to a political party.  And then it can mean whatever that party decides it means.    Just like a “Republican” or “Democrat” is a label for a party that can mean whatever the party decides it will stand for and this can and does change over time.
  3.  Socialism is not the same as to helping the poor.  Often socialists try to argue that socialism will help the poor.  I think that view is mistaken, but regardless people of all different sorts of economic views can help the poor.  Socialism is certainly not the only way to help the poor and indeed there is nothing in the definition of socialism that suggests the government will help the poor.  A socialist government is still a socialist government whether it helps the poor with the property it takes from citizens or not.

Theism’s Role in the Roots of Political Disagreement

06 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, christianity, law, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, politics, religion

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Atheism, Christianity, law, meta-ethics., metaethics, morality, philosophy, politics, religion, rights, Shapiro

In the last few blogs I have posted about some economic data that I think is relevant to political discussions in the US. I have also commented on Eric’s blog trying to explain why some Christians may vote republican and why Jesus was not a socialist. We quickly got in the weeds about data and why we think our data is more important and why we think the facts we mention are more important etc. I think all of those arguments are important in political debate. But neither Eric nor I are really trying to run a political blog. I want my blog to be more philosophical with an aim to show why being a theist is more intellectually fulfilling and coherent than being an atheist.

That topic will necessarily cover a wide variety of subtopics from meta-ethics, morality, to free will, to science, history, scripture, and yes politics. I think Eric and I would both agree that certain political views are anti-christian. But my disagreement with him was that we shouldn’t consider people who vote for one party or the other as Christians. Each party has a wide range of policies that they adopt and rarely are you going to find a party that perfectly matches our christian views. To the extent we are going to say political views on certain policies are christian or anti-christian those policies need to be considered individually. That is why I think Christians can be Democrats or Republicans or even Socialists.

The Catholic Church I believe has done a decent job (although far from perfect) of navigating these debates in this way. It has taken specific stances on issues that it believes are anti-christian but by and large has not emphasized certain political parties as being “Christ’s party” or the “anti-christ’s party”. It should be obvious to anyone reading the Gospels that Christ was not a politician and he was not preaching a political agenda. This is a difference between Islam and Christianity.

But part of the debate between theists and atheists is more centered around which view leads to better government. This is a much more philosophical question. So you might ask if Jesus was not a politician why would we say a theistic outlook is could lead to a better government? And the answer is because the theist has a fundamentally different view of what they are and how they get rights than the atheist. And this fundamentally different view has led to various issues over the past couple of centuries.

All laws are intended to promote certain goods. So questions of about whether morals exist, what they are, and how we know them, will be foundational for any government that is enforcing laws. Most of my blog explains why I believe an atheistic worldview completely fails to establish a coherent view of morality. Without real morality debating laws is essentially the same as debating whether red or white wine is preferable (subjectivism) or whether batman would beat the silver surfer in a fight (fictionalism).

The foundational belief that all humans are made in the image of God is the great equalizer and has provided a basis to reject slavery, racism and killing humans deemed undesirable. Rejecting the idea all humans are made in the Image of God removes a massive barrier to these practices. Efforts to create any similarly sized barrier have not yet materialized.

Theism supports the belief that our rights come from God and therefore the state can violate them. Atheists will often argue that rights are a creation of the state. This is a very different view and has had catastrophic consequences throughout history.

I am not saying Atheists can not run a government or have a moral society. But since they reject the notion that we are all made in the image of God that can be a severe foundational problem. We see this foundational crack play out in many different policies from racism, life issues, free speech, animal rights versus human rights, the relationship between the government and the individual, the relationship between church and state, and many more.

I have drafted a few blogs about some of these issues and hope to post about them in the future.

But for now I would recommend a pretty interesting interview that touches on some of these concerns. Ben Shapiro is a Jewish political commentator that worked his political views back to philosophy. (Yes many of the philosophical arguments I make would also support the Jewish theism.) Whereas I think I worked out philosophy to its political implications. So I think we sort of came at it from different directions but ended up meeting on some common philosophical ground. Now my goal is not to say people should adopt Ben Shapiro’s political views. I do think he does a good job representing conservative positions but I also think people should make sure they understand the positions of democrats and socialists.

Rather I recommend this video for the more philosophical aspects of his discussion. This is mostly covered in 20:00 to about 47:20 so if you are not interested in his personal life you may want to skip there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZETvBSlu1tg&t=3914s

European Soft Socialism Compared to the USA.

28 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by Joe in economics, logic, socialism, Uncategorized

≈ 40 Comments

Tags

economics, government, politics, socialism

Eric and I have some back and forth on some comparisons between Europe and the US that I think are important for Americans (and Europeans) to understand going into elections.  He has recently published a blog here in this line.

Money can’t buy health or happiness?

Some of the metrics he mentioned have little importance or at least the seem to have little importance for an election.  This blog will address the economic comparisons he raised and my comments in his blog will discuss some of the other issues.

 

I think the economic comparisons are  most salient for the US election.   Europeans (and here I am pretty much just including western Europe and the Scandanavian countries,  As I think the former soviet bloc countries have unique problems that make them less comparable) tend have “more socialism” of the type Democrats in our country are pushing for.  Whether it is really “socialism”, or not, is not something I don’t care to get bogged down on here.  Instead I just want to analyze the actual empirical data on how these systems are working out compared to the US system which – especially after the republican reductions in regulation and taxes – is more capitalist.

 

The first thing to note is that Eric’s numbers are not current.   They are from 2017.  It is important to consider Trump just took office at the beginning of 2017 so his policies (less taxes and regulation) which no doubt moved us away from the European economic models did not have as much of an effect yet.   Therefore the 2019 numbers show I believe more accurately the difference between Europe’s soft socialism and America’s more capitalist economic policies, because they allow republican changes some time to take effect.    Anyone interested in the data can see it here:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

 

These republican economic policies have moved our purchasing power up considerably relative to Europe since 2017.    So how does the US stack up? We are doing substantially better than about 95% of Europe.  About 5% of Europe is doing slightly better.  In particular four tiny European countries are doing better by objective measures of gdp per capita when considering purchase power.

 

They are Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Norway.

 

Ireland and Luxembourg are really outliers.

Ireland:  A capitalist would love to say “see look at Ireland doing so well since they have extremely low corporate taxes!”   Ireland’s gdp is caused by the low taxes but it seems it is not really Ireland’s GDP.

“Foreign-owned multinationals continue to contribute significantly to Ireland’s economy, making up 14 of the top 20 Irish firms (by turnover), employing 23% of the private sector labour-force, and paying 80% of corporation tax collected.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland

Foreign companies (most of which are US companies which account for 80% of Irish multinational employment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland  claim their production/GDP from Ireland – but this appears to just be so they get the lower tax rate.  Since the population of Ireland is so small – only 5 million – the US companies greatly distort this gdp per capita number so it is really hard to know what to make of it.  Ireland does have other marks of a soft socialism such as national health care etc.  But in any case at 5 million Ireland is the size of a smallish US state.

 

Luxembourg: Honestly it is so tiny with 600,000 it is not worth sorting through their gdp.  I mean a few big companies could send such a small population gdp per person through the roof.

 

Switzerland:  The US needs to grow its economy by 10% to hit Swiss numbers.  I am not sure if the Swiss have higher or lower taxes.  They do not have a nationalized health care system and their system seems similar to the current US system.  I would be in favor of taking a look at their Health Care system and seeing if it could work here in the US.  Switzerland has a population of about  8.6 million people.

 

Norway: the US would need to grow our economy by 2% to match Norway.  Norway is has about 5.5 million people.

 

Ok the rest of Europe is doing worse than the US by this objective measure.  But if we take these 4 countries that comes to 20 million people.  The US has 330 million people.   So if we divide the US by 50 states the average state is about 6.6 million per state.  So are these countries average gdp/person higher than the US’s top 2 or 3 states in gdp per person ppp?  I think you can just glance at the numbers and see that won’t be the case.   The top US states are doing quite a bit better than the top Western European countries.

 

 

20 million are doing better than the US but as we will see western/northern Europe is about 424 million people.  So this is less than 5% of Europe.   And that includes Ireland which really has an inflated GDP but ok.    What about the other 95% of Western Europe?   They are doing much worse by objective measures.   How much worse are they doing than the US?   Just looking at the world bank numbers from 2019:

 

Denmark (6 mil), Netherlands (17 mil) and Austria (9 mil) would need to boost their economy about 10% to match the US.

 

Germany (84 mil) Sweden (10 mil) and Belgium (11 mil) would need about a 20% boost to their economies to match the US.

 

Finland (5.5 mil) and France (65 mil) would need a 30% boost in their economies to match the US.

 

The United Kingdom (68 mil) and Malta (.5 mil) would need a 35% boost to their economy to match the US.

 

Italy (60.5 mil) would need about a 47% boost to match the US

 

Spain (47 mil) would need about a 54% boost to match the US.

 

Portugal (10 mil) would need a 79% boost to match the US.

 

Greece (10.5 mil) would need a 108% boost to their economy to match the US.

 

Population numbers are based on this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_population

 

So why assume adopting these economic models will result in us matching the top 5%?  Why are we ruling out the possibility these sorts of economic measures won’t lead us to be like Italy, Spain, or the UK which account for over 40% of the population we are considering.  If it turns out the same for us as it did for them, our economy would be looking at over a 40% decline!

 

So to get an idea of how big a drop that is, the biggest drop from the great recession of 2007  -2009 was a total drop of 4.7% of GDP.

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great_recession_of_200709#:~:text=Beyond%20its%20duration%2C%20the%20Great,data%20as%20of%20October%202013).

 

Suffice it to say these sorts of declines would be catastrophic for Americans that are used to a much higher level of spending power than Europeans.

Eric says:

“A pattern is emerging

A clear picture is emerging. Poverty is bad for health and happiness, and the global wellbeing would improve if there was greater equality of wealth. Wealthier countries can afford healthcare, education, housing and infrastructure that facilitate a good life.”

 

I agree poverty is bad for health and happiness.  But it is dubious that “equality” of wealth – especially if that were to mean America’s overall wealth dropped to Western European levels – would lead to more health and happiness.  I think it is pretty obvious such a huge shift would be catastrophic.

For example, in the US the top 10% of income earners pay 70% of our taxes.  That is because we have many wealthy people.  It is a huge benefit to the other 90% of us that we only need to cover 30% of the remaining tax burden!

https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/the-new-york-times-wrong-the-rich-pay-more-taxes-you-do#:~:text=The%20most%20recent%20IRS%20data,of%20the%20U.S.%20tax%20code.

Socialists claiming billionaires are immoral is not helpful to anyone.  I remember when the tax cuts – which were essentially a 25% ish reduction in certain corporate taxes  – were passed.  People on the left were complaining how this would save trump 20 million dollars per year.  I don’t think we really know how much it would save Trump since we don’t have his tax returns.  But let’s assume that is true.  That means he was paying 80 million per year in, and is now paying 60 million in every year.  60 million dollars in taxes every year just for having him as a citizen.  Why would anyone complain?  Rather than attacking wealthy I want the US to create as many as possible!

Europeans have a much more regressive taxes than the US because for whatever reason it seems very hard to make allot of money there.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/us-taxes-really-are-unusually-progressive/252917/

 

Productivity per hour:  Eric Says “The table below shows that workers in Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland and Denmark produce the most goods per hour worked, followed by USA, Australia and Germany.”  So America does better than the vast majority of Europe.  If Eric is correct and only Luxembourg Norway Switzerland and Denmark produce more than the US per hour.  That leaves about 95% of Europe producing less per hour.  Why would we think we will be like the top 5% instead of something like the other 95% of Europe?

 

On inequality and poverty.  Eric says the USA has much more poverty.  But again the point of my blog here: https://trueandreasonable.co/2020/07/22/poor-europe/  Was to point out how misleading saying that is.  “Poverty” as Eric defines it is based on the average earning of people in the same country.  So when you say America has more poverty that is just because Americans on average are so much wealthier than Europeans.  If Europe used our average wealth instead of their own much lower average wealth you would see all these countries actually would have much higher percentages of their population in the low income group than the US.  Objectively Europe has much more poverty than the US.   The majority of Spain and Italy – two of the larger countries in the Western Europe would have a majority of people defined as low income by US standards!

 

It is important to understand how those “poverty” numbers are really moving the goal posts.  American’s are so much wealthier than Europeans that what many Europeans consider middle class would count as low income in the US.     I really think Eric and others presenting these statistics should explain that instead of just saying “It turns out that western European countries have very low levels of poverty. USA, South Korea and Israel have the highest rates of poverty in the OECD but have less poverty than 80% of countries globally. (OECD, Wikipedia).”   I don’t think eric is being intentionally misleading but that statement is very misleading.   Compared to the US Europe has *much* larger percentage of their population living in poverty.

 

As to the inequality between people in the US being a problem in itself, the evidence is against it.  Stephen Pinker analyzes the data in depth but he gives this example to help people initially understand why complaining of inequality as opposed to focusing on objective measures is misguided:

 

“The starting point for understanding inequality in the context of human progress is to recognize that income inequality is not a fundamental component of well-being. It is not like health, prosperity, knowledge, safety, peace, and the other areas of progress I examine in these chapters. The reason is captured in an old joke from the Soviet Union. Igor and Boris are dirt-poor peasants, barely scratching enough crops from their small plots of land to feed their families. The only difference between them is that Boris owns a scrawny goat. One day a fairy appears to Igor and grants him a wish. Igor says, “I wish that Boris’s goat should die.””

 

https://bigthink.com/big-think-books/steven-pinker-enlightenment-now-inequality-happiness

 

Arguing the US should adopt the Western European economic model is thinking just like Igor.

 

 

Why Poor Europe?

23 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by Joe in economics, europe, politics, socialism, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

economics, government, politics, Scandanavian, socialism

So in the comments to my last blog I had some outstanding questions that hit on the topics I really hoped to discuss.  So rather than commenting only in the comment section I thought I would give my take on them in a separate blog.

Eric was the person who asked the questions and he has an outstanding blog himself that you can see here.

https://www.is-there-a-god.info/blog/

 

We are both Christians but I think we have some different economic and political views.   But let’s get to the comments and questions.  For clarity I will put his comments in green and my views in blue.

Hi Joe, this is a very interesting post. I am intrigued why you posted this information. I am also interested that you have based your comments on wealth, not on any other measure of wellbeing – which I find curious because a christian surely knows that there are things more important than wealth.

Yes I absolutely agree with you.  Certainly, I do not want people to think that wealth is what is most important to me and I would strenuously disagree with anyone saying that would be a Christian outlook.  The reason I focused on wealth is because the policies I was mostly taking aim at were economic policies – such as minimum wage, socializing sectors of the economy, adding government regulation to what businesses can do etc.  I do agree these policies can have impacts outside of the direct economic policy but those arguments tend to become more speculative. 

 

In other words saying

  • These countries have these economic policies and here is the empirical data on how their economy is doing.

seems more closely connected then saying

  • These countries have these economic policies and here is there overall happiness measurements.  

That is why I focused on the economic impact. 

 

The reason I made the post is because I often see comparisons with tiny Scandinavian countries in discussion about the United States and what our economic policies should be.   And the responses and arguments seem to revolve around whether these tiny countries are “socialist” or not.  My view is they are more down the road of socialism than we are but drawing hard and fast rules on what is socialism is not all that fruitful.  

 

The bigger problem with the comparison is that it is cherry picking in the extreme.  That is the majority of  countries in Western Europe that have economic policies that are much closer to socialism than the USA and on the whole they are overwhelmingly doing much worse than the USA.   So I am suggesting that instead of just looking at the extremes maybe we should look at an overall picture.

 

So I am not saying lets focus on Greece or Norway but lets consider all the western European countries including Italy and Spain and France and the UK.    I also would agree that Eastern European countries have some unique problems trying to get over the socialist disasters that they had to live through.  So I am fine with not including former soviet bloc countries.   I am fine with including or excluding Germany.   

 

If you only take the top tiny countries then the better comparison would be to compare them with the top US states.  And you will find that the top US states outperform them economically – with the exception of Luxembourg which is so small it is more like a town in the US rather than a whole state.         

 

So there is another way of looking at these things. I have looked at some other factors globally, especially for the USA, Scandinavia and western Europe, and Australia (where I live).

Wealth inequality – measured in various ways as the gap or ratio between the rich and the poor. USA has more unequal wealth distribution than most European countries and certainly worse than Scandinavia and Australia.

Yes but as the Pew research shows that is because the US has many more prosperous people than those countries.     They are more equal because they have fewer objectively prosperous people not because they have fewer lower income people.  Objectively Western Europe has a much higher percentage of lower income people its just that they have so few objectively prosperous people they are more equal with each other. 

To the extent we want to equalize we would want to make the poor more prosperous not the reverse.  Do you agree?

 

GDP per person – highest in Europe and some tax havens, then USA (12th) and Australia (14th).

 

Highest in Europe?  If by that you mean there are a few tiny countries in Europe that have higher gdp per capita than the whole US averaged out then yes.   But if you mean Western Europe as a whole then you are very mistaken.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

 

For 2019 the US is pegged to be a bit over 65k in gdp per capita.  65,281 by the world bank and 65,111 by IMF estimates.   According to the IMF the only European countries above the US in GDP per capita are Ireland Norway Switzerland and Luxembourg.  That is not even close to all of western Europe. 

 

Just working off World bank numbers, Denmark would need to boost its economy by about 10% to match the US.   Netherlands, Sweden, Austria and Finland would have to boost their economy by about 20% to match the US.   Germany and Belgium would need a 30% boost to match the US.  The Uk would need to boost their economy slightly over 50% to match the US.   France would need to boost its economy by over 60% to match the US.  Italy, Spain and Malta would need to boost their economy by about 100% to match the US.  Portuagal would need to boost their economy by 180% to match the US.  Greece would need to boost their economy by 225%.  I haven’t seen anyone take the populations of western Europe into account here but given Switzerland has a population of about 9 million, Ireland and Norway both have populations of about 5 million and Luxembourg has a population of about 620,000 it should be obvious that European economic policy is on the whole performing dramatically worse than US policy.

 

And it appears Ireland’s performance may be because they tend to go against the socialist model and had unusually low corporate taxes.  https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060316/why-ireland-sometimes-referred-tax-haven.asp.  This has lead to certain US companies especially tech companies where it is hard to pin down where they are actually making money can claiming their income was generated there.  So apple claims they made so much income in Ireland due to Irelands very favorable tax rate.  This boosts the heck out of Irelands GDP.    Irelands GDP per capita is boosted mainly due to US companies.   Luxembourg is also considered a tax shelter for companies. 

 

But on the whole the point is only a tiny number of tiny countries are doing better than the average state.  Our best states our better and the average country in western Europe is considerably behind the US economically.      

 

Now it is worth noting that in earlier years the US was doing worse.  The main economic changes in recent years have been away from socialism and the European model.  They involved tax cuts and less government regulation under republicans.   In other words moving away from the European economic models was followed by a huge boost to our economy.    

 

Happiness – highest in Europe and South America, whereas USA is among the lowest. The Nordic countries are consistently in the top ten and often the top 3.

Wellbeing (measures health and happiness) – USA 35th out of 169 countries, with European countries and Japan at the top.

 

Ok so obviously these studies are much more controversial on their own.  Moreover, even if we accept them, it is getting harder to pin this on economic policy as opposed to overall cultural issues that are not so clearly related to minimum wage. 

 

For example Nordic countries are small and homogenous.  The fact that they are small means that people might feel they have some control in the way they are governed.  In the US you saw people yelling at the sky when Trump was elected.  We certainly have a feeling that we have no control over the federal government.  I never even saw Washington DC until I was in my 40s.   My vote and voice is watered down much more than a Norwegian citizens.   

 

We also have a much more diverse citizenry.   So it is not the case that we will all tend to agree on how we should be governed.  All of this I suspect leads to less happiness.  So is there an answer?

Yes.  The answer is sticking to what we call federalism.  Federalism means less power to the federal government and more power to the states, local government, and individuals.  The U.S. federal government was intended to have very limited powers and most decisions were supposed to be made by states and more local governments.  But the trend is to always look to the federal government for answers.  Police departments are hired and fired at a city level – and to a smaller degree the state level.  But somehow people are yelling at police in a completely different state (let alone city) for the actions of a single cop in a different city in a distant state.  And our federal government is now going to try to make the rules for the whole country.  I don’t think any American really feels they have any control over what will happen regardless of party affiliation.   That is just an example, the loss of local control is happening throughout the spectrum of issues in the United States. 

 

Even with respect to these economic policies that seem to be clearly failing Europe, I do not mind if a city or a state wants to implement a higher minimum wage as some have done.  Or if Massachusetts wants a government run medical system they can have at it.    If there are barriers to them doing that I am ok with changing it so they can.   My main problem is that the Federal government wants to force it all over.  My view is if local governments want minimum wage that is fine let’s see how it works for them, rather than destroying the whole countries economy.     

 

 

 

Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy – highest include Scandinavia, Canada, Japan and Australia. USA is in the second of 4 categories.

Yes we eat lots of food that is really bad for us.  But I am not sure socialist economic policies are the answer. 

Everyone in the US has access to medical care.  Sometimes the media will try to equate having health insurance with access to medical care.  But those are different.   The state will provide free health insurance for those who are deemed to poor to afford it.  For those can afford insurance, but choose not to buy it – say a 25 year old who is in fine health and never feels the need to see the doctor whether they are insured or not – can go to a clinic as needed and pay for the service.  If it is an emergency he can not be turned away even if he can’t pay.  My area and the vast majority of areas in the US have free clinics for people who can’t afford care.

 

 

 

Gun deaths – USA is second to Brazil in absolute numbers and in top 20% per capita. USA is highest of all for gun suicides, lower for homicides.

Yes we have quite a bit of crime in the US.  Not just “gun deaths.”  Why are you including suicides?   Increasing the minimum wage will if anything lead to more unemployed people and more crime.  Or at least it is far from clear the increasing minimum wage or having other socialist policies will reduce that crime.  The most socialist governments run our large cities and they have the most crime.    

 

In the US we believe people have a right to defend themselves.  And that is part of our bill of rights, in particular the second amendment.  Europe seems fine with making its citizens completely at the mercy of government.  That is part of the reason why Europe had to be bailed out from their horrible governments in the last century.  The first thing authoritarians do is disarm the citizens.   Hopefully, the US will never do that.    

 

Suicide – USA is in top 20% as is Sweden. Australia and other Scandinavian countries are in 20-40%.

I’m not sure what the percentages mean.  But to bring this to economic policy, being unemployed is a considerable risk factor for suicide.   The US with its recent capitalist changes had reduced unemployment to record lows.  It is unclear how reverting to the more European model and higher unemployment will help.      

Quality of life – several indices have been used, based on factors like health & health care, wellbeing, education, human rights, etc. USA is not in the top 10, and just about all the countries in the top 10 are western European, including all the 4 Scandinavian. Australia and Canada are also there.

 

Again I would want to see the studies.  Certainly if the studies are valuing socialist ideals that Europe Australia and Canada tends to promote then Europe will unsurprisingly do quite well.  And also if you are going to look at tiny countries it might be best to compare them to states rather than the US as a whole.   But some of these studies are interesting.  Some are better than others.    

 

So those statistics present another way to look at things. I think most people praise Scandinavia and western Europe not because they are sheerly wealthy, but because their wellbeing is high, people are happier, there is less inequality, they have good healthcare, and feel safer. It is not that different here in Australia.

 

I certainly agree with much of that.   I am not that familiar with Australia’s economic model or governance. 

If Europe is indeed on the whole better despite being objectively so much poorer, that is interesting.  But I think when we look at economic policy the closest links to their efficacy will be on economic results.   

If we want to look at overall “happiness” that might have more to do with culture.  The US is the country that takes in more immigrants from more various countries/cultures than any other.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#:~:text=In%20absolute%20numbers%2C%20the%20United,14.4%25%20of%20the%20U.S.%20population.

 So it is in many ways unique.  Comparing it with a country of 5 million people who all have about an identical cultural background is unlikely to be helpful.  The comparisons should at the very least include all of Western Europe – even though the US is more diverse than even Western Europe and certainly as a country more diverse than any of those countries individually. 

Having done the research, I intend to post about it on my own blog, where I’ll give all the references, if you are interested.

 

I’m very interested.   And I look forward to it.  I hope you do not cherry pick Europe’s best and ignore the European countries at the lower end of the scales you decide to use. But in any case I appreciate your comments and and questions as I think the discussion we are having is much more productive than arguing whether Sweden really is capitalist or socialist. 

Poor Europe

22 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by Joe in economics, politics, socialism, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

economics, health care, minimum wage, politics, socialism

I love many things about Europe.  But as an American one thing I do not envy is their economy.  Europeans are economically worse off than Americans.  It is not that they are all hugely worse off.  But many are, and on the whole they are clearly worse off.  So why are so many Americans trying to say we should do what Europe does? (Bigger government imposing on free markets e.g., health care, higher minimum wage etc)   I think it is due to ignorance.

Of course, there are many things that can effect wealth.   And in any region some areas will do better than others.  So often times we hear we should be like “Scandinavian countries.”  But the policies such as universal health care and higher minimum wage are in several other European countries as well.  We don’t really hear about those countries.  Why? They are not doing as well and so considering them definitely hurts the case for bigger government.   But I think it is foolish to only focus in on a tiny country and not consider a wide range of countries that have policies similar to what is being proposed in America.

The USA is huge compared to any individual western European country.  Sweden has a population of 10 million.  This means Sweden is about the same size as New Jersey with 9 million.     Finland Norway and Denmark are each about 5 million.  So they are about the same size as Maryland which has about 6 million people.       New Jersey and Maryland are doing much better than any European country.  So if you want to compare top performers with top performers the US is wealthier.  But let’s look more broadly.

America is much more diverse than Western Europe as a whole so let’s not assume that all 330 million Americans will get the same results as 5 million Norwegians.  Let’s look at a larger selection of Western European countries and the US on average has more spending power pretty much all of them.

Some argue that the US has more money, but Europe has a larger “middle class.”  And that is where it gets interesting.  You see the “middle class” may be defined as someone who makes between 2/3s and 2x the average income of that country.  That is “middle class” is defined relative to the wealth of that country.  It is not defined objectively.   So a country that is considerably poorer than the US in every objective way may have a larger “middle class.”  Their “middle class” may average less spending power than the average person considered “poor” in America.   That doesn’t sound good to me.

 

This Pew research is quite interesting:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/05/through-an-american-lens-western-europes-middle-classes-appear-smaller/

 

What it shows is that if we define the middle class as 2/3 of average income to 2xs average income 59% of the US population is “middle class” and 26% is lower income and 15% upper income.  Europeans have bigger relative middle classes but that is mainly because the average European makes much less.

 

When we actually define middle class in an objective sense we see Europe is objectively less wealthy.   In this research Pew calculates middle class off the median disposable income of Americans.   Because people in Denmark and Finland make on average less we see a very different class picture when we look at spending power objectively.  So if we define middle class in absolute/objective terms based on what the average Americans’ spending power is, we see just how much economically better off Americans are.

 

Instead of an 80% middle class in Denmark it drops to 70% and their “lower income” goes from 14% to 28%.  Their upper income goes from 7% to 3%.    So what we see is that if measured objectively, Denmark has 2% more lower income people than the USA and 12% fewer high income people than the US.    So by USA spending power measures (or any objective measure) they have more poor and less wealthy than we do.  So the increase in middle class is not because fewer are poor, a larger percentage of people are objectively poor in Denmark as compared to the USA.  We are so much wealthier than Denmark our upper income group more than makes up the 10% difference in middle class they gain.   In other words going with Denmark would mean more lower income and less higher income people.

 

Finland is even worse.  When we use spending power Americans are used to, as the mean their lower income rises to 33% versus our 26%.   Their upper income is again at 3% versus our 15%.  So their bigger middle class 65% versus 59% is more than entirely due to a lack of the wealthy people we have in the US.

 

But let us consider the UK.  Fully 40% of the UK’s population would be considered “lower income” based on the American economic standard of living.  They would have only 55% middle class compared to our 59%.  They would have only 5% upper income compared to our 15%.  Objectively the UK is doing much worse than the USA.

 

Spain and Italy gets even worse.   The majority of their populations would be considered “lower income” by US economic standards at 53% each.  Only 45% and 44% would be middle class versus our 59% and only only 2% would be upper income versus our 15%.  In other words switching economies with any of these countries would be clearly worse but in many cases it would be catastrophic.  On average it would be a disaster.

So why would we want model our economy off of theirs?  It is insane.

Now I realize this is based on 2010 data.  And I would be interested in a more recent analysis.    But if you look at the per capita gdp since 2010 you see that the European union has basically stayed about 35k whereas the US went from about 50 in 2010  to about 65 in 2019.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=EU-US-CN

Now gdp per capita is not identical with he spending power calculations used by Pew, but it would be surprising if the numbers are now worse for the US as compared to Europe.

We Can’t Control Ourselves but We can Control Others?

05 Wednesday Feb 2020

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Catholic, christianity, law, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, politics, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

apologetics, Atheism, Christianity, epistemology, ethics, free will, government, law, philosophy, politics, religion

 

Do we have free will?  I don’t have anything more to offer as far as evidence.  But I do think it is clear that morality and our justice system is a complete flop if we don’t have free will.   Most proponents of determinism agree that, if they are correct, we are not morally responsible/culpable for our actions.  But they still might believe there is a right and wrong way to act.    So, they don’t completely abandon hope of morality or a rational justice system.

 

In my opinion determinism allows only a crippled view of morality.  It doesn’t matter what direction morality points us we are on a train going wherever we are going and we can’t get off anyway.  Our hope for a rational justice system would also seem to rely on dumb luck.    How might our meta-ethical views concerning determinism impact our criminal justice system?

 

Traditionally criminal laws were grounded on four different notions, vengeance, retribution, deterrence and/or rehabilitation.   Retribution has replaced vengeance, although sometimes people fail to draw a distinction between the two.   I am not aware of anyone who believes in hard determinism but still maintains we should keep retribution as a grounds for our criminal justice system.  Retribution is the most important aspect of our criminal justice system but that will be the topic of another post.  Here, let’s consider the claim that even if determinism is true we can still pass laws for deterrence or rehabilitation purposes.

 

For example, Sam Harris says if you are a determinist like him:   “We could forget about retribution and concentrate entirely on mitigating harm. (And if punishing people proved important for either deterrence or rehabilitation, we could make prison as unpleasant as required.)”

https://samharris.org/life-without-free-will/

 

He like many determinists agree retribution is out.  But he claims we can still hope to achieve two other goals of our criminal justice system – rehabilitation and deterrence.   Deterrence is the idea that we can prevent people from committing crimes if they think undesirable things will happen to them as a result of those crimes.  So we can pass laws with punishments that are unpleasant and thus we make it less likely people will commit crimes.    Rehabilitation, at base, is the notion we can do things to criminals such that they will act in a way we want in the future.

 

So, if we accept determinism and still think deterence and rehabilitation are viable, we find ourselves saying we have no influence or control over our own behavior, but we do have influence and control over other people’s behavior.  Traditional wisdom suggests the opposite.  Common sense suggests we have more influence over our own actions than we do over other’s actions.  Is it possible that we can have no influence over our own actions, yet we are still be able to influence other people’s actions?  No, not in any meaningful sense.

 

I think this is an example of people not fully appreciating the far reaching implications of their position.  If determinism is true then even saying “we could make prison as unpleasant as required” plays on an ambiguity and is not actually accurate.  The ambiguity is in the term “could.”  “Could” can mean: we have the option.  Or “could” might mean: it is possible.

In Harris’s usage he seems to suggest “we have the option to make prison as unpleasant as required.”  But of course, on determinism we have no options.  We must do what we are going to do, and can’t do otherwise.  So that meaning of the word “could” leads to a contradiction in his beliefs.

 

If he means just that “it is possible that we would make prison as unpleasant as required….”  Then we might ask so what?    It may be possible, but we have no influence over our actions so we have no way to make that possibility a reality.

 

Our very sense of self is obliterated by determinism.   We are like ping pong balls in a lottery machine.  Yes we “could” bounce into other balls causing them to jostle and become a winning number.  In the sense of “could” that “it is possible” that happens.  But, of course, those ping pong balls have no control over themselves so it is not an option they have.

 

It makes no sense to take the perspective of the ping pong ball.   If we throw out free will then we throw out our whole notion of self.   It is no longer even sensible or meaningful to think in terms of what we “can” or “could” do.   We are just parts of a system that must act however we are going to act.

 

For those who are interested in the free will debates I highly recommend this set of lectures:

https://www.audible.com/pd/Great-Philosophical-Debates-Free-Will-and-Determinism-Audiobook/B00DGDBO2Q?qid=1580847985&sr=1-1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=FNSXY98EKBP6E5CPEM6G&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1

Love Versus Envy

02 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Joe in atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, Morality, philosophy, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

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Catholic, Christianity, ethics, God, government, philosophy, politics, religion

Love is the basis of Christianity and so it is only fitting that a Christian should consider what it is and what it is not.  In this blog I will compare love and what I think is the opposite of love – envy.  In the next blog I will talk about how love has important differences with empathy.

As Christians we know that craving anything before God is sin.  Wealth is one of those things that can lead to sin.   It, however, is not always intrinsically wrong to have property.  Christ wants us to give to the poor.  If giving them items caused them to be in sin, he would not ask us to do that.  Moreover, the fact that we are commanded not to steal suggests that owning property is part of God’s plan and can be healthy.

If I tell you that country A has a wider wealth gap then country B many people would say that, in itself, is reason to think country B is better.    I’m not one of them.  If people in A are all wealthier then all of those in Country B I would rather live in A, even if I was at the low end of that gap.   I would rather have more in absolute terms in country A even if relative to others in my own country I had less.

I know lots of people who have much more money than I do and I am glad they are in a situation where they can have that.  Envy has actually been one sin that has not usually been a problem for me.  But I do notice that my view is not shared by all.  Some people do think inequality of wealth is itself a problem.   Some people would rather have less themselves in absolute terms if it meant those around them had less as well.   This seems to be a lose/lose option based on envy.

Envy is specially targeted in the tenth commandment.   Envy is also a sin that is especially useful in fueling political and social movements.  Envy of the Jews has lead to antisemitism.  Socialism in particular uses envy to fuel it’s movements.  See for example the Kulaks, and the Ukrainian Holodomor.  Most politicians today do not talk about “the 1%” because they want to express how happy they are for the advantages they have.

Certainly I am not saying that all advantaged people “earned” their advantages.  That is obviously not true.  Some people are born smart or wealthy and this was obviously not “earned.”   However, being born smart or wealthy is not itself an immoral action either.   Don’t we wish we were born smart and wealthy – and good looks would have been nice too while we are at it.   Is it not due to our love that we want our children to have advantages such as good friends, wisdom, family, and yes, at least, some material possessions?

 

Christ commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’

Matthew 22:36-40.

 

The Catechism quotes Saint Thomas Aquina’s short but effective definition of love:

To love is to will the good of another.

Now let’s look at Merriam Webster’s definition of Envy:

painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage

 

I think this helps us understand the direct opposition between the envious heart and what Jesus commands.  Instead of rejoicing that others have the advantages we also want, instead we react negatively toward others receiving the goods we want.

Again I am not saying we need to claim every advantage was earned.  And indeed we should agree that some advantages are not only unearned but are unjust.  If someone cheats someone else out of their property justice dictates they should not keep it.   But we need to make sure we are not rationalizing and fueling our resentment of others having more when they did nothing immoral to get what they have.  That would be envy, the opposite of love.

We can be envious even when someone did earn their advantage.  And as for the unearned, if some people were born lucky, like we wish we were born, do we rejoice for them, or are we resentful?  If we are resentful, obviously, we are not loving them as we love ourselves.

It seems to me that envy has as much claim to be the antithesis of love as hatred does.  I may hate many things about someone as they are now but still hope good for them.  Just as I can hate many things about myself and still hope good for myself.  But envy directly fights against willing the goods for others that we will for ourselves.

What is the Law on these Political Issues?

30 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by Joe in law, politics, Trump, Uncategorized

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Clinton, collusion, election law, Fusion gps, indictments, papadopoulos, politics, Trump

There is no law against “collusion” unless you are talking about anti-trust issues between corporations.  Basically what we are really looking for is whether there was a “conspiracy.”  Conspiracy is best understood simply as an agreement to commit a crime.

If Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump “conspired” then they must have agreed with another person to have a crime committed.    For Trump one crime might be to have hacked the DNC computers.  But it does not appear he was really involved in the actual hacking of those computers.

 

However, there is a quite broad statute preventing foreign nationals from contributing or donating anything of value to a campaign.  52 usc 30121:

 

§30121. Contributions and donations by foreign nationals

(a) Prohibition

It shall be unlawful for—

(1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make—

(A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;

(B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or

(C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or

(2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.

(b) “Foreign national” defined

As used in this section, the term “foreign national” means—

(1) a foreign principal, as such term is defined by section 611(b) of title 22, except that the term “foreign national” shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States; or

(2) an individual who is not a citizen of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 1101(a)(22) of title 8) and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined by section 1101(a)(20) of title 8.

 

 

 

So right off the bat we can see that section 1 is extremely broad.  Honestly I am not sure this is healthy for a free society.  And would invite comments in that regard.

 

Here is 2 usc 441e

§441e. Contributions by foreign nationals

(a) It shall be unlawful for a foreign national directly or through any other person to make any contribution of money or other thing of value, or to promise expressly or impliedly to make any such contribution, in connection with an election to any political office or in connection with any primary election, convention, or caucus held to select candidates for any political office; or for any person to solicit, accept, or receive any such contribution from a foreign national.

(b) As used in this section, the term “foreign national” means—

(1) a foreign principal, as such term is defined by section 611(b) of title 22, except that the term “foreign national” shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States; or

(2) an individual who is not a citizen of the United States and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined by section 1101(a)(20) of title 8.

(Pub. L. 92–225, title III, §319, formerly §324, as added Pub. L. 94–283, title I, §112(2), May 11, 1976, 90 Stat. 493; renumbered §319, Pub. L. 96–187, title I, §105(5), Jan. 8, 1980, 93 Stat. 1354.)

 

Regulations go into more detail on these terms specifically regulation

11 CFR 110.20

  1. Definitions.For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

    1. 1.Disbursement has the same meaning as in 11 CFR 300.2(d).

    2. 2.Donation has the same meaning as in 11 CFR 300.2(e).

    3. 3.Foreign national means—

      1. i.A foreign principal, as defined in 22 U.S.C. 611(b); or

      2. ii.An individual who is not a citizen of the United States and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20); however,

      3. iii.Foreign nationalshall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States, or who is a national of the United States as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(22).

    4. 4.Knowingly means that a person must:

      1. i.Have actual knowledge that the source of the funds solicited, accepted or received is a foreign national;

      2. ii.Be aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that there is a substantial probability that the source of the funds solicited, accepted or received is a foreign national; or

      3. iii.Be aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person to inquire whether the source of the funds solicited, accepted or received is a foreign national, but the person failed to conduct a reasonable inquiry.

    5. 5.For purposes of paragraph (a)(4) of this section, pertinent facts include, but are not limited to:

      1. i.The contributor or donor uses a foreign passport or passport number for identification purposes;

      2. ii.The contributor or donor provides a foreign address;

      3. iii.The contributor or donor makes a contribution or donation by means of a check or other written instrument drawn on a foreign bank or by a wire transfer from a foreign bank; or

      4. iv.The contributor or donor resides abroad.

    6. 6.Solicit has the same meaning as in 11 CFR 300.2(m).

    7. 7.SAFE HARBOR.For purposes of paragraph (a)(4)(iii) of this section, a person shall be deemed to have conducted a reasonable inquiry if he or she seeks and obtains copies of current and valid U.S. passport papers for U.S. citizens who are contributors or donors described in paragraphs (a)(5)(i) through (iv) of this section. No person may rely on this safe harbor if he or she has actual knowledge that the source of the funds solicited, accepted, or received is a foreign national.

  2. b.Contributions and donations by foreign nationals in connection with elections.A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election.

  3. c.Contributions and donations by foreign nationals to political committees and organizations of political parties.A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or donation to:

    1. 1.A political committee of a political party, including a national party committee, a national congressional campaign committee, or a State, district, or local party committee, including a non-Federal account of a State, district, or local party committee, or

    2. 2.An organization of a political party whether or not the organization is a political committee under 11 CFR 100.5.

  4. d.Contributions and donations by foreign nationals for office buildings.A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party for the purchase or construction of an office building. See 11 CFR 300.10 and 300.35.

  5. e.Disbursements by foreign nationals for electioneering communications.A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make any disbursement for an electioneering communication as defined in 11 CFR 100.29.

  6. f.Expenditures, independent expenditures, or disbursements by foreign nationals in connection with elections.A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make any expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement in connection with any Federal, State, or local election.

  7. g.Solicitation, acceptance, or receipt of contributions and donations from foreign nationals.No person shall knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation prohibited by paragraphs (b) through (d) of this section.

  8. h.Providing substantial assistance.

    1. 1.No person shall knowingly provide substantial assistance in the solicitation, making, acceptance, or receipt of a contribution or donation prohibited by paragraphs (b) through (d), and (g) of this section.

    2. 2.No person shall knowingly provide substantial assistance in the making of an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement prohibited by paragraphs (e) and (f) of this section.

  9. i.Participation by foreign nationals in decisions involving election-related activities.A foreign national shall not direct, dictate, control, or directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process of any person, such as a corporation, labor organization, political committee, or political organization with regard to such person’s Federal or non-Federal election-related activities, such as decisions concerning the making of contributions, donations, expenditures, or disbursements in connection with elections for any Federal, State, or local office or decisions concerning the administration of a political committee.

  10. j.Donations by foreign nationals to inaugural committees.A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a donation to an inaugural committee, as defined in 11 CFR 104.21(a)(1). No person shall knowingly accept from a foreign national any donation to an inaugural committee.

 

So we have two main cases that seem relevant at this point.  The dirt on Hillary that “the Russians” may have offered to Trump.  And the dirt that on Trump that Steele, a foreign national, seems to have delivered to Clinton.

 

Now lets assume the dirt against an opponent is a “thing of value”  Again if this is a faulty assumption then please express that in the comment section.   If so then getting dirt from a foreign national is a crime.  Now was there an agreement to get this from a foreign national in either case?

 

In the case of Clinton it seems there was.   At least Fusion GPS seemed to hire Steele a foreign national for this very purpose.  Did Clinton know they were doing this?  Well that would need to be established.

Now what about Trump?

So this might revolve around promises from different Russians to different people in the Trump campaign.  For example the leads that George Papadopoulos seemed to be pursuing. And perhaps even what Trump Junior was up to.

 

It seems that no dirt was ever delivered in either case.  But there still may have been an agreement to deliver dirt.   Was the dirt a thing a value?  Well normally we would say yes.  But here since no dirt was actually delivered we don’t even know what the dirt was.  So it seems quite a few more dots need connecting against Trump at this point.

 

 

 

Agnostic as to Election 2016

09 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by Joe in politics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

history, politics, presidential race

I am not really into politics much lately.   I too thought Clinton would win.  I will just admit that I was like everyone else in the media.  That is, early on I was saying why Trump would lose.   Then, without skipping a beat, I started pontificating why he won.

Bottom line is everyone is now trying to say he won for the reasons they hope he won for – whatever that is.    But really I just don’t think anyone knows why he won.  It was a crazy election with tons of issues and it is very hard to sort out why he won at this point. (will time passing make it any easier?) Anyone who says he won for this reason or that reason is probably just expressing what they liked about him or disliked about Clinton.  They are likely partly right, but its really just speculation.

That’s why I am squarely agnostic as to why Trump won.

Government Should Get Out of the Marriage and Divorce Business

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Joe in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

divorce, family law, freedom, Gay marriage, government, law, marriage, policy, politics, religion

Part of my practice is in family law so I know a bit what I am talking about and if anything I would only lose some business.    Yes it sounded crazy when I first thought of it but I have been thinking about it for about 2 years now and it keeps making more and more sense.   (Ok I just used google and see I am not alone in this view)

 

The proposal that I throw out there is this:

 

1)      The state would no longer issue marriage licenses and no longer grant divorces.

2)      There would no longer be any government advantages to being married.  Its irrational inequality to treat married people different than single people and if you are getting married for economic incentives the government offers then pretty much everyone can agree you’re getting married for the wrong reasons anyway. 

3)      People could of course get married in churches or other entities to however they want.  There could be private secular agencies as well as churches and religious agencies.  They would have explanations for what marriage would mean and contractual understandings on what would happen in the case of divorce.  Preferably they would have arbitration clauses so these private matters do not need to be public record in court houses.   It’s not like the parties would need to sign a long contract either.  The marriage license could just incorporate the code or rules it uses (much like today when you get married you are basically incorporating the marriage and divorce code into that marriage license you sign.)

4)      When they get married they would have the church or whatever other entity draw up the paperwork about what it means for them.   The disputes would preferably be arbitrated by the church or other entity instead of in court.   There should be an incentive to keep this out of court so we do not need to waste public funds to sort these disputes out.  Smaller churches would likely pool resources and use the services of certain agencies.  Larger churches could have their own procedures and understandings. 

5)      The courts would simply interpret the agreements as any other if they needed to.  Again though arbitration would be preferred. 

6)      The statement that “we are married” will generally mean nothing to the courts.   Other than perhaps identifying parents.

 

Why do this?

1)      Save tax payer money that goes to funding court house resources.  Trials are a poor way to award custody and the entire public should not need to pay for disputes between 2 angry adults about how they should divide their property. 

2)      The government would no longer be embroiled in trying to “define” what marriage is when the people it governs don’t agree at all.   In a multicultural society that will always be a non-starter. 

3)      Although many churches preach that they think Divorce should only occur in certain circumstances they often don’t practice this.  Instead of trying to make everyone in the state conform to their beliefs they could focus on having their own congregation conform to their professed beliefs.  This is a win for everyone. 

4)      Does anyone really care what the government thinks of their relationship?  I have been married for 10 years and I couldn’t care less what Illinois’s government thinks my relationship with my wife is.   It is between me, my wife, and God.   I care about what my church thinks but I definitely don’t care what the Illinois legislature thinks.

5)      Courts and trials are horrible at addressing family issues.  No judge can get to know enough about the parents or the kids in a 2 day trial to reliably make good judgments.  Churches would have more options through their arbitration rules.   

 

Limitations of this proposal:

1)       There would still be the interests of children that would need to be protected.  Children born out of wedlock (i.e. no contract) would still be handled by the public courts unless the parents agree to use one of the various private arbitration options that would arise.  So it wouldn’t entirely do away with public courts.  For example the Catholic Church does not believe in divorce.  If the parties did not sign some sort of contract or agreement on how the children issues would be handled in the case of separation then the courts would still need to be used.    

2)      Yes this would need to be implement out in the future so private entities could get ready for this.  

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