Republicrats v. Depublicans (Part Three)

Let me begin by apologizing for the second political post in a row. In my defense, though most of my posts have a central theme, they do tend to wander around a bit to keeps things interesting and avoid pomposity. For example, last week's Poh-LIH-Ticks & Stickies was about politics, my grandkids, and revealing a bit more about what your life will be like once I become the king of America. But mostly it was a thinly veiled attack on limousine liberals and socialism.

What follows is an attack on the corn lobby and I've deliberately waited until the Iowa cauci are behind us because this serves as an illustration of how special interests get away with spending other people's money. They keep a relatively low profile and don't get so greedy that they attract unwanted attention. Oh, and this post is also about economics.


Economists spend a great deal of time and effort studying the effect of incentives on people's economic behavior. When I decided to study economics in depth by taking a class in both macro and microeconomics at my local community college I encountered the word, defined variously, waiting for me around many corners and often hiding behind  rocks, trees, hedges and the like. The most fundamental definition of the concept I encountered was when my fellow aspiring scholars and I were taught, early on, that all things being equal, higher prices = fewer sales, lower prices = more sales. Who knew?

Being economics, this lofty notion was explained and elaborated upon (at great length) via a concept called the demand curve. The phrase, all things being equal, in economic speak, is ceteris paribus, which sounds way cooler. Well, at least until you discover that ceteris paribus, when explained and elaborated upon (at great length), is only a sort of logical place marker, a fictional convenience, because all things are never equal. It's a highly condensed way for economists to acknowledge, as a weather forecaster will if cornered, that while something is generally or probably likely to happen, all things considered -- we admit that one variable, many variables, variables that no one has discovered yet, or known variables interacting in ways they never have before -- could result in a tornado (or an economic depression).

But all things considered, at least the ones we've thought of/are aware of, it won't rain today, unless it does.     

Discovering and reading "Economics In One Lesson," by Henry Hazlitt (see my post, Macroeconomics, 8.19.15) saved me from taking any advanced classes in the field. I wouldn't call it light reading exactly, but, it is compared to taking a class taught by an economist. Or at least an instructor that someone's deemed qualified to teach economics. Don't get me wrong, I developed the highest respect for my instructor for both macro and micro... the day he finally got around to telling us that the he thought much of the mainstream economic theory in the textbook we were using was bonkercockie. From then on I ...

[Please forgive the interruption. The gentlereader and my muse, the ones that peer over my shoulders as I write, both of whom I've been ignoring despite their repeated attempts to interrupt me because they think I've wondered down the wrong path -- considering the title of this post -- debased themselves by administering simultaneous wet willies in order to get my attention. However, I was just carefully laying the groundwork before pointing out that...]

... Politicians from both sides of the aisle, many some of whom may have started out as idealists, are as subject to incentives as everyone else. The recent Iowa cauci unambiguously prove my point.

The Republicratic party is the party of small government and maximum freedom. Think rugged individualism personified by a proud Iowa farmer sitting on the front porch of his rustic but meticulously maintained farmhouse. He's sipping coffee from an ISU coffee mug and watching the sun rise over the seemingly endless acres of corn fields that have been worked by his family for generations. He's a happy man. Being on the receiving end of the high corn prices guaranteed by The Gubmints byzantine tangle (google ethanol subsidies and try to make sense of what you find, I double dog dare you) of subsidies, programs and regulations will do that for a fella. He, his lovely wife Connie, his all-American family and almost everyone he knows personally, vote for republicrats. Hell, his dog would vote for republicrats if it was legal to do so. Unless, of course, the republicrat in question was one of the poor misguided souls that don't understand the ethical nuances involved and objects to the fact that everyone that eats corn is helping to pay Juniors tuition at ISU (it's a family tradition). If you're unaware of Iowa's popular republicratic governor, Terry Branstad (recent beneficiary of 15 minutes of national fame) and his son, Eric Branstad (that works with a group called America's Renewable Future), googling will provide a much more entertaining and easily understood narrative than trying to make sense of the ethanol debacle.

The Depublican party, the party of ginormous gubmint and Gubmint and tossing all the money into a giant pot to then be divvied up equally by all the kids on the playground (some kids are more equal than others) also stands with the corn farmers. The Billary, who opposed subsidizing corn farmers when she was in the senate, has since seen the light. Interestingly, the Algore, once a supporter, now stands in principled opposition. Having FU level wealth, squared (net worth estimated by Forbes to be at least $300,000,000, even richer than the party's 2012's designated poster boy of greed, Maleficent Mitt), and no longer interested in running for public office, affects some people that way.

Here comes the best part.

There's a big, honkin' fly in the bipartisan ointment love lube. Even the Algore acknowledges that ethanol creates more carbon emissions than fossil fuels. The Gubmint not only chooses to ignore this inconvenient truth, it's decided to do what it can to increase the use of ethanol. How? Well, since all cars manufactured prior to 2012 can't use gas that contains more than 10% ethanol without damaging the engines, and, since less than half of all cars manufactured since can, and, since blends that contain more than 10% ethanol also damage gas stations, The Gubmint gotta do what The Gubmint does. The Department of Agriculture has stepped up to the plate and is spending a $100,000,000 of other peoples money in the form of grants to the gubmints to enable them to help gas stations upgrade to equipment that can pump gas with more ethanol in the mix.

What have you learned Dorothies gentlereaders? The Gubmint teat corrupts us all. As for me, please contact me if you'd like to invest in my plan to form a consortium and buy up as many farms suitable for raising corn as possible.

Have an OK day.                                                                                

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016 



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Poe-LIH-Ticks & Stickies

Since there's so little political news at the moment (GRIN) I thought this would be a good time (this is being written the day after the New Hampshire primaries) to post a few thoughts on Bernie Sanders. Incidentally, when I become the king of America I plan on ordering that everything you'll find under the Glossary tab (which does not exist yet, but will, any moment now) on my blog site is to be officially adopted by dictionary publishers, grammarians and the like. One of the changes, which I'm introducing for the first time in this particular post (you heard it here first folks!), is that the pronunciation of politics will be po (as in E.A. Poe) -- LIH (as in literature) -- ticks (as in ticks), accent on the second syllable. This is because I like the way it sounds, and changing the pronunciation signals that we need to try and get away from business (or politics) as usual so that my grandchildren (the Stickies) aren't forced to grow up in a socialist workers paradise.

[Real quick -- the Stickies, a name that I use for my grandkids as a group, comes from the fact that when they were younger they, like all newish callowyutes, exuded  a general stickiness, to one degree or another, that transferred to any and all substances with which they came in contact with remarkable efficiency. Fortunately and unfortunately, they seem to (mostly) no longer exude this mysterious substance and the small fortune I expended trying to duplicate it in the lab (the potential commercial applications are legion) led nowhere, the seed money is gone and my investors are threatening litigation. If anyone reading this is inspired to pick up the baton, you have my blessing. Here's hoping that you might throw a couple of bucks this old farts way if you're successful. Suggestion: Forget the private sector and seek funding from the gubmint or The Gubmint, both of whom are well-known for investing in cutting-edge research that the private sector is leery of.]

As I was saying...most importantly, the last syllable will serve as a reminder that all politicians, at every level, should be term limited as even idealists that stick around too long often become ticks, not only living off the blood of the citizenry but also occasionally infecting the host. And, even if they manage to remain uncorrupted they are often prey to arrested development, Which brings us to Bernie Sanders.

Larry David's brother by another mother clearly means well.

BIG BUT.

Socialism, excuse me, democratic socialism -- Mr. Sanders is quick to point out there's a difference, and he's correct -- is not supposed to be scary (just don't google the following phrase, Greek financial crisis) because we already practice it to a limited extent. It's not particularly difficult to make the case that programs such as Social Security or Social Security Disability, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and no shortage of other programs offered by the gubmint and The Gubmint can be classified as democratic socialism, and many have. The vast majority of us, including me, have no desire to implement (or experience) a wholesale gutting of the safety net, and I'm a member in good standing of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

I'd tell you how to join us but then it wouldn't be a conspiracy anymore and where's the fun in that? However, on behalf of the VRWC, I'd like to thank Hillary Clinton for standing by her man and claiming that Slick Willie wasn't the Pedophile and Chief (stainer of dresses) and that it was all just a plot of a VRWC. See, up until that point there was no such organization but she inspired a bunch of us to get together and start one. We have a really cool clubhouse with cold beer on tap and I'd invite you over but we'd have to kill you afterward if you didn't agree to join our club.

Sorry, as I started to say, economists, who rarely agree on anything, almost all describe the USA as having a mixed economy. That is, part welfare state, but mostly a free market (to pay the bills). I agree and I heartily endorse the concept, but as always, the devil is in the details.

Mr. Sanders, the Washington outsider, has made a nice living as a professional politician for 35 years. He has faithfully served the citizens of the Green Mountain State, in Washington, for 26 of those years. Labeling him an outsider makes about as much sense as members of the establishment current obsession with calling each other members of the establishment without bothering to specifically define establishment, or why being a member is a bad thing, while the establishment media gleefully covers it all without bothering to specifically define establishment, or why being a member is a bad thing. And speaking of the Donald, ain't it amazing that an MBA from Wharton who clawed his way to lower level moguldom (despite four bankruptcies, and casinos that never made money and...) after starting out with a $100,000,000 dollar real estate empire his daddy turned over to him has managed to remain a member in good standing of the anti-establishment?

Excuse me while I interrupt myself again, but this is important. While most baby boomers will immediately grasp the significance of the "establishment" kerfuffle, most of the rest of you will not. When we boomers were adolescent and twenty-something callowyutes, The Establishment was your mom and dad. It technically referred to the evil system and its evil minions, those dopes that survived the Great Depression and won WW2. In actuality, it was your mom and dad, especially dad, and in a pinch, just about anyone that wasn't officially cool. The fact that it's become a thing is testimony to the arrested development briefly referenced above. Also, it explains the plethora of classic rock stations. How old were you when your life stopped (musically speaking)?

Gadzooks! I'm running low on words and I still haven't explained why Mr. Sanders is not my candidate. Long story short (too late), Mr. Sanders, a professional politician that's worked in Washington DC for 26 years without becoming an insider while the national debt went from roughly $3,000,000,000,000 to $19,000,000,000,000 bucks wants to spend $18,000,000,000,000 bucks, more or less, of other people's money on his Freebies for the Folks program. I wonder if that includes Obamaphones? Bernie hasn't mentioned that by 2027 (of course that's 11 long years away) The Gubmint will be on the hook for roughly 100,000,000,000,000 (the exact number depends on whom you choose to believe) in unfunded Gubmint mandated programs. These numbers just don't work for me.

Perhaps he should seek advice from his buddy and fellow non-member of the establishment, Ben Cohn, co-founder of the legendary ice cream company, Ben and Jerry's. Ben definitely understands the significance of numbers that include lots of zeros. He recently created a new flavor to honor Mr. Sanders called Bernie's Yearning in honor of Mr. Sanders. Unfortunately, you can't purchase it because he signed a non-compete clause when he and Jerry sold their cute little anti-establishment ice cream company to the ginormous food conglomerate Unilever (gross sales, 2014 -- €48,400,000,000 euros, which is, um, a lot of bucks) back in 2000 for $326,000,000 bucks and Mr. Cohn became a Unilever employee.

Have an OK day.                                                                                  

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016


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Dude... (Part Two)

I wrote a post (Dude... - 11.7.15) that was about explaining to my first born grandchild why he should go to great lengths to avoid reproducing himself unless/until he's half of a stable marriage. I also alluded to the importance of keeping ones rascal wrapped in our brave new world and warned him there would be more unsolicited advice in the future.

In retrospect, I believe I should have said more about the importance of rascal wrapping. While I'm certain that the vast majority of fledgling grups have at least a fundamental knowledge of the facts concerning reproduction and of STD's, I'm equally certain, being a recovering callowyute myself, that there's no shortage of bonkercockie being bandied about in both restrooms and homerooms.

Dude... the bottom line is that the Earth has no shortage of cooties, or, shell-shocked looking callowyutes whose story includes the sentence, "I had no idea you could get pregnant and/or infected from _____." The only way around rascal wrapping is a via a monogamous relationship, with someone you trust, after you've both been certified as cootie free. Yet another reason I'm glad I'm old.

Now, it's virtually impossible for you to grasp the full significance of what's coming up next. This isn't because of any sort of deficiency on your part, it's because you're going to have to live a bit more to fully understand what I'm talking about. And oh yeah, this might be the a good place to remind you that if you can manage to keep paying attention as you go through life (so you don't start rusting) you'll find that 30 is to 20 as third grade is to second. That is, you'll keep getting smarter, the intervals just get longer.

When I was your age, in the late 1960's, one of the many things many of us baby boomer types thought we should  be rebelling against was traditional sexual mores. It was/is/always has been/always will be normal for adolescent callowyutes to rebel, to one degree or another, against something. Fortunately and unfortunately, our turn coincided with a perfect storm of cultural chaos unleashed by a whole bunch of dramatic developments happening at the same time that spread faster than a common cold in a small school due to the fact it happened just as the information age was picking up steam electrons.

The traditional American sexual mores that we thought needed upgrading, the ones we were brought up with, went something like this. You weren't supposed to have sex until you got married. Then, you weren't supposed to have sex with anyone other than your spouse. You weren't even supposed to have sex with yourself, married or otherwise. While no shortage of the conservative factions of various religious sects still maintain this is the way to go, at the time, this was the view the culture, in general, pretended to profess.

Of course, as Mark Twain pointed out, all generalizations are false, including this one. Beware of complex topics reduced to a paragraph, I would add.

[Dude's brow furrows. Wait a minute...pretended? ]

Yup. Men will be monkeys and society will tolerate hypocrisy if there's a consensus that this is what's necessary to keep a lid on things. Long story short: A few thousand years of patriarchy combined with certain religious and moral teachings resulted in a world in which men that fornicated (Merriam-Webster, Fornication: consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other) were considered to be studs/manly men/bad boys/rogues/etc. and the women they fornicated with were considered to be whores. Sounds sorta/kinda goofy and it was/is.

[Goofy is putting it mildly, how the hell..]

A great idea, monogamy, gone bad. Evolution/biology/DNA has resulted in a world in which a human males best chance to replicate themselves is by having sex with as many human females as possible. Human females best chance results from finding one decent guy that's willing to stick around. Making all this even more complicated is that while the males that drive the most expensive cars and at least appear to be emotionally and physically healthy are gonna' attract the hot chicks. Hot chicks will attract all males because we tend to spend our lives being led around by our, um, lusty natures. To ensure, that despite our natural inclinations, we can cooperate to bring down a wooly mammoth, invent civilization, and participate in block parties without the police having to eventually be called, we came up with a really cool idea, monogamy.

One man + one woman = stable civilization. If the alpha males are limited to one wife, there are more women around for us ordinary men to marry. Having a wife of our own, if we're lucky enough to get one, negates our having to kill an alpha male just so we can get..., um, companionship. Civilization (and  plenty of wooly burgers) ensues. Males (in theory) can count on getting..., um, companionship and an occasional meal that isn't served in a bag. Females (in theory) get companionship, a champion to protect the kids and somebody to take out the trash.

Unfortunately, human males are generally physically larger and generally unable to suppress their inner monkey as successfully as human females. Unfortunate because this led to patriarchal societies in which the males often treat the females as chattel while pretending to be monogamous (wink, wink -- nudge, nudge). Religions, organized and otherwise, tended, and tend, to support this system and somewhere along the way it was decided that the same rules applied to the unmarried as well.

Unfortunately for you dude, we baby boomers fixed (picture air quotes) this mess before you came along. Our solution was worse than the problem. What follows is my usual vast oversimplification. In my defense, I can't crank out a book once a week and I'm in a bit of a hurry to record what little wisdom I've managed to unearth in the course of my life. This is so that you, your brother, and your two sisters might still benefit in some small way if I'm suddenly not here anymore. This might be a good place to remind you that though you are a blended family, you are brothers and sisters (ya'll got lucky), and anyone that tells you otherwise is full of shit.

Due to the pill (more air quotes), and unprecedented levels of health, prosperity, education and communication, it became possible for the culture to be radically changed remarkably quickly. The ideal result, in my semi-humble opinion, would've been a culture where people were more circumspect than ever about who and when they married and when they reproduced. Not because of hidebound conventions but because it just makes sense. Social science, history, and the common sense (SSHCS) available to anyone that's paying attention all point to the necessity of stable marriages of equal partners that stay together as the ideal to be strived for.

Single people need not deprive themselves of sexual partners. However, SSHCS should teach us that accidental reproduction is to be avoided, that a kid needs a mom and a dad, that the quality of sex rises dramatically when you're at least deeply in like with your partner, and that an endless parade of multiple partners is not a whole lot different than masturbation via an android (potentially fun, but just not the same as the real thing).

BIG BUT.

We didn't get the ideal result. Humans never do, but that's another post. What we did get grew out of a if it feels good do it/do your own thing/live for today/sex, drugs and rock and roll ethos. The CDC says roughly 40% of kids in the USA are born out of wedlock. (For the record, there's no such thing as an illegitimate kid. There is, however, no shortage of illegitimate parents. Many are married.) You've no doubt noticed the word is knee deep in STD's. Divorce rates are between 40 and 50%.

Modesty, restraint, and good taste have gone out of style. Sex saturates the media. We've defined deviancy down (google Daniel Patrick Moynihan) to almost the vanishing point. Sorry dude.

Have an OK day.                                                                                  

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016



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