Abortion

 

So Long, Farwell

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
Goodbye!

With the draft US Supreme Court opinion on abortion…

It has been a long, strange trip, but apparently “Government of the People, by the People, and for the People” will be perishing from the earth.  The official death notice (opinion) has not yet been released by the Supreme Court, but it is only a matter of time.  The pall bearers will be Justice “Strip Search Sammy” Alito, Justice Neil “NOT Merrick Garland” Gorsuch, Justice “Long Dong Silver” Thomas, Justice Brett “I LIKE Beer” Kavanaugh and, Justice Amy “Handmaiden” Coney Barrett.  It is not clear yet if Chief Justice Roberts will join the pall bearers.

The pall bearers have been characterized as Republicans . That is  unfair to Republicans who believe in the Rule of Law and Limited Government, such as Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Everett Dirksen, George Romney, John McCain, and many others.  The pall bears were appointed by the “Great Mis-communicator”, “Read my lips”, and “Don the Con” but were either the appointers or the appointees real Republicans?

The pall bearers have also been characterized as conservatives, which is an insult to conservatives who believe in an individual’s rights and historical precedent.  Activist judges, who in D.C. v. Heller,  invented a constitutional right of self-defense to expand the Second Amendment beyond its regulation of militias; who in Citizens United v FEC granted Corporations the right to free speech because their shareholders have the right to free speech, even if all other property of those shareholders is shielded from suits against the Corporation, are not conservative.

It is a personal belief that life begins at conception.  Even if it were a scientifically proven fact and not a matter of belief, the question must be what are the Constitutional rights of fetuses.  The Supreme Court opines when a law conflicts with the constitutionally protected rights of the People.  Even if fetuses are persons, according to the Constitution, they are not People.  They are not enumerated in each Constitutionally required decennial census.  They are People upon birth, but not before then.  The question then becomes does a government have the right to seize the property of the People, i.e. a women’s body, until the fetus is viable and becomes one of the People.  The US Constitution  clearly states that a person’s property can NOT be seized without compensation.

I agree that Roe v. Wade was improperly decided in that it used an unstated right to privacy to justify its opinion.    But even if the reasoning was faulty, the opinion was not. Right church, wrong pew.  Overturning Roe v. Wade is probably the final death sentence for the US Constitution. Auf Wiedersehen, good bye.

Strategy and Tactics III

 

Sometimes When We Touch

Romance and all its strategy leaves me battling with my pride
But through the insecurity some tenderness survives
I'm just another writer, still trapped within my truths
A hesitant prize fighter still trapped within my youth

Is it better to have winning tactics or a winning strategy?

Tactics often gets more praise and attention than strategy.  Failure in tactical battles does not mean that a field general is a poor tactician. That field general might have a tactical disadvantage, or be using a  strategy that is suboptimal for winning that tactical battle, but is optimal for winning the war. George Washington lost more battles than he won, but he won the Revolutionary War.  Napoleon won some impressive tactical battles, but his strategy ultimately ended in failure. In sports, great players (tacticians) often make bad coaches (strategists), e.g. Ted Williams; while poor players may be great coaches, e.g. Tommy Lasorda. It is extraordinarily rare to find a great player who is also a great coach, e.g. Bill Russell, Joe Torre.  What is more often successful is pairing a great coach with a great player, e.g. Bill Belichick AND Tom Brady.

Arcs of Triumph are often erected for great tacticians.  Monuments are erected less often for great strategists.  But it takes both to be winners.  Good tactics may win a  battle, but lose the war. Losing every battle is probably not a successful strategy for winning a war. Winning the war ultimately is what endures.

Student Loans

 

Sixteen Tons

You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

Evangelicals and Republicans oppose student debt relief?

First, I’ve got no dog in this hunt. When I graduated from college in 1973, I had a grand total of $1,600 in student loans which were repaid long ago. My sons have grown and any debt that they incurred, or I incurred for them, has long been repaid. Thus I will not personally benefit from any student loan cancelation. But that does not mean that I do not support student loan relief.

Education is a common resource. Producers need an educated labor force, but they do not directly pay for this educated labor force. Producers may pay more for employees with a degree, but they do not care if that employee received a free education or how much that education cost the employee. Producers count on society to provide and regulate common resources such as education. So societal spending on education benefits both the producers and their employees.

Loans are a way that costs are repaid in the future. If we agree that there should be an income and asset test applied before public money is spent, you can be assured that both the student who paid with their own assets, and the student who paid with loans, already had this asset/income test. ( Like many parents, I spent hours filling out FAFSA forms. I can personally attest that  means tests were employed). If public money is used to repay student loans, then this is just time shifting public spending on education with an income test. In fact since individuals made their own choices on colleges, etc., this is virtually identical to a voucher program. Each student made their own choice on how that spending on education was used. (In fact since Boston College is a religious school, some of those loans were used to pay religious schools, I can also personally assure you)

Therefore if you support a voucher program as encouraging choice, and a means test to ensure that public money is only spent where and when it is needed, then supporting the cancelation of student debt is consistent with those positions.

The only reason for not supporting student debt relief is if you believe that government spending on an educated work force is wrong. I hope that it isn't  because the “wrong” kind of people incurred that debt and they are benefiting from the cancellation.

I would also think that evangelicals would want to encourage calls by St. Peter, not prevent them because those who are called owe too much. Debt cancellation is also very Biblical (e.g. Leviticus 25-26, Deuteronomy 15, Exodus 21:2,  Luke 7:36-50). The Lord’s Prayer is “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

There is a question of how canceling student loans can distort the decisions of those incurring new student debt, or how those who charge for education might raise prices today if they know that the debt will eventually be forgiven, but those are different questions.

Distributions II

 

How Long

How long has this been goin' on? (ooh-ooh, yeah)
You've been creepin' 'round on me
How long has it been goin' on, baby? Oh (ooo-oh)
How long has this been goin' on? (You gotta go tell me now)

It seems like 40 years is more than enough.

One upon a time there was only one truth. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2022/01/resiliency.html.  Which led to the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, Jihad, and all that stuff.  In statistical terms the mean is equal to the median is equal to the mode, but the variance is zero.  This is called a normal distribution. ( can we say SNAFU)

Relativity said that there is more than one truth, that your perspective, frame of reference,  matters, and the variance should not be just zero.  The mean can still be equal to the median, but the variance should be more than 0 . If the variance is equal to one, then this is referred to as a uniform normal distribution, the familiar bell shaped curve.  But the skew is still zero.

As a way to increase the mean, the Reagan, supply side, tax cuts were approved. They did increase the mean, but they also increased the skew.  It was not limited to just zero.  It might have been expected that the distribution would have been  only  moderately skewed, but this turned out to be wrong.  After almost 40 years, the United States  has an extremely skewed distribution of income, and has the most skewed distribution of wealth in the world ( not counting the Sultanate of Brunei and the tax haven of the Bahamas but they each have less than 0.01% of the wealth of the United States.) https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2022/04/distribution-of-wealth.html

Terms like normal and skew might seem to be biased but these are what the mathematical terms are called.  And math does not lie.                
https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2022/04/twitter.html

If the skew was less than 1 it would be characterized as only  moderately skewed. If the distribution was an exponentially modified Gaussian (normal) distribution, the  skew would be  between 0.0 and 0.31.  The fact that the skew is now so much greater than 1.0 proves that if you give some people an inch, they will take a mile.

Twitter

You’ve Got  A Friend in Me

Some other folks might be
A little bit smarter than I am
Bigger and stronger too
Maybe
But none of them will ever love you
The way I do
It's me and you, boy

And as the years go by
Our friendship will never die
You're gonna see it's our destiny
You've got a friend in me

Does Donald Trump have a friend in Elon Musk?

It is really hard to lie with Mathematics. It is a lot easier to lie in other languages  For example Twitter banned Donald Trump. Elon Musk was the enemy of Twitter ( at least he was before today when he bought Twitter ;)  So it is probably true to state  that Twitter is an enemy of Donald Trump and Elon Muck was an enemy of Twitter. However that does not necessarily mean that Elon Musk is a friend of Donald Trump. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a false statement in mathematics. If you let the equal, =, sign  mean a friend and the not equal sign, <>, mean an enemy. Then Twitter <> Donald Trump and Elon Musk <> Twitter does not mean that Donald Trump= Elon Musk. Elon Musk buying Twitter does not mean that the ban of Donald Trump will immediately be lifted.

Sorry Trumpers. If you want to post lies, you will have to hope that Donald Trump gets Truth Social up and running. Even Donald Trump is not expecting that he has a new friend in Twitter.

Fact vs Fiction

 

It Ain’t Necessarily So

They tell all your children
The devil he's a villain
It ain't necessarily so

Does saying that someone is the Prince of Lies mean that they are a villain?

I have proposed that human behavior can be defined by three characteristics. However those characteristics are not binary, either/or. They are a continuum or spectrum. For example take Fact vs. Fiction.

1.     There are those who can not willingly suspend their disbelief. They prefer non-fiction to fiction books; documentaries (or at least stories based on true events) to fiction.

2.     There are those who believe in facts but can willingly suspend their disbelief, if that fiction is consistent. Continuity errors make them unwilling to suspend their disbelief.

3.     There are those who believe in facts but are willing to suspend their disbelief on many matters or try to explain away those continuity errors. ( for those who know what  MMMS stands for, they are the ones who win No-Prizes).

4.     There are those who believe in facts but are willing to suspend their disbelief and accept any and all continuity errors. All stories are imaginary stories. But the more serious the continuity error, the less willing that they are to spend their disbelief ( e.g. they get taken out of the story).

5.     There are those who are willing to adopt your beliefs, even it they believe those are fiction, if it is to their advantage. They can distinguish facts from fiction but will embrace fiction if there is something in it for them [Also known as con(fidence) men, because they pretend to adopt your beliefs to gain your confidence].

6.     There are those who would rather adopt something they know to be false, or to avoid the truth, if the truth is inconvenient.

7.     There are those who can not distinguish fact from fiction. They think only what they experience is real. E.g. the Earth is Flat;  Evolution is not real;  WWE wresting is real; Soap Operas are real stories; etc.

Any and all of these positions are real. and they are just a subset of all possible positions.  Those positions can fall on a spectrum of Fact vs Fiction, but none of them can be characterized as all Fact or all Fiction.

 

The Federal Reserve

 

The Magnificent Seven

Knuckle merchants and your bankers too
Must get up and learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet

Bankers have rules, even if you don’t understand their rules.

Central banks are supposed to inspire confidence in the economy by keeping inflation low and stable. America’s Federal Reserve has suffered a hair-raising loss of control. 
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/04/23/why-the-federal-reserve-has-made-a-historic-mistake-on-inflation

This is true ONLY if you believe that America’s Federal Reserve bank actually HAS the ability to keep inflation low. The Federal Reserve bank is responsible for maintaining a medium of exchange that allows trade in the US economy to take place. Prior to the establishment of central banks, such as the Federal Reserve, individual banks were a place to store currency. However they did not, should not, only store currency. They also lend that currency (i.e. make loans). This creates a problem with liquidity for individual banks. If a bank has loaned currency, that currency can not immediately be returned to its depositors. If depositors demand a return of their currency, it can exceed the amount of deposits, reserves, the bank has on hand. That is what a bank run is all about. And bank runs undermine the confidence in a currency as a medium of exchange. The Federal Reserve Bank serves as a central clearing house such that runs on banks will not happen. It monitors the total amount of money needed by the economy, and lends currency to those individual banks in order to maintain their liquidity and prevent bank runs.

The Federal Reserve does this by making loans to individual banks. Those loans have to repaid by those banks in the future. If there should be a discount rate that is applied to the future then this should be considered in the interest rate. That the future is worth less than the present is popular wisdom,  “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” and Biblical wisdom,  Matthew 25:14-30, the Parable of the Talents. Charging an interest rate effects not only the repayment of the liquidity. If that liquidity is used to increase production (investment) or consumption (borrowing), it can have an effect on the price of goods, inflation. However that is NOT the only way that prices can increase. Consumer preferences can change (e.g. today’s demand for buggy whips is not like that of the 19^th century), or the things unrelated to the interest rate can change the cost of goods (e.g. a ship can get stuck in the Suez Canal, droughts or wildfires can happen, a global pandemic can occur, Russia can invade Ukraine, etc.).

The Federal Reserve can and has maintained a stable domestic currency .  It has not created more currency (money) than is needed for trade, unlike the Weimar republic or other examples of hyperinflation. It cannot prevent ordinary inflation. This is like blaming the weatherman if it rains. Don’t shoot the messenger.

That there has been persistent inflation since the 1970s is not due to the Federal reserve’s failure to responsibly monitor the domestic US economy. It is because when a domestic currency is also used as the unit of international trade, this leads to tension between national and global monetary policy, i.e. the Triffin Dilemma. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-happening-riding-high-on-top-of.html The fact that inflation has been manageable is a testament to the Federal Reserve’s success. That it can not prevent all inflation should not be deemed its failure. You don’t have to love banks, to accept that you need banks.