A journal of political, social, and other important, possibly even somewhat related affairs, including but not limited to: Central European Society, The European Union, HC Kometa Brno, American Politics, Film, and Beer.

28 October 2011

Peter Schiff on a walkabout

A friend of mine sent this video to me -- Peter Schiff as "one of the 1%" goes down to the OWS protest in NYC. It's a little long, and some of it is a little too much give and not enough take, but overall it's very interesting. Schiff points out at the very outset that "Capitalism means private profits and private losses." I think THIS is something that has to be talked about. It IS wrong (and, to be fair, the OWS kids have a point here) when they say that we shouldn't socialize the losses. That's NOT fair, and it's a salient point of agreement between the Tea Party Movement and OWS. The point of contention, therefore, seems to be what direction we should go -- socializing the profits, or privatizing the losses. The latter, of course, is preferable, but what is therefore critical is to set up a system whereby we reduce moral hazard and ensure that risk is commensurate with reward (or loss). This is Schiff's argument, and a few of his sparring partners (one of them is particularly good, and probably will be even better as he gets older) recognize this.
Schiff (perhaps in subtle reference to the Keynes-Hayek rap) describes business as "drinking the alcohol the government poured," and concludes that one of the main problems is government intervention, picking winners and losers based on cronyism or "social need," and Wall Street firms' natural desire to be among the "chosen." Bailouts are the ultimate example of making a loser into a winner, and the arbitrariness of these choices introduces a great deal of noise into market communication, which prevents the system from working properly. Furthermore, it creates a huge moral hazard to act recklessly and take on more risk than is perhaps prudent.  If the bartender is irresponsibly buying rounds, it's not really surprising the bar goes wild.
Peter Schiff's only stumble was when dealing with the problem of "more freedom" back "some golden age" that a young black man asked about. Schiff would have done better to have read Clarence Thomas' speech on this matter, who pointed out that "it didn't seem quite that way to black people." Schiff notes there was "certainly more economic freedom" in the past, but could have really hit the ball out of the park if he had pointed out that segregation and other (often government-imposed) hurdles that limited the freedom of black people in the past were (rightly) brought down, and today's young people -- black, white, or otherwise -- have a right to the same economic freedom that (white) people had in the past. Other than that, it's clear that some people in the OWS movement have a legitimate grievance (which is shared by many of the Tea Partiers) while others, quite frankly, are a little slower on the upswing.

24 October 2011

Steve Jobs

This brief snippet from the Weekly Standard is interesting.

One of the special things about the passing of Steve Jobs is how articles about him, such as the one above, continue to appear, in contrast to most celebrities, politicians, artists, or captains of industry. After he died, obviously there was immediately a huge number of obituaries, profiles, "what next?" articles, and laundry lists of his contribution to society. But most of them focused on the Big Things. The little things, though, are also worth talking about too. It is impossible to imagine word processing without a choice in typefaces, and his commitment to the aesthetic as well as to the functional manifested itself in so many ways, we still need time to fully appreciate his departure. Some people are "details" people; some people have grand visions. Our culture tends to celebrate the grand vision -- it is one reason we are so enamored with the Presidency. We rarely see the amalgamation of vision and details in one person; we witnessed it in Mr. Jobs.

23 October 2011

The Rubio Controversy

This piece from the Washington Post seems to hint that Marco Rubio's parents weren't exactly who they say they were -- fleeing exiles from Castro's Communist regime, and instead seems to indicate that Marco Rubio, as a son, has not been completely forthright about his parents' heritage.

So let the conspiracies begin! I personally see the following possibilities:

1) There was a mixup at the State Department and some documents were screwed up.
2) Rubio is a sleazy politician who will say anything, including lying about his history, to win elections.
3) Rubio was told by his parents that he was a child of exiles, and he should be proud of it, even if they didn't tell their boy the full truth.
4) Rubio's parents looked at the nature of the visa regime, decided that applying for permanent residency was worth any extra hassle in case they decided to stay in the US in the future, and thus decided against applying for a long-term visa of a year or two (if that was even available at the time).

Let's quickly rule out No. 1, and let's assume No. 2 has only the kernel of truth typical for a US Senator. I'm sure that Rubio also dated the Homecoming Queen (in Canada -- it's nobody you know). As angry as he was after this article came out, it seems like he's not exactly willing to sweep the controversy under the rug, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. If more information comes to light, I'm sure the intrepid journalists at WaPo will be more than happy to enlighten the citizenry.

That brings us to Nos. 3 and 4, which are not mutually exclusive possibilities.
As someone who has lived abroad for the last 6 years, I am well aware of the choices one makes in these contexts. Issues such as taxes, health insurance, utility bills, or marriage all are affected by the type of residency permit one has when he lives in a foreign country, and the laws of the country at the time (which may change substantially over the course of the visa's duration, even if only a year or six months). I would not be in the least surprised if Marco's parents evaluated their situation and determined that in 1957, for Mario and Oriales Rubio, a green card was the most rational thing to apply for. Would it have seemed in 1957 that they still would have had the option to return to Cuba with a green card, perhaps as retirees or after making enough money to reinvest it back "home?" That seems rather plausible to me. Bear in mind that by all indications, they did absolutely nothing illegal or even unreasonable. They may have said, "hmmmm.... well, let's stay here for five years and make some money. Then we'll go back and raise a family like normal people. But we'll apply for green cards just in case we like it here, or we get really good jobs, or we discover a really cool Florida rock band." Two years in, the plan fell apart, and the all paths back to Cuba were closed when it became a Workers' Paradise.

And you can be damn sure they felt like exiles when they realized they could never go home.