Getting the Direction Wrong

Interesting debate here:

Is The American Dream Alive and Well?

David Leonhardt and Bhaskar Sunkara often get the direction wrong on many of the points that they make. Examples are drug deaths, divorce and lower rates of marriage. Those are more likely the result more wealth and opportunity. Let's face the awful fact that when some people have more ability to get drugs they use more and when women can earn a good living they can be more selective of whom they marry and stay with.

And when David Leonhardt and Bhaskar Sunkara did get the direction right that is on crime, a big part of the cause is on their side. Poor law enforcement in places where democrats control law enforcement (though the illegality of drugs is probably also a factor).

Let's try to stop crime before it occurs like some have argued has been done in New York city.

My Biggest Governmental/Political Issues as of Feb 2024

• The war in Ukraine - it looks to me like the failure to get a negotiated agreement to avoid the war was big foreign policy failure. Putin is an evil dictator but there have already been about 15,000 deaths and many more injuries. We should have pushed the Ukrainians to offer Russia the parts of where the majority of the people prefer to be part of Russia plus neutrality and no entrance to NATO. If he refused that then we have to support the war. Further Putin though an evil dictator unlike the communists in the old USSR allows people to live fairly normal lives as long as they stay away from politics and there is hope for change from within. As the US Government learned in Afghanistan, Governing a place were the people hate you is often not beneficial in the modern world, so Ukraine may make problems for Russia if they try to dominate it.  

• Drug prohibition - it seems to me that the illegality of drugs though it may reduce recreational drug use a little on net is a negative. The war on drugs has been destructive to parts of Latin America and in parts of the country here. I think we should try legalizing the sale so users can be assured of some level of constancy in the supply. Hopefully that will reduce accidental overdose. Drug OD deaths are now over 100,000 per year and they have been doubling each decade at least since 1980, and some researchers say since 1940.

• Euclidean zoning - Euclidean zoning allows people to stop building for frivolous reasons like increased traffic and neighborhood character. It is a denial of the right to build and develop and has driven housing costs up in the most desirable parts of the USA. It has contributed to homelessness particularly in west coast cities. The incentives being what they are in local politics, I think the Federal government needs to make it illegal.

• Crime - Crime is mostly a local issue but, the US murder rate is much higher than other developed countries, and we have an example of how to reduce it in New York city were crime is much lower than it used to be. There is a debate about the importance of "stop and frisk" in New York's success, was mainly due to a reduction in corruption in the police force and how much if any of the reduction was due to immigration.  

• Medical insurance reform -  the federal government pays for about 65% of healthcare in the US but Medicine is mostly regulated at the state and local level. That creates some undesirable incentives. So I think we should transfer more of the regulation of healthcare to the federal Government, or make the system more incentive compatible by having the Federal Government give the money that it would spent on healthcare to the states with the requirement that the cover people who are now on Medicare, the lowest income citizens (current on Medicaid) and all Federal government employees. The states can spend it in the most efficient way and if some money is left spend it on what they like. I've written about that and some other possible reforms.

• Medicare reform - if we do not do the above we should have Medicare stop paying for stuff that the UK's MHS does not provide. That is care that has not shown a positive net benefit to cost from what I've read that seems to be at least 20% of Medicare spending. I've written about other reforms that might help reduce costs. 

• Social Security reform - The system should stop giving COLA raises to the higher lifetime earners until all recipients receive the same payment in retirement. The system in Australia works that way, for the Government part of pensions, every retiree gets the same amount. It is and should a program to prevent the elderly from falling into poverty.

To me the issues we focus most on like immigration are problems but not as big as the above. Inflation has been a problem for the last few years but seems to be under control now.

A Compromise with Drug Law Supporters

As a compromise with drug law supporters, I have begun to propose that we legalize the sale of all drugs, to make the supply safer, but make the use of certain recreational drugs without a prescription illegal. This would be to reduce the collateral damage from drug use, including spouse abuse and child abuse and street crime. That way if someone calls the police because a drugged up guy in behaving bad, the police can arrest and jail him and it is an easier conviction.

I would say that they could then force him into treatment but from the evidence that I've seen forced treatment doesn't work. Of course in the future it might and so we should keep it as an option.

A UBI Design Again

I support a $260/week UBI given to all US citizens over 18 years old but it would replace TANF, SNAP, minimum wage laws, housing subsidies etc. and yes Social Security also. There would no longer be a reason to have those programs if we had a UBI. And I think giving more money to parents for there children would dangerous in that a very few but not 0 might have children that they neglect to get more money and that would look bad for the UBI and in fact be bad. Children are already subsidized through schools and free lunch programs and charities like to help children and the UBI would make the problem of child poverty small enough that charity could cover it. I would also start taxing the 1st dollar earned at 33% instead of 15.2%. The tax rate/bracket could lowered once income goes about enough to pay for the UBI ($40,969.70/year). 

If it reduces would too much a work requirement can be added.

Factors in Increase in Homelessness

What has contributed to the increase in homelessness in the USA 

One factor seems to be deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill.

From google AI: “Studies from the late 1980s suggest that homelessness is related to deinstitutionalization”

Another factor especially on the west coast is the increase in voters ability to block the rights of land owners to build for frivolous reasons like increased traffic, neighborhood character etc. See Euclidian zoning.

Which BTW is an extreme form of democracy. It is related to Social Democracy which is a system where workers and citizens get to vote on much more. In a socialist Democracy employees would get to vote on how corporations are run and voters in an are would get to vote on what gets built and much more.

Another factor is the reduction of police power and courts standing up for the rights of those who end up homeless who might in an earlier time been put in jail. One might look at this as a good thing but can lead to more people living on the streets.

Homelessness is a common problem now in most developed countries. Japan seems have overcome it by putting zoning in control of the national government. The national government represents the people in a given area but also the people who would like to live in that area.

How Much Would a CO2 Tax Raise Gasoline and Electricity Price

It looks from this article like a $100/ton CO2 tax would raise a gallon of gasoline by $.80 and raise electricity cost by about 36%. Seems to me that this should not be such a big deal and I think at $100/ton it might be enough to remove CO2 from the air.

People would not end up paying that much as electric Companies would produce more not CO2 producing methods and Petroleum prices would be lower than they'd otherwise be and people would tend to buy vehicles that get higher mileage. 

Better than MMT

My comments on this MMT video.

I'm one of the few Libertarians who think MMT would not be so bad. It would not change much.

MMT does not say deficits do not matter it says that they can cause inflation and that would require cutting spending and/or raising taxes. To understand this it good to think not about money, but about goods and services.

So if you do a Green New Deal and it draws resources away from more productive uses to less productive uses, that is waste, which is why instead of Green New Deal, a CO2 tax and a payout for the removal of CO2 from the air would be better than an MMT funded Green New Deal. 

In fact we already have a mini Green New Deal new in the form of CAFE standards. The paragraph below shows how poorly it works:

"I and other scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimate that the new standards will cost the economy on the whole — for the same reduction in gas use — at least six times more than a federal gas tax of roughly 45 cents per dollar of gasoline. That is because a gas tax provides immediate, direct incentives for drivers to reduce gasoline use, while the efficiency standards must squeeze the reduction out of new vehicles only. The new standards also encourage more driving, not less."

So that's a huge waste of the scarcest resource, human effort.

A function of taxes not mentioned in the video, is to let voters know, as much as possible, how much Government functions are costing. They always cost something. You could for that purpose do the opposite of MMT and insist that all government be funded through taxes and let the Federal Reserve provide all the money to the economy even if that requires keeping interest rates at 0% forever and even buying assets in down turns. I think that I would prefer that because the incidence of Government spending falls on the citizens one way or another, all of it, and so the citizens as much as possible the citizens should know the costs.