On Economic Laws - Not Like The Law Of Gravity

"Our Republican leaders tell us economic laws--sacred, inviolable, unchangeable--cause panics which no one could prevent. But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Nomination Address, July 2nd, 1932, Chicago, IL)

Weekly Reader

Sad news last night on the network news. The Weekly Reader, source of national and world news for countless schoolchildren since its founding in 1928, is ceasing publication.

In 1946, 47 and 48 I learned from the Weekly Reader about DP's (displaced persons) in Europe, conflict between Iraq and Iran, Civil War in China, the occupation of Japan and Germany, and American elections.

Most memorable was Weekly Reader's coverage of the 1948 presidential election. A week before the election, Weekly Reader printed a two-page spread of all the political parties, their nominees, their official symbols, and a brief explanation of party goals. The list included the Democratic Party (symbol: rooster); the State's Rights Party (nominee Strom Thurmond); the Progressive Party (nominee: former Vice President Henry Wallace); Republican Party (Thomas E. Dewey); Socialist Party; American Communist Party; Democrat Farm-Labor Party; Prohibition Party and Vegetarian Party, among others.

My contemporary, Senator John McCain, resurrected the Vegetarian Party for one of his best lines in his stump speech of 2000, when he asserted that he sought support from all political beliefs, including the vegetarian party.

I would bet that, as a fifth grader reading his Weekly Reader, the young John McCain was struck with the apparent absurdity of a political party dedicated to vegetarianism. I certainly was.

But I paid attention to the 1948 election.

Weekly Reader: Requiat in pacem.

South Avenue Closing: Financial Folly?

It may be financial folly for the Town of Oriental to own waterfront property in fee simple instead of in trust for the public.

The Town should review North Carolina Administrative Code Title 15A, Chapter 7, Coastal Management. The Town should also review its own CAMA land use plan, adopted five years ago. Taken together, both the policy of the State of North Carolina and the plans and policy of the Town of Oriental support public access to public trust waters through dedicating access points to the public. State policy strongly and explicitly encourages use of street ends as water access points.

CAMA/SeaGrant funding to acquire water access points requires the points to be dedicated to the public in perpetuity.

CAMA grants for improvement of water access facilities that are not so dedicated must be repaid on a proportional basis if the property is ever sold. For property with a cost basis of zero, the repayment might be very high indeed.

The effect of the Town's stubborn insistence on fee simple ownership instead of public dedication may be that the Town won't be able to get CAMA/SeaGrant funds for improvements to or maintenance of Municipal-owned property that is not dedicated to public use, or that the Town may find conditions of such funds prohibit accepting them.

Has the Town Board looked into this possible consequence of actions they are about to take?

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Joe Paterno's statue has gone.

Maybe we shouldn't erect statues to men (or women) while they still live. Might not be a bad idea to wait a decent interval (say, twenty-five years or so).

Might be good to wait awhile before renaming streets, buildings, ships, etc. as well.

Could save us all from embarrassment.

Remember Stalingrad.

Even Russians are embarrassed by Stalin.

Who Benefits? Who Pays?

I have said it before: it isn't how big government is that matters, but who benefits. Conservatives rail against redistribution. That's a smokescreen. For four decades, redistribution has been upward.

Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research posted an excellent article yesterday making the point better than I. The argument isn't over government size. The argument is over rigging rules to benefit the wealthy.

As Dean Baker explains: "[Conservatives] don't object to big government, they object to government programs that help poor and middle class people."

Rules Are Rules

Got carded this evening. I just wanted a 12-pack of beer. Nothing exotic. "What's your birthday," the Dollar General cashier asked.

"April 20," I answered.

Wasn't good enough. I had to give her the year.

Don't think I can pass for 20. I'm old enough to remember Pearl Harbor, but not old enough to remember the Maine.

Not sure I really wanted the beer all that much.

Character And Society

New York Times columnist David Brooks sometimes calls attention to the work of social critics with whom I am not familiar. Last March, he published an interesting column centered on the work of James Q. Wilson.

I don't know Wilson's work, but I am intrigued. Some of Wilson's observations focus on what I would call the collective aspect of character. For example: “At root,” Wilson wrote in 1985 in The Public Interest, “in almost every area of important concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants for public assistance, would-be lawbreakers or voters and public officials.”

How can we do this? As Brooks describes Wilson's writings, "When Wilson wrote about character and virtue, he didn’t mean anything high flown or theocratic. It was just the basics, befitting a man who grew up in the middle-class suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1940s: Behave in a balanced way. Think about the long-term consequences of your actions. Cooperate. Be decent."

Follow the dictates of Miss Manners.

Wilson, Brooks explained,  did not believe that virtue was inculcated by prayer in schools. It was habituated by practicing good manners, by being dependable, punctual and responsible day by day. He emphasized that character was formed in groups. “Order exists," Wilson wrote in 1993, "because a system of beliefs and sentiments held by members of a society sets limits to what those members can do.” 

Wilson's views in this respect remind me of the power of what I learned as a young naval officer was "customs, tradition and usage." Very powerful, indeed.

I think this is exactly what Hillary Clinton had in mind in her 1996 book,  It Takes A Village. The book was, of course, roundly condemned by conservatives.

"No, it takes a family," the conservative choir rang out, led by Bob Dole and Rick Santorum.

One of the things I learned from tracing my own genealogy is that, for most of our history, it was impossible to tell where the family ended (parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, grandparents, grandchildren, etc.) and the village began. They were all part and parcel of the same social setting and were mutually reinforcing.

That reinforcement is a major reason families and children under stress were able to survive depression and war in the 30's and 40's. 

But that's another story. I'll pick up the thread sometime soon.

Taxes: Who Benefits And Who Pays?

Most of us don't like to pay taxes. But that's how we pool our resources to do things for our community, county, state and nation that wouldn't be done by individuals. The "magic of the marketplace" won't educate all of our children, build roads and bridges, eradicate diseases such as yellow fever and smallpox, build the foundations of a national economy, operate police and fire departments or defend the nation.

So how to devise a fair, effective, efficient and sensible system of taxes?

Yesterday National Public Radio's web site published a summary of a panel discussion on last Tuesday's Planet Money radio show. The title: "Six Policies Economists Love (And Politicians Hate)."

The proposed policies:
1. Eliminate mortgage interest deduction;
2. End deduction companies get for employee health care;
3. Eliminate corporate income tax;
4. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes, replace with consumption tax;
5. Tax carbon emissions;
6. Legalize marijuana.

There you have it. The summary provides some rationale. The piece is worth reading. I'm not convinced, but it can't hurt to reexamine how we do things.