The Manafort Verdict

I’m glad as any libtard snowflake to hear about the Manafort verdict. And I do hope, as so many do, that it’ll lead him to flip. Being who and where he was, I think he’s in a position to fill in a *lot* of blanks and/or corroborate a lot of things that seem obvious but for which there aren’t yet smoking guns.

But you know what? I’m even gladder to see someone who lived his life as if the rules the rest of us have to play by didn’t apply to him get his just desserts. Pumping up his income to get loans, lying and shrinking it when it was time to file taxes, working to make some of the world’s worst people look good (and, most likely, helping them launder money), hell, working as their undeclared agent in the United States: all the actions of a man who, because of his privilege and connections, decided he could do whatever the fuck he wanted and get away with it. And for decades he did, because people like him run the world. A poor woman with a great business idea can’t get a loan, but this guy gets a million dollars because the CEO of the bank wants a job in the Trump administration. It’s not just wrong, it’s counterproductive.

I’ll tell you, what I’d like to see — even more than watching Trump go down, sweet as that would be — is for all these people trading favors and scratching backs and screwing everyone over all the time to be investigated, charged, and put on trial for the fraud and self-dealing that underlies so much of our economic and political decision-making. Sure, we pretend at meritocracy, but we all know it’s not what you know, it’s who. We all know the game is rigged, that, as George Carlin so eloquently and succinctly put it: “There’s a club, and you ain’t in it.”

So yes, let’s hope Manafort flips to save his own skin. Let’s hope (and work so) that Manafort and Cohen are just the beginning of a cascade of justice and realignment. Because it’s not just that it’s morally and ethically wrong for a such a small minority of the population to arrogate such a ridiculous wealth of resources to themselves while so many don’t have enough and never will. It’s a bad use of those resources, one that perpetuates a pyramid scheme version of civilization where the vast majority of human potential is not only wasted but actively discouraged from developing, to all of our detriment.

A Preliminary Case for a Universal Basic Income

From comments I made on someone’s facebook thread (lightly edited for clarity):

It’s a legit question how to pay for a UBI. Now, I’m no economist, but I do have some notions. First is, yes, upping the rates on the highest tax brackets. You know, like we did during the golden age from the ’40s til the ’70s. Not only does it raise revenue from top earners, it disincentivizes taking earnings that high, because why do it if the government’s just going to take most of it? So the incentive is to reinvest that money in the company that earns it, by building and buying stuff, and to pay employees more. Which pushes money down the socioeconomic chain to people who will spend it on goods and services rather than betting/investing in derivatives markets, which is where way too much money is these days. The multiplier effect suggests that money pushed down into circulation creates more value/money than money put into derivative investments, which increases GDP and, as a result, the tax base.

There is also the question of what the alternative to UBI is. Sure, you can say the answer is to keep doing what we’re doing. But technology has put us in a position where that’s not going to work anymore. We don’t need so many factory workers, because robots can do the job more efficiently, just like we don’t need so many grocery checkers, because self-check machines do the job more efficiently. The old way of doing things is undergoing a sea change, which we can fight, or adapt to. Put briefly, there won’t be enough jobs in the traditional sense for everyone who wants one. Now, this can mean good things. For instance, an explosion of new IP, since artists and creatives of all kinds will be freed to pursue their work without worrying about keeping a roof over their heads. But also a revolution in entrepreneurial undertakings. Right now, to start a business you need to have enough of a cushion/nest egg to pay your bills til the business gets off the ground and starts earning enough to sustain you. With UBI, more people are freed up to take more chances entrepreneurially, which means tapping the potential of the American people more deeply than ever before. I personally happen to believe in the American people a great deal, so I see this as a good thing.

There are also the long-term benefits to consider. Study after study shows that lifetime achievement and contentment are higher in people who grow up in economically stable/prosperous households. They commit less crime, are healthier and happier, and are, as a rule, more productive.

Continue reading “A Preliminary Case for a Universal Basic Income” →

Why I’m Giving Up Outrage

Did you hear what Trump did today? Did you hear what he said? Can you believe it?!?

So begins, middles, and ends every day these days. And if it’s not Cadet Bone Spurs himself, it’s some other mouth-breathing movement conservative saying that God’s a white supremacist or that women’s bodies have a way of shutting down conception in cases of ‘legitimate rape’ or that liberals want MS-13 to cross the border in force so they can overrun every two-bit empty-Main Street town in the heartland that just hasn’t been the same since the plant/mine/factory shut down and moved operations to somewhere the labor laws aren’t so job-killing as they are in ‘Merica.

It’s exhausting.

Worse, I’m more and more convinced that it is, if not pointless, then at least counterproductive. Let me explain.

We’ll start with the ‘rage’ part. After all, you can’t spell ‘outrage’ without ‘rage.’ And while outrage is a righteous anger, it is still anger. And anger is, well, problematic. It makes things black and white, crystal clear in the moment. But the thing is, when you’re angry, you don’t think clearly. You don’t think long-term, you don’t make smart decisions. Anger hijacks your higher brain functions and focuses them on itself, on the thing that’s making you angry. It fills your brain, crowds out other factors and considerations. It makes you do and say foolish things, things you will regret once you’ve cooled down. And while there’s a kind of power in anger, it’s a wholly destructive power. It wants to lash out, hit back. It mistakes vengeance for justice. I’m not saying it’s never useful or justified. Sometimes it’s both of those things. But rage and anger almost never get past the tactical to the strategic. They are essentially reactive instead of proactive.

Which segueways nicely to my second point. Continue reading “Why I’m Giving Up Outrage” →

When Do You Stop Clapping?

The West Coast is on fire. The Southeast is underwater, and it’s only the start of hurricane season. Nazis are feeling their oats, and the jackass we elected President is having a pissing match with a nuclear power when he’s not announcing his intention to deport a million people who are better citizens than he or I have ever been. Daily life is surreal, like we’re clapping and clapping, trying to believe hard enough to bring Tinkerbell back to life. Tinkerbell being a world where it makes sense to do things like buy houses and have children and plan for your retirement.

When do you stop clapping? When do you stop thinking the world will go on as it has, and start planning for contingencies that were science fiction two years ago? What does that even mean? Buy a gun? A bunch of canned food and bottled water? Order an apocalypse kit from the Mormons on Amazon and stop at every gas station you pass so when the moment comes you’ll have a full tank? Where will you even go?

I’m sitting here with a to-do list a mile long. I’ve got businesses to grow, a novel to finish, people who expect me to make things for them and do things to make their homes nicer. But I look outside, and I can’t see the fucking sky for the smoke, and people in the place I grew up (Florida) are bracing for a hurricane that’ll ravage the whole state whichever of the approximately five thousand possible paths it might take heading inland it ultimately does.

I’m sitting here paralyzed, because if Tinkerbell’s dead then I’m crazy to worry over what things make a normal life. If she isn’t I need to clap harder than ever, knowing it might not be enough. We all do, together.

I honestly don’t know what’s to come. Whatever it turns out to be will be hard, for all of us. It already is.

I don’t have much in the way of encouraging words today. So I’ll borrow some from people much wiser than I.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
-Fred Rogers

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
-Gandhi

An Open Letter to Elected Democrats

Well, we’re two weeks in, and it’s as clear as it ought to have been all along that what we’re dealing with the Trump Administration and the Republican-dominated Congress is as far past normal as Alpha Centauri is past the corner convenience store. A blitzkrieg of bad policy and worse nominees is overrunning the nation’s institutional defenses, as between them the Administration and Congress try and push through every bad idea the right’s ever had. I’m sure you don’t need me to read you the laundry list.

So here’s what I and my fellow liberals, progressives, and sane Americans with functioning empathy, conscience, and reason want you to know:

You. Must. Resist.

At every turn, in every way you can. Throw up roadblocks. Boycott hearings. Present amendment after amendment until the docket is filled til 2018. Whatever you can do to fight them or gum up the works, we expect you to do it.

It’s time to stop bringing a strongly-worded letter to a knife fight. The America we love and put our faith in is on the line. History is watching.

And you know what? We’re watching, too. And we’re going to remember.

Here’s something that I think is worth thinking about, if the case on the merits isn’t enough motivation for you. In October 2002, then-Senator Hillary Clinton voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq. At the time, it looked like the politically-smart play, even though the Bush Administration’s case for war in Iraq had more holes in it than a paper bin Laden target at a West Texas shooting range. But the Bush Administration had a strong hand, politically, and made a disciplined push. In the wake of 9/11 there were few Democrats with the foresight and backbone to vote no.

That vote’s been an albatross around Hillary Clinton’s neck ever since. It cost her the nomination in 2008, and the Presidency in 2016. Because a lot of people never forgave her for that. Never forgot the calculation she made, for short-term political gain, and the tragedy, horror, and damage to our national soul that resulted from the war, and the bipartisan cover she and her fellow Congressional Democrats provided its justification.

Left unchecked, the present Administration and Congress are going to unwind a century’s progress. A lot of people are going to suffer and die unnecessarily. It’s up in the air whether we’ll have a trade or shooting war first. Up in the air whether we’ll still have a democracy.

The only option open to a person of conscience is vigorous, unflinching, disciplined opposition. At every turn. On every front. That’s what we want from you. That’s what history demands at this moment.

So show us what you’re made of. Give us a reason to believe in you, a reason to keep backing you. Do this thing, and we’ll do everything we can to get you re-elected and expand your caucus til we can do some good or at least unwind some of the bad.

If you don’t? Well, you’re already hearing from us, and seeing us everytime you go out in public. We’ll keep that up, month in and year out. And the next time you run for re-election? You can expect a primary challenge from the left.

And by then? We’re going to be really good at this organizing thing.