Bad, worse, worst, hope

Today is a day which will go down in infamy as the day which the Conservative Party of Winston Churchill finally died. Today is the day which the cheerleader for mercantilism, isolationism, and fascism ascended to the highest office of the land of Great Britain. Threatening trade routes, the free movement of people, and putting the very freedom of the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at risk of evaporating to nothing, if he succeeds in his truly evil goal.

3 score and 14 years ago, the Armies of the United States of America, United Kingdom, and more stormed the beaches of Normandy, fighting against one of two evil menaces which haunted the 20th century, to finally end the power of Nazism which divided Europe and killed tens of millions of people. The people of France were liberated, and the armies of the Allies stormed through Occupied France, marching on Germany to liberate the Germans from their fascist dictator. Through another year of fighting the Allies stormed through Western Germany in the West and the East, and the Third Reich fell, never to rise again.

The first step to prevent a future of Fascism was the founding of the Western Union on 4 March 1947 when the Treaty of Dunkirk was signed by France and the United Kingdom. This was the first step to modern international cooperation in Western Europe between free countries. This treaty lasted until 1954.

In response to this crisis, Germany lay in ruins, entire cities burned down to rubble as a result of the necessary response to the evils of Fascism’s total war economy. For four years Germany was divided among the French, British and Americans until West Germany was founded on 23 May 1949. NATO was founded three months later on 24 August 1949, as a response to the Soviet threat while Stalin was still dictator. The United Kingdom was a founding member.

In 1952, the European Coal and Steel Community was founded, as the first major international organization of free European countries in the 20th century. Two years later on 23 October 1954 the Western Union was abolished when it was turned into the Western European Union. The United Kingdom remained a member until the treaty was annulled in 2011 as part of the consolidation of the European Union following the Lisbon Treaty.

The United Kingdom joined the European Coal and Steel community in 1973 under Prime Minister Edward Heath. The United Kingdom chose to opt out of two major treaties, namely the Schengen Area (free travel among most European Union members) and the Eurozone, but besides those two treaties the United Kingdom is a full member of the European Union in every way, with full representation in Parliament.

All of these treaties have grown over the years because when you get into the details of politics, things can become quite complicated, but it allows for dialogue between countries early when disagreements happen, and the freedom of movement and rights the European Union provides to all of its citizens is something very few other places in the world have. It is the second largest area of free movement in the world by number of people (second to the Indian sub-continent between India, Nepal, and Bhutan), and has more member states than any other international free movement area in the world.

The purpose of the European Union to increase trade and improve the lives of Europeans has clearly succeeded in my observation. We are living in the longest stretch of time in history without a war in Western European history, deep trade links across the continent have significantly improved the economy, and the charter of rights and freedoms has succeeded in improving the human rights record across Europe. All of its authority comes from the Members of Parliament who are elected by Europeans, from the heads of government who sit on the Council of Europe, and various cabinet members from all of the member states who cooperate on the Council of the European Union. The powers of the remaining institutions, and appointment thereof, stems from these three deliberative bodies of the European Union. The point is, the European Union is a democratic institution, and all of the decisions it has made have been made jointly by the member states. More so, treaties like the Lisbon Treaty were approved with a majority of parliaments, with the exception of Ireland who did it by referendum. Ultimately, all the powers of the European Union come from voters, either through Parliaments or directly in European Parliamentary elections. It is a democracy.

This is the problem with the ideas that the Conservative Party has about the European Union. The Conservatives say that these are decision put upon Britain by the famous “Eurocrat”, but in reality every decision is made jointly by all member states, Britain included. From leave.eu‘s website:

By voting to leave the EU, we are taking back control of our sovereignty, we will be able to put in place our own policies and laws on immigration and our economy, including industry and energy. Agriculture and fishing will also benefit from falling under national administration for the first time in over forty years. We will now be able to take back control of our country.

In time we will be able to improve upon our position as the 5th largest economy in the world by taking back control of our finances and trade deals. We are now in a position to dictate our own trade agreements with the rest of the world.

This is the main problem with the arguments made by Eurosceptic parties. They think that the United Kingdom will have enough power to negotiate favorable trade deals by themselves, and that they will have better luck. On this they are fundamentally wrong. Negotiating as part of a big block is always better than negotiating as an individual. This is why trade unions exist, this is why people work together to be able to get better bargains. Becoming a member of a club like Costco is a good idea because Costco is a major buyer which then passes some of its discount on to its buyer. It is far more effective to join a price club like that then to be a single individual with little to no market power. The United Kingdom is a major global economy in its own right, with the 9th largest economy in the world right now, but they have only one eighth the economic weight of China, which will make treaties with China less favorable than they otherwise would be as part of a larger bloc, such as the European Union. On top of this, leaving the common market will mean less efficient supply chains from trading with the rest of the European Union. This will inevitably lead to a lower supply of goods for British consumers and a lower supply of tariff free factor inputs for British companies to purchase, and it will inevitably cause stagflation very soon from that reduction in supply.

This isolationism which many have been convinced of is only going to hurt the British economy, social life, and this inevitable reduction in quality of living is going to give power to extremist factions on the left and right who are going to offer conflict theory based statements in response to problems which are only going to make the situation worse. The Brexit vote was fueled by anti-immigrant hysteria which Theresa May wooed. Such hysteria has died down now, with remain having a small lead in the polls for over a year at this point in time. The polls remain close, as they have always been, but it doesn’t change the fundamental fact that the message of the Leave campaign is factually wrong in major ways as I just described.

To protect the future of the European Union, Boris Johnson will hopefully fall flat on his face, and the European Union will stand their ground that Britain should stay in the European Union. There is plenty of historic evidence already that staying in the European Union is the right decision for Britain, and we don’t need to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors by moving towards an isolationist era again where demagogues like Boris Johnson are in power and instead move toward progress on issues like Global Warming.

Brexit is a policy which is opposed by most business leaders, environmentalists, trade unions, economists, and more. Any decision where business leaders, trade union leaders, and economists agree it should not be done is probably a very bad idea indeed.

When it comes to the leave campaign, a few supporters stand out, and the theme is nationalism. Marine La Pen, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Donald Trump, Andrew Scheer, Vladimir Putin, and the writers of the National Review all support Brexit. The common thread among these is very clear, and it is nationalism.

In Boris Johnson’s speech, he was lacking in much policy detail except for saying how he was going to get back at Europe, and get back at Labour. He offered no ideas, no hope, and it took 5 minutes for him to get onto any loose example of a policy. He is the least inspiring speaker I have ever seen, and gave one of the worst inauguration speeches I can imagine. We still have just under 3 years until the next election in Britain, which gives Boris Johnson plenty of time to do immense damage to the United Kingdom.

We are watching a lot of lies being spread by racists in order to isolate people from one another, which was created in response to the Holocaust. People say never again about the Holocaust, and the European Union, particularly the Schengen Treaty, are the biggest actions done in history to prevent future genocides and wars. The current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is doing everything in his power to undo these institutions which have saved countless lives, and there are very few mechanisms in place to stop him, except if what few moderate Conservatives there are left decide to oppose him and at least give him a very difficult time while he is trying to destroy the best institutional defense against fascism ever created. This doesn’t mean that the European Union is infallible, and it obviously doesn’t mean that far right leaders cannot come to power. This has happened with Viktor Orban in Hungary most notably, and there are 73 seats in the European Parliament currently held by Identity and Democracy, a party of nationalists. Democracy can only exist by giving a way for anti-democratic parties a path to victory. This is the paradox of freedom.

Ultimately what we need to do is increase social trust, and improve political culture to be more caring, empathetic, and problem-solving focused versus a politics based on fear. We need to build an understanding that we get strength through cooperation and trade, not animosity and walls. This needs to happen everywhere across the world right now. Canada is coming up on a major election in October, and it is highly unlikely that there will be a majority for one party. Hopefully the Liberals, New Democrats, and Greens can work together over the next few months on being the parties of hope and working towards a future. With the United States we need to have a Presidential Primary which is a constructive as possible, with so many highly qualified progressive candidates running, we must work towards building a culture which is based on dialogue and empathy.

This is how we will build a world which works for all. We need to build economic systems which further empower people, improve access to education, and grow a global community of humanity where we can face the major problems which face us as a species together, trading with one another across the world, and helping each other out when natural disasters come our way. Opening borders further, increasing people to people connections across the world is absolutely critical to the long term goal of a world where there will be no war. It starts in our daily lives by being kinder, more honest, and starting from a place of love instead of fear. When we do this, it spreads across the world like an ocean, and we are more likely to have empathy for our neighbors, as has been spoken by prophets for as long as there has been philosophy. Billions of people can then translate this internal energy into action, organize our communities, build systems which raise up the powerless, and improve livelihoods without significantly harming the environment. This power will then trickle up to the highest levels of government ensuring that local regulations, national laws, and international trade treaties can then work to build a better world.

This is not the end, this is only a step to remind those of us who fight for freedom that we must remain constantly vigilant. This is a wake up call for people to realize that we are better when we work together, and this is what will come in the election in 2023 when Britain will vote in a better government which will work towards cooperation and freedom. This is how the Hegelian dialectic works, where we have a problem, followed by a reaction, followed by a solution. Currently we are facing the reaction to the Arab Spring which caused millions of people to look to Europe for Asylum, to which Nationalists responded by arguing for closing borders and their hearts. The next step is the solution which is going to be working on ending the roots of disruption in Europe, and empowering people in Europe with even better economic opportunities in order to narrow the inequality gap which nationalists use to gain power. Things always look bad in the reactionary period of the cycle, but we have seen these types of times before, and we will see them again in the future. But as Theodore Parker once said, the arc of history is long, and it bends towards justice. The question is what the shape of the arc of history is, and it is not a straight line, but the overall curve of the line does indeed bend towards justice as Rev. Parker said hundreds of years ago. This is only the second act of the story.

Stay strong, and keep fighting for freedom.

Issues in terms of importance

There are a lot of issues floating around in the political landscape right now, and they all deserve some level of importance. When it comes to the most important issues facing America today, here is how I think of them in terms of importance.

Social justice has many aspects demanding attention as always. You have racial justice as an ongoing issue in the United States, with police brutality, unequal education opportunities, and the persistent cross cleavage underlying the whole issue ruining lives constantly. These deserve attention, and require policies that address the root issues of the inequality which breeds racism, and bring down our homicide rate which disproportionately affects African American men more than any other demographic. This requires government policy to end the inequity and save lives.

Other social issues regard rape culture, LGBT rights, immigrant rights under the Geneva protocols, and much more.

Economics is a persistent issue. Tax fairness is a problem apparent to most, issues with Social Security, although not a big issue among voters with average information, is highly concerning to most economists, regardless of political affiliation.

Health Care is a persistent issue, and we must implement universal health care as soon as possible to save money and most importantly lives.

The environment is an issue which has clear working solutions to global warming. A well designed carbon tax would do more to fight global warming than any other policy, in terms of intensity, speed, and fairness. You wouldn’t ignore physics when designing a rocket, and you shouldn’t ignore economics when dealing with the consumption, production, and trade of oil. To not use economic theory is folly and will bring forward ineffective policies.

Infrastructure has massive impacts on economic growth, economic mobility, and of course the environment. Lacking economic mobility hurts low income Americans significantly, making it more difficult to climb out of poverty. Designing a durable, cost-effective, and functional infrastructure network is critical to all of these issues. We need to make it so as few people as possible need a car in order to live good lives by having good high quality mass transit and by investing in AMTRAK.

All of this is well and good, but at the end of the day these require having good government in order to ensure these policies are implemented efficiently and equitably. In “The Quality of Government” by Bo Rothenstein he comes to the conclusion that a factor which led Singapore to be developed was not democracy but more based on having a really effective leader. There is a big debate of course about Singapore, but it cannot be denied that there is a clear connection between the quality of government and social well-being. Quality of government is inversely correlated to corruption, and this is tied to inequality and social trust. The theory is that having a society where people trust each other helps reduce inequality, and this leads to lower corruption in society. These three variables are very correlated, and seem to be more important than simply having a more democratic government.

The vast majority of Americans want to have modern infrastructure, good environmental protections, a strong and equitable economy, and a society where people can live comfortably without race hurting people on a daily basis. According to the research by Bo Rothenstein among other political economists, we can start by building social trust in our society as a key feature of our societies to bring people together. I am getting involved with a group of friends building Imaginal Cafes with the goal of spreading them around the world. It is quite similar to the Alternative Library in Bellingham, Washington which I have been involved in now for about 5 years. What these spaces do is create non-sectarian, intentionally drug and alcohol free spaces for people to come together and enjoy themselves. When people are able to come together in a place free of influencing drugs beautiful things can be built which build trust and community.

This is fundamental to building a country which works for all people, and the foundational block when we look at political research. This will start at grassroots by activists who build those bridges and build communities of love and trust which are open to more people coming in all the time. We need places in every town in the world where people come together in a way which is social. Concerts are good because people get out, but when was the last time you actually talked to a stranger at a concert? As soon as alcohol gets involved, the probability of building the connections which we crave goes to 0. Political party gatherings are a good place to start even if you don’t have an Imaginal Cafe in your community yet.

So, as a political economist, the first question is what types of policies can we implement to grow social trust? The first idea which comes to my head is mandating worker’s rights. Guaranteeing every worker gets vacation and paid sick leave so people have the ability to be more refreshed and mentally able to go out into their communities and build those connections. This will make it easier to organize for all other issues when people are feeling like they are part of a community with the energy such a community can provide which breeds friendship and a better world. We must keep working on all of these issues at once, and I am grateful for all of the activists who work on all important issues. I am hopeful we can make a better system where it is easier to achieve all of these issues.

As we are building our social trust in our country, we need to also ensure that we have equitable elections. Our current election system in most of the United States inevitably breeds a party system dominated by only two major parties, like all single mark election systems. We need to have an election system which allows people to vote their conscience regardless of the “electability” of other candidates, and the only way to do this is ranked voting. Ending the two party system will reduce corruption, encourage social trust since having more smaller parties will be forced to work together to solve problems, and also force parties to stick to their platform, or their voters will leave them in the next election cycle for their coalition partner. This needs to be done in tangent with building Imaginal Cafes to grow social trust all at the same time, and building Imaginal Cafes will make it easier for people to get involved in making our election system fair.

I am personally focusing my political energy right now on three major issues. One of them is The Imaginal Cafe so we can have a better world for everyone, one is of course Carbon Washington, the most amazing group of environmental activists I have ever met in my life, and the third is FairVote so we can have governments with politicians who really represent the communities they are meant to serve. The three go together so well, and by building this more collaborative world, where we make decisions based on science, reason, and fact as opposed to hearsay, coincidence, and falsehoods we will be able to make a world which works for all.

Bloomberg on retirement

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-06-13/world-s-retirees-risk-running-out-of-money-a-decade-before-death
I have written a big on this issue before, and if you search my social security label on my blog you will see why I am highly critical of Americas retirement system.
When designing a retirement system which works for ALL, there are a few key ideas I believe will help make something which works for everyone.
  1. A dollar deposited is counted as a dollar.
  2. Retirement savings must have a balance in a fully convertible currency (no Bitcoin) which belongs to the beneficiary.
  3. The average retirement account for the average worker must gain interest past inflation and withdrawals.
  4. All money left over when someone dies is property of the deceased and is inheritable pursuant to the laws of the state the deceased resided in.
Social security breaks all of these rules, as I have described before, and fails to increase social mobility for families, which is one major advantage of having a 401k. Both sets of my grandparents have IRA accounts, as do many people of their generation, and when my Washington GET program ran out (it was designed very similarly to a Ponzi scheme or OASI) one set were able to use their retirement to reduce the student loans I would have needed to take out.  My great grandparents had traditional pensions, and their main retirement plans disappeared upon their death. We shouldn’t go back.
The more I think about the retirement crisis, the more I am convinced we should give people the opportunity to privatize their Social Security accounts. The Old Age and Survivors Insurance program has a serious racist aspect to it. White men live to be in our mid-70s on average, while the average African American man does not live to his 70th birthday. A regressive tax for Social Security further reinforces this racist inequity. If someone had the option to privatize their social security, the average person would be better off than they would be under the current system, and if they die in their 60s will be able to leave a legacy to their next of kin, usually children, as opposed to the current system where the government keeps the difference. Unlike other welfare programs in the United States, OASI transfers money from the working poor to people who live longer, who are usually richer and white. Source
Giving people the choice to deposit 100% of their social security taxes into their IRA, which can also be used for a down payment on a house (since owning a home is the major way middle class families in the United States accumulate wealth) will solve the retirement crisis for my generation. It wont help current seniors, they screwed themselves through their generations politics where Republicans created the student loan crisis, did not do any of their ideas for social security, and Democrats insisted any criticism on Social Security is an attack on the middle class. One important concept in economics is liability, and the problems which arise when people do not see consequences for their actions. We must avoid the moral hazard of not reforming Old Age Insurance, which will perpetuate down future generations with higher taxes and fewer benefits if we maintain the status quo.
The problems with social security are already here, and the longer we let dogma stand in the way of good policy, the more we will allow people to be seriously harmed. Perhaps Social Security is a sacred cow because it is one of the most effective transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich in America, so neither party will touch it, while we can’t even get every Democrat in Congress to back a public option, which has the possibility to save us $2000 per capita per year or more if it helps push our average cost of health care down to the cost other countries pay, which is the equivalent of over $6 trillion per year households will be saving in sum.
We need a better system for retirees in America today. 13.4% is far more than sufficient for the vast majority of Americans to invest for their retirement. When economic studies like this pop up on my feed regularly, we MUST fix our retirement crisis as soon as possible and put people over dogma.

6 point economic plan to save the middle class

There are some serious problems in the current American economic system which hold the middle class back. All of these policy decisions reduce income mobility and hold our economy back. Here are what I see from my life as the biggest problems in the American system which hold Americans back:

  1. Our health care system has some major problems. We spend way too much for drugs, and there are situations where employers need to hold back hiring because it will make it hard to stay in business. Getting access to health care in the USA is far more challenging than anywhere else in the world, and denying people for health insurance claims is a major cause of debt which holds people back. Many disabled people today end up in a welfare trap where if they get a job they might not have sufficient health coverage for their particular needs. This holds people in poverty.
  2. The student loan crisis is reducing the number of Americans who are home owners, convincing people in my generation to put off having children, and hurting our economy. It must end. Many people need to put off going to college to qualify for FAFSA in order to get educated. I would rather have people making $50,000 per year as opposed to $30,000 per year from delaying college.
  3. Social Security Old Age Insurance has some major flaws. If someone dies soon after retirement the 13.4% of their paycheck which they paid over their lives does not go to their heirs, stealing money from the working class, holding people in poverty. For the amount that people put in over their lives, the amount Social Security pays is really fairly measly compare to other options. Someone who retires this year with a $50,000 income would receive $1300 per month ($15,600 per year) versus the $46,000 which they would have earned from the over $800,000 which they would have in their account if their retirement money would have been in if they had put their money into a municipal bond fund which averaged 6% per year. The current system doesn’t even pay as much as you would have made with 30 year treasuries averaging 4% interest at median household income, adjusted for inflation. Would you rather make $15,000 or $46,000 per year?
  4. Our tax code is not progressive enough. Capital gains get a special rate which significantly reduces the treasury and give a massive tax break to the wealthiest in the country.

With fewer job opportunities because of how our health care system works, people my age drowning in debt, our retirement fund is not providing very good benefits for the amount we pay in, and high taxes on the working class, it is no wonder why so many Americans feel stuck.

Here is my plan to increase income mobility in the United States:

  1. Universal health care. Either have a public option, like the German system, or a single payer system like Canada.
  2. Tuition Free College. Every American going to a public university should owe nothing in tuition. No one should ever have to delay their education due to financial restraints.
  3. Universal Basic Income. Every American gets $5000 per year (plus inflation) every year of their lives. For minors, half of this money goes to their legal guardian, half goes into a trust made of municipal bonds which they have access to when they turn 18. This is cheaper for the government than our current Old Age Insurance Program, and inheritable if someone dies early, keeping the money in the family after estate taxes.
  4. Reform Old Age Insurance. The old age insurance program is in reality a Ponzi Scheme, and allowing Americans to choose to put the 13.4% of their paycheck which goes to the program into a private fund will be a major boon to the middle class.
  5. Progressive taxes. Capital gains should not get special treatment in terms of their tax rates, and should be taxed as regular income when they are withdrawn. We should have negative taxes for people who make less than $100,000 per year (for a single individual) and have a top tax rate of 50% which only people who make millions per year would pay. Instead of using marginal tax rates, the tax rate should be calculated using a rational equation, which is simpler and allows for a more fair curve. If we need more money we can lower the threshold where people start paying taxes, or adjust tax rates in other ways, but the government should only run deficits during years of recession. Yes, I am a hard core Keynesian. Also, 5 years after writing this, I still can’t find any problems with it.
  6. Retirement account flexibility. People can get locked into bad retirement plans and have to change jobs to improve the most important financial account of their lives. People need the freedom to modify how they invest as they see fit, change their retirement management companies, when they see it as being important, or find a better provider. Competition in the financial services industry is a good thing, and this will foster that.

Each plank in this plan works together well, for example:

You are 18 years old and about to go to college. Under the current system if your parents or grandparents didn’t invest in your going to college you will almost certainly take out student loans which you will pay off when you should be investing in your retirement fund. You will have limited job opportunities due to how our health care system works which limits employment opportunities. You might be lucky to have a car which makes it easier to find a job, since on campus jobs are very competitive, but you will probably spend your twenties looking for work and paying off student loans off of very little money. When you finally do get a job, 13.4% of your income will go to a retirement plan which will not even provide enough for you to survive on in your retirement. You then have to save money for any children you might have for when they are in college with the 80% or so of your income you keep after taxes. Good luck.

Under my plan however, everything is different. Starting when you were born you will receive $5000 (adjusted for inflation) per year from the government for being an American citizen. Half of it is stored in municipal bonds, gaining you tax free interest, and the other half goes to help your parents/legal guardians raise you, lowering the likelihood they will be in a debt spiral. When you graduate from high school at 18, you decide to go to college. You don’t have to worry about paying tuition knowing you will likely pay back to society if and when you are yourself successful. Your Universal Basic Income Trust is there to help you get transportation if you need it for a job, and provides you a nest egg which you can dip into if needed, along with $5000 a year (plus inflation) which will help you pay rent in college if you need to. You graduate debt free, and get a job. You keep most of your income unless if you are particularly lucky, and you are able to invest for your future. Your basic income provides you something to fall back on, reducing the need to go into debt your entire life, and when you retire at 65, the fund you invested your UBI into will generate by itself enough money for you to live for the rest of your life. Supplementing your UBI into your retirement fund when you are young, which you can do since you are not spending money on student loan interest, will definitely provide sufficient income for any American to retire comfortably on the interest of their retirement fund, leaving the principal for their children upon their death, improving their family’s financial status for generations to come.

Which do you prefer?

We must end ESTA

Unaware to most Americans, the United States implemented the Electronic System for Travel Authorization as a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, which restricts non-overland travel to the United States for all countries except Canada, Bermuda, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia. It is claimed to improve our security, but in reality this is completely false. Over 99% of applications are approved in no time, and people are required to apply at least 72 hours in advance. The pass fortunately lasts for the validity of the passport, but it still does make it less convenient for people from highly developed and safe countries to come to the United States. This has been used since January 12, 2009, 8 days before George W. Bush left office.

Other countries have since adopted similar policies at the pressure of the United States, particularly Canada on 10 November 2016, one year after Harper left office (notice a pattern yet?), Australia adopted it on 27 October 2008, one year after John Howard left office (definitely a coincidence), and ETIAs will be implemented in Europe in 2021, 2 years after EPP suffered a crushing defeat at the polls, and most countries will have national elections.

Also, you can still come to the United States visa free from all of these countries, as long as you travel to Mexico first. If ESTA is really designed to screen all passengers to protect us from camera wielding, towel carrying German tourists, it’s doing a terrible job at it.

Maybe it is just a coincidence that right wing governments want to implement restrictions of the freedom of movement, but far enough in the future that they will likely not be in office to see the coincidences of their actions until it becomes the new normal. They claim it is for the safety of the nation, with an utter lack of terrorist attacks from the targeted countries, but they absolutely refuse to implement it before their sorry booties are kicked out of office.

This is because their claims that these new visa programs improve safety are absolutely rubbish. It is as true as all of the lies which the Tories in the UK have been saying about Brexit. The problem for the Tories is Brexit is such an extreme level of economic destruction which they are currently causing that the true intentions of their isolationist policies are obvious to all but the most blind. The flaw in their plan is they managed to stay in government for its impact and will feel the full brunt of their evil.

If these pre-clearance programs really improved safety, they would be implemented quickly. If they really improved safety, they would have a lower approval rate than 100% (with a rounding error). If they really improved safety, they would have no loopholes.

This program targeting German tourists was implemented in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. The one country which has NOT had any consequences from the 9/11 attacks is still Saudi Arabia. 15/19 hijackers on 9/11/2011 were from Saudi Arabia, and the United States has done literally nothing to restrict access from that religious fundamentalist state which is the only country to successfully attack American soil since before my grandmother was born. If they really wanted to protect America from countries which have actually attacked the United States we wouldn’t target Germany, we would target citizens of Saudi Arabia.

The US, Canada, Australia, and EU need to wake up, improve travel between our countries, implement real visa-free tourism for the countries in these programs, and pursue real policies which make us safe.

The ESTA is not a policy which keeps us safe. It actually puts us in more danger by making travel more difficult. People to people connections foster peace through trade, which is the only time tested proven way towards a world which has less war. People got used to being able to travel freely between free countries, and fascists could not increase real visas between our countries during the brief era of free travel reciprocity we enjoyed in the 2000s. They are chipping away at this freedom piece by piece, moving us closer to war. The first step of this was the PATRIOT ACT, which was the first chipping away at our freedom of movement. The next step is to increase the cost of it until it is as much as a regular tourist visa, and their goal of alienating us from each other will be far harder to reverse. We reached a level of peace in the 1990s relative to any other time in history so deep, with so many economic and travel connections between countries, that it would take at least 50 years to get us back to the military dominated society with major European nations going to war with each other, feeding the military industrial complexes with that racket with our tax payer dollars against our will, chipping away at our freedoms through voter restrictions, travel barriers, and economic restrictions which funnel money from the majority of people to the modern aristocracy. They will not get the level of war they want until they succeed by ending free travel.

We must end these expensive, disruptive, divisive, and alienating policies and move in the opposite direction towards policies which bring us together as a world and increase connections between the people of all nations. This is how we have peace, this is how we have prosperity. We need economic policies which move individuals towards economic prosperity for all, and increase the expansion of science, communication, and bridges between all peoples of the world. The Bush administration did everything they could to move us from this dream, and it is now up to us to undo their damage to our country.

The easiest first step towards the liberal dream is to kill ESTA and replace it with true visa-free travel.

2020 is our last chance

In 2000 the Presidential election was stolen from President elect Al Gore by vote rigging in Florida. I fully believe based on all available evidence this is the case. Vice President Gore was going to attempt to make monumental shifts in how America was going to tackle the biggest challenge of our time, which is global warming, and instead we got an oil man from Texas, which was followed up by invading one of the largest petrostates in the world America wasn’t actively buying oil from.

In 2008 President Obama was elected, and he did everything he could to fight global warming, but given opposition from his own party, and the lack of proper messaging from the Democrats, the Republicans won in 2010 by portraying the Affordable Care Act as a socialist takeover, and the Democrats rolled over. Any chance of significant accomplishments to fight global warming at a national level ended on that day in 2010 for a decade.

In 2016 I worked with a group of young activists on what is to date the most progressive plan to fight global warming to date, and we were defeated by millions of dollars of money from big polluters and a large number of “environmental groups” and our Governor who opposed us and urged their supporters to vote no.

In 2018 the same environmental groups proposed their own plan which exempted the exact same companies who bankrolled the opposition to the initiative I worked on.

I don’t believe in coincidence in politics as a rule.

In 2019 the same governor who opposed the initiative I worked on signed a 100% clean electricity bill which will cut up to 10% of Washington State emissions, and a few other bills with the most Democratic legislature in over 70 years.

2020 is the most decisive year for fighting global warming. The oil companies who opposed 732 are literally in high ranking government positions. The administration is rolling back as many environmental regulations as they can. We must stop them.

In Washington State we have an opportunity to pass a significant bill to reduce global warming emissions from every industry, an opportunity which will not come back for at least a decade. Democrats will probably lose seats next year. At the Federal level we need to ensure we have the best leaders we possibly can, because the clock is ticking. We need a President who firmly supports a carbon tax and has a long record of supporting it.

For Carbon Washington, Audubon society, and Citizens Climate Lobby, we have to present in the legislature through our allies and members a real significant proposal to reduce global warming causing emissions without exempting the worst polluters in America. We will force the hand of those environmental groups to put forward a counter proposal immediately, because we now know the main difference between 732 and 1631 was not where the money was going to be spent, but in who was not going to pay the tax AT ALL under 1631. Our opponents will HAVE to have a counter proposal, and if they don’t we can point at how they were not transparent about their process, postponed their proposal as long as possible, until after Governor Inslee’s bill had failed, not giving voters the information they needed to make an informed decision. This is a corrupt tactic. In 2020 if we put forward a proposal they will be forced to put forward a counter proposal immediately which all people who care about the environment will be able to see side by side, or assume they still want a proposal which fully exempts the largest polluters in Washington, which is unethical, counterproductive, and regressive.

If I am angry, it is because I love my planet. If you are not angry at this point, you are not paying attention.

2020 is probably the last year to put forward a real plan to fight climate change. Other environmental groups will have to support it or have a counterproposal ready, and with Governor Inslee running for President he will have to support it or drop out of the Presidential race.

In terms of the Presidential race, we need a candidate who fully supports an exemption free carbon tax, and the only candidate running who unapologetically supports such a policy who is either a sitting or former governor or Senator is Senator Bernie Sanders, and he deserves your vote. See also my political platform post I made from opinion polls, which is what he has been working for since before I was even born. No other candidate has the record of support for fighting global warming close to his, and many have had the opportunity. No other has both supported such proposals consistently AND openly state it on their platform.

If your car is compromised, it means it doesn’t work. Politics is no different.

When it comes to how two carbon tax initiatives have failed, they failed because the mainstream newspapers in this state didn’t accurately represent them, the estimates the Secretary of State published were incorrect according to independent reviews, and corruption from long existing self declared environmental groups betrayed their supporters and lied to voters. The majority of people in America support such a plan, the issue is we need messaging and have to fight corrupt organizations more effectively.
I urge you to work with us, so we can do what needs to be done. If we force Governor Inslee to support it I fully believe we can succeed, but we can probably only do it in 2020, and only with the best proposal we can possibly write.

I will be working over the next few months to build this policy with my crew, and talk to the legislators I know about how I believe this is our last and best chance.

How to do ranked voting for the President

I just had an idea as I am on the bus listening to Hamilton about how we could do the Presidential election using ranked voting.

The President is very obvious, we vote for the President and rank them by number using IRV. This is the most fair system since having more than 2 parties is far more likely than an election between two candidates which is within a 5% margin.

The Vice President is another question. We could do two different ways, either every Presidential candidate names who they will have as VP or we could do it with ranked voting from the Presidential race. We would calculate the winner for the Presidential race and then for the VP race eliminate the President, allocating their votes as if they were the lowest ranked candidate and run a normal instant runoff voting election. This would be similar to the original system where the vice  president was the runner up but also ensure it is someone the majority of Americans can agree on.

Reasons to be Pro-Choice

No intro, let’s just get on with it.

  1. It is fundamentally wrong to force a woman to give birth to a baby she doesn’t want to. Enough?
  2. If you are arguing you are killing a person, you need to go back to biology, because the fetus is not conscious separate from the mother until the third trimester.
  3. No form of birth control is 100% effective. Sometimes people don’t realize their pregnant until at least 6 weeks in.
  4. Abortion is safer than giving birth and saves lives.
  5. The vast majority of abortions are done in the first trimester, when the fetus hasn’t even developed a brain. We regularly declare people who have lost brain function as “legally dead.” Why is a fetus different? You are causing no pain to the fetus because it literally cannot feel when the vast majority of abortions are done.
  6. Forcing someone to give birth can maker her life significantly worse.
  7. Rape is ridiculously hard to prove. Any law restricting abortion except in the case of rape will have an unacceptably high false negative rate.
  8. Laws against abortion are almost never coupled with increased punishment for rapists.
  9. The same politicians who fight abortion access tend to be the same ones who fight against access to sexual education, health care, and education. The easiest way to reduce abortions is to increase access to all three, which anti-abortion laws never come with.
  10. Laws against abortion are almost never limited to just the first trimester. There is absolutely no biological reason to have a legal restriction on abortions to only the first trimester ever in any circumstance. They argue abortion is about killing babies, but third trimester abortions accounts for a very small number of abortions, usually because of health reasons.
  11. Why should a society force a baby to be born but doesn’t guarantee health care to that baby once it is alive?

Donate to Planned Parenthood today.

    The Path to Fair and Equitable Carbon Pricing

    This morning, as I was eating my breakfast, I was thinking about global warming and carbon taxes as I usually do. We had some important progress done this year, and we can use the momentum we have gotten from this next year to pass significant legislation in 2020 in the Washington State Legislature.

    Brief history of the climate fight in Washington State:

    • 2014: A group of young activists, mostly in college, get an initiative to the legislature passed, jump starting the climate fight here in Washington State.
    • 2015: The same group of activists (myself included) successfully gathered enough signatures to file Initiative 732, a progressive, exemption-free carbon tax whose proceeds would go back to tax payers to alleviate the most regressive tax code in the United States of America. Remember that income inequality was the big issue everyone was talking about in 2015. A large number of self-declared environmental groups break off at this point, saying we were doing it wrong, without giving specifics on what they would do differently.
    • 2016: We work hard on trying to get Initiative 732 on the ballot, a number of self-declared environmental groups, newspapers, and Governor Inslee slander the bill by misrepresenting what it would actually do, and the only exemption free carbon tax proposal in American history to date was defeated.
    • 2017: Governor Inslee proposes his counter proposal. The big difference is that he has exemptions for every industry from coal to natural gas to oil refineries, and is a much lower tax. After it is defeated the Alliance finally proposes their bill, which is very similar to Governor Inslee’s bill in terms of who benefits.
    • 2018: The Alliance’s initiative is defeated. It neither succeeded to get big oil companies to reduce their opposition at the end through massive government handouts to them, and its lower rate combined with massive tax breaks to multinational fossil fuel producing companies, many of whom are also Fortune 500 corporations, fails to get enough environmental activists involved in order to pass.
    • 2019: The 100% clean electricity bill is signed into law by Governor Inslee, along with several other exemption-free bills to mitigate global warming.

    Here is where we are today, and in 2020 we have the biggest opportunity in a decade to pass major legislation. This is the time to fight for a proper exemption-free carbon tax. In the 60 day session we have 6 days per step, with 5 steps to get through each chamber. I believe several factors of our current situation make 2020 the year to get it done:

    • The media was misleading about initiative 732, so people didn’t understand what they were voting on, and we simply didn’t have the manpower to correct what the Seattle Times, etc. were saying about it.
    • More and more Americans are saying they are concerned about global warming. We have successfully moved the Overton Window.
    • We are at a point in history where Carbon Washington has more political capital than ever before. We have thousands of members, and this is the time when we have the opportunity to use it. We must use it.
    • Every single piece of climate policy which has passed has not had line by line exemptions like 1631 did. If we propose another bill without those line by line exemptions we can win.
    • Governor Inslee has announced Global Warming as his main issue. We can use this to our advantage by proposing a truly progressive carbon tax like 732 in the legislature last year. If he supports it, he looks like a flip flopper because he fought against us in 2016, if he opposes it, he looks like he isn’t actually serious about global warming, and a liar. He MUST support this bill, since being a flip flopper is better than being a liar, and he must actively fight for it if he is to have any chance of winning the Presidency. We MUST use this to our advantage.
    • If the Alliance fights against our exemption free proposal, than they will lose support among their members. If they support it, they look like flip floppers. For the same reason as Governor Inslee, they MUST support this bill or stop existing. They are doomed no matter what because of their behavior over the last 5 years. They should go out better than they came in. It’s up to them.

    With majority support, and the fact that Governor Inslee and the Alliance have simply no choice but to support a good carbon tax bill we at Carbon Washington can propose through some of our supporters, likely Debra Lekanoff, Sharon Shewmake, Beth Doglio, and Joe Fitzgibbon, hopefully with one or two Republicans as well, I truly believe that we can pass a real carbon tax bill this upcoming legislative session. The Alliance and Governor Inslee have no option but to support it, and we will then have the phone banking power to pressure the chairs of the committees it will go through to get a hearing and a vote. If we get a few groups in the Alliance to phone bank their supporters as well, we will have even more supporters calling legislators, which helps significantly. It is also unlikely that 2021 will have better numbers in the legislature for climate action, so I believe this is the best shot we are going to have for a while.

    The political action steps are simple really, and continuing what we have done before:

    • June 2019: Start canvassing legislators, getting their support for a bill in the next session and getting their opinions.
    • November 2019: Have a solid proposal with as many legislators giving verbal support for it as possible, with a final draft finished by the end of the month:
    • January 2020: Two companion bill are proposed, one in each house, with as many cosponsors as we can muster.
    • Day 6: Get it to a committee vote:
    • Day 12: Get it to Ways and Means.
    • Day 18: Get it to the Rules committee:
    • Day 24: Passed out of committee.
    • Day 30: Passed second house
    • Day 36: Committee vote
    • Day 42: Ways and Means
    • Day 48: Rules Committee
    • Day 54: Passed second house
    • Soon after Day 54: Governor Inslee signs the first exemption free carbon tax in American History into law.

    Since Trump will likely lose next year, given that he lost the House last November, and that we will not have a Governor who has announced climate change as his number one priority for his Presidential run after the 2020 election, the number of legislators who support acting on climate will likely go down after the next election, and more and more Americans are concerned about global warming than ever before, 2020 is going to be the best year to pass an exemption free carbon tax in the foreseeable future.

    More on Open Border policies around the world, Part One

    As I have described in previous posts, I have been looking at outliers for open border policy around the world.

    Today I did a lot of work on it, improved my data, and now have a database of 208 borders in the world, with 124 different countries represented.

    Let’s dig into the data.

    To refresh, my variables are:

    • Corruption Perceptions Index
    • Press Freedom Index
    • Ease of Doing Business Index
    • Homicide Rate
    • Democracy Index
    • GDP
    • Population
    • GDP per Capita
    • The name of the open border treaty the country is in.

    From this I have derived the  differences and averages for every country pair for each of these variables, and made a viability score, with the CPI, PFI, DBI, and homicide rates for every country averaged appropriately, with a higher viability score meaning a country which is more likely to have an open border.

    Regressional Analysis

    Ordinary Least Squares

    Most importantly, what determines an open border? Well, after cleaning the data, dropping null values, and building a Ordinary Least Squares Regression, I was able to predict which countries had an open border with an R-squared accuracy of 0.589. The significant variables at 95% accuracy were the difference in GDP per capita (closer GDP per capita means you are more likely to have an open border) at a t score of 3.159. Ease of Doing Business difference at -3.697, an average Corruption Perceptions Index at a t score of 5.064, and finally an average homicide rate at a t score of 2.236.

    In other words, be bordering countries with similar GDP per capitas, similar Doing Business scores, minimal corruption, and few murders. Given this, my model predicts you will have an open border.

    Random Forest Regressor

    A Random Forest Regressor was able to predict with 79% accuracy. The most important feature was having a low Corruption Perceptions Score at 0.5, followed  by having few homicides at 0.11. I’m seeing a trend here.

    Random Forest Classifier

    My Random Forest Classifier found having a free press, then low corruption, followed by few murders were the best predictors for having open borders.

    Conclusion from Analysis

    I am finding that safety and freedom are the two internal factors which are predictive of having open borders with your neighbors.

    Corruption

    I then sorted out all of the country pairs which have open borders leaving only those which have closed borders, and then sorted them by their corruption score.

    The country pair with the highest average CPI (which is good) and a closed border is the United States and Canada (79.5), followed by Singapore and Malaysia (67.5). there are currently no plans to open the borders in these two country pairs yet. The next was Saudi Arabia and Qatar (61.5) which used to have open borders. All other closed borders in the world have a corruption perceptions index below 60.

    Press Freedom

    Sorting by Press Freedom, we again find the United States and Canada have the highest average press freedom (19.505) out of all country pairs with closed borders in the world, followed by:

    • South Africa and Namibia (20.315)
    • Argentina and Uruguay (20.805)
    • Ghana and Burkina Faso (20.87)
    • Costa Rica and Nicaragua (22.210)
    • Costa Rica and Panama (22.285)
    • Botswana and Namibia (22.765)
    • Botswana and South Africa (22.840)

    There are a good number of countries with a lot of press freedom which could open borders according to this metric.

    Ease of Doing Business

    When it comes to economics, the Ease of Doing Business Index doesn’t seem to be a major factor when determining having an open border with your neighbors, but for interest, here are the results:

    • Singapore and Malaysia (82.920)
    • United States and Canada (81.005)
    • Georgia and Azerbaijan (80.960)
    • Malaysia and Thailand (79.525)
    • Armenia and Georgia (79.325)
    • Turkey and Georgia (78.805)

    The Caucuses have made incredible progress on economic liberalization, which is part of why their economies have grown so rapidly over the last decade, particularly Georgia. The US and Canada is again one of the top candidates according to this metric. Singapore and Malaysia are Asian Tigers, so it is not surprising they appear on this list, as well as Thailand.

    Homicide Rate

    This is where we are really going to hit a rut in terms of potential visa liberalization.

    • Croatia and Slovenia (0.760)
    • Bhutan and China (0.875)
    • Qatar and Saudi Arabia (0.940)
    • Bulgaria and Greece (0.945)
    • Ghana and Burkina Faso (1.025)
    • Vietnam and China (1.070)
    • Tajikistan and China (1.115)
    • Bulgaria and Romania (1.195)
    • Singapore and Malaysia (1.215)
    • Croatia and Serbia (1.215)

    This is the only list the US and Canada does not appear on because the United States homicide rate is so high. A visa free zone among ASEAN countries might be on the horizon, as this shows. Almost every country pair which has a low homicide rate and other variables which are potentially important already have an open border already. Croatia is in the process of joining the Schengen area, as is Bulgaria. There is no statistically significant impact of homicide on whether a country has an open border or not.

    Corruption Perceptions Index

    When I construct a decision tree classifier on my data, trying to predict the status of whether any two bordering countries have an open or closed border, I am able to predict whether a country has an open or closed border with 81.25% accuracy. This is really good, and I find that the Corruption Perceptions Index predicts 49.7% of the weight.

    The less corrupt your country is, the more likely you will have an open border. The country pair which you see around 80? That’s the United States and Canada at 79.5, followed by:

    1. Malaysia and Singapore, 67.5
    2. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, 61.5
    3. Botswana and Namibia, 58
    4. Israel and Jordan, 57

    Average Score

    I then calculated the average score by the equation Average CPI * Average Doing Business Index / Average Press Freedom Index * Average Homicide.
    This gives us a relative score which tells us which countries have the highest likelihood of making open borders, we can also see which variables the countries can work on to make it a reality. The countries which do not have open borders which this model predicts are top candidates are:

    • Croatia and Slovenia (Croatia is likely going to join Schengen soon)
    • Ghana and Burkina Faso
    • Bulgaria and Greece
    • Canada and the United States
    • Singapore and Malaysia
    • Croatia and Serbia (Serbia is applying for EU membership)
    • Romania and Serbia (Serbia is applying for EU membership and Romania is going to join Schengen soon)
    • Bulgaria and Romania (both will likely join Schengen soon)
    • Qatar and Saudi Arabia (currently closed to dispute on Qatari-Iranian relations)
    • Croatia – Hungary (Croatia is likely going to join Schengen soon)
    • Romania – Hungary  (Romania is likely going to join Schengen soon)
    • Bulgaria – Romania (Bulgaria is likely going to join Schengen soon) 

    Looks like my model is performing fairly well.  I get a 0.579 Pearson R squared coefficient between this model and the reality.

    More Interesting Graphs



    This makes it pretty clear that more democratic countries tend to be less corrupt, and tend to have an open border with countries close to them with similar freedom metrics, as well as wealth. We see that all of these variables are correlated to each other tightly, which leads us to a fundamental question in political economy, how do wealth and freedom effect each other?

    This question is extremely important, because it has enormous implications on all types of domestic policy. For countries at the low end of the spectrum which are poor, authoritarian, and corrupt, will improving their economy lead the way to political reform or entrench the powers that be? Dr. christian Houle answered this question in his paper Inequality, Economic Development, and Democratization which he shared on his personal blog. The reality seems to be that inequality, economic development, and democratization all interplay with one another, and where one stands on these three scales implies different paths to the others.

    This is a good overview for one blog post, and I intend on continuing this exploration later.

    My backworks is available on my Gitlab repo