Across the Great Divide

Minnesota: Still a Good Place to Get Rich.

I don't much care for these Best Cities/States lists. But since they are frequently invoked to prove how Minnesotans pay too much in taxes and how companies are suckers for locating here, I try to pay attention to the rankings and methods used.

The latest is the 2008 Salary Value Index, which purports to tell us the top (and bottom) US cities for building personal net worth. It's conducted by a "leading provider of on-demand compensation and talent management solutions" which is obviously trying to generate some annual PR with its annual survey. [Which it got: h/t MSP Business Journal]

The top ten cities included No. 1 Plano, TX, No. 4 Minneapolis and No. 8 St. Paul. Plano is supposed to be a posh North Dallas suburb, but all I can recall passing through town was a prison and a crappy motel room. No. 2 Aurora, CO, only seems like it should have a prison.

The survey takes into account the usual nice stuff, like education levels, diversity of industry and cost of living, but it seems flawed by basing wealth potential on salaries, instead of things like level of real estate speculation, stock options and criminal enterprise.

Anyway, if you live here and are not rich, you have one less excuse.

If Time is Money, Then Money Becomes Time.

This has been a difficult economy for many people. The average person may be having a tough time paying the bills as wage growth has slowed, mortgage costs have adjusted and food and gasoline expenses have soared. But it is also a time when we are constantly bombarded with images of the great wealth or luxurious lifestyles of the rich and famous. These people have earned their money and have the right to display it as they wish. But do we really want to be watching?
— Ross Levin, "Want everything? You'll always fail," Star Tribune

Last week I spent a good deal of time walking around Interlachen Country Club where the U.S. Women's Open Championship was being played. If you're not from around here, Interlachen is the kind of place where The Graduate would get the advice about plastics.

Until 18 months ago, we belonged to another private club. At the time the championship was being planned,  my domestic pard, who served as the club's league president, got the club committed to marshal one of the holes, and we were invited back to help out. It was nice to see old friends and watch the world's best golfers up close.

But I have to say I don't miss any of it.

Being away from the golf culture as well as being far less immersed in the game reminds me how it demands a high level of self-absorption if you want to be any good. Add the private club aspect, which at our club was subordinate to the golf, and you become immersed in what may feel like a close community.

But narrow is not the same as close.

Investment adviser Levin quotes Stephen Marglin, author of The Dismal Science — How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community:

One of the important tasks of the 21st century is to find a better balance between the claims of self and the claims of others.

Largely, we found ourselves together in that place because we shared an interest in a game, not because we were shared an interest in the world or each other. We met some great people and made lasting friendships there, but finally decided we were devoting an enormous portion of our attention to something that didn't amount to very much — and certainly did not extend much beyond ourselves. We did not want golf to be the organizing force in our lives. We did not want to end our days in some "golf community."

Levin advises us to be more conscious of our spending choices, to step back and determine whether our spending reflects our true values. He is talking about money, but it applies to how we spend our time, too.

Why Does This Sound Familar?

Newsweek reports John and Cindy McCain forgot to pay property taxes on a beach front condo they owned through a trust. Tax notices for the La Jolla, CA, place had been unanswered for four years until the matter was raised with the McCains this week.

County records show the bills, which were mailed to a Phoenix address associated with Mrs. McCain's trust, were returned by the post office. According to a McCain campaign aide, who requested anonymity when discussing a private matter, an elderly aunt of Mrs. McCain's lives in the condo, and the bank that manages the trust has not been receiving tax bills on the property.

Hey, the sort of thing can happen. At least no one at the trust office signed for the mail.

Father of Quebec's Health Care System Turns Against His Baby?

Mitch Berg took some time out from his Second Amendment blogging to tackle a subject he appears to know less about: Canadian health care.

He quotes liberally from an editorial about a Task Force on the Funding of the Health System that hinges on the fact that Claude Castonguay, who was instrumental in establishing Quebec's system back in the 1960s, did his job as chair.

Mitch says, "Read the whole thing." But he doesn't mean read the report [ summary.pdf]. He means read the Investors' Business Daily piece that has been floating around the conservative blogs as some sort of proof that the Canadian health system sucks.

The editorial itself hangs a few anecdotes on a very thin thread attached to an appealing hook — that the architect of the system has

concluded that the system is in "crisis."

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

The quotes come from two different places in the Task Force's 314-page report. It's a stretch to say the Chairman "said" them. And while the report proposes various measures to increase freedom of choice — such as forming cooperatives and paying more to get a procedure done sooner — it's also a reach to splice the two statements together with "he prescribes a radical overhaul."

In fact, the report describes changes in the context of Quebec's current public health system:

The Task Force does not call into question any of the basic principles of the existing system. As part of the social contract it is proposing, the Task Force identifies changes that, in terms of principles, are consistent with efforts previously made and initiatives already taken.

However, these are major changes. The Task Force is showing the way for profound transformations, compared to what we currently do and the obligations of each citizen as regards the health system. They draw on best practices noted throughout the world. The Task Force recommends that they be implemented in an orderly and gradual way, over a period of five to seven years.

And it also reaffirms the principle of a public system using language that is not GOP-approved:

Of all our public programs, the health system is the most significant expression of the
solidarity that unites all citizens to respond collectively to the basic needs of every human being.

I haven't read the entire report, but I've read enough to know it hardly represents a repudiation of the fundamental public health system.

1. The report covers only the Quebec system, not the entire Canadian system. Other provinces already allow some of the reforms proposed in the report.
2. The primary focus of the Task Force was improving the quality of care and access while addressing  unsustainable cost growth — the same issue facing all health systems globally.
3. The  Task Force cites the model reform efforts of other social democracies, not what's going on south of its border, and its objective was to "ensure the long-term viability of a system we are all strongly attached to, but which cannot be maintained without rigorous effort and a collective awareness of the issues at stake."
4. The "crisis" is "a crisis of confidence: our system is costly compared to our collective wealth, and is not as productive as it could be."

The report poses hard questions and makes recommendations that can be lifted out of context to make them seem like more than an evolutionary response to health care realities. American reformers should certainly consider its findings. But it is also a report specific to Quebec, its history and politics, none of which the IBD piece is interested in revealing.

This is not the first time this week Mitch got caught doing a drive-by post based on a too-quick read. Here he defends Michele Bachmann's $2 a gallon gas claim based on testimony about a different issue and a different bill.

 

So "Nothing" Must Be REALLY Important.

Okay, that isn't the real name of the church, but the rest of it is a direct quote.

At least God isn't last...

Lorena Ochoa: Just Doing Her Job.

No matter where she plays golf in this country, Lorena Ochoa has fans. Sure, she's the best woman golfer in the world right now, but the friendly young player isn't just popular with the country club set.

Ochoa out-polled Mexico's president to be named Mexican of the year for 2007, and Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Golf is only part of it.

At many tournaments, Ochoa visits with the course maintenance crews, many of whom are Latino immigrants. She thanks them for their work and talks about life back home.

    

Ochoa laughs when asked about "distractions" that accompany her high profile. She takes pride in being a role model and representing Mexico.

    

"I always do it with a smile on my face, and I think it's a part of everything," Ochoa said. "It's like paying taxes – you know, hopefully you pay a lot of taxes. It is part of my job."

Today and tomorrow, I'll be working as a course marshal at the U.S. Women's Open and watching her do her job.

 

Free as a Cat.

Socialism is a system where government uses force to tell people what decisions they can and cannot make. There may be degrees of freedom within different socialist systems, just as a prisoner may be treated better or worse by different wardens, but if you are not free, you are not free.

Capitalism is an economic system that allows people to make choices free from government intervention. All government intervention is backed by the threat of violence — if it were not, it would not be a government policy, but rather a voluntary recommendation, or a rule of a voluntary association. The fact that one cannot avoid taxation and obedience to a government without physical consequences proves that it is not a voluntary institution, but rather one backed by force.
— The kind of stuff I get sent when I argue with libertarians

My sister called from Colorado and said a bobcat was drinking from the small fountain in their back yard. We'd seen it before, but not since the news that someone in the area may be trapping them. In April, two cats showing signs of being caught in a leg hold trap were found about mile from our place.

So it's a good sign to see this one still roaming.

I spent most of the last two days away from the computer, biking, reading a book under a tree, giving blood, attending a board meeting, having lunch with a friend, watching the Twins and cleaning up the errand bike for painting. It was so rusty after multiple winters that I didn't bother to lock it. It had been neglected for far too long and was on a seemingly irrevocable downhill slide.

Come to think of it, all those other things had been neglected, too, and that's not the entire list.

Lately, I've been sparring with libertarians over how the Collectivist State is determined to squeeze the juice out of us, drink it all up and then make us watch as the bureaucrats piss it down the drain. This seems to me a peculiar way to go through life in the most free country in the world, give or take — being annoyed that you aren't freer, and believing that the likes of Citibank and Exxon would call a better tune because they don't have police powers.

Peculiar, too, that the folks who pine for such freedom seem to miss that when government guns have literally been trained on its citizens, capitalist interests were most likely to have been what was being defended. If instead of police power, we get the Pinkertons and Blackwater to enforce contracts, collect credit card bills and keep protesters away from the oil spills, I'm sure it will be a big improvement.

Meanwhile, a sort of morally based, voluntary system will educate kids, dispense charity and keep bicyclists off the toll roads. They've already got tribalism in the Middle East, so I don't know why we're still trying to bring them this shitty democracy thing that only ends with higher taxes and bureaucrats telling you to put a muffler on your ATV.

The Founding Fathers would've saved everyone a lot of grief, if on the first day of the Continental Congress, they'd just declared "Go shopping" and adjourned forever.

I'm not looking for a philosophical discussion right now. I'm not even trying to be coherent. Instead, I feel like rubbing some more rust off some spokes and getting ready to put the pieces of an old bike back together. Then I'll have another nothing-and-tonic and imagine a bobcat may be sneaking through our ravine right about now if it hasn't met an angry man looking to feel free.

One-Man Canoe.

I've seen this guy before on the Greenway.

But this was the first time I've gotten to draft behind a canoe.

The Trouble With Libertarians.

I was going to post this as a response to Jeff Dege's comment on my earlier reaction to Craig Westover's "The problem with progressives," but it was starting to edge into full post territory, so it's here instead.

Jeff, whose contrary comments here I do appreciate because he's civil and often raises provocative questions, said:

"A “progressive” is someone who acts on the belief that life can be improved."

No. A progressive is someone who believes that people can be improved. That the only reason that we don't live in a utopian society is that we haven't yet remade man in the right way.

The progressives collectivist dreams of how society is organized have always faltered on the discord between how they believe people should interact and how they always have interacted.

And they always will.

To quote Lileks:

"The other day I was talking with a Democrat friend about the election. She'd remarked, with equal amounts of sarcasm and good-natured ribbing, that the GOP had two years to build utopia. I thought about that later while walking Jasper around the block, and thought, no; they're not about building utopia. Personally, I'm interested in keeping other people from building Utopia, because the more you believe you can create heaven on earth the more likely you are to set up guillotines in the public square to hasten the process."

See, that's the trouble with libertarians. They pretend to get the irony employed by us self-appointed elites and then turn around and accuse us of being humorless executioners behind our backs.

However, since we lost Mussolini as our glorious leader, the progressive record on public executions has been rather slim. (And you really can't count Hillary Clinton dropping the hammer on Vince Foster.) We really lack the experience to carry out that aspect of our plan for total world domination.

Jeff may be right, that as a progressive I believe life can be improved is by helping people improve. Otherwise, I'd be mostly limited to planting trees, pulling plastic bags out of ponds and eating three balanced meals a day.

Believing — and acting on the belief— that people can improve is still not the same thing as thinking I can perfect humanity or that government should enforce all manner of human relations. But Jeff and Lileks and Westover won't grant me any moderation or incremental progress.  Once I start believing that society is better off if it sets goals to reduce poverty or pollution, for example, it's only a matter of time before I'm driving the black van that hauls off Family Lileks to Twins Stadium for a little publicly funded entertainment.

I guess if you see the world in absolutes, it's hard not to believe people who talk about "progress" are really  trying to trick you into the oven if you dare want to bake your own cookies.

Though personal and political change is one premise of this blog, one only needs to read Jonah Goldberg and Craig Westover to see how deluded I am about humanity. And I am not just talking about their arguments.

Still, no one has even asked me to help put them in Guantanamo or Camp Wellstone Two. Some "collective!"

No, instead of worrying about everyone having the same leg kick in the May Day parade, the progressives I know are concerned about all kids getting educated, courts that work fairly and efficiently, good jobs, good government, and maybe once every four years, bringing the Republican National Convention to a complete, anarchic standstill.

Compared to doing that good work every day, I can't imagine wanting to live in a heaven on earth. Progressives like having something to look forward to.

Experience Counts!

Even if Ike memorably struggled to come up with a real contribution that Nixon had made, the vice president made the experience argument just the same.
— New York Times

This campaign poster hangs in my studio next to a late-60s wanted poster for Eldrige Cleaver. You are free to detect irony on both counts — individually and in aggregate.

When Nixon/Lodge campaigned on the experience slogan, Nixon was only 47 years old, but had parlayed a decent academic record, undistinguished law career and WWII service into a California House seat, election as Senator and role as Eisenhower's Vice President. Eleven years his senior, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. came from a long line of Massachusetts gentry, which by the time  the dynasty reached his father, it had managed to produce a poet — a sure sign of serious family money.

Lodge had lost his senate seat to John F. Kennedy, then went on to serve as UN Ambassador in Eisenhower's cabinet. Patrician, moderate and internationalist, he'd have a tough haul with today's GOP.

Experience did not count for enough in 1960. We'll see how it does in 2008.

John McCain is the experience candidate, now that Hillary Clinton has proven unable to convince voters that her eight years hanging around the White House were of any more value than Nixon's. McCain, too, comes from a line of elites — his father and grandfather were four-star admirals.

But McCain's "experience" is subject to some skepticism.

First, there's the tour as POW. Hard to match, and certainly impossible to criticize. But can we be frank here? Serving five-plus years in a North Vietnamese hellhole has less to do with running the country than installing tail lights on Chevy Malibus has to do with preparing someone to run General Motors. Street cred to the max, but relevant experience?

Then, stringing out his Naval career, a post-service whirlwind courtship of Arizona money and its attendant House seat, leading to succeeding Barry Goldwater as Senator. Early in his Senate career, McCain gained valuable experience as a waterboy for Arizona S&L crook Charles Keating, Jr. McCain's image as a reformer and straight talker got manufactured soon after.

But it's "experience"  that's going to be the siren song for moderates and fearful liberals. McCain will keep us safe. He'll be tough with dictators and terrorists. He has... like, all this, you know, experience.

I know of otherwise smart people who are buying this line, overlooking the kind of judges McCain would appoint, his relationships with lobbyists, his kowtowing to the fundamentalists on science and religion.

Perhaps you've heard that James Buchanan was our most experienced president. Kennedy and Nixon came in tied for 11th. Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt combined had only two more years experience than those boys. Ford, Garfield, Van Buren? Big time experience.

Does experience count? Only if you know what to do with it.