tfl: The Flatiron Life

Gold that is.

Dollars are fully decoupled from gold and I don’t foresee going on a gold standard any time soon.  Anyway many (most?) proponents of a gold standard are really talking about a re-privatization of money, so our reserves are out of the question.

This being the case, right now all the gold in Fort Knox is just wasting space and probably a fare amount of housing costs.  ONN is on the right track for what should be done.

US To Trade Gold Reserves For Cash Through Cash4Gold.com

               

Before moving to Chicago much of my image of city life was formed by TV, with the majority being Law & Order.  There are some differences between Chicago and NYC but if L&O is to be believed, the density of street food is a big one.  On TV people in New York appear to be buying food on the street all the time.

In Chicago you can always find ice cream near a park and downtown there are some places near construction sites that sell food on the street, mostly pizza.  I have never seen a hot dog stand.  It is probably not a good idea to eat cart food every day even if it is available but more options would be nice.  I never assumed that this lack was caused by Chicagoan’s unusual desire to only eat from stationary restaurants.  My assumption was regulation.

Claire Bushey confirms my assumption in the Reader this week.  There is a license for preparing food in carts, but only in parks.  The vendors would like to see this expanded to the whole city.  As is usually the case there is a union of folks who benefit from the status quo and do-gooders, Bootleggers and Baptists if you will.

The Bootleggers:

Among the biggest critics of the street vendors are nearby restaurant owners. Fernando Muñoz, owner of El Chisme, at 26th and Christiana, says he’s concerned that the vendors have no place to wash their hands, placing their customers at risk of illness. He also notes that they can afford to sell the same products for less money because they don’t pay property taxes, rent, or utilities. “I know they have to live,” he says, “but it’s not the right way.”

“How [are customers] going to come in here if they already ate out there?” asks Natalia Pulido, owner of El Fandango, a restaurant across the street. “Your own friends comment, ‘I ate over here because I don’t have to tip the waitress,’” says Mariano Pulido, her son and business partner. “Street food is good for hard times. I understand. But it affects us too. It’s just not right.”

Yeah, it is just not right to have people eating different food.  Maybe they should not be allowed to make food at home or we should shut down every other restaurant too.

The Baptists:

City officials say the health risks of licensing these vendors are too great. “There are so many questions associated with these vendors,” says Tim Hadac, a spokesman for the city’s health department. “Did they make [the food] at home? Did they make it in their garage? . . . There’s so many question marks, and as a public health agency, we’re not comfortable with that.”

Yeah, there is just no way to know if food is safely prepared.  Everyone knows, food preparers tend to want to kill their customers and once those preparers have health inspections no one ever gets sick.

The only place I have ever seen these types of food carts are in the large city parks.  These parks are large enough that the vendors do not really compete with restaurant and give a charming image to tourists.

They are also then near washrooms…theoretically.  The washrooms in the parks are nice when you really need to go but mostly because urinating in public is looked down upon, not because you get a clean space to use.

I say let a million foods on a stick bloom.  Free the vendors!

               

The Department of Homeland Security is worried about “groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority“.

I think we used to call these people patriots, statesmen, Mr. President, Father of the Constitution, or mores recently conservatives and libertarians.

DoHS protecting the Federal Government from threats, foreign and domestic, real and imagined, and in a way both bureaucratically and illiberally.

               

This video is an excellent illustration of just how large the spending has been recently to “save” the economy.

You think FDR is our role model? Try Robert Mugabe.

               

No, it’s Iowa!

Today the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously found that the states ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

As someone interested in extracting government completely from marriage the reason they found this is of interest:

We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective. The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification. There is no material fact, genuinely in dispute, that can affect this determination.

The part I marked bold makes me ask, what is the “important government objective” of marriage?

Josh Claybourn points out

I still fail to see how a court could conclude the state has insufficient justification to discriminate against homosexual marriages but does have sufficient justification to discriminate against polygamous ones. For that matter, based on the analysis provided by the Iowa Supreme Court, the justification of discriminating against incestuous couples appears equally tenuous.

I think until the several States define why they wish to regulate marriage, these barriers must fall too. I suspect we will reach the next marriage regulation equilibrium when the States are only issuing marriage licenses for revenue. If you have to let one group marry you might as well let all groups in and make some money. Plural marriages just mean return customers!

Update: I thought about this some more and my suspected equilibrium is really the previous equilibrium. The reality was that anything other than diff-sex marriage was banned, but I don’t think that was the intention. The intention was just to register and tax marriage and the only people who married were diff-sex couples.

               

Jonah makes some excellent points including mine (with better metaphors):

When the federal government, on behalf of taxpayers, opted to essentially nationalize AIG — we now own 80 percent of the company — we made a choice to keep it alive. If the firm had gone out of business through bankruptcy — what the gods wanted in the first place — there would be no bonuses. But we chose not to do that. Which means those bonuses are just one more toxic debt for which we are on the hook. For good or ill, we chose to defy the natural order. And now we own this monstrous white elephant.

Here’s a good rule of thumb: When you buy an elephant, you can’t refuse to buy the manure that comes with it. You can try, but, soon enough, you’ll be knee-deep in problems anyway. And they’ll continue to pile up no matter how loudly you complain, “This isn’t what I paid for.”

ATSRTWT

               

Government and the public seem to be in a huff about AIG giving their employees bonuses after receiving money from government. I don’t understand why.

Typically government tries to keep things “normal”. It is not a big fan of demand shifting or preferences changing in any way. It is hard to plan when your constituents are constantly making their own decisions.

Last year and this, this inclination toward normalcy was in full display. This is when AIG went to the government and said, “Hey, something crazy has happened that we did not plan for. If we don’t get some cash we are not going to be able to operate as normal.”

The government said, “Oh crap! Really, you too! OK, here is $165 Billion. I hope that is enough to keep things normal.”

Now, AIG has done exactly that. They normally pay their employees mostly though bonuses and this year was no exception. Of the amount they were given they have spent 0.1% of it on these bonuses.

This did what they said they were going to do. Why are we surprised? I see two valid reasons.

You can be upset about this because you are new to the libertarian principle and have not gotten used to seeing how government inherently throws incentives out of whack.

-or-

You can be upset because you believe Scrooge McDuck was real and rich people mostly put their money in vaults that they like to swim in.

If you supported the bailout, then these bonuses are what you supported.

If you opposed the bailout of AIG but support the bailout of other companies or people and are upset, I have two questions for you. What upsets you about this compensation and why do you think the others would not do the same as AIG?

If you supported the stimulus then I think you have the least room to be upset because the truth is Scrooge McDuck does not exist. These guys may have created crazy investments, but they do not put their money under mattresses or in vaults. They buy things and invest. This will stimulate aggregate demand, the Keynesian principle we are working from, as much as giving the money to anyone will.

I hope you give me other options in the comments.

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Yesterday I was having lunch with a groups of peers and our VP at work. Our VP was talking about how we still have a budget for training and morale boosting events. This is after having two rounds of layoffs. He said sometimes people like to draw the line from still having these budget items to being able to still have some of our colleagues. Hoever, this is not how any company or even family works.

Companies don’t lay people off or cut programs so everyone else has to scrape by in the remaining departments. They lay people off so they can continue to have a going enterprise.

Generally, you don’t cut things from your family budget so you can scrape by in all areas, but so you can live fully in most areas remaining.

               

If you have ever been off the Interstates in rural Illinois, aka where most of my family lives, you have noticed blue and yellow county road markers.

Cook County has never had these signs but now we can enjoy these signs.

The signs are being posted at about 1-mile intervals and at the beginning and end of routes on the 1,500-mile network of county-maintained roads, said Rupert Graham, superintendent of the county Highway Department.

OK, there must be a good reason right?

Even though Cook drivers have gotten along fine without any county markers, Graham said department officials decided to install the signs through next year because some other counties have similar signage. The Cook County Board approved the project, he said.

Wait! Some other counties have the sign, so we need them? If DuPage County jumped off a bridge would Cook follow?

These signs only cost $60,000 a year from the $3 billion budget, but with the highest sales tax in America I would like to see at least some effort to cut back.

               

I am teaching a 6-week Bible study of Judges. This book in the history section of the Old Testament is often over looked by Christians as just a time of smiting and disobedience.

I think it can also be seen as what God might want as the ideal society in his creation. He has asked Israel to live according to the Covenant with Abraham and to not cavort with the Canaanites. God does not hate the Canaanites, but he sees their society of one of evil. This evil society, not the people, must not be placated but destroyed.

Aside from this the Israelites have been granted by God the liberty to live what I think is a pretty libertarian life.

But they fail, again and again, to live according to God’s will. He consistently restores the Covenant when they finally cry out to him.

It is in this atmosphere and society we are led next to Samuel. The people come to God begging him for a King. If only they have a King they will do what is right. God knows the horrors about to be imposed on them by the state and sends Samuel to make sure they know what is about to happen.

Russ Roberts is reminded by the build up to the new administration of this part of Samuel.

We are in a very dangerous time in America right now—a time when people think the President can change our lives, bring us hope, transform us. Such expectations cannot be realized. But the desire to see the King or the President as a savior opens the door to much mischief or worse, tyranny. Watch your liberty and your wallet. They are both at risk.

You do not need to look far to be reminded how things turned out after the monarch was established.

               

Who is for this bailout? Do you hear a lot of people on the streets clamoring for this?

I only hear people who say we should let the market take its course. This includes people I would normally hear calls of state action from.

It doesn’t matter what you think and politicians know it. You should hear how people scoff at me when I tell them I vote libertarian because of my principles. What is the point of voting, if you are not voting on your principles? There isn’t and this is why I encourage people to not vote. If you are not prepared for the baby, don’t fuck around. If you are not prepared to vote, don’t fuck up the country.

I think people often think we are free because of Democracy. President Bush’s idea of “Spreading Democracy” is popular, only the implementation is not. Democracy only gives legitimacy to any action a politician wants to take if there are no reasons you are voting.

I would gladly trad democracy for more liberty. As long as the system can ensure liberty I would take it. A benevolent dictator sounds great, picking the dictator is hard though.

We are free because over time bunch of people have put action to their principles. They incrementally held their government to greater and greater account. Generally this has involved taking more and more power away and adding more checks on the power that remains.

However, today, we have elected despicable people based on petty political issues and they take away our liberty and set up czars. Czars! How do we stand to allow anything to be a czar in America? Let me quote the Wikipedia,

Originally, the title Czar (derived from Caesar) meant Emperor in the European medieval sense of the term, that is, a ruler who has the same rank as a Roman or Byzantine emperor (or, according to Byzantine ideology, the most elevated position adjacent to the one held by the Byzantine monarch) due to recognition by another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official (the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch).

Occasionally, the word could be used to designate other, non-Christian, supreme rulers. In Russia and Bulgaria the imperial connotations of the term were blurred with time and, by the 19th century, it had come to be viewed as an equivalent of King.

Caesar, Emperor, King!

Joscelynn and I decided this morning we will never again buy a car from Ford, GM, or Chrysler. We are in the market for a new car and they are also not in the running.

We are also quickly approaching the time when the ease of visiting our family is the sole reason we remain here. Voting on election day is a very weak way of voting; moving is much stronger. I would rather move to one of the Social Democracies in Europe, who are open about their socialism than live in an America that lies to itself.