Tuesday, January 26, 2010

McCain v. Feingold

I can't help but agree with the majority opinion, not to mention in the case the Attorney General made a good case for why by the letter of the law made virtually all public political speech illegal. McCain Feingold Act is a great example of crony Republican big government control that Democrats vehemently opposed until the Union exemption was put in place. The law was BAD and so was the sell out.

A corporation is only a group of people, and as people should have the right to peacefully assemble. Numbers have power which is why the right to peacefully assemble is opposed by oppressive government, and why it is a protected right in our constitution.

The only time corporations become corrupt institutions is when they are empowered by government to do so. Big corporations have the money and resources to find legal ways around such laws, not to mention it gives congress power to play favorites which is exactly how this case played out. Of all the groups that would be charged with violating McCain Feingold, is it a coincidence that speech that put a powerful political parties front runner in a negative light would conveniently tie the speech up in court just long enough?

Getting government out of business is the best way to keep business interests out of government any further than to respect the interests of any individual regardless of who they associate with and how.

Transparency in this case, as mentioned in the majority opinion, is going to be the key to fair elections. Let people know when information is put out with a political interest, at least in the case of public elections, that people know where that money comes from, and for the sake of privacy, allow <$100 monthly contributions be anonymous, and any amount greater to be in the best interest of the people to be disclosed.

Don't punish people for working together. This case can be no better example without loss of generality that McCain Feingold, while possibly well intended, failed to serve and in this case corrosive to its own purpose.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Pareto Optimum

The following in this division were notes I wanted to keep but are not part of the posting. Just thoughts in no particular order being dumped out.

"Pareto efficiency does not necessarily result in a socially desirable distribution of resources, as it makes no statement about equality or the overall well-being of a society."

I would argue that would entirely depend on your definition of Optimum. From the start of the article it argued that the goal was "individuals better off". There is a lot of room there to define "better off". For example, I would not necessarily say that a person in a 100 room mansion is "better off" than a person in only a 50 room mansion. I would say ...

Was listening to the radio and reading some stuff they were making reference to and got me to thinking about random stuff. this is mostly stream of consciousness and has not been edited yet and being posted for whatever type of review it gets and will be changed in the future. Initially got off to a bad start imo. Rather than deleting those parts to omit them they are just not displayed using CSS. See source if for some bizarre reason you want to look at it. Anyway...

On a scale for issues to be from black and white to complex, and for a society to scale from homogeneous to diverse, what is the probability field for Strong Pareto Optimality to be met an ideal centrally planned republic following ideal policy of the Median Voter (as according to Median Voter Theory)?

If issue complexity and societal diversity can not be measured objectively then a range for central planning to determine the ideal application of Median Voter policy must be defined. Assuming ideal individuals, just as we are assuming ideal government (each being rational and all knowing), people should be left as freely as possible to make decisions for themselves being the most appropriate candidate to meet their needs.

Considering the set of needs of each individual as a point in the same field of issue complexity and person diversity with the point at which each individual is with regard to how well those needs are being met, necessary changes should be made in parallel. Considering the set of point pairs as necessary changes to maintain a Strong Pareto Optimum, it is efficient to apply similar transitions to any similar subset as to reduce the work in total necessary change. However, Republics given leaders that are members of the society in which they apply these transitions for, leaving the job to be done in parallel by the individuals is the shortest path to needs being met.

In the end this leaves a narrow scope for the most ideal national government to improve the lives of its citizenry through central economic planning. The scope for central economic planning should be limited inversely proportional to the diversity of the population as demonstrated. However, we can look further than the individual and a national policy. If a diverse citizenry chooses to seek like minded individuals, or diversity is a result of diverse regional environments then in the range of differences a tier of sets of sub regions of communities could be defined, and knowing that the individual is best left to make decisions concerning their needs as based on that level of diversity, so should the power be divided between those tiers.

This becomes more parent as one of the most important elements is introduced; people and governments are not all knowing or perfectly rational. In what ways do specific imperfections influence the necessity for a centrally planned economy or individual liberty in order to maintain a Strong Pareto Optimum?

Morgage means NOT owning your house

Equity is just a very expensive savings account. You could rent wherever you like, even a house, and put the different between a mortgage and the rent into a savings account and the only difference is liability. You can walk away from a rental and keep a savings. The house could crash in value and you keep your savings and possibly lower your rent increasing the contribution to your savings. The reverse is true if the home increases in value. Homes and land do have real value and can be used to create wealth, but for the most part they are a greater liability, and when home / land values fluctuate so much based on prospective (what people think they are going to be valued at, and what people think other people think they are going to be valued at) makes a mortgage a special type of gamble, and of what we have seen recently in the US, an investment "gamble" similar to junk bonds. Personally, there are much safer investments with higher return and liquidity without the liability. Buy LAND with cash when it constitutes a CAPITAL INVESTMENT :)