The Logical Fallacies of Government

It’s not difficult to find a formal or informal logical fallacy in every aspect of politics but one of the most predominant used by those trying to defend it is denying the antecedent in order to justify what the state does. Denying the antecedent is when it is fallaciously assumed that if one thing leads to another, then the lack of that one thing will lead to the lack of the other. It’s when someone argues: without [insert government program here] there wouldn’t be [insert benefit to society here]. I call it the ‘God Fallacy’ since government is assumed to be the one and only solution to a problem, without which we’d be doomed.

Formally it’s written: if P, then Q , therefore if not P, then not Q. For example: “If you are a ski instructor, then you have a job. You are not a ski instructor, therefore, you have no job.” This fallacy implies that ONLY ski instructors can have jobs which we know is false.

One of many common examples is foreign wars. Political policy says that the military is fighting terrorism over there, so we can be safe over here. Is it true that if the military was not fighting terrorism over there, we would not be safe over here? That would imply that only if the military is over there can we be safe over here which is impossible to prove and there’s no historical precedence for it. You can’t measure and quantify something that didn’t happen, such as how much terrorism didn’t happen over here thanks to the military being over there, and conclude a causal relationship. That’s a correlation and causation fallacy as well which fallaciously assumes that since two events are correlated, one caused the other such as the lions and rose petals parable. The parable says that if you put rose petals in front of your door every night before you go to bed it will keep the lions away. The fact that you haven’t seen any lions proves that rose petals work.

Some like to justify war by claiming that thanks to war, new technology was developed that wouldn’t have been otherwise. Or thanks to NASA we have cellphones etc. Again, it’s impossible to prove that something would not happen if something else did not happen. The idea that people would just sit around on their hands waiting for a government if they needed something contradicts all of human history. Many times it’s the inefficiency of government that inspires innovation and invention, not the other way around.

Another common one is law enforcement. Political policy says that law enforcement keeps us safe from crime. Is it true that without law enforcement we would not be safe from crime? It implies that only because of law enforcement can we be safe from crime. Considering there’s so much crime in society that is obviously not true and, like the military, it’s impossible to prove how much crime didn’t happen because of law enforcement so another fallacy. We have to also consider that the private security industry is a billion dollar a year industry because of people taking responsibility for their own safety. Privacy fences, motion sensor flood lights, motion sensor video surveillance, in home security systems as well as neighborhood watch programs and neighbors helping one another out. Obviously there are effective alternatives.

Welfare programs keep poor people from dying in the streets. Is it true that if there were no welfare programs, poor people would be dying in the streets? This implies that the only reason a poor person doesn’t die in the street is thanks to government welfare programs which we know is not true and, again, impossible to prove, another fallacy.

Without the ‘War on Drugs’ people would be using life threatening drugs. Is it true that the ‘War on Drugs’ prevents people from using life threatening drugs? Of course not, society is riddled with drugs of all kinds legal and illegal. In fact only a small percentage of drugs are illegal, the vast majority are legal and readily available at the ‘Drug Store’, ironically enough.

It’s because of government that there isn’t chaos. Is it true that without government there’d be chaos? This implies that the only reason I or anyone else doesn’t behave chaotically is because of the existence of government which obviously isn’t true. People behave civilized because they know it’s beneficial to them to work together with others to produce and stay safe. It’s a rational decision for individuals in a society to divide their labor and trade with one another. None of which has anything to do with a government.

Why Lottery Winners Blow the Money

Someone who wins millions in the lottery who isn’t used to having and managing millions doesn’t consider the opportunity costs of the lost future value if they were to invest some of the winnings. They only consider the present value of the money and their short time preferences like food, drink, clothes, car, fun, sex, prestige, popularity etc. They prefer, value those things in the present more than they value the future value of the money.

It’s said in economics that a rational decision is one in which the benefits to the decision maker are subjectively considered to be greater than the costs. For example, when you buy milk, you look at the price and subjectively determine if the value of the milk is worth the price to you. If it is then it’s a rational economic decision to trade the money for the milk. An irrational decision is one in which the costs to the decision maker are subjectively considered to be greater than the benefits, which would make the decision self-destructive. For example, someone under the influence of drugs, alcohol or some other addiction might decide that it’s a good idea to withdraw all their savings and go on a week long binge to Las Vegas without telling anyone.

Wages are determined by productivity, the more productive you are, the more a company is going to be willing to pay you. But there are costs associated with acquiring those wages, you must invest your time, your education, your experience and you must sacrifice all other opportunities to do so. So when you buy milk, you’re really deciding whether you value the milk more than the time, education and experience you had to trade for the money to buy it. If you determine the milk is not worth the costs then you won’t make the trade even though milk might be a necessity.

When someone wins the lottery, the costs of acquiring millions are relatively zero. In other words, relatively speaking you didn’t have to invest anything to acquire the money and there is so much money that you don’t have to sacrifice any other opportunities in the present, you can have it all. If the costs are zero in your cost-benefit analysis, then it is a rational decision to make the trade for anything you value because the benefits will always outweigh the costs.

For example, say you want/need a new car, you will weigh the costs of how long it took you to save the money, all the things you went without or how long and how much you’ll have to pay the car loan against your subjective valuation of the car. If you win the lottery, those costs don’t exist and the benefits immediately outweigh the costs, you’ll buy the car. That goes for everything, if you like looking at women take their clothes off in a strip club the benefits outweigh the costs. If you like eating out every night, the benefits outweigh the costs. If you like seeing the looks on people’s faces when you buy a round at the bar you’ll buy a round at the bar. All perfectly rational economic decisions given the circumstances and it’s exactly what historical experience has shown us will happen.

This economic analysis applies equally to any situation in which the decision maker was given wealth they didn’t earn, like government welfare of any kind, personal or corporate. When corporations are subsidized by the state it’s like winning the lottery, they are given millions to do with as they please. In 2008 the Obama administration gave banks billions of dollars and many of them used that money to give their CEOs bonuses and lavish golden parachute retirement packages. Things they wouldn’t have been so quick to do with their investor’s money but since it was free, it made perfect economic sense. Personal welfare recipients also make what would otherwise be considered reckless decisions like buying cigarettes, alcohol, lottery tickets and drugs, ‘Booze and Butts’ is what it’s called. Every welfare payday the grocery stores are overrun with those receiving money from the state and they buy things that wouldn’t necessarily be in their budget if they worked for a living and had to earn the money. Ironically, the ‘war on poverty’ keeps people poor for this very reason.

The Federal Reserve Banking System allows banks to create money out of thin air to loan out and since the money doesn’t have to be earned, the costs of the loans to the banks, like the lottery winner, are zero. Ever wonder why you received all those ‘pre-approved’ credit card applications as a senior in college even though you hadn’t graduated yet with your degree in sociology and had absolutely no job prospects? How could the banks be so reckless with their depositor’s money as to risk it on tens of millions of college kids? They weren’t risking their depositor’s money, every time someone swipes a credit card new money is created out of thin air by the issuing bank. The bank doesn’t have to have the money on hand in order to loan money out so they loan it to any and everyone who wants it. That was the triggering mechanism to the 2007-2008 meltdown of the housing market that led to the great recession. Banks were loaning people money for two, three homes even if they were unemployed and had no or bad credit.

The Federal Reserve also creates money out of thin air and loans it to the federal government and other governments around the world but since the government can borrow as much as they want, even to pay back previous loans, the money is free, just like for the lottery winner, so politicians spend it on whatever they want. Governments are notorious for wasting money on the bridge to nowhere, the $100 hammer, unused plane tickets, rent on office space that lays empty, corporate subsidies to companies that go bankrupt, political offices with popcorn machines, hot tubes and large screen TVs to name a few. Things they wouldn’t be able to do in the absence of a central bank with a printing press. No doubt the reason for the ‘Federal Reserve Act’ of 1913 creating a limitless credit card for themselves.

Regardless the source of the free money, history clearly demonstrates the rational economic outcome is preordained: the money will be wasted.

Speed Limit Predators

The state’s justification for speed limits is always the same: “Speed Kills”. So let’s remove the appeals to emotion and other hysteria and sensationalism and examine that hypothesis with rational, logic and common sense.

Let’s consider the extremes, if speed kills in and of itself then anyone who ever orbited the earth in a spacecraft would be dead since they travel at about 27,000 mph. On the other hand, if speed kills in and of itself then someone going just 1 mph could drive over a 1000 ft. cliff and not be killed.

Let’s consider something more specifically in the context of cars like race car drivers and drag racers. If speed kills in and of itself then race car drivers and drag racers would all be dead. They all drive at speeds far and above “legal speed limits”.

As obvious as these examples may seem, they clearly demonstrate that speed in and of itself does not kill anyone. So how do we explain the discrepancy between the state’s justification and reality? The explanation is that there are many dependent factors that cannot be ignored that determine if someone’s speed is appropriate or not, speed in and of itself explains absolutely nothing.

Significant factors include:

  1. Visibility – day or night, foggy or clear, raining, snowing etc.
  2. The state of the car – new or old, good brakes or bad, lights etc.
  3. The experience of the driver – inexperienced or experienced.
  4. The state of the driver – old with poor reflexes, angry, distracted, tired, impaired etc.
  5. The state of the road – old or new, narrow or wide, under poor repair, icy, slippery etc.
  6. Traffic – crowded or open road, fast flow or slow etc.

A young, experienced driver with a new car on a wide open road on a sunny day may be able to safely exceed the speed limits and people do every single day. An elderly driver with slow reactions who can’t turn his head to check his blind spot, driving a 30-year-old car on a cloudy day would probably be wise to slow it down. The number of combinations of these factors are in the thousands and it’s impossible to determine the probability that any one of them will result in an accident.

These factors vary individual to individual since everyone is different, everyone is an individual. They also vary from situation to situation. Speed Limit ‘laws’ strip people of their individuality and treat everyone as if they are exactly the same and treat every situation as if it is exactly the same which is prejudicial and unjust. Speeding tickets punish people who have done nothing wrong, who have harmed no one, who have threatened to harm no one, they were simply driving at a speed faster than a number on a sign which is abusive.

Nor does the hypothesis of ‘Speed Kills’ make sense if ‘law enforcers’ regularly exceed the legal speed limits in order to catch up to those exceeding the legal speed limit. The legal double standard implies that even those making the laws and enforcing them don’t seem to believe the hypothesis but still enforce it on the public. That is tyrannical.

There is no rational or logical justification for speed limits that makes sense. The only explanation for speed limits is revenue generation by state agencies. Government institutions don’t produce anything, everything they have they have taken from someone else who did produce it. The concept of contact quotas among law enforcers and expectations that each law enforcer generate his share of the department’s revenues are public knowledge and drivers are easy prey. Everyone has to drive everyday so law enforcers hide behind billboards and under bridges during the day and in the middle of medians with their lights off at night, waiting to pounce.

When individuals are stripped of their individuality they are stripped of their dignity and their humanity. Speed limits are inhumane, tyrannical, prejudicial and unjust and benefit no one but the state.

Does Economics Precede Morality?

For the sake of this discussion I define economics as the choices rational people make.[1] In other words, why people make the choices they make and not just fiscal decisions but all decisions. Why do they accept one job offer over another. Why did they choose to marry this person over another? Why do they drink Jack Daniels instead of Jim Beam? The assumption is that rational people make decisions based on a subjective cost-benefit analysis according to their personal preferences.

Morality is also subjective, it varies widely across individuals, cultures and societies[2]. For the sake of this discussion I define morality as not forcing others to do something they don’t want to do. Immorality would be if you want somebody to give you money and they refuse so you take it by force. Or you want to have sex with someone and they refuse so you force yourself on them.

The question is: does economics precede morality as claimed by some socio-political ideologies? Will the individual make decisions based on his subjective cost-benefit analysis even if it means he has to force others to do something they don’t want to do? If he doesn’t have to force others to do something they don’t want to do then the question of morality is irrelevant. The concept of right is irrelevant without the concept of wrong.

The argument that economics precedes morality implies a causal relationship. It implies that morality is a function of economics and that once the economic decision is made, the morality is out of the control of the individual. That if the economics dictates they have to force others to do something they don’t want to do then that’s what they should/would do. But whether the individual has to force others to do things they don’t want to do also figures into the economic analysis. There are potential consequences to using force on people that have to be considered as a cost in the cost-benefit analysis. That doesn’t mean everyone will weigh those costs the same. A hardened criminal may decide that those costs are acceptable while others will not. Some will consider the burden on their conscience too great to live with others will not.

This implies that the economic decision of a rational person is a function of that person’s subjective preferences and their sense of morality, not the other way around. The idea that economics precedes morality assumes an objective sense of morality. It assumes that even if the economic analysis is a net benefit then the individual will not do it if it means having to use force against others and we know that’s just not the case.

[1] The definition of rational here simply means someone who makes the decision where the benefits outweigh the costs based on his personal preferences.

[2] Excluding force of government’s preferences on society

Guaranteed Student Loans Destroyed the Value of a College Education

There was a time when people had to work and save and scrimp in order to go to college. Those who were really serious about studying did whatever it took to make their dreams come true. They took a year off after high school and worked, they worked summers, they worked during school, they took fewer classes per semester, they ate Ramen noodles, whatever was necessary because it was something they truly valued. They valued it more than the work and sacrifice required to obtain it or else they wouldn’t have done it. Because it was so difficult to obtain a college degree, only the most dedicated succeeded, the supply of college educated workers was commensurate with the subjective costs and benefits of each student obtaining a degree. The supply of graduates was such that they were valued across different industries like the sciences, engineering, health care and education, and they commanded a respectable wage.

Unfortunately, there are always people in any society that don’t think it’s fair that others have something they don’t. They want what others have without having to earn it, without having to pay for it and they know that the best way to get what they want is to use political force, so the issue of college tuition was politicized. When the politicians felt the movement had a sufficiently large enough following – meaning voters — they got involved. Politicians understand that when you give voters what they want, they will vote for you in the next election and politicians have access to all the resources necessary to politicize any issue when there is a critical mass of voters involved.

In typical political fashion, the solution was to just throw money at the issue, subsidize college tuition for students because history has shown that voters like free money and they vote for the politicians giving it to them. So after a healthy gestation period, they gave birth to the bastard son of ‘Medical Insurance’ and they named the unholy child ‘The Guaranteed Student Loan Program’. The program was meant for banks to indiscriminately loan students money for college tuition and expenses. Normally, qualification and interest rates for a bank loan are based on risk, current debt/equity ratio and how likely the borrower is to faithfully repay the loan with interest. Guaranteed Student Loans, however, didn’t take any of those things into consideration, the only thing that mattered was supposed ‘financial need’. The poorer you and your family were, the more money you could borrow with no obligations until six months after you graduated.

There’s a well known principle in politics that whenever the government subsidizes something, you always get more of it. In the case of college tuition, that was exactly the plan; to indiscriminately get more kids going to college that otherwise wouldn’t have without any regard as to why they otherwise wouldn’t have. There’s also a well known economic principle that when the costs of obtaining money are zero, you benefit from whatever you decide to spend the money on regardless what it is. That’s why lottery winners blow millions and welfare recipients buy booze, cigarettes, lottery tickets and drugs. Although student loans aren’t free, they are expected to be paid back, 18-year-olds aren’t expected to begin paying them back for at least four years or longer if they go to graduate school. The time horizon is so far out in their minds that it’s practically the same as being free money to them. You can even drop out of classes after you receive your student loan money and just keep the money and remain eligible to receive more the next semester. So, why not go to college even if you have no interest in anything specific and hadn’t really ever thought about it? One thing we all know happens at college: PARTIES! Student loan money for all practical purposes is fungible after your tuition is taken out so party on Garth.

In the sixties and seventies, college enrollment exploded thanks to guaranteed student loans and universities scrambled to keep up logistically with the demand. Revenues were up so they built new housing facilities and new classrooms. But they still had money to spend so they built student recreational centers, invested heavily in football teams and built common areas with shops, bowling alleys and eateries. They went from institutions of higher learning trying to attract the best and the brightest to theme parks trying to attract the most student loan money. And how do you attract young people to your ‘school’ so they can give you their student loan money? Offer them things that they value rather than the things the university values and used to pride itself on like education, distinction and professional capabilities. Sell your educational and professional integrity and give them whatever they want for money. The educational equivalent of the world’s oldest profession.

Truth is, they had to prostitute their institutions because if even one university did it, they all had to do it to remain competitive or risk going out of business altogether. The Guaranteed Student Loan program is a real poison destroying everything it touches. Students started deciding which school to go to based on how good the football team was, what facilities the rec center had, what kind of meal plans there were and their reputation for partying. There’s even an online index for tracking the top ‘party schools’. Students didn’t care what they studied, that’s not why they were really there, so universities offered courses of study that were low cost for them and logistically easy to support. It no longer mattered if the student’s university experience prepared him for any particular field of work or not, just as long as they could keep him enrolled as long as possible. Want a bachelors in sociology or history, they will gladly offer it to you. A masters in women’s studies, a Ph.D. in Russian Poetry, no problem, step right up. Some universities even allow the students to ‘design’ their own ‘educational program’. The customer is always right.

This also meant a decline in academic integrity. Universities were less likely to expel a student for academic improprieties and risk losing his student loan money. The number of degree programs ballooned right along with student enrollment to the point that formerly valued graduates were now wading through a flooded market. And as the supply of anything increases, the value of each one decreases. College graduates have seen their opportunities and salaries decline, they have staggering student loan debt and many aren’t able to find work in their field.

American Exceptionalism as a Competitive Advantage in Golf: Hypocrisy of the PGA Tour

The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) was created in 1916 because some industrious businessmen saw an opportunity to make money and corner the golf equipment market amidst the rise in popularity of the game in the US. The Professional Golfers Association Tour (PGA Tour) branched off from the PGA in 1968 over financial and structural disputes. Although the PGA still organizes some tournaments and plays a significant role in the sport, the PGA Tour is the driving influence behind professional golf in the US. The PGA Tour is a legally incorporated not-for-profit entity meaning that all revenue must be donated to charity or put back into the business. A legal loophole that means the legal entity itself, the business, cannot profit but those who work for it can and do handsomely:

PGA commissioner: $8.9 million

PGA chief operating officer: $1.9 million

PGA chief marketing officer: $1.2 million

PGA senior vice president: $1.1 million

PGA executive vice president: $2 million

Of all the major sports leagues — NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB — the PGA Tour is the only one that pays no income taxes while taking in $1.5 billion in revenues last year, not bad for a ‘non-profit’. The PGA Tour used that money to build itself a new $65 million headquarters and about half of it to pay its full-time, non-player employees.

Professional golfers are independent contractors which means they can contract with anyone they want. But the PGA Tour contract states that they cannot participate in conflicting international events without the express written consent of the PGA Tour commissioner and participating in conflicting North American events is strictly forbidden. Failure to abide by these terms can result in sanctions from the PGA Tour up to and including suspension and expulsion. Therefore, if a man wants to make a living playing professional golf in the US, the PGA Tour is the only option, they have a de facto monopoly on the sport. And, as with any monopoly, the PGA Tour charges higher prices and pays lower wages than they would have to if professional golf was a competitive market.

PGA Tour players aren’t guaranteed anything, they earn a small fraction of what other professional athletes make if they make the weekend cut and they are forced to pay for their own travel and other expenses. Top ranked players have earned $20 million in their career from the PGA Tour when other professional athletes make that much in a single season.

Obviously, the PGA Tour knows it has a good thing going and doesn’t want the competition which is why they’re pushing back so hard against the new Saudi backed LIV golf tour. The LIV tour is offering golfers exponentially more money than the PGA Tour, travel expenses and a more relaxed tour season schedule so players have more personal time.

Of course the PGA Tour feels threatened and it should, so the PGA Tour marketing department had to come up with a strategy for vilifying the LIV tour. They couldn’t use competition as an excuse because everyone knows that competition means more opportunity for the players so that would come across as being selfish and greedy and not having golf’s or the player’s best interests at heart as they claim. Their strategy really couldn’t have anything to do with golf because there really isn’t any downside to the game, only to the PGA Tour’s coffers. So they had no choice left but to make it political, a desperate character assignation of those funding the LIV tour: the Saudi Kingdom. And their character assignation of choice? ‘Human Rights Abuses’.

The message is that the Saudi Kingdom has historically committed egregious acts of inhumanity against its own people. Things like torture, executions, limits on free speech and protests, discrimination against women, arrest and detention without charge, religious discrimination, migrant worker deportation, and banning of human rights organizations. Those things may be true or not, I don’t know, but I don’t see what any of that has to do with golf. Is the message that since the tour is backed by a government accused of human evils that their golf tournaments should be condemned and those who play on them? Are we supposed to believe that they are being paid with ‘blood money’ which makes them bad people or un-American? I mean what kind of man would participate in such a horrible thing right?

If the American PGA Tour wants to taint Saudi money bloody red, then what color should the US dollar be, black as death? The PGA is a golf tour in a country that was founded on some of the most egregious human rights abuses in world history. A culture rooted in slavery, the subjugation of women and immigrants, the colonization of native Americans and the outright theft of land and resources from Mexico. The PGA Tour itself banned women and minorities until the 1961.

To this day the US government, maintains an empire created by the annexation, colonization, overthrow and occupation of foreign lands for hundreds of years and the collateral deaths of millions. A government of clandestine agencies like the CIA which maintain secret black ops facilities around the world used for unlawful detainment, interrogation and torture — we’ve all seen the pictures of torture and abuse from Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba — and the NSA which spies on everyone including its own citizens. The only military in the history of mankind to use nuclear weapons to kill innocent men, women and children. A country which regularly executes people with hundreds more on ‘death row’. An alphabet soup of departments, bureaus and offices that regulate speech, communications, travel, medical care, what food we can eat and even what plants we can smoke. The US has a police culture of ‘stop and frisk’ and ‘Asset Forfeiture’ confiscating people’s wealth without ever being suspected or charged with a crime. People are regularly executed by the police, then it’s covered up and protected by the ‘thin blue line’.

Ever wonder why the US Dollar is considered the world reserve currency? Because the US government has an arms deal with OPEC nations which includes the Saudi Kingdom. The US will supply them with arms if they only sell oil denominated in US Dollars. Since everyone needs oil, the demand for and stability of the US Dollar is guaranteed.

The PGA Tour is an embarrassment of riches acting like spoiled little children who would rather take their ball and go home than allow others to play. They come across as the stereotypical sexist southern racist who didn’t allow black members until 1990 at Augusta National Golf Club nor women until 2012. Home of the PGA Tour’s pride and joy ‘The Masters’ tournament. The name of the tournament sounds appropriate now doesn’t it?

The game of golf is bigger than the PGA Tour, bigger than the players, bigger than the Saudi Kingdom and bigger than LIV. Anyone not embracing any sort of new opportunities for the players and the game are not true apostles. They are false prophets motivated by something other than a love of the game, something more sinister and malevolent.

Government is Corrupt by Its Nature and There’s Nothing You Can Do About It

Most believe that if a government is corrupt then it’s because the people running it are corrupt so the solution is to vote ‘good’ people into office to replace the corrupt ones. But after thousands of years of voting, governments are still corrupt. Are we to believe that everyone is corrupt, that there are no ‘good’ people? By the law of large numbers alone there should have been governments somewhere in history that weren’t corrupted. How long must humanity tilt at windmills before it realizes there is something innately putrid with politics? The explanation is that the nature of the institution by its existence is corrupt so it doesn’t matter who is running it, it will always be corrupt.

It’s said in economics that a rational decision is one in which the benefits to the decision maker are subjectively considered to be greater than the costs. For example, when you buy milk, you look at the price and subjectively determine if the value of the milk is worth the price. If it is then it’s a rational economic decision to trade the money for the milk. An irrational decision is one in which the costs to the decision maker are subjectively considered to be greater than the benefits, which would make the decision self-destructive. For example, someone under the influence of drugs, alcohol or some other addiction might decide that it’s a good idea to withdraw all their savings and go on a week long binge to Las Vegas without telling anyone.

Each individual’s subjective cost-benefit analysis also implicitly considers their own subjective sense of morality. Adhering to a subjective moral compass has benefits for some while others couldn’t care less, so morality imposes a cost to some, and not to others. So how does this apply to the decision making of people who hold elected political positions?

There are no rules or laws that govern what political candidates can say or promise during a political campaign. The objective is simply to get the most votes, period and to do that you have to be popular with the voters. In other words candidates have the incentive to tell constituents whatever they want to hear regardless if it has any basis in reality or not. A candidate can tell a group of AARP voters that he will ‘fight’ – whatever that means — to get them more social security money at an earlier age whether that’s possible or not and whether or not he even has any intention of doing so. But, technically speaking, there is absolutely nothing wrong or illegal about his promise. Nor does he have any obligation to honor those campaign promises, he didn’t sign a contract with the voters, they’re just abstractions, ideas ruminating in the voter’s subconscious to be accessed in the voting booth. How many times have politicians said things like: “If elected I promise … “ and then he never does it and nothing happens to him?

Considering there are no consequences to generalizing, half-truths, exaggerating, embellishing, sensationalizing the truth or even outright lying and potentially huge benefits if elected, it’s a perfectly rational decision to do so if your moral compass is so aligned. In fact it’s a must because if even one candidate does so, then they all must in order to remain competitive. This ability to bend political reality is a competitive advantage for those who choose to use it, so if a candidate has already invested his time, effort and money in a campaign, he must do the same to have a chance at winning. Imagine if one candidate promises AARP voters more social security at an earlier age while another tells them the truth: the social security trust fund is empty, full of IOUs from the Treasury. Current payments are made with current contributions, a sort of Ponzi scheme. But the number of retirees is growing and the number of workers diminishing so the retirement age will continue to go up and your benefits will continue to go down. Vote for me!

Political campaigning is demonstrably an inherently corrupt process so it attracts those who are inherently corrupt and have no moral or ethical problems with it. Anyone who believes lying and manipulating people for their personal benefit is morally and ethically deplorable – good people — would never campaign in the first place. The subjective costs to them, namely their principles and integrity, would be greater than any potential benefits.

The same cost-benefit analysis is done by the politicians if elected only now it’s even worse. Now the costs are even lower and the benefits are so great they bear no resemblance to reality. When elected to the congress, you have absolutely no job description, no responsibilities whatsoever, come to work, don’t come, doesn’t matter. There are no job performance reviews, you have a guaranteed job for four years starting at $176,000/year, more than three times the average salary of an American household. You receive money from lobbyists, benefit from insider trading, Cadillac health care, free coach class airfare, secret service security and many other non-monetary benefits and still no consequences for generalizing, half-truths, exaggerating, embellishing, sensationalizing the truth or even outright lying so it’s perfectly rational to continue to do so.

How many times have we seen members of congress brought before a congressional hearing and they simply claim the fifth or deny everything or say something childish and stupid like “I can only confirm or deny that fact that I was asked a question.” and nothing happens?

As long as the nature of the institution offers such incentives, only corrupt people will occupy those political positions and government will continue to be corrupt, there is no solution, not even voting. Because how did those corrupt people get in office in the first place? If you’re honest, it was by voting.

Rise of the Man Child

In 1959 a Swiss psychologist, Marie-Louisa von Franz, noticed the increasing trend in people who mature physically but remain psychologically stunted, especially among the male population of the western world. She coined the term for these people ‘eternal child’, today we call it the man child.

It’s not unusual for the man child to live at home or have moved back home in his thirties and even forties, middle aged. His mom still washes his clothes and cooks his meals, makes his bed and cleans his room. It gives his mom an ongoing sense of value, being needed, in her golden years so she gladly takes care of him like he’s still a child. Some studies estimate that 35% of adult men live at home now, the highest percentage in 80 years, and the trend is on the rise. Remember when being a “momma’s boy” was considered weak and girly, now it’s almost the norm.

For those that do eventually move out and have their own home, it’s not a man’s home. A man’s home used to have a library, a place of study and learning for acquiring knowledge and wisdom. Filled with both fiction and non-fiction books, travel guides, 12-year-old scotch and Cuban cigars. A mahogany desk, a leather chair, a banker’s lamp and pen and pad for writing letters. The man child, on the other hand, has a ‘Man Cave’ with a home cinema size TV for watching football, surround sound, cinema style seating with cup holders and a refrigerator stocked with ‘mmmm’ beer. There’s a dart board, popcorn machine, bobble heads of their favorite athletes and sports paraphernalia hanging on the walls. It’s a place for ‘hanging out’, escaping reality and getting ‘wasted’ with other beer-bellied jock sniffers.

The man cave is also a place to hold their fantasy football draft. There was a time when men played tackle football without pads in the park but the man child only fantasizes about things in life that he can’t actually do himself. Like staying up till all hours ‘gaming’ online against other man children and actual children. Pretending to be the super hero in some virtual reality online video game. Locked away in his mom’s basement or his man cave with his VR glasses on, controller in hand, and his big gut hanging out while stuffing Cheetos down his gullet and swilling Red Bull.

The man child doesn’t try to hide his adolescent mindset and childlike behavior. He proudly displays it for all to see at work. His cubicle is adorned with ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Hobbit’ posters, desktop action figures of Obi Wan Kenobi, Indiana Jones and the Starship Enterprise. His screensaver is Harry Potter, his ringtones are the Star Wars and Star Trek theme songs, depending which of his Comic-con friends is calling. Comic-con is a convention where grown adults dress up in the costumes of their favorite action hero comic book characters to party and talk about comic books. They argue which characters could beat the others, as if they are real. It’s the man child’s mecca, the pilgrimage must be made.

It’s similar to the Civil War re-enactors who dress up like Civil War era soldiers and pretend fight. There’s a disturbing and obvious trend of men living a pretend life, creating a fantasy existence in all aspects in which they can immerse themselves to escape reality and they are legion. The man child is a hit at the box office, Hollywood picked up on it decades ago back in the late eighties and early nineties beginning with the series of ‘Pee Wee Herman’ movies, ‘Arthur’, ‘Dumb and Dumber’, ‘Ace Ventura’, ‘Grandmas Boy’, ‘Billy Madison’, ‘Big’, ‘Elf’, ‘TED’, ‘Step Brothers’, ‘Old School’, ‘Failure to Launch’ to name a few from a very long and infamous list. Actors like Jim Carrey, Will Ferrel, Adam Sandler, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn have made a career perfecting the man child in cinema. Network TV has claimed its share as well with animated series like ‘South Park’, ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘The Family Guy’ all of which use adolescent potty humor to make adults laugh. Where have all the real men gone?

Textual Encoding of Numbers

I always felt like there should be a way to read numbers like we read words and have them make sense and easy to remember. Every now and then, when I had some free time, I’d try to come with a method to do so.

I tried assigning a consonant and a vowel to each number 0-9. Zero would be ‘ze’, One would be ‘On’, Two would be ‘to’, Three ‘te’, Four ‘fo’, Five ‘fi’, Six ‘si’, Seven ‘se’, Eights ‘eg’ and Nine ‘ni’. So a number such as 723 would be ‘setote’ which makes no sense whatsoever.

Then I wrote the numbers in block for and concatenated them together so for example, 770 would be ‘TO’ which seemed to be promising but nine numbers taken three at a time comes to 504 different permutations, most of which make no sense.

Then I decided to look at the numbers upside down and I noticed something interesting. All the numbers – except for 8 – are a letter when upside down. 0 is ‘O’, 1 is ‘I’, 2 is ‘Z’, 3 is ‘E’, 4 (written in goalpost style) is ‘h’, 5 is ‘S’, 6 is ‘g’, 7 is ‘L’ and 9 is ‘b’. So I tried to make words out of the letters for each number. For example, 723 upside down would be EZL which doesn’t make sense. Then I replaced ‘Z’ for 2 with other letters because ‘Z’ is used so infrequently but still didn’t make much sense.

Then I tried using the letter for each number as the first letter in a word. For example, 723 would be three words, the first one beginning with ‘L’, the second with ‘W’ ( I chose ‘W’ for 2 instead of ‘Z’) and the third with ‘E’. Maybe ‘Last Weeks Event’ or ‘Lazy Won’t Exercise’ both of which represent the number 723 and they make some contextual sense. But in order to make it more meaningful, I also put auxiliary words where needed to make the phrase more contextual. An auxiliary word is any word that begins with a letter that doesn’t represent a number. So: c, d, f, j, k, m, n, p, q, r, t, u, v, x, y, z. Note: I chose ‘a’ to represent 8.

For example: ‘Landlord with excellent seaside dwelling, excellent WiFi, excellent garage, taking offers’ is the sentence for the phone number on a for sale banner of an apartment across from mine at the beach. Decoding it resolves to the number: 723 532 360. ‘Dwelling’ and ‘Taking’ are auxiliary words used to give the sentence contextual meaning. When I think of the apartment for sale across from mine, I think of ‘Landlord’, ‘Dwelling’, ‘Seaside’ etc. so it makes it easy to remember the sentence, then I can just decode it and I have the number.

‘Let me explain something, good beer barley prevents a lousy beer’ is the sentence for the number on an advert for a bar. The number is: 735 699 879 with auxiliary words ‘me’ and ‘prevents’ to clarify the context. I created that encoding weeks ago and I still remember it. You can substitute any letters you want for 2 and 8 but ensure you use the same ones all the time or it will mix up the numbers. The more you employ this method the easier it becomes and the encoding remains with you for a long time.

Human Evolution

There seems to be two distinct evolutionary variations of human beings emerging, a distinct fork in the human evolutionary road too profound to be attributed to simple cultural or generational differences. One variation that is emotionally driven and one that is rationally driven. These aren’t matters of maturity or ignorance like we so often want to believe but an actual evolutionary variation in people’s psychology where either emotions or rational is the predominant psychological driving force in one’s life.

The emotional variation, E-type, is characterized by a lack of mental attention, consistency, curiosity, courage, and effort resulting in irrationality, gullibility, and emotionalism.

E-types value feelings above all else. They tend to suffer more from emotional problems such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and emotional volatility. They tend to be more creative, artistic and come across as loving and compassionate. They are more trusting and therefore more likely to fall for scams and cons. They are not good problem solvers, they only consider one side of a problem that is emotionally pleasing while ignoring the consequences of the emotionally displeasing side. They tend to be on the below average half of human intelligence and of lower social and economic status but don’t take responsibility for that status, it’s always the fault of someone or something else and therefore see themselves as a victim and believe they are entitled. They see society as a collective of nameless, faceless people stripped of their individuality with everyone dependent on and responsible for everyone else rather than a society of independent individuals. They look to an authority for social and moral guidance and will sacrifice the truth and doing what’s right for the sake of someone’s feelings. They tend to have a lot of friends and represent the overwhelming majority of humanity.

The rational variation, R-type, is characterized by reason, rational, logic and common sense.

R-types value facts and the truth. They tend to be more critical and inquisitive, they are excellent problem solvers. They solve problems holistically and reason them out by applying logic, rational and past experiences including all the information available. They tend to be more stable socially and professionally regardless what life throws at them. They are more willing to take chances, fail, and learn from those experiences. They take responsibility for themselves, good and bad, and understand the consequences of their actions. They see society as independent individuals not as a collective. They are difficult to con or scam and they do not look to an authority for social and moral guidance, they know the difference between right and wrong and will not sacrifice the truth or doing what’s right for the sake of someone’s feelings. They tend to have fewer friends.

These variations are so distinct that it is almost impossible for them to communicate effectively in any meaningful way anymore. They see and process the world around them in completely different ways so any attempt at communication is immediately conflated. These are not subjective cultural differences but objective inter-generational human differences.

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