America claims to be a democratic country and takes pride in democratic rituals. Scratch the surface, though, and elitist authoritarianism often is evident. This is true because, as the economists Mancur Olson and George Stigler pointed out in the 1970s, special interests extract benefits via the state, and in order to facilitate rent extraction democracy is skewed. The two parties compete to attract funding from special interests, and therefore must resort to deception.
One of the deception tools is the government budget. There are many tricks that politicians play with budgets. In New York, budgetary sleight of hand is almost a religion. The deception likely occurs on the level of local upstate as well as New York City and State governments. One of the major tricks is to budget one thing and fund another. When I worked for the ways and means committee in Albany, there was a state capital budget, which had nothing to do with reality, and then there was the "financial plan" which the newspapers never discussed and which was an accounting of how real money would be used.
I attended my first two successive Town of Olive Board meetings yesterday evening and had quite an adventure. The first one was a budget information meeting for candidates. The second a general budget meeting. There were a number of non-candidates in both meetings' audiences, as both were public meetings.
Soon after arriving I caused some mirth by falling asleep and snoring. Although I was rude, it was appropriate to the interest level of the discussion, which involved the Town Supervisor, Mr. Berndt Leifeld, going line by line and stating what was already written on the budget. After I was jabbed awake and the Town Clerk, Sylvia Rozelle (who comes from Kentucky originally) had quite a laugh (she told me that in the past 15-odd years three people fell asleep and they were all from West Shokan), I picked up on a discussion about the health insurance budget. It turned out that the actual spending on health insurance was very different from the amount budgeted. Although the spending was less than the prior year, the amount budgeted was 60% more than the prior year. A discussion ensued, and there was no clear explanation as to the variations in numbers.
It was obvious from the discussion that, like in Albany, the amount funded and spent with real cash often has little to do with the budget. I asked Mr. Leifeld and the Town Board if they would consider printing the program items that had significant variances between the Alice-in-Wonderland budget and the actual spending once per year in the local newspaper, the Olive Press. Mr. Bruce LaMonda, whom I know from the Emerson gym and is on the Town Board, said "no", they would not do this. During the discussion, I disagreed with one of the speakers. Then, one of the elected Democratic officials, engaging in partisan politics, suggested that I was rude, from elsewhere, and probably ought to leave town (he didn't say the last part but it was implicit). Then, Mr. Leifeld said that the meeting was intended for candidates only. Clearly most of the Democrats are committed to democracy and transparency in government to the degree that I am committed to learning the language of Bali. Perhaps they should rename themselves the "Authoritarian Party".
In contrast, Ms. Rozelle pointed out that there is a report every month that is not widely disseminated but is publicly available if requested that lists variances between budget and funded expenses. I asked to have a copy and will pick one up from her tomorrow.
I did not get thrown out of the meeting despite misbehavior. The official engaging in partisan politics apologized to me afterward, and I accepted the apology. I will be interested in reviewing the variance list and I suspect I will have to compile monthly variances to obtain a picture of annual variances.
Related Issue--Possibly Illegal Subsidy to Democrats
A related issue was raised by Mr. Chris Johansen, head of Olive's prestigious Conservative Party. The Democratic Party in Olive, the majority party, holds a successful annual fundraiser in Davis Park. Other groups, including the Republicans, also hold events. When other groups such as the Republicans hold events, the Town requires a $200 deposit. If trash is left in the park, then the money is used to remove it. Otherwise it is refunded
The Democratic Party event is by far the largest one each year, attracting as many as a thousand people, including people from as many as 30 miles away. They call it "Olive Day" and not everyone knows that it is a Democratic Party fundraiser. I have never attended but plan to one day. However, Mr. Johansen raised the point at the budget meeting that the Democrats are not required to leave a $200 deposit and the cleanup fees were likely several thousand dollars (he did not cite that number but that is my guess). He asked Mr. Leifeld why other groups such as the Republicans had to hand a check to the Town but the Democrats are subsidized. After the meeting, Vince Barringer pointed out that the Town also uses the police to entertain children at the Democratic Party fundraiser, paying them for their time.
Mr. Leifeld did not have a coherent response to Mr. Johansen's questions. I suspect that it is illegal for the government to favor a political party and the use of public funds for partisan purposes is not allowed under election and perhaps other statutes.
Mr. Johansen has given Mr. Leifeld the opportunity to respond to this question in a timely manner.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
What Are Your Degrees of Separation from Ancient Times?
The psychologist Stanley Milgram has pointed out that only six degrees separate everyone in the United States. Milgram was likely wrong. The number may be three or four degrees of separation. Six degrees of separation in a US population of 150 or 200 million that existed when Milgram did his work implies an assumption of everyone's knowing only 22-25 or so distinct people (there's always overlap because your neighbor knows many of the same people you do). That is because 22**6= 113,379,904 and 25**6 244,140,625. Most of us know many people casually. I have probably had close to 10,000 students in 17 years of teaching (many of my classes have been 50 to 70, and I have frequently taught summers). Likewise, a single politician like Hillary Clinton probably knows at least ten thousand people, and has probably met many more than that. So there are fewer than six degrees of separation, maybe only three. If on average we each know 1,000 then 1000**3 = one billion without taking overlap into account.
Of course, the degrees needed to reach any one of our ancestors in ancient times is greater and more difficult to compute. Part of the difficulty is that conquest dislocated people. Take the case of western Europe. There is no specific date for the fall of Rome in western Europe, but Totila and the Ostrogoths depopulated the city in the sixth century. Rome was sacked four or five times. Geiseric and the Vandals sacked Rome in 455 and Romulus Augustus, the last emperor, was deposed in 476. Alaric and the Visigoths sacked it in 410 AD and Brennus and the Gauls sacked it in 387 BC. The Arabs attacked it in the ninth century. One may guess that conquest in those days involved taking slaves.
The matter is also complicated by plagues. According to the Hacienda Pub site, "the Plague of Justinian (6th Century A.D.), the Black Death (14th Century A.D.), and the Bubonic Plague (1665-1666, which coincided with the Great Fire of London) caused an estimated 137 million dead in a world much more sparsely populated than it is today." Many in those periods lost their entire families.
So how many degrees of separation are there across generations? How many people are you removed from Julius Caesar? I would guess it takes about 80 generations to get us back to the days of Romulus Augustus (the last Roman Emperor, who was deposed in 476) and about 100 to the days of Augustus. In socialist and conservative, pre-free-market societies, life expectancy was about age 25-35. So if we figure that people died at 35 there were at least two generations alive for most at any give time.
But the world population was a tiny fraction of what it is today, even going back two centuries. Wikipedia estimates that western Europe's population was 25-30 million in Charlemagne's time, one thirty second of today's and the world's population was about 200 million, also about one thirty second of today's.
With 30 million alive at the time of Caesar, we can guess that there were no more than three degrees of separation. So My guess is that you have to go back 100 degrees to get back to Caesar, then 2-3 more laterally, so if you assume 100 down and 2-3 across there's about 200-300 degree of separation between you and Julius Caesar.
But that assumes a right triangle of relationships, vertically down through the generations and then horizontally across in ancient times. There are also "hypotenuse" relationships whereby someone you know now, knows someone from an earlier generation who was slightly closer to Caesar and the path could follow diagonally. Putting on my 10th grade geometry cap for a second (my worst subject) then if the base of the right triangle is 3 and the leg is 100 the diagonal is 3**2 + 100**2 = 10,009, the square root of which is about 100, and that would seem closer to the right answer.
I wonder if you formed a chain beginning with someone who knew Julius Caesar and ending with the person you know who is closest to Julius Caesar today, what the differences across the generations would seem like. After just a few generations the people would be quite unlike most anyone in the world today. We are much closer to people remote from us in distance than we are from the past. Yet, many people are loyal to ancient ancestors but suspicious of strangers. Of course, our ancestors are dead so do not threaten us as can people in today's world. But socially, culturally, intellectually and in most visible ways, we are more like someone who lives in China than we are like our ancestors in Roman times.
Of course, the degrees needed to reach any one of our ancestors in ancient times is greater and more difficult to compute. Part of the difficulty is that conquest dislocated people. Take the case of western Europe. There is no specific date for the fall of Rome in western Europe, but Totila and the Ostrogoths depopulated the city in the sixth century. Rome was sacked four or five times. Geiseric and the Vandals sacked Rome in 455 and Romulus Augustus, the last emperor, was deposed in 476. Alaric and the Visigoths sacked it in 410 AD and Brennus and the Gauls sacked it in 387 BC. The Arabs attacked it in the ninth century. One may guess that conquest in those days involved taking slaves.
The matter is also complicated by plagues. According to the Hacienda Pub site, "the Plague of Justinian (6th Century A.D.), the Black Death (14th Century A.D.), and the Bubonic Plague (1665-1666, which coincided with the Great Fire of London) caused an estimated 137 million dead in a world much more sparsely populated than it is today." Many in those periods lost their entire families.
So how many degrees of separation are there across generations? How many people are you removed from Julius Caesar? I would guess it takes about 80 generations to get us back to the days of Romulus Augustus (the last Roman Emperor, who was deposed in 476) and about 100 to the days of Augustus. In socialist and conservative, pre-free-market societies, life expectancy was about age 25-35. So if we figure that people died at 35 there were at least two generations alive for most at any give time.
But the world population was a tiny fraction of what it is today, even going back two centuries. Wikipedia estimates that western Europe's population was 25-30 million in Charlemagne's time, one thirty second of today's and the world's population was about 200 million, also about one thirty second of today's.
With 30 million alive at the time of Caesar, we can guess that there were no more than three degrees of separation. So My guess is that you have to go back 100 degrees to get back to Caesar, then 2-3 more laterally, so if you assume 100 down and 2-3 across there's about 200-300 degree of separation between you and Julius Caesar.
But that assumes a right triangle of relationships, vertically down through the generations and then horizontally across in ancient times. There are also "hypotenuse" relationships whereby someone you know now, knows someone from an earlier generation who was slightly closer to Caesar and the path could follow diagonally. Putting on my 10th grade geometry cap for a second (my worst subject) then if the base of the right triangle is 3 and the leg is 100 the diagonal is 3**2 + 100**2 = 10,009, the square root of which is about 100, and that would seem closer to the right answer.
I wonder if you formed a chain beginning with someone who knew Julius Caesar and ending with the person you know who is closest to Julius Caesar today, what the differences across the generations would seem like. After just a few generations the people would be quite unlike most anyone in the world today. We are much closer to people remote from us in distance than we are from the past. Yet, many people are loyal to ancient ancestors but suspicious of strangers. Of course, our ancestors are dead so do not threaten us as can people in today's world. But socially, culturally, intellectually and in most visible ways, we are more like someone who lives in China than we are like our ancestors in Roman times.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Nobel Peace Prize So 20th Century
As Swedish peace activists and virtually everyone I know have pointed out, the Nobel Prize should not have been awarded to Barack Obama. The Peace Prize, awarded by a Finnish (not Swedish) government-appointed panel is politicized. Last year it was given to Al Gore, a politician who advocates everyone else's cutting back so he can consume more, and this year to another Democratic Party hack, Barack Obama. Perhaps the Norwegians gave it to him because they believe him to have been born in Norway. But they were afraid to ask for his birth certificate.
In any case the Peace Prize has been degraded. Not that I would think that the Scandinavian governments in Sweden and Norway have any moral substance to give such an award. In the 1930s Sweden quietly back Hitler, and although it was formally neutral during the Second World War, a third of Swedes did not mind seeing six million Jews gassed, and more than a handful likely were happy about it.
I would add that their most famous intellectual, the socialist Gunnar Myrdal, supported Hitler during the 1930s. Roland Huntford's book New Totalitarians dissects the ugly, amoral quality of Swedish socialism. Huntford points out that noticeable elements of feudalism continued into the 1950s in Sweden, specifically the bruk system in which workers in certain factories were tied to the factories, essentially as serfs (with their homes the property of the factories). Notice that American socialists admire Swedish culture because it is reactionary. The Swedes are barely out of the Middle Ages. But remember that it is the Finnish who give the Peace Prize, the Swedes the other prizes.
Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize before refusing to make peace. Obama's chief contribution to peace was reappointing George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert M. Gates, after telling Americans that he is for "change". "Change" to him meant appointing the same guy. It is difficult to take the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which takes an partisan role in American politics, seriously.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a thing of the past. I'm sure recipients want the monetary award, but would you want to share a "peace prize" with Al Gore, Yassir Arafat and Barack Obama?
In any case the Peace Prize has been degraded. Not that I would think that the Scandinavian governments in Sweden and Norway have any moral substance to give such an award. In the 1930s Sweden quietly back Hitler, and although it was formally neutral during the Second World War, a third of Swedes did not mind seeing six million Jews gassed, and more than a handful likely were happy about it.
I would add that their most famous intellectual, the socialist Gunnar Myrdal, supported Hitler during the 1930s. Roland Huntford's book New Totalitarians dissects the ugly, amoral quality of Swedish socialism. Huntford points out that noticeable elements of feudalism continued into the 1950s in Sweden, specifically the bruk system in which workers in certain factories were tied to the factories, essentially as serfs (with their homes the property of the factories). Notice that American socialists admire Swedish culture because it is reactionary. The Swedes are barely out of the Middle Ages. But remember that it is the Finnish who give the Peace Prize, the Swedes the other prizes.
Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize before refusing to make peace. Obama's chief contribution to peace was reappointing George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert M. Gates, after telling Americans that he is for "change". "Change" to him meant appointing the same guy. It is difficult to take the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which takes an partisan role in American politics, seriously.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a thing of the past. I'm sure recipients want the monetary award, but would you want to share a "peace prize" with Al Gore, Yassir Arafat and Barack Obama?
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