Throwing a "Monkey Wrench" into the system.

The American people have spoken, and they have thrown a big monkey wrench into the system.  Should this have been seen beforehand?  Yes!  But there are many tired voters, people tired of having their views ignored, people tired of changes that don't benefit them, people tired of an elite which doesn't care for America first.  And it is these voters who have chosen to take a dose of "Fuckitall" instead of letting someone like Hillary run this country.

As much as I think these people were making a big mistake, I think the common person has a real grudge against the elites. And I can't blame them much for voting for someone who spoke their language, used their metaphors, and echoed what they feel are the "real" truths in life - regardless of how little these so-called truths are based in reality.  This happened in Central Europe during the 1920's and 1930's, and it could happen here to the same disastrous affect - if we don't wake up, and listen to the alienated people who live in both rural and urban areas.

Sadly, I feel that Trump is not qualified for the job he has at hand.  But he is what we got now.  Supposedly, he was very surprised to find out how large a staff he and his minions must appoint in the next 2 months. At least, Trump has demoted Chris Christie even further, so that Trump is able to keep his distance from "Bridgegate" as much as possible.  (No, Trump had no hand in that debacle.  But why should he get his reputation prematurely tarnished by association with his former chief of transition?)

For the most part, I do not worry much about Trump yet.  It will be hard for him to dismantle Obamacare without a major backlash.  Even Obama himself was uncomfortable with the individual mandate, but was shown that insurance would cost much less for old people because the insurance pool would contain enough healthy young people to offset the cost of providing care to old people.  He will not be able to overturn Roe v. Wade without the cooperation of the "Blue States" - and this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.  He will find it hard to unwind many of the treaties we have enacted, and his military advisors will likely keep him from using the codes in the "Biscuit" with the "Football" an aide carries with him at all times.  But there are people who have legitimate fears, most of whom are poor, and are in populations marginalized in "Red States" - such as gays, lesbians, and transgender folk. With a Vice President like Pence, I have good cause to worry.

With things the way they are now, I'm tempted to utter the simple phrase:

"Houston, we have a problem."

All we have to go on are the lies of our president elect, and the lessons of history.  Yet, there's a part of me that believes that our founding fathers may have thought someone like this would be elected president, and held the belief that honorable men would strip this man from power if he went too far.  If he does go too far, I hope that my faith in the founding fathers forethought still holds true.

A proposal - Mothballing infrastructure.

You'll note that there is a lot of vacant land around this abandoned house. This is because the city of Detroit has bulldozed many of the vacant structures in the area, eliminating traces of urban blight. But why did this have to be so? The answer lies in the problem that all cities have - no one has yet developed a good plan to shrink a town or city when both businesses and people abandon it.

Cities such as Youngstown Ohio have decided to Mothball infrastructure by removing many derelict structures, and ending utility service to many of the cleared areas. If no one lives in the areas, they can be treated as park land or cemeteries.  This involves much less effort than providing police, fire, and other city services to sparsely settled areas. Given that Detroit has lost more than half of its population with the decline of the local automotive industry, it only made sense that Detroit go down this path.

What happens to the few remaining residents that want to make a go of it in these  areas? It might make sense to condemn their properties, and build them new houses in areas where there is a dense enough population to make it worthwhile to provide services to these areas. Instead of being the only occupied house on a block with derelict structures, the same person could be in the middle of a safe and vibrant community.

It costs money to bulldoze properties.  It also costs money to maintain the underground infrastructure (sewers, etc.) in these areas. But vacant land is much easier to redevelop when population comes back to the city.

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This is only part of the equation.  How should we finance the clearing of land? American real estate development assumes that all properties will be standing forever. No one includes the tear down of  a house or factory after its useful life ends. When businesses have no more need for the land, it is often abandoned. When no jobs are to be found in a community, people abandon their houses and the land on which they stand. As a result, the land becomes blighted.

How do we solve this problem?  I keep working a thought experiment involving an insurance bond which covers the tear down of buildings and the clean up of land. For a small monthly price, insurers would hold in escrow enough money to finance a tear down and clean up, resulting in a "green" site.  The land would be certified free of toxic materials and would be usable for any residential or commercial purpose permitted by zoning codes. They would have to adjust the expected escrow fund (and charge the land owner for it) so that the expected cleanup could always take place.

Why should a third party control these funds?  To me, I don't trust government to do the job of maintaining these reserve funds. Nor do I trust individuals to do this job. We've seen what happens when government lets businesses pollute the land and not hold the businesses accountable for their actions?  Rare is the enforcement action which forced General Electric to clean up PCBs from the Hudson River.  Rare is the individual who'd bulldoze a vacant derelict home in Detroit (or other cities.)  We need someone to be responsible, and we need a market place solution. So insurance companies are good choices, as they can manage risk AND determine how much of a clean up fund is needed for any property.  

How do we get from here to there?  Is this just a pipe dream?  I'm not sure if there is even a way to implement this idea. But what would have happened to places like Detroit if property owners had paid for the tear down of their properties?

The Packard factory complex (part of which is shown in the above picture) has been vacant for over 60 years.  It has been scavenged for all valuable materials, and is undergoing rapid decay.  The place is a hazard.  But if this place were bulldozed and cleaned up, it would have made a great park, and nor be a blight on the community.  And given 1950's prices, the clean up for this complex would have been relatively cheap.  

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Once land is vacant, it can be put to many short or long term uses.  For years, there was a lot of vacant land near the Whitestone bridge in New York City. On one side of the bridge was a city park. On the other side was a cemetery and some other unused land.  This land has been changed into a golf course. (No, I will not identify the course or provide images of the place, because I detest the man who the course is named after.)  Even the Fresh Kills Landfill has been changed into a city park.

Along the Hudson River, there are many old factory buildings.  Many were left to decay. But with riverfront real estate at a premium, developers are paying to clean up the land and rehabilitate the structures. If these structures had been cleared from the land, we'd have developed the areas sooner - as it would have cost much less to do so. As a result, we'd likely have had more affordable living space in a region known for excessive prices.

I am not against preserving historical structures. But I am against them turning into dangerous places, and symbols of urban decay.  Given the choice, I'd tear down every unmaintained property, clean up the land, and give it away to people who will take care of the land. This would be much better than dumping the clean up cost on the people who remain in these areas.  In short, if you made the mess, you are responsible for its cleanup. We teach that to children.  Why don't we hold adults to the same standard?

And now, the real work must begin

The Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare" as many people call it.  It's a flawed law meant to put true healthcare reform in play.  But the dysfunction of both political parties has locked in this law's provisions, the worst of them requiring people to buy unsubsidized insurance because their states didn't accept the medicaid expansion to cover these people.

One of the problems insurers have in America is that there is no price control on prescription drugs.  The largest buyer of these drugs is Medicare, and yet, the federal government prohibits Medicare and Medicaid from negotiating prices for drugs.  As a result, we have the highest costs for healthcare in the world.  No wonder why many insurers are bailing out of the Obamacare health insurance markets.

Another problem is the inability to force the states to expand Medicaid, even with a 90% Federal government subsidy for those costs. Without nationwide participation, a law like this will fail, as people will blame the law for their problems and not the law makers who won't tweak the law to make it work for all.  One might argue that this part of the law was a failure from the start. But in any law this complex, the drafters were likely to make errors.  If we looked at law as we do for computer systems, we accept the fact that there will be computer bugs, and that they will be fixed.  Why are many people condemning a law, when they should be condemning congress for not doing anything important in this area for generations, and then not fixing mistakes when they do something?

To me, an understated problem is the inability of insurers to get young adults to sign up for the higher levels of healthcare.  The ACA depends on a large number of young workers (who are in good health) to pay into the insurance plans, so that older, less healthy, people can buy affordable insurance.  Obamacare is a health care transfer from the young to the old, in the same way as Social Security is an income transfer program from the young to the old.  In both cases, it only makes sense.  In traditional societies, the young take care of the old. In an age of the sub-nuclear family, government mandated wealth and health transfers from young to the old make sense. Most people can no longer depend on their extended families for help.

There were many lies used to sell the public on the need for this law.  This is not uncommon with politicians.  FDR lied about keeping America neutral before WW2, even with the obvious signs that we could not avoid getting involved with this worldwide conflict.  And yet, people accept the story given by their political tribes, instead of seeing the reality behind the scenes of the kabuki theater of politics.  

Obamacare needs fixing.  There are not enough insurers willing to participate in markets where they can't make money.  There are not enough people covered by this law.  There are not enough choices available to people in need.  But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  If we get rid of Obamacare, we will return to a worse system than we have now. The only question is: Do we provide a "Public Option" or not?  If there is a public option, the average person will likely pay roughly the same rate as state employees do for their insurance plans.  (I use COBRA rates for my analysis.)  Without a public option, people will go uninsured.

Are we heading towards single payer healthcare?  Maybe.  But if private industry wants to keep making profits, it will have to find a way of fixing a system that was broken way before the ACA was enacted, and will need to find a way to do it within the spirit of the ACA.

By now, the votes are in....

By now the election results are in.  And given the third presidential debate, I am hoping that Trump did the right thing and conceded defeat.  

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At the time I wrote this entry, Trump said that he would only consider following a long standing tradition and concede the election (assuming Hillary wins at the polls).  This is a dangerous precedent. Part of the glory of this country is the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, including the times when the opposition party is voted into power.  Trump is a clear and present danger, as long as he does not honor the will of the people, as this could incite malcontents into starting a "Beer Hall Putsch".

Hillary did the honorable thing and said that she would respect the results of the election. Of course, I expect this would be easy for her, because, by most measures, she is likely to win the election.  As of the time of the debate, this was Hillary's election to lose, and I think that she avoided the big mistakes that would cause her to lose.

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Last week, a decade old recording of Trump talking about being a sexual predator made the news. And the fellow on the other end of the conversation (Billy Bush) was fired from the Today show.  Several Republicans revoked their endorsements of Trump, as they realized that the GOP needs the votes of white women to win future elections. With this week's pronouncement regarding election results, these Republicans, and more, should be saying that they will respect the results of the election, and will not support Trump is he challenges the election.

Gore had good reason to challenge Bush in 2000.  Voting machines did not accurately record the will of the voters. Yet, when the results were finalized, Gore conceded with grace. In his blog of the third presidential debate, Andrew Sullivan posted an image of the letter that George Bush wrote to Bill Clinton on 1/20/1993. It was an extremely gracious letter, saying that Bush truly wished Clinton the best fortune as president of our country.  I doubt that Trump can be this gracious.

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I strongly hope that Hillary wins this election, as I am afraid of how nasty Trump treats people perceived to be his enemies.  There is no place in being nasty and impolite when one is the most powerful person in the world. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."  Trump does neither.  In each of the debates, Hillary acted with class, and kept her cool. Trump, on the other hand, showed himself for the bully he is.  He is not qualified to stand at the most important bully pulpit in the world.  He is the clear and present danger to America, not Hillary. In nihilist rage, he would destroy the country if he doesn't get his way. Whereas Hillary will only keep a corrupt system in place, for lack of a better system to replace what we have now. 

So I ask a question - can one man, in isolation, "Make America Great Again?"  If Trump can, he doesn't need the cooperation of the American people to do so. And if not, it would be foolish to elect a person who believes he can accomplish miracles due to the "strength" of his personality.  Hopefully, America has voted rationally.

Does anything said make a difference at this point?

By this point in the campaign, I'd expect that in a normal Presidential Race, we'd have more undecided voters. This year, we have people from both parties who are sick of the choices given to us by the two major parties, and want another choice.  Given the above chart (issued on 10/16/2016), it looks like 9% of the public wants to vote "NO" to both Trump and Clinton, leaving 6% of the public in the "Undecided" category.

If we factor out the two minor parties, the chart looks like this:

This chart implies that 8% of the vote is up for grabs, making it highly likely that Hillary will win.  Although anything can change up to election day, the above two charts do not look good for Trump.

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The big problem with elections is showing the public that they have not been rigged.  It is much harder to falsify votes once cast. Instead, the two parties fight to keep people loyal to the opposition from getting to vote.  But what happens when a vote is as close as it was in Florida's  Bush v. Gore battle?  One could legitimately say that the election was stolen by Bush and his friends. Yet, Gore had the grace to concede, knowing that he could have destroyed America's faith in this most important of citizen rights and duties.

In some states, the incidents of election fraud are not myths.  Elections can and are being rigged by corrupt politicians who manipulate vote casting machines.  In other states, even the dead have voted. Yet, for the most part, our elections are reasonably honest and can be counted on to accurately reflect the will of voters in the territory covered by the ballot.

Unfortunately, Trump is now putting the electoral process into question.  He is accusing unnamed "others" of trying to rig the election. He is taking legitimacy away from the process in the eyes of his supporters, and this is dangerous. Assuming that Trump loses, his followers will not believe the results of the election.  (Gore's supporters had a better claim that the election was stolen from them, but the need to hold the electoral college election for POTUS may have been more important than the accuracy of Florida's vote.) Can you imagine what could happen if a bunch of disaffected, armed Trump followers don't hear an honest concession speech from Trump on November 8th?  I shudder at the thought.

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If one studies German history of the 1920's and early 1930's, one sees eerie parallels to what is happening in the United States.  In Germany, hyperinflation destroyed the financial power of Germany's middle class. In the United States, the effects of globalization did the same to many in the middle class, as there was no safety net or shock absorber for these people.  No wonder why they both sought out a "messiah" to deliver them from their suffering. Sadly, neither group could articulate its problem, nor could they come up with a leader from their own ranks who could challenge a corrupt elite.  As a result, the Germans put Hitler into power, and we risk putting Trump into power.  

In America, we have systemic unemployment, and no one dares to speak those words. People in rural areas do not have access to the opportunities of the city, and they couldn't even afford to move to the cities if they could leave their homes. The one factory, mill, or mine has closed down, leaving people with no way to escape poverty.  A similar situation exists for those in the inner cities, as we have neglected the needs of the poor, and avoided addressing both social and educational needs that would help them break the cycle of poverty.  We warehouse those who break laws in prison, permanently tainting them with a scarlet letter of a criminal record, and then expect that they compete for the few jobs left for those with "checkered backgrounds".  The prison-industrial complex is hurting both rural and urban areas equally, and is helping to keep the poor in both areas from advocating for their own interests.

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Globalization has hit America hard, and both rural and urban areas have suffered because of it.  No job is safe any longer.  Yet, no one is proposing the form of safety net or shock absorber we need for our labor force.  We do not provide for workers to retool themselves for the future.  We do not limit the export of jobs that can be done anywhere, so that Americans are only serviced by American workers,  Why is it that we place call centers in India, when this work can be just as easily done by people in rural West Texas, a Lakota Sioux reservation, and Chicago's South Side?   There is no reason that we don't reserve most of these jobs for Americans, and pay the higher product prices needed to bring this labor back home.  

Our elites are the problem, and they must be replaced.  However, we must be careful to make sure we know how to operate the levers of power as we throw the bums out - or we will make things worse with a rebellion that is not thought out.  Years ago, General Patton recognized the need to keep some ex-Nazis in charge of operations in occupied Germany. Contrast this with George Bush and the occupation of Iraq - he threw all ex-Baath party members out of power, and they had chaos.  

For those who still want to vote for Trump, I have one question:  Are you ready for the chaos that his election or defeat will likely cause?