• Scripts that may work under Apache and PHP 4 aren’t guaranteed to work under Apache 2 and PHP 5.
• Mucinex either works or it doesn’t.  If you have a cold and it’s not working, chances are it’s just draining you of your soul and driving you to early dementia.  Let me tell you - once I stopped taking the stuff this weekend, my cold felt much more manageable.
• Caffeine is a glorious thing.
• It’s a little hard to convince people to throw together a serious protest involving permits and money when the organization you’re convincing doesn’t even have a bank account yet.
• You’d be amazed how much energy and time gets put into campaigning in a party with fewer than 100 active, dues paying members.

I wish I had more to say at the moment, but, yeah, things have been a little busy around here.  The rather nasty cold that I picked up on Wednesday definitely didn’t help.

You can’t get something for nothing.

It doesn’t matter what that something is - you can’t get it without some effort, without some cost.  It’s impossible.  This brings me to the fiction that government can “create jobs”, especially “green” jobs.

News organizations have been hyping the possibility that Nevada can “create green jobs” for months now.  The Las Vegas Sun had an article in September that said:

A new report from the Center for American Progress says $100 billion in green investment could create 2 million jobs in the U.S., including 15,000 in Nevada.

“In a time when people are hurting, 15,000 jobs seems like a good idea,” said Scot Rutledge of the Nevada Conservation League.

The $100 billion “green economic recovery program” [Remember when that was a lot of money? - DC]- about the size of the recent federal stimulus package - could be paid for by auctioning the right to emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, according to the center.

The report says $865 million of that $100 billion would be invested in Nevada. That figure is based on contribution to gross domestic product and population. When natural renewable energy resources and existing favorable state policy toward renewables are factored in, environmentalist said, the investment here is likely to be much higher.

Meanwhile, our legislators talk of using our share of the “bailout money” to create “green jobs”:

Saying the future of Nevada’s economy depends on building a thriving renewable energy industry, Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, introduced legislation to use Nevada’s share of the economic stimulus package to create a “green jobs” training program.

Horsford’s bill, SB 152, would fund both the programs to train the workers and the weatherization projects to put them to work making schools and other government buildings more energy efficient.

Naturally, some business leaders are for it, too:

Business leaders involved in green energy projects met in Reno Thursday to express their happiness with the new stimulus law.

If you’re tired of hearing about green energy and not seeing much of it, they’re right there with you. “We’re trying to push things forward; we’re trying to make things actually happen in a very rapid fashion to build a green economy here in Nevada.”

Rich Hamilton and his company, Great Basin Wind are the ones behind the planned Virginia City wind farm. The much talked-about project is slated to be finished late next year with up to 71 turbines cranking out 200-megawatts enough to power about 60,000 homes.

His company can afford to invest in the project thanks in part to tax incentives offered by the federal government. The stimulus extends those: “We are providing many tax incentives for the private sector to build renewable energy projects.”

It all sounds so good, doesn’t it?  It sounds so pretty - we give some companies some money, they build some windmills, and we all go home happy, with new jobs in construction and maintenance of this stuff carrying us through an otherwise turbulent and messy economy.

There’s just one problem, though, isn’t there?  Where is the money coming from?

That question is at the very core of why government “created” jobs are a myth.  Government creates very little of actual value, meaning that there is very little that government creates that people happily and gladly fork over money for.  By and large, government is funded by taxes, which is the act taking money from someone now, or loans, which is simply promising to take money from someone else later.  Of course, in order to take money from someone, there has to be money to take to begin with.  The way government creates jobs, meanwhile, is by taking the money that it took from someone in the form of taxes or loans and redistributing it to someone else that it thinks will spend the money more wisely.  Again, though, in order for the government to have any money to take to begin with, there has to be some money to take - consequently, the government will either be taking money from someone that’s already providing jobs (businesses and/or their owners) or from someone that already has a job (everyone else).  So, at best, one of two things is happening:

1. The government is transferring money from one business that’s successfully creating jobs, hindering their ability to provide jobs themselves, or…
2. The government is transferring money from you, making your wages worth just a little bit less, with the hope that there are enough people like you to take money from and give to someone else so they can be put to work.

Let’s play with the first option since it’s the simplest to grasp, and fold the second option into it.  Under the absolute best of circumstances, assuming various physical rules don’t apply, since it’s physically impossible for government to create anything of value or wealth, the best that can be hoped for is that government will transfer jobs from one business to another, “better” business, at a 1-to-1 ratio, total wages-wise.  In other words, we hope that, if the government takes $100,000 from one business, it’s able to create $100,000 worth of jobs in another business.  There’s no way for government to add to that $100,000 without taking it from someone else, so there’s no way to multiply this.

Trouble is, this fictional fantasy land doesn’t exist.

To start with, the laws of time still apply in our world, which means that, if government takes $100,000 from one entity to give to another entity, there will be a period of time during which the government will have that $100,000, during which time that money isn’t being put to productive use by anyone.  In short, it’s been effectively removed from the system until the government is ready to hand it out again.  This brings us to our next problem - presumably, somebody is getting paid to account for all of this.  Somebody is getting paid to collect the $100,000 check from one entity and somebody is getting paid to write a check to the other entity.  Suddenly, the government doesn’t have $100,000 to hand out anymore - at best, it might have $90,000, or maybe $95,000.  It really doesn’t matter how much money is left, though - the important thing to remember is that some of that money is now gone from either productive enterprise, never to return.  In other words, there’s friction in the system, which makes sense since, no matter what you move, whether it’s money or blocks of wood or whatever, there is always going to be friction.  Always.  We’re talking “laws of physics” here.

So, right off the bat, we took $100,000 that somebody could use to create jobs or, alternatively, use to buy products from companies that create jobs or just build up a nest egg so we don’t need to pay them unemployment when the unfortunate happens and, assuming there’s no graft, no corruption, no cross-purposes - heck, no human vice - we’re going to give less than that to some other company to create jobs that, presumably, it couldn’t afford to create on its own, which is why we have to give them money to begin with.  (Phew!)  Well, okay - maybe it’s not all bad, right?  I mean, government jobs are still jobs, so it’s not like the $100,000 disappeared - some of it just went to government jobs while the rest went to these other kinds of jobs that we want more of.  Sounds good… or does it?  Keep in mind that, when most people work, they create something of value, meaning they create something that somebody else not only wants but is willing to pay for.  If government created anything of real value, we wouldn’t need taxes - we’d just walk down to our government offices and hand them money voluntarily!  The reason this is important is because, generally speaking, if you want something, sooner or later you’re going to want more of it, and will happily pay for it.  So, if you’re a company producing something that somebody wants, people will voluntarily give you money, which you’ll use to hire more people (creating jobs!) to produce more of that something, whatever that might be.  Do this enough times and that $100,000 can become something far more than that.  If enough people do this, we all have more stuff that we want - more power, more cars, more amusement parks, whatever.  Government, however, doesn’t create anything.  Consequently, any money that’s taken out of the system by the government isn’t used to create anything at all, which means that we end up with less stuff that we want, whatever that might be.

So, to recap, instead of enjoying $100,000 worth of jobs, created by someone that clearly is producing something that somebody wants (otherwise they wouldn’t have $100,000 to take), we instead create maybe $90,000 worth of jobs, created by someone that clearly isn’t producing something that somebody wants, or isn’t able to produce it at a price point that people are willing to pay for, along with $10,000 worth of jobs that fails to produce anything.  Sounds great so far, doesn’t it?

But wait!, you say, what if that person creating $100,000 worth of jobs creates jobs that we don’t really want long term?  I mean, sure, they’re creating $100,000 worth of jobs now, but if they keep doing what they’re doing to create those jobs, we’ll be covered in soot and eaten by the oil grue in no time!  To be perfectly honest, there may be some truth to this.  The trouble here is that environmentalism and “green jobs”, as countless developing countries have proven time after time after time, is a luxury.  Believe it or not, it’s perfectly possible to live without clean air, clean water, or clean food.  Just ask anyone living in Southeast Asia right now, or ask someone who lived in back east or in Europe during the early 20th century.  It’s not pleasant, it’s not healthy, but it’s definitely survivable, and, for most people, if you give them a choice between having a job that gives them a fighting chance to pay for their own food and lodging and preventing them from having that job by inefficiently redistributing money to industries that make you feel warm and fuzzy, they’re going to go with taking that job, even if it’s in the puppy eating industry.  Heck, ask any inner city drug dealer - they already made their choice between “no job” and “job in a morally dubious field that destroys the community”.  If you think people don’t care about the environment now, wait until they can’t pay their sewer bill.

Look, there is a time and a place to invest in “green” technology.  Doing it under the guise of “creating jobs” when doing so requires taking money from industries that are scrambling to keep the jobs they already have is not it.  Tell your legislators to stop trying to “create” anything and just focus on staying out of the way of those that actually are creating goods that people are willing to pay for and creating jobs in the process.

Borscht With Boris!

Remember the ingredients:

1. Beet
2. Vodka
3. Pot

That is all.

Anyone hoping to launch a successful counterattack must first analyze Obama’s campaign and assess the factors that contributed to its success. To assist in such efforts, I have constructed a block diagram [1] of the post-nomination campaign’s components, interactions, and successive stages [2]. A study of this diagram will, I think, reveal interactions that are too complex to be sorted out and comprehended from a verbal description alone.

[...]

The diagram is colored according to the phases of the campaign, which, like a military campaign, can be divided into the resources provided by the terrain, available forces and weapons, strategy and tactics, and objectives to be taken [3].

Click on the link above to actually see the diagram - it’s pretty impressive, honestly.  This got me thinking, though, especially with the LP State Convention coming up - what should be our plan?  What resources does the Libertarian Party have here?  What tools do we have to leverage these resources?  What objectives can we hope to take?  Realistically, we have to accept that, at the present time, our strategic space is very limited.  If we’re lucky, we might match Belgium’s performance in World War 1 - slow the enemy down and remain a viable force through the end.  If we’re unlucky, we might match Belgium’s performance in World War 2 - slow the enemy down for a couple of days but ultimately get overrun.  At the present time, we’re, at best, a minor annoyance for the major parties.  We don’t get enough votes for either major party to bother currying any real favor with us, much less view us as any serious, credible threat.  This means that, unless we identify our strengths and weaknesses and develop an appropriate plan based on our resources and capabilities, we’ll be doomed to continue our string of Luxembourg-esque performances[1].

So, what resources are provided by Nevada to the Libertarian Party, or, really, any third party in this state?

• Voters are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the wild government spending in Washington.  This happens when you rack up trillions of deficit spending and give half of it to bankers and hedge fund managers.
• The economy is dismal.  People are looking for a change.
• After rampant corruption and profligate spending for the better part of a decade, fiscally conservative people have largely given up on the Republican Party.
• The Democratic Party is, understandably, taking the freedom loving, socially liberal minded voters for granted.  Whenever anyone asks the Democratic Party to do anything about, for example, gay marriage or the Drug War, the answer is always “We’ll get around to it.”
• Nevada politics has long had a “live and let live” attitude, which is how we ended up with legalized gambling, legal brothels, some of the most liberal marriage and divorce laws in the country, and no blue laws.  This vein isn’t as deep as it used to be - the recent influx of less libertarian minded residents has drained it somewhat - but it’s still there.  Ron Paul, for example, would have won Nevada during the GOP primaries were it not for some questionable practices at the end.
• The state government has been laughably mismanaged for years, with both parties playing ridiculous games of chicken against a steadily dwindling per-capita tax base.
• Neither party has historically been dominant throughout Nevada’s history, nor does it look like that will change anytime soon.
• Between the remnants of Ron Paul’s campaign in Nevada and various Libertarian-leaning social groups at the university level, there is a large field of activists ready and willing to be tapped, provided the State LP can prove its legitimacy and effectiveness.

What tools can the Libertarian Party bring to bear to maximize its advantages in the state?  Unfortunately, things are much less positive here:

• The biggest Libertarian personality in Nevada is Wayne Allen Root, who has been largely blacklisted by the existing State LP leadership.
• The Libertarian Party in Nevada generally averages about 1-2% of the vote each year in the races that it manages to enter.
• There are fewer than 10,000 registered Libertarians, accounting for less than 1% of the voting electorate.
• The State LP has, at most, a few dozen activists, organized in fewer than half of Nevada’s counties.

On the other hand, we do have a few things going for us:

• Unlike the Independent American or Constitutionalist Parties, we’re not a bunch of whacko millenialists, and, unlike the Greens, we’re not a bunch of tree hugging hippies.  In other words, as far as third parties go, the Libertarians are fairly normal.  This is the conscious result of numerous purges in the State party over the past decade.
• The number of activists with direct ties to the Libertarian Party has doubled since the beginning of 2009.

In short, for the first time in a long, long time, the ground is increasingly favorable for the Libertarian Party here.  Unfortunately, we simply don’t have the tools to usefully exploit that - at least, not yet.  This brings us to what should be our near-term objectives, will will necessarily be limited in scope:

• Prove to Nevada that the Libertarian Party is normal.  Many people shun third parties because they believe that third parties consist of reality-challenged idealogues.  Ron Paul’s campaign was successfully derailed by the media presenting him as a 9/11 truther with Nazi sympathies; much of this was due to Ron Paul failing to control his message and failing to realize that, when someone asks you if you think 9/11 was a government conspiracy, you answer no.
• Become credible.  This is accomplished by gaining significant votes for Libertarian candidates - enough votes to actually swing elections and earn much needed publicity.
• Build a party apparatus.  Right now, the LP in Nevada is a few people that get together for drinks and the occasional meeting.  It needs to be more than that.
• Most importantly, stay on the ballot.  The other objectives will be impossible to meet if we fall off of the ballot for any reason.

This brings me to what our near-term strategy must be:

• Use the Republican Party’s loss of favor to encourage the media to come to Libertarians for a “conservative” voice.  This will increase exposure in the state and curry favor with the media.  If we build up long term relationships with the media, they will be less inclined to completely misrepresent us.
• Contact and work with what’s left of Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty group and the various student organizations in Nevada’s universities to create a like-minded coalition capable of generating voter registrations and attracting the youth (terrible voters but great volunteers).
• Stage successful community outreach programs that highlight the Libertarian agenda.  The various anti-bailout “Tea Parties” taking place around the country would be an excellent starting point.  Small four man protests, on the other hand, should be avoided.  This will almost certainly involve a coalition of like minded groups to pull off.
• Get organized in as many counties as practical.  Currently, there are only local affiliates in four counties, and Nye County’s presently pending affiliation is shaky at best.  This must be addressed as soon as possible, especially since rural races are relatively low hanging fruit, requiring less time and energy to successfully pursue.  This will almost certainly require abandoning, severely reducing, or completely restructuring the current dues-paying load for non-affiliated counties; presently, the total cost to become a member of the Nevada LP is $50 ($25 to the National LP, $25 to the State) for non-affiliated areas.  This is rather steep, especially since the major parties don’t require dues at all to join.
• Raise some money outside of “Welcome to the Party” sources.  The 1776 Brigade is a good start, albeit miserably executed.  There are numerous ways to raise money - banquets, meet & greets, general donations, actually asking people - all methods should be pursued.

These are my thoughts.  Hopefully somebody will be willing to add to them.

[1] - Luxembourg was overrun in both World Wars within a day.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

• I engage in a semi-coherent rant about the Dodge Aspen that changes tone and direction at least a few dozen times.  I’m really not proud of this one.
• A little toilet humor, anyone?
• A requiem for my old truck, which I replaced over the weekend.

So, you see, I have been writing.  As for the bailout bill, I’ll get back to that - I’m still chewing on the final version, which is laid out a little differently than the version the House threw at the Senate a few weeks ago.

The answer?  Much, much worse than it looks now.

In order to understand why, it’s important to understand what money is.  Money, by itself, no matter what form it takes, has almost no intrinsic value.  It doesn’t matter if it’s gold, silver, wampum, or “fiat” money.  By themselves, each of these monetary objects are about as useless.  Can you grow food on a gold coin?  No.  Can you build a house on a gold coin?  Not unless it’s freakishly huge.  Can you build a house out of gold coins?  Probably not - it’s rather malleable, so it’ll probably collapse under its own weight.  To be honest, gold excels at being an electrical conductor and, frankly, not much else.  The same could be said for silver, though it’s actually hard enough to make easily tarnishable utensils out of; its worth as a weapon against the undead is, at present, somewhat limited.  Wampum… well, you can make belts out of it, I guess.  Paper money can be used for most of the same things that every other kind of paper can be used for, though, in my experience, it’s not particularly absorbent, so that limits its usefulness somewhat.  The reason any of this stuff has value in the first place is because it’s common enough where everybody can get some, scarce enough where everybody can’t get a truckload whenever they want, it’s useless enough where we don’t want to use it for something else, and money is a heck of a lot more convenient than bartering.

Unfortunately, it’s that last bit that kills entitlements.  See, we’re still bartering - we’re just bartering with something that we all want, instead of trying to barter with various disparate goods of varying worth.  In order to barter, though, there has to be something to barter.  If you don’t have land and I don’t have land, it doesn’t matter how much money or cows or whatever either of us have - we can’t trade for land with each other.  If you don’t have wood and I don’t have wood, it doesn’t matter what either of us have - neither of us can trade for a log cabin.  Similarly, if we suddenly have a bunch of people needing medical care and fewer people able to provide it, it doesn’t matter how much money we have set aside or how responsible we were forty years ago - there’s only so much medical care to barter for in the here and now and there is nothing we can do to change that.  Worse yet, if we suddenly have a bunch of people that aren’t working and aren’t providing anything but money to trade, it doesn’t matter how much money they have - there’s less stuff to barter for, so either they’re not going to be able to buy as much stuff or we’re not going to be able to buy as much stuff.  The amount of stuff is finite.  No amount of money ever changes that.

This brings us to why fully funded pensions, Social Security, and Medicaid would be diastrous to everyone under the age of, say, 55.  If our politicians were prudent, the elderly would have enough money to purchase a disproportionate share of every single good that we consume and would be able to do so from when they were 55 until they were dead, on average, about twenty years later, all without having to add a single thing to barter with other than money.  The result would effectively be “stagflation” - a steadily increasing money supply released by every retiree burning through their pensions while the labor pool and the economy shrinks.  This would erode the value of the pensions while simultaneously pricing the producers out of the economy.  If you think going to the doctor is expensive now, imagine how expensive it would be if the biggest consumers of medical care could pay twice as much.

Fortunately, in a “blind squirrel finds a nut” fashion, our politicians and corporate leaders have lucked out.  Thanks to nearly criminal mismanagement of pensions and a ridiculously expansionist monetary policy, it’s much more difficult for the elderly to hoard enough money to disproportionately consume the products of our economy without providing anything in return.  By inflating the money supply, we ensure that those that produce get their fair share - after all, they’re the ones receiving new money, not the pensioners.  Meanwhile, by kneecapping elderly pensions, we ensure they don’t hoard enough money to jack the price of medical care, leisure, and housing any higher than they already have.  Best of all, by the combination of these effects, we encourage the elderly to continue producing and adding to the economy long after they would like to; instead of retiring at 55 or even 65 like they thought, they’re instead going to have to contribute well into their 70s to make ends meet, in much the same way that their grandparents had to work nearly to their grave.

So, if you’re under the age of 55 and can afford anything, thank a spineless politician or a greedy capitalist!  Without them, your grandparents would have priced you out of existence a long time ago.

Jesus, this is f—ing ridiculous.

Of course, even if I could get the transfer case out of there, I have no idea how the various parts fit together or which parts are which, so “repairing” it would probably be a bad idea.  Fortunately, replacing the dumb thing doesn’t look especially difficult, so that might be the route I go.  Now I just need to call around and figure out what my options are…

I’d just like to start by pointing out that I’m beginning to understand completely why legislators don’t read the crap that crosses their desks.  Maybe it’s the six hours of sleep I got last night, maybe it’s the page after page of interminable “For an additional amount for ‘Random Project That We’re Making Up Now’, $Some_amount_we’re_pulling_out_of_our_asses“, but, whatever it is, it’s absolutely driving me to insanity.  I really can’t begin to describe it.  Just be thankful that I’m doing this, be thankful I haven’t noticed that the Senate has passed their version, and, most of all, be thankful I’m dense enough to not give a flying rat’s ass that the final bill will be entirely different from the one I’m slowly deconstructing here.

With that aside out of the way, Title III–Commerce, Justice, and Science provides additional funding to the departments of Commerce, Justice, and Science, respectively, through three Subtitles.  This is the section where the Department of Commerce receives additional Census funding, which is increasingly becoming somewhat controversial due to the Obama Administration’s sudden interest in the Census process, among other things.

Let’s take a look!

Subtitle A–Commerce

• $250,000,000 for “Economic Development Assistance Programs”, of which up to $50,000,000 can go to “federally authorized regional economic development commissions”.  I’d love to find out what sort of economic development is being assisted here.
• $1,000,000,000 more for the upcoming census in 2010.  Coincidentally, this is another Section 1106-exempt line-item.
• $350,000,000 for salaries and expenses for the State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program.  There’s quite a bit of money going to various federal agencies to roll out broadband - it’ll be fun to see who actually gets to take charge on this.
• $2,825,000,000 for Wireless and Broadband Deployment Grants.  I wonder if Verizon will lower my bill now that the taxpayer is paying for their infrastructure upgrades?
• $650,000,000 for the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program.  Thank goodness - I need to get one of these for my black & white at the cabin!
• $100,000,000 for “Scientific and Technical Research and Services”.  I’m almost afraid to ask what they’re researching…
• $100,000,000 for “Industrial Technology Services”, of which $30,000,000 shall be available for the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership.  You can think of this line item as a straight sales shot to Eureka! Ranch International, a rather successful consulting firm, since the Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a big fan of their Eureka! Winning Ways package.
• $300,000,000 for “Construction of Research Facilities”.  Note that this is not under the Department of Science.
• $400,000,000 for “Operations, Research and Facilities” for habitat restoration and mitigation activities.  That’s right, we’re paying $400 million for buildings so people can restore areas to a pre-building state.  Don’t let the irony hit you on the way out.
• $600,000,000 for “Procurement, Acquisition and Construction” of satellites, with a substantial amount going towards weather satellites.

Subtitle B–Justice

• $3,000,000,000 for “State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance” under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program.
• $1,000,000,000 for “Community Oriented Policing Services”.  Basically, they’re paying a few police officer salaries.  The matching funds requirement and salary limits are waived, which means that this is now a straight-up handout with no strings attached and no limit to compensation.  I see this ending well.

Subtitle C–Science

• $400,000,000 to NASA to study Earth’s climate.  If you’re confused about why NASA gets $400 million and the Department of Commerce gets $600 million to study the same problem, you’re not alone.
• $150,000,000 to NASA for “aeronautics”.  Seriously, that’s all the information we get.
• $50,000,000 to rebuild NASA-owned infrastructure that was wiped out in various natural disasters.  Strangely, this one actually makes some sense.
• $2,500,000,000 to the National Science Foundation for “Research and Related Activities”.  This money goes towards various government-run research grants.
• $100,000,000 to the NSF for “Education and Human Resources”.
• $400,000,000 to the NSF for “Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction”.  Thankfully, this money is “available only for approved projects.”  Glad we have that established.

That’s it, folks.  The Department of Commerce is spending money on sciences, the Department of Science is spending money on grants, and the Department of Justice is making sure that, when the poverty-driven riots begin to break out, that we’ll be able to keep the proles in line.  How cool is that?

(Ugh.)

Previous: Division A, Title 2

• This video from the Onion sums up just about every ounce of frustration I’ve ever had with any technical device.  Please note that the language is extremely NSFW.
• I have a new Car Lust up!  Enjoy the melange of Oldsmodiesels, Italian military futility, and multi-dimensional physics.
• Map Scroll is easily one of the most fascinating new map-loving blogs I’ve ever seen.  If you enjoy esoteric bits of cartography half as much as I do, you’ll love this one.  It already has a fond place in my RSS feeder.

That’s it for now.  Sorry for the light content - hopefully tomorrow goes better.

Title II — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Rural Development marks the true beginning of stimulus spending in the original House bill.  Up until this point, all of the spending has been on administrative overhead and fraud prevention.  Curiously enough, most of the spending in this Title is on loans to low-income homeowners; apparently, there’s a rural version of HUD.  There’s also a surprising amount dedicated towards various IT projects, which, being an IT guy myself, I find strangely exciting, if a little worrisome.  Here’s an itemized list:

• $44,000,000 on “Agriculture Buildings and Facilities and Rental Payments” - interestingly, the funding for this is exempt from Section 1106, which assigns funds for oversight.
• $209,000,000 on “Buildings and Facilities”, for “work on deferred maintenance at Agricultural Research Services facilities”.
• $245,000,000 for “Salaries and Expenses”, for “the purpose of maintaining and modernizing the information technology system” of the Farm Service Agency.  Section 1106 doesn’t apply here, either.  I, for one, would love to work on an IT project with no budget assigned for oversight, especially one with a multi-million dollar budget.
• $350,000,000 for “Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations”, of which $175,000,000 would be used to purchase floodplain easements.  This is yet another appropriation that isn’t subject to Section 1106.
• $50,000,000 to the “Watershed Rehabilitation Program” to fix various structures (levees and the like).  It’s also Section 1106-exempt.
• $5,838,000,000 of direct and guaranteed loans for the “rural community advancement program”, including $1,102,000,000 for rural community facilities, $2,000,000,000 for business and industry, and $2,736,000,000 for rural water and waste disposal, plus another $1,800,000,000 in loans and grants, apportioned out to the various causes listed here.  Instead of Section 1106, the Secretary of Agriculture can assign up to 3% of the money listed here for oversight, loan guarantees, and the like.
• $22,129,000,000 for loans to Section 502 (the Rural Homeownership Loan Program) borrowers. Section 502 loans money to low-income individuals in rural areas for housing assistance - think Little HUD on the Prairie.  This is the biggest spending item in this section.  The good news here is that, if you’re already over your head in mortgage payments, you can dig yourself into a deeper hole by also owing the government money.  Exciting, isn’t it?
• $2,825,000,000 to roll out broadband to rural areas.  Keep in mind that this money would be under the Department of Agriculture - there are numerous departments that will ultimately be responsible for providing broadband to rural areas, a situation that the Senate is working hard to exacerbate.  Amusingly, most of the people this money would “help” don’t even want high-speed Internet access; obviously, spending money on infrastructure that people don’t even want certainly won’t help the popularity of this bill any.
• $100,000,000 for “management information systems” for WIC.
• $150,000,000 for the “emergency food assistance program”.
• $300,000,000 for administrative costs to handle everything listed above.  Section 1106 doesn’t apply here.

So, to summarize, we’re looking at north of $20 billion in housing loan bailouts, a few billion in infrastructure payouts (broadband for the Amish!), and a substantial amount in IT spending.  There are going to be some happy and wealthy IT directors in our federal government for the next couple of years… I wonder what their pension plans look like?

Previous: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle B

Next: Division A, Title 3

Japan’s rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery.

Now, as the Obama administration embarks on a similar path, proposing to spend more than $820 billion to stimulate the sagging American economy, many economists are taking a fresh look at Japan’s troubled experience. While Japan is not exactly comparable to the United States — especially as a late developer with a history of heavy state investment in infrastructure — economists say it can still offer important lessons about the pitfalls, and chances for success, of a stimulus package in an advanced economy.

In a nutshell, Japan’s experience suggests that infrastructure spending, while a blunt instrument, can help revive a developed economy, say many economists and one very important American official: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who was a young financial attaché in Japan during the collapse and subsequent doldrums. One lesson Mr. Geithner has said he took away from that experience is that spending must come in quick, massive doses, and be continued until recovery takes firm root.

Okay, let’s make sure we follow this logic:  Japan racked up some amazing debt - 180% of its GDP, which, were we to match that, would require a staggering $14 trillion increase in Federal debt - on infrastructure spending, hoping to turn around their economy.  The economy didn’t turn around - in fact, growth was stagnant.  So, based on this experience, economists have successfully learned that infrastructure spending works and helps grow economies. If this sounds awfully, shall we say, faith based, well, perhaps this might help:

But some Western economists who have studied Japan’s experience say the stimulus accomplished more than it is now given credit for. At a minimum, they argue, it saved the economy from an outright, 1930s-style collapse.

Moreover, they say, any direct comparison of Japan and the United States is inevitably misleading, because Japan has spent so much more over the years on infrastructure. Having neglected its roads, bridges, water treatment plants and more over the years, the United States is bound to generate a greater payback for such spending than would Japan.

Beyond that, proponents of Keynesian-style stimulus spending in the United States say that Japan’s approach failed to accomplish more not because of waste but because it was never tried wholeheartedly. They argue that instead of making one big push to pump up the economy with economic shock therapy, Japan spread its spending out over several years, diluting the effects.

That’s right - Japan didn’t succeed because they didn’t believe enough.  Apparently, racking up the highest level of debt in the developed world isn’t enough belief.  Of course, if that wasn’t it, there’s always the other old faith-standby:  They were doing it wrong!

Economists said the finding suggested that while infrastructure spending may yield strong results for developing nations, creating jobs in higher-paying knowledge-based services like health care and education can bring larger benefits to advanced economies like Japan, with its aging population.

“In hindsight, Japan should have built public works that address the problems it faces today, like aging, energy and food sources,” said Takehiko Hobo, a professor emeritus of public finance at Shimane University in Matsue, the main city of Shimane. “This obsession with building roads is a holdover from an earlier era.”

See, when you’re praying, it’s helpful to follow the right rituals.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking.  But Dave… tax cuts had the exact same results!  All of the arguments that tax cut proponents use are almost identical! That’s absolutely true!  We cut taxes, went further into debt (albeit not as severely as Japan’s) and what do we have to show for it?  By the time the recession ends in 2010 (if that soon), our economy will probably be at about the same size as it was in 2005.  Tax cut proponents offer the same litany of arguments, too.  “We didn’t cut taxes far enough.  We didn’t cut taxes on the right people.  We didn’t decrease spending.  We didn’t cut taxes fast enough.”  On and on they go, each side trotting out their numbers, each side coming up with data samples that sort of prove their point, each side completely missing the big picture:

The simple, sad, honest truth is that, as far as the economy in any reasonably developed country is concerned, the government doesn’t matter.

The trouble with any large, well developed economy is that, short of converting to absolute state-owned communism, the government will never be a big enough player in the economy to truly control it.  Don’t get me wrong - if you throw spending up high enough or increase tax receipts enough, government will still be a big player.  However, there are still far too many little players running around doing their own thing for even the biggest player (which government invariably will be) to have any real, considerable control over the business cycle.  The most government can do is either soften or amplify the cycle a little and, frankly, that’s only true as long as the rest of the players are willing to play along, which isn’t always guaranteed.  Besides, government’s motivation tends to be somewhat mixed - case in point:

In Hamada, residents say the city’s most visible “hakomono,” the Japanese equivalent of “white elephant,” was its own bridge to nowhere, the $70 million Marine Bridge, whose 1,006-foot span sat almost completely devoid of traffic on a recent morning. Built in 1999, the bridge links the city to a small, sparsely populated island already connected by a shorter bridge.

“The bridge? It’s a dud,” said Masahiro Shimada, 70, a retired city official who was fishing near the port. “Maybe we could use it for bungee jumping,” he joked.

Koichi Matsuoka, a retired professor of policy at the University of Shimane in Hamada, said useless projects like the Marine Bridge were the reason that years of huge spending had brought few long-term benefits here. While Shimane has had the highest per capita spending on public works in Japan for the last 18 years, thanks to powerful local politicians like the deceased former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, its per capita annual income of $26,000 ranked it 40th among Japan’s 47 prefectures, he said. He said the spending had left Shimane $11 billion in debt, twice the size of the prefectural government’s annual budget.

Herein lies the rub - government funds tend to get spent on what the politically powerful want, not what people will actually use.  This is why capitalism is so compelling:  Regular businesses can only afford to build what people are willing (or capable) of paying for.  Government spending doesn’t labor under such constraints.  Given a choice between paying for a bunch of junk that nobody but the politically connected want and paying for a bunch of junk that I might actually use from time to time, I know which way my alliegance lies.

Good luck with that, buddy.  You’re going to need it.

The theme for Subtitle B is transparency - what kind of reporting requirements are people going to be responsible for if they spend some of the stimulus money?  In many respects, this section ties into a point I’ve made a time or two - democratic governments, by their very nature, are inefficient.  You have to keep all stakeholders in account, whether they support you or not, and you have to ensure that everybody knows exactly what you’re doing.  Now we get to witness what, exactly, that means, in four part harmony.

Part 1 - Transparency and oversight requirements: I’m not going to bother doing a section-by-section assessment of this part because, frankly, most of the sections aren’t that interesting.  One item to note, however, is that each Federal agency that plans on spending any stimulus money will have to post their plans on Recovery.gov.  Also, contractors are supposed to come up with fixed price contracts, which should, at least on paper, minimize budget overruns and the like.

Part 2 - Accountability and transparency board: Essentially, this part creates a board whose job is to minimize waste, perform audits of various federal agencies, and periodically report to Congress.  Interestingly, the Chief Performance Officer will be chairing the board, which makes Obama’s last pick for this new position rather striking.  When it’s somebody’s job to make sure that $900 billion is properly spent, it’s probably a good idea to make sure they can handle basic payroll taxes.  Of course, this also raises another question:  Who chairs the board if Obama can’t find a politically palatable nominee for the position?  One moderately interesting section is Sec. 1230, which bumps our funding total up by another $14 million to pay for the board, the Recovery.gov website, inspectors general and travel expenses for the Independent Advisory Panel.

Part 3 - Additional accountability and transparency provisions: Do you think that your company is fraudulently taking money from the stimulus?  Well, here’s the part that addresses how you can file a complaint and what sort of protections you have.  Also, if you have a stimulus-related contract, the Inspector General pretty much owns you, so don’t get in his or her way during an investigation.  Trust me, you do not want to get in the way of the Inspector General.

Part 4 - Further accountability and transparency provisions: This part is also known as the “Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009″, which means that we’ve achieved such a deep acceptance of meta that we’re even allowing legislation to have other bits of legislation inside of them.  Unfortunately, much of this part involves various changes to US Code and, not being a lawyer or possessing even a faint understanding of Federal whistleblower law, I’m pretty lost here.  One interesting section is Section 1273, listed as “Clarification of whistleblower rights relating to scientific and other research”, which launches into a two page definition of “on the basis of religion” that is, if absolutely nothing else, quite exhaustive.  Among other things, you’re apparently not allowed to prohibit discussion of religious content if you allow discussion of political content - at least, I think that’s what it says.  Honestly, reading this part reminds me why I went into IT instead of law.

That’s it!  Next up… Title II, or “The Pork Strikes Back”.

Previous: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle A

Next: Division A, Title 2

Amount Appropriated Thus Far:  $218,500,000

Like any bad joke, Division A starts with the punchline:

SEC. 1001. STATEMENT OF APPROPRIATIONS.

     The following sums in this Act are appropriated, out of any money
in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2009, and for other purposes.

Considering how we’re swimming in debt at the moment, I’m dying to know what money, exactly, is in the Treasury, much less not appropriated.  But, I digest…

Subtitle A — Use of Funds

The title is fairly self-explanatory - it covers how the “stimulus” money should be appropriated, what level of oversight should be present, and budgets money to accommodate that.  It’s in this area that we see some of the more controversial parts of the bill, including the “Buy American!” clause that Obama recently recanted on (Via Insta) and the preference for shovel-ready infrastructure projects.

Let’s dig in, shall we?

Section 1101 - Relationship to other appropriations: This isn’t the only spending bill that Congress is going to pass this year.

Section 1102 - Preference for quick-start activities: At least half of the money set aside for infrastructure projects will go to projects that can be started within 120 days of the bill being passed.  Wait… no, that’s not a “will” - it’s more of a goal.  So, we hope that at least half of the money set aside for infrastructure projects might go towards… oh, never mind.

Section 1103 - Requirement of timely award of grants: Once the bill gets passed, grants have to be handed out between a month to four months of the passage of the bill, depending on whether the grant is a formula grant or a competitive grant (praise FSM for Wikipedia!) and whether or not a deadline extension is required.  How quickly do the recipients have to spend the money?  Funny you should ask…

Section 1104 - Use it or lose it requirements for grantees: You have a year to set up contracts that burn through half of the money coming your direction, and two years to burn through the rest.  If you don’t pull that off, whatever money you have left gets taken from you and, within 120 days, sent to another federal agency that can spend it in a hurry.  Luckily, this only applies to HUD, the Department of Transportation and the EPA’s “State & Tribal Assistance Grants”, so, unless you’re planning on cleaning something up, building a road, or building some apartments, you can safely ignore this.

Section 1105 - Period of availability: The money will be there until September 30, 2010 unless we say otherwise.  Of course, we’ll undoubtedly be saying otherwise later.

Section 1106 - Set-aside for management and oversight: Up to 0.5% can be used to make sure we’re putting this money where we think we’re putting this money.  I’m a little curious how much oversight half of one percent will buy us - maybe that gets us TARP-level management and oversight!

Section 1107 - Appropriations for Inspector General: Lots and lots and lots of Inspector Generals!  Well, okay, only twenty of them, but it’s still enough to give us the first $193,500,000 of “stimulus”.  If you’re an auditor, consider yourself stimulated!

Section 1108 - Appropriation for Government Accountability Office: You know how we can read the bill online?  Yeah, the office responsible for pulling that off just got a cool $25 mil.  Help them spend it by burning through their bandwidth!

Section 1109 - Prohibited uses: We’re willing to stimulate your economy, as long as it doesn’t involve gambling, aquariums, zoos, golfing, or swimming.  Interestingly, brothels are still on the table.  How stimulating is that?

Section 1110 - Use of American iron and steel: Well, this went away in a hurry… basically, the idea here is that, if you’re spending stimulus money on infrastructure, you better be ready to use US-produced iron and steel, provided it wasn’t more than 25% more expensive than its Chinese equivalent and provided it didn’t completely suck.

Section 1111 - Wage rate requirements: No using slave labor for government projects.  The Civilian Conservation Corps would have troubles working in these conditions.

Section 1112 - Additional assurance of appropriate use of funds: I love this particular clause so much that I’m going to quote it verbatim:

SEC. 1112. ADDITIONAL ASSURANCE OF APPROPRIATE USE OF FUNDS.

None of the funds provided by this Act may be made available to the

State of Illinois, or any agency of the State, unless: (1) the use of

such funds by the State is approved in legislation enacted by the State

after the date of the enactment of this Act; or (2) Rod R. Blagojevich

no longer holds the office of Governor of the State of Illinois. The

preceding sentence shall not apply to any funds provided directly to a

unit of local government: (1) by a Federal department or agency; or (2)

by an established formula from the State.

As Glenn would say, “Heh.”

Section 1113 - Persistent poverty counties: At least 10% of the money in here goes to counties that have been dirt broke for the past 30 years.  I have a sneaking suspicion this is a handout to more rural parts of the Midwest - most urban counties would have enough of a range of incomes to render something like this moot.

Section 1114 - Required participation in E-Verify program: If you’re a contractor, you have to be in the E-Verify program in order to receive any of this money.

Section 1115 - Additional funding distribution and assurance of appropriate use of funds: States have 45 days to request stimulus funds once the Act is approved and they can be requested from either the state legislatures or from their governors.  I wonder if any states will pass?

Well… that’s it.  Come back later for the next exciting installment of Blogging HR1!

Previous: In The Beginning…

Next: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle B

Without further ado… let’s focus on what they’re trying to accomplish here:

SEC. 3. PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES.

    (a) Statement of Purposes.--The purposes of this Act include the
following:
            (1) To preserve and create jobs and promote economic
        recovery.
            (2) To assist those most impacted by the recession.
            (3) To provide investments needed to increase economic
        efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and
        health.
            (4) To invest in transportation, environmental protection,
        and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic
        benefits.
            (5) To stabilize State and local government budgets, in
        order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services
        and counterproductive state and local tax increases.
    (b) General Principles Concerning Use of Funds.--The President and
the heads of Federal departments and agencies shall manage and expend
the funds made available in this Act so as to achieve the purposes
specified in subsection (a), including commencing expenditures and
activities as quickly as possible consistent with prudent management.

Well, there you go.  As long as we’re being prudent about spending nearly $900 billion that we don’t have.  I’d hate to think that we’re being imprudent with that kind of debt load.  Speaking of which…

SEC. 5. EMERGENCY DESIGNATIONS.

    (a) In General.--Each amount in this Act is designated as an
emergency requirement and necessary to meet emergency needs pursuant to
section 204(a) of S. Con. Res. 21 (110th Congress) and section
301(b)(2) of S. Con. Res. 70 (110th Congress), the concurrent
resolutions on the budget for fiscal years 2008 and 2009.
    (b) Pay-as-You-Go.--All applicable provisions in this Act are
designated as an emergency for purposes of pay-as-you-go principles.

Well, okay then.  Glad to hear it’s an emergency.

Here’s how this is going to work… I’m going to go on a section by section basis, give some thoughts on what I think is going on, and then we’ll go from there.  No promises on the accuracy or veracity of my conclusions or opinions, all sales final, no warranty is expressely granted or implied except where otherwise prohibited by law, etc. etc. etc.  I’m not entirely sure how far I’ll get - there’s a lot to read - but we’ll see where this goes.  Posts will generally be organized by division, title, and section.  Alternatively, I may organize them by lucidity and the amount of Prozac that I wish I had at that point.  Frankly, I might just leave it completely disorganized and run like hell.

HR1 is organized in two divisions, namely, Division A (Appropriation Provisions) and Division B (Other Provisions).  Division A has most of the spending, while Division B focuses on tax breaks and various modifications of existing health programs.  Each of these divisions, meanwhile, are organized into titles, which can be thought of as analogous to chapters in a book; these are, in turn, organized in subtitles, which are composed of various sections.  The titles touch on what, broadly speaking, a batch of spending is focused on (i.e. agriculture, defense, energy, etc.) or, in the case of Division B, broad topics of interest (broadband communications, Medicaid, and so on).  The bill itself is 679 pages long, which sounds a lot worse than it really is - the font size and layout is probably closer to a Dr. Seuss book than a Tolstoy novel.  If you open it up in MS Word, it only takes up 268 pages and 114,227 words, which, granted, is still significant, but nowhere near as scary as the news makes it sound.

That’s the general overview… let’s dig into the meat.

Next: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle A

Let me get this straight, Republican Representatives are no longer in the “business of legislating?” I wonder if their constituents, the ones who elected them to legislate on their behalf, are aware of this? Isn’t legislating a legislator’s job after all? I can’t believe such a bald admission of partisanship wasn’t treated like the heresy it is. Boehner basically told his colleagues that there are not going to the what they were elected to do–LEGISLATE.

When I first read this, I was profoundly confused.  Is there not a large Democrat majority in the House?  Why yes - yes there is.  Is there not a large Democrat majority in the Senate?  Again, yes, there is - in fact, now that Sen. Gregg has left the Senate to become Obama’s Commerce Secretary, there’s a better than even chance that the Senate may end up with a filibuster-proof Democratic majority.  Is there not a Democrat in the White House?  Pretty sure there is.  So, with all that in place… why, exactly, should the Democratic Party work with the Republicans on anything?  They clearly don’t need the votes - in fact, when the House passed their stimulus package, they did so without a single GOP vote.  So, with that in mind… how, exactly, are the Republicans supposed to legislate?

Apparently, there are some Democrats that are in the same position (via HotAir):

A group of more than 50 House Democrats has penned a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) imploring him to “restore this institution” and see that the House returns to a “regular order” process of legislating.

The letter, signed by a large number of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the centrist New Democratic Coalition, has not yet been sent. Members are still gathering signatures in an effort to send the strongest signal possible to all top House Democrats that the caucus is up in arms over the top-down method of legislating employed by Democrats since late last year.

[...]

Since last year, many senior House Democrats — many of them subcommittee chairmen — have grown overly frustrated with how only small and select bands of legislators have been responsible for writing bills, such as the $700 billion Wall Street bailout as well as much of the $819 billion economic stimulus bill.

Democratic leaders have acknowledged that the “regular order” process of methodically developing and writing bills in subcommittees and committees has been abandoned recently. But they have defended the handling of such sensitive and important legislation by only an exclusive group of leadership and senior lawmakers as a necessary tactic during exceptional times.

That’s right - not only are the Republicans not in the business of legislating, most Democrats aren’t in the business of legislating, and apparently haven’t been for months.  The Democratic leadership in the House managed to draft over $1.5 trillion in spending(!!!) without sufficiently including their own caucus, to say nothing of the Republicans.  I wonder how their constituents, the ones who elected them to legislate on their behalf, will feel when they find out that the people they elected to represent them are being shut out by the very leadership that promised to “end” bipartisan bickering in the first place?

While I’m here and on a small tear, I’d like to point out that, in the history of US government, true “bipartisanship” has always been a rarity.  Whether it was the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, both World Wars, busting the trusts, you name it, there has always - always - been one party fighting for something (whatever that was) and another party fighting against, and, as long as our government is structured the way it is, this will always remain true.  People don’t elect Republicans so they’ll work with the Democrats - if they wanted that, they’d vote for Democrats.  People don’t elect Democrats so they’ll work with Republicans - if they wanted that, they’d vote for Republicans.  As for us Libertarians, well, shoot, we don’t want to work with anybody.

1. Efficacy:  How well do DUI checkpoints really work?
2. Location:  It’s ultimately up to local law enforcement to select a “random” location to enact these DUI checkpoints.  Needless to say, they’re rarely carried out at the entrances to well-heeled gated communities.

So, how did last night’s DUI checkpoint in Reno do?  Let’s find out…

1. Efficacy: The police stopped 995 cars.  Of those, fewer than 1 % were charged with driving under the influence.  Fortunately, we proud taxpayers may take solace in the fact that, though the DUI checkpoint inconvenienced nearly a thousand drivers to stop the reckless actions of eight, at least our police correctly cited twenty-two people for using excessive tinting on their windows.  Truly justice was served last night!
2. Location: Since the point of the DUI checkpoints is to help ensure that drunken frivolity and merriment stays in the bars and isn’t extended into the roadways, we can expect that the DUI checkpoints would be near sports bars, where fans of the Super Bowl would presumably be intoxicating themselves before engaging in some alcohol-fueled road-related shenanigans.  With that in mind, we can safely expect a plethora of sports bars to be located near each DUI checkpoint.  Allow me to demonstrate:

   
   View Larger Map

   That’s right - the DUI checkpoint was placed about as far away from every sports bar in Washoe County that you could place a DUI checkpoint and still have people drive through it.  That El Rancho just happens to be one of the major thoroughfares to Sun Valley, one of the more economically depressed neighborhoods in our area, is, of course, purely a coincidence.

So, just to make sure I understand what was accomplished last night, let’s recap:

A DUI checkpoint implemented to keep people from killing each other after a night of football-related drunken debauchery was put as far away from the drunken debauchery as humanly possible and violated the civil rights of nearly a thousand drivers, of which less than one percent were engaging in the very act that “necessitated” the DUI checkpoint in the first place.

This is why I prefer a limited government.

Yeah… I think that pretty well sums things up.

Some who were on the plane - brought down by a flock of geese after takeoff from La Guardia Airport on Jan. 15 - said the temporary tease of first-class perks is for the birds.

“I think if you survive a plane crash, being upgraded permanently is a good gesture too,” said Fred Berretta, 41, of Charlotte, NC, where the Airbus A320 was headed.

Manhattanite Tess Sosa, who escaped the sinking plane with her husband and two small children, thought the airline was too focused on self-congratulations - and “they want to exonerate themselves as much as they can.”

“They are happy they had such amazing results, and they applaud themselves, and then give us a small token?” she said. “That’s how I take it.”

I’m going to make this crystal clear:  Just because something bad happened to you, it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to anything. For far too long, we’ve allowed people to believe that, if something bad happens to them, they not only have to be “made whole”, they’re entitled to be “made whole”.  For better or worse, bad things happen.  This is the nature of life.  If you fail a class, that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to money from the professor.  If you car breaks down after the warranty period, you’re not entitled to free repairs.  You assume risk by virtue of breathing. Accept the risk, manage the risk, and move on with your lives.  If you don’t, somebody will take your ability to assume risk away from you, and, since you assume risk just by breathing, well, you can imagine where that will go.