Archive for the 'Libertarian' Category

I wrote a little piece the other day pointing out that Denny Rehberg so often talks up the free market but only when it is beneficial to certain industries. The words ‘free market’ must have hit and alarm in Dave Budge’s text filter, because he showed up straight away and went to town telling me that I don’t know anything about economics.

So, after a long back-and-forth, I grew weary and I promised Dave that I would answer a question in a post of it’s own. Welcome to that post, glad you could make it. The central issue was allowing Medicare to negotiate on prescription drug prices. While we argued back and forth on whether Medicare was a monopsony ( a market with only one buyer ). Dave refused to concede that this was not the case and that I had failed to show a “dominating list of buyers that would push the industry past monopsonistic competion”, even though I pointed to insurance plans and the fact that France and Germany both spent more on drugs than Medicare, not to mention a long list of countries that purchased high fractions of Medicare’s budget. Dave just answered by making this point and demanding that I answer it:

U.S. pharma produces roughly 70% of all pharmaceutical innovations in the world. According to a report by the AMA last year, U.S. consumers subsidize roughly 20% of the price of exported drugs to countries that impose price controls _ pretty much the list that you mention above. In the same report the AMA urged the Dept. of Commerce to pressure those countries to “share the burden of innovation” buy opening up the markets so it wasn’t entirely on the backs of U.S. consumers.
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What you’re proposing will eviscerate the development of new drug technologies. So, when I ask you who it will help and who it will hurt you fall back on a superficial argument of the short run. In the context of this market - which funds the vast majority of clinical research and innovation, the U.S oligopsony is real as to practical effects inasmuch it’s the last relatively free market that exists and the source of profits that fund innovation. But I guess you don’t give a shit about that.

I thought that this might take me a bit of time to research and answer appropriately, but it turns out that my Google-foo is still pretty good and I came up with this piece [website, PDF ] that answers the question well enough for me. What Dave is saying here is that if the government pays less for drugs by negotiating in the free market, then it will “eviscerate the development of new drug technologies”. The answer to that:

Fact 1: Drug companies are already spending more than twice as much on marketing
and advertising as on R&D.
In 2004, pharmaceutical companies spent, on average, nearly one-third (32 percent) of revenues on marketing, administration and advertising, compared with 14 percent on R&D.
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Fact 2: The drug industry is one of the most profitable industries in the country.
In 2005, the pharmaceutical industry kept 15.7 percent of revenue as profit, making it the fifth most profitable industry in the country. The industry’s high rates of return leave enough room for a significant reduction of drug prices without harming R&D.3
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Fact 3: New ‘breakthrough’ drugs, the costliest to develop, actually account for only a small proportion of medicines produced by drug companies.
The majority of drugs that the pharmaceutical industry develops each year are so-called “me too” drugs—modified forms or new uses of existing drugs, which incur lower R&D costs, such as the development of similar drugs following Gleevec, a breakthrough cancer drug.
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Fact 4: The industry exaggerates the role of private drug companies in the R&D of ‘breakthrough’ drugs.
Taxpayer-funded research, particularly by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), forms a significant foundation for R&D by private drug companies. Most of the important new drugs introduced by the drug industry in the past 40 years were developed with some contribution from the public sector. Only 5 out of the 21 most influential drugs introduced between 1965 and 1992
were developed entirely by the private sector.
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Fact 5: Lowered drug prices would likely spur demand.
Public Citizen cites a study indicating that cutting drug prices by 40 percent for people with Medicare would have a minimal effect on profits due to increased demand. Furthermore, lowered drug prices would induce companies to boost R&D for new drugs to sustain themselves, since the industry depends on research to come out with new and “potentially lucrative” medicines.6

All of these make a lot of sense to me. I find it patently absurd to suggest that lowering the price that Medicare pays one of the most profitable industry in the world would somehow make them shutdown and stop making new product. Note that Dave pointed out the fact that big pharma claims that they must charge us higher prices because they are selling drugs at lower costs to other nations. Do Dave and big pharma expect me to buy that argument when their profit margin is a matter of public record?

Now look back at Dave’s statement and note this:

In the context of this market - which funds the vast majority of clinical research and innovation, the U.S oligopsony is real as to practical effects inasmuch it’s the last relatively free market that exists and the source of profits that fund innovation.

I actually am privy to a bit of knowledge that this is not the case, and it was pointed out in the PDF referenced above. The simple fact is that the government puts a lot of money into drug R&D each year.

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) internal document, dated February 2000 and obtained by Public Citizen earlier this year, showed that all the top five selling drugs in 1995 received significant taxpayer backing in the discovery and development phases. Investigations by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Boston Globe also have examined samples of medically important and top-selling drugs and found that a vast majority of drugs in each group received government support.

I’ll end with the one point that pisses Dave off more than any others. You see, Dave hates the ‘rule of the masses’, or Democracy as I like to call it. One reason to allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drug prices is because 86% of Americans think that it should.

Now, if you grow weary of this debate, go over to Left in the West and read Matt’s take on the argument.

[UPDATE: I had left out a link to the PDF document from The Medicare Rights Center I referenced above. Those links are now in place.]

Free market voters are being lied to. Denny Rehberg has been a vocal proponent of ‘the free market’, but I am not so sure that his record really backs that up.

Healthcare

Denny Rehberg called the government ran SCHIPs program an “extremist political ideology” to expand government-run health care, ostensibly because it is not a free market solution. He has made the claim several times that free market principals are the answer to our health care problem. However, Denny Rehberg voted no on allowing Medicare to negotiate on prescription drug prices, just like any entity in the free market would do to keep prices low. Instead of voting to allow Medicare to adopt some policies that would make it operate more like every free market entity out there, he chose to vote against free market style reforms.

Energy

When it comes to talking points, Denny Rehberg likes to say things like “free market-economy hinges on open and competitive markets”, he voted no to a bill that would have ended subsidies to oil companies. When it comes to alternative fuels though, I see that he voted no to raising CAFE standards and providing incentives to for alternative energy. How is that an ‘open and competitive market’? On one hand, he supports subsidies to big oil (going against the idea of a ‘free market’) but on the other hand has repeatedly rejected offering incentives for alternative fuels.

to be continued…

Ever hear of the Ring of Steel?  Perhaps you don’t know the name, but somewhere you have probably heard about London’s successful surveillance program.  Put into effect in response to IRA bombings of the early 1990s, the program has been credited with successfully deterring crime in the city.

A similar system is headed to New York City.  And while it is the just the kind of thing to get Libertarian heads spinning, the majority of Americans would appear to support such a system, according to an ABC poll.

Given the chief arguments, pro and con — a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy — it isn’t close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it.

It is useful to point out that we are not talking about anything too covert or underhanded here; New York City’s plan calls for the installation of 100 extra cameras by the end of the year.  But with a further vision of getting that number to a staggering 3,000 cameras by 2010 (and with other cities adopting similar plans), this does present a situation that we should discuss, at the very least.

So I am interested in your opinions.  Is this a simple and effective deterrent to crime, and are the concerns minimal?  Or is this a step in the kind of direction we don’t want to go?

The floor is now open.

Well I am back in action. The LSAT was Monday, and I have sufficiently recovered to be able to put some coherent thoughts together.
There have been many things in the last few months that I have wanted to comment on, and thankfully there are reliable bloggers in Montana who will cover issues I think are important. And it was wonderful knowing that I could just relax and study for my test, and that someone would start a conversation on the issues.
So as I was revving back up this week, I was reading Time magazine, and I ran across Joe Klein’s commentary entitled “Beware the Bloggers’ Bile”. (June 18, 2007 issue, link provided).
Now I will be the first to admit that I get riled up at times, and have on a couple of occasions let my indignation get the better of me. Overall, I would have to say, I maintain a pretty level head. The simple fact remains, if I didn’t find something important to talk about, then I wouldn’t take the time to address it in a blog. I am not in the habit of just tossing out random ideas, in order to watch the shark feed happen. Better yet, I happen to write for a collaborative blog that actually discourages personal attacks, even when I am the one attacking.
Klien writes about “fury begets fury”, and I think he nailed it spot on. All sides of the arguments are susceptable to anger, some just tend to reside in it until their fingers get pruney. My favorite part of the article was this:

Anyone who doesn’t move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable.

One of the great things about this blog in particular, is that while occasionally authors will get “savaged”, the prevailing tone is one of open discourse, and sometimes the readers and writers’ change their minds. Last I checked, I don’t think anyone (reader or writer) of us falls into a hardline lockstep position with any party. I like that. I like the fact that there is somewhere in the bloggosphere that I can count on to discuss things I find important, and who could care less what my actual political leaning may, or may not be.So thanks to all the contributors: the readers, the writers and the commentators. It is a wonderful thing to share time with you thinking, discussing, and brainstorming.

This is one of the most interesting pieces I have read in a while, as it articulates an argument that I have been trying to formulate for some time now. In the piece, Kos examines this argument by Karl Rove:

Rove thinks that more voters now are being influenced by technology and religion. “There are two or three societal trends that are driving us in an increasingly deep center-right posture,” he said. “One of them is the power of the computer chip. Do you know how many people’s principal source of income is eBay? Seven hundred thousand.” He went on, “So the power of the computer has made it possible for people to gain greater control over their lives. It’s given people a greater chance to run their own business, become a sole proprietor or an entrepreneur. As a result, it has made us more market-oriented, and that equals making you more center-right in your politics.”

Now, this is an interesting idea from Rove, but Kos thinks that it might not have the merit that one might think.  He provides a real world example.

As a small business person myself, my biggest worries are 1) health care for my family (my rates nearly doubled this year, and they cover less and less), and 2) the influence of Big Business on my ability to operate effectively. In my case, it’s the caustic influence of the big Telcos and their efforts to destroy Net Neutrality.

There it is, in plain English. He goes on to explain why Rovian strategy is played out.

Health care is a universal concern for small business owners. And which small business retailer or manufacturer isn’t worried about Wal-Mart destroying their livelihood? The tech sector, in particular, is heavily Democratic, and for a reason — Democratic policies are better for the small business entrepreneur than Republican ones.

Rove thinks these entrepreneurs will be voting Republican, but reality is much different. And some of the richest entrepreneurial hubs of the nation are some of its most Democratic — the SF Bay Area, NYC, North Carolina’s Research Triangle, Austin, Seattle, and so on.

Now these small business types are also more libertarian leaning, wanting to do their thing with as little government regulation as possible. But the GOP has traded libertarian-leaning voters for that other Rove obsession: the Religious Right.

Why is that? Why would Rove make the mis-statement that tech is driving America deep right when most of the innovation and growth in Tech is happening in Democratic areas? You see, the left is not ‘anti’ business, we are against business that would keep hold not by innovation and value but by practices that discourage competition.

Craig had a little post today, and it has driven me crazy. His spam filter wouldn’t let me formulate a proper answer, so I am doing it here.

First, here is the full text of his post, titled Who Do You Trust Less:

In the old “who is more evil” argument between corporations and government, I have to say that I come down on the side that I probably trust corporations more than the government.

They both want to separate you from as much of your money as they possibly can, but at least the corporations are up front about it.

I call this ‘argument by bumpersticker’, Craig is well versed at distilling complex arguments down to one liners. Just like a good physics equation, it isn’t good if it can’t fit on the front of a t-shirt. In this case though, I think that it is a lossy format. Too much information is lost and not considered.

This argument was expanded a bit by the least crazy libertarian in Montana Dave Budge in the comments. He brings up the old argument:

In the vast majority of cases I can decide not to do business with a corporation I don’t find trustworthy.

Voting with your dollars. Nothing wrong with that argument, except it isn’t really true. Let’s say that you decide you don’t trust Dow, 3M, Dupont or ConAg. Does that mean that you would never buy anything since their base materials are in virtually everything? If I distrust Exxon, I can say I will never send a dime to Exxon. What gas does the shipping company that brings the other products I buy use? I don’t know. Where does the petroleum in the plastic case of my new whatsit come from? I don’t know. What kind of pesticide was spayed on my food? I can’t know. You see, some of the most suspect companies are not directly responsible to you.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the notion of voting with your wallet. I shop Costco and avoid Wal Mart at all cost. I just bought a Prius, drove right past the Hummer dealership. I use Linux only and make fun of people who use Windows. I believe that we all do this in a way, but we have to couple that with a bit of reason. I’ll show in a minute where this method really breaks down.

Anyone remember the ‘industrial revolution‘? This was the beginnings of the ‘corporations’ that Craig and Dave trust more than our Government. At that point there were no real government regulations to make sure that the corporations behaved well. If you ever took a single history class, you know how that turned out. Dangerous conditions, child labor, 80 hour work week, low pay, cramped conditions, abuse. A Utopia huh? Government regulations helped fix this folks. People couldn’t say “I only buy coal mined by an adult”, it took Government intervention to fix. Early corporation owners sure as hell didn’t step up to the plate.

I could give a million examples, but it really is all just little pieces of history repeating. We’ll do it in fast motion, you can dig into the details. Love Canal, savings and loan crisis. Enron. Pesticides. The auto industry generally only implements safety features in response to government regulation. Tobacco companies? This list can go on and on. Time and again the government has stepped in to protect citizens from corporations. Surely you can list examples where the government is the guilty party, but we have direct mechanisms for dealing with that: it is called a vote.

Here is where I want to show four places where the ‘vote with your wallet’ argument breaks down.

1. The situation I discussed above, where a corporation is so big and pervasive that their products are unavoidable or undetectably embedded in other products.
2. Monopolies and Megacorporations. What if I find out that EnergyCorpX is polluting my river. What am I supposed to do? Turn off my lights? How do I work without a computer? How do I convince everyone else to ‘avoid’ EnergyCorpX? Well, I might use the media, unless EnergyCorpX also owns the media outlets in my area. We see now that independent media is pretty much a thing of the past, even in Montana.
3. Assumes assets. The notion of voting with your wallet assumes that you have the assets to do so. Maybe you hate Megalomart because you know that they are using child labor to build their widgets and whatsit and you know that their produce is spayed with harsh pesticide. Effectively, voting with your wallet requires that you are able to afford to do so. Perhaps you could have before Megalomart moved into your town and drove all the other stores out of business, but now it is Megalomart or the overpriced Hippy-food store.

You see, this argument takes on a lot of dimensions and has a lot of problems. We often depend on the collective will of the people ( read ‘democratically elected government’ ) to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. We often depend on it to protect each and every one of us. Sometimes it fails, but more often it succeeds. Where it fails is often when it is lead by corporations (read ‘Haliburton’ ). The vast majority of corporations only act in the interest of short term profits. Where this interest goes at a right angle with the interest of the public is where government has had to step in time and again.

This is a rich and textured debate and I am not really one for bumpersticker debates. If I had to make one though, I would say:

I trust my vote much more than I trust corporations.

Happy weekend to y’all. I just read an interesting op-ed in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle today by Jim Goetz, a Bozeman attorney who represented Montana recreation groups in the 1980’s when we put the stream access debate to bed. Or thought we did.

Too bad the Chronicle protects their op-eds behind the subscription wall. But I would like to hear more about stream access - it seems to me that Republicans are doing what they always do - attacking the little guy while hiding behind “I’m for the little guy” rhetoric. Absolutely no one is hurt by a weekend angler floating by a weekend mansion on his raft.

But it’s about propriety and privilege and this seemingly unending fight to keep public property in public hands. Right wingers and libertarians are always looking for ways to loot the commons for private gain.

It seems to me that if there is a defining issue that separates the two parties, this is it. I’m often critical of Democrats, but on this issue, they are solidly in my camp.

Anyone care to rise to the bait?

On Second Thought (Part II) New Entry At Bottom of this post…

Earlier this week, I had posted a comment on the “France connection” with regards to the comparison of non-support by their countries leaders and another persons take on the Iraq war and the countries that were not coming to America’s aide. in it, the person asked that you boycott numerous companies as a form of support or protest.

I admit the list was long but I did not have the article to point to other than the persons name and telephone number should one want to check it out for themselves.
Rather than break it down, I sunk to doing a quick cut and paste of this persons comments and of course it did not take long to receive a couple of comments from “friendlies” here at Mt. Netroots.

Was I being lazy? Yes - but the more I got to thinking about it, I soon realized that albeit not my personal analysis, I fully agreed with the original author who I highlighted at the end of the post.
Quite possibly, an even more important, is that while I am not a fan of being lazy, it became important to me that I’ve long aspired to thinking that no matter if one’s grammar is “politically correct” it should be the message that counts.

It is somewhat similar to being pregnant, you either are or you are not… In the long run if what you are trying say makes someone understand the story who cares if one misspells a word or two and god forbid that they did not use the correct grammar.

Struck by the frequent grammatical errors that appear in even the most erudite materials, I’ve kept track of such slips for more than a year. To my surprise, a small number of errors accounted for almost all the mistakes. If you look at it another way, only a few words, phrases or expressions really grate on the ear and offend the eye. I suppose they also spoil any “smart” image you may want to protect, as truly smart people know the difference.

Fortunately, I kept both the post and my thoughts albeit I do not have them at the moment I will get them and repost the article. All I ask is that you keep it in mind that from time to time we will all disagree - lord knows the people in Washington do as we’ve had a week to listen to them. I can only wonder if “they” will listen to us?

UPDATED 2-18-2007

On Second Thought (Part II)

Below is the post/email that I had received from a good friend leading me to further look at the “France Connection” which I posted last week. I have cleaned it up a tad and eliminated the companies to boycott as Shane has linked to it above. The point being is that possibly we need to take a much deeper look at France and their inability to assist us in this war with Iraq.

Michael Erickson

66,033 Americans are Buried or Missing in France Many thousands more died fighting for France but are buried and honored here in the US.
Thanks France

For the first time, AMERICA was seeking help from on France . . but France has turned her back!!!

Please remember these Dead Americans when you go shopping, as the French seem to have forgotten them.

France has every right to disagree with America, but France has moved from simple dissent to active hostility toward America.

France President Chirac warned East European nations that if they sided with the US, France would oppose their membership in the European Union. This very week, William Safire reported in the New York Times that France has been secretly helping to arm Iran and has been helping Iran build long Just as France has exercised its right to disagree, all Americans can exercise their right to boycott an d help countries that do not stand with us. French Products and Companies to Boycott:

Lastly, a French company was awarded a $700 million plus contract to operate the 55 mess halls of our US Marine facilities. Call your congressman and ask that this be rescinded regardless of the cost This is an absolute insult to our Marines. This boycott has been promoted by NewsMax and has been frequently mentioned by Bill O’Reilly on the O’Reilly Factor.

If you will send this to at least 10 friends and relative to also forward, it is possible to reach 100 million people in a very short time. GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

IN GOD WE TRUST
John Bay bay9974@aol.com
321-676-4742

On Thursday, January 11th, David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, released a 21 page report outlining the economic future of our country.  In a nutshell, we’re screwed.  You can read the entire report in full here.  I’ve pulled a a few interesting selections from his report, for your amusement, horror, and all around dumbfoundedness. (is that even a word?)  If you don’t already know, the Comptroller General of the United States functions as the head of the GAO, aka the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress that basically does a ton of oversight on crap most people don’t care about.   You should care about this.  Really. You should.

From Page 1 

My “bottom line” message today is no surprise to members of this Committee:

• Our current financial condition is worse than advertised.

• Our long-term fiscal outlook is both imprudent and unsustainable.

• Improvements in information and processes are needed and can help.

• Meeting our long-term fiscal challenge will require tough choices, bi-partisan cooperation and  compromise.

• The time for action is now!

Read the rest of this entry »

Roughly 25 years ago, the company I worked for honored me with a promotion. One of the consequences of my new charge was a transfer to Caldwell, Idaho from the more bucolic settings of Coeur d’Alene. We arrived on a sub-zero January day that suffered from a deep temperature inversion. For those of you unfamiliar with that part of Idaho’s Treasure Valley, it is the home to the J.R. Simplot Corporation. Simplot, the world’s largest processor of prepared frozen potatoes, has a magnificent feed lot which uses the “sludge” byproducts of spuds as the primary feed source for tens of thousands of hungry heifers. As we drove into town a smell, something like a mix of ripe silage and cow manure, began to set off my young children’s gag reflexes. My wife spent some time accusing me of moving the family to some sort of aromatic hell and nearly demanded that I refuse the higher salary that came with the job and ask for a demotion to not have to relocate. When we checked into the hotel I asked the desk clerk if it always smelled so bad there. He responded “Does it smell bad? I don’t smell anything.” To which I was reminded of environmental conditioning. We get used to things we live with.

Now that I’ve long passed the spring chicken stage of life, I look at the body of laws that have filled the temporal air of society and wonder if we’ve all been so conditioned that we can no longer smell them. It’s curious to me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to Montana Netroots. Montana Netroots is a collaborative blog by Montana netroots activist from all parts of the political spectrum. The idea is to create an environment where ideas and topics can be shared and debated in an open manner. While it is likely that politics will always be a central issue in this type of forum, we hope to cover a broad range of topics. Discussion can be spirited but personal attacks are not OK.

Over the last election cycle, we saw that several partisan blogs with relatively few posters dominated the entire sphere. While this is good in one sense, in another sense voices go unheard. These blogs are very important, but too often a few ‘loud’ commenters end up dominating the entire discussion. Too many important voices are drowned out when this happens. We hope to provide a place where folks can discuss the issues in an adult manner without fears of ‘personal attacks’.

While politics will invariably be a central theme, we want to be open any topic that is important to Montana. Additionally, we hope to be open to a wide range of authors. We are inviting authors now, so please contact us if you want to take part.