A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

The Free Market Begins with a Fence

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This was part of an even longer post I wrote a few years back. I stumbled across it again recently and thought it was worth a re-post.

The free market begins with a fence

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

Part of the resistance to making different choices about the free market and the various priorities given to property rights is a denial that choices have been made in the first place. “Property isn’t a choice. It’s a ‘natural’ right.” With all due respect to John Locke and the Founding Fathers, property does not exist in a state of nature. Without human-made laws and a government to back them up, you don’t have property. You have an opinion. Where there is a difference of opinion, in the state of nature with no government, the person who can bring the most force to bear is going to win the argument. (And, I might mention, that it really grinds people’s gears when I point out that there is no property without government. They think they hate government, and they love the idea of property rights. The idea that property rights are dependent on government seems to create a cognitive dissonance that must be really uncomfortable.)

In a state of nature, land belongs to everyone and no one. That changes when you can separate your land with a fence provided that you can also have government employees with guns convince the rest of the world to respect your fence as something more than a flimsy barrier. Having established ownership to the land, you can claim rights to the crops grown there and the minerals underneath the land. You can demand compensation for these things. You can withhold them from others altogether. Where once people could theoretically live off the land without your say-so, now they are forced to go elsewhere, pay you, or do work for you in order to use that land. And then we’re off to the races – a system of property laws, contract laws, courts, and police enforcing those laws form a structure without which markets would not work.

And none of this is inherently bad. Let me repeat for the benefit of those who might think my intent is to savage property rights: I like property rights. Property rights and the markets that they allow have done a great deal of good. Why bother working, creating, or taking risks if you cannot lay claim to the fruits of those endeavors? But, striking the appropriate balance can be tricky. When people work collaboratively to create value, how do you allocate the profits from that effort? The Panglossian view is that “the market” will magically allocate profits to people according to their worth. We can rest assured that, if the market is allowed to work without government interference, money acquired is money earned. But the existence of markets is a product of government interference. No government means no property and, therefore, no market. So, as the joke goes, we’ve already established what you are, now we’re haggling over the price. The market doesn’t reward value, it rewards leverage. Bringing more value to the common endeavor is a form of leverage. But so are property rights. Being able to keep your labor or machines or product on the sidelines until prices rise — without worrying about how you’re going to feed your family — is another form of leverage.

We can adopt policies that alter the leverage various people have in a transaction and alter the allocation of profits from economic activity. Some options could definitely lead us to a worse place – the Soviet Union and Venezuela are flamboyant examples (although, I guess I’ve seen some stats that suggest the lot of your average Russian peasant actually improved under Soviet policies, so your starting point matters). What do I have in mind? An increased minimum wage, stronger rights for unions, single-payer health care, better public transportation, more walkable neighborhoods, and increased spending on schools and particularly paying teachers more and giving them more control over teaching, incentives or laws for fewer hours worked and improved benefits, better unemployment benefits and family leave benefits, maybe even a Universal Basic Income. How are we going to pay for this? Taxes obviously.

And, I guess there are three basic reasons why I’m o.k. with this: first, there are some instances where we get more bang for our buck spending through the government than we do going through the private market; second, I’m o.k. having less money if I end up happier; and third, there’s wealth disparity that could stand to be redistributed. (See above, wealth acquired isn’t necessarily wealth earned).

Contrary to conservative dogma, sometimes the government is more efficient than the private market. The big example I have in mind is healthcare. Other countries with significant government regulation of healthcare markets get the same or better healthcare results for their people than the U.S. does. There isn’t an example in the world of a less regulated healthcare system that delivers better results for less. My tiny example is in-house printing at the Legislative Services Agency. LSA used to hire out printing of the General Assembly’s bills. When they attempted to bring it in-house, they met stiff resistance from a conservative Senator who took it as a matter of faith that having government employees do the work would raise the price. It saved millions with a two-thirds reduction in printing appropriations. I’m not, by any means, suggesting that the government is always more efficient than private spending; but sometimes it is. So, we should dismiss it out of hand. If I’m paying money out in taxes rather than paying it out in insurance premiums, I don’t mind the higher taxes. It’s all the same to me if I’m getting health care. I’m delighted if I’m getting more and better health care services.

Second, I also don’t mind higher taxes if I end up poorer but happier. I might be an outlier here, but if I have less spending money, but my community is healthier, happier, better educated, and generally more functional, I think I’m going to be happier. Not because of any excessive altruism on my part, but because living in such a place ultimately brings me more joy than I’d get from having those extra tax dollars in my pocket.

Third, the wealthy are just hoarding a lot of the wealth. I don’t think having that extra money to flow to them has a lot of social utility. If everyone gets paid the same regardless of effort or output, then the economy is going to flounder. Why bother working, investing, or creating? But there has to be a point of diminishing returns. Is a guy really going to work harder for a billion than he does for a hundred million? If not, then you’ve wasted $900 million which could probably be put to better use elsewhere. There’s some fat we can trim here.

I could be wrong, of course. But there is a fair amount of evidence, both historically and internationally, that what we have now is not inevitable and is not the best of all possible worlds. We need to look at what’s working elsewhere and cultivate our garden.

Memetic Frontiers

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A friend of mine on the WELL made a comment that prompted a thought.

I recall from my history classes some discussion about the American frontier and its effect on the development of the country. How it was often attracted people who, for one reason or another, couldn’t function very well in established society. I wonder if there is a sort of memetic frontier dynamic. People who, for whatever reason, don’t thrive under mainstream ideologies, religions, common wisdom, or other narrative structures (not sure if that’s the right phrase) are attracted to worldviews where they have more mental freedom of motion. Where they have a better chance of rising in whatever power structure is involved.

The Internet kind of opened up a new memetic frontier into which people are rushing in great numbers away from the received wisdom and existing narrative structures. Just an idle thought on a Saturday morning.

 

R.I.P. Ollie

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The force is strong in this one.

We had to put our dog Ollie to sleep last night. I started this blog with a remembrance of my dog, Shady, when she passed away more than 16 years ago. In July of 2010, we had to put our dog Keesha to sleep. And, in February of 2011, we lost Brooksey. We’ve had a good long stretch of healthy dogs since then. But, this is the hard part of dog ownership. They bring such joy, but the sadness at the end of life is part of the deal.

It was not long after Brooksey’s death that my wife was looking for puppies. She visited a lot of dog sites on Facebook and whatnot and would periodically send me pictures of puppies that she thought we really needed to have. It took me longer to get over the sadness of losing Brooksey and Keesha so close together and, frankly, the exhaustion that came with tending two dogs who grew very old at the same time. Eventually I acquiesced. She showed me the picture of a good looking puppy from the Peru animal shelter site. As I recall the story, he’d gotten loose from a place near Peru, and the owner didn’t want him back. So, I like to think he lucked out of a life of neglect to living with us — which, truth be told, his a pretty cushy posting for a dog. The folks from Peru met Amy halfway at the McDonalds in Delphi. I don’t think the paws had ever been visible in the pictures we’d seen. They were enormous. Amy brought him into my office on the way home, and my law partner commented on his tiger paws. Taking him for a walk his first time out, we heard this enormous bark coming out of the puppy with — getting gross for a moment — some poos to be reckoned with! This was going to be a bigger dog than we’d anticipated.

Life is good.

What had been billed as a “black lab mix” may or may not have had some lab in him. But he definitely had some Great Dane. And, we think, border collie. When another dog would be coming the other way, he’d crouch down like a border collie — as if hiding in the tall grass to pounce. The idea of stealth from a Great Dane mix on a suburban lawn was pretty funny. He was a challenging puppy — the size and energy was a daunting combination. We got in the habit of giving him kongs filled with frozen meat and cheese and rawhide first thing in the morning, just so we could have some time to wake up before he was on top of us. This became a life long entitlement. I’m happy to report that on the morning of his last day, he got to enjoy his kong and rawhide treats.

Ollie liked to lean on you. A “mighty lean” I called the good ones! It was his way of giving you a hug and saying good morning. He loved a good game of tug. As he grew large — 90 pounds or so — this became a real test of strength. When he was playing with you, sometimes he’d actually bend his front paw around your ankle to “hook” you. He loved his rawhide and he loved his walks. But, truth be told, he was something of a mess when another dog came around. He so desperately wanted to get at the other dog. And he must’ve looked like a menace to someone who didn’t know him. 90 pounds of urgent enthusiasm, struggling against his harness and his walker (almost always me) to get at the other dog. Once he got there, he was friendly, but we usually didn’t let him approach out of respect for the other dog owners. I feel like this habit intensified when we got Milo.

Pals.

We got our other dog, Milo, in 2015, when Ollie would have been about 4 years old. Milo is a schnauzer/poodle mix (“schnoodle”) and when we got him, he was *tiny.* Ollie simply did not know what to make of Milo at first. He was interested when Milo came home, but so anxious about the whole thing that he was drooling buckets. It never occurred to Milo that he was smaller than Ollie. They’d play, making horrible noises at each other, and tiny Milo would give as good as he got. Giant Ollie and tiny Milo were such opposites and such good friends. They reminded me of the Spike and Chester cartoons where Spike was a big burly oaf and Chester was a yappy, peppy, and perky smaller dog talking trash because he had the big dog as muscle. As I said, Ollie’s bad habits with other dogs seemed to get worse when Milo came along. Milo would get loud as other dogs approached — not so much, I don’t think, because he was so interested in the other dog, but because it was fun for him to wind up Ollie.

Good boy, Ollie

On hot days, after our walks, if we didn’t close the dog door, Ollie had a tendency to slip out into the back yard and go for a dip in the pool to cool down. That wouldn’t be so bad except that he had a tendency to come back in and dry off on the couch — which apparently makes for a magnificent towel. His enjoyment of our pool earned him an occasional stint as the local Crystal Clear Pools mascot. (They had a picture of him floating on a raft in our pool which they have repaired and maintained over the years.) Other than getting hot after walks, Ollie was remarkably indifferent to weather. Rain, shine, hot, cold, he was happy to be outside. I don’t know that this description will mean anything to readers, but he was the “doggiest” dog we’ve had. He loved his people, but he was just kind of motivated by food and walks and other dogs. (Random detail – before walks, he’d go up to the door and stand close to it, but when he had to move because of some excited energy, he’d turn in a quick circle.)

The decline came fast. We anticipated that he wouldn’t be the type to grow old gracefully, but even so, this was unexpected. At 10 years old, which is somewhat old for a large dog, he was still energetic and fairly spry. On March 15, Amy and the kids had left for Spring Break. I got a text at work from a neighbor who’d found Ollie and let him back into our house. I came back home because I suspected the back gate had blown open in the windy weather from the previous night. Sure enough, when I got home, he’d made his way (with Milo, his partner in crime) out the dog door into the back yard, out the gate, and into the front yard. I was in a rush, so I’m not sure if he was limping then, but when I got home from work, he was limping very badly. I took him to the vet the next day, and he had what amounts to an ACL tear in dogs. I don’t know for sure that it was related to his adventure, but it seems likely. On April 1, he got surgery for the tear. It’s a fairly long recovery, but he seemed to be progressing fairly well for the first few weeks. Initially, he had to be helped down the deck stairs to the back yard and we had to keep him on a leash back there so he didn’t run too fast and undo the surgical repair. But after 4 or 5 weeks, he was navigating the stairs easily, and we were giving him some unleashed time to lay around in the back yard on nice days. On one of those afternoons, he went tearing after a squirrel and, sure enough, started favoring that leg again. His progress was definitely set back. But, it felt like he was mending again after that.

Earlier this week, he was lethargic, not eating, and at one point seemed to have a dizzy/drunk spell. We had a dog with diabetes, and it looked a little like how she’d get when her blood sugar was off. We took him into the vet, and they kept him overnight and much of the next day. He had a fever and they thought it was an infection but they weren’t sure where. They had him on IV antibiotics and he perked up. He wouldn’t eat at the vets, but they thought that might be environmental, so they sent him home on Wednesday night. He ate well that night and on Thursday and seemed much better. Friday morning, he was positively perky – demanding his morning treats, pulling on the leash in the back yard when I took him out. He was still limping from the leg surgery, but other than that, all seemed well again. He was a little lethargic when Amy took him out around noon, but that could be attributable to the pain medication he was on for the leg. When I came home in the afternoon, he was in his crate. He didn’t come out to greet me which was a little unusual, but I didn’t push him to get up.

However, when it was medicine time, he wouldn’t even sniff the roast beef that it was wrapped in. We forced him out of his crate, and tried supporting him with a towel under his belly as a sling. Not only couldn’t he walk, his legs were criss crossing underneath him. We put him in a comforter as a make-shift stretcher and got him to the Purdue veterinary ER. The results were not at all the things we had been concerned about. He had blood in his stomach and a mass on his spleen. Invasive surgery was the only real option, but the vet gave us about a 30% chance we’d find anything operable and, even with that, there’d be a tough recovery on top of the potential neurological issues with his legs and his knee recovery. We made the tough call, which was made worse by how rapidly the situation had developed. He went peacefully with his family all around him.

I’ve been a dog owner for a long time and have been through a number of these decisions now. It’s never easy. But, what was especially challenging was watching my kids say goodbye to their dog. They have not been through so many of these, and they feel the pain much more keenly. Ollie came into their lives when they were 7 and 5 years old. All their lives, in a sense. That part was especially heart-wrenching. I’m confident we made the right decision, but – not to put too fine a point on it – this part sucks.

Good boy Ollie. We love you.

 

 

Hicks on the General Assembly’s Efforts to Control Indianapolis

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Michael Hicks, writing for Howey Politics, has an excellent column responding to efforts in the General Assembly to micromanage Indianapolis government. Some of the legislation applies to local government generally, but the real focus seems to be Indianapolis and the Indy metro area. The upshot is that the General Assembly wants to do this because state government is controlled by Republicans whereas the Republican Party, by and large, can’t win elections in Marion County anymore. Local control goes out the window when the wrong people are in control locally and/or those people are making the wrong policy decisions.

With respect to the impact of those policy decisions, Hicks points out a lot of metrics showing that Indianapolis and its metro area are doing much better than the rest of the state. The big city has created more and better jobs, resulting in more economic output. Among other things, “each year residents of Marion County send, on net, a bit more than $500 per person in tax revenues to residents of the rest of the state.” And people are voting with their feet — in the last twenty years, “a full 85% of the state’s population growth happened within the Indianapolis metro area.”

Obviously, I recommend that you go read the column.

The Second Impeachment

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“President Trump may not know a lot about the framers, but they certainly knew a lot about him.”

— Rep. Jamie Raskin, House Impeachment Manager.

That’s probably the quote that sticks with me the most through this second impeachment of Donald Trump. We don’t live in unprecedented times. History abounds with precedent. The Framers of our Constitution were smart guys who knew a lot of history. A would-be ruler riling up the mob to attack his opponents is Despot 101. The issue here is not whether Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors or whether he intended to negate an election. He did. His place in history is secure. He’ll occupy a position of disgrace with the likes of Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.

The question is how the Senate will be remembered — and, let’s be candid — how the Republicans in the Senate will be remembered. Will they, at long last, have a sense of honor? Or do they, like so many of Trump’s followers, hate liberals more than they love America? Trump hates everyone, not just liberals. And he clearly doesn’t give a shit about America. But, he’s more than willing to take advantage of a reflexive hatred of liberals to hold on to power. Hell, he didn’t think twice about putting Mike Pence’s life in danger. We saw today just how close Mitt Romney came to Trump’s howling mob. At least one Capitol Police officer died and many others were injured defending these Senators.

How will the Senators respond — will they grovel before the wannabe strongman and ask for seconds? Or will they remember their pride, maybe show some respect for themselves, for the Senate, for the Framers and for the country? I mean, I suspect I know. There will probably be something like 56 votes for conviction with most of the Republican Senators finding a way to tell themselves that this was o.k. In our state, Sen. Braun is obviously a lost cause. His obsequious subservience to Trump knows no limits. I don’t hold out much hope for Sen. Young, but I think he does have a somewhat stronger sense of honor than does Sen. Braun. In the likely event that he votes to acquit, his conscience might at least bother him a bit.

This fealty by a major political party to a man who embodies malice, ignorance, and self-aggrandizement is unsustainable. Our country depends on having two healthy, viable political parties, divided by policy differences, but united by a love of our country and its people. What we have now is not the way.

 

 

 

No Prosecutions Yet for $86 Million Charter School Debacle

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Steve Hinnefeld has an update on the Indiana Virtual School / Indiana Virtual Pathways situation. The update seems to be that nothing has yet happened (at least publicly) in terms of prosecuting those responsible.  The Indiana State Board of Accounts issued a special report on the “Indiana Virtual Education Foundation, Inc. d/b/a Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy” reflecting its findings that (as Steve summarizes it): “state funds were misappropriated through ‘malfeasance, misfeasance, and/or nonfeasance.’ It said Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy inappropriately received more than $68.7 million by misrepresenting the number of students who were enrolled in the virtual schools. They spent more than $85.7 million with vendors who were connected with school officers or employees but failed to provide appropriate paperwork, according to the audit.”

Of some of the shenanigans involved, Indiana Chalkbeat reported:

Five years after two students moved to Florida, they reappeared on enrollment records for Indiana Virtual School and its sister school.

And nearly every one of the more than 900 students kicked out of Indiana Virtual School and its sister school in the 2017-18 school year for being inactive were re-enrolled the next school year, included in per-pupil funding calculations that netted the two online schools more than $34 million in public dollars last year.

These were among the ways that Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy allegedly inflated their enrollment to at least twice its actual size, according to the findings of a state examiner’s investigation released Monday.

Jonathan Weinzapfel, the unsuccessful candidate for Attorney General had pledged a criminal investigation. Todd Rokita, the successful candidate, has been more non-committal. His office stated, ““We are thoroughly reviewing the report and performing the necessary investigation to diligently pursue the charged parties.” The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office indicated that this would be a federal matter (which strikes me as a little odd, but maybe I don’t know the nuances.) The feds won’t confirm or deny anything. So, it could be that the shit will be hitting the fan eventually but the gears of justice are grinding slowly.

Meanwhile, the Indiana General Assembly remains bullish on charter schools. Per Steve, “Speaker Todd Huston said he expects legislators to change the law so virtual schools get just as much state funding as schools that provide instruction in person.” When it comes to “school choice,” the Indiana General Assembly is like a quack doctor. Having diagnosed traditional public schools as sick, it’s prescribing leeches. And when the leeches don’t seem to do anything good, its conclusion is that it simply hasn’t applied enough leeches.

 

HB 1540: “Wanna Buy Uninspected Meat from a Van on the Side of the Road?”

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HB 1540, introduced by Rep. Nisly, seems to open up brave new markets for uninspected roadside van meat. It creates something called “a custom exempt slaughter establishment” (which somehow puts me in mind of Krusty Partially Gelatinated Non-Dairy Gum-Based Beverages). (Actually, I can’t see where it actually defines the term and a quick search of the Indiana Code didn’t turn up the phrase.) I’m not going to spend a lot of time researching this one, so take my review with a grain of salt. Anyway, it allows meat slaughtered at a “custom exempt slaughter establishment” to be sold at, among other places, “a roadside stand” without any kind of inspection. A roadside stand is anyplace where an individual farmer sells directly to customers.

It seems to be intended for small producers, purporting to impose limits of 20,000 poultry, 100 hogs, 50 cattle, and 500 sheep & goats.

Welcome to the Jungle.

HB 1546: “We Really Hate Teacher’s Unions”

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HB 1546, introduced by Rep. Goodrich and co-authored by Rep. Behning, would remove the requirement that, at a teacher’s request, schools withhold union dues from a teacher’s paycheck and would, instead, prohibit schools from withholding such dues from the paycheck. Keep in mind that, per IC 22-2-6,  employers can — at an employee’s request — withhold money from a paycheck that an employee wants to send to a nonprofit, use as dues for other types of unions, purchase goods from the employer, repay an employer loan, and a number of other things.  So, this prohibition on withholding union dues looks to be nothing more than mean-spirited. Oh, and “an emergency is declared for this act.” Because, of course it is.

The Road Goes Ever On

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At last they rode over the downs and took the East Road, and then Merry and Pippin rode on to Buckland; and already they were singing again as they went. But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.

He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.”

I’m not exactly sure why the Biden inauguration has me in a Tolkien state of mind. I suppose it’s something about that ending where Sam takes a deep breath and takes comfort in the danger having passed. However, that comfort and relief is in the context of a world that is diminished and scarred from the evil that has been forced to depart.

I’m not one given to alarm or hyperbole, but I truly do shudder at the thought of what might have come to pass if the election had gone the other way; or if it had been closer; or if the leadership of the House or Senate had been different. Democracy lives to fight another day, but it felt a little closer than I anticipated. The durability of our country’s institutions feel a little less inevitable than they did a few years ago. Which, upon reflection, is a valuable education for me. Ultimately, we can be absolutely confident that, one day, our democratic institutions and our country will fall. Entropy always wins. I’m currently reading a book about Bronze Age civilizations — civilizations which lasted centuries and about which I — a bit of a history nerd — have barely any conception. Given enough time, civilizations always fall.

But that’s no reason for nihilism or despair. We can’t worry too much about what’s going to happen 100 years from now, let alone 1,000 years from now. One day entropy will win, but that’s all the more reason to fight it — to delay that day & preserve our little bubble of comfort and order in the broad expanse of time and space that’s largely chaotic and uncaring. Perhaps knowing that, if we’re not careful, a lot of the institutions we take for granted could disappear will cause us to take more care to appreciate what we have. Our resentments can make smashing the existing order seem appealing. But I think the universe of scenarios in which the smashed machinery is re-assembled into something more desirable is far smaller than the universe of scenarios in which the smashed machinery is broken beyond repair or is assembled into something far worse than what we have now. Joe Biden seems like a reasonable choice for trying to fix what we have and making it more sustainable. I mean, who knows — his approach might not work for long; but it seems like a better choice than someone who wants to stoke our resentments, smash the existing machinery, and rebuild from scratch (or just loot the wreckage.)

Or hell, things might even get better. Maybe we’re not a Fallen people doomed to looking back on past greatness or condemned to wearing hair shirts to repent for our sins. Maybe we’re a capable people who can test everything, hold fast to what is good, and make better what is not. Guess we’ll find out.

SB 200 – “Noncompliant Prosecuting Attorney”

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Sen. Young has introduced SB 200 concerning “non-compliant” prosecuting attorneys. I expect this arises out of the Marion County Prosecutor’s determination that he wasn’t going to waste resources pursuing marijuana crimes involving amounts under an ounce. It creates a process whereby new Attorney General, Todd Rokita, could second guess that determination and ask the Supreme Court to appoint a trial court judge outside of the relevant county to consider whether to, in turn, appoint a special prosecutor who is a senior prosecuctor or prosecutor from outside of the county to seek out marijuana convictions or whatever the class of crimes not being enforced by the elected prosecutor may be.

The cherry on top is that the County whose authority is being usurped has to pay for the honor of getting a special prosecutor. Normally, the State pays prosecutor salaries.