In bad times we grasp at straws. The question is – is this one of them? I would like to consider from both a constitutional perspective and a moral perspective what rights and obligations our national government has during this financial crisis.

Constitutional Arguments.
I think there has been a whole lot of hullabaloo over the differences between conservatives and liberals over spending. The former claims to be “fiscally conservative”, where the later claims – well, they actually make no claims that I am aware of.

Historically the last time we had a fiscally conservative president was Eisenhower. He did not believe in going to war without raising taxes and did a fairly good job keeping the government reigned in during his administration. Since that time we have let the federal budget balloon out of control. Both parties are guilty of that.

But that is not what this is about really. That is a spending policy and I think that both parties are wacked – to put it nicely. I really do not care about their spending interests per se, at least not in this scenario. I want to talk about whether it should even be an option or not given the laws of our land.

For all the talk about fiscal conservatism vs. spending programs that we have I think that there is a general feeling created that spending programs are somehow unconstitutional. That is a concern that needs to be addressed before we move forward to whether it is necessary or not let a lone if it is moral or not.

It may be instructive to go over the specific powers of congress. I will emphasis the ones that I believe are most important for this discussion.

Now, before going forward, I want to be clear that I’m not talking about taxes here. I know that there is a fair amount of concern of the proper means of taxing. We can deal with that another day. I know some of you other political junkies like me will want to cite section 9 and will want to discuss the tax system. Let’s just leave that for now, and let it be sufficient to agree that the United States government does have authority to tax.

So, now into the meat of the discussion.

The main points for me are “general Welfare of the United States”…. “regulate the Value thereof” [money]….” promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors”

In these three areas I find that congress certainly has the authority look out for the welfare of the nation and those citizens who comprise our nation, to follow polices that will stabilize our monetary system and enhance our economy, and to even at times pay for/invest in technology and science in general.

Free commerce promoters may find that a little distressing that the constitution gives the government power to do these things. It is true that it could be quite invasive into the free market system. On the investment side, if there were not a “limited time” clause it might even look like the government was nationalizing resources and turning communist.

I personally do not see that happening, but you could probably make an argument to the affirmative and I think that would be good honestly. It is the very fact that there are those who voice their worries that will prevent it from happening to a large extent.

I am certainly not an expert on all the jurisprudence that has been established in the ensuing years, but the point is that I believe the government is well within it’s constitutional rights and even within it obligation to intervene in the economy at this time.

Now the question is should they, and if so in what way.

I personally believe that the government should intervene. To not intervene in a time of depression economics would be even more disastrous.

Yes, this will increase the national debt.
No it will not be possible to balance the budget for the next several years.
Yes, taxes will need to be raised.

No one really like any of these effects, but if you look at the bubble bust cycles of the past there are good things that can come from this. But right now we are not shaping up to well.

In past bubble busts we ended with more roads than we needed, more dams than we needed, more telephone lines, more internet infrastructure etc. These booms created a litany of resources that would not have been built as quickly in regular investment cycles and even though some companies do not survive they do leave a healthy legacy that future generations can build on.

This bust is not the same.

What is left behind is overvalued homes, empty lots, and excessive personal debt. None of which is particular useful to build a new economy from. This is where intervention can be critically important.

Let’s look at the auto industry. Yes, the Big 3 have made monumentally disastrous   decisions. In my opinion they have been wholly unfit for their office. But to let the companies completely fail at this point would be prodigiously more catastrophic.

It is estimated that there are over a million jobs connected to the auto industry. Now, it would take a larger crisis than we see now to make them all go away – but to risk it would be very foolish.

To let the auto industry remain as it is would be equally foolhardy. One of the major reasons the we are in the mess we are in now is because of the power of the auto industry lobby that has ensured their crack addiction continued to be supplied.

The US congress should act now to break that addiction and move into new technologies. This would be both a constitutionally legal investment to make and a very prudent investment on our behalf.

There will be layoffs during this retooling. Make no mistake, moving to “green” technology is going to be a major shock to the system. But if the government will then also use its authority to invest in good infrastructure projects then we can move any of the displaced into other projects of national importance. By investing in this industry for a time the government will help create an asset where little to none existed before.

Also by taking this step the government will ensure that it is not just keeping people off the dole. To make no moves into the economy will ensure that tens of thousands, if not into the hundreds of thousands, will be unemployed. Through no fault of their own the economy in the short term will not be able to absorb them. They did not set the policies. They did not have a voice in the lobby. They are stuck in many many ways. Yes, over time they can get a new education. They could have chosen a different path to begin with, but it is not their fault that the companies are failing now. Morally I feel we are obligated to assist in a way that will give them an opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the economy. To use their skills which do have value still. And to help protect these families from the glut that has been the American auto industry.

All of this these moves in my opinion are both constitutionally legal, financially viable, and morally responsible.

Be Healthy – Enjoy life

Matthew Stearmer
 

Really – just go and vote!

Be Health – Enjoy Life!

Matthew Stearmer

The Unconstitutionality of the War on Terror.
1) There is nothing in our constitution that gives us authorization to attack a nation without provocation
2) There is nothing in the constitution that gives us authority to attack a nation based on the assumption that they may be a threat in the future (Bush Doctrine of preemption) and
3) There is nothing in our constitution that gives us authority to engage in nation building.

Additionally
1)    War is to be officially voted on by the legislature – not that any president since WWII has followed that.
2)    Even with the preemption of the president – there are several laws (The War Powers Act for one) that still require the president to not commit troops more than 60-90 days before he need approval for funding. Congress has not lived up to it requirement to check the president in these matters. Not that it would be easy (they’ll be accused of undermining the interest of the United States) to stand up to the powers that be, but that is what we elected them to do.

This is just a brief recap, but under no condition of the constitution or the laws passed since that time, or any precedent established by our countries leaders until the Korean War – has the president ever taken this much power to himself. Much less done so without a check and balance from the legislature.

Both parties, and these two branches of the government have failed us in this endeavor thus far.  Now we have to ask ourselves who is more likely to get us back to the closest thing we have to a constitution.

I have to agree with the Democratic Party platform here. Both in their assessment of the war in Iraq and the necessary means we need to commit to “fix” Afghanistan. Afghanistan = reasonable. Iraq = Bad. So get out of the bad. But even if we go into Afghanistan in more full force there is not much that we will do honestly with a war machine. Even the good guys do not want us there that badly. If we built more roads instead of bombing them and built more schools as promised, and provided a central safe haven to spread from, etc., we would do at least as least as much good if not more good than any number of brigades added to Afghanistan.

Osama Bin Laden could not be happier that we are over there. Because of our ability to severely lock down the nation it would be difficult for al Qa’ida to directly attack us on our own soil more than once. By pulling us over to Afghanistan and Iraq, the terrorist have us expending billions a day, and now approaching the trillions overall, and we are locked in a conflict that we likely cannot win by traditional warfare.

I would not consider myself an expert in national security, but I have studied it formally in school for years. Based on that education I do not believe that it makes us any safer fighting over there. Not only does it weekend us economically, but it also fuels that very people we are trying to beat. The occupation in Iraq serves only as a breading ground for more dissidents and the destabilization in the region has had a very detrimental effect on the price of oil. Increasing prices of oil are directly correlated to Islamic extremism. It takes high gas prices to fund their operations.  I do not see much point in staying as a military force. There are far bettering things to spend time, money and lives on.

That is a quick overview of that issue. War right now is just a sap on the economy and national focus. We cannot even use the excuse that the war will help improve the economy. That only works to help get you out of a depression when you weren’t at war when the depression started. Right now all of that military spending is just a drain on the resources – not a boon to the economy.

I personally think that we need to give more energy into this question of the constitutionality of the war, and whether we can consider it just. People have been dealing the concept of “Just War” theory for thousands of years – literally. So this is not something that we are likely to resolve in just a day or email. But for those of the LDS faith, I think that we can turn to the Book of Mormon and see that without question wars of aggression/pre-emption will not be justified by God. So I reject the Bush Doctrine. In doing so I know that I am placing more civilians at risk because there is a chance that by not fighting overseas the extremists will try to bring the fight to our door step again.

But honestly they are trying to do that anyway – so why not focus on home. Make it as strong as possible and then the efforts we make outside our borders – let them focus on development and if we do that there will be fewer potential terrorist to recruit from. Getting rid of the foreign oil so we are not funding our enemies with petrol-dollars. It will be pretty hard to acquire nuclear weapons if they do not have any cash.

Here is one soldiers opinion on the war in Iraq. This individual is very close to me and these are his personal words.

Constant shift of purpose
First it was, “Find the weapons of mass destruction.”  Late 2003/early 2004 we established the intelligence was flawed and that there were now WMD’s (at that point in time anyway).  Then came, “Establish a democratic state.”  Late 2004/early 2005 we captured Saddam Hussein and established a new government.  Now we’re in, “Combat the terrorist” stage.  2006 to present it’s been entirely focused on combating terrorism.  It’s almost as if there is another motive, but politically they just can’t say it.

Combating terror, why is that an impossible task for US to do?  There are two main reasons that I see.
First, 4 out of 5 Iraqis dislike the fact that we are in Iraq and our involvement in their country.  The longer we stay there “to help stabilize the government” the harder they fight against the government we helped establish.  Eventually you will see a collapse in the government because of our “stabilization” efforts for that government.

Second, is closely related to that, the Iraqi government won’t prosecute the people we capture.  When I was there in 2005, we saw 70% of the perpetrators we captured released within 2 months, and well over 90% after only 6 months.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1220/p01s01-woiq.html

Diverted attention away from original perpetrator of 9/11 – Negligible/debatable benefit to lowering threat and vulnerability
We have just over 15,000 troops in Afghanistan.  They do not have the manpower to stop the Taliban (the terrorist cell responsible for the 9/11 attacks) from gaining resources through heroin production and launching new attacks against US soldiers or even on US soil.  We are losing that battle, and that is one we can’t afford to repeat again.

Dictated by our dependency on oil
Evidence of Oil influence – The first Gulf War was about that, and the second followed in its trail.

McCain said this about the Gulf War in the last presidential debate, “we had to take Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait or it would’ve threatened the Middle Eastern world supply.”

Bush declared in October 2006 at a press conference in Rose Garden, “We can’t tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions or used to inflict economic damage on the West.”

But the thing is, if we weren’t dependent upon oil in the first place, we wouldn’t have to protect “the Middle Eastern world supply”.

Socialism. The evil bad word that keeps getting dropped like and A-bomb on anyone who think that free-market capitalism is the be-all-end-all to all of our economic woes.

The argument typically gets framed something like  – “Our founding fathers….bla, bla, bla”. OR “The liberals are trying to turn us into Europe  – and that is just not American” OR “Socialism is Satan’s plan.” And the list could go on. On the socialist side the arguments typically get framed as a fairness argument and then they pull out all the sob stories of some poor smuck that lost everything to the evil corporate machine.

Yes, I am being intentionally inflammatory. Here is my issue with the discussion that happen on the economy and socialism and capitalism.

Socialism has two aspect. One is economic and the other is social. The first I see with a purpose – and the second that really is evil and completely counterproductive to freedom. Whether you can truly separate them out in practice I do not know, but the two sides need to be understood at least theoretically.

Capitalism also has two aspect. It is also economic and social. While it economic principles are wonderfully productive it also has significant social consequences. When we look at just one aspect and not the other (for both socialism and capitalism) we fail to see reality as it truly exists and then what makes it worse both sides then try to vilify the other side based solely on the consequences and not upon the merits

Very Very Very rarely will you see an argument that simply states the facts, historical and modern, on the nature of socialism and capitalism based on their history (good and bad), and then propose a decision based on the whole truth and nothing but the truth – as it were.

That is what I will attempt to do here.

The funny thing about people who claim to be capitalist is they tend to not be very familiar with the history and development of markets, regulation or the history of social responsibility. They like to talk about ideals – but never the reality of how markets actually work. There are several books that I would recommend on this topic including “Seeing Like a State”, Anything by Polani,, Otterson’s book on Adam Smith’s Market Place– and really people ought to be familiar with Marx.

I say that last one with caution, because the problem with socialism – is that argument in favor of it tend to forget that Marxism has been the basis for the murder of millions of people. Marx support revolutionary change theories are among the most dangerous we will deal with in this like So, you can stay away from his religious and political discourse. He was wrong there. But that does not mean we should dismiss everything. He was spot on in his critique of capitalism and the ills that develop out of it.

Here is a brief very overview. Markets have never developed out of nothing. They have been created and manipulated by those in power since the beginning. Often times that market developed out of most of humanity being able to participate or even know that they existed. When you live in a subsistence environment, living day to day, it is very hard to have anything left over for trade. As machines and specialization allow for the accumulation of capital, more and more people were able to trade for additional goods and services. These markets always developed with a mix of exploitation by those in power taking more in the capital exchange than those without power  – and then over time those without power gaining enough traction to demand retribution for their contribution to the overall economy that they were never compensated for – or demanding certain protections in the work space.

Over time you see that in the 1400’s (even before capitalism was a recognizable social process) the Speenhamland laws were enacted that obligated the elite to ensure that there was a minimum standard of living established for all the people on their land. Marx was right in that those in power will always seek more at the expense of those below. This is not always vicious – although it has been at times (think about anything Upton Sinclair wrote), but it is often very exploitative. Let’s think about it for an instance. Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple. Did he invent anything at that company? Not since the 1970’s. It is questionable if he even had the initial idea for the iPod or iPhone. Apple has a new development division that looks at the competition in the market and trying to find unique idea or ways to better existing technology. So, Steve Jobs received a $100,000,000+ bonus each of the last several years based on the performance of the company. We do not know how much the actual developers made in bonuses – but based on industry standards I would expect $0-$10,000 being the most expected. Is that really fair? – I personally think not.

What to do about it is another thing.

Several years ago the NBA proposed leveling the playing field by instituting salary caps and other trading regulations. Initially people said it was going to prevent the best teams from recruiting the best talent – the exact same argument that is now used in corporate America. But guess what?! The NBA still thrives and is in business. So not exactly a disaster.

Yes it is socialistic in the economic sense– but that does not mean it is not right or fair.

And regardless of what happens to the income regulation I think that it is totally fair for the wealthiest Americans to pay for a system that helps make their wealth. Steve Jobs would be out of a job if there were not an America that could afford computers. So investing in education and even minimum wage helps him make all of his money. It is only just that those at the top, who reap the largest reward of a successful America, help pay for all of the benefits that they receive, both direct and indirect. And I honestly hope to be one of these people someday!

Again, a sense of history may be important. Up until the 1980′s the average executive pay was only 35 times higher than the average worker. By the end of the 1990′s that pay had increased to 120 times the average – and the highest side was over 700 times greater than then average employee. Something seems out of whack to me. At the same time the real wage (accounting for inflation) has dropped for the average American where it has gone up exponentially for the executive. Sure looks like someone is receiving a positive externality at the expense of the population. Just a suggestion.

Bottom line is that capitalism in its idealistic form has never actually existed and in my opinion the less regulated the markets have been the more trouble we have gotten into. Regulation has its own issues. And the capitalist can certainly point to many instances where the intervention has not been good (Smoot Hawley Tariff, Hoover’s flip flopping at the start of the great depression, the current housing crisis etc – let alone the potential social consequences of socialism at its extreme). But there are just as many examples where the intervention has been critical to success (Child Labor laws, minimum wages, OSHA standards, banking and investment regulations Monopoly break-ups etc). Understanding the whole history has lead even the most ardent free capitalist of the past Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, to conclude in a recent senate inquiry that free markets fail to self regulate and that it was a mistake to have followed the Reagan deregulation policies for the past 20+ years.

And before I move on there is one other major issue that needs to be addressed here. McCain vs Obama is really the age old question, in the USA anyway, of Anti Federalist (state’s rights) vs the Federalist (Strong federal government). This divide is almost as old as the country itself. In the 1800 election Jeffersonian ideals that were Anti Federalist were pitted against the John Adam’s federalist. Ever since that election more and more power has been given to the federal government with less and less control at the state level. Part of the Civil War was fought over this issue and many republicans today feel that Abraham Lincoln took the government too far away from States rights – or at least in the aftermath of his assassination that the Republican’s (of their day) took it too far to the federalist side. Glenn Beck is the most recent republican commentator that I have heard state this position.

It seems that so much of what we argue about today is not based in history. Historically this has been a constant battle. Republicans today (and even more so the Constitution Party) say that we need to get back to running the government the way the founding father’s would have wanted it, but I always wonder which founders they are talking about? It certainly was not all of them. Jefferson may be rolling in his grave but John Adam’s would be jumping for joy.

McCain is a state’s rights republican. States needing to take on more responsibility is a part of every piece of his plan for America. Sometimes I think this is a good thing. But there are issues (gay marriage being one of them) that really cut to the heart of the state’s rights issues. In making a decision about the next president we also have to consider the mindset of the person trying to solve the issue. If the issues we are most concerned with are State level issues, then McCain may be your man. But if they can only be solved at a national level – then you will want to consider Obama.

And actually there is one more issue to address as well. Supply Side (get people to create through tax incentives for instance – and they will buy) vs Demand Side (give people money and they will spend, government directly buying and building) economics. McCain is a supply side. Obama is a demand side. There are criticsms of both and since I am not an economist I am not really capably of giving a professional opinion, but what I can tell is that a combination of the two seems to move our economy the best. This is a really good article that will help explain it (http://blog.wolfram.com/2008/10/16/stock-market-returns-by-presidential-party/). Bottom line on this is that the supply side has had a good long run. Now we need to move back to demand side, which tends to be better for employment, spending on infrastructure, interest rates and encouraging new development is specific markets.

Personally, I am a demand-side-socialist (economic)-federalist more than not. So in this respect I have to side with Obama. I reserve the right to switch in the future. I think that a balance between the parties is good. Just right now the balance needs to swing in this direction.

In my opinion, if you do not agree let’s discuss.

Be Healthy – Enjoy Life!

Matt Stearmer

We ended up having a lively discussion over the weekend with the family on the state of the nation and best direction for our country. Not exactly weight loss, I know. But it is far more interesting most of the time – especially right before the election.

So this is what I am thinking at this point. I may dedicate this week to different issues we face this election and most on that instead of weight loss all week. I doubt there will be many complaints.

Let me just say up front I’m not exactly a liberal, nor am I a conservative. I’d like to consider myself a thinker. So just be forewarned that some of the posts will be lengthy. They will not pull from any rhetoric. It will be simple facts (in so far as anyone can claim simplicity to issue – historical or modern). Some of the conclusions that I will draw may not be to everyone’s likings, but I welcome the debate.

I’m just letting you know upfront:)

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

John Adams, ‘Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,’ December 1770
US diplomat & politician (1735 – 1826)

I will post on the following topics. Read them at your own peril.

Big Problems: Problems that can/will immediately destroy our nation
- Economics
- Energy Dependence
- Foreign policy/relation

Moderate Problems: Problems that could destroy the nation – or at least cause lots of internal strife
- Environment
- Education
- Gay Marriage

Minor Problems: May become major issues, but in the next 4 years not likely
- Supreme court justice appointment
- Anti-drug policy
- Illegal Immigration
- Abortion
- Gun Control

And to lighten things up a little here watch this.