Category: Ideas and Policy

Soccer Sucks

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Over the weekend, France and Croatia squared off in the championship match of the 2018 World Cup.  The French team—which only has six players (of twenty-three) you and I would think of when we imagine a Frenchman—defeated the plucky Eastern European squad 4-2, an astoundingly high score for a soccer match.

Other than watching my students play occasionally, I can’t stand soccer.  The game has numerous flaws:  it’s overly-long, without any true breaks (an obstacle, as my brother pointed out, to monetization—you only have one half-time in which to show commercials); the scores are too low; and the action is rare.

The typical soccer game certainly requires a great deal of endurance:  I’m told that an average soccer player runs several miles during the course of a match.  But it’s all kabuki theatre, at least to my (admittedly) untrained eye.  All that running around seems to accomplish precious little, as players scamper about for agonizingly long stretches of time without really accomplishing anything.

In that meaningless but constant motion, I see a metaphor for the political systems found in nations that are perennially good at soccer.  Take this year’s champions:  France is not about actually being productive—scoring points—but about treading water.  Lycee-educated bureaucrats kick back to comfortable, easy jobs with short hours; workers of every stripe enjoy excessive labor protections; nothing is open on the weekends.

No wonder France’s unemployment rate in 2017 was 9.4% (down from a modest 10% from the previous year), while its youth unemployment rate is a whopping 19.3% (and didn’t get below 20% until April of this year).  French youngsters can’t get employment because the statist economic system limits growth, discourages innovation, and incentivizes bad or lazy employees.  Employees cannot be fired “at-will”—that is, without cause—and the process to remove underperforming employees takes month.  If you’re a French employee who knows he’s going to be fired, you might as well kick back for a few months and enjoy getting paid for doing nothing.  What’re they going to do, fire you?

While we should certainly treat workers with respect—and some labor protections are no-doubt positive—we have to remember there’s an employer who has put up a great deal of capital to try to make a profitable enterprise work.  No employer, no employees.  Sometimes a worker, while well-intentioned, just doesn’t work out, and the employer needs the flexibility to replace underperforming employees at will.

But I digress.  This essay is ostensibly about soccer.  Some additional thoughts:

Soccer is inherently un-American.  Yes, it’s hugely popular with younger children, which has led pundits to predict its ascendancy for decades.  But let’s consider why it’s popular.  John Derbyshire in his latest episode of Radio Derb argues that soccer caught on among upper-middle-class American children because their overprotective and status-conscious mothers saw it as “European,” and, therefore, more sophisticated and cultured (ignoring, as Derbyshire points out, all the hooliganism that goes with soccer).

A more compelling theory is Chuck Klosterman’s, from his 2004 book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, a collection of essays that I enjoyed immensely in my graduate school and early teaching days.  Klosterman argues that children like soccer because they’re bad at sports:

Soccer unconsciously rewards the outcast, which is why so many adults are fooled into thinking their kids love it. The truth is that most children don’t love soccer; they simply hate the alternatives more. For 60 percent of the adolescents in any fourth-grade classroom, sports are a humiliation waiting to happen. These are the kids who play baseball and strike out four times a game. These are the kids afraid to get fouled in basketball, because it only means they’re now required to shoot two free throws, which equates to two air balls. Basketball games actually stop to annihilate them.

That is why soccer seems like such a respite from all that mortification; it’s the one aerobic activity where nothingness is expected. Even at the highest levels, every soccer match seems to end 1-0 or 2-1. A normal eleven-year-old can play an entire season without placing toe to sphere and nobody would even notice, assuming he or she does a proper job of running about and avoiding major collisions.

When I read this passage originally—probably around 2007 or 2008—I experienced that state that constant readers know well:  the state of having read one’s innermost thoughts and experiences in a book.  As a perpetually plump (and extremely unathletic) child, I looked forward to soccer in Middle School PE class (and my high school NJROTC class) because I knew I’d be able to stand around doing nothing most of the time, and the good athletes would cover for me.

Again, we come to a metaphor for working life in socialistic bureaucracies (and, sadly, many corporate gigs):  if you just keep your head down long enough, someone minimally competent and motivated will get something done; just try to avoid messing up spectacularly and you’ll be okay.

When I’d heard that the United States failed to make it into the World Cup, I was relieved.  It’s not that I don’t want the United States to do well—if we’re going to do something like participate in professional soccer, we might as well do it as well as we can—but I was loathe to witness the spontaneous generation of soccer “fans” awakening from their four-years’ slumber to proselytize about how it’s such a good game.

Methinks they do protest too much.  Soccer sucks; long live [American] football!

Surf’s Up

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Demographer and statistician Steve Sailer has a book review (“Surfer Privilege” at Taki’s Magazine) of war correspondent William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.  It’s about Finnegan’s idyllic youth in Southern California and Hawaii at a time when a working-class Irish family could afford real estate in some of the United States’ most desirable zip codes, while also supporting four children (Finnegan’s father worked in television, but was a pump jockey at a gas station upon first moving to Los Angeles; he could purchase a house and support his wife and child on that salary).

I recommend reading the book review linked above, as it contains classic Sailerean demographic analysis.  The real estate opportunities accessible to working- and middle-class Americans in the 1950s and 1960s are truly astonishing, and Sailer argues that, if you were born in 1946, the world was your oyster (Sailer was born in 1952, which he argues was also a pretty good year to enter into this world).

The real estate analysis rings true.  I’m 33 and earn a modest income as a history and music teacher at a small private school in rural South Carolina, which I supplement with adjunct teaching at a local technical college and with private music lessons (as well as the occasional music gig).  I’m also an extreme budgeter and put a significant chunk of my earnings into retirement accounts (IRAs and a 403(b) through my employer), and I drive a twelve-year old Dodge minivan.  While I live like a king compared to most people in human history, I still rent a little cottage and don’t support any dependents, much less a wife.  I’ll probably work hard for most of my life (though my long-term retirement planning should pay off over the course of decades; I’m definitely “getting rich slowly”), and I’m not counting on Social Security being around when I hit 70.

Had I been born when my parents were, I’d probably have a house, a wife, four kids, a pension, and a convertible, earning six figures in “consulting.”

I’m not complaining.  I highly value hard work, and I don’t think demography is always destiny (just look at all the miserable, divorced Boomers who are trying to figure out what went wrong).  I believe God has a purpose for us, and we live in our respective time for a reason (not that I haven’t, at times, experienced a sense of dislocation from our current era).

But Sailer’s demographic analysis of the period under consideration—a time that was so safe and prosperous, a kid could spend thousands of hours surfing and his parents didn’t much worry about him—is compelling, and points to long-term problems endemic in our culture today, such as mass immigration, an overly-rosy view of diversity, and idealistic subjectivism.

The Boomer generation was blessed to ride a long wave of economic prosperity and expansion.  As a product of the Great Recession, I’m growing more optimistic that future generations will enjoy similar gains.  I’m also cautiously hopeful that economic growth can prevent the unfortunate Millennial tendency toward idealizing socialism.

Hopefully, we’ll all be able to say “surf’s up!” again soon.

TBT: Economics: A Human Science

The Portly Politico10 Comments

The unofficial, unintentional theme of this week’s posts have been about economics in general (other than Tuesday’s SCOTUS piece)—the power of tax cuts, the potential upsides to tariffs, etc.  In that spirit, I thought for week’s post about diving back into a piece that reflects my gradually evolving thinking about economics.

The summer before my sophomore year of college, I read the second edition of Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom, a work that completely revolutionized how I thought about the world and economics.  Free-market principles became my lodestar, and colored my ideology for a decade.  Indeed, I still adhere to these principles when it comes to economic questions.

However, as I grew older and (hopefully) more experienced, I began to realize that neoliberal economic theory, while elegant, is not always hard-and-fast, and that there are many more wrinkles to economic issues than appear at first glance.  I don’t believe in overcomplicating things—again, cutting taxes tends to stimulate economic growth—but most issues contain a frisson of nuance that is easy to miss.

I’d long held to the idea that free trade is a largely unalloyed good, and that the short-term costs of lost jobs or reduced wages in some industries domestically would be made up for by increased efficiency of production and the rise of new, better industries.  Sure, there’d be some friction in the duration, but people will manage, and we can always throw some funds for reeducation their way.

While I think such disruption is inevitable, I don’t think we should embrace it so blindly that we forget about the people who find themselves out of work, or in a position that they can’t modify their skillsets to find a new job.  I live in the rural South, and there are hundreds of little towns that dried up once the mill the left, the railroad shut down, or the big family farms sold off.  Part of that story is the onward march of Time and economic progress—and the drama of human history.  But part of it is the story of globalist elites selling out Middle America.

This situation is not one merely of tariffs, taxes, and the like, but also of a radical ideology that would see national borders dissolved and massive immigration—even illegal immigration—encouraged.  I am libertarian on many issues, but the pitfall of modern economic libertarianism—and there are many—is that it only conceives of issues in terms of economic efficiency (and, if you get right down to it, it’s inverted Marxism, to the extent that, for Marxists, everything is about economics—or, more properly, materialism).  And, yes, generally greater efficiency means greater quality of life, but economics is not always the clean, elegant science that its proponents claim it to be.

To that end, I argue that economics, properly considered, should be considered part of the humanities, as it deals in a direct, visceral way with the people’s lives.

I don’t know the precise balancing act, or what should be achieved.  I highly recommend reading Patrick J. Buchanan’s The Death of the West for a more complete treatment of how to revive wages for workers while maintaining a high degree of quality and efficiency.  I don’t agree with all of Buchanan’s proposals, which are heavily influenced by Catholic social teachings, but there is an appeal to the idea that, if the government is going to interfere in the economy (and it is, and does), then it should be in favor of workers and families, not at their expense.

Finally, I wrote this essay in the context of the Brexit vote—which I intend to write an eBook on soon—and the arguments I was hearing about the economic catastrophe Brexit would be (that hasn’t been the case yet).  I argued, essentially, that the liberty and national sovereignty are more important than sweet European Union bennies and transfer-of-wealth payments.  The EU is a despicable organization as it currently operates, and as a lover of liberty, I’m thrilled to see nationalist-populist movements rising in major European countries.  I don’t agree with all of these groups or their policies (many of which are socialistic in nature), but the impulse towards greater national sovereignty is, in general, a healthy one in our age of excessive globalization and unelected supranational tyrants.

With that lengthy introduction, I give you 24 June 2016’s “Economics: A Human Science“:

If you’ve read my blog the past couple of weeks, you know that I am strongly in favor of Brexit, or Great Britain voting to “Leave” the European Union.  I’ve laid out my reasons here and here.  As I write this post, results are trickling in on that historic vote, and I am intermittently checking them with great interest–and not a small bit of trepidation.  Right now (about 10:30 PM EST/-5 GMT), “Leave” has a slight edge, but the outcome is too close to call.

Already, though, the British pound and the euro have taken a beating in value, as gold prices soar (this blog is conservative in viewpoint, so I probably should start urging you to buy gold, guns, and freeze-dried food reserves; source:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-23/pound-surge-builds-as-polls-show-u-k-to-remain-in-eu-yen-slips).  One of the major bogeymen of the “Remain” side in the referendum was the threat of economic downturn.  As I conceded in both of my previous posts on Brexit, there will no doubt be major economic disruption should Britain vote to “Leave.”  However, a (likely temporary) drop in the value of the pound sterling is a price well paid for restored national sovereignty.

God Save the Queen… and Great Britain from the clutches of Eurozone bureaucrats

As conservatives, we’re accustomed to viewing economics–or, at least, economic growth–as a positive good.  After all, we believe in the power of free markets to satisfy human needs and desires, and to innovate new ideas and products that alleviate human suffering, drudgery, and toil.  Conservative politicians tend to focus on job growth and prudent deregulation–often coupled with tax and spending cuts–as perennial, bread-and-butter issues that directly affect voters’ pocketbooks for the better.

 “…these [fiscal] policies are not about making gobs of cash… but about what those gobs can do to improve lives.”

But economics, like much else, is not a means unto itself.  The reason conservatives like economic growth–besides, well, making money–is that it demonstrably improves people’s lives.  Deregulation, similarly, can work beneficially (if you doubt me, just ask anyone who has ever dealt with the Affordable Care Act and the Department of Health and Human Services).  In essence, these policies are not about making gobs of cash–although that is certainly nice–but about what those gobs can do to improve lives.

Thus, we have a stark contrast between the organic, healthy, occasionally unpredictable economic growth of a free market and the regimented, inequitable, limited economic growth of progressive corporatism.  Our current economic environment, I fear, is far closer to the latter than the former.  Complex, heavy regulations benefit larger firms and discourage the formation of smaller, newer firms by raising the upfront costs of entry.  Perverse incentives raise the costs of healthcare for young, fit Americans, while making it unrealistically cheaper for older, sicker, chubbier patients.  Overly-generous social safety benefits (some of which, like the food stamp program SNAP, the government actively advertises and encourages people to use) discourage able-bodied Americans from pursuing work.

I could go on (and on… and on).  In short, conservatives are used to being correct on principle and on economic outcomes.  Typically, conservative fiscal policies align with, rather than try to manipulate, economic realities, so the outcomes of those policies tend to be both principled and positive.

“As fiscal conservatives… let us never lose sight of the human side of economics.”

In the case of Brexit, however, the quest for restored sovereignty–a stand on an important first principle–will result in some negative economic outcomes.  A major argument of the “Remain” side is that staying in the European Union will preserve Britain’s economic stability and ensure it a place in a European common market.

Such an argument is seductive, but it leads to a gilded cage.  Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously said that economic freedom is a necessary precursor to, though not a guarantor of, political freedom.  With Brexit, the axiom is almost reversed–by reclaiming its political freedom, Britain will then be able to pursue renewed economic freedom.

As fiscal conservatives–or those that support free markets, freer trade, and light regulations–let us never lose sight of the human side of economics.  We too often treat economics as a science.  Instead, it should find a home alongside the humanities.

Our chief aim should be to unleash human potential.  So liberated, its creativity and ingenuity can lift human life to greater heights.

We already have a model:  we’ve been doing it in the United States for over 200 years.

Q&A Wednesday – Tax Cuts, Trade Wars, Etc.

The Portly Politico13 Comments

Two of my most loyal readers, Megan and Frederick (I highly recommend the latter’s corporate history blog, CorporateHistory.International), both chimed in via Facebook about Monday’s post on tax cuts.  Frederick pointed out a potential downside to corporate tax cuts—what’s to stop large multinationals from investing that money in physical plants and employees overseas, notably in China?  Megan asked me to elaborate further on tariffs in relation to that very question.

Being a conservative, I like to conserve things—traditions, morals, civil society, working institutions, etc.—but most especially effort.  I’m a strong believer in the dictum, “Work smarter, not harder” (although you need a healthy dose of the latter, too).  As such, I’m adapting my Facebook response to them here.

I think the question of tariffs and trade wars is hugely interesting, and needn’t be bogged down in tedious charts and numbers.  What I do believe is that President Trump has ripped the façade from the bipartisan push for globalism, and particularly demonstrated the real, human cost of unbridled free trade.

I used to be 99% a free trader, with 1% reserved for mild tariffs on national security-related goods, like steel.

Now I’m probably more 85% free trade, 15% tariffs. A tariff is a tax, yes, and it’s borne not just by foreign nations exporting goods to the US, but also by American consumers, who have to pay more for goods that are protected (and, thus, more expensive and potentially of a lesser quality than they would be in a competitive, free market).  That disclaimer aside, it seems like paying a few more bucks for your washing machine is a good way to keep Americans employed and earning a decent wage.

If you take that reasoning too far you fall into the dilemma of minimum wage increases, which increase unemployment (especially for unskilled, young, and minority workers) and raise costs, so that any increased wages enjoyed by the beneficiaries are eaten away by the increased costs of consumer goods—all served up with a side of higher unemployment.

That said, judicious tariffs—I’m not arguing for the high, blanket tariffs of the late nineteenth century, which wouldn’t work well in our modern, interconnected economy—especially related to key industries like steel, could keep a lot of Americans working, and would allow blue-collar workers to earn a wage that wouldn’t require years of expensive schooling.

Also, I think targeted tariffs against unequal trading partners—I’m thinking primarily of China—would level the playing field, and prevent some of the outsourcing and capital flight that might occur with a corporate tax cut (or, more likely, increase). It’s unreasonable to expect American workers—with all their labor protections, etc.—to compete with near-slave wage Chinese workers. China’s currency manipulation to make its exports artificially cheaper, as well its rampant intellectual property theft, needs to be combated, and if it means getting our cheap plastic Happy Meal toys from Vietnam (or the USA!) instead of China, so be it.

The current “trade war” with China sees Americans in a much better position than the Chinese. China needs those exports, but the USA can stand to experience some minor drag to its GDP growth given the massive growth we’re seeing with the tax cuts (not just the corporate tax cut, but also the 20% deduction for small business pass-through earnings, which is YUGE for small business growth—a key driver of employment in our country). I see it as a trade-off—pay a little more for some consumer goods, but create imbalance in the Chinese economy and force them to play ball on par with the Western world and Japan.

My only real concern with this approach is there is no limiting principle (although that’s true for any type of tax, and we have to have some of them), which makes me wary as a limited-government Jeffersonian, but the Hamiltonian commercialist in me sees this moment in history as one in which we can uniquely leverage our economic clout to improve our own economy and our position internationally, and we can afford to go through a trade war longer than China (or Mexico, or Europe).

Everyone loses if a trade war lasts too long, but I think the Chinese will blink first. American workers will be the ones to benefit.

One additional thought, which will require more elegant development in a future post:  even with the inefficiencies and deadweight loss that would occur from overly-high tariffs, wouldn’t protecting domestic jobs be a more effective and fulfilling way to provide a living for blue-collar workers than the current welfare system?  Instead of a massive, government-run bureaucracy administering a complex and redundant system of bennies, society could bear the cost through paying a bit more for consumer goods.  Such a system would create more semi-skilled positions in some industries, and I’d rather we subsidize people through work than to subsidize them not to work.  Again, that’s a very rough sketch, but some food for thought.

Regardless, tariffs are not an unalloyed evil, nor is free trade an unalloyed good.  There’s room for both.  Economics suggests that the balance should favor the latter more heavily than the former, but we can temper the massive social disruption that unbridled globalization unleashes.