thoughts on life and liberty

What do you think of when you ask yourself, “Who am I?”

Is it those things with which or with whom you identify?  Maybe the company for which you work?  The team for which you play or cheer?  The religion in which you believe?  The country in which you were born?  The culture into which you were born?  The brand of a particular product you wear, drive, consume, or carry everywhere with you?  The type or class of people you befriend or associate?  Your family?

Or is it those things that are unique to you?  Maybe things you have done?  The people you have helped?  The things you have learned?  The things you have accomplished?  The things you enjoy?  The experiences you have had?  Your talents?  Attributes of your personality?

Your collective identity consists of the former, while your individual identity consists of the latter.  When we think of our collective identity we say that, “I am one of them,” or “This is what we are like,” or “This is what we can do.” With our individual identity we say “This is what I am like,” or “This is what I can do.”

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Why is political debate such a volatile affair?  It usually seems pointless and even counterproductive.  Rarely does anyone convince anyone else of anything.  Even worse, these discussions tend to become quite emotional and heated; they seem to end with everyone more solidified in their existing opinion, except now they are also angry with the opposition.  For these reasons many people simply opt to avoid political conversation altogether.  What is the point if we are just going to create conflict and perhaps even damage relationships?

Consider that we can debate almost anything else (except maybe religion) relatively safely.  We make arguments for our musical taste, the merits of a particular film, the best city in which to live, fashion, etc.  People may have strong feelings about these things, but all except the most intolerant recognize that everyone is different and that we simply aren’t going to agree on these things.  We may even good-naturedly tease each other for the “silly” music or movies our friends like, but it is highly unlikely that we will become angry over any of this.

But what if I argue that a particular movie isn’t just great, but that it is so great that everyone should have to watch it.  It’s not just that the themes the film explores are relevant and well developed through the plot, it’s that the message is so important that people (including you) should have to watch it whether they want to or not. Whoah!  All of a sudden our conversation assumes a very serious tone.  You may very well be in a state of shock or disbelief at this assertion.  What do I mean that people should  be required to watch a movie that I like?  This is craziness!  What gives me the right to forcefully impose my will on people that way?

We may roll our eyes or shake our heads in disgust when we see another subscribe to, or do something that we perceive as absurd, but that is usually the end of it.  However if that person attempts to impose their viewpoint on us, we rightfully become defensive.  ”You can do what you want, but count me out,” would be our response.  But if a man corners us in an alley and tells us to, “watch this move or else”, this is no longer a simple matter of differing opinions about a movie; we are now dealing with the use of force.  Who wouldn’t feel violated in this situation?  This is clearly an injustice, and every sane person knows that it is.

So what does this example have to do with political debate and angry conflict?  This is what:

The political debate is the process of determining against whom, and for what reasons force will be used.

Even if the tone of the discussion seems civil and cordial, beneath everything said is the implicit threat of force.  Our brains are wired to engage the “flight or fight” response when we perceive a threat.  So it is impossible not to get angry during political debate.

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This is an excellent video explaining what liberty is.  It nicely supplements the subject matter in my three part post “Politics—Why can’t we agree to disagree?”

While the slideshow in its current form has been highly effective, it needs to be developed into an engaging video with animation and music.  I can handle the music (electronic music production is a side hobby of mine) and verbiage, but I am not a graphics person!  The Shift Happens video is an excellent model.  I’m thinking a Flash animation that can be posted  in full original quality here on matt.com, and then also posted to YouTube for greater exposure, would make the message much clearer to people.

A well produced video could go a long long way toward grabbing people’s attention long enough to teach them what is happening with money and economics in our world.  For example, the Cannot Print Wealth slide, without any detail or elaboration, simply states that doubling the supply of dollars makes every dollar worth half as much.  Most people can see this after a moment of reflection, although if you asked them to explain why they would struggle.  However, with visual representations of goods, services, consumers, and dollars we could show the number of consumers and the supply of goods held constant, with the supply of dollars being the only thing that changes.  By seeing what is happening it would be painfully obvious that the same number of people chasing the same supply of goods and services cannot possibly obtain twice the supply of goods and services.  Doubling the supply of dollars doesn’t double the supply of goods and services.  Explaining this textually in detail would require a lot for reading, and if we lose the interest of the viewer, we lose the battle.

Many principles in the slideshow that are stated very simply and matter-of-factly could be visually explained very quickly.  This way we can help people digest a lot of concepts, and really comprehend them, very quickly.

I’m not thinking of anything terribly sophisticated.  I really like the clean simply line-drawing animation in the Shift Happens video.  It seems clean and effective to me.  (Although I’m not committed to any particular approach; if you have a better idea, let me know.)  If you or someone you know is good at Flash and would be interested in working with me to develop something along these lines, please get with me!

mattwalt@gmail.com

Hello, everyone.

I’m Aaron, and I will be making occasional posts to matt.com.

The political issue that is dearest to me is the current state of health care in the United States.

While much (MUCH!) has been said about health care, and various suggestions for improving it have been put forward by both the right and left, no one, it seems to me, is addressing the real reason for escalating health care costs in the US.  The chief cause of any price increase is an imbalance between supply and demand.  In this case, the demand for physicians far outstrips the supply, and so the price of a even a simple visit to the doctor’s office is becoming prohibitively expensive to a growing number of people.

The reason for the imbalance in supply and demand is the mechanism we use to mint new physicians.  In order to practice medicine in the US, one must attend an accredited medical school, generally after earning a bachelors degree.  This is fine and well.  The trouble arises out of the fact that the only body currently authorized to accredit medical schools is the Liaison Committee On Medical Education (LCME), which is intimately affiliated with the AMA.  If one were to somehow attend a medical school accredited by some other agency, one would be ineligible to take the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) and therefore unable to practice medicine in the US.

As the sole body accrediting medical schools, the LCME dictates the number of medical schools in the country and the size of each class.  For an already accredited medical school, increasing the size of their classes requires approval from the LCME.  So the AMA exerts tremendous influence on how many new physicians are created per year.

The LCME asserts that they seek to insure that only the best educated people can practice medicine.  They insure this, they would say, by only allowing the most qualified educational institutions to educate only the number of people they can do so optimally.   And there is probably truth in this.  What should be clear, though, to even the most casual observer, is that the AMA can in no way be objective about how many physicians the country needs.  For every “extra” physician created, the supply is increased, and so health care costs and physician salaries could decrease.  This fact can not be lost on the AMA.

Whatever their intentions, it seems unavoidably clear that as long as people already in a profession are allowed to control how many new people can join that profession, the costs of receiving professional services will remain high and even climb.  No serious health care reform can take place until the issue of physician supply is corrected.

All the information about the LCME for this post was gathered from their website (lcme.org)’s FAQ.

Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to read the slides and spread the word.  I sincerely believe, as I mention on one of the slides, that this is the most important issue that we face today.  People disagree on so many issues.  What should people be allowed to do?  Who should be taxed and how much?  How should that money be spent?  When is force justified to protect rights?  A significant consideration with all of these questions is the expenditure of money.  Before we can can even debate these issues, before we can consider the costs of political action, we have to stand on a foundation of money that is steady and not in a state of uncertain flux.  Money has to be something constant.  Something we all understand and trust.  It is like language.  We can’t have a conversation unless we agree on the definition of words, and we trust those definitions to remain basically constant.

Today we don’t really know what a dollar, a peso, a franc, a pound, or a euro is.  Today, debates on the expenditure of money are like debating the appropriate length of a highway in terms of miles when the definition of a “mile” changes from day to day.

I have convinced many of you that this is, in fact, the most important issue we face today.  This leads to the inevitable question: what do we do about it?  If you live in the United States, we have an unprecedented opportunity.

Since its inception in 1910, the Federal Reserve has operated under a veil of secrecy.  Even though an act of Congress created it, Congress is largely kept in the dark when it comes to its day-to-day workings.  We don’t know the specifics of the assets it purchases (with newly created money), or from whom it purchases them.  We don’t know the specifics of the loans made by the Fed.  While the jury is still out on the need for, and even the essential legitimacy of, the Fed, it seems reasonable that we ought to at least be allowed to know the details of its behavior.

This notion that we ought to at least be able to know what they do is catching on.  A bill has been introduced that will subject to the Fed to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.  While there is significant opposition to the bill by mainstream economists and those close to the Fed, virtually everyone else supports an audit.  In fact, most of the House and the Senate have signed on as cosponsors already.  The support is bipartisan.  What can you do?  This website will educate you on the details of the bill, and even provides tools for contacting your representative and senator.  If yours don’t already sponsor the bill, make sure they do.  Let them know now.

On October 19th of 2008 I made matt.com, and the lesson of government, money, and economics live to the world.  Since then, tens of thousands of people have visited the site, and hundreds have emailed me with questions and comments.  Moving forward, I plan to start replying to these questions via my blog so I can engage everyone in the discussion.

And while I believe the issue of money and economics is probably more important than any other issue, I don’t intend to limit the scope of this blog to that topic.  I have lots of musings and opinions on politics and people, and I hope to get a lot of people interested in and talking about a lot of different things.

We will see what happens!  Please check back soon!