I made a loan via Kiva zip for Hilda to buy a posho mill machine. The loan was repaid in full.

The Curious Cats group on Kiva has made over $27,000 in loans to entrepreneurs around the world (the way Kiva works the groups, they don’t include Kiva Zip loans). You can join us. I believe in the model of micro-finance (Investing in the Poorest of the Poor [this one is grants instead of loans]), though I also believe we need more data on real experience of borrowers. Kiva Zip gives loans directly to people with a 0% interest rate. Normal Kiva loans have financial institutions (some of which are charities but they still have expenses) make the loans and Kiva lenders provide capital (at 0%) but the borrowers have to pay interest (the idea is they pay lower interest since the financial institution has a 0% cost of capital).

Related: Kiva Loans to Entrepreneurs in Columbia, India and Kenya – Kiva Loans Give Entrepreneurs a Chance to Succeed (2011) – Using Capitalism to Create Better Lives in Mali (2009)

One thing people in rich countries forget is how many of them are in the 1% globally. The 1% isn’t just Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. 1% of the world’s population is about 72 million people (about 47 million adults). Owning $1 million in assets puts you in the top .7% of wealthy adults (Global Wealth Report 2013’ by Credit Suisse). That report has a cutoff of US $798,000 to make the global 1%. They sensibly only count adults in the population so wealth of $798,000 puts you in the top 1% for all adults.

$100,000 puts you in the top 9% of wealthiest people on earth. Even $10,000 in net wealth puts you in the top 30% of wealthiest people. So while you think about how unfair it is that the system is rigged to support the top .01% of wealthy people also remember it is rigged to support more than 50% of the people reading this blog (the global 1%).

I do agree we should move away from electing corrupt politicians (which is the vast majority of them in DC today) and allowing them to continue perverting the economic system to favor those giving them lots of cash. Those perversions go far beyond the most obnoxious favoring of too-big-to-fail banking executives and in many ways extend to policies the USA forces on vassal states (UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan…) (such as those favoring the copyright cartel, etc.).

Those actions to favor the very richest by the USA government (including significantly in the foreign policy – largely economic policy – those large donor demand for their cash) benefit the global 1% that are located in the USA. This corruption sadly overlays some very good economic foundations in the USA that allowed it to build on the advantages after World War II and become the economic power it is. The corrupt political system aids the richest but also damages the USA economy. Likely it damages other economies more and so even this ends up benefiting the 38% of the global .7% that live in the USA. But we would be better off if the corrupt political practices could be reduced and the economy could power economic gains to the entire economy not siphon off so many of those benefits to those coopting the political process.

The USA is home to 38% of top .7% globally (over $1,000,000 in net assets).

Oxfam published a report on these problems that has some very good information: Political capture and economic inequality

The chart shows the correlation between kids and parents income and income inequality for each country listed. The more income inequality the more rigid the economic system is. Those countries with huge amounts of income inequality create economic systems to insure those that have rich parents are rich themselves.

At the least trust fund baby country cultures you have Scandinavian countries. The USA has been moving to an increasingly trust fund baby focus over the last few decades with the expected increase in kids incomes being more related to their parents income than any other factor. In the USA now nearly 50% of someone’s income can be “explained” by their parents income. That is the math showing how income is correlated to factors (such as college education, degree type…) shows that 50% of the kids income can be calculated just using the parent’s income.

That is obviously a very anti-capitalist system. It is the essentially a nobility based system of kids inheriting their place in society instead of earning it. I have written numerous times about this corruption of the word capitalism by the talking heads and politicians in the USA being used to justify corruption. For example, in these posts: We Need to be More Capitalist and Less Cronyist, Anti-Market Policies from Our Talking Head and Political Class and Not Understanding Capitalism.

The corrupt political system adopting economic policy that favors those giving cash to politicians is very bad for our economy and society. We can change this by not electing corrupt politicians but we don’t seem even remotely interested in doing so. Until that changes the corruption system will continue to damage our society, country and world.

If we are lucky we will reduce the level of corruption in the the political parties in the USA and other rich countries. The level of corruption is likely to remain very high though. The rules are being made by those with cash to pay corrupt parties and only minor adjustments around the edges are able to blunt the full force of corruption. It would be wonderful if this corruption could be largely eliminated (such as petty corruption has largely, though there is still far too much, has been USA – bribes to get business license, bribes to avoid sanctions for unhealthy food preparation conditions, etc.).

The current system largely favors the very wealthy and powerful that get special favors only available to them. One way to participate is in those companies that benefit from the current corrupt systems (cable TV, ISPs, too-big-to-fail-banks, copyright cartel industries, health care…). The biggest exception I think is too-big-to-fail banks. In the other industries the executives take large portions of shareholders profits, because then can, but they have some limits where shareholders will finally throw them out.

So the executives many times their fair share of the economic benefits due to the corruption in Washington DC but there is a large amount left for shareholders. In the too-big-to-fail banks the executives treat shareholders like their customers – fools to be fleeced at every opportunity. So they have hugely profitable businesses supported by bought and paid for politicians and bureaucrats but they then take so much of the profits that owning those companies seems unwise to me.

But for many other industries you can participate in the benefits provided by the corrupt political parties in the USA by owning stock in those businesses they provide favors to for piles of cash. You don’t make the .01% global rich list by working hard and a normal job and saving 15% of your income. But you can make the 1% global rich list by doing that with a median income job in the USA (and most other rich countries). It might not be glamorous and you might be jealous of those that are better at exploiting the corruption to get ahead, but you still are better off than 99 our of 100 people economically. That is hardly something worth pity.

Now if your parents are poor you are going to have a much harder time getting to the point where you get a job where you earn a median USA income. It would be better if the USA improved a great deal, but even so, there are very few (if any) places you are better off being born (economically) than the USA. Of course, being born rich in a country like the USA where we elect politicians to create trust fund baby economic policies is even more lucky than just being born in the USA.

Related: Cash for Votes subreddit – Economic Fault: Income Inequality – How Economic Inequality Harms Societies – The Aim of Modern Day Political Parties in the USA is To Scare Donors Into Giving Cash – Rich Americans Sue to Keep Evidence of Their Tax Evasion From the Justice Department

I think sites like oDesk provide a potentially great way for people to lead productive and rewarding lives. They allow people far from rich countries to tap into the market demand in rich counties. They also allow people to have flexible work arrangements (if someone wants a part time job or to work from home that is fine).

These benefits are also true in the USA and other rich countries (even geography – there are many parts of the USA without great job markets, especially many rural areas). The biggest problem with rich country residents succeeding on something like oDesk is they need quite a bit more money than people from other countries to get by (especially in the USA with health care being so messed up). There are a great deal of very successful technology people on oDesk (and even just freelancing in other ways), but it is still a small group that is capable and lucky enough to pull in large paychecks (it isn’t only technology but that is the majority of high paying jobs I think on oDesk).

But in poor countries with still easily 2 billion and probably much more there is a huge supply of good workers. There is a demand for work to be done. oDesk does a decent job of matching these two but that process could use a great deal of improvement.

I think if I became mega rich one of the projects I would have would be to create an organization to help facilitate those interested in internet based jobs in poor countries to make a living. It takes hard work. Very good communication is one big key to success (I have repeatedly had problems with capable people just not really able to do what was expected in communications). I think a support structure to help with that and with project management would be very good. Also to help with building skills.

If I were in a different place financially (and I were good at marketing which I am not) I would think about creating a company to do this profitably. The hard part for someone in a rich country to do this is that either they have to take very little (basically do it as charity) or they have to take so much cash off the top that I think it makes it hard to build the business.

But building successful organizations that can grow and provide good jobs to those without many opportunities but who are willing to work is something I value. I did since I was a kid living in Nigeria (for a year). I didn’t see this solution then but the idea of economic well being and good jobs and a strong economy being the key driver to better lives has always been my vision.

This contrast to many that see giving cash and good to those in need as good charity. I realize sometimes that is what is needed – especially in emergencies. But the real powerful change comes from strong economy providing people the opportunity to have a great job.

I share Dr. Deming’s personal aim was to advance commerce, prosperity and peace.

Related: Commerce Takes More People Out of Poverty Than Aid – Investing in the Poorest of the Poor – I am a big fan of helping improve the economic lives of those in the world by harnessing appropriate technology and capitalism – A nonprofit in Queens taught people to write iPhone apps — and their incomes jumped from $15k to $72k

I realize some people see risk in what sites like oDesk make possible to create a market that means people can’t earn a decent living. I do actually see that risk and think it is real. I don’t think trying to block commerce because of this risk is an effective strategy. I do think many millions of people can be helped (and some will be hurt). I think we are better off trying to help those that want to work in such a way to do so.

I do worry that we may well not have decent work for people that are not interested in highly valuable skills and/or are not willing to work (just expect to be given the rich life many of those in places like the USA got to have the last 70 years without much effort). As long as we have corrupt politicians selling out the country to those giving them cash the richest 20% in the USA will have huge trust funds to live off, so they will be rich. Those that aren’t living off trust funds or inheriting huge windfalls will have risks to survive.

They are still economically super lucky to have been born in the USA so I don’t really feel very sorry for them. But yes, there are real risks to the easy riches that we have had (and even so many in the USA struggled even while we have the richest middle class the world has ever seen in the richest country the world ever saw). But it is going to be harder going forward (at least comparatively to the rest of the world contemporaneously) – compared to the struggles people had 100 years ago I am not at all sure it will be more difficult for the average kid born in 2010 than it was for the average kid born in 1910 (especially if average doesn’t mean white boy but everyone and both boys and girls).

Bono (who is fairly well known as the lead singer for U2): “Commerce — entrepreneurial capitalism — takes more people out of poverty than aid, of course, we know that.”

That is my belief and something I believe in strongly. Real capitalism will bring people out of poverty. That isn’t the same thing as any businesses will do that. Businesses that use monopolistic powers to extract benefits to themselves and suppress free markets may well do more damage than good. But we will continue to bring more people out of poverty through economic development and capitalism than through aid.

Related: Helping Capitalism Make the World Better – Kiva – Giving Entrepreneurs an Opportunity to Succeed – Dr. Deming’s personal aim was to advance commerce, prosperity and peace – Business 901 Podcast with Me: Deming’s Management Ideas Today – Monopolies and Oligopolies do not a Free Market Make

I abhor the subsidies provided to those that saddle corporations (that build up value through decades of hard work by employees) with huge debt. The actions of leveraged by out firms are atrocious. They seek to pretend that business is once again the land of the amoral behavior, as the robber barron’s sought to convince society of long ago. Those that saddle corporations (that have an obligation to those that built them up) with huge debt are despicable.

Those same despicable people then take huge amounts of cash (for themselves) from the debt they saddled the corporation with.

Quite a few smart people have figured out how to pay congress to allow those smart people to take huge profits out of businesses. By being smart enough to have congress create laws to allow their behavior they can say it was just doing what the law allowed. When you conspire with the authorities to create a system to drain cash from legitimate businesses into your pocket you can claim you are acting legally (if you do so by having them change the law, instead of having them just ignore the existing laws). But what is being done (for decades by both parties) by those we continue to elect to allow this behavior shows just how corrupt the system is.

It is sad we allow those politicians who payoff those that give them large amount of cash, at the expense of our society, to remain in office. But we don’t even discuss the issues in any significant sense. Those using this cronyism and corruption know they are continuing to be given the open door to continue their very destructive ways. These are smart people. They know how to use public apathy and rhetoric to keep from discussing the important issues. It is going to take us to stop the corrupting cronyism that has taken over our political parties.

Related: Too Much Leverage Killed Mervyns – Failed Executives Use Leverage to Increase Their Pay, Let Others Bailouts Later – Executives Treating Corporate Treasuries as Their Money, A Sad State of Affairs – CEOs Plundering Corporate Coffers – Leverage, Complex Deals and Mania – Looting: Bankruptcy for Profit

I have donated more to Tricke Up than any other charity for about 20 years now. There is a great deal of hardship in the world. It can seem like what you do doesn’t make a big dent in the hardship. But effective help makes a huge difference to those involved.

My personality is to think systemically. To help put a band aid on the current visible issue just doesn’t excite me. Lots of people are most excited to help whoever happens to be in their view right now. I care much more about creating systems that will produce benefits over and over into the future. This view is very helpful for an investor.

Trickle Up invests in helping people create better lives for themselves. It provides some assistance and “teaches people to fish” rather than just giving them some fish to help them today.

The stories in this video show examples of the largest potential for entrepreneurship. While creating a few huge visible successes (like Google, Apple…) is exciting the benefits of hundreds of millions of people having small financial success (compared to others) but hugely personally transforming success is more important. Capitalism is visible in these successes. What people often think of as capitalism (Wall Street) has much more resonance with royalty based economic systems than free market (free of market dominating anti-competitive and anti-market behavior) capitalism.

Related: Kiva Loans Give Entrepreneurs a Chance to Succeed – Micro-credit Research – Using Capitalism in Mali to Create Better Lives

Robber barons and their ilk are not capitalists. Those attacked today as capitalists are much more like European nobility that fought to let the nobility take most of the economic profit from everyone else.
Capitalism is a wonderful thing.

The foolish economic policies the politicians we have elected over and over again for decades are idiotic and not capitalist (they are somewhat capitalist but the things people are complaining about are not capitalism but the corruption of the system by those subverting capitalism). They are the result of favoring cronyism and bribery over capitalist regulated markets.

What we need to do is not throw out the capitalists. We need to actually throw out those that say their cronyistic policies are capitalist.

Capitalism is an economic system designed to achieve economic gain for a society. Adam Smith (and others) understood that if those with power to destroy the functioning of markets (for personal gain) were allowed to do so then the benefits capitalism can produce are reduced. And they definitely would try to (according to the believes fundamental to the capitalist model) so a capitalist system has to account for that.

“Free” markets are good. But in capitalism “free” markets means markets where no entity has “market” power – that is the ability to move the market. This is the idea of perfect competition. In the real world this doesn’t happen but capitalist understand the weakness of unfree markets and that has to be dealt with. Things start to get messy here. There is no perfect way to do this and I don’t know of anyone (that I don’t think is naive) that thinks this can be done in some way that avoid economic friction (loss to the society from what is possible in some ideal state).

Now those that like cronyism and letting whoever has the clout do whatever they want have tried to say capitalism means doing whatever you want to get as much capital as you want. It doesn’t. Capitalism isn’t about letting whoever has the gold get more. It is an economic system to provide gain to society by setting up rules that result in market forces brining benefit to society.

Those thinking about setting up the rules for a capitalist system understood that many people are going to try and get away with taking what isn’t theirs. So you have to enforce the rule of law. You have to prevent those that seek to destroy markets and take personal gains they should not be able to (due to being allowed to collude with other market players, collude with politicians to gain political concessions that destroy market functions…).

I happen to believe capitalism is the best economic system we have by far.

I happen to believe those that have increasingly turned out system into one where croynism is destroying markets to give gains to a few parties dominates are creating great damage. But the problem is not that these people show capitalism is bad. Instead these people show the dangers of not putting in the effort to retain capitalist ideas: your economy suffers and people suffer.

There can be debates about many aspects of how you best allow markets to function. But we have largely allowed those that don’t believe in capitalism to claim that their desire to setup rules that benefit a few connected players is capitalist. It isn’t.

For those that just say capitalism is bad I am not sure what they advocate (I know they will advocate many different things). Capitalism, to me, is a current best engineering solution for how to arrange an economic system for people. If we find something better, I am fine switching. There are some capitalists who think it is more like a religion – that Capitalsim is the end, Capitalism is what is good. I don’t believe that. I believe that the capitalism engineered solutions we have now have been corrupted greatly by those seeking to benefit small numbers of people for their own gain (plain and simple corruption with a health dose of ignorance to help them justify their actions and maybe simple stupidity also, it is hard to know how much is intellectual lameness and how much is corruption).

There is also an attempt to call a political idea capitalist; which is basically that government is evil. This also creates problems as you have people advocating what they call “capitalism” but it is actually just their political dislike of government. That political position is fine to argue just don’t equate that position with capitalism. It is true that capitalism believes in using market forces instead of government central planning for the economy but the anti-government arguments are mostly about non-capitalism issues.

My belief is, society will benefit if we stop allowing those seeking to destroy markets so they get personal gains. And if we seek to make the economic system more capitalist instead of the cronyist system we are moving toward.

We never had some great capitalist system – the “golden age.” I do think in the last 25 years we have become less capitalist and more cronyist. And have come to think of capitalism as something it isn’t – the political idea of government is bad.

From here we can advocate for different economic policies and aims. I believe we will be best served by moving away from cronyism and toward capitalism. Others what to move in another direction. There are those that want to become more cronyist (they are winning). There are those that just want to punish those that are winning at the cronyist game. While I also dislike that our system is rewarding those people I don’t think the aim should be to punish them. The aim should be to design a better system and let the gains go to those that create solutions that the market rewards: remove the distortions that allow cronyists to profit by their trampling on markets (avoiding competition).

The problem I have will those attacking the current system as capitalist is that in doing so the solutions that will follow are likely to reduce economic prosperity for the society. I agree with those that are frustrated with the current system favoring cronyism. I think society will benefit by trying to be more capitalist. If cronyist succeed in claiming what they offer is capitalist that takes away the best solution to the problem – which is to move toward capitalism. Then we are left with trying to find what non-capitalist solution beats the current somewhat capitalist and increasingly cronyist solution. Which is a mistake, I think. That is the choice it is a lose lose option, I think (unless someone has some new economic system that performs better than capitalism that I am ignorant of).

Imagine if people equated Microsoft in 1995 as “technology companies.” The behavior that Microsoft engaged in that was bad was not a problem with “technology companies.” Those were problems of Microsoft. I don’t think we should have gone in some anti-technology-company direction. We needed to address the issues with Microsoft. Today we need to address the cronyism problem.

This post is already too long, but what I call the “cronyism problem” does over-simplify reality tremendously.

This post puts together 2 of my posts on Reddit, see the discussion on Reddit.

Manuel De Jesus, miller and farmer in El Salvador, will use his loan to buy parts for this milling euipment.

There is a great deal focus recently on the “99%” (via occupy wall street and the like). The truth is these are mainly about the 5% or 10% (those rich, but not quite as rich as the richest 1% – and much further from the richest than they were a few decades ago). As I have written before, most of those in the USA (also Europe, Japan…) are rich (though this is changing, a greater percentage of the USA is not rich, looking globally, than maybe any point since the 1930s).

We get confused because many near us are even richer and think that means the rest of us are very poor. But those in the USA are often in the 5% or 10% – not the 30% or 60% or 90% they seem to think they are. $50,000 in annual income puts you in the top 1% globally. $25,000 puts you in the top 10%.

I agree with the desire to reduce the political and market corruption, as I have written for years.

For the 99% (or the 90% anyway), I really think the best things are government policies that reduce corruption and increase market forces. Letting actually capitalism work instead of political and corporate cronyism failing to let markets work as they should. Also giving education and the chance to build a better life for yourself are important. Thankfully many countries have been doing very well on this front: Singapore, Korea, Brazil, Ghana, China… That doesn’t mean there are not huge issues to still address for most of the 90%, there are.

Microfinance in general, and Kiva in particular, are one great way to help. Again it isn’t perfect. And those getting the loans are not given an easy life. They are given a chance to try and build there business to improve there economic condition. This isn’t a certain success. And I do worry that taking on too high an interest rate, or loan amount, can leave people worse off than before. But when looking at the system of microfinance I really like the opportunity it gives people, who haven’t been given many.

Those getting loans have to make smart personal finance and business decisions. If they do well they can greatly improve their financial situation. I made several more loans today, using money repaid by previous borrowers. I try to find loans where I am able to help fund a investment that will improve capacity (but that isn’t always possible) – a new machine that makes them more efficient for example. I also try to avoid loans where the interest rate is over 30% (which might seem very high, but rates below 20% are very rare given the economics of these loans – they are very costly to service). What Kiva does is provide the funds people like me lend as interest free loans to the partner banks. The idea is that this allows partner banks to provide more capital for loans (obviously) and at a lower rate because the bank isn’t having to pay interest on the funds.

My loans today went to: Mali, Honduras, Senegal, Ecuador, Togo, Philippines and in the photo above El Salvador. The Curious Cat Kivans group has now lent $12,925 in 320 loans. We now have 11 members, join up and help give people an opportunity to improve their economic condition.

Related: More Kiva Entrepreneur Loans: Kenya, Honduras, Armenia… – Using Capitalism in Mali to Create Better Lives – Funding Entrepreneurs in Nicaragua, Ghana, Viet Nam, Togo and Tanzania

Crony capitalism is a better phrase for what we have been practicing. Though using the word capitalism is misleading. Even better would be politically supported corporate cronyism. We have elected those that pursue this anti-market approach. And we watch them in great numbers on TV based on what is supposedly popular. But I really hope we can turn away the claims of capitalism somehow being consistent with the crazy things people have done.

Pushing a political desire that anti-government and calling it capitalism doesn’t make it so. Capitalism at the core is about a system that allows markets to efficiently allocate resources to provide the greatest societal good. It is based on markets working. Capitalists know market players will try to prevent markets from working to gain themselves. To support capitalism you need to design systems that deal with this weakness otherwise you are not talking about capitalism you are talking about something else. Something that where anti-market forces which undermine the basis for why capitalism is a useful method for societies to gain economically is subverted to a desire to support those that can buy political power.

I have written about this some, as I care about it: Economic Consequences Flow from Failing to Follow Real Capitalist Model and Living Beyond Our Means – A Free Market is not One with Monopolies and Oligopolies – Mis-representing Capitalism

Those that conflate freedom in every form and free markets don’t understand that free markets are a tool to and end (economic well being for a society) not a good in and of themselves. Politically many of these people just believe in everyone having freedom to do whatever they want. Promoting that political viewpoint is fine.

When we allow them to discredit free market capitalism by equating anti-market policies as being free market capitalism we risk losing a great benefit to society. People, see the policies that encourage allowing a few to collude and take “monopoly rents” and to disrupt markets, and to have politicians create strong special interest policies at the expense of society are bad (pretty much anyone, conservative liberal, anything other than those not interested in economics see this).

When people get the message that collusion, anti-competitive markets, political special interest driven policies… are what free market capitalism is we risk losing even more of the benefits free markets provide (than we are losing now). That so few seem to care about the benefit capitalism can provide that they willingly (I suppose some are so foolish they don’t understand, but that can’t be the majority) sacrifice capitalism to pay off political backers by supporting anti-market policies.

Allowing businesses to buy off politicians (and large swaths of the “news media” talking heads that spout illogical nonsense) to give them the right to tap monopoly profits based on un-free markets (where they use market power to extract monopoly rents) is extremely foolish. Yet the USA has allowed this to go on for decades (well really a lot longer – it is basically just a modification of the trust busting that Teddy Roosevelt tried). It is becoming more of an issue because we are allowing more of the gains to be driven by anti-competitive forces (than at least since the boom trust times) and we just don’t have nearly as much loot to allow so much pilfering and still have plenty left over to please most people.

I am amazed and disgusted that we have, for at least a decade or two, allowed talking head to claim capitalist and market support for their special interest anti-market policies. It is an indictment of our educational system that such foolish commentary is popular.

Free Texts Pose Threat to Carriers

This is exactly the type of behavior supported by the actions of the politicians you elect (if you live in the USA).

It is ludicrous that we provide extremely anti-market policies to help huge companies extract monopoly profits on public resources such as the spectrum of the airwaves. It is an obvious natural monopoly. It obviously should be managed as one. Several bandwidth providers provide bandwidth and charge a regulated rate. And let those using it do as they wish. Don’t allowing ludicrous fees extracted by anti-free-market forces such as those supporting such companies behavior at Verizon, AT&T…

Related: Financial Transactions Tax to Pay Off Wall Street Welfare Debt – Extremely Poor Broadband for the USA (brought to us by the same bought and paid for political and commentary class) – Ignorance of Capitalism – Monopolies and Oligopolies do not a Free Market Make

I guess the 99% are protesting against the culture of allowing bought and paid for politicians to put their donors interests above the countries interets. But this is no change from what has been going on for a long time. The “solution” is easy. Elect people with ethics and a concern for the country instead of those that are bought and paid for. But we have shown no interest in doing so, and don’t show much of one now. My prediction is we will chose to elect the same people have sold the countries interests down the road for decades.

Those that believe in special interest politics and against free market capitalism (instead supporting large business special interests against the free market system) dominate the talking head and political leaders in the USA. Until that changes nothing will change in any real way. yes occasionally you will have minor successful measures such as restricting some of the abuses by large banks (while allow most of the abuses to continue instead of dealing with the problem of restraint of competition and free markets) but the effectiveness of such measures is very limited.

All we have to do to change is elect smart, decent, ethical people like Elizabeth Warren. But we need to elect hundreds of them. There are probably 20 or 30 in Washington now but that can’t do much against the bought and paid for politicians.

I understand the sensible criticism of overregulation. Fools that think the EPA is a bad thing are another matter entirely. Criticizing the poor implementation of regulations, is a good expenditure of resources. Debate over how we regulate externalities in the markets. Perfectly sensible. Market based solutions are great. I understand some far out people will even argue for not regulating pollution and the like (those that think the EPA needs to be abolished for example – the EPA is already so de-neutered it is amazing to see people still fighting against the institution). Fighting against bad regulations or execution, yes, sure, that makes lots of sense. But the idea that we shouldn’t have the government concerned about the externalities of pollution for our health is crazy. There is no other way to see it. We are all free to have crazy ideas. We shouldn’t be taken seriously when we do, however. Mostly, it isn’t crazy, but paying off people giving large amounts of cash in order to have special rules to allow them to harm society. Why we accept such behavior from anyone we take seriously is beyond me.

Visa, Mastercard Accused of Price Fixing

It is pretty obvious ATM fees are ludicrously high. The most likely reason (given the political economy culture [essentially the support of anti-market forces that aim to help interests collect profits gained by restricting the ability of the market to provide value to society] we have right now) for such a situation is collusion to prevent free markets from providing value to society and instead a few players extracting profits from anti-market policies.

We should also note that in many locations (all?) we have allowed the judicial branch to be bought and paid for as well as the legislative branch of government. The executive branch is bought less directly with “capture” by the regulated and the promise of jobs that pay well later, for those who provide favors today (plus, of course, buying the political leaders at the top of the executive branch). Also the top of the executive branch organizations are often seeded directly by those that gave the politicians money. This is a very bad situation. And the corruption it leads to is not something that is easy to fix. When even the judicial branch is so highly tainted it is a very bad state of affairs.