Michael Maiello's picture

    Government Is Arbitrary!

    By Michael Maiello on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 1:31pm | Politics

    Last week, I sat in a room and listened to a billionaire tell me, and a couple of hundred other people, that the thing he fears most is the government.  He justified his fear by saying that the government is often arbitrary in its rulemaking and in the way it uses its power.  Also, he hates Obama and accused the president of encouraging the Wall Street protesters when "he should be doing the exact opposite."

    I can't name the billionaire because I saw him at a work function and it's in our handbook that we're not supposed to blog, Tweet or Facebook about our work.  You'll just have to take my word for the fact that the billionaire in question is one of those names you'd see on the Forbes list, were you the type to care.  He's a successful investor and businessman and has deployed capital around the world.  Despite his great fortune (measured in both luck and money) he actually seems to think the system is working against him.  Everybody's a victim, right?

    But, let's not be unfair.  I actually agree that the government is too often arbitrary.  Alcohol is legal while marijuana isn't.  I can marry a woman but not a man.  We intervene in Libya but not Syria.  If I make a dollar trading a stock I pay a lower tax than if I make a dollar trading my labor for money.  So, yes, in many ways the government is arbitrary.

    But I suspect that our billionaire wants to solve the problem of arbitrary governance by enhancing the power of supposedly more disciplined markets.  But in my experience, markets are far more arbitrary than government.

    The pharmaceutical industry is a great example.  Left to its own devices, pharmaceutical companies would pretty much ignore the treatment of diseases that afflict poor people.  Why make malaria medications for people who can't afford to buy them when you can make millions on baldness treatments for billionaires?

    Or there's this ad for luxury yachts which makes the claim that boat ownership, once a frill, is now a necessity in a world where the rich are ruthlessly hunted and discriminated against.  Maybe that doesn't fit the definition of arbitrary, but it's certainly crazy.

    Or how about banks whining that they can't charge a 44 cent per transaction fee on debit cards even though debit card transactions don't cost more than 2 or 3 cents to process?  Meanwhile, these same banks have trading operations where they clear much more complex securities transactions for less than a penny a trade.  How is that not arbitrary?

    So, yes, the government can be arbitrary and that's wrong.  But let's not pretend that private markets aren't arbitrary and downright irrational a lot of the time.  I'd even argue that a lot of the government's capriciousness is in response to the unpredictable and downright nutty behaviors of the private market places that must be governed.

    But I'm not a billionaire, so what do I know?

    Topics: 
    Politics

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    As if a getaway yacht to international waters, arbitrary boundaries, solves anything.  They may fancy themselves pirates unbound by law but if enough start fleeing to sea, bet on some real ones showing up.  Please tell me people with that much money aren't that ignorant.  

     


    by EmmaZahn on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 2:38pm

    I think the people behind that ad are idiots, unless they're kidding.  Obviously the best place for a tycoon to reside is right here in the goold 'ol rich-hating USA, where they own the government and the police.  They know that most anywhere else in the world the government or the people would take their stuff away.


    by Michael Maiello on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 2:41pm

    Give a time limit on the rich returning to the US with the money they've put in offshore accounts, to avoid paying the taxes to the US .

    After that the rates go up.

    If the rich think they will be safer overseas, go for it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping#Statistics

    http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_kid-crime-kidnappings


    by Resistance on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 5:43pm

    As an "ad guy," I have to disagree with you.

    With the caveat that I don't know if this will "work," I think it's a brilliant, out of the box attempt to snare the (fearful bordering on paranoid) minds of this target audience.

    Great ads don't work by logic. Logic is used to "justify" an emotional appeal. But here, both are used even more brilliantly.

    The ad attempts to turn a "luxury," which is emotionally compelling, but hard to justify in today's economy, into a "necessity" which is, well, a necessity and thus MUST be bought.

    The guy already wants to buy the boat for all kinds of irrational reasons--including  that it will keep him "safe"--but now he can tell his wife that they need this.

    As a rule, we liberals are always trying to cut through irrational and often destructive emotions to get at the truth. We want to dispel myth and replace it with knowledge.

    Conservatives are masterful at harnessing emotion to achieve their aims.


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 4:33pm

    It's just escapism, Emma. I dream of a canoe trip down the Buffalo River of my childhood. The very wealthy dream of a catered life offshore, near their money.


    by Red Planet on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 1:39am

    Destor, I've had the impression for some time that the very rich incline to paranoia. I was at a dinner party a few years back and a high placed energy executive, probably not a billionaire but well heeled, who told me in all seriousness that the Dewey decimal system had been a Communist plot to codify information for takeover by the state. Unbelievable.

    But you have to wonder if an uncomfortable feeling might be seeping into the seclusion fantasies of the rich. For example, the floating island by the Paypal founder and the Russian Space hotel, ect.


    by Oxy Mora on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 10:05pm

    No one bats a thousand.

    Henry Ford almost destroyed his company. Gandhi advised the German Jews not to resist Hitler. On the heels of a landslide, FDR abandoned the economic policies he'd been re-elected to support.

    Nor is sit any safer to rely on the 'will of the people' - who elected Nixon twice, the second time in his landslide.

    The correct attitude is that of the skeptical looking woman in an ad saying, "I love ya honey, but cut the cards". 


    by Flavius on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 1:03am

    Do you think he might have considered the reason why the government is often arbitrary in its rulemaking and in the way it uses its power is because of the demands place by him and his cohorts on Congress, in the form of campaign contributions, to sweeten deals in their favor? After all, if one party is inclined to stroke Wall Street by passing favorable legislation with the expectations of generous endowments the other party is surely to deconstruction those favorable incentives when they take control. Perhaps he should consider Congress is arbitrary because of the influence money has on Congress critters not to be neutral in the legislation they produce. In short, he and his fellow jobs-creators are the source for why Congress is so wishy-washy.


    by Beetlejuice on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 7:37am

    Despite his great fortune (measured in both luck and money) he actually seems to think the system is working against him.

    It's ironic, or at least it should be. My good fortune has often led me to the conclusion that life's not fair, but unlike this guy, I realize that the lack of fairness has more often than not been in my favor. I was born in the United States, to a family that loves me and values education, and married the most perfect woman I've ever known. That's not to say I haven't experienced bad luck ever so often, such as the time my wife and I were hit by a tractor trailer driving 70 mph down the interstate that totaled our car, it's just that the good luck overpowers the bad, such as the time my wife and I got out of our totaled car after it had been hit by a tractor trailer without a scratch or bruise on our body.

    I've also known people far less lucky than I who still consider themselves lucky, and then there are people like this bozo.


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 8:53am

    Government is often incompetent and corrupt but rarely arbitrary.

    A quick look at you examples: Alcohol is legal while marijuana isn't.  I can marry a woman but not a man.  We intervene in Libya but not Syria.  If I make a dollar trading a stock I pay a lower tax than if I make a dollar trading my labor for money.

    Marijuana is illegal because the government is manipulated by those profiting from the billions spent by government on "fighting" drugs and imprisoning users and addicts.

    You can't marry a man because not enough religious voters are convinced that a sex-but-no-reproduction relationship warrants a marriage license, which is not a license to have sex or to love but a document that forces the government and private employers to extend financial benefits to one's wedded partner. Does having sex warrant marital status? How about allowing platonic marriages?

    We intervene in Libya but not Syria because Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa (8th largest worldwide) while Syria has none.

    Tax rates on labor-free Capital Gains and Dividend income are lower than workers' wages because the billionaire you heard, and his fellow top 1%, spend big money wooing the media into supporting their selfish agendas and misleading the average intelligence 99%.

    Weaken the government and businesses and the wealthy will do what they do best - maximize profits at all costs. Costs to us, that is, not them.

     


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 11:57am

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