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Unintended Consequences

Anybody who knows me for long knows I’m fascinated by history, and I collect interesting (to me) stories to illustrate the many lessons we can learn from it. And few aspects of history are more entertaining (to me) and enlightening (to us all) than those dealing with unintended consequences. You know, the situations where a leader or a group or even a nation does something and ends up–eventually–with an outcome entirely at odds with what they intended.

On one hand, these historical tales describe a rich vein of irony: not the watered down understanding of irony in vogue among post-modern intellectuals, nor the whiny version Alanis sang about (Ray-ay-ain on your wedding day is unfortunate, but hardly ironic). Irony involves the unexpected, which means when you have no reasonable expectation (such as the weather for a wedding day you chose), you can’t have irony. The best example of ironic humor I ever saw was a simple cartoon showing a man hitting a hammer against a glass vase; the hammer shatters, and the vase stands untouched. That’s ironic. And maybe that black fly just likes your Chardonnay!

Catchy song teaches illiteracy . . . maybe that’s ironic?

So here goes with some unintended consequences; enjoy:

“The Sins of the Father.”

George H.W. Bush, hereafter Bush ’41, was faced with a post Cold War conundrum. The US was the lone superpower, but what did that mean? When Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait in a completely opportunistic and aggressive move; he had his answer. Bush ’41 developed a global response, led by the US, to evict Saddam from Kuwait. Why? The US had long guaranteed the House of Saud that it would protect the monarchy as long as the oil flowed. And if Saddam could just seize Kuwait, there was little stopping him from doing the same to Saudi Arabia. We had built complete air bases out in the Saudi desert, even though they had little air power. The bases were financed by the Saudis and built/maintained to US standards, for our use should we ever need to project power in the region. Thus the US did not need to station troops in Saudi Arabia, which would have been offensive to devout Muslims.

So the grand Coalition marshaled its forces in Saudi Arabia and then expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Except there was no agreement about actually deposing Saddam, so they left him in power. Which meant he was a continuing threat. Which meant we needed to keep some “tripwire” forces in Saudi Arabia. A little-known cleric named Osama bin Laden had been preaching, to little effect, that the Saudi Monarchy was corrupt and in league with the infidel West. He predicted that the Saudis would allow “crusaders” into the Muslim holy lands, and when it happened, he moved from lunatic to prophet. And the seeds of Al Qaeda and 9/11 were sown.

Bush ’41 was looking to create a better world where aggression was punished by collective action. He forgot the simmering tensions that underlay all foreign relationships, and thought our good intentions would be recognized by all. Rather, he inadvertently laid the groundwork for a terrible challenge his son would someday face.

2. “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” H. L. Mencken.

In the early Twentieth Century, the Progressive movement was quite influential in federal, state, and local politics in the United States. Progressives were impressed with recent, dramatic improvements in science and technology and believed that these advances heralded an age when reason and science would rule between individuals and among peoples. One of their core concepts was the importance of direct democracy and the belief that the people could be relied on to do the right thing, if only given the opportunity to do so (i.e., vote). Partially this was a naive belief in the ‘wisdom of crowds’ but mostly it was a reaction to the various cabals, conglomerates, and oligarchs which proliferated at the same time. These “special interests” had seized control of several layers of government and the Progressives were their sworn enemies.

Progressives in California eventually got control of the state government and enacted several provisions which supported greater democracy: one was the creation of Propositions, whereby the people could vote directly on a policy which the government would then have to accept and enforce. The other was Recall elections, where the people could sponsor a vote to remove an office holder and replace him/her immediately. Both of these provisions were designed to limit the power of tiny groups of influential people by providing a means for larger groups to override them.

Things didn’t quite turn out that way. The Proposition concept did require a simple democratic majority, but it proved to be a blunt instrument that allowed ill-conceived, general concepts to be “approved” by the voters who probably didn’t fully understand the implications. It eventually ended up with the infamous Proposition 13 in 1978, which created a series of prohibitions on raising taxes or appraisals that have hamstrung California leaders to this day. Whatever one thinks about whether taxes are too high or too low, California’s proposition system proved a poor approach.

Oh, and the recall option? Progressives set the signature bar low for initiating a recall, and thus have cost one Democrat his Governorship and forced the current incumbent into an expensive defense, which had it failed, would have inaugurated a conservative Republican who managed only twelve percent of the vote! Power to the People, indeed.

3. Upsetting a delicate balance

Those who had a basic civics and government course can quickly describe the various “check and balances” built into the government of the United States by the Founders. There are the struggles between the three branches of the federal government, the powers reserved under the Constitution to the States and the People, Judicial Review, and the anti-majoritarian aspects of that same Constitution. These balances are constantly under stress. For example, as the US moved from a developing nation to a global superpower, the federal government naturally accrued much more sway. But sometimes the balance is voluntarily upset.

The Founders designed the House of Representatives to be representative of the people: directly- and more frequently-elected, more passionate and more partisan. For the Senate, the Founders intended a more deliberate body, selected by State Legislatures and therefor representing their (i.e., the States’) interests. But in the early years of the Republic, the federal Senate was less powerful (even a backwater), and some States either didn’t bother to send Senators, or didn’t send their best.

During that Progressive era at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, William Randolph Hearst, a fan of direct elections, sponsored a fictional novel, “The Treason of the Senate,” which detailed the failings of various Senators and State legislatures, fueling the fire for change. The result was the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which took the Senate away from the States and made it directly-elected, like the House. And as we all know, since that time, the Senate has never had any members who would be considered dishonorable in any way.

*EDIT: a sharp-eyed friend pointed out Agnew was only President of the Senate (as Vice President of the United States), so he merits inclusion as disreputable, but not as a Senator!

More to the point, since that time, no entity represents the view of the States in the federal process, which has led to further “federalizing” of State functions, and greater stress on the delicate balance that is the American form of government.

4. A prophet is not without honor except . . .

On June 8th, 1978, Harvard University held its annual commencement exercises, discharging another set of high-achieving alumni into careers as leaders of the nation. As is its custom, Harvard had bagged the most influential commencement speaker: former Soviet political prisoner, Nobel prize-winning author, and famously private dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

No doubt the Harvard administrators expected an important address, not the usual platitudes about ‘changing the world’ or ‘finding yourself.’ Perhaps the soon-to-be graduates expected a paean to the West, which had helped rescue the Russian dissident just as the Cold War was reaching its peak. What they got was “A World Split Apart,” a jeremiad worthy of the original Old Testament prophet.

Solzhenitsyn, characterizing his criticism as coming from a friend, not an adversary, attacked the West from start to finish. He said Western society was morally bankrupt and weak. Youth were selfish and complacent and materialist. The press was corrupt, interested in influencing the public rather than informing them. He asked what moral force the West could provide in the larger battle against the evil that was Communism, and he saw none.

The crowd at Harvard was rapt as the speaker–in Russian–and his translator–in English–continued. A few times they cheered, more often they vocally hissed. Afterward, the major media attacked the messenger, not the message, calling him “bitter,” “unappreciative”, with James Reston at the New York Times saying the speech represented “the wanderings of a mind split apart.”

Solzhenitsyn never apologized and never withdrew his criticism. After the fall of the Communist regime in Russia, he returned there, dying in 2008. His speech, which merits your attention, is amazingly prescient, accurately describing how trends evident in the West in the 1970’s resulted in many of the problems which bedevil us today. The speech is widely considered one of the greatest of the Twentieth Century, alongside Churchill’s “Blood, Tears, Toil & Sweat” and Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream.”

Needless to say, Harvard got more (and different) than they bargained for.

5. Packing, Cracking and Majority-Minority districts

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a landmark piece of legislation that, among other things, attempted to redress decades of voting rights violations committed against many minority groups. One of the things the Act specifically prohibited was the drawing of voting districts in a way to reduce the influence of minority voters. This is a type of gerrymandering (drawing voting districts to create an artificial vote result) called cracking: you divide a concentrated minority group (say for example, blacks in a city) among several voting districts that also include larger numbers of suburban whites, making it difficult for a black candidate to win. The end result is few if any successful black candidates.

But as anyone who is mathematically and geographically literate can tell you, if you draw a district to create a majority of minority voters (hence the term majority-minority district), you greatly reduce the number of minority voters in all the surrounding districts (because you’re dealing with small numbers–a minority–in the first place)! This is another form of gerrymandering called packing, which nearly guarantees a successful black candidate in one district, but also also greatly increases the chances of all the other white candidates’ success.

Currently there are approximately one hundred majority-minority districts in the US House of Representatives, representing about one quarter of the four hundred and thirty-five seats. These seats are overwhelmingly occupied by minority representatives, strongly indicating that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 worked. But, and there is always a but, over time voters have increasingly sorted themselves politically (like-minded voters choosing to live where they think other like-minded voters live).

Gerrymandering to disadvantage voters by party — or political gerrymandering — may be distasteful, but it is constitutional according to the US Supreme Court (Gill v. Whitford). But what if a racial group (i.e., African-Americans) overwhelmingly identifies with a single party (i.e., Democrats)? Then gerrymandering those voters might be a violation of the Voting Rights Act. So these majority-minority districts become protected (in theory) during redistricting. Which means if certain seats can not be changed (or changed much), all the other seats become subject to even worse gerrymandering.

So the law which seeks to protect minority representatives actually also places many more Democratic candidates at risk of being re-districted into noncompetitive campaigns.

6. Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Weapons that Weren’t

From the moment he took power in 1979, Saddam Hussein was on a mission toward self-aggrandizement and Iraqi domination of the Middle East. He constructed a security service that strangled Iraq’s many ethnic minorities, built up military forces, and sought weapons of mass destruction (WMD, especially nuclear and chemical). By 1981, Israel deemed the threat of Iraq’s nuclear program sufficient to justify a risky long-range aerial bombing and destruction of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. During the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, Saddam gassed the (Iraqi) Kurdish village of Halabja, killing thousands of his own citizens. He repeatedly demonstrated the capability and will to use such weapons.

US and Coalition military forces were prepared for Saddam to use such weapons during the first Gulf War in 1991, but he didn’t, fearing the reprisals. After the war, UN sanctions forced him to destroy his WMD munitions and infrastructure. Saddam complied, but continued to conduct suspicious actions which led the UN and various intelligence agencies to believe he retained a covert stockpile and program. Why else would he deny certain inspection areas, or make sudden movements of equipment and people to avoid inspections, if not to hide a residual capability? In the end, Secretary Colin Powell laid out the circumstantial case about Saddam’s programs before the UN, and Bush ’43 proceeded to occupy Iraq, capture Saddam, but never found any WMD!

During debriefings by the FBI after his capture, Saddam explained that he knew Iraq had the technical know-how and scientific capability to rebuild its WMD program. But he didn’t do so, so as to avoid giving the West an excuse to remove him from power. However, the West (and especially the US) was a more distant threat; Saddam firmly believed WMD and his demonstrated willingness to use them were all that was deterring the Iranians–and to some extent the Israelis–from attacking him. So he took a calculated gamble: act suspicious enough to make Israel and Iran stay back, but not so suspicious that the US would get involved.

This approach worked for decades. By the year 2000, human rights organizations were calling for the removal of sanctions on Iraq for humanitarian reasons (fake child mortality data provided by Saddam), Russia was actively working around the sanctions, and even France was signalling the sanctions had to go. But the 9/11 attacks had heightened US sensitivity about vulnerability to terrorist use of WMD. Combined with the Bush administration’s belief Saddam was a problem which would only get worse, his WMD bluff proved in the end to be his undoing.

Hope you enjoyed this small foray into the world of unintended consequences; if not, maybe I just committed another myself!

The End of (Dog) Days

Is there anything harder than putting down your dog? Don’t answer, I don’t want to know.

Judy & I have put down three Vizslas in our married life. It’s an odd euphemism. Some say “put to sleep,” others “put down” and of course there’s the old “sent to the farm.” But in the end, it means the same thing.

Our first two (consecutive) Vizslas each lasted to ten years old, which is pretty good for a large dog breed that has been inbred for generations. Both developed cancer, and showed signs of physical decay and pain that made our choice somewhat easier. The decline was sudden–weeks not months–and obvious. The veterinarian told us we could wait a little longer, but the likely outcome was painful internal bleeding leading to sudden collapse: hardly an option to choose. Still, it wasn’t easy, and I (actually the whole family) cried like a baby.

Dogs will do that to you. Both Judy and I had grown up with dogs as family pets. Yes, they cost a lot. Yes, they take up time. Yes, they’re inconvenient when travelling or with visitors. But then again, so are families. And dogs are a chance to teach your kids about responsibility, about growing up and growing old and dying. And in between, they give unconditional love. Kids need that; sometimes parents have to be the provider of tough love, but that dog is always there, wagging a tale, just happy to see you.

The best dogs don’t think they’re dogs any more. They think they’re slightly smaller, oddly-shaped humans. They want to be with you, they need to be with you, they’re only happy when they are with you. When our kids were grown and off to college, we rescued two Vizslas at once. Even though we understood the breed, the balance of two Vizslas and two humans turned us into a pack rather than a family, with negative behavioral consequences for all concerned. We quite literally found a farm for one of our Vizslas, and things returned to normal.

Tucker was our fourth, and almost certainly our last, Vizsla. We rescued him around the same time we committed to retiring to Mexico. He was “four or so” according to the breed Rescue Society, but we had just turned down a five year old since the pain of putting down a dog at ten was fresh in our minds. Suddenly a “four year old” became available. Hmmmm, something suspicious about that, what?

Tucker was a three-time loser, a dog who had been turned over to rescue at least three previous times, and this was his last chance. We had to say yes. We knew that his most recent owners had been in the midst of a divorce, and there had been an incident of domestic violence (the wife attacking the husband, who was the pet’s favorite, we were told). This would show up again once we rescued him: if Judy started walking quickly toward me, he would move between us, a trait which foreshadowed a sad end.

The Tucker we knew was a sweet dog, very smart, but also very stubborn. He learned several words (outside, w-a-l-k, treat) and many commands (sit, stay, and even “hurry-up” to poop, believe it or not), yet he practiced being deaf at times, too. He was afraid of smoke, even steam, and fire engine sirens. The chirping of the smoke alarm, signalling the need for new batteries, was an existential terror for him. He was only social with humans. When we took him to the dog park, he ignored the other dogs and introduced himself to all the owners. The few times he played with the other dogs, he would show-off by outrunning or out-cornering the other breeds, but then turn the pack on some smaller dog like a schoolyard bully.

After much work, we eventually trained him to ignore other dogs, which was fine with him. I noticed how he watched me go running on the weekends, so one time I decided to take him with. He fell into a heel position and ran at my pace for three miles! Either someone had trained him well, or he was natural born runner’s companion.

He started to “go white” almost immediately, confirming our suspicion he was older than we were told, but he was healthy and well-adjusted. We joked about him joining us in moving to Mexico, which was still five years out when we rescued him. Obviously he took us seriously, because those years flew by and at ten, he was till healthy and active and cancer-free. So we loaded him up in a tiny space in the back of our SUV and drove him south of the border.

Expat life was as kind to dogs as human retirees, and he remained healthy. Over the course of five years here, he lost some hearing, although he feigned losing even more. His depth perception and visual acuity declined, leading to some hysterical encounters with Mexican squirrels, including even stepping on one. He took longer and more frequent naps. He became more sensitive to those loud noises he could here, especially cohetes, which required mild sedation at times. But he was still active and alert. I think he got a kick when people asked how old was my puppy and I told them “fifteen years!”

In the past year, he stated displaying some confusion. He was prone to barking attacks where something set him off–he was clearly agitated, not startled– but could not be easily calmed. He started charging at Judy more often, sometimes just when we were talking. Finally, he took a small bite at her, (Strike One) and we knew trouble was brewing.

The drama of selling our house, buying a new one, moving, and having renovations only added to his confusion and agitation. When the grandkids were visiting, we left Tucker home one day, and when we returned, he ran out the door, jumped in the rented mini-van, and would not leave it. I went out and reached for him, thinking he was having trouble navigating getting out of the vehicle: no, he went off and tried to bite my hands. I backed away, so he leapt out of the vehicle and bit my leg (Strike Two). Then he stopped and looked at me with a “what was that all about?” look.

Two nights ago, Judy walked toward me and Tucker dashed across the room and nipped at her. I shouted and kicked at him (never reach for an angry dog), but he bit her a second time and clamped down. I smacked and kicked at him, and he let go, but she had a tremendous bruise on her thigh from the attack. Strike Three; you’re out.

He laid down in his dog bed, clearly upset, but whether that was remorse or shock, who knows? For us, the die was cast; you can’t keep a dog which might go full-scale beserk at any moment. In some sense, putting Tucker down was more difficult, since when he was normal, he was completely normal. In another sense, it was easier, as we had a sense of relief at not waiting for the next attack.

I still cried.

Buying & Selling Homes in Mexico: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Three very important things to remember up front:

The basis for Mexican law

First, stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Mexican law–like the Pirate Code–is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules. Most people know that criminal proceedings in Mexico are, shall we say, challenging; the civil code even moreso. Whereas North of the Border (NOB) the threat to sue someone can be serious, down here it’s an invitation to an endless parade of hearings and charges and counter-charges and oh, nevermind. The lack of a recourse to legal remedies is something you have to understand before owning property here.

Second, real estate is a growing business, but not a profession in Mexico. There is a realtor association (AMPI) pursuing professional standards of conduct. But there are no federal laws, and only some Mexican states have licensing requirements (ours, Jalisco, does not). So anybody can hang up a shingle and be your agent. Because it is not capital intensive and with little barrier to entry, we have met chefs and restaurateurs and waiters and retired expats and doctors and cabbies and others who are real estate agents.

Third, always remember that things in Mexico happen in three speeds: slow, slower, and slowest. Buying and selling property in Mexico means engaging notarios (who review and effectively “approve”the transaction), banks, real estate firms, home owners associations, utilities, maids, and gardeners, all for the purpose of establishing (1) you are who you say you are, (2) you own what you think you own, and (3) no one else has any claim on said property. All this in a land where cash is king, records are spotty, and the pirate code applies! Add in international money transfers and Mexican holidays and things will be all set mañana.

I just watched a Director’s cut of Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” so that’s the theme from here on out:

Amazon.com: The Good The Bad And The Ugly Clint Eastwood 1966 Photo Print (28 x 22): Posters & Prints — The Good, . . .

In the end, we sold our house for a fair price and bought the house we wanted for another fair price. Given that we started out by falling in love with the new house (a REALLY, REALLY bad idea), this is what it is all about. Of course, that’s like saying eating at a restaurant is all about consuming edible food containing sufficient calories at a decent price. True, but there’s the menu variety, the service, the presentation and so forth. When we’re talking about the largest financial transaction most people ever make, you want to say more than “phew, glad we survived that!” The other good thing was that the buyers of our home and the seller of our new home were pleasant people; it is always a pleasure dealing with reasonable people! But that leads us to:

THE GOOD BAD AND & UGLY LEE VAN CLEEF ANGEL EYES SPAGHETTI WESTERN PHOTO POSTER | eBay — The Bad, . . .

Many of the things under “The Bad” are structural. Without the possibility of a mortgage, we had to move money around in order to have it ready and waiting for the purchase. Getting no debt statements from the power (CFE), phone (TelMex), and water (Simapa) utilities was pretty easy. But some of these you pay in advance, and others in arrears, so that’s complicating. Then we needed to have our maid and gardener sign statements saying they had no claims on the property, and we needed a copy of their identification cards. As well as statements from the home owners association and the club and our receipt for annual property taxes paid.

At least we didn’t face two other potential “bad” aspects: currency conversion and title problems. The former happens if the other party in the transaction is a local national, since the actual transaction is completed in pesos at the moment of closing. If both parties agree to pricing in dollars, this peso conversion is irrelevant. If the deal is actually completed in pesos (per the Pirate Code), then one side has to convert them back to dollars, which could mean a substantial gain or loss depending on the currency markets (because you’re dealing with large sums, even a small change can mean big money).

The latter (titles) is a big potential problem here, as there are federal land use laws that could block one’s claim to ownership! As I understand it, the notario is responsible for authenticating the documents in the closing sale, but if the title is authentic but invalid, sorry, you lose. Buying property in an established development lessens the risk, as the title issues have probably been worked out, but it pays to do the research yourself. And finally:

GOOD BAD UGLY TUCO TAKES BLONDIE TO THE DESERT | Mapio.net — and The Ugly

These go back to my restaurant analogy: mostly things annoying or head-scratchingly dumb. The waiter spills water on you. Gets the drink order wrong. The appetizer comes with the main course. Your wine glass is dirty. You get the picture: not earth-shattering, but would you eat there again? Not if it’s a high end restaurant.

We had a long list here. An agent asked us to donate the beds in our new house to the cleaning team because “they fell in love with them.” Clauses we wanted in agreements failed to appear, not due to negotiation, they just weren’t there. Other terms–like a rent-back agreement–were similarly misplaced. Names misspelled, documents and data requested but already provided. A counter-offer that failed to mention the original terms, which thus became a “new” offer. An agent telling a client “if you decide not to go through with (buying and) moving here, I want you to promise me now that you will simply re-list the house for sale with me.” A threat to limit access to our new house before closing. A buyer’s agent who blithely commented “if anything minor comes up, I’m sure they (the sellers, us) will take care of it.” All of which just reinforces the point that real estate is a relatively unregulated market in Mexico, so you might encounter some pretty odd behaviors. We were pleased with our agent, but one must be diligent in selecting one.

All’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare penned! Here’s the money shot:

Moving Daze

Some pics to fill the time while moving fills the days:

This is my unhappy dog, Tucker, going fetal because of all the psychic dislocation

Everything You Know is Wrong (IX): The Spanish Inquisition

Ever heard of the Spanish Inquisition? I thought you’d be surprised! You know, how it demonstrated the horror of imposing one’s religious beliefs on others, not to mention the danger inherent in believing one knows exactly what God intends, which can lead to all manner of extremism. It’s a popular view, almost a trope, partly based on that well-established English bias about history that North Americans imbibe, and partly based on, well:

but you KNEW this was coming

The Good News (pun intended) is that the Catholic Church, being the world’s longest-running, most successful bureaucracy (among other things) has excellent data on the Spanish Inquisition. Not only that, the data are reliable, because the inquisidores really believed they were doing God’s work (however bizarre that may seem to modern sensibilities), and lying about their work would have undermined the “good” they thought they were doing. And the Vatican released the data in the late 1990s.

If you asked an average person what they knew about the Spanish Inquisition, the key points would boil down to: (1) many innocent people were tortured to confess, (2 ) they were burned at the stake, (3) all to force people to accept the Catholic faith. So let’s get past Monty Python’s “comfy pillow” sketch and look at the facts!

How many people died at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition? None. Well, that’s a quibble. See the Office of the Holy Inquisition had no authority to execute anyone; only a King did. So the Inquisition passed off the condemned to the King’s executioners. Setting aside the quibble, early estimates ranged upward of millions of victims killed. But there are those pesky records, and modern historians have pored over them and determined the total to be at most 5,000 people (during the period 1478-1834, about 350 years), or a little more than one a month. There were periods of more and fewer executions, and long periods with none, as no trials were held. Hardly an enormity in the true sense of the word, or even a blip in the mortality statistics of the day!

Why the quibble about the role of the King in all this? It may be hard to understand in modern-day terms, but back then the government and religion were one-and-the-same: it was called Christendom for a reason. Denying the true faith demanded penitence, but refusing to admit the sin was a challenge to the sovereign, who was after all God’s chosen leader (the Divine Right of Kings), and thus was a capital offense. That’s what cost the accused their life. There was a continuing disagreement between Spanish royalty and Rome, with the former seeking harsh punishment (for the challenge to the throne) and the latter granting mercy as long as those charged repented at any point.

What about torture? Yes, the Inquisition practiced torture. They literally wrote books about it: when to do it, for how long, under what circumstances, etc. These tracts would be very familiar to anyone who read the Department of Justice memos regarding “enhanced interrogation techniques” under the Bush administration. Where do you think “waterboarding” came from originally? Here’s the rub: all countries, and all legal systems, allowed torture at that time. The Roman legal system practiced it, and bequeathed it everywhere Romans went. Islam developed its own version. Charging the Inquisition with torture is “like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”

Napalm - Imgflip — actually Kurtz said it

For the Inquisition, torture could only be employed after guilt was established, to elicit a full confession and further information about co-conspirators, heretics, etc. (again, sound familiar?). There were limits on how long, what types, how painful, the need for a doctor present; it’s eerie reading. And none of these rules applied in the regular government legal system. There, torture was practiced freely without restraints and often used early in the investigation to get a confession and complete the case. How bad was “justice” at the time? The records show criminal or civil defendants requesting to be transferred to the Inquisition for trial! So guilty as charged on torture, with a huge asterisk as that was nothing unusual at the time.

What about forcing others to become Catholic? See, here’s the problem with that odd charge: anyone could avoid the Inquisition by simply stating they were not Catholic. The Inquisition had no authority over Jews, Muslims, or pagans. The Church had long accepted the notion that one could not be forced to accept a different religion; thus the Inquisition was adopted to weed out heretics and false believers. Spain was in the process of the Reconquista, the expulsion of the remaining Muslim forces on the Iberian peninsula. As Catholic Spanish forces gradually occupied the lands, they had the problem of ruling these lands. Their solution was to allow freedom of religion, but to place limits on land ownership, positions of authority, and to impose heavy taxes, thus encouraging–but not mandating–conversion. Incidentally, these were the same rules Islamic leaders developed when they ruled Al Andalus, rules which some historians called even-handed and far-sighted!

Some Muslims and Jews became conversos, but a very small number only did so for the financial and political advantages it held. These false conversions became a target for the Inquisition, often based on secret tips from faithful Muslims and Jews who were annoyed by the success of their one-time fellow adherents. Add in ethnic rivalries, the ability of the Crown and local leaders to profit from seized property, and petty jealousies and you get a deadly mix of accusations. One redeeming quality: the inquisidores were intrepid detectives, and most charges brought to court were dropped. One set of records shows about one percent of the 125,000 heresy cases brought to trial under the Spanish Inquisition resulted in executions.

What about the procedures involved with the Spanish Inquisition? The Inquisition was all about process: there were hundreds of pages of rules and policies and procedures, all of which were lacking in European justice systems at the time. That is why many ordinary people and local leaders welcomed the Inquisition. All throughout the process there were opportunities for those charged to confess and seek forgiveness through some act of penitence. The arrival of an inquisidor started a thirty day Grace Period (literally) where anyone could simply admit guilt, be given a penance, and be forgiven. Then began a period of accusations and investigation, a trial and verdict, then sentencing or release. The final act was the auto da fé, which has come to mean “burning at the stake” in English, but actually means act of faith. This was a religious ceremony–including a mass and a procession–where the inquisidor and local prelates related the results of the trial to a public. At the end of the process, the accused, having been given another opportunity to repent publicly, was handed over to the civil authorities for punishment.

Why is there such a dark cloud of misinformation hovering over the Spanish Inquisition? Partially it is so foreign to our ideals today, but mostly it is a hangover from the “Black Legend.” In the 16th century, Spain was the wealthiest, most powerful Catholic nation in the emergent struggle over the Protestant Reformation. Thus it was the target of propaganda, the most effective of which was a campaign known as the “Black Legend” which depicted Spain in the harshest terms as a land full of violence, corruption, sexual excess and worse: sort of like California today (I kid, I kid). Many of the stories involved the Spanish Inquisition, and England was the chief source (in its ongoing rivalry with Spain). And those legends got past along with English history.

None of which is to say the Spanish Inquisition was good. Saint Pope John Paul II apologized for the violence it enacted. Moreover, while heresy was a continuous problem in those days, the threat posed by conversos was greatly exaggerated and never merited an inquisition, as demonstrated by the numbers of trials, exonerations, and executions.

George Santayana said “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I would add that those who don’t know the truth about history are condemned to repeating falsehoods.

Dunkirk Revisited

In late May and early June of 1940, the German army blitzed across France. The speed and violence of the panzers and stukas left a beleaguered British Expeditionary Force and some remnants of the once-proud French army surrounded along the coast at the tiny port of Dunkirk. Over the period of eight days, the British navy, merchant marines, and thousands of individual ship owners conducted an improvised, hasty withdrawal-under-fire. They rescued over 330,000 soldiers, albeit with nothing more than the soaking wet uniforms on their backs. It was a humiliating defeat, but one tinged with a tiniest glimmer of hope, which was sorely needed by the British people at that point. Prime Minister Churchill reminded his nation that “we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations.”

The American experience in Kabul these days has me thinking of Dunkirk.

First off, the President continues to defend his decision to end the “war in Afghanistan.” This statement demonstrates his fundamental lack of understanding. Afghanistan was a theater of war: just one of many. While it is possible to surrender a theater in order to win a larger war, one must always remember that there is a larger war on. We did not start this war. Radical Islamic terrorists declared war on the US back in the 1990’s. We ignored them at the time, like a much-older brother ignores the taunts of a much-younger sibling. But like that sibling, the terrorist movement grew-up, and when they knocked down the towers, the game was on.

The US could not have cared less about Afghanistan or the Taliban but for their harboring Al Qaeda (AQ). When the Taliban refused to turn AQ over to us, they became another campaign in the war. And as I continue to remind, we can not declare that war over: only the loser can. So we can end the war tomorrow by admitting our evil, renouncing our ways, and publicly proclaiming the Shahada (“I bear witness that none deserves worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”). It really is that simple.

Secondly, I hear much soul-searching about ‘where we went wrong’ in Afghanistan. A few misguided souls says we should never have gone in; I won’t dignify that view with a critique. For the record, I was in favor of going in to Afghanistan to expel the Taliban and root our AQ. BUT, I was also in favor of a cold-hearted, realpolitik approach. Turn the “nation” of Afghanistan over to various regional warlords with this simple admonition: those who fight the Taliban and kill AQ will receive our funds, those who don’t will receive our bombs. Let them fight it out and install whatever puppet-regime the Afghan people could stand in Kabul. Yes, this would have made for atrocities and corruption and human rights violations, but thus was it ever in the Hindu Kush. At least we would be at a distance, and not directly involved in a place where our only interest was the absence of AQ.

When President Bush decided to expand the mission in Afghanistan to nation-building, I thought it was ill-advised but not impossible. I do not understand the logic of those who say “the US can’t do nation-building.” History will long remember our excellent examples in nation-building: Germany and Japan. We took two of the most militaristic cultures of the twentieth century and turned them into committed pacifists barely able to staff military forces (or in Japan’s case, even call them an “army.”) We took nations literally burned to the ground and rebuilt them into economic powerhouses which eventually rivaled us. This took decades to accomplish, even though we had fought a savage war against each.

Bu the best comparative examples for US nation-building are Vietnam and Korea. In the first case, we quit, with predictable results for South East Asia. In the latter case, we stayed. Now somewhere I hear a reader crying “Pat, you can’t be comparing Afghanistan with today’s South Korea!” and to that reader, I say “You’re right; I’m not.” But Afghanistan at year twenty IS comparable to South Korea in 1971. Let me refresh your memory: the Asia Times described South Korea in 1971 as a “Lost Land, . . . a gritty, poverty-racked, unsophisticated nation that was one decade into an industrialization program that would lead to riches.” It varied between democratic leaders, oligarchs, and an occasional military coup. During the previous twenty years, North Korean forces attacked the US and South Korea, killing our soldiers and marines. They continued doing so for the next twenty years.

Now I am not saying Afghanistan was on the path to similar success. But anyone who says we can’t do nation-building is wrong, and anyone who says Afghanistan would never have made it has to explain why South Korea did. Impoverished nation? Check. No democratic culture or history? Check. Pervasive external threat? Check. Persistent US military casualties? Check.

Thirdly (yes, I’m still counting), the President and other senior leaders have said “the Intelligence Community (IC) did not predict such a sudden collapse.” Without having been in the room, I know this is true. It is also a red herring: the IC does not predict anything. Prediction is the realm of prophets and seers, not intelligence professionals. I guarantee you that the IC did consider the possibility of such a scenario and included it as a worst-case one. How do I know that? Because if they didn’t, the President and others would have said as much and fired those responsible. He didn’t (fire them), so they did (cover it).

Likewise, my fourth point is a question. Given that the President has warned for days of a terrorist attack (meaning the IC had good info that an attack was imminent), and given that we remain at war with the Islamic State, and given that the Islamic State is the sworn enemy of the Taliban: why did we wait? Why didn’t we attack the Islamic State in Afghanistan before they attacked us, in order to perhaps disrupt their planning? We didn’t suddenly determine they are our enemy. Nor did we suddenly figure out where ISIS is in Afghanistan. Did we think the Taliban cared? Why the delay? Inquiring minds want to know.

On a tangentially-related, fifth point, who is advising the President on his messaging? Having him stare into the camera and intone “we will not forgive; we will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay” is not intimidating. He shuffles on and off stage. He squints at the teleprompter, which is not atop the camera, so it looks at times like he is not speaking to the audience. Either dim the klieg lights, enlarge the size of the font, or get him contacts/glasses. His speech is halting, and no, this is not his well-understood stutter. Joe Biden has been a public figure for well-nigh fifty years. He never was this forgetful, or confused, or halting. Assuming he is still in command of his faculties (and God help us if he isn’t), why are his handlers insisting on putting him in such a bad light?

When the Drawing Gets Tough—Squint! | The Scribbles Institute — This is intimidating . . .

Biden: Collapse of Afghanistan's government shows U.S. withdrawal 'was the right decision' - MarketWatch — This is not.

Sixth and finally (I know, you’re relieved!), the President most recently said he is following the advice of his senior military commanders. This is always re-assuring to hear. The problem is no competent military officer would ever suggest that we conduct a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) of unknown size, from a toe-hold perimeter around a civilian airport in an urban area. Someone made a decision to pull the military forces out first. Someone made a decision to evacuate the US Bagram airbase first. Someone made the decision not to accelerate the visa application process. There are reasons why such decisions might have been made: they are not blatantly stupid decisions. But someone made them. Those persons must be identified and given the opportunity to explain themselves, or suffer the consequences if their explanations do not suffice. Blanket admissions of where the buck stops are irrelevant. Who made the decisions?

Dunkirk is an interesting footnote in the history of World War II. It was not decisive in a military sense. The British could afford to equip and field another army. It was the channel, the Royal Navy, and the brave few pilots of the Royal Air Force whose “finest hour” thwarted any ambitions Hitler had of parading past Buckingham Palace as he had down the Champs-Élysées. But it was the snatching-of-a-small-victory-from-the-jaws-of-defeat that helped stiffen the English spine for the dark days ahead. During this brief period, Churchill gave a series of impassioned speeches in the House of Commons which are long remembered: “their finest hour” “blood, toils, tears, and sweat” and finally “we shall fight on the beaches, . . . .” Such is the stuff of legendary leadership.

We are still in a generational war against radical Islamic terrorism. We’ve had a Dunkirk moment, one of our own making. President Biden explained his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan by asking how many more casualties should we endure? He is now responsible for more casualties in one day than the US experienced in the prior two years. I am still waiting for what is his strategy for the larger war. And for when he will stiffen our spines for the fight.

Money . . . Get Back!

A challenge for expats anywhere is how to access your funds. This is especially true in most of Mexico, where credit cards may not be accepted or come with a handy processing fee (the same fee usually paid by the vendor elsewhere) tacked on. Luckily for expats, Mexico does have many cajeros automaticos, or as you know them: ATMs.

Expats become accustomed to knowing (and sharing) advice about banks and their ATM machines: for example, which ones have both ingles and espanol options, which banks charge what as a transaction fee, what the various per day and per transaction limits are, which machines “swallow” your card whole versus holding it where you can retrieve it manually (important where power might suddenly fail).

Lately, expats have had to master the bank-managed “service fee” scam called dynamic currency conversion. This is where the bank machine “offers” you to convert your peso request to dollars at the point of conversion (how helpful) but gives you an incredibly poor exchange rate. The trick is the “offer” seems to be like the transactions fee, in that it says you can accept or decline, but most people assume that if they decline they won’t be able to get their pesos (like the transaction fee, which if you decline, the machine ends your transaction). Untrue! If you decline, you still receive your pesos, but the bank or financial institution you use at home does the conversion, usually at a much better rate. This service has been a standard rip-off among restaurants and retailers in Europe for years, but it has recently migrated to ATMs worldwide: avoid it! I would note that if your domestic bank has a really bad reputation for its currency conversion rates, you might be better off using the ATM conversion rate. But you probably would be best off changing banks!

Some expats go the extra step by getting a Mexican bank account and credit cards, allowing them to transfer money from their previous home to here. Mexican banks are, shall we say, picky. Sometimes just opening an account can involve some of that famous Mexican bureaucracy, such as “no, that’s a color copy, we don’t accept it” or “(today) we’re not opening accounts for gringos.” Oh, and writing checks? Every item must be letter perfect, including your full name and day/month/year (not month/day/year) and the spelled-out sum in español, por favor. Oh, and most importantly, such accounts are not federally insured, so there is always the possibility your money could just disappear.

Not all of this is Mexican banks’ fault: Americans should know that the US government applies its own rules to foreign banks, making them responsible for various reporting requirements! Some banks and brokerages–even American ones–now shun American expat accounts as not worth the trouble. If you’re an American expat, you must report foreign financial accounts if (1) you have signature authority on the account and (2) if the aggregate value of all your foreign accounts exceeds $10,000 USD at any time during the year (there are exceptions). The important document to file is called a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) on FinCEN Form 114. It is only a report: it is not used to check whether you owe taxes, which of course you must pay on any income received via these accounts. And don’t try to get cute by intentionally hedging just below the $10,000 USD limit; one recent court case found such activity to also be against the law! You can see why some American expats never bother with foreign accounts.

What about the need for larger sums that would never be available via ATM, like to buy a car, furniture, or a down payment on a house? There are a growing number of options. Our American bank allows us to do a direct wire transfer to foreign recipients for around $50 USD ($25 for any wire transfer, an additional $25 for international recipients). If the transfer is not going to a financial institution–for example to a private individual–the bank sends us several warnings letting us know it can’t verify the recipient and it is not responsible once the money goes out, which just means we have to make sure we have the account info correct on our end.

We’ve also used Xoom (pronounced the same way as the videoconferencing service), a division of PayPal which facilitates international financial transfers. We’ve used Xoom to pay for some services like home repair or contracting. Most often we have not been charged a transaction fee, and the exchange rates have generally been good. There is a transaction fee if you’re using a credit card, not a bank account as the source. It takes a little time (and info) to add a new recipient, but once “in the system” the transactions are immediate (hours, not days). One extra (and very nice) feature is Xoom allows you to request confirmations (text or otherwise) for both the sender and recipient, so you get a running series of money sent/received notices. Also, if the transfer fails for any reason, Xoom will notify you of that, too. I know there are other international transfer services with similar features, but Xoom is one for which we can personally vouch.

Some brokerage accounts (like Charles Schwab) also allow international transfers without extra charges, so that is another way to have money secure in one place but still be able to move it where you need it. There are exceptions, so make sure you read the fine print!

Finally, a related issue with financial transfers (of any sort) could be the need for notarization. I knew of expat friends who were forced to fly back to the States to get notarization of financial documents. We recently had a similar situation, and discovered online notaries who could meet all our requirements for about $30 USD and ten minutes of online consultation!

Some expats get all wrapped up in exchange rates and trying to game when they transfer larger sums to gain an advantage. Sometimes this is because they are on a budget and a few pesos matter; sometimes it’s just the thrill of getting a deal. In any event, there are myriad ways to move money internationally these days, and more coming along every day. While having money is a key factor in being an expat, getting your money shouldn’t be.

This didn’t have to happen

Within days, we’ll witness a string of atrocities across Afghanistan, as the Taliban consolidates power, takes revenge on those who opposed it, and reimposes its sordid, misogynistic rule. The US went into Afghanistan to evict the Taliban not because they were, and are, evil; we went there because they refused to turn over Al Qaeda to stand justice. For this reason, the US deployed the force necessary to evict the Taliban in a truly amazing display of military power.

In the twenty years since that happened, various American Presidents tried and failed to extricate the nation from the war. It was clear to all that the end of an active US military presence in the Hindu Kush (the ancient term for the area we know as the “nation” of Afghanistan) would mean a return of the Taliban. America tried increasing its presence and operations to destroy the Taliban, tried increasing its civil involvement (building schools, writing laws, fostering businesses), tried reducing its military footprint to reduce frictions, and finally tried negotiating directly with the hated Taliban.

In the last five years, the US engaged in a strategy of delay and stalemate. We provided the Afghan government with all the means to succeed while realizing it never could: in effect we propped it up. We built up the Afghan military so it could resist the Taliban, but only if it retained the continued training, air support, and logistics from the US Army. This strategy succeeded by not losing.

Some decried this strategy as defeatist. While the American way of war emphasizes victory, the American public (and its elected officials) no longer have the stomach for the carnage (both to our soldiers and the enemy) that entails. Waiting the Taliban out was always a long-shot, but it had worked so far. Why did we abandon it?

Some said that Afghanistan was America’s longest war. They are either wrong or simply lying. We have been at war with the People’s Democratic Republic of (North) Korea for seventy-plus years. The fact we currently have an armistice that makes people (even South Koreans) think the war is over is testament to how a strategy of waiting the enemy out can succeed. In the meantime, South Korea evolved into a vibrant economy, a manufacturing powerhouse, and even a nascent democracy.

That long “not peace” was not always as peaceful as it is today. At times after the 1951 armistice, the sides exchanged fire and postured. North Korea infiltrated forces across the DMZ to attack targets in the South, and even master-minded an attack on the Blue House and the terrorist bombing of a South Korean airliner in 1987. The US and the Republic of Korea forces suffered casualties, but full-scale combat was avoided. This was a long-term, successful strategy by any measure.

Could this strategy have worked in Afghanistan? It was. Over the past five years, the US drew-down forces and reduced its footprint and operational tempo. We gradually let the Afghan Army take the lead, but were always close at hand in case “things went south” (as we used to say in the Army).

But what of the casualties? I want to be crystal clear here. I was a soldier once; many of my classmates served in Afghanistan, and some died there. No soldier wants to die, and soldiers deserve to know they’re not being sacrificed for no reason. But they do know, from day one in basic training, that they may be sacrificed. Especially in an all-volunteer, professional military, this is a well-understood proposition. Our casualties during the last five years in Afghanistan ran under ten deaths per year. We lose a thousand service-members annually to training accidents. There was no countless-deaths-in-vain reason to withdraw.

From the Federation of American Scientists. OCO is war-on-terror combat, non-OCO is training

But what of the cost? Even with the monumental (and well-documented) corruption, Afghanistan represented a minimal financial burden to the US. In the last few years, we were spending around $50 billion US dollars annually on all activities in Afghanistan; that’s what the entire US government spends in two days. The people who say the cost was too high are the exact same people who said we couldn’t just destroy Al Qaeda and leave the Taliban in charge, we had to create a democracy and build Afghanistan’s civil infrastructure. We tried; it didn’t take, or at least it didn’t take well-enough that Afghani soldiers felt compelled to fight and die to defend it. Maybe it just needed more time, but the clock ran out.

President Trump was wrong to direct a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Like most of his decisions, it went against his own hand-picked advisors, and seemed to be based on his gut instincts or his dislike for the Bush family. He thought he was being decisive in “ending an endless war,” when he simply misunderstood that in combat, only the loser can end a war. He has that decision on his record forever.

Even more execrable is President Biden’s decision to not only withdraw, but to accelerate the timetable. President Biden has seen fit to completely rescind almost every policy President Trump put into place, but here he doubled-down on it. I recall the quote of the Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said Mr. Biden had the unique position of being ‘the only person wrong on every major foreign policy issue in the past forty years.’ Looks like the string remains unbroken. His administration set arbitrary (and inane) deadlines, like withdrawing by September 11th. Then they advanced them further, apparently realizing all hell was breaking loose but not that such a move would be reminiscent of Saigon, 1975.

The Last Helicopter: Evacuating Saigon — Nothing to see here, move along!

Proving that this was a policy decision not fully coordinated with the military, the administration conveniently ignored the fact that thousands of Afghanis (and their families) who worked with the US military had to be evacuated or they would be massacred; the haphazard evacuation continues today. Administration spokesmen blithely bat away the helicopters-on-the-rooftops comparison, while the President orders three-thousand US Marines back into Kabul to evacuate the US Embassy. Guess we’ll use Humvees this time.

Yes, this war dragged on. Yes, the US engaged in mission creep, and was never willing to destroy the Taliban. Yes, the US military was going to keep sending soldiers home draped in coffins as long as this war continued. No, there was no compelling need for President Trump’s rash decision, nor President Biden’s inexcusable continuation of it. No, we were not bleeding ourselves dry outside Kandahar, nor were we bankrupting the nation’s treasure bankrolling corrupt Afghan officials. No, this loss was not inevitable. It was a choice.

As I said before–and as it has always been–the losers determine when a war ends. There is no dignity in this withdrawal, whether or not we see people clinging to helicopter skids. Our military did exactly what it was asked to do. This “L” is on our Leaders, who lost hope, lacked fortitude, and thought they could finesse it. There will be no finesse in Kabul soon, only peace, the peace that comes with the grave.

Our leaders always knew, from Day One, what would happen if the Taliban returned. They now share this legacy.

An Analytic Mind

Let me apologize in advance for the length, breadth, and depth (I hope) of this post. You’ll want to pour a large drink (coffee or something stronger), get comfortable, and take a few deep cleansing breaths before reading further!

Often during the past four years of blogging, and even back when I worked, I decried efforts to engage emotions over facts. Sometimes this happened in academia, more so in politics, frequently in news media, and overwhelmingly in social media. I found myself constantly warning others NOT to fall for the easy tug on one’s emotions. Ask yourself “why am I being told this?” Question “what is the rest of the story?” Ponder “how accurate is this data?” Always think “what else–beside the obvious aspect–could this mean?”

Analysts, indeed anyone with an analytic mind, must be careful when reaching for the very persuasive tool that is emotions. When I was still in the business of grading analysis, we had a rigorous debate about the use of graphics–pictures and graphs and maps and videos–to support analysis. After all, we all know “a picture is worth a thousand words.” One of the guidelines we instituted was the graphic should elaborate the analytic point (making it clearer, for example) but not extend beyond the analysis. Thus in an analysis which concludes that Bashar al-Asad used chemical weapons against innocent civilians in his own country, you don’t include a photo of gassed, dead babies, because the issue is DID HE DO IT? If the analysis was concluding he ordered the gassing in order to terrorize his opponents, you might include the same photo, because the point is his use of terror. As you might imagine, such a guideline raises interesting and difficult questions, but these are exactly the kinds of questions that should be debated when using emotional graphics in analysis.

But I realize that I benefited from years of training and practice in these arts, and constantly warning others not to fall for easy emotional grabs was not as useful as explaining how to avoid them. So here goes, with some examples of how to look at things and question what they mean:

This graph was from a New York Times’ OpEd piece. I didn’t embed the GIF for security reasons, but the graphic movement just shows that effective tax rates on the ultra wealthy have steadily decreased from 70% in 1950 to around 20% in 2018, while rates on most everyone else have slightly increased! Are you outraged yet? Take deep breaths, I’ll wait.

I am willing to concede that this data is correct, but what does it tell you? That the rich pay less in taxes? No. The wealthiest 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of all federal income tax revenue. That the government is stupidly ignoring taxing the rich? Unlikely, since the government needs revenue. Our leaders are corrupt? Believe that if you like, but to do so you must indict both parties at all levels of government: Democrats & Republicans, federal, state and local officials. That’s quite an indictment!

So ask yourself: why (primarily) does the government tax? To gain revenue. It can also tax to discourage spending (e.g., sin taxes) or to encourage investment (home mortgage exemptions) but these are secondary to the main purpose. The government can only print money, it has to tax to acquire it. Why would the government lower taxes on the rich, if the rich have so much money? Because rich people have many more ways to avoid paying taxes. And like everybody, they will only pay what they feel is a “fair share.” Beyond that, they will use every legal trick to avoid extra taxes. And they will avoid those taxes, because they are rich and have more tax-avoidance tools.

The poor, on the other hand, have much greater difficulty avoiding taxes. They can’t simply move their residence on paper to another state. The poor can’t shelter income as dividends or business expenses, and they can’t avoid gas taxes and tolls. They are more inclined to see taxes as inevitable, and only react strongly when the situation gets way out of hand. Thus the poor are easier to tax than the rich.

The real kicker here is the middle class. They too only want to pay what they feel is their fair share: any more and they rebel and seek some form of evasion. This was the story of Proposition 13 in California back in 1978, which restrains that state to this day. The middle class has more resources for the government to tax, but also more active voters to avoid taxes. So go back and look at that chart, and you’ll see the government stops trying to tax the rich (which is popular but ineffective) but raises taxes on the middle class and near-rich, which is an effective way to raise revenue as long as there are more of them and they don’t revolt. As to the poor, they can’t avoid taxes, so they get hit too (when you count all forms of taxes). It may not be “right” but it is absolutely rational, and doesn’t require you to be outraged or believe the system is corrupt.

This post has been marinating for a week while I waited for another, current example: the Good Lord (and the Washington Post) provided. In yesterday’s WaPo there is an article about a real world policy issue: whether the additional federal unemployment benefits provided during the pandemic were keeping people from returning to work. The article is here, and is based on a WaPo & Gusto study you can read here. Go ahead and read the article, I’ll wait.

The essence of the debate is that red state Republican governors ended the extra benefits early, in the belief that workers were staying home cashing in on benefits rather than returning to work. Blue state Democratic governors kept the benefits flowing. Thus we have a natural experiment, the results of which should answer the question whether workers really were skipping a return to work because of the increased benefits.

The WaPo headline and lede demonstrates their analytic take: there was no hiring boom for the states who cut benefits. And they have a graph which proves the point:

However, the study also concluded that “who” was getting hired was different:

Blue states were relying on teenagers to keep pace

So red states saw a surge in 25+ year olds in hiring, but blue states saw a surge in teenagers to come up with the same numbers. Except those teenagers (1) weren’t eligible for the extra benefits, and (2) won’t be around in the Fall when they return to school. As the Post stated in a single sentence buried in the article: “The analysis also adds perspective to the teen hiring boom, revealing that more generous unemployment payments played a role in keeping more experienced workers on the sidelines, forcing employers to turn to younger workers.” (emphasis added)

Or, those who said the extra benefits were keeping workers from returning were correct. Which is not in the headline, or the lede, or anywhere obvious in the story. Now note I am not taking sides on whether it was a good idea, or moral, or anything else to reduce benefits early: just that the data suggests adult workers were staying out of the workforce because their enhanced unemployment benefits assisted that option. Which is/was the case in point.

The article also referenced workers who suffered from the reduction in benefits, which is an old emotional ploy. I wonder if the Post looked for someone in the states that maintained benefits and who used the extra money to buy oxycodone and died from an overdose? See how easy it is to tug at the heartstrings? Perhaps the article could have considered whether the best use of teenager’s time was to get them into dead-end jobs, or whether working affected their virtual schooling performance?

One last point: the WaPo piece also describes the other factors delaying workers from returning: schools or day-care, fear of the virus, or workers re-assessing their careers. It did so without mentioning why schools are still out (teachers union’s demands), whether vaccinated adults should be “afraid” and whether workers should be permitted to remain unvaccinated and opt out of working, or why federal benefits are appropriately used for workers to decide to change careers.

Nothing that the Washington Post wrote was factually wrong. But I think you can see how all of it was shaded toward an end. And that was done with all the data plainly provided for you to see. For those with an analytic mind, it isn’t hard to blow off the mists and see things as they are.

Look closely, because sometimes the smoke is just an illusion, and the only fire is in the eyes of the salesman.

A Family Visit

There are few joys more profound for an expat than when family comes to visit. Especially when family is skeptical about the whole “why are Gramps & Meemo living in Mexico?” story. So my dear wife and I were very excited when our younger daughter, her husband, and their young son and daughter decided to join us on our return trip from a family visit to South Bend!

They came for a solid week, and of course, we had the first full week of rain I can remember in four years. We got a lot of ribbing about “unlimited sunshine” and where was it? However, when reminded that back home in the Mid-Atlantic it was ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity at nine o’clock in the morning, they admitted it was still better here.

We went to the pool & the club and hit several local favorite restaurants. What was surprising to these first-time visitors to real Mexico? Not much. They were a little surprised by how inexpensive things were, especially booze and food. They noted the prevalence of barbed wire and broken glass on the tops of the walls, and the amount of roadside trash and shrines, all sad things we had to explain. Pick-up truck loads of standing laborers, families on scooters, and people riding horses while talking on cell phones brought surprised smiles.

We took a day trip to the Guadalajara Zoo, which I highly recommend. It has a variety of passes for different sets of exhibits, is nicely laid out with abundant shade, and the animals seem well-cared for. We also used the services of Mex-ECO tours for a private visit with friends to the town of Magdalena, near Tequila, for a afternoon of opal mining. Kids, hardhats, and pick-axes: what could go wrong? I asked about dynamite, but none was available. We did find a few opal and quartz stones suitable for polishing and great as keepsakes of the day. We also spent a fine Sunday visiting Juan Diego and his wife Laura at the goat farm (Galo de Allende) near Mezcala, where the grand-kids got to milk a goat and mix with the herd.

The kids and grand-kids got to experience that overnight tropical deluge along with prodigious thunder and lightning, eat from a molcajete, and try the Mexican versions of their favorite American cereals (“not quite right” was their considered opinion). After a week (the approved limit for all family visits), we took them to Soriana for the ritual covid tests and they flew back to the States.

We missed the opportunity to get fresh chicharrónes, go horse-back riding, attend lucha libre, or see downtown Guadalajara, but they did get to see our new home (more on that later). Most importantly, everybody stayed healthy & unhurt and had a good time. They’ll be back, although it may be difficult to pry them loose when they move to Vicenza, Italy, later this year. Guess we’ll just have to pay them a return visit first (the things we do for our grand-kids)!