2013 January
January 31, 2013
OIG Recommends that CMS Recoup More Than $100 Million in Overpayments for Incarcerated and Unlawfully Present Beneficiaries
Catastrophic Single-Payer; Mandatory Routine Visits
If everyone in the country had this system, confusion and bureaucratic mistakes would be far fewer. There would also be far less time calling insurance companies and checking to see what’s covered or not covered. The chances of mistakes like this being a significant problem would be dramatically reduced because medical service providers, consumers and everyone else would be far more familiar with the whole system.
These overpayments to providers should be considered theft although much of it may have been honest mistakes due to the complexity of the bureaucratic process. Nevertheless, the providers that were compensated when they should not have been, should be required to give back at least 50-100% of what was paid to them, depending on whether they knew or should have known that these payments were in error and did nothing to stop them.
Punishments Denominated Primarily In Terms of Money
Punishments dealt in this way would have reduced the incarcerate population, thus reduced the number of individual who would have been the subjects of such overpayments.
Illegal Immigration Enforcement
If reduced numbers of illegal immigrants were present, then a reduced number of such people would have been the subjects of these overpayments.
January 30, 2013
School Delays and Closings for January 30, 2013
Academic Year Definition, Length, Vacation Schedule & Daily Start Time
Since this proposal provided for a 4 week winter vacation, the chances that schools would be closed due to winter storms is decreased.
Self-Paced Flexible Packaged Courses
With these kinds of flexible courses, students wouldn’t need to held to such a rigid schedule of school attendance. Students would be better able to choose when to study and when to take tests.
January 29, 2013
Outsourcing, Insourcing and Automation
All these taxes would act as a brake on increasing business size, thus reducing some of the potential advantages of economies of scale, paramount of which is automation.
Tax Trade Across Political Boundaries
Taxing trade across political boundaries would act as a brake against outsourcing since it would make it more expensive to import the product.
Distinct Nested Entities Treated as One for Tax Purposes
Although there is no such tax today, insourcing production within the same company would be encouraged by preventing the taxing of internal sales of goods within the same economic entity (even across parent-daughter company relationships). “In-house” production would further be encouraged by taxing business-to-business sales.
Eliminating the massive credit flows throughout the economy would reduce the probability of large scale expansions and contractions in economic activity (the business cycle). Migrating our money system from one backed by debt to one backed by stable elements like population size and the price level index would result in a more stable money supply and economy.
January 28, 2013
Manufacturing Jobs and the Rise of the Machines
Tax Trade Across Political Boundaries
In a mature, stable society, the natural progression towards greater automation and more efficient production will eventually lead to a bi-modal distribution in the demand for workers. This means that the majority of workers will be required to either know how to design and maintain high-tech machinery designed to perform automated and high efficiency labor, or must be willing to do relatively low skilled work.
This natural evolution of a society would also naturally result in the more efficient producers of a good or service to more easily gain market share at the expense of, obviously, other, less efficient participants in the market. Free market are supposed to operate in a way that favors the more efficient suppliers. However, it is possible, as a society, to become so efficient that the interests of a large segment of or even the majority of the middle class population is harmed.
Taking it to the extreme to make a point, think about how unbeneficial it would be for society (the world) for one person/business to produce a good quality and low cost product with a 100% market share. This would mean that only one company would make mattresses, one would make windows, one would make bicycles, etc. Though the products would be good, hardly anyone would be employed in making them because production is so efficient that very few employees would be needed to satisfy the total demand.
Stable and mature economies have allowed market participants decades or centuries to study the market, learn about consumer behaviors, reduce or eliminate inefficient production methods, lobby governments to remove inefficient policy obstacles and develop and utilize efficient ordering and shipping methods. Because of this phenomenon, it is necessary to logically intervene in the markets by inserting a beneficial degree of inefficiency into the economy. Though taxing trade across political boundaries may not be a total solution, it may insert enough of an inefficiency into economies to allow enough sub-optimally efficient businesses to remain viable, thus keeping employed the masses of people that may otherwise not have been.
The trend toward increasing efficiency and productivity may still be present, but because the effective profitable scale of each business is somewhat limited as a result of these political boundary taxes, the economies of scale advantage associated with very large businesses would be reduced, giving smaller participants a chance to succeed.
Apart from this dry economic argument, it is also psychologically beneficial for people to be employed doing what they love. For example, if someone loves to make wooden cabinetry, but one company located across the country has practically locked up the entire market with their low cost, high quality cabinets, it would be virtually impossible for this start-up to remain viable and grow–dashing the dreams of this entrepreneur.
All these taxes would contribute to the same effect of decreasing the economy of scale efficiencies related to large sized businesses, giving less efficient, entrepreneurs the economic buffer necessary for viability.
January 27, 2013
Crude Oil Spills Into the Mississippi River After Oil Barges Crash
Criteria for Government Subsidies
If government subsidies for oil in the form of defense spending and extremely low production lease and royalty agreements, the cost of oil would be higher and the demand would be lower. Thus, the chances that accidental events, such as oil spills, would be lessened.
Subsidies are also a significant factor favoring river/barge traffic compared to rail traffic because the barge industry does not need to pay anywhere the full costs of the locks an dams that are necessary to make rivers navigable. Incorporating these costs on the industry would make transporting oil in this way more expensive, as well.
Natural Environmental Harvest Tax
Imposing a tax specifically on the virgin extraction of materials from the natural environment would reduce such extractions and lead people to use alternative forms of energy which are currently competitive with oil. This would reduce the chances of oil needing to be transported, thus reducing the chances of this accident ever having happened.
An estimate of the total number of units of pollution need to be determined and a penalty for each unit needs to be determined.
January 26, 2013
Union Membership In U.S. Fell to a 70-Year Low Last Year
Most of the benefits fought for by unions have been codified into law. Currently, in most cases, unions are overshooting their purpose. In the past, when 6-day work weeks, 14 hour days, and unsafe working conditions were all too common, unions fought for decent safety and compensation rules. Now, workplaces are pretty safe, and compensation rates are regulated sufficiently well. Unions currently tend to fight for incrementally more rights that are harder and harder to justify. Sure everyone would like higher pay and shorter workweeks, but where does it stop? When does a union cross the line into fighting for indulgences rather than necessary protections? It seems as though this low in union membership nationwide indicates that most people are satisfied enough about the conditions in the workplace. After all, work is work. It’s not always pleasant and it is always easy to find something to complain about, but it would be wrong to try to get a union to fight to remove every negative aspect of a job. Virtually all the big problems have been solved, thanks to unions. If these problems return, then bring back the unions again. Unions shouldn’t be forced to disband, they just need to be restrained, somehow. Governments are able to preserve many of these benefits.
January 25, 2013
To fix Overproduction, China Wants to Supersize Industries
It’s true that overproduction capacity is an economic negative when it comes to measuring the economic efficiency of any operation. However, efficiency should never always be the singular goal. Regulators must also ensure that fairness, competitiveness, quality of goods or services and the internalization of all negative externalities (the the greatest extent practical), are also qualities to be strived for in the free market. This market share tax will help create a natural economic environment that would tend to focus the market participants onto these goals, as well.
January 24, 2013
Mayor Announces 2013 Summer Youth Employment Program
‘Primary” & ‘Secondary’ School Redefinitions
The normal school curriculum for students between about ages 13 through 20 should include actual job experiences. In other words, students should actually be progressively allowed to choose what subjects and interest they would like to study further, and then be able to do some studying or work in those fields in the real world. This way, they could get some actual on-the-job experience. Thus the need for special programs like this one announced in Washington D.C. to provide meaningful employment and work-readiness training will become almost unnecessary.
Academic Year Definition, Length, Vacation Schedule & Daily Start Time
Children have too much vacation time compared to the rest of the industrialized world. Less vacation time will result in less academic regression, greater equality in academic achievement between the rich and poor, and lower logistical hurdles for the poor to overcome, such as childcare arrangements during extended vacations. The school day should also be longer. Increasing the school year in this way, in combination with incorporating on-the-job training as mentioned above, would result in less of a need for such summer programs.
January 23, 2013
Defiant Clinton Takes On Lawmakers On Libya Attack
Libya should have been divided up into perhaps three different countries in order to allow each sufficiently distinct people group to determine their own destiny. Such a political reality would have reduced the degree of tribal and sectarian violence that has been characteristic of the aftermath of the revolution and the current civil war. Land for the Touareg people should have been set aside in the western part of the country (as well as in Algeria, Mali and Niger) while land for the Tebou should have been set aside in the southeastern part (as well as in Chad and Niger). The northern half of the country could have remained unified under the similar enough Arab-Berber population.
Mandatory General Education Completion
An educated population is less likely to enthusiastically embrace violence as a means of effecting change. However, the immediate appeal of violence as a superior means of realizing the imagined potential for a better society is a very powerful psychological phenomenon to all too often lead masses of people into a decades-long life of pain and poverty.
Teaching people how to discern truth from both religious teachings as well as scientific teachings will go a long ways towards defusing so many dangerous philosophies. People should be taught that in areas where religious teachings overlap with scientific teachings, for example in the area of origins, there should be significant agreement between them both for the religious teachings to be accepted. This way, not as many people will grow into adulthood (when they are less susceptible to having their views changed) hanging on to ideas that are frustratingly false.
January 22, 2013
UPDATE: Former Ohio Lawmaker Sentence…
Reduced Privacy Protection for Public Elected/Appointed Figures & Intelligence Personnel
If this official’s bank accounts were opened up sufficiently, such embezzlements would probably not have gone undetected for so long.
Clayton Luckie stole nearly $130,000 presumably over a few years and his punishment was only an $11,000 fine and three years in jail?!?!?! So Clayton pays $11,000 and the tax payers pay $40,000 per year ($120,000 for 3 years) for housing him in jail. He’s not a violent criminal who needs to be locked up!
Costs of a Crime & Punitive Penalties
The way is should have been would be that he be fined perhaps $260,000 ($130,000 his crime total plus a punitive multiple of 2) and then told to work out a schedule to pay back the government. That would likely take several decades and ensure that others get the message that being corrupt is very expensive.
January 21, 2013
Yen Gains Ahead of Bank of Japan Meeting
Having a currency based on fixed social measures such as population size and a price level index (as opposed to credit and debt) would result in a less volatile economy and less volatility in currency markets. Even better, it would result in far less of a need for meetings such as these in which policies on how to manage the economy are discussed. Economies, when structured properly, can be remarkably self-regulating.
Tax Only Active Economic Activity
Speculative trading in currency markets (and in virtually all commodity markets), though does serve a useful purpose, tend to be too unrestrained, meaning that it is too easy to enter and exit these markets. Such ease creates the higher potential for bubbles to form and burst quickly. Perhaps one of the most effective ways to eliminate this threat would be to impose a sales tax every time a commodity contract is sold. This extra resistance would result in fewer trades and trades that are more reasoned. Thus trades based on more accurate information would result in a more stable markets.
January 20, 2013
Chemical Leaked Into River Puts Focus On Plant
To begin with, the party responsible for this pollution event is Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group because they owned the defective pipeline and chose to use it without successfully assessing its usability. They should be financially responsible for all cleanup charges, either through their insurer, if they have one, or by going bankrupt with the government then stepping in and providing the rest of the funding for the cleanup and compensation for those affected. Compensation should also be included for future lost earnings for any entities up to 25 years into the future. This would warn other companies of similar fates if they were ever to be responsible for other environmental disasters. Of course, who knows how effective the Chinese system of justice will be to assign blame, but at least this is how it should work. Most the the money, unfortunately, will not be provided. That which is, may be mostly provided by the Chinese state.
An estimated 39 tons of the liquid aniline pollutant was released by the pipeline into the Zhuo Zhang River which flows into a major reservoir. The exact penalty per unit of this pollutant should be determined by the courts based on the particular facts of this case, like environmental toxicity, lifetime in the environment, toxicity of daughter compounds, ease of cleanup, etc. However, because the pollutant was released into a large aqueous environment that is extremely difficult to clean up, the penalty should be high. Perhaps $1,000 per pound may be an appropriate fine. This would amount to a total fine amount of $78 million for the actual act of polluting. Of course, the company would still be liable for all pollution clean up and compensation costs, as well.
This accident certainly happened because of shortcuts taken somewhere in quality control, specifically facility maintenance. An international product pricing court would determine, of a regular basis, whether companies are taking unjustified shortcuts that result in underpriced products, thus artificially high market shares. To bring fairness to global trade, this international court would be required to enforce basic standards of environmental protections, among other things. This would result in higher export prices for Chinese goods, thus a reduce demand for them. Such a reduced demand would have decreased the chances of either this accident happening or happening at the scale that it did.
January 19, 2013
Fed Slow to Abandon Optimism Even as a Few Sounded Alarm, 2007 Transcripts Show
The Federal Reserve shouldn’t have to manage the economy to prevent a recession, depression, inflation or any other macro scale economic maladies of this sort. Every economy should be properly constructed by being required to operate with an appropriate set of rules that result in the creation of intrinsic, self-stabilizing functions whenever an element gets out of whack. The only proper definition of a free market is one in which, after the necessary rules have been imposed, the natural forces of supply and demand work together to provide a stable and perpetually sustainable economic climate in which producers and consumers produce and consume everything they need and want without the need for fiat interferences by an external agency, except in the rarest of cases.
Currently, the Federal Reserve Board is a necessary component for stability because of its control over the Federal Funds Rate and the Reserve Requirement ratio it demands banks to obey. Both of these tools allow the Federal Reserve to regulate the amount of credit in the overall economy, thus influencing the total level of economic activity. Reducing credit reduces economic activity, increasing credit increases economic activity.
The root of the problem is the result of the leverage built into this system. Banks are allowed to lend out money that isn’t really backed by anything but faith in the system. Banks are allowed to multiply their deposits by about a multiple of 10, and then lend out this higher amount.
For example, let’s say you just opened a bank and received your first $1,000 deposit. You would legally be allowed to immediately loan out $10,000 to someone and begin charging interest on that full $10,000. Yes, I know that sounds ludicrous, but the banking industry is the only industry in which people could make a profit lending stuff (money, in this case) that has actually never existed before. But because this extra $9,000 shows up collectively in someone’s bank account, people have faith that it is real money. They could then turn around and deposit this into another bank, and that bank would also be allowed to multiply that amount by 10 and loan out that higher amount. This is allowed through the magic of fractional reserve banking in which banks are only required to keep a fraction of their reserves on deposit.
Faith is a lot more tenuous than actual physical goods or any other physical store of value, like gold or even the number of people in the economy. When any store of value (currency) is reduced, the amount of economic activity based upon that currency must also be reduced. For example, less economic activity could take place in an economy in which $100 is the total amount of currency circulating through it than one in which $1,000,000 is circulating through it. Exchanging physical dollars for goods or services is limited by space and time–a dollar can only be in one place at a time. In fractional reserve banking, every additional real dollar added to the economy actually has an impact of several multiple times its own value because of the activity resulting from loaning out much of that same dollar in an iterative process. Conversely, when a dollar is removed from the economy (through reserve requirement increases, stricter credit rules, destruction of any store of value (i.e., real estate), the loss is equivalent to several multiple times that value of that single dollar.
The amount of faith needed to sustain our confidence in the money supply combined with the highly leveraged nature of our money supply, results in an economic system that is susceptible to destabilizations due to relatively small changes in either actual and/or perceived changes in the real economy or people’s faith in the real economy.
A better solution would be to require full-reserve banking and fix the amount of currency in an economy to two statistics: 1) the population level, and 2) the price level index which is basically the price of a certain basket of goods and services that are representative of the economy. Under such a system, the amount of currency in circulation (both M1 (currency) and M2 (savings account, money market account, etc.)) would be fixed over long periods of time, and change only in response to population level changes and changes in the costs of living (changes in the costs of a certain basket of goods).
Far less debt-based economic activity would be allowed under such a system as proposed here. People would need to save up before engaging in large expenditures. However, the dramatic swings in the expansion and contraction of credit and the resulting problems that arise because of it, would be avoided. An additional benefit is the elimination of the most significant inflationary pressure on an economy–the creation of money at will, without its being tied to fundamental constraints like population levels or the amount of value created. The creation (printing) of another dollar without a corresponding creation of a real-world value that that dollar should represent, means that the value of all other dollars in the economy is collectively reduced by that amount.
January 18, 2013
Mali Conflict: Concerns Persist for Protection of Human Rights, Displaced Populations, Minority Groups
Teaching purely the scientific aspects of religion to everyone, especially school-age children, will result in a population that is better able to determine their truths and falsehoods. Teaching about the scientific inconsistencies of various religions would tend to reduce the tendency towards engaging in religious warfare.
Mandatory General Education Completion
Education is the best solution for a very wide variety of social ills, including terrorism. The more educated a population is, the lower the likelihood of their becoming an audience for suicide bombing philosophies and terroristic warfare in general.
Giving the Toureg people their own homeland would have virtually solved the problem of them now fighting for one.
Political Asylum & Enclave Creation for Persecuted Minorities
The surrounding countries should not be required to suffer unduly as a result of the problems in Mali. An enclave created by the international community within Mali should be designed to sufficient house the entire displaced population.
January 17, 2013
Algeria: Army Rescues Hostages, Toll Unclear
Foreign Worker Time Limits & Fees
If Algeria had this foreign worker policy in place, the chances that as many foreigners would need to have been involved at this production plant would have been lower because more of its own native citizens might have chosen such work as a career. Now, Algeria is a not a very populous country and does not have as high a percentage of highly educated people as most of the developed countries do, so while the idea that native-born individuals might not have been enough to satisfy internal demand may be true, such a policy would have had a positive effect on the production of domestic talent.
Raise the Price of a Resource to Conserve It
The global demand for gas would not be as high as it is were it not for the subsidies that fossil fuels get by many government around the world. If these subsidies were eliminated, as they should be, the demand would fall and alternate forms of primary energy generation would rise to take the place of fossil fuels. Under such a policy structure, the number of instances of large scale, foreign extraction/mining projects would be reduced, thus the chances of this even having occurred would have been lower.
January 16, 2013
Report Recommends Changes to Tax Exemption for Fracking
Ban Tax Deductions, Credits, Exemptions, Pre-Tax Monies & Other Tax Tricks
Tax exemptions, tax deductions are so often inherently unfair because they represent the degree to which negotiators were successful at lobbying them into law. They do not often reflect the unadulterated will of the people and they definitely do not help make the tax code more uniform, logical and easier to calculate. The tax code should not distinguish ‘high-cost gas’ (which this story says is often taxed as a 0% rate) from gas produced through conventional drilling (taxed at 7.5%). If all gas is taxed at the same rate, then the natural economic laws of supply and demand would not be skewed in the direction of making it cheaper to produce gas using more environmentally impacting techniques.
It is especially important in this area of finite natural resource extraction to prevent the artificial front-loading of demand by overruling the natural economic forces of genuine supply and demand. In other words, using subsidies, tax deductions or other methods of reducing the actual or perceived costs of producing a finite resource will result in that resource experiencing higher levels of production at the expense of a sooner production peak and a potentially steeper production decline. Attempts to migrate to substitutes will be made more difficult as a result of the shortened amount of time available to accomplish such a switch.
Natural Environmental Harvest Tax
Imposing a tax on the virgin extraction of any natural resource would result in a naturally lower demand for that resource. Furthermore, it would result in a higher probability that the virgin materials could be substituted by alternative materials (such as recycled) or conservation techniques, thus reducing the pressures and environmental damage associated with virgin material extractions from the natural environment.
January 15, 2013
Pesticides and Parkinson’s: UCLA Researchers Uncover Further Proof of a Link
Business Relationship to the Environment
Business that are required to economically internalize all the negative externalities, will result in business practices that result in less of a negative impact on the natural environment, include human beings, especially those working in the fields. For example, greenhouses, hydroponics, and other novel ways of growing food would require less pesticides and herbicides and may be at least slightly more economical compared to the current conventional agricultural economic. This would potentially reduce the need for massive open-air spraying of chemicals.
Only Tax Active Economic Activity
Taxing food would tend to reduce its consumption and increase the efficiency with which it is used, thus its supply and the demand for these chemicals would decrease slightly.
January 14, 2013
Erika Andiola: No More Broken Families
Illegal Immigration Enforcement
The best way to prevent broken families is to prevent illegal immigrant from entering, thus preventing the potential for deportation when discovered. The reason that Erika Andiola had a “national community and youth movement” behind her was because of the decades of lax border enforcement that allowed several million illegal immigrants to come across, not because of a fundamental wrong associated with the basic purpose of these raids. When an estimated 10% of the entire U.S. population is either illegal immigrants or the children, grandchildren, etc., of illegal immigrants (throughout the generations), it is easy to see how such a huge interest group would advocate for more lenient regulations regarding deportation and argue for legalization instead.
Illegal Immigrants Marrying or Birthing Children
Families wouldn’t be torn apart if children born to illegal immigrants are not granted U.S. citizenship. Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution demands that all natural-born children be granted citizenship. Nevertheless, the policy of removing illegal immigrant parents from their native-born children does not necessitate and act of family separation. The illegal immigrant parents could take their children to the parent’s country of origin.
Illegal Immigrant Deportation Procedures
Deportation procedures need to be humane and give immigrants plenty of time to disengage in an orderly fashion from whatever obligations they have here.
There is usually no valid reason for conducting illegal immigration searches at night and to do so in a rough and callous manner (by not allowing the detained to take her medications when specifically told about them by family members) is clearly wrong and the arresting officers should be punished and fined for that.
January 13, 2013
Taxi Driver Falsely Labelled by Women Passengers Says Ordeal Has Destroyed His Life
Costs of a Crime & Punitive Penalties
The lost estimated wages, costs of reapplication for the taxi license, legal defense fees and all other direct costs related to these charges should be added up and defined as the total costs of this crime. This figure should be multiplied by a certain punitive multiple, perhaps 4, so that a figure representing the total financial fine against these three women could be levied. The day after the verdict was read, interest would begin to accumulate on this fine amount.
Victims Get Compensated Immediately
This taxi driver should get compensated immediately. The costs of this crime should not be borne by the victim. The government should pay the victim the entire direct costs of the crime immediately. Then the government should go after the criminal to make sure that the government is repaid. The government failed to prevent this crime, so it is the government that should bear some of the costs of making victims whole.
January 12, 2013
Israeli Troops Kill Palestinian Trying to Cross Barrier
Every sufficiently distinct people group deserves its own independent country. The Palestinian people, although virtually identical to the Jordanian people until the 1967 Six-Day War have had a different enough recent history to barely justify their own independent state. The slow formulation of insignificantly successful policies addressing the Palestinian dilemma has resulted in the creation and increased intensity of tensions between the various people groups in the region. The displaced Palestinian populations west of the Jordan River have become long-term refugees mainly in Jordan but other countries as well. Providing them with their own homeland would defuse some of the tensions.
Israeil should not be allowed to build fences on territory belonging to the Palestinians according to the 1967 borders before the war.
Resources in International Waters, Airspace & Territories
A great deal of the contention between the Palestinians and the Israelis is the matter of resource distribution, especially water. Israel is withdrawing water that has originated in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. A simple solution is to require Israel to refrain from taking water that fell on territory belonging to Palestine using the 1967 borders.
The Palestinians having their own country with fair resource allocations would reduce the frequency of illegal border crossings and reduce tensions between these parties. The probability of this incident occurring would have been lower if these proposals were in effect.
January 11, 2013
FCC Blames Phone Companies for Derecho 911 Outages
Industry Congress Funds and Administers Their Own Infrastructures
Having the communications (land line and wireless telephone as well as internet companies) industry get together to plan and develop their infrastructure layout and maintenance regime, while formulating a payment system that is proportionally divided among all the market participants, would be the most effective way to encourage the creation and maintenance of a comprehensive, standardized infrastructure with a minimum of complaints from market suppliers. Such a standardized system would also be easier and faster to repair.
Emergency Fund Maintenance Formula for Political Jurisdictions
Natural disasters, like this Derecho windstorm, would likely qualify for state and federal emergency fund releases. Such monies would reduce the direct expenses to the phone companies, thus further encouraging them to spend on improving the reliability of their infrastructures.
Cellular Telephones & Internet Reliability Minimums
Outages such as these could be mitigated in a more natural way (i.e., without resorting to fiat government interventions) by employing the suggestions stated above. However, governments are institution set up by civil societies to (ideally) ensure a peaceful coexistence with security and the rule of law. These foundations supply fertile ground for the developments of private sector suppliers to provide for society’s needs and wants. However, because of the nature of many markets, it is sometimes the case that free market discrepancies result in pockets where the prices of what are deemed essential public goods, like telecommunications are prohibitively expensive. It is for these reasons that governments impose certain regulations–to ensure a uniform level of service to the public
January 10, 2013
Drone Strike Kills 5 Suspected Militants In Pakistan
The need for drone strikes or the need for military intervention to target enemies would be reduced if every distinct group of people have their own country. Even if terrorism continues after each distinct group has their own country, it would be a whole lot easier to convince the rest of the world to agree to rectify the situation.
Compensation for False Arrest & Conviction
Victims Get Compensated Immediately
These two points could be applied to instances where drone strikes or any other military actions have resulted in the deaths or injuries of innocent people. The families of those killed or injured completely in error, such as an attack on a wedding ceremony in which no enemy combatant or leader was present, should be entitled a adequate restitution and compensation for loss including pain and suffering.
However, in cases where collateral damage resulting in injury or loss of life of innocent people who were in close proximity to a significant militant target or leader, then compensation should be far less depending on the actual circumstances. For example, if the drone strike were to have taken place in a busy marketplace and several innocent people were naturally present, then the compensation amount for each one should be high. However, if the enemy leader’s teenage son was injured or killed while riding in the same car as the leader when attacked, then the compensation should be little to none because being so close to the enemy can reasonably be interpreted as being in agreement with them, thus being classified as part of the enemy force as well.
January 9, 2013
New Evidence Expected In WikiLeaks Case
Defense Department Approval for Sensitive Information
The Department of Defense should have plenary authority to review and approve the release of any and all sensitive information. Yes, it is important to somehow have a mechanism by which information is independently reviewed and released if it is deemed to serve a noble public purpose. For this reason, the highest Executive and Legislative branches of government should be privy to both the information and the reasons as to why it should be kept secret. The Department of Defense is subservient to the wishes of these Executive and Legislative personnel.
If the information released resulted in the unjust death of an individual then the person responsible for leaking that information should be given the death penalty.
Lawyers for Private Bradley Manning say that they will try to get his potential life sentence reduced to 20 years by working out a plea deal with prosecutors in which Manning would admit to some crimes. Whether a person admits or not to any crime should have absolutely no bearing on what the punishment should be. Instead, it would be logical for Bradley, or any other defendant in any other case, to voluntarily reveal information that would indicate their guilt, or give any other information that would lead authorities to resolve the crime in exchange for payment for this information equal to payments that any other informant would have received.
January 8, 2013
Bank of America, Fannie Mae Settlement, Bank to Pay $3.6 Billion to Settle Mortgage Claims
Tax Only Active Economic Activity
If property owners were not required to pay property taxes, the chances of their default on mortgages would be reduced. This is because property taxes are relatively inflexible compared to other expenditures in the family budget and cannot be adjusted when income situations change. Instead, in an economy where sales taxes are the primary means of government revenue generation, people would have more discretion as to when and where to spend their money. During hard economic times, property owners would reduce consumption, thus would be able to reduce their tax liabilities to a greater degree than what would be possible under today’s tax regime. In summary, the elimination of property taxes would give property owners greater flexibility in determining their overall tax burden, thus affording them a greater possibility of pulling through tight economic times without losing their properties.
A tax based upon market share would discourage businesses from getting larger and larger. In this case, B of A’s mortgage lender market share, after it acquired Countrywide, was 21.6% in 2009 while Wells Fargo had about 30%. Although their are incredible efficiencies that arise as a result of being so large, it is also possible that incredibly large problems could arise as well. Smaller companies may be more conscious of reviewing loan applicants for worthiness since each loan would constitute a larger risk than the same loan at a larger company.
Such a tax would also result in greater long-term stability in a market because it would discourage suppliers from growing so large so as to critically endanger the stability of the market if something were to happen that would suddenly remove the single largest player from the market.
January 7, 2013
Man Pays Child Support for Son Who Died 25 Years Ago
Compensation for False Arrest & Conviction
This man, who didn’t find out that his son had died 25 years ago, should be refunded his child support payments with market loan rate interest, at the very least, but most likely it should be much more than that. The recipient of the child support payments should be charged with the theft of that amount of money.
Victims Get Compensated Immediately
Because the government is the ultimate enforcer of the law and didn’t catch this crime, the father should be compensated by the government immediately (after courts rule that he is a victim) and the government should then go after the child-support payment recipient in order to recoup its losses.
January 6, 2013
Vt. Air Guard Hopes for Jet, But Others Fear Noise
If there were an international military organization with teeth to enforce binding resolutions, individual countries would need to rely less on their own military strength because the collective military strength of the international body would be superior to each individual country’s strengths. Thus, people would rely less on jobs brought about by defense spending projects and people would also complain less about defense related noise. Furthermore, at least in most parts of the United States (the southern tier being exposed to the most risk due to Mexican instability), the need for military installations of any kinds would be reduced because problem spots tend to be located elsewhere on the globe.
January 5, 2013
California Court Overturns Rape Conviction Because Victim Was Not Married
It is logical that a person having sex with someone other than the one intended constitutes rape.
Violating the Spirit of the Law
The spirit of California law at the time clearly meant to include such situations as this and define them as rape. It is difficult to include every eventuality into law, so it is imperative that some room exist for the courts to fill in little gaps in the law to ensure that criminals cannot go unpunished by slipping through technical loopholes.
January 4, 2013
Suicide Bomber Kills 27 Shiites in Iraq
Shiites and Sunnis are sufficiently distinct groups of people and, in Iraq, each deserves their own independent state. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, it was a mistake to work to keep the country together. Why people so often and forcefully propose the enforcement of internationally boundary lines that everyone agrees were created during colonial periods without regard to existing cultural and demographic facts on the ground is truly mind boggling. Sectarian violence between these two groups (with origins going back to the death of Muhammad) have been historically great enough that trying to keep them together is not worth it. Iraq actually should have been divided into three separate independent states, with the third one going to the Kurds in the north. Such a division of the country, had it occurred in the past, would have reduced the chances of this particular terrorist act, and would certainly have reduced the overall number of terrorist attacks in Iraq.
Public Policing of Published Materials
The dissemination of inaccurate information plays a large part in fanning the rage in so many areas of public discourse. So many problems would be reduced if every person and every media outlet were to ensure that whatever information passes through their domain is accurate, especially when it is conveyed on a mass medium.
Mass Media Access Restrictions
Free speech should be allowed for everyone, however, the same level of free speech protection should not be applied to mass media. Speaking on a mass medium enables access to so many more people, that higher standards must be applied. Information that can be factually disproven is the only type of information that should be prohibited from being broadcast. So many times (here’s an example), initial information broadcast over a mass medium proves to be false, sometimes by design, but has already served to provide the spark that initiates a sequence of events that lead to civil catastrophes.
Aid for Poor, Undeveloped Countries
Generally, more jobs lead to better living conditions which leads eventually to higher standards of living, greater education, greater equality and a more stable society. It is imperative that the global community work together to do it’s part to encourage such a development among the poorer nations of the world who agree to certain fundamental policy prerequisites. One way to do this is to set up favorable terms of international trade between the rich and poor countries. Yes, this would harm the economic interests of the rich countries, but the harm done is often far outweighed, dollar for dollar, by the benefits to the poorer country. In other words, every unit of currency lost in a rich country due to such a program is equivalent to much more money in equivalent purchasing power in the poor country. Other things that would offset the costs of such a program is the potential long-term benefits resulting from the political and economic loyalty of the helped population/country, feelings (in both countries) of rectifying past injustices imposed on the poor country and the general improvement of living standards (thus education levels) which would naturally reduce the susceptibility of the population to adopting terrorist tactics.
This act is classified as terrorism because it targeted civilians who have no direct influence over the policies giving rise to the grievance. If the driver drove into a military base and killed 27 military personnel (upholding the policy of keeping the country unified), then this would have very well been labeled a ‘proper’ military attack because the attack would have been directed and successfully committed against legitimate obstacles towards an objective which a significant percentage of the population desires.
January 3, 2013
Rights groups ask Thailand to recognize fleeing Rohingya as refugees
People who are sufficiently distinct culturally and politically, should be allowed to govern themselves. That is just a basic right. Of course, the difficulty lies in how exactly to define such criteria and apply it to a potential group. However, that is why we need an effective international organization that could serve as a jury regarding these matters. Unlike the United Nations, this international organization must have powers that are binding upon the states.
Political Asylum & Enclave Creation for Persecuted Minorities
Ideally, the Rohingya people shouldn’t have to travel far for safety. An effective international organization would create an enclave within the boundaries of Myanmar, and provide protection to refugees there while sanctions are placed on Myanmar and plans are made to force the government to rectify the situation militarily, if necessary. Myanmar should either agree to give independence (or possibly provide an acceptable degree of autonomy to the Rohingya) or at least to stop persecuting them, the root cause generating all these refugees.
No country should be obligated to offer permanent shelter or refugee status to any migrants from any other country. An international organization should ensure that such problem do not occur, or that compensation is made for expenses incurred.
January 2, 2013
President Obama Continues Bush Era Warrantless Wiretap Programs
Use of Deception for Gathering Useful Information
Once all upfront options for gaining information have been practically exhausted, using deception (wiretapping without consent is deceptive) should be allowed. I would say that wiretapping even before exhausting all other practical measure should be allowed because it may save significant investigative costs.
The use of informants would be a huge boost to investigative agencies because there are virtually always people who know things but are too afraid to speak up because of fear of retaliation. The idea of not knowing exactly how much potential informants may benefit financially by revealing needed information may also hinder a large number from coming forward. This is why it needs to made publicly clear that a standard 10% reward of the fine amount would belong to the informant who provided the critical information.
January 1, 2013
Masked Gunmen Hit Apple Store in Paris in $1 million New Year’s Eve Robbery
Widespread Use of Video Cameras
The more video cameras there are, the higher that chances that something significant would have been caught on tape. Even though they were masked, perhaps cameras located farther away from the back entrance would have caught them putting on these masks or even getting into a car used to transport them to the crime scene. Volunteers or even criminals wanting to pay back their fines quickly (a big incentive) could be used to monitor, in real time, several cameras in an attempt to catch any lawbreakers. This may have given authorities early warning that something was going to happen.
Anyone with information about this heist (surely several people must know, even the criminals themselves could reduce their eventual penalty if they choose to reveal such information before they are caught) should be eager to reveal such information to authorities because they would automatically know that they would get up to 10% of whatever fine is imposed on the criminals. That’s a lot of money. Law enforcement authorities should never have to advertise rewards for help in solving crimes. It should be a standard practice so that people would just know that they could expect up to 10% of whatever the criminal fine would be.