One thing struck me more than anything: we have all but forgotten about individual property rights. By that, I mean, the general idea that when you own something, you may do with it as you please. As we all know, this is never cut and dry. While I own my car and it is more than capable of traveling at speeds of well over 100 mph, I cannot legally do so. So, on one hand, I may take a hammer to my car and destroy it if I wish, but I may not always use or treat it in the manner that I see fit. The problem that I have with the mentality on display tonight is that of the creep effect. Once it is allowable to dictate what one is able to do with his or her thing in one particular instance, It must be acceptable to decide for them what they may or may not do in another setting. This mentality has the inevitability of creep... It creeps into everything.

The flip side to this story is that of two events that have truly made me smile. The first is a simple one: people voted... and a lot of them. (I'm sure there were plenty of duplicate and dead voters, but I guess no system is perfect.) I've always been raked over the coals by my German friends at the lack of voter turnout in our presidential elections. Thank you American friends for actually going to vote! Now I have something to brag about. Sure, we could do better than 60% (I hope the real numbers - once all of the votes are counted - are higher), but that is pretty amazing, considering I've read that turnout has been as low as 30% in the past few decades. And that's just sad... So, despite having to chose between two left leaning senators, I'm happy people tried to make the choice.

The second thing that really, truly made me smile was this: A. voted. I gave an employee (who is a contemporary) shit yesterday because I heard him say that he doesn't vote. I badgered him ... I even offered money ... not to vote a particular way, but to simply vote. I really didn't think much of it. I thought he'd take his raspberries and shake them off. This morning I was left with the following note on my desk:

"Steve,

Here's your sticker buddy, and if you need any questions answered ask away!

For real - I just wanna say thanks for pushing me to vote. I never had in my life, so I just felt a 'lil weird. Now that I have, it felt pretty good. So, for it being my first time I just wanna' say thank you.

A.

And it really wasn't hard at all & only took 5 min of my time!"

If that's all it takes to get people out to vote, I should have given everyone in the shop a hard time... That would have been at least 100 more people at the polls. There's always next election.

I realized that while it would be illegal for me to try to post his articles in whole on my weblog (besides screw him out of the deserved royalties from his work), I realized that I can do something. One of his more recent books, Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays, (click the link to go to Amazon and see what it is about) is an quick and easy read - and is really a compilation of a bunch of articles that made me look forward to his articles so many years ago. So, here's the deal. I know there are all of four of you who read my blog... but perhaps we can start a mini reading revolution at that. I want to give away 100 copies of Dr. Sowell's book. In order to get your free (shipping and all) copy, all you need to do is write me at snfettig@gmail.com with "Free Sowell Book" in the subject line and your FULL address in the body of the email. That is all you need to do. You don't even need to say hi. Just send me an email with that information. (Oh... and I sincerely promise that I will NOT give away any of your address information. Frankly, I don't have the time nor energy to do anything with it other than send out the books.)

If this works out, I'll give away 500 more copies over the course of the remaining portion of this year and next year. I will keep track of the numbers given away here. I might be embarrassed and find that no one requests a copy. How unfortunate would that be? We'll see.

The Las Vegas 2008 triathlon took place at Lake Mead, 23 miles north of the Strip in Las Vegas - just outside of Boulder City, Nevada. I made final preparations for the trip back in June after looking around for a more remote race than I had done up until that point. Prior to this trip, the furthest I had gone for a race was Grand Haven, Michigan - about 150 miles (as the crow flies) from where I live. I'm not really sure what it was that made Las Vegas pop out at me when I was looking through USAT's sanctioned triathlons for 2008. It was probably the simple fact that the idea of being able to go out and party the night after my last triathlon for the year was an inviting thought. While my mind was on the potential for fun afterwards, I had no clue what type of event awaited me.

"I believe in the market but I also believe that the government must decide when to regulate it just enough. (That is the essence of why I am a Democrat.)" (The moral imbalance of bailouts)

My personal understanding of a general Democrats' opinion is that there is rarely a reason not to involve the government in our lives as long as it passes the litmus test of "helping" a given segment of the population. And this is exactly what makes me not a Democrat (and these days, less and less of a Republican).

I envy those professionals out there who can say what they think, print it (i.e. blog it) and live with the consequences. Perhaps because what they say is so provocative, their business, notoriety and wealth grow because of it. Maybe it doesn't. Only they know the truth. At first glance, though, they say it like they have nothing to lose and as a reader, you likely believe them.

The easy part is installing Action Streams. Download, unzip, copy items to the correct location within your Movable Type installation directory. The difficult part follows, as the documentation is practically nonexistent. Here is what I did, though:

"Looking for a role model? You’d do worse than Denmark. Forbes named that country the best in the world for business. According to the magazine, Denmark has public policies that foster low inflation, low unemployment, low taxes, free trade, innovation, protection of intellectual property and the development of technology. In operating their businesses, it is worth noting the Danes are energy independent through wind power for electricity and technologies that convert pig blubber to heating oil."

No, Mr. Ferguson, it would be hard to make the United States or any State more inept and bureaucratically rigid as Denmark. Stagnant population growth (0.295%), low immigration (a measure of a country's desirability for finding new opportunities), and marginal tax rates for middle income (by US standards) reaching over 63% make Denmark a very, very poor example, indeed. I lived south of Denmark for over a year and every Dane I had ever met, whether in Germany or Denmark directly, complained about the ridiculous tax structure that afforded little upward movement for the average citizen, which limited their ability to pursue individual, productive desires and interests. Think of it this way, until mid July of each year, you will have spent the previous months paying your dues to the State. It is only after July that the money you have worked hard earning is actually yours. The motivation to work harder and/or be more creative is nullified by the fact that whatever extras you do earn, most of that will go to the State.

"Sorensen, who graduated from business school in Copenhagen, found himself earning the equivalent of more than $100,000 before he was 30 - and paying 63 percent of it in taxes...'When you are at 63 percent tax, you don't look forward to the evaluation with the boss to get a raise," Sorensen said. "You look for more vacation or a training course in the tropics - something that you get the full benefit of.'" (High income taxes in Denmark worsens a labor shortage - International Herald Tribune)

Denmark's low poverty level and unemployment is masked by the fact that the State doles out money and "jobs" to persons by earmarking huge portions of the working class's income towards those people. It is similar to the idea that there were no unemployed in the socialist/communist Soviet Union. While statistically true, as they say, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Mr. Ferguson should have stopped writing there. His idea that, "Wisconsin must seek to define those industries or technologies that are crucial for future economic development. The state should then push development of those industries or technologies through the full benefit of public policy instruments and expedient action..." is absolute nonsense. The government - i.e. no governing body, nor State institution - has ever been successful at guessing which ideas will become the next commercial hits. There have been cases where state fostered development of technologies has eventually reached the public and been the catalyst for new opportunities. GPS and Cellular Telephony are two examples. The state was working for a solution to a logistical problem in both of these cases and hadn't foreseen the possibility that your average citizen would find a use for these products - vis a vis mobile phones and in-car navigation systems. This is very different than saying the State should decide which new ideas/technologies are desirable and subsidize them. Let me put it this way: a product was developed because there was a specific, tangible need. Said product was then applied to unknown or unforeseen needs. This is not the same as saying we don't know what the need is for technology xyz, but we're going to subsidize it anyway.

It is surprising that as a consultant and former executive at two Silicon Valley companies, Mr. Ferguson is confused that infrastructure and legal consistencies - i.e. safe and reliable transportation, communication, legible/understandable laws etc. - are the same as providing bureaucratically driven "vision" to business development. Let me say this as a businessperson: leave me alone. Give me a consistent low tax burden and easy-to-navigate rules and regulations and I will provide the success you and your visionaries think the State is there to provide. Furthermore, the State does nothing more than muddle the playing field and cannot be held accountable for the inevitable mistakes it will make. The markets I and my business colleagues serve are very swift at telling us whether or not we are heading in the right direction. A measure of responsibility is handed down by way of business growth or shrinkage. We don't need more "help" from the State. Sure, there are plenty of us that wish for handouts and I believe those of us who do are not only lazy, but ignorant of the long term damage handouts do to any free market system. Socialism in its grand form - i.e. central planning - has had its day in the Soviet Union and modern day China. It lost the battle and will continue to lose the battle because markets and people's desires cannot be planned and they cannot be foretold by some any visionary - from the State or elsewhere.

By the way, all of the "subsidized employee training, property tax concessions, low or interest-free loans..." are patently unfair. Why are we being slapped with the financial responsibility for supporting your new wave of innovation just because our companies and our staff have been successful and providing a product to the market that is of obvious desire? Where do we stand when it comes to fostering growth and success? In your scheme of investing in future technologies, nowhere. You seem to forget that those new industries you wish to "help along" will not only stand on the shoulders of those who have already succeeded, but trample them to the ground through the process of recklessly transferring away from them what they have rightfully earned for themselves and need for future investment. Shame on you for suggesting such a thing.

This morning, I open up my news reader (these days, Google Reader) and see a blog entry over at Cafe Hayek from Russell Roberts on this very issue. Here is a taste:

"Once upon a time, Fannie and Freddie were partners in a business. Well, it wasn’t exactly a business. It was almost a charity. Not quite. It was sort of a government agency. Or maybe it was all three together. When Fannie and Freddie talked to investors, they acted like a business. When they talked to the government regulators, they acted like a government agency." (Who is to blame? by Russell Roberts)