Seeping Matter

When I first heard about our country’s new CARS program, my reaction was, “Hey!  Free money if I trade in my Durango for a new SUV!  Despite the dumb name, this seems like an excellent plan!  Almost too good to be true!”

Of course, that should make us stop and think about it.

And I have.  I have some problems with this new plan.  I get the sales pitch:  Make it easier to buy a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.  Help out the auto makers by increasing sales.  Help out the environment by replacing a number of higher-pollution vehicles with lower-pollution vehicles.  Reduce our oil dependency by replacing a number of less efficient vehicles with more efficient vehicles.  And I get a new car.  Everybody wins!

Well, I do have a number of problems with it.

I have a nomenclature problem.  I don’t understand why we have to come up with a cute little acronym name for this program.  It is also known as “Cash for Clunkers,” which is equally dumb.  My 1998 Durango, which definitely qualifies for the full $4500 rebate, has been a great vehicle for me, runs quite well, and is definitely not a clunker by my definition.  This lets you know what sort of vehicle standards the folks in Washington have, and how disconnected they are from the world in which their constituents live.

I have a fundamental problem.  It should not be the place of the government to get involved in consumer affairs like this.  We’ve had a lot of ever-increasing government intervention in society over the last 60+ years, but rarely has this intervention actually done any good; often it hurts more than it actually helps.

I have a financial problem.  Where does all of this money come from?  Well, ultimately it has to come from the pockets of the taxpayers, either in increased taxes or in increased prices due to inflation caused by printing money to cover it.

I have a principle problem.  Taking a perfectly good, functioning vehicle and scrapping it is flat-out wasteful.  There’s this part of my being that screams out that we can’t expect a net good to come from a plan that isn’t founded in solid principles.

I have an economics problem.  Junking these cars will have an inflationary effect on the general price of cars.  It’s simple supply and demand.  Given a closed ecosystem with 100 car owners with one car each, suppose 10 are new and 20 qualify for the CARS program.  Under normal conditions, we might assume that twenty people are buying a car each year, half of them are buying new and half are buying used, and so ten cars are cycling through the ecosystem per year.  Now you inject CARS into the mix.  There will be people participating who might normally not have bought this year at all, or who might have bought this year but would normally have bought used instead of new.  If half of the 20 participate, and half of those would not have normally bought this year at all, that means instead of 10 new cars entering the ecosystem we have 18, if my math is right.  To balance it, there must be 18 older cars leaving the ecosystem instead of the normal 10.  What you end up with is fewer used cars — 82% are used instead of 90% — and the average car value has gone up.  But note that, at best, the economic condition of the people in the group hasn’t changed.  In fact, it should have gone down by around $400 per person ($3500 to 4500 times ten participants, divided among all 100 participants).  With fewer used vehicles in the ecosystem but the same number of buyers, the demand for used vehicles will go up, driving up the price of used vehicles.

So if you already own a used vehicle in that ecosystem it is only partially bad, because the value of your used car should be higher now.  It’s only a problem if you want to buy.  But I’m not sure this will help automakers beyond this year.  What effect will higher used-car values have on new car sales?  I think you could just as easily argue that it will hurt as much as it will help.

At any rate, it causes yet another economic bubble.  This program artificially inflates the market for car sales and makes adjustments to the ecosystem, based not on the GDP of the people in the ecosystem but on government intervention to make affordable a good that is less affordable if free market economics are left to do their thing.  The government tried this same tactic with the general housing market, and I think history shows that did not turn out too well.

So what we really have here is yet another government program with a dumb name, based on poor principles, with dubious economics at best, that you and I get to pay for.

It’s doubtful it will do anything but hurt us in the long term.  Which is why I’m considering participating.  I mean, if I have to pay for it anyway, I might as well get a new SUV and $4500 out of the deal.

matt Cars, Politics Editorial, Freedom, Rants

Watch and learn, my children.

matt Politics Freedom, Hobbies, Motocross

My people, there is an epidemic.  It is serious and problematic.  We must take action to address this epidemic.  The epidemic is US Congressional Dumbness.

Now, some people, like Orrin Hatch, are beyond saving.  He is simply too dumb to be helped.  He is a lost cause and will unfortunately continue to infect other US congresspersons with Dumbness.  Our only hope here is to try to contain, minimize the damage, and hopefully quarantine these poor experienced congresspersons with Advanced Dumbness, like Senator Hatch, from the rest who may not yet be infected, or may only be experiencing Early Stage Dumbness.

Evidence of this disease abounds.  One example of such evidence is the recently enacted CPISA which, among other things, made off-highway vehicles targeted toward youth aged under 13 ILLEGAL – not because they are unsafe, but because they contain too much lead.

I do admit, there have been countless times since I bought my KX 250 5 years ago when I’ve gone out to look at it and found my children sucking on it.  I softly and gently tell them, “ARE YOU INSANE?!?  DON’T YOU KNOW THAT THING HAS LEAD IN IT?!?  ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF?!?  HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOT TO SUCK ON MY MOTORCYCLE?!?!?”  This might be why my kids tend to walk into walls and accidentally stab themselves in the eye with a fork while eating.

Nevertheless, this is no excuse for outlawing children’s off-highway vehicles.  I want freedom for myself and my children, even if it means my children are free to break into the motorcycle shed and gnaw on the exhaust pipe.  Being patriotic, I decided I should fight this disease in this case and write my congresspersons.

Here is the context of the e-mail I sent:

Dear [congressperson]:

I wish to express my concern about some of the unintended effects of CPISA that recently went into effect; namely, the restriction on youth-oriented off-highway vehicles targeted by section 101(a) of that act.

Motorcycle and ATV riding is a very popular family activity in our state, a family activity now threatened by this act.  Because of the popularity, this act will also have a very real economic impact on our state.  And speaking personally, this act threatens the sports of Motocross and Supercross, some of the fastest growing spectator sports in the country and a favorite of my father, brother, sons, and myself, because it chokes the pipeline of new talent being introduced to the sport.

While these impacts are very real to Utah, Utah is not the only state affected by this obvious oversight.  Little children do not generally bite, chew, or suck on motorcycles and ATVs, so the health risk from lead contamination to children from these vehicles is small to non-existent, and not even worth discussing.

I hope you will agree with me and do your best to have this situation addressed so that my children, and children all across the country, are free again to participate in this sport.  I look forward to hearing back from you on your success in this endeavor.

You too can help fight US Congressional Dumbness in this case.  To do so, simply go to this website of a US Congressmen who seems free of the disease and send in the form.

matt Humor, Politics Editorial, Freedom, Hobbies, Humor, Interesting, Racing, Rants, Supercross

It came to my attention today that the America’s Freedom Festival (in Provo, Utah) committed has chosen to recognized Jack Thompson as a Freedom Award Recipient at the Freedom Awards Gala on July 2.

I live in Utah and generally like most things about it. I do not agree with the giving of an award to Jack Thompson for any reason, primarily because I think he is preying upon a frantic conservative populace in order to enrich himself personally for a cause he would otherwise not care about. However, I am willing to concede to any other organization the right to recognize Jack Thompson for things he’s done.

What is ridiculous, however, is that he is being recognized at what is presumably a celebration of freedom. Jack Thompson is not about freedom. He is about government censorship of free expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Furthermore, in the opinion of at least Judge Dava Tunis of Florida, Jack Thompson is guilty of 27 different charges of inappropriate conduct from the Florida Bar, including such things as knowingly making false statements to a tribunal. In fact the Florida Supreme Court will no longer accept any filings from Mr. Thompson unless signed by another lawyer.

It is hard to believe that a festival of freedom, held in Provo, Utah, which is probably the most conservative city in the United States, holding a gala to recognize champions of freedom, would have a committee, presumably made up of locals, that would select such a person as being deserving of this award, if in fact they are aware of what Mr. Thompson is really all about. My guess is that they really aren’t aware of anything other than the fact that he fights against video game companies for releasing and distributing video games that include nudity, sexual content, graphic violence, and adult themes.

I’m not advocating such games nor am I championing the cause for even more games of even more extreme natures to become available. I do find it interesting, however, that we have such strong, organized opposition to video games when there is no similar opposition of this magnitude against other media, such as books, magazines, music, or movies. I suppose each of those media went through their own battles as well earlier in their history. But I do find it interesting that we basically do nothing to prevent or curb pornography, which has a documented association to sexual deviance and violence, but some would raise Jack Thompson up as a champion of freedom for fighting against video games, which as yet have not been shown to cause violence.

It is especially surprising on another front. Consider the case of CleanFlicks, the DVD rental company that rents edited versions of mainstream movies. At least it used to; I’m not sure what their business model is now and how it is different from what it was in 2006, when they were ordered by court to cease their business model. You probably know that CleanFlicks is a Utah-based company, and you can imagine how many upset people there were around here when this ruling came down.

Apparently people don’t see these issues as two sides of the same coin. Apparently, the Freedom Festival folk don’t realize that it is the same line of thought that took CleanFlicks away that they are championing by honoring Jack Thompson. One cannot simultaneously champion the cause of someone to take freedom of legal expression away from one group and lament having a similar freedom removed from them.

I’m willing to grant that some video games today are inappropriate or even evil. It is one thing for an individual to make personal choices about the type of entertainment they will pay for, or that they will allow into their home. It is another altogether to attempt to circumvent the constitution in order to stop something you feel is evil, and yet another thing to decide to take the freedoms of others away for the purpose of stopping evil. Choosing to keep content that I find inappropriate out of my home is my right and responsibility; even Playboy would not argue with that position. It is when I determine that since something is wrong for me, I have the right to take away the freedoms of others to stop the evil that I’m standing on a slippery slope.

We’ve fought too hard to obtain freedom to treat it so lightly. And there have been too many champions of true freedom for us to so tarnish it that we would choose Jack Thompson, of all people, to honor at the America’s Freedom Festival in Provo. What a shame. What a disgraceful, embarrassing shame.

matt Politics Editorial, Freedom