Something for Everyone

Millet's Man with a Hoe, circa 1862

The Gospel lesson from Matthew, Chapter 20, was the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, the one that ends with the oft-quoted "the last will be first, and the first will be last."

It's about how the landowner pays workers the same amount at the end of the day, regardless of the time they started.

Preachers love this one, because it tells newcomers that they will be rewarded even if they come to church late in life. Our priest said that he interpreted the passage to be about God's generosity with His love.

My wandering mind, of course, turned to political philosophy.

Could God be a socialist? Each laborer received one denarius though some worked one hour and others the entire day. This is an example of the equality of result beloved by socialists.

Could God be a capitalist? Those who worked the whole day grumbled that they should have gotten more. The landowner replied, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?" In other words they were happy with the pay in the morning, and a deal is a deal. Capitalism is underpinned by mutual, voluntary arrangements that, once they are agreed to, are enforceable by the law of contracts.

Also, the landowner continued, "Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?" That's capitalism at its core.

As often happens, Jesus had something for everyone.

San Francisco: Exodus of the Rich

(WSJ graphic)

California, and particularly San Francisco, have become undesirable places to live.

The people who pay the highest overall taxes (income, sales, property, gasoline) in the country have to endure a quality of life that is worse than average according to some indicators (crime, housing cost, air pollution). A sampling of previous posts on this blog:

February, 2018: Warning Signs
January, 2020: California Peaked 1-2 Years Ago
February, 2021: Urban Decline and Fall

Today the Chronicle confirmed the suspicion that rich people, those most desired by communities across the nation, left San Francisco in meaningful numbers: [bold added]

From 2019 and 2020, the number of people listed on a tax return in San Francisco fell by 39,202, a drop of 4.5%, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service. Residents who left made an average of about $138,000 per year in 2019, up 67% from the prior year, when departing residents had an average annual income of around $82,000. San Francisco’s net out-migration, which is the number of people on filings who moved out subtracted by the number of people who moved in, nearly tripled in one year...

The total income in 2019 of people who had left the city by the time they filed their 2020 returns was about $10.6 billion, which compares to $3.8 billion for those that came to the city. A net loss of almost $6.9 billion. The net loss in the previous year was also negative, but much less at $2.6 billion, according to the IRS.

Because the City doesn't collect an individual income tax, the effect of losing high-income people will largely be felt by local businesses. (The direct hit to San Francisco government will be in sales taxes, which fell "from $165 million in 2019 to $88 million in 2020," although some effect is undoubtedly due to working from home by out-of-town commuters.)

Perhaps more meaningful to a leave-or-stay decision than any statistic is the perception of how welcoming California is towards successful businesses.

The Progressives who hold sway in the big-city and state halls of power continue to harp on inequality as the source of California's problems. They focus on raising taxes on the prosperous instead of thanking them for their contributions to the community.

Emblematic of this antipathy was the exchange between then-assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez and Elon Musk, who threatened to move Tesla out of state because of California roadblocks to Tesla operations. After her tweet in 2020 (below), the company, currently valued at $839 billion, moved to Texas.

Message received

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2020

Californians continue to vote Progressives into office, so they must be getting the policies they wanted.

The Church Wrestles with Socialism

Christian socialists, such as those who dominate the leadership of my Episcopal church, often point to Acts 4:32-37 as biblical justification for socialism: [bold added]

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Your humble blogger believes that how a church, family, or any other group chooses to allocate resources internally is up to that organization. The early church indeed lived up to its principles, as the well-off voluntarily contributed to the neediest members. It may well have incorporated practices that we moderns identify with socialism.

However, to structure an entire society where a central authority controls all property has never worked for at least two reasons.

1) Information: a central authority cannot possibly know the wants and needs of all the individuals in society. And even if it did, producing all the goods and services that a modern society requires, in the proper quantity and the location, is difficult enough in capitalism and impossible in socialism. Just recall the debacle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the government was responsible for the purchasing and distribution of medical supplies and vaccines. Perhaps it was justifiable for the government to take charge in this area, but just imagine if the government was responsible for supplying everything that we use in our daily life.

2) Human nature, specifically sloth. If "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is the guiding principle, why should anyone work, since one will receive the same share of goods and services regardless of effort? In the early Christian church, as there may be in a monastery or large family or a small non-profit agency, there was a great deal of trust among the members, who may be willing to work for a common purpose regardless of a personal reward.

In a society of millions, where there is not one common purpose and where few are known to each other, a church that once believed in man's inherent sinfulness would have known instantly that the selflessness necessary for large-scale socialism to operate makes socialism destined to fail.

Could Be Worse

Walking around the Ala Wai Canal on February 5.

After three months the heavy equipment is still there, much longer than the 65 days promised in the project description.

But hey, I'm from California, where the project overruns are measured in years and billions of dollars. It's a good thing that California and Hawaii are as close to Socialism as any state in the Union, because if the profits of contractors were not controlled, think how much more expensive things might be.

No Other Gods

The fondness of Episcopal clergy--and leaders of other Protestant denominations--for socialism and progressivism has been commented on in this journal before. But the love is not reciprocated.

The War on Philanthropy. [bold added]

(Image from FourStarWealth)

progressive editorialists and political candidates openly call for deep cuts in the charitable deduction, an end to tax protections for churches and other charities, the taxing down of personal fortunes, and new regimes in which government becomes the sole ministrant of societal needs.

Christians who are political progressives think that socialism's battle is with capitalism. They do not see that a powerful socialist State views all groups that have influence--not only businesses, but also churches, charities, and universities--as threats to its authority.

Authoritarians have always hated independent civil society. Russian, Iranian and Chinese dictators clamped down on charities in recent years because they want the state to be the only forum for human influence. “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state” was Mussolini’s encapsulation. For people with a controlling impulse, private wielders of resources represent alternative sources of ideas and social legitimacy that must be suppressed in favor of unitary government prescriptions.

The first of the Ten Commandments was: You shall have no other gods before Me.

When the State supplants God, I suspect that it will adopt the first commandment as its own.

California Peaked 1-2 Years Ago

In early 2018 we predicted:

As of this writing house prices continue to rise, despite the reduction of favorable tax treatment for expensive houses in the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The warning signs are widespread. I don't know what may trigger the fall; perhaps it will be rising interest rates, dropping tech stock prices, or fed-up tourists, but it would not be surprising to see a collapse, and an exodus of individual and business taxpayers, in San Francisco's near future.

CA labor force peaked in 2019 (wolfstreet)

The decline in home prices and an acceleration of people leaving California is happening. In a Zillow survey of 25 large housing markets

The Bay Area earned the lowest score of negative 40; only 24% said it will outperform versus 64% who think it will underperform. The next coolest markets were San Jose (minus 38), Los Angeles (minus 35), Cincinnati (minus 33) and Sacramento (minus 31).

Experts agree that a major impetus for the decline was the Federal $10,000 cap on the deductibility of State and Local Taxes (SALT):

The tax law changes that took effect in 2018 have increased the after-tax cost of owning a home. The law capped the previously unlimited itemized deduction for all state and local income, property and sales taxes at $10,000 combined. “Your property tax, even though constrained by Proposition 13, for many people (is) not fully deductible,” [UC-Berkeley economist Ken] Rosen said. “A lot of people felt good because they were protected (from large property tax increases) by Prop. 13. Even with Prop. 13 still in place, many people have tax bills twice as big” as $10,000.

The tax law also limited the mortgage interest deduction to interest on $750,000 in debt, down from $1 million previously.

He added that the trend of people moving out of California to cheaper states “is going to get bigger in the next five years,” because of higher taxes, higher home prices and growing congestion.

California lost an estimated 197,600 people to net domestic migration during the year ended July 1, according to the state Department of Finance. That is the number of people who left California for other states minus the number who moved here from other states. If you include people moving into the state from other countries, California lost 39,500 residents due to net migration. (Births still caused the population to grow since they exceeded deaths.)

Other data show that California is losing the most residents to Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon.

Mike Englund, chief economist with Action Economics, said that “we will have a pretty solid boom” this year in housing nationwide, led by the South. The southeastern quadrant of the U.S., including Texas, accounted for 53.6% of housing starts last year (numbers for December are estimated). Only 8.8% were in the Northeast, 24.8% in the West and 12.8% in the Midwest.

Research firm Pulsenomics conducted the survey for Zillow. More than 100 experts responded, but only 64 answered the question about individual markets.

A separate report, released last month by Fitch Ratings, said that capping the state and local tax or SALT deduction at $10,000 “may have exacerbated slowing home price growth in certain areas,” including California. Fitch rates corporate and government debt, including mortgage-backed and municipal bonds. It’s owned by Hearst, which owns The Chronicle.

Since early 2018, when the SALT cap took effect, “states with higher property taxes have seen acute home price appreciation slowdown and even price declines in several metropolitan areas” including San Francisco, Fitch said.

It compared home-price appreciation in the 10 states whose residents took the highest property tax and mortgage interest deductions on their 2017 tax returns to the 10 states with the lowest tax and interest deductions. In the high-cost, high-tax states (which included California), the average rate of year-over-year price appreciation fell from 6.4% in January 2018 to 2.7% in September 2019. In the low-tax, low-cost states, the appreciation rate rose very slightly, from 3.9% to 4%, over the same period.

There could be other factors to explain steep drop-off in home-price appreciation in high-tax states after the SALT cap took effect, but “you can see there is a pattern there, a trend you cannot ignore,” said Bulin Guo, an associate director with Fitch.

Your humble blogger suspected that the SALT limitation in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 was a slow-rolling temblor, enacted by a Republican President and Congress, to weaken the economic underpinnings of high-tax, high-regulation one-party governance in California, New York, and Illinois. Unless the Democrats sweep Congress and the Presidency in 2020, there is no possibility of SALT repeal in at least four years.

We will see if these States try to stop the bleeding by lowering taxes and regulations to keep productive individuals and businesses from fleeing. Or will they behave like other late-stage Socialists by exacting ever fiercer confiscatory exit taxes to fund their failing visions? I'm hopeful of the former, especially if fed-up voters enact regime change in Sacramento, but it won't happen soon.

Religious Delusion

Economics professor Walter E. Block distinguishes

good capitalism (freedom with property rights),

bad capitalism (crony capitalism),

good socialism (monastery, kibbutz, commune, and family); and

bad socialism ("Venezuela, East Germany, Maoist China and the U.S.S.R.").

WSJ letter writers were quick to pounce upon Professor Block's efforts to find a pony somewhere in socialism. Excerpts: [bold added]

The only “good” socialism Prof. Block cites involves voluntary arrangements among small groups of people, such as in convents, cooperatives or even families, in which members know each other and feel accountable to the group. Today’s debate about socialism and capitalism, however, takes place at the country level, not at the level of the kibbutz or commune, and there are no countries in which socialism has worked on a large scale. At the country level, capitalism works and socialism doesn’t—ever.

Prof. Block says convents, Jesuit seminaries and kibbutzim are examples of successful socialism. But how many of their members were dragged in by a majority vote? I have chosen not to join a convent or Jesuit seminary or kibbutz. When the votes are counted in the 2020 election, will I be allowed to decline membership in Sens. Sanders’s or Warren’s socialist state?

The Episcopal Monastery in Santa Barbara will close
in 2021 due to lack of interest.

It has always perplexed your humble blogger why leaders of the Episcopal Church are overwhelmingly socialist. Now I have a glimmer of understanding.

I will never forget that, when the Bishop of my Diocese recited Marx's famous "from each..to each" principle, his face became as beatific as when he read the Gospel. Perhaps the Bishop's socialism experience---and that of other clergy---consisted of the spirit of the monastery, likely to be very positive.

It's nearly impossible to scale the monastic religious fervor necessary for socialism to work to the country level (unless you want to go the "National Socialism" route--any takers, Progressives?). The person at the DMV doesn't love us, and the food-stamp screener probably doesn't consider us a child of God but as a case number. Sure, keep the Church out of the State, but let's leave the State out of the Church as well.

San Francisco: the High and the Low

Unfortunately the "high" is nothing to be proud of. Per the San Francisco Chronicle (bold added):

Van window bye-bye (Chronicle)

San Francisco has by far the highest property crime rate in California, with more than twice the number of reported thefts per capita than Los Angeles or Santa Clara counties, according to a new report by the Public Policy Institute of California.

And when it comes to arrests, San Francisco is 50th out of the state’s 58 counties.

Burlingame Apple Store (KTVU)
"Apple workers and security guards
are instructed not to engage"

One likely reason is the passage of Proposition 47, "a voter-approved measure that dropped property crimes of less than $950 in value to a misdemeanor that carries little if any jail time." California released many of its so-called "non-violent" criminals, and the consequences were what any pragmatic person might expect; criminal rings have organized to smash-and-grab cars and retail outlets (Apple Stores, which have desirable products under $1,000, are particularly vulnerable.)

And what do the enlightened progressives who run San Francisco suggest? Here's what the two candidates for San Francisco District 5 Supervisor have to say: [bold added]

[Dean] Preston would take a softer approach: enlisting a “non-police property crimes unit” to patrol the streets, unarmed. And how, we asked, would that stop car break-ins? The patrols would ask the thieves to stop.

[Vallie] Brown noted that many of the break-ins are being conducted by criminal rings. “I wouldn’t have someone say anything to them,” she said.

From one year ago: We keep voting them in, so I guess we're getting the government we deserve.

Injurious Duty

Parking lot directions: puzzling even when not driving.

The first mistake I made was not reading the thick envelope that welcomed me to jury duty in San Mateo County.

With 15 minutes to spare I pulled into the jurors' usual parking lot; it was completely blocked off due to construction--which I would have known had I read the materials. An attendant handed me the map (right) to the replacement  parking lot. The map was not helpful--speed reading while driving is not one of my skills.

Fortunately for me, the attendant did say the lot was "under CVS", and I knew where it was without a map.

I arrived at the waiting hall only ten minutes late, and the lecture hadn't started yet.

Security let me through in the morning but
stopped me in the evening with this dangerous
multi-tool. They wouldn't hold it, so I hid it in
and recovered it from the bushes instead of
going back to the car six blocks away.

The only addition from previous years--they hadn't made a new sign yet (see right)--was that one would be disqualified if one was conserved.

At 9:45 we took a half-hour break because the judge and lawyers didn't know whether they'd need a jury today. At 11:15 they still hadn't decided, so we were told to come back at 1:30 p.m., which everyone did dutifully. At 3 p.m. they finally released us and gave us a piece of paper documenting our "service" and excusing us for 12 months.

I am quite willing to accept my civic responsibility, but it's obvious that this process could be made more efficient. Why do a hundred people have to wait around while the judges and lawyers dither? Why aren't there incentives to speed a decision (the $15/day juror stipend doesn't start until Day 2)?

Sounding like a broken record [what's a record, Pops?], I again complain: every interaction with government, be it the DMV, jury duty, income taxes, employing workers, or getting a building permit is way too complicated. (I do acknowledge that the USPS has improved greatly.) Most everyone has had these experiences.

When government's gross inefficiency and lack of interest in its customers are contrasted with the responsiveness of private industry, why are so many enamored by socialism?

A Lot of Dog Wash

Why is San Francisco "suffering from a glut of empty storefronts"? The answer: City Government [bold added]

Oct, 2018: Market St. storefront (Chronicle photo)

building permit applications for commercial property alterations, additions and repairs submitted in 2017 to the Department of Building Inspection took an average of 172 days — that’s nearly six months — to be approved.

It took another 88 days, on average, for the permitted construction and renovation work to be completed and get a final sign-off, for a total of 260 days or more than 8½ months.

If the Planning Department gets involved, the delays could easily double:

If the new business needed a conditional use authorization change from the Planning Department — they’re required for more businesses in the Upper Market-Castro than in some other neighborhoods — it took an average of 332 days, or nearly one year, to be approved.

When combined with the time it takes to get a building permit and the final approval, the entire process can take a year and a half for projects requiring both Planning and Department of Building Inspection approvals, the report said.

Meanwhile, the storefronts remain vacant and the businesses are stuck paying rent.

Since the government is the chokepoint, some businesses are turning to that time-honored solution, i.e. graft:

Bergerac* said store owners are joining the ranks of people who hire professional “expediters” to get their permits approved faster — it’s a longtime, winked-at practice.

*Daniel Bergerac, Castro Merchants president and co-owner of Mudpuppy’s Tub & Scrub dog wash(!)

Some in the City's leadership blame the empty storefronts on greedy landlords. They propose that empty units be penalized (taxed) $250 per day.

Aside to the younger generation: this is a small example of why many people are opposed to socialism. Problems (empty storefronts, power blackouts, high medical costs, crumbling infrastructure) occur in all societies, but socialist governments, which are in charge of everything, don't blame themselves but "profiteers". Taxes and penalties are the answer, and greedy behavior the problem. The wealth-producers stop working and flee. To the ideologues' confusion, the problems get worse.

In one respect your humble blogger agrees. Property owners, don't be greedy; take your profits or cut your losses. Save yourselves. Get out of San Francisco. If you can, get out of California.

Socialism's Fruits

National Socialism, 1944: [bold added[

The Dutch famine of 1944, known as the Hongerwinter ("Hunger winter") in Dutch, was a famine that took place in the German-occupied part of the Netherlands, especially in the densely populated western provinces above the great rivers, during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II. A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments from farm areas to punish the Dutch for their reluctance to aid the Nazi war effort. Some 4.5 million were affected and survived because of soup kitchens. About 22,000 died because of the famine. Most vulnerable according to the death reports were elderly men.

Venezuelan Socialism, 2019:

(From Guardian video)

Venezuelan troops have barricaded a bridge on the country’s western border with Colombia in an apparent attempt to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid sent by opposition leaders trying to force Nicolás Maduro from power.

A starving population is a compliant population.

PG&E Bankruptcy as a Demo for Socialists

We held PCG for 20 years and sold it in 2005 for $37.75. It's now at $13.

We've long subscribed to the Peter Lynch principle "invest in what you know"; for example, if you know, like and use Apple products, buy AAPL because many people may think like you and you are Everyman/woman/other, right?

Pacific, Gas, & Electric (PCG) is a hard company to "like", but as a utility its captive customers provide a steady stream of cash flow and dividends. In 2005, when PG&E's raw materials cost became more volatile and customers were beginning to look at alternative sources of energy, we sold our shares after holding them since the 1980's.

We got out 13 years early. Now PCG is about $13, a precipitous fall due to the calamitous Camp Fire that began on November 8th, not coincidentally the 12-month high ($49.42) for the stock. The utility declared bankruptcy on Tuesday. One doesn't need an MBA, or even a calculator to figure out why: [bold added]

The company, which says there will be no interruption in gas and electric service, listed assets of $71.4 billion and $51.7 billion in liabilities....

“If the liability is anywhere close to the $30 billion estimate, they will lose market share tremendously because customers can in essence walk, especially the commercial and industrial customers,” said Terry Boston, the former chief executive of PJM, the power grid that serves parts of 13 states from Virginia to Illinois.

The lawsuit damages, plus existing liabilities, exceed PG&E's assets. To preserve what's left, and to continue to provide service to its millions of customers, declaring bankruptcy was the prudent thing to do.

IMHO, the PG&E bankruptcy is a tremendous opportunity for the Progressives who run California to show how much better Socialism is than Capitalism. The Government could buy the company for a pittance. Then, without having to deal with noisome shareholders and the Board of Directors, they can:

force the complete conversion to alternative energy from fossil-fuel sources

keep rates at current levels (or lower);

repair its aging infrastructure to prevent more San Bruno pipeline explosions

pay their unionized workers a fair wage;

bury more power lines both to prevent forest fires and to protect the public from downed lines. Sure, it'll cost a lot:

A new underground distribution line across most of PG&E’s territory costs about $1.16 million per mile, according to data filed with state regulators during the utility’s most recent general rate case. That’s more than twice the price of a new overhead line, which costs about $448,800 per mile. Most of the difference comes from the expense of digging a trench for the cable.

Prices rise within cities, where the work is more complex. A 2015 San Francisco report found that recent costs for moving power lines underground in Oakland had averaged $2.8 million per mile, while similar work in San Jose had cost $4.6 million per mile.

Accomplishing all of the above shouldn't be too difficult since a government entity need not show a profit or pay dividends.

Actually---and I'm being serious now---if Socialists can accomplish all of the above without losing money, they would have a much better chance of convincing the public that they could own and operate the health care system.

Friday in San Bruno

Dropping off the Car
Having disposed of the 1997 Dodge Caravan in 2015, I hadn't seen Jack, our trustworthy mechanic, for at least three years. When I drove up in the 2004 Camry, he instantly placed me: "How's the van?" Well, I had to junk it because problems were occurring nearly every month. Re the Camry: he wouldn't be able to get to it till the late afternoon, even for routine maintenance. No problem, I could hang out at the mall.

The Wait for Plates
The dealer where we bought a Toyota RAV4 was a quarter-mile away, and it was my first stop after Jack's repair shop. After two months we still had not gotten the license plates. We had bought four new cars over the years, and the wait for plates had always been less than 30 days. Of course, those experiences were all in the previous century. The dealer told us that receiving the plates from the Department of Motor Vehicles can now take up to 90 days. As we've written before, if the DMV is an example of our government at work, why in the world are so many people eager to embrace socialism, where we would have DMV-like grocery stores, hospitals, farms, airlines, etc.?

The Panhandlers
The female panhandler was ensconced at the median strip by a stoplight on El Camino Real. She was of indeterminate age; years of hard living on the streets wore her body down. She darted across the street, trying unsuccessfully to avoid a police van. The two officers grabbed her brown paper bag, and after sniffing its contents, poured the liquid on to the sidewalk. They continued to talk to her as I walked past; my guess is that they weren't going to arrest her but try to chase her out of San Bruno.

Two other panhandlers were seated by the freeway exit ramp by the shopping center. Both middle-aged, the Asian man and the Caucasian woman did not appear to be a couple but chatted like they knew each other. They were dressed neatly but inexpensively and appeared to practice better hygiene than most homeless whom I have observed (indeed, they may not have been homeless). In fact, in my worn jeans, flannel shirt, and Nikes I could have fit right in with them. We avoided eye contact, and they didn't approach during the four minutes it took the light to change. When the walk signal came on, I handed them each $20, much to their surprise. I like giving money to non-aggressive panhandlers and do enjoy confounding expectations.

The shopping center was built on the Tanforan Park racetrack.

At the Mall
Several homeless people wandered the Food Court. One went upstairs and, after shouting for a while, assaulted a worker at Burger King. Three security officers eventually subdued and carried him from the building.

A pretty blond girl sat at a nearby table and was engrossed in her phone. A non-white man (I could be but won't be more specific) approached her and asked if she would come with him. She politely declined, and he went away. A few minutes later, she got up and left, too.

Picking Up the Car
The Camry was ready at 4 o'clock. Jack looked tired. I asked him how long he planned to keep the business going. This stretch of San Bruno Avenue is pretty run down, I said, and given the development occurring all over the Peninsula the whole area could change in the next ten years. Everything's so expensive, he said, the taxes and regulations are killing him, and two houses on his block sold for over $1.2 million! Are you thinking of leaving the Bay Area? Not just the Bay Area, California.

Before You Run, You Gotta Crawl

(Sequel to Tuesday's post)

Socialism, according to Webster's: [bold added]

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
2 b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

OK, I get it, young Socialists, you want a world with no profit, because profit makes it possible to have obscenely rich billionaires and stark inequality.

Last November I experienced the joys of the DMV.

So let's get rid of profit by having government own the means of production for all goods and services. But before we put the government in charge of the millions of products in our consumer society, why don't we take a close look at how well the government runs just one function? Let's look at the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

SF Chronicle, August 7:

Their constituents have bombarded them with stories of daylong waits to renew driver’s licenses or obtain new Real ID licenses, which will be needed to board domestic airline flights starting in 2020 unless people show a passport. Even people who have made appointments have reported waiting for hours, and the appointments themselves are booked up to three months out

San Diego Channel 10 News:

In July, lawmakers added an extra $16 million to the DMV budget. The extra funding would allow them to hire 500 more employees, offer Saturday services and upgrades to some self-service kiosks....

DMV officials say you can expect to see reduced wait times by the middle of September, but they don't expect what they call "reasonable" wait times until December. They said that means 15 minutes for an appointment and 45 minutes for walk-ins.

SF Chronicle, August 8:

A Republican-backed proposal to audit the state Department of Motor Vehicles to investigate the reasons for its customer-service meltdown died Wednesday when three Democratic senators did not vote.

The DMV service is abominable, it asks for $millions more to solve the wait problem, and pleas for a DMV audit get killed in committee. Under socialism there's no Amazon DMV or Nordstrom DMV to switch to. You can file a complaint, but we've noticed that you've been complaining a lot lately....

Stop Blathering and Build

2009 cover (from anticap.wordpress.com)

After the Berlin Wall fell in 1992, socialism was relegated to the ash heap of history. Capitalism and liberal democracy's superiority seemed so marked that Francis Fukuyama declared that political science had reached the End of History.

Yet, less than two decades later, Newsweek's cover heralded the re-ascendance of socialism. In 2018 socialism has become more popular than ever. Its attractiveness to the young and educated seems inexplicable, since socialism is not only an abject failure as an economic system (see Venezuela today) but socialist societies have killed tens of millions of their own people.

One Newsweek anti(!)-socialist opinion writer is frustrated by the faith of today's socialists that the next time will be different:

as much as the authors insist that previous examples of socialism were not “really” socialist, none of them can tell us what exactly they would do differently. Rather than providing at least a rough outline of how “their” version of socialism would work in practice, the authors escape into abstraction, and talk about lofty aspirations rather than tangible institutional characteristics.

“Charting new destinations for humanity” and “democratizing the economy” are nice buzzphrases, but what does this mean, in practice? How would “the people” manage “their” economy jointly? Would we all gather in Hyde Park, and debate how many toothbrushes and how many screwdrivers we should produce? How would we decide who gets what? How would we decide who does what? What if it turns out that we don’t actually agree on very much?

These are not some trivial technical details that we can just leave until after the revolution. These are the most basic, fundamental questions that a proponent of any economic system has to be able to answer. Almost three decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall—enough time, one should think, for “modern” socialists to come up with some ideas for a different kind of socialism. Yet here we are. After all those years, they have still not moved beyond the buzzword stage.

Your humble blogger is not so doctrinaire that he believes socialism will always be doomed to failure. So convince us, young socialists, without betting the farm. Prove that it works on a small scale. Show that "Medicare for all" and "free college education" works in a municipality before you go state-wide or even national.

Stop blathering and build. (Note: in the 1960's and 1970's sincere believers that capitalism wasn't the answer joined communes to put their principles into practice. All failed, maybe because they didn't have the right tech tools. Maybe you can do better.)

An American Story

Ken Langone is a billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and has written an unapologetic paean to capitalism entitled, naturally, I Love Capitalism! An American Story. Like other self-made billionaires he had modest roots. [bold added]

Ken Langone (WSJ photo)

His father was a plumber and his mother a cafeteria worker. Mr. Langone worked odd jobs during high school, caddying and digging ditches...

After graduating [from Bucknell], he sought work on Wall Street, but he says that his blue-collar Italian background prevented him from landing a job at the top firms. Instead he took an analyst job in the investment department at Equitable Life Insurance Society, an insurance firm, while serving in the Army and going to business school at night.

He worked for small Wall Street firms, then helped found Home Depot, which went public in 1981.

He wrote his book because young people hear few defenses of capitalism. Without much life experience they gravitate to the ideals of

"socialism: Guaranteed income. Free college tuition. Single-payer health care. I disagree. Strongly.” He argues that such policies discourage people from bettering themselves. “I disagree with socialism not (as you might believe) because I’m a rich guy trying to hold on to my money,” he writes. “I disagree because socialism is based on the false notion that we should all be exactly equal in every single way.”

I won't be buying Ken Langone's book because I doubt it will change my world view, and, besides, he doesn't need my money. But I do agree with him about capitalism and socialism.

I look around at the most socialist-leaning state in the union, our California, where government failures abound in public transportation, education, health care, housing/homelessness and alternative energy. Despite having the highest income tax rate (13.3%) among states, collections are never enough; interest groups are always clamoring for more government spending.

(Government does deserve credit for the vast State Water Project designed in 1957; completion of its initial phase in the '70s and '80s was crucial to the development of California's economy. Wikipedia: "The SWP provides estimated annual benefits of $400 billion to California's economy." However, even the first phase of the SWP couldn't be built today. Environmentalists have called a halt to all dam- and aqueduct building.)

What has allowed California to stay afloat is capitalism, the wealth effect of having companies that are world leaders in their sectors. It's easy to tax and spend when you have a concentration of taxpaying and job-creating companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Chevron, Visa, Wells Fargo, and Intel, all headquartered in the Bay Area and all on the list of the top-20 most valuable public companies in the U.S.

But back to Mr. Langone. Peggy Noonan has teased out the "rules for living" inferred from his book:

1. Take your religious faith seriously. His Catholicism gave him safe harbor in storms and left him “sensitive to the plight and needs of others.”

2. Marry for the long run. He and Elaine have been wed 63 years. When things were good she cheered him on; when they weren’t she let him know “she would always be there for me—win, lose or draw.”

3. You teach values by living them. Don’t say—do. People absorb eloquent action.

4. “Pray at the feet of hard work.” Be ravenous in reading about your field, whichever you wind up in and for however long.

5. Money solves the problems money can solve. Don’t ask more of it, and don’t be ashamed of wanting it. “A kid once said to me, ‘Money doesn’t buy everything.’ I said, ‘Well, kid, I was poor, and I can tell you right now poverty doesn’t do a very good job either.’ ”

6. Stay excited. Don’t be sated.

7. Admit the reality around you, then change it.

8. When you’re successful you’ll put noses out of joint, even among colleagues who benefit from your work. Be careful about jealousy but in the end roll with it, it’s human nature. When you “piss off the old guard,” become the old guard—and help the clever rise.

9. “There’s no defeat except in giving up.” You’re going to fail. So what? Keep going, something will work.

These are old-timey sayings which are cliché-ish, but that doesn't make them less true. We won't be billionaires by following them, but we'll probably end up being happier.

As Easy as Predicting the Sun Will Rise in the East:

If the project doesn't get much further, historians of the future
will wonder why we spent billions connecting Fresno (pop
500,000) with Bakersfield (pop 400,000) (Chronicle photo)

I would say I told you so, but this was as easy as predicting the sun will rise in the East: California high-speed rail project facing more delays, higher costs. [bold added]

The middle-of-the-road estimate is $77 billion, according to the draft report, which will now undergo public comment and legislative scrutiny....

The bullet train’s most recent cost estimate was $64 billion, which was already double the original $32 billion price tag that was pitched to state voters when they authorized bond money for the project nearly a decade ago. The rail authority said it hopes to finish the full line by 2033, a delay from the most recent estimate of 2029.

We derided the project when we first heard about it in 2012. By 2013 and 2015 it had gotten more delayed and more expensive. IMHO, the new estimates are optimistic.

I'd bet money on this: we will put a human being on Mars before anyone travels from LA to SF on high-speed rail.

BTW, here's another great moment in public transportation: At long last, Wi-Fi coming to BART, Caltrain — in 3 to 4 years. By comparison JetBlue began offering WiFi on its flights in 2013.

The leaders of tomorrow, i.e., millennials, prefer socialism to capitalism, so we'd better get used to stories like these.

Little Lost Church

Unlike outsiders who believe that the Episcopal Church is near collapse--partly in my view due to wish fulfillment--I don't think its condition is that dire, but there's no doubt that the Church has severe problems.

The drop in attendance is unquestioned, but the decline appears to have leveled off:

Among the old mainstream denominations reporting to the National Council of Churches, the Episcopal Church suffered the worst loss of membership from 1992-2002 — plunging from 3.4 million members to 2.3 million for a 32 percent loss. In the NCC’s 2012 yearbook, the Episcopal Church admitted another 2.71 percent annual membership loss.

For the past quarter-century, the Church's leaders have embraced coastal values (same-sex marriage, gender fluidity, climate-change environmentalism, social-justice redistributionism) without doing much outreach to the more conservative lay population and a few clergy dissenters.

Recalcitrant Dioceses have tried to break away while retaining their Anglicanism, but the Episcopal Church has responded with lawsuits that assert its legal claim to the properties (generally the Church has won in court). However, suing fellow Anglicans who have paid for the maintenance and usually the purchase of the properties that they have worshipped in for generations is not a good look.

As for the coastal Dioceses themselves, high property values raise the temptation to sell off real estate in order to cope with cash shortages. But that course of action meets with resistance from parishes (financially independent churches, unlike missions) that thought they owned the property because they paid for it. Generally title does not reside at the local level.

 St. James, Newport Beach (OC Register)

Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles tried to sell a Newport Beach property to a developer, but was stopped by the National Church. Bishop Bruno has been threatened with removal of his collar:

an attorney for the national Church has recommended he be defrocked.

Bruno’s misconduct allegations were over his move to sell the prime piece of real estate on Via Lido back in June 2015 for $15 million to a developer who wanted to build luxury condominiums there. Though that sale fell through, the congregation was evicted and remains locked out, forced to hold services in a community room at the Newport Beach Civic Center.

The church's dwindling resources are increasingly tied up in the courts and politics that are only tangentially related to the Christian mission. The Episcopal Church is not collapsing, but it has definitely lost its way.

Venezuela: A Chance to Show What the Church Can Do

Venezuela's declining economic indicators (WSJ Graphic)

Following his election as President, Hugo Chávez was acclaimed by Hollywood, the press, and academia as he nationalized major sectors of the economy. Under Venezuelan socialism, aka the "Bolivarian revolution", he was able to raise the standard of living in the first decade of the 21st century (Wikipedia: "there were improvements in areas such as poverty, literacy, income equality, and quality of life occurring primarily between 2003 and 2007").

When oil prices fell, Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro clamped down further on what remained of private industry to maintain the level of government spending. Venezuela's downward spiral was predictable by non-partisan students of socialism, but the degree of the plunge has been horrendous.

Hordes of people, many with children in tow, rummage through garbage, an uncommon sight a year ago. People in the countryside pick farms clean at night, stealing everything from fruits hanging on trees to pumpkins on the ground, adding to the misery of farmers hurt by shortages of seed and fertilizer. Looters target food stores. Families padlock their refrigerators.

As cracks appeared in the Chávez edifice, opponents of socialism crowed vindication. However, in 2017 Venezuela's misery has reached the point where no one can derive satisfaction from ideological I-told-you-so's.

"Authorities have resisted offers of food and aid from abroad," so donations through the government are currently out of the question.

The Catholic Church is a possible avenue; the Episcopal Church is another. For decades organized Christianity has been struggling to show that it is relevant. Here's an opportunity to show what it can do.

You Are Your Aspirations

If "Christian" means aspiring to be "Christ-like" , do Marxists want to be Marx-like? From a new biography of Karl Marx:

Marx was often impossible to deal with, as one of his fellow radicals wrote: “Everyone who contradicted him, he treated with abject contempt; every argument that he did not like he answered either with biting scorn at the unfathomable ignorance that had prompted it, or with opprobrious aspersions upon the motives of him who had advanced it.”

If Marxists are trying to be like their hero, I'd say many of them are succeeding. (Tip: practice saying "middle America" or "bourgeois values" with dripping scorn and you're halfway there.)