The Privatization of Public Security and Our Liberty

It is commonly understood that the intellectual berth of our Constitution was the Enlightenment period of Western Europe.  The lofty concepts of liberty, individualism, and humanism were woven throughout the document, most notably, perhaps, in the Preamble.  The prescript reads "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America".  It is for these limited reasons that we establish our government, yet since these words were written, America's statesmen have engaged in a constant battle over their meaning and implementation.  What is shared multilaterally, however, is the understanding that we, as citizens, give deference to the state for these purposes alone, whatever they may mean.

(Not My Image)

  I am of the opinion that we have, as a nation, followed a continuing arc of progress towards achieving these ends in an equitable and realistic fashion.  We have erred tragically, and torn our nation to pieces correcting for these mistakes.  And finally, now, after a civil war and generations of civic rights struggles, I believe we are at an impasse.  Technically speaking, all Americans are equal in the eyes of the law.  Our government aims to serve justice blind, and in many cases is able to do so.  But it is not dissent or misinterpretation within our government that now inhibits these ends, but rather the enigmatic, distanced, and unaccountable creature of privatization.  Corporations are not evil- they generally serve a common good, provide jobs, products, and wealth.  But just as government is resigned to the limited roles written in the preamble, the private sector is meant for these purposes, and these purposes alone.  While we are a nation of free enterprise, we are not to be a government of free enterprise.  Government is constant;  it cannot be subject to any market force beyond the fluctuating opinion of the populace that elects it- yet today corporations have begun to assume some of the most basic duties we have assigned to our government.  
  Our government has pawned off some of our security and justice systems to the highest corporate bidder,  and we have had no say in the matter.  While we expect the military to be the sole provider for the common defense, an organization mobilized by Congress and congress alone, we now have private military contractors that have absolved these responsibilities.  We pay multimillion dollar defense contractors such as Xe (formerly known as Blackwater), United Defense, and Lockheed Martin to provide for our security, and simultaneously take a blind eye to how they carry out their enlistment.  Unlike our military, private contractors operate outside the Uniform Code of Conduct.  This means that these soldiers are little more than mercenaries, operating under a United States banner but without the nations direct consent or oversight.

(Not My Image)

  But the problem sinks further.  Not only has our government privatized our vessel of international security, but it has hijacked our domestic systems as well.  Charles Blow writes a great article for the NYTimes documenting the situation with private prisons in Louisiana, wherein 1 in every 86 residents is incarcerated, 2/3 of which are non violent offenders.  Many of these inmates are incarcerated in private prisons pioneered by rural entrepreneurial sheriffs that caught the market niche early- if that wasn't enough of a conflict of interest, one can looker deeper to the profit structure of private prisons.  Such prisons must remain full to make a profit, thus the Sheriff's association has bolstered a continuous lobby for stiff sentencing for non-violent offenders.  In the short-term the local contract prisons offer a lower pricetag for the state's incarceration efforts than if the state were to imprison the offenders itself, but the hook is that the private prisons provide a less rehabilitative experience than the state prisons, so half of the offenders end up back behind bars within five years.  This keeps the market for human commodities hot, perpetuating full private prisons and increased profits for their investors, yet the state still pays the same or more because it amasses more and more inmates.  If this weren't bad enough, let me tell you about my experience with immigrant detention centers in Illinois.

(Not My Image)

  This spring break I went with a group to do volunteer work in Chicago.  We met with different immigrant rights groups, attended an immigrant court, and helped in whatever ways we could.  The centerpiece political item for the groups we met with was a new immigrant detention center just outside the city in the suburb of Crete.  In the discussion about the detention center, I learned about the injustices that riddle the judicial pipeline of detained immigrants- it begins like this.  First off, anyone can be pulled over and detained by a police officer for an indefinite amount of time if their citizenship is suspect- once detained, they can be shipped to a detention center anywhere in tri-state area to await a "trial".  The waiting period can be up to eight months, at which point they enter a trial without any state-appointed representation.  Generally, suspects never see an actual courtroom; they're video-streamed into one on a big monitor and stand trial before a state adjudicator, a translator, and a lawyer acting for the state.  At this point, their citizenship status is determined- they are either deported on the state's dime, with no opportunity to see their in-state relatives and a federal injection barring them from entering the country for ten years, or they can opt-for self-deporation, pay their own way back to their home country, and may return after a number of years set by the adjudicator.   Either way, it sucks.

I took these outside a detention center just outside Chicago

The Front of the Detention Center

  What's worse?  The detention centers are... you guessed it.... privatized.  Masked from public accountability, private companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) detain human beings for indefinite periods of time, and they never even receive proper due process.  I don't have to explain why this jeopardizes the freedom of any American citizen, let alone one who's citizenship might be "suspect" (AKA anyone Brown-skinned).  But even if someone is residing in the country illegally, while they may not retain the rights of an actual citizen, cannot we, as a nation, serve those who wish to join us as countrymen with more dignity than a shoddy trial and the accommodations of a shady corporate entity?
  I question privatization of public functions wherever it exists.  Be it the military, or be it our prison system.  I question the actual benefits of a "reduced price tag" for the state, which seems to generally be a short-term rationalization for crony capitalism.  I want our state bodies to be effective, transparent, and accountable.  It seems that after analysis, privatization perverts all of these qualities, while simultaneously undermining basic constitutional precepts.  Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, a free-market conservative or a socialist-leaning Keynesian, it takes nothing more than a commitment to the basic tenets of our Constitution to recognize and understand threats to our liberty, which must always trump all other considerations.  Expect more on this topic.  Frankly, honestly, and freely, The Polemic. 




Some of my photos from volunteering in Chicago:

Welcome to The Ambidextrous Academy!

Today is our grand opening! We have up four articles for your reading pleasure, hopefully at least one of them will be of interest to you. Each writer is committed to updating twice weekly, so keep us in your bookmark bar for interesting ideas, opinions, observations and oddities. We welcome input of any kind, please leave your thoughts in the comment section. Also feel free to email us at ambidextrousacademic@gmail.com. Welcome to the Academy.

Work Credits: A New Idea For Wage Equality

Today, the CEO of a major company does nothing but plays golf and sips scotch all day while being paid thousands of times more than the miners that find the raw materials for his company’s products, hundreds of times more even than the hardworking salesmen a few floors below. Since 1970 labor wages have stayed relatively stagnant, with respect to inflation, while executive compensation has skyrocketed. Yes, that CEO worked very hard to get to where he was, and yes he deserves to be compensated for seniority, and yes this is a capitalist system where a person can pay themselves whatever they want with the only risk being the collapse of their own business--but a thousand times more? Think about that. Is that person’s education, experience, etc make his one day of “labor” worth 1,000 days of an unskilled worker’s labor? That’s almost three years.

I’m not going to suggest a system where everyone is paid the same--some people work harder than others and that is an acceptable fact of labor. But I do think that we can more reasonably compensate everyone’s labor, and doing so will raise the general standard of living and help close the income gap. To do this, I suggest (hypothetically of course), that we institute a system of “work credits” which laborers (CEOs and miners alike) earn in place of their salary. These work credits then either replace money entirely, or more likely, are redeemable for a set amount of value. For example, a miner might get one credit per hour and and a CEO might get 120. Still a large gap that shows their different pay-grades, but not ridiculously large. Lets see how the math breaks out:

There are many ways to conceptualize this, but I’m going to set the minimum wage of a full-time worker to be the US census stated poverty level: $11,491 (this is est. for 2011). So if we break that up into 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year:

$11,491/(8*5*4)hrs = $11,491/2000 hrs = $5.75/hr.   

Therefore our work credits will be worth $5.75 each. Just as a matter of interest, this is $1.50 less than the current federal minimum wage level. Now, we have to give credit where it is due and grant skilled workers more credits based on what education/training/experience they have. To try and keep this on the ground, let’s examine another profession that seems to have about the right pay for its prerequisites:  an auto-mechanic. Mechanics, on average, in the United States make $34,406 a year. This is far above the poverty line, but it is a tame 4x as much, rather than the outrageous 1000x we see among corporate executives. To be a mechanic, generally either an apprenticeship or a technical school is required. How many credits does that give our representative laborer? We are assuming he/she works the same number of hours as our other laborer:

$34,406/2000 hrs=$17.20/hr   

That works out to be almost exactly 3 work credits per hour. Technical school has added two more credits per hour to this laborer’s salary. So, we can say technical schools add two credits to one’s salary. How about a four year college? It costs more than a technical school generally, lets go ahead and double the credit bonus. A Bachelor’s degree will get you 4 extra credits. Now someone who has gone through all that will make a yearly salary of $57,500. This is a little north of the average college graduates starting salary (currently $46,000). How about graduate school? Let’s give one extra credit for a Master’s degree and three extra credits for a PhD. Now a laborer with their Master’s degree makes $69,000 a year and a PhD makes $92,000.

The beauty of the system is you can add credits for anything you deem worth compensation, the  only important thing is that these attributes are transparent and consistent. This should be centralized; individual firms will not be able to decide whether someone deserves more credits unless that employee qualifies for more due to something in the central code. Obviously, laborers would receive more credits for experience and company loyalty. Fractions of credits can get messy and might lead to defeating the entire point, so lets award one more credit per hour for three years, another after four years, another after five years and so on. Now, a mechanic who has been working for 25 years will be making $115,000. A PhD would be making $149,500 after 25 years, and a masters would be making $126,500. The interesting thing is, because education takes up so much time that could have been spent earning money, after 25 years, the two professionals are going to be making similar amounts of money, and their lifetime earnings are going to be close.

Let's get back to our executive. She should be paid well. This is an entrepreneur who has invested her entire life into a dream and it has become a success. How much will our work credit system pay a person like this? Is it enough to still incentivize people to innovate and create and become a successful CEO? Imagine a 50 year old executive, she did not go to college but started the dream on her own and has been running her own business since she was 22. She gets the original 1 credit, plus 5 credits for experience over 28 years (she will receive a sixth in 5 years). That's only 6 credits; and only $69,000 a year. But we have not yet scratched the surface of what other credits the person would receive. In a system where work credits were used, entrepreneurial ability would undoubtedly be worth a significant number of work credits, probably only available to those who are proprietors of their own company. Let’s give 5 credits for that. Then, finally, some measure of stress and responsibility should grant work credits. for lack of a better idea, I am going to give 1 credit for every 10,000 employees a person is responsible for. If this CEO’s company employed 2,100,000 people (this is the size of Wal-Mart, one of the largest employers in the world), our executive is entitled to 420 work credits extra. Now lets do the final calculation:

1+5+5+210 = 221credits

Giving our executive a salary of $2,541,500. This is a huge amount of money. And yet, not as grossly disproportionate as our current system stands. The average salary of a CEO in a fortune 500 company is $12 million a year. Think about it. I would love to hear ideas to improve this system in the comments! Also please know I made all of these credit numbers up, though I do plan on continuing on this idea and refining the credit rewards so that salaries make sense.


Sources:

1. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/
2. http://www1.salary.com/Automotive-Mechanic-I-Salary.html
3. http://www.simplyhired.com/a/salary/search/q-college+graduate

Super PAC's, Racism, and the Decision of the American Political Moderate

Recently, a powerpoint penned by conservative super donors and strategists entitled "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama" was leaked to the public through an anonymous inside source, perturbed by the brash and personally combative tone of the presentation.  I will begin by thanking this individual for making public the exorbitantly filthy contents of this Neo-Con playbook; as Woody Allen might say, "You're a beautiful human and a credit to your race".  After reading through this strategy, I'm convinced the already blemished reputation of White people may be in need of said credit: the proposal calls for the recruitment of African-American business leaders to oppose the Obama administration, as well as the enlistment of a charismatic African-American who can persuasively debunk the "black, metrosexual Abe Lincoln"(the report reads) persona-platform that President Obama allegedly ran on.

A digital copy of the presentation can be found here  (NYTimes)


But I suppose it's about time conservative racism and its arbitrary political aggregations reared its idiotic, bigoted, and well-financed head.  You would think that after losing a dramatic election to an African-American, Neo-conservative tea partier strategists might begin to reconsider how Americans think about race.  But then again, they're neo-conservative tea partier strategists, so they don't always consider.  Especially when that consideration requires such complex mind aerobics as empathy or color-blindness.  No, the ultra-right have clearly entrenched their most socially conservative views into the way they run their campaigns, and I could not be happier.  Why?  Allow me to now make the case for why this sort of Republican tomfoolery is exactly what will deliver November's elections straight into Obama's metrosexual, Abe Lincoln-esque hands.

As in 2008, November's election lies with the ballots of political moderates; non-partisan skeptics who hate government waste, are somewhat more politically efficacious than many of their rank-and-file counterparts, and are unconvinced by out of place, marginal social campaigns from either side.  They're not tipped by views on gay marriage, but prefer not to discuss the topic at all.  They may think one way or the other, but they consider such things a matter of the private sphere rather than an issue to be put to referendum.  So far, the Romney campaign has reserved its talk to fiscal matters; this is a smart move, because this is where moderates will start paying attention.  It is arguable how moderates will respond to Romney's endorsement of Paul Ryan's draconian austerity plan, but you can be sure that when the Super PAC's follow through on this power point's plan to emphasize Obama's connections with Jeremiah Wright, his former Afro-Centric Reverend, moderates will be repugnant to such shallow jabs.  This is an antiquated point, one that fell short of any real impact in 2008, and will have even less pull now.  If anything, it's a repellant to those who do not want their country run by a amalgamation of vested corporate interests that have nothing better to do than make personal attacks on a man's past associations.

As Jonathan Capeheart of the Washington Post points out, this strategy emphasizing tactical strikes at race relations is not new.  An update from the National Organization for Marriage discussed strategic aims to "drive a wedge between gays and blacks" in order to expand a Christian support base that opposes same sex marriage.  But just today the N.A.A.C.P. voted on a resolution in affirmation of the groups support of same-sex marriage.  No matter how hard conservative monied interests try, the arc of racial progress will continue to stay its course, and shrouded socially darwinian racism will become continuously less persuasive.  Taking stock of our contested moderate demographic, it seems likely that such voters will want to distance themselves from the the tactics that would seek to divide them.  It is my hope that this understanding will extend beyond voter's personal impressions of the two candidates and their campaign tactics and inform their interpretation of their distinct fiscal views as well.

In terms of divisiveness, the term "class warfare" has been applied to Democratically proposed progressive taxation, but the House budgetary committee's (Paul Ryan's) proposed budget seems much more consistent with this label.  It scraps all of Lyndon Johnson's utopian advances from the Great Society initiatives, destroying Medicare, Medicaid, and the Department of Education.  It defunds all existing government social programs that were invested both domestically and abroad.  This means Head Start and Planned Parenthood would defer to private donations (would die) and foreign aid would cease to feed millions of impoverished people in nations both hostile and friendly to the United States.  To this is I pose the question, what is more divisive?  A progressive tax burden that requires the top 2.5% of the nation's earners to contribute the same real (not nominal) proportion of taxes as the rest of the nation, or one that eliminates the social safety net that maintains a relatively contented middle class, dropping anywhere from four to sixteen million Americans into poverty, and preventing a generation of middle class students from being able to attend the colleges that they want to?  I'm going to go with the latter, and say that almost any argument to the contrary falls flat against the simple fact that under Ryan's plan, most Americans will become poorer while the wealthy would receive more tax cuts.  If that doesn't stem interclass antagonism, I don't know what does.  Certainly not universal healthcare (knock on wood).

Moderates will not like the untempered fiscal austerity measures proposed by the Romney camp, nor the abrasive, ethnically divisive tactics of his "non"-conspiratorial Super PACS.  I have faith for Americans, I have faith in our future, I have faith in our economy, and I have faith in the re-election of Barack Hussein Obama.

Fratting, and the Political Art of Creative Impression Management

I go to college, and I'm in a frat.   Fraternity men are taught from the impetus of their pledgeship to eschew the abbreviation "frat" because it carries with it a set of negative stigmas.  But recently, I've decided that I'm going to disregard this guideline and begin embracing the attractive reality that I can immediately compel people's impressions of me by using this word.  Why do I want people to think I'm a lazy, overprivileged, meathead who would buy a beer bong instead of purchasing his requisite Constitutional Law textbook?  Well, first, to be fair, I do own a beer bong, I did not purchase my Con Law textbook, and I still got an A in the course.  But really, I like to set a low standard for people's impressions, and then consistently exceed it.  It's the first law of slackerism- set the bar low, especially if you're tall, because then you can just hop over it.  Why would you limit the application of that law simply to your course grades when the social world awaits?

(Not my image)

Indeed, the benefits of upsetting people's social expectations of you are a tangible and a novel discovery, at least that's been my experience.  Surprising someone with your ability to eloquently speak, empathize, or not show up to a poetry reading cross-faded is not only a way to make new friends, but a devious political tactic.  But it's only open to those who are able to command such low impressions from the get-go; it's reserved for those of us who can make you think we are the filthiest of the filthy, the frattiest of the fratty.  It's really a downhill coast from there, unless, of course, you are actually an asshole (sorry, guys).  People will want to embrace your "newfound" and "friendly" identity, and craft you in their image.  In fact, even the douchey things you continue to do will appear in a more positive light to many that you encounter- some things you might hear- "Hey, nice whale monogrammed shorts!  Lovin' that polo! That shirt looks so much better without the sleeves! Is that a new cologne?"

Many might call me a manipulative asshole for writing this in the first place, but to this I retort: the only way I am able to manipulate you is because you continue to incorrectly judge me! If you gave me a once over and said "Wow, what a remarkably self-aware and conscious young man" my efforts would be wasted and ineffective on you.  This is why I employ the word "frat".  Unlike some of my brothers, I am a pretty clean cut "frat boy".  I like button-up oxford shirts, clean fitted jeans or khakis, pea coats, and sweaters. I've even been called a "prepster" from time to time ( a mix of "preppy" and "hipster").  While I might emanate an aristocratic air, I don't usually come off as a disgusting party boy that excels at Tony Hawk Pro Skater.  That's why I have to level people's expectations by labeling myself, and I have to say it has yielded nothing but good results.

In the arena of school politics, wherein last year I held a Student Body Vice-President position, this disorienting tactic enabled me to befriend members of all campus factions, including fire dancing club leaders, school newspaper editors, and even social justice champions (the traditional antagonist of the frat boy).  And the reality is, this tactic isn't complete bullshit--it results in legitimate non-traditional friendships.  Some of the most important and meaningful people I know around campus have been met through this process.  It's not always easy to reach out to individuals who have already judged you, but it can be a personally and socially rewarding experience.  Our class convocation speaker, Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide, left my matriculating class with a piece of advice on how to build valuable partnerships.  He said, and I paraphrase, that the most compelling ideas come from multi-disciplinary discussions, and that the atomic unit that builds such ideas are unexpected friendships.  He suggested that we reach out and talk to the quiet kid in the back of the math class, the bassoon player with the funny glasses, the oversized football McNugget.  So to that, I say, frat on sirs.  Frat on.

The Fundamental Law of Demand, As exhibited by the frequency of "Svedka: Clementine" on a college Campus

     The fundamental Law of Demand: As the price of a good increases, the quantity demanded by consumers of that good will decrease, and vice versa. In layman's term, if something becomes more expensive, we buy less of it. By the same token, if something's price drops we will buy more of it. The second prong of this is a little bit harder to swallow on the margin for the following reason: If we are already buying a product (at the original price) then we have a demonstrated preference for that product, so then it stands to reason that if the price drops and we can buy more of that product we like for the same price, we will. However, if we do not already have a preference for a product, why would a price drop cause us to buy any at all? If you are a vegetarian and the price of chicken drops, are you gonna buy any? No. But if you normally are a red meat eater and the price of chicken drops, you probably will. In fact, if you don't have a preference against chicken, like a a vegetarian does, than you might substitute into it when the price drops. This is because many goods are comparable to each other, called substitutes, and when prices drop we find time to try out new, cheaper goods.
     Let's start off on the alcoholic examples; assume that you have 10 dollars to spend on alcohol each weekend. The choices of alcohol are endless, you could buy a fifth of seagram's vodka, you could buy a six pack of Franzikaner, or you could buy 1/80th of a bottle of thirty year old scotch.

VS     

     Your choice will depend on how many people you are entertaining, how much you want to remember tomorrow, how many trailers you have lived in, etc. Maybe one weekend you buy the Seagrams because its dirt cheap and it gets the job done, but as the night progresses and your stomach, throat and taste buds raise a rebellion, you end up promising yourself you will go for the good stuff next weekend. So friday rolls around again, you grip your 10 dollars tightly and buy six bottles of the glorious German beer (9.79 a six pack at BevMo). Its delicious, it goes wonderfully with your veal medallions, but even shared with just one other person this purchase barely leaves you buzzed. You find a sober sleep to the sounds of your dorm mates drunkenly frolicking and fornicating wafting through the paper thin walls. Perhaps this was not the perfect solution either. The next week is a living hell, you don't know what to choose. Your cannot focus in your classes, your grades slip, your girlfriend leaves you, you start listening to Linkin park. You walk into the liquor store on Friday looking for salvation, when you see the glistening Franzikaner display front and center. But what is this? $11.99? The price has gone up because of strikes in the German barley mines? Fantastic! The relief comes in waves, the decision is made for you, you shake the invisible hand and buy your gasoline flavored libation. 

     This is the first part of the fundamental law of demand. The second generally works the same way. If the Franzikaner had dropped to $4.99 you would have bought two and had the best of both worlds. But what if there was another option, lets say a wine this time, that has historically cost $15. Let us use the example of Acacia Carneros Chardonnay:

     It costs $15.99 on BevMo, where one Jack S. of San Francisco reviews it a "Delicious. Buttery, good acid." Is this not an appropriate choice for our college student? It could become a dorm favorite, BUT it has never even made it onto the radar because it is above our budget line. Could a drop in the price of this wine change our representative consumer's quantity demanded? Note this is at a critical point on the demand curve, i.e. moving from a quantity demanded of 0 to a quantity demanded of 1. If our student had never heard of this product, if it never has been a part of his preferences, would a price drop cause him to buy Acacia? Conventional economics says yes, and we can reasonably imagine that our addled, frustrated student might walk into the liquor store that Friday night disillusioned both by the cheap vodka and the expensive beer only to see that this higher quality chardonnay his mother sometimes drinks is on sale for--what else?--$9.99? He might see it as an answer to his prayers, he might just see it as a pressure-relieving third option, but it is imaginable he might give it a try. (Not to mention the fact that it is on sale makes him think he is getting a better product for a lesser price--This has to do with Behavioral economics and will likely be discussed in other posts) Thus the wine has garnered a new market simply by dropping its price.

Time to move out of the hypothetical and on to the title spirit of this post: Svedka Clementine. Svedka is a chique vodka distilled in Sweden and sold by disconcerting sexbots in urban bus stations.

     Creepy. But anyway, while Svedka is not the most expensive vodka it is rarely within a college students budget and is not what one generally sees at a fraternity party or any small undergraduate party for that matter. Nonetheless, one recent weekend at my own college campus I was walking around a dorm building when a severely intoxicated girl burst out of her room, shaking her cellphone and trying to keep her eyes open all while singing "Call Me Maybe". This was not an unusual occurrence, but what was unusual was that when I returned her to her room and the other six intoxicated youths within, there upon the dresser was an empty 1.75L bottle of Svedka Clementine. These were students at a private college so I did not think much of it until I got back to my own dorm room where my roommate had just made the ubiquitous liquor store run himself (this was, of course, a Friday). My eyes widened as he produced from the brown paper bag the same handle of Svedka Clemetine that I saw in the bacchanalial dorm I had come from. The conversation ensued something like the following:

     Me: Dude, this is awesome, but you always say you hate vodka.

     Roommate: Yeah, my brother got it, but it looks good.

     Me: Did he say it was on sale?

     Roommate: Yeah, how did you know?

     As the night carried on, I saw the same bottle again at a party organized  by a fraternity. When I tell this story to friends from other schools many of them claim to have been surprised by the same bottles around the same time of year, even at schools on opposite sides of the country. The small price drop of the flavored vodka caused college students across the country to buy it. Quantity demanded that week must have flown up the axis. This is anecdotal evidence obviously, but I think it goes a long way to show how easily manipulated we are by prices, and how the fundamental law of demand still carries some weight in an age when we are deeply questioning the fundamental assumptions and frameworks of classical economics.