The War On Bullshit

A prolific argument in society surrounds the issue of whether, and to what extent, to regulate the free market. Generally, right-wingers claim that a free market economy is good because it leads to a fair distribution of wealth and resources. Left wingers are for regulation, claiming it is necessary to even out market ups and downs, and to protect the disadvantaged. The mainstream media treats this argument as a matter of opinion, with both sides having good arguments. But it’s not.

Whether an unregulated or barely-regulated free market is a sound basis for the economy is not a matter of opinion! It is an empirical question for which the balance of evidence weighs heavily on the free-market-is-a-bad-idea side.

Here are 5 fundamental reasons why a free market economy does not lead to a fair distribution of wealth and resources.

1. Imperfect Competition

Free market economics assumes “perfect competition,” a technical way of saying that no single firm or person is sufficiently powerful to influence prices. Monopolies, oligopolies and cartels, all demonstrate that perfect competition is obviously a myth. Anti-competitive behaviors also undermine competition. For instance, when the telecom companies erect barriers to entry (like locking your cell phone) to prevent competitors from gaining ground. As another example, when the six largest tobacco companies conspired to “to preserve and expand the market for cigarettes and to maximize the Cigarette Companies’ profits”, they undermined competition between smoking and other activities, that, you know, don’t kill you. As a third example, intellectual property laws, especially the inane US patent system and the more inane copyright legislation undermine competition and innovation. All of these things mean that competition is far from perfect, and this, by itself, refutes the whole free-market hypothesis.

2. Problems with Bidding

For the market to efficiently distribute wealth and resources, everyone has to be able to “bid,” that is, offer money for goods and services, or offer their good and services (including their labour) for money. If everyone can bid as they choose, environmentally-concerned individuals can offer to pay more for environmentally friendly goods. In this way, the market will reflect the concerns of all people. The only problem is, this is bullshit. The ability of children to bid is seriously limited, and people who haven’t been born yet obviously can’t bid. Thus, future generations are subject to the despotic hegemony of the present. In a hundred years, when the world’s gone to shit from today’s environmentally destructive actions, our progeny can’t exactly go back in time and fund the development of clean energy, now can they?

3. The Price of People

Since everything in the free market works on money, a monetary value must be assigned to all things, including human life. I don’t care whether economists determine that a year of human life is worth $50K or $129K, the whole concept of price-tagging life is morally reprehensible. Yet, insurance companies, hospitals and governments do it everyday. We could save thousands of lives every year by simply legislating higher safety standards in automobiles, replacing lead water pipes and removing asbestos from old buildings, but we don’t, because it costs too much. How much is your life worth?

4. The Real/Nominal Costs Divergence

Nominal cost is literally how much cash you take out of your wallet and hand over for something. The real cost of something is its out-of-pocket cost plus all the implicit and hidden costs of getting and using it. For the whole free market system to work as advertised, nominal costs and real costs must be equal. There’s just one problem: they’re not. For example, the nominal cost, to you, of driving your car down 1 km of road includes the cost of 1) the fuel burned, 2) the maintenance to your car and 3) a small amount of wear and tear on your car. In addition, the real cost includes the 4) the cost of road maintenance, 5) the cost of the air, noise, land and water pollution created by your vehicle, 6) the opportunity cost of not using the land under the road for something else, 7) the administrative cost of maintaining and policing the road, and a fraction of the cost of building the road in the first place. Costs 4 through 8 are paid by society. For the market to remain efficient, the tax on cars and gas would have to cover these expenses. It doesn’t. The same analysis applies to all sorts of things, including practically everything imported from China, everything that creates pollution, everything that uses a limited resource, and everything that relies on society’s infrastructure.

5. Socialists are Happier

If free market economics was really the best basis for a national economy, then wouldn’t you expect citizens of free markets to be happier than, say, citizens of highly-regulated socialist economies? You would right? Too bad it’s the other way around.

Bonus: Calling it “free” doesn’t make it good.

The right-wingers have a huge advantage in this argument: the misnomer “free” market. People have been brainwashed to believe that freedom is the very definition of good and therefore anything that inhibits freedom is bad. This is, of course, absurd. The freedom to defer the cost of your actions onto society is not good. The freedom to have slaves is not good. The freedom to start an unjust, hopeless war and thereby murder thousands of your own soldiers is NOT GOOD. Freedom is neither good nor bad, it depends on what one is free to do.

Conclusion

Any one of the above reasons is grounds to refute the argument for deregulation. Yet the incompetent, defunct mainstream media continually fails to point out any of these basic truths.

In Utopia, Thomas More argues that governments are a conspiracy of the rich to control the poor:

“Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws…”

Although some argue that Utopia is a satire, I’m not concerned with whether More was serious; I’m concerned with whether he was right. Suppose that governments were a conspiracy of the rich. What would we expect to find?

1. Most government leaders would be rich

The average net worth of President George W. Bush’s cabinet falls between $9.3 and $27.3 million. In, The Audacity of Hope, Barrak Obama points out that most senators are already rich before they go into office.

2. Poor people’s crimes will carry greater punishments than rich people’s crimes

The punishment for theft over $400 is up to a year in prison in the US and in some states repeat offenses can get life imprisonment. In Canada, theft over $5000 gets you up to 10 years. In comparison, the criminal penalties for insider trading, which may involve stealing millions, is a fine of between $10 000 and $100 000. Why is it that if you steal $10 000 000 through insider trading, you have to pay a fine, but if you steal three cars, you can get life in prison?

3. Government would ignore the will of the poor

In response to allegations that most Americans are against the war, Dick Cheney said, “So?” I rest my case.

4. The rich would pay less taxes

It’s pretty bad when Warren Buffett (as in the billionaire) pays a lower tax rate than his secretary, there’s something really wrong.

5. Government will bailout the rich but not the poor.

As pointed out by Stephen Colbert, when rich people lost big money on BearStearns going bankrupt, the Fed stepped in to bail them out. When poor people lost their houses in the recent mortgage disaster, did anyone bail them out? No.

Conclusion

Assuming that government is a conspiracy of the rich allows us to make startling accurate predictions. However, Ptolemy’s model of the solar system can make the same claim, despite being totally ass backwards. None of this is conclusive, but it is thought provoking.

Health and fitness has to be right up there with religion on the stupid-bullshit-ometer. Much of the drivel belched forth by health and fitness magazines, tv shows books and websites these days is not only inaccurate, it’s dangerously misleading. Yesterday I saw a so-called “personal trainer” showing an 8-year-old how to do squats, incorrectly, at my gym. I mean, if you’re going to screw up the boy’s bone development by getting him on weight training when he’s too young, why not fuck up his knees while you’re at it, right?

Tangent aside, here are five fitness myths that are doing serious damage in western society.

5. Walking is the Best Exercise

Best in what sense? Lowest impact? No, that’s swimming. Most enjoyable? No, that’s sex. Can do it anywhere? No, you can’t do it in a car, and almost anywhere you can walk you can also run. So what gives?

Sure, walking is great when you’re 80 years old, and you have to start somewhere if you’re so completely out of shape that a light jog will give you heart attack. However, there’s no reason that most people cannot or ought not to be doing something more intense.

4. Skinny = Healthy

Healthy means you have the stamina to run 10 or 15 kilometers, the strength to lift your body weight, and the flexibility to bend over and put your hands flat on the floor with your knees locked. This has nothing to do with whether your ribs protrude from your skin. Unfortunately, in a society where obesity is so prevalent, people have begun confusing the anorexic physique with the olympic physique.

3. Lifting Weights will Add Bulk

The way the magazines tell it, half an hour in the gym twice a week will turn you into Hercules. This is laughable. The average man is incapable of gaining more than about 5 pounds of muscle in a year without steroids, hormone injections, creatine and colon-stretching amounts of protein. The average woman can expect even more limited results. Making it sound like bulking up is the natural effective of lifting some 10 pound dumbbells is a horrific insult to every diehard trainee out there. You don’t accidentally put on muscle. You have to fucking well work for it.

Besides, you’ll be amazed at what swapping 5 pounds of fat for muscle will do for your looks.

2. Weight Loss Diet Plans

It’s not that any particular diet plan is bullshit, it’s that they’re ALL bullshit. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. The laws of physics make it so. Whether you eat carbs or protein or fat, whether you go over or under your weight watcher’s points, whether you eat Jenny Craig certified food or chili dogs, it’s all fucking irrelevant. All that matters is Calories In - Calories Burned = Calorie Deficit. For every 3500 calorie deficit, you’ll lose at least one pound, not counting water.

This is not to say that all combinations of food are equally healthy, just that if you burn more than you eat, you will lose weight no matter what you eat.

1. That’s Not Food You’re Eating

Much of what’s eaten in the modern, industrialized diet is not food, but synthetic, food-like substances. If it comes in a package and has ingredients you don’t recognize, it’s synthetic. White flour and anything containing it is synthetic. Corn syrup is synthetic. White rice is synthetic. White sugar is synthetic. Most cheese is synthetic. Frozen dinners are definitely synthetic. And you can bet that anything you eat at a fast food restaurant will also be synthetic. So are all sodas and much of the sugar-water that masquerades as fruit juice.

Many of these synthetic non-foods are devoid in nutrition and packed with salt, sugar and fat. If you want to be healthier, try eating real foods! You’ll be amazed at how much better you feel, how much more energy you’ll have and how much easier sleep will come.

Real foods include:
Fruits, vegetables and their juices (with no added sugar or preservatives)
free-range, organic meats, fish and eggs
Milk and natural cheese
Organic, all-natural whole-grain breads and pastas
Pepper, chilies, rosemary, thyme, sage, garlic, marjoram, basil, oregano, cloves, coriander, parsley, cumin, turmeric, mustard, bay leaves, tarragon, fennel, etc.

Flavoring real foods with spices and herbs will produce far healthier, tastier dishes that the fat, sugar and salt infused factory-food that oozes from supermarket shelves.