Politics

Surrogacy: Subjugating Women?

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2014-01-17 Breeders

I’ve been following Chelsea Zimmerman’s Reflections of a Paralytic blog for a couple of years now. She is a great example of what it means to be full-spectrum pro-life. Although she writes about abortion, she also writes about issues like euthanasia, rights for the disabled, and the rights of children as they conflict with practices like surrogate parenting and/or sperm donations. In this post, she talks about a new documentary called Breeders that, according to some early reviews:

dares to go where few documentaries have dared yet to take us and where the assisted reproduction/family building industry really doesn’t want us to go: the dark heart of surrogacy where women with less financial means are treated like vessels and the children created are products made to fit the adult needs.

Women as vessels and children as products: this is why–despite the real promise–I’m starting to become more skeptical of technologies that circumvent natural procreation. It’s not a knee-jerk fear of the new as per the stereotype. It’s a thoughtful consideration of the real-world impact of these new technologies. I’m not saying we should never use surrogacy, just as an example, but I am saying we should not naturally assume that our science fiction future won’t tend towards the dystopic without some careful forethought.

More About How Dumb Minimum Wage Hikes Are

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Greg Mankiw tipped me off to a report by David R. Henderson about where the benefits of minimum wage go. Highlights?

  • Only 11.3 percent of workers who would gain from the increase live in households officially defined as poor.
  • A whopping 63.2 percent of workers who would gain were second or even third earners living in households with incomes equal to twice the poverty line or more.
  • Some 42.3 percent of workers who would gain were second or even third earners who live in households that have incomes equal to three times the poverty line or more.

At an aggregate level:

  • The net increase in wage income to households containing low-wage workers would be $4.03 billion per month.
  • The net increase in wages to poor households containing low-wage workers would be only $439 million per month.

Now here’s the tricky question: do middle class voters know that this policy is going to benefit them by a roughly 10:1 ratio? I’m skeptical that they are that well-informed, but you can’t argue that a program like the Earned Income Tax Credit would actually do a lot more good for the people who need it most, and yet President Obama chooses to go with minimum wages and all my gullible left-leaning friends[ref]Sorry, guys.[/ref] go right on along with it.

I think the old rule probably applies[ref]Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity[/ref], but I also have a hunch there’s got to be more to it. The middle class capture of welfare programs (to the detriment of their intended recipients) seems too comprehensive to be chalked up to random chance. Maybe the problem is simply that what you can understand enough to support you can also understand enough to co-opt? It’s depressing no matter how you look at it.

2014-01-18 Minimum Wage

Yes, Net Neutrality Is Important

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verizon

Imagine our roads are owned by a few large private corporations. Next, imagine that they can dictate who gets to use them and how, and they hand out preferential access to certain people and companies to curry favor, or who do them favors, or who pay them money. Your purchases from Amazon still arrive on time but now cost more. Deliveries from your favorite Etsy shop? Same cost, but now they take twice as long to arrive. Sound like a fun time? What about when access to information becomes a life-and-death issue?

That is, essentially, what may happen to internet access in the US after a DC Court of Appeals ruling threw out FCC rules preventing internet service providers from discriminating against traffic on their infrastructure.

I’m not a populist. I’m also not a corporatist. This issue is usually framed as a lack of enough or effective government regulation over the giant, powerful telecom industry. It could also be said that the entire mess could have been avoided if over the past 25 years or so federal and local governments hadn’t habitually handed out special privileges to a select few industry players, giving them inroads and allowing them to entrench themselves, making true competition nearly impossible.

For the moment, let’s put aside the fact that we, the taxpayers, are the ones that paid for much of the internet infrastructure we’re using. Let’s put aside the fact that telecoms promised high availability, high speeds, were given incentives by government in the form of tax breaks and cash and then failed to deliver, but kept the money anyway. Let’s put aside the complaints from Verizon, AT&T, et al that the strain put on “their” infrastructure (that, remember, we paid for) due to the way the modern internet is used is the reason they’re being “forced” to sue for preferential treatment of traffic on their lines.

Let’s put all that aside and focus on the issue at hand: ISPs do not have your interests at heart and they will abuse the lack of net neutrality. It’s in their nature. Getting mad about it is like getting mad at a lion for hunting and killing a gazelle. But that doesn’t mean we should just let it happen. As I see it, there are three solutions given the situation we’re in:

1. Enforceable, unimpeachable net neutrality legislation. Since both the FCC and Congress have much to gain pleasing their corporate interests and risking a bit of unpopularity in the home constituency, it will take a fairly sizeable grassroots movement to overturn that kind of momentum. This is difficult, but possible, given the demographics of internet enthusiasts in the US.

2. More competition. What better way to say “screw you” to Verizon, AT&T or Comcast and their anti-consumerism than switching ISPs? Well, first you need an ISP to switch to. I believe the market-based solution is the strongest, the most unassailable long-term, but may be much harder to effect than getting more rules and laws on the books: Local and federal government need to stop discouraging if not preventing new entrants in the market. They need to stop playing favorites. They need to incentivize new players to enter the market but recoup the outlays when projects fail.

3. Government takes over provision of broadband internet. No, thank you.

Unless the FCC, with its own questionable motives, manages to pull out a Hail Mary victory from this seemingly-sure defeat, this isn’t something we can ignore and expect it to go away. Just like SOPA and PIPA, this matters. Let’s hope it’s not too late before we realize it.

More Links on Inequality and Mobility (Again…)

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I know what some readers may be thinking: “Another post on income inequality and mobility??”

Yes, seriously. Poverty is a serious issue and addressing and understanding it is more complex than simple wealth redistribution or bootstrapping/incentivize rhetoric. I’m also more interested in relieving absolute poverty and creating healthy economic mobility than income inequality. So, for your reading pleasure:

 

Female Tech CEO: Lean In Doesn’t Cut It

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2014-01-14 Sabrina ParsonsSheryl Sandberg’s Lean In takes a lot of flack for being a privileged woman’s guide to becoming CEO. My own take is that a privileged woman’s guide is much better than no guide. I’m a fan of Sandberg, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to the story of how women can get ahead in business. This article at Business Insider has another very interesting perspective. Sabrina Parsons (CEO of Palo Alto Software) writes:

What needs to change is how and when women work. Being told to “lean in” by itself is not useful. Instead, women need to come together and demand that we are given the flexibility to excel in our jobs; to admit that we have kids and not hide that fact in fear that it will stunt our career opportunities; to occasionally bring a child into the office to quietly do homework on a day when school is out or daycare is unavailable.

Let’s demand that corporate America’s norms change to accommodate women — those who want to have families and realize that having a family does NOT make us work less or achieve less.

I’m still leery of these arguments because I don’t like the rationale that we ought to try and legislate until we reach the arbitrary goal of equal pay without consideration of individual preference and choice. That’s bad policy.

But you know what else is bad policy? Continuing to push the same antiquated practices for business that have been around since the Industrial Revolution. I think that for most white collar knowledge-based workers you would get far more productivity per day if you got 4 hours (or even 2 or 3) of really concentrated effort then you do out of the 8 hours of procrastination and avoidance that is common today. Fewer hours would be beneficial for employers directly, and also indirectly by making your employees hate work a little less. (In my experience at several large companies in a variety of industries: everyone in a cubicle hates their job and everyone in an office hates their job too, but lies about it better.)

Formal regulation is probably not the answer, but I sure would love to live in a world where, when both parents worked, they were doing offset, flexible 6-hour days. And, while we’re at it, it would be nice if people didn’t expect for me to foist off all family obligations on my wife because (1) she’s just as busy as I am and (2) I actually want to be an involved father. When I reschedule business to go to my daughter’s drop-in day at school it’s not a chore. It’s what matters most to me. When I can’t be with my kids for something they are doing it isn’t because I love my career, it’s because I have to balance my desire to be with them with our need to eat.

Freedom in the 50 States

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Most people interested in economics are likely familiar with the Fraser Institute’s annual Economic Freedom of the World reports along with the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has a Freedom in the 50 States report, parsing and ranking all 50 states in terms of economic and personal freedoms. My own state, Texas, comes in at #14 in the latest ranking (our neighbor Oklahoma comes in at #5).

Check it out and discover how your state ranks.

Can Time Guess Your Politics?

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Time gave it their best shot, but it didn’t turn out so well.

2014-01-10 Times Politics
Ummm…. no.

Not really their fault. I’ve often observed that in terms of temperament I’m much more like liberals than conservatives. So I wasn’t surprised that they were wrong. I could even easily tell, question-by-question, which ones would get me nudged in which direction or the other. Here are the specific results, by the way:

2014-01-10Time Politics Detailed

No big surprise, some of them some contradictory. Example “You wish there were no countries,” vs. “You’re proud of your country’s history.” Yeah: I’d love to live in one, giant, happy global community. Apparently humans tend to need an adversary (a “them”) to define a community (an “us”), but I’ve always hoped that a communal endeavor–something like exploring the Solar System–could unite us without the need for an enemy. I’d love to live in that world. We just don’t. Yet.

So… how does Time’s prediction work out for you guys?

New Movie Challenges Pro-Choice Narrative on Pregnancy Centers

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There’s a new movie coming out called Gimme Shelter staring Vanessa Hudgens that includes some pretty strong pro-life themes and questions the pro-choice attacks on crisis pregnancy centers while it’s at it. The trailer is pretty intense.

Most of what I know about the movie comes from this Secular Pro-Life piece, but I’m definitely intrigued. I hope I have a chance to check it out and, if I do, I’ll review it here.

Scientific Belief vs. Scientific Literacy

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Back in November, Nathaniel had a Times & Seasons post based on a survey from Pew Research. The survey looked at beliefs regarding evolution across various religious denominations. Yet, Nathaniel pointed out that the survey isn’t really about evolution. “It’s basically a roll call to see where  people stand on the perceived cultural war between religion and science”:

Folks who embrace strong, anti-scientific rhetoric are flaunting their disregard for the world’s estimation of their IQ and burnishing their loyalty for all to see. They are signalling to their fellows, yes, but it’s more than that. They are enacting a narrative of persecution and using the scorn that comes their way to validate their sense of importance and role in a larger narrative. The folks on the other side of the fence, those who mock the anti-science crowd, are displaying their sophistication and cosmopolitan nature. Once again, they are signalling to their fellows and strengthening social bonds, but they are also paying the cover charge to see themselves as participants in some grand endeavor. Instead of taking the role of a stalwart band of besieged disciples, however, they are playing the part of foot soldier in the ongoing march of progress. Mocking those who seem ignorant is a cheap price to pay for feeling like you’re part of the rising tide of enlightened reason. (Especially if you bear the burden of a near total lack of relevant scientific expertise.)

This astute observation from Nathaniel has some backing from the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School. Dan Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law & Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School, has a couple posts demonstrating that “”believing in evolution” is not the same as “understanding” or even having the most rudimentary knowledge of science knows about the career of life on our planet. Believing and understanding are in fact wholly uncorrelated.”

Turns out the scientific beliefs of the public actually end up being cultural beliefs; markers along political divisions with no basis in scientific literacy. Eye-opening stuff. Give it a read.

Sacrifice is OK for Principle, not People

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Noah Smith, a recently minted econ PhD with some fame as a blogger, argues in a piece for The Atlantic that the Seattle Protests of 1999 were right about everything. (Actually, he said “on nearly every count.”) It’s an interesting piece, because it highlights the unexpected callousness of bleeding hearts. Consider:

The clearest example is competition from foreign workers, which really has slammed the American working class. Economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson did very careful empirical work and found that competition from China lowered wages and increased unemployment for American workers who were in competition with Chinese imports.

I don’t question the science here. I question the values. While American workers in direct competition with Chinese workers are doing worse, Chinese workers in direct competition with American workers are doing better. This is jingoism wrapping itself in the flag of humanitarianism. Later in the post, Smith says that he cares about the health of Chinese workers when it comes to pollution, but apparently his empathy is politically convenient. When it suits him for the welfare of Chinese workers to be irrelevant it gets ignored. When it suits him to be relevant, it goes on prominent display.

It reminds me of the way the American left frequently talks about our need to sacrifice by lowering our standard of living in order to reduce energy consumption and decrease carbon pollution. OK, so we’re willing to lower American standards of living to decrease carbon emissions, but not to raise the standard of living in the developing world?

2014-01-07 Battle in Seattle

Of course, Smith doesn’t address the issue of whether or not the widespread violence and vandalism was one of the “nearly every counts” on which the protests were right. Anarchists are so cute and cuddly when they’re smashing someone else’s windows, right?