The Story We Tell Ourselves

I work out at a gym that tries to entice non-gym goers into feeling comfortable with their surroundings. Messages that discourage muscle-head type grunting adorn the walls in bright purple while a siren lights up when weightlifters drop dumbbells too loudly. The building is full of treadmills and cardio machines, televisions and even tanning beds; it is light on free weights and bar bells to keep the hard-core weightlifters out and promote a type of 'everyman' ethic to the surrounding. This level of softening the rough edges of the workout community is meant to gain in-roads into the occasional gym goer but instead encourages a false sense of reality among the overly self-conscious. In order to believe the environment is safe for working out, (i.e. no insulting meat-heads will notice how ridiculous and out of shape you are) you must believe that in a normal situation those buff weight lifters would criticize and mock you. I imagine most people have some level of body consciousness that leads them to feel like others are judging them, whether at the pool or in the summer when many wear shorts and sleeveless shirts. Feeling like it's true doesn't make it so however, and by tapping into fears about self-consciousness and creating a narrative around a non-issue is dishonest.
 It is impossible to tell what a person is thinking at a given time but assuming that everyone is looking at you and judging you for your lack of a noticeable diet and for having a dumpy body is quite narcissistic. I've been a member at a gym in most places I've lived and I was heavier in college both because I lifted weights and also because of diet (beer and pizza). Some of my friends back then could have been considered meat-heads, guys who spend hours in the gym getting ripped and taking supplements to increase the size of whatever muscle group was being targeted that week. Some were vain and some were not, I can't remember any of them giving a damn about out of shape people at the gym trying to improve themselves. If anything, they were too focused on themselves and whatever training program or carb cycle they were on at the time. Sometimes the story you tell yourself is a fiction no one has read. I understand how marketing works, take a view about the world that many people share and exploit it for maximum profit. This sounds like a cynical take on all advertising but it is really just a way to understand selling and being sold to. Notice I didn't write 'take a view about the world that is TRUE and exploit it for maximum profit'. I am not picking on the fitness industry, gyms are more utilitarian than they used to be. One used to have to choose between the racquetball clubs with saunas or the weightlifting facilities like Gold's Gym that catered to specific groups. The mixed use clubs of today are more family friendly and encourage new types of exercise and class courses like zumba. Don't buy into the non-sense that everyone is snickering at your flabby stomach and laughing like high school bullies who just yanked some kids pants down during orientation. Fear not, be yourself, try new routines.

Traditional Marriage

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422391/ryan-anderson-gay-marriage

I don't know who this author Ryan Anderson is but I enjoyed the short Q&A about his book on the future of marriage to American culture. To sum up, Marriage is an idea that has made sense between males and females across all racial, religious, and historic periods of time for many obvious reasons including raising children. He mentions some of the contradiction in societal beliefs and current laws, for instance, how can Americans say fathers matter in the lives of children and in the same breath make them optional? I am interested in how he thinks the country got to this point where marriage is redefined in the highest court. Mostly though I want to hear his prescription for those who don't agree with the Supreme Court from a moral or legal perspective on how to turn the cultural ship around. Understanding how we got here isn't as important as knowing how to get out.

Eat it

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421623/gmo-label-movement-loses-ground

Good news I think. Too much of the fear about GMO foods is not grounded in research but in scary thoughts about big agriculture.

Lessons from Greece

http://www.politico.eu/article/how-the-olympics-rotted-greece/

Like most problems in Greece lately, the issue results from an overtaxed society without the stomach to reign in generous retirement pensions and a lack of new investment. In any society telling the retires that their living wages are about to be cut is political suicide. When the country can't pay it's debts, raise new money or agree with creditors on a more favorable restructure, what remains?

The IOC (International Olympic Committee) didn't help the Greeks by offering them the chance to host the Olympics in the most historic and perfectly suited city, Athens. The birth of Western Civilization and the center of art, philosophy, mathmatics and politics couldn't have found a more appropriate location. Feel good stories are followed sometimes by nightmarish conclusions for citizens of that once great Aegean country. Blaming the IOC is a bit like blaming the liquor store that sold the booze that led to the drunk running a red light and crashing into a ditch. Responsible countries do research on the Olympics and the financial benefits versus costs to their respective cities and try to make it work. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong; voters in Greece are also responsible for the policies they sign on to. Politicians and governments are the result of those collective choices made by citizens who have decided on a national direction in economics, religion, art and culture. The Greeks are to blame here.

There is a lesson here for the United States and our insatiable lust for credit and debt. People in democracies can cost along for a while on interest free debt while business and foreign investment money continues apace. Eventually though the propped up market place collapses and creditors send out a bill. The U.S.  government's addition to borrowing money and pushing the debt forward on future citizens is an extension of voters doing the same thing in their own lives. The easy thing to do is blame 'reckless politicians' for their tax and spend misdeeds, but they use debt in the same way most Americans do. Their concern is for the now because now is what is in front of them. There are three things the United States should do to reign in spending. Clamp down dramatically on the regulatory state which makes it difficult for new business to start making money and hiring workers. I heard an idea recently that some wealthy pro-business types would set up a legal fund to defend owners of companies that have been harassed by silly regulation and the cost of compliance. This is a great way to fight back and keep entrepreneurship strong in America.

The second fixable area of spending is to pass some kind of Amendment that keeps the spending by Congress to a portion of the income. Other 'balanced budget' amendments pop-up as a proposal from time to time but the real energy and will to get it done is clearly not there in Washington D.C. The country has a debt ceiling supposedly for this purpose; Congressional leaders vote to raise it every time is comes up for a vote making the purpose of having a ceiling moot. Amendments can't be voted away. Third, simplify the tax code by making it easy for ordinary people to  read and figure out. I am no tax expert but the code should reward businesses first, because they provide jobs, and investors second because they keep money in the economy. Filing tax paperwork every year need not be a messy and painful affair for those business owners paying their own salaries. Complicated tax laws have given secondary industries like legal firms and tax accountants too much time to create myriad ways of hiding money and using loopholes to get around crazy high rates. Just simplify the law and watch it fix itself.

I haven't mentioned what programs I would cut or even get rid of altogether. The reality is when governments collect less revenue they have less creative ways to spend it. Too many programs that should have gotten the ax years ago are still with us and they continue to grow like a tumor, continually fed by redistributed wealth. Or put another way, money that could be used for job creation and private venture is being sucked up by wasteful and unnecessary programs. Take away the money and you kill the program. If we don't start making our government smaller we could be facing down creditors like Greece, and forced to choose selling off assets or cutting retiree pay. It isn't a choice America will like any more than Greece.

Supreme Madness

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420417/supreme-court-john-roberts-marriage-health-care-constitutio
A timely lament. Conservatives have seen this type of judicial activism for years, especially the part where judges appointed by Republicans switch sides on key cases. Sandra Day O'Connor comes to mind. It isn't just frustrating because your side lost. It is frustrating to see how laws and interpretation are now a thin veil covering a naked activist push to overturn traditional institutions in America. The fact that judges even cite case law to support or deny their decisions is a quaint relic of a time when judges applied the law and didn't re-write it. Now I'm lamenting...

Trade anxiety!

http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/top-fast-track-david-ricardo/
Students in any macro-economic class will have encountered David Ricardo and his theory of comparative advantage, which is pretty much the cornerstone of global trade today. A straightforward theory explaining that when countries 'specialize' in producing whatever they are good at producing, they will trade those goods or services with countries who specialize in something else. Both countries benefit financially when they trade making governments and merchants on both sides of the transaction better off. No serious person refutes Ricardo's theory on the merits today; the dispute on most free-trade issues is over whether or not other countries will abide by the same standards they sign up for in this massive deals that presumable cover everything from agriculture and automobile standards to pay for displaced workers and anti-dumping laws.

As someone who is in favor of free trade, I am sympathetic to concerns most Americans (citizens of other democracy as well) have about the loss of sovereignty in the exercise of the government authority. For example, Greece is a country in the center of a financial disaster due to mismanagement and negligence on the part of former government officials. They are in such a hole that the EU has to put together bail out packages every couple of months to keep them from collapsing into insolvency. Many German and French citizens would love to cut Greece off and let them fix their own mess. Problem is, much of their sovereignty has been tied into by a collective governing body known as the EU, which decides how much money and how often economies like Greece get bailouts and under what conditions. If the Germans took a vote over whether or not to fund insolvent Greece the result would be a definitive NO! But they don't get a vote because they ceded the authority to decide on financial issues to a giant central bank. I don't want this for America; we need to retain the ability to vote out bad deals while maintaining open trade with other countries. It is nearly impossible to satisfy every industry or concerned party in sweeping trade legislation, but diligence must be observed.

The upcoming piece of legislation on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is supposed to lower tariffs and increase exports of goods and services from the United States. Well...maybe. When looking at upcoming legislation, the best example of future performance is past performance. Unfortunately the nearest example is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) but I can't find anything resembling a coherent argument for or against the massive overhaul. I know the trade classifications, or rather re-classifications, were updated for the U.S, Canada and Mexico to keep much of the money within the region. Trade classifications are those designations that products crossing international borders must be labeled with. So if Japan sends BMWs to the U.S. on cargo ships, those automobiles would have a corresponding label that fits an automotive description recognized by every country. NAFTA created it's own classification book essentially, that labels products like automobiles created in the U.S different from ones manufactured in Japan.  To say the least, it is confusing and messy but I don't really know whether or not it is considered beneficial to the overall economy. I'll keep looking at this as well as the new TPP deal currently being debated in Washington. I am cautiously on board though so far.

Constructing Identity

Truth is not relative. Bruce Jenner and Rachel Dolezal have both been in the news lately for different ‘identity’ type conflicts within themselves. Jenner wants to become a women and Dolezal thinks she is black but is obviously not. The most painful element to all of this 'is she or isn't she black?' nonsense is the inability of so many in media to state the obvious; she is white. She is a liar. She is quite possible crazy. The rest of the story about why she 'identifies' the way she does is dishonest and makes truth relative. Bruce Jenner becoming a woman because of how he feels is a problem for him, but when writers don’t discuss it in the light of the truth that a being does not change fundamental and biological aspects of their humanity because they 'feel' like it is dangerous. Journalists encourage the victim narrative by writing syrupy nauseating articles about the individual's 'discovery' or past family pain that might have led to the transformation. This is the unavoidable weepy interviewing style that started trickling into stories when Oprah was getting the big stars. ESPN even nominated Jenner for the Courage Award. This essay from Slate however, takes a different approach. Instead of arguing that Dolezal's ethnicity or race is a matter for her to decide, he replaces the is-she-or-isn't-she question with a larger explanation of how black identity is tied to struggle and hardship. This is a textbook bait and switch tactic meant to steer the debate toward cultural issues that the left is concerned with. Like an insurance salesman who finds a myriad of ways to sell plans, the ideologically driven (hopelessly biased) journalist will turn a prominent news item into promotional material for his own revolution. Instead of supporting or rejecting this woman on the merits, the reader is fed bits of social constructs the author has created in which being black equals passing a litmus test of struggles. Rachel Dolezal is not black and nothing should be made of how she 'identifies'.

    

 I understand the urge to sympathize with people undergoing emotional distress or mental instability. Often it takes a celebrity voice or high profile incident to highlight mental disorders most of us don't see close up. Temple Grandin showed Americans a creative side to reducing stress among dairy cows and feeding patterns for other livestock while bringing attention to autism, something she has dealt with personally. A change in perception can be beneficial in business, philosophy or education as long as concrete principles and truths are observed. If Apple inc. decided making a profit was less important than producing the most visually appealing products and clean aesthetics they are known for, the enthusiasm would last for a little while but the money would soon run out. What is needed for Apple is to find a way to understand the primary truth of business, turning a profit, while not ignoring creative components that make their business a cutting edge industry. No matter how much designers may want to ignore costs of production it remains a concrete principle of creating goods and services. The sympathy for disturbed people like Jenner and Dolezal runs the gamut from the heart-felt "Tell me what I can do to help?" to the inconsequential "I've got more important things to discuss". When society doesn't present a clear understanding of truth and lies the resulting mush will be relativity in all areas of life, not just socio-cultural. The more space we carve out for ‘identities’ that have never been recognized by society as anything other than mental disorders, the less chance those confused individuals have of being helped. Stop treating Bruce Jenner like a hero and stop using Rachel Dolezal to advance personal notions about societal inequalities.

 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/rachel_dolezal_claims_to_be_black_the_naacp_official_was_part_of_the_african.html