​Every so often, I like to quip “every issue comes back to an episode of ‘South Park’.”  My wife, daughters and sister usually roll their eyes: “yeah right, dad.” 

Randy Marsh, father of one of the main characters, is frequently caught up in such lessons.  The most jaw-dropping perhaps was when, as a contestant on “Wheel of Fortune,” he incorrectly guessed, with a certain-to-win gusto, the final clue to be the n-word.  This summer has reminded me of that episode. 

My two oldest daughters (a senior and sophomore in high school) came home one Sunday in May asking what I thought about “white privilege.”  It proved a rather lively discussion since it was the first newsy topic they’d ever asked about.  As fate would have it, George Floyd was killed the next day in Minneapolis.   

As time has passed, I’ve been as dismayed by the fallout as anyone.  It’s been difficult for me to process, much less express my thoughts.  There have been subsequent, sometimes contentious exchanges between my daughters on one side, and their mother and I on the other.   

My wife on the other hand, has simply listened to them.  That is something I have set out to do with my black friends, a characterization I have always loathed.  My friends are my friends regardless of race, but the situation being what it is, I’ve reached out to them directly. 

I’ve arrived at roughly the same place I’ve always been. 

If John, for example, refuses to acknowledge that “black lives matter,” that’s his problem.  It’s also a problem for society since there are other “***holes” (to quote a friend) who share his attitude. 

However, let’s say Mary comes along and firmly acknowledges that “black lives matter,” but proceeds to add on that “red/brown/yellow/white lives also matter.”  If there’s still a problem it doesn’t reside within Mary, but rather within the person, say Bob, who insists she stop after the “black lives” recognition.   

Bob has exposed himself as a bully intent on shutting down the full expression of Mary’s beliefs, which is affirming what doesn’t matter: skin color.   
 
At one point this summer, my sophomore expressed a desire to make the KKK illegal (President Trump recently proposed designating them as a terrorist organization), to which one of my buddies joked “yeah, their last 100 members and their 100 teeth.”  Can we instead leave behind the Johns and Bobs?  Just let them stew in their own miserable existence, preferably for all to see. 

The rest of us should move forward. 

By the end of that “South Park” episode, the white boys admit to their black friend that they can’t relate to his feelings when the n-word is muttered.   

White people don’t know what it’s like to be a black person, who doesn’t know what it’s like to be a yellow person, who doesn’t know what it’s like to be a red person, etc. etc.  The most I can tell my girls is to live by example, respect who their friends/peers are regardless of their race.   

Given the discourse in our house over the summer, and a view of their friends, they absorbed that lesson a long time ago. 

If they feel strongly though, and comfortable enough, they should speak out.  Then we can address our collective problems that make the ground fertile for such tensions. 

We need to liberate parents’ ability to choose their children’s education.  We have to realize that ‘free’ college, or at least greater public aid isn’t actually costless, whether the result is useless degrees, a more worthless dollar or greater expense to the taxpayer.   

And once our kids become productive adults, we need to stop allowing politicians and bureaucrats to loot them with all manner of property and income taxes.  This serves no other purpose than to produce wards of the state, to which our alleged “public servants” hold the key. 

Perhaps most importantly though, is that fathers need to step up.  I can attest personally to the reality of a broken marriage.  However, when we decided to have kids (or did what was necessary to make it possible … ahem), we became locked into a duty to both them, and society as a whole.   

Shortcomings in all these areas contribute to resentment in one demographic or another.   

This is not at all to let police reform off the hook, like addressing what’s known as “qualified immunity.”  I simply tend to explore root causes rather than waiting for symptoms to fester. 

The whole “____ lives matter” has produced silly offshoots anyway.  “Blue Lives Matter” comes to mind.  If that’s a thing, then I’m one of the “black” lives that matters due to how much black I wear.  In that same vein, my “Red, White and Blue” life matters.   
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For Americans, the latter should arguably take primacy anyway.  

Until disco came back to me at dance clubs and via the great “Boogie Nights” in the 1990s, I didn’t recall a whole lot from my childhood in the 1970s.  Trying to build my own “Speed Racer” and being in awe of the rock group KISS stand out.
 
“Too many dollars chasing too few goods” was another.  That was the catchphrase used to describe the inflationary times, and it would be the last time monetary issues/policy would make sense to me for many, many years.
 
It’s not my favorite topic to deal with in class.  Explaining money on the other hand, is pretty straightforward.
 
Technically, we don’t need it to survive.  We simply need to be able to produce a good or service of some value to others.  Since trying to translate that into terms of what another person produces (bartering) tends to gum up the gears of commerce, we have money.
 
At various points in time, salt has been used as currency, as has tobacco.  George Washington wrote about using wampum.  Whatever is in steady supply at the time, and holds an agreed-upon value can be used as money.  For much of our history, it was gold.
 
Rather than having to produce all that is necessary to survive, money allows us to specialize in just one or two tasks.  We can then trade with others to get what we need, or possibly want. 
 
Needless to say, the more productive we are, the more we can earn, and the stronger our currency, the more we can get with it.  More importantly, a stable currency is conducive to investment, imperative even to the groundbreaking variety. 
 
It’s no coincidence that was the order of the day before the link to gold was severed, and then in the booming 1980s and 1990s.  Since then, policymakers have become seduced by a weak dollar, and we’ve paid the price.
 
We went from a housing bubble that was pushed to a bursting point under President Bush, to an oil and gas balloon he handed to, and that subsequently ruptured under President Obama.  The oil market blew-up anew and crashed even harder in Obama’s second term, only to be outdone earlier this year.
 
And now we have “big-time … institutional investors” pouring capital into farmland.  This is typical of what happens when the dollar deteriorates.
 
When such a trend takes hold, a currency is necessarily losing stability.  This makes returns on investment more uncertain, and likely less thanks to the devaluation.  Who would invest $1 now if odds are increasing that eventual gains will be less than that $1?  Hence, investment tends to migrate in part, to already-established goods as a way to hold value.
 
A weak dollar is why a product that is generally in steady demand, for which there is a steady supply, sees its price soar from time to time.  There is no reason the price of oil, or gas, should ever fluctuate much.  But since it is priced in dollars, when their value dwindles, it takes more to buy it. 
 
The seduction is so powerful that society views as an “investment” something so basic as the roof over our head. 
 
Nevertheless, some, including President Trump, are smitten with the notion of a weak dollar due to the supposed trade benefits it confers.  The weakening trend since he took office (or really since his candidacy started gaining steam in 2016), and particularly over the last couple years, is no surprise given his administration’s rhetoric and moves to raise trade barriers.
 
The theory goes that a devalued dollar increases exports by making them cheaper than foreign goods in international markets.  There is truth to that, but there are also drawbacks.
 
First, workers will be paid in dollars that are worth less, offsetting gains possibly realized by exporting industries.  Second, other countries could very well view this as currency manipulation with the aim of gaining such a trade advantage, and therefore move to weaken their own in response. 
 
Perhaps just as importantly though, is the message it sends about how officials view their country’s past, its future, and its people.
 
When a government intervenes in the market to give its domestic industries a leg up, it is focusing on what is/has been.  At best, it is attempting to forcibly solidify their position in the world.  At worst, its efforts aid ailing companies.
 
In addition to the increased costs incurred by all of us for the benefit of a few, this comes at the increasing expense of a country’s future.
 
Since investors are repelled by a weak dollar, their money gravitates elsewhere, and our lead role paving the way to the future is eroded.
 
All this demonstrates a lack of faith in the capacity of people in existing industries to compete, in the ability of displaced workers to adjust, and an obliviousness to the fact that we’re kneecapping the ability of American innovators to access capital to push forward into new frontiers. 
 
This tendency toward protectionism has shades of countries that go full-bore into state control.  Rather than allow their people to flourish unimpeded, the former Soviet Union and Venezuela for example, cannibalized what they had up to that point in their respective history.
 
It’s ironic then, that President Trump has nominated for positions at the Federal Reserve, candidates who have spoken favorably about the gold standard, and by extension a strong dollar regime.  It seems to work against his desire, and frankly that of most politicians, to manipulate markets. 
 
Make no mistake.  When those politicians use past association with the president as a pretext to oppose nominations like that of Judy Shelton, it’s nothing more than masking a fear of giving up control.  The opportunity to ride to the rescue when bubbles of their inflation burst is too valuable to give up.
 
And it’s only going to get worse the more power modern monetary theorists (MMT) gain.  Gone will be whatever last little bit of respect political busybodies had for the value of work as measured by the earnings which accrues to it.  The printing press will go into overdrive while the dollar will cheapen to the level of the tissue you blow your nose into.
 
 
It’s reasons like this is why I look forward to the start of every school year, and the opportunity to implore students to “keep it simple” (KISs) when considering what we learn, or just in general.  One of the first things I tell them is that I’m merely putting flesh on the bones of things they already know. 
 
They know a night out with their friends is the (opportunity) cost of instead choosing to hang out with their family.  They know the ultimate decision on how many chicken strips they’ll eat depends upon when they’re satisfied; their diminishing marginal utility. 
 
Even my daughters know me cutting those strips in half wouldn’t mean the total quantity of food has doubled, yet that’s exactly how policymakers will try to snooker them as adults by manipulating our fiat currency.

Word came down recently that K-12 students in San Antonio will start the 2020-2021 school year like they ended that of 2019-2020; online.

It’s a disappointing development given what we know about children’s relative resistance to the coronavirus, its worst fallout, and “growing evidence” of the efficacy of wearing masks.  It’s enough to make one pine for reform.

@JUJU_AnR tweeted the idea for teachers to “charge $250 a week to home school ten kids.”  Some responses could be summarized as “disregard for poor kids” because “most people can’t afford that.”  That’s where school choice comes in, a system to which magnet schools here bear some resemblance.

Some cater to students with a nose for construction, while others specialize in the arts.  There’s one communications school just down the road from here, with another with an engineering focus a few miles in the other direction. 

There are yet others that concentrate on law and agriculture, just to name a few. 

The problem is that students are largely restricted to the magnets within their respective independent school districts (ISD).

When an Amazon is dropping a fulfillment center in northeast Bexar County, or a Toyota decides to build Tacomas and Tundras on the far south side, they’re picking the area as a whole.  We should run our education system similarly. 

On first glance, replacing area ISDs with a single education “zone” may look more like centralization, the opposite of effective reform.  However, including within that framework a couple of crucial changes would prove otherwise.

One of those is that all schools in this “zone” would be completely autonomous and privately-owned.

Just like any other going-concern, schools need the ultimate incentive to offer the best product at the lowest price, and that’s the threat of going out of business if it fails. 

The great teachers we have should be free to try new, innovative methods, and they should be able to move to schools owned by people who ‘get’ their particular vision.  Just as importantly, they should be able to open up a school of their own if they can’t find that match.

This freedom would additionally attract newcomers who previously may have been put off by bureaucratic or regulatory limitations.

The main, if not only function this “zone” would serve would be finances, which is where a couple other changes come in.  The first is ditching property taxes. 

It’s already a specious proposition that someone could lose their lawfully-owned home due to failure to pay this tax, but it also introduces inefficiencies into the housing/rental market, and is a disincentive to productive economic behavior.

Funding should derive rather, from the least destructive form of taxation; that on consumption.

Children’s legal guardians would take it from there with perhaps the most important change: proportionate allotments for each child to use on the school that best suits them, with zero strings attached.

If we extrapolate out @JUJU_AnR’s figure, we come to $10,000 per student per school year.  Since it’s roughly in line with reality, we’ll stick with that.  Tuitions of various schools however, wouldn’t necessarily be as rigid.  Prices don’t sit still, and that’s a good thing. 

Price is one of the most efficient, valuable disseminators of information.  When a good or service succeeds in pleasing customers, demand for it increases.  No surprise there, but it gets better.  The provider then must make a decision.

It could raise prices, thereby putting a more representative value on the service.  That in turn would attract competitors offering either a lower price, more for the same price, or perhaps some combination of the two.  Or, the original provider could open up another branch. 

The ensuing competition would put a lid on prices, and floor under quality. 

No doubt there are some who would raise a stink about parents possibly pocketing the difference between their respective allotment, and a lower tuition they might pay.  Maybe they would parlay it into a college fund.  Who knows?
 
The alternative however, where the government pays the schools directly, would produce something resembling our current health care system, and its subsequent third-party-payer-induced inflation.

We’ll take that tradeoff.  Parents’ ability to keep the change is a small price compared to what we all pay now. 

Life is tough enough for children when their families live paycheck-to-paycheck, one parent is absent, bullies run rampant, etc.  They shouldn’t be relegated to underperforming schools as well.  Nor should they have to move across town, or exploit residence loopholes, to change schools.

It’s difficult to take seriously the compassion opponents purport to have “for the children” when they get hung up on the decisions made, or not made, by (other) parents.  Are they insufficiently qualified to make these decisions for their own kids?  Do elitists simply enjoy holding “(they) can’t afford” it over their heads? 

Moreover, their intellect comes into question when claiming that the use of such public allotments for religious schools is tantamount to the government making a “law respecting an establishment of religion.”  Always unclear is which religion it is: Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, etc.

The Los Angeles Teacher’s Union recently provided the starkest example yet of how little those in power actually care about “the children.”  More than any other reform, school choice could put that power where it would do the most good.
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Co-written with Dr. John Merrifield, professor emeritus at UT-San Antonio, president of the Institute for Objective Policy Assessment, and author most recently of "School System Reform: How and Why is a Price-less Tale," and also "A Fiscal Cliff: New Perspectives on the U.S. Federal Debt Crisis," "School Choices: True and False" and "The School Choice Wars."

2019 may have been my best concert year ever.  Iron Maiden put on their best performance I’ve ever seen.  I finally saw one of my very favorite bands, Alice in Chains, and I found a death metal band to my liking, Obituary.

I represented my fair share of what the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) reports as 172 million American concert attendees last year.  I was stoked to keep that going in 2020, starting with a Testament show in April, and Megadeth / Lamb of God in August.

Then the coronavirus swept those, and most other shows/tours away.  Now, over 600 musicians are supporting “NIVA’s request for federal assistance for independent music venues.” 

They run the gamut from bands I listen to (Exodus and Power Trip), to what I grew up around (Randy Travis and Alabama), to more mainstream acts (Coldplay and John Mellencamp), to what my daughters listen to (Logic and Madison Beer).  Even comics like Ray Romano and Lisa Lampanelli have joined the chorus.

The signatories cut across political lines as well, including (past) republican voters Alice Cooper, Pat Boone and Lee Greenwood.

There’s one other thing these artists have in common: they’re all wrong. 

The arrival of the coronavirus has provoked a harried response from people.  We didn’t know what we were dealing with.  We heard it was worse than the seasonal flu.  We saw traumatic firsthand accounts from emergency room and intensive care units.

Elected leaders acted. 

Whether or not forcible lockdowns were necessary is debatable, given the measures that prudent people and businesses were already starting to take.  Alas, they happened, and we’ve had time to learn more and prepare for any continued fallout. 

That’s one reason there shouldn’t be too many worries that “the shutdown last(s) six months,” after which the petitioners believe “90% of independent venues … will never reopen.”  Consequently, there should be no more “federal assistance.”

At some point the gravy train to the federal trough needs to come to a screeching halt, for ALL who ride it. 

Comedian Dennis Miller once joked about Uncle Sam’s budget deficit “do we actually owe somebody that money?  And if we do, (expletive) ‘em, don’t pay ‘em.”  Though that was two presidential cycles ago, policymakers have been testing the limits of deficit-spending well before his quip.  A couple generations in, it has become accepted orthodoxy in some economic circles. 

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is what they call it.  Basically, since we print our own currency, we can have all the goodies we want, and never have to worry about defaulting on the debt we’ve accrued getting them. 

Among the points of contention with MMT, one that pops up in this discussion is spending, which is the real problem regardless what we think about the subsequent debt.

Since it is politically-directed by people who did not earn the prospective funding, it requires next to no market discipline, and is therefore subject to a heightened likelihood of waste.  Moreover, as with all bailouts, motivation to change with the times is eroded. 

In order to provide peace of mind to customers these days, businesses have to adapt.  Just as we now see social-distancing stickers on the ground at grocery stores, and plastic partitions at nail salons, perhaps some seats need to be pulled from venues, for example. 

More than a few acts however, don’t envision a return to the live music experience many of us have come to know, including the kind to which I’m partial, where “standing room only” is more like “stand if you can.” 

What then of all these established venues asking for an “investment” (a scene in “Goodfellas” comes to mind, when Sonny Bunz asks “Paulie” Cicero to “take a piece” in his restaurant)?  Will we see follow-up requests?  Is that when taxpayer-funded drives for “historical preservation” kick in?

Milton Friedman wasn’t just being witty when he said there is “nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.”

In the meantime, a creative mind might very well come along with an imaginative new venue design for performers itching to get back on stage.  Incidentally, one group of folks that might have some ideas are the artists themselves. 

Between well-established performers like Jerry Seinfeld, Lady Gaga, Billy Joel and Ozzy, they’re quite likely able to seed some of these ideas with financial capital, both for new venues and the current, struggling ones.  If they’re genuinely passionate about it, there should be no need to tap the taxpayer.

One thing they should probably stay away from though is economic analysis. 

Some of these places with which I’m familiar, in Austin and Corpus Christi as well as here in the Alamo City, aren’t exactly “driver(s) of economic renewal.”  Even a venue surrounded by trendy shops and restaurants like the Cynthia Woods Pavilion in Houston doesn’t fit that bill.

This is the same faulty reasoning employed to sell a public on raising taxes on itself (or passing the cost on to tourists, essentially disinviting them from visiting, but nevermind) in order to build a new sports stadium. 

Unless a venue has the effect of attracting a manufacturing plant, or a software development company, or an engineering firm, it’s not an “engine” of anything other than the most over-credited part of an economy; consumption, the last part of the cycle that literally destroys all value created to that point.

Regardless, there’s less activity of any kind happening if these venues are sitting empty.  Fortunately, that’s not necessarily the case, as some shows are starting to fill their respective calendars.  That begs the question; why the plea for “not a handout?”

Come and Take It Live, the place in Austin where a buddy and I saw Obituary last September, has fourteen shows scheduled for July, but for an average cover of only around $10.  A particularly appealing one, Slaterica (“the world’s only Slayer / Pantera / Metallica cover band”) is a free benefit for autism.

I’d be happy to hand over a few bucks for that show, but not if in their other hand they have a hat extended to congress. 

It’s safe to say that the events of this year, between the shutdowns, protests and rioting, have worn out many of us, and shown the value of coming together, physically, around common interests.  With family and friends sure, but also with strangers. 

For most of my adult life, I’ve looked like the oddball at these concerts.  But as with sporting events, for example, we’re all there for the same reason: to enjoy a common interest.  This is arguably one area that genuinely weaves a community a bit tighter together. 

If venues require a face-covering to get in, I’ve built up a sweet collection of masks and bandanas.  If they want to zap my forehead to take my temperature at the door, that’s fine.  If they close off the (mosh) pits due to safety concerns, so be it.  That would also serve as a lengthy barrier between the fans and the performers, as would a massive, clear curtain that some restaurants have employed. 
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I can’t be the only one who’s ready for these events to return.  Let’s do this!  

One thing is for sure: San Antonio Express-News (EN) “Smart Money” columnist Michael Taylor has been telling like it is lately regarding national fiscal policy. 
 
He sums it up neatly in his June 14th column on Modern Monetary Theory, the belief that as long as a government prints its own money, it “never (has) to worry about defaulting on the debt.” 
 
Although policymakers have been testing this theory (particularly so this century) since the inflation of the 1970s was brought to heel, he accurately pegs President Trump with the dubious distinction of being our first MMT president.   
 
The only misstep he makes along the way is repeating the popular myth that cutting taxes “add(s) … to the national debt” (spending is always and everywhere the culprit).  That’s an improvement on prior columns dating back to March.
 
But EN readers wouldn’t know that.
 
When he reported on the possibility of a universal basic income becoming a reality thanks to some nanny-state republicans, he mistakenly claimed that such a transfer was a “previously untried solution to alleviating the effects of a recession.”  He then compared it favorably to a similar program in one of our least populous states (Alaska), disregarding the challenges of scale.
 
A month later, he claimed “a more libertarian approach” to welfare would be to essentially increase outlays.  Not one principled libertarian would agree. 
 
But it’s not just Mr. Taylor.
 
Though the EN has paid lip service to landlord concerns, the only voices we’ve heard are those promoting a “taxpayer subsidy” as a “gift,” one that decries the “shortcomings of our current economic system,” and one based on a distorted interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
 
Not one substantive, principled defense of the rental transaction is anywhere to be found. 
 
In fact, the only commentary I’ve seen in recent months that could be understood as conservative-leaning was one calling “for big government to get lean.”  Delightful was the thought of Keynesian and FDR worshipers’ heads’ spinning at the line “officials must cut spending if the Texas economy is to fully recover,” but I digress. 
 
To area newspaper readers newly engaged in government, politics and economics, this unanimity of views becomes the uncontested gospel.  The issue is even more acute in these days of mostly one-newspaper towns.
 
It’s distinctly possible that the newsroom and editors are guided by the misconception that what’s good for the consumer (which is all of us) rules above all, especially since there are so few producers.  After all, the broader media and political establishment has misled the public into believing that consumer spending drives economic growth. 
 
Setting aside for the moment the impropriety of domineering, extractive measures levied against a particular segment of the population, such actions are not without unintended, counterproductive consequences.
 
You can’t enact numerous rental regulations without expecting a decrease in the quantity and/or quality of housing.  You can’t make welfare easier and be surprised when employment drops.  You can’t overly tax, in a complicated way no less, and be shocked when investment declines, thereby hampering the real source of prosperity. 
 
A news organization doesn’t have be expert about these angles, but it performs a disservice to a reading public when it doesn’t at least present balancing views.
 
In fairness, though I take advantage of full online access, I have only the Sunday edition of the EN delivered to my doorstep (I’m old-fashioned that way), so I may have missed some counterpoint essays.  It’s not for lack of trying to update my subscription though. 
 
The customer service folks I’ve talked with, polite though they’ve been, seemed clueless on how to help me.  My efforts online met the same end, and I’ve personally heard similar accounts from leaders in local academic, finance and business circles.  
 
When the EN overhauled last year, and the paper was downsized, I was sympathetic to the argument that “giving content away … for free” is not the way to go.  It’s why I also subscribe to The Wall Street Journal and New York Times.  I’m no newspaper operations manager, but that might point to room for improvement.
 
As much as we consume national news these days, why not focus more on local issues, including substituting more local perspectives for the nationally syndicated columns?  If space can be made for the false assertion that “it’s the working class that built this city,” certainly there’s room to enlighten readers of the entrepreneurial vision that made it a possibility in the first place. 
 
A couple years ago, for our first anniversary (paper being the traditional gift), my wife arranged a tour of the EN facility.  It was a cool experience, despite it being a fraction of what it used to be.  As I’ve told the new editor, I strongly believe in the importance of a solid local/regional newspaper. 
 
The aforementioned are merely concerns and ideas humbly submitted by one subscriber

When I saw the newsflash that Governor Greg Abbott retrenched somewhat on “reopening” Texas, I was disappointed.  Sad, almost.

Positive coronavirus tests have been spiking lately.  So have covid-19 cases, hospitalization and ICU occupancy.  Should we be all that surprised though, once we realize that this ailment isn’t going anywhere?  What sensible, respectful, compassionate person could support restrictions on the free movement and association of fellow citizens who “might” have it, or “might” get it?

As to the governor’s motives for dialing things back, a few possibilities comes to mind.  One is that he’s a tyrant.  Though shutdowns are certainly overbearing in nature, given what I’ve seen of him, he doesn’t strike me as despotic.

Another is that he’s trying to please voters, the swing variety in particular.  It seems highly unlikely he would try to appease folks who probably wouldn’t vote for him in any case.

Thirdly, maybe he simply cares.

Call me a softie or naïve, but I try to assume the best of people until proven otherwise.  Sometimes that assumption proves wrong.  When/if it doesn’t, a bond is formed.  Or, in the case of leaders who you’ll never meet, a degree of respect and admiration is fostered. 

Let’s assume for the moment that it’s the third option.  Does it matter?  Should it?  I say no.

It’s not the governor’s job to care, at least to this extent.  We too often allow, nay ask elected representatives to “do something” to show they care.  What government program isn’t ostensibly underlined with that premise?  It’s a cruel irony that such actions mostly make things worse, shield some from doing the right thing, or condemns “beneficiaries” to a grim future.

The only people we should expect to care about us is our family and friends; first and foremost, our parents.  They are the only ones who should ever act as our caretakers.

They are the ones who are supposed to imbue us with a sense of right and wrong, some semblance of common sense, a respect for others.  Those lessons may also come from a teacher, relative, et al, but our primary guardians are that first line.

If people want to throw caution to the wind, gather in crowded places, not wear masks and/or respect personal space, that’s on them, and to a degree those who raised and/or choose to associate with them.  These folks are sending a clear signal to others, especially in this day and age of social media, “checking-ins”, evidence of whereabouts via selfies, etc.

If anything, we should thank bars, beaches and venues for mass gatherings for being that light shone on those not protecting themselves, and subsequently all who could come into future contact with them.

This pandemic has put a price on poor judgment, apathetic guidance and the like.  It could be as little as being temporarily knocked on your behind sapped of energy, or as much as losing your life.
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That price shouldn’t be incurred, or shared by those trying to make their way in life the best, smartest way they can, especially those providing a quasi-public service of exposing the others.

My oldest turned seventeen last month.  To commemorate the occasion, she and I watched “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”  I’d taken her to her first (allegedly) rated-R movie a couple years ago to see the quite-good “Baby Driver,” but this was Tarantino.

Brad Pitt won an Oscar for portraying Cliff Booth, the personal stuntman for Leonardo DiCaprio’s struggling actor Rick Dalton.  Early on, Cliff consoles Rick after Rick interprets a dinner meeting as a signal that he is officially a “has-been.”  The next morning as he’s dropping Rick off on set, Cliff reassures him that “you’re Rick (expletive) Dalton.  Don’t you forget it.”

I turned to my daughter and said “(Rick)’s his meal ticket,” to which she responded “Huh?” 

The coronavirus scare has laid bare the tradeoffs acceptable to many in a time of crisis, real or perceived.  Of particular notice is the blasé attitude that “economies can be rebuilt.”

This outlook usually emanates from those without much work experience, or folks who make their living in non-market activities.  Surprisingly however, some commercially successful wage-earners don’t totally get it either. 

I occasionally hear hints of such presumptuous cluelessness in casual conversation, but just grin silently.  A recent one really got my attention though.

I was chatting with a group of friends, a mix of successful employees and successful employers.  Though I usually eschew ascribing political labels to individuals, it’s safe to say all involved would feel at home in the Thomas Massie/Rand Paul wing of the Republican Party.

Or so I thought.

After the exchange got a bit heated, one of the employees declared that he did indeed build the company for which he works.  Shortly after a couple double-takes and “you didn’t build that” zingers thrown his way, the conversation ended.

That was unfortunate, because he never answered a question I put to him: “have you ever considered going into business for yourself, taking your clients with you?”  If he has, I have to imagine the reason he decided not to boils down to one word: risk.

As Cliff was driving Rick home from the aforementioned dinner, he showed humility when he told Rick that, given his own mediocre career, he couldn’t relate to Rick’s anxiety.  Sadly, too many people lack Cliff’s self-awareness. 

In reality, we wage-earners are free agents.  It’s true that, particularly over a long period of time, our skills become baked-in.  Nonetheless, with prudent living, there are always affordable options to change gears if necessary, or desired.

Entrepreneurs/business owners, who I do not see expressing similarly nonchalant sentiments about the economy (despite health vulnerabilities of their own), are different.

Many times they give up a regular paycheck to pursue an idea they have, perhaps leveraging themselves after they’ve exhausted personal savings.  They have to take a flyer on some of the rest of us whom they hope will help their venture succeed.

Some have to deal with high and/or regular turnover of low-skilled labor, while others have to keep their highly-skilled employees sufficiently compensated lest they get lured away; or worse, poached by a competitor.

All the while, they have to make sure the customer is happy with the product or service.

And those are the pleasant dilemmas.

When demand, and subsequently revenue dries up as a result of an industry and/or economic downturn, they have to conserve resources to ride out the storm.  Unfortunately, that means they can’t compensate all their staff.  Hence, they face the unenviable task of letting some go.

Having personally endured five rounds of layoffs (once as a casualty), experience has informed me that the pop culture portrayal of “The Man” as being cold-blooded is sensationalized rubbish. 

It’s not hyperbole to say that a person’s business is like one of her children.  It’s of nearly equal, though different importance.  In fact, an interdependency exists.  She can’t simply walk away during down times.  She has to nurse it back to health. 

There’s the note on the building that must be paid.  There’s capital investment to maintain.  There are vendor/customer relationships to preserve.  Her family depends upon her having the fortitude to keep the enterprise afloat.

That’s what rides on her shoulders, while we move from one job to another. 

Sure, she could join the workforce just like the rest of us, and she’d likely make a damn fine employee somewhere.  But what a waste of talent that would be. 
 
When we study the four factors of production (land, labor, capital, entrepreneurial ability), my students learn that the latter is the spark that brings the first three into productive use.  Much labor and capital arguably wouldn’t even exist without it.

Certainly “economies can be rebuilt,” but assuming it’ll just happen reflects a level of flippant naiveté similar to that which supposes entrepreneurs should factor government-shutdown-by-fiat into their risk calculation.

Now that she’s seventeen, I’ve told my daughter to help herself to the rest of my Tarantino collection.  Hopefully I’ll be around when she pulls out “Jackie Brown” and/or “Inglorious Basterds.”  As for his groundbreaking sophomore effort “Pulp Fiction,” she’ll have to watch that one without me.  I don’t want to watch that one scene (readers know) with my baby girl. 
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If she does see it, I’ll be able to analogize for her that scene to the preceding discussion as an example of how the attitude of one segment of society toward another segment is “pretty (expletive) far from OK.”

Anyone who pays passing attention to politics is probably familiar with former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s suggestion that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”  Though to my knowledge rarely so explicitly stated before, it surprised no armchair geneticists who have learned how embedded in the DNA of democrats are desires to control the lives of others.

Unfortunately, too many republicans are vulnerable to the same.  That’s likely why San Antonio Express-News “Smart Money” columnist Michael Taylor believes a universal basic income (UBI) is imminent.

A UBI is when government sends every citizen a regular cash payment.  Mr. Taylor humorously declared Andrew Yang, who campaigned on the issue, the winner of the 2020 democratic presidential nomination, even though he dropped out in February.

Mr. Taylor trips up a bit however in making his case.

The vessel by which he thinks this new strain of welfare will become reality is the direct payment made to some families via the $2 trillion “stimulus” passed into law to mitigate the financial fallout resulting from the coronavirus-induced shutdowns. 

Mr. Taylor asserts that such a “cash transfer is a previously untried solution to alleviating the effects of a recession.” 
To the contrary, Uncle Sam did just that in response to the dot.com bust and the financial crisis.  Neither proved effective when judged against the intent of their respective passage, the vast majority having been saved or used for debt reduction instead of being spent.

To be sure, we’re in a different situation now, with government literally cutting off peoples’ means of supporting themselves and their families.  By the same token, it informs Mr. Taylor’s prediction.  Nevertheless, it’s depressing that he “can imagine” the oncoming recession lasting through the summer.

When did faith in a free society’s enterprising market system give way to self-fulfilling prophecies of doom?  What’s more, why are so many conservatives joining this chorus?  Mr. Taylor cites Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, who proposed sending $1,000 to Americans, through either unemployment insurance or tax rebates, “for the duration of the crisis.” 

Coincidentally, one of the more prominent selling points of a UBI is that we live in the a world akin to that in which Cyberdine Systems’ Skynet is going to take over and flood society with Terminators.  “BOO!  ROBOTS!”

Mr. Taylor errs again when he attempts to buttress his prediction by citing Alaska’s Permanent Fund dividend.  As he alludes to, this fund is tied to revenue from the state’s #1 industry, oil and gas.  The comparison suffers however, from the same flaws that trip up proponents of socialism: scale and federalism.

There’s a silly meme floating around stating that, while we’re sending our folks a one-time payment, England and Denmark are paying a certain percentage of their citizens’ salaries, and Canada is sending their people a couple grand every month.  I responded with the numbers 327, 56, 6 and 38.

Those are the populations (in the millions) of those countries, respectively.  This is the bit pertinent info that seems to elude BernBots.   

Alaska is our third-least populous state.  Like the Scandanavian countries socialists drool over, their population pales in comparison with the U.S.  This is where we benefit from the federalist system set up by the Founding Fathers.  States can enact almost whatever policy they want without foisting their failures on the rest, though the latter are free to mimic successes. 

While he teases the reason some conservatives find a UBI appealing, that it would not “require giant bureaucracies” of the welfare programs it would ideally replace, to label it a “small-government idea” because of its “simplicity” is woefully off the mark. 

There is nothing “small-government” about any state program that requires for its existence the taxation of resources, particularly in our convoluted way, from the productive private sector. 

And that’s to say nothing of what French political economist Frederic Bastiat would have called the “not seen” innovations that never happened due to such confiscation. 

Alas, politicians have little incentive to worry about such tradeoffs.  They need not be bothered about the negative consequences of putting taxpayer revenue at stake for something that polls well in focus groups.  This includes republicans like Sen. Cotton.

The Wall Street Journal recently reminded readers that conservatives regularly fight an uphill battle against democrats who “define their lives through politics.”  They have to be more politician-y in order to counter the left’s brazen appeal to people’s base instincts, those that need to be coddled, and assured that their struggles “are not their fault,” but rather that of “The Man.” 

Moreover, the envy that consumes the left inoculates them from a sense of morality that would prevent them from commandeering the earnings of productive citizens. 

The GOP has a handful of principled members for sure, and some whose experience in business no doubt instilled in them an aversion to treating resources willy-nilly, and assuming that government is a benevolent partner.

There are others however, whose background consists of nothing but government, or law, or academia. 

Their experience dealing with scarce resources is nearly non-existent.  They’ve never had to create value, best their competitors, on a limited budget, under the threat of losing it all.  They’ve either ridden piggyback on businesses via lawsuits, or fallen back on taxpayers.

That makes them more susceptible to snake oil like a UBI.

Incidentally, the aforementioned editorial was a salute to Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn on the news of his retirement in 2014.  The Journal ran it again in memoriam, as Dr. Coburn succumbed to prostate cancer. 

Few elected officials respected the taxpayer more, holding his colleagues’ feet to the fire regarding their profligate ways.  We need more folks like him who have the ability to say one of the simplest words in the English language.
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“No.”

Growing up a headbanger, you get used to hearing about the apocalypse. 

From nuclear annihilation in Metallica’s “Blackened,” to “environmental holocaust” in Testament’s “Greenhouse Effect,” to Slayer’s more recently prophetic “disease spreading death/entire population dies” in “World Painted Blood.”  One could say we’re desensitized to it.

Or, we take it for the fiction it is, and maintain a belief in a free peoples’ ability to overcome.  Count me in that group.

No sane person is taking the coronavirus lightly, or calling it a hoax.  Everyone in my family and office started washing/sanitizing their hands more diligently.  I spotted our CEO wiping down door handles.  We’ve had travel plans and concerts (ugh) cancelled. 

Our kids’ schools have closed, our colleges have closed, and some of our employers started limiting office hours.  If you think about it, we’ve been moving in a direction the last couple decades that makes these precautions manageable.

My daughters’ teachers have pushed out assignments via Google Classroom, I took a crash course in Zoom to learn how to conduct my class online, and my colleagues did “trial runs” to ensure we could carry out our duties from home.
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Now the drill is real, as San Antonio and Bexar County joined other jurisdictions by issuing a “Stay Home, Work Safe” order.  These technological trends of the last generation are getting a swift kick forward in this effort to “flatten the curve.”

To an extent, I get it. 

We’re learning daily what we’re dealing with, and trying to get our arms around it.  Nobody wants to see someone close to us succumb to this new, unknown threat, much less hundreds or thousands of our fellow citizens.  We want to ensure we have enough capacity for the critically stricken.

But we need to leave these “lockdowns” behind us ASAP, and it should start with the biggest silver lining in all this.

I can’t be the only one who is supremely grateful that our kids don’t seem to suffer from this malady like other age groups.  If it were otherwise, I might also not be the only parent whose house would look like Elliott’s when the authorities found out about E.T. 

Re-opening schools would have a dual upside: first, it would allow our kids to finish out the last month or so of their school year under normal conditions.  It would also allow parents to return to a regular work routine, which would be particularly important if they’re in the medical field or another role on the frontline dealing with this virus.

This crisis meanwhile, has split my friends’ opinions like I’ve rarely seen before.  I’ve sensed fault lines breaking along who’s fairly comfortable in life, who earns a wage, who can work from home, who’s prone to hysteria, etc.  But I also have the feeling health concerns come into play. 

Yours truly feels fortunate to have started running again this year, and to have overcome my stubbornness toward taking medication to address a burgeoning blood pressure issue.  I imagine some might be a little wary having recently emerged from surgical procedures, or they or a loved one has a pre-existing condition. 

Yet others may feel a not-so-healthy lifestyle might come back to bite them.  All are more vulnerable to the serious consequences of getting COVID-19.

Needless to say, folks with naturally-occurring ailments merit close attention, just like our parents do.  Given the regular trickle of information, we should all continue to exercise a healthy dose of caution, especially toward those we reasonably suspect of being careless or outright foolish, something we already do every day on the road, but I digress.

That said, by the end of April at the very latest, we should be free to go about our lives without the threat of being lighter in the wallet for doing so. 

If I want to take my family out for my daughter’s birthday, I should be able to.  If the restaurant wants to institute new capacity limits in order to spread people out, so be it.  If my wife wants to go get her hair and nails done, she should be able to. 

People in these service industries are the ones getting hit the hardest by these shutdowns; both the workers AND the owners.  Many are adapting by creating makeshift drive-thrus to deliver takeout orders, for example.  Those who have lost their jobs will certainly have the opportunity to find work at one of the companies whose business is already predicated on delivery. 

But with all the newly unemployed cramming into that space looking for work, those who do secure jobs will likely earn lower wages given all the competition.  That’s not something an ill-advised, political redirection of $2 trillion will be able to remedy.

And barely mentioned in all this is the personal toll taken on the unemployed, and those at risk of a subsequent rise in domestic violence, or worse. 

We keep hearing that we should expect infected numbers to continue their march upward, that it’s more contagious than the flu.  Consequently, many of us have come to accept the distinct possibility of contracting it ourselves, if we haven’t already. 

A 1.4% mortality rate makes that an easier pill to swallow, even moreso because that merely includes known infections.  Know what else softens the blow? 

Faith in the American system and human spirit.

Though a vaccine may very well be a year or so away, there are promising possibilities in transferring antibodies via convalescent plasma from those who recovered from COVID-19, to those who are suffering.  Another is an old anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, sometimes used in conjunction with a Z-Pak.

Some doctors are finding success administering high doses of vitamin C. 

We’re seeing clothiers making garments for healthcare workers.  Fragrance makers and distilleries are converting operations into producing sanitizer.  Concert venues are being converted into makeshift hospitals.  Vacuum companies are shifting to build ventilators.  

In addition to that, auto manufacturers are undergoing “thorough cleaning and disinfecting“ of their plants, enhanced sanitary measures that could create new job opportunities going forward.

We’re going to last only so long being cooped up in our homes.  This is coming from a person whose picture you’d see if you looked up the word “homebody” in the dictionary.  I love my house.  I love being at home reading, writing, playing music, etc. 

But I also like going to a show.  I like taking my daughters to the newest superhero movie.  I like going with my wife to join our colleagues to blow off steam after work occasionally.  We benefit from being around them at the office as well, exchanging ideas and whatnot. 

My daughters miss being around their friends at school.  I’m sure they’ll find some goofy new way to greet each other in the wake of this shock to the system. 

If some parents want to keep their kids at home, and continue to utilize online learning, that should certainly be their prerogative.  Employers ideally would continue to be flexible about work-from-home arrangements. 
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Regardless, we all need to be free to call our own shots, and if increased testing that appears imminent shows fewer infected/recovered numbers than expected, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  But if those estimates bear out, maybe we’ll be able to borrow a line from Hatebreed’s tune “Own Your World,” and “burn the bridge to the place where (our) fear lives.”

Thank goodness for the first amendment and social media!  The former has allowed amateur comedians to flourish and share their wares via the latter, mostly in the form of humorous memes.  It’s come in handy by providing comic relief as concern about the coronavirus outbreak has swept the land.

I took a stab by offering a quip about the stash of wine bottle corks my wife and I have stockpiled the last few years.  I drew a link between that surplus and the baffling run on, and subsequent shortages of, toilet paper.

The reader can take it from there (depending on my comedic skills), but it offers a good lesson on the practice known as price “gouging.” 

After Governor Greg Abbott “issued a statewide disaster declaration” Friday, Attorney General Ken Paxton reminded the public that it is against Texas law for “any person or business selling goods” to “unreasonably raise the cost of necessary supplies.”  Similar laws exist in two-thirds of the other states.

In economic parlance, such laws are examples of price controls, these in particular being the ceiling variety.  (The minimum wage is a classic illustration of the opposite, a price floor.)

Prices are one of the most organic conveyors of information: is there a surplus of raw materials pushing prices down?  Is a tight labor market driving up the cost of that input?  Is transporting the final product to market easy and inexpensive?  Is demand outstripping supply, thereby pushing up the final price to the consumer? 

All that information is represented in the sticker price that we consumers see.

“We’re all demanders,” I tell my students.  “We recoil when the price of a good goes up, but it presents an opportunity for enterprising vendors.”  They rush to market with more supply, which means the final price to consumers has nowhere to go but down.

That’s why I use a variation of the following question on every test I give: when the price of shrimp goes up on the menu at your favorite seafood restaurant, how do fishermen (suppliers) respond?

When government steps in to “do something!”, that organic signal gets skewed.  Case in point last week, when we also saw shelves stripped of disinfectant wipes. 

It’s not as if we’ve been bereft of real-life examples in recent years, of what happens as a result of such price controls.  Just look at Venezuela.  Same thing.

For a fleeting moment, I did wonder if rationing by grocery stores might be an OK alternative.  Privately enforcing quotas would at least be preferable to mandated price ceilings. 

Then it occurred to me that even people who have lost their marbles are probably clever enough to send their kids into the store for more of the same item, effectively circumventing the store’s efforts.

Businesses don’t remain going-concerns by being stupid.  Their survival depends upon having products on the shelf.  The most successful ones can foresee the likely results of current events.  Prices could be raised incrementally, smoothing out the process. 

Instead, we nearly come to blows while in line at the gas station when a hurricane is taking out energy production in the Gulf of Mexico as it barrels toward landfall.  We see a man being upbraided for selling bottles of water out of the back of his truck when the alternative is zilch.

There’s no getting around the real market-based price.  Demand, especially the overwhelming kind, will always be met by supply.

All this is why I put “gouging” in quotes: it’s a politically expedient, emotionally-driven word used to demonize people or businesses who serve a valuable purpose.  In this case, it’s putting a price on a general inadequacy of preparedness and overreaction.  It’s the market’s way of making those habits and traits expensive.

Those who really end up getting the short end of the stick are the ones who have to spend more of their scarce time fighting the crowds, standing in line when all they’re buying is a few routine items.  Worse off are those of lesser means who rely on public transportation to transport groceries home, or who we see walking sidewalks doing so.

This is a time when our leaders have an opportunity to lead on principle, educate the public in some basic supply and demand, with emphasis on the former.

Alas, they fall into politician mode, if only to guard against power-hungry challengers who would seize on an emergency and demagogue the issue (think Dana Carvey’s George H.W. Bush: “SCARY!  SCARY!”) in an effort to wrest control over our lives.  Incidentally, it’s reflective of the herd mentality that has led to empty toilet paper shelves, which reminds me ...
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I need to go check if any competitors have emerged in the market for wine bottle corks.  I might have to cut my price to stay competitive. 
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Christopher E. Baecker manages fixed assets at Pioneer Energy Services, teaches economics at Northwest Vista College, is a board member of the Institute of Objective Policy Assessment, and is a member of the San Antonio Business & Economics Society.  He can be reached via email or Facebook