Does competition constrain the State?

Many people rightly worry about the growth of government. Once programs and bureaucracy to administer them are in place, it is difficult to walk back the services as people have become dependent upon their economic benefits. So what does constrain a State (here the term State refers to any geographically described governance such as counties or cities)? Here are some instances of decline through norms, amenities, fraud and over regulation.

  1. Negative public perceptions. Police departments across the state of MN are having a difficult time recruiting and maintaining officers of the law. The money is there for the salaries but the workforce is plying their trade elsewhere. The defubd movement didn’t hit their target yet they set enough negative energy out into neighborhood block parties and family reunions, that more and more peace keepers no longer want wear blue.
  2. Competition with other States. If towns on the edges of corn and bean fields can’t figure out a way to keep their residents, then the towns diminish until they become a cluster of buildings at a rural crossroads. Municipalities large and small are always in the hunt to keep up their business community for an employment base, their core services so residents can be comfortable, and their extra amenities which makes them stand out. Although being more efficient with what you have is not necessarily an indication of size, it is a measure of more stuff per bureaucrat.
  3. Interest in Exposing Fraud. In decades gone, by the existence of pork projects was a source of conversation but not outrage. Creating or exagerating a need and assigning funding through the political process is an ongoing vehicle for fraud. Mechanisms and analysis to identify missappropriations is another form of constraint.
  4. Regulations send builders elsewhere. A city takes the energy and interest in new housing developments to collect a few extra fees or seed money for parks and trails. At some point, the builders say no more. Not too long ago, one suburb in the metro found that they were overcharging in when they lost a large housing development to an adjacent community.

The Mushroom

by Emily Dickinson

The mushroom is the elf of plants,
At evening it is not;
At morning in a truffled hut
It stops upon a spot

As if it tarried always;
And yet its whole career
Is shorter than a snake’s delay,
And fleeter than a tare.

‘T is vegetation’s juggler,
The germ of alibi;
Doth like a bubble antedate,
And like a bubble hie.

I feel as if the grass were pleased
To have it intermit;
The surreptitious scion
Of summer’s circumspect.

Had nature any outcast face,
Could she a son contemn,
Had nature an Iscariot,
That mushroom, — it is him

Study finds commitment to a beneficial way of life increases with numbers

The authors of this Danish study- Willem R.J. Vermeulen, Mioara Zoutewelle-Terovan, Niels Kooiman and Aart C. Liefbroer- sum up some of their findings in their wrap-up of the paper.

For married couples, we found that, when all other couple characteristics are the
same, religiously affiliated couples are less likely to divorce than religiously unaffiliated
couples. Moreover, religiously affiliated couples who visit religious gatherings are less
likely to divorce than those who visit religious gatherings less regularly. These findings
support the traditionalist model: The more religious couples are, the more they adhere to
traditional norms of the uniqueness of marriage. As we reasoned in H1, there is a couplelevel effect: More religious couples are less likely to divorce than less religious couples.

Religion and union dissolution: Effects of couple
and municipal religiosity on divorce and
separation

Although Lyman Stone, in his tweet, attributes the success of marriage in religious communities to social support mechanisms, the authors do not. They only note:

We can think of two main explanations for this finding. First,
couples who are more integrated into a religious community may experience higher levels
of social control (external pressure). Second, a self-selection effect may be present.

It’s odd to me that people default to power and control versus economics. I’ll bet if they looked just a wee bit into the lives of the religiously affiliated they would find that their daily routines, their weekly commitments which undoubtedly incorporate others from the church community, run somewhat smoother. And if a system of living makes you better off, you are more likely to nurture it and stay committed to it.

Plz bring customer service back

Am I the only one who notices?

More than a generation of people have lived their lives communicating digitally. To call the water department and ask for their billing statement requires note-taking. They do not know how to intereact, to ask questions, to field responses and to , yes, ask more questions.

Talking to people is useful. It provides information that you may have been looking for, and other information that may even be better yet. Plz talk to people again.

And be courteous enough to pop back a simply friendly reply when someone responds to your request.

When a city promises shelter

New York City is obliged to provide shelter to those in need due to the Callahan v. Carey consent decree created 42 years ago. Originally thought to act as a safety net catching a few transient men, it has ballooned into an enormous expense.

It eventually grew to a $2-billion-a-year industry housing all comers — and is likely to cost the city $4 billion this year and ahead, as long as influx of illegal immigrants doubles the shelter population.

New York Post

If all large cities floated the same offering, perhaps NYC wouldn’t feel the burden of this right to shelter. As it stands it, the city is particularly attractive to migrants.

Without question, the “right” is the central reason New York is spending far more per migrant than any other large city — nearly $40,000 a head here, vs. under $3,000 in Los Angeles and less than $7,000 in Chicago.

The mayor of the Big Apple is rightly going to adjust the benefits flowing out of the city coffers. As situations change, as population groups change, as the intentions for the support changes, government has an obligation to reassess the overall distribution of funds versus obligations.

The scenario is also a reminder that public funds, through programs, create a market. If one city creates laws to favor certain population groups, these groups will show up. In creating a new law, the intent might only be to help the few in town who clearly have a need. But once it is established as a formal offering, others are bound to migrate, incentivized by the above market public program.

What’s with birthdays

My kids got a pile of gifts on the breakfast table every year on the anniversary of their birth. It’s fun to surprise and impress them. For a brief moment, you get to be a magician conjuring up exactly what brings them joy. Everyone wins. Until they get older and their expectations are not as easily met- so there are discussions about gratitude and the thought of being recognized. Which often doesn’t compensate for the now-missing anticipated pleasure.

But kids aside, I don’t get the tradition of recognizing the birthdays of work associates, clients, or even famous people. You lived one more year- OK. What else? Is it just that it is easy to have a designated day every year to give someone a little extra TLC. I suppose that’s nice.

There are so many other things to recognize and doing so would encourage others to act in tandem. Give credit to those who help out other parents with kid duty or coaching or scouts. Acknowledge those who support the local civil servants like the firefighters, libraries, or police.

Publically expressing gratitude to those who give their time is nice for the recipient of the praise but also advertises to the public the jobs that are performed daily on their behalf. It tells how people get involved and how their contribution keeps all the wheels of the neighborhood in motion.

Next time you post a birthday wish on social media, consider thanking someone else you know whose putting their two cents in for everyone else.

Bureaucrats work under informal rules it seems

De Jasay takes his thesis to State Capitalism.

The most interesting implication of the “ownership is not control” thesis, however, is the support it gives to the belief in our fate being largely a matter of the mores and moods of the office-holders above us. Whether a social system is acceptable or awful, whether people are on the whole contented or miserable under it, depends very much on the variable personal traits of members of the bureaucracy. When the civil service is arrogant or corrupt or both, the managerial elite stony-hearted, the media mercenary and the “technostructure” soullessly specialist, we have the “unacceptable face of capitalism.” When those in charge genuinely want to serve the people and respect its “legitimate aspirations,” we get the Prague Spring and “socialism with a human face.” It is not so much systems of rule, configurations of power which are conducive to a good or bad life, but rather the sort of people administering them. If the bureaucracy is not “bureaucratic,” the corporate executive is “socially minded” and “community-conscious and the party apparatchik “has not lost contact with the masses,” private or state capitalism can be equally tolerable.

The State by Anthony de Jasay

What about the smoke?

That’s what municipalities are asking now it is legal to possess cannabis in the state of MN. If there are no policies regarding smoking in public places such as parks and playgrounds, there will be shortly. And it has been a bit of an oversight. Once cigarette smoke became unfashionable the smokers had to find places twenty feet away from building entrances to keep the air at entries free from smoke. If it is no to tobacco, it follows that it is no to weed as well.

According to the park workers, however, some users are not appreciative of being asked to quit smoking in the open air of the park. Maybe that was the aim, to make it socially acceptable. But as it turns out, norms can be stronger than laws.

Matching model with Migrants

Timothy Taylor at the Conversable Economist shed a nice warm light on a model the World Bank used in their most recent World Development Report (WDR) Migrants, Refugees, and Societies.

The World Bank suggests that one framework for thinking about these issues from the standpoint of the receiving country is the “match-motive matrix.” When immigrants are a good match for pre-existing needs in the receiving country and, the receiving country as a whole will gain. When the match is poor, as when the migrants do not have skills needed in the receiving country and perhaps are refugees seeking only to escape persecution, then the costs for the receiving country may exceed the benefits.

First, the model looks at groupings by what the migrants have to offer and what their lives will demand. Then the model suggests a type of dual consciousness, one that includes the consideration of the private skills the people can bring, such as caregiving for example. And includes a recognition of a need to match groups with a host country with the capacity of an appropriate level of protection, for example.

The Consumer Price Index report also came out today. In contrast, you will note that this index isn’t about grouping people but about grouping commodities and their prices. Is it more important to know what things cost or which groups of people interact with those prices? Most people are looked at in groups of income: poverty level, lower middle class, middle class, and so on. But some low-wage individuals are students and will soon become middle class; there are low-wage seniors who are actually very wealthy in terms of assets; there are many more interesting groups of people than a linear representation of income would indicate.

Tim Taylor seems to recognize this as well as he asks the most excellent question: Isn’t this a grouping model one we could use across society?

Here, I’ll just close with a broader theme: rules about migration are in many ways similar to rules that affect society as a whole. For example, how can we support children from families with low incomes and limited educational background to realize their potential as adults contributing to society? How do we support people of diverse backgrounds in living side by side? 

This is nuts!

One important feature of technological development is enhanced communication, regardless of distance, and in this case, regardless of language.

At the car show, those interested show

There were numerous beautiful cars at the car show we went to today. Most of us do not have the opportunity to come up close to a Lamborghini or Bugatti. An Audi is not uncommon, but that Audi in red and black is exotic.

A local car shop that organizes the event. They have sponsors and keep the admittance free of charge. This keeps the lines long and the viewers skewed towards under twenty and male. It’s a lot of fun to see them all photograph a Ferrari as it revved by. Some were all geared up with video cameras and mikes.

I loved that there were old classics like the red jaguar, stuffy Bently’s, Porschs, Vipers, and many more I can’t remember.

I even found one that I thought would suit me just fine.

Chicago Public Schools- Tiebout edition

When you start to sense that the people in charge expect something of you that they don’t expect of themselves, then be on the alert. Poor intentions are often a sign that type of fraud is at hand.

Chat Gpt explains de Jesay’s idea of Mutual Consent

Anthony de Jasay’s views on mutual agreement, or mutual consent, are grounded in his broader philosophical perspective, particularly his emphasis on voluntary interactions and individual autonomy. While he didn’t provide a formal definition of mutual agreement, his writings suggest several distinguishing features of such agreements according to his viewpoint:

  1. Voluntary Consent: Mutual agreements, as understood by de Jasay, must be based on the voluntary consent of the parties involved. In his view, individuals should be free to make choices and enter into agreements without coercion or external interference.
  2. Absence of Force or Fraud: For de Jasay, genuine mutual agreements exclude any element of force, fraud, or coercion. The parties must be free from threats, deceit, or manipulation that could undermine the voluntary nature of the agreement.
  3. Reciprocal Benefit: De Jasay often stressed the idea that mutual agreements should be mutually beneficial. In other words, each party to the agreement should perceive that they gain something of value from the arrangement. This aligns with his broader economic thinking about voluntary exchange in market transactions.
  4. Private Autonomy: Mutual agreements are rooted in individual autonomy and the right to make decisions about one’s own life and property. De Jasay believed that individuals should be free to set the terms of their agreements and contracts as long as they do not harm others.
  5. Enforceability: While de Jasay advocated for the minimal role of government, he recognized the importance of having a legal framework to enforce contracts and protect property rights. In a society based on mutual agreements, there should be mechanisms in place to resolve disputes and uphold the terms of agreements.
  6. Consent-Based Governance: De Jasay’s thinking extended to the realm of political philosophy, where he argued for forms of governance that are based on the consent of the governed. He believed that individuals should not be subjected to a government’s authority without their consent.
  7. Avoidance of Imposed Agreements: De Jasay was critical of government policies and regulations that imposed agreements or conditions on individuals without their consent. He preferred a system where individuals had the freedom to choose the agreements and associations they entered into.

It’s important to note that Anthony de Jasay’s views on mutual agreement are closely tied to his broader philosophical stance, which emphasizes individual liberty, limited government, and the primacy of voluntary interactions. His work often challenged the legitimacy of coercive authority and sought to establish a framework in which individuals could exercise their autonomy through mutual agreements and contracts while enjoying protection from fraud and force within a legal system.

Excerpts from Your Dog Owns Your House by Anthony de Jasay

Anthony de Jasay’s book The State may be his most recognized work, but it is not an easy read. So I went looking for more material to get a quicker fix on what he is all about. About twenty years ago he wrote about his house and his dog. It was a way to point out that the household members have a special claim on the home that outsiders do not. I like to think that the contenance and use of the home is a public good to its residents, dogs included.

De Jasay goes a step further to point out that others could possibly have claims to the home based on the neighborhood activities. The firefighters provide safety and the city infrastructure pipe in water and pipe out waste. Here again we have public goods being provided but instead of the line for insiders and outsiders being at the exterior walls of the home they are in a ring around the city or suburb or municipality.

More thought is needed fully to unravel the question of who owns your house, and indeed the question of who owns anything. If there were no fire brigade, the whole street might have burned down and your house would no longer stand. The fire brigade has contributed something to its value, and some figure ought to be put against their name. The utilities should not be forgotten, for how would you like to live in a house without running water, electricity and so forth? Some tentative numbers had better be credited to them. Surely, however, you cannot just ignore the builder who erected the house, the lumberman, the brick factory, the cement works and all the other suppliers without whom the builder could not have erected it. They too must have their contribution recognized, even if it must be done in a rough-and ready fashion.

But the best part of what de Jasay has to say is that the settling of accounts occurs at time of transaction.

Once this is understood, we can move on to the major point. All contributions of others to the building of your house have been paid for at each link in the chain of production. All current contributions to its maintenance and security are likewise being paid for. Value has been and is being given for value received, even though the “value” is not always money and goods, but may sometimes be affection, loyalty or the discharge of duty. In the exchange relation, a giver is also a recipient, and of course vice versa.

Winter Tax aside, MSP is a bargain

On Labor Day- consider unpaid labor

Stephanie Murray wrote a piece in the Atlantic about telework and how it benefits workers who engage in a caregiver roll at home. The time saved from a daily commute- perhaps an hour and a half to two hours with parking and entrance to work building- can go toward domestic duties instead of transit wear and tear. And it’s not only the time itself but when the time can be deployed. Once at home, one can manage the day, and jump in as needed to deliver kids to piano or make sure mom gets her meds.

One point she makes here is that not only may telework provide an immidiate benefit to those who presently provide services to their families, but it also may entice others to consider the possibility of combining a day of paid work with unpaid care.

Needless to say a career has always been evaluated to a certain extent in terms of how it affects family life. Those young accountants who were hired by Arthur Anderson Consulting were congratulated for their high wage, yet everyone knew that their personal life would suffer. Often at the transistion from young-unwed-professional to starting-a-family the worker would start to quip about the company’s lack of work/life balance. I don’t know where this term originated, but it should be work/work balance. Work for pay in the labor market or work for family and community in the neighborhood.

One of my children’s elementary school teachers had left a job in mortgage banking to teach. Her new life allowed her to share the same schedule with her children and spend the summers together. There is not only emotional value here but tangibel value is cost of care savings. Before and after school care as well as endless summer camps adds up.

And it is not just a ledger calculation of the dollars coming in as wages and the dollars going out as care. It is an efficiency issue as well. Unless the care is for an infant, much of the work has an on-demand component. Elderly people often don’t need a companion sitting by their side the entire day. At times there’s a need, some days more than others. It’s a job best suited to someone who cares and will be there at important times but also knows when an absense is Ok. It’s best suited to a family member who is not paid by the hour.

This type of labor supports the public sphere and is described in the Categories Explained tab.

Childhood homes

It’s hard to say why certain memories stay with you more than others. Childhood homes for instance. Remembrances of playing in the back yard or after school snacks in the kitchen. What room lay behind each of those windows. A sting from a bee by the pear tree. The special treat of watching Hee Haw on TV in the lower level rec room.

Clips from our childhoods pop into daily life unexpectedly, as if to remind us of the impacts from those early years.

State Capitalism according to de Jasay

Completing mastery over civil society in maximizing discretionary power can be seen as a chain of corrective moves, each one being aimed at making the social system both amenable to the state’s purpose and internally consistent, although these two requirements are not necessarily or even probably compatible. Each corrective move is consequently capable of creating some new systemic inconsistency and of necessitating other corrective moves. This sequence drives in the political dynamics, such as it is, of state capitalism.

The State by Anthony de Jasay

ChatGPT and want ads

Even years ago I would read employment ads and wonder what exactly the words referred to. If you are not in an industry then you are not privy to the latest diction. This can be frustrating for the job seeker and a little mystifying for the idly curious. But have no fear, ChatGPT is here!

I was helping an entry-level computer programmer applicant and couldn’t follow the list of preferred prerequisites listed in the job description. Turning the text loose on Chat generated a plain language description of SEO and AWS technologies and many more mysterious terms. Asking further for examples of Core Web Vitals or cross-browser functional testing led to more specific, easy-to-read, applications.

Part of the job was to adjust or test for whether web content through browser windows matched with what a user views on a phone screen. And then I knew part of what that job was all about. Chat had bridged a knowledge gap. And was very pleasant about it too.

Is it sad people care?

I can never follow this type of reasoning. Is it sad when Little Leaguers want to win their game? Because that means another team must be considered loosers. Is it sad when people spend all their time in a lab and ignore their family while developping a life saving drug? Because for those few years they probably failed at parenting. Is it sad that someone is willing to take less salary to support a cause they believe in?

It isn’t sad.

Working in a position that not only provides some financial support in the form of a paycheck, but also an outlet for directing resources to a cause one supports is simply part of the mechanisms. Note that I am not saying that taking advantage of someone, or bullying someone into, or misleading people as to the cause they are supporting is alright. Those are examples of fraud.

But that people figure out ways to combine their time and resources to advance their private needs and public causes, literally everyday that they breath and walk on this earth, is simply how we all live.

Trying new things

Last year I decided to give our apple trees a haircut. The apple orchard tree idea had started out as my husband’s project, but after a handful of years, the trees still weren’t producing. With a little help from a youtube video, I took a clippers to them and snipped away. My flowering bushes love to have their branches trimmed after their blooms have faded. So the apples trees should too.

And it worked! The trees brimmed with blooms in the spring and the branches became weighted down with fruit by late summer. Funny how even plants respond to a little attention.

The large apples were easy to use in a crisp. But these little ones are difficult to peel. My brother who was visiting made a plug for apple butter. Apple butter? I too had never heard of it. Once you get the seeds out and slice and dice the little fruit you turn the chunks loose in a slow cooker (with some sugar and cinnamon) for ten hours. The fragrance is as fall as pumkin pie.

A compote forms which needs to be run through a blender to smooth it all out. It’s tasty and tangy even if its appearance is questionable.

You just never know what little piece of work is waiting to be done to reap well deserved rewards.

The Moon

Robert Louis Stevenson

1850 –1894

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;
She shines on thieves on the garden wall,
On streets and fields and harbour quays,
And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.

The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,
The howling dog by the door of the house,
The bat that lies in bed at noon,
All love to be out by the light of the moon.

But all of the things that belong to the day
Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;
And flowers and children close their eyes
Till up in the morning the sun shall arise.

Does locking up the gangsters work?

The Feds have been busy cracking down on crime in the Twin Cities. Three gangs in particular have been targeted by the attorney general first with an arrest of 45 members of the Highs, the Lows, and the Bloods in May. A few weeks ago, another fourteen members were charged under the RICO, a law originally intended to curb Mafia activity.

The short term results are good.

“There have been 127 fewer families who’ve had a loved one affected by gun violence this year compared to last,” O’Hara said. “Despite having the lowest number of sworn members in the MPD in decades, the level of gun violence in Minneapolis this summer is dropping to near pre-pandemic levels.”

At the news conference, O’Hara stood beside a chart that showed a big spike in the number of shooting victims in the city in mid 2020 — 111 of them that June alone. There were smaller spikes in 2021 and last year.

By June of this year, the number of reported gunshot wound victims in the city had fallen to 35. Homicides are also down, and carjackings fell by half compared to this time in 2022.

But will it last? Will residents be able to get back to watching their kids play ball without having to duck from stray bullets from gangsta’s in cars? Many wish they had the answer, and I certainly can’t say I know. But here is where I’d look for information: in groups.

The attorney general said that since 2020 local criminal activity coalesced and became more organized. From this one could infer that replacements for the 45-60 indicted criminals are in the wings, ready to take over their new positions in each respective gang. Law enforcement does their job, builds a case, and locks up the ne’r-do-wells only to open up new spots for fledging criminals in the pipeline.

Perhaps if there is stress in the organization there is an opportunity to detect the strength of the hold the delinquents have on associated groups. For instance, are they still able to recruit the youth? Or can this group be bought out of the interaction with other types of youth programming? What about the neighbors in general- are they doing as they are told to do or being subversive? Another group to watch are the informants. Are they staying loyal to their criminal friends or providing more information than usual?

In loose terms one might be looking for variables that represent how these groups are open to exiting the relationship, willing to voice their objections, or, a measure of the degree of loyalty they have to the gangsters.

How to find the capacity

One thing you notice, after you have lived in a home for more than one stage of life, is that at different times people have a little more time on their hands than at others. Take tending to the front lawn. Most people care at least a bit about how their home presents itself to the street. It’s the public side of the property.

Even the most fastidious of lawns can be seen with a dandelion or two when the owners are in the throes of elementary school children. It’s tough to get out and do the extra fertilizing when there is a baby to bathe, school lunches to make, and homework time. The crabgrass is green after all, so does it really matter that it is flouncing its long legs over the tender shoots of Kentucky bluegrass?

If you were trying to figure out the level of public capacity a neighbrohood had in its reserves, you might want to stroll the neighborhood and see if residents are pulling through on commonly expected maintenance. If the sidewalks are not shoveled in the winter it maybe because the residents are not home enough to make it happen. Or it might be because many of the residents are elderly or disabled.

Delve a bit more into a neighborhood and you might hear of complaints that an intersection is dangerous and ‘they’ haven’t done anything about it. Perhaps they don’t know how to get to a city council meeting and register a request to consider a stop sign at the intersection. Perhaps the they that do know how to get to the city council meetings are communiting across twon and are not around enough to work it into their schedule. It takes different they skills to keep all the different neighborhood amenities tuned up.

Answering some of these questions would help to determine why the store of reserves to perform typical neighborly duties is going missing. It’s always easier to identify the lack of state capacity than the abundance of it.

Air – Movie Review with Econ too

If you lived through the 80’s you will appreciate the references to a decade slowly sliding out of sight of the rearview mirror. Both Affleck and Damon came of age in this decade and it’s as if they sat around and brainstormed a long list of all their memories and refused to leave one out. The nostalgia was appreciated by this viewer. Along the same vein is the pleasure of being filled in on the back story of the cosmic celebrity launch of Michael Jordan’s career.

The prize for most charismatic performance goes to Chris Tucker who plays a co-worker, Howard White, at Nike. His vocabulary and gestures are emphatic without excess. He is really entertaining and effective. He interfaces with a lot of the athletes’ families and, along with Viola Davis, does justice to the racial component of the times.

There is a lot of fun economic type of stuff in this film. The blind bidding for example. All the players want to know what the other parties are up to. They ferret around for information. Then they return to their own base and try to get the team on board. There’s a lot of disbelief and eye-rolling. Can it be true? No not that much! Blind bids are hard on buyers. They have one shot at being the winner, so they want to push the price without reaching for more than they need to.

The relationship side(s) to deal-making runs throughout the movie. The agent to the athlete. The company’s closer to the sports agent. The talent scout to the CEO. This has been played out on the big screen before and doesn’t cover new ground as much as meter out all the different angles and ties and degrees of trust.

Matt Damain’s character Sonny wins over the Jordans through action, not words. He shows up at their doorstep, risking his job and position in the field, to demonstrate his belief in the lanky, composed, freshman. Through his knowledge of all the past games he shows he’s put in the time to understand the players’ game. In fact, it is by pointing out to Deloris Jordan that the competing companies are all words and not action that he builds her trust.

A lot of people talk about trust as if it is something that appears or can be bestowed. But trust is the result of seeing how people act and then basing an expectation of the future on the actions of the past.

How crime is priced

Dick’s also said its second-quarter results were affected by “inventory shrink,” which refers to the loss of inventory due to factors such as employee theft, shoplifting, and others. The company’s merchandise margin declined by 2.54 percentage points—one third of that was because of shrink, the company said.

“The biggest impact in terms of the surprise for Q2 primarily came from shrink,” said Navdeep Gupta, chief financial officer. “We thought we had adequately reserved for it. However, the number of incidents and the organized retail crime impact came in significantly higher than we anticipated.”

Barrons

No tech substitution in Real Estate?

The National Association of Realtors has been around for more than 100 years. Three of the founding boards were in Minnesota: Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth.

The National Association of REALTORS® was founded as the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges on May 12, 1908 in Chicago. With 120 founding members, 19 Boards, and one state association, the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges’ objective was “to unite the real estate men of America for the purpose of effectively exerting a combined influence upon matters affecting real estate interests.”

Before this professional organization coined the word, Realtor, the people who helped facilitate the buying and selling of real property were called land agents and then real estate agents. They pop up as characters in books like the ones written by Ivan Doig about settling Montana.

NAR sets and maintains standards for the industry which brings unity to the profession. Today there are more than 1.5 million members nationwide making it the largest trades union in the country.

When Zillow launched its website in 2006 many predicted the demise of the Realtor position in the transaction. Everything would occur online! Look at the home, contact a lender, order the title work, and close on the property without viewing it! Done. This narrative permeated the market for at least ten years before it started to ebb ever so slightly.

It has now been 17 years since the entry of big tech into the real estate business and Zillow is still losing money. In 2022 real estate disrupter lost $101 million. I don’t know how venture capital works, but where does all this money come from to float unprofitable companies for decades?

The long and the short of it is that Realtors are still out helping buyers and sellers come together and make a trade. The job really hasn’t changed in any substantial way since 2006, except that advertising occurs via the web instead of print media. There are a variety of arrangements available to clients from basic services to full service. Perhaps ironically, since the age of social media, there has been a shift away from for sale by owners.

It’s pretty clear that there is a place in the market for this type of work. If you’ve had a poor experience in the past maybe the solution is to take a little extra time in selecting your realtor next time around. There are as many styles and personalities in the business as there are clients. You just need to find the right match.

Notes from the local paper

Cannabis. There’s a long article in the local paper about new rules around the use of Marijuana. The long and the short of it is that even though the state made it a legal substance, it can’t be enjoyed in any public spaces. Apparently weed isn’t as main stream as people thought.

Bees. I don’t really understand the fascination with tending to a hive of bees. The swarm seems to show up and disappear at will. But the thought of a mass of buzzing insects with stingers does make a mother worry. However- the bees got the thumbs-up vote. Residents are free to be beekeepers.

Green Step. An association has been circulating recruiting cities to join their organization which tracks and scores municipalities on compliance to preset environmental goals. Seems like a lot of signaling to me. Plus extra work for city employees. But the pressure group won, and Plymouth will become a Green Step city.

Mental Illness. If the number of words were a measure of importance, this topic is woefully under-represented. A two and a half inch space advertized a September meeting to talk about this very important issue.

Nice quote from the St Olaf Econ page

Economics is a study of humankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of well-being. Thus it is on the one side a study of wealth; and on the other, and more important side, a part of the study of humanity.

Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics
St Olaf College

Historic Minneapolis

I just listed a condo in a brick brownstone built in 1917. The stately building looks over Powder Horn Park. The three-level buildings line up along the sidewalks, high over the baseball diamonds, playgrounds, and trails around the lake. There is a public bike rack right out front as a reminder that there is no need to fret over the lack of garages as the bike infrastructure in the city is an adequate substitute.

The most significant differences between this one-hundred-year-old structure and one built today lay inside and out. An all-brick exterior is prohibitively costly. This is really too bad because not only is the exterior beautiful it requires very little maintenance. On the inside the units are efficiencies or one bedrooms. Even though there are many households of one, these two configurations are the least likely to appear in new construction. And then everyone complains about the price of things.

Below is the plat map from 1914 and shows the lots between 14th Ave and 12 Ave on the NE corner of the park as undeveloped.

Mpls Fed and Housing Data

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Building 1972-1997

The Minneapolis Fed’s recent article about housing in MN provides data supporting some positive trends. If you’ve lived in the state for a while, and know people who’ve moved away to other similar cities and then returned, you have firsthand points of reference to the favorable cost of living we have here. Mid-sized cities like Denver, Portland, and Dallas are more expensive than the Minneapolis-St Paul metropolitan area. Here’s a chart from the article which says as much:

This is not to say that everyone within our territorial boundaries has adequate shelter. And thus it is fortunate that the Fed is putting some shape around the goal of increasing the number of homes available. Because, of course, more supply translates into better pricing. From their analysis, it appears that the region is on track so far.

I was in a meeting of realtors once where a peer did not readily accept that more units meant better pricing. And, although not voiced specifically in this manner, I think what she was getting at is that if the structures don’t match the need of the households, then there may not be an increase in supply. No increase in inventory—no better pricing.

This points to the benefit of being able to match segments of the market. How many shelters have a physical structure which matches the need of this type of household? Do those inventories line up or are they disjointed?

It’s no wonder data is valuable. There’s always more data necessary to understand our world.

There’s more to it

Have you ever noticed that there is often more to an issue at hand than you first realize?

Consider the preparation of land for home construction. Those big machines just go on into the staked-off space and move dirt around until it is pretty level- and voila! It’s ready for a new home. But then people start talking about cutting and filling. And schematic alarm bells start ringing right above the curved arch of your pinna. If there is vocabulary to learn than there is undoubtedly a whole segment of the process still to understand.

Luckily there’s YouTube to fill in the gaps.

As you can imagine, there may be outcomes from shifting around a bunch of dirt. Erosion is a typical concern. But changing a terrain effects drainage as well. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that this type of activity requires supervision by goverment in efforts to monitor the interests of the greater group.

On the flip side, a bureaucracy can really slow things down. The process. Rules are metered out in a checklist fashion instead of a dynamic response to uncovered circumstances. A centrailzed approval process is costly.

Do Divas need TLC?

In all seriousness- it is great to see all the concert goers post pictures on social media. The days of the virus are over.

Tiebout competition leads to markets for ties

The voluntary nature of consenting to a particular pirate ship’s constitution facilitated what economists call “Tiebout competition” between pirate crews. Tiebout competition is the process whereby governments compete for citizens, so-named for the economist who first articulated this process, Charles Tiebout. The idea is a simple one. If citizens can “vote with their feet,” governments must be more responsive to what citizens want. They must offer lower tax rates, better public services, and refrain from preying on citizens, or citizens will move to another jurisdiction that does. Governments care about this because their ability to raise tax revenues requires a tax base. And if citizens move out of one jurisdiction to another, in the jurisdiction citizens are fleeing from the tax base shrivels up. Pirates’ voluntary governance structure means they didn’t in have governments. But the principle of Tiebout competition applies as much to their floating societies as it does to competition between governments.

The Invisible Hook, The Invisible Economics of Pirates by Peter T. Leeson

Dead To Me- Series Review

Business is often slow in August for lenders and realtors. People are distracted with plans; those they committed to months ago like weddings and family reunions, those in the moment like work golf outings and those hastily snuck in as the end of summer draws near. It’s not a productive time to hop on the phone and try to bring peoples’ attention back to business.

Which explains the extra TV time.

I gave this series a shot out of curiosity to see an older Christina Applegate. The actress gets kudos for creating a distinct persona for her performance as Kelly Bundy in Married With Children. Some of those sassy characteristics and hard edges appear here too. They are familiar, like an old friend, without being distracting to her new role Jen, the grieving widow.

Applegate is well-matched with Linda Cardellini who plays Judy Hale. They have contrasting personalities and traits providing moments of humor and sympathy. The story line puts the women on a rollercoaster ride. At times the audience is let in on parts of the secrets lurking in their lives. At times the audience is misinformed.

There is a nice range of female characters in the show. The police detective who is handling the hit-and-run case is quite humorous. The mom who lives across the street from Christina. The realtor’s mother-in-law. But it’s not just a chick flick. There is the handsome Steve Wood, the respectable Christopher Doyle, and quirky Pastor Wayne.

Like many sitcoms, there is redundancy and sometimes the action is slow. But overall, I’ve enjoyed the first season and plan to continue binging on the 30-minute episodes. Happy Summer!

Group slippage

When I was growing up the 70’s feminists were ruffling a lot of feathers. What was hard to swallow is that, as a group, they assumed all women supported their efforts. After all, activists like Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Kate Millett believed they were working on behalf of all women. But just because they believed it so doesn’t mean it was.

In Matt Ridley’s book, How Innovation Works, the author suggests that it is a group of inventors most often working on a new technology. He cites the light bulb as an example. As many as twenty inventors may have been the first to produce a successful prototype. And Ridley feels that if one or two of the leaders had fallen away, then it would have just been a matter of time before another from the group would have succeeded. The way he describes groups of people with a common ambition reminds me of types of legions, all walking in step and yet replaceable.

I’d suggest that this no harm no foul quality of group members is one way to distinguish who is on a team and who is not. It’s a good way to test for slippage. That way in policy conversations it is easier to keep track of whether the actors are appropriately portioned off.

A thoughtful new conversation between Russ Roberts and Daron Acemoglu was released last week on Econ Talk. They mull through the good and the bad impacts of technology since the start of the Industrial Revolution (IR). And they list off many different groups which makes for a fun review. Here are the ones I tracked in just the first bit of the show. (times are approximate)

2:49 We. This appears to refer to present-day dwellers. And rightfully true, everyone on earth has a greater standard of living from something that stemmed out of the IR.

4:30 Innovators. This group refers to the individual who successfully laid claim and also ownership to a piece of new technology. I’d say this is a bit of slippage as not everyone working as an innovator gets paid. In fact, many toil with no reward. So this is slippage.

4:59 Replaced Worker. I think this group is rightly described when talking in such general terms. Upon the implementation of a new way of doing things, there will be changes to job structures. If the conversation were focused closer to a particular event, then more details on the various levels of impact would be necessary to keep the members of each group interchangeable.

7:00 Peasants. There are a number of points made in the conversation that rely on social and class status versus wage and monitary status. I think this is a type of slippage.

The circumscribing of these first four groups differs in quality. The general big group WE allows for a sweeping claim. Yet the sheer size of it makes its delineation only interesting as a starting point to a conversation.

The loose use of INNOVATORS is problematic. Most people will assume that all parties to the group extracted a tidy sum. Yet so many people work on new ideas at their expense and never are reimbursed. This leads the public to believe that entrepreneurs are greedy as they expect so much for not more than a sure thing. A more accurate group notation here would avoid that misunderstanding.

Part of whether the grouping makes sense is based on the context of the conversation. In this talk, there was mention that the REPLACED WORKER in the US only lost out on a good-paying job for a portion of his career. Whereas in the UK, history shows that technological innovations sometimes depleted worker opportunities for several generations. So it seems here the term is too general to make a worthy representation of the group in one of the two scenarios.

There were several references to groups that describe a class rather than a worker. PEASANTS, lords, and ladies, the Abbotts. To me, this switches the analysis from activity that generates objects bought and sold in a market, to life outcomes of both workers and their families based on social status. It switches from an unfettered exchange of some form of monetary compensation to reflections on health, access to food and supplies, voice and power within a community.

There are a lot of reasons to name a group correctly. But the best reason is to do no harm to those too busy with life to speak up and object.

Liberty for me but not for thee

The US is known as the land of liberty. But do we really trust others with liberty?

Parents give their children choices within a certain menu. A child who wants to veer off the well-trodden path may test her parents’ support for liberty. In fact, the necessity to shepherd and control is pretty well everywhere from family structure to the workplace, from associational work to social gatherings.

Don’t be too odd at the next dinner party you attend or more than likely you will be dropped off the future invitee list. The US is the flag carrier for the right to be free. But there seems to be a premise to even staunch stalwarts of freedom. People don’t really think about it. But it’s there.

It goes like this- you can be free if you’re like me.

The Story of Work by Jan Lucassen

Great cover art

I’m just beginning to turn the pages caught behind the cover of this decent size book on work. It is an ambitious swing at a topic with deep historical routes. Chapter 1 starts: Humans at Work, 700,000-12,000 Years Ago.

The intention is to cover all forms of labor from tribal reciprocity to slavery, from domestic work to wage paid labor. Often the references to the first three are in form only. Slowly if becomes apparent that real work is paid work. The other forms are historical.

We’ll see if this book is different!

Who’s in charge of front yards?

The pro-pollinator people have gained further traction in preventing cities from undermining their wildflower gardens. A few years ago, in the SW Minnesota city of Mankato, a court ruled in favor of the homeowner to maintain the usually tall and gangly plants that the Monarchs and the Eastern Tiger Swallow or Red Admirals like to float over. The city said it was a public nuisance. The courts said no- the owner could save the bees.

A pollinator friendly article by Christopher Ingraham (the Washington Post journalist who critized northern MN and then moved his family there when he realized it was better for his kids) ran in the Minnesota Reformer. He explains, “new language requires cities to allow homeowners to install and maintain a managed natural landscape.” 

Not every neighbor is thrilled with a relaxed yard which often looks unruly. Most cities have a restriction on how high the grass can grow before being declared a nuisance. Where some people see vivacious boulevard greenery, others fear bees and flying weed spores.

The private property rights people should rejoice. Owners are now protected in their ability to choose alternative landscaping. But you’d be surprised how quickly people turn on a dime when a rule is one they favor rather than oppose. Lots of people feel neighbors have some ownership in the view from the road. Whether it means you have to store you garage containers out of site, or keep the clip of your turf tight to the ground. Neighbors care!

The question becomes which level of governance is the right one to best address neighborhood expectations. As you can imagine the folks who are OK with dog kennels and RV’s sitting on a driveway all winter can hold different expectations than other metro dwellers. So shouldn’t this be a local decision?And who really gets to decided how many butterflies is the right number of butterflies?

It seems odd to me that this type of provision shows up in the state government finance bill. Wouldn’t something like this fit into the parks and trails type of category. Minneapolis Parks alone manage 6084 acres of land. Three River Parks, which covers an area mostly in Hennepin County, provide access to 27,000 acres of nature and wildlife to metro residents. Then of course local cities look after the local parks. The city of Plymouth for instance grooms 1855 acres. If state level politicians wanted to finance something for the butterflies and the bees, they could have given seed money to to one or all of these land stewards.

The Chair- Netflix Series Review

Comedie has been underrated lately. But this series is a swing at bringing it back. It tackles the woke while poking fun at the aged. It subtly shows how people talk about race can be selectively filtered. It lays out in the light of day that life is complicated and warring interests make for messy outcomes.

But mostly this series will make you laugh about topics that have been held oh-so serious as of late.

Last time I was in Sri Lanka I road an elephant

As a young girl being raised abroad, there was a lot to figure out. Like, is it kind to treat elephants like domesticated circus performers?

The answer offered was never a quick yes or no. Nor were words of outrage offered up, nor ones of dosed with saccharine. The answer was to have a look around and note what you see. The mighty beast seemed agreeable and well looked after. His rib cage was not protruding like some oxen in the field. His handler was well dressed and whispered little noises in his ear. They made a good pair.

The answers did not appear on the faces of my parents. Observations were encouraged. Comparisons presented and sifted through. Touch, feel, see, and then decide if the situation is better than the available alternatives. And this can only be done once one has recalibrated to a new surrounding, and absorbed new standards.

This was the first time I felt an elephant.

Summer lull

It feels like we’re in a news lull. Even the Fed increasing rates by .25% hardly registered on any of my social media feeds. No dire predictions about a recession or the inability to control inflation (which appears to be delicately restained for the time being). Houses are selling and prices are not going crazy. So what is there to talk about?

We found a new neighborhood walk that swirls between the backyards of some very nice homes and a large stand of trees that block a view of the railroad tracks. Along the way, the path runs up against wetlands edged in wildflowers. It’s in a newer area and as of yet the cyclist, joggers, and dog walkers have not discovered its pleasant ambiance. The trail isn’t fully inked in on Google Maps yet which may also contribute to its lack of use.

Mulch is on sale as we veer toward August. Many people spread out their shredded wood chips in the spring, but I find it helpful to wait for all the plants to be fully out of the ground to smooth in a new layer of the woodsy product. Right after a good rain works well. The weeds are easier to pull when the soil is moist. And the cedar mulch puts out a nice fragrance for ten days or more.

People are wrapping up their summer plans this time of year and will soon be busying themselves with getting their kids ready for school. There is only the Autumn Joy sedum left to bloom and that comes about around the first day of school. Then we’ll all be gearing up to fall activities. Homecoming Football games and parents’ weekends. Fall breaks and Halloween. Then the holidays- Thanksgiving onto Christmas.

So wander into that back garden. Take a pillow and have a nap on the outdoor sofa under the shade of a tree. Soon the summer heat will be swept out with the first frost and people will be a flutter preparing for the winter weather.

Poem 106

EMILY DICKINSON
The Daisy follows soft the Sun 
And when his golden walk is done 
Sits shyly at his feet 
He waking finds the flower there 
Wherefore Marauder art thou here? Because, Sir, love is sweet! 
We are the Flower Thou the Sun! 
Forgive us, if as days decline 
We nearer steal to Thee! 
Enamored of the parting West 
The peace the flight the Amethyst 
Night’s possibility!

The middle way

Some say leading a good life unfolds when individuals pursue what they are good at and what brings them joy. This means if you want to be a lens grinder, that’s fine; if you want to be a stay-at-home mom, that’s fine; if you want to scratch out a living from the dry plains of eastern Montana, that’s fine. In fact, it is more than fine. It is the way to freely live your best life.

Aristotle talks about the middle way. This is from ChatGPT.

Aristotle’s view on moderation is closely related to his virtue ethics and the concept of finding the right balance in life. In Greek, the term for moderation or the “middle way” is “meson,” and Aristotle believed that virtuous behavior lies between extremes. This idea is often referred to as the “doctrine of the mean.”

Here are some key points about Aristotle’s view on moderation:

  1. Virtue as the Mean: Aristotle identified moral virtues as the mean between two vices. Each virtue represents a balanced midpoint between two extremes, with one extreme representing an excess and the other a deficiency. For example, courage is the virtue that lies between the extremes of recklessness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency).
  2. Contextual and Relative: Aristotle understood that the mean is not a fixed point but varies depending on the individual and the situation. The right amount of a virtue for one person may not be the same for another. For instance, what constitutes moderate behavior in eating might be different for a professional athlete compared to a sedentary office worker.
  3. Practical Wisdom (Phronesis): To find the mean, Aristotle emphasized the role of practical wisdom or phronesis. It is the ability to make well-reasoned and prudent decisions, taking into account the particular circumstances and context. Practical wisdom is not a set of rules but rather a cultivated ability to discern the right course of action.
  4. Avoiding Extremes: Aristotle believed that both excess and deficiency are detrimental to human flourishing. For instance, too much courage can lead to recklessness, while too little courage results in cowardice. The mean, which is moderation, allows individuals to avoid the negative consequences of extremes.
  5. Virtue Development: Virtuous behavior is not innate but is cultivated through practice and habituation. By consistently choosing the virtuous mean and avoiding extremes, individuals can develop virtuous character traits.
  6. Different Virtues, Different Means: Aristotle applied the doctrine of the mean to various virtues, such as courage, generosity, patience, and friendliness, among others. Each virtue has its own mean, which may differ from one another.

Overall, Aristotle’s emphasis on moderation and the doctrine of the mean reflects his belief in the importance of balanced and virtuous living. By striving for moderation, individuals can avoid excesses that lead to self-destructive behavior and deficiencies that hinder personal growth and flourishing. The pursuit of the mean is central to Aristotle’s ethical philosophy and contributes to his vision of the good life as one of eudaimonia.

Regenerate response

A Morse code for entreprenerial survival

Matt Ridley’s book How Innovation Works is brimming with background on so many of the innovations (if not all the major ones) in the last few centuries. The stories are well told and each one often provides the opportunity to stress a singular feature that led to success. But I liked this quote about Samuel Morse in the Computing and Communications chapter.

Morse’s real achievement, like that of most innovators, was to battle his way through political and practical obstacles. As his biographer Kenneth Silverman put it:

Morse’s claims for himself as an innovator rest most convincingly on the part of his work he valued least, his dogged entrepreneurship. With stubborn longing, he brought his invention into the marketplace despite congressional indifference, frustrating delays, mechanical failures, family troubles, bickering partners, attacks by the press, protracted lawsuits, periods of depression.

Everybody likes the winner. Everybody likes to talk about that one moment in time when the magic happened and the invention came to fruition. But if you want to know why things aren’t going so well. then you have to look at the obstacles. Where do people see stop instead of go?

We are not only told that Morse was dogged in his pursuit, but where he stumbled. He wrestled with the government- regulatory. There were production delays and mechanical failures- workforce. He was held back due to family- personal support. Business partnerships were stained- ownership. Lawsuits- property rights. He suffered from depression- health.

Once people become famous they seem to only be identified by that accomplishment. Yet they too maneuvered through many of these same markets. Take someone like Bill Gates. His father was an attorney and his mother was a business woman. He had access to excellent advice and full family support from the garage where he tinkered with his creation. His mother is said to have been instrumental in securing his first contract with Microsoft.

Someone may have the best idea in the world, but without access to support in all areas of life, the chances of implementation would be slim.

Pricing a Company Good

Shopify has developed an app to track the cost of meetings held at their company.

Shopify, a Canadian e-commerce company, rolled out its Meeting Cost Calculator internally Wednesday as part of ongoing efforts to encourage emptier calendars. The tool functions as a Chrome extension built into Google Calendar, showing Shopify’s 11,000-plus global employees the estimated cost of their meetings by using data based on average compensation, number of attendees and length.

CNN Business News

They are not the first company to question the need for weeks filled with meetings. Many employees feel their time is wasted and little gets accomplished when assembled either on-line or in person. The app calculates and displayes how many labor hours are devoted to the gathering and the financial expenditure in wages.

Here is an app that many would consider desirable- but in what way exactly? It does not facilitate the sale of a product or service which is how most business enterprises maintain their livelihoods. No- it does not gain a sale but rather the app encourages people to avoid the expense of loss.

This activity lines up more with public goods activities. The health departments mandate vaccines to avoid the spread of disease. Building codes enforce standards to prohibit structures from falling down and hurting people. Stop lights and speed bumps are put into place to avoid accidents. By pricing out the cost of the meeting, Spotify is encouraging employees to resist wasting the company dollar through elimination not production.

Less waste, more profit. A stronger company benefits all the employees. The app shows that markets are very much alive in the public realm.

How to date a tree

We had a beautiful walk on the Lake Trail at Lake Minnewashta Regional Park. We skipped the dog park and opted to follow the wide-mowed path from the main swimming beach to the boat launch and back. It was a Midwestern muggy day with the temps reaching over 90 degrees. Hence the smudgy look to the photo of Pepe and my husband by an old growth bur oak tree.

Many trees felt as if they had seen more than a couple of generations of walkers stroll beneath their canopies. This makes one wonder just how old some of these shade-makers are.

It turns out there are Tree Age Calculators. Oak trees grow with a fair degree of regularity, so all you need to know is the type of tree and its circumference at breast height. I’m eyeballing it, but I think ten feet is a fair guess for the one in the photo. Plug in the data and- voila- the site says this baby is 191 years old.

Now I just have to add a measuring tape to my walking purse.

Phalanx- A Steinbeck man/group theory

It turns out the gifted writer behind all the stories of everyday people navigated social complexities had a little philosopher in him as well. He wrote an essay in 1933 entitled Arguement of Phalanx. Although it is difficult to get a copy of the unpublished essay, a few writers reference it in their work. In the essay he develops a man/group theory.

The ideal group formation, in the writer’s view, is one in which the members act as individuals and at the same time contribute creatively to the formation of a harmoniously integrated whole.

John Steinbeck’s Phalanx Thory, by Marcia Salazar

I wasn’t familiar with the term but I’m not surprised that it denotes this military formation.

The concept describing what a group of individuals, working toward a similar objective, becomes as a new entity is apparent once you know the the term. He often paints out the different and usually stronger capabilities of individuals who come together in his novels. The fine shading between the groups is particularly clear in In Dubious Battle. Published three years after the essay was written, it almost seems like a canvas designed to illustrate his point.

From a previous post:

In the following few pages Dr. Burton talks about group-men. “I watch these group-men, for they seem to me to be a new individual, not at all like a single man. A man in a group isn’t himself at all: he’s a cell in an organism that isn’t like him any more than the cells in your body are like you. I want to watch the group, and see what it’s like.”

Perhaps Steinbeck didn’t like to be associated with the hairsplitting of philosophical thought. But if Phalanx enters mainstream usage as a core component of social exchange, he may have to accept his fate.

Faith is Reasonable

David Bentley Hart

COWEN: Reason? Reason is the bottom line?

HART: It has to be, because even if you choose faith, you’re choosing to believe something for a reason. Even if you’re not able to name those reasons yourself, some compelling rational intuition has worked upon you to say, “Well, I believe I can trust this source more than that source.” You may say that, “Oh, I’m having faith in what it’s telling me,” but you’re having faith in that rather than something else, because at some level — maybe a tacit level that you have a hard time laying out — you’ve somehow reached the judgment. It would have to be a rational judgment if your faith is of any meaning, that you trust this rather than that.

A bit further along….

The act of faith is a way of engaging the mind, engaging reason so it can explore. If you don’t start with some trust of the possibility of discovering the truth, then you never will seek the truth to begin with. That search requires a combination of a degree of rational judgment and a degree of trust, and you hope that the two prove to be in harmony. If they’re not, though, if you reach a point where your faith and your reason come into conflict, then trust your reason.

Innovative agents

Matt Ridley, in his book how Innovation Works, and who it flourishes in freedom, identifies several actors in the innovation game. First he rebukes the claim that government is primarily responsible for new things.

It is just that it does not happen very often, and that far more often inventions and discoveries emerge by serendipity and the exchange of ideas, and are pushed, pulled, moulded, transformed and brought to life by people acting as individuals, firms, markets and, yes, sometimes public servants.

But don’t rely on big business to bring about new things either.

Big companies are bad at innovating, because they are too bureaucratic, have too big a vested interest in the status quo and stop paying attention to the interests, actual and potential, of their customers. Thus for innovation to flourish it is vital to have an economy that encourages or at least allows outsiders, challengers and distuptors to get a foothold.

Let me tell you about the butterfly flower

They are in bloom right now. A gorgeous orange drip of a paint stroke across a leggy stem. It’s really not a flower though. It’s a weed like milkweed. Which is partly why the monarchs like it so. And who can fail to admire these graceful arial acrobats? When they swoop and flutter among your garden blooms their appreciation is a joyful thing.

Like many garden plants, this one has its likes and dislikes. It doesn’t like to be moved. So planting by seed can bring the greatest success. Careful when they sprout- after all they look like a weed! But tolerating poor sandy soil and partial sunshine makes them perfect candidates to fill in some touchy areas. And when they bloom the butterflies will come and have a look.

Man- Steinbeck gets people

A small group of grifters who know how not to self-destruct:

Mack was the elder, leader, mentor, and to a small extent the exploiter of a little group of men who had in common no families, no money, and no ambitions beyond food, drink, and contentment. But whereas most men in their search for contentment destroy themselves and fall wearily short of their targets, Mack and his friends approached contentment casually, quietly, and absorbed it gently.

How a shared passions turns useful objects into common goods:

Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned and a tire pump belonged to the last man who had picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few were born in them.

And how the orderly are sent topsy-turvey by the disorderly:

It was obvious that the wife was away the opened cans, the frying pan with lace from fried eggs still sticking to it, the crumbs on the kitchen table, the open box of shotgun shells on the bread box all shrieked of the lack of a woman, while the white curtains and the papers on the dish shelves and the too small towels on the rack told them a woman had been there. And they were unconsciously glad she wasn’t there. The kind of women who put papers on shelves and had little towels like that instinctively distrusted and disliked Mack and the boys. Such women knew that they were the worst threats to a home, for they offered ease and thought and companionship as opposed to neatness, order, and properness. They were very glad she was away.

A bike ride around the lakes

The civic impulse to acquire and develop a Minneapolis park system connected by trails started well over a century ago. One fortuitous outcome of these endeavors is called the Grand Rounds. It completes a thirty-mile loop in a rough rectangle around the municipality.

Today I biked a small section which circles two lakes, Lake Harriet and (Lake) Bde Maka Ska, in the SW corner of town.

Lake Harriet is a more residential area where grand homes overlook the sky-blue waters. The parkway enlarges here and there along the way so there is plenty of parking under old-growth trees. Two trails ring the perimeter of the water, one for walkers and one for cyclists. Here people of all ages walk their dogs, push strollers, catch up with friends, rollerblade with AirPods, and chatter with work colleagues. The crowds consist of locals, not tourists.

As you circle Bde Maka Ska to the north, and a downtown view appears, the physical structures transition from single-family homes to condos and a few business buildings. There are public beaches on the lake as well as restaurants. And benches scattered here and there as if someone said, ‘I think Gramps would want his bench here,’ and set it down without a reference to any other object. It’s a lived-in feel instead of one of pomp and circumstance.

Before circling back to the SE, the trail touches the far side of the Uptown area. This spot is full of shops, restaurants, bars, and lots of apartments for all those wanting to be close to where they recreate.

The bike trail is a one-way loop which is nice as the slow riders stay to the right and the left-hand side is used for passing. There is a speed limit of 10 miles per hour painted in white on the asphalt every quarter mile. But I wonder how many cyclists have speedometers on their bikes. It is only necessary to wait for car traffic at the intersection pictured above left, in a section between the two lakes. This is also the only incline on the tour which makes the legs work a little harder.

At seven miles it is a pleasant run for the experienced rider. A way to get out on a nice day and enjoy the urban landscape.

Core services continue to be most important, with walkability too

The National Association of Realtors conducts a poll every three years around community preferences about their neighborhood and transportation. Here is the Executive Summary from the last report which was just released:

Results from the 2023 Community and Transportation Preferences Survey generally continue the trends from previous surveys. Residents in the top fifty metropolitan areas remain split on what they look for in a neighborhood. One noticeable difference is a modest uptick in measures of importance of walkability.

In general, people in the largest 50 MSA’s are satisfied with the quality of life in their communities – as they have been in each of our previous surveys. If they were deciding where to live today, they would place high importance on low levels of crime, sidewalks and walkability, as well as short commutes and easy access to the highway.
In terms of priorities for their state and local governments, about three-quarters of residents place the highest priority on maintaining and repairing roads, highways, freeways and bridges. A number of other issues are in the second tier, with half placing a high priority on building more roads, expanding public transportation, providing alternatives to driving, and developing more walkable communities.
Most Americans continue to agree that they like to walk and drive, while almost half agree that they like to ride a bike and in an uptick from previous years, 44 percent like to take transit. The things that keep people from doing more walking are places being too far away to walk and the need for a vehicle for work or school.

I think there can be problems with stated preferences, as it is only when one must choose that one realizes where their preferences lie. That said there is a lot of interesting information in the report. Note first that personal safety will never go out of style. It will always stand well above other priorities.

The surprising number in this chart, one I would challenge, is the relatively low importance of schools.

Core issues such as road maintenance continue to be a need voiced by all generations.

If you thumb through all the slides you will see that the gas tax is not popular.

The beauty of The Stars and Stripes

Americans like the Stars and Stripes- at least one can surmise as much by the frequency the Red White and Blue makes an appearance on schools, boulevards, government buildings, small homes, workplaces, fancy homes, and of course the nation’s capital.

For all the outrage people like to suggest, everyday actions profess a people who stand proud by this symbol of a united country.

Happy Fourth of July!

The long and twisty road of a whistleblower

Years ago I worked at a medium-sized financial institution. Every four years or so a back room clerk would be caught skimming a bit of money out of general ledger accounts and diverting it into a personal one. The sum total stolen were relatively minor $20-$40K. The typical way their ruse was discovered was when they left their desk and their actions while on vacation. As long as they were at their desks and did what needed to be done everyday, the accounts looked right side up. Once a fill-in employee took over for an extended period of time, some of the accounts showed themselves to be upside down.

The point is that even in the fulfillment of simple jobs, it is not easy to see flaws in the system from the outside. This is the reason why fraudulanet activity often gets so out of hand before being discovered. Unless- there is a whistleblower. But who really wants to take on that job? It is personally taxing both emotionally and often financially as, at least for a period of time, one’s employment may be suspended. The risks are high. And so most everyone prefers to turn away and let someone else deal with it. Not my job! They’d say.

In this story involving Movement Mortgage and the FHA/VA programs, the alleged conduct occurred in 2008. “Federal prosecutors said Thursday their investigation was triggered by a whistleblowers’ lawsuit from two former Movement Mortgage workers. They will receive $4 million of the settlement.”

Think a moment why a whistleblower might step forward. First off, it may be an individual who feels compelled to point out behavior which violates laws and norms. If the actions at hand hold their personal careers back in some way (they refuse to go to the line that others will to get paid) then their motivation may have a factor of private gain. I think it is fair to say that it is less likely they are galvanized by the prospects of a reward or settlement.

Certainly it is a public service if the whistleblowers are succesful in bringing the theft to a halt. When the cost of doing business goes up due to fraud, then all consumers pay through higher pricing.

So to review, a whistleblower may choose to use feedback loops to expose theft. Most probably they are animated by exposing something that ‘just isn’t right’. If sucessfull the cost and risk they bear is a benefit to all those in the consumer group. They may gain privately as well.

Contract for Deeds are back?

It has been decades since I’ve heard talk of contract-for-deeds. But lately, in-office meetings, or out working on transactions, people are proposing this seller means of financing as a way to put a transaction together.

I suppose favorable interest rates have kept private parties out of the financing business for the last dozen years or so. With mortgage rates at new highs, there is an opportunity for investors to pick up a decent return, even with the risk of getting the house back.

Years ago they were used not only for people who were unable to qualify for a conventional loan but also for timing purposes. A retiree liked the idea of selling on a contract and receiving quarterly land payments. That way their tax burden was spread out over time instead of boosting their obligation all in one year.

Overall most consumers seem to prefer the impersonal interaction of working with a commercial lender. But when a need arises, it’s nice that entrepreneurial responses crop up and fill in the gaps.

Markets and Knowledge

In theory, consumers are meant to have knowledge about the products they are comparing. This knowledge helps them evaluate not only the object or service but other features such as reliability, consistency, or quality. On straightforward goods which are frequently consumed, this maybe reasonable. McDonalds’ success is in part due to the franchise’s ability for a consistent product.

But many services, in particular, are not so easy to evaluate.

Take the example of obtaining a mortgage. There is a spectrum of providers from online folks like Rocket Mortgage, to brokers who place loans with investors, to in-house lenders at the national banks. And each of these outfits advertize slightly different pricing.

Consumers often check with a couple and select the one with the lowest fees and rates. But do they have full knowledge of what they are buying? Without understanding the process of collecting information, verifying the financial information, submitting the documentation through the underwriting process, and tackling any bumps along the way, the consumer may not be able to interview the service provider to understand if they can complete the task with the proficiency needed for their particular situation.

The front-end people who are mainly responsible for pulling customers into the process are likely to answer affirmatively about their capabilities and performance. Underwriting guidelines can be vigorous. If you need something to fill your time, have a look at HUD’s handbook on FHA loans. The logistics of the underwriting process is not the only step in the chain of events that leads to a successful home purchase closing. There are appraisers, processors, and title closers who also have a hand in making the mortgage possible.

A successful loan officer plays a supervising role over all these functions.

Real Estate in the market cycle

Professor Glenn Mueller gave an interesting PowerPoint at our company-wide meeting this morning. He monitors five different real estate types as they cycle through the business cycle. He shows the results for 54 US metro areas.

You can view the full report and an explanation of his theory here.

Trash Collection- polycentric? or No

A few days ago I wrote about how snow shoveling the public sidewalks fits well into a polycentric model. Instead of one provider of snow removal for the whole city, having each residence responsible for their own removal will best use public resources. Inevitably there are situations when residents cannot shovel, but in these events, neighbors cluster together and work out arrangements or help each other out. Using local labor saves administrative overhead of filtering the work through a bureaucracy.

What about trash removal? It feels the same. Each resident needs a service at their curbside.

There are debates across city council meetings about whether their city should take charge of trash removal or allow various sanitation services to compete for the business of each household. The former is usually desired by those who feel the extra truck traffic through the neighborhoods causes wear and tear on the roads. The latter feels that competition will keep downward pressure on pricing and allow residents to purchase the extent of service they desire.

This routine neighborhood service differs from snow removal primarily in the fact that residents can’t dispose of the garbage themselves. Nor can they assist a neighbor in the task. There is no reserve of voluntary labor tucked under the rooftops for the dispensation of Hefty bags tied at the rim. In the disposal of waste, the choices are either to purchase a private provider or take charge of it through the city offices. So a polycentric model is not useful here.

As to whether to go private or public on this one, there are benefits to both. A large city can provide many extra services such as large item removal, one-time cleanout pick-ups, that are helpful to those who don’t have means a transport for such things. Thus centralized garbage pickup with additional services is particularly beneficial in areas of a significant rental population.

Lake home price on the move

Our state is blessed with lots of lakes. They are well-liked for their recreational qualities as well as their aesthetics. For most people, the competition for a lake home in the metro makes this prospect unattainable. But there are many lakes at a few hours drive from the core MSA. And a collection of lakes attracts enough patrons of restaurants, retail and golf courses to produce lake districts.

Since many prefer to look out over a lake than a row of rooftops, it is not surprising that a surge of interest occurred following Covid. The work-from-home option gave people, at least for the moment, the option to live the rural life. As downtown real estate suffers the largest vacancy rates in years, pricing in Alexandria, Brainerd, and DL areas has surged above metro rates of increase.

This reversal of migration of more well-to-do people from the metro to the rural areas should also have implications in activating other types of community interests.

Biking can be type of travel

When you don’t have time to go on a big overseas trip you can still perfect your travel skills when planning out an enjoyable bike ride. It’s a bit of an adventure as trail maps are more vague than street maps.

Like that section of Cedar Lake Pkwy as it slides up next to Hwy 394. I’m not convinced that it is a straight easy shot into downtown. But it might be. The Midtown Greenway is an old rail bed and that one I know is all paved and free from road crossings.

The thing you don’t get off of maps like this is the elevation changes. A general sense of the mileage is helpful in deciding how far a treck you want to tackle. But the energy exertion is significantly impacted by hills and valleys.

It’s been so dry!

There are several extra benefits to biking: the views, the variety of terrain and the exercise of course!

9:33

Dusk is falling. We’re passing through that time of the year when daylight lasts the longest.

Did you learn about the movement of the planets from a mechanical model of spheres held out on wire supports? For me, it was one of those moments when the lining up of an earthly experience to a representative explanation generated a tingle of delight. The flashlight beamed its light across the spheres so one could see the crescent moon ebb and flow.

And from then on one just wants to know more, and more.

“Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy.
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or season’s quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Or say with princes if it shall go well.”

Shakespeare, Sonnet 14

Players in Polycentric models

It’s hard to remember the snow once we’re swatting away mosquitos and basking in 90-degree weather. But the white stuff will be back in less than five months’ time. Last winter was a record breaker. The season clocked in as the third snowiest on record. And this makes for disgruntled shovelers.

Property owners are responsible for clearing the sidewalks which cross their property. In a city developed before 1950, it is common for sidewalks to line every block. Homes on the corner get the double benefit of a walk on two sides. And it is an important service. Failure to clear the precipitation when it is light and fluffy can result in a coating of ice which is treacherous for pedestrians. People use the walkways to walk to school, access busses, walk their dogs, access their properties, and on it goes.

The burden was so great last season that some cities looked into taking on snow removal as a centrally provided good. Some people are disabled and are unable to do their own walks. Some people are away and not in town to chase the snow after a storm. And then some folks simply don’t pull their weight. There is a threat of a fine for these folks, but when many residents let it go, it’s difficult to keep up the policing and fining.

So why not turn over the responsibility to a central system to be sure everyone gets to walk on clear dry sidewalks? Well- the cost of it of course!

The traditional way of handling the snow is a polycentric model. One might think it is a one-on-one match between a property owner and a strip of concrete squares, but that is missing a crucial element. Not everyone is at all times available to take care of their responsibility. The polycentric model implies that groups of people band together, and either one neighbor or another will pick up the slack, and do more than their share so that all the walks are clear.

The arrangements are extensive. I can’t count how many times we’ve come home from being out of town and our drive is clear. Guys with snow blowers love to run their big machines a little bit longer when half a foot of the fluff has blanketed the neighborhood. Some people exchange the use of an unused garage space for snow removal. Whether people are motivated by safety or helping out others or have a specific deal in play, the work that is necessary to keep a micro market of snow off the sidewalks is volunteered by a cluster of neighbors.

This is free labor. To hire it all done is bound to cost everyone more money in bureaucratic overhead and extra labor. A centrally planned snow removal program lacks the voluntary social contribution the residents dedicate to the project.

There can be reasons why this type of labor is unavailable. The very first single-family home I purchased was in a neighborhood built following WWII. I was amazed at the high percentage of original owners who were still living on the block, all entering their late sixties and seventies together. These folks had the ability to pay for the snow removal, but in other areas of high concentrations of homogeneous groups, the lack of ability or resources can cut short voluntary participation.

I think analysis would easily show that shoring up these weak spots in the system would still be far more economical than pushing a program through for centralized services.

Institutional investors stepping back

I kinda hope this proves to be true here locally. Owner-occupants are more likely to do all the necessary neighborhood work to keep everyone healthy and happy.

Doing other people’s jobs

The Hennepin County prosecutor has never hidden her activism. Supported by many, there is a view that African American youth are incarcerated too quickly, and too young, which destines them to a life of crime and prison. And holding good to her beliefs, following her election last fall, her office has been extemely light handed in pursuing this group with legal action.

The thing is, the results have been problematic. My son lives down by the U an area fraught frequent and sometimes violent criminal activity. He said the best story he’s heard so far is a kid getting taken in for a mugging only to be arrested a second time, for the same crime, later in the evening. Once released on the first charge he didn’t go home and think through life decisions. The police are busy apprehending the same youth twice in the same night for the same crime.

Needless to say after hundreds of reports of cars filled with youths as young as twelve joyriding, even the most forgiving citizens are coming to the realization that no response to crime except ‘we believe in you’ and back out on the street you go, is not generating a beneficial outcome. At a news conference few days ago, the county prosecuter announced several collaborations to put a good face on further efforts.

The collaboration with law enforcement has three parts, including meetings in which agencies will come together to identify youth in need of intervention. Social workers will also be in contact with families to connect them with needed services. Families that accept services will be connected to the county’s Family Response and Stabilization Services, along with school-based and community resources, the HCAO says.

MSN

My only question is what does this have to do with the prosecutor’s office? Isn’t it their job to make a case against criminals according to the law and fulfill their obligations to the public whom they serve? The job of connecting people with social service resources and other response services in the event of mental crises etc is fulfilled through another county department. If you want to work in the social service side of public service, then work there. Be successful there. Reach out and make a difference in people’s lives in that capacity.

As of right now, the results are in. Not prosecuting criminals is encouraging a life of crime not discouraging it.

John Commons said it first

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a popular choice for ambitious students from the Twin Cities. The campus is situated on scenic Mendota Lake and the town of Madison provides a fair amount of diversion. The school has a strong reputation and graduates often go on to lucrative careers in Chicago. We toured the school not too long ago.

But my son was to be a Gopher not a Badger.

What I didn’t know at the time was that UW was the academic home to economics professor and institutional economics pioneer John R Commons for nearly thirty years. I’ve never been satisfied with the definition of of institutions as the sum of rules, laws and norms. As it turns out neither was Commons. He provides this helpful narrowing of the idea in a paper called Instituational Economics published in 1931 in the American Economic Review, Vol 21.

Process affects Price

So many times when consumers think they are getting ‘ripped off’ it’s really a matter of not understanding the process.

Chey Cab owns a limo service in the twin cities and she describes below why it is best to book a car for the whole evening to go to the Taylor Swift concert than to book a ride to the venue and a return cab home.

The consumer may think they are being taken for a ride (excuse the pun) when told they must book for the entire evening. They probably haven’t thought through the extent of the congestion when a megastar like Taylor Swift shows up in town. Nor have knowledge about other events happening that same weekend like the Pride Festival which is estimating an audience of 600,000. Outsiders often do not have full knowledge of the process.

Having been stuck downtown following the Aquatenial Target Fireworks display, I can vouch for the congestion following a major event. The traffic creeps one merge at a time.

The best way to be able to discover the ins and outs of the service you are requesting is to talk to several vendors. It usually becomes clear what is involved. And if they are free to enter and exit the market, the pricing they are quoting reflects the best options they can offer the consumer. Before hollaring greed or predatory pricing, check out the process.

Purpose vs. Power vs. Private Property

Talk about confusing sets of interests. The secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, who is of Native American heritage, was told to ‘go home,’ (presumably to DC) when she returned to her native state of New Mexico yesterday.

But her return to Chaco Culture National Historical Park on Sunday was derailed when a group of Navajo landowners blocked the road, upset with the Biden administration’s recent decision to enshrine for the next 20 years what previously had been an informal 10-mile (16-kilometer) buffer around the World Heritage site.

US News

Her ethnicity is meant to guarantee that the interests of her tribe are held in the highest regard in the nation’s capital. But it appears that social connections have taken a back seat to the power players of the political process. Those in control of her day job in DC want to favor the environmentalists with a land grab.

The landowners and Navajo leaders have said Haaland and the Biden administration ignored efforts to reach a compromise that would have established a smaller buffer to protect cultural sites while keeping intact the viability of tribal land and private Navajo-owned parcels for future development.

I thought affirmative action was meant to help minority groups by offering a figurehead to look up to. But when affirmative action advances political objectives of another sort, then its days as an interventionist strategy are most probably numbered.

The struggle over property rights is an economic story.

Navajo President Buu Nygren said in a statement issued Thursday that the weekend celebration was disappointing and disrespectful. It should have been cancelled, he said.

“The financial and economic losses that are impacting many Navajo families as a result of the secretary’s recent land withdrawal are nothing to celebrate,” Nygren said. “As leaders of the Navajo Nation, we support the Navajo allottees who oppose the withdrawal of these public lands.”

In this balancing act of heritage sites for posterity versus private property rights, the cultural argument proposed to be weighted more heavily. Yet if the true objective is property control to prohibit oil extraction, then it’s hard not to be cynical about claoking the issue in Native American garb and revisiting a sensitive part of American history to make a power play.

Policy Premisses bias the Top

Here are some premisses which don’t ring true to me.

  1. People always want the bigger job. It seems like plenty of people do not wish to take on the extra step up for a measley ten percent wage. Many workers are very happy to check-in and check-out without nagging responsibilties. Pundits always infer that these types of workers are unhappy. But maybe they are really being reflective in this observation.
  2. People would always prefer to live in ‘high productivity’ cities. Writing to you from the Midwest, I can assure you this is not the case. There are some megacities in the US, but I don’t believe the total population of the top ten cities combined surpasses ten percent of the population. That is another way of saying some significant portion of ninety percent of the population is perfectly happy where they are.
  3. Everyone wants to go to an Ivy League school. The logic here follows the two examples above. Most of the population do not even consider the Ivy’s and are making meaningful selections of varying degrees of prestige closer to home.

Those who write about the policy may want to be at the tippy top of the corporate ladder and live an expensive life in a high-buck city. And to accomplish these two things, they care deeply about their college pedigree. But they are not most of America.

This seems like an argument to seek out policy people who understand the wants, desires, and aspirations of the rst of America.

Signs of Gentrification

Josh asks.

Here are some of the best replies.

Architecturaly sensitive
Sensory sensitive
Creative and crafty
Where tech meets power

How Ray Charles got his start

In this documentary with Cint Eastwood and Ray Charles, the pianist explains how he got his start. When he was about three, he followed the sound of boogie woogie music to a local musician named Wylie Pitman playing on an upright piano at the Red Wing Cafe. Instead of telling the toddler to run and play, Wylie spent time with the young Ray and taught him bit by bit. Hear Ray Charles tell the story around min 6.

It’s hard to imagine what the world of music would have lost if Wylie Pitman had ignored the youth. As explained in the clip, the elder took time away from his own practice to nurture the talent of the youth. For nothing. It’s a miracle that the right person appeared at the right time to mentor a wayward youth.

The transaction of his time and talent isn’t something that could be predicted. It was a spontaneous response in the moment. And, as the story is told, it was tied to the level of interest the benefactor of his lessons was exhibiting. The first rule of social support is that you can’t know how much will be given until the need is revealed.

The second rule of social support is that you only need one. The whole group doesn’t need to be taxed. When the right support meets the right benefactor then the delivery of services occurs on that level. Only one person is needed to call in a crime happening on the street. Only one person is needed to make sure the kid who’s being bullied gets home from school safely. If people offer just-in-time support, then resources are used most efficiently.

It only took Wylie Pitman to step up in the moment and deliver the megastar Ray Charles to music history.

Social Contract- a cop out?

I think it was on Twitter today that someone said that using a social contract as an argument was a cop-out. But using efficiency as an argument was valid as it required an explanation of how the optimal outcome was being achieved. Somehow efficiency is tied to numbers and not norms, so it’s more difficult to spell out.

If you want to claim a social contract, though, I think you have to show who is involved in the contract and how it’s unfolding. People always talk in broad strokes- crime is up! crime is down! Sweeping statements are not very useful as within the purview of the speaker there are more then likely people who are isolated from crime even if crime is rising, and those who continue to experience crime even when a generalist can legitimately claim crime is down.

So the first hurdle in the usage of social contract as an explanation is to be able to isolate the groups held to the agreement. Who are the givers, and who are the benefactors? And besides the two to the party, there are a more general group of observers, or what I like to call the audience.

The CEO of LuluLemon recently made a show of a social contract when a handful of youths shoplifted from one of the retail stores. The benefactor from this leader’s contract of people of property were the shoplifters who faced no charges of breaking the law. The losers in this arrangement were the employees who lost their jobs as they were fulfilling the social contract they had been raised with, theft is bad and should be reported, instead of the social contract supported in a LuluLemon employee manual. The audience is the rest of us judging these interactions and evaluating how we would act should this scenario present itself.

If one is looking for efficiencies, one would have to take a closer look at the intersection of the employee’s behavior visa vie the CEO’s. If employee policy is so counter-intuitive to pre-existing social arrangements, ones that have been trained and maintained with most people since childhood, will it be efficient to expect the average worker to go against such impulses and look the other way at blatant theft? It seems there will be a brewing of backlash- or those pesky unintended consequenses.

On the other hand, if the store decides to hire a host of people who can easily ignore stealing and have no issues with criminal activity, then perhaps the social contracts between the CEO, gangster youth, and employee will be groovy. Except….if your employees feel it’s legit to operate as crooks, eventually they’ll be stealing from you themselves. And that truly can’t be very efficient.

You see, arguing optimal outcomes using social contracts requires some persuasion.

Will checks make a comeback?

I have to say I’m one of those people who still send in payments in check form via the good old USPS. I figure the fewer people who have my credit card or debit card number the better. Why not send in a paper check and use it as a receipt in with your monthly bills?

A week or so ago I ran an errand at a neighborhood hardware store in a strip mall. An elderly woman with erratic grey hair was taken off guard when the young man, still sporting a black mask, asked her to wait while he called over the manager to approve her check. Besides telling him he can’t be understood when his mouth was covered. she gave him an earful about the approval process- you see she had been using checks at the store for decades.

The manager listened patiently while she tiraded about taking her business else, then watched her take her two items and use a cane to leave the store. But didn’t she just save them 3 percent of her purchase by writing out the check with her name and address typed neatly in the top left hand corner?

I was given the choice of paying a reduced rate by my window washers if I paid with cash or check. The savings came to $7.50. In a way it’s surprising more companies don’t offer the discount. On the other hand, the small time vendors, like estate sales folks, add the extra 3% if a buyer chooses to pay by card instead of check. This holds true for property tax payments at the county as well. If you pay with a card, plan to add on the surcharge.

I use the paper drafts out of habit and reluctance to give up the paper. But it seems as soon as you think a paper mode will vanish (think bookstores) there’s a return to the good old days.

Mirror, Mirror tell me what I see

There is a scene in the fairy tale Snow White where the Queen goes to her private chambers and summons up a mystical spirit from behind her mirror and then utters this famous question: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most beautiful of all?”

Even when I was younger I thought it was odd that a mirror was turned into an object of wisdom. I suppose while some women vie for power through their beauty, so an object that reflects one’s image can be a useful tool. Women use mirrors to primp in their bedrooms, in the bathroom, in the foyer, and even in the car visors. (Seriously– how often does one have to check on their makeup!)

But now I wonder if this is a tale about two does competing for a buck but rather of the blindness we all have to ourselves and our circumstances.

The premise that most people struggle with self-perception is not unreasonable. It’s not like we are walking around like the emperor without his clothes. But that’s because we’ve used our preception of feedback from those around us to navigate more successful reponses. Clearly it is better to have honorable and trustworthy friends than flattering advisors.

Slowly, over time, people can pull away from those who want to provide the direct and reliable feedback. This can be especially true if this is delivered in the form of a reminder, that perhaps the time has come to respond with a little work in kind. It is easier to replay the hands in a slightly different fashion so as to change the score tallied up for the rubber. And the player who can lay out each players cards and reroll the game becomes inconvenient.

So people turn away and cancel those who are inconvenient to the perceptions.

A mirror is meant to bring the reality of the moment back into view. We can all imagine that we have not aged, yet creases at our brow lines are hard to ignore when they reflect back at us. Perhaps the mirror in Snow White is not a call to compare beauty but a forecasting of a change that is already in play– an advanced warning of what is to come. But try as she might, the Queen fails to suppress the natural unfolding of events.

Thank you gifts and taxes

Getting closing gifts for my customers has been pushed down the todo list for a couple of weeks now. So today was the day that I was going to make some purchases. I stopped at a corner liquor market for one client and then onto Ingebretzen’s for another who I knew would appreciate a gift with a Nordic flare.

It was just a couple of years ago that the store celebrated its hundredth year on this busy street in Minneapolis. It originates from a time when Norwegians and Swedes were the disadvantaged new immigrants, scraping by without two dimes to rub together. You wouldn’t know it from the gifts stacking the shelves at the shop now. They are abundant and exquisit.

There is an immediately identifiable flare to Scandinavian housewares. It might be the heavy dose of primary colors with an emphasis on marine blue for dishware and cherry red for accent pieces. The elves and gnomes are peeking out from all the margins as if to give the Viking miniatures their fair due. Carl Larson captured the portraits of fair-haired women in particular; you can always find a sleeve of his notecards for purchase.

A lot of people bee line straight for the deli counter. One yelp reviewer went for the “Six types of herring.  Swedish Meatball Meat.  Julekage.  Limpa Rye.  Scandinavian sausages and cheese.  Store made Lefse.  Candy, Fish, Crisp Breads, Lingonberry jam.” Another noted “I also found lingonberries in syrup, lingonberry jam, lefsa, tisanes, sweaters . . . so much more.”

I had no problem picking out a little memento and card for my client. I also knew my mother would appreciate the little lamb. After my card was run for the purchases I noticed the Uf Da pins and had to add it to my gift. A pleasant sale lady with gracious hair had been talking with me through my perusings. I asked her if I could pay the two dollars in cash for the pin. “Well, there’s tax,” she said just about spitting the words. “That tax,” again, the vehement words contrasting against the gentle woman.

As long as the talk is theoretical, anything is possible and everything is agreeable. Once the toll is in place to pay, then people’s feelings are more apparent.

Non-profit housing provider speaks the truth

In a recent article, Aeon’s Laura Russ offers insightful takeaways from this unique market on what operators face today in the Multi-Housing News, Laura Russ lays out the uncomfortable truths.

  1. Rent control works against capital improvements. “The strict rent control policy enacted in St. Paul, coupled with the eviction moratorium and the overall economic volatility that followed the post-pandemic boom, have all made it harder for Twin Cities multifamily operators to manage their properties, particularly for those active in the affordable housing arena.”
  2. Managment of affordable housing is the long haul pull, as opposed to the initial heady deal making. “I think, in general, there is an underappreciation of the management and operation of affordable housing. The fee structure incentivizes getting the deal done over the long-term success of the property as an ongoing community.”
  3. Crime in a rental community acts as a tax. “For example, security issues are a big topic at many of our properties right now. Essentially this adds a ‘tax’ onto our properties because of the increased spending required. Some local policies have made it harder for us to remove residents who have engaged in dangerous behavior which is sometimes required in order to protect the rest of our residents.”
  4. Administrative overhead caused by detailed laws takes money away from keeping property affordable. “Again, these types of policies have a lot of unintended impacts. The main one is that it is taking a lot of time and money for lawyers and accountants to understand and interpret the rules that are not well understood often even by the cities themselves. This takes away from what we would rather be doing which is producing and running housing.”

Read the whole article.

Emerging words

A friend of mine once said that once a writer puts a work out into the world, it takes on a life of its own. The words are on the pages. The pages are bound. The stiff cover boards keep them all orderly and together. But the intent of the work, how people wrap their thoughts around it, who quotes it to make what type of argument– all that shapes the work into something new.

You might say that the work is emergent. It is a becoming.

Of course, many things that are written for fleeting entertainment won’t gain significant independence. But those words that stay true, that trigger some type of response in the face of reality; those words that inspire the reader to share something they feel valuable. Those are the books which gain a following, are massaged for all their meaning and evolve into something new again.

All levels of trade

The Haj by Leon Uris is a book full of political economy and social trades. I bought it years ago from Bev’s Book Nook in town but have never gotten around to thumbing through its pages.

The author hooks you in early and the text is easily absorbed. In other words it’s a perfect long weekend read.

One caution though- you do need to tamper down an obvious bias.

Business and Social Pressures

Target is not so woke anymore. The popular retailer closed a store in the Uptown area in response to crime. Recently, the company also removed some of its LGBT garments from its stores in response to hostility from some shoppers. In both cases, the Minneapolis-based chain said its first responsibility is first to the safety of its workers. Loyalty to company first, greater society second.

Target was the first retailer to rebuild (in record time) its store on Lake St. The structure was looted and burned during the riots three years ago. Local residents disproportionately benefit from discount stores. But as the shoplifting continues and vitriolic reactions from various factions have become the norm, it seems the business is wearing thin on taking moralizing stances.

In the 1950s firms incorporated a social angle into their business. A good-paying job with benefits was designated to male employees as it was assumed that those salaries funded the needs of a family. Paid family leave wasn’t necessary as it was understood that the second adult in the family was available to care for children or aging family members- at least in theory.

A paid family leave bill just passed in MN placing the burden of family support on businesses of all sizes. This model of giving paychecks directly to workers who choose to care for family in lieu of work will have pros and cons. Instead of being part of a family unit where one person provides caregiving and the other(s) focuses on earning wages, you can ‘have it all’ as they like to tell working women.

The disadvantage to atomizing this process, of detaching it from the family unit, will be the absence of feedback loops. Through a filtering system of interaction with other group members, and a give-and-take on who gets the support when a balance of aid is achieved so it is dispensed to those who need it most. Setting up formal rules eliminates the judging and metering of volunteer care. If the benefit is there, the logic is to take it.

Businesses can and do get involved in social trade. But where they excel is at unfettered trade to promote mutual well being.

Different skills, different pay

On our walk yesterday we caught a crew doing some aerial work. A helicopter transported a worker to a spot on the power lines to install a colorful ball, presumably for visibility. Dealing with heights, leaning out of a moving aircraft, and touching power lines isn’t an everyday activity. Some people might like the adrenalin of it all, but most would agree that this job deserves bonus pay.

Activists like to paint a simple picture. There are rich people, think corporate types, who are greedy and make a bundle. Then there is a mass of inadequately, poorly treated people who don’t earn enough to pay their bills. With only two groups to consider, it’s an easy call to impose taxes on the former in order to strategically (there are incentives for e-bikes!) tranfer money to the later.

The thing is, life isn’t that simple. There are hundreds if not thousands of jobs that deserve more pay because only a few people are crazy enough to ride helicopters up to power lines. These guys still wear steel-toed shoes and most likely hang out at the same water holes as the rest of the crew. They are not greedy. They found a special talent- and thank goodness for that because we all benefit from the colorful balls which keep the lines up and running.

A simple Taxi/Uber model

Once there was a service called a taxi. For a fee, passengers could hire a ride from here to there. This was an organized commercial venture with firms and drivers and passengers arriving at an acceptable balance of profits, fares, wages, and benefits. There was a govorning role in place as well, one developed over time.

Then came the internet and individuals outside the taxi service business could offer people rides. Without the formal structure and regulation, thus fares were considerably cheaper. This was good for the consumer, especially those of modest means. This internet-based method of connecting those with cars to those who needed rides seemed like a win-win for everyone.

Then drivers (who did this for a living instead of simply being in the neighborhood) found they needed better working conditions. The conditions that were most probably in place in the taxi industry that was disrupted. Labor activists jumped in to help guide a political process. Drivers donated extra voluntary time. Paths were forged with local politicians. A bill is written and passed. The celebration that followed looked like this.

But the stark numbers reality of the push to revert back to the original model has been ignored in favor of winning. The old model is considerably more expensive to the consumer. Without a need for the internet service, Uber and Lyft claim they will leave the market. Should the drivers prefer the original taxi model, that is fine. But it is a mistake to ignore the reality of the other parties. The Governor overrode the unanimous preference of his party in order to study the matter further.

I’ve got to give the Gov credit for putting economics over politics on this one. Or did he? If the ones being hurt by the labor regulations had been higher-income folks, I’m sure he would have signed off.

Warhol’s taking from a Prince

A photographer comes out ahead in this story of copyright infringement.

Andy Warhol’s posters of Prince, some shaded purple and others orange, may have been works of art, but they infringed the copyright of the photographer who captured the original image of the musician, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

LA Times

It’s nice to see a win for photography over other forms of art. Often it feels as if taking a photo is something anybody can do. And thus it is a maiden-in-waiting to the fine arts. But capturing a framing, a look, or a feel is what differentiates a snapshot from something interesting. Warhol took advantage of Goldsmith’s perception of our famous Minnesotan.

Have a look and you be the judge:

Sooty air

Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon, or stay too long, by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into the windows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do it at least with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas, burning so sullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air deposits its witch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that you should call to every passer-by, ‘Look here!’

Bleak House- Charles Dickens

Thinking In Space

People think differently. I don’t mean they think about an issue differently. What I’m getting at is how brains navigate concepts and concerns differently.

Some people have photographic memories and can picture a page out of a book. When they want to think of a definition or the historical background on an issue- poof- the image appears to aid them. But this is not the same as a visual way of thinking. For some people, their thoughts can capture events and spaces in real-time, as they transpire. Take the skills necessary to be an air traffic controller (pre-computers), This type of mind is skilled at keeping track of moving objects in three dimensions. Pretty cool.

It’s really noticeable how differently people think if you are using a map to navigate a city. A linear thinker takes directions one turn at a time. There is no overlay of the cityscape into quadrants to have a general sense of where one should be. As long as they follow explicit directions, all is well. But improvising or getting back on track after an error is too difficult without help.

At the same time, a sense of distance and duration is simply missing. Offhand comments which imply a schedule can be met or a stop can be worked in (it’s the anything is the possible world!) can be aggravating for the minds which navigate in three dimensions. It’s better if those with a sense of direction take the wheel.

What shapes the nature of a good?

How many ways are there to determine whether an action or good is public or private?

  1. By ownership. If the good is owned by a community, like a park, then it is public. If it is owned by an individual, as a homeowner owns their home, then it is private.
  2. By its use. If the park is used by drug traffickers, and the average citizen is too afraid to use it, then the park is owned by the criminals. If an owner of a car rents it out on Turo and pockets the funds then the car is privately owned.
  3. By a moral standard. A worker has a private claim to a product their hands helped to create. It is a public good to pay parents-workers to stay home on paid leave with their infants.

Are there more?