Politics

The process to register a used boat in Arkansas borders on the ridiculous. We paid $50 hard currency to the state to get through the process. The cost to process the transaction on their side was about $23 assuming the clerk taking half an hour with our transaction made $40,000 per year. The cost to me, assuming I make $250 an hour (which is about the rate of a cheap hooker), cost me $625 since it was a two and a half hour ordeal.

That makes the total net cost to register a 1999 boat equal to $598. That is STUPID my friends. And what did they get from all that? They now have a file that says the clerk looked at the bill of sale, the old title,  proof of insurance, and a photo of the hull identification number. It screams to be modernized and automated. There are several glaring problems.

• They have ancient computers that are not connected to the databases they need.
• They walk back and forth across the office gathering this print out, that form, or other materials.
• The need better software programs designed to be smarter at filling in forms.
• They need to push it out so citizens do the work online and charge more for those who walk in for “special service” by the clerks.

It reminds me of stories from my friends in third world countries who told me that you had to take a day off to register your TVs. I think it is time to write the elected reprentatives and the appointed bureaucrats. Hated it!

It is a conflict that cannot end well.  Israel claims they have a right to occupy the land they were deeded and the land they captured as a historical birthright. The Palestinians and surrounding Arabs claim Israel has an illegal possession of the lands that rightfully belong to them. Combine those two opposing views and a massive amount of funding from the U.S. and you have the makings for a real nasty and prolonged scuffle.

Any hope of looking at this objectively requires a quick look at how we got here. Here is a timeline of the key historical events that brought us to where we are today.

1. During the bronze age around 11th century BC, when the strongest countries were Egypt and Mesopotamia, with Egypt playing the role of a superpower, the Kingdom of Israel established rule over the region.
2. During the 7th century BC during the Muslim conquests, the land of Israel was taken and fell under control of varied rulers including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Sassanians, and Byzantines.
3. After 610 AD the Jews revolted and with the invading Persians recaptured Jerusalem.
4. In 628 AD they were kicked out again by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius.
5. For the next six hundred years control of the area transferred between various conquering countries.

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Eisenstein said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  The United States has been doing pretty much that for the past 50 years when it comes to the drug trade.  The government’s policy has been to (stated in big general terms) stop the supply and jail or fine anyone they catch with drugs.  Despite those efforts the drug trade has thrived.

According to the White House, the United States budget for the federal portion of efforts to combat drugs and drug use was $15.0 billion for 2010.  Less than 25% of that was budgeted for drug treatment.  The rest was for intervention, law enforcement, etc at the federal level.  And that doesn’t include all the costs associated with jailing those convicted of possessing or selling drugs.

This can be easily considered a full employment act for law enforcement, criminals in the drug trade, and lawyers who represent them.  As of 2007, the last year reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), there were more than 2.4 million people arrested for drug related crimes.  Approximately 75% or 1.8 million of those people were prosecuted.  These prosecutions for drug related offenses yielded a conviction rate of about 96% as of the BJS 2006 study.  This equates to approximately 1.7 million people convicted of drug related crimes.  Of those convicted, an estimated 93% or 1.6 million are sentenced to prison. The average prison sentence was 87.2 months or 7.3 years.  With the average annual cost per prisoner at approximately  $31,000 (using 2006 data) this equates to $49.6 billion per year spent on prisons for drug related crimes.

The above figures ignore the costs of prosecuting these cases through the courts, costs of detaining them in jail prior to trial, the cost of probation officers, as well as state and local police law enforcement costs.  Further, it ignores the lost productivity of the 1.6 million citizens locked up for an average of 7.2 years.  Even so, the combined cost of the selected portions identified in the preceding paragraph amount to $64.6 billion.

As a comparator:

• $7.6 billion: The Army Corps of Engineers budget to protect us from floods
• $2.7 billion: The FDA budget to keep our drugs pure and clean
• $12.0 billion: The FAA budget to keep our airways safe
• $39.7 billion: The Federal Highway Administration to keep our trasportation infrastructure sound

It’s all a matter of priorities don’t you think?  Are ours where they should be?

It is easy to create your own underground economy and all that entails.  Here are the five easy steps to make it happen.

1. Find a product that is enjoyable, creates euphoria, possibly addictive, that is used by a fairly large population base of mostly non-voting people who trust things will always work out when the government is taking care of them.  Good examples include alcohol, cigarettes, narcotics, or mild psychoactive compounds.
2. Organize a group of control oriented and voting citizens into a consolidated and focused cause to outlaw the sale, use, and possession of the product selected above.  Many businesses and entrepreneurial people will also back this cause as soon as they see the economic possibilities if the cause is successful.
3. Pass laws making it criminal to possess, sell, or use the selected product.  The penalties should be rather moderate at first, and then be ramped up over time as people begin to disregard the risk of getting arrested and convicted.  Encourage the lawmakers to capitalize on the strengthening of legal penalties as a strike for the moral good and welfare of the entire nation.
4. Focus a significant portion of the nations resources on the arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of people who violate the laws outlawing the selected product.  The taxpaying public will generally feel proud to fund the attack on the offending product.  Lawyers, police, and other government officials associated with the courts and prison system will firmly support the process and should be treated as a strong support base.
5. Add continual legal pressure on the individuals and other targets that are easy to catch.  This will highlight to the public that you are serious about the subject.  In addition it will promote and reward organization of the groups involved in the importation, distribution and sale of the selected product.

If you have followed these steps successfully, then you will have created an entire underground economy.  Literally billions of dollars will have left the tax base and been redistributed to portions of the economy that seek to evade detection.  In addition you will have created an entire class of workers who now rely on the product remaining illegal.  These include local police, federal law enforcement, lawyers, criminal justice system employees, as well as probation officers, social workers, etc.

Simple really, isn’t it.