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The purposes, methods, problems, and benefits of regulation, including unintended consequences

Blog 20. Citizens United: more dangerous than climate change

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Sophisticated bribery?

In Blog 16 I described the money feedback loop, in which industrial profits that are invested to influence government form a positive feedback loop, enabling even more profits with which to purchase more of government. I called this a sophisticated bribery, corruption. The Citizens United court case opened the gates for a new flood of this monetary feedback. Many people have raised their opposition, but I find no journalists who have identified the underlying amplifier-the positive feedback that leads to destruction.

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Blog 19. Making Ideology Conscious

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Ideology = ideas

Ideology is the body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual person, group, or culture.  Laws are based in ideology.  A law tells what must be done or must not be done, how or how not to do it.  A law is intended to restrict or to promote a situation.  That situation reflects somebody’s ideal, even if it is a tax break for a particular party, money for education, or a prohibition of a private sexual act.  Therefore, all laws are based in prejudice of some form, a pre-judgement of what’s best and what’s worst for somebody.  Continue reading →

Blog 18. Social Anxiety Rooted in Inequality?

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Angst

In talking with people-including conservatives, liberals, the young adults, and especially the retirees-I detect an underlying tension, an angst, as though something is generally wrong, the world is decaying despite the visible affluence without a particular ill symptom or dissatisfaction. What’s going on? Continue reading →

Blog 15. The B Team Has Plan B for Profits, People, and the Earth

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Frustrated by change?

As Blog 1 discussed, society is changing faster every year, with the rate of change driven by the accumulation of prior changes.  My frustrated colleagues issue complaints like this:

  • The print and broadcast news media are becoming slanted because they are controlled by a few companies with political agendas.
  • Commercial TV now fills 30% of its time with advertising.
  • The news is no longer investigative journalism, but panders to spectacular events and personality displays.
  • Politicians focus on making the other side look bad rather than solving problems.
  • Blame and fear instead of facts and analysis recently dominate government.
  • CEOs make tens of millions while outsourcing jobs.
  • As soon as they are elected, congressmen invest half their time in fund-raising and politicking for the next election.
  • Big businesses like oil and corporate farming get subsidies.

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Blog 13. Models and modeling

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What’s modeling?

A model is an abstraction, a physical abstraction of an object or a conceptual abstraction of a situation.  An architect might use a cardboard physical model to illustrate a proposed building.  Conceptual models can represent complex systems like population dynamics, economics, or schooling fish.  By “complex systems” I mean the things described in Blog 2 and Blog 3, situations with many independent agents governed by nonlinear rules of interaction among the agents and their surroundings.  A conceptual model often takes the form of a set of equations with which the system can be simulated by computer, thereby becoming a “computer model.”  Note I said simulated by computer, not solved by computer.   Continue reading →

Blog 12. Why a violent America?

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 In Blog 4 I asked whether this country is governed by reality or by ideology.  I used the Iraq wars, banking, and gun violence as examples.   That example of gun violence raises a larger question.

 Big Question:

Does the continuing public debate on guns overlook violence itself as an underlying cultural characteristic, an unwritten rule of interaction in a complex  social system? Continue reading →

Blog 10. Economics and Carrots and Social Security

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Political arguments.

Political arguments whirl regarding the solvency of Social Security, the enduring recession, the inability of congress to pass a budget, and the monetary loans intended to postpone the collapse of Spain and Greece.  The arguments don’t address the sisgnificant question.  In the absence of war or pestilence, why do economic systems collapse even though the physical methods to produce food, clothing, and shelter exist unchanged?

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