07.01.05
Posted in Politics at 9:16 am by Craig
Heading into the long weekend, we have a special guest blogger today.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
- He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
- He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
- He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
- He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
- He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
- He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
- He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
- He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
- He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
- He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
- He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
- He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
- He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
- He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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06.23.05
Posted in Politics at 11:28 pm by Craig
The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.
Presumably, the purpose of proposing this as the 28th amendment is that it would allow Congress to pass anti-desecration laws without being restricted by the 1st amendment. Does this mean then that Congress could in theory pass a flag-protection law without regard to
any pre-existing provision of the constitution? Would penalties for flag desecration be able to be cruel and unusual? Would their enforcement require due process of law? Would the President be able to veto any such law which Congress presented to him? If Congress determined that registered Democrats were statistically more likely to burn flags, then could they enact a law to round up all the Democrats and send them to Gitmo, lest they desecrate a flag? Is there anything which couldn’t be done by Congress in the name of protecting the flag?
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06.17.05
Posted in Politics at 6:00 am by Craig
Yikes. I’m travelling this week, and so seeing a lot of CNN in airports, hotel lobbies, etc. I haven’t really watched much cable news in the last while (I saw some election day coverage in November, which I thought was all pretty bad), but other than the occasional “outrageous” clip linked by Atrios or some such source, don’t really watch national TV news. I’m frankly astounded at how bad the programming is. Terrible coverage of stuff that’s barely newsworthy, by people who have no clue about the subject matter about which they’re pontificating. It strikes me that there surely is market demand for actual real news coverage, and that a cable news channel which provided such, would quite possibly make a lot of money. You could probably buy reporting footage from the BBC, have an anchor or two who know what they’re talking about, aren’t afraid to ask people questions which go beyond the inane, and can resist the temptation to try and insult their interviewees, a cameraman or two, and bingo. Maybe do something novel like stream the whole thing online, or have video segments embedded in an RSS feed or something, mix in some reuters/AP content, and voila.
Sigh, so many startups, so little time.
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02.08.05
Posted in Politics at 9:12 pm by Craig
I’ve been rather too busy to blog for a while, which is too bad. Lots of interesting stuff to talk about, but I just haven’t put time aside to do so.
In any case, if you only read on long article this year, then
this is the one to read.
Welcome to the world in which Alberto Gonzalez is the chief law enforcement official of the United States of America.
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10.25.04
Posted in Politics at 8:21 am by Craig
How much potential economic productivity is being diverted into the election? I’m prompted to ask this question by having a young man walk up to our door Saturday in the rain. We live in a fairly rural neighborhood, where there’s quite a separation between houses. We’re at the bottom of about a mile long road which runs directly up hill and has only 20 houses on it. This young man was soliciting contributions for the DNC. At first, I thought he was maybe selling magazine subscriptions, but then realized that actually those guys are smart enough not to work our neighborhood on foot. Then it occurred to me that this guy walking miles in the rain with a clipboard collecting checks was actually only a tiny piece of the volunteer organization that’s putting itself in place for this election. True, he’s probably primarily targeting high-affluence neighborhoods with a high proportion of likely Dem donors (in fact he clearly knew what I’d given to the dems already), but when I told him a number of neighbors up the hill have Kerry/Edwards stickers on their cars, he set off to knock on their doors. Now multiply that out across the country. Then imagine all the day-of-election people both working at the polls and also working as volunteers for either party to drive people to the polls, call them, etc. Then add in the polling activity. Add in all the gifts to either party. Add in the gifts in kind. Is the choice of one candidate over the other worth the investment of resources being poured in to this thing? I think this time it more than likely is. Kerry vs Bush for 4 years will certainly have an impact of more than $1bln one way or the other on the general economy. $1bln is probably a couple of days’ ordinance for Fallujah. In fact for most people giving time or money, the impact to them will quite possibly exceed what they’re giving. It will for me for certain. If Bush wins, I’ll get back all the money I’ve given to the Dems in tax cuts.
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04.14.04
Posted in Politics at 3:40 pm by Craig
So I’ve been complaining privately a lot recently about the idiocy of expensing employee stock options through a company’s P&L. I thought I’d lay out my thoughts here for a wider audience, and see if anyone can explain to me why I’m thinking incorrectly on this.
Here’s an extract from the FASB publication on the subject (available
here):
C13. The Board reaffirmed the conclusion discussed in paragraphs 74-91 of Statement 123 that compensation cost should be recognized for employee services received in exchange for valuable equity instruments, including equity share options. That cost should be recognized as the employee services received in exchange for the instruments are used in the issuing entity’s operations. Some opponents of required recognition of compensation for equity share options assert that because an award of equity share options results in neither an outflow of assets nor the incurrence of a liability, that award should not result in a recognizable cost. However, the Board believes that an entity receives assets - employee services - in exchange for equity share options. Because an entity cannot store services, they qualify as assets only momentarily unless those services are capitalized as part of another asset (as permitted by U.S. GAAP). An entity’s use of an asset results in an expense, regardless of whether the asset is cash or another financial instrument, goods, or services.
C14. Some opponents of required cost recognition also contend that the issuance of an employee share option is a transaction directly between the recipient and the preexisting shareholders. The Board disagrees. Employees provide services to the entity - not directly to individual shareholders - as consideration for their options. Carried to its logical conclusion, that view would imply that the issuance of virtually any equity instrument for goods or services, rather than for cash or other financial instruments, should not affect the issuer’s financial statements. For example, no asset or related cost would be reported if shares of stock were issued to acquire legal or consulting services, tangible assets, or an entire business in a business combination. Moreover, it is a longestablished practice that, even if a stockholder directly pays part of an employee’s cash compensation (or other corporate expenses), the transaction and the related costs are reflected in the entity’s financial statements, together with the stockholder’s contribution to paid-in capital. To omit such costs would give a misleading picture of the entity’s financial performance.
C15. To summarize, accounting for assets received (and the related expenses when consumed) has long been fundamental to the accounting for all freestanding equity instruments except one - fixed equity share options that have no intrinsic value at the grant date and are accounted for under the requirements of Opinion 25. This Statement remedies that exception.
Ok. So this is the basic explanation from the FASB as to why they think this change should be implemented. As I understand the reasoning here, although there is no outflow of assets, nor an assumed liability when an option is issued, that because something is received
in exchange for the option grant, that grant should be expensed. I just don’t follow this logic. Let’s say a company issues an option to someone,
but does not require services in return. That is, they issue the option, but cannot be said to be receiving an asset in exchange. Did that option “cost” the company the same as an employee option grant would? Ok, what if the company issues a grant to an employee, but that employee slacks off? Same option grant to another employee who works really hard and creates a lot of value. Both options expensed the same way? In the words of Scooby Doo: “Hrrr?”
Ok, so I don’t think the FASB argument makes any sense. But beyond that, the FASB argues that this new rule will somehow
increase accounting transparency. “Hrrr?”. This rule actually serves to violate the 3 primary tenets of accounting: consistency, conservatism, and material accuracy.
- Consistency: Options are not a cash, or cash-equivalent medium. They do not in any sense affect the trading success or failure of a business. The effect of granting options on a company is to effectively dilute existing shareholders, not to reduce earnings. Having the issuance of options appear on the P&L will mean that it will be much harder to compare results for subsequent periods to each other – a quarter in which some options are granted might actually have been “better” for the company than another quarter which had a lower option-issuance “cost”, but worse trading results.
- Conservatism: accounting should not create complexity when there is no need to. Altering the P&L so that an investor has to manually “add back in” the “loss” attributable to issued options in order to evaluate the real trading performance of the company is perverse.
- Material accuracy: companies will be able to manipulate their earnings by issuing or cancelling options. This accounting manipulation essentially allows a company to depress earnings (for tax reasons, or for apparent consistency) in good years by granting options, and boost earnings in bad years by cancelling options. This can be used by companies which are private, but planning to become public in the future. Let’s say my new startup issues a huge number of cancelable options now – at super-low strike price. Fast forward 4 years to IPO time. Hmm, earnings aren’t great. I know! Let’s cancel some of those low-strike price options. Ah, much better. Now let’s get that prospectus out!
C4. Before 2002, most entities chose to continue to apply the provisions of Opinion 25 rather than to adopt the fair-value-based method to account for share-based compensation arrangements with employees. The serious financial reporting failures and allegations of misconduct by executives that came to light beginning in 2001 caused the attention of investors, regulators, members of the U.S. Congress, and the media to focus on accounting and financial reporting issues. Many of the Board’s constituents who use financial information said that the failure to recognize compensation cost for most employee share options had obscured important aspects of reported performance and impaired the transparency of financial statements.
This part also makes no sense to me – yes, the public at large, and investors, are pissed that executives were awarded huge pay packages while their companies tanked (or in the case of options, they were awarded huge pay packages while their companies continued to appear to do well). But how would expensing stock options, for example in the case of Enron, have prevented what happened, or made investors any happier? The problem at Enron was out-and-out fraud, not a lack of expensing stock options. Enron could have expensed all the stock options it wanted to, and just created more fictional revenue to make up the difference. From a historical point of view, can anyone enlighten me as to how these two issues (massive fraud vs options expensing) become co-mingled? I just don’t see the connection at all. I mean not at all at all.
So – can someone explain to me why I’m wrong and the FASB is right? I’m planning on performing the equivalent of civil disobedience on this one – I simply will not allow any business which I control to implement something that to my mind is perverse and obscures the true performance of a company from the shareholders. I don’t care how angry people are that senior executives make lots of money from stock options – that’s a fundamentally different issue from the way they are accounted for from the company’s side. If you don’t like the executive compensation plans awarded to executives by boards of directors’ compensation committees
then elect directors who won’t do that. Dont just arbitrarily and stupidly change the accounts.
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02.11.04
Posted in Politics at 7:06 am by Craig
I’ve been very, very disappointed on the whole gay marriage/civil union thing. My anger at first was towards Bush and his folks, back when I looked at this as an equal protection/civil rights issue. Then last night John Kerry was talking to me on NPR, and I realized what a complete sell out he is on this too. Here’s some quotes:
Bush (in the State of the Union): A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization. Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under Federal law as the union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states. Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people’s voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.
[
full transcript]
Then in the car last night, Kerry weighed in:
NPR: Would you support a constitutional amendment that would define a marriage as a heterosexual union?
Kerry: Well it depends entirely on the language, as to whether it permits civil union and partnership or not. I’m for civil union, I’m for partnership rights. I think what ought to condition this debate is not the term “marriage”, as much as the rights that people are afforded. Obviously under the constitution of the United States you need equal protection under the law, and I think “equal protection” means the rights that go along with it. I think the word “marriage” kind of gets in the way of the whole debate, to be honest with you, because “marriage” to many people obviously is what is sanctified by a church, it’s sacremental. Or by a synagogue, or by a mosque, or by whatever religious connotation it has, and clearly there’s a separation of church and state here.
NPR: And why would you support civil union, or what you call “partnership rights”, and not gay marriage then?
Kerry: Because I think marriage is a separate institution. Marriage is I think, under the church, between a man and a woman, and I think there’s a separate meaning to it, that’s why.
NPR: Even for marriages that aren’t conducted in a house of worship?
Kerry: Correct, even for those that aren’t, there’s still two meanings. I mean the State picked up the concept afterwards, I mean it’s a late comer to the State. You know for those who have separate beliefs, there ought to be a way here to be able to deal with it. But what you call something is not that critical.
NPR: You were one of 14 senators who voted against the Defense of Marriage act back in 1996 that was signed by President Clinton.
Kerry: Correct
NPR: Why did you oppose that bill?
Kerry: I opposed it because I thought it was gay-bashing on the floor of the United States Senate. It was one of those examples of ideological Republicans trying to drive wedges into the electorate of America, and I objected to the Senate being used for that, even as I still said at the time that I don’t personally support “marriage” [presumably of gays, not marriage generally - ed.], as we understand it in the context of religion.
[Transcribed by me from the
NPR audio]
Ok, those were chunky quotes. Here’s the meat of both: both men think that “Separation of Church and State” means that the State should dictate religion to everyone, because to not do so would cause people who believe in certain things to get upset. “Our Nation must defend the sanctity of
anything” or “
anything is under the church”… I think the thing which pisses me off most is that nobody seems to be addressing the issue that this isn’t about gay rights — it’s about the right to practice and believe whatever you want. It’s about the state interfering in one of the most fundamental and private aspects of anyone’s life: religion and belief. It’s not, as John Kerry would like to hope, issue of the 14th Amendment about equal protection under the law — civil unions can indeed provide equal protection under the law if the state were to just search-and-replace all current law to put “civil union” in instead of “marriage” everywhere (thereby completely removing “marriage” from the realm of law), it’s a 1st Amendment issue — they want to amend “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” to actually allow Congress to restrict our religious freedoms on this issue, codifying the “sanctity” of marriage. What pisses me off only slightly less than the dishonesty and pandering here is that Howard Dean doesn’t have the cojones to stand in the right place on this. Actually, I haven’t read what he’s said about the MA court decision which declared his previous stand (civil union, not marriage) unconstitutional — and I bet he’d be against a constititutional amendment on this, but I also bet he’s somewhere in the wishy-washy pander-to-the-christians crowd.
In this whole thing, the one person I can almost admire is the NPR interviewer who wanted to know whether it’d still be OK under the state’s enforced religious doctrine to be able to call oneself married, if the ceremony wasn’t performed in a house of worship — and I guess by extension for those of us who are atheists. So most likely the gestapo won’t be at my door if this thing ever does come to pass, ready to take away Evan because Erica and I don’t really believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that our “marriage” is somehow intimately connected with pleasing him and his dad, and so that this not-founded-on-religion marriage is therefore somehow void.
Then this evening, I heard NPR again, this time talking about
this. Not sure how to feel on this latest data point — Newsom’s 100% right, but he’s such a slimeball that I just somehow can’t bring myself to believe that he’s not just doing this to draw national attention, and thereby perhaps launch his political career onto a bigger stage.
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12.17.03
Posted in Politics at 1:28 am by Craig
Note to self: while in the UK this week, must look up the odds on Howard Dean winning the election in 2004. I bet they rate him with much longer odds than he should be carrying, since I bet anything the odds-makers can’t predict his success any better than the pollsters who I think *still* don’t have a real handle on the power of the organization Dean’s building up. Anyway, might be a nice way to make a few grand in the next year…
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11.09.03
Posted in Politics at 3:30 am by Craig
Surfing the blogs of folks whose political compass scores are close to mine, I ran across
this, which was a great expression of how I’ve been thinking about the issue as well. It doesn’t go into the other thing I’ve been feeling about the
recent economic news, where I feel just a little bit odd about such extremely high (unexpectedly high according to all the analysts who predict these things) growth numbers. How can the numbers be rising so fast (productivity up 8.1% in the quarter, GDP growth rate at a ridiculous
7.2%). Well at least the market
doesn’t believe it either. At the back of my mind, I keep having this nagging suspicion that the Bush administration decided to redefine what “job” means when doing their study or something. Anyway, I still feel confident that Dean will be better able to explain to the voting public what the looming baby boomer retirement means in the face of unprecedented deficit spending than did Al “lockbox” Gore.
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Posted in Politics at 2:12 am by Craig
So it
turns out I’m quite the centrist:
Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -1.38
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.03
Not sure why the left/libertarian directions are negative — I suppose probably because lefty libertarians don’t object to being protrayed as negatives as much as righty-authoritarians. In fact, lefty-libertarians probably relish being able to point out that the system is out to get them, where the righty-authoritarians would just jail/execute anyone who portrayed them as negative…
Ah yes, should point to
this too, so y’all can find your belief buddies out there. Of course,
Justin is the anarcho-communist we all knew him to be.
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