Pathological Altruism, Enabling and Codependency

James Taranto's more-or-less daily column in the WSJ is one of my favorites, so it was nice to see a theme I've espoused before echoed in his latest offering. To wit, I wrote this entry back in 2008...

http://dontcomeinhere.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-big-surprise-bailout-of-freddie-and.html

Congress and the Administration have teamed up to cover the losses of these mortgage behemoths. They essentially took them over as government operations, kinda like Hugo Chavez did for many industries in Venezuela.
Now, between the three of them (Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie), US taxpayers are on the hook for about half of the existing $12T in mortgage debt.
...
The student loan industry is a mirror image of the mortgage industry and is likely to face a similar explosion. Government creates a perverse incentive (usually in the name of diversity) to loan money to people who cannot pay it back. As a government supported program, private lenders are willing to take more and more risk, pocketing the profits and turning to the Government to cover to losses....
Our Government is a classic enabler and we are all codependent. An enabler is a person who by their actions make it easier for an addict to continue their self-destructive behavior by rescuing the addict. The codependent party exhibits behavior that controls, makes excuses for, pities, and takes other actions to perpetuate the obviously needy party's condition, because of their desire to be needed and fear of doing anything that would change the relationship.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324688404578545523824389986.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

Oakley defines pathological altruism as "altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm." A crucial qualification is that while the altruistic actor fails to anticipate the harm, "an external observer would conclude [that it] was reasonably foreseeable." Thus, she explains, if you offer to help a friend move, then accidentally break an expensive item, your altruism probably isn't pathological; whereas if your brother is addicted to painkillers and you help him obtain them, it is. 

As the latter example suggests, the idea of "codependency" is a subset of pathological altruism. "Feelings of empathic caring . . . appear to lie at the core of . . . codependent behavior," Oakley notes. People in codependent relationships genuinely care for each other, but that empathy leads them to do destructive things.
Ostensibly well-meaning governmental policy promoted home ownership, a beneficial goal that stabilizes families and communities. The government-sponsored enterprises Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae allowed less-than-qualified individuals to receive housing loans and encouraged more-qualified borrowers to overextend themselves. Typical risk–reward considerations were marginalized because of implicit government support. The government used these agencies to promote social goals without acknowledging the risk or cost. When economic conditions faltered, many lost their homes or found themselves with properties worth far less than they originally had paid. Government policy then shifted . . . the cost of this "altruism" to the public, to pay off the too-big-to-fail banks then holding securitized subprime loans. . . . Altruistic intentions played a critical role in the development and unfolding of the housing bubble in the United States. 

The same is true of the higher-education bubble. As we've argued, college degrees became increasingly necessary for entry-level professional jobs as the result of a well-intentioned Supreme Court decision that restricted employers from using IQ tests because of their "disparate impact" on minorities.

 

Reagan Quote is Prophetic

In a letter to the editor in WSJ, someone rendered this Reagan quote.

Ronald Reagan warned of the strategy that Ms. Noonan describes in a speech he gave on Oct. 14, 1969, at a fundraiser for Eisenhower College.

Then-California Gov. Reagan said: "We are approaching the end of our second century. It has been pointed out that the days of democracy are numbered once the belly takes command of the head. When the less affluent feel the urge to break a commandment and begin to covet that which their more affluent neighbors possess, they are tempted to use their votes to obtain instant satisfaction. Then equal opportunity at the starting line becomes the extended guarantee of at least a tie at the finish of the race. Under the euphemism 'the greatest good for the greatest number,' we destroy a system which has accomplished just that and move toward the managed economy which strangles freedom and mortgages generations yet to come."

Back in '69 he probably wasn't senile yet (Alzheimer's), and this comment was simply prophetic.

Welfare $$ > Minimum Wage

Want to know why unemployment and foodstamp use remains at high levels (foodstamps is all-time high)?

http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/welfare-can-pay-more-than-that-entry-level-job-20130820

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/02/on-labor-day-2013-welfare-pays-more-than-minimum-wage-work-in-35-states/

"Not only do government-assistance programs for the unemployed pay more than minimum wage in 35 states, but they also pay more than a $15-an-hour job, according to the report. Hawaii has the "most generous benefit package," following by the District of Columbia and Massachusetts.

"In 11 states, these programs pay more annually than the average teacher after his or her first year on the job. In 39 states, it pays more than a starting salary of a secretary. And the comparisons continue.

In total, the federal government spends $668.2 billion on these programs annually, while states give out another $284 billion, the report finds. 

“The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work,” Tanner and Hughes write in their new paper. “Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit,” which offers extra subsidies to low-income workers who take work. “In 13 states [welfare] pays more than $15 per hour.”

"Tanner and Hughes award the national welfare championship to Hawaii, which offers $60,590 in annual welfare benefits, once you account for the fact that welfare benefits are tax-free to the recipient, compared to work-related wages. That’s the equivalent of $29.13 an hour. Rounding out the top five were D.C. ($50,820 per year and $24.43 an hour), Massachusetts ($50,540 and $24.30), Connecticut ($44,370 and $21.33), and New York ($43,700 and $21.01).

And the kicker:

"welfare benefits are entirely tax-free.

Obama Administration Abuses of Power

After Tea Party IRS scandal, etc. there may be a reason for that one too. See Investor's Business Daily's take...perhaps this was another take of Obama administration using its muscle to silence opposition...

On Aug. 24, 2011, federal agents executed four search warrants on Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. One of the top makers of acoustic and electric guitars, including the iconic Les Paul introduced in 1952, Gibson was accused of using wood illegally obtained in violation of the century-old Lacey Act, which outlaws trafficking in flora and fauna the harvesting of which had broken foreign laws.

Interestingly, one of Gibson's leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Co. According to C.F. Martin's catalog, several of their guitars contain "East Indian Rosewood," which is the exact same wood in at least 10 of Gibson's guitars. So why were they not also raided and their inventory of foreign wood seized?

Grossly underreported at the time was the fact that Gibson's chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, contributed to Republican politicians. Recent donations have included $2,000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and $1,500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

By contrast, Chris Martin IV, the Martin & Co. CEO, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee over the past couple of election cycles.

"We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted," Juszkiewicz said at the time, adding the matter "could have been addressed with a simple contact (from) a caring human being representing the government. Instead, the government used violent and hostile means."

That includes what Gibson described as "two hostile raids on its factories by agents carrying weapons and attired in SWAT gear where employees were forced out of the premises, production was shut down, goods were seized as contraband and threats were made that would have forced the business to close."

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/052313-657569-gibson-guitar-raid-like-tea-party-intimidation.htm#ixzz2eKU9MF6G 

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Daily Kos Cognitive Dissonance

Recall (ha) that  55 Colorado sheriffs filed to overturn new gun laws in Colorado and that there are some recall elections coming up.

From email today:

"This is it, Mike. Tuesday is election day in the NRA recalls of two Colorado Democrats and both races are neck-and-neck. Can you chip in $3 to Democrats John Morse and Angela Giron, the two Democrats targeted by the NRA, to help the get out the vote in these final two days?

The NRA pushed for these recalls. They flooded these races with big money attack ads, kicking in $350,000 according to their last spending report. They said that winning in Colorado would cause a “wave of fear” to wash across state legislatures nationwide—paralyzing any new gun laws at the state level.

Oh, the money the evil NRA is using to buy this election, the horror. The unfairness of it all. The NRA "floods" the race with "big money attack ads". Spends $350K! 

But then something amazing happened. The Daily Kos community stepped up and, with the help of 12,906 contributors nationwide, we’ve almost matched the NRA dollar-for-dollar in these races.

 

Is the Daily Kos not doing *exactly* what the NRA is doing? Spending big money and flooding the races--"dollar-for-dollar"? Outsiders (not Coloradans) driving the money in the races? Actually, it's much worse:

Anti-recall groups have raised $3.1 million while pro-recall groups have raised $266,231. These numbers do not include non-profits that have raised and spent money in the recalls but do not have to disclose their contributions. [http://gazette.com/interactive-map-who-donated-to-the-colorado-recall-election/article/1505839]

It's very interesting to me that 

Democrats are leading three-to-one in the early voting period, but election day turnout is expected to be anemic and both campaigns are getting ready to make their final get out the vote expenditures. Simply put, these elections could come down to just a few votes on either side.

I sincerely hope that the early-voting ballots (essentially absentee mail-in votes) are thoroughly vetted. I have little doubt that these mail-on votes tilting to Democrats represents a huge potential for fraud. The Kos basically says as much when they note that once "real" voting starts, their margins are likely to be chopped down to nothing (harder to create fraudulent votes in the voting booth than in the mail). Already fraud reports are being denied by the Clerk in one district, while Democrats are papering local college campuses to get students who just arrived to use their same-day voter registration to vote. 

El Paso County Commissioner Peggy Littleton took issue with Colorado College students who she said were dropping off 10 ballots at a time last week at early voting centers.

"Initially, it concerned me because they were bringing in several ballots for each person," said Littleton, who confronted the students about it.

But under the law, a person is allowed to drop off up to 10 ballots.

[http://gazette.com/county-clerk-discounts-voter-fraud-allegations-in-colorado-recall/article/1505965]