Go On, Take the Money and Run

Almost three years later, I along with tens of thousands of Americans have now received back the money we had on deposit with FullTilt.com. Collectively we had about $80 million that we were using to play online poker. Suddenly on April 15th, 2011 (Black Friday) those funds were no longer available and the website and computer programs used to play poker and transact into and out of player accounts were shut down by our friends in the U.S. Federal Government. Of course, it was for our own good . . . Wish you'd stop bein' so good to me, Cap'n.

It is my understanding that playing real-money online poker has never been illegal--not before passage of the UIGEA, not between its passage then enforcement and the actions taken on Black Friday, and not after including when the DOJ said, "Oops, my bad!"

But my understanding does not matter here. Let us not have a failure to communicate when we say, "Consenting adults playing poker with their own money SHOULD NEVER BE ILLEGAL!" Alas, we do not live in a world of free markets and free minds. And so when the Attorney General of NY took action on Black Friday, he pushed online poker from the shadows and fully into the black market. Throughout this entire affair online poker has always been available to U.S. players. But as the government took a firmer hardline stance against it, the providers (Party Poker who abruptly exited the U.S. market in 2006, FullTilt, PokerStars, Bodog/Bovada, et al.) and facilitators (various third-party money transfer services) some of whom remained in the market became less transparent and less trustworthy. However, FullTilt never failed to fulfill any withdrawal requests I made including one made a few weeks before Black Friday. It remains unclear how at risk player funds were before government action versus how government action created a liquidity risk.

The fight goes on. There is strong, widespread support for poker including lobbying by the aforementioned via link Poker Players Alliance (PPA). And there is the fledgling coalition against it led by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. No fear mongering is beyond the pale for Sheldon's group--"Online gambling funds terrorists!" "It's going to target the elderly and college-aged children, CHILDREN!"

This recent NPR piece shows where the trend is going along with the position the prohibitions are staking. From the story, Sheldon states, "I'm morally against it and I think it will kill the entire industry." Sorry Sheldon, you can't be both the Baptist and the Bootlegger at the same time. Framing it as a moral stand is transparently pathetic. But at least that would be an argument, begging the question that government should enforce your morality positions. That it threatens your business model is never an argument against innovation or for prohibition.

And so we grind on.

Highly linkable

Gun rights are dead. Long live gun rights! Caplan offers some great insight into the Briggs-Tabarrok Effect, a study which shows that gun access doesn't lead to more violence but does lead to more suicide. The points Caplan makes are right in line with the concept that magnitude matters.

As you sit down for Thanksgiving dinner this week and Uncle Fred begins ranting about how, "The dollar has lost 97% of its value! When I was your age, I was older!You're gonna carve the turkey with that? That's not a knife; this is a knife..." You can confidently dispute at least part of his claims.

The government picking winners and losers wouldn't be quite as infuriating if it came at a decent cost.

Landsburg makes a great case for the magnitude of tragedies that happened ~50 years ago today. And Boudreaux supports the argument thoroughly.

"Failure is always an option." -- A great point among many made in this post. (HT: Russ Roberts)

Instead of a carbon tax, how about a carbon subsidy? That is not the point of this post; rather the point is don't be so presumably sure about the sign attached to the externality.

Highly linkable

The more I read about pirates the less I think the Jack Sparrow saga is based on true events. (HT: Tyler Cowen)

What do you mean the cost of health care is going up?!?

But surely there aren't simple, compromise solutions that while they may not be first best, are second best and far and away better than the Obamamess?

Finally, here is a great summary of what market "efficiency" is really all about. One of many money quotes:

Efficiency implies that professional managers should do no better than monkeys with darts. This prediction too bears out in the data. It too could have come out the other way. It should have come out the other way! In any other field of human endeavor, seasoned professionals systematically outperform amateurs.

Highly linkable

As politicians seemingly fiddle as we begin to dance on the ceiling, it is important to realize it is going to be okay. This actually is business as usual--it is just not usually so obviously unproductive. Wasting resources (through an unfettered process of spending money) apparently looks to the media and much of the public as productive progress. It is not. Arguing about the terms under which the money spending process will continue apparently does not look as productive. It is not that different.

Hey, guy who sells ethanol. Is it a good idea to create and foster a monopolistic environment in which you can operate?

Ethanol guy: "Yes!"

Everybody else: "Hell no, are you kidding!?!"

Casey Mulligan makes a strong case about just how high and damaging tax rates are today including as a result of Obamacare. Grumpy says he may be underestimating how bad it is.

Here is the long (and excellent) and the short on why Fama was an excellent choice to share the Noble Memorial Prize in Economics as announced today. Shiller and Hansen are also fine choices in my opinion. It is just that I believe Fama casts a big longer and a bit stronger shadow.

Rule of democracy: politicians don't lead, they follow.

I've thought about this idea for some time, and I continue to see examples of it. It isn't original to me except maybe to the extent I find it nearly ubiquitous.

I believe a rule of democracy is that politicians do not tend to lead but rather tend to follow the common view. This is true in a general sense and in most specific instances. On the surface it shouldn't be surprising, after all democracy is should give rise to this, and it is unclear if in aggregate it is a feature or a bug. I believe it is a bug on net, but only slightly, and I assign low confidence to this view. Say what you will about the results of totalitarianism, at least it is an ethos of leadership.

The most recent example I found was this one from Todd Zywicki of the Volokh Conspiracy. It the piece he is pointing out that traffic fatalities were falling for a steady and long period before the formal introduction of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 1970. His discussion is a bit richer than just that as he considers the merits of liability law and regulation versus market forces. Here is the graph that caught my eye (original source):

A similar graph can be plotted for nearly every regulatory agency. The one above reminded me of one I saw back in college, which led me to get out my old Economics of Regulation and Antitrust textbook. In that example workplace safety is shown to be steadily declining prior to and after the creation of OSHA.

I think Robin Hansen would be in agreement with my view--"Politics isn't about policy".

The reason I think this is a net bug is that government isn't well suited for many of the tasks it takes on. The incentives are bad, perverse, or at best non existent. Government is highly subject to regulatory capture. Government's one-size-fits-all approach, which is a natural and good product from equality before the law, is antithetical to evolutionary adaptation.

The reason I think this is only a slight net bug is that what we see generally is just a codification of the mores and demands society otherwise possesses. Hence, my libertarian problems with the 1964 Civil Rights Act with its limitations on freedom of association are mitigated by the virtues the law sought to create and the fact that society was moving that way anyhow. Government then just becomes a clumsy way to achieve what we are otherwise moving toward.

I'm sure I'll have more examples and more thoughts on this. Suffice it for now to summarize that while regulatory approaches to problems are suboptimal solutions (at best second-best if not third-best approaches) they are in fact more solution than new problem. But of course when opportunity cost exceeds benefit at the margin even slightly, the makings for compound disaster are created.

Elizabeth Warren suggested what?

A $22 per hour minimum wage might be reasonable.


Here is a telling passage from the full article on Huffington Post:

"If we started in 1960 and we said that as productivity goes up, that is as workers are producing more, then the minimum wage is going to go up the same. And if that were the case then the minimum wage today would be about $22 an hour," she said, speaking to Dr. Arindrajit Dube, a University of Massachusetts Amherst professor who has studied the economic impacts of minimum wage. "So my question is Mr. Dube, with a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, what happened to the other $14.75? It sure didn't go to the worker."

It seems she basically believes that employers wouldn't pay workers without people like her making them. Now that is dumb. She also severely confuses average worker productivity with marginal worker productivity. Claiming that the minimum-wage worker in 1960 grown at the rate of productivity growth is the equivalent to the minimum-wage worker in 2013 is 1 + 2 = 7. That is dumber. Has nothing else changed since 1960? Job descriptions, labor pools, employer compliance with regulations, et al. all the same? Are we really sure the worker who should be earning the MINIMUM wage today is equal to the worker in 1960 who should have been earning the MINIMUM wage plus the AVERAGE growth in worker productivity?

Think about this simplified thought experiment that ignores A LOT of other changes: A grill cook with little capital equipment at a fast-food burger joint in 1960 can produce 200 burgers per hour. A grill cook with lots of capital equipment at a fast-food burger joint in 2013 can produce 500 burgers per hour. Should the worker in 2013 be paid a full 2.5x more than the worker in 1960, or should the guy who bought the capital equipment be paid something, which eats into the 2.5x for the worker?

A TBTF TARP exchange

Over the past two weeks I've been having an on-going conversation with a colleague at work debating the virtue of TARP back in the fall of 2008. While the colleague agrees with me on virtually all points related to the problems with Too Big Too Fail (TBTF), the government's role in creating the financial crisis, the problems with the responses, etc., he disagrees that TARP could/should have been avoided. He tends to see it as TARP or catastrophe  Because I thought it was interesting, I've included here some of our exchange as conducted over email. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent.

From me:

I see the case against TARP as follows:

•  The common pro-TARP narrative is basically fiction.

• We were not at the edge of doom (at least there is next to no evidence for this view)

• It was not approved as originally sold nor implemented as approved

• TARP rewarded through bailout those who had made very poor economic decisions.

• TARP did not and could not ease credit conditions nor bring liquidity to the system. That responsibility was The Fed’s and if they had done their job, the recession would have been a bump rather than a crater, and the financial crisis would have been short lived if nonexistent. The financial crisis was 80% an effect but only 20% a cause.

• TARP was an avoidable mistake in that there was ample time to come up with alternative solutions even if we assume the basic premises supporting TARP’s passage.

• There were weeks before the first TARP bill and between the initial failure and eventual passage.

• There were alternative ideas and other methods to buy time such as suspension of mark-to-market accounting, bankruptcy options including “speed bankruptcy” whereby equity is wiped out and creditors become the new equity holders, et al.

His response (in red):

I see the case against TARP as follows:

•  The common pro-TARP narrative is basically fiction. DISAGREE

• We were not at the edge of doom (at least there is next to no evidence for this view)  DISAGREE (DEPENDS WHAT DOOM MEANS)

• It was not approved as originally sold nor implemented as approved  AGREE

• TARP rewarded through bailout those who had made very poor economic decisions.  AGREE

• TARP did not and could not ease credit conditions nor bring liquidity to the system. That responsibility was The Fed’s and if they had done their job, the recession would have been a bump rather than a crater, and the financial crisis would have been short lived if nonexistent. The financial crisis was 80% an effect but only 20% a cause.  DISAGREE WITH THE FIRST SENTENCE (AT LEAST THE FIRST PART), AGREE WITH THE SECOND SENTENCE AND UNSURE AS TO THE THIRD.

• TARP was an avoidable mistake in that there was ample time to come up with alternative solutions even if we assume the basic premises supporting TARP’s passage. AGREE

• There were weeks before the first TARP bill and between the initial failure and eventual passage.  

• There were alternative ideas and other methods to buy time such as suspension of mark-to-market accounting, bankruptcy options including “speed bankruptcy” whereby equity is wiped out and creditors become the new equity holders, et al.

So we’re in agreement, then, to separate investment banking from “traditional” banking....

My response:

I think you have to separate “doom” for the big, problem banks and “doom” for us all. They are and were not the same.

That applies as well to the credit easing part. Did it ease credit between the problem banks (banks as a broad term where financial institution is more appropriate)? Possibly this was helped by TARP, but even that is debatable. It is not clear that TARP made anyone more willing to lend to those bad banks.

Are you unsure of my 80/20 probabilities or unsure about what I mean in general. I believe the monetary contraction beginning in 2007 created the financial crisis largely. That is what I mean by 80/20 effect/cause. I am not firmly committed to exactly 80/20 . . . I know you know that.

I see little to no help in separating “investment” and “traditional” banking. If any financial institution gets into trouble, we did and will bail them out. If you can wall them off and credibly commit that we will only bailout the banks that fit a specific description (maybe only those who qualify for and pay into the FDIC), then maybe I could come around. But that is a second-best solution at best with lots of potential for major downfall.

He then asked me under what circumstances would I condone or authorize a bailout. I emailed my response:

quick answer to the "who would I bailout" question

On a personal level, I would bailout my kid. But think of [a person] who obviously has severe financial problems. Assuming the bailout(s) from her father are just simply money gifted, they don’t really help her. They only kick the can down the road. Bailing out the kid doesn't really count as a solution.

In the same guise, bailouts in the larger world only address one part of bigger problems. To the extent our problems are magnified by past behavior and bailouts (moral hazard), the problem only grows bigger. In the continuum of the economy we end up favoring one group (those living now who supposedly benefit from the bailouts) at the expense of another group (the future who has to deal with the next bigger problem and who has to pay the debt incurred along the way).

Would I bailout Illinois, California, Europe? What does it mean to bail them out? Make others pay for their mistakes (promises that now can’t be kept)? I would not. No bailouts. Workouts, yes. Bailouts, no.

TARP was a bailout. Very far from a workout. I just can’t see the existence of TARP in the vacuum of this or nothing. That doesn't make sense to me.

A very long (and good in my opinion) discussion followed a few days later where another colleague was pulled in. I enjoyed the two-versus-one debate as the other colleague opposes my negative view on TARP as well. If anything, this colleague is even more convinced that it was the end of days but for TARP. Neither colleague likes TARP, they just don't see that there were other solutions available. When all we can muster is cronyism, we have fantastically failed. I see TARP as the creation of corrupt interests with the backing of plainly unimaginative, pitifully ignorant, and foolishly panicking leaders--leaders in name only as they were devoid of leadership.

James Buchanan, RIP and ATRA

This past week we lost an intellectual giant, James Buchanan, whose contributions were and are still under appreciated. Among other contributions, Buchanan helped discover and bring to a fuller light facts that should have been obvious: political actors are subject self interest and incentives just like everyone else and government failure is as much if not more a fact of life as is market failure.

See these excellent appreciations of the Mr. Buchanan's life work:
     From Alex Tabarrok
     From Steve Horwitz
     From Arnold Kling
     From Don Boudreaux
     and From the WSJ editorial page

It is a bit fitting unfortunately that Buchanan's death would come so closely to the passage of the American Tax Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA)--the resolution to the so called tax portion of the Fiscal Cliff. This disgusting example of political corruption would have been well understood by Buchanan. The act contains nothing resembling fiscal responsibility or improvement. It is a giveaway to the special interest of the tax lobby (tax preparers, tax advisors, estate lawyers, et al.) and other corporate special interest. It leaves us with a tax code more punishing on work and savings, more complicated, more encouraging of the rich to spend and use rather than save and share, more taxing on all taxpayers as everyone's income tax burden has increased (not just but especially those making more than a couple hundred thousand in a particular year--the $450,000 is a fiction), and more likely to bring us fiscal problems down the road. But it should have all been of no surprise to any of us; I was not surprised. The whole thing reminds me of this exchange:

Muriel Blandings: You remember Bunny Funkhouser, dear, that clever young interior decorator that we met at the Collins' cocktail party.

Jim Blandings: You mean that young man with the open-toed sandals? What about him? 

Muriel Blandings: Well, you know how long we've said we've got to do something about fixing up this apartment. Well, a couple of weeks ago, he called, and I asked him to come over, and he had some simply wonderful ideas, and I didn't want to bother you with sketches and estimates until I knew whether we could afford it. So I sent them over to Bill. 

Jim Blandings: How much? 

Muriel Blandings: What's the point in asking how much until you know what you're going to get?

Jim Blandings: I've seen Bunny Funkhouser. I *know* what I'm going to get. 

RIP, James Buchanan. We still have a lot to learn from you.

What explains the ideology we choose?

Arnold Kling writing at his new blog (I join many others in welcoming his return to blogging) calls to task those of us who uncharitably describe our ideological opponents in this excellent post. This opened my eyes a bit to my own uncharitable attitudes.

But that wasn't the thing I liked most about the post. The highlight was his characterization of what drives ideologies. I recently was sketching out my own theory as to what the essence of political and ideological beliefs are. Here is my theory:

Most people from all political positions base their beliefs primarily out of a desire to mitigate if not eliminate their fears.

• Progressives fear free market outcomes from three respects:

1. Perceived inefficiencies (too many cereals, three gas stations at one intersection, streams of failed businesses, et al.)
2. Perceived uncertainties (again failing businesses, uncertain future investment & retirement values, fluctuating prices, job losses or changes, et al.)
3. Perceived inequalities (different pay scales, different growth rates of income, consumption, wealth, etc., varying levels of quality/quantity for goods and services, et al.)

• Conservatives fear disorder from three respects:

1. Perceived indulgences (gluttony, sexuality, et al.)
2. Perceived freeloading (unnecessary welfare, shirking of duty, et al.)
3. Perceived radicalism (morality without God, challenge to authority, breaking of protocol or decorum, et al.)

• Libertarians fear corrupt control from three respects:

1. Perceived economic restraint (property rights violations, reordering of economic outcomes, reversals of earned fortunes, et al.)
2. Perceived intolerance (personal life decisions like who to marry, methods to find pleasure from drugs to sex to music to travel to thoughts, et al.)
3. Perceived association prohibitions (where and with whom to live, to work, to trade, et al.)

Maybe I've been reading Kling so long that we are mind melding, or perhaps great minds independently think alike. I look forward to the essay he says in the post is forthcoming on this topic.

P.S. Another way of looking at these three groups might be that progressives worry about who wasn't invited to the party, conservatives worry there will be a party, and libertarians worry the progressives and conservatives are going to ruin the party, TOGA! TOGA! Yes, this is probably uncharitable. 

2012 Election is in the books, Obamney wins/loses!

So that happened. And a status quo, lame duck session begins. I forecast whip-lashing, headline risk as we endure the race to do nothing significant about the fiscal cliff. Let's prognosticate, shall we...

Winners, Losers, and Trends:

Immigration reform and liberalization seems likely to be a winner. It is clear the Republicans lost critical votes on net from the hard-line positioning the party took from the primaries on regarding immigration. This may make a lot of the bad winners in this election worth it all. And who'da thunk it from the victory of the president responsible for a record number of deportations.

Data crunching a la Sabermetrics is a winner. The Obama team took it to new heights, and Nate Silver showed just how powerful a nerd and some numbers can be.

Generally, social freedom was a winner as marijuana legalization at the state as well as the municipal level continued its success and marriage equality lept forward.

Economic freedom probably took a hit on net; although, that remains to be seen and unseen . . . so we'll never quite know. The chances for good tax reform including simplification ebbed some I believe.

The politics of envy and distrust were winners.

One-size-fits-all social policies defeated one-size-fits-all social mores.

Central planning by good intentions won out over fiscal planning by good intentions.

Count also bailouts and TBTF as continued winners. While Romney/Ryan didn't have a sterling record on this front, they promised better in rhetoric. That at least gave a small rational expectation to believe they would be better.

Defense contractors were probably losers while every other conceivable beneficiary of government largess was victorious on net.

Speaking of "defense", war was probably given a change of venue. Iran is a less likely destination for our restless drones but they still may get to vacation in the sunny Middle East in Syria.

There is a good chance I add to or edit this list.

Causes of the Great Recession and the Slow Recovery

My views on the macroeconomic landscape in America and abroad over the past five years, much like the landscape, have been in flux. Here is my current view as to the approximate causes of the Great Recession itself and the reason the recovery has been so poor. I'm limiting my evaluation to the more immediate and direct causes--therefore, the notable absence of multi-decade-long TBTF bailout contributions and regulatory failure including subsidization of housing, et al.

Causes of the recession:

1. Federal Reserve policy failure allowing NGDP growth to fall extraordinarily below trend (the tightest money policy since Hoover). This is the shorter-term portion of the causes. For this I'd approximate 50% of the responsibility. (HT: Scott Sumner)
2. Structural problems perhaps best understood through a Patterns of Sustainable Specialization and Trade (PSST) framework. Included in this grouping is malinvestment playing a major role. This is the longer-term portion of the causes. For this I'd approximate 40% of the responsibility. (HT: Arnold Kling)
3. Everything else. 10% responsibility.

The combination of factors 1 and 2 created the perfect storm for this event to be so damaging. A recent post by Scott Sumner relates to this. Either 1 or 2 would have been sufficient causes for a recession or recession-like events. Cause 1 creates much more acute, short-term pain. Cause 2 creates much more hidden dead-weight loss by changing the fundamental glidepath of growth. Perhaps we lose one-half to one percent off of average annual growth for 10-30 years. This would be a truly colossal loss--remember, growth is a compound number that affects results with many orders of magnitude. 

The reason the recovery has been so poor:

1. Federal Reserve policy failure to get us back to or toward trend NGDP levels. Our inability to close the potential-real gap will make future generations both laugh and cry. I'd give this 55% responsibility.
2. Prolonged PSST difficulties. This is hard to avoid given how bad the PSST problem was. Some good portion of it, mind you, was an unavoidable consequence of free market growth in a less than free market world. Government makes creative destruction less creative and more unnecessarily destructive. I'd give this 25% responsibility.
3. Regime uncertainty and undesirableness, which has many facets. Tax policy is a mess. Government spending is on an unsustainable trend with no likely solution or solver to be found. Regulation continues to respond on cue--more complications and gamesmanship (Dodd-Frank), more intrusions and forced bargains (Obamacare). Minimum wage increases and unemployment benefits extension get the incentives backwards from the goal. I'd give this 15% responsibility.
4. Everything else. Surely there is something else, or are these categories jointly exhaustive? Potentially 5% responsibility. 

As with any economic period, there are many contributing factors and some are and may remain hidden.

Wither economic freedom

The Cato Institute recently released the latest Economic Freedom of the World annual report. Click here to hear an interview with one of the report's authors, James Gwartney. The United States has again slipped in the rankings, now landing at 18th place. It seems the U.S. is falling both relatively (understandable as other nations advance and potentially not material if the differences are slight, which they are not) and absolutely (a much more serious problem).

For me this raises a few questions for progressives:

1. Do you care?
2. Is this a bad but necessary situation as other, conflicting goals are realized?
3. Do you outright deny the report's findings (does this assume you do care about economic freedom?)

My guess is that the answers are basically 20% of the time No, N/A, N/A; 50% of the time Yes, Yes, No; and 25% of the time Yes, Maybe, Probably; and 5% of the time Yes, No, No.

To be clear, I believe the answer should be Yes, No, No.

My guess as to how good (or bad) the next president will be

Looking at the two leading contenders, Mittens and Bolsharack, I have this evaluation on how good or bad each would be as the next POTUS. I'm trying in my mind to only evaluate each prospectively without holding past sins/virtues against/for them. That doesn't mean without thought to past performance as that is the leading source of thought toward projection. Keep in mind that the categories "Great" and "Awful" are highly selective company among past presidents. In each case I'm assuming the respective candidate wins election. Notice I include a 95% confidence interval around each.

                                                 Probabilities
Category:           for Mittens to be:             for Bolsharack to be:

Great                    5%   (+/- 3%)                  3%   (+/- 1%)

Good                  15%   (+/- 10%)              15%   (+/- 10%)

Middling              50%   (+/- 15%)              35%   (+/- 15%)

Bad                     25%   (+/- 10%)              35%   (+/- 10%)

Awful                  10%   (+/- 5%)                12%   (+/- 5%)

These expectations are valued against how good a U.S. president reasonably should be within the circumstances of the politics of the day. Obviously, the actions of Congress and to a lesser extent geopolitical events play a large role in determining the potential a president can reach and the opportunities to achieve either extreme.

When you don't go to the polls this November . . .

Gene Healy writing at Reason.com reminds us why not to support the political party.

Getting political compromise through a new election format

It is commonly said that we live in an atypically divisive era in politics characterized by extreme partisanship and bitter, hostile stalemates. I have my doubts about how atypical this era really is or how bad the consequences really are from it. George Will seems to agree (specifically around the 13 minute mark).

But let's assume too little compromise is a colossal impediment to competent and effective (and desirable) government. What might be a solution? Perhaps a change in how the ruling elite come into power. One not too well fleshed out idea is as follows below. Think about it from a game theoretic perspective with the idea that we are trying to get reliably constructive political compromise between the two major parties. A key assumption is that the public strongly prefers compromise. I'll make the further ridiculous assumption that only the two major parties versions of the same party (Republicans and Democrats) are in contention for election (i.e., I'll ignore all independent parties just like the media does).

Every five years the party out of office makes a decision. It can either:

1. Choose to hold the presidency for certain for two years followed by the opposing party holding office for certain for the next three years, or
2. Choose to have an election with the winner holding the presidency for five years.

Here is my theory on why this brings about compromise. For the party in office in years three, four, and five, being too uncompromising allows the opposing party to choose an election which the opposing party is most likely to win. If that party during it's five-year reign is too uncompromising, an election is sure to follow along with another flip in who holds government. It seems to me that the equilibrium is a revolving two-year, three-year rotation kept alive by the party in power working hard to sell the public on how constructively compromising they are. Of course this is oversimplifying and of course this would just lead to bad politics on steroids as the uncertainty was removed for the political class. My belief is that these guys fighting is a lot better for government than these guys getting along. But I think it is a fun thought exercise, nonetheless.