So the corn syrup lobby...

Wait, let's stop there. We have a corn syrup lobby. That's just sad. But that's actually the core of the problem. Anyway.

The corn syrup lobby is running an advertising campaign defending corn syrup. Corn syrup has gotten a bad reputation for being unhealthy in way different than sugar. It's apparently actually reducing demand for corn syrup. So the lobby is advertising to try and convince people that it's just fine and wonderful, and that people who are against it are ignorant fools.

Now, the health problems associated with corn syrup are admittedly unclear. As best I know, there is no particular evidence that corn syrup is worse than sugar, when used to the same effect. That is, if you make soda with sugar, and replace it with corn syrup, it's about as bad for you as it was before. Some studies suggest some problems, but they're not clear yet.

However, I still hate corn syrup. Not because it's bad for me, but because the pervasive use of it's the result of bad government meddling in the economy. Our government has big tariffs on sugar, so our sugar is unusually expensive. Furthermore, our government subsidizes corn. As a result, corn products, including corn syrup, are unusually cheap. The combination means that corn syrup is a cheaper sweetener than sugar. Looking to make a bit more money, any business that could jumped to corn syrup.

The solution is easy: eliminate the sugar tariff, eliminate the corn subsidies. Sugar will drop in price and most users of corn syrup will switch back to sugar. (Some will stick with corn syrup, as it does have some advantages.)

But, we're back to the corn syrup lobby. It's really the corn lobby as a whole. They like the current situation. The tariffs create artificial demand for corn, and the subsidies are basically free money. They don't want to accept that we need to grow less corn in this country, not more. This is the same lobby that is pushing for ethanol. They love ethanol... so long as it comes from corn. Which turns out to be a particularly inefficient source for ethanol. But the corn lobby is surprisingly powerful.

So screw the corn lobby and screw corn syrup.

(2009-03-25: Typo fixes: admitted to admittedly. "result bad" to "result of bad". goverment to government.

I was recently reminded of the University of Wisconsin's relatively new policy of doing criminal background checks on new hires. This article summarizes the reasoning. (Backup link) These people served their time. But apparently their punishment includes being forever barred from a huge number of jobs. Because after spending years in prison, isolated from normal society, upon reintroducing them to society, we proceed to isolate them and limit them to very low end jobs. They cannot ever hope to better themselves. They have no buy in to society. We are encouraging them to turn (back) to a life of crime! For someone to be truly rehabilitated, we need to get them to buy back into the idea of society. If someone cannot be rehabilitated, then we shouldn't be releasing them in the first place.

There are reasonable limitation. Barring someone convicted of molesting a child from working with children is reasonable. Want to bar someone convicted of financial fraud from financial work? Seems reasonable. But a blanket ban on felons? There is only one benefit: fear mongering legislators convince the short-sighted voters feel like something good is being done, thus earning those legislators re-election. It may seem like it makes the business or government safer in the short term, but in the long run it makes everyone less safe. Any legislator brave enough to vote against such a thing will be giving his opponent ammunition in the next election.

*sigh*

In a small victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law. What's depressing is how close this was. The dissenting opinion sickens me; that four justices are willing to abdicate their responsibilities as one of the three equal branches of government turns my stomach. Apparently "strict constructionist" means "roll over for whatever the other two branches want, ignoring your duties as a check and line of last defense on them."

(Via Mark Evanier's news from me.)

Using the E-ZPass system to pay tolls? You're letting the government track your movements. The data will be used for purposes beyond crime prevention and paying tolls. The data has already been used in non-criminal cases. I'm sure a wide variety of people who run the E-ZPass system have easy, untracable access to the data. How long until it's abused by someone? Say, a system's administrator who has access to the backups, who also has a restraining order against him by an ex-wife he abused. Using the system, he can stalk her, possibly determining if she fled to her sister's or her mother's or somewhere else.

Any time you have a mass collection of information it will eventually be abused. By collecting only the bare minimum of information needed and deleting it promptly you protect people. Unfortunately neither the state nor the businesses running E-ZPass have any incentives to protect people as there is no damage they suffer. Only when, say, someone is stalked and murdered and it's shown that E-ZPass was to blame will the public demand changes. So long as the abuse of the system is subtle we'll never hear about it.

This is why one of my friends has two E-ZPass boxes. (Not that he fears a stalker, but he is defending the principle of the thing.) One is registered to his car, so if something goes wrong he won't get a ticket. That box lives in a tin and is never removed. The second E-ZPass was purchased for cash, refills are purchased with cash. He also keeps it in a tin and only removes it when he passes a toll area.

Unfortunately Illinois makes traveling anonymously difficult. You pay twice a high tolls if you pay cash. Buying an E-ZPass and refills anonymously with cash is difficult. The passes aren't easily available and the phone bank of people who can handle the transaction demand personal information.

(Via Schneier on Security.)

Taken as a whole, some of the biggest proponents of a free market, minimal government, and free trade are also some of the biggest opponents free markets, minimal government, and free trade. This annoys the hell out of me.

The most obvious example is copyright. Anyone or any business that claims to be strictly for minimal government intervention while simultaneously working to extend copyright or increase its power is a hypocrite. Copyright by its very nature is a government granted monopoly. There is no natural scarcity. If the government telling you what you can do with your own property in your own home isn't big government, I don't know what is.

Globalization is another area of big hypocrisy. Countries pass laws to make it as easy as possible for businesses to move from country to country and to outsource labor, all at the request of those businesses. But those businesses aren't also lobbying to make it easy for people to move from country to country to follow those jobs.

And while production is moving from country to country, why can't my buying power follow it? Maybe it's cheaper to produce CDs in Hong Kong, so the jobs producing CDs move there. Fine. As a result of local economics, maybe those CDs are cheaper for consumers to purchase in Hong Kong. Just as the company bought cheaper production in Hong Kong, shouldn't I be able to buy cheaper CDs in Hong Kong? Suddenly the music companies which are keen on taking advantage of globalization aren't interested in letting consumers take the same advantage. Again, more government intervention is required to stem a real free market from potentially hurting the business's profits. Here's a company hurt by exactly this. They bought perfectly legal CDs in Hong Kong and sold them at a discount in Britain. (Admittedly their case is less certain since they foolishly signed an agreement to not do so. Absent the company receiving reasonable compensation for that agreement, I believe it immoral and possibly unenforceable.)

I can respect people who want moderation in these things. I can respect people who take a more extreme position and accept the bad with the good. But I can't respect people who take the extreme position, carving exceptions only where it hurts them.

A few weeks ago The Isthmus carried Jack Norman's "Are Wisconsin taxes too high?" a compelling look at out tax rate. I hear lots of whining about how taxes are crippling our state, and how business taxes need to be cut. It's nice to have someone take a bigger picture look at the situation. Maybe out property and personal income taxes are high (we're 8th and 9th in the nation, respectively), but anyone claiming business income taxes are cripplingly high is ignorant or deceitful (we're 32nd in the nation).

I'm also fond of the old argument, "We need to keep business taxes low, or else business will move away." I never hear it quite explained how we're going to pay for an effective government and generally keep our state from becoming yet another blighted state. We can have high personal income taxes, as we do, but doesn't that cause citizen to move away? And with no citizens, who will work in those businesses?